´óÏó´«Ã½

In my school students are excluded for less offensive bullying than Jonathan Ross's but a mere suspension is considered enough for this vile vulgar witless person. He will not resign - that requires grace and decency. In a few weeks he will be again inflicted on the public. I watched his show -once - when he dropped his trousers. I suppose, in the absence of comprehensible speech, wit or humour he has to demonstrate what he can do to earn his obscene salary. This is the role model the ´óÏó´«Ã½ chooses to retain.
I shall cancel my direct debit for my licence fee.

NuriaM- The only obscenity here is the licence fee that forces you to pay for stuff you don't like in the first place. As for Ross and Brand, I can't understand the outrage, and I don't think 99 percent of the people who complained about it even heard the show. I blogged about this here:

I am absolutely sickened that this scum of the earth ROSS has not been sacked, i do not pay my licence to be confronted with disgusting people like them, there are no standards at the bbc like it used to be, what people do not realise is the majority of these people watching are youngsters, who still live at home and do not pay a tv licence so they think that everybody should be forced to watch and listen to filth like that, the ´óÏó´«Ã½ used to be a corporation you could look up to, not anymore, i dread to think what Mary Whitehouse would think, she must be rolling in her grave at whats gone on.

I thought this thread wasn't supposed to be about Mr Ross and Mr Brand, but about a piece of pottery instead.

Noel Gallagher made an interesting point about the middle class being five days late with their selective outrage.

what exactly is the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s morality based on anyway? 30000 phone calls, how many phone calls before something is wrong...

john there is a lot more wrong here than the license fee issue. Obscene phone calls are an offence, so it's just as well that Andrew Sachs is a nice man and decided not to phone the poloce.

The producers promised Sachs, in advance of the show, that they would NOT broadcast this material, then they broke their word.

THEN, the editors failed to review the material to check its compliance with ´óÏó´«Ã½ guidelines.

I think the thread was meant to be about a shard of Hebrew pottery that might go back to King David' s reign.
I'm always dubious about such claims. Generally, if the find could lead to a best selling book by Penguin remain skeptical until some sort of consensus is reached.

GV

"Obscene phone calls are an offence, so it's just as well that Andrew Sachs is a nice man and decided not to phone the police." I agree with this 100%.Just because it took a few days for the public to hear about the broadcast and complain does not mean that they jumping on the band wagon I think that a lot of people were shocked at what they heard and wanted the ´óÏó´«Ã½ to do something about it. If you or I left a message on someone's Phone like that it would not be long before we heard from the Police or their Solicitor.
I think that Andrew Sachs has come across has a decent man and certainly does not deserve to be abused on his answer phone by so called super stars.

It's a bloody radio show, guys. It was entertainment. The minute you realise it was entertainment, you smile and say, 'Arr, you guys, ya got me!' and everyone chuckles and goes about their merry way. GET. A. SENSE. OF. HUMOUR.

I'm with john here. You may not like brand or Ross but it's definitley difficult for me not to see this as an over reaction. Yes the comment was offensive and not very funny but I have enjoyed both presenters in the past and it would be a shame to see them permanently taken off the screen. So we have a conflict of interests here - I pay my licence fee as well and want them to stay on and think a simple apology (which Sachs has accepted) would have been enough.
I'd love to know what some of the above commenters deem worthy of being on our tv screens. There's only so much last of the summer wine and vicar of dibley that you can watch.
Sorry William but I haven't anything to say about the pottery.

Well obviously the link at the top is a very post modern link and can be interpreted in whatever way one chooses, so as no one much is commenting on the pottery, maybe John and Oliver could explain why abuse via radio show is tolerable and abuse, say, in the workplace is an offence?

And a further thought, do you guys consider Bernard Manning type 'humour' to be offensive?

I confess that I wasn't entirely convinced you guys would write on the pottery find! I'll have a new thread on the Brand-Ross debacle today.

yes I would find Bernard Manning style humour offensive, but I also realize that other people have different interests to me and wouldn't presume to tell other people what they can and can't listen to.
If sachs took offence then it's right that he should be apologised to (similar comments have been made to other celebs on the show but they took it in good humour understanding that this type of near the knuckle humour is what Russel Brand does), but it belittles the ´óÏó´«Ã½ and the prime minister for making this top of their agenda - there really are more important things going on.

I personally don't like Jonathan Ross on TV. His smug and smutty humour is overcooked. I don't mind smut, but he lays it on with a trowel. And, as we say here, "he's full of himself".

If you agree to go on a show with Ross and Brand, then you should expect fireworks in the studio, but I don't think it's right to harass people in their own home.

BUT this campaign was inaugurated by the Mail on Sunday and immediately I smell a rat. You can just imagine the thinking behind it. "Ah, here's another chance to get at the ´óÏó´«Ã½. Let's try to get rid of this 'state' broadcasting company and its licence fee".

Overall, Macaulay summed it up pretty well: "We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality".

Good quote from Macauley, Brian. I've been thinking of it myself today. He also wrote: "Nine-tenths the calamities of the human race are due to the union of high intelligence with low desires." Could that also describe what went wrong in this?

Perhaps we can move the Ross-Brand discussion to the new post, then the fans of ancient history can get excited on this thread about the Hebrew script discovery.

Hey, my post disappeared again... GV, you are quite right to be sceptical. At the period we're dealing with here, there is no sharp distinction between "Hebrew" and "Canaanite", and there is absolutely no evidence, archaeological or textual, for the specific personages "David" or "Solomon", until we get to the bible, several centuries later. Of course they may have existed; the "Empire" is certainly a gross exaggeration. It's a fascinating find, though - let's see what it can add.

-H (back from hols)

H
Even if you take the Biblical History literally, "Empire" is a huge exagerration. A few cities and some nice farmland. Worth nicking if you had the troops and the time so you could tax trade routes.
Hope you enjoyed the hols.

GV

There's also the issue of forgery. Some forgers are quite skilled from what I've read. (Horizon had a programme on this once, but the transcript no longer seems to be online). I think conservatives and skeptics would need to take care of headline grabbing finds.

GV