It was riveting theater, a newly emboldened parliamentary committee facing off against the 80-year-old Rupert Murdoch, the world's most powerful media mogul, in a series of exchanges designed to get to the bottom of the phone hacking scandal. In two hours of intense questioning broken only by a bizarre incident in which Mr Murdoch was accosted with what appeared to be a foil pie plate filled with shaving cream, both he and his son James declared repeatedly that they had been shocked to discover something that has become increasingly apparent: that phone hacking and other illegal behaviour was endemic at their News Of The World tabloid, which is now defunct.