Well, I’m glad Andy Gray’s gone. Obviously, he’s made enough enemies at his workplace that Sky sanctioned the release of more damaging material to hang him out to dry, even if it meant taking out Andy Burton – not above belittling women, though not as poisonously – in the crossfire. Richard Keys talks about dark forces at work, failing to spot the irony of that comment regarding himself and Gray. Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand were slaughtered for far less on a radio show that initially drew only two complaints, but became a firestorm in the hands of the print media. Admittedly, they did it on air intentionally, but the cruelty stemmed from revenge for Andrew Sachs not keeping his appointments, but it was not sexist, racist or homophobic (the last pertinent in wake of Ross’s daughter’s declaration). The tipping point for Gray was the crude, intimidatory comment he made to a female employee amidst a lot of other men laughing that was released on YouTube. So Sky has made an effort to condemn sexism, but Keys has to go as well, which is looking more likely with the new YouTube material. His defiance, saying Karren Brady’s not returning his calls but at least the news take West Ham Utd off the back page, is particularly ill-judged. If someone had just slammed you in a condescending way for making exceptionally relevant points, well, would you want to speak to them?
The Chelsea fans won’t miss Gray, remembering his smug complacence in giving Man Utd the championship and relegating Chelsea to third, as they chanted Are you watching Andy Gray, Sacked in the morning and Andy Gray, Channel Five (I was narked as I, though not a Chelsea supporter, thought the Blues still had a chance, which proved correct). Nor will Barcelona fans, who he unfavourably compared to Stoke City and Blackburn Rovers. Indeed, he rubbished any team that was below the latitude of the Midlands. Thursday Europa League nights on Fiver will tide him over and keep going the alimony payments to five kids with four different women, in his new wilderness.

After the anger that Sky prompted by stating that Richard Keys and Andy Gray had said sorry (but to who initially? Sky executives? Sian Massey and Karren Brady were most silent on whether or not they had received an apology - although fighting for his job Keys did beg for forgiveness from Massey over the phone last night), finally they have been forced to suspend them. Not fire them. Just suspend them. If the lineswoman had been black or from another ethnic minority, they would have been out the door before their feet touched the ground, but sexism is seen as not so important. Sky still implicitly is not concerned by it.
The conversation between Keys and Gray may have taken place before the match, but it cannot be seen as mere banter because they were witheringly dismissive of Massey before she had even had a chance to prove herself, followed it up by saying all female officials were useless and, most tellingly, angrily denounced Brady’s newspaper stance, even though they had just confirmed the sexism Brady was railing against. Their words dripped prejudice.
Keys has form. In another unguarded moment before a microphone, he was demeaning and foul-mouthed towards the Faroe Islands. Once can be seen as accidental, twice looks like incompetence. Yet he was let off with a slap on the wrist. If he had been given a final warning that time, he might have kept his repugnant views to himself thereafter, in case he fell foul of technology again. Keys and Gray really look like that they have just come out of that comic sketch “Women know your limits” – but this comes straight from reality, when dozy oafs still believe it, rather than laugh at how outdated and contemptible it is.

Another Murdoch chick coming home to roost.

Compare and contrast: In 2004, Ron Atkinson is caught making racist remarks about then Chelsea FC defender, Marcel Desailly, when he thought the microphone was off. ITV, promptly and correctly, sacked him. What he said was unacceptable. Richard Keys and Andy Gray are caught making sexist remarks about lineswoman Sian Massey, when they think the microphone is off. Sky says this is “not acceptable.” Yet they keep their jobs. Obviously, like much of Rupert Murdoch’s empire, Sky are liars because it clearly is acceptable to them and, furthermore, they tacitly condone sexism. All three believed the target of their ire to be inferior to their notions of pigmentation or gender, yet Sky’s dinosaurs are not made extinct. To cap it off, Keys’ and Gray’s gripes stemmed from what they believed was incompetentce in Massey, as representaive of all women, but she had got the main decisions right.
As a sidebar, Gray took over Atkinson’s Guardian analysis column on a temporary basis when the latter man was removed from his duties as a result of his Desailly comments. Just as well for The Guardian that it was temporary.

Another Murdoch chick coming home to roost.

Compare and contrast: In 2004, Ron Atkinson is caught making racist remarks about then Chelsea FC defender, Marcel Desailly, when he thought the microphone was off. ITV, promptly and correctly, sacked him. What he said was unacceptable. Richard Keays and Andy Gray are caught making sexist remarks about lineswoman Sian Massey, when they think the microphone is off. Sky says this is “unacceptable.” Yet they keep their jobs. Obviously, like much of Rupert Murdoch’s empire, Sky are liars because it clearly is acceptable to them and, furthermore, they tacitly condone sexism. All three believed the target of their ire to be inferior to their notions of pigmentation or gender, yet Sky’s dinosaurs are not made extinct. To cap it off, Keays’ and Gray’s gripes stemmed from what they believed was an incompetent decision by Massey, but she had got it right.
As a sidebar, Gray took over Atkinson’s Guardian analysis column on a temporary basis when the latter man was removed from his duties as a result of his Desailly comments. Just as well for The Guardian that it was temporary.

There are good reasons for Obama to be re-elected, even if he had done nothing in his first term. Foreign policy is the supreme prerogative of the President of the United States (POTUS), but leaving aside Sarah “Russia is next door to me” Palin, the rest of the Republican field would also accelerate American decline. John Boehner, new House of Representatives leader had this to say to sum up his with meeting with Chinese president Hu Jintao – “Chinese leaders have a responsibility to do better and the United States has a responsibility to hold them to account.” This patronising attitude is reminiscent of how one would treat a delinquent child – or a dog. The People’s Republic of China is not a satrap of American dominion or on probation, but Boehner would probably be very happy in the Know Nothing Party of the nineteenth century. He clearly overestimates China’s control over North Korea and the USA’s control over China, unless he is thinking of that other China – Taiwan.
The House foreign affairs committee held a meeting to coincide with Hu's visit to the White House. Among those at the meeting was the Republican Dana Rohrabacher, one of the most hostile members of Congress towards Beijing, who told CNN Hu’s Communist Party is "a gangster regime that murders its own people". In a separate interview, Rohrabacher described the Chinese government as Nazis. Godwin’s law of Internet posting concludes that any argument will reach a point which mentions either Hitler or the Nazis at which the point the argument is lost by the person who made the comparison. In a mathematical sense, out of one that chances that an argument will reach such a stage are not a fraction but inevitably one. It is unavoidable. If Republicans are hosting such a debate, that stage will be reached all the more quickly. One doesn’t need to hurl ad hominem attacks at the Chinese hierarchy – they themselves invite comparisons with the National Socialists by forbidding Liu Xiaobo and any members of his family to collect the Nobel Peace Prize. The People’s Republic of China was totalitarian but it is now authoritarian – a fine but important distinction.
Is it any wonder that after this, Hu said the US-China relationship must be based on mutual respect? Certainly, the Chinese are guilty of disrespect themselves, such as at the Copenhagen climate summit, but it is no worse than some American actions. Telling the US to recognise that Tibet and Taiwan are “issues that concern China's territorial integrity and China's core interests” is a sign of growing confidence in Beijing – they can’t be pushed around, even on matters of dubious legality (Taiwan’s main island Formosa and Tibet were only acquired under the non-Chinese Manchu Q’ing dynasty – they are neither historically nor ethnically connected with China, though on the latter issue demographics are altering in both).
It is no surprise that not much has emerged from the visit. $45bn in trade deals had been announced earlier. The only concrete announcement is China's agreement to extend the stay of two pandas at Washington national zoo by five years. That says it all really. If you won’t truly engage, then expect only trivialities to be attained.
Meanwhile, what is happening with the police? Having weathered the storm about the death of Ian Tomlinson, kettling and the handling of the student protests, they might have expected to have a period of tranquillity. However, individual and systemic failings have thrown them back into the bearpit of criticism. Something that has been bubbling away for a while is their decision to suppress an investigation into allegations of a Sunday tabloid’s indulging in wiretapping on an industrial scale. With an assistant editor at that paper now suspended and David Cameron’s spin doctor Andy Coulson resigning (again), the Metropolitan police seem to have at the very least compromised themselves to stay on good terms with News International. Now the cops have allegations against them. That was systemic. Then, mingling the system and the individual, we have the undercover surveillance officers who had sexual intercourse with those they were supposed to be spying on and even leading organisational roles. One of them went as far as to marry a suspect and have children with her. That’s taking research into largely harmless groups such as Reclaim the Streets or environmental movements a bit too far. Finally, we have a purely individual case, with an elite bodyguard to successive home secretaries found to have had an affair with Alan Johnson’s wife, dealing a possibly fatal blow to Johnson’s political career and allowing Ed Balls, with his lean and hungry look, to lick his lips at finally getting the compensation prize of Shadow Chancellor for missing out on leading the Labour party. All in all, it’s been a pretty bad two weeks for law enforcement.

The state of British comedy is bewailed almost as often as the general state of the nation but when you have a series like Episodes, it does provoke gritted teeth, if not full-scale gnashing. There was one big reason why I chose to indulge half an hour of my time in this tripe and that was to see if Matt Le Blanc could resurrect his TV career after the disaster of Joey (a production name-checked here in an egregious name-calling case of pots, kettles and the colour black). He had been good in Charlie’s Angels, not so good in Lost in Space, but these were at his level. Friends was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for those involved as Jennifer Anniston proves. Yet he oozes charisma and one just wants the big schmuck to do well. He probably thought the BBC was such a revered organisation to appear on it would be the televisual equivalent of playing The Prince. Sadly, such a rose-tinted view is not so applicable in the 21st-Century. The other ‘stars’ were Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig – meh. Give me my Le Blanc fix, not 30 unfunny seconds of him. Richard Griffiths was a ‘special guest star’ as opposed to an ordinary guest star, but he emerged with credit to himself, doing the best he could with the material.
After about ten minutes my lips were so stiff and horizontal they were developing rigamortis, with occasional spasms like the legs of a dead frog kicking from quarter-jokes or eighth-jokes (to call them half-jokes would stretch the boundaries of truth, no less than decency) that slumped onto the show like a moribund dog dragging itself home. It was as old as 1970s sitcoms in the concept, but lacking in any of the repartee of the best of that genre. It more like the awful décor of the decade and any Rising Damp was in it very fibre than its script - it is ripe for demoltion. It could have worked if filmed in a manner like The Office (another show name-checked last night) and then the awfulness could have been palmed off as a documentary of the banality of life, for I’m sure plenty of the set-up is how much of American television gets commissioned. It tries to be a player, but this is no The Player. Just because you dispense with the canned laughter doesn’t automatically make you sophisticated; however, if you’re not up to the mark, you are far more likely to get canned.

In all the tributes to Pete Postlethwaite, who died before his time at 64, I remember an interview conducted with the man that was signal in assessing the man. The most salient revelation was that he was proud never to have been on the dole. It was odd to me because if I needed to take unemployment benefit it wouldn’t be a shaming action. Maybe I’ve had certain advantages that many of Postlethwaite’s peers did not possess, that maybe if one is not honestly employed, it leads to a sense of worthlessness, maybe not unlike that portrayed by the redundant steel workers in The Full Monty. To take the proffered handout and be back in the DFSS time and again would be for me a fact of life that I did not have a job. To have not needed to have done so I do not regard as an achievement, just as I understand that others are not as lucky as myself. Postlethwaite though probably didn’t wish to be a burden to anyone, rather than to be superior. This is illustrated by his repeated feigning of Steven Spielberg’s quote after Jurassic Park: The Lost World that he was “probably the best actor in the world.” On other occasions he dismissed it as ‘just one man’s opinion’ or that the director made him sound like a lager advert. In this Q & A that has remained with me, his humility came out again when reminded of it, quipping that Spielberg actually said “Pete Postlethwaite thinks he’s probably the best actor in the world.” Of course, Postlethwaite was not arrogant, but in expressing his modesty in disguise as its opposite shows that it was genuine. A truly arrogant person would not have made that statement in the first place. When watching The Town or Inception last year, he was utterly believable in that he immersed himself in the character – you didn’t think that’s him. You never thought he was on the way out (although the character for Inception was). He still had so much to offer.