THE BBC’s most famous names will be forced to reveal how they spend their magnificent salaries, it has been confirmed.
The BBC Trust has scrapped a plan to publish the pay deals of the corporation’s biggest stars, insisting licence payers would receive better value for money if they just provided an item by item breakdown of all their stuff.
Last night a host of BBC celebrities pre-empted the move with Fiona Bruce claiming it was perfectly normal for an Antiques Roadshow presenter to have a restored 18th century barn full of cheese that they go and sit in when the feel lonely.
She said: “When Hugh Scully told me about his cheese barn, I thought he was deeply unwell. But it’s turned out to be an absolute lifesaver.”
In a defiant statement, University Challenge interrogator Jeremy Paxman said he
had built up his collection over many years, there was nothing
suspicious about it and he only ever uses them for re-frothing his
cappuccinos.
And News 24 stalwarts Philip Hayton and Matthew Amroliwala said they
would not be apologising for keeping more than 200 malnourished hostages
in a dungeon and bringing them out at weekends to recreate American
Civil War battles.
Hayton dresses up as Confederate General
Robert E Lee and Amroliwala plays maverick Union commander Ulysses S
Grant. Since 2007 both sides have been using real bullets, leading to a
steep increase in the cost of new ‘recruits’.
It has also emerged that Top Gear‘s Jeremy Clarkson has more than 800 china figurines with unusually large mouths, while Andrew Marr‘s Andrew Marr pays funeral directors thousands of pounds to supply him with plaster of Paris buttock casts of famous people who have recently died.
A BBC insider said: “Last year he paid £750,000 for a mould of Walter Kronkite’s arse. He touches it before every show. Then he touches himself. I don’t like it here.”
Meanwhile Delia Smith has insisted her massive gun collection is purely sexual.
