Excitable BBC commentators, and Russell Brand getting his comeuppance

Talking on the Sunday papers, here's a selection of stories from today's newspapers (well, one of them) concerning the BBC.

Call me biased and inconsistent, but if there's one bias I don't mind the BBC displaying it's a spot of restrained jingoism during sports competitions. The BBC has been getting complaints, however, that its jingoism has been anything but restrained. 

Martin Johnson at The Sunday Times (£) has an amusing article on the subject today: 

TELEVISION coverage of the Winter Olympics began with the BBC fielding complaints that the commentary team became overpatriotic when one of our girls won a bronze in the snowboarding. Whenever, for example, a rival competitor flew headfirst into a snowdrift, viewers took the view that a quiet “oh, bad luck” was a more appropriate response than a series of whoops, hollers, way-to-goes and cartwheels so acrobatic they would have brought us a medal in the freestyle aerials.

Who are these curmudgeons? When you’re disappearing down the plughole at cricket and haven’t won anything at football since Bobby Charlton sported a decent combover, ruling the world in the noble art of hurtling downhill on a tea tray would seem to be a more than legitimate cause for jingoism. 

Indeed.

And, finally, moving from the Times to the Daily Mail, and from the BBC to Channel Four, there's a piece about an interview between Jon Snow and Russell Brand that I really wish I'd seen.  I think I might have whooped, hollered,way-to-goed and cartwheeled at Ol' Russ's complete discombobulation at the hands of Jon Snow.

How different to his treatment on the BBC!