Bigot Ron
April 21st, 2004Whoah…that is weird. Been watching Ron Atkinson on “Room 101″ on the TV now, where he was quite charming and nice, then I come back to my computer and find that he’s resigned from ITV for making racist remarks - the Beeb don’t print them but the Telegraph give the gist of it. I’m quite shocked, especially as Atkinson worked with a lot of black players in his time.
Now what I want to know is what Clive Tyldesley, his co-commentator said back to him. Did he admonish Atkinson for his remarks, or did he let it pass by (with a gratuitous mention of “that night in Barcelona” to boot)?
Have a queue of other things to blog about, but have spent past few days tweaking things, adding a FOAF file and putting in a Creative Commons licence. ‘cos I’m that geeky. More blogstuff will follow later.
April 22nd, 2004 at 01:06:45
1) That’s really surprising, really out of order, and just really…inexplicable. I know TV is a pretty white industry, but were there no black people around, no Asians, no sensitive liberals who Atkinson would have known would kick up a fuss? Is this standard off-air banter? Is Alan Hansen constantly biting his tongue? Does Terry Venables advocate the execution of gays? Just… what?
2) Surely he should have adressed it at Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink anyway?
April 22nd, 2004 at 08:32:40
No Makalele would have been a better candidate for abuse in that game surely
April 22nd, 2004 at 10:06:42
This is what worries me - is the ‘banter’ off the mike always like this? There’s certainly stuff that would never be spoken on air - there was an indiscretion last year, I think, when Ron Atkinson called Francisco Totti “a diving little twat” at half-time (that comment I can fully agree with the sentiment) when he thought he was off the mike. Maybe it’s just Ron, maybe everyone’s doing it - we just don’t know.
I heard a fantastic mp3 file of the out-takes from Tom Baker doing some corporate video voice over, where he lambasts the tedious script and the recording studio staff (just effing and blinding, nothing racial), which suggests there may be plenty of “smoking gun”-type stuff from other broadcasters waiting to be released…maybe we’ll get some similar things leaked in the next few days.
April 22nd, 2004 at 10:07:46
Hang on - Damian, you work for the BBC! You must have some dirt you can dish out…
April 22nd, 2004 at 16:21:32
I sense a Popbitch-esque community mp3 blog (produced by techies for recording studios, all the major broadcasters, etc) coming this way…
Nice to see you commenting here, Damian. About fucking time, too.