In the United States, an uncomfortable talk show interview usually involves an uncommunicative Twilight star or a vaguely gross suggestion of backseat nookie from Jay Leno. Across, the pond, however, restrictions are looser — or at least they were, until Russell Brand mucked things up in the ribald BBC voicemail scandal that we still don't fully understand (we think it involved Fawlty Towers, Satanists, and a giant bird's nest of hair). Now, British chat show host Jonathan Ross is being investigated for another example of bad language (shown in the above clip), in which he asks A-list actress Gwyneth Paltrow about her kids and then announces that he would like to fuck her and that she's clearly "gagging for it." Someone's been taking interview tips from The Advocate!

The recurrent bitchiness between Michael Wolff and NBC's Ben Silverman usually lapsed back into polite chatter at the Monaco Media Summit, judging from the lengthy YouTube video of a panel discussion at the Monte Carlo event. But one can't help but wonder if would-be internet mogul Wolff was more personally invested in his reference to television networks as the scapegoated "trash heap of everybody's expectations" than he let on. And calling Silverman "functionally digitally illerate" was just plain mean, as was using a vulgar expletive to refer to old media. But then sublimated envy and resentment are kind of Wolff's calling cards, so no harm, no foul! Click the video icon to watch the fireworks.

Ah England, home to both world-class soccer hooliganism and a world-class reputation for stuffiness. What we're implying is that any outwardly polite Brit is, at any given moment, seething with murderous rage. Well! It seems that a BBC radio interview this morning took a turn for the wacky when the interviewee's cell phone went off, live on air! Which caused the host, John Humphrys, to threaten to take the man out back and shoot him dead. Funny Brits! Click to listen to the tape. Gunshot not included.

Lord Christopher Monckton (pictured left—that's really him!) says his wacky denials of global warming were unfairly skewed in a recent BBC documentary on the environment. Lord Monckton—a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher and not an invention of Evelyn Waugh's—claims, "They made it sound as if these were just my personal views, as if I was some potty peer. It was caddish of them." Oh dude, you have got to be in the news every weekend forever!

When will the far East stop its racist stereotyping of the white man? Athletes from across the world define the Chinese by the slanty-ness of their eyes. But China is just as bad. They harbor the ludicrous notion that whites look alike! Listen carefully, China: BBC pundit Steve Parry is a tall, white, goofy former swimmer. But Michael Phelps is a tall, white, goofy current swimmer. Being mistaken for someone else is just one more thing white men in China are forced to endure, like weird foreign food and a lack of readily available American flag bumper stickers. Watch the clip of Parry being mobbed by enthusiastic Michael Phelps fans below:

Since 2000, every time BBC news writes a story on China, their online editors slap up this stock photo of a Chinese police officer looking at a computer. Probably censoring something! Or cracking down on freedom! Or, like, updating his MySpace. Though since the picture dates back to 2000 he's probably just buying a cup of coffee from Kozmo.com. Regardless, there are at least 14 separate instances of the BBC using this same photo to illustrate a story, which is evidence of their anti-Chinese bias, obviously, repeatedly reinforcing the old "Chinese people sit too close to the monitor" stereotype. Also it's not clear whether the Beeb is actually revealing that the photos are not related to the stories they illustrate, which seems like a sketchy practice. Examples after the jump!

The folks who are bringing you the Olympics online don't actually want you to watch their coverage. NBC and Microsoft are delaying the most popular events by three hours so that it won't interfere with more profitable TV broadcasts. And you'll have to download Microsoft's Silverlight browser plug-in to watch in your browser. But a bird's nest of geography and time-delay restrictions worthy of China's Communist Party government is in place. Thankfully, the anarchy of the Web offers plenty of options for having a crowd of curious coworkers surround your computer as you watch live handball, with varying degrees of expense and difficulty. Rather than being the coming-out party for Silverlight Microsoft hopes for, it may instead be the year sports fans learn a few new online-video tricks.Online schedules: NBC's Olympics listings takes a bit of work (you have to enter your ZIP code and select a television provider, even if you just want online listings). However, once you've done the work, it'll send you notifications when events you've selected will be broadcast. Jason Kottke has found Google and iCal calendars, which will allow you a bit more flexibility in setting up alerts, and the New York Times has a schedule as well. And of course, there's an official schedule from the organizers in China, with times listed for Beijing's time zone (16 hours ahead of San Francisco, 13 hours ahead of New York) — probably the best place to go for daily updates, as smog and weather may upset the schedule. Sling Media's Slingbox: For those with more money than time, the best solution might be a Slingbox. Then you can beam your home satellite or cable signal over the Internet to your laptop, desktop, or iPhone, and remotely switch between NBC and MSNBC. Pros: You can get great quality, even HD, if your home Internet connection is fast. There is SlingPlayer software available for a range of not just operating systems but handheld devices as well. Cons: Prices start at $129.99 and your selection of Olympics coverage is limited to what's available from your satellite or cable provider, which means missing early heats and niche events and having to put up with tape delays by the networks. International proxies: It is possible to watch live streams from other countries, such as BBC Sports from the UK or CBC Sports from Canada, by configuring your browser to run through an anonymous proxy. I recommend using Mozilla's Firefox browser with the FoxyProxy add-on installed. Xroxy has a handy list of proxies which you can sort by country to find proxies in the UK or Canada — which must be anonymous, and preferrably running the SOCKS protocol. Your best bet is to get a geeky British or Canadian friend to install a proxy on their machine for you and your Yankee friends. The latency can be frustrating, but once you get a stream started it will work fine. Pros: Quality streams from legitimate providers, and if you're accustomed to jingoistic U.S. coverage, the charming accents from the Beeb's announcers and the humble mien of the Canadians can be quite refreshing. Cons: Takes some technical know-how to set up, and proxies come and go. You might miss an event because you're too busy fiddling with your settings or a proxy fails when too many people sign on. Video on demand: If you're running Windows Vista, you can download events using TVTonic for "Olympics on the Go." Torrent client Azureus works on any system to help download events after the fact, especially the most popular ones like tennis, football, boxing and basketball — Torrentz cross-site search of multiple BitTorrent indexes should make it easy to find the Spain versus China women's basketball game you might miss tomorrow. YouTube's official channel is blocked — even using international proxies — though a reader came up with a crack that works for now. Other less thoroughly policed online video sites like Veoh, Metacafe, Dailymotion and Megavideo will also have videos. Pros: Torrents will be high quality and work for anyone, while video-sharing sites will be easiest to use. Cons: Nothing will be live, obviously, and no one knows how long video clips will remain on sharing sites. P2P Streams: The way I'll be watching online will is through MyP2P, a site that catalogs live sports and television streams from around the Web, listed by event. It helps to run Windows, though not necessarily Vista, because many streams require software downloads — check out MyP2P's beginners guide for tips, including where to find software downloads and optimization settings. I ended up finding live BBC coverage of the opening ceremonies via Justin.tv, which ran just fine in my browser. If you can't find the channel you want in the media format you prefer, check wwiTV, TV For Us, TV Channels Free, Channel Chooser or BeelineTV among others. Pros: Free and fairly easy once you've installed most of the media players listed by MyP2P. And it's fun to watch coverage from other countries — I'll be watching all my football with spanish-speaking announcers whenever possible. Cons: Quality is hit-or-miss, stream links come and go, and you have to think ahead in terms of scheduling to make sure you've got all the necessary programs installed. Also, Mac users will want to install Windows XP through Parallels or Fusion for the widest selection of channels.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt stopped by Advertising Age's Madison and Vine conference last week, and proceeded to weep incredibly expensive tears over the fate of investigative journalism after Google helped eviscerate newspapers' business. "It's a tragedy for America," Schmidt declares before noting how few resources are going into reporting on the war in Iraq. "We'd spend a little more money to cover it, but our economic system doesn't justify that." Meanwhile, across the pond, Google hired away veteran BBC newsman Peter Barron of Newsnight for the company's public relations machine. Maybe Google will open a new PR bureau in Baghdad and send flacks to the front lines to cover the war. Would certainly be one way to improve Google News.

The BBC has an early video clip from EMI research engineer Alan Blumlein, who made a series of stereo recordings in the early 1930s after filing a patent for binaural sound technology. Blumlein early recordings include a stereo capture of the London Philharmonic rehearsing Mozart's Jupiter Symphony in 1934. The recordings have been digitally cleaned up to remove the aging effects of the 78 RPM phonographs on which they were stored. Blumlein was a prolific inventor, awarded 128 patents over the course of his life for everything from stereo phonographs to TV to reconnaissance radar.

Samir Shah, who sits on the BBC's board of directors, gave a speech last night that may not go over well, because he referred to the numbers of minorities on TV shows in the UK as a misguided act of "over-compensation." He also bemoaned TV as "a world of deracinated coloured people flickering across our screens - to the irritation of many viewers and the embarrassment of the very people such actions are meant to appease." But if you see scandal-tinged headlines all over the place like the Guardian's "Too many black and Asian faces on TV, says BBC director Samir Shah," just remember that that's only half the story. Shah doesn't just want fewer minorities on the screen; he wants to switch them out with the "metropolitan, largely liberal, white, middle-class, cultural elite" in the broadcasting boardroom. Fair trade? Excerpts from Shah's speech, below:

Look, it's an adorable polar bear, roaming free in an ice field! Awww. But, wait, why is the BBC using it to illustrate their lead story about President Bush's renewed push for offshore oil drilling? Because Bush is also calling for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, which could be allowed by Congress, and then there could very well be (33-51% chance!) an oil and gas "leak," which in turn could hurt polar bears. This wouldn't be media bias, would it? Choosing this distantly, arguably related photo instead of, say, a shot of an oil rig? Or of Bush? Oh, right, it is bias, but it's the kind only POLAR BEAR HATERS get upset about.

Think dealing with ADD-addled venture capitalists is bad? In the U.K., the operators of BBC.co.uk have to answer to something called the BBC Trust, charged with making sure BBC media "provides high quality output and good value for all U.K. citizens." The Trust's latest review says BBC.co.uk's "not sufficiently strong" management overspent its 2007 - 2008 budget by 48 percent, or $70.5 million. "This lack of financial accountability is not acceptable," reads the report, which also decrees BBC.co.uk's management has to be out by December. The Trust says the site needs more linking out, better search, better navigation and more caution with its investments. The report does not address our need for Little Britain torrents.

Fat people are eating all the food in the world, thus starving the skinny people, and also causing global warming, because they are so often chilly. It's true, we read it on BBC News. "The result [of hungry, hungry fatties] is that the poor struggle to afford food and greenhouse gas emissions rise," according to a study in The Lancet. Oh no! [BBC]

"Great tits cope well with warming" [BBC via YM]

In order to demonstrate how easy it would be for an malicious developer to create an application that steals private information from Facebook users, BBC television series Click created such an application themselves. Then they set up some spooky lighting and filmed a dude using two computers. "ID theft is a serious matter," the narrator intones. Check it out in the clip.

Amid the jailing of Times reporter Barry Bearak, news organizations are rightfully getting scared shitless about covering the nation of Zimbabwe, where elections are believed to not be going well for the ruling government. So CNN took the unprecedented step of concealing its reporter's identity. The BBC blurred the face of its reporter. Huge credit to the networks for filing from a country where they are formally banned; apparently people in the streets are "absolutely thirsty for information" and get most of it from foreign outlets. CNN's anonymous report:

Facebook is the ultimate journalist tool: it's the easiest way to track sources from a particular demographic. It's also the easiest way to find incriminating photos of someone online. So knowing the rules of the game, the BBC has set limits on the Facebook profiles of their staff, at once defending their online privacy while invading it. The BBC is doing it to protect their brand. It's true: all their hard work would be lost if one of their reporters was ever caught doing a brandy snifter pyramid, or whatever the British equivalent of a keg stand is. [Guardian]

The paid-for-by-British-TV-owners BBC has rolled out an iPhone compatible version of its on-demand streaming video service, iPlayer. Neat, right? Yeah, kinda. It's Wi-Fi only and, oh yeah, available strictly in the U.K. What's the point of all that, then, if I can't watch new episodes of EastEnders?

Joost fired its former CTO, Dirk-Willem van Gulik, when it found out he was looking for a new job. Or he quit. Hard to tell. But according to a new tipster, one thing is clear: Many at Joost were glad to see him depart for a new job at the BBC.