Jeremy Lee on Media

Oh no. Tonight is Children In Need

Jeremy Lee — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:24:00 GMT

I love television - at its best it brings us all together and acts as social glue.

But at its worst, it's creepy, smug, self-satisfied and sanctimonious. And tonight's the night when that becomes most apparent.

While I don't have any massive problem with the charity concerned (although I'm not yet convinced that it is the BBC's remit to extricate funds from viewers when it won't even tell them how much it pays its 'talent'), I do with this show.

Tonight's highlights include the hosts of The One Show doing a skit from Fame, musical contributions from those tremendous actors from The Bill and Hollyoaks, and Sir Terry Wogan appearing in a special edition of Lark Rise to Candleford.

Wogan says that he will continue presenting the event until 'hell freezes over'; I never thought that I'd look forward to that happening.

Events dear boy, events

Jeremy Lee — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:33:00 GMT

Finally. ITV has managed to fill one of its senior management roles after months of dithering and indecision.

The broadcaster has hardly covered itself in glory in the whole shambolic episode but at least it has now managed to find someone to fill its chairman position.

So what does Archie Norman bring to the role? Well, much like his newly-appointed oppo at Channel 4 he is familiar with the workings of government and lobbying - a crucial attribute with a likely new administration that has already placed its tanks on the BBC's lawn and has been accused of cosying up to the Murdoch empire.

But more importantly it was Norman who was responsible for overseeing the sale of Asda to US giant Wal Mart. Expect, in the mid-term, to see him trying to find a buyer for ITV in a similar vein. Which, I think, is a terrible shame.

Bring back Lapland New Forest and these tragedies wouldn't happen

Jeremy Lee — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:02:00 GMT

Tragic news over the weekend that boy band JLS were forced to cancel a free gig at Birmingham's Millennium Point after a crowd of 20,000 people - four times that expected - turned up to watch.

The crowd surged as the band got on stage and sadly some people got injured.

I'm not familiar with the works of JLS but they must be quite some draw if that many Brummies thought they'd like to spend a wet and miserable Saturday evening in the city watching the band perform ahead of the turning on of the city's Christmas lights.

Naturally, the finger of blame has already started making a few tentative pokes and for their part JLS have said that they are 'gutted everyone's day was spoilt.'

Now say what you like about Lapland New Forest, whose organisers have just been committed to trial for misleading advertising at their 'winter wonderland' in Hampshire last year, but at least they knew how to control a crowd.

Anyway, ahead of an official apology from someone for allowing a crowd of over-excited Brummies to get carried away at the thought of getting something rubbish for free, I'd like to add my apologies to the hundreds of thousands of British children who were sent to the dominions in the 50s and 60s. This particularly goes to the ones who were forced to live among South Africans.

Who's the celebrity loony?

Jeremy Lee — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:10:00 GMT

The newspaper industry is congratulating itself for a 'victory for openness' after the court ruled that the media could attend hearings about whether a young celebrity should have decisions made for him by others.

The media is forbidden from naming the man, who is described as 'a young man with an international reputation' and referred to as A. He is appearing at the little-known court of protection (formerly presided over by the 'Master of Lunacy') because of concerns that his condition makes him unable to manage his affairs.

The media, and in particular The Guardian, which brought the legal move, are smugly patting themselves on the back and arguing that the principle of open justice should apply to adults with impaired mental capacity where there is a public interest. They also say the ruling is a victory for freedom of expression blah blah.

Yeah right. I'd argue it's got little to do with that and more to do with tasteless voyeurism.

Anyway, my guess is that he's a footballer.

Why do Rednecks keep chimps?

Jeremy Lee — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:45:00 GMT

I wasn't so much choking on my cornflakes this morning as puking into my hands when I saw the piece on Sky News about the woman who had her face and hands ripped off by a chimpanzee belonging to a neighbour.

The interview, filmed for The Oprah Winfrey Show, showed what remains of her face - her nose, lips and eyelids were torn off in the attack - obscured by a veil. It also featured a particularly harrowing recording of the chimp owner's 911 call to police.

Untypically unexploitative, the interview revealed the woman to have considerable dignity and bravery considering her ordeal.

If you can bear it, the online story about the escapades of Travis the chimp is here. But don't do what I did and click for the extended content without reading the warning.

It all brought me back to thinking about Jacko again. Perhaps this incident explains why he liked a veil and whether Bubbles really did go and 'live on a farm' after all.

Kate Humble disturbs the reproduction process

Jeremy Lee — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:21:00 GMT

Oh dear. Red deer aren't rutting this year because they are being disturbed by amateur photographers inspired to snoop on the creatures by BBC Two's Autumnwatch, reports today's Daily Telegraph.

Autumnwatch, presented by breathlessly bubbly head girl Kate Humble, doesn't really appeal to me - rutting deer or not. Its sanitised view of the countryside is unrealistic and lacks any context, and that Simon King bloke gives me a right pain. Now that curmudgeonly Bill Oddie has gone so has the enjoyment of watching him and Humble - a Polly Filler journalist if ever I saw one - pretending to get along.

Nonetheless this franchise is still popular and now, not content with disturbing rutting, the BBC has decided to poke its cameras into the birthing process with Lambing Live in BBC Two's exciting' winter/spring schedule, announced today.

Humble, we are told, will follow life and death on a 900-ewe sheep farm in South Wales and will of course be 'getting her hands dirty'. Whether this extends to licking the mucus membrane from the lambs mouths or eating the afterbirth, we'll have to wait and see. But I expect it'll just be her gasping at amazement at the camera and probably shedding a few tears when some lambs die.

Take me to the magic of a moment on a glory night....

Jeremy Lee — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:48:00 GMT

The fall of the Berlin Wall is being commemorated today.

I'm pretty sure that I was working in my local pub when I heard the news. I was certainly there when Mandela was released, which was greeted with a shrug of indifference. But then a cursed refusal to get caught up in media-hyped events, no matter their real significance, is something that I pride myself on.

I do remember Maggie Thatcher reportedly being concerned what the implications of a unified Germany. She was right to do so.

As the Communist bloc fell, German band the Scorpions felt inspired to pen 'Wind of Change', which by October 1991 was a hit in the UK and therefore the song that defined my first term at University.

Incidentally German network ZDF has called Wind of Change the song of the century. So not Wagner then.

My thoughts on the twins

Jeremy Lee — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:12:00 GMT

Gordon Brown, who apparently can't be bothered to get in touch with the families of British soldiers killed in action but was able to express concern to Simon Cowell for Susan Boyle's welfare, has weighed into another crucial topic that is dominating the media.

Apparently he thinks the twins 'aren't very good'.

The beloved leader, once again, is wrong. The twins are great and my favourite is Christina Alessi on account of Caroline's slightly wonky mouth. End of.

Wear your Poppy with pride this weekend.

Does Sir Roger Moore dye his hair?

Jeremy Lee — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:43:00 GMT

Yes. But I don't care.

Sir Roger Moore can pretty much do anything as far as I'm concerned. He's doing some chonky ads for the Post Office where the rheumy-eyed old actor hams it up while women pretend to swoon at his presence. And they're brilliant.

And now he's in a campaign for PETA - an organisation with which I have historically had mixed feelings - to highlight the cruelty involved in the production of foie gras.

Good old Sir Roger. Much like Bono, I'd pretty much have to agree with whatever he says. See this blog isn't just about hate?

Incidentally, his excellent autobiography - My Word Is My Bond - makes an ideal stocking-filler.

The Emperor wants to conquer outer space, Yoda wants to explore inner space and Danny Dyer just wants to be in the papers

Jeremy Lee — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:42:00 GMT

Danny Dyer, Britain's second hardest man, is at it again.

Last month he accused Verne Troyer of hitting on his wife at the Pride of Britain Awards (presumably Dyer was there for his seminal Most Dangerous Men series). He stopped short, however, of giving the Mini Me actor a 'slap' as he is a 'midget', he told Zoo magazine in a charming interview.

Troyer denied the absurd accusations from the publicity-desperate idiot and elegantly replied that ' I wouldn't know who you [Dyer] were if you were standing in front of me' and that 'don't use my name to get your name in the press'.

Now Dyer has said that he has had to cut short his promotional tour for his DVD release, which I'm not going to give the oxygen of publicity by naming, because of an alleged robbery at his Essex home. Two cars were stolen but were subsequently found abandoned and undamaged not far away....hmmmm.

Anyway, in an interview in The Sun he says the robbery was 'the lowest point in his life'. If my suspicions are correct then I expect it probably is.

Stephen Fry and Twitter deserve each other

Jeremy Lee — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 08:42:00 GMT

Stephen Fry has memorably, and accurately, been described as 'a stupid person's idea of what an intelligent person is like' and there are over 920,000 stupid people hanging onto everyone of his tedious but trademark 'fruity' tweets on Twitter.

But then someone upset him by describing his adventures with his European man-bag as 'boring'; he subsequently made accusations of cyber-bullying and threatened to stop using Twitter altogether.

Sadly some of the stupid people who think that Fry is some sort of intellectual colossus sent gushy messages of support to Fry in that absurd and irritating prose that he has made his own and he's decided he's going to continue to update them on his whereabouts and musings after all.

And that was the news that seems to have dominated a large part of the weekend press.

In my opinion Stephen Fry is not as clever as he likes to think - he's not a bad actor - but he's certainly no genius, and other than the obvious is as different to his hero Oscar Wilde as is possible to be. I find all his affectations to be just that.

While I've enjoyed some of the comedy roles he has played (mostly from the 80s), his reinvention as one of the UK's great wits is something I find unconvincing. His moral outrage at the furore over MPs' expenses when he described journalists as 'disgusting and venal' also lacked any clout from a man who has served time for credit card fraud.

Because of this I hope that one of his followers sends him a message that tells him more than that he is just 'boring'. And then the 920,000 stupid people will have to find someone else who pretends to be intelligent to follow. There are plenty of them on Twitter so shouldn't be too difficult.

I want to be a scriptwriter for The Bill

Jeremy Lee — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:13:00 GMT

For the first time in probably twenty years I watched The Bill on ITV last night. I'd actually pretty much forgotten that is existed but a story in yesterday's Mirror that said that its scriptwriters were looking to hire Caroline Quentin in a bid to boost flagging ratings reminded me of its existence.

It's now one-hour long, has a new more dramatic credits and is obviously quite expensive to produce. It's also not very good.

Once a home for graduates of EastEnders there was a woman in it who used to be in Hollyoaks. June Ackland's gone as has Reg Hollis and DC Carver and Burnside and the only face I remembered was PC Stamp who, judging by the fact that he hasn't been promoted, picked the wrong career.

The acting of Graham Cole who plays Stamp acting was wooden, perhaps reflecting that the show was originally going to be called Wooden Tops, and in a particularly painful scene he delivered a long and tortuous analogy of how the chair that he was trying to fix was similar to the problems that needed fixing on an estate that had been neglected by the police. It was so bad it was funny.

I thought that ITV had revamped The Bill to make it edgier and grittier. It looked like something from a school play. Anyway, as a fan of unintentionally really bad telly I'm hooked. Enjoy the weekend.

This looks SH1T

Jeremy Lee — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:38:00 GMT

Just five months after Jacko's death, footage of him rehearsing for his tour has been cobbled together to create a film - This Is It - that is now on general release.

Elizabeth Taylor tweeted the message that the spliced footage of a sick, possibly mentally-ill, man going through the motions of a tour that he clearly didn't want to do and arguably contributed to his overdosing on painkillers was 'The most brilliant piece of filmmaking I have ever seen'.

Really? Is it better than Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, in which she stars alongside Marlon Brando? I'm pretty sure that it's not going to be as good as Son of Rambow, which makes me cry lie a little girl every time I see it.

The film's director describes the footage as 'the last sacred document of our leader and friend' while some of his brothers - Marlon, Tito, Randy and possibly Ken - attended the premiere in Los Angeles.

And so it is that history is being rewritten and a cult of Michael Jackson merchandising machine moves into action. It's all rather tasteless and venal and voyeuristic and I can't wait to see it.

Happy birthday John Cleese. And Viz

Jeremy Lee — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:20:00 GMT

Cleese is 70 today and Viz is, astonishingly, 30. The juvenile magazine has been a part of my life for 20 of those years although I stopped buying it some years ago - in fact probably about the same time they sold out to John Brown and admitted that it wasn't 'as funny as it used to be'.

But the thing is, it still is - it's kept me entertained through my Sixth Form (where it was required reading and I was too stupid to realise it was lampooning people like me), University and many years of work.

But among my legion high-profile media achievments - column at the student newspaper, appearance on Radio Essex lunchtime show, having a text read out on Adam & Joe Show, this amazing blog - I've never managed to get a submission included in Roger's Profanisaurus.

For this reason I'm going to resolve myself to buying it until I do.

Cleese's comedy is equally enduring - I even like Clockwise - and traces back to the days when it was OK to abuse Andrew Sachs. Anyway, the point of this post is to wish a happy birthday to both.

Is it too early to start wearing a Poppy?

Jeremy Lee — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:04:00 GMT

This is the big issue of the day.

I was repelled to see Nick Griffin wearing one, in complete ignorance of the hundreds of thousands of Commonwealth soldiers who died - and continue to die - for Britain, last week.

I also noticed Gordon Brown was wearing one in PMQs last week while Dave was not; whether they will claim for these on expenses is a different matter but it looked like a bit of political one-upmanship.

On telly, too, Sky reporters are wearing them while those on the BBC are not yet. The repugnant Jon Snow on Channel 4 News memorably refuses to wear one.

So is it too early to wear one? Incidentally I've got mine on and think that people who don't wear them at all should be punched in the head.