Name: Laurence Fox.
Age: 41.
Appearance: A “knobbish dickhead half-educated twat”.
That isn’t very kind. It’s not, but that’s how Fox chose to describe himself in the Sunday Times this weekend.
Why is he calling himself that? Because he finally watched that Question Time video where he told a black woman that talking about racism was “boring”? No, because we won’t stop watching that Question Time video where he told a black woman that talking about racism was “boring”. He’s staggered that anyone wants to hear the views of a posh old Harrovian like him.
But he appeared on Question Time, a programme that exists purely to give people a platform to air their views in public. I know, that bit doesn’t make any sense.
And now he’s … Yes, yes, he’s on the cover of the Sunday Times magazine, airing his views in public again. Look, at least he is consistent.
What has he said this time? Oh boy, where to start? How about the bit where he claims to have been expelled from Harrow after being discovered by a PE teacher having sex during the sixth form ball?
Oh God. Or the bit where he claimed to have experienced class struggles because he has “never, ever been hired by the BBC”.
He seems like a perfectly normal man. He also mentioned an argument he had with his brother-in-law Richard Ayoade.
Wait, his brother-in-law is Richard Ayoade? Yes, and he asked Ayoade to publicly support him on Twitter after his Question Time appearance.
And did he? Of course not. According to Fox, Ayoade angrily told him: “You have never encountered racism.” To which Fox replied that he had, because he worked in Kenya once and “racism can be deferential”.
I don’t know what that means. Nor did the interviewer. And nor does Fox. “This is why you don’t get actors involved in chats like this. Because I’m just not smart enough to do it,” he replied by way of follow-up.
Anything else? There’s a bit about his divorce from Billie Piper, where he claims to have taken to shouting the word “cut” at her at the height of their arguments.
Is he in a relationship now? Funny you should ask. At the end of the interview, it is revealed that he was dating Madeline Grant, a journalist who was on the panel with him for Question Time, but it is rumoured he is now back with ex-girlfriend Sara McKinnon.
Do say: “I don’t think that Laurence Fox is in a particularly good place.”
Don’t say: “Still, this is bound to help his chances of getting a BBC show.”