I don't know about you, but with all the media stories of financial doom, and now the grotesque hoo-hah over Russell Brand's and Jonathan Ross' imbecilic pranks, it almost feels like the last decadent gasps of a crumbling empire. I just hope the barbarian hordes take their time getting to the gates to sack us all.
Before anyone accuses me of being a humourless git - it's all very well saying that people are often rude and insulting in real life and it's only a TVradio show. For starters, I don't think it is OK to behave like that, even if many people do. And then, boorish behaviour specifically calculated to increase viewer ratings at the expense of an innocent third party is distasteful in the extreme. To carry my analogy further - perhaps the BBC should develop a reality show based on gladiatorial combat, so we can laugh helplessly while unfortunates are hacked to death for our pleasure? OK - that is carrying it to ridiculous extremes, but every slippery slope of tolerance for bad behaviour has a deceptively gentle start.
I have recently written to the TV licensing authority asking to cancel the licence once the digital switchover happens - but honestly, I should be asking for them to do it now and give us 6 months' fee back. I have always rather resented the huge salary that Ross gets from tax payers' money - I find him sleazy, creepy and oleaginous. I've never had the dubious privilege of seeing Brand on the box or hearing him on the radio - for which I assume I should be grateful, since he sounds like another oik I'd rather not know.
I am often lamenting the depths to which the BBC stoops in the name of mass entertainment, but this is really scraping the manky barrel of public poor taste. IMO, both perpetrators of this crass and infantile jape should be sacked without compensation, as should the editor who allowed it to go on air. Am I holding my breath? - no.
Read BBC reportage here. And The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Gibbons.
