The BBC is hoping that its decision to suspend Jonathan Ross for 12 weeks will end the crisis caused by crude prank phone calls he made with Russell Brand on a radio show, media commentators said on Friday.
While newspapers generally welcomed the corporation’s action against Ross, one of the BBC’s highest paid presenters, the decision by Lesley Douglas, the head of Radio 2, to quit over the furor was greeted with sadness.
The BBC acted on Thursday after the “deplorable” messages left on actor Andrew Sachs’ phone drew 30,000 complaints, criticism from Prime Minister Gordon Brown and media condemnation.
Following an emergency meeting between BBC Director-General Mark Thompson and the BBC Trust, the BBC’s independent governing body, Ross, 47, was suspended without pay but kept his job for what Thompson described as his “utterly unacceptable” behavior.
However, Thompson said it was a “final warning” for Ross, who has been suspended for 12 weeks.
Douglas, who was appointed controller of the music and chat station in 2003, then made the decision to quit.
The prank had already led to the resignation of Brand, 33, a flamboyant comic who has branched out into acting in Hollywood films including the romantic comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
The row erupted after the duo joked Brand had slept with the granddaughter of 78-year-old Sachs, who played Spanish waiter Manuel in the cult comedy series Fawlty Towers.
They also joked that Sachs might kill himself after hearing messages left on his phone.
Newspapers said the BBC had taken far too long to take action and Douglas was a victim.
The new James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, debuted in Britain on Friday to record one-day ticket sales of US$8 million, distributor Columbia Pictures said on Saturday. The total tops Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the previous record holder with an opening day haul of US$6.5 million in 2005, and it also beat the US$4.72 million first-day total for the last Bond flick, Casino Royale (2006), Columbia said.
Fashion icon Victoria Beckham is the spokeswoman for the new Armani fashion house lingerie line following in the footsteps of husband David Beckham, who also appeared in the fashion house’s underwear campaign.
The company said Friday that Beckham will debut in the spring-summer 2009 advertising campaign of Emporio Armani women’s underwear.
Giorgio Armani called the former “Posh Spice’’ of the Spice Girls a “style icon, a dynamic lady whose influence and recognition will add great excitement’’ to the ad campaign.
Joaquin Phoenix is quitting movies to focus on music.
“He has said that Two Lovers is his last. But this is not strange. Joaquin has been directing music videos and been involved in music for the last number of years,’’ Susan Patricola, Phoenix’s publicist, said Friday.
Phoenix first talked about his decision to Extra last week while attending a fundraiser in San Francisco, abruptly ending the interview after the reporter wondered whether he was joking.
Patrick Swayze, filming again less than a year after being given a grim diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, described chemotherapy as “hell on wheels” but said work had kept him feeling positive. Swayze, 56, best known for his dance instructor role in the movie Dirty Dancing, underwent months of chemotherapy and an experimental drug treatment to beat one of the most virulent forms of cancer, which experts say has only a 5 percent five-year survival rate.
British actress Sienna Miller’s life has been made intolerable because of a “campaign of harassment” by photographers, her lawyer told London’s High Court on Thursday. Miller, 26, star of movies such as Alfie and Layer Cake, is taking legal action against photographic agency Big Pictures Ltd and its founder, Darryn Lyons, claiming they are guilty of harassment.
Germany’s first television station for gay men will go on air this week offering entertainment and news with homosexual themes via satellite and cable, the new TIMM channel said Friday.
The line-up will include popular series such as Queer as Folk, The L-Word and Absolutely Fabulous dubbed into German as well as documentaries on gay stars or celebrities who are big in the gay community such as Rupert Everett, Susan Sarandon and Liza Minnelli, the station said in a statement.
With the slogan “We love men,” TIMM said it was aimed at the estimated 3.6 million gay men who live in Germany, and also hoped to draw their family and friends, lesbians and a few “metrosexuals.”
“TIMM enriches the existing television landscape with programming from and by the target group — simply for everyone who loves men,” it said.
“The highly positive feedback from the target group in the last 12 months has shown us how high the demand is for tailored information, entertainment and service.”
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not
This Qing Dynasty trail takes hikers from renowned hot springs in the East Rift Valley, up to the top of the Coastal Mountain Range, and down to the Pacific Short vacations to eastern Taiwan often require choosing between the Rift Valley with its pineapple fields, rice paddies and broader range of amenities, or the less populated coastal route for its ocean scenery. For those who can’t decide, why not try both? The Antong Traversing Trail (安通越嶺道) provides just such an opportunity. Built 149 years ago, the trail linked up these two formerly isolated parts of the island by crossing over the Coastal Mountain Range. After decades of serving as a convenient path for local Amis, Han settlers, missionaries and smugglers, the trail fell into disuse once modern roadways were built
RSS