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Blackmail - Is it ever justifiable?

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00:12 / 07.06.07

What if I said I had some dirt on Gordon Ramsey?

So, a thread about that in particular (it's good stuff, and it might well finish him, if I make the appropriate phone calls) and the issue of blackmail in general - is it ever all right (I'm conflicted about this) and if so, who would everyone like to put through some changes via the power of modern technology?

(I also have access to photos of Gordon Brown abusing his office, so to speak - the fixed grin still haunts me, but then you'd have to expect that, I guess.)

01:28 / 07.06.07

weeell... are you talking actual blackmail? or an expose? the usual measure (at least in australia) is truth, and public interest(i am not a lawyer!). i'd only release something if it had genuine public interest (like corruption, illegal activity) rather than salacious interest (shagging someone he shouldn't, a taste for the nose candy).

if you're talking actual blackmail, then no.

what kind of changes, anyway? it's not like he holds public office...

*none of the above are to be taken as suggestions that Gordon Ramsay does any of those things*

02:07 / 07.06.07

Stabby, for a second I thought you were implying that Gordon Ramsay secretly holds a public office!

02:52 / 07.06.07

Well i happen to have Pete doogatys mobile no and address but i'm not likley to let that fly about because i happen to think he's an ok bloke. If, however anyone happens to come across Jeremy Clarksons details, or Richard Littljohns, i may be willing to swop. For the right price. I could happily blackmail those two into a ditch. Vanessa Feltz also really. Gordon Ramseys thing of tricking a vegetarian into eating a meat pie still smarts a bit, so i'd take any dirt on him as well.

As to the morality of it all. I went through all this shit when i was 12 with my Mum and Dad and 'Trevor'. If you don't like it you harpy don't let off them pheremones.

Whisky Priestess

09:38 / 07.06.07

Ghadis - Do you mean Pete Doherty?

If so, I know someone who would do almost anything to get that info. Name your price, as long as it's the death of an appalling celebrity.

10:18 / 07.06.07

Alex, Gordon Ramsey's just a dude who cooks. Why would the general public care about anything he's done other than that? What's blackmailable? Isn't anything he doesn't want people to know just Sunday paper gossip?

Plus, he's already told people he likes Burger King. What else could you possibly reveal to discredit a chef?

Information on the adulterous behaviour of a politician promoting family values is useful, or perhaps finding out that the winner of Pop Idol mimed to all her songs but information is merely saleable gossip when it refers to celebrity. It only becomes valuable information when it relates to figures who have been placed in the public eye by the public.

Whisky Priestess

10:21 / 07.06.07

That's you told!

Now piss off and get me some good dirt on Davina McCall. And I mean filth.

Janean Patience

10:38 / 07.06.07

I've been told that Davina played what some call bumgames with Frank Skinner...

10:41 / 07.06.07

What else could you possibly reveal to discredit a chef?

That they're really 250 hyper-intelligent plague rats in a flesh-suit?

And they've all got a cold.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

10:44 / 07.06.07

He Tyler Durdened the clam chowder?

10:51 / 07.06.07

He really is a dick about meat, though, isn't he? Like a lying and dishonest and really quite stupid about himself dick about meat.

Would this blackmail involve making him have a real battle of wills with a real live stag, instead of standing really far away from its antlers and looking at it, which doesn't really involve a lot of wills, or battling?

Also why does no one ever see the deeper humour of the South Park Scientology episode? It is a seriously large number of people.

13:19 / 07.06.07

Doesn't blackmailing someone imply that a choice is given for a price? For example: "If you don't do X or give me Y, then I am gonna tell on you."

Doesn't that in itself make it unethical? Assuming that we have the most noble of circumstances, such as a politician compromising their platform or constituents in some way, or being blatantly hypocritical; even if that is the case, blackmail assumes that for a price, that information will not be divulged. Thus, even in the most deserving circumstance, blackmail still doesn't come out with clean hands. UNLESS, I suppose, one was blackmailing someone to change their ways, or else.

13:34 / 07.06.07

He really is a dick about meat, though, isn't he?

In what way? Celebrity chefs and cooking shows of all kinds bore the piss out of me so I've only got a passing sense that he's a sweary "Clarkson"-esque person from the mediasphere. Although tricking vegetarians into eating meat is a crappy thing to do.

13:43 / 07.06.07

He makes a really big point out of eating meat, for no discrenable reason really, while at the same time wimping out of watching the pigs he'd raised be slaughtered or shooting a deer he'd gone to hunt. And then he just carries on as normal. I suppose well done for not editing these things out of The F Word, but I just find his profile and constant refusal to self-analyse really incredably distastful.

What was this meat trick about? I can't really imagine it as anything other then either a drunken threat or a sexual perversion, getting off on the power play and being the mack daddy chef.

Regrettable Juvenilia

13:59 / 07.06.07

He gave a vegetarian some pizza with meat in it and told them it was vegetarian, then went "Aha! You've just eaten meat and you LIKED IT DO YOU SEE?"

I mean don't get me wrong, I hate vegetarians. I just hate smug and spurious attempts to make a point more.

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:01 / 07.06.07

(NB. Gentle reader I do not really hate vegetarians; it is a reference to a post by one Haus in which he said he hated women but he hated faulty reasoning more. He does not really hate women.)

14:08 / 07.06.07

I can't really imagine it as anything other then either a drunken threat or a sexual perversion, getting off on the power play and being the mack daddy chef.

The latter, I think. In a sense, weren't those whiny, complaining vegetarians eating not just any meat, but Gordon's, in particular?

(I'm quite happy, incidentally, for the rest of this thread to be dedicated to the slagging of the Ramsey - it's basically what I was trying to get at in the first place, albeit by a somewhat circuitous route.)

14:19 / 07.06.07

I read Gordon Ramsey's autobiography because someone who doesn't know me very well gave it to me for Christmas. It was appallingly written but I found that rather endearing, because at least it meant he'd written it himself rather than employing a ghost writer. (If he in fact did employ a ghost writer then that person should never work again.)

He had a hideous childhood.

Not that that's any excuse.

14:22 / 07.06.07

He has this really weird habit of recording, in a studio, list sof ingredients and preperation methods he's using, in a reall obnoxious and, frankly, bold voice, and then saying Done and editing this in every week.

I don't know anyone would do this. Surely there's an engineer in the studio? And a producer to ring up and book this thing? And an editor to have to actually put it in, week in week out? I mean, I can see why would could do incredably ebarrasing things that make one look like a tit on telly if you never saw your audience, but his audience are there every week, and the people listed above just watch hi do this, in person, all the time.

He's really just a massive failure of a person.

Why is no one here at work?

14:26 / 07.06.07

I am at work. I'm just having five minutes off whilst I wait for my kiln to heat up. Everytime I leave the house I have to switch it off because you know, fire risk and energy saving, and then it takes time to heat up again.

14:32 / 07.06.07

Why is no one here at work?

How do you mean?

At work in terms of trying to ruin Gordon's reputation, or just in general?

Because if it's the latter, that, I think, is the one question you should never really ask on Barbelith.

14:41 / 07.06.07

Why is no one here at work?

I am at work. However, I can multitask. Also, I'm really not enjoying work at the moment.

15:04 / 07.06.07

I'm the only one who'd like to see a 'Why Aren't You at Work' thread, aren't I?

I am sort of slow-broiling notions of blackmail on a non-celeb level, though, as damage control, and whether I detest the idea as much as I'd like to. I mean, the sort of situation where you know person X's MO, and you see them working an angle in a work or social situation, but other people don't know X's past or past tendencies. In said fictional situation, do you approach X with an 'I'll reveal all if you don't back off the evil plans' and if you do, how much of that is a blackmail fee, essentially, of them backing off and you feeling a bit good with yourself because you don't have to suffer the discomfort of seeing them fuck somebody over or such?

I can't shake that - if it's not really blackmail - it really feels like blackmail. I feel I should be a bit more uncomfortable with the idea, but, well, I'm not really in the realm of the hypothetical. In practice, that low-level blackmail seems usually to devolve to 'I can see it in your eyes' I-know-what-yer-up-to suspicion and powerplays.

15:11 / 07.06.07

(I'm at work) Thing is, unless Grandma is after financial gain it's not really blackmail, the money is nowhere near as tempting as revealing Ramsay's dirty secret to the world.

*If there were any such disgusting secret in his life*

15:23 / 07.06.07

SO, this thread is actually about Gordon Ramsey and who is at work or not?

And here was silly ol' me, thinking...which, come to think about it, is not good for my sexpot-bimbo image I am trying to portray. Damn! If the tabloids get a hold of this I am done for. The minute they know I am actually thinking, they will revoke my membership to "the old boys' club", and I will be viewed as a threat to their way of life. They will instead portay me as someone who "has issues", and "is angry". I must not think, must not think...

All Acting Regiment

15:38 / 07.06.07

I'm sure it'd be super fun to blackamail someone you didn't like. Not sure how useful it would be, though.

15:41 / 07.06.07

SO, this thread is actually about Gordon Ramsey and who is at work or not?

Well, it's about blackmail too. And about being a sexpot who thinks, if you like.

In my capacity as the hotttest old girl in the Twilight Home for the Manic and Delirious, I find it best not to dwell on things too much, I suppose. I keep a diary every night, which, once published, will hopefully shatter the world, so the thought of that is what's keeping me going, I guess.

15:48 / 07.06.07

I think, certainly in this instance, we're all decided that the act of disclosure would be preferable to exercising any sort of leverage over the man.

In fact, I'm not really sure in what instances this wouldn't turn out to be the case. The point at which one dislikes another person enough to blackmail them is the point at which it would be nice to see them outted, surely?

I am, worringly, having a very hard time caring about the moral implications, here.

Also, I'd love a "Why aren't you at work?" thread. I think "work" could be approached very loosely, and ultimately I would find out what it is people on this board I consider friends are doing with their lives these days.

16:19 / 07.06.07

I think, certainly in this instance, we're all decided that the act of disclosure would be preferable to exercising any sort of leverage over the man.

I'm not sure about this at all. Personally, forcing Gordon to admit that he's a terminal fool on television, and then dance around like a little piggy would be worth more millions than I'm guessing even he has at his command.

The point of life is to be happy, in a socially responsible way, right? So I can categorically say that nothing would make me happier than watching Gordon, live, crawling across the floor of his kitchen, squealing, like a hog. This would also be a progressive measure, in a way, seeing as he apparently doesn't treat his staff very well. They'd never look at him in the same way after something like that.

16:26 / 07.06.07

Well, yes.

What I really eant was that we were all agreed that placing the man in an unfortunate and highly public position of gross ridicule and contempt would almost certainly be preferable to having him do something for you in a private manner, be this something the giving of money, or something commensurate.

It would really come down to which one would be more enjoyable, then, although also ofcourse there is the issue of feasability.

I am sad you are lying about dirt.

16:29 / 07.06.07

I have bumped the Work thread.

At high volume.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

00:00 / 08.06.07

Blackmail is wrong, because it smacks of dishonesty and the underhandedness an' that.

Murder, on the other hand, is an entirely honest act. Well, as long as you own up to it afterwards. Or, failing that, if it's Gordon Ramsey, in which case I'm sure we can knock you up a quick alibi. Hypodermically.

FUCK. FUCK. "Hypothetically". That's what I meant to say. Damn these spell-checkers. Damn them all to hell.

00:19 / 08.06.07

I guess I can google Gordon Ramsey.

Oh riiiight! That twit. Just what else did this fellow do? He is a chef? What, like Gary Rhodes? Why are chefs on TV such wasteful wankers?

Wait...How exactly can you blackmail someone when everyone already knows this? Give me money or else I will reaffirm the general consensus that you are an asshole!

Nope. Not quite the same impact.

02:34 / 08.06.07

Hypothetically, it might have something to do with how he prepares the meat.

09:44 / 08.06.07

Thank you for that appalling mental image.

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