We have started slowly to watch the Tv coverage of yesterday's Live8 concert. It's going to take a couple of weeks, but hopefully it will be enjoyable.
I simply could not believe Jonathan Ross. He started off by suggesting that people who sold their tickets on ebay were morally reprehensible. Which I thought a bit rich coming from him. He failed to disclose exactly how much of licence payers' money he pocketed for hosting the show, nor did he clarify whether he forked out thousands for his daughters' VIP tickets, or ligged them.
When he interviewed Elton John he made some disparaging remark about the London (LGBT) Pride march. Elton looked liked he wanted to smack him across the face; shame he didn't. Struck a bit of a sour note with me - not long before he made those stupid remarks, I had seen a float from the Terence Higgins Trust; Elton had been explaining the badge he was wearing, made by an HIV+ co-operative in South Africa.
Then he tried to entrap Sanjeev Bhaskar into homophobia. Sanjeev looked as if he wished he wasn't there, and was trying desperately to distance himself from Ross.
The crowning moment, though, was when Jo Whiley mentioned it had been great seeing people on the streets cheering etc. Ross said he hadn't seen any. Jo replied "Perhaps they were booing." Cold, steely and utterly professional. But making her dislike of Ross pretty clear.
In Ross's job it's perfectly appropriate to take the mick out of the celebs. Jo Whiley's boots were fair game.
But when you start mocking ordinary people, or making yourself out to be holier-than-Thou, forget it. What Ross does is nothing special. The plethora of TV channels has shown that many damn fools can host a chat show or link a live TV show in the same mediocre manner of Ross. He's no Terry Wogan. Even Alan Titchmarsh and Natasha Kaplinsky, previous joint top of my TV-Nonentities-To-Loathe list would not sink that low. Terry certainly wouldn't.
I shall be writing to the Radio Times. Perhaps the concluding paragraph "I turned off my TV in disgust and refused to watch any more" would look a bit silly...
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