Russell Brand, Political Commentator (Right On!), Magazine Editor

Apparently the Huffington Post has a UK edition. Not that I'm prejudiced, of course, but it does seem to have a more urbane (world-weary?) tone than its parent creation of the megalomaniacal once-Republican Arianna Huffington, who famously began her career by shacking up with aged intellectual Bernard Levin, then publishing a book on Picasso that was thoroughly slagged by the critics.

Just goes to show we can all start afresh, if we have unlimited chutzpah.

HuffPostUk, as I now call it, has a nice little piece about the BBC's late-night, at-length Current Affairs show Newsnight, which you can watch on PBS here in the States. They ask, "When did Newsnight, that ageing, late night, sleep-inducer suddenly become the most watchable programme on British TV?"

The main talking head on Newsnight is an irascible but highly intelligent veteran journalist called Jeremy Paxman, famous for snarling at politicians who he believes are guilty of dodging his questions - popularly known as "Paxo".

Yes, Virginia, we need a few dozen like him here.

HuffPostUk continues, "Wednesday’s offering continued the show’s good form, with producer Ian Katz pitting Paxo against the garrulous, unpredictable yet always-brilliant Russell Brand. And the pair played their roles to perfection."

Brand has been invited to be guest editor of the New Statesman, a venerable leftie publication in Britain, sort of an equivalent to the Nation. So of course, Paxman's first question has to be, "Who are you to edit a political magazine?"

Brand's political comments are, in my opinion, right on the money. Indeed, the Tea Party would probably approve of them, if they could just get over their hatred of "liberals".

A sample:

“What will your revolution look like?” growled Paxo from behind said beard.

“I’ll tell you what it won’t be like,” said Brand in a moment of clarity, “a huge disparity between rich and poor, where 300 Americans have the same amount of wealth as the 85 million poorest Americans, where there is an exploited and underserved underclass that are being continually ignored and where welfare is slashed while Cameron and Osborne go to court to defend the rights of bankers to continue to receive their bonuses. This has to be addressed.”   

The interview is pretty funny, but also moving in a way, as truth-telling usually is.  Don't miss it - 

The "Boris" being referred to is Boris Johnson, the hilarious Mayor of London, educated at Eton and Oxford, who once edited the "Spectator" magazine and was involved in massive sexual scandals.  Sample scandal from Wikipedia:  

"In 2004, British newspapers reported that Johnson had had a four-year affair with Petronella Wyatt.^[117] The affair, which had been well hinted at in UK newspaper gossip columns, included passionate London taxi cab rides around St John's Wood during which they would ask the cab driver to insert cassette tapes of Wyatt singing Puccini.^[118]")