Johnny Vegas defends himself against recent media reports

One of the big news stories to catch my attention this week, was the report that comedian Johnny Vegas had allegedly molested a female audience member on stage (hat tip: tenderhooligan).  As I type, I have just learnt that the original Guardian piece has been taken offline, although if you wish to read the original article tenderhooligan still has the article up on her blog.

In brief, the report alleged that Vegas picked a young female from the front row of a stand up show he was performing.  She was carried to the stage by 6 members of the audience, and was asked to pretend to be dead so Vegas could bring her back to life with an onstage kiss.  A variety of allegations were then made, including such things as Vegas threatening to kick the girl in the ribs, lifting her skirt up as she lay, stoking her breasts and fingering her through her clothes.

As you would expect with such a report there was quite a wide range of comments across the internet, with some believing Vegas should be immediately arrested and thrown in jail, or to quote two comments on Feministing “Death to Johnny Vegas! Let’s go castrate the fucker. And cut off his hands, while we’re at it.” & “To contact PG Tips (Vegas is the frontman for their T.V. adverts in the UK) to complain about having a sexist abuser as their frontman: [url]“

As a result I was extremely interested to see Johnny Vegas being asked about the allegations on the Jonathan Ross show last night. (which for the next week can be seen here - approx 18mins in).  Vegas stated he found it difficult to talk about the issue due to the seriousness of the allegations, and was upset about the suggestions that something ‘darker’ had gone on, as that was not the kind of person he was.  He added that he hated the idea of having to defend himself over something he had not done.

I find it difficult to form a view on the episode because I feel totally bereft of reliable information about what actually occurred.  I think ultimately I always like to believe the good about a person, and for that reason I sincerely hope that the allegations were unfounded, and that what Vegas did was within the boundaries of decency.  I think it is important that wherever possible people should stick to the mantra ‘innocent until proven guilty’, because many a unfounded media story have wrecked many a persons career.

Of course the subject of whether Johnny Vegas’ act was actually humorous or not is another debate entirely.

Edit (10:40am): According to Chortle, the reason why the Guardian piece has been taken down is because Vegas has launched legal action against the paper.

It is not always good to talk

I’ve always found Talksport radio to be a  bit of a funny one, especially its late night programs which quite often have absolutely nothing to do with sport.  Maybe I take the station name too literally, maybe I should interpret it as Talk & Sport rather than Talking about Sport.

Anyway I’ve just read the news about regular late night phone in presenter James Whale being sacked from the radio station due to a “gross error of misjudgment”.  According to the Mirror this error of judgment was saying “Vote Boris, vote Boris!” on his radio show.  Aparently this is a breach of the Ofcom broadcasting code. Well I didn’t realise our airwaves were so tightly controlled.  I can see the need, but doesn’t it make such discussion programs a little stale if the presenters are so heavily restricted about giving their opinions.

Now I don’t know this James Whale, although he does look like he could be a triffle annoying from his picture, but he has been with Talksport from the day it started in 1995.  It seems a little bit of an overreaction for him to be sacked just for expressing his personal support for a candidate in the London mayoral elections.

In slightly related news while looking for a more detailed description of Mr Whale’s misdemeanour I came across the teletext website.  Teletext has to be one of the few things that has just not moved on with modern technology, even the new digital teletext is pretty slow and low in any sort of content.  The teletext website follows the trend, with stories that last about 2/3 sentences and not a lot else.  I reckon my blog gets more regular readers than that site. (okay, maybe not, but it should).

The Final Cut

I was just looking through a handful of saved drafts, when I came across the following few paragraphs that I had written.  I penned it one Sunday evening in January after I had been listening to the song Videotape by Radiohead, and also subsequently thinking about the film The Final Cut starring Robin Williams. I didn’t post it at the time because I thought it was a bit depressing, and I that it needed a different ending.  But now the train of thought has well and truly passed, I decided it needed to be deleted or posted… It seemed a little wasteful to delete.

When I was young I always assumed I would be famous one day.  I had no desire to be famous, I didn’t posses any extraordinary talent to suggest I would be, or even some pushy parents telling me one day I would be a star.  I didn’t even thing about it that often, but when I did, I just assumed I’d be famous when I grew up.

Now I hate celebrity and I have no desire to follow the latest goings on in the fame world.  Heat magazine could be a magazine about fire places for all I care.  But a part of me, albeit a very small part of me, still thinks I’m going to famous one day.  I guess it must be some inbuilt desire to do something with my life that warrants people to give a monkeys.

With the risk of sounding incredibly egotistical, I sometimes find myself pondering what would be in my autobiography.  So far, I have the early years, the school years, the university years and so on.  When big things change in my life I think to myself that this would require a new chapter in the book.  If I’m going through a hard time, I think well this will be the obligatory tough time section.

Beyond the autobiography there is the possibility of the obituary.  What would that say?  How would my life be summed up in a few paragraphs?  Even worse, what would be the strap line be under my name?

LIVE…right now

Last night as I went to bed and popped the tellybox on in my room, I flicked onto the local election coverage.  I can’t say that I cared too much for these elections, primiarily because I have more important things going on in my life right now, and also because my local council was not re-electing this year anyway.

But having said that I ended up watching the coverage for far too long, and as a result into the early hours of the morning.  Why?  It’s graphs and numbers and the immediacy of it all.  It just draws me in, like a candy shop window does a child.  I’m a sucker for it.  I always have been a big fan of things that are changing and developing ‘LIVE’.  I’ve often thought I should be a city trader, I’d be in my element watching all those numbers change colours and waving my arms around.  No doubt I’d be no good at making any money I’d be too busy acting a bit like Dave Gorman in his Are You Dave Gorman? project, bellowing “ooohhh… But what’s it done to the graph” at the top of my lungs, everytime something changed.

I don’t care about how many readers I get on this blog (okay I do sometimes… too many times), but quality is better than quantity, right?  “OI… YOU… are you listening over there, or am I speaking to myself again?”  But there is one reason why I do wish that I was one of those uber popular bloggers.  The reason being I’d love to do a bit of live blogging every now and then.  (I did try it once in my early days)  I even came across this rather nifty bit of free live blogging software, although it undoubtebly won’t work on WordPress.com.  Anyway, even if I had enough regular visits, what would I live blog about?  What would be interesting enough to me, but also generic enough for popular appeal?

Hmm… maybe I’ll just join the Guardian ‘The Apprentice’ live blog next Wednesday, which oyebilly recently made me aware of.

p.s. While linking to the Are You Dave Gorman? page I noticed a link to the poorly grammatically named website yournotme, apparently there are 290 other people with my name in the UK.  When the result showed up I thought it was a bit poor that the site didn’t list all the people who had the same name as me.  Then it dawned on me…

Possibly a related post

I quite like the idea of this new feature on wordpress blogs called possibly related posts.  Basically at the end of my posts you should see three links for other posts that are supposed to be related to the given post (although it does seem a little temperamental at the mo).  It is kind of like the ‘related videos’ functionality on youtube.   I have previously written about my liking for the ‘like this, you might like this’ idea.  Anyway I shall be keeping an eye on how well I think this new functionality works and if it’s a bit crap, I can always turn it off.

After the death of my old and withering laptop, I have purchased a new one which I have had in my possesion for quite a few days now and I’m very happy with it.  As I suspected (although perhaps not as fervid as I expected) a few people brought up the PC vs Mac debate.  I have a theory about PC’s and Macs which I feel the need to inflict on passers by…sorry.

I think Macs are good for people who are rather inept on computers or rather brilliant on computers, but not the inbetweenies.   Let me briefly explain.  Macs pride themselves on their intuitiveness and ‘it just works’ principle, which is why they are good for those people who don’t like to like delve beyond the ‘point and click’.  They just want a web browser for facebook, a nice simple application for retrieving photos from their ‘point and shoot’ camera (which can sort out a bit of red-eye, and cut out that rogue thumb in the corner), and iTunes to listen to their latest cool tracks.

At the other end of the scale I think Macs are good for people who are highly skilled on a computer, like programmers and web designers.  They want a stable, no fuss environment, to carry out their geekiness and they can easily justify the rather large price tag of the top end models.

But where I think PCs win are for those people who are the inbetweenies.  These people like to do a little more than email and listen to iTunes, but they are only kidding themselves that they really are any good on computers.  A lot of stuff is just trial and error, downloading some dodgy app off the internet, spending far to long faffing with this thing or that.  But not all of the inbetweenies breed realise they are better off with a PC…Oh No.  You see there is the ever increasing tribe which I shall refer to as the ‘too cool for school’ inbetweenies.  A PC would suit their needs much more, but it’s all about the brand baby… they want to be seen as a serious computer user, but a cool one too.

It is human nature to support the underdog.  I often wonder what would happen if Macs had stole the mass market and PCs where the plucky alternative.

Right that should stir up a bit of a debate… By the way I went for the PC because I think they provide much better value for money, are more customisable, and I’m one of those inbetweenie people.  Which roughly translated means I couldn’t afford a Macbook Pro.

*In other news I would like to draw your attention a rather interesting little project that a fellow blogger is undertaking.  Patroclus is analysing the gender make up of the Guardian/Observer letters pages to “question the Guardian letters editor’s assertion that the editorially-controlled letters page provides a better service to busy Guardian readers than the free-for-all of online commenting…”. Go take a look.

MeMe meme

One of my favourite bloggers ‘Little Miss Rachel’ has tagged me requesting I post six things about myself.  Well it would be rude not too.

1. I’m extremely intelligent

2. I’m extremely handsome

3. I’m extremely wealthy

4. I’m extremely likeable

5. I’m extremely humorous

6. I’m extremely modest

Seen those six were a little short, here are six more:

*  I’ve only ever been asked to produce ID once when buying alcohol, rather amusingly it was on my 18th birthday.

*  I had a dartboard in my room during my teens.  I made three 180’s in my short lived career as a dart player (one was a fluke - I was aiming for treble ones).

*  I’d love someone with a passion for Classical music to teach me about it.

*  My two work placements at school involved working in a sports centre and later a computer shop.

*  I don’t think Ricky Gervais is very funny.  The Office was amazing and Extras was pretty good, which indicates that he (along with Stephen Merchant) is a good writer.  But I find his stand up, podcasts and individual performances/appearances greatly lacking.

*  I’m not a very good loser, but I’m trying to get better at being one.

Obituary required

Unfortunatley my dear old laptop has given up the ghost after 5 years of service, so blogging will be even lighter than it already has been of late.

Anyone got any recommendations for a new lappy? I’m thinking £700/800 max.