Brand guidelines

Russell Brand and his pal Jonathan Toss have clearly touched a nerve over this whole “He fucked your granddaughter” business. But let’s get it into perspective. Why is Gordon Brown even thinking about this when real actual stuff is happening in the world? Aren’t we supposed to be on the verge of a global recession and if so, shouldn’t he be thinking about that? Does the PM even know who Russell Brand is?

It goes without saying that it’s unacceptable to leave offensive and humiliating answer machine messages on an elderly person’s mobile. But here’s another thing that’s troubling me. Despite the fact that up to two million people listened to it when it was originally broadcast on 18 October (source: Daily Telegraph), only two complaints were made before the Mail on Sunday splashed with it at the weekend. Since then, 10,400 complaints have been received by the BBC. More than 5,000 complaints were received today, some ten day’s after the programme went out… but just as the height of the media outrage was kicking in.

This suggests that people are either complaining based on what they have read about the incident, or are complaining having specifically sought it out first on Youtube - neither of which makes any sense. (And why has Ofcom only announced an investigation today? If the episode was so manifestly abhorrent, why has it taken well over a week for the watchdog to notice it even happened?)

Something else that doesn’t make sense is why there’s an advert for a service called WackyPrankCalls.com (”Responds to what your victim says. If they swear it will shout back!”) underneath many of the Guardian’s multitude of hit-generating stories about it.

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