Every now and again, wading through Ofcom's Broadcast Bulletin of the complaints it has investigated throws up a rare gem of regulators and lawyers arguing over something truly surreal.
Today's update included a dispute between Ofcom and ITV over a trailer for comedy panel show Celebrity Juice, which aired before the watershed and featured the pop star Example and host Keith Lemon (played by Leigh Francis).
The point of contention which exercised the lawyers was whether or not the trailer featured Example wearing a pink strap-on dildo.
Ofcom tells us:
"There was... one shot featuring Example with Keith Lemon... Example was shown wearing around his waist and over his clothes a pink object which, in Ofcom's view, appeared to resemble a strap-on dildo."
Having been caught out by the eagle-eyed dildo-spotters at Ofcom, ITV was left to argue its case and claimed the item was not a dildo at all but a "pricket bat" - "an implement to play an invented game called "Pricket".
"[ITV] said: "The pricket bat was not a strap-on prosthetic phallus... If it had been a strap-on dildo, we would obviously never even [have] considered including it in a pre-watershed trailer."
Got that? It definitely wasn't a strap-on dildo. It was a "pricket bat" which is totally different and should under no circumstances be confused with a strap-on dildo:
Sadly, ITV's creative protestations fell on deaf ears and Ofcom found ITV in breach of Rule 1.3 which governs the protection of children from unsuitable material by appropriate scheduling.
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