The TV Show, Room 101, has always kind of irritated me as Orwell’s Room 101 (in Nineteen Eighty-Four) is a torture chamber, where the Ministry of Love uses your greatest fears to completely break you, mentally. Until you profess your love for Big Brother and agree that “2 + 2 = 5”.

Orwell had apparently taken the name from a BBC Broadcasting House conference room – but it still seems like a mangling of the book to have a panel show that has 3 celebrities competing to “banish their pet peeves to Room 101”.

I guess that one of my pet peeves relates to pet peeves…

The show ran from 1994 to 2018 on the BBC and was made by Hat Trick Productions.

February 2^nd 2018 Jimmy appeared on S7, Ep3 – alongside Steven Moffat and Rochelle Humes. Frank Skinner was the host and Jimmy had a rant about tax loopholes.

This refers back to his tax issues in 2012, when his accountant involved him in a tax avoidance / mitigation scheme called K2 (along with 100s of other famous people). It was not illegal at the time he entered the scheme but was judged “morally wrong” and HMRC closed the loophole. More on the background to follow (another day).

As mentioned in the video – he paid it all back, plus interest. He’s said since that he’s “simplified his business affairs”.