Day: July 20, 2011

So about that guy who threw a shaving cream pie at the face of News Corp. overlord Rupert Murdoch during his live globally-televised testimony before British Parliament. We all quickly learned that Jonnie Marbles was a comedian, who even made a quip about his act on Twitter @jonniemarbles moments beforehand: “It is a far better thing that I do now than I have ever done before #splat” But his own Twitter profile bio describes himself as an activist first, comedian second. Was this just a stunt to boost his stand-up comedy career? Most probably not. Even though pies in the face started as a joke before being known as a political statement — and in America, the shaving cream pie is generally only reserved for baseball players who did something special in a game and are talking to TV crews afterward. And as The Guardian dug into its recent archives, it remembered talking Marbles, whose real name is Jonathan May-Bowles, just eight months ago about his polticial activist group UK Uncut (which distanced itself from yesterday’s pie incident). Here’s that Guardian clip with exclusive footage of May-Bowles talking about and planning a UK Uncut protest at HSBC. So no. Not a comedy stunt to gain attention. Nor a political stunt by UK Uncut. Just one man angered enough about what Murdoch and his company had done, that if Parliament and...