Wot a pranker ...

The other evening I found myself watching a televised football match and finding it unusually exciting. The players seemed to be genuinely competitive, there was a sense of urgency, the very ground seemed more 'present', the grass - well, grassier. Turns out, it was a minor Irish league match - one of the joys of freeview satellite TV.

The current Ross-Brand-Sachs-BBC scandal makes me think of this. There's the BBC's apologetic use of the word "prank". For me, "prank" covers such things as childish behaviour: the old bag of flour over the door routine as the teacher walks in. Even by university the term starts to wear thin. (I once sat through an Oxford local magistrate's court session in which a vagrant was given six months for stealing sandwiches from a local Boots, while a group of undergraduates were given a warning for having caused damages to college and public property to the tune of a several thousand pounds. Her Honour was reminded that they were due to leave for a skiing holiday the next day ...).

I've contributed to the BBC 'Have Your Say' and I see the comment is yet to be approved for appropriate language use and absence of sexual or racist content (there's an irony!). I express the opinion that Ross and Brand are - as many so-called celebrities - grossly overpaid in comparison with others working for the BBC (e.g. good old journalists) and in Britain as a whole. Pranks are fine - but not when you're on 18 million pound contracts. We're no longer talking pocket money.

However, I think it goes deeper. There's a strange twist: that the 'appeal' of Ross and Brand is (apparently) due to their common touch. The same is being said for Sarah Palin. It's a thoroughly fraudulent claim and insincere, too. As we all know (or should) Ross and Brand will be heavily supported by agents, promoters, scriptwriters etc.. They move within a highly privileged world of media insiderism. Contracts, book deals, movie projects will be organized for them way beyond the dreams of 'average' folk. No one will be more protective of their 'professional' rights (invasion of privacy issues, deals with magazines for photo shoots, negotiations for expected earnings and compensatory fees, star listing prerogatives). We're so gullible: dear old Jonathan - he's one of us ... .

And the funny thing is - the average bloke down the pub is more amusing than Ross or Brand. Just as there are "hockey moms" who are more vicious and politically astute than Palin but lack the promotional team (or self delusion). Smell a rat when someone in politics claims to be just like you. Who are they kidding? And why? 

Might the current credit crunch usher in a new 'realism'? That inflation in its widest sense - market values, political claims, footballers' salaries, media hype - has been revealed for the confidence trick it always was? That just because it's on a screen, talked up or blessed by 'the Media' doesn't automatically confer value. 

So why not give 18 million people across the nation one pound to make a funnier telephone call and broadcast the results? It might be money well spent. And perhaps more in tune with the BBC's remit. 

(anyone reading remember Saturday evenings and Simon Dee?)