Ah, how distinctly British. As media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his son James were being grilled by a special select committee yesterday about the phone hacking scandal, a demonstrator somehow bypassed security, gained access to the committee room and - yes - threw a foam pie in the face of Rupert Murdoch. The extent of James's defence of his father was to rise from his seat, look mildly concerned and then electing to return to his seat preferring to let his 'mother-in-law' Wendi Deng (four years his senior) to pelt the attacker with a hefty slap.
The assaulter has been identified as comedian Jonnie Marbles, who was actually live-blogging about his actions on Twitter. About half an hour into the hearing he Tweeted "I'm actually in this committee", and second before the attack he wrote "it is a far better thing that I do now than I have ever done before #splat".
Marbles was whisked away from the hearing and said to waiting reporters who enquired as to his motives (and we're not making this up): "As Mr. Murdoch is aware, I cannot comment on an on-going investigation".
The beauty of this is that it happened live on Sky News, a network which he owns 40% of the shares in and he was trying to push through a deal to purchase enough shares to control BSKYB. It failed in the wake of the scandal and now, only days later, he gets 'pied' live on their station. All that we needed next was for Mr Blobby to run and pull Murdoch's trousers down.
The phone-hacking debacle is turning into the TV highlight of the summer. Who needs Big Brother, seriously?
-John Balfe
