Unlucky Fridge of the Week
My fridge has had some pretty unpleasant things in it over the years. Pizza from the previous night, my purée-smeared fingers searching for pizza from the previous night, pizza from two nights ago.
Nothing, however, has been as repulsive as what ended up in a West Yorkshire fridge on Wednesday morning. Rather than face questions on Good Morning Britain, Boris Johnson appeared to hide in a walk-in fridge while one of his advisors swore at a reporter. With the show’s astonished hosts looking on in the studio, Johnson achieved the unthinkable and made Piers Morgan only the second most ridiculous man in a situation.
When Johnson released a book about Winston Churchill in 2014, the Guardian talked about “Johnson’s not so subtle attempts to draw a parallel between himself and Churchill”, adding “The reader is invited to see the two men as supreme orators”.
Stop laughing in the back. Let’s give Johnson the benefit of the doubt and compare the two. Both men have been leader of the Conservative Party. Both men have been Prime Minister of Great Britain. Neither man met a calorie they couldn’t get on with.
One of the two suggested that Indians “breed like rabbits”. The other suggested that women who wear the burqa “choose to go around looking like letter boxes”. Churchill has been depicted in dozens of films and dissected in numerous documentaries, but has made significantly less appearances on Have I Got News For You.
As for “supreme orators”? The definitive Churchill quote is “We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender”.
For future generations, the definitive Johnson quote will be “Have the journalists gone? Is it safe for me to come out of the fridge?” .
Kuenssbergisms of the Week
BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg, December 9th 2019, 16.31: “So Matt Hancock was despatched to Leeds Hospital, to try to sort out mess, hearing Labour activists scrambled to go + protest, and it turned nasty when they arrived – one of them punched Hancock’s adviser”
Laura Kuenssberg, December 9th 2019, 18.48: “Happy to apologise for earlier confusion about the punch that wasn’t a punch outside Leeds General – 2 sources suggested it had happened but clear from video that was wrong”
Laura Kuenssberg, November 22nd 1963: “Happy to apologise for earlier confusion about JFK firing a bullet from his head at Lee Harvey Oswald – 2 sources suggested it had happened but clear from video and how bullets work that was wrong”
True Story of the Week
This week’s announcement of the Golden Globe nominations capped off a superb year in television. There was recognition for harrowing drama Chernobyl, which prompted the Sun’s headline “Sky Atlantic’s Chernobyl is based on a terrifying true story”. I’ve seen it so I know what true story they’re referring to. SPOILER ALERT – it’s not the JFK assassination.
Succession, meanwhile, became almost certainly the first Golden Globe nominee in which an American billionaire berates his son for accidentally buying him Hearts instead of Hibs.
2019’s TV falls short of the previous year’s standards, however, purely on the basis that it was 2018 that saw Matt Goss say “The letters H.O.M.E. are so important because they personify the word ‘Home’”.
Bustettes of the Week
This week saw the release of a trailer for ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’, marketed as the return of a beloved classic.
“Didn’t Ghostbusters return in 2016?’ you might be asking yourself. Well yes, technically it did, but this time the busters aren’t a team of women. Phew!
The 2016 version starred the frequently hilarious Kristen Wiig and Kate McKinnon, but faced a backlash from the Men’s Rights demographic, or ‘Virgins’. You know, the guys who neg women in nightclubs, hound women on Twitter and hate women for not finding any of that attractive.
Their objections, presumably typed out from their mum’s basements, amounted to not much more than ‘It’s Bill Murray, not Jill Murray’. Actually mate, it’s Dan Aykroyd, not Man Aykroyd.
Person of the Year of the Week
Greta Thunberg has been named Person of the Year by Time magazine. The teenage environmental activist beat the likes of the anonymous CIA whistleblower who reported details of Donald Trump’s call with Ukraine’s president, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the wee boy at Glasgow’s Elfingrove festival who performed a version of Jingle Bells on STV News featuring the line “Oh McFun it is to ride on a waffle sofa sleigh”.
Trump was also on Time’s shortlist, and if you need cheering up today just close your eyes and picture his face upon hearing he’d been beaten by a 16-year-old girl.
