Oh for God’s sake

It looks like I spoke too soon. As this once-dormant blog has now come to life in order for me to defend Russell Brand. I hesitate in doing so because I’ve already aligned myself too closely with him by dressing up as him last Halloween but, although I acknowledge that he is flawed in many ways, I really do like the chap.

All the hoohah that has surrounded Brand’s phonecalls to Andrew Sachs, the actor who played Manuel in Fawlty Towers, really is pretty ridiculous though. The man was supposed to be a guest on Brand’s show promoting a documentary ‘The Bill Made Me Famous’. Brand phoned him up to interview him and when he didn’t answer Brand left a message on his answerphone, during which Jonathan Ross (who was co-hosting the show in Matt Morgan’s continued – and terribly upsetting – absence) blurted out that Brand had ‘fucked’ Sachs’ granddaughter, who is a member of a sexually explicit dance troup ‘The Satanic Sluts’.

Brand then instigated a series of high-spirited (and certainly misguided) phone calls supposedly attempting to apologise but each time making it worse. It was a bit cringeworthy but nothing like as terrible as the broadsheets and Mail are making out.

I thought the most interesting aspect of the incident was Jonathan Ross seemingly showing off and acting out to try to appeal to his younger colleague.

Really, there are so many more important things in this world to get up in arms about than a stripper’s granddad finding out that she’s not whiter-than-white.

Update 28/10

Bloody hell, the internet commenters really have gone to town over this one, with 78% of Guardian readers saying that Ross and Brand should be sacked as a result of the prank. Had it been picked up by a less sensationalist paper and fairly reported I doubt anyone would give two hoots. It’s worrying how much influence the horrid Mail seems to have, even on people who don’t read it.