For five years until 2003, Burchill wrote a weekly column in "The Guardian". Appointed in 1998 by Orr, while editor of the "Guardian Weekend" supplement, Burchill's career was in trouble; she had been sacked by the revived "Punch" magazine. Burchill frequently thanked Deborah Orr for rescuing her. One of the pieces she wrote for "The Guardian" was in reaction to the murder of BBC TV presenter Jill Dando in 1999. She compared the shock of Dando's murder to finding a "tarantula in a punnet full of strawberries". In 2002 she narrowly escaped prosecution for incitement to racial hatred, "following a "Guardian" column where she described Ireland as being synonymous with child molestation, Nazi-sympathising, and the oppression of women". Burchill had expressed anti-Irish sentiment several times throughout her career, announcing in the London journal "Time Out" that "I hate the Irish, I think they're appalling".