Charles Moore remembers the olden days

Miley's having trouble moving on from something that happened over a week ago, but that's nothing compared to Charles Moore.

Moore still hasn't moved on from that time Russell Brand phoned up Andrew Sachs. The Telegraph's Mandrake column is happy to listen:

Brand thus displayed a peculiar lack of self-awareness when he alluded to Nazi persecution at the GQ [Men of the Year] event, given what Sachs’s own forbears had endured.

Moore drily noted that what Brand and Ross had later subjected Sachs to in their “disgusting” call also amounted to persecution. “I am not convinced that Mr Brand was ever really sorry at all for what he did,” Moore tells me.

Yes, incidentally: that is a grown-up, well-educated man who is idly comparing an ill-judged piece of childishness with the acts of the Nazis. That's surely the proof that will earn Mike Godwin the Nobel.

Gordon in the morning: Brand new show

Talking of radio stations and the decline from offering an alternative to thinking that just not playing N-Dubz is enough, news from XFM. Gordon Smart - himself a presenter on the station, although he doesn't mention that conflict of interest - brings news of a short series:

THE women in RUSSELL BRAND’s LA yoga class can look forward to a well-earned breather next month.

Bizarre’s four-time Shagger Of The Year is making a return to UK radio with his old on-air sparring partner NOEL GALLAGHER.

The Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid of radio are reuniting with the original team behind the Russell Brand Show.

Although Brand and Gallagher have done the odd radio show together in the past, I'm not sure I'd claim that their pairing was quite as iconic as Butch and Sundance.

Still, Gordon's excited:

Russell told me: “I miss radio. It was lovely when we did the show. It will be great to get the old team back together.”

It was the very show that landed JONATHAN ROSS and Russell in hot water over the Sachsgate business.

You can bet your boots the Ofcom boys will be tuning in and stroking their chins in anticipation of some bad behaviour. Good luck to them — the radio hasn’t been the same without their carry-on.

Yeah, stupid old Ofcom and their rules on taste and decency which forced Brand's Radio Two show off the air.

Remind me, what line was The Sun taking that line at the time, when the paper complained about the programme's 'obscene bullying', "disgusting stupidity", "a childish act of verbal violence" and "foul-mouthed insults".

It turns out what The Sun meant all along was that radio wasn't the same without all that, and you should ignore those "chin-stroking" moralists.

Funny, that.

The closing ceremony: London Pride has been force-fed down to us

I keep thinking 'bits of that weren't so bad, were they?'. And then I remember Russell Brand bellowing The Beatles through a megaphone.

The most successful bit was the Slim-J-Tempah sequence, which bubbled with energy, and was stuffed with shots of athletes bouncing about and singing along. Maybe it was a bit T4 On The Beach, but better that than the large swathes of a 1984 Radio One Roadshow beamed from a sleet-skittered Grimsby that made much of the rest of the event. It felt like the party the thing was supposed to be.

But what of the rest? Muse finally disappearing behind the self-pardoy horizon was only to be expected; the Kaiser Chiefs turning up in 2012 was a bit of a surprise. If the deal was George Michael had to do the new single to be persuaded to turn up, he should have been asked to stay at home.

Emeli Sande has been rather over-promoted: she can carry a tune, but not an entire ceremony. That Kate Bush was only on tape was a bit of a disappointment.

And The Spice Girls getting together for what felt like the first time in a couple of weeks wasn't the treat it was meant to be - the slow trundling of taxis for their entry seemed to last longer than the two half-songs they trotted out.

The London theme was quite weak - a couple of cars made out of newspaper, a Michael Caine voiceover and a bit of Only Fools And Horses. Why that one TV series? Why not, say, Barbara Windsor ringing a bell crying 'that's yer lot, ain't you got 'omes to go to?'; or Cumberbutch-as-Sherlock; or Grace Brothers; or Howman and Davidson finally doing a Babes In The Wood/Up The Elephant And Round The Castle crossover. Maybe not the last one.

Hang about, I've just remembered Churchill popping out of the Big Ben bell tower like a grumpy jack-in-the-box. Oh, god.

On Twitter, there were some voices going 'why are people being cynical? Can't we be like we've been for the last fortnight?'

But that's the point. If there's a point to the Olympics, it's about celebrating the extraordinary and superlative. If you applaud Mo Farah's triumph in the same way you applaud whoever went 'we could get some supermodels in and - hey, didn't Derek Bowie do a song about Fashion?', then you're really just watering down praise for Farah.

Not everyone at the Olympics gets a gold medal; in fact, that's the kind of point. Doing a closing ceremony is always going to be a thankless task - who wants to be the guy ushering in the hangover? - and coming in the wake of the opening extravanganza set the bar at a pole-vault height for a high-jump event. But nobody made anyone start a parade of plodding would-be secular hymns. No event will thrive when it drags on the film of Lennon doing Imagine, the national anthem of the Independent State Of Hypocrisy.

There were bits that were pretty good - the phoenix; the all-too-brief visit of The Pet Shop Boys. There was an exciting one hour event struggling to fight out of a three hour one.

But Russell Brand came on, singing through a megaphone.

Gordon in the morning: We've always loved Ross and Brand

Colin Robertson supplies an piece for Bizarre this morning looking forward to Ross and Brand appearing together on the British Comedy Awards, but isn't entirely sure if he's meant to be excited at the prospect or disgusted at the very idea:

THE British Comedy Awards are going for maximum mayhem after inviting Russell Brand to join Jonathan Ross on stage - going out LIVE on TV.

Mayhem - that's good, right? A bit of bouncy fun and confusion and it's just like the Lords Of Misrule, yes? Who doesn't like a bit of mayhem?

Organisers are putting the stars together in a bid to stir up controversy for the show's first airing on Channel 4 after switching from ITV.

Controversey - that's bad, isn't it? Nobody wants controversy. That's enquiries, and apologies, and fines from regulators.

By the way, Colin, nice work on the not playing into the trap of the organisers trying to stir up controversy. Because if this was just an attempt to generate some publicity for an awards show, your cunning article has made sure that won't be happening. Well done.

There's an insider, quoted at length, in what is no way a desperate bid to try and talk up the possibility that something might happen:

We'll be standing by with the bleeper in case it gets too debauched

The Ross-Brand problem on Radio 2 wasn't swearing, though, was it? It was making repeated phone calls to an older man gloating at having had sex with his granddaughter. Even if someone in Broadcasting House had bleeped out the "fuck" when they made the call, I think we'd have still been in the same place.

The continuing confusion at The Sun over the Andrew Sachs affair is shown in this line:

Ross became a hate figure after telling actor Andrew Sachs during Brand's Radio 2 show in October 2008 that Russell had "f****d his granddaughter" Georgina Baillie, 25.

Actually, Ross didn't really become a hate figure - but why would Ross be singled out rather than Brand? Could it be because the paper relies on Brand to fill Gordon's columns, and Brand tends to hang out with Gordon's beloved Noel Gallagher, so it would be more inconsistent to pretend that Brand was hated while fawning over him?

Gordon in the morning: Ride the tiger

We're expected to believe that a dangerous, man-eating tiger "gatecrashed" the Brand-Perry nuptials.

How serious could that have been, Gordon?

Officials at the Ranthambore National Park said the tiger was drawn by lights and music from the party and could have killed any of the 85 revellers, who included rapper P DIDDY and comedian DAVID BADDIEL.

Good God, can you imagine the horror? Of being stuck at a wedding party with that lot. You'd just be hoping a hungry tiger would turn up. You'd probably be splashing gravy about just in case.

The suspicion that, given this is a wildlife park, you'd expect there to be wildlife wandering about doesn't seem to have occurred to Gordon.

Guards beat the tiger off with a stick, which sounds about as much fun as Perry would have been having that evening.

Elsewhere, Westlife are thinking about getting into the contraceptive business. Thinking about Westlife is a contraceptive, surely?

Gordon in the morning: This isn't about Mark Owen

According to, erm, something Gordon read in Q, Mark Owen is worried that people might think one of the new Take That songs is about the time he cheated on his wife. But it isn't.

It was written before Owen went gardening on a neighbouring allotment square, and has a full band credit.

So it clearly isn't.

Things have got so bad, then, that The Sun is lifting other publications' not-actually-stories.

For Gordon, this is a point where

Mark wrestles his conscience

It might have been a bit better if Mark Owen had thought before doing backflips for other people 'this might look bad', but I guess we should be thankful that his conscience has finally flipped on, albeit rather late.

In other news - or non-news - heartbreaking reports of trouble at the Brand-Perry wedding planners:

A source close to the pair said: "They had been trying to arrange a 3D tiger safari for guests as an extra-special treat, but it looks like this won't happen now."

I know, I know. It's hard to carry on knowing the extra-special 3D tiger treat won't happen, but we must somehow steel ourselves and try.

Gordon in the morning: They call him Mr Big

Pushing Noel Gallagher's appearance on Russell Brand's TalkSport show, Gordon tries a new nickname for Noel:

Mr Big joined Ol' Russ

Mr Big? What are you trying to tell us, Gordon?

Gordon's excited about the programme, anyway:

The show's a great alternative to Saturday night TV - I'll tune in.

Really? Because every second article in your column - in your newspaper - suggests that Saturday night TV is the most important thing in the world. I do look forward to Monday's Bizarre announcing 'don't know what happened on X Factor this weekend, but there was a really funny story about Wayne Rooney on TalkSport'.

Gordon in the morning: Becks defender

Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross are getting back together to generate some cheap publicity for Absolute Radio:

RUSSELL BRAND and JONATHAN ROSS will be together on the radio next month for the first time since Sachsgate.

Except, it turns out, they won't be on radio at all:

The pair will record a podcast live from Hackney, east London, for Absolute Radio.

What's the "live" doing there? Is it recorded, or is it live?

Elsewhere, Gordon's former number two and a journalist come together to rubbish the claims of the Beckham 'hooker':

Tosh N Becks By RICHARD WHITE and PETE SAMSON, US Editor

There is an obvious weakness in the InTouch story: if the woman who claims to have had an on-the-meter threesome with Beckham really is a high-earning sex worker with royalty, celebrities and sportspeople amongst her regulars, why would she ruin her business for a single cheque from a US magazine?

But News International isn't going to point out that the sort of top-level prostitute who often appears in their stories is the least likely person to be spilling beans. Indeed, it suggests that maybe this is a cash cow for her:

Last night Irma was trying to cash in on her allegations. She hired an agent and set up the website irmanici.com to charge 60p for each picture downloaded by users.

There's nothing more shabby than salacious content behind a paywall, eh, Mr Murdoch?

Of course, what's really here is a chance to throw rocks at another publisher:

Irma's story was splashed across America's In Touch Weekly lifestyle magazine, published by German media group Bauer, which operates in 15 countries including Britain.

Two journalists and - presumably - a sub looked at that sentence and decided it needed no further work.

To a casual observer, there might be a question 'if the story is so horrific and wrong, why bother repeating it?' But, hey, there's a news angle as... erm... it might all be some sort of conspiracy:

One theory about the allegations is that they may be an attempt to undermine England's bid to stage the 2018 World Cup. Becks is one of our leading ambassadors.

Even if that was likely - and, frankly, is isn't - given that the World Cup is one of the biggest drivers of new business to prostitutes, that shouldn't be a problem, should it?

Gordon in the morning: Morrisey says no

It's not often Gordon Smart brings news of Morrisey to his readers, but today there's news of the man:

But RUSSELL BRAND and KATY PERRY have asked the miserable Manc to do the honours - even though he's told them not to tie the knot.

He was meeting Katy Perry for the first time. Mozzer went to tea with her, which is hardly on-brand for him, with his disdain for fluff pop, but he's mates with Russell Brand, apparently:

"He's Russell's mate and he is fascinating but he was giving us a hard time about getting married.

"He swooned and sighed, 'Oh, left hand third finger, don't do it.' It was just so eloquent and poetic and like one of his songs."

Clearly, Perry doesn't meet literate people very often.

However, eloquent though the advice was, it will go unheeded. And Morrisey will still be invited, but must consider himself warned:

I told him, 'We can't have a Mr Misery like you messing things up.'

Childish, treating the listener like they have no cortex and embarrassingly clunky. Just like one of her songs.

Gordon in the morning: Brand new radio

Here's a surprise - apparently The Sun didn't mind Russell Brand calling up Andrew Sachs at all. Why, Gordon's hopping mad at what happened:

IT'S almost two years since RUSSELL BRAND was last broadcasting his ramblings on Radio 2.

Thanks to the Sachsgate nonsense that glorious reign on the airwaves was cut far too short, leaving a huge hole in the weekend schedules which still hasn't been filled.

Yes, how did that happen, Gordon? It's almost as if popular newspapers like your own spent days shrieking for heads to roll and people to go. Who knew it was all a load of silly nonsense all along, eh? If only Gordon had spoken up at the time.

Gordon is excited now because Brand has been offered a slot on Sirius:

An offer, worth millions of dollars, is on the table for Ol' Russ and his gang of chums to take their talents over the Pond to America.

Sirius Radio, a huge satellite broadcaster, has been chasing him for months with chequebook at the ready.

I think you'd be lucky to find "millions of dollars" - it's not losing money any more, but it's hardly cash-rich.

Could we have some words from a "pal"? Indeed we could:

"The Sirius deal is in its infancy but Russell is well up for it. He has been given the hard sell about how they could make him the new HOWARD STERN."

That's not such a generous offer, given how Sirius effectively broke the original Howard Stern.

Gordon in the morning: Here he comes again

Gordon is - briefly - bang on the money this morning:

YOU would be forgiven for thinking that little JOE McELDERRY had slipped into obscurity after winning The X Factor last year.

Thats, erm, because he's slipped back into obscurity.

He has, however, to trudge through the motions of putting out a record, and, keen to keep the Cowell/ITV axis happy, Smart tries to pretend that this is going to be an event:

The Geordie lad is jetting out to LA to put together his masterpiece, and the wait will soon be over.

He told me he is expected to have it all wrapped up and ready for release in October.

Yes, the wait. I bet HMV are sick of people popping in like that old chocolate advert going "any news yet?" All over the nation, piggy banks groan under the weight of pennies saved in the Joe McWhateveritwas album fund.

But Gordon has more:

In an interesting twist of fate, Joe could find himself going up against his former rival OLLY MURS in the charts.

That has to be the most inaccurate use of the word "interesting" in recorded history.

Two people? Releasing an album within a few months of each other? That would be...

X Factor runner-up Olly is also due to have something out around that time. That will make for a good old-fashioned chart battle.

Perhaps, Gordon. Although a fight for the number 37 slot is hardly going to bring the camera crews running.

In other parts of Gordon's forest, there's a lot of Murdochy-cross-promotion of Russell Brand's appearance in The Simpsons. This is treated as if it's something incredible, rather than now a job which occurs shortly after your second appearance on Leno and shortly before the first invite to a Pro-Celebrity Horseshoe Toss.

Still, he's following in a long line of cameos, isn't he, Gordon?

But his latest acting achievement puts him up there with movie greats like MARLON BRANDO ... he's bagged a role in The Simpsons.

That's odd. Brando never actually played himself in The Simpsons, he was just Dan Castellaneta doing a silly voice. Why would Gordon single out Brando rather than, say, Tom Hanks or Coldplay or... hang about, what's the headline?

New Brand'oh

Oh.

And, more importantly, it secures priceless bragging rights over close pal NOEL GALLAGHER, who has only ever been yellow with hangover pain.

I suspect that simply Americans knowing who he is gives Brand that power, Gordon.

Gennaro Castaldo Watch: On the ball

The football hasn't even started yet, and already it has gone too far. We're faced with Corden and Rascal battling with Williams and Brand for chart supremacy in a battle which, for empty bellowing, makes a Christmas chart race look like the latter stages of a Booker Prize judging session. Gennaro Castaldo has even had to get involved, with HMV's game-of-two-halfs observing:

: "The pop pairings of Dizzee and Corden and Robbie and Brand each have a genuine chance with their respective releases this summer.

“Both are half-decent songs, and they can also expect huge exposure for their singles given their equally massive media profiles.”

What more endorsement for the products available on sale at his stores than the observation that we're seeing two sort-of-okayish songs struggle to claim the crown. Or rather, a stupid white-and-red wig.

Gordon in the morning: JLS send a postcard

You'll have been wondering how JLS are getting on breaking America, of course - Gordon has the latest this morning:

THE JLS lads look like they are getting used to this LA lark.

This "getting used" to the "LA lark" consists of a photo of the band walking down the street carrying soft drinks.

It's like they could have born there, isn't it?

In other grim news, Smart reports that Russell Brand is planning to stretch a weak joke too far, with an album of the songs his character from Forgetting Sarah Marshall & Get Him To The Greek has supposedly recorded:

I'm a betting man and I have already set aside a crisp tenner to stick on Russell having a No1 single with one of the comedy tunes from the film.

My particular favourite is a track called The Clap - and it isn't about applause.

Hahahaha. Given how subtle the joke was, Universal records would have been reassured to discover that Gordon got The Clap.

But it's not actually betting if all you do is put the ten pounds to one side - an actual betting man would have, erm, made the bet, surely?

Gordon in the morning: All I got was a headful of heroin

Gordon Smart has worrying news for the S Club Juniors, as Russell Brand wants to kill them:

OUTSPOKEN RUSSELL BRAND has called for "teenybopper" pop stars to take heroin - so some of them DIE.

The comic said the idea would "weed out" those who did not have true talent and save the industry.

And it was an idea he was seriously promoting, wasn't it, Smart? Presented with a Powerpoint flipchart and a single-sided A4 takeaway, rather than, say, just being an amusing throwaway gag in a Rolling Stone interview.

Last night anti-drug campaigners called his comments "idiocy".

Did they? It's interesting that you don't name any. Because, frankly, if anyone working in addiction or drugs control responded to this with the words "I don't think a small joke in a Rolling Stone interview is worth detaining us, they're probably in the wrong job.

Gordon Russell in the morning: Must we fling this filth, etc?

You'll remember Russell Brand, won't you? It's only a year since The Sun was calling him "smuuty", "vile", "sick", "filthy", a "juvenile... overpaid twerp".

In short, then, he's the perfect man to guest-edit Bizarre.

Still, out of deference to the polite and family-friendly tit-publishing newspaper he's working for, Russell keeps it clean:

JEDWARD mania has given me a novel idea of how one could reunite OASIS - give the band a new name that's a combination of the Gallagher brothers' names.

NIAM or LOEL? Could that work?

Dull as a fishcake without the breadcrumbs, admittedly. But clean.

The RAJARS: Not so much audience figures as a referendum

Most people see the Rajar figures as a guide - however wonky - to audience listening patterns for UK radio.

Not the Daily Mail, though. Like that bloke in Contact who can discern patterns in white noise coming from space, the Mail is able to look at the Rajar states and spy crowds of outraged middle Englanders who are waving angry pitchforks:

Radio 2 breakfast show host Terry Wogan also saw his listening figures soar, and extended his lead over foul-mouthed breakfast rival Chris Moyles.

The implication is that people are turning to twinkling Tel, having had their ears scorched by Moyles. The difficult detail that Moyles' audience is also rising seems to have somehow fallen off the final copy.

The real meat of the Mail's piece, though, is that the audience drop somehow proves that They Were Right About Those Andrew Sachs calls:

Listeners are deserting Jonathan Ross's Radio 2 show in droves following the Andrew Sachs phone scandal.

The controversial presenter has seen ratings for his Saturday morning show slump in the past three months.

The presenter's average weekly audience between March and June has been 2.85million.

This is a slump, is it?

That is 180,000 below the average of 3.03million for the first three months of this year

Slightly fewer people listening to the radio on Saturday mornings in the spring than in the winter. Whoever would have thought?

And since the higher audience you're comparing with there was, erm, after Ross had returned from the post-Sachs ban, that's it's a pretty weak contention to link that fall with the phone calls. Have you got anything else?

...and 540,000 down on the 3.39million from the first quarter of 2008.

Half a million lost listeners - well, that does sound a little more slumpy. But can you really put that down to desertion following the Sachs thing?

There could be other reasons - a general shift in audience to other things, loss of listeners during the period when Ross wasn't on - but more importantly, if the Mail is really trying to prove the impact of upsetting Andrew Sachs, why is comparing the audience in January-March 2008 with today? Wouldn't a comparison of the audience before the Brand-Ross calls - immediately before, rather than half a year before - be a bit more instructive?

Charles Moore: He keeps us poor

You'll recall last week Charles Moore penned an open letter to the BBC insisting he wouldn't pay his licence fee because of the airspace they gave to Jonathan Ross.

It was, he insisted, unfair to expect good, honest, law-abiding people like himself to use their hard-earned, god-fearing pennies to underwrite the costs of bringing unacceptable material to the nationally-owned airwaves.

Could this be the same Charles Moore who has just blown £45,000 plus costs in a legal settlement following his idiotic and wrong claims on Question Time that the leadership of the British Council Of Muslims condoned the killing and murder of British soldiers.

I'm a little lost as to whether we should all refuse to pay our licence fees until Charles Moore repays the £45k, or if we should just refuse to pay until the BBC promises never to put Charles Moore on again.

I'm also a little lost about this: If Moore really believes what he wrote in the letter, that the BBC was operating outside its charter ever since the Russell Brand phone calls to Andrew Sachs last October, why did he appear on Question Time this March? If the BBC had forfeited its charter, it had no right to broadcast - and was making the programmes with licence fee money Moore claims it had no right to collect. So Charles Moore went on a programme made with what he believes to be illegally obtained funds, broadcasting as a pirate operation, to make libellous and hurtful comments which have had to be compensated for, with monies he believes the BBC should not legally have.

Perhaps you should just pay your licence fee, Mr Moore?


[UPDATE: How will the Telegraph cope with this story? It loves a chance to have a pop at the BBC, but since the libel came from one of their own, what to do? Simples! Report the libel award but refer coyly to "a panelist". Good work.]

Gordon in the morning: Brand and the Bunny

According to Smart this morning, Russell Brand might be seeing someone who worked for failing soft porn empire, Playboy:

Not only that, it’s HOLLY MADISON, former girlfriend of the grandaddy of all legendary swordsmen, Playboy boss HUGH HEFNER.

Or, as the headline puts it:

Is Russ Avenue, Madison?

Which doesn't quite work, but is a good effort.

Since there's probably nothing to the story, and even if there is, there's not very much to it, Gordon is reduced to mumbling:

A source in Vegas said: “Russell has really hit it off with Holly. She’s a big star in the US, which he finds really attractive."

Not to make Brand sound shallow or anything.

“And his constant tomfoolery has her in stitches. Russ has been making late-night visits to her home in the Hollywood Hills."

Tomfoolery? Constant tomfoolery? Does he make apple-pie beds or something?

Elsewhere - and if you don't know how Harry Potter ends, look away now - Gordon has photos from the next movie:

HEARTBROKEN witch Hermione carries elf pal Dobby’s body to the grave in emotional scenes from the final Harry Potter film.

Now, it is just a plastic elf from a children's story about wizards, but clearly the entertainment team has decided to treat the story gently and reflect the emotion poured in to the movie scene by the cast and crew.

Hasn't he?

Drop the dead Dobby

Oh. Maybe not, then.

Gordon, meanwhile, has got his Photoshop team to mock up Michael Jackson as he might look if he was amongst the young cast of High School Musical. Luckily, only from the waist up.

This is because of Kenny Ortega choreographing the Millennium Dome gigs. And Ortega did the dance moves for High School Musical. So, right, it's like Michael hiring the guy from the movies to try and bring that magic in to his world, right, Gordon?

The choreographer, who also worked with Jacko on his Dangerous and HIStory world tours, said: “To be invited to partner him again is a dream come true."

So, rather than "Jackson hires High School Musical man", it's "Jackson continues to work with his long-term collaborator". Presumably, though, it'd be harder for the Photoshop crew to mock up a picture of Jackson looking like Michael Jackson.

Two different Sachs

Last week, The Guardian interviewed Andrew Sachs. This week, Sachs speaks to the Mail.

Oddly, it's hard to reconcile the two accounts of the meetings.

Today's Mail:

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 [...]

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.

Last week's Guardian:

Sachs said the story had been widely misreported. He had not been close to his granddaughter Georgina Baillie, nor was he entirely shocked, as had been suggested, about her line of work as a dominatrix and member of the burlesque dance troupe Satanic Sluts.

Andrew Sachs: The victimless crime

If one thing was at the heart of the squawking fuss about Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand, it was that the close, loving relationship between Georgina Bailie and Andrew Sachs had been strained by the pranks, and that Sachs was upset. That, presumably, is why thousands of people who hadn't heard the programme felt they should complain. Because Andrew Sachs was in pain, and the people of England would speak up for the man who used to say Que.

Right?

Actually, no, it turns out, according to, erm, Andrew Sachs in an interview in today's Guardian:

Sachs said the story had been widely misreported. He had not been close to his granddaughter Georgina Baillie, nor was he entirely shocked, as had been suggested, about her line of work as a dominatrix and member of the burlesque dance troupe Satanic Sluts. "I knew what Georgina was doing, sort of. But there was a lot of misquoting going on. I didn't say much. People interpreted that as he's so dignified. I'm not dignified, I just didn't know what to say. What was there to say?"

But all those job losses, and those massive fines - they'd be atoning for Sachs' ruined, traduced life - isn't that right?

Sachs told the Guardian that the affair had caused pain and embarrassment for his wife Melody and daughter Kate, but admitted that the controversy had been good for his career. "I came out of it very well … my profile's up. Great! They did me good. Thank you very much."

Hang about... is Andrew Sachs saying that he's made money and done deals off the back of the Brand phone calls? Doesn't that mean he's reveling in the humiliating phone calls? Shouldn't he be sacked for padding his position off the back of this sick stunt? Or something? Shall we ask the Mail for a moral lead to follow?