According to the Ofcom ruling, former ITV prankster Penk said

Just get on with it!

before playing the track on his Alan Partridge-esque local radio breakfast show at 8.28am on 14 January. He’d also suggested someone could

Video it and send it to Harry Hill

and whinged on-air about how the woman was “inconsiderate”, since her actions had led to a motorway closure through the “peak rush hour”. (Incidentally, a transcript in the Ofcom report also mentions in passing someone called Tony texting in to complain that he is “fed up” with “health and safety jobsworths” and “do-gooders”, to which the DJ replies: “I’m with you there, Tony, 100%.” Quite right, Steve. These do-gooders eh? I don’t know. I’m so fed up with people, y’know, doing good.)

Couldn’t really be any more Partridge-like if he tried, really. The bewildering response of Revolution 96.2 to Ofcom, following complaints from 57 people, goes like this:

According to The Revolution, Steve Penk “thought very carefully about [these requests] and took the view that playing the track – and making a point of it – would have been insensitive, cheap and likely to cause offence”. However, the broadcaster continued “Steve’s intent was to ‘subliminally’ demonstrate to [the listeners] and [their] fellow sufferers that he had empathy with their predicament without causing widespread upset amongst the wider audience”. The presenter therefore played the track “Jump” at 08:28. However, The Revolution said “no obvious reference was made to its significance”.

Except for the phrase “just get on with it”, of course. Not very subliminal.

A-ha!

All that might sound a bit mean-spirited. And of course, it is. But it’s nothing when compared with Penk’s stunt last Thursday morning, in which he played Van Halen’s Jump after hearing that a woman had caused traffic “chaos” by threatening to jump off a bridge above the M60. According to the DJ:

On Thursday [14 January 2010] a regular listener, we’ll call him ‘Bob’, (because that’s his name!), was seething with frustration because, along with thousands of other ordinary people, his daily routine had been completely wrecked. The entire area had been thrown into total chaos by the inexplicable actions of a single, troubled woman.

Bob texted me to request the classic rock track ‘Jump’ by Van Halen and, after careful consideration, I decided to play it because I knew it would send out a clear signal of ‘empathy’ to all those gridlocked drivers who were going to be late for work, school, a hospital appointment, etc. through no fault of their own.

You’ll find that wankers tend to use the phrase “total chaos” to describe a traffic jam and Penk is no exception.

In the event, the “troubled woman” did as Van Halen suggested by quite literally “jumping” off the bridge (this is how Sky News reported it), leaving Penk with an obvious moral victory over the senseless, selfish actions of one of the most gravely distressed members of his local community. Way to go Steve!

No, but seriously, Penk was suitably contrite over his decision:

I was, of course, very sorry to hear that the lady had subsequently jumped from the bridge but relieved that her injuries were minor.

If, as has been suggested, the woman jumped because she heard the song from a passing car radio that’s unfortunate but I don’t regret playing it for a minute.

And now, here’s a couple of extracts from the Ofcom broadcasting code:

2.4 Programmes must not include material (whether in individual programmes or in programmes taken together) which, taking into account the context, condones or glamorises violent, dangerous or seriously antisocial behaviour and is likely to encourage others to copy such behaviour. (See Rules 1.11 to 1.13 in Section One: Protecting the Under-Eighteens.)

2.5 Methods of suicide and self-harm must not be included in programmes except where they are editorially justified and are also justified by the context. (See Rule 1.13 in Section One: Protecting the Under-Eighteens.)

It’d be a shame, wouldn’t it, if Penk’s radio station received a really massive Ofcom fine?

The whole thing – and a second outburst in which Cameron says the public are “pissed off” about politicians - sounds spookily scripted. And “twat” is used in relation to Twitter - surely a deliberate calculation, since it generates comment on Twitter itself and among the mainstream media, who remain mysteriously obsessed with the social networking platform.

Problematically, Dave’s “people” appear to have underestimated the general offensiveness of the word “twat”. The Times has already published a stern comment piece describing his “puerile language” as “pathetic”. Indeed, it’s difficult to see how swearing on the radio when kids are likely to be listening could possibly be seen as a good idea. Tory aides have been forced on to the defensive to claim that “twat” is not defined as a swear word under radio guidelines. Which, of course, is complete nonsense. Can you imagine the furore if Chris Moyles or Jonathan Ross had said it?

The obvious deduction one has to make from all of this is that David Cameron just isn’t very bright. Using fruity language on a laddish radio programme might have seemed like a good idea back at Tory HQ. But actually, in the cold light of day, it just makes you look like a twat.

Added 4pm: Subsequent comments from Cameron and his press secretary indicate he wasn’t actually aware that “twat” could be seen as offensive. So, for his benefit, here’s a list of offensive phrases he might want to avoid in future. “Twat”, it should be noted, is especially disliked by “British Asian females and women from some other groups”.

The resignation of Brand and Radio 2 controller Lesley Douglas, and the suspension of Ross on zero pay until January, shows the debate has moved beyond the issue about who said what to whom and how offensive it might have been. It’s morphed into a Daily Mail-led hate explosion in which the Alan Titchmarsh-loving moral majority lament the bloke-ish, foul-mouthed comedy of a few highly-paid BBC “faces” who represent the antithesis of everything they hold dear. (And yet the Mail’s decision to publish numerous photos of Andrew Sachs’ granddaughter Georgina Baillie in various states of undress entirely thwarts the paper’s position as a moral guardian.)

Whatever the problems with the unfunny, puerile, bullying phone “prank” might have been – and how it came to be aired – the Beeb’s capitulation to this mass of 30,000 brainwashed idiots – none of whom, let’s remember, actually heard the original broadcast – is depressing in the extreme.

The dead hand of Max Clifford in the affairs of Baillie (aka Voluptua from the Satanic Sluts – link almost certainly NSFW) adds another sordid angle. I notice she was complaining in a Sun interview yesterday about how Brand

embarrassed me by making a private relationship very public in the cruellest way imaginable.

And yet today, the same fuckwit’s comic publishes a kiss-and-tell in which Baillie reveals Brand is

a disappointment in the bedroom considering he has had so much practice.

Thanks for clearing that up, Voluptua. I hope your appearance on next year’s Celebrity Big Brother goes well.

Photo: BBC

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.

It got worse on Five Live at lunchtime, when Simon Mayo broadened the street lighting “debate” to Buckinghamshire, where a similarly groundbreaking decision on night time pavement illumination has been taken. A criminologist and local bureaucrat were enlisted to take part in a long and inconsequential ramble around the subject. After twenty minutes of that I was seriously considering switching over to Radio 1, such was my troubled state of mind.

Thus, if you run a bank, trade shares on the London stock market or are the Icelandic Prime Minister, can I politely request that you consider buggering everything up for at least a few more days in order to provide me with just a modicum of entertainment?

Thank you.

Image: howbigismypotato.com

The former presenter of ITV’s TV’s Naughtiest Blunders (before he was replaced by, er, a voiceover) Penk has just bought the Revolution, overturning its indie playlist overnight in favour of James Blunt and sparking a mass walkout among its furious roster of DJs. In a move strangely reminiscent of Partridge, the former television “star” has also been forced out of retirement to become a breakfast DJ on the station, which has 17,000 listeners.

He told Media Guardian:

My drafted programme schedule is full of gaps, I need to find three or four people. I think I will probably have to. Economics will probably dictate that I’ll have to present, that way I can save myself some money.

Rather than the Chocolate Oranges (“available from Rawlinsons”) beloved of Partridge, presumably Penk will be slipping in some references to the great automotive deals available at Pennine Honda, which gets bigged up on the Revolution’s homepage.

Interestingly, Penk is facing up to a DJ battle with Partridge, who has also returned to the airwaves to promote rival start-up station Radio Republic in what the Daily Star calls “a string of naff jingles”. Republic is trying to secure funding and an FM licence to reunite former Revolution DJs – one of whom is Steve Coogan’s brother Martin – with their fanbase.

Not that there are too many fans according to Penk, a former Key 103 and Capital Radio DJ, who says the Rev was on the “road to disaster” prior to his intervention.

It’s very well fans of that type of music saying that it’s the only radio station like that in the North West but the reality was that no bugger was listening.

Opponents of Penk point out that the Rajar audience measuring system seriously underplayed the station’s impact because it only counted listeners in Tameside, Oldham and Rochdale and not in other parts of Greater Manchester, Cheshire and West Yorkshire, where it can be picked up.

Radio Republic has a nice new logo and a Facebook group with almost 2,700 members. The proposed playlist – “a mix of 60′s to noughties tunes… everything from Motown to Punk, northern soul to indie, the common denominator being – cool tunes” – makes it sound different enough that it just might work. Given XFM’s limited daytime playlist, the idea of credible, genuine, music-obsessed enthusiasts flaunting their eclectic record collections sounds appealing. So, fingers crossed, eh?

Aside from the font, and the poster’s use of exclamation marks in inappropriate places in order to denote a false wackiness, there are other clues to the film’s status at the front of the poo queue. Mackenzie Crook, in an unflattering woolly hat, takes the lead role, which is hilarious in its own right (I mean, look at him for Christ’s sake). It’s got that bloke who plays the annoying fat bastard bank clerk in the Nationwide TV adverts in it. Kerry Katona also makes an appearance. This is the territory we’re in.

I can’t imagine Spielberg was banging down the door.

Then there’s the storyline, which involves a Tube driver who kills two people after they jump under his train. He finds out that if three die in such circumstances within a month he gets pensioned off with a massive pay-off. So he goes on the hunt for a suicide case to help him out. Hmm, a rich vein of comic territory there, no doubt about it. No wonder Aslef, the train drivers’ union, wasn’t very keen. (They hadn’t seen it either but had, like me, noticed the font.)

Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian gave it one star and speculated that a bizarre shift in setting to the Lake District halfway through could have been a condition of funding. Seriously. Mark Kermode on Five Live yesterday was similarly baffled and described the film as “just awful”. He repeated the phrase about seven times, appearing to exaggerate the word “just” rather than “awful”, for some reason.

Neither mentioned the font. However, Kermode got into a discussion with Simon Mayo about the word “Lacanian”. Mayo didn’t know what it meant, neither did I and neither did Mayo’s newsreader, who got embroiled in the debate. Turns out it relates to the psychiatrist Jacques Lacan and formed the basis of an allegedly hilarious joke in Basic Instinct 2. Which caused me to wonder how many people in the world fulfill both of the following criteria:

(a) Paid to watch Basic Instinct 2 at the cinema

(b) Are familiar with the work of Jacques Lacan

There really can’t be that many, can there?

Nobody does schadenfraude better than the British press. When someone from the opposition is forced into a climbdown they all point their fingers and have a bloody good laugh. Unfortunately for all journalists, the average media consumer doesn’t see this as an embarrassing catastrophe for the Express and Star in isolation. Instead, they just come to regard all journalists with even more contempt than they did already.

And anyway, while the Express‘s “super-fictional” coverage was shockingly OTT, as has been previously noted, it’s not as though the broadcast media’s hysterical response was in any way less distasteful.

Five Live’s awful phone-in on Victoria Derbyshire’s programme, on September 10 last year, was one of the low points of the late summer, during the immediate period after which the McCanns were given arguido status and the Madeleine story burst back into life. And yet what was the topic of the phone-in on Derbyshire’s show this morning? Go on, you’ll never guess.

In fact, Derbyshire opened by asking

Will the British press change the way they report stories… Should the editor [of the Express] resign?

Helpfully, she also repeated one of the more outlandish allegations from the McCann case within five minutes of the start of the programme. And then did it again a couple of minutes later.

Meanwhile, is anyone able to determine whether the net circulation and profit gains experienced by Express stable since last summer have off-set the rumoured half-million pound payout?

The media reflects the public mood, and the public just haven’t taken to Shannon’s family as they did to Kate and Gerry McCann.

Yes, it’s the fault of the public – the scum who read newspapers rather than the nice people who write them – that the disappearance of Shannon Matthews has received 1% of the coverage that the disappearance of Madeleine McCann did. How do the media “reflect” the “mood” of “the public”, exactly? Does Malone go out into the street canvassing the opinion of passers by before writing a column?

Kelvin McKenzie, interviewed on the same programme, is a bullying thick-head of the first degree but had the honesty to admit that when he wrote a column defending the McCanns last year, he got a load of e-mails complaining that the papers wouldn’t be so friendly to them if Madeleine came from a single parent family up north. It’s a shame that turned out to be accurate.

Speaking of bullying thick-heads, who or what is Jon “Gaunty” Gaunt, and why does his wide neck and wider, flatter mouth keep appearing before me? He was on This Week (loud), then Newsnight (shouting at a woman like a drunken wedding guest), and then I walked past a local shop the other day and there was a poster on the door advertising his one-man show at the the Plaza in Stockport!

Apparently he writes for the Sun and presents a programme on Talk Sport. As I don’t own a white van, I was blissfully unaware of the man until he began to infiltrate the wider twatosphere.

My early evaluation is that he seems to be the new Richard Littlejohn, without any of the easy charm, good looks, or vocabulary. Watch this space for further news of his movements.

(BTW Gaunty’s website offers fans the chance to phone a premium rate phone number – a mere £1.50 per minute, natch – to “have a rant” at an answering machine. If you admire Jon Gaunt and have visited his website, then bear in mind that this is the level of intelligence he is crediting you with.)