I was gifted a subscription to Private Eye for Christmas and am thoroughly enjoying its exposure of the pomposity and corruption seemingly endemic in the world’s ruling classes, as well as the cartoons of course. However, one regular feature has me baffled. I’m sure the massive includes many Eye readers, so can anyone answer me this: why do they always refer to King Charles as Brian? Is this a recent occurrence or does it go back to when he was plain old Prince of Wales? I’m probably missing something obvious, but I can’t see any connection between him and Life of Brian or Brian Clough (any other famous Brians?). Any ideas, readers?
ATM – Private Eye question
His mam was always referred to as Brenda, her sister was Yvonne and her hubby used to be Keith. Why? It’s obviously an in – joke, perhaps to point out the fundamental ordinariness behind all the pomp and obsequious bullshit that surrounds a basically dysfunctional family.
I’m not sure of the exact origins, but isn’t it all to do with the Royal Family as a soap opera – Elizabeth was “Brenda”, Philip was “Keith” and as you state Charles is “Brian”
It may have originated from that BBC documentary (is it still banned? ) in about 1970.
The late Queens was always Brenda. According to Wiki it’s to emphasise the soap opera side of the Royals as national entertainment.
A more acerbic observer notes that the public schoolboys and educated upper-middle and upper classes that shaped the ‘Eye find the lower middle classes and all things suburban as inherently funny.
Tom Holland always refers to them as “sniggering public schoolboys”.
I think you need to specify to exactly which Tom Holland you are referring. They are legion.
This article from Wikipedia is an amusing read. Ian Hislop – national treasure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurring_jokes_in_Private_Eye
Private Eye is read pretty religiously by all members of the household here. My mum was a lifelong subscriber – she used to say as a tax inspector she could find evidence for many of her cases in the back pages.
It’s investigative journalism is essential – from Thames Water to the Teeside Freeport and of course the Horizon computing it just keeps going at the dodgy no matter how great.
But of course its the funnies that keep it afloat. I preferred the romance novel predecessor Heir of Sorrows with its recurring punchline of Brian mishearing that his mum had died and leaping from the bath…
The Andrew Neil photo spurious reprint gag appears finally to have died out as exactly who he is slips from public consciousness..
The “Page 94” podcast by Private Eye mentioned this very recently. They said that the Brenda nickname was reported in 1971 as having originated in the palace by her own private staff.
Diana was known referred to in PE as Cheryl, apparently.
Their investigative journalism on Lucy Letby is exemplary
That’s a rabbit hole I recently entered due to the Eye. There’s a good podcast by John Sweeney and another by Amanda Knox which are a good listen.
Yes, Sweeney’s podcast, titled I think Was There Ever A Crime? is excellent.
It leaves you with the strong feeling that Lucy Letby was thrown under the bus to divert attention from gross negligence and incompetence among the managers.
That’s it.
Yes I didn’t particularly follow it then. But when an independent panel of 15 international experts find no evidence of murder it does make you think. It’s quite convenient for the conclusion to be “killer nurse” (identified by management) rather than “failing hospital” (for which they were responsible).
Yep
The police recently arrested a manager. No charges yet. If they are related to ignoring a murderer in their midst, the defence could claim there were, in fact, no murders, and reopen all the evidence. The alternative, though, is incompetent care and the manager could then be charged with running a negligent unit.
@Twang
This is entirely my view. I’ve been following the Eye story since it began, and what has happened is a complete travesty. I have little doubt that the whole case is an absolute stinker of a miscarriage of justice. There are some ‘experts’ and professionals involved who must have had countless sleepless nights over this affair, and yet still haven’t summoned the courage to speak up.
That’s why I will be surprised if there are charges for managers. The floodgates will be opened for new witnesses and new experts.
The page 94 podcast is a reliably entertaining listen often with intriguing details of some very persistent, very long term investigations. I love the fact that they haven’t really embraced the digital world but are seemingly doing quite well anyway.
I agree that Ian Hislop is a national treasure. In a recent video piece with Paul Merton, advertising the latest Have I Got News for You, he adopts the persona of Merton saying in a very clumsy approximation of his accent “is it a parrot playing the trombone?”
I really like the pod.
Listening to the pod the other day for no reason it did occur to me that Helen Lewis might be being groomed to take over when Hislop moves on
That is a thought that has made me think I should be lying down in a dark room today. It would be an excellent choice.
I find it intensely irritating that they haven’t embraced the digital world. I once asked them if they were contemplating an electronic edition for far-flung expats. No, came the answer. I could get a paper sub, but I’d always be a fortnight behind.
Better a fortnight than the three months it usually takes UK publications to get here via slow boat.
Better a fortnight than the six months (at least)) it usually takes UK mainstream publications to even mention some of the swill that the Eye brings to light.
If they fully embraced the digital shitosphere, the attack surface they would then present to their litigative haters would be hugely amplified beyond even its current scale. I don’t blame them for not wanting to give that opening to the scum whose venal activities they seek to reveal.
I agree Mike. I recall during the 90’s they set up a website with quite a lot of content but by the 00’s it was almost all taken down. Hislop has been quoted several times saying he equates online presence with working for nothing and giving away content – PE’s MD claimed sales improved after the website was shrunk. That’s not the same as a digital edition, and I do wonder how that squares with the podcast they do and why they can’t delineate an online presence from a digital edition.
There’s no doubt they have saved money but making no investment in digital but it’s a business model that’s long had a loyal customer base, which is now facing a slow steady decline – I’ve read about 3% of subscribers per annum. Hislop rejoices in being an “outsider” in the news / magazine so I think some of this is a degree of deliberate Ludditism
Because I’d looked at this page Facebook suggested I view the PE page on Facebook.
He has a point, one of the first newspapers to go online was The Guardian, making an early decision to give away all of their content. They now pester you for donations/subscriptions, but all the content is still there. A baffling decision. Meanwhile I guess their printed circulation has probably fallen by about 90% since the 90s.
The Guardian is basically a non-profit trust so the decision to go to a basically online format was relatively easy. Personally, I think their subscription model is damn good. You can pay full whack and get the full edition in your inbox each day or you can be a supporter (I pay £100 a year which is an absolute bargain) and get access to virtually everything (including crosswords etc) or pay nowt and read the non-headline articles as they are drip fed down during the day.
Got to say when I’m back in the UK I often pick up an actual paper copy and think “What a faff this is, why can’t I scroll down?”
Goodness! I agree.
Yes, The Eagles are indeed meh😀
I have an electronic subscription to PE here in Oz via Pocketmags. It’s the same price as the printed version, and you basically get a pdf of the mag. Usually I can access it the day after the printed version is issued, Pocketmags send a notification with a link.
The Eye’s subscription numbers may currently be going down a bit, but that’s after a sizeable increase in previous years. They’re currently in no danger of going to the wall.
Certainly not doing as badly as The Sun, The Express etc. currently are, in print.