:: gia’s blog ::

Last year I did a run-down of my year and thought I’d do the same again this year.
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**UPDATE** 26/11/08 Jonathan thanks everyone again for their support. If you’ve not heard already, he’s on Facebook now. Search for Jonathan Stephen Ross and friend him. Also, there is another petition in support of Jonathan and Russell, please sign it!

**UPDATE** 02/11/08 I just emailed Jonathan with the messages and told him about the Facebook Group which now has over 34,000 members. He replied immediately and admitted that he’s being worn down by all of this and the messages of support and the active support of everyone is a really big help. Please, keep doing everything you can. We want Wossy!

OK. I have to stop my self-imposed exile from blogging for this. I just went out into Brixton and was confronted with the real world for the first time since yesterday morning.

All the headlines are about the Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand hoo-haa. Last one I saw, as I was leaving Sainsbury’s, was something about Gordon Fucking Brown ‘demanding action’ or something. I hope Gordon is actually spending a bit more time and energy on working out what can be done about the Congo, which is on the verge of all-out war, rather than stoking the fire being used to light the torches in the tabloid-led witchunt… but I fear that mightn’t be the case.

Now, as regular readers will know, I have a bit of a history with Jonathan Ross here. Very briefly: 18 months ago I was working on a film, one of the stars of said film was on Jonathan Ross’ show, I recorded it, edited out all references and clips from other shows/films and only left stuff about the film I was working on, put it on YouTube (where I also had trailers and short videos from said film)… and Jonathan Ross’ production company had it taken down. So I got a ‘mark’ against my YouTube account.

I wasn’t happy.

I blogged about it and Jonathan got in touch, came on here, talked to people in the comments, was generally a decent guy and, long story short, changed his company’s YouTube policy because everyone here convinced him it was the right thing to do. So now dorks all over the world can see their favourite stars being interviewed on his show. Fab.

We’ve emailed each other a bit since then, about the X-Files, about CERN, and recently, he did something about my husband on his show that ended up not making the final cut. He had got in touch beforehand to invite us both to the recording…

He’s a lovely guy. I’ve been a fan of his since the 80s and genuinely think he’s hilarious.

To counter the tabloid hysteria, I’d like to collect some messages of support for Jonathan Ross here in the comments and I’ll email him later to let him know about them. I ONLY want messages of support. If you are Outraged from Ipswich, then why not go vent your spleen at the Daily Mail’s site instead? K? I will delete negative messages.

So, please, leave comments and let others know they can leave messages for him here, too.

**UPDATE 30/10/08**
I was just sent these photos from Dave at Karmarama of their protest in ‘solidawity’ for Jonathan today at the BBC.

*UPDATE 2 30/10/08 **
Join the Facebook Group supporting Jonathan and Russell
Lodge your complaints against Jonathan’s 12 week ban here.

*update 23/11/08: Jonathan is back on Facebook now!

*update* 29/10/08: To leave messages of support which will be sent directly to Jonathan, please click here

Johnathan Stephen Ross, your Facebook friend and mine, has left Facebook. Yesterday his status said something like ‘I am thinking of leaving Facebook because everyone seems to be bugging my wife with friend requests’. Hmmmm.

If you search for Jane Goldman on Facebook -she’s part way down the page with the red hair, for you non-Brits **EDIT** WAIT! I got to the end of writing this post and now she’s gone from Facebook, too. Well up until 2 minutes ago you could view her friend list, add her as a friend AND send her a message. Though her profile wasn’t viewable by anyone, she was leaving herself wide open to “pestering”… If getting friend requests from strangers was such a problem, why didn’t she limit the options available in the search ie not allow people to submit friend requests, not allow people to see her friends, not allow people to message her etc? Problem solved. But she decided not to take that option.

Whatever, it was enough of an annoyance to Jonathan for him to decide to leave. Facebook will be more rubbish without him.

*update 23/11/08: Jonathan is back on Facebook now!

*update* 29/10/08: To leave messages of support which will be sent directly to Jonathan, please click here

**EDIT** 16 January: Jonathan Ross has now left Facebook.

There’s been a lot of Jonathan Ross here recently. It went from me criticising his company’s YouTube policy, to him emailing me to explain their position, to me saying that position sucks, to him, personally, changing their policy, to everyone thinking that he rules and is a lovely geek.

He’s now joined Facebook. Think Wossy can outdo Fry’s Facebook-friendship madness? Go on, let’s try… befriend him.