The DT story is such a non-story. I really can’t believe people are making it out to more than it was. First of all, you can barely even tell he’s “drunk,” and it’s simply a joking message about nothing serious, which leads me to:
Well, it seems clear to me that DT knew the message would be played on the radio (the first thing he says it “to all the listeners” of the show, so it’s not meant to be a private secret thing.) I mean come on, he ended the message by saying “and here comes the news.” I wouldn’t be surprised if they both planned for him to leave a message like that, talking about “the thing we shouldn’t talk about” to get people wondering about what they might have planned. I believe I heard somewhere that DT might be guest hosting his show again in the near future.
That’s just the kind of relationship these two have. DT’s called in before to leave messages and Christian has called him at home to ask him funny/random things (i.e., a call about “man panties.”) He guest hosted the show for him three times last year, he auctioned off his old *bed *on the show once. I find the answering machine message to be hilarious.
Uh … so this is a set-up bit? What’s the scandal, again?
No, he jokes that O’Connell may well play the message on his show, that being the sort of cheeky japester that he is, and in fact O’Connell did indeed play it. I don’t get the impression at all they it was planned. It was just a bit of fun. If DT had actually said anything offensive (unlikely, because from what I’ve seen of him in interviews he must be one of the most affable and least offensive people in Britain), I doubt O’Connell would have played it out.
But yeah, I can’t help you with the scandal part.
Okay, these replies are helpful and informative! Thank you all. And now that I’ve had time to think about it, perhaps this isn’t so much about the UK threshold of scandal as it is about my threshold of irritation. Because I don’t just live in the US; I live in Los Angeles. So celebrity news tends to be local news as well. During the Michael Jackson trial, for instance, more than once something I wanted to see was pre-empted so the local news could show Jackson and his family walking through metal detectors. Or when Paris Hilton went to jail, that was on all the channels and radio stations, all day long.
As such I’ve been conditioned to react a certain way, to cringe and think, “OMG he’s gonna need months to live this down!” Because unfortunately, he would, if he was L.A.-based. But a lot of things would be different in that case. Thank you all for clearing this up. And FTR, I love L.A. for a host of reasons, many of which have to do with the entertainment biz. I just didn’t realize, until now, that this Scandal Du Jour nonsense has been getting under my nerves.
And yeah, DT’s Scottish, all right. If you like the accent, check out this and the related videos!