Emily Maitlis shocks BBC director-general with haunted-pussy taunt

Posted by Axegrinder on 31 October 2008 at 00:35
Tags: Emily Maitlis, Jonathan Ross, Mark Thompson, Mock the Week, Newsnight, Russell Brand

Thursday night’s edition of Newsnight is sure to go down as an all-time classic, thanks to the wonderful presenter Emily Maitlis telling BBC director-general Mark Thompson: “I’m now so old my pussy is haunted.”

Just in case the DG was too shocked to take it in fully, Maitlis helpfully repeated the line.

For those who missed Newsnight, it should be pointed out that Maitlis was quoting comic Frankie Boyle, a panellist from Wednesday night’s Mock The Week programme, who suggested the line as one of the “things the Queen would never say during her Christmas speech”.

Maitlis was pressing Thompson to give an opinion – in the wake of the Russell Brand/Jonathan Ross affair – if it was acceptable for the BBC to broadcast a comedian putting the words “I’m now so old my pussy is haunted” into the mouth of the sovereign.

Axegrinder suspects Maitlis’s remarkable performance will soon be a huge hit on YouTube.

But until then, we recommend you enjoy the interview on BBC iPlayer or via the link on the Newsnight web page.

Maitlis’s interview with Thompson begins 10 minutes into the programme. She delivers her killer question after 17 minutes and 5 seconds.

To see Frankie Boyle utter the “haunted pussy” gag, skip to 27 minutes and 58 seconds of Mock the Week.

9am update: here it is on Youtube:

Exposed! Nuts writer is closet Tracy Chapman fan

Posted by Axegrinder on 30 October 2008 at 17:30
Tags: Adam Ralph, IPC, NME, Nuts, Uncategorized

There was much amusement at IPC this week when Ignite – IPC Media’s men’s lifestyle brand, which includes NME, Loaded, Nuts and Uncut – merged their iTunes servers and several staff members found their music library publicly available to everyone on the 4th Floor.

The staffer with the reddest face was Nuts writer Adam Ralph, whose library, “DJ Ralph in Da House”, was exposed for all to see.

A source tells Axegrinder his horrific music collection contained “everything ever recorded by Tracy Chapman”, as well as “a lot of Macy Gray”, and even the hit ‘Venus’ by Bananarama.

Although female staffers cooed at his ‘Valentines Mix for Jen’ playlist, it’s now unsure whether he will ever write for the NME.

Ross and Brand prank call not too disgusting for Daily Mail website

Posted by Axegrinder on 29 October 2008 at 09:46
Tags: Daily Mail, Jonathan Ross, Russell Brand, dailymail.co.uk

“Incredibly, the BBC judged the pre-recorded stunt fit to be broadcast on radio,” gasped a Daily Mail leader column on Tuesday about the Russell Brand/Jonathan Ross affair.

“Do they care nothing… about the sensibilities of ordinary listeners and licence-fee-payers?” added the editorial.

And in an op-ed piece, Sir Gerald Kaufman condemned the BBC for allowing transmission of the “deeply unpleasant” item.

Meanwhile, a certain newspaper decided that it was not so unpleasant that it couldn’t be played on its website, by means of a YouTube video of the offending phone calls to Andrew Sachs, plus a transcript.

Which newspaper website apparently cared “nothing… about the sensibilities of ordinary listeners” and rebroadcast the “disgusting” and “outrageously offensive” item?

Why dailymail.co.uk, of course.

Was Burke first prophet of financial doom?

Posted by Axegrinder on 28 October 2008 at 17:06
Tags: Investors Chronicle, John Burke, Peter Preston

As media commentators argue over which journalists were first to predict the current global financial crisis, Axegrinder hears of a new contender.

On June 27, Investors Chronicle magazine published two articles by John Burke about the lessons to be learnt from past crises.

One article, “Back to the Seventies”, was about the oil crisis of 1974, and another, “Don’t be depressed”, about the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Says a rather miffed Burke: “My two reports had been offered to IC three months earlier when they would have been even more prophetic. They were not ‘historical’ articles. They were guides from the past to the future.”

So if he saw it all coming, have Burke’s personal finances emerged unscathed from the recent bloodbath in the City?

“Did I heed my own advice? Did I unload before the articles appeared? No, I did not, but I have been cautious for some time and diversified into cash and into investment trusts that – as my original text pointed out but this was cut – have weathered every financial crisis since the first one in 1868.”

Burke feels his achievement in penning such prophetic pieces has rather slipped under the media radar.

He tells me: “Peter Preston in the The Observer started handing out prizes to pundits who had begun to spot the looming disaster in July. My piece appeared on June 27 , and I am still trying to get him to acknowledge my existence.”

BBC’s basic error is sign of the times

Posted by Axegrinder on 26 October 2008 at 23:04
Tags: BBC, Lynne Truss

While watching last night’s BBC Four drama about the life of Dame Barbara Cartland, Axegrinder  – and probably thousands of sub-editors across the country – had a Lynne Truss moment. In a scene where the romantic novelist arrives to get married for the second time, the useless clots at the BBC had her standing in front of a sign saying “Registry Office”. One can forgive a little corner shop for writing “carrot’s” or “apple’s” but this is just pathetic.

Not all Standard writers will worship at new mecca

Posted by Axegrinder on 25 October 2008 at 17:10
Tags: Andrew Gilligan, Anthea Massey, Evening Standard, Katie Law

The new £1.6 billion Westfield shopping centre opens in West London on Thursday, and the Evening Standard’s writers seem unsure whether it’s a good or a bad thing.

In an article in the paper’s Homes and Property supplement last week, headlined “Biggest and best in the west”, Anthea Massey calls it a “temple to shopping”, adding that “new transport links will bring benefits to the area”.

Elsewhere in the supplement, Katie Law labels it a “merchandising mecca” while the headline calls it “a new homeware heaven”.

But a day before the supplement appeared, Andrew Gilligan warned Standard readers: “Take a last look around, West Londoners. Only a week to go now until you’re hit by the retail equivalent of the neutron bomb, leaving your area physically intact but destroying all organic shopping life within a five-mile radius.”

Sadly, Gilligan is unimpressed by Massey’s talk of “benefits” brought by “new transport links”.

“There’s a good chance the area’s traffic, already the worst in London, according to TfL, will seize up,” he writes gloomily.

With 260 new shops, 30 restaurants and a 13-screen cinema all set to be wooed by the Standard’s advertising team, Axegrinder wonders if, from now on, Londoners will read more about the “mechandishing mecca” than the retail “neutron bomb”.

Curse of Standard’s Blackhurst strikes HSBC

Posted by Axegrinder on 25 October 2008 at 15:44
Tags: Chris Blackhurst, Evening Standard

Talk about bad timing. On Wednesday, in a piece headlined “The bankers’ banker who put safety first and came out ahead”, the London Evening Standard’s City editor, Chris Blackhurst, profiled HSBC chief executive Mike Geoghegan.

“Geoghegan, 55, and HSBC have had a good war,” he told Standard readers. “While the other banks have twisted and turned and, in the end, gone cap in hand to the Government, HSBC, the country’s largest bank and Europe’s biggest by market value, has remained aloof, seemingly untroubled by the crisis.”

Later in his article, Blackhurst concludes that HSBC “has weathered the storm”.

Two days later, HSBC’s shares fell 13.5 per cent to a five-year low of 696p.

Poor old Geoghegan, “untroubled by the crisis” until struck by the curse of Blackhurst.

An alternative night with Piers … on the cheap

Posted by Axegrinder on 24 October 2008 at 09:09
Tags: Piers Morgan

Obviously, the last thing Axegrinder wants to do is hit sales of £225 tickets for dinner with Piers Morgan on December 4 (see yesterday’s story) but there appears to be a better-value option for anyone keen to ask questions of the ex-Mirror editor.

On 21 November at Newick Village Hall (that’s the Sussex village where Piers’ family lives and where the great man still has a home) the hack-turned-TV tart will star in An Evening With Piers Morgan.

It’s all for a good cause – The St Peter & St James Hospice and Continuing Care Centre – and, unlike the London corporate event, this is highly affordable. Tickets cost £10 and, according to a flyer seen by Axegrinder, you can “buy the chance to ask Piers a question” … for just £2.50. 

And as a bonus you won’t have to watch the red-faced, flabby one demolishing a three-course meal. 

Piers puts snout in corporate trough

Posted by Axegrinder on 23 October 2008 at 12:45
Tags: Daily Mirror, Grey Cardigan, M&S, Marco Pierre White, Piers Morgan

What with his enormous earnings from being a judge on crappy TV talent shows, his M&S steak advert, his BBC series on celebrities and his Mail on Sunday columns, not to mention his near £2million pay-off from the Mirror, surely Piers Morgan can afford to buy his own dinner?

Perhaps he simply prefers to let others pay for him. A corporate hospitality firm is currently offering punters the chance to pay £225 (plus VAT) per person to have dinner with Morgan at a London restaurant, with the meal cooked by Marco Pierre White.

After enjoying a three-course gourmet meal, “Marco and Piers will then answer questions during a session of live and intoxicating chat”.

Rather like a flyer for a dodgy Soho club, the advert speaks worryingly of “guaranteed 60 mins live and uncut entertainment”.

One wonders if this means Morgan will strip and perform a personal lap dance or even gyrate around a pole. Probably not. But one cannot be sure.

Given Morgan’s expanding waistline and enormous appetite, it is fitting that the company organising the event is based in Pudding Lane, Maidstone.

Axegrinder believes his colleague the Grey Cardigan may be interested in attending. Still owed “two grand” by the one-time Press Gazette co-owner, he would be sure to enliven the Q&A session.

Nine IT hacks going cheap on ebay

Posted by Axegrinder on 23 October 2008 at 10:58
Tags: Andy McCue, Bryan Glick, David Meyer, Eric Doyle, Flackenhacks, Jeremy Kirk, Mark Dye, Mark Samuels, Michael Dempsey, Rob Kerr, Uncategorized

Browsing through “collectables/weird stuff” section of ebay, Axegrinder today came across something very curious – nine IT journalists are being “auctioned off”.

Closer examination reveals that this Adopt-a-Hack scheme is a way of ensuring journalists attend this year’s Flackenhacks, an alternative awards ceremony for PRs and journalists working in the IT industry.

The Flackenhacks blog reveals that the organisers are hoping “the great and the good of the UK tech PR agency world” will bid for the hacks. Half of the money raised through the auctions will go to the Byte Night charity.

The ebay site offers this guidance to anyone considering bidding for a hack: “Effectively, you’re bidding for the right to invite him along to The Flackenhacks. If you win the auction, you might also consider that you’ve got the right to pester him all night. But we leave a decision on that to your better judgement.”

Up for grabs are the following:

Mark Samuels, editor of CIO Connect; Andy McCue, former deputy editor of Silicon, not freelance; Mark Dye, freelance; Bryan Glick, editor of Computing; Michael Dempsey, freelance; Jeremy Kirk, London correspondent of the IDG News Service; Rob Kerr, tight head prop for London Scottish and presumably an IT journalist; Eric Doyle, freelance; and David Meyer, senior reporter for ZDNet.

At the time of writing, seven of the hacks have each attracted single bids of £19.99 but three bids for Kerr have lifted him to £26 while Dye now stands at £36 after attracting seven bids.

The Flackenhack Awards 2008 are on the evening of October 29 at the The Village Underground,
 54 Holywell Lane, Shoreditch, 
London EC2A 3PQ. Full information at the Flackenhacks blog.