Interview - Laura White

[By Bethan Hill - First published in ForgePress 21 November]

It’s a rare thing when a reality TV contestant really causes a stir. But the departure of Laura White from The X Factor has done just that.

The former favourite being voted off has provoked complaints to Ofcom and plans to boycott the show. She has even been mentioned in Parliament.

So it was with great excitement that I went to meet her before she performed at Population on Monday night. I’ve never seen a Union club night quite so excited.

People were trying to sneak back stage and sweet talk the bouncers into giving them information. This is no reality show reject.

I was ushered back stage, past the jealous looks of her fans to meet the girl herself.
There was just one stipulation: don’t mention Louis Walsh...

So, how are you and how are things going since you left The X Factor?

It’s been absolutely amazing since I’ve left the house. My first initial reaction when I left was that I was distraught. But since then it’s been crazy! It’s been endless gigs, three gigs a day, every day.

You must be tired!

I’m so tired, my vocals are tired, and you can hear it. I’ve been doing interviews and photo shoots and then hopefully I’ll just continue with my writing and look to release something next year.

How has it been having your departure from the show mentioned in Parliament?
It’s so, so strange for me because, you know, I was just a girl from Bolton and it’s caused so much controversy. But at the same time I was so, so excited that it caused so much uproar and people believed in me. It gave me a really big confidence boost.

People were even threatening to boycott the show...

I know! I’m just hoping they’ll follow me now with my music.

How do you feel about Daniel leaving on Saturday?

Daniel was definitely one of my closest friends in the house. I’ve spoken to him since, and I’ll support Daniel whichever way he goes with his music and as a friend.
I’m going to meet up with him the second that he’s free, but I’m sure he’ll be busy now for a long time.
But he’s done amazing, he lasted a long time on the show and I’m sure that he’ll go onto really, really big things.

Now, I’m going to ask about some of your fellow contestants. Give me the first word that pops into your head.

Eoghan: So, so sweet.
Diana: Crazy.
JLS: Ladies.
Rachel: People think she’s a tiger, but really she’s a pussycat.
Ruth: Latino! There’s nothing more!

Who do you think is going to win The X Factor?

This year I’m hoping there’ll be a change because the show’s been so different musically. In terms of winning, I think I’d like JLS to win, just because it’d be a change, but you know there’s so much talent I’m just really not sure who’s going to do it.

I’ve got to ask you about the woman of the moment: Cheryl. What’s she like?

Cheryl is absolutely amazing. In terms of my music, she really understood me and we worked fantastically together, and on a personal level we were such good friends.
She was there for me through it all and I couldn’t have asked for more.

Are you still in touch with her?

I am yeah, she’s lovely, she is.

And what about Simon?

Well me and Simon were never in touch over the phone or anything because he wasn’t my mentor, but I respect him in so, so, so many ways. He’s achieved so much and I’m hoping he will advise me in my career and whichever way I go with my music.

How do you feel about his criticism of your image?

Honestly, I completely understand, he was working on me as an artist not as a person. He’s looking for me as a product and I understand that. Any advice he gave me I learnt from and that’s fine.

How long have you been singing for?

Obviously I’ve really, really loved music since a very young age. I started playing the piano at seven, so music has been my life.
I started professionally singing, doing jazz and things, when I was fifteen. That’s when I first started taking it really seriously. I started songwriting only 12 months ago.
My writing has made me as much as my singing. I think next year I just want to develop myself as an artist as much as I can, and as a writer as well. I definitely want to release an album of my own writing.

How does it feel to be number one in the charts?

Our dream was to be number one and we achieved that. I hope people continue to buy the single, it’s for a fantastic cause. You know, my own songs have also gone to number one in the download chart. It’s so surreal, it’s absolutely fantastic. I’m just glad to get my voice and my music out there more than anything.

‘Hero’ is keeping everything off the number one spot. It knocked Cheryl off...

It knocked Cheryl off! I was so embarrassed. I was like, don’t mention number one! We’re still going strong though.

I see you drinking the student staple there, a nice cup of tea...

Yeah, I drink tea, I drank tea when I was at university. I was at Bolton Uni studying creative writing. I left to go into The X Factor.

And finally then, what do you sing in the shower?

Ooh... I always sing ‘I Will Always Love You’ in the shower. I don’t know why, but I always sing it. Probably because of its good acoustics!

A Snapshot of the 'Photo Man'

[By Rebecca Yap - First published in ForgePress 21 November]

Clouds of dust settle back to the parched dirt road as the Jeep photographer Tim Smith is travelling in slows to a halt. Three trips, sponsored by the British Council, to Yemen – a country where paperwork is troublesome, security checks are tight and photography of women must be done in secret – taught Tim that rigid itineraries lead nowhere and that there are no fixed answers to questions about why they are stopping.

Now miles away from Yemen’s third largest city Ta’izz, a small crowd grows alongside the Jeep. Many Yemenis have come with arms outstretched, their wrinkled hands clutching yellowed British documents in the hope that "the white man from Britain" might be able to help them retrieve the pension they were entitled to during days of labour in Britain.

They have come to the wrong man. All Tim has is a stack of portrait shots of Yemenis he had taken as an example to other Yemenis who might volunteer to have theirs taken.

Among the crestfallen Yemenis, a man starts pointing at a picture and repeating excitedly: "That man is his father! That man is his father!" By sheer coincidence, the son of Fayed Ali Al-Ahmed, a man Tim photographed in Newport in 1984, recognised the picture of his father and agreed to take Tim to him once again. A few days later, Tim made a worthy trip back to Ta’izz where he met Fayed Ali Al-Ahmed and took his portrait for the second time; a moment in 2007 forever sealed in his memory.

Twenty-six years ago, Tim unwittingly began documenting the full-circle walk of British Yemenis – how they sailed from Yemen, settled for decades in Britain, but later went home to the Yemen they left behind. In pursuit of photojournalism ambitions, he studied photography at Gwent College in Newport, South Wales after completing a degree in Ecological Science at Edinburgh University. During his time there, he lived near the dock in a small cosmopolitan terrace named Dolphin Street.

"It was a multi-cultural street in every sense. There was no segregation," said Tim. Constantly taking pictures on the bustling street and in the nearby school, children dubbed him the "photo man". He later set up an exhibition based on the Dolphin Street project.

After graduation in 1984, Tim refused to join the rat race in London and later accepted an offer to work on a project about Sheffield’s steel industry. "The Don Valley was full of steelworks. You could smell it from afar," said Tim. It was while working on the Sheffield project that he first met British Yemenis who slogged in the steel factories shovelling coal, and he began photographing them.

Fast forward 20 years and the British Council had the idea of setting up an exhibition titled Muslims in Britain and sent six photographers to six Arabic countries. Tim was one of them and decided that since he had several encounters with Yemenis back in Sheffield that he would go to Yemen, thus sealing the connection between the years of work between Sheffield and Newport.
Yemen is a place where Arab hospitality is not an unfounded cliché. "It is an extraordinary place with the friendliest people. People who don’t have a great deal readily invite you into their houses to stay," muses Tim. "If you ever go to Yemen, I recommend you go in the mango season because the mangoes are fantastic.

"With the news on terrorism, the positive stuff gets forgotten. It is more dangerous to travel along the M62 to Manchester airport. Of course, be smart in answering if asked ‘What do you think of Tony Blair and George Bush?’" Tim joked. Yemen’s vibrant and colourful culture and history also inspired Tim to embrace more colour work over his usual black-and-white-styled images.

Yemen is one of the most cosmopolitan countries in the world. Thousands of years ago, Indian and Arab boats dominating the surrounding Red Sea and Indian Ocean that bordered Yemen made the country the trading hub between Arabia, Africa, the Mediterranean, India and the Far East. The port of Mokha, now a poor and dusty fishing town, was once heralded as the origin of coffee before unprotected relentless trade reduced the treasured resource to nothing more than a commodity.

In more recent history, Aden became the latest jewel in the British Empire which made use of the port to refuel coal-fired ships and as a short-cut from Britain to the rest of its vast eastern empire.

Yemeni men around Aden joined the Merchant Navy as sailors, eking out a living carrying out menial tasks below the deck and settled all over the world, laying the foundations of Britain’s longest-established Muslim community.

The Yemeni population in Sheffield settled in lowly-paid unskilled labour in steel factories. "Just wrestling with these huge amounts of molten steel all the time, it’s the hardest work I’ve ever seen anyone do," said Tim. Long hours earning money to send home to Yemen subjected them to a work-home-work routine, isolating them from interaction.

The Sheffield Yemeni population, who congregated in Attercliffe or "Little Aden" back in those days, had no pressure to learn English and their English vocabulary was largely limited to factory jargon. Then in the 1980s, economic depression and pressure from far-right parties in Britain led to escalated racial segregation and British Yemenis losing their jobs, triggering the flow of British Yemenis over to America or back to Yemen.

The remaining British Yemeni families have produced a younger generation of British Yemenis born and bred in Britain and adept in English, the language that separated their parents from the rest of British society.

On Sunday, October 19, a monochrome photograph projected on the plain white wall at the front of Activity Room Three in Sheffield’s Weston Park Museum draws attention to the image of cheap, back-breaking work done by a Yemeni man operating lifting gear at the Thomas Clarke and Sons foundry in the Don Valley, Sheffield back in 1984.

All around is the soft murmur of people. Mostly the visitors are older local people who have walked through Sheffield’s steely history and sporadic numbers of people with mixed Yemeni heritage, and the occasional aspiring young photographer. They have gathered for the exclusive world premiere of Tim’s latest and tenth book, Coal, Frankincense & Myrrh: Yemen and British Yemenis, a consolidation of his years of interaction with Yemenis.

Coal, Frankincense & Myrrh borrows its name from the integral role coal played in the lives of British Yemenis and the importance frankincense and myrrh had to trade in the then prosperous Yemen. The book looks at the lives of Yemeni sailors and their families with special attention to Sheffield Yemenis who are very much a part of the city both today and in its history.
Reader offer: To get a copy of Coal, Frankincense and Myrrh at the reduced price of £11 (plus £2.50 postage and packaging), send a cheque payable to Tim Smith to: Tim Smith, 5 Bankside Terrace, Shipley, West Yorkshire, BD17 7NF.

An extraordinary and mind-boggling NUS conference

[By Kyle Christie - First published in ForgePress 21 November]

For the past two years the National Union of Students, that distant organisation we associate with little more than discount cards, has been faced with the issue of ‘reform’.

Say this word to one of the hundreds of political hacks that attend the conferences, and you’ll get a reaction of either unadulterated joy or utter revulsion.

To provide some background to those of you lucky enough to have ignored this debacle: the NUS is a highly political organisation. Different groups and factions vie for positions and policies at every conference and meeting.

The various groups include Labour Students, Student Respect and a host of left-wing groups with the words ‘socialist’, ‘revolutionary’ and ‘people’s’ in various orders.

Two years ago, proposals were put together calling for reform to the NUS. This included modifying how the conferences work, changing the elected positions in the organisation, and adding a non-student board of trustees to help with legal and financial matters.

The result has been a divisive debate during which many of those on the political left have fallen on the side of opposing the reform, and everyone else has generally supported it.

In order to be passed the reform needs to be voted for twice, at two different conferences. Last year, it was voted for at a conference in December, but failed at a conference during Easter. So another conference was called for November this year, in an attempt to start the process again.
I didn’t say it would be easy to understand. Having attended three conferences before during my previous incarnation as a Union hack (I’m now in recovery), I tagged along with the Sheffield delegation to the NUS Extraordinary conference in the delightful city of Wolverhampton.

I can’t emphasise enough the absurd nature of an NUS conference.

You’re thrust flyers declaring not only the evil nature of this or that proposal but the end of capitalism itself. The political conviction of delegates is electric.

It’s as if you’re in 1968 preparing to protest against some dictatorial government. Indeed, many of those attending the conference would give everything to be transported back 40 years into the heyday of student radicalism.

Most students, for better or worse, are not members of political groups. Yet to attend an NUS conference, you could be convinced that students from Exeter to Edinburgh are placard-waving hacks who talk of little but tuition fees, neo-liberalism and just what support they should offer various South American governments.

If you think the Union elections are irritating, I’d imagine you’d run out of Wolverhampton Civic Hall quicker than you can say the words "Save NUS democracy!"

I was greeted by the news that I would be unable to take any photographs or videos of the conference.

No explanation was given for this strange and counter-productive policy, but I had accepted it by the end of the day. This was only after a failed attempt to take a sneaky photo of the conference was foiled by NUS staff.

NUS President Wes Streeting (he’s the one always quoted in The Guardian) greeted us with his passionate case for reforming the NUS.

"Tell me this is not a union crying out for change!" he shouted. Judging from the response, few seemed to disagree, though the delegate who commented that "he talks shit, but in such a good way he can make you like it" remained unconvinced by the rhetoric.

Streeting remains a divisive figure: when responding that he would "go home and shoot myself in the face" if the reform failed to pass, he conceded from the conference reaction that some might consider this an extra reason to vote against the changes. He will be up for re-election next year, having decided not to shoot himself in the face.

An NUS conference is as rife with sound-bites as it is with inflammatory leaflets. From the often-repeated mantra that "the status quo is not good enough for us" to the declaration that we "cannot restrict ourselves with the tools of oppressors", Wolverhampton was awash with linguistic gems that Wednesday afternoon.

More delegates - the proud, the nervous, the veterans - all arrived on the podium to make their case for or against ‘reform’, or one of the 15 possible amendments to the motion.
They range from the tweed-jacket wearing sabbatical, the well-built jock with his position emblazoned across his hoodie, and the Mohican-sporting radical. Stereotypes are hard to avoid.
Some, you can imagine in Parliament within 20 years. But you could just as easily see them remaining here, pontificating to the same people on the same inane issues; such is their enthusiasm for this confrontational sparring ground.

The delegates were asked to vote on such proposals as ensuring all delegations are split equally along gender lines, and whether or not to lift their ban on the BNP. Both failed to pass.

It is worth noting that an NUS conference is the very height of political correctness.
I expect it would be easier to get offended at the offices of Amnesty International.
Amid the many jokes directed at investment bankers, we hear from Rob Owen, who is on the NEC (National Executive Committee) and has emerged, no doubt through no fault of his own, as the figurehead of the anti-reform movement.

He tells us that the conference is a joke. I agree with him on this point. From the position of an observer, you realise just how detached the organisation represented by the 1,000 people in the hall has become from the daily reality faced by students.

It’s little wonder that the Government and the media, let alone students, ignore a navel-gazing NUS which for so long as been obsessed with its own structures and petty issues.

Finally, the vote that delegates from Aberdeen drove 10 hours to participate in takes place. Each card is raised, high in the air, from the back row to the executive on the platform.
It’s so tempting to shout a number – about 130 would do – and disrupt the count, but the thought of hundreds of tense political hacks glaring towards the balcony at me, and my journalistic integrity, stops me from doing so.

One delegate does shout "bollocks" and storms out at this point, but my disruption would have garnered more attention.

They’ve been told the NUS will die if it doesn’t change. They’ve also been told that these reforms will destroy the last remnants of democracy in the NUS.

Which of us would want to be faced with such a weighty decision on our shoulders?
In the end, they choose the destruction of democracy over the death of their organisation, by 614 votes to 142. At the announcement of the result, 614 of the delegates roar with triumph over their political opponents who trumped them at the last conference.

However, 142 delegates, including our President, Dave Hurst, Education Officer Rebecca Watson and Women’s Officer Fiona Edwards, remain stony faced in the face of what they will see as only a temporary defeat.

During the dark and tired bus journey back, I trip over an unfortunate realisation. The NUS does matter.

Not so much because of what it does now, which is at best ill-judged and at worst irrelevant, but because of its potential.

Next year will likely see the start of the tuition fee review, and the calls to scrap the cap on top-up fees will be echoing down the corridors of power.

A student movement united around this threat rather than bickering amongst them will have a real chance of success.

Considering the chaotic nature of the organisation though, its own internal and unnecessary infighting may dominate at a time when students need a national representative body more than ever.

However, if the NUS fails to sort itself out, then we need to seriously consider whether staying in such a costly, dysfunctional organisation is really worth it.

Interview - The Guillemots

[By Kate Mitchell - First published in ForgePress 7 November]

I’d always had the impression that Guillemots’ music was a little too complex and ‘alternative’ for someone like me who sings to Sugababes in the shower.

So naturally I was terrified before interviewing Guillemots front-man Fyfe Dangerfield. What if I revealed the extent of my ignorance about achingly cool indie pop? I was expecting gruff, non-committal responses from the man who started this rather unusual quartet after he moved from Birmingham to London in 2002.

I was relieved, but maybe slightly disappointed, at how normal he sounded in our phone interview. No arty pauses; no dark, moody replies. And he even revealed he gets nervous, which was reassuring for me as I gripped the phone, white knuckled and nervous.

"We’ve supported REM recently that was pretty amazing. It was really inspiring to see a band at their level be so down-to-earth and clearly still doing it for the love of music and nothing else".
It’s no surprise that this is what impresses Fyfe and the band. Guillemots, who named themselves after a sea bird, are definitely a rare breed in a business like music where money and fame often seems to eclipse the music itself.

Nobody could accuse them of being in it for the notoriety. Fyfe’s worked as a music teacher and the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra performed one of his orchestral pieces last year. The other members have impressive musical credentials too.

Guitarist MC Lord Magrão’s pre-Guillemots career includes years on the Brazilian noise scene, while Canadian double bassist Aristazabal Hawkes is a classically trained pianist, and drummer Greig Stewart has been drumming since he could pick up the sticks.

This talent has enabled them to build up an impressive list of achievements including a nomination for the Mercury Music prize in 2006 (losing out to the Arctic Monkeys no less) and two commercially successful albums, 2006’s Through the Window Pane and this year’s Red.
You get the feeling this is a band who reluctantly accepts the fame their talents have earned them. Red repeated the success of their first offering, and singles like ‘Get over it’ are proof the band are still very much in ascendance.

Although Fyfe admits that keeping in touch with their creativity is harder than when they were a relatively unknown band, I am impressed with how Guillemots manage to remain focused on the musical love which has earned them their following.

"I think it’s harder to write when you’re so immersed in the music business because it’s not really a very ‘real’ thing.

"So, I think it’ll be nice just to spend as long as it takes next year recording, just standing in a room and playing without loads of pressure and just trying to get loads of new songs together".
And when they do write their new material, Fyfe seems even more determined to preserve the "stripped down" musical spontaneity the group had when they were unsigned, unwilling to let notoriety affect their creative freedom.

"We’re really keen to get back to feeling like an unsigned band again. I think the thing you have to be careful of is that when people know who you are, it’s easy to let that start affecting the music you make.

"With the first album, no-one has any idea who you are so they have no preconceptions about you.

"Then as soon as you’ve done one album, anything else you do is going to be compared to it, because people like you for certain reasons. So you get carried away thinking about what people want to hear, but I think you have to ignore that stuff."

This sort of musical pigeonholing seems to be one of the downsides of being well known. But because Guillemots’ sound is as accessible as it is edgy, they do seem to have reached a wider audience than they might have imagined back when they recorded their first album.
In fact the extent of their fan base was evident when I heard ‘Get Over It’ coming from a middle- aged business-man’s headphones on the bus the other day. If they are this broadly appreciated though, does this make them ‘mainstream’ or cost them their obscure ‘coolness’? And does this annoy Fyfe?

"We got called (mainstream) a little bit with the last record, but then every band who progresses gets that.

"Whenever you move forwards as a band, there’s always people who wish you’d stayed as you were-it’s like if you have a perfect day out with someone, a perfect date or something, then you try and do the same thing again, it’s never as good. So we’re going to keep changing as a band".

When I ask him how, he’s quick to point out that moving forwards doesn’t necessarily mean getting wackier. He reassures me there will be no unduly raucous experimental shouting, braying or bird calls.

"We have done so much on the last two albums where we’ve pushed ourselves to be daring and, in a way, what we do next will be simpler and more straight forward, but I just don’t know until we start doing it."

It will be a surprise to fans that turn up to gigs on their forthcoming tour this November, which includes a date at Sheffield’s Plug.

Fyfe says they like playing live because a song sounds more "stripped down" to its true musicality. I think this confidence sums Guillemots up. How many bands could claim their songs sound better without studio doctoring?

I feel slightly guilty that I jumped to conclusions about their eccentricity. It’s fair to say Guillemots manage to ooze the appeal of a pop band without losing their unique, experimental approach.

They might well have cracked the formula for making challenging, thoughtful music which doesn’t alienate sceptics like me.

I think I may even start singing their songs in the shower.

Putting Presenters in the Stocks

[By Kate Dobinson - First published in ForgePress Friday 7 November.]




It seems that the stocks are back in fashion. Yet the two red faces suspended over the low wooden beam are prompting far more people to pick up a bumper pack of rotten tomatoes than they would have done for your standard 13th century thief.

Jonathan Ross, whose floppy locks provide a far better frame than any circular head hole, has been sitting alongside Russell Brand and his own tumultuous mane in what is now the centre of a huge public outcry. In the past two weeks the comedy heroes have dissipated into a pair of verminous villains.

The situation has quickly cemented itself with somewhat disastrous effect and has proved to be more than just an embarrassing blunder for the BBC. On Saturday, October 18, Ross accompanied Brand on his late night Radio Two programme to interview Andrew Sachs, who played Manuel in Fawlty Towers.

Multiple answer phone messages regarding the actor’s granddaughter Georgina Baillie were left on Sachs’ answer phone. The duo made explicit reference to her supposed sexual involvement with Brand himself. Senior BBC executives had made no attempt to censor the material before it had been aired and so the show was deemed appropriate by the BBC to broadcast as had been planned.

Just two complaints were made upon its immediate transmission. On Sunday, October 19, The Mail on Sunday ran the story and from then on its news coverage of that infamous radio "joke" has steadily built as tantamount to a tireless campaign effort. Subsequently it has stirred over 37,000 complaints to the BBC.

Evidently, the stocks that we associate with seemingly medieval history did not have access to full and polemical media coverage in order to boost their public turnout like we do now.
The logistics of debate and controversy surrounding this situation call into question some extremely grey areas. Brand and Ross, as two of the most popular and charismatic television personalities in the country, are sitting astride a huge proverbial bonfire. It is fair to enquire above the roar of the media lions whether the pair were actually the ones to light the match themselves.

The involvement of The Daily Mail has managed to split public opinion: whilst the paper was heralded by third year Biological Sciences student Rebecca Hughes as "morally obligated to inform the British public of verbal attacks on innocent people", first year Maths student David Burgess feels that the coverage represents "crass sensationalism".

Clearly there is opinion to suggest that The Daily Mail has taken the subject too far and that the sensationalist model of the national press is an ever present and negative force. Ross has been suspended and Brand has resigned.

As an added effect, it may come as no surprise that the possible fine that may be awaiting the BBC is said to impact upon the taxpayer, who will have to dig deeper than their £140 television licence currently demands. Undoubtedly, the backlash may be attributed not necessarily to any particular horror at what Brand and Ross said, but how much it is going to cost the public.

We may be able to grasp tangible effect in terms of our money, but then equally important is the question of exactly how fair the journalistic treatment of the subject has been. It is far from easy to gauge just how far a newspaper should sink their teeth into something before it appears too pugnacious.

Ben Davies, a first year English Literature student, said: "It’s a newspaper; why shouldn’t they have reported on what Brand said? I personally thought it was very funny but I don’t see how it’s The Daily Mail’s fault if people then choose to complain having read their report."
Although a reasonable claim, just how far were the Daily Mail headlines an interference and exploitation of a "joke gone wrong", rather than a necessary news source? James Gunstall, a third year Medicine student, said: "By all means, run the story, but it didn’t have to be so scathing. Yes they made a few daft comments, but if they had never run the story then nobody would have batted an eyelid."

Indeed, if the role of the press is under critique then the public involvement and response should be too. It is certainly plausible to suggest that had The Daily Mail refrained from its shock tactics, then the 37,000 worth of complaints that hit the BBC may not have surfaced at all. This does point to the possibility that many of the complaints may have been made by people who had not even been listening to the show.

Daisy Smith, a second year Dentistry student, said: "The public are too easily led by what they read and probably started complaining when they were told it was to be a big scandal. Russell Brand is always being outrageous. I bet that those people who complained needed the seed of doubt to be planted in their minds for them, before they decided ‘yep, that is wrong.’"

Plainly there is an old fashioned undercurrent or thirst for spectacle and drama here. Whether it was displayed by Brand and Ross initially, or was injected by the papers as a tool to sell a few more copies, people simply can’t resist it.

Concurrently, the graphic language was used as a means of comedy. It is a matter of personal taste and as Helen Dimitrou, a first year Geography student says, it was "just not funny at all." Both brand and Ross are particularly idiosyncratic performers whose comedy routines are, like any comedy, highly subjective.

Presumably the standard description of Brand’s show as an ‘edgier’ form of comedy meant that the censorship of the BBC was working purely in relation to the kind of material Brand usually produces. However the BBC has been reprimanded for failing to veto the proposed show and is under intense spotlight.

But is it easy to judge when the comedy stops being funny? And how can we measure? Earlier this week Jeremy Clarkson was being defended by the BBC, as he joked about the frequency with which prostitutes may be murdered by truck drivers on Top Gear. The BBC claimed that viewers would have "clear expectations of Clarkson’s frequently provocative on-screen persona" and so would not be offended.

It could not be suggested that this may not have been said of Brand and Ross. There has been no explanation from the BBC as to what constitutes "provocative" and so it is impossible to glean from the powers that be exactly how to judge what is right and wrong if they are not entirely sure either.

In order to draw succinct conclusions about this subject, it is wise to remember what Andrew Sachs himself was quoted as saying last week: "I am not going to take it anywhere. I’m not out for revenge." With no revenger, the denouement to this drama has only half its plot. Should we care if Sachs doesn’t care? It is evident that the power of the press to ensconce the public in its theatre will always be successful. So are Brand and Ross in the wrong? The only answer is to look at the grey cloud before you take a black and white picture.