The Mail won’t be content until all the funny, happy NW3 party animals are driven from the face of the earth. Kate looks great which is more than most 34 year old suburban sour-faced beige nylon wearing barrett home owning property press obsessed Marian Keyes reading smoothie making gym going 4 x 4 school running mail-reading ladies can say.
Richard Littlejohn is a member of the media elite…cept he lives in Florida.
This coming from a man who claims to be the ‘voice of the silent majority’. That would be the self appointed voice. Pot, meet kettle…..
They controlled public life??? Thats why they have been forced to resign/been suspended on the whim of 35000 odd tools who have a Daily Mail in place of a brain. Yes they really do call the shots. The paranoia of this man really does make me smile and lead me to believe he has an exceptionally small penis. Which also makes me smile.
Oh and using the term “metropolitan narcissists” does not disguise the moronic ramblings of a deeply insecure and silly lttle mind.
Does RLj not realise that he himself is a self-appointed, self-obsessed narcissist who attempts to control public life? Or is that headline merely a description of the man in the picture? I wish we had a victory over RLj – irritating twit.
Not an original opinion, I know, but to have a tabloid lecture on “decency” to have Littlejohn (who doesn’t even live here) accuse someone else of being self-appointed and self-obsessed; and to have him, after what’s happened, accuse someone else of directing public policy.
No,it’s not a wake up to decency, it’s an over-reaction. It’s making the rest of the UK meet the stupid hysteria of a small percentage of middle england.
The Mail has today published an article all about Georgina Baillie’s “sordid” life.
In reaction, I posted this comment. I can guarantee it won’t get past the moderators, so I’ll post it here where it can be read:
I can’t believe the staggering hypocrisy of both your journalists and readers. You claim Ms Baillie has been wronged, and go on an unjustified witch-hunt to track down those you hold responsible – and then you publish all her private business in your paper and on your website, claiming it’s “sordid”.
I’ll tell you what it is. It’s disrespectful, sexist, mean, unjust and hypocritical, and quite why you have the nerve to claim you “speak for all of us” or defend “decency” is utterly beyond me.
…which is probably the single funniest thing I’ve read all week just for the comments alone, which range from sane to door-banging lunacy. The thing that really irks though is that Dara O’Briain and Frankie Boyle have shit more talent than can ever be found among the Mail’s writers.
Captain J, that just confirms what I suspected. Having been handed a victory they’re simply getting worse and demanding more unreasonable control over what sort of jokes can be made in the broadcast media.
Of course, at some point in the future conservative Muslims are going to start tutting at some piece of art or comedy that offends their precious beliefs. Somehow I suspect the Mail will suddenly re-discover the Great British Tradition of Freedom of Speech at that point and start bemoaning the atmosphere that allows any group with an issue to use a claim of “offence” to dicate to other people what they can and can’t do; naturally the left will take the blame.
I said it in the forum, if the mail goes after mock the week they will get their ass handed to them, they take the piss out of the mail on a weekly basis and are all incribly intelligent and articulate unlike Ross and Brand who were rubbish at defending themselves. O’Briein alone would destroy the mail.
No- the BBC wakes up to bollocks! A mountain out of a molehill. Of course both Brand and Ross were wrong, but this sums up what is wrong about Britain today.
If you’re a media presenter, and you make a prank call to a famous actor, you get caught and slaughtered by the media and politicians and are forced to apologise or resign. If, on the other hand, you are an elected politician who backed an illegal war in other country, waste millions on a massive ID card scheme, and generally mess up the economy, you don’t sacked or be forced to resign, even though these misdemeanors are far more serious.
I think you’ll find that was the banks, and not just over here. More to the point (as I think someone here mentioned) it’s plausable that the Mail crowd are taking out on Ross and Brand what they can’t take out on the untouchable “fat cats” who are ruining their petit bourgois economic security. There’s a tendency when people are attacked by forces they can’t strike against to find someone else to take their frustrations out on. Now this is pure speculation, of course, but it would explain the ludicrous amount of hate this whole thing has created. The Mail crowd crowd can be vicious but I’ve never seen them so mobilised and, let’s be honest, effective in years. You don’t need a degree in psychology to realise something else is probably bothering them.
Brand was spectacularly crap at defending himself. He managed to mention the Mail’s fascist supporting past without mentioning that if the Mail had had its way in the thirties, we would more than likely have no Andrew Sachs – sine tyhe paper opposed giving asylum to refugees from Nazi Germany like Sachs. Just like it opposes giving asylum to people from just about anyone from anywhere now.
So, in its way the Mail is doing its best to ensure this sort of thing never happens again. By ensuring that a potential future Andrew Sachses die in a war zone rather than be allowed in the country.
I just read the article Captain J posted. That’s unbelievable hypocrisy from the people that always rant about the PC brigade. They can’t take the Mock the Week. I’ll put myself out for Brand and Russell but if they even think about taking on Mock the Week I’m tying myself to Dara O’Brien.
Disgraceful. The Queen can’t answer back. This is another one to walk the plank…I’ll write a complaint to the BBC right away. Thanks daily mail for bringing this to my attention
- Jacky Macguire, Ipswich, Suffolk., 31/10/2008 7:45
I found this btw. Ladies and Gentlemen I think I’ve found the zombie Daily Mail reader.
Hopefully they will do what they always do and push it too far, soon.
Then they’ll be told simply & plainly to ‘Fuck Off’.
Those self-appointed, self-obsessed narcissists think far too highly of themselves.
The truth is that they loathe the UK as it actually is and I look forward to the day when they push it too far and find out just how much the rest of us loath them.
Tedious small sad little idiots that they are.
BTW if the Mock the Week gag was so offensive how come they missed it first time around (months ago) and it’s taken the satellite/cable repeats to enrage them so much?
fortunately it seems like about three quarters of the comments on the Mock the Week article are in support of the show – it seems not even the Mail’s readership are willing to get behind that one. (and oddly most of the comments that seem genuinely outraged at the joke come from outside of the UK)
The Brand/Ross thing probably only enjoyed so much support because the targeting of Sachs turned it into a sort of young vs. old thing – Mail readers (ie pensioners) will never pass up the opportunity to have a pop at all these bloody young people today with their hooded tops and homosexuality and stabbings and that. Plus Ross and Brand were already pretty unpopular figures in mail-land, the former for being paid shitloads of license money and the latter for having lots of sex and telling rude jokes.
Months? It was, unless I’m feckin hallucinating, about TWO YEARS ago that Frankie Boyle made this joke. It was funny then and it’s funny now, and even if the Mail’s coverage of the Sachs affair WEREN’t the most hideously hypocritical act this side of, well, the Sun’s coverage of the same story, Boyle’s joke is a hell of a long way short of bullying a harmless old man.
(Brand’s a tit, Ross misjudged, but the behaviour of the tabloids has been revolting, as usual.)
“it’s plausable that the Mail crowd are taking out on Ross and Brand what they can’t take out on the untouchable “fat cats” who are ruining their petit bourgois economic security.”
Good luck in taking on Mock the Week in your crusade for ‘moral decency’, Mail. Your BBC-bashing agenda succeeded in removing Brand and Ross because their actions irritated many across the political spectrum, not just Mail readers (check out the Guardian’s comment pages, just as many people there were calling for their heads). So now you’ve got all pleased with yourself and think you can actually turn the clock back to the 1950s? Stop listening to MediaWatch – the vast majority of people do not give a flying one about the humour of Mock the Week – ‘disrespecting the Queen’, are you serious? You will realise how insignificant you are.
I read the Littlejohn article. He is very good. He managed to talk about this incident and turn the subject to having a pop at Asian television channels, Health and safety demons and even travellers.
Oh and one of the comments:
“Oh how right you are Richard. You had me shouting YES at the end of every sentence.”
I hope you weren’t reading it in public then, you crazy, crazy lady.
The Daily Mail/Mail on Sunday are bullies!! They’ve bullied the two best BBC personalities off the air!!! There wasn’t even a problem with the radio show untill they created one!!!
Careful guys, I think Doreen is taking the piss. ‘She’ wrote a couple of days back something like – “At the beginning of 2005 or maybe the end of 2004 I saw something disgusting on the BBC. I cannot remember what it was but this filth has to stop”
I thought then that it was probably one of the regulars here.
Dave.
The way that the Sachs scandal has turned out is rather sinister IMO.
It’s as though all the puritans in the UK have pulled off a massive Jedi mind trick and convinced people normally in favour of free speech that punishing Brand and Ross was a great move on the sole grounds that it’s ok to silence people if you don’t personally enjoy their humour.
I’ve heard a lot of people saying they agree with Ross and Brand going solely on that basis. They will regret it when things they actually do enjoy are targeted next now that the application of that misguided principle has gained inertia. For example the Mail has sensed an opportunity to try and have Frankie Boyle sacked because they don’t like his style of act.
I think that what really depresses me is that most of you take the line of disagreeing with the Mail whatever the issue. Do you really see nothing wrong with making obscene telephone calls to an elderly man about his granddaughter? Were none of you even a little bit put out by Russell Brand’s initial and obviously bogus apologies? And it wasn’t just right-wing types who were sickened by this incident, both Dennis Skinner and Alan Simpson, strongly socialist MPs, condemned Brand and Ross. If a junior employee at a company sent obscene messages to a customer he/she would almost certainly be sacked. Why should wealthy comedians be treated any differently? And it’s not a question of free speech under attack, it is a question, as the Mail quite rightly points out, of common decency.
This is getting totally out of hand! You cant make jokes about the Queen now?! Free speech is being rapidly eroded by this vile newspaper. Mock the Week, I would gladly die to defend your honour!
If Mock the Week does get Mailed then I’m going to stand outside the DM offices with a sandwich board quoting the ‘Hurrah for the Blackshirts’ headline and other pro-fascist stuff the Mail came out with in the 30s.
I have tried about a dozen times this year to post perfectly clean yet critical comments on Littlemind’s articles, but only two ever made it through the filter.
As far as most of the mods working for that supposed champion of free speech the Mail are concerned, you can contribute to the gushing love-in or keep your opinions to yourself.
I’ve tried several times to post clean yet critical comments to the Mail and they haven’t made it past the moderator. The most recent have been posted to the newsboard, which, unless they break the Mail’s terms and conditions, there is no reason for them not to publish them, as it is a forum. I decided to do some ‘what they want to hear’ posting, under a different name and the Mail printed them! I wouldn’t be suprised if they selected a few of the ‘what we don’t want to here’ posts, so that it looks as though they print ‘what we don’t want to hear’ stuff.
I submitted a comment to the on the Frankie Boyle/Queen article, asking for clarification that the Mail’s policy is now that any remark someone could find offensive must be stopped by censorship. It didn’t get through despite compying with their policy. There are a few anti-Mail comments, so they’ve either closed the gates to more or have printed a few token examples.
from my experience comments disagreeing with the viewpoint put forward in the article will usually be published, but comments directly slagging off the article, the author or the mail itself will not. (i recently submitted one that had one paragraph of the former and one of the latter, and it was cut in half)
so, for example, you could rant all you like about how mock the week shouldn’t be censored, but you can’t criticise the mail for attempting to manufacture another scandal out of fuck-all, nor can you pick out parts of the article and comment on how they’re bollocks.
The Mail won’t stop until every joke is wiped off the face of the earth and happiness no longer exists. BE DEPRESSED, YOU TINY PEOPLE. YOU’RE ALL GOING TO DIE.
How can a publication condemn the rise of political correctness on so many occasions, then jump on every remark deemed offensive by someone and so passionately oppose them? Everything is offensive to someone, somewhere, and that’s the cold, hard truth.
That’s what I wrote, now let’s see if they print it. Though the few that are up aren’t exactly supportive of the Mail.
454 comments on the Clarkson story!?!? Is this a record/joke? I noticed they had a spokesperson from the English Collective of Prostitutes comment – shame they didn’t ask her for her views when Littlejohn was crowing that Wright’s victims deserved all they got etc.
If they’d have said something about ethnic minorities or homosexuals it would have been offensive to a large number of people rather than 1 person. However I would still have defended them as a joke is a joke and very very little should be off limits.
This whole thing boils down to the ludicrous delusion the Mail has that the BBC is somehow left wing – never once have I seen it question the Capitalist consensus but to the Mail anyone left of Tebbit is a Bolshevik.
From what i see Ross and Brand are constantly making reference to homosexuality and ethnicity. Regardless, the issue here is with the Mail quoting standards (based on one pretty insignificant event) when they regularly reel off patronising, insulting and incredibly dangerous articles concerning large sections of society they perceive as unfavourable then dress it up as news.
David Says:
November 2nd, 2008 at 6:56 pm
“I think that what really depresses me is that most of you take the line of disagreeing with the Mail whatever the issue. Do you really see nothing wrong with making obscene telephone calls to an elderly man about his granddaughter? Were none of you even a little bit put out by Russell Brand’s initial and obviously bogus apologies?”
Coming from the POV of a somewhat older and seasoned Mail hater, personally I cannot bear either Brand or Ross so I make a point of never listening to / watching their shows. I think what they did was unbelievably childish, shouldn’t have been broadcast and that they definitely owed Sachs an apology. HOWEVER, I think what is even worse is that the BBC allowed itself to be backed into a corner by 30,000 odd complaints, all but a few of which were in direct response to the Mail article – with a misleading transcription of the incidient that included elements that were cut from the show – rather than to the broadcast itself. Are people now allowed to permitted to complain about something they haven’t seen/read/heard and have that complaint upheld? Is that OK? I don’t think so.
‘Mr Clarkson should apologise immediately to prostitute women and our families especially those of us bereaved by murder.’
Absolutely brilliant. Someone should tell all of those offended by Clarkson that Viz have been making pretty much the same kind of jokes about lorry drivers for the past twenty years.
I think this whole issue has actually become detached from its catalyst: I don’t find what Brand and Ross said actually very funny (nor very offensive, having listened to it. It’s not big and clever but it wasn’t obscene, in my view), but they should have the right to say whatever the fuck they want.
HOWEVER, the kicker comes in them being tied to the BBC by contract, and so they have a responsibility to the BBC, which stems from its responsibility to ‘us’. Some of ‘us’ got all angry, others didn’t. The BBC was pressured into sacking/suspending etc, and so it did. Etc etc. If they were speaking as ‘private’ citizens, then fine, but the whole issue stems from the BBC as an institution in relation to employee action, and yes, lots of people here probably disapprove of it in that sense.
BUT I think what riles most people here is the hypocrisy of the extrapolated narrative. No, Brand and Ross weren’t funny, but as far as I’m concerned, Sachs has accept the apology and asked everyone to move on. But wait! It’s been used as stick with which to beat the BBC/anything the Mail doesn’t like. That’s wrong, hytpocritical and utterly foul (given their history, their trends and narratives and their utter cynicism dressed up as morality), and far more offensive to me than a bad joke played on an old man, even in bad taste.
If you can stomach it, check out Littlecock’s simpering commenter’s comments…. If only murder were legal!
“Richard, you speak for us all”….. er no you don’t you twat.
The Mail’s involvement in this whole episode is somewhat worrying!
I love how they revel in a guy being punished for , essentially as they see it, harassment.
Right next to yet another incident of them stalking harassing Kate Moss for no apparently reason.
The Mail won’t be content until all the funny, happy NW3 party animals are driven from the face of the earth. Kate looks great which is more than most 34 year old suburban sour-faced beige nylon wearing barrett home owning property press obsessed Marian Keyes reading smoothie making gym going 4 x 4 school running mail-reading ladies can say.
Richard Littlejohn is a member of the media elite…cept he lives in Florida.
Refugees are fleeing in the congo, but lets write our front page about a story that has been going on for a week and actually isn’t that interesting
This coming from a man who claims to be the ‘voice of the silent majority’. That would be the self appointed voice. Pot, meet kettle…..
They controlled public life??? Thats why they have been forced to resign/been suspended on the whim of 35000 odd tools who have a Daily Mail in place of a brain. Yes they really do call the shots. The paranoia of this man really does make me smile and lead me to believe he has an exceptionally small penis. Which also makes me smile.
Oh and using the term “metropolitan narcissists” does not disguise the moronic ramblings of a deeply insecure and silly lttle mind.
Does RLj not realise that he himself is a self-appointed, self-obsessed narcissist who attempts to control public life? Or is that headline merely a description of the man in the picture? I wish we had a victory over RLj – irritating twit.
Gawd what a nasty newspaper.
Not an original opinion, I know, but to have a tabloid lecture on “decency” to have Littlejohn (who doesn’t even live here) accuse someone else of being self-appointed and self-obsessed; and to have him, after what’s happened, accuse someone else of directing public policy.
FFS
No,it’s not a wake up to decency, it’s an over-reaction. It’s making the rest of the UK meet the stupid hysteria of a small percentage of middle england.
And what’s wrong with being metropolitan?
RE Steve #5; “…tools who have a Daily Mail in place of a brain.” Brilliant!
Er, I’m pretty sure neither Brand, nor Ross, nor anyone at the BBC have much control over my life. What paranoia.
Is “metropolitan” LJ code for “gay”?
They’re going after Mock The Week now. Watch this space. We have 30,000 Mary Whitehouses just chomping at the bit.
The Mail has today published an article all about Georgina Baillie’s “sordid” life.
In reaction, I posted this comment. I can guarantee it won’t get past the moderators, so I’ll post it here where it can be read:
I can’t believe the staggering hypocrisy of both your journalists and readers. You claim Ms Baillie has been wronged, and go on an unjustified witch-hunt to track down those you hold responsible – and then you publish all her private business in your paper and on your website, claiming it’s “sordid”.
I’ll tell you what it is. It’s disrespectful, sexist, mean, unjust and hypocritical, and quite why you have the nerve to claim you “speak for all of us” or defend “decency” is utterly beyond me.
Ah Railroad man your optimism is a beacon for us all!!! If it gets published i will eat my own arm*
(*Disclaimer: Statement may contain factual inaccuracies)
Fuck, not Mock the Week! It will be Have I Got News For You next i bet
CC – evidently you’ve read this article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1081966/Even-Russell-Brand-row-raged-BBC-comedians-insulting-Queen.html
…which is probably the single funniest thing I’ve read all week just for the comments alone, which range from sane to door-banging lunacy. The thing that really irks though is that Dara O’Briain and Frankie Boyle have shit more talent than can ever be found among the Mail’s writers.
Captain J, that just confirms what I suspected. Having been handed a victory they’re simply getting worse and demanding more unreasonable control over what sort of jokes can be made in the broadcast media.
Of course, at some point in the future conservative Muslims are going to start tutting at some piece of art or comedy that offends their precious beliefs. Somehow I suspect the Mail will suddenly re-discover the Great British Tradition of Freedom of Speech at that point and start bemoaning the atmosphere that allows any group with an issue to use a claim of “offence” to dicate to other people what they can and can’t do; naturally the left will take the blame.
I said it in the forum, if the mail goes after mock the week they will get their ass handed to them, they take the piss out of the mail on a weekly basis and are all incribly intelligent and articulate unlike Ross and Brand who were rubbish at defending themselves. O’Briein alone would destroy the mail.
“The BBC wakes up to decency”
No- the BBC wakes up to bollocks! A mountain out of a molehill. Of course both Brand and Ross were wrong, but this sums up what is wrong about Britain today.
If you’re a media presenter, and you make a prank call to a famous actor, you get caught and slaughtered by the media and politicians and are forced to apologise or resign. If, on the other hand, you are an elected politician who backed an illegal war in other country, waste millions on a massive ID card scheme, and generally mess up the economy, you don’t sacked or be forced to resign, even though these misdemeanors are far more serious.
Funny that….
“and generally mess up the economy”
I think you’ll find that was the banks, and not just over here. More to the point (as I think someone here mentioned) it’s plausable that the Mail crowd are taking out on Ross and Brand what they can’t take out on the untouchable “fat cats” who are ruining their petit bourgois economic security. There’s a tendency when people are attacked by forces they can’t strike against to find someone else to take their frustrations out on. Now this is pure speculation, of course, but it would explain the ludicrous amount of hate this whole thing has created. The Mail crowd crowd can be vicious but I’ve never seen them so mobilised and, let’s be honest, effective in years. You don’t need a degree in psychology to realise something else is probably bothering them.
Brand was spectacularly crap at defending himself. He managed to mention the Mail’s fascist supporting past without mentioning that if the Mail had had its way in the thirties, we would more than likely have no Andrew Sachs – sine tyhe paper opposed giving asylum to refugees from Nazi Germany like Sachs. Just like it opposes giving asylum to people from just about anyone from anywhere now.
So, in its way the Mail is doing its best to ensure this sort of thing never happens again. By ensuring that a potential future Andrew Sachses die in a war zone rather than be allowed in the country.
When will the Daily Mail “wake up to decency”? Some of the stuff printed in that so-called newspaper is a disgrace.
I just read the article Captain J posted. That’s unbelievable hypocrisy from the people that always rant about the PC brigade. They can’t take the Mock the Week. I’ll put myself out for Brand and Russell but if they even think about taking on Mock the Week I’m tying myself to Dara O’Brien.
Disgraceful. The Queen can’t answer back. This is another one to walk the plank…I’ll write a complaint to the BBC right away. Thanks daily mail for bringing this to my attention
- Jacky Macguire, Ipswich, Suffolk., 31/10/2008 7:45
I found this btw. Ladies and Gentlemen I think I’ve found the zombie Daily Mail reader.
Hopefully they will do what they always do and push it too far, soon.
Then they’ll be told simply & plainly to ‘Fuck Off’.
Those self-appointed, self-obsessed narcissists think far too highly of themselves.
The truth is that they loathe the UK as it actually is and I look forward to the day when they push it too far and find out just how much the rest of us loath them.
Tedious small sad little idiots that they are.
BTW if the Mock the Week gag was so offensive how come they missed it first time around (months ago) and it’s taken the satellite/cable repeats to enrage them so much?
fortunately it seems like about three quarters of the comments on the Mock the Week article are in support of the show – it seems not even the Mail’s readership are willing to get behind that one. (and oddly most of the comments that seem genuinely outraged at the joke come from outside of the UK)
The Brand/Ross thing probably only enjoyed so much support because the targeting of Sachs turned it into a sort of young vs. old thing – Mail readers (ie pensioners) will never pass up the opportunity to have a pop at all these bloody young people today with their hooded tops and homosexuality and stabbings and that. Plus Ross and Brand were already pretty unpopular figures in mail-land, the former for being paid shitloads of license money and the latter for having lots of sex and telling rude jokes.
Months? It was, unless I’m feckin hallucinating, about TWO YEARS ago that Frankie Boyle made this joke. It was funny then and it’s funny now, and even if the Mail’s coverage of the Sachs affair WEREN’t the most hideously hypocritical act this side of, well, the Sun’s coverage of the same story, Boyle’s joke is a hell of a long way short of bullying a harmless old man.
(Brand’s a tit, Ross misjudged, but the behaviour of the tabloids has been revolting, as usual.)
“it’s plausable that the Mail crowd are taking out on Ross and Brand what they can’t take out on the untouchable “fat cats” who are ruining their petit bourgois economic security.”
More than a few are probably wives of “fat cats”
It is worrying that the herd mentality at the Mail has had success. Who or what next I wonder?
You mean there’s still MORE filth being broadcast on the BBC? We must stamp it out!
- Doreen, Dorset, 31/10/2008 0:29
Or turn the television off and get a life, Doreen.
Good luck in taking on Mock the Week in your crusade for ‘moral decency’, Mail. Your BBC-bashing agenda succeeded in removing Brand and Ross because their actions irritated many across the political spectrum, not just Mail readers (check out the Guardian’s comment pages, just as many people there were calling for their heads). So now you’ve got all pleased with yourself and think you can actually turn the clock back to the 1950s? Stop listening to MediaWatch – the vast majority of people do not give a flying one about the humour of Mock the Week – ‘disrespecting the Queen’, are you serious? You will realise how insignificant you are.
I read the Littlejohn article. He is very good. He managed to talk about this incident and turn the subject to having a pop at Asian television channels, Health and safety demons and even travellers.
Oh and one of the comments:
“Oh how right you are Richard. You had me shouting YES at the end of every sentence.”
I hope you weren’t reading it in public then, you crazy, crazy lady.
You know why they call it a silent majority? Because it doesn’t exist. People tend to be quite vocal about the things that they care about.
lol @ Dan. That one tickled me too.
‘How dare they even think of touching the Queen with their filth!
- Renee, Melbourne, Australia, 31/10/2008 08:22′
There’s that word again: ‘Filth’.
WOULD YOU LET YOUR DAUGHTER MARRY A ROLLING STONE?
The Mail are getting closer towards their 1950’s world!
The Daily Mail/Mail on Sunday are bullies!! They’ve bullied the two best BBC personalities off the air!!! There wasn’t even a problem with the radio show untill they created one!!!
Careful guys, I think Doreen is taking the piss. ‘She’ wrote a couple of days back something like – “At the beginning of 2005 or maybe the end of 2004 I saw something disgusting on the BBC. I cannot remember what it was but this filth has to stop”
I thought then that it was probably one of the regulars here.
Dave.
Richard Littlecunt Isn’t even British, He’s just some fat Americunt who’s up his own arse.
He’s so far up it, he’s meeting his dinner and telling it to get back to Poland.
The way that the Sachs scandal has turned out is rather sinister IMO.
It’s as though all the puritans in the UK have pulled off a massive Jedi mind trick and convinced people normally in favour of free speech that punishing Brand and Ross was a great move on the sole grounds that it’s ok to silence people if you don’t personally enjoy their humour.
I’ve heard a lot of people saying they agree with Ross and Brand going solely on that basis. They will regret it when things they actually do enjoy are targeted next now that the application of that misguided principle has gained inertia. For example the Mail has sensed an opportunity to try and have Frankie Boyle sacked because they don’t like his style of act.
I think that what really depresses me is that most of you take the line of disagreeing with the Mail whatever the issue. Do you really see nothing wrong with making obscene telephone calls to an elderly man about his granddaughter? Were none of you even a little bit put out by Russell Brand’s initial and obviously bogus apologies? And it wasn’t just right-wing types who were sickened by this incident, both Dennis Skinner and Alan Simpson, strongly socialist MPs, condemned Brand and Ross. If a junior employee at a company sent obscene messages to a customer he/she would almost certainly be sacked. Why should wealthy comedians be treated any differently? And it’s not a question of free speech under attack, it is a question, as the Mail quite rightly points out, of common decency.
This is getting totally out of hand! You cant make jokes about the Queen now?! Free speech is being rapidly eroded by this vile newspaper. Mock the Week, I would gladly die to defend your honour!
By the way, what’s with all the “National Treasure” stuff anyway? Sachs is a decent actor and seems like a nice guy, but he’s not Judi Dench.
If Mock the Week does get Mailed then I’m going to stand outside the DM offices with a sandwich board quoting the ‘Hurrah for the Blackshirts’ headline and other pro-fascist stuff the Mail came out with in the 30s.
Sod it, I think I’ll do it anyway!
I have tried about a dozen times this year to post perfectly clean yet critical comments on Littlemind’s articles, but only two ever made it through the filter.
As far as most of the mods working for that supposed champion of free speech the Mail are concerned, you can contribute to the gushing love-in or keep your opinions to yourself.
I’ve tried several times to post clean yet critical comments to the Mail and they haven’t made it past the moderator. The most recent have been posted to the newsboard, which, unless they break the Mail’s terms and conditions, there is no reason for them not to publish them, as it is a forum. I decided to do some ‘what they want to hear’ posting, under a different name and the Mail printed them! I wouldn’t be suprised if they selected a few of the ‘what we don’t want to here’ posts, so that it looks as though they print ‘what we don’t want to hear’ stuff.
I still defend what I said about Ross and Brand being idiots, but this entire thing has been blown up far beyond necessary “outrage”.
If the Waily Fail go after Mock the Week I am joining you James M!!!
I submitted a comment to the on the Frankie Boyle/Queen article, asking for clarification that the Mail’s policy is now that any remark someone could find offensive must be stopped by censorship. It didn’t get through despite compying with their policy. There are a few anti-Mail comments, so they’ve either closed the gates to more or have printed a few token examples.
from my experience comments disagreeing with the viewpoint put forward in the article will usually be published, but comments directly slagging off the article, the author or the mail itself will not. (i recently submitted one that had one paragraph of the former and one of the latter, and it was cut in half)
so, for example, you could rant all you like about how mock the week shouldn’t be censored, but you can’t criticise the mail for attempting to manufacture another scandal out of fuck-all, nor can you pick out parts of the article and comment on how they’re bollocks.
I woke up to decency this morning. Well, muesli, but that’s pretty decent.
LOOK! LOOK AT THIS! FUCKING LOL!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1082712/BBC-new-standards-row-Clarkson-jokes-truck-drivers-murder-prostitutes.html
The Mail won’t stop until every joke is wiped off the face of the earth and happiness no longer exists. BE DEPRESSED, YOU TINY PEOPLE. YOU’RE ALL GOING TO DIE.
How can a publication condemn the rise of political correctness on so many occasions, then jump on every remark deemed offensive by someone and so passionately oppose them? Everything is offensive to someone, somewhere, and that’s the cold, hard truth.
That’s what I wrote, now let’s see if they print it. Though the few that are up aren’t exactly supportive of the Mail.
If Brand or Woss had said something offensive about ethnic minorities or fudgepackers, you’d all be crying into your skinny lattes.
Who is this ‘new standards row’ between anyway? Is the row solely being played out in the heads of the DM journalists who write the stories?
454 comments on the Clarkson story!?!? Is this a record/joke? I noticed they had a spokesperson from the English Collective of Prostitutes comment – shame they didn’t ask her for her views when Littlejohn was crowing that Wright’s victims deserved all they got etc.
no. 55
You’re looking for a response so here it is:
If they’d have said something about ethnic minorities or homosexuals it would have been offensive to a large number of people rather than 1 person. However I would still have defended them as a joke is a joke and very very little should be off limits.
This whole thing boils down to the ludicrous delusion the Mail has that the BBC is somehow left wing – never once have I seen it question the Capitalist consensus but to the Mail anyone left of Tebbit is a Bolshevik.
Back to my skinny latte…
@ #55
From what i see Ross and Brand are constantly making reference to homosexuality and ethnicity. Regardless, the issue here is with the Mail quoting standards (based on one pretty insignificant event) when they regularly reel off patronising, insulting and incredibly dangerous articles concerning large sections of society they perceive as unfavourable then dress it up as news.
David Says:
November 2nd, 2008 at 6:56 pm
“I think that what really depresses me is that most of you take the line of disagreeing with the Mail whatever the issue. Do you really see nothing wrong with making obscene telephone calls to an elderly man about his granddaughter? Were none of you even a little bit put out by Russell Brand’s initial and obviously bogus apologies?”
Coming from the POV of a somewhat older and seasoned Mail hater, personally I cannot bear either Brand or Ross so I make a point of never listening to / watching their shows. I think what they did was unbelievably childish, shouldn’t have been broadcast and that they definitely owed Sachs an apology. HOWEVER, I think what is even worse is that the BBC allowed itself to be backed into a corner by 30,000 odd complaints, all but a few of which were in direct response to the Mail article – with a misleading transcription of the incidient that included elements that were cut from the show – rather than to the broadcast itself. Are people now allowed to permitted to complain about something they haven’t seen/read/heard and have that complaint upheld? Is that OK? I don’t think so.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1082712/BBC-new-standards-row-Clarkson-jokes-truck-drivers-murder-prostitutes.html
Let me guess, the 517 complaints were all from DM readers after the paper had stirred it up.
@55 – Being a “fudgepacker” myself, I’ve never been in the slightest offended by RB’s jokes on the subject.
Now, where’s my skinny latte!
‘Mr Clarkson should apologise immediately to prostitute women and our families especially those of us bereaved by murder.’
Absolutely brilliant. Someone should tell all of those offended by Clarkson that Viz have been making pretty much the same kind of jokes about lorry drivers for the past twenty years.
@42, David
I think this whole issue has actually become detached from its catalyst: I don’t find what Brand and Ross said actually very funny (nor very offensive, having listened to it. It’s not big and clever but it wasn’t obscene, in my view), but they should have the right to say whatever the fuck they want.
HOWEVER, the kicker comes in them being tied to the BBC by contract, and so they have a responsibility to the BBC, which stems from its responsibility to ‘us’. Some of ‘us’ got all angry, others didn’t. The BBC was pressured into sacking/suspending etc, and so it did. Etc etc. If they were speaking as ‘private’ citizens, then fine, but the whole issue stems from the BBC as an institution in relation to employee action, and yes, lots of people here probably disapprove of it in that sense.
BUT I think what riles most people here is the hypocrisy of the extrapolated narrative. No, Brand and Ross weren’t funny, but as far as I’m concerned, Sachs has accept the apology and asked everyone to move on. But wait! It’s been used as stick with which to beat the BBC/anything the Mail doesn’t like. That’s wrong, hytpocritical and utterly foul (given their history, their trends and narratives and their utter cynicism dressed up as morality), and far more offensive to me than a bad joke played on an old man, even in bad taste.
*ignore the which in the last line
Edit: ignored
(merk)