Two game players...

Jonathan Ross's reappearance on the airwaves has seen a lot more newsprint wasted on the matter - hardly surprisingly, print media have adopted the high moral ground over their television and radio rivals. Again hardly surprisingly was JR's modus operandi, which was pretty much as was but without any mention of Andrew Sachs and his granddaughter. All of the hacks in the audience for Friday Night With Jonathan Ross - of which there were many - have had a field day reporting how the studio version differed from the edited, broadcast effort, as if the whole process and concept of editing is a dark and dirty secret. Again, a waste of everyone's time and effort. But journalists are notoriously lazy, sensationalist bastards, aren't they?

Russell Brand has, of course, just knuckled down and got on with his life and is only concerned with moving ever onwards. His Guardian columns have continued to elevate football chat above the level of the tired old cliche that generally plagues any commentary on the game. This week's effort was an especially dashing piece and his closing words re money, talent and time left me all goosepimply and choked...

Kaka is well into the ol' Christianity and therefore is attuned to ideas beyond acquisition, and decided that as a footballer his priority must be football. It is a magical thing to be a professional footballer and the gift does not alight for long before departing and leaving bland mortality where once its sheen did linger. The deficit that excellence-departed exposes is almost impossible to grieve. Paul Gascoigne daily does battle with the torturous abyss left by his fleeting talent.

None of us then should be seduced by the transient glow of money and superficial splendour, as for all of us the presence of wonder is all too brief. Burnley for a while were level with Spurs in Wednesday's Carling Cup semi-final, ahead on the away goals rule. All they had to do was hold on through extra time, to reach the final against Manchester United. But the glory proved impermanent, Roman Pavlyuchenko scored and then Jermain Defoe, and the dream was all undone. Like the end of Bagpuss, when the sprightly mice are once more ornaments, the haughty professor a bookend and even Bagpuss, so full of slovenly vitality, becomes again a stuffed cat.

Don't. Waste. A. Second.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2009/jan/24/russell-brand-robinho-manchester-city

Let this be an end to the matter...

Can I complain about this BBC apology? I found it extremely patronising and grossly offensive. As a licence fee payer, I feel that my intelligence has been insulted. I might phone Aunty and leave her a nasty answer phone message. On reflection, John Cleese was right to subject Andrew Sachs to repeated physical attacks all those years ago. But the way it's going the BBC will probably end up broadcasting a retrospective apology for that too.

Que?...

Well, Georgina is holding her head up high and doing the right thing, I see. Did you see the front page of today's The Sun? Brand yelled 'Que' in bed went the headline. Brand was a "disappointment" in bed, apparently. Doing an impersonation of Manuel would, one assumes, somewhat hamper sexual performance. Brand, says the Satanic Slut, "makes you shower five times a day and use mouthwash before you kiss him.” Deary me. Can we get her sacked or suspended or encourage her to resign from public life? Incidentally, today I'm coming in seventh on Google for Voluptua and welcome new readers, even though they're probably bouncing straight out of here!

I do have a solution for the BBC's latest conundrum - Russell Brand for the next Dr Who!

I apologise in advance to Jeremy Hunt and will resist the temptation to make a rhyming slang joke...

In light of WussellWossgate, Conservative shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has said that it is "wrong for broadcasters to produce programmes that legitimise negative social behaviour". Surely sex is the most positive social behaviour that exists? This man, like many a Tory, is a misguided lunatic with an extremely scant grasp of contemporary culture.

As for Mr Brand, I think his apology is superb - a real two fingered but heartfelt salute to those that are up in arms about something that amounts to relatively nothing and those that are more concerned with the public funding of the BBC than they are about which member of the Satanic Sluts Brand has had sex with and the possible offence that the discussion of said sex down Andrew Sachs' telephone line may or may not cause them (and, let's be straight talking about this, none of them are really concerned about Andrew Sachs, nor Georgina Baillie, only about the outrage that they feel about the silly comments Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand made). What have we become? A nation of Mary Whitehouses? A bunch of people with so little going on in our lives that we have to complain about what insignificant, self-important broadcasters say? As Brand points out, "he didn't want to be seen to be apologising for the reaction to the situation, rather than the situation itself". And what a reaction. Note that the BBC-despising Tory press is having a field day, note that the Daily Telegraph is describing Russell Brand's apology as a "bizarre response", note that 4,000 Daily Mail readers have complained, note that the Daily Express (The Greatest Newspaper in the World!) has stated that Brand and Ross "displayed breathtaking arrogance yesterday as they tried to shrug off the furore over their sick phone stunt." Also note that Georgina Baillie's response to being unwillingly thrust into the limelight was to employ the services of opportunist publicist Max Clifford and flog her story of Brand's betrayal of her and "what happened between us" to The Sun. All so very entertaining! Well worth the licence fee!

Voluptua...

An hour with performing arts students down at Hull College, followed by a few short hours trialling my new little netbook on the road (well, in a pub). I wrote a short film, the combination of an 'almost full-size keyboard', decent surroundings and a couple of lagers (optional). I am very enamoured with my netbook - it's the cheapest on the market but, as a portable writing device with wi-fi enabled, it's a damn fine thing.

As for Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand, well, their recent phone calls to Manuel (don't call him that!) are nothing short of what I'd expect of those two. The bulk of the complaints all appear to have followed somewhat after the fact, prompted by the rage from a host of (Tory, BBC-knocking) media outlets who don't usually pay too much service to self censorship and self regulation. I wonder how many people have heard said audio? I have. At the time of writing it's available here. It's not very funny. It's pretty peurile. And they go on far, far too long with a tired and dull idea. But it's not, as the reports suggest, just Brand and Ross repeatedly stating that Brand has f***ed Manuel's (don't call him that!) granddaughter. At one point, Russell sings the news! Extremely upsetting to read on the outraged Daily Mail's website that the woman at the centre of all the fuss - Andrew Sachs' (yes! Call him that!) granddaughter Georgina Baillie - has cut short a European tour because of the public humiliation she has been subjected to. Poor thing. Georgina, who goes by the name Voluptua, was touring with a burlesque dance troupe that goes by the name of the Satanic Sluts performing, according to her myspace today, violent, horrific and sexy shows. Cripes. I might phone Manuel (don't call him that!) about that...

Sale away with me honey...

We went to town where almost every shop displayed prominent Sale signs. It was, perhaps unsurprisingly, quiet - let's face it, we're all skint, the cards are maxed out and there's a lot of post-flood associated dismay round these parts. If only it were a conscious spurning of the shopping mall of consumerism in favour of a simple life uncluttered by material wealth rather than an inability to lay our hands on a bit more credit, eh? HMV was a tad hectic but otherwise, it was almost a pleasure to wander around with the boy Finn attached to me via his swanky baby carrier. There were other men who, like me, were attempting to display the modern face of masculinity, with their offspring attached to their chests via complex sling arrangements. "Look at me," we scream to the public, who are complicit in this game with their saccharine smiles of acknowledgment, "I've made this tiny living breathing thing and I'm going to carry it around, even if it means being a bit edgy when I'm getting on and off escalators". I made eye contact with another male sling wearer. What went unsaid went along the lines of "ain't we just the best fathers? Can you believe there are people that don't carry their babies around like this? Is your lumber support working, cos my back's f**king killing me?".

I swapped the chore of dibbing in and out of Ronnie Wood's shoddily composed autobiography Ronnie for the wonders of Russell Brand's My Booky Wook, which is like a very rude, saucy version of James Frey's lambasted (but still brilliant, in my opinion) A Million Little Pieces. I do feel as if I know too much about Brand and his trouser parts now, having just turned the final page on the debauched cross-addicted life he led, but I'd certainly recommend My Booky Wook if you're looking for an excuse to wallow in a nice mix of filth, comedy and pathos. I used to note what I was reading and listening to on this very blog at the foot of the posts but I got out of that habit. Perhaps I shall resolve to do it again in 2008. Or maybe I won't. Is anyone interested? Maybe I'll just do it to satisfy my own selfish ends.

Reading: Will Self and Ralf Steadman - Psychogeography Listening: Josh Rouse & Kurt Wagner - Chester.