russell brand - C or D?

Ar age 16, stoned out of our minds, we looked up teachers' phone numbers at 4am in the local directory. Found our (youthful, leftwing) English teacher's number. Called him. Asked if he'd ever licked a dolphin. Hung up. Seemed like the funniest fucking thing of all time, at the time. Not so much later.

And they've been suspended.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7696714.stm

Bailie said "they shoudl be sacked for inflating my celebrity standing and getting me booked out as a crap burlesque dancer until mid 2010".

Doesn't say anything about their being suspended on that link.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7696714.stm

Youthful Leftwing English Teacher's SO: "who was that on the phone just now?"
Youthful Leftwing English Teacher: "Er, sounded like someone who wanted to know if I 'kicked it golfing'..."

Yes it does?

Where?

Oh right, they've just added a paragraph at the top.

18,000 complaints = approx 60,982,000 people who don't want them suspended.

I hope my maths is right there.

Daily Politics show on BBC just now talking about nothing but this story.

Craven cowards.

A golddigger on the make and probably on the take starts whingeing "daddy daddy thethe men inhulted me" and two perfectly good presenters get suspended.

Kowtowing to the tabloid fascists.

Oh wait they're onto trivialities like Afghanistan now.

Forthcoming to Saturday night Radio 2: four hours of Radio 2 Jukebox with Richard Allinson done with voice tracking to try and nick some listeners off Gold.

If Lesley Douglas or Mark Thompson had any guts they'd have stood up and told the parties involved to go fuck themselves.

Paul O'Grady was right about the BBC being like the Home Office and sucking all the life out of anyone who went in there.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has also criticised the pair for their "inappropriate and unacceptable behaviour" on Brand's radio show.
He is also expected to face questions from MPs over the affair in prime minister's questions later.

so he made public comment on it in advance so as to pre-empt this, or is 'expected to face questions' more a result of the comment? chicken/egg

Awaiting the "saying Georgina Bailie is on the take is misogynist" posts.

There is a fucking RECESSION in this country.

And MPs are wasting precious time talking about THIS?

Christ, Britain breaks up a little bit more with every day.

Well, Nick, who'd heard of her before this was all blown up out of any sensible proportion?

Truly Ross and Brand are Heroes of Comedy *sniff*

Personally if I were JR or RB I'd just fuck off to Sky or wherever and let the BBC stew in its own brown Windsor soup.

Kelvin "Scousers piss on dead bodies" MacKenzie is on BBC News 24 right now talking about how offensive Brand and Ross are.

Russell Brand had. On a swing.

i think at this moment it's worth remembering the original "celebrity" prank caller, john bean, aka leroy murcer -

from knoxville tennessee, ca. late 1970s/early 1980s - also, actually funny

Anyone who signs up with Max Clifford is probably hoping to profit from their unfortunate situation regardless of gender.

Gah when they said on the news last night that it was Commented Upon In Parliament, there were only about 20 MPs sitting.

So that'll be Mark Lamarr covering for Ross for a fortnight and Stuart Maconie in the evening to send everyone off to sleep/Radio 1.

i'm meant to be writing a lab report. perhaps i should sack that and dig out my unfinished (barely begun) sitcom. it actually had a couple of jokes in it, if i remember rightly.

If you want some advice there's a good thread to post it to.

politicians going on oligarch's yachts get to keep their job and these guys get suspended for making a prank call?

this is some country

i thought Alexander Bell made the first prank call. pretending to be a sailor.

haha mackenzie is loving this.

xpost to raw patrick: yeh, i'll obviously bear that in mind ;)

I took the "thousand journalists" comment as a sort of rap faux-braggadoccio. If he meant it then he really is a jerk

i think it was somewhere between the two extremes.

fuck this suspension lark: what does that mean for the first ep of russell brand's ponderland? because we've got a TV preview of that running in tomorrow's paper and if it gets pulled ... here, hang on, i'm not back in till friday. why am i worrying?

That's not on the BBC, though, so it shouldn't be affected.

at least, not if Channel 4 have any guts.

C4 will be glad of Ponderland ratings bump

Yeah, C4 it's on innit? They'll be loving this - highest ratings ever, as all the grannies check him out to see if he's offensive?

Director of audio and music Tim Davie said it was 'too early to speculate'

Hmm, so there's one person not issuing soundbites. Unless that's one.

BBC News website readers can follow prime minister's questions live on the BBC News website.

oh, good point: sorry, i was thinking it was BBC3. hmm. yeh, sorry, as we were.

thought the whole point of speculation was that it's too early

Did a vicar's son give the nod for Ross and Brand's obscene phone calls?

Tell you something else I found out yesterday,

From the "Move" 4CD boxset: One of their first 'proper' gigs, after Tony Secunda took the manager's job, was a fundraiser for the Conservative party to which they invited Ted Heath to join in with!

Does that mean they *all* go on the list, not just Bev "Bev Kev" Bevan?

Happier times: Georgina as a 10-month old in a treasured family photo

Daily Mail photo caption

Flipping hell (Grouty xpost) what was it with Brumbeat bands and their Tory leanings? One of the Idle Race's singles IIRC had its royalties donated to the Tory Party (allegedly) and some of the Moody Blues and Duran Duran are on the Tories' official celebrity list.

If Roy Wood consented to this he's just gone down approximately a zillion trillion percent in my personal ratings. Especially given that it was Joe Boyd who "discovered" them in the first place.

(or was this just general resentment/reaction against Wilson's libel suit?)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1081388/PIERS-MORGAN-Brand-just-sex-obsessed-ex-junkie--Its-Ross-BBC-sack-today.html

Finally, someone who matters has weighed in.

But recently, our relationship 'hit the rocks' as they say in showbiz circles, for reasons I was never able to entirely fathom - though I suspect it may not be entirely unconnected to the fact that I am going to host a big new rival interview show for ITV.

big