Ross and Brand - Overpaid Morons!

[Teddy Bear]

It incenses me enough the fact that the BBC consider any celebrity worth the money that they pay for Jonathan Ross, and just a bit less for Russell Brand, especially as I fail to find little talent in either of them. Just yesterday, Ross, among others, featured in an article about unnecessary use of swearwords in their programmes. Now both Ross and Brand went out of their way to insult a much loved personality with real talent - Andrew Sachs (Manuel from Fawlty Towers), as well as his grandaughter. You can read the full story below, as well as here with more links and pictures, together with how the scummy BBC initially defended their prank before the weight of complaints which came in about it forced them to do an about turn. They and their 'stars' simply have no idea about what constitutes good taste, which, among other reasons, is why they will never see a penny of my money - MAY THEY ROT IN HELL!

Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand prank sparks calls for BBC inquiry
The future of Jonathan Ross's £18 million BBC contract has been called into question after the prank he and Russell Brand played on the actor Andrew Sachs.

By Anita Singh, Showbusiness Editor
Last Updated: 6:55PM GMT 27 Oct 2008

Ross and fellow presenter Russell Brand left a string of sexually offensive answerphone messages for the 78-year-old Fawlty Towers star, broadcast to two million listeners on Brand's Radio 2 Saturday night show.

They claimed that Brand had slept with Mr Sachs' 23-year-old granddaughter, Georgina Baillie, an aspiring model, and joked that the actor might kill himself upon hearing the news.

Mr Sachs was left "upset" by the calls and the BBC received 546 complaints from appalled listeners after the October 18 show.

Speaking about the row for the first time, Mr Sachs said: "People ask me if I'm angry - well, yes, but not half as angry as Georgina. That's where the apology should be directed. People are writing about it and talking about it, quite rightly. I am sorry that I am involved in it... I love the BBC, I have worked for them for over 50 years and I continue to work for them. Sometimes things can go wrong."

Mr Sachs said he had received a "very nice" letter of apology from Jonathan Ross. "I have just read it. It basically says 'sorry'." However, asked if he had forgiven the chat show host, Mr Sachs replied: "It is God who forgives."

Georgina's mother, Kate, said of the presenters: "Maybe those two should just learn to grow up. My father is the world's most decent man and to put him up in front of an audience for humiliation is ridiculous."

The BBC initially defended the prank, which was pre-recorded and cleared for broadcast by producers. However, the corporation later backtracked and issued a statement. It read: "We have received a letter of complaint from Mr Sachs' agent and would like to sincerely apologise to Mr Sachs for the offence caused.

"We recognise that some of the content broadcast was unacceptable and offensive. We are reviewing how this came about and are responding to Mr Sachs personally. We also apologise to listeners for any offence caused."

Ross is no stranger to controversy, not least for the £18 million, three-year contract said to make him the highest paid presenter at the BBC.

John Whittingdale, chairman of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport select committee, said: "The trouble is, this is not the first occasion on which Jonathan Ross has crossed the line and has been pulled up by the BBC and told not to carry this kind of material, and it appears that has had little effect."

The BBC pays "a very substantial amount of public money for Jonathan Ross and a pretty large amount for Russell Brand too. I think they are both talented broadcasters but they have got to remember that when they are broadcasting on the BBC in particular, they are not able to use material they might use in a live show.

"The message needs to be rammed home. It does raise questions about their future with the corporation."

He added. "I think anybody who listens to Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand has a rough idea of what to expect but, in my view, this did go too far. To make that kind of comment to a much-loved, elderly character actor like Andrew Sachs was pretty offensive in the first place. To then broadcast it to two million people seems to me unacceptable."

Mr Whittingdale said "some very serious questions need to be asked right at the top of the BBC" as to why the offending clip was broadcast. He called for Ofcom to investigate the matter and said the BBC's reluctance to apologise immediately was "pretty extraordinary".

Ross caused offence on his BBC1 chat show in 2006, when he asked Tory leader David Cameron if he had enjoyed sexual fantasies about Lady Thatcher. Brand is similarly controversial, recently outraging US viewers during the MTV Video Music Awards by calling George W Bush "that retard cowboy fella" and making a string of off-colour sexual jokes.

Both men were uncharacteristically sheepish yesterday. Asked if he had anything to say to Mr Sachs, Brand replied: "Obviously I would talk to him directly. I am not sure you are the right conduit."

Ross has written a personal letter of apology to Mr Sachs. His agent, Meg Poole, said she had received a "nicely worded and apologetic email". She welcomed the BBC's apology but added: "I think Andrew feels that if anyone is due an apology, it is Georgina."

Brand and Ross left the messages when Mr Sachs, who played Manuel in Fawlty Towers, failed to answer the telephone for what was said to be a pre-arranged interview. Brand told listeners: "The elephant in the room is, what Andrew doesn't know is, I've slept with his granddaughter." During the first of several calls, Ross blurted out: "He ****ed your granddaughter!" They phoned back and left another message, this time with Brand singing: "I said some things I didn't of oughta, like I had sex with your granddaughter."

[Teddy Bear]

In fine style - as usual, Melanie Phillips puts this into perfect perspective.

Gloating cruelty, foul vulgarity and a BBC that has lost all sense of shame
Last updated at 4:09 PM on 27th October 2008

Hardened as we all undoubtedly are to the offensive garbage that now masquerades as broadcast entertainment, you still have to pinch yourself.
On a BBC Radio 2 show recently, Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand aired a series of obscene phone calls they had made to the 78-year-old Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs.
Shortly before they contacted him for a pre-arranged telephone interview, Brand said: 'The elephant in the room is, what Andrew doesn't know is, I've slept with his granddaughter.'
Actor Andrew Sachs: Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand left vulgar messages on his phone

When the actor didn't answer his phone, Brand left a message during which Ross shouted 'He ****** your granddaughter!', producing raucous laughter from the studio.

Ross subsequently speculated that Brand had 'enjoyed' the 23-year-old granddaughter on a swing.

In three further messages Brand amplified his disgusting claim, while Ross could be heard singing quietly to himself: 'Your granddaughter... she was bent over the couch... '
Later in the programme Brand even fantasised in a joke news bulletin that the actor (who played the Spanish waiter in Fawlty Towers) might hang himself as a result of their comments.

Degraded
What kind of degraded cultural universe are we all now living in?

What possible justification can there be for this vile behaviour, let alone putting it on air? How can the gratuitous harassment of an elderly man by foul obscenities about his granddaughter be considered public entertainment?

If an ordinary person were to find such messages on their telephone voicemail, they would immediately call the police. Anyone found guilty of making malicious or abusive phone calls can be fined or sentenced to up to six months in prison.

Yet on this occasion, such calls were made from the studios of the BBC, and then the victim of this assault was humiliated in public by the calls being broadcast on a BBC show. And all at public expense.
The issue here is not just the use of profanities, but the cruelty and indeed sadism in the desire to torment an unsuspecting elderly man and his family.
This is so far beyond the pale that one has to ask whether it was fuelled by either alcohol or drugs.

If not, it suggests behaviour bordering on the psychopathic in its total absence of awareness of the effect upon another person of such abuse.
The show was not live but pre-recorded. According to the BBC, 'a senior editorial figure signed off the programme, including its strong language, before it was broadcast'.

These two idiots make Gordon Ramsay with his constant swearing look like a choir boy!! In fact, all three disgust me totally. £6 MILLION? Ross isn't even worth £6 thousand!

So no one in authority at the BBC thought there was anything wrong in this? Not the show's producer. Not its editor. Nor Radio 2's Head of Live Music, Events and Talent, the station's Controller or any of the BBC's army of policy, taste or standards commissars?
Not one of these executives pulled this item, nor - at least until news of this event appeared yesterday in the Mail on Sunday - took any kind of disciplinary action against Ross or Brand.
How could it be otherwise? This is, after all, what the BBC pays these men a huge chunk of the licence fee for. Ross is paid £6 million a year for his TV chat show, Radio 2 show and film review programme.
Two years ago, he caused a storm by asking Conservative leader David Cameron if he had ever had teenage sexual fantasies about former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher 'in stockings' and then referring to a lewd act.
Brand, who is thought to be paid a six-figure sum for his weekly radio show, made a prank call to Northamptonshire Police last year claiming he had spotted a sex attacker.

And in 2006, he boasted at an awards ceremony that he had slept with Rod Stewart's daughter Kimberly.
Sniggering
The terrible thing is that it is precisely this kind of behaviour which makes these performers so attractive to the BBC. The more offensive they are, the higher their value.
In the Sony awards earlier this year, Ross was judged the top personality on UK music radio, while Brand had the best entertainment show.
Television reviewers fawn over Brand for his Left-wing prejudices and 'bad boy' background. Audiences split their sides over Ross's sniggering lavatorial humour, of the kind that is commonly found in the school playground.
This is part of a more general phenomenon. It's becoming almost impossible to switch on the TV without being assailed by a barrage of expletives and obscenities, particularly - for some unexplained reason - when it comes to cooking programmes.
It is an absolute mystery why this is thought to be funny - all it does is advertise the performer's inarticulacy.

A couple of weeks ago Channel 4 broadcast The Secret Policeman's Ball with a line-up of Britain's supposedly top comic talent. Please avert your eyes if you are of a sensitive disposition, but Frank Skinner talked about peeing and having sex 'doggy style', Jonathan Ross discussed his long testicles, Alan Carr went on about Botox and blowjobs, and Russell Howard told a story about his brother's erection during an epileptic fit.
For more than 40 years, ever since the critic Kenneth Tynan uttered the F-word on TV, we have been subjected to this arrested adolescence and pathetic desire to shock.

Isn't it about time that society finally grew up?
Worse still is the way such vulgarity and absence of talent go hand in hand with a culture of cruelty. The omnipresent reality TV shows are designed to make people look stupid or powerless and induce in the audience a gloating voyeurism.

On the worst, such as Channel 5's Unbreakable, the contestants are subjected to torture. The least offensive of them, such as The Apprentice or The Restaurant, draw their appeal from the anticipation of someone getting a tongue-lashing or being fired.
Watching other people show distress, incompetence or mediocrity and then seeing them humiliated for exhibiting these characteristics apparently entertains audiences by making them feel superior.

What kind of society have we become in which enough people gain vicarious pleasure or entertainment from such displays to persuade cynical and unprincipled TV executives they can make huge profits from them?
Long, long ago the BBC was a noble institution, supposed to have a mission to inform, educate and entertain. Now its mission appears to be to degrade, coarsen and brutalise.
As we all know, however, the only justification for the licence fee is that the BBC should perform a unique broadcasting service in the public interest. BBC executives often claim that the quality of radio alone justifies the licence fee. Well, after the Andrew Sachs episode, not any more.
If the BBC were fit for purpose, Brand and Ross would be sacked, along with the executives who passed their horrible stunt as fit for broadcast. But, of course, that won't happen.
On the offending show's website, there is a video teaser featuring Brand and Ross fooling around, in the middle of which they make what purports to be an apology.

We didn't mean to be insensitive to Andrew Sachs, they grin, it was just a joke; 'we didn't realise that what we do here has a reality outside'.
Then Brand sings an 'apology' song, which nevertheless again repeats the original granddaughter claim - which Ross then turns into yet another joke about 'trivialising' their offence.
If the BBC thinks this is an adequate response, then it really has lost the plot.

The public should now take matters into its own hands. Don't listen to Russell Brand or watch Jonathan Ross. Just switch them off. It's the only language the Boorish Broadcasting Corporation will understand.

[Teddy Bear]

Now 10,000 people have contacted the BBC to complain about the antics of this pair whose idea of comedy is tasteless vulgarity. Regardless of the overbloated salaries they receive, they can only dream of entertaining even half the public that Andrew Sachs as Manuel has.

Here's a few other previous tasteless episodes in these 'stars' careers.

Also, here's the 'chain of command' at the BBC concerning this episode. Note how the identity of the senior editor is kept secret by the BBC.

More from the Daily Mail today

Ross and Brand's jobs under threat as 10,000 complain over 'prank' call and Ofcom launch formal inquiry

Ofcom could fine the corporation £250,000

Pressure grows for BBC Director General to make public apology as corporation launches investigation

By Liz Thomas, Simon Cable and Christian Gysin
Last updated at 6:13 PM on 28th October 2008

The BBC has received more than 10,000 complaints from irate viewers after Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand made offensive phone calls to Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs.
The sheer volume of complaints puts the BBC in a difficult position regarding the future of two of it's most popular presenters.

The corporation responded by launching an investigation into how the taped calls came to be aired, saying they were 'inoffensive and unacceptable'.

Ofcom has also launched an investigation into the prank calls. The media watchdog has the power to impose a fine of up to £250,000.
The developments come as the 78-year-old actor called on the pair to apologise to his granddaughter Georgina Baillie, 23, over the obscene messages in which they claimed Brand slept with the model and sometime musician.
Mr Sachs, who played Spanish waiter Manuel, said: 'I had a very contrite letter from Jonathan Ross making no excuses for his behaviour. I haven't heard from Russell Brand directly.'
'They apologise to me and they say how awful for Mr Sachs, but nobody has offered any apology to my granddaughter. I replied to Jonathan Ross and suggested that is where he should direct his attentions.

'The real focus should be on the harm they have done to her.'
Mr Sachs, who had not spoken to his granddaughter since the furore erupted because she had been working abroad, added he would be appalled if the disgraced comedian had actually slept with his granddaughter.
He said: 'It’s not for me to know these things but, of course, I would be horrified.'

But Mr Sachs did not join the calls for the comedy stars to be sacked, saying: 'That’s up to some people, I don’t want any kind of revenge.'

Under fire: Ofcom said it will investigate the offensive phone calls made by Ross, pictured in London yesterday and Brand, pictured right outside his home today

Did a vicar's son give the nod for Ross and Brand's obscene phone calls?
An apology from the BBC for these two isn't enough, says the former chairman of the Commons' media watchdog

The corporation said many of those complaining focused on the pair's taxpayer-funded salaries. Ross is paid £6million a year for radio and television work, while Brand receives more than £200,000.
The BBC's Director General is under pressure to make a personal public apology over the scandal.
Tim Davie, director of audio and music at the BBC, said tonight: 'We're going to have a full investigation, look at the facts and take the appropriate action.'
He admitted the programme was 'unacceptable' and said clear editorial guidelines needed to be followed.
In an interview with the BBC, he said: 'To apportion blame at this point is the wrong thing to do.'
He said it was premature to go into details about what happened.
Asked if anyone will 'take the rap', Mr Davie said the key action was to conduct a fair, balanced report and then take action.
He said: 'It's too early to speculate on what those decisions will be.'
Culture Secretary Andy Burnham also weighed in on the scandal, saying today: 'I have long argued for the importance of high standards in broadcasting, so I welcome the fact that the BBC is investigating, and has already apologised for what it now acknowledges was unacceptable.
'Responsibility for what is broadcast on television and radio rests with the broadcasters themselves and the organisations which regulate broadcasting, in this case the BBC Trust and Ofcom.
'These two bodies will now have to look at how and why such a serious breach of broadcasting standards happened.

'I, and I think the public, expect these inquiries to be carried out thoroughly and as a matter of urgency.'
Conservative leader David Cameron chimed in on the backlash, saying: 'I think the BBC have got some very straightforward questions to answer.
'The main question is why did they allow this programme to be broadcast, given that it was pre-recorded?

Radio 2 controller Lesley Douglas has not spoken publicly about the scandal

'So we need to know who made the decision to broadcast it? How high up the editorial chain did it go? Who examined it? Why did they conclude that it should be broadcast?
'The BBC needs to be transparent about how it takes decisions and explain its decision-taking process so that everyone can see what more needs to be done.'
However, Tory MP John Whittingdale, chairman of the Commons Media Select Committee, said: 'This is a serious breach compounded by a failure to issue a proper apology. A senior figure such as Mark Thompson needs to speak out.'
Mr Whittingdale said Mr Thompson will be asked to account for the failures in the chain of command, which allowed the recording to be aired.
He added: 'What is more troubling is that this part of the radio programme went through editorial checks and balances that are meant to stop this from happening.'
'This is the latest in a succession of appalling incidents from both comics. They seem to repeatedly cause offence and get away with it.'

'Particularly in the case of Jonathan Ross, there have been a whole series of incidents where he has breached the rules and I think the BBC need to think about whether they wish to be in this market still.

Georgina Baillie was the target of Ross's and Brand's abuse
'And if they do wish to continue to produce programmes of this kind they do need to put in place stronger controls, particularly for stars who command such huge amounts of licence fee payers' money.'
Ms Douglas, who brought Brand to Radio 2, is believed to have already questioned her number two, head of programmes Lewis Carnie and Brand's producer, Nic Philps, over why the offensive calls to Fawlty Towers actor Mr Sachs were aired.
Mr Thompson will have to determine who was at fault in authorising the late-night programme.
It is believed a senior producer between Mr Carnie and Mr Philps signed off on the programme.
However, given the level of public outcry it appears inevitable the BBC Trust - as the public broadcaster's independent governing body - will have to become involved.
Sir Michael Lyons, as chairman, will be able to call for punitive action against the two stars or the senior management responsible for their conduct.

Ex-BBC deputy director general Will Wyatt said the messages left by Brand and Ross, one of the BBC's highest paid presenters, were 'completely inappropriate'.

He said: 'This was broadcast over a licence-fee paid network and it was to an ageing actor who hadn't done anyone any harm. One way or another someone should take some pain for this.'
Miss Baillie cut short a European tour with the burlesque dance group the Satanic Sluts in the wake of the broadcast.

Her mother Kate, 47, said: 'Those two should just learn to grow up. My father is the world's most decent man and to put him up in front of an audience for humiliation is ridiculous.'
David Davies, Tory MP for Monmouth, said the pair should be fired immediately and accused the BBC of abusing the trust of licence-fee payers. He added: 'In no other organisation, paid for by the taxpayer or otherwise, would you be able to get away with behaving like this.
'These two men are paid millions - from our pockets - and they think it is entertaining to call up a pensioner and shout lewd, disgusting things about his granddaughter down the phone.

'I do not understand how anyone can claim it is funny or entertaining to do that to an elderly man.'
Paul Farrelly, Labour MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme, said: 'Russell Brand should be sacked and the BBC's editorial standards team should be hauled over the coals as well. How could this have been given the green light to go out on air?'
John Beyer, of Mediawatch UK, said the two stars should be taken off air while an investigation takes place.
The furore has dragged the corporation back into the spotlight after a series of incidents which corroded viewers' trust.
Last year BBC bosses made a grovelling apology to the Queen after showing misleading footage to the press which wrongly suggested she had stormed out of a photo session.

Confidence was also shaken by a series of phone-in scandals involving Children in Need and Blue Peter.

Mr Sachs tried to calm the furore last night. He said: 'I love the BBC, I have worked for them for over 50 years and I continue to work for them. Sometimes things can go wrong.'

Before calling Mr Sachs on the show, 33-year-old Brand referred to 'the elephant in the room' - that the actor did not know the comedian had slept with his granddaughter.

During the call, Ross shouted: 'He f***** your granddaughter' and later speculated that Brand had 'enjoyed' Georgina on a swing.

During another message Brand told Sachs: 'I used a condom.'

One message involved Brand singing about doing something wrong.
Brand, aware that a newspaper was preparing a story, delivered a jokey 'apology' on his show last weekend.

He said: 'I'd like to take this opportunity to issue a personal Russell Brand apology to Andrew Sachs, the great comic actor who played Manuel, for a message that Jonathan and I left on his answer phone, but it was quite funny.'

Asked yesterday if he had anything to say to Mr Sachs, Brand said: ' Obviously I would talk to him directly. I am not sure you are the right conduit.'

Georgina Baillie uses the stage name 'Voluptua' and dances with a goth group called Satanic Sluts. This image appears on her MySpace website
Miss Baillie said last night: 'I've only just got back.
'I was aware of what happened but I just need some time to get my head together now.
'I don't want to say anything more until I've had a chance to speak to my agent.'

Miss Baillie, who lives in North London, would not confirm or deny whether she had ever had a sexual relationship with Brand.

But the comedian is nominated as her 'Top Friend' on her MySpace page and he has mentioned her Gothic performance group on air in recent months.
Miss Baillie lists her marital status as 'swinger' on MySpace and includes 'pretty men with tattoos' among her interests.
Enlarge
She writes: 'I like to party, I don't care if you call me a waster or even a groupie because I am having more fun than you and living this way makes me happy.'
She recently played a prostitute/glamour model in a TV pilot called 'Trollops of Threadneedle Street'.
For her dance group she uses the stage name Voluptua - a character in the film Up Pompeii - and has posed for provocative photographs which are displayed on the group's website.
Satanic Sluts, who have performed at the Glastonbury Festival, have dance routines which include a 'cheerleader massacre, voodoo sacrifice, vampire brutality and much much more' according to their website.
It adds: 'Keep a look-out if you are hungry for some blood, guts, gore, sexy striptease and slutty activity.'
She is believed to be in discussions to sell her story.
As the furore continued on Tuesday, Ross had a delivery of food and alcohol to his London home today, perhaps in preparation for a Hallowe'en party.

[Teddy Bear]

With now over 20,000 complaints coming into the BBC over this 'prank', a lot of media attention, not to mention Brown and Cameron, are also descending on the quality of BBC output. A superb article in today's Telegraph really hits the nail on the head on this and a few other failings of the corporation.

I especially like this observation: the BBC switched nimbly between its two favourite corporate postures: swaggering disregard and bureaucratic self-flagellation.

How true!

Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross at the BBC: Inform, educate, entertain...insult?
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 29/10/2008

As the BBC comes under fire over Russell Brand's obscene telephone calls to actor Andrew Sachs, Neil Midgley says this was not just an offensive prank, but evidence of a deeper problem at the corporation.

Once again, scandal is engulfing the BBC. Barely a year since the controller of BBC1 lost his job over the "Crowngate" affair, the corporation has been deluged with thousands of complaints about Russell Brand's radio show. Even Gordon Brown and David Cameron have condemned the programme. At first glance, the offending programme seems like an ill-advised prank - albeit one perpetrated by overgrown men who should know better. Yet for a BBC that is still recovering from 2007's litany of scandals - a libelled monarch, defrauded competition entrants and a rigged online poll that resulted in a misnamed Blue Peter cat, to name a few - Brand's antics show that serious lessons may still have to be learned.

Unlike Crowngate, where misleading editing led us to believe that the Queen had stormed out of a photo shoot and resulted in the resignation of Peter Fincham, there is little complexity or subtlety to this new crisis. Egged on by his studio guest Jonathan Ross, Brand left a series of offensive messages on the voicemail of the 78-year-old former Fawlty Towers actor, Andrew Sachs.

The pair said that Brand had had sex with Sachs's granddaughter, Georgina Baillie. They alluded to various unsavoury details. Brand and Ross repeatedly called Sachs's phone, leaving more and more hysterically cruel and lengthy recordings - from sordid allegations to a sing-song "apology" that was evidently intended to make Sachs's discomfort even worse. The whole pre-recorded episode was broadcast as part of Brand's Saturday night show on Radio 2.

As the BBC has now acknowledged, it was, to say the least, material that should never have been broadcast. Especially since Sachs, on hearing that the offending item was due to be aired, pleaded with the BBC not to go ahead.

Yet it did. Despite the BBC having spent £500,000 training thousands of its staff in how to "safeguard trust" in the wake of last year's scandals, this horrible programme slipped through a detailed regulatory regime that should have rejected it long before it was transmitted. It was made by Brand's own production company, Vanity Projects, yet was still subject to the BBC's own compliance procedure.

The BBC compliance form asks whether each programme contains "sexual content, either descriptive or innuendo" or "strong, most offensive, language". It goes on to question whether programmes contain any secret recording, or refer to public figures. Brand's programme was produced by 25-year-old Nic Philps, but it is not yet clear whether Philps even filled in the form. The corporation has confirmed that a senior BBC executive sanctioned the material for broadcast - but not their identity. The BBC's editorial policy department was not consulted - even though such decisions are the main reason for that department's existence.

It took until Monday - nine days after the broadcast - for the BBC formally to apologise to Sachs. Yesterday Tim Davie, the head of BBC radio, launched an internal investigation. As so often before, the BBC switched nimbly between its two favourite corporate postures: swaggering disregard and bureaucratic self-flagellation. More vultures started to circle, as the communications watchdog Ofcom and the BBC's own sovereign body, the BBC Trust, both announced that they would weigh in.

The controller of Radio 2, Lesley Douglas, was called back from holiday to help with Davie's review. Douglas has seen Brand as a star signing for her station: Brand has been seen playfully sitting on Douglas's knee in her office. Now, as the responsibility for Brand's insults lands on Douglas's desk, relations are likely to be a little frostier.

The scandal's full significance, though, will be felt right at the top of the BBC, by director-general Mark Thompson. More than anyone else, Thompson will understand why this episode has nastier potential implications - and worse timing - than any of last year's cock-ups.

Perhaps most importantly, this programme actually made it on to the air. When the Queen was wrongly shown to be storming out of a photo shoot last year, it was only to a roomful of journalists at a press launch. All of the other scandals involved interactive programmes - principally, phone-ins. Though much was written about falling editorial standards, the BBC was not caught out by a lapse over the actual content of a programme.

It may be that as few as four people knew what Brand's programme contained before it was transmitted. But, as with last year's phone-in scandals, it is hard to tell whether that small crew embodies a deeper editorial malaise. There were clear editorial guidelines to tell Brand's team that the programme should not go out. They were mandated to fill in, and approve, a form that sought to enforce compliance with those guidelines. None the less, those experienced individuals - some of them very highly paid - decided that the publicly funded BBC was an appropriate vehicle for senseless spite. Such bruising disregard for common decency may be isolated within that one programme - or not.

Unhelpfully for Thompson, one of the individuals involved is the totemic Jonathan Ross. Ross is literally the BBC's top talent, receiving £6?million a year of licence-fee payers' money - more than any other individual. His pay has become a symbol of blithe BBC excess. The fact that Ross has now used his gilded pulpit to bully a blameless septuagenarian is devastating.

Ross's outbursts also put his pay packet back in the spotlight at the moment when the BBC's monopoly over the licence fee is under threat. In January, Ofcom will publish the results of its public service broadcasting review and, shortly after, the Government will turn that report into a far-reaching policy for the future funding of television. Despite special pleading from all the major broadcasters - to save supposed gems, such as ITV regional news and Channel 4's Dispatches, from digital-era extinction - culture secretary Andy Burnham has warned that the Government will almost certainly not provide any new subsidies.

So far, the BBC has mounted a spirited and convincing defence of the licence fee. But as Burnham has pointed out, he needs to be able to sell his policy to his constituents in Lancashire. Thompson might protest about editorial independence and creative freedom. Right-minded voters will, nonetheless, rightly fail to see why they should bankroll a BBC that trades in spite. A little competition in the distribution of the licence fee - allowing Channel 4 and others a look-in - might seem a less dramatic idea.

The BBC Trust plans to assess the situation at a meeting of its Editorial Standards Committee a week on Thursday. Given, however, that the crisis is rapidly reaching almost Hutton-esque proportions, decisive action should be taken well before then. Heads should roll - not least those of Ross and Brand. It would be grossly unfair if only production staff were punished.

One job that is not in danger is Thompson's. But there will be new doubts about his ability to defend the BBC's integrity - and, more to the point, its unique right to our licence fee billions.

[Teddy Bear]

If you want an example of 'swaggering disregard' consider this statement by a senior BBC executive, who in my opinion should get the chop immediately. It highlights the complete lack of direction the BBC mindset offers. In their vision, if a group of people, in this case young and immature, find something amusing - then give it to them. Pay no regard to whom it might hurt or offend - unless it's militant Muslims who could hurt you in return.

Criticism of Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross driven by 'salary envy', says BBC executive
The furore over the lewd phone calls made by Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand to Andrew Sachs may have been driven by "salary envy and schadenfreude", a senior BBC executive has said.

By Nicole Martin, Digital and Media Correspondent
Last Updated: 6:07PM GMT 29 Oct 2008

Rod McKenzie, the editor of Radio 1 Newsbeat, said the corporation was being attacked by its "usual critics", most of whom had probably not even listened to Brand's Radio 2 show.

Ross has a three-year £18m contract with the BBC, while Brand is paid £200,000 a year for his weekly radio show.

Mr McKenzie suggested that envy over their large salaries could be behind the public backlash.

He also insisted that the reaction from younger BBC audiences had been broadly supportive of the presenters, with many expressing shock that both Gordon Brown and David Cameron had waded into the debate.

"There's anger: some genuine, some of it synthetic. Some of it comes from the BBC's usual critics," wrote Mr McKenzie on the BBC's Editors blog.

"For media folk profile and salary-envy and schadenfreude may play a part in all this. But how many heard the original transmission and how many are responding to the newspapers' quotes or others' arguments?"

He added: "I'm not here to defend or attack anyone - but there is an alternative view we are seeing strongly expressed by our young audience which is certainly worth wider consideration."

Mr McKenzie quoted one listener who said of the Prime Minister's intervention: "The financial markets are wrecked and all he can do is talk about a petty joke."

Other listeners contacted the programme to say that "Everybody needs to calm down"; "It's been blown out or proportion"; and that "Anybody who thinks it's disgusting should get a grip".

Mr McKenzie's comments came as the number of complaints from the public about the presenters' conduct reached more than 18,000.

Anyone wishing to make a complaint to the BBC about a television or radio programme can do so online.

Under the corporation's complaints procedure, the BBC promises to respond within 10 working days.

If a person is not satisfied with the response, they can request a further reply. If they are still not satisfied, the matter can be referred to the editorial complaints unit and, if its findings are deemed unsatisfactory, an appeal can be made to the BBC Trust, the corporation's governing body.

Some people have claimed that they were unable to lodge their complaint about Brand and Ross online.

They said that a message appeared stating that the website had expired just as they were about to submit their complaint.

[Teddy Bear]

After reading the responses of Mark Thompson, the director general of the BBC, and Sir Michael Lyons, its chairman, to MP's today, I've come to the realisation that these head honchos are so engrossed in the 'correct' thing to say to justify all they do, they really miss the big picture.

THIS IS WHY I WILL NEVER PAY A PENNY TO THIS INSIDIOUS ORGANISATION!

Consider this:

BBC director-general: 'Sachsgate' messages were a 'serious editorial lapse'...but Ross DOES deserve his £6m salary
Lewd phone messages from Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand were a 'very serious editorial lapse', the BBC's director-general admitted today.
But Mark Thompson refused to accept that the BBC's stars were paid too much.

Defending Jonathan Ross' £6 million a year pay packet he said: 'I think, if the BBC has to have top talent, you have to accept that. Even when you grow your own talent, people are on the phone."
Facing questions from MPs in a Culture, Media and Sport Committee hearing at the House of Commons, Mr Thompson said: 'I am very aware that this was a very serious editorial lapse. There were errors in judgment.'

Thompson you moron - this was not just an editorial lapse, it was your highest paid STAR - or what you think of as a star, being crass, insulting, boorish, insensitive, and yet you still justify paying him the salary you do.

The 'error in judgement' IS YOURS, and continues to be!

[Teddy Bear]

If you're still considering whether Mark Thompson's judgement of worthwhile output is sound, especially considering he still believes that Jonathan Ross is worth the £6million a year that BBC pay him, then read below what the BBC are now going to have to do to monitor Ross when he does return in the new year.

Remember to keep in mind while reading the story that they pay him £6million a year of YOUR MONEY to do this.

Jonathan Ross told to cut out smut and swearing when he returns to the BBC
By Daily Mail Reporter
Jonathan Ross is to be bound by a series of strict rules, including a ban on swearing and sexual innuendo, when he returns to the BBC next year.

The 48 year-old presenter has been controversially given the all-clear to go back to his £6 million-a-year job after his 12 week suspension for making obscene calls to 78-year-old actor Andrew Sachs.

But Ross is to be formally notified by bosses that his chat show will need to meet a host of stringent regulations on taste and decency.

It comes after an episode, in which he told the actress Gwyneth Paltrow that he would 'f**k her' was branded 'gratuitous and not editorially justified' by the BBC Trust last week.

Sources claim that senior executives at Radio 2 have also examined the possibility of 'phasing out' Ross by placing a ban on him presenting any live BBC output.

It is also claimed that they have considered replacing him on his Saturday morning show with Terry Wogan - a move denied by the BBC today.

Furthermore, Ross's production company Hot Sauce is to be 'policed' by BBC executives.

A senior BBC source said: 'There are plenty of people, particularly at Radio 2, who don't think he should return or be allowed to broadcast live.

'Everyone will be on tenterhooks now, when he enters any risque territory and with a new controller coming in and looking to put their stamp on Radio 2's output there is a feeling he may be phased out of the station.

'His production company will be told that the rules have changed on compliance and will be closely policed.'
Many people at the broadcaster feel that this is the beginning of the end for Ross at the BBC.

The source added: 'Jonathan Ross is going to be neutered and he won't like it one bit. He will not want executives sitting on top of him and analysing every word.

'A big part of his schtick is flirting with female celebrities - the Paltrow thing is just typical Ross, but now he will have to watch his words.'
Industry sources say if the BBC or Ross seek to prematurely terminate his contract, before 2010, he could join ITV, whose Director of Television Peter Fincham, he enjoys a good relationship with.

At last week's ITV1 winter season launch Mr Fincham said whether he would sign Ross was 'academic' as he is under contract at the BBC but sources close to the ITV boss say he has 'been monitoring Ross's situation closely.'

Despite its reputation for pushing boundaries, a 'carry on swearing' policy and the support for Ross's cohort in the Andrew Sachs prank, Russell Brand, Channel 4 is seen as an unlikely destination for Ross, due its financial difficulties.

A senior Channel 4 source also said that 'a move to bring Jonathan Ross back to Channel 4 would be a hard sell to the politicians as we are vying for a share of the licence fee.'
The corporation's top brass have been asked to report to the BBC Trust's editorial standards committee on how they are reigning in their most highly paid presenter.

The report is due to coincide with Director-General Mark Thompson's annual report to the Trust next spring.

The BBC still faces an investigation by regulator Ofcom over the calls to Andrew Sachs, could impose a fine of £250,000.

The media regulator is expected to reprimand the corporation, after its own investigation revealed that nobody at the corporation had listened to the show - which triggered over 40,000 complaints - before it went on air.
The corporation has also announced that its executive directors will be waiving their bonuses this year.

A BBC spokesman said: 'There are no plans to change the Radio 2 schedules in the immediate future. Jonathan Ross will return to the station at the end of his period of suspension'.

[Teddy Bear]

If you thought for a moment that Ross truly repented his behaviour or learnt anything from the experience then silly you for being so naive.

Consider too when you read the latest of his low level puerile juvenile comments that the BBC responds with this:A BBC spokeswoman said: ‘We are satisfied Jonathan’s light-hearted comments did not detract from the seriousness of the statement.’

What a load of shit!

Unrepentant Ross mocks Ofcom as Sachs ruling is read out on his radio show
By Liz Thomas

His bad behaviour tarnished the name of the BBC and cost licence fee payers a record £150,000 fine.
But Jonathan Ross remained unrepentant over the Andrew Sachs scandal and made a string of sarcastic remarks and jokes on his Radio 2 show after a damning watchdog ruling into his conduct was read out.
Instead of taking the opportunity to apologise after the Ofcom ruling was detailed before his Saturday morning slot, he made a series of gags and then played Fun Boy Three’s The Lunatics Have Taken over the Asylum.
The ruling was over obscene messages that Ross and Russell Brand left on the 78 year-old actor’s answermachine about his granddaughter Georgina Baillie.

It described the messages as ‘offensive, humiliating and demeaning’.
The statement continued: ‘The material that was broadcast was exceptionally offensive, humiliating and demeaning.

'It was also a gross infringement of privacy.’ It ended: ‘For a copy of Ofcom’s decision, visit
After the announcement had finished, Ross, 48, said: ‘You can never find a pen when you need one, can you?
‘You didn’t get that email address down, did you? I want to get the full thing sent over because I can’t read enough about it.’
He then played The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum and made loaded comments with sidekick Andy Davies that suggested the lyrics were a fitting response.
After the song ended, Ross commented: ‘You know, I’ve never really listened to the lyrics of that before.’

Davies laughed in the background and added: ‘That was a lucky accident.’

Ross’s comments will underline critics fears that he is not taking seriously the weight of public feeling against him and the fact that the £150,000 fine was a record for a single incident.
More...BBC spends £100,000 a year on driving two executives to work

It is not the first time the presenter has made light of the incident, showing a startling lack of humility.
The Ofcom ruling described the messages left for Andrew Sachs as 'offensive, humiliating and demeaning'
On the day Ofcom announced their ruling Ross posted pictures of him and Brand out partying with a group of friends on blogging site Twitter.

More than 45,000 people complained about the Sachsgate affair, and many are furious that licence fee payers money is being used to pay the Ofcom fine.

There were calls for the pair to pay the fine personally from across the political spectrum, but Ofcom said this was not legally allowed as the penalty is levied against the broadcaster.
Conservative MP, Philip Davies, who sits on the media select committee, said: ‘These comments show Jonathan Ross still does not think he has done anything wrong. He just didn’t seem to understand how angry the general public are about what he did.’
A senior BBC insider told the Daily Mail: ‘There are plenty of people at the BBC that would just like to see him go when his contract runs out. Ross just behaves like he has no respect for the people that have put their neck on the line, or lost their jobs, so he can keep his.’
Mediawatch director John Beyer said: ‘The BBC should be reviewing his contract. What’s the point of having an official regulator, if the people who fall foul of it just make fun of it?’

Once again the corporation opted to defend his behaviour.

A BBC spokeswoman said: ‘We are satisfied Jonathan’s light-hearted comments did not detract from the seriousness of the statement.’
The star, who was suspended without pay for three months, has used his blog to make a series of gags about the incident.

In one post he branded BBC executives 'f***kers' when discussing the concept of a film about his life.
He wrote: ‘I bet the f***kers would get Timothy Spall to play me.’
In another he referenced the Sachsgate affair.
‘I am very polite in person. I'm just not great with answering machines,’ he joked.

He also wrote that 'suspension is fun' and detailed how he spent days in bed, eating and smoking cigars.

[Teddy Bear]

Here's the story to show the effect of the sick 'prank' that Ross and Brand call humour and their subsequent disingenuous apology, and one which the BBC justified until public outrage forced them to backtrack. I'm glad to hear that Jonathan Ross loses 360,000 listeners of Radio 2 show after Sachsgate but really he should be booted out. It shows the (lack of) values though that the BBC put on an 'entertainer' of his dubious character.
What poor taste!

Andrew Sachs: Ross and Brand have ripped my family apart By Rebecca Hardy
For the first time, Andrew Sachs reveals his contempt for the stars behind that vile phone prank, his fury at their cynical 'apologies' – and how it's destroyed his relationship with his granddaughter

Andrew Sachs has two gushingly apologetic letters in his study at home, one from Jonathan Ross and the other from Russell Brand. He'd meant to reply to them, but hadn't. Now, following Ross's appalling lack of contrition when he presented the Baftas last month, he won't.
'They're very, very nice letters,' he says. 'Both of them apologising profusely: "Forgive me, I was a bloody idiot to do it, I'm terribly sorry", all of that. Really very convincing. They look a bit hollow now. I didn't answer them. I thought, "I'll just leave it a little."

'Now, as a result of what he said at the Baftas, I'm so glad I didn't because clearly it was a publicity message and they didn't mean it.
'I keep the letters because they're interesting documents that bear very little relation to their real feelings. I think they just thought, "I'd better write a nice letter here." It's made no difference. They seem to shrug it off and behave just as badly.' He says, shaking his head.
Andrew is not an angry man. He says it's an emotion that does him no good, but he's deeply upset. And has been since Ross and Brand left obscene messages on his answerphone during a Radio 2 show six months ago, lewdly revealing the foul-mouthed Brand's sexual encounter with his eldest grandchild, Georgina Baillie.

'I didn't understand it. It shouldn't have happened,' he says. 'I really don't know why the BBC ever let it go out.'
Andrew and his wife, Melody, 75, doted on their granddaughter, a burlesque dancer, who had a casual relationship with Brand for about a year in 2006.

The whole saga has ripped the family apart and Andrew has not spoken to Georgina since the incident. However, Andrew has a third letter in his study – from Georgie, and he received it just a few days ago.

Sadly, though, since the obscene telephone calls were broadcast, his family's dirty linen has been dragged out for a very public airing. Soon after, a slew of risqué images and videos of the 23-year-old, who goes by the stage name Voluptua, appeared in the downmarket newspapers alongside revelations of her role in the raunchy burlesque dance group Satanic Sluts. Andrew and Melody were knocked for six.
'It's horrible,' he says. 'What she does is hardly something that brings respect or honour or pride. I don't see how any grandparent can be proud of that sort of thing.

'She was such a lovely, perfect, outgoing little girl, and I worshipped her. But then everything changed in adolescence. And times have changed: there's all this need for celebrity, for easy money. Don't let's work for it if we can get it for nothing – take our clothes off or whatever. So, it's very sad.
'We'll get in touch eventually, I hope. But Georgie's quite forthright and single-minded. She has to make changes in her life, as far as I'm concerned – as far as anybody's concerned. Although she's young, I hope she grows out of what she's doing. But there's no way I can be of influence unless she asks me.

'I've written to her several times but got no reply. Well, not until a couple of days ago. She wrote to say she wants to make amends in some way, so I'll be responding to that. Melody will be more difficult to bring round. But it'll sort itself out.'
Ripped apart: Andrew Sachs and his wife Melody have not spoken to their granddaughter, Georgina Baillie, since the incident

After the radio show that caused the controversy was broadcast in October last year, the BBC was flooded with complaints and Andrew's agent sent in a letter of protest.

At the same time, the startling absence of any serious apology from either Brand or his guest co-host, Ross, or the BBC – allied to the revelation that the pre-recorded show had been approved by BBC producers who found it 'very funny' – provoked a political storm, with Prime Minister Gordon Brown criticising the pair for 'inappropriate and unacceptable behaviour'.
Brand resigned, as did the Radio 2 controller Lesley Douglas. Ross was suspended for 12 weeks without pay – his TV chat show, Friday Night With Jonathan Ross, and his Saturday morning radio show were pulled from the schedules – and media regulator Ofcom fined the BBC a record £150,000 for broadcasting 'gratuitously offensive, humiliating and demeaning' prank phone calls.
Meanwhile, Andrew desperately wished for the 'horrible, horrible' affair to go away. But Ross's increasingly unrepentant behaviour in recent weeks has made that impossible.

Using the moniker Wossy, he's made jokes about his suspension on his Twitter blog, bragging how much 'fun' he was having and describing himself as an 'Ageing roué. Former chess champ. Currently resting.'
Ross said his 'early retirement' made him realise how lucky he was to be doing his job, but he complained that there was a media conspiracy against him.
Georgina Baillie: The burlesque dancer had a relationship with Brand in 2006

On the red carpet at the Baftas, Ross, whose TV chat show was up for the Best Entertainment Performance award, responding to claims that he should never have been nominated for an award, said, 'There are certain members of the Press who may have an agenda against the BBC and me. In which case we don't listen to them.' Sadly for Ross, Harry Hill's TV Burp won the award.
At 79, Andrew, familiar to millions as Manuel in the 1970s sitcom Fawlty Towers, is a mild-mannered man with a gentle sense of humour and a proclivity to chuckle. He doesn't bear grudges, preferring 'to mend fences. I never think about forgiveness,' he says.

'Forgiveness belongs to the Lord doesn't it?' He doesn't like swearing and abhors bad manners. He says his greatest weakness is not 'putting his foot down about things that happen. I'm too eager not to cause a stir,' he maintains.
We meet in a west London hotel to discuss Andrew's new role in Coronation Street, in which he plays Ramsay Clegg, half-brother of Norris Cole, who co-owns the Kabin corner shop.

Encouraged by Melody, a keen Corrie fan, Andrew was approached to be in the soap last summer, months before Sachsgate. He was as nervous as a kitten on his first day.

'The older you get the longer it takes to learn the lines,' he says. 'But its such a friendly atmosphere. They are very supportive, not just of me, but of each other. It really is like a big, happy family.
'In fact, everybody I meet in the business is fairly appalled at what's gone on,' he says. 'Anyone I've spoken to has been very concerned and horrified. I've had letters from as far away as Spain.

'David Walliams wrote me a letter – I haven't yet replied and that lies on my conscience. I'll get round to it,' he says. 'He wrote to say how badly he felt about it all. He also said he was a friend of both of them – which was a nice admission – but he didn't excuse their behaviour. He was sympathetic towards the turmoil it had caused my family.'
This is the first time Andrew has spoken at length about the unhappy situation. Understandably, he doesn't really want to and says, 'I don't find it easy to put words together on the subject. I've been upset by it.'
Andrew was recording a third series of the Radio 4 dramatisation The Further Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes, in which he played Dr Watson, when he first heard that appalling message.

'It was a few days before Brand's pre-recorded radio show was broadcast and I was in a studio in London's Maida Vale when I was contacted by my agent asking if I'd do an interview for Brand and Ross. I knew very little about them, although I had seen Ross's TV show. I was, in a way, an admirer because he's got such a quick brain – sometimes too quick. He's got a lot of talent there, but it turns out to be rather misused.
'I was in rehearsals, but I told my agent that we would be breaking for lunch at 1pm and that I was going round the corner to have a coffee with a mate and I'd ring them then. But I couldn't get through to Brand's production team.

'Finally, the radio show's producer, Nick Philps, made contact. I said, "Oh God, I've been trying to contact you. I'm so sorry I'm late. Is this a live programme? Why don't I come in next week?" He said, "Yes, I'll think about it." Then he played me this message.

'I wasn't sure if it was a programme going on or a separate message to me.I heard some of it. I was sitting in an open air café and there was traffic and people talking, so I didn't take it in properly.

'Apparently, this little chat between Ross and…' Andrew momentarily forgets Brand's name. 'I can't even remember his name. Perhaps I block it out.
'Anyway, this thing came through, which was pretty bold, talking about Georgina. I thought, "Did I hear him right?" When he said what he said about f***ing my granddaughter, I didn't believe it. I thought, "I've missed something there."'
Andrew fiddles with the cuff of his multicoloured sweater as he talks. It's uncomfortable sitting opposite this lovely man as he repeats the F-word. 'You know, I don't think there was any swearing on Fawlty Towers, was there?' he asks as an aside.
'I've seen a few of Brand's stand-up shows and I don't get it. Comedy demands selection and discipline – a kind of philosophy. A good comic tells you about life. He doesn't. It just tells you about somebody who's not on the ball at all really. He gets his attention from a young audience. If you're older and you love him, it's a bit weird, as if you haven't grown up.
'It's always cheap to get a laugh because you use the word f***. That's not comedy either. He should be able to get a laugh without any of that. Look at Tommy Cooper – he never said a rude word in his life. Harry Hill – brilliant.
'Anyway, this producer said, "Is that all right to broadcast?" I said, "Aren't you going out live?" To which he replied, "It's too late now because we've finished the programme. What I've just played, is that all right?" I think he was trying to get my permission to say Andrew Sachs didn't object. I said, "It's a bit bold if I've heard it right."
Then, the following night, before the show was broadcast, Andrew's wife of 50 years slipped in the bathroom, breaking her hip. 'That was much more of a concern to me,' he says. 'I heard her scream. I ran into the bathroom and lifted her up. We didn't realise how bad it was until the next day. It was major, major. She needed a full hip replacement.'
Melody was recovering in hospital, groggy on morphine as the story of Ross and Brand's obscene phone call began to play out in the media. She saw footage of her husband surrounded by a crowd of reporters and photographers outside their north London home and thought she must be hallucinating.
'The phone didn't stop ringing with the Press and all of that,' says Andrew. 'I'm not used to it. It was only afterwards, when I heard the telephone messages on the TV and read them in the newspapers, that it all became clear.'
Today, Andrew believes the BBC is as culpable for the sorry affair as Brand and Ross. 'It was unprofessional,' he says. 'It was too much.' But it's the unedifying turmoil into which his family has been plunged that bothers him most, for he values his family deeply.
Andrew was eight when, in 1938, his German Jewish father, Hans, moved his family from Berlin to London to escape Nazi persecution. Hans died of cancer when Andrew was just 14 and his mother, Katharina, worked hard at menial jobs to provide for him and his brother and sister.

He left school at 16 to go to RADA, but only lasted two terms because he couldn't afford the fees. He was a jobbing actor when he met Melody, a dance examiner at a London academy. She was a 23-year-old divorcée with two young sons, William and John, whom Andrew later adopted.
They married at Hampstead register office in 1960 and their daughter, Kate, quickly followed. 'Kate is the most brilliant daughter to me,' says Andrew, 'but she is also a mother and protective of Georgina – I understand that and I have to respect how she handles the situation. I can't think what she feels. She doesn't like to talk about it,' he says. 'And I don't question her about it.
'We did a lot for Georgie. When she was trying to decide on a career, we helped. We got her an introduction to a modelling agency. We put her in touch with all sorts of people and spent quite a lot of money on her. Nothing worked.

'It's different today,' he muses, trying to understand a generation obsessed with celebrity. 'I remember the pride I felt when I got my first job at 17. I was assistant stage manager at a theatre in Bexhill-on-Sea, getting paid £4 a week.

'I sent my mother ten shillings a week – or maybe five, I can't remember how much – but I loved the idea of sending her money because she'd struggled so hard. My brother and sister were the same. We were dying to help her in the old-fashioned way.
'Now, grandchildren expect you to keep them. They seem to think that's what parents and grandparents are for. So, there's much less caring. The older generation get brushed aside. We've got four grandchildren. It's lovely to have them as kids, but that side of it has all fallen apart. I hope it does come back together – that would be nice. Melody's a good grandmother and this has hurt her an awful lot.
'Georgie's now writing to us, saying she misses us and so on. Maybe there's an opening there to which I will respond eagerly, but not in the way of the past. I don't have the time or even the skill to be her therapist. She's old enough now to make up her own mind as to how she makes amends.'
I wonder how Andrew would respond if he were to chance upon Brand and Ross. 'I'd say hello,' he says. 'I hope they might be embarrassed. I'd talk to them, but I wouldn't praise them. This whole mess is horrible. Has it made an impression upon them? I don't think so.
'You know something?' he says. 'There's a sense of detachment with comedy. It's looking at life rather than taking part in it. It's like watching a man slip on a banana skin rather than being the man who slips up, because that's tragedy. There's always an absurd quality about life – the way we behave.'
There is, Andrew. Sadly, there is.

[Teddy Bear]

An insight into the life of Andrew Sachs, and a greater understanding of just how vile the actions of Brand and Ross were in what they did, particularly because of his beginnings.
Though what we find out here is because of the result if a biography written about his life, we can be sure that if it was somebody the BBC revered like Bob Crow, or Ed Miliband, that had been so wronged by the likes of these scum, the BBC would have found out about it and made it public knowledge themselves, long before now.

The harrowing, inspiring life of Andrew Sachs
A review of Andrew Sachs' I Know Nothing! Faulty Towers' punchline of a waiter – and Russell Brand's favoured target – endured much greater sorrows with style
Roger Lewis


Comedians always like to claim that they started making jokes after childhoods made harsh by poverty; that at a formative age they were tormented by appalling cruelty and neglect. Griff Rhys Jones had to leave Wales at the age of six days, for instance. Nevertheless, the Chaplin family could afford a maid in Kennington. The Leeds of Alan Bennett and the Morecambe of Victoria Wood always sound cosy — as does the Hadley Wood of Eric Morecambe; and there was not much wrong with Barry Humphries’s salubrious Melbourne, though I concede it has been knocked flat by ‘developers’ since. But with Andrew Sachs the horrors were very real. Aged eight, ‘I stood open-mouthed as a number of men, wielding wooden clubs, shattered the front of a shoe shop. It was 9 November 1938. Kristallnacht.’

Sachs was born in Berlin, with a Jewish father and a Catholic mother. Dr Hans Sachs was a decorated Great War veteran, ‘of solid-gold Prussian ancestry’. This now counted for nothing. He was a distinguished lawyer, but work dried up: ‘Long-standing clients found it necessary to take their business elsewhere.’ On top of which, a 20 per cent tax was levied on Jewish property. Sachs’s mother’s jewellery was confiscated. The family was humiliatingly thrown out of their favourite restaurant and harassed generally: ‘Jewish patronage was no longer welcome.’ Insult was added to injury when a ‘collective fine of one billion marks was levied on Jews to pay for the damage’ caused by all the Nazi vandalism.

The Sachs’s were fortunate to have the wherewithal to escape — Jews wanting to leave the Reich had to purchase expensive permits and exit visas. Hans ‘packed his bags and saved his life’, and the rest of the family followed shortly afterwards, abandoning their apartment and heirloom furniture. Bourgeois comfort was exchanged for refugee status in Hatch End.

Andrew vividly recalls his first sight of the London populace — characters straight out of Hogarth or Cruikshank engravings, ‘displaying unsightly blemishes and bandy legs, embarrassing acne, cold sores, moles, boils, crusty warts and false teeth that clattered’. The family ended up in the damp basement of a house in Oppidans Road, owned by the anthropologist Malinowski, which was later ‘crushed to pieces by a V2 rocket’.

Sachs Sr was interned for the duration on the Isle of Man. ‘We were told that the British wanted to make sure there were no Nazi infiltrators.’ When he was released, he got stomach cancer and died. Sachs Jr did his best to blend in and learn a new language: luvaduck, cor blimey, wotcher mate and shitabrick. His first confident English sentence was, ‘We got a canary, you know. Lovely little fucker.’

As an assimilated cockney, Andrew Sachs was given work as an extra in Ealing comedies. He toured Wales for the Arts Council. In Manchester he was directed in a flop by a pompous Noël Coward. In truth, he says very little about his career as an actor: nothing about how he started or what made him choose the profession in the first place. Nevertheless, he does mention in passing that ‘there are times when you have to be careful about what you reveal of yourself, in order to fit in’ — so it could be argued that as a terrified Jewish immigrant, on the run from Nazi persecution, a world of disguise and masquerade was also a world of concealment. Pretending to be someone else with conviction is what made Sachs feel safe — and such was his facility that in an average month he’d appear in 17 different radio productions at the BBC.

Farces with Brian Rix and Ray Cooney led, in 1975, to the offer from John Cleese for Sachs to play Manuel, the waiter from Barcelona, in Fawlty Towers. Nearly 40 years on, the programme is still being repeated in places like Argentina and Zambia; but are the jokes about dumb dagos and wops really very funny? What happens with comedy, over time, is that it becomes tragedy — and to see the show now, what’s affecting is Basil and Sybil’s terrible marriage and Manuel’s Sancho Panza-like devotion to Cleese’s mad Quixote. (Actually the only characters that still make me laugh are the dotty Major, the wittering old ladies, Bernard Cribbins saying ‘televisual feast’ and Joan Sanderson as the deaf harridan Mrs Richards. )

Sachs didn’t have much fun filming Fawlty Towers. He was concussed by a frying pan and set on fire in a kitchen scene. The BBC grudgingly paid him £700 in compensation, and the scars did heal after several years. But Sachs doesn’t like to make a fuss. As Cleese says, in real life Sachs is incredibly nondescript, like a civil servant or a provincial academic. This is his deliberate strategy, of course. The little boy from Berlin, keeping his head down.

The notorious phone calls from Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand, broadcast on a radio show in 2008, appear all the more shocking, therefore, now that we know about Sachs’s background and non-confrontational personality. It must have been like being picked on and bullied by Nazi thugs all over again. ‘He fucked your granddaughter,’ mocked Ross on Sachs’s answering machine. ‘He’s looking at a picture of her about nine on a swing.’

And on and on it went. Sachs provides a transcript. ‘They cursed,’ he says. ‘They jeered. It was a hugely distressing time for all of my family.’ This was a family that had escaped Auschwitz. Ross’s and Brand’s cruelty awoke nightmarish feelings of anti-Semitic persecution. The BBC received 18,000 complaints when the calls were transmitted, but Mark Thompson didn’t give a damn. ‘He considered his job was to investigate what had happened, not offer solace.’ Or display compassion and humanity.

Well, Brand has proved himself a petulant, rubbish actor in his subsequent films and Ross a prematurely fatigued codger with a repugnant Sid James cackle. The less said about them the better. And in the scheme of things, perhaps they were marginally less tactless than Sir Alec Guinness — who told Sachs that he’d be ideally suited for the role of Joseph Goebbels in Hitler: The Last Ten Days.

[Teddy Bear]

There have been a few articles on the BBC's love affair with Russell Brand recently by various commenters in the Mail, Breitbart, and the Spectator. The only reason I haven't bothered posting them is because I can't stand Brand, and don't even want him circulating as thought in my brain. Definitely a revolting human being.

But with another one today I figured I've got to stick it in here. Here first are the recent articles with a bit of the gist.

Russell Brand: Newsnight’s tragic solution to its plummeting ratings
Rod Liddle 25 October 2014

The issue is not that Russell Brand seems to believe that 9/11 was some sort of joint effort between George W Bush and the bin Laden family – that’s sort of a given, no? The man is a drug-addled idiot with the geopolitical knowledge and awareness of a tub of ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter’. The issue is, given these facts, what he’s doing on Newsnight, again.

The BBC, defending the decision to interview the fool, said that he is representative of the ‘anti-politics’ movement with which Westminster is trying to engage. No. He’s. Not. But even so, what utter cant – he’s on there because he’s famous and Newsnight, with its plummeting ratings, is these days in thrall to celebrity. Mind you, if I was Russell I’d begin to catch the whiff of a conspiracy. Isn’t it collusion between the BBC and politicians to discredit the ‘anti-politics’ movements by allowing a halfwit to represent it?

Why does anyone take this clown of a poseur seriously? He's lionised by the BBC and The Guardian as a political seer. The truth, says STEPHEN GLOVER, is that Russell Brand is a ludicrous charlatan

EIGHT MORE GOOD REASONS TO LOATHE AND DESPISE 9/11 TRUTHER RUSSELL BRAND

by JAMES DELINGPOLE 24 Oct 2014

Russell Brand - soap-dodger, lech, former husband of the infinitely more talented Katy Perry - is the most irritating person on earth. This much we knew. But I don't think any of us realised just HOW irritating till his most recent appearance on BBC Newsnight last night in which, besides revealing himself to be a 9/11 Truther, he also emerged as a preening, ignorant, manipulative bully with disturbing communist and Islamist tendencies.

Now for todays' article. The BBC just can't get enough of him, which is in itself an indictment of the BBC. Keep in mind that Brand is the type of mentality that fits the BBC propaganda perfectly, and if they had their way, we'd all be like this knob.

BBC attacked for inviting Russell Brand in to promote his book AGAIN... as he accuses Nigel Farage of being 'that racist geezer'

• Hollywood star was a guest on Radio 4's 'start the week' this morning
• Comes just days after he sparked controversy in Newsnight appearance
• Tory MPs say the corporation needs to look again at its public service remit
• Philip Davies said BBC not there 'to give idiots time to promote their book'
• Mr Brand accused Ukip leader Nigel Farage of being a 'racist'
• He also slams David Cameron as being only 'marginally' less prejudiced

By Tom McTague

The BBC was under fresh fire today after giving controversial comedian Russell Brand another chance to promote his new book calling for a revolution.

The Hollywood actor was the star guest on this morning's 'start the week' show on Radio 4, just days after sparking fury by claiming the US government may have been responsible for 9/11 on Newsnight.

Conservative MP Philip Davies, a member of the influential Culture, Media and Sport select committee, said the corporation needed to look again at its public service remit.

Mr Brand this morning insisted his new book, Revolution, was about giving ordinary people more of a say over their lives.

But he risked sparking further controversy by accusing Nigel Farage of being a 'racist' – and David Cameron of only being 'marginally' less prejudiced. The multi-millionaire star also defended his call for people not to vote.

He said: 'When I talk about revolution, democracy is the main things I'm arguing for.'

But he said: 'It would be irresponsible of me to lend my voice to the deafening cacophony of participate in what you've got – 'sit down, shut up, this is as good as it's going to get'.

'When people are coating me off for saying don't vote, they always forget what I actually said. They reason I've not voted, [like] for a lot of people in this country, I don't see who I am supposed to vote for: Ed Miliband, Clegg, that racist geezer, Cameron – the sort-of-like marginally less racist.

'They all come from the same schools, they all come from the same background. If these people are our leaders, if Parliamentary democracy is going to be something that engages us ordinary people then it has to represent us.'

But Mr Davies demanded to know why the BBC were giving the comedian such a platform.

He said: 'Everyone is entitled to think Nigel Farage is a racist, but I think Russell Brand is a complete idiot.

'Why on earth are BBC giving so much air time to such an idiot is beyond me. Especially on such supposedly serious programmes.

'I just don't think that's what the BBC is there for. It is not there to give idiots like Russell Brand time to promote his book.

'If that's what they think its public service remit is, they should go back to the drawing board.'

The row comes after Mr Brand sparked fury last week after revealing he is 'open-minded' about whether the United States was behind the 9/11 attacks.

The comedian, 39, said in a BBC Newsnight interview he believes there is an 'interesting' relationship between the families of former US president George Bush and Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and asked: 'Do you trust the American government?'

Mr Brand was pressed by presenter Evan Davis on comments in his new book, Revolution, because in it he describes the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers in New York as 'controlled'.

His decision to give credence to a 9/11 conspiracy on Thursday night led to immediate outrage both online and from those who knew, or were related to, people killed in the terrorist attack.

Responding to criticism that Brand was on the BBC again a spokesman said: 'We are always careful not to give undue prominence to individuals or organisations across our outlets.

'Russell Brand is a high profile voice in a debate about the relationship between politicians and the public that various programmes are examining, and these interviews give an opportunity to test those views.'

When asked about a 9/11 conspiracy Brand said: 'We have to remain open-minded to any kind of possibility.

'Do you trust the American government? Do you trust the British government? What I do think is very interesting is the relationship that the Bush family have had for a long time with the bin Laden family.

'What I do think is very interesting is the way that even the BBC report the events in Ottawa to subtly build an anti-Islamic narrative. I think that's very interesting.'

In his autobiography he described being around colleagues on September 12 as: 'And there's me standing beside them, still dressed as Osama bin Laden. I thought: 'It don't get any better than this.'

Twitter users were left furious by his Newsnight performance, many considering it insulting to the nearly 3,000 dead, which included 67 Britons.

The devastating attacks on the Twin Towers 13 years ago changed the world.

More than 1,100 people have never been identified, and their remains have been placed in a tomb under New York's Memorial Museum.

The al Qaeda plot also included the crashing of two more aircraft, one into the Pentagon, in Washington DC, and the other a field in Pennsylvania.

In the tense interview Brand said the BBC 'shamefully sabotaged' the Scottish Referendum for the No campaign and Mr Davis he was 'mates with like CEOs and big businesses' and spent time 'cosying up' to London mayor Boris Johnson.

When Mr Davis pressed him about his views he shouted over the presenter: 'Mate, I don't want to follow you down blind alleys about silly administrative quibbles.'

At one point Mr Davis pleaded: 'I'm trying to take you seriously.'

Davis then tried to show the actor a graph showing wage levels in Britain, but he responded: 'I don't want to look at a graph mate, I haven't got time to look at a bloody graph.

'It's a lovely graph mate, well done. This is the kind of thing that people like you use to confuse people like us.'

After the show Twitter users started sending graphs to Brand to lampoon him over the outburst.

He replied: 'Cheers for the graphs.The five richest families in UK have as much money as the poorest 12 million people. Do us one for that'.

It was Brand's second appearance on Newsnight after a now notorious interview with Jeremy Paxman, where the comedian said he had never voted because he regarded politicians as untrustworthy and irrelevant.

The multi-millionaire also said that 'profit is a dirty word', in response the the Prime Minister who said it wasn't.

He has been a regular on the BBC despite his acrimonious departure in 2008.

Brand and presenter Jonathan Ross left a series of obscene messages on Mr Sachs's answerphone during Brand's Radio 2 programme.

The incident provoked 42,000 complaints after Brand boasted of sleeping with Mr Sachs's granddaughter and joked that the 83-year-old former Fawlty Towers star might hang himself as a result of the phone calls. Brand later resigned while Ross was suspended.

Brand later claimed many of the 42,000 people who complained to the BBC either had no real idea of what they were complaining about or were motivated by an anti-BBC agenda.

He has starred in several high profile Hollywood movies, most notably Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him to the Greek, and commands a high acting fee.

He is also famous in the UK for his work on television, radio and as a stand up comedian.

His net worth is believed to be more than £15million, with rumours this doubled following his divorce from singer Katy Perry.

Mr Brand has meanwhile ruled himself out of running for mayor of London, after reports that he was considering standing for election.

The comedian - who has written a new book, Revolution, about how he want to see society change - said he was 'absolutely not' planning to succeed Boris Johnson.

In an interview to be broadcast on the XFM breakfast show on Tuesday, Brand told presenter Jon Holmes: 'I think we've already got a comedian who's more known for his hair than his policies.'

COMIC'S SICKEST JOKE YET: 'ISN'T IT TIME TO INVEST IN A FISHER PRICE GUILLOTINE FOR PRINCE GEORGE?'

Russell Brand has sparked new outrage with a horrific 'joke' suggesting that Prince George should be beheaded.

In a shocking passage in his new book Revolution, Brand writes: 'I note that if that baby royal they've just done in Blighty were to ascend the throne he'd be George the Seventh. Seventh?!

'We've already had six and we're gonna have another one. How long do we intend to let this silliness persist? Surely it's time for us to invest in a Fisher Price guillotine.'

Tory MP Michael Ellis reacted to what he called 'odious and obnoxious views' saying: 'To make a nauseating reference to the execution of a small child will disgust all right-thinking people. Brand should be treated with the contempt he deserves.'

The former drug addict also faced condemnation for urging society to show 'loving, inclusive, rehabilitative tolerance' towards paedophiles.

Peter Saunders, chief executive of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, said: 'He should know better than to speak in this way about people who destroy the lives of children.'

Former Cabinet Minister Lord Tebbit dismissed Brand as 'no more dangerous than a cowpat'.

Told of the vile joke about Prince George, he said: 'If someone were to make the same suggestion about Left-wing comedians, they would be accused of being very stupid.'

The latest controversy for Brand comes just days after he caused fury by suggesting the US Government may have been behind the 9/11 attacks.

Clarence House declined to comment. Neither representatives of Brand nor publishers Random House would comment.

[thehighlandrebel]

Sadly Teddy people like Brand thrive on the attention they get, good or bad, maybe we should just ignore him and he might go away.

[Teddy Bear]

And to think the BBC believe that they are justifying the licence fee by giving this repulsive creature the oxygen of publicity.
They deserve each other - but not at our expense.

[Teddy Bear]

Part of the ploy the BBC use to ensure their propaganda will be accepted is to present themselves as caring and concerned. So the public will be forced to accept whatever crap they throw at us otherwise we are deemed to be racist, Islamophobes, climate deniers, religious nutters, right wing extremists, homophobes, etc.

Because the hypocrisy of the BBC is so evident we know the only thing they are caring and concerned about is increasing their own power, and they CARE NOTHING for the good of humanity or the cherished values of a free society.

Which is why they don't understand at all why intelligent people are thoroughly disgusted with Ross and Brand, and this is one of the issues that we know just how hypocritical the BBC are really when it comes to 'care and concern'. They continue to give these disgusting morons the time of day, and don't understand that people are still incensed by what they did, as well as other incidents, and don't want to fund their 'high-life'.

The unforgiven! Storm of complaints as Jonathan Ross returns to Radio 2 six years after crudely mocking Andrew Sachs

• Jonathan Ross returned to Radio 2 to cover Steve Wright's afternoon show
• But 54-year-old host drew 100 complaints when he presented two shows
  
• Comes six years after he crudely mocked Andrew Sachs on the station
• Eventually left the BBC after being suspended and signed for ITV 
• Mr Sachs wife Melody says it is dreadful Mr Ross is back on the BBC

By Laura Cox for the Daily Mail

It is more than six years since he disgraced himself when he crudely mocked Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs and his family on air.

And it seems many Radio 2 listeners have yet to forgive Jonathan Ross for the outrage. When the 54-year-old presenter stood in to host two music and chat shows, he drew 100 complaints.

Ross had been hired to cover the afternoon show last Friday and again on Monday while Steve Wright was on holiday.

But some listeners wondered what he was doing back on the airwaves.

In 2008, Ross used an appearance on comedian Russell Brand’s Radio 2 show to leave obscene messages on Sachs’s answering machine.

The incident provoked 42,000 complaints after Brand boasted of sleeping with the actor’s granddaughter Georgina and joked that the Fawlty Towers star might hang himself as a result of the calls.

Brand later resigned and Ross, who had his own regular Radio 2 show, was suspended for 12 weeks.

He subsequently moved to ITV, while the BBC was fined £150,000 by Ofcom for the shameful episode.

Listeners questioned the choice of Ross to stand-in for Wright. One wrote on Twitter: ‘All is forgiven then? Didn’t think @wossy would ever “darken” hallowed BBC premises again.’

Another posted: ‘And Jonathan Ross is on BBC Radio 2 hosting a show because? My God, just shows you can get away with anything and still asked back. Shameful!’

Others said they had switched their radios off, with one tweeting: ‘Disgrace they let this clown back on radio. Never again please.’

Although Ross – who left the BBC in 2010 after it decided not to renew his £18million contract – has said he feels ‘immense regret’, the Sachs family have refused to forgive him and claimed he used the publicity to advance his career.

Last night Sachs’s wife Melody said of Ross: ‘I think it’s dreadful that he’s back at the BBC. I don’t like it because of what he did to us. They carry on regardless. He’s never off the box now, is he?

‘He can do what he likes – walk over anybody, say what he likes. I just put it out of my mind and can’t be bothered any more.

'But I’m careful to switch the TV or radio off when he’s on. It’s not very nice, especially the way Andrew’s worked all his life for the BBC on radio and TV. It’s an absolute insult, really.’
Russell Brand's apology soon after the Radio2 Sachs affair

Ross will cover another ten shows for Wright next month. The presenter, who has also been guest on Radio 4 panel show Just A Minute since his fall from grace, hosted Wright’s show for four days over the August bank holiday weekend last year, for which he was paid an estimated £4,000.

Last night a Radio 2 spokesman said: ‘Jonathan is an experienced and talented broadcaster... and was very popular with our audience.

'He returned to Radio 2 last year for four days and following the warm welcome he received from the listeners, he will cover for Steve Wright in March.’