Maybe was wrong…

I have on more than one occasion accused Duncan Bannatyne of being a cunt. Being the well balanced individual I am however, I am more than happy to back down and admit I might be wrong.

I watched this last night:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_world/Duncan Bannatyne is VERY Scottish

I was most impressed with his Scottishness, his popeyed charm, barely restrained aggression and also his sheer all out, balls of brass interview style. Basically, he made Paxman look like Richard Madeley, and coupled with what appeared to be genuine anger about the subject matter made what could otherwise have been a very worthy but dull program very good viewing.

Being one of those genuinely irritating born again ex-smokers I thoroughly agreed with his views regarding the advertising of smoking when it’s targeted towards children (Conversely, by all means target it towards adults-if you don’t know by the time you’re an adult that it will kill you, then frankly I’m surprised to managed to negotiate enough of life’s little obstacles to stay alive this long).

One of the most effective things that Bannantyne does whilst interviewing some poor bastard of a PR Flack is to maintain a perfectly neutral and friendly facial expression, which although seemingly innocuous does suggest that he is looking at the person who is talking to him and thinking “I know you’re fucking full of shit, you lying little cocksucker, but I’m going to nod and smile even though we both know that this whole endeavour is a complete fucking charade and that you know that you look like a proper cunt”. He’s like a particularly urbane attack dog…

He also has a spectacularly chilling smile. It’s the kind of smile that I imagine might well be the last thing that some people ever see.

So it’s made me look at Dragon’s Den in a new light. Yes, he is undoubtedly very rude to people, but to be honest if I was faced with a seemingly never ending series of fools asking me for huge amounts of money for miniscule stakes in preposterous schemes and products like “a talking horse brass with a USB connection” or whatever I would start telling people to fuck off pretty quickly as well.

See? I learned a lesson today…