Thursday, January 15, 2009
JOWLS
Last night, we had the BBC's News channel on.
The newsreader promised us that there was a bulldog puppy in the studio, because there is a news story about the Kennel Club's change in the standards it applies to pedigree dogs. All to do with health problems caused by inbreeding ... well, click on the link if you're interested.
I waited forty minutes to see the puppy. Aaawwwww.
The newsreader promised us that there was a bulldog puppy in the studio, because there is a news story about the Kennel Club's change in the standards it applies to pedigree dogs. All to do with health problems caused by inbreeding ... well, click on the link if you're interested.
We were informed that "the bulldog puppy is going to be here, but you'll have to wait about forty minutes to see it".
Well, bollocks to that! I want HARD news, and I want it now! I don't want to see a bulldog puppy! How old do you think I am? I want to know about THE REAL WORLD. I want to know, from every angle, exactly WHY that Government Spokeslady* suggested that there were were signs of "green shoots of recovery" in British business. I want to see a story about that which lasts for at least an hour. I want to furrow my brow so much that my forehead caves in and I end up looking like the bulldog puppy in this picture:
He's obviously bothered about the British economy and the credit crunch much more than the bloody BBC. Is this what we pay our licence fee for?
I waited forty minutes to see the puppy. Aaawwwww.
*as she would be described by Polly Witterings
Labels: BBC, bulldogs, credit crunch, green shoots of recovery, Kennel Club, Polly Witterings
Thursday, October 30, 2008
"QUE?"
Confusion, chaos and agony is raging through Britain at the news that the BBC hasn't sacked anybody over the Russell Brand/Jonathan Ross business for a whole FORTY FIVE MINUTES.
The outrage has further been compelled by the fact that Jonathan Ross has been suspended without pay from the BBC for only TWELVE WEEKS.
Hah! The corrupt, vile Ross won't feel any loss from that will he - twelve weeks' pay??? That would only be enough to buy the vile Ross one of his infamous suits! One less suit in the Ross wardrobe - think about it! Hardly going to cause him any sort of pain or suffering, is it?
The outrage has been described as the most controversial incident involving a British media figure since John Lennon suggested that The Beatles were bigger than Jesus, or the time that Lance Percival implied that John Profumo had "a wandering willy" during a topical calypso on the outrageous 1960's satire show That Was The Week That Was.
Rabid Daily Mail readers have announced that they have organised a protest march which will take place in London and will end in a demonstration outside the BBC Television Centre. An estimated crowd of half a million Mail readers will wail and beat their chests like elderly peasant women at a funeral. They will rub hot ashes all over themselves. A pair of twenty foot papier mache effigies of Ross and Brand will be burned as people chant "skin the bastards".
There has been criticism from a rival group of Sun reading Ross/Brand haters, who say that the demo could cause confusion, what with the effigy burning. Some passers by may think that this is a part of Bonfire Night or Hallowe'en celebrations, and the power of the message will be lost, in the Sun readers' opinion.
An emergency BBC online questionnaire has been set up to determine exactly who should be sacked or suspended from shows next so that the BBC can be seen to "be doing the right thing" and to be answerable to its "customers". So far, the most popular choices to be given the boot are Jo Brand (because she has the same surname as Russell Brand), Sir Bill Cotton (deceased), newsreader Huw Edwards, disc jockeys Edith Bowman, Rob "Da" Bank and Sir Terry Wogan, and weatherman Daniel Corbett.
Labels: BBC, Jonathan Ross, Lance Percival, Russell Brand, Sir Bill Cotton
Friday, August 29, 2008
SONG FOR RUTH ELLIS
Sir Bill with Croft and Perry (left - bow tie by Moschino, monkey suit model's own)
In my absence there doesn't seem to have been much fuss made on the internet about the death of one of the behemoths of light entertainment - Sir Bill Cotton. So here is a rather late obituary.
Sir Bill used to be known as Billy Cotton Junior well into his fifties, which must have been a source of frustration, especially as he was the son of Billy Cotton who basically WAS the bits of the BBC that weren't Richard Dimbleby.
Billy Jr. MADE HIS OWN WAY THROUGH SHEER HARD GRAFT AND TALENT despite his famous dad (of "Wakey Wakey!" fame), rather like Peaches Geldorrrrrf, who has landed a job at a New York magazine because she has MADE HER OWN WAY THROUGH SHEER HARD GRAFT AND TALENT despite her famous dad Sir Lord King Emperor Pete Briquette (the short one) out of the Boomtown Rats. I hope the two met before he died: they would have had so much in common and Sir Bill could have imparted some valuable words of wisdom to Peaches before she left to conquer America.
Bill, born in 1928, was a BBC light entertainment producer in the 1950's and worked his way up to become Head Of Light Entertainment during what has turned out to be a golden era at the BBC. He presided over such shows as Bruce Forsyth Presents: The Boy Bruce And The Mighty Atom, Do Not Adjust Your Set, The Tim Brooke Taylor Experiment, That Sketch With John Cleese, Ronnie Corbett and Ronnie Barker, Do You Want Me To Repeat That Again?, Bruce Forsyth Presents: War Of The Worlds and I Think Marty Feldman Is A Bit Overrated, Actually, Although That Thing Where He's Playing Golf On Top Of A Train Is Fairly Funny I Suppose.
Due to SHEER HARD GRAFT AND TALENT he eventually got The Big Job - as BBC Fat Controller.
He wasn't a man to mince his words, and had many a run in with top BBC celebrities. Of Terry Wogan he once said "don't be taken in by the easy Irish charm. That cunt insists that his wigs get ferried about in limos at the licence payer's expense. I mean, fuck me! The man's a freak of nature!" He claimed that Clive Dunn "went through the girls who danced with the Young Generation like a dose of salts, the cheeky bugger. He was always up the clap clinic."
The last comment seems a little hypocritical in light of the fact that Sir Bill once had an on/off fling with that voluptuous ginger piece from variety dance troupe the Television Toppers. She eventually left him after *finding happiness* with the creepy George Mitchell, uberlord of the Black And White Minstrels.
Sir Bill leaves a longstanding wife - Kate - and is actually vaguely related to dynamic and charismatic TV presenter Fearne Cotton, so I can't make a feeble joke about her having made her way in the cut throat entertainment industry through SHEER HARD GRAFT AND TALENT and not because her granddad is Sir Bill Cotton.
Tributes were paid by Bruce Forsyth, who claimed that Sir Bill was "the consumate professional, a great golfer, and a warm, passionate man. They broke the mould the day they made him, believe me." Ronnie Corbett described him as "a great golfer who was great fun on the golf course" and Danny La Rue said "I'm distraught ... a light has gone out in all our lives. Not since Arthur Askey died have I felt so bereft. Look up to the sky tonight and you'll be able to see Bill's star twinkling back at you. Not 'arf, mate!! Wotcha!!!"
Rest in pieces, big man.
Labels: BBC, Billy Cotton Band Show, Bruce Forsyth, money goes to money, nepotism, obituaries, Peaches Geldorrrrrf, Ronnie Corbett, sheer hard graft and talent, wakey wakey
