So the BBC has finally suspended Jonathan Ross for three months, probably the least it could do after the storm that blew up over Ross and Russell Brand’s repugnant message to Andrew Sachs about his grand daughter Georgina.
What the comic duo’s many fans miss about the message is its nasty, personal edge. Through the ages anyone who shouts to someone “I shagged your daughter/grand daughter” has been liable to swift retribution, whether it’s a horsewhipping in St James’s or a good kicking down the Mile End Road. They are lucky in their choice of victim and that Sachs has been so gentlemanly about it.
In the end, publicity being what it is these days, all the participants will find the episode has considerable career benefits. Burlesque dancer Georgina, ably assisted by PR streetfighter Max Clifford has laid into Brand on the front page of the Sun and sent her profile soaring.
Her agent is probably even now negotiating to get her on the next series of the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing or Have I Got News For You.
Meanwhile DVDs of Russell Brand and Fawlty Towers, the sitcom in which Sachs played such a brilliant role, are flying off the shelves.
Hang on, it wasn’t all an elaborate stunt was it? That really would send BBC Director General Mark Thompson into a spin.