The BBC and BT were left
trying to put a positive spin on a chaotic night of
voting in it’s flagship histo-quiz ‘The Greatest
Briton’. The quiz which sought to find out who ‘we
the public’ considered to be our greatest ever
representative on earth was supposed to deliver a
result that would show Brunel, Churchill or Princess
Diana coming out as the greatest Briton of all time.
Unfortunately BT and their
boffins at Shepherds Bush made a 
complete
chimp’s tea party of the whole shebang by confusing
their dialling scheme with that reserved for Celebrity
Big Brother. It was realised too late that something
was up when Winny, Izzy and Di failed to register a
single vote. And all this after an hour spent pleading
by Mo Mowlem, Jeremy Cackson and the woman who sounds
like she should play cricket or rub down sweaty ponies
or something similar.
Whilst they failed to improve
their standing, Les Dennis, Ann Diamond and Melinda
Messenger came out of nowhere to find themselves in
the top ten within fifteen minutes. Once their
popularity became apparent, the Beeb decided to roll
with it and re-broadcast the numbers with publicity
shots of Diamond, Dennis and Messenger on the screen.
Within minutes Messenger was striding even further
ahead. Once the pictures were shown on the screen,
lovely Melinda began to gather massive support from
the demographics of boys aged 13 - 16, men aged 17 –
25.. and well to be honest with all men. Many callers
rang to see if they could retract their votes for
Diamond and Dennis and in fact have their money back
and forget all about the whole sorry shambles. With
Cackson jumping ship from Brunel and making the case
for Messenger whilst Mowlem tried in vain to get some
support for Les ‘Mavis’ Dennis and the
cricket/pony/other woman giving up there was only ever
going to be one winner.
