Dame Maggie Smith’s death aged 89 sent this fabulously straight-talking exchange with Judi Dench viral and it’s just wonderful
Editor-in-chief, The Poke
Editor-in-chief, The Poke
- John has spent three decades writing about TV, media and popular culture. As broadcasting correspondent of the Guardian he spent many happy years presenting the paper’s MediaTalk podcast, interviewing the likes of Matt Berry, Armando Iannucci and Charlie Brooker.
- A former chairman of the television critics association, the Broadcasting Press Guild, he presented their annual awards ceremony and has a whole bunch of photos of him standing next to A-list celebrities (pictures available on request).
- He has also hosted events for Bafta and the Edinburgh TV Festival, and chaired the press jury prize at the Rose d’Or entertainment festival in Montreux.
Experience
John spent nearly 20 years at the Guardian, first as a freelance and then as a staff member on the Media Guardian team, editing the paper’s Media Monkey diary column. He first started writing about the television business at Broadcast magazine, before joining Heat and (briefly) The Sun. He began his career in local newspapers at the Medway News in Kent and the Norwich Evening News. He has only done stand-up twice and on one of those occasions he was fortunate enough to share the bill with Greg Davies and Rhod Gilbert (before they were famous, obviously).Education
John has an MA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University.13 of the funniest and most brutal comebacks that went viral this week
Melania Trump was asked what she wished people knew about Donald Trump and you’ll be hollering into next week
Reform UK chair Zia Yusuf was asked to be specific on Question Time and his answer neatly distilled the essence of the party in one minute flat
A bigoted troll questioned how this woman got into Oxford and her first class comeback was simply magnificent
A GB News presenter said Keir Starmer’s son should have revised for his GCSEs in a library and of all the comebacks this one beat all-comers
Matt Forde had the perfect final word on Keir Starmer’s jacket and even the Telegraph was forced to agree
If there’s a funnier innuendo bombshell on this series of Bake Off then we’ll eat our hat
The unearthing of this 1970s ‘time capsule’ just went wildly viral and it’s way too on the money
Andrew Tate really didn’t take this A++ takedown on the chin and it just makes it even more satisfying
This hilarious ‘teacher’s commentary’ on Donald Trump’s supermarket visit was magnificently done
This disastrous Bridgerton ‘event’ didn’t entirely live up to expectations and it’s basically the ‘Willy Wonka Experience’ for Americans
James O’Brien’s epic smackdown of a listener whose £1m home mother-in-law couldn’t afford a new boiler has been warming people’s cockles everywhere
It’s the end of the road for Alex Jones’ Infowars and please let this supremely satisfying 12 seconds be the last we see of him
Nadine Dorries accused Angela Rayner of getting ‘owt for nowt’ and the entirety of the internet replied as one
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