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Communications: A good week for terrible interviews. Starring Joe Kinnear and Miss Utah

 

Luke Blackall
Tuesday 18 June 2013 22:30 BST
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Miss Utah, Marissa Powell, lets rip about corporate sexism during Sunday's pageant
Miss Utah, Marissa Powell, lets rip about corporate sexism during Sunday's pageant (Reuters)

He may have mastered the interview for the job of director of football at Newcastle United, but Joe Kinnear made a complete hash of an interview on TalkSport the day after signing his contract.

On edge from the start, he managed to mispronounce the names of colleagues and members of the first team. Managing director Derek Llambias became Derek Lambezi, while the surnames of midfielder Yohan Cabaye and forward Shola Ameobi became “Kebab” and “Amamobi” respectively.

Rather than adopt the charm offensive favoured by other peers parachuted into top jobs, he then chose to alienate further those fans who were unhappy with his appointment. This he did by claiming he had “more intelligence than them, that’s for sure”.

Listen to the interview and it seems clear that the former manager of Wimbledon has joined the ranks of those personalities who shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a microphone, let alone speak to the press.

At times, it feels unfair to be questioning them – such as the case of Charlie Sheen’s unusual public appearances after getting fired from Two and a Half Men. In one interview, he was asked whether he was suffering from bipolar disorder, to which he replied: “Wow, what does that even mean? I’m bi-winning, I win here and I win there.”

Jet lag appeared to be the issue when Bruce Willis looked spaced out for his chat on the BBC’s The One Show in February, where he even questioned whether the title of his new film, A Good Day to Die Hard, the very film he was meant to be promoting, made sense.

He still managed to be a bit clearer than Miss Utah, aka Marissa Powell, during Sunday evening’s Miss USA pageant. When asked a question about why men continue to earn more than women, Powell took her time before responding: “I think we can re... relate this back to education and how we are... continuing to try to strive to... figure out how to create jobs, right now. That is the biggest problem in... I think, especially the men, are, um... seen as the leaders of this, and so we need to try to figure out how to... create education better so that w e can solve this problem.” Oh dear. Perhaps she should have proffered: “Because of reductive competitions like this.” Though you fear it would have rendered the same result on the night – a win for Miss Connecticut.

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