Laurence Fox complained to Ofcom earlier this week because I said I would probably sleep with him. I must say, this was an unexpected turn of events.
His followers (self-proclaimed enemies of “cancel culture”) took advantage of his invitation and made their own demands to “sack me from the BBC.” » Honestly, I sometimes wonder if I'm the last person on earth who truly believes in freedom of speech.
Needless to say, the context was comical. I hosted Have I Got News for You, which was about Fox getting fired from GB News for asking «Who would give a fuck?» about a female journalist. It was exactly the kind of story you'd expect in a satirical news quiz: relevant, zeitgeisty and inherently funny. The journalist was outraged and Lawrence Fox lost his job, but it was all a bit silly and no one died.
In an apparent cheeky response, I asked guest panelist Carol Vorderman if she would «fuck» Lawrence Fox. Carol's face showed that she found the idea unappetizing. I said: “You know, I probably would have done that.”
As the jokes go, it wasn't all that difficult. I just followed my instinct and said something unexpected — because Lawrence Fox would be considered a villain in the centrist world of mainstream television, and women shouldn't show any desire to fuck anyone — and the audience laughed. But it was also based on a kind of truth. I mean, I wouldn't fuck Lawrence Fox, but I'm a happily married woman, so that applies to everyone else, too. (Including my husband; we've been together 12 years.) (That was a joke.) (After this week, I feel like I really need to explain these things.)
Hosted by Victoria Coren Mitchell Have I got news for you Photo: BBC
But theoretically, Foxy could make for quite an interesting exchange. The oversimplification of the MeToo movement popularized the idea that women are horrified by the idea of sex that isn't squeaky clean and polite — but more recently, Fifty Shades of Gray sold millions and women showed just how dirty our minds can be. There was a relaxing openness about it, like taking off a corset.
Lawrence Fox is a decent guy and a darkly contradictory character; I don't mind admitting that I can imagine him being over the trash cans. When I added on HIGNFY that “for me, differences of opinion are no barrier,” I wanted to express the truth about sexuality, as well as a larger point about the spontaneous binary tribalism of our time.
Frankly, I'm surprised he objected. I must have been too naive to believe the idea that he was a champion of free speech. Fox and his slow-witted followers call me a hypocrite, but despite radically different contexts, I never called for his sacking and I'm baffled that he was (who the hell is GB News trying to be? He was only providing that , what their audience expected), and I have consistently defended all broadcasters making all sorts of off-color remarks. Let people say what they want and let others take charge! — this is my almost unshakable worldview. It is clear that this is not him. Perhaps one day we can actively discuss this regarding trash cans.
I thought about this while watching Blankety Blank, which recently returned to BBC One on Saturday nights. I was signed up to be a guest on the series, but turned it down when they told me I would need to show my passport when I got there. Apparently these are new rules designed to prove the “right to work” in this country, but no one has asked me about this before. And I am very stubborn.
“You know, I have the right to work! You've seen me in other things! Where should I pay taxes if not in Britain? Where am I from, if not here?” I turned to a very nice man at the top of the production, who said that he himself understood and felt the same, but his hands were tied.
I was looking forward to playing Blankety Blank, which I loved as a child (and I asked the Reverend Richard Coles, who said it was a lot of fun), but at that moment of the phone call that week my blood was too much cold at the thought of showing passports at the gate. I hate slow and pervasive data capture; now you can't even park your car without a tracked iPhone and credit card. This passport rule was suspiciously reminiscent of the “carry ID” policy that I thought we as a nation had long rejected. Surely Lawrence Fox and I will see eye-to-eye on this issue? But Lawrence is full of surprises. He may have scribbled his love for the nanny staff on the back of the Ofcom complaint form.
In a world of fringe channels, Netflix, Scandinavian dramas, TikTok and Youtube, it's surprising that there is still a market for Blankety Blank. , but I'll tell you what: I watched it last night and I really liked it. So nostalgic (the grand prize was £750 and a garden shed), with an amazing 'game factor'. My childhood presenters, Les Dawson and Terry Wogan, were two of the greatest TV presenters of all time, but Bradley Walsh does a great job.
I won't be there anytime soon, though; passport or not, I'm taking a little sabbatical. Only Connect is currently being recorded and will continue on Monday evenings unless Lawrence's campaign to cancel me is successful, but I won't be in this space for a while. I'm developing a completely different project — which, if all goes well, I'll tell you about in the spring.
Свежие комментарии