Jade Goody Killed by the Big Brother that made her

I feel very sorry for Jade Goody. Dying from cancer at a pitifully early age and in the public eye is not a fate I’d wish on any hapless entertainer. There's clear class conflict going on here with a lucky member of the "underclass" (tabloidese for bottom of the working class) made famous, given riches, then chewed up and spat out, for our edification. Let this be a lesson for aspiring chavs: don’t get above yourselves.

The idiot agent who encouraged her to return to the Big Brother house, like Ayesha walking back into the flames that gave her immortality in She, has as good as killed her.

For some, being “fick” is schtick; for Jade and her tribe, it’s the way they are, testimony to our fabulous class-free education system. Without friendly editors on the job, Jade was doomed. Come in number Epsilon, your fifteen minutes is up.

Yes, we know it was wrong for Jade and her undereducated family to unleash race-fuelled spite at Shilpa Shetty as the pressure on the reality show ratcheted up. And it was a joy to see Britons condemning her for her bullying. But she wasn’t Bernard Manning or Richard Littlejohn, and this wasn’t a capital offence. Such was the shock of the whole entertainment machine turning on this stupid but normally amiable woman, with a viciousness usually reserved for murderers and rapists, that it probably triggered her fatal illness.

We knew she was fick. Why were we surprised when she acted fick? She was no-where as sharp as fellow housemate Carole Malone who, channeling the spirit of Iago, began to poison the atmosphere against Shilpa when Malone was up for eviction. Accordingly, Malone’s acolyte, the dumb WAG whose name thankfully escapes me, diverted her hurt at the imminent loss of Queen Bee and mother figure on to the named party. Jade tried to offer solidarity and comfort to her mate using the only way they knew how: target the person who’s most different, with a lot more style, better-looking, and looking hot to win, define her as Other and keep snapping away at her like a pack of yappy dogs around a hobbled panther. Meanwhile, the smarter women on the show slipped the shiv into Shilpa far more deftly while other housemates bravely turned a blind eye. (Before we get all complacent, this was the same dynamic I saw at work in the left and in the SWP in particular.)

The sad thing is that, unlike more cynical performers who’ve had to seek redemption through charitable works, Jade took the subsequent onslaught to heart. Shilpa was impressive and offered a hand of kindness that was allowing Jade to learn. Having had all her windows smashed, her income drying up, finding herself suddenly a national object of shame and hate, Jade tried to learn by going to India and overcoming her fear of “abroad”. She didn’t do too well, what with her colossal cargo of ignorance sabotaging every move she made, but in her oafish way she was trying.

So now it’s terminal and she’s trying to gather as much dosh as possible in a world that runs on money for those she leaves behind. Who can blame her? With a world-wide depression with no end staring us in the face, would you turn it down if your death might save your family? Look at the role models she’s had in her short life, the example set by that dignity and decorum-free zone, two of the greediest bastards ever to occupy Number Ten Downing Street, f’rinstance. But, no, let’s not get angry with the educated posh men and women making money from a war they started and who presided over the looting of Britain. Let’s get the funny stupid slag who showed us her kebab and enjoy the snuff-fest.

Jade Goody is the distillation of everything this society admires: the worship of money and fame. That is a cancer in itself. There is something horrific and yet fitting about her end: death as entertainment. It is sad that she was wafted in on a circus and now exits the same way, but I can’t condemn the poor girl at the centre of it. She’s never had power over her miserable life and now she’s losing it. The lesson I draw is that we need to have a complete shift in our values, and build something better where no-one has to prostitute themselves in any capacity.

For another perspective, see Hagley Road.

Item picked up by France 24 The Observers

Jade Goody Killed by the Big Brother that made her

I feel very sorry for Jade Goody. Dying from cancer at a pitifully early age and in the public eye is not a fate I’d wish on any hapless entertainer. There's clear class conflict going on here with a lucky member of the "underclass" (tabloidese for bottom of the working class) made famous, given riches, then chewed up and spat out, for our edification. Let this be a lesson for aspiring chavs: don’t get above yourselves.

The idiot agent who encouraged her to return to the Big Brother house, like Ayesha walking back into the flames that gave her immortality in She, has as good as killed her.

For some, being “fick” is schtick; for Jade and her tribe, it’s the way they are, testimony to our fabulous class-free education system. Without friendly editors on the job, Jade was doomed. Come in number Epsilon, your fifteen minutes is up.

Yes, we know it was wrong for Jade and her undereducated family to unleash race-fuelled spite at Shilpa Shetty as the pressure on the reality show ratcheted up. And it was a joy to see Britons condemning her for her bullying. But she wasn’t Bernard Manning or Richard Littlejohn, and this wasn’t a capital offence. Such was the shock of the whole entertainment machine turning on this stupid but normally amiable woman, with a viciousness usually reserved for murderers and rapists, that it probably triggered her fatal illness.

We knew she was fick. Why were we surprised when she acted fick? She was no-where as sharp as fellow housemate Carole Malone who, channeling the spirit of Iago, began to poison the atmosphere against Shilpa when Malone was up for eviction. Accordingly, Malone’s acolyte, the dumb WAG whose name thankfully escapes me, diverted her hurt at the imminent loss of Queen Bee and mother figure on to the named party. Jade tried to offer solidarity and comfort to her mate using the only way they knew how: target the person who’s most different, with a lot more style, better-looking, and looking hot to win, define her as Other and keep snapping away at her like a pack of yappy dogs around a hobbled panther. Meanwhile, the smarter women on the show slipped the shiv into Shilpa far more deftly while other housemates bravely turned a blind eye. (Before we get all complacent, this was the same dynamic I saw at work in the left and in the SWP in particular.)

The sad thing is that, unlike more cynical performers who’ve had to seek redemption through charitable works, Jade took the subsequent onslaught to heart. Shilpa was impressive and offered a hand of kindness that was allowing Jade to learn. Having had all her windows smashed, her income drying up, finding herself suddenly a national object of shame and hate, Jade tried to learn by going to India and overcoming her fear of “abroad”. She didn’t do too well, what with her colossal cargo of ignorance sabotaging every move she made, but in her oafish way she was trying.

So now it’s terminal and she’s trying to gather as much dosh as possible in a world that runs on money for those she leaves behind. Who can blame her? With a world-wide depression with no end staring us in the face, would you turn it down if your death might save your family? Look at the role models she’s had in her short life, the example set by that dignity and decorum-free zone, two of the greediest bastards ever to occupy Number Ten Downing Street, f’rinstance. But, no, let’s not get angry with the educated posh men and women making money from a war they started and who presided over the looting of Britain. Let’s get the funny stupid slag who showed us her kebab and enjoy the snuff-fest.

Jade Goody is the distillation of everything this society admires: the worship of money and fame. That is a cancer in itself. There is something horrific and yet fitting about her end: death as entertainment. It is sad that she was wafted in on a circus and now exits the same way, but I can’t condemn the poor girl at the centre of it. She’s never had power over her miserable life and now she’s losing it. The lesson I draw is that we need to have a complete shift in our values, and build something better where no-one has to prostitute themselves in any capacity.

For another perspective, see Hagley Road.

Item picked up by France 24 The Observers

I'm A Celebrity: George Takei gets roasted

George Takei being roasted, and I'm not talking Tommy Sheridan-stylee. See George being a good sport while Paul "Fitzy" Fitzgerald takes him apart at the Friars Roast, the event where comics get to savage our beloved entertainment icons on our behalf.

Also very funny, George laying into William Shatner at his roast with such viciousness that you'd think he meant it. Ouch! Drop in at 5m 20s.

Missing, the end coup de grace where George tells the Shat, "Fuck you, and the horse you rode in on." You can watch that here.

Meanwhile, netizens are calling for Robert Kilroy-Silk to be ejected from their jungle hell first. ARE YOU CRAZY? First rule of Reality TV: never EVAH vote out the a-hole before exhausting his/her ability to annoy and provide us with an interior view of the darkness of the soul or whatever black hole passes for a heart. I want to go staring into that abyss until it stares back and pokes me in the eye.

Kilroy's creepy "don't know whether to fuck her or fight her" obsession with WAG Carly Zucker makes fascinating viewing. Thankfully, security is at hand.

Tonight 21:00 on ITV

I'm A Celebrity: George Takei gets roasted

George Takei being roasted, and I'm not talking Tommy Sheridan-stylee. See George being a good sport while Paul "Fitzy" Fitzgerald takes him apart at the Friars Roast, the event where comics get to savage our beloved entertainment icons on our behalf.

Also very funny, George laying into William Shatner at his roast with such viciousness that you'd think he meant it. Ouch! Drop in at 5m 20s.

Missing, the end coup de grace where George tells the Shat, "Fuck you, and the horse you rode in on." You can watch that here.

Meanwhile, netizens are calling for Robert Kilroy-Silk to be ejected from their jungle hell first. ARE YOU CRAZY? First rule of Reality TV: never EVAH vote out the a-hole before exhausting his/her ability to annoy and provide us with an interior view of the darkness of the soul or whatever black hole passes for a heart. I want to go staring into that abyss until it stares back and pokes me in the eye.

Kilroy's creepy "don't know whether to fuck her or fight her" obsession with WAG Carly Zucker makes fascinating viewing. Thankfully, security is at hand.

Tonight 21:00 on ITV

Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross: a modern lynching

Martin Rowson gets it right

Okay, I hate myself. I didn't want to but they made me do it. London Mayor Boris Johnson accused the Chinese of being incapable of original thought and here I am proving his halfwit point by blogging on the sodding Brand 'n' Ross stormette just like every other mofo and his dog.

But I am so furious. FURIOUS, I tells ya. Just when everyone was waking up, smelling the coffee, swallowing the red pill and dusting down the tumbrils for the long-awaited fate of the greedy overpaid city hotshots who've sucked all the money out of our economy, their mates at the Daily Mail swing it around and chuck two celebrities into the lions' den to draw all the flak that should have been zeroing in on the real fat cats.

Two silly little middle-aged boys go bullying the sainted Andrew Sachs on the radio over the sex-life of his granddaughter (yes, it was wrong, stupid and sexist and deserved a dressing-down — hey, make them wear polyester for a year, that'll learn 'em) and suddenly it's like Satan walked in and ate all the babies. Even poor old Sachs seems embarrassed by the whole pantomime and has called for calm.

With £18 million of publicly funded BBC dosh, Jonathan Ross is hugely overpaid. But I'd rather see someone who brings a modicum of pleasure to people's lives getting lots of lolly than the Masters of the Universe who merely shove money around and asset-strip rather than actually producing anything.

Bankers are still getting their bonuses despite receiving huge state hand-outs following years of hedge-funded short-selling avarice, but a couple of celebrities are being thrown to a torch-bearing, pitchfork-wielding mob, taking the heat off the proper thieving swine. And the BBC is made to kow-tow yet again for completely the wrong reasons! Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?

Sense of proportion, much?

STOP PRESS: For anyone puzzled by events and wondering wtf Ross and Brand actually did, there's a thorough precis at New Internationalist.
... So when Gordon Brown insists, that the illegal invasion of Iraq, which has cost tens of thousands of lives and is paid for by the British taxpayer, is to ensure that ‘the new Iraqi democracy is properly safeguarded’ – where are the 30,000 complaints to the BBC when that that particular obscenity is broadcast on Newsnight? ...

Russell Brand responds to the Daily Mail

Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand's original offending phone message to Andrew Sachs

Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross: a modern lynching

Martin Rowson gets it right

Okay, I hate myself. I didn't want to but they made me do it. London Mayor Boris Johnson accused the Chinese of being incapable of original thought and here I am proving his halfwit point by blogging on the sodding Brand 'n' Ross stormette just like every other mofo and his dog.

But I am so furious. FURIOUS, I tells ya. Just when everyone was waking up, smelling the coffee, swallowing the red pill and dusting down the tumbrils for the long-awaited fate of the greedy overpaid city hotshots who've sucked all the money out of our economy, their mates at the Daily Mail swing it around and chuck two celebrities into the lions' den to draw all the flak that should have been zeroing in on the real fat cats.

Two silly little middle-aged boys go bullying the sainted Andrew Sachs on the radio over the sex-life of his granddaughter (yes, it was wrong, stupid and sexist and deserved a dressing-down — hey, make them wear polyester for a year, that'll learn 'em) and suddenly it's like Satan walked in and ate all the babies. Even poor old Sachs seems embarrassed by the whole pantomime and has called for calm.

With £18 million of publicly funded BBC dosh, Jonathan Ross is hugely overpaid. But I'd rather see someone who brings a modicum of pleasure to people's lives getting lots of lolly than the Masters of the Universe who merely shove money around and asset-strip rather than actually producing anything.

Bankers are still getting their bonuses despite receiving huge state hand-outs following years of hedge-funded short-selling avarice, but a couple of celebrities are being thrown to a torch-bearing, pitchfork-wielding mob, taking the heat off the proper thieving swine. And the BBC is made to kow-tow yet again for completely the wrong reasons! Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?

Sense of proportion, much?

STOP PRESS: For anyone puzzled by events and wondering wtf Ross and Brand actually did, there's a thorough precis at New Internationalist.
... So when Gordon Brown insists, that the illegal invasion of Iraq, which has cost tens of thousands of lives and is paid for by the British taxpayer, is to ensure that ‘the new Iraqi democracy is properly safeguarded’ – where are the 30,000 complaints to the BBC when that that particular obscenity is broadcast on Newsnight? ...

Russell Brand responds to the Daily Mail

Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand's original offending phone message to Andrew Sachs