Brown does cool. Fails
Fraser Nelson 3:21pm
As it’s Friday, here’s some entertainment – the interview Gordon Brown gave to Radio One’s Newsbeat last year (newly added to YouTube). The interviewer, Rajini Vaidyanathan, specialises in leftfield questions and often gets hilarious results. After asking if he was a “grumpy, dour backstabber” (he was prepared for that one) she asked the then Chancellor where he would take her on a date. What film would they watch? United 93, he said. Not very romantic, she replied. He tried again: Hotel Rwanda. And his music? He likes “mod..moder…moder…modern groups” Here is a wee transcript (forward to 1’40):
Rajini Vaidyanathan: Let’s pretend I’m on a political dinner date with you. Would you cook or would you take us out?
Gordon Brown: Of course, I’d take you out.
RV: Where would we go? What sort of food?
GB: Well, you would choose I think where you wanted to go. Ha ha. I think we we’d obviously go to s-s-s-some good restaurant. We might get a film, we might…. I love films. We might go to a concert, I like music.
RV: Let’s stay with the film thing then. What sort of films have you seen recently – what would you take me to see?
GB: I’ve seen eh, quite a few films you see. The last one I think I saw was United 93, which was about September 11th.
RV: …bit serious, isn’t it? Anything more…
GB: I was…it was…it was a bit serious. I was watching on a plane Hotel Rwanda which is also a very se-se-se-serious film. But I like comedies. I like all sorts of things that I can see. I like watching television. I like watching everything from – heh heh heh – Law & Order to the X Factor to everything else.
RV: When was the last time you cried watching a film?
GB: I actually think Hotel Rwanda was a, was a very moving film. And, um, so was United 93, because I think you talk about the last few weeks – and I think these films I saw were very moving indeed.
RV: If you were going to take me to a gig – there’s been much publicity about you being a fan of the Arctic Monkeys. Are you really? And if not tell us who you do like?
GB: I didn’t actually say that. What I said was ‘the Arctic Monkeys would wake you up in the morning because of the noise’. And I….
RV: You haven’t actually got the album
GB: I have got the album actually, because you know, I’ve heard it, I listen to it. But.. but equally I start with the Beatles, but also interested in mod..moder…moder…modern groups. Col-coldplay, the bass guitarist from Coldplay comes as the same town as me Kirkcaldy so I like hearing them as well.
RV: Thank-you.
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Comments
Austin Barry
April 4th, 2008 3:48pmHe should give up trying to be a happenin' dude. His face is a landslide of sorrow.
Tom
April 4th, 2008 3:56pmIsn't it sad the way he's been media trained to death. He can't answer any questions without the obligatory 'bridge' to his well rehearsed key messages. It just sounds so unnatural. Like an automaton.
Faceless Bureaucrat
April 4th, 2008 4:59pmTragic, truly tragic...
Hopefully the arrival of Stephen Carter at No.10 will ensure no more of this type of pathetic PR 'own goal' make it on to Gordy's schedule.
RW
April 4th, 2008 8:19pmLike an automaton...this confirms what I've long suspected, that Brown is in a similar situation to the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in his later years. It was widely rumoured at the time that Brezhnev was technically dead, but being remotely animated from the Kremlin. The only signs of life were his heavy black eyebrows moving up and down.
Our Gord is clearly being controlled by wireless telemetry from the Brown Central Fuehrerbunker deep beneath Downing Street, with someone waving a Wii at a screen and the PM responding. But something's mucking up the transmission, hence the digital stutter - mod-moder-moder-modern - and the physical malfunctions, like sudden inappropriate grins or jaw-dropping. Something must be done. Maybe a technical expert from PR Weekly could be called in to sort things out. They seem to be pretty clued-up about the inner secrets of No 10.
More
April 4th, 2008 9:02pmThe man is as convincing as Del Boy trying to sell you a 'geniune' Mona Lisa portrait by the legendary 'Leonardo da Vinci Code'
The man wouldn't recognise a straight or honest answer if it were to come up to hime and slap him in the face
Fergus Pickering
April 5th, 2008 3:27amI hope, oh I do hope, that when Cameron is PM he won't go in for this sort of thing. The old (I mean anyone over thirty-five) really ought not to try to arse-creep youth in Kingsley Amis's felicitous phrase.
Steve
April 5th, 2008 1:20pmWhy do politicians make such idiots of themselves when trying to gain youth cred? I suspect that young people can spot a phoney (in terms of claiming to like this or that band) and would be far more impressed if you actually said what you liked now, and maybe what you listened to when you where a teenager, rather than these deeply cringeworthy efforts at hipness.