FRIENDS AND COMRADES

Anyone who happens to be a member of that facsimile family known as Facebook will be aware it has a multitude of purposes depending who’s using it; for me, its use is almost exclusively as a method of communication in the form of messaging friends and acquaintances who not only live in different parts of the country, but (in some cases) different parts of the world. It’s quicker than a letter and cheaper than a phone-call, so I can’t complain. Some people I know use it as a virtual speakerphone, asking a question out loud and provoking replies from others who are also seemingly on permanent standby to receive incoming messages at any hour of the day. Then there are others I know who – bereft of a shit-filter – employ it as a platform for their nauseating narcissism, announcing to anyone in the area that their period has begun or that their children are the greatest gift ever to be bestowed upon the planet. Then again, being a little more generous, one might conclude some users are simply lonely and need someone to talk to or require an endorsement that they’re important – something they maybe don’t get in the real world.

There’s a certain mindset where FB posts are concerned too; anything that challenges the narrow consensus the medium has established will be met with stony silence and an absent of ‘likes’. There’s very much a typical FB post guaranteed a predictably euphoric response, usually one that taps into whatever is trending and picks the ‘right’ (i.e. communally agreed) side in an argument. The newsfeed section, which contains the posts of those listed as one’s FB friends, is chock-full of crap most of the time and informs you – in case you weren’t paying attention – that one of your FB sisters has made ‘100 friends’ in 2017 so far! Friend, like love, is a word I myself use sparingly; its overuse on Facebook tends to devalue it somewhat, but it’s all part of the community conspiracy to make users believe we’re all in it together.

The newsfeed section also contains endless sponsored posts, which are either ads cynically capitalising on a ‘like’ from some point in the past (dressed-up to look deceptively chummy) or petitions similarly geared towards previous tastes. Most of these I personally scroll past in the same way I don’t pay attention to billboards on the street; you can’t avoid them, so you ignore them. It would appear the Facebook overlords do too.

Before, during and after last year’s US Presidential Election campaign, it has been claimed 80,000 of these sponsored posts infiltrated the newsfeed of FB users who were eligible to vote; some posed as genuine accounts and were supposedly designed to influence floating voters. 126 million American FB users were exposed to them, and it’s alleged they emanated from a company linked to the Kremlin. Did they seriously influence voting, though? Only if the trolls aimed their sneaky missives at the same kind of uneducated people who voted Leave in the EU Referendum, as helpfully pointed out by Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman, perhaps.

This information has been released by the Dark Lord Zuckerberg’s corporation ahead of a Senate hearing into possible Russian interference in the 2016 campaign as Facebook, along with Google and Twitter, sends its lawyers to Washington. As for the two other online big-guns, Google says Russian trolls uploaded over a thousand ‘political videos’ to YouTube via 18 different channels; meanwhile, Twitter suspended 2,752 accounts it claims were traced to the Internet Research Agency in Russia, responsible for over 130,000 tweets between September and November last year. However, I think a little scepticism is required where the claims of both are concerned.

In many cases, Twitter accounts can be suspended for the most innocuous of reasons – usually if they don’t tow a certain premeditated line, particularly on specific issues of a political, religious or ‘social justice’ bent – and there are glaring inconsistencies as to what one can and can’t get away with saying that support this truism. Similarly, recent clampdowns on YT videos that don’t adhere to unwritten rules on the same sort of subjects suggest dubious, unnecessary censorship if the poster expresses opinions that don’t chime with the online consensus. When it comes to Facebook, the guilty accounts named and shamed undoubtedly had an agenda, but if that agenda was pro-Trump, how was it any different from traditional Republican media mouthpieces that have been broadcasting such an agenda for years?

The occasionally…er…unrestrained nature of social media in comparison to television or the press distinguishes it from both and means opinions are more raw and less polished than the established outlets of an older vintage. Therefore, Fox News aside, any FB account leaning towards the right will inevitably play upon the beliefs that fuel the right and will do so in a visceral manner that TV, mindful of its sponsors and advertisers, will shy away from. As when MPs over here momentarily exit their cocoons during a campaign and are shocked to find the hustings contain angry members of the public that Westminster keeps them away from, some of the voices that speak on social media are loud, uncompromising and often ugly; but as politicians now avoid public meetings that haven’t been choreographed and crammed with the party faithful, where else can the electorate make themselves heard?

Some of the FB accounts alleged to have stemmed from Russian trolls were in the guise of beloved left causes like Black Lives Matter, whereas another that purported to promote Women’s History Month was widely retweeted before its platform was large enough to begin spinning yarns that the Clinton campaign had received KKK money. This was the point when it began to look a little suspect; and while I’ve no doubt that many of the accused accounts were probably the work of mischievous trolls, we need to be careful lumping the authentic in with the fake just because the authentic might come from a political perspective that contradicts the given one online.

© The Editor

STOP THE WORLD, I WANT TO GET OFF

Ooh, where to start? A weekend of finger-pointing and retrospective accusations as summer’s ‘silly season’ is extended into the autumn has left me spoilt for choice when attempting to document the insane landscape we inadvertently inhabit. It began with that Hollywood PR exercise masquerading as a BBC TV chat-show presented by Graham Norton. Adam Sandler, one of those actors whose career provokes the question – ‘What the f**k have you ever done?’ – appeared alongside Emma ‘Miss Jean Brodie’ Thompson and actress Claire Foy, apparently placing his hand on the knee of the latter throughout the ‘interview’, something that provoked frothing-at-the-mouth hysteria on Twitter. A friend then sent me a leaked video of unknown origin in which another superstar of similar charisma – Ben Affleck – was mauling an MTV-style interviewer of Eastern European accent as she sat on his lap, a clip that climaxed with Affleck’s impersonation of a ‘spaz’. Suffice to say, he came across as an arrogant slimeball, albeit one that Tinsel Town’s system positively encourages. See also Harvey Weinstein.

This was followed by the dubious exposure of an online ‘closed group’ of ladies gossiping about various Westminster stalwarts that it’s best to avoid sharing a lift or taxi with. Lecherous old MPs groping young lobbyists, secretaries and PR trainees young enough to be their daughters? Jesus! Who knew? Call Mr Profumo! It’s not exactly Cecil Parkinson impregnating his secretary, but it’s what passes for a political sex scandal in 2017; hot on the heels of Jared O’Mara being suspended by the Labour Party following the publication of comments he made 15 years ago, we need to be vigilant, sex toys and ‘Sugar Tits’ pet-names not permitting.

Then we were told the actor who plays Todd Grimshaw on ‘Coronation Street’, the soap’s first openly gay character (currently in a relationship with a rather wet vicar on the show), has been shown the same exit door that illustrious predecessors such as Peter ‘Len Fairclough’ Adamson were shown for more serious crimes in more innocent times. Bruno ‘Todd Grimshaw’ Langley’s own crime was allegedly sexually assaulting a young lady in a Manchester night-club, though he received his cards before the allegation became a charge, suggesting the powers-that-be at Granada were waiting for an excuse to boot him out, anyway. This revelation broke more or less simultaneously with the news that a Five Live broadcaster has also been suspended on the basis of allegations he was guilty of letting his fingers do the walking where his female colleagues were concerned.

And we round off this supremely silly weekend with the convenient full-circle headline of another member of the Hollywood Royal Family being accused of a foul deed in the dim ‘n’ distant past. This time, it was the turn of none other than Kevin Spacey – someone whose off-screen activities have evaded my own personal ‘gaydar’; Spacey pre-empted an allegation of inappropriate behaviour with an underage actor in the 80s by belatedly coming out. Spacey is someone whose career has largely consisted of commendable efforts on celluloid (unlike Ben Affleck) and also included a stint as guv’nor of the Old Vic in London. Curiously, considering how ‘right-on’ the ruling elite of Hollywood are, they still have a problem with out-and-proud actors, casting resolutely straight leading men as gay characters in the likes of ‘Philadelphia’ and ‘Milk’, whereas we in Blighty have a lengthy list of gay Lord and Lady thespians, even if they tend to play it straight when cast in California.

So, what conclusions do we draw from several days of post-Weinstein allegations and accusations? Well, in the case of Ben Affleck, irrefutable evidence that he’s a bit of a prick is out there in cyberspace, so anything unsavoury levelled against him has pretty solid proof to go on re how he behaves in the company of young women. Kevin Spacey’s conduct is slightly different in that it took place before the days when everything was recorded and documented online, yet he’s still been forced into belatedly admitting his bedroom preferences courtesy of the imminent media storm. Call me old-fashioned, but I believe whatever men or women get up to behind closed doors is their own business and has no relevance to their profession unless they choose to be defined by it; personally, I don’t care if Kevin Spacey is gay or straight, but it evidently matters to media whores deprived of genuine scandal, so Spacey bows to their God-given authority before they exercise it.

Five years on from the tsunami of allegations triggered by the despicable Mark Williams Thomas’s ‘Exposure’ hatchet-job on Jimmy Savile – which served as a handy smokescreen to obscure the genuine outrage of Rotherham and Rochdale – we appear to have reached a point whereby any authentic act of deplorable misogyny aimed at the opposite sex by the male of the species has been overshadowed by the abuse of descriptive terms for actual assault, applied as they are with cavalier nonchalance to clumsy attempts at seduction, making men believe that any move on their part will be labelled ‘rape’. Perhaps it’s laying the ground for western women to adopt the burqa as a modern-day secular chastity belt, duped into the illusion of emancipation by the propaganda. Who knows? We are the dead, as someone once said. But maybe there’s life after death after all. Fingers crossed!

© The Editor

THAT WAS THE DAY, THAT WAS

I thought I might write about the fact that Spain has imposed direct rule upon Catalonia and has, in the process, stripped the region of its autonomous status; but as this is a subject I’ve covered a couple of times of late, I figured it would be wiser to wait till the next development before putting pen to paper (or finger to keyboard). I’ve a feeling there’s more to come where this particular story is concerned, and whatever I add to what I’ve already written will only needed to be added to again pretty soon after. I suppose I could also bemoan the fact yet another public figure has had to issue yet another public apology for something he said that offended somebody – i.e. Michael Gove’s ‘outrageous’ Weinstein joke; yes, Gove is a twat, but how many more times do we have to endure online outrage before we say enough is enough?

Okay, so sod the day today and dip into weekend nostalgia once more. My choice of Saturday night viewing as the rest of the nation plugged into talent show tripe was the 1973 movie, ‘That’ll Be The Day’, which itself dips into nostalgia for an earlier era. By the date of the film’s production, the pop culture revolution of the 60s had reached the point whereby it paused for breath for the first time and looked back over its shoulder at the remarkable journey it had made in little short of 15 years. In the US, the likes of Todd Rundgren condensed those 15 years into his oeuvre as pop realised it had a past, whilst stage musicals moved from the contemporary concerns of ‘Hair’ and escaped into the safer sentimental refuge of ‘Grease’; simultaneously, on this side of the pond Roxy Music and Wizzard revived the dormant 50s spirit by injecting it with some trashy 70s glamour as they were surrounded in the charts by a string of reissues.

‘That’ll Be The Day’ cast David Essex in the lead role of Jim MacLaine, a composite character of the Lennon/McCartney/Jagger/Richards generation, beginning life as a war-baby whose parents’ marriage is a casualty of conflict and then growing up to reject the novel new grammar school path to higher education courtesy of an imported youthquake that opens a door to alternate possibilities not dependent upon the results of exams. Essex was largely unknown to the general public when he won the role, though had made a mark in the archetypal turn-of-the 70s Rock Opera, ‘Godspell’; within a matter of months of the film’s premiere, he had become a bona-fide pop star, but he shared the spotlight in ‘That’ll Be The Day’ with genuine veterans of the period it recycles.

The likes of Keith Moon and Billy Fury feature in small cameos, though the real coup at the time was securing Ringo Starr as the street-wise Mike, who accompanies Jim on his journey through the rites-of-passage Butlin’s experience and then onto the fairground circuit. Starr had himself been a beneficiary of the holiday camp summer season during his pre-Beatles membership of rival Liverpool band Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, and the fact the Fab Four remained viable pop currency when the movie was shot undoubtedly aided its box-office success.

A pre-‘Citizen Smith’ Robert Lindsay also features as Jim MacLaine’s best mate at school, the swot who did as he was told when Jim ran away; his college life embraces the Trad Jazz and obligatory beard that serve to sever the friendship when the two old pals reunite a couple of years after Jim escapes the preordained path his mother laid out for him. Jim eventually returns home and belatedly attempts to fit in, marrying the sister of the Robert Lindsay character and impregnating her before the allure of Rock ‘n’ Roll proves too great. By the time we rejoin him in the following year’s sequel, ‘Stardust’, Jim MacLaine is the leader of a Beatles-esque band whose rise to fame and fortune has left his old life behind.

Critics have often labelled the two acts of Jim MacLaine’s fictional life ‘old wine newly bottled’, though the old wine was of a relatively recent vintage when the movie and its sequel were produced. I first saw the pair myself less than ten years after they premiered, when they constituted part of BBC2’s ‘Rock Week’ in the late summer of 1982, an early example of television ‘streaming’, with a series of loosely connected programmes on a theme spread over seven days. Although I didn’t know it at the time, Jim MacLaine’s mother projecting her own thwarted academic ambitions onto her offspring would be mirrored in my own life a couple of years later – something that provoked an instinctive rejection from me that ‘Stardust’ and its document of Jim MacLaine’s career as a pop idol provided an antidote to. For further reading, see the post from a couple of weeks back, ‘Musical Youth’.

In ‘Stardust’, Adam Faith steals most of the scenes he’s in as Jim’s devoted manager, albeit one who’s unable to save his golden egg-laying charge from the characteristic drug-induced exit of the period come the movie’s traumatic ending. Purely by coincidence, Slade’s solitary cinematic outing, ‘Flame’, appeared at a cinema near you at virtually the same time; considering Noddy and the lads had such a happy-go-lucky image, ‘Flame’ unexpectedly portrays the music biz in a similarly dark light as ‘Stardust’, chronicling the rise and fall of another fictional 60s band with equal cynicism. By 1974, the workings of the industry and the creative casualties it had left in its wake as Philistines in suits racked up the royalties had bred a disdain for its practices that helped provoke Punk a couple of years later, even though that generation didn’t fare any financially better than its predecessor.

Whilst it’s true that ‘That’ll Be The Day’ speaks the language of anyone who’s ever asserted their independence and challenged the consensus, whereas ‘Stardust’ documents the dream that used to fire the imaginations of the imaginative and was therefore only reality for a select few, the alternative available when Jim MacLaine walks out on domestic bliss is one that is no longer an option. Richard Ashcroft’s high-street stroll in the promo video for The Verve’s 1997 epic, ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’, is now the fate of the outsider who never got away – despondent and defeated, though retaining a healthy contempt for the world about him, bereft as he is of social mobility, pining for the vanished riches of Rock ‘n’ Roll. From Jim MacLaine to Victor Meldrew in half-a-century.

© The Editor

YOUNG, FREE AND MENTAL

Two reports published within 24 hours of one another have yet again highlighted that, for all the heightened public awareness of mental illness in recent years, it remains socially stigmatising and seriously underfunded. The first report, ‘Thriving at Work’, commissioned by Our Glorious Leader no less, was a review of the way in which the workplace responds to those members of the workforce afflicted by various mental health symptoms. One sufferer of chronic depression, interviewed by the BBC in the wake of the report’s publication, was advised to look elsewhere for employment by her boss when she admitted her condition and was made to feel increasingly uncomfortable once it became common knowledge in the office; she left the job not long after, as do around 300,000 a year for similar reasons, costing employers upwards of £42bn.

The findings of the experts who compiled the report on behalf of the PM confirmed beliefs that mental illness has yet to fully shed its taboo status. At a time when the cry for an end to all discrimination based on race, religion and sexuality is at its loudest, it’s ironic that those whose needs are deemed most worthy of attention are those whose otherness is blatantly obvious in either the colour of their skin or the clothes they’re wearing – whether a lady in a burqa or a feller in a dress. Their ‘diversity’ is a virtual sandwich board of personal advertising, something that makes it easier for the majority to discern the difficulties of the minority.

By contrast, mental health symptoms being invisible to the naked eye always present its sufferers with a problem as to how it relates to those around them, unlike any physical illness. If the symptoms aren’t visible, it’s as though others are unconvinced there’s any sort of problem because they can’t see it like they can an arm in a sling or a leg in a cast, like they need to have it simplified in the most basic manner as proof the sufferer isn’t acting up. Mental illness is more challenging to the non-sufferer and can often spawn a sceptical attitude towards the condition as a consequence, almost forcing the sufferer to convince the doubters as if they were faking insanity to get out of the army. I’ve been confronted by it myself. ‘There’s nothing wrong with you; you’ve got two arms and two legs – what’s the problem? Depression is just another word for laziness.’

This attitude is in place from an early age. The second report into mental health to have appeared this week concentrated on the youth experience and how poorly served young sufferers are by the system. This review discovered almost 40% of services exclusive to children and adolescents in England were in desperate need of improvement. ‘The World at One’ covered the report by making a Freedom of Information request on the subject and discovered some children were having to wait up to 22 months before seeing a specialist mental health professional. I must admit these revelations didn’t strike me as particularly revelatory, however; anyone who has followed my regular posts on the severely mentally-handicapped child I’ve christened X probably won’t be surprised to learn X herself has endured gaps of a similar nature between such appointments.

The report was compiled by the Care Quality Commission, whereas earlier this year, NHS England published its own suggestions for improvement; ‘Five Year Forward View for Mental Health’. Claire Murdoch, head of mental health for NHS England claimed there has been an increase of 15% of spending on mental health services for the young over the past twelve months. ‘Without a doubt, after years of drought,’ she says, ‘the NHS’ mental health funding taps have now been turned on.’ As ever with the NHS, though, one wonders where the money goes; or, to maintain Ms Murdoch’s watery analogy, which plughole it’s destined to disappear down.

‘The World at One’ spoke to 22-year-old Alice Gibbs, who was diagnosed with anorexia at 12 and, after a six-month wait to see a specialist, received four years of treatment in her home city of Leicester, despite its limitations. There was an eating disorder unit in London she now reckons had the facilities to accelerate her recovery, but as a physically and mentally fragile 16-year-old, being away from the support of her family probably wouldn’t have helped either. Had somewhere of that unit’s calibre been closer to home, she surmises she wouldn’t have lost a decade to such a debilitating condition. Her experience seems to back up the ‘postcode lottery’ theory when it comes to healthcare.

Alice Gibbs is still receiving treatment, saying she has ‘managed’ her condition rather than cured it, something that anyone who has experienced mental illness will recognise; it’s always a case of management rather than cure, because there isn’t a cure. Alice Gibbs’ treatment could well be an obstacle to any career ambitions she harbours, though ‘Thriving at Work’ makes 40 recommendations to encourage employers to help their employees with mental health issues stay in their jobs. But it would seem it depends on who you work for. The insurer Aviva received special praise in the report, yet they seem to be the exception rather than the rule. On the whole, both of this week’s reports into mental illness don’t paint a very rosy picture of this country’s care for and treatment of those unfortunate enough to fall under its devastating shadow.

And whilst it makes a refreshing change to commend Theresa May for something – ‘It is only by making this an everyday concern for everyone,’ said the PM, ‘that we can change the way we see mental illness’ – we cannot neglect the callous disregard for sufferers of mental illness that her Government and its predecessor has presided over via its continuous use of Atos to decide whether or not someone is ‘faking it’ for benefits. The toxic legacy of the IDS era is still with us in the shape of Universal Credit, after all; and Mrs May won’t budge on that one. Giving with one hand and taking away with the other yet again.

© The Editor

ARCHITECTURE AND MORALITY

When the Palace of Westminster went up in flames on 16 October 1834, spawning the kind of dramatic blaze the capital hadn’t witnessed since the Great Fire of 1666, the crowds that gathered cheered as the medieval royal residence was swallowed up by the inferno; their numbers were so great they even hindered the efforts of the London Fire Engine Establishment to put out the fire, though the eleventh century splendour of Westminster Hall was mercifully saved. Were the same kind of event to occur to the architectural masterpiece that superseded the old building today, it’s feasible to suggest a similar reaction from onlookers would greet the sight. It’s impossible to separate the Palace of Westminster from its function, and that function is so despised by so many that its aesthetic prestige as perhaps the apex of Victorian Gothic architecture is secondary to what it represents.

We’ve been hearing for a long time that the building is in a dire state of disrepair, but the odd slab of crumbling stonework falling onto an MPs car is merely the tip of the iceberg. Deep in the bowels of the Palace, basements reliant on decaying nineteenth century pipe-work keeping the Thames at bay are in permanent danger of being awash with sewage. Bearing in mind what became of the Palace’s predecessor, fire is another constant source of worry, though warnings over potential disasters have fallen on deaf ears for decades because, again, of what the building represents. It has been the epicentre of British political power for almost 200 years, and its residents are reluctant to vacate it for fear that their power will be diminished, deprived of the symbolic iconography Barry and Pugin’s awesome creation radiates.

Maintenance is largely a rush job dipped in and out of during Parliamentary recess periods, but it’s a case of papering over cracks rather than giving the grand old lady the comprehensive facelift she desperately requires. It seems the Commons and Lords would have to move out for at least a couple of years if this was to be achieved, yet resistance from those for whom the Palace is a workplace is hindering such a plan. The cost of a full repair is never anything less than astronomical on paper, and MPs are concerned that their constituents will not look favourably upon them if they agree to avoid cutting corners and go for the whole restoration, regardless of the price. They’ve evidently not realised their constituents don’t look favourably upon them as it is.

There are many who say the degeneration of the Palace of Westminster can be viewed as a metaphor for the state of British politics and its sloth-like capacity for changing with the times. Some advocate a whole-scale evacuation of the location and – inevitably – a move to the sort of bland glass cathedral that litters every metropolis in England because that will allegedly encourage a less elite approach to politics, as if the Palace of Westminster not resembling a nondescript modern office block is somehow so intimidating that it stifles progression, viewed almost as an aid to eternal filibustering.

It goes without saying that London-phobic professional northerners reckon a temporary replacement should be situated in (yawn) Manchester; after all, the BBC’s relocation to Swinging Salford has immeasurably improved the Corporation’s output. But these suggestions are simply another factor in a debate that has dragged on without resolution for years, the political equivalent of a couch potato intending to clamber off the sofa and head for the loo before he pisses his pants, yet forever putting it off.

The agony recently expressed by some Honourable Members over the fact that Big Ben’s bongs are to be silenced for repair work perhaps emphasises the Westminster mindset that is incomprehensible to outsiders; this can be extended to the Palace of Westminster itself, generating a cynical response to any concerns for the condition of the building, once more seeing it as a symbol of a system that maintains the cosseted lifestyles of the powers-that-be rather than one of the nineteenth century’s great contributions to the London skyline. Of course, this is unavoidable; the Palace of Westminster was designed for a specific purpose, and that purpose experiences perennial crises when those entrusted to serve the nation appear more interested in serving themselves. It is also redolent of archaic imperial grandeur at a moment in this country’s history when such a thing couldn’t be more unfashionable; the capital is already swamped with ghastly Dubai skyscrapers courtesy of Ken and Boris cosying-up to property developers, so why not add another to house Parliament?

Words such as ‘heritage’ and ‘history’ are seemingly fine to evoke whenever there’s a royal occasion that enables the nation’s drones to enjoy a day-off from the grind of cold-calling; apply it anywhere else and you’re in deep water. From silly sods in the Grauniad calling for the demolition of Nelson’s Column because our greatest naval hero was a ‘white supremacist’ to scholars demanding our leading universities remove the majority of the country’s finest novelists from the academic syllabus for the unforgivable crime of being male and white, we currently appear to be at a cultural crossroads whereby we’re in danger of eradicating everything that made us who we are.

Architecture is as crucial to this under-fire identity as the written word, and if we’re not careful we’ll eventually end up living in a hideous parody of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, where nothing has a vintage of longer than a decade and those who are oppressed today will still be oppressed tomorrow, regardless of how they mistakenly believe replacing something old with something superficially new will somehow change ‘hearts and minds’.

© The Editor

AT LEAST HE’S NOT NICK CLEGG

The title says it all, really; that’s more or less the best thing that can be said about Jared O’Mara, Labour MP for Sheffield Hallam. Not a great accolade, is it? It’s a bit like when Crazy Frog kept Coldplay from the No.1 spot in 2005 – ‘Yeah, it’s the biggest load of crap ever. But at least it’s not Coldplay.’ Mr O’Mara, who resembles Ed Sheeran in the guise of an apprentice butcher, has been forced to quit the Women and Equalities Committee over comments that emerged via the site of veteran Alt Right agent-provocateur Guido Fawkes. These comments were made thirteen years ago, when O’Mara was 23.

According to the dramatic revelations, the contentious comments were made on a music website called Drowned in Sound way back in 2004. The young O’Mara apparently said Jamie Cullum should be ‘sodomised with his own piano’ and forgotten ‘Pop Idol’ winner Michelle McManus only won ‘because she was fat’. Pretty puerile stuff that anyone familiar with certain online discourse will recognise, though the comment about the pseudo-Jazz dullard wouldn’t have been that out-of-place in a Charlie Brooker column from the same era, to be honest; and probably not a million miles from the kind of things I would’ve said about a few early 90s pop stars when I was the same age myself. Even his desire for an orgy with Girls Aloud can, I suppose, be compared to similarly licentious thoughts the likes of Kylie, Betty Boo and Cathy Dennis provoked in me at 23.

There’s a big difference between me in 1991 and Jared O’Mara in 2004, however, and that’s the fact my 23-year-old spleen-venting was done in private, bereft of a platform that lives forever out there in cyberspace. Also, I’m not seeking a career in public office, something that surely would necessitate a comprehensive spring-clean of past online comments that contradict contemporary mores. One would imagine that would have been a top priority of O’Mara’s campaign team, though there’s the strong possibility he’d completely forgotten even saying what he said thirteen years ago. After all, how many times have we each been presented with photographic evidence of our participation in a dim ‘n’ distant event and have struggled to recall even being there? But, again, none of us are running for public office, a post in which the past has a habit of coming back to haunt you.

Perhaps it’s especially damaging for a figure such as Jared O’Mara in that he, like many of his party colleagues, is surfing on a social justice wave that embraces ‘diversity’; as if to emphasise this, he was elected in June courtesy of a large student vote that ousted the aforementioned Mr Clegg, a man viewed as a traitor by adolescent academics for failing to keep promises made in their favour. Therefore, when his juvenile grumblings about entertainers with no relevance to 2017 were suddenly leaked to the media, it looked worse for him than it would for an opponent on the blue benches; people expect unpleasant skeletons to be excavated from the Tory closet, but Labour politicians have a habit of selling themselves as a spotless brand of PC MP, particularly under Jezza. I guess that makes it all the funnier when one of them is exposed as less than perfect, especially when they’re a member of a Commons committee designed to eradicate the kind of opinions O’Mara expressed.

Whilst O’Mara should be cut a little slack for making gormless comments on the kind of forum that is usually abundant in them – and for making them quite a long time ago (which 23 is when you’re 36) – his cause hasn’t been helped by a further Fawkes revelation that the MP used such antiquated terms as ‘poofters’ and ‘fudge-packers’ on another site a couple of years before his Drowned in Sound outburst. None of this plays well in O’Mara’s current role; having to answer to a collective known as LGBT Labour, whose motto may well be ‘We are not amused’, means O’Mara’s neglect re erasing his previous online existence has led to the classic humbling apology.

The predictable backlash had included a ticking-off from the LGBT Labour lot (referencing O’Mara’s comments by the snappy label of ‘historical homophobia’) as well as accusations from a constituent that her MP had directed ‘abusive and sexist language’ towards her; O’Mara even has the fun-packed prospect of a meeting with Stella Creasy and her Phil Oakey-gone-wrong haircut to look forward to. The Labour leadership took a leaf out of the Tony Blackburn book of after-the-event insults by calling O’Mara’s comments ‘horrendous’ and ‘vile’, though hasn’t suspended O’Mara from the Parliamentary Party in the wake of his apology; it’s not as if he made disparaging comments about Jews, anyway; and as we know, Labour takes anti-Semitism seriously.

In the wake of the fuss, O’Mara addressed a meeting of his colleagues and bent over backwards for forgiveness, echoing his sentiments in the statement he issued on Twitter. In turn, Labour has done its best to sweep the kerfuffle under the carpet in record time, even going so far as to serve up O’Mara’s maiden speech as proof of what a changed man he is. The only real problem with doing so is that O’Mara hasn’t actually made that maiden speech yet; give him time, though.

It’s less than a week since another Labour MP, Clive Lewis, had to apologise for a video featuring his ‘offensive and unacceptable’ language at a fringe event during the Labour Party Conference; his ‘Get down on your knees, bitch’ moment was again brought to us by Mr Fawkes (is there a pattern emerging here?) and received greater condemnation from his peers than Jared O’Mara has so far managed – even a Tweet from the Grande Dame of PC Labour, Harriet Harperson. None of these dumb and dumber comments would really inspire much more than a shoulder-shrugging ‘what a dickhead’ observation from most of us; but preserving the illusion of Labour MPs as residents of a moral plateau that Tories are barred from is essential to the image the party believes will win them power next time round. Perish the thought there might be a few Holier-than-Thou hypocrites in the ranks.

© The Editor

JAMMY ARABS

For most of us of a certain age, the first time we heard the name United Arab Emirates was when beleaguered Don Revie gave the press what they wanted by walking out on the England team manager’s job in 1977. However, rather than skulking into some poorly-paid coaching post in the Second Division, Revie secured his own and his family’s financial future by signing a lucrative deal with the UAE to coach the country’s national side; for his shrewd foresight, Revie was hung, drawn and quartered by the FA, yet he would have been a fool to turn down an opportunity that few in the English game had back then. Today, the likes of José Mourinho can be sacked by a Premier League club and receive a weighty redundancy package guaranteeing he’ll never have to worry about paying the rent ever again. That didn’t happen in the 1970s, and Revie – as ever – was thinking ahead of his times.

One of the numerous Ottoman leftovers scooped-up by the British in the wake of that ancient Empire’s post-WWI collapse, what became the United Arab Emirates constituted yet another conveniently oil-rich protectorate en route to India; but in the wake of our withdrawal from Aden in 1967, the Middle East was left to its own devices as far as Brits were concerned, and the federation of Absolute Monarchies that came under the UAE banner was free to capitalise on its natural resources free from European interference as of 1971. In the decades since independence from the UK, the UAE has blended Sharia totalitarianism with a Vegas-style crassness best personified in its premier metropolis, Dubai.

A friend of mine was unfortunate enough to once holiday in Dubai, and her descriptions of the place paint it as a hideous Sun City-style citadel where the population stats of the UAE itself (1.4 million Emirati natives and 7.8 million expats) are writ large, from the way in which the servant class are treated by the ruling class to the way in which western capitalism has created a grotesque Xanadu for visiting bling merchants seeking to show off their wealth. In the twenty-first century, Dubai has supplanted Monte Carlo as the playground of those desperate to advertise the status symbols they imagine will earn them envy and respect back home; those who measure their value as human beings by the size of their watches, cars or houses will find Dubai entirely conducive to their superficial bragging. But whereas Monte Carlo retains its quaint, old-school glamour, Dubai is all the worst parts of London (in terms of appalling architecture and gross wallowing in acquisitiveness) turned up to eleven.

Double standards are abundant in Dubai; the same kind of vulgar excess that a generation raised on ‘Made in Chelsea’ might foolishly imagine to be the epitome of style is combined with the severest form of hardline Islamic law and order to lure those too dim to differentiate between the UAE and Ibiza into a honey-trap of repulsive proportions that anyone with half-a-brain would avoid like the plague. Regular stories of British couples f**king on beaches or individuals off their tits on booze being nicked are a-plenty, and added to this roll-call of shame is the latest casualty of Dubai’s double standards – Jamie Harron, a Scot whose crime was ‘touching a man’s hip in a Dubai bar’.

A 27-year-old electrician whose profession has taken him all the way to the seemingly safer environs of Afghanistan, Mr Harron was on a two-day stopover in the Emirate of Dubai capital when he was accused of touching-up a businessman in a bar; apparently seduced by the tacky attractions of the city, Harron still faces charges of alcohol consumption, but it is the suggestion of homosexual behaviour that has earned him a three-month sentence. He was charged with public indecency, yet even though the man whose hip he allegedly came into contact with (‘to avoid spilling his drink’, claimed Harron) withdrew his complaint, the case proceeded and prosecutors pursued Harron. According to Detained in Dubai, the campaign group that broke the news of the sentencing, ‘key witnesses to the incident were not called upon to testify to discredit the allegations’. Mr Harron’s family didn’t visit him during the trial due to the fact that they themselves risked imprisonment under UAE laws forbidding criticism of the government there.

The revered music journalist Nick Kent once retrospectively wrote of the underage groupies that congregated around Rodney Bingenheimer’s infamous English Disco on Sunset Strip in mid-70s LA, claiming the girls there – including the likes of Sid Vicious’ future death-wish soul-mate Nancy Spungen – might have appealed to ‘the bass-player in the Sweet’, but anyone with taste would have been appalled by their behaviour and absence of self-respect. Often, environment inspires activity, and it would appear Dubai encourages the worst kind of ‘wannabe rich wankers’ (as my Dubai veteran friend described them) to big up their facile achievements, something that makes sympathy for any Brit sentenced under UAE law in short supply.

The distractions of gleaming skyscrapers and illusions of western debauchery that permeate Dubai are a seductive (for some) panacea to the more austere Middle Eastern rules and regulations that keep the Burqa-clad female residents walking several paces behind their male superiors; but as sorry as one might feel for the overseas visitor who falls victim to the realities of the Islamic ethics beneath the glam sham of bling bollocks, I find it personally difficult to shed a tear for anybody who doesn’t modify their approach to a night out in a country that is so clearly operating under false pretences.

© The Editor

CRIME TRAVELLING

A week consisting of Brexit negotiations threatening to rival ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ in the long, drawn-out tedium stakes; a red sky overturning the old farmer’s saying by transforming it into an end-of-the-world-is-nigh omen; and our boys in blue plumbing unprecedented depths, taking to the streets in fancy dress as a contrived distraction from rising crime figures (‘social workers with Tasers’ as someone aptly described them on Twitter). Jesus, it’s no wonder I’ve sought escapism when it comes to offline downtime; and I’ve taken a route which is my own reliable visual equivalent of comfort food.

The last time this country felt this grim for many was at the end of the 1970s, and though the Winter of Discontent even impinged upon my pre-pubescent existence via a lorry drivers’ strike affecting the distribution of comics to the local newsagent’s, I can honestly say I’d rather be there than here. Having never passed my Tardis driving test, I have to make do with travelling back in time via the dependable DVD box-set; current flavour-of-the-month is the BBC’s downbeat gumshoe drama from 1979/80, ‘Shoestring’. The series accurately captures the weariness at the winding-down of what had been a testing decade, yet there’s something undeniably appealing about its atmosphere of stoic refusal to succumb to the kind of histrionic panic that runs through contemporary discourse – a resignation, yes, but not a surrender.

The title character of Eddie Shoestring, played with charismatic understatement by the then-unknown Trevor Eve, is undoubtedly a victim of his times, though triumphing over his demons without pleading for sympathy epitomises a certain unfussy British characteristic we appear to have subsequently lost. Eddie is recovering from a mental breakdown that occurred during his career ‘working in computers’; his rehabilitation at a clinic saw him devour pulp fiction, which in turn opened up a new career path as a private detective. Successfully utilising what would now probably be diagnosed as latent autism, Eddie’s unique talents are spotted by a local radio station; Radio West’s debonair manager Don Satchley (played by British acting stalwart Michael Medwin) senses a novel ratings winner and hires Eddie as the station’s ‘private ear’, inviting listeners to request Eddie’s services in the hope the cases will eventually make for an intriguing broadcast.

Eddie lodges with a sexy legal eagle called Erica, with whom he has a casual on-off bedtime relationship, though the viewer gets the impression Eddie really isn’t bothered too much by any of that stuff. Work is what really brings out the best in him. His slovenly appearance and cavalier disregard for authority complements his genuine compassion for the little people whose problems he endeavours to solve; and, like the unfairly-maligned ‘Dixon of Dock Green’ before it, it is the little people that ‘Shoestring’ focuses on. Contrasting with the macho bluster of ‘The Sweeney’ (which ended the year before ‘Shoestring’ debuted) and ‘The Professionals’ (which ITV scheduled in direct competition to the Beeb’s unconventional sleuth), the series has a human and humane regard for those who are often overlooked in life, let alone TV dramas. Character is central to the plot of each episode, and the lead is a fascinating, vulnerable individual ideal for a premise that wouldn’t work with a Regan, a Carter, a Bodie or a Doyle.

The series was based and mainly shot in the West Country, providing a refreshing alternative to the usual London locations then predominant in home-grown drama; there may be a trumpeted trend to shoot series outside of the capital on television today, though Manchester and Cardiff are shot through the same Dystopian lens as London, portraying them with indistinguishable urban clichés which makes one wonder why film crews bother exiting Watford Gap. ‘Shoestring’ also gives a distinctly British twist to the quirky private eye genre which was almost exclusively American at the time, with the likes of Rockford and Columbo still on their original runs. It gave early breaks to actors who would carve out glittering careers (I spotted Daniel Day-Lewis in one episode) as well as established actors nearing the end of their careers – and their lives – such as Harry H Corbett and Diana Dors.

‘Shoestring’ occasionally dips its toes into the pop culture of the era in which it was made. Toyah Willcox features heavily in an episode, playing a ‘punk singer’, ably assisted by an impressive supporting cast including the likes of Gary Holton, Peter Dean, Christopher Biggins, Lynda Bellingham and even Mick Jagger’s brother Chris. The only other series at the turn-of-the 80s that evokes the period with the same blend of charm and cynicism is ‘Minder’, which coincidentally aired for the first time that same autumn of 1979. However, unlike Dennis Waterman and George Cole’s vehicle, which was something of a slow-burner, ‘Shoestring’ was an overnight success, undeniably aided by the ITV strike of August-October 1979, which gave the series a massive ratings head-start when ITV was its sole competitor.

Yes, the cars – Eddie drives a battered Cortina estate – and the fashions are portals to another country, as is the soundtrack; with its radio station setting, the series is peppered with hits from 1979/80, a chart era especially rich in memorable pop. But there’s something about ‘Shoestring’ that makes it particularly attractive in 2017. It’s not just the look and the sound of the series; it’s also the fact that the characters are likeable and believable. A lot of that is down to the cast, but it’s also down to the solid writing from experienced telly hacks as well as skilled newcomers, both graduates from the BBC when its role was that of a creative university, training talent to do what it said on the tin with panache and personality. There’s a welcome absence of that strain of TV writing today that bludgeons and baffles viewers with storylines trying hard to be clever and complex when they’re actually self-indulgent exercises in abysmally emulating Nordic and American styles.

Trevor Eve’s theatrical and cinematic ambitions curtailed ‘Shoestring’ after just two seasons, and even though Eve retrospectively regrets he didn’t make at least one more series, the fact the programme ended when it did preserves it in a specific moment we shall never see again – a moment in which milkmen were still on the dawn streets to witness a murder, and a moment when private eyes couldn’t be contacted when out on an investigation until they passed a phone-box and rang home. So, tonight I’m gonna party like it’s 1979, in the company of Eddie Shoestring.

© The Editor

ALAS, POOR LAVINIA

It’s easy to forget now, but there was a time in the middle of the 1980s when all the artistic gains made in the name of 60s and 70s libertinism seemed in peril; we were on the cusp of a potential rewind back to the censorious era of the Lord Chamberlain’s Office and the Hays Code. Channel 4, which has made its early 80s name as a fearless purveyor of ‘anything goes in the name of Art’, was a frontrunner in this sudden and abrupt reversal of attitudes when it introduced its red triangle season of films circa 1986. These were movies that nowadays wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) provoke outrage, but at the time appeared shocking even by the easygoing standards of a TV station that had promoted the brief usage of an expletive such as ‘frigging’ in a primetime soap opera (‘Brookside’). The fact that characters on soaps are generally the only people in Britain who never swear was something ‘Brookside’ momentarily challenged until it became as blandly unrealistic as the rest of them.

Channel 4’s red triangle season featured TV premieres for the likes of Derek Jarman’s Romanesque gay fantasy, ‘Sebastiane’, as well as Dennis Hopper’s ‘Out of the Blue’; for those who weren’t around, the red triangle in question would be a permanent fixture in the top left of the TV screen whilst the movie aired, which allegedly served as an early warning system for the unsuspecting viewer who might switch over from something less contentious on ITV or BBC1. Most of the films screened as part of the short-lived season weren’t that different in content from what had already been shown on Channel 4 – it had premiered the infamous Sex Pistols movie, ‘The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle’, in 1985, for example; but the bizarre season can be seen in retrospect as a concession to the great moral backlash of the late Thatcher era, which also included Clause 28.

Back then, most of us watching thought that such unnecessary caution would be redundant by the time we reached the twenty-first century; we didn’t bank on our contemporaries raising children with so many layers of cotton wool wrapped around them that coming into contact with the classics by the time they reached university age would necessitate a revival of the same red triangle approach that Channel 4 had pioneered in the middle of the 80s. Lo and behold, however, the loathsome ‘trigger warnings’ have now even crept upon the works of one of England’s most revered wordsmiths like the kneejerk reorganization of the BBFC rules and regulations in the wake of the ‘Video Nasty’ moral panic of 35 years ago.

Apparently, students at Cambridge have been warned that certain masterpieces penned by an obscure playwright, name of William Shakespeare, might upset them; yes, the English lecture timetables have been marked with trigger warnings that take the shape of Ye Olde red triangle with accompanying exclamation marks. One play in particular has been singled out as specifically gory – and to be honest, it does read like the plot of an archetypal 80s Video Nasty in that a major female character is raped and then has her arms amputated by her rapists as well as having her tongue cut out.

Admittedly, ‘Titus Andronicus’ is a bit of a gore-fest, though is also one of the Bard’s most invigorating works, one in which the sibling perpetrators of the crime in question receive their just desserts by being baked in a pie that is then eaten by their mother. Elizabethan audiences were seemingly less squeamish than their equivalents 400 years later, perhaps because they didn’t question the eye-for-an-eye morality that was just as evident in the nursery rhymes they’d been raised on.

In defence, Cambridge University has claimed that such warnings are ‘at the lecturer’s own discretion’ and ‘not a faculty-wide policy’, though at the same time the esteemed academic establishment has admitted that ‘Any session containing material that could be deemed upsetting (and is not obvious from the title) is now marked with a symbol’. A representative from Derby University, Professor Dennis Hayes, commented ‘Once you get a few trigger warnings, lecturers will stop presenting anything that is controversial…gradually, there is no critical discussion.’ Critical discussion, for centuries a hallmark of university life, is now something to be avoided for fear of contaminating safe spaces. The impression given that universities today are akin to nurseries for mollycoddled adolescents who shirk from anything that contradicts the world as presented to them in infancy is hard to shake off when confronted by such ludicrous censorship; and if Shakespeare is fair game for the no-platform treatment, we really are f**ked.

The kind of guidelines familiar on the sleeves of DVDs now apparently apply to plays as well; if a sensitive seventeen-year-old objects to the content of something written by Shakespeare – and even the fastidious middle-aged Festival of Light brigade let the Bard off in the licentious 70s – chances are others will feel the need to be protected from centuries-old content that is hardly comparable to the kind of ‘adult’ material they’ve probably routinely scanned online. That ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ has been removed from some US school syllabuses on account of it being ‘uncomfortable’ is a classic example of illiterate idiots taking over the asylum; as some wag on Twitter pointed out in relation to the ‘uncomfortable’ factor in Harper Lee’s modern classic, ‘that’s the point’; but if even Shakespeare is targeted in this revisionist facelift, anybody seeking to say something about the here and now has no chance.

What that says about the world we live in, a world wherein British policemen are sent out wearing nail varnish to virtue-signal their stance against modern slavery when they’re in a better position to stamp out the practice than the rest of us, is profoundly depressing. But this be 2017 in the septic isle.

© The Editor

DON’T HAVE NIGHTMARES

Catchphrases generally tend to be the province of comedians and sitcom characters, though they can also be attached to public figures, usually by impressionists looking for an angle. It’s questionable that Denis Healey ever said ‘Silly Billy’, and most now know that Humphrey Bogart’s famous line from ‘Casablanca’ wasn’t ‘Play it again, Sam’; but these things stick. One catchphrase that everyone of a certain age will always associate with the TV programme it sprang from is rarely misquoted because it was genuinely said at the end of each show – ‘Don’t have nightmares’.

If the announcement that the BBC is axing ‘Crimewatch’ after 33 years on air will provoke any protests, they will probably only be half-hearted and rooted in misguided nostalgia, as often happens whenever a long-running series that stretches back in the collective memory ends. But the audience figures speak volumes because few people are watching the series anymore; I don’t think I’ve seen it myself since the edition following the murder of Jill Dando in 1999. At its peak years during the 80s, it could attract upwards of 14 million viewers, though few shows can attract those kinds of numbers today anyway. However, as the premise of the programme has centred on audience interaction from its 1984 debut, an appeal to catch a criminal made before 14 million means the chances of the crook being caught are greater than if four and five million are appealed to; and those are the viewing figures the show can boast now.

During my recent meanderings on YouTube, I came across a Yorkshire Television continuity clip from the turn-of-the 80s; the ads were suddenly – and somewhat dramatically – interrupted by a caption on a black background that read ‘POLICE MESSAGE’. The announcer appealing for help in locating a missing teenager did so in a fittingly sober tone that was quite a contrast with the usual light one adopted when introducing ‘Paint Along with Nancy’. I guess, pre-‘Crimewatch’, such occasional announcements served the same purpose as the old ‘SOS’ broadcasts did on the radio airwaves, and stumbling upon the clip almost 40 years on was a reminder of how television once did what social media can do today.

The clip also demonstrated that this aspect of the medium could be expanded in a classic example of TV’s public service remit, one it still regarded as important even as late as the 1980s. Shaw Taylor’s ‘Police 5’ had pioneered a similar idea in the ITV London region since 1962, though the fact the series wasn’t networked and only ran for five minutes at a time limited its ability to do what ‘Crimewatch’ aimed to; that said, Taylor’s own catchphrase, ‘Keep ‘em peeled’, became more well-known than the series itself due to it being repeated on numerous 70s sitcoms produced in the capital. ‘Crimewatch’ (or ‘Crimewatch UK’ as it was originally known) would be broadcast nationwide and would run for an hour.

Outside of ordinary people making fools of themselves on ‘The Generation Game’, the general public’s involvement in TV broadcasting was rare in the 70s. BBC2 had its ‘Open Door’ strand, in which a brief platform was given to anyone who had something to say – though they usually appeared to be unhinged eccentrics representing some bonkers fringe political party – and there was always ‘That’s Life’. But instant interaction was more or less unheard of until the debut of ‘The Multi-Coloured Swap Shop’ in 1976. The backroom girls manning the phone-lines were in full view of the viewers, and those viewers (if they were lucky) could end up speaking live on the telephone to whichever star Noel Edmonds was interviewing. If this idea could be developed and transplanted to a serious factual programme, there could well be an appetite for it, though it took a further eight years before the BBC decided to try out the experiment.

Concerns that the police as well as victims of crime might be reluctant to share their stories with millions of viewers proved unfounded as ‘Crimewatch’ was an overnight success. Choosing trusted and dependable broadcasters Nick Ross and Sue Cook to anchor the show helped ease viewers into the unfamiliar format, though its formula soon caught on and became as recognisable as anything else on TV. The reconstructions of crimes using unknown actors were spared the melodramatic background music used on the likes of ‘America’s Most Wanted’, but the bad acting could undeniably make them unintentionally entertaining, despite the seriousness of the crime. When a routine by comedian Peter Kay years later drew upon the tedium of witness voiceovers accompanying these reconstructions, his audience groaned in unison, so familiar was the programme’s hallmark style by then.

There was a certain charm to the woodenness of police officers addressing the public on the show, emanating as they did from an age before media training was regarded as an important element of the job. But the absence of slickness on the part of Chief Supt. David Hatcher and his sidekick PC Helen Phelps reflected the fact that this was a programme in which professional presentation was secondary to getting results. That, at its height of popularity, the show drew in the kind of audiences that would today only gather round their sets to watch a talent show finale or an England World Cup match is another aspect of how the priorities of TV, both in terms of programme-makers and programme-watchers, have altered since 1984.

Unlike other factual crime shows on British TV today, which use the sensationalistic template of ‘America’s Most Wanted’ in chronicling a crime (and are usually presented by the loathsome Mark Williams Thomas), ‘Crimewatch’ wasn’t there to pander to the same vicarious impulses that keep the memoirs of cockney gangsters riding high in the bestsellers’ lists. It had a valid purpose. 1 in 3 ‘Crimewatch’ appeals have led to an arrest, whilst 1 in 5 have led to a conviction; of a third of cases solved via a ‘Crimewatch’ appeal, half have been as a direct result of viewers’ calls. In its first 25 years, the show had a part to play in the capture of 57 murderers as well as 53 sex offenders and 18 paedophiles.

Apparently, the series was most recently presented by Jeremy Vine, which is really the kiss of death for any programme; but the television medium as it exists in this century is a different beast to the one it was in the last century – as is the country itself. Nick Ross left ‘Crimewatch’ ten years ago; when did your nightmares begin?

© The Editor