What Not To Teach

Russell Brand's dirty talk

Opinion – Russell Brand is famous for his sleaze–his eloquent, literary, British sleaze that we all love so dearly. But when the headmaster of a London school got the bright idea of incorporating Brand’s dirty phone calls into an English exam (you know, to teach what not to say), the parents of his 14-year-old students were not amused.

Brand’s dirty prank call features English radio presenter Jonathan Ross calling Andrew Sachs, saying that Brand “had lovely sex with” and “fucked” Sach’s granddaughter. The calls are also called the “Sachsgate scandal” which resulted in over fifty thousand complaints to the BBC, suspensions of the stars, Brand’s resignation, and public apologies.

In spite of all of the public frowning, Hampstead School headmaster Jacques Szemalikowski took it upon himself to give his students “a taste of the real world” –you know, so they’ll be prepared for their own prank call from comedian Russell Brand.

“I think it is a totally appropriate thing to be doing,” Szemalikowski said, “The unit [involving the Brand calls] is all about how people react to language and the limits of freedom of expression and this was a very famous snippet. It’s all about interpretation. It was a controlled assessment.”

Sounds like a good psychology experiment, if anything. Perhaps if the actor had showed up to the classroom himself, with that majestic shiny hair and those witty quips, maybe he could have just charmed his way out of trouble.

Read more at Gawker.