Jonnie Marbles the pie-thrower is also a comedian

For viewers of Rupert Murdoch’s appearance before Parliament, the pie in the face was just icing on the cake. It was also a shocking and appalling twist: The paunchy, plaid-shirted intruder armed with a loaded pie plate had gained access to the presumably secure hearing chamber and splattered Murdoch with what seemed to be foam or shaving cream. Moments later the man was seen in a corridor in police custody, himself also splattered with his foam. Moments after that, he was outdoors, being whisked away in cuffs. He was soon identified as left-wing campaigner and sometimes-comedian named Jonnie Marbles or really, 26-year-old Jonathan May-Bowles and often rails on his personal blog. Just before his manic breakout and getting whacked by Wendi Deng, he wrote on Twitter: “It is a far better thing that I do now than I have ever done before.#splat” “A story we just couldn’t make up, no matter how hard we tried,” said a shaken Fox News Channel commentator, voicing a typical response. Even without this untoward stunt, the hearing had begun with a built-in curiosity level. As MSNBC correspondent Michael Isikoff said, “Rupert Murdoch is this Wizard of Oz-type figure, somebody you hear a lot about, clearly very powerful, but very rarely seen in this kind of setting where he has to answer questions in public.” Presumably, many viewers had tuned in to see the man behind the curtain, especially after recent weeks of escalating coverage of phone-hacking scandals and other revelations that have rocked News Corp, the global media empire of which Murdoch is chairman and CEO. Oft-repeated file footage of Murdoch pictured him on a golf course, taking a phone call in his office, and beaming alongside Rebekah Brooks, his former UK newspaper chief who was arrested on Sunday (and testified after him yesterday) With inputs from Associated Press