Mock horror

by Alan Tyers

The surprising thing about the row between Olympic double gold medal-winning swimmer Rebecca Adlington and the BBC is not that people are queuing up to be offended by Mock The Week panellist Frankie Boyle’s jokes, but that Adlington herself gives a hoot what he thinks or says.

Imagine the sheer willpower and strength of character that she must possess to get up before dawn every day of the year, train her guts out and bring home two gold medals at just 19 years old. It’s amazing that a couple of gags on a TV panel show are anything but water off a duck’s back.

Anyway, they obviously aren’t, because she has made a formal complaint about the BBC Trust’s response to the situation. Just to catch you up, the Trust rebuked Boyle for saying Adlington had a face “like someone looking at themselves in the back of a spoon” and speculating that the fact her boyfriend is much more attractive (according to Boyle) proves she must be “very dirty”. Adlington reckons Boyle got off too lightly.

The jokes were a bit mean, but I’m glad Boyle has the freedom to make them. It is, after all, only a joke, on a show that’s flagged up for having adult humour. However, the BBC Trust found that, in essence, Adlington was not fair game because she has not courted celebrity or fame.

I seem to remember Adlington appearing on A Question Of Sport and The Charlotte Church Show, and I note from her personal website that the swimmer has signed a deal to be “an official partner” with British Gas, presumably involving the utilities supplier giving her money in exchange for access to her name, image, time or status.

And why the hell not? Good luck to the woman if she wants to make a few quid after all her hard work - but it’s debatable that she has “not courted celebrity or fame”.

This stand-off is further ammunition for the BBC haters who won’t be happy until the entire shebang is shut down, and also for the country’s self-appointed moral guardians who spend their days looking for comics to be offended by.

A joke’s a joke; let Frankie Boyle - and Jimmy Carr, with his squaddie gags - get on with what they do.

Comments

[Malcolm]

How can we criticise the 'lack of respect for others' shown by our young people when we worship talentless broadcasters like Brand, Ross, Boyle, Clarkson, Moyles,Ann Robinson, etc - all of whom make their living by publicly and gratuitously casting personal insults onto others?

Let's get some integrity back into broadcasting.

[j.loups]

At last the BBC is getting rid of 200 managers to cut costs....good start but what we really need is the forty
fat cats earning over 400 grand and merge several Departments that are duplicating Management & Production functions.Bring home some of those expensive overseas Junket Shows & travelogues nearer to home !
i.e "Around the World in 80 Days" dressed up to be a fund raiser ??Hugely expensive & money would be better spent on better Sports coverage !Whole of BBC needs to be revolutionised and salaries cut in half for management grades !!More staff offered early retirement with new young trainees offered careers.!

[The Real Bogus Anon]

Could not BBC issue a blanket apology for anything and everything Frankie Boyle ever says? He is relentlessly insulting and very funny and as usual if you don't like that sort of humour then don't watch it.

[Johnty, Newcastle]

Tyers, McDonald etc could easily be made rdundant - we have the Peter Angry column to replace them !!!

[oliver cromwell]

comedy is comedy black or white .......!
what is NOT comedy is that traitorous scots have colluded with the enemy within to destroy the union of great britain and northern ireland but the total destruction of ENGLAND !
the fact that the signing of the lisbon treaty was an act of treason relinquishes england from participation in the federal state of europe !!

[Peter Angry]

"Queues of offended people" ? - technically correct, however the queue amounted to 150 or so people from a viewing audience of several millions. In other words, a queue of NO consequence!

However, this didn't stop the weak BBC issuing an appology etc for a NON event.

To correct you yet again. Virtually everyone's problem with the BBC, is that where once it was an independently minded organisation, it is now a politically correct dumbed-down ratings chaser.

Despise, not hate the BBC management, would be nearer the mark! The concept of the BBC is still revered, but not the current organisation.