Liberal Burblings

This fortnight’s Private Eye has some very funny bits in it. In Media News, the Eye reports that the BBC is cutting back to meet a £140m licence fee shortfall “with taxi bills slashed, hacks sacked, champagne banned (?!) and repeats repeated across all channels”.

Now the Beeb have found another way to save money. BBC 1′s “Total Wipeout” is “presented by Richard Hammond and Amanda Byram” insists the Radio Times. But while Byram swans off to Buenos Aires for the programme, Hammond sits alone in a broom cupboard in White City verbalising his input.

Private Eye continues:

“The whole point of this is that I’m very much watching this with the audience at home,” a bashful Hammond told website “TV Scoop”. “I’ve just never been given the call to [go to Argentina]. I just have to literally present it to a viewer and say: “Have a look at this, it’s hilarious’”.

Should the economic downturn continue, expect one of the highlights of the BBC’s 2010 winter season to consist of Hammond sitting in a darkened studio watching ITV1 and turning to the camera while pointing and laughing.

Well, it tickled me.

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