The suspension of reality that is the Eurovision Song Contest also allowed us to enjoy a reprieve of another sort on Saturday Night.Jonathan’s post modern exercise in re-imagining the chat show, ‘Friday Night with..’ is repeated every Saturday Night. The repeat is merely a straight rerun of the antics of the previous night but in recent times I have taken to watching Saturday’s repeat as a way of reducing the sheer toe-curling, sweat-on-palm, sphincter clenching anxiety that kicks in while watching the Friday night ‘near live’ experience.The persona of ‘Friday Night Ross’ is a straight transplant of the lewd, abusive teenage form that Ross perfected on ‘They think its all over’. Ross was brought in to act as the irreverent sidekick to David Gower after Lee Hurst, the previous nominated bad boy, stormed out in a fit of pique. Like Paul Merton, a contemporary, his speciality is to take an idea and stretch its logic to absurdity. Unlike Merton this usually involves liberally trampling over accepted norms of decency.Examples of his stock in trade included recently suggesting to Red Head Nicole Kidman that her ‘Brazilian’ (or pubic hair well trimmed) would resemble a fish finger. The entertainment factor generally resides in watching the horror of guests as they realise that Ross has no problem articulating and finding amusement in the kind of stuff that the rest of us suppress with a brief internal grin. David Schwimmer (‘Ross’ from Friends) who followed her later in the same show was reduced to mumbling incoherence so defensive and shocked was he by the presenter’s style.The viewer and audience swings between uproarious laughter and murmurings of discomfort.Much like gin, Ross is something best tasted once in a while. Viewing figures for his show constantly bump along at 2-3 million, at a particularly fluid time of the week in terms of audience, and he is frequently on the receiving end of complaints from viewers regarding taste. After the Kidman interview the BBC issued a Press Release stating:"Nicole Kidman was a wonderful guest with a great sense of humour who made a good interview even better with her responses. She didn't take offence at Jonathan's line of questioning and any regular viewers of Friday Night with Jonathan Ross will know that part of Jonathan's interviewing technique is a certain amount of innuendo. Nicole Kidman reacted superbly and this made for an extremely entertaining interview."Kidman wasn’t so relaxed at the time, muttering as she returned to the guest area ‘It was an ambush’. And foreign viewers can also be taken aback by the sheer vulgarity. A comment on Snopes.com from an American represents the general incomprehension that his style prompts in foreigners:"if there's any "inside joke" afoot here, I don't have the means to know about it. That being said, what is up with this guy? Is he honestly a total sack of perverse shit, or is it some kind of warped shock-jock persona? Do his guests realize what they're getting into, or are they brought on there as part of contractual obligations (ie, TV and film stars), or are they duped into it like some of Ali G's guests? I've never even heard Howard Stern be as disgusting and rude to his guests as this guy; I don't think that any celebrity before has even risen my ire to the point that I would seriously consider decking him if I ever met him".But Ross is merely the voice of a generation. He has frequently tipped his hat to the importance of the spirit of Punk to his voice. Like others (Phil Jupitas, Mark Lamarr etc) he regards his duty being one of ensuring that complacency and dullness is avoided at all cost. Unlike for example Lamarr he carefully balances the tone of voice, so that the viewer cannot totally fall out of love with the cheeky persona, and the ‘nudge nudge, wink wink style’. This is aided by his undoubted intellect. Unlike his dullard brother who more explicitly riffs on the same themes of deconstructionalism and punk, Ross has displayed through the BBC’s long running ‘Film’ series a talent for analysis and contextualisation that rivals and surpasses the previous incumbent, Barry Norman. Funnier, more incisive and less up his own arse, Ross genuinely is a great film reviewer.However the Film Review is a simpler business with a structure less open to subversion (you can only stretch the format of a film review so far). With the chat show Ross has too much space in order to demonstrate his whimsy. But the whimsy is absolutely part of his shtick. When asked about his style he commented:A kind of performance mode where it's not really you: it's more this kind of overly confident, brazenly ego-driven character who finds every minute detail of his daily life inherently interesting and amusing'Much like the Sex Pistols, and a vast chunk of the British populace, he seeks to keep boredom and dullness at bay by resorting to extremism. However even John Lydon got old eventually. Will Ross age gracefully or will he end up as the uncle who everyone keeps away from the punch bowl at parties in case he regales us with another of his ‘funny stories’?