Monday, 8 January 2018

Graham Bell, Wild Bull of the Whump-Ass, continues to run amok
 (July 10, 2014)

Graham Bell, Wild Bull of the Whump-Ass, continues to run amok
The Panel, Radio NZ National, Tuesday 1 July 2014

Jim Mora, Graham Bell, Denise L’Estrange-Corbet, Zara Potts

PART TWO OF TWO
After the four o’clock news, not much happens for a long time. There are the interminable reintroductions of each Panelist, which often mean it’s well after 4:15 before the first topic of the day is discussed. Today there’s not a lot to talk about—actually, there is a lot to talk about, but the producers have steered well away from anything substantial. There is, however, some superficial chat about depression….
JIM MORA: Uh, the Black Dog Project—there’s been reportage of this in Slate magaz—
GRAHAM BELL: That reminds me. What’s black and looks good on a criminal? A Doberman. Ho ho ho ho ho!
MORA: Graham that’s a terrible joke! I REFUSE to laugh at it.
The show drifts on, aimlessly and witlessly, until the 4:30 news. Then it’s time for the “Soapbox” segment. Remember, this is where the guests are expected to talk about something they have spent some time thinking about. Listeners might be forgiven, therefore, to expect something thoughtful, something serious, something interesting….
MORA: Denise L’Estrange-Corbet, what have you been thinking about?
DENISE L’ESTRANGE-CORBET: Well I went to a restaurant the other night, and I was just so ANNOYED by all the people who were texting non-stop! I’m just wondering: do people not TALK any more? ….[continues ranting about texting for several minutes]….
To stop her, Mora interrupts and reads out some texts and emails about various frivolities raised during the preshow. Then it’s on to the thoughts of Dixon of Dock Green….
MORA: Okay, Graham Bell, what’s been on YOUR mind?
GRAHAM BELL: I want to talk about Lucan Battison and his hair. The Battisons and the school should be ashamed of themselves. …That over-inflated CODSWALLOP that his lawyer spouted in court, comparing this case to Kate Sheppard and Martin Luther King. The only winners were the lawyers! The only LOSER is the kid himself. No employer will take him on. He’s the heir apparent to John Minto!
MORA: [nervously] A lot of people think “good on him.”
GRAHAM BELL: [snarling] I doubt it. Perhaps the Internet Mana Party can employ him! It’s CRAZY!
DENISE L’ESTRANGE-CORBET: Ridiculous! Ridiculous!
MORA: He said he was arguing for a principle.
GRAHAM BELL: R-r-r-r-r-rubbish! Codswallop!
….[Extended awkward silence]….
MORA: Graham Bell and Denise L’Estrange-Corbet on the Panel! It’s ten minutes to five. I want to talk about Rolf Harris.
GRAHAM BELL: Rolf Harris. I’ve always thought he was odd. REALLY odd!
MORA: Really?
GRAHAM BELL: Wobbling a saw and singing along with it. He’s a little bit unusual.
MORA: Ummm… Stripped of his BAFTA and his CBE.
DENISE L’ESTRANGE-CORBET: Good! Lock him up and throw away the key! He deserves NOTHING! He deserves NO SYMPATHY at all!
MORA: We’re joined now by Dr. Ian Lambie from Auckland University.
DR. IAN LAMBIE: Good afternoon Jim and listeners.
MORA: Uh, it’s well known that celebrities are ego-driven and narcissistic. Why do people like this think they can get away with it? Why do they think they have this kind of invincibility?
DR. IAN LAMBIE: They have a lot of money, a lot of power, a lot of prestige. Awards from the Queen. It takes an enormous amount of courage to speak out.
GRAHAM BELL: It’s a hallmark of many sexual offenders that they would select their victims. Some sex offenders are capable of thinking right through to the trial.
DENISE L’ESTRANGE-CORBET: They select them very carefully.
MORA: There’s that level of malign strategy. The other thing is, Ian, that the times have been on trial haven’t they, the sixties and seventies, with Jimmy Savile, haven’t they. The timeshave been categorized and besmirched….
DENISE L’ESTRANGE-CORBET: I mean it surrounded Michael Jackson for years didn’t it. All sorts of different people coming forward and he’d just pay them off. And maybe people do think that if people come forward they’re just after the money.
MORA: Thanks Ian. Actually, people in the seventies were just as moral as they are now.
GRAHAM BELL: Oh absolutely.
MORA: I mean, the times have been categorized and besmirched….
Somewhere during this borefest, Graham Bell had a go at smearing the dissident journalist Julian Assange. As always, Mora said nothing to contradict him. If somebody can track down his gouty rant, I would appreciate you transcribing it. I just can’t bear to wade through any more of it.
  • if bell were doing a comedy-routine..it could be (kinda) funny..in a reactionary-clown piss-take sorta way..
    ..but he isn’t..and it isn’t..
    ..but brilliant casting..!
    ..bell and corbet together…!..(i call her by her birth name..corbett..pre-affectation..)
    ..those two wd be neck and neck for thickest-panel-panellist-award..
    ..an antipodean-take on dumb and dumber…
    (mora was grasping/struggling with their concerted-inanities..there was seperate humour to be had from that..)
    ..(one of the ‘circles of hell’..?..a dinner party lasting forever..with bell/corbet..and a brace of those other ignorant fuckwits they have on that panel..
    ..that obese beer-pusher..?..and all those other rightwing-arsewipes they trot out there too..?
    ..(shudder..!..)
  • dimebag russell17.2
    bell has stockholm syndrome.
    he has been hanging round low lifes for so long now that he thinks like them.
    i.e. fantasies of omnipotence and contempt for the rule of law.

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