Talk:Danny Baker

Untitled

"in 1999 Baker walked out of Talk Radio after station management wanted to move his show to a Saturday morning"

Actually, Baker had already been presenting a lunchtime show as well as his evening programme for about a year for the station but at the start of 1999 moved to a four hour slot starting at 8am on Saturdays which lasted two weeks before he was sacked supposedly for not talking about football enough (something they'd not previously been that bothered about, if anyone remembers those shows) News piece: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,323823,00.html

No citation provided for "Big Spud" epithet.--Westminsterboy 07:45, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

err..This article seems like it was written by the subject.

Bob Marley

I have never heard this Bob Marley story before, and can find no factual sources on the interweb - from where did it come? --kylet 14:27, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

— baker has told this story a few times on his shows over the years. --81.77.131.137 08:22, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

-It is definitely something that should be included on the page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.61.30.118 (talk) 17:15, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

He does mention it now and again and generally points out that it is completely false but, as he said on his show on 28th January 2009, "it is good to lie sometimes." His point being that sometimes "life needs a little bit of colour added" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.13.98.90 (talk) 09:33, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, but hardly appropriate for an encyclopedia. --Ged UK (talk) 13:37, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

No but a perfect anecdote for Wikipedia where it demonstrates the personality of Danny Baker by using words he actually said. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.13.98.90 (talk) 10:22, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Brain floss

was danny baker ever used in an advertising campaign for a joke product named "brain floss"? i remember it from my childhood, and looking at some google image searches of the product, it looks possible but not certain. If anyone could clear up this confusion i'd be very grateful...

Proposed removal of the The Apprentice UK template

I have started a discussion at Template talk:The Apprentice UK proposing the removal of template {{The Apprentice UK}} from this article (and the articles on other celebrities having appeared in the show). Please contribute your opinions to a discussion there. _└ ^UkPaolo/_talk^┐ 10:04, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Doctor Who

Does anyone have a source for the Doctor Who casting? It appears to be unsubstantiated rumor, as far as I can tell. I'm removing it, but feel free to put it back with an appropriate attribution. -Shadowsong 20:05, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Margaret Rutherford

Does anyone know why Baker uses Margaret Rutherford as his BBC email address? If they do then I'm sure it's worthy of a mention in the article. --JimmyTheWig 15:10, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Because he loves her work, as far as i can tell. He's had it for a long time, through various BBC incarnations. I have no citable source for this though, so i'm not sure it ought to go in, yet, anyway. Ged UK (talk) 12:49, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Danny Baker gives nicknames to the people he works with and also to celebrities and also on e-mails. The point is that they are created "in the moment" and then he prides himself on never mentioning again why the name was given - "you had to be there at the time". They rarely have any great meaning and were just a bit if fun. He often refers to his current show as "The Star And Garters Show - the Worlds least successful branding" as this nickname did not stick. He had originally introduced it as he announced the retirement of "the Candy Man". He then forgot he had retired the Candy Man the next day and was reminded about thirty minutes into the next show and the change to Star and Garters was cancelled.

He was lord.reith@bbc.co.uk on 606. Pollythewasp (talk) 12:12, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Danny, The Turmoil Years

Could someone more skilled than me please re-place the paragraph connected to Radio 5/606 that tells us that Danny Kelly came in to do the papers, the one with Univ of Turmoil in it? The info is categorically incorrect. The Turmoil Years were part of the Radio 1 Saturday Morning shows and had nothing at all with any programmes Danny B. on football. 88.110.252.149 (talk) 13:50, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Moving new comment to the bottom Ged UK (talk) 18:44, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Football videos

The football videos didn't lead to his presenting 606 - quite the opposite. He was already well-known as 606's presenter when the videos first came out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.185.144.120 (talk) 00:07, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

He left school at the age 14 ?

Aye he were saying this on the radio this mornin' - Desert Island Discs - "the last year it was possible" he said (or words to that effect). That sounded odd to me 'cos I'm ten years older than Mr. Baker and I don't remember pupils leaving school at 14.

In my day you could leave at the end of the term in which you became 15 - so there were pupils who left before Easter and Christmas. In Mr Baker's case as he was born in June that would still have meant his leaving school at the end of the academic year. Maybe he was allowed to leave a few weeks before the end of the summer term - a few weeks, that is, before his 15th birthday.

He mentioned that the year he left school was the last year one could leave at 14.

1972, when Mr. Baker became 15, was the year in which the school leaving age was raised from 15 to 16.

He was certainly in the last cohort that could leave school at 15. If there were fellow pupils in his year born in August they might well have been working at the age of 14 having legally left school a few weeks beforehand.

If Mr. Baker was working at 14 he seems to have left school earlier than he should have done.

Ned

5th August 2011 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.155.193.205 (talk) 19:47, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Danny Baker/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Good biographical information, but could use more external references. Needs an infobox and photograph └ UkPaolo/talk┐ 10:19, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Last edited at 10:19, 11 March 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 12:48, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

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Hospital

The article at present claims that the controversial picture, which Baker claims is his 'go-to photograph when posh people walk out or have kids' (how dare they), shows 'a chimpanzee in a top hat leaving a hospital'. This is mistaken. Baker claims the chimp is wearing a top hat, for class-hate reasons, but the hat is clearly a bowler. Nor does the picture have anything to do with hospitals. It shows a well-dressed couple c.1930 holding hands with a chimp which is sadly and rather disgracefully dressed in an overcoat and a bowler and carrying a cane. The three are standing on the entrance steps of a building, but there's nothing to suggest it's a hospital.

Baker has stated to Sky News that 'I'm well aware of the centuries-old trope linking race and primates.' His excuse, however, despite his admission that he knew the royal baby's name was Archie, is that he did not know who the mother was. 'I had no idea, until after about eight minutes somebody said, "That's Meghan Whatsit's baby" -- Ooh! Down, down, down! Anyone... People say you *must* know she was... I know *she* is... but the House of Windsor these days, apart from the Old Firm... I genuinely didn't! ...I did it because I didn't know it was Princess Howsyourfather.' Notice, again, that he admits knowing the baby's name, then says he didn't know the mother's identity, then says he knows who Meghan is and that she's mixed-race (though he can't bring himself to utter the term), then pretends he's forgotten her name again. https://news.sky.com/story/danny-baker-sorry-over-stupid-chimp-tweet-about-royal-baby-archie-11715152

Baker repeated the extraordinary claim that, despite knowing the baby's name, he had no idea who the mother was (even though he admits to being perfectly well aware of Meghan, and of her mixed-race heritage), on James O'Brien's LBC radio show. https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/james-obrien/danny-bakers-first-interview-since-being-sacked-by/

On Twitter, he claimed, 'Would have used same stupid pic for any other Royal birth,' but as far as anyone knows he did not in fact do so for the births of any of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's three children, nor has he claimed that he did. (Nor did he tweet that picture to mark the births of his friend Chris Evans's children, even though Evans is super-rich showbiz royalty and owns one of the world's best-known Ferrari collections, which would count as 'posh' by any realistic measure.) The BBC, whom Baker has criticised for 'faux-gravity' in sacking him, made this observation: 'It's the second time Baker has been axed by 5 Live and is the third time he has left the BBC.

In 1997, he was fired for encouraging football fans to make a referee's life hell after the official had awarded a controversial penalty in an FA Cup tie.

He later claimed he had never incited fans to attack the referee, only that he would have understood if they had.' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-48212693

It's of some interest that one or two other rich media celebrities, namely Dara O'Briain and Jon Ronson (and these people are a lot richer than you think they are, you know -- don't be fooled just because they don't wear top hats), have lined up on Twitter to defend Baker's conduct and deplore his inevitable sacking. Khamba Tendal (talk) 18:15, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Interestingly, to indicate the hotness of the topic and the potential damage to celebrity careers, shortly after I posted the above, Jon Ronson tactically deleted everything he had tweeted in support of Baker's inexcusable conduct. 'I just deleted every tweet about the incident in question, because I’m going to be off twitter for the rest of the evening and I don’t want to be worrying about anything bad happening / being misconstrued/ whatever. Like fireflies they burned brightly and are gone.' https://twitter.com/jonronson/status/1126523722280648705 Khamba Tendal (talk) 19:10, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

'In 2019 Baker was fired by the BBC after posting a Tweet that compared a mixed race baby to a chimpanzee' should be changed to 'In 2019 Baker was fired by the BBC after posting a Tweet that appeared to compare the mixed race baby to a chimpanzee.'. His intentions are in dispute.

Well, Baker's claim is that, despite knowing the baby's name and knowing that Meghan was mixed-race, and despite the fact that he was supposedly satirising 'the news cycle' and 'the media circus', he literally did not know that Meghan was baby Archie's mother. More likely he did, but, due to what people of colour call 'white privilege' -- i.e. he just doesn't recognise or care about the hostility that people of colour face, because it doesn't affect him personally -- he just complacently failed to see that his tweet was going to look like KKK racist propaganda. As a result, someone has filed a complaint with the Met and there is now a police investigation. That 'white working class' schtick will only get you so far. Possibly into court, although that appears unlikely. My neighbour, the black actor Vas Blackwood, is extremely angry, as you can see on his Twitter feed, and he's not alone. https://www.itv.com/news/2019-05-10/danny-baker-being-investigated-over-racist-royal-baby-tweet/ Khamba Tendal (talk) 20:13, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Recent Deletions of Recent Information

User:Abductive, I'm concerned about your repeated removal of referenced information from this article. Three times now you have removed text, not because it lacks Reliable Sources, but because it makes note of opinions with which you disagree. Specifically, on three occasions you've removed mention of the fact that some people, including a number of comparatively high-profile figures in British social life, have criticised the BBC for sacking Baker. On two occasions you've also removed mention of the fact that the BBC sacked Baker to start with (which I assume is simply an error on your part, but correct me if I am wrong). It seems clear from your edit summaries that you regard those who believe the BBC over-reacted to the incident to be engaged in "Whitewashing apologetics" and feel that theirs is a "racist response". Now, that's fine. I'm not criticising you for your opinion. But that does not mean that you can just remove information because you think that these people's viewpoints suddenly become un-notable or don't matter. That's not how Wikipedia works.

Moreover, you've also accused me of sharing those views and of trying to "whitewash" this article and of trying to "POV-push" to defend Baker. Respectfully, I think it very clear that the POV issue lies with you. Let's be clear: it's not up to you—or me, or anyone else—to censor certain opinions, which have received coverage in the press, because we may perceive them to be racist or otherwise bigoted, immoral, or just plain wrong. I ask that you allow the information that you have repeatedly removed to be restored. If you would like to see it augmented with reference to high-profile figures who defend the BBC's decision then I would be perfectly happy with that. If, however, you continue to want to remove this information then we shall have to take the issue to RfC. Midnightblueowl (talk) 10:24, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

• Source 0: A quote from Baker
• Source 1: ...dent.co.uk/voices/editorials/danny-ba...
• Source 2: ...dent.co.uk/voices/dan...
• Source 3: ...dent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news... Abductive (reasoning) 19:21, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't see what point you are making: this is just a list of Reliable Sources. Why do you take issue with them? Midnightblueowl (talk) 09:29, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Editorials are not Reliable Sources. Abductive (reasoning) 18:11, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Even if that were true (it isn't), only two of those four sources are editorials. As stated at Wikipedia:Reliable sources, "Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces, whether written by the editors of the publication (editorials) or outside authors (op-eds) are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author." Are you going to continue to oppose the sentences in question or shall I take this to RfC? User:Micheledisaveriosp, what do you think? Midnightblueowl (talk) 18:18, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't think that BBC "controversial" departures are a particular blatant. That is someone's opinion, but the comparison has been sourced (Wikipedia:OR#Reliable sources) by authoritative press. It concerns a list of consensual resignations or sackings about historical personalities of the BBC radio channel. If a comparison with Danny Baker's sacking seems to be WP:OR, this kind of informations may be hopefully moved in the future to another WP article, like the BBC:history. I am sorry if my edit on 10 May has produced something similar to an edit war in this article.Micheledisaveriosp (talk) 08:39, 13 May 2019 (UTC)