Jonathan Ross, Russell Brand. And Manuel.

One thing I definitely don't miss since leaving Britain for Ireland is a Daily Mail-fuelled media feeding frenzy.

What the hell was that all about anyway? From reading some of the reports you might have thought that Ross, Brand, and a gang of hoodies had gone round Manuel's house, trampled his flowerbeds, stuck bangers in his turn-ups, and generally terrorised him like poor Dolores from 'Fair City'.

Seems instead it was a series of messages left on his phone. And at the heart of the whole sorry episode were some apparently upsetting jibes about Brand's alleged liason with Manuel's grand-daughter. Yeah, right.

It can't possibly have been those other remarks that really got Manuel's goat. Like the fact that he's famous for playing a Spanish waiter over 30 years ago and hardly anything else since.

Come on. It should have been Manuel's agent who made the public apology. 'I'm terribly sorry, but yes, I should really have got Manuel a few more gigs over the years.'

Now don't get me wrong...

I'm not in favour of any kind of bullying or harrassment (even if it has some intrinsic comedy value - which in this case is questionable). Of course not. And if 'former Fawlty Towers star Andrew Sachs' (as he's described by The Guardian, BBC, Sky News, and just about everyone else) says he's been harrassed, then we have to take his word for it. And it's true - he does seem to be a genuinely lovely old fella. And nobody likes getting prank calls right?

Quite where the Satanic Sluts (59,000 hits on Google and counting) fit into all this, I couldn't really say.

Still, it gave Middle England a chance to froth at the mouth for a couple of days and have a good old moan about the BBC going to the dogs. Yeah, of course it is. Utterly dreadful old rubbish the lot of it and not a patch on the old days when I was a lad etc etc.

Trouble is, if the Daily Mail ran enough double page spreads about it, we'd find ourselves with a 20,000 signature petition to bring back the 'Black and White Minstrel Show'.

Anyway. There we are. Rant over. But if you're still following the story - here's the latest on the 'BBC Radio Phone Filth Scandal' from The Sun)