Funereal

The last week has been a blur. Karen and I are still only just starting to make sense of it all. To cut a long story short Karen's mum died last week, late on the night of the 11th. We knew it was going to happen but the speed of it took us all by surprise. However, she had stayed fiercely determined to exercise her will to the very end and had refused all water as well as food. Hence, the speed of her decline. She also requested that nobody visit her in her final hours, preferring instead to be left in peace. As with so many elements of her life her control over her own death was absolute.

For the last 6 days Karen and I, accompanied by our boys, have made numerous forays into Berkshire to meet with doctors, solicitors, registrars and the like to ensure all the paperwork is tickety-boo and that the myriad hoops of death administration have been leapt through at the right speed and the precise angle. Hopefully the gods of bureaucracy are satisfied with our efforts.

We now have the funeral and the wake to arrange, people to contact, an empty house to sort out - not to mention the small matter of dealing with quite a big family death and all its attendant emotional strains. Karen's mother was not an easy woman. Even those who considered her a friend describe her as being "difficult". The grief will not be easy too.

There is, however, good news. The solicitor spoke to us on Friday and, despite being convinced otherwise due to previous wills, it seems Karen and the boys have been made beneficiaries. It would be distasteful to go into detail here and besides which we only know the theory for sure rather than the exact practicalities - the solicitors need to do their thing and press buttons on their calculators, remembering to deduct their own fees naturally - but on the face of it (though I am afraid to say it out loud in case I curse it) it looks like things might get a lot easier for us in the future. Bizarrely we are more shocked and disbelieving of the good news than we were previously instantly believing of the (potential) bad.

But on some level despite the all pervading glumness that abounds in such matters there is light and, dare I say it, relief. We are all numb. But also hopeful.

Privet

I’ve had to take the unprecedented step of leaving the Kate Bush Fan Club Facebook page.

Actually, it’s not unprecedented at all. I’ve left loads of pages on Facebook. When it comes to nixing FB related things I’m like Charles Bronson at the start of Once Upon A Time In The West. Sweaty, bristly, breath like Chicken Fajitas but with a lightning fast trigger finger.

And the Kate Bush Fan Club page, well, they brought too many horses (true Western fans will get that reference).

It was the whinging. The whining. The petty schoolyard arguments:

“I haven’t got a ticket to her live show and it’s so unfair ‘cos I’m her number one fan and all the touts who aren’t fans have got the tickets are selling them for the price of a Heston Blumenthal 3 course meal”.

“I have got tickets and I want to witter on and on about what songs she might sing and what songs I want her to sing and what songs do you think she will sing?”

“I haven’t got tickets and I don’t want to hear about what songs you think she might sing ‘cos I want to die for the entire duration of her shows so that I don’t have to live in a world where I don’t have tickets to see her.”

“Hello I’m new to the group and I want to show you a picture of a Kate Bush 7 inch single I bought from a flea market in Birmingham and ask if it is worth anything and does anybody have any spare tickets to sell, I heard she is going to play some live dates in September…?”

On and on and on.

Now I’m a fan. I’m up there with the most devoted and delusional of any of them. I can trace my Kate Bush pedigree back to the early 80’s – none of this “been a fan since Aerial” malarkey. I have all her records. I have tickets not only to her show but also to the hospitality party beforehand. I’m convinced she is going to personally serve me canapés and share her champagne with me in the toilets. And ask me to help compose the lyrics to her next album. It is meant to be.

But I know how galling it is to not have tickets. For 2 days I was in deep dudgeon because despite having early access to the fan only tickets I still missed out and felt that the general release was merely going to give me a cat in hell’s chance. I can remember the excoriating feeling of “I’m going to miss out on a truly rare event”. I know it came good for me in the end but I still retain the muscle memory of that previous failure. Like Frodo forever feeling the burning loss of his ring. Or something like that.

But joking aside it is not the end of the world or even the start of it. If I hadn’t got tickets I would have felt gutted but I would have moved on. I still have Kate’s music to enjoy and stalking is a perfectly acceptable pastime these days.

But the petty nit-picking and childish sourness of the Facebook group was too much. I know people are just people… but really! I expected more from Kate Bush fans. And I know how stupid and vapid that sounds. As if liking Kate Bush immediately bestows wisdom and first class mental health onto the patron. But it was like being back at school. The old “I’m a bigger fan than you are – no you’re not, I am” kind of thing.

I felt besmirched. I felt like I was a kid again and not in a good way.

Do adults really behave like this without being aware of it?

Plainly they do.

So I did the adult thing. I didn’t castigate everyone in the group for being pathetic; I didn’t lob a sarky grenade into the status box and then run for cover. I just revoked my own membership, left forever and instantly felt calm again.

See, I don’t need the others. I don’t need to be part of a big group or a gang. I don’t need to be part of a happening or “a thing”.

Kate and me, we’ve got our own thing going on. A special relationship.

She’s hired a private policeman just for me.

At least that’s what my lawyer has told me.

Look Out Outlook

Back in my younger days, when I was single and had no care to be respectable, I had a joyous relationship with Hotmail.

So much so I had several Hotmail email accounts.

If I wanted to sign up to a web site or a subscription that I wasn’t sure was entirely kosher I would use one of my Hotmail addresses. When I was laundering money for the Triads I put all communications through my Hotmail account Wishywashy@hotmail.com. When I was gun running for Serbian gangsters deals were done via AK47sRUs@hotmail.co.uk. And when I was maintaining several mistresses simultaneously and patronizing a local escort agency I found totalesxclusivityguaranteed@hotmail.com really useful.

*sigh*

Those were the days. I’d log on, log in and frequently be surprised by the various communiques that were often or not waiting for me (frequently not).

And then things changed.

Not so much the getting married, having kids and becoming a 'law abiding citizen' thing. More the Hotmail mutating into Outlook type of thing.

Suddenly me and Hotmail or (if I must use its Snickers name rather than its Marathon name) Outlook (if you insist) became estranged. Suddenly our theme song changed from Dennis Waterman’s “I Could Be So Good For You” to Cliff Richard’s “It’s So Funny How We Don’t Talk Anymore”. We no longer had a thing going on.

Communication between us utterly died until now we barely even make eye contact.

When I try and log in these days all I get is the “I’m sorry, I’m not available right now” brush-off. Sometimes I only have to type the Hotmail address into my browser and I’m cold shouldered to the point where the log in page won’t even load. Outlook just isn’t putting out for me anymore.

See, Hotmail was fine when it was just an email client. When all I wanted was to send crapola and receive spam. We both knew where we stood and neither of us got ideas above our station.

But now Outlook wants to be the conduit through which I CONNECT to the entire effing internet. It wants to hook into my social networks and my own home computer. It wants me to diarize my life solely through its jealous online portal. It wants to store all my contacts and personal information inside its covetous cloud. It wants me to invest more time and energy into it than I’m willing to give. It wants to own me [man] and I didn’t ever come to Hotmail to be owned.

And I could just about cope with all that; I could just about shrug off all the irritation and irksomeness it causes me…

…if just once, just once the damned thing would load up properly first time and allow me to send just a simple sodding email without crashing on me.

Because that’s all I want:

An email account that sends and receives emails.

An email account that works.

Because the Serbs are getting impatient and the pimps are after me for welching on a deal. I’ve got urgent business to attend to Goddamnit!

Freedom Of Speech For All Or Freedom Of Speech For None

Deyka Ayan Hassan, the 21 year old student who stupidly tweeted that anyone wearing a Help For Heroes T-shirt deserved to be beheaded in the wake of the murder of soldier Lee Rigby, has been sentenced to 250 hours community service. She’d gone to the police herself after receiving hundreds of abusive Tweets in response to her own threatening to kill her, rape her and burn down her home.

The facts of the matter are simple enough but my gut response to it isn’t.

The whole thing makes me uncomfortable.

Morally the standpoint of the authorities and those who participated in the original Twitter exchange is on ropey ground. It is either a criminal offense to post / write / utter an abusive Tweet / comment / joke or it isn’t. And if it is what the hell has happened to the idea of freedom of speech?

Freedom of speech is something we very rarely think about these days. I possibly only think about it so much because I am a writer. For most of us it is like the air we breathe. We take it for granted because we mistakenly believe it has always been there and will always been there. It is part of this country’s genetic make-up.

It isn’t and never has been. It is a right that was hard won by our forebears and a right that is now slowly being wrested away from us under the guise of common decency; under the guise of protecting us and responding to our sense of outrage, disgust and, ironically, our sense of justice and morality.

Yes, Deyka Ayan Hassan’s Tweet was stupid and reprehensible. A joke that backfired and wasn’t really funny in the first place. The audience for gross shock-jokes is thin at best and very choosy even when it is at large – just ask Frankie Boyle. But are we really going to arrest people for making poor quality poor taste jokes? What common good would that serve? Protecting the rest of us from our own sense of anger and sense of disgust? Excuse me, but I don’t want Mr Cameron and the law courts inserting themselves so intimately into my sensibilities, thank you very much! I’m quite happy to process my own anger and deal with my own indignation. I just want to be protected from would-be murderers, thieves and rapists (and immoral politicians and non-tax paying corporations). I can deal with crap comedians myself.

Of course, in an ideal world everyone would always say nice things about each other. We wouldn’t have hate preachers, or racists or inflammatory orators. We’d all quote Wordsworth all day long and be utterly bored witless.

This isn’t an ideal world. But having the right to freedom of speech makes it not quite as un-ideal as it could be. We can mock our politicians. Satirize those in power over us. Challenge the law and the state when they behave ridiculously and fail to serve us, the people, as they’re supposed to. That is our TRUE protection. But freedom of speech also means that other people can disrespect us, our favourite band, our hobbies, our beliefs and our country itself. They also have the right to make disgusting jokes and be verbally offensive and utter absolutely any old crap that comes out of their mouths. There is no halfway house in this folks. We either can all say what we like or we can’t.

And it would be a much darker world if we couldn’t.

I’m thinking Hitler. I’m thinking Stasi. I’m thinking police state.

The most disturbing thing though about the Deyka Ayan Hassan case is the lack of consistency. Why were those threatening her with murder and rape - far more personally offensive attacks (with no chance of any of it being “a joke”) – not also condemned to community service? Why were they allowed to be abusive and Deyka Ayan Hassan not?

Because in this case the weight of public outrage was on their side?

Well, who decides how far and exactly when that particular pendulum has swung?

Because it certainly isn’t you and it certainly isn’t me.

Is freedom of speech now dependent on the opinions of the majority? Or just those that are in power over us? Do we now need someone else’s permission and approval to divine if what we want to say is in line with our peers and therefore acceptable to say?

When that happens freedom of speech isn’t worth the paper (or blog) that it’s written on.

And that is a true abuse.

I’m Going To Blow Up The Olympics

So Paul Chambers, the man who sparked a full-on security alert at Robin Hood airport (near Doncaster) when he Tweeted “Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!” back in 2010 when the airport was temporarily shut during heavy snow has finally won his appeal against his conviction for “sending a menacing electronic communication” at the High Court in London.

I’m pleased for him in a kind of passive, passing, glad-somebody-finally-saw-sense kind of way. Mainly though I just feel hugely disgruntled at the amount of tax payer’s money that has been wasted bringing this case to trial, bringing it to appeal at a Crown Court only for that appeal to be initially quashed and then being brought to the High Court where it was eventually brought before someone with a brain cell who could finally see it for the ridiculously petty pile of shit that it actually was.

Apparently his initial appeal at the Crown Court was overturned because the judge said the Tweet was “clearly menacing”.

Clearly menacing? I’ve received begging letters from the RSPCA that were more menacing than that.

It is surely plain to everyone that the Tweet was a joke. A joke in poor taste admittedly and not even particularly funny but a joke nevertheless. The guy was cheesed off. His flight was delayed. It was snowing. He was stuck in Doncaster. It was an unthinking moment of heat and frustration. It was a little guy sounding off against a big corporate machine that had let him down. And can I just say again that he was stuck in Doncaster?

Even if he really had blown up the airport surely that alone would be a mitigating circumstance?

As it was, John Cooper QC last month said: “[the Tweet] was certainly not sent in the context of terrorism and it was wrong for the crown court to make such an association”.

Hallelujah.

Commonsense prevails at last. The Law is less of an ass than I thought it was.

But the staff at Robin Hood airport ought to hang their heads in shame along with all those who helped push this case along via the hard earned money of the likes of you and me.

Have we actually really reached an age where the average man on the street can’t cock a snoop at the big corporations with the only weapon available to him that is still free – i.e. his speech?

We have to accept here that there is a huge, clearly recognizable difference between “you have five minutes to evacuate, there is a bomb on your premises, die infidel pig-dog, the code word is kebab” and “your service is so crap you need a bomb put under you to get things to improve”. Real bomb threats are, after all, plainly not funny.

Real bomb hoaxes are also not funny. But “you've got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high”, oh and by the way you can clearly identify me by my Twitter account and my 600 Followers is clearly not even in the same ballpark. That isn’t even remotely threatening. It’s someone throwing their rattle out of the pram and then having it taken to the police by a prat who then complains to the police that they felt frightened by the rattle - please lock them up Mr Policeman for I was very fwightened.

Honestly! Some people need to get a life.

Preferably before I blow them sky-high with the two tonnes of Semtex that I have rabidly secreted down my Y-fronts and packed into the hairy chambers of my armpits.

Go on. Complain about this fucking blog. I just dare you!

My finger is hovering over the button right now! One wrong move and you’re all going to die with the smoke of my singed underpants in your lungs!

Chaos And Misrule

How moral are you?

How righteous (if that’s the right word)? Do you do the right thing just because it is the right thing or because you fear cultural retribution? The law might be an ass but it cannot be denied that it keeps a good many of us on the straight and narrow. Without it do you ever wonder how many of us would be potential thugs? Potential murderers, even?

Without the thought of being someone’s bitch in the prison showers or snuggling up to Mr Big for a couple of quid’s worth of phone cards most of us, I suspect, would at sometime or other snap and bludgeon those around us to death with a Chubb fire extinguisher (or whatever heavy blunt instrument you happen to have at hand).

That might sound over the top but just think about it seriously for a moment.

When faced with an insanely infuriating work colleague or an overly unhelpful shop assistant or a belligerent neighbour who has yet again cut a mammoth sized limb from your precious Leylandii and dropped it onto your marijuana nursery don’t we all experience a Reggie Perrin moment or three and imagine taking a Black & Decker hedge trimmer to their jugular? Or pulping their face into bloody Papier-mâché with the mortar and pestle you bought on-line especially to grind up your Valium tablets for easier absorption?

Daily I have hacked, maimed, peppered and pulverized the people around me with a mental arsenal that, if it were real, would see me institutionalized for life. Reservoir Dogs style I have removed ears, noses, fingers (individually), various genitalia (some of them pre-cooked with an oxy acetylene welding torch), limbs and, when the devil inside has really taken me by the horns, internal organs which I then fantasize about sending to the local police inspector Jack The Ripper style accompanied by a note informing him that the bits I kept went down rather well sautéed in butter with a side order of fava beans.

And the weird thing is I don’t even know anyone named Clarisse.

If it were not for that metaphysical something deep inside that stops me every time I would be the desperately evasive fruit of a massive countrywide police hunt and, no doubt, the pin-up of every kitchensink chained chav this side of Watford.

But is it an inbred morality that stays my hand? An innate instinct toward decency?

Or is it just societal conditioning? Fear of the jug? An aversion to Big Vern’s personal, phallus-shaped soap-on-a-rope?

How can I call myself a decent morally-upstanding person when the only thing keeping me from eviscerating the pathetic organs of those around me is a desire to not be incarcerated for the rest of my born natural?

That isn’t morality! That isn’t righteousness!

It’s a weird kind of cowardice. It is self denial. At best it is a bizarre form of self-sacrifice for the good of the many.

And though in theory that is noble it is still not moral.

I leave you today with a thought from Voltaire: I have no morals - and yet I'm a very moral person.

It is so true.

But is it something to be proud of?

Tell Laura I Love Her

Gordon Brittas.

If you were around in the Nineties and of an age to appreciate a proper sitcom done damnably well then that name will mean something to you. If not then, like my eldest boy, you will have to delve in the BBC’s back catalogue and get the boxed set.

Continuing my boy’s odyssey through the comedy shows of my formative years we have finally reached The Brittas Empire.

Gordon Brittas (played by Chris Barrie) was way ahead of his time. He was a forerunner for every Fire Safety diehard, every devoted Risk Assessor, every in-your-face, dyed-in-the-wool, dog-savaging-a-rabbit, never-going-to-let-it-drop-ever Health & Safety Officer who has ever walked, breathed and told you to move that pencil sharpener from the edge of your desk in case a colleague should trip over their own brogues and impale themselves upon it. He was the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse: Mr Bump.

At the time I thought The Brittas Empire was hilarious. By the third series the writers (Andrew Norriss and Richard Fegen) were well into their stride and managed to demolish Whitbury Newtown Leisure Centre in ever more inventive and bizarre ways. Rogue fireworks ignited by sunlight cast through a carelessly discarded pair of spectacles would in turn ignite a storeroom being used to house petroleum because the fuel tank had a hole in it; over elaborate fire safety drills would actually result in staff being injured and horribly maimed; the most improbable of small events would domino and coalesce into disasters of national proportions in the space of half an hour. Mr Brittas would be the author of all. The more obsessive he became about doing the right thing and following safety guidelines the higher the body count would rise. I think in the fifth series the writers actually managed to destroy the Centre in every single episode.

In theory Mr Brittas should have been an unsympathetic character whose blind adherence to local byways and the letter of the law rendered him beyond redemption. But he was saved. He was saved by Laura Lancing his long suffering, ever patient, ever understanding Assistant Manager played by the gorgeous Julia St John (pictured above). Rather than create a mean two-dimension caricature of an overzealous jobsworth, the writers – through Laura’s insights and interventions – created a more rounded character who, despite scoring a whopping 100% on the National Annoyance League Table, was nevertheless a decent, well-meaning man who constantly tried to be kind and caring and morally upstanding and who was only ever hampered in achieving this by his fevered need to always do the right thing.

Laura was an angel. Laura was a goddess. And she had the soft, smooth voice to match and a ready ironic smile where most would have had gritted teeth.

Naturally I fancied the gym skirt off her back when the series was first aired and watching it again now she has lost none of her allure. Even my wife has commented that most guys she knows “had a thing” for Laura. Laura was the calm in Mr Brittas’ storm. The Ying to his Yang. The sensible, sane response to the madness that he unfailingly caused. And she had eyes that could stun a charging red blooded male at 50 paces. I would have died for that woman and, if I’d worked at Whitbury Newtown Leisure Centre, the chances are I probably would have.

I laughed at the time. I thought the premise of the show was hilarious.

And while I’m still laughing now, watching it years later, that laughter is distinctly tinged with nervousness. It is tinged with a sense of burgeoning tragedy.

Because suddenly Whitbury Newtown Leisure Centre is all around me.

It has become the world I live in. A world where workmen cannot abandon their ladders in case some cranially challenged hoody decides to show off to his mates and swan-dive from the top of it and then sue the company for his inability to sign-on every week. A world where hot water cannot be too hot lest it scald the person washing their hands but not so lukewarm that it allows Legionella bacteria to grow and flourish. A world where everything from opening a trap door in the floor to lifting a hot cup of tea to your mouth during work time has to be risk assessed and approved by a Health & Safety Officer and underwritten by an insurance company lest the corporation be responsible for your accidental demise.

It is the world I work in.

It is the modus operandi of my working life.

I have become Mr Brittas.

Only I don’t have a Laura to sweeten the pill. A Laura to save me from myself.

*sigh*

As the song goes: tell Laura I love her, tell Laura I need her...

But onwards and upwards, people. Now excuse me while I just move this unexploded World War II bomb I’ve found into the gas boiler room for safe keeping... oops, look at that petrol spilled on the floor... someone could have slipped over on that...

Goosey Goosey Slander

So The Defamation Bill is about to be debated in the Commons.

Ostensibly this gives social networking web site owners a little protection against libel suits that may result from complainants taking objection to something web users may write or publish about the complainant on such web sites. If the web site owners identify the “troll” they themselves won’t get sued.

On the face of it, it is a good idea. It makes the right people accountable for their words and actions. I’m sure the owners of Twitter and Facebook et al will breathe huge sighs of relief if the bill gets approved.

But what does it mean for the rest of us?

Libel is a strange beast. People – particularly minor celebs with major egos – like to sue for it at the merest provocation. Even big celebs have been known to pay off mortgages on second homes with a well won libel suit.

But it’s one thing to sue a multinational newspaper but what about an average-Joe Twitter user? What about suing a blogger? What about suing the likes of you or me?

I guess we all need to be careful about what we say or write from now on. We all need to be clear about what is mere opinion and what is untruth or unsupportable truth.

Because part of the deal with this bill is that the complainant has to show that they have suffered serious harm to their reputations, or are likely to do so before they can take their defamation case forward.

I feel rather ambivalent on this issue, I must admit. Lord knows I have no respect for someone who prints lies and untruths and says that so-and-so shagged so-and-so with a hastily bought legume from Tesco just because they wanted to enjoy the emotional fall-out and social trauma that ensued. But at the same time I reserve the right to say that so-and-so is an utter arse with the brain of a Eurovision songwriter and deserves to be knocked verbally into a cocked hat if that is my personal take on the matter. Lord knows I have given the likes of Russell Brand, Eamonn Holmes and, just recently, Gary Barlow a right Royal drubbing on this here blog and done it with hyperbolic gusto.

But what if these guys feel I have damaged their reputation?

I mean, God knows my opinion is the only one that matters and careers are made or broken on my most nonchalant say-so. I am the all-powerful uber-blogger, after all.

But what if Russell Brand blames me for the break-up of his marriage and the loss of his virility? What then, huh?

Whoa! Whoa! That last bit was just a joke, OK? I’m sure Russ is as permanently randy as an IT student at a Spearmint Rhino half price night but you see how easy it is to fall into this libel trap? I make a non-serious joke about Russell Brand’s completely un-alleged flagging bedroom prowess and suddenly I’m libel fodder. Even though it was plainly a jape and just a device to express my opinion and imagine how worse it could have been if I’d rung him up and left him a telephone message saying that his old man drooped worse than an end-of-season bungee rope? I don’t think a bunch of flowers and an apology would get my arse out of the flames quick enough. My goose would be well and truly cooked. And my bank account plundered and dumped quicker than one of Russell’s ex-girlfriends.

So what’s the answer?

Well, it’s simple.

We have all got to start being nice to each other. And more importantly than that: nice about each other.

I know. Terrible, isn’t it?

What the hell are we all going to write about?

Le Munch Bunch

Normally I don’t do French.

Not unless it features Audrey Tautou anyway.

But after forays into Scandinavian TV drama the wife and I decided to expand our European wings, so to speak, and try a French police drama that had been recommended to us: Engrenages or Spiral as it has been translated over here (though my wife tells me Gears would have been a more accurate translation).

It has been something of an eye-opener.

I’m not sure how accurate a depiction it is but the Parisian police force in Spiral operate like something out of a Gene Hunt wet dream. Foxy, elven Captain Laure Berthaud (Caroline Proust) seems quite happy to have casual sex with her male colleagues – indeed seems decidedly unhappy if she finds herself in a situation where she is not getting any at all. And then there is stunning redhead Josephine Karlsson (the magnifique Audrey Fleurot - see picture above), a maverick defence lawyer who is unhappy unless she is accepting casual monies from all and sundry for activities that cross and re-cross the legal divide as often as she crosses and uncrosses her perfectly stockinged legs.

My wife will no doubt accuse me of gross injustice if I don’t mention the high male eye candy ratio but... nah. Can’t be bothered. Apparently there is plenty of boy-sugar floating around for the ladies but personally I don’t see it. I mean, they’re French, for Heaven’s sake! Urgh!

The women, however... well. They’re French! Va-va-voom!

But actually what impinges most on me about this portrayal of the French police is the sheer continuous nonchalant brutality of how they operate. Gene Hunt would cream his polyester slacks. I’ve lost count of how many suspects I have seen handcuffed to a chair and bitch slapped, pate slapped, hair-grabbed and kicked over onto the floor. In fact the only suspects I haven’t seen kicked off a chair are young teens and women and I suspect the only reason for that is that it would make for questionable telly viewing.

Interviews seems to be conducted in the police captain’s office without a lawyer being present and without benefit of some kind of recording device being activated. Occasionally the Captain’s superior might pop his head around the door, give a Gallic shrug and complain about the noise being a little excessive but otherwise anything goes. The suspect then signs his statement – handily written by the police – and is taken to Monsieur Le Judge where his case is weighed up and a decision taken as to whether it’s worth taking him to the Justice Courts where Josephine Karlsson will either get him off or drop him further into the merde depending on who’s paid her wages this week.

It’s brilliant.

I don’t want to stoop to national stereotyping but just as The Killing portrays the cool, calculating essence of the Danes so Spiral seems to capture the essence of the French. Or at least the essence of how we, the ignorant, arrogant English imagine the French to be: driven by physical appetites, yet somehow cold with a limited emotional range and with a total of 3 facial expressions: smile, frown, moue. The greatest and most used of these being the moue. The moue it seems can be used when faced with insults, teasing, accusations of wrong doing, a refusal to have sex, demotion, an acceptance to have sex, before and after sex, possibly during sex and when you discover your chief suspect has just been torched in the back of a Citroen a la barbecue.

Is this really how the French police force works? Are they really, genuinely that French? French to the power 100?

Whatever, it makes for great drama and whereas Season One was a bit patchy, Season Two which the wife and I are just about to complete has been absolument superbe.

Do yourself a favour. Try a little French tonight. You might like it. And if in doubt just think of Gene Hunt with garlic breath.

Got to be a winner, right?

Très bon!

Censorship And Sensibility (With Apologies To Jane Austen)

“So, I said to her, I said to her, blue parasols are sooo passé. So last year. Only the lower orders go for blue parasols. You’re not much better than a milkmaid in your Sunday best if you carry a blue parasol around with you. So common. Well, I said it so loud she turned and fled red-faced and hasn’t dared to show herself here at Eastwick Towers again. Everybody who was there who saw and heard it thought it frightfully entertaining.” And with that Fanny dissolved into rather undemure laughter while her good friend and confidante, Jane, applauded her for her cutting-edged wit and prettily voiced cruelty.

It was at that moment that Mr D’Arcy presented himself to them both with his cheeks flushed and a little dappled with perspiration.

“Well, hello, Miss Fanny and Miss Jane, what splendid luck to find you both here. I confess I am rather ebullient in my sentiments today for I have just published my own pamphlet to sell to the good people of London. Pray take a look and tell me if it is to your liking.”

Mr D’Arcy forthwith inserted his glossy looking tome into the hands of the suddenly quivering ladies.

“Oh I say, what a jolly funny name,” said Fanny. “Put It In Your Pipe And Smoke It.”

“Indeed.” Replied Mr D’Arcy. “It has a certain ring to it and reflects my own personal viewpoint. It is merely my own opinion which thanks to the laws of this great and noble country, I am at liberty to express freely.”

Fanny began flicking through the pages and suddenly her face paled and fell. She looked suddenly distressed. “Oh Mr D’Arcy how could you? You have written a piece here attacking the red parasol. How could you be so brutish and cruel when you know I am never seen without a red parasol.” And with that Fanny waved aloft her parasol which was indeed red.

“Oh my.” Stammered Mr D’Arcy. “Madam, I had no idea you carried a red parasol, truly I didn’t. Besides my piece does not attack your parasol specifically only certain red parasols generally. And, at the end of the day, good lady, as my disclaimer clearly states, the views contained within this publication are purely my own personal opinion and are not meant to be authoritative.”

“Tish tosh.” Said Fanny. “That makes no difference to my case. I feel personally slighted therefore the slight is real and I have been most certainly slighted. What you have written there, sir, is slander and defamation and infamy. You have slandered my good name by my known association with red parasols in bold print, sir, in your infernal publication, and it causes me upset and hurt. Every court in the land will surely see it so.”

Mr D’Arcy composed his face a little after this outburst and strove to speak calmly and measuredly. “Come, come, Miss Fanny. Consider this: you yourself not two minutes before reading my pamphlet did speak uncivilly about blue parasols. Indeed you recounted how you sent the owner of a blue parasol packing with your cruel barbs ringing about her ears and you did so in full view of witnesses and furthermore have recounted the story to Miss Jane thus exacerbating the damage done to this anonymous lady’s name. You have made your views and opinions public in a manner which also caused hurt and upset. Is this also not slander and defamation and infamy? I wager every court in the land will most certainly see it so.”

And turning upon his heel forthwith Mr D’Arcy made his excuses and left Eastwick Towers for, despite the transparency and glassiness of its walls, the occupants within were wont to throw stones with appalling regularity in order to not be able to see their own reflections staring back out at them from the glass.

The End.

Sexsomnia

It doesn’t even look like a real word, does it? It looks like the title to another duff, soppy-voiced, “soul” record by Peter Andre.

But no. It’s real alright. It’s a recognized condition whereby the sufferer can’t help but have sex with whoever he/she is sharing a bed with in his/her sleep. He/She doesn’t wake up at all. He/She has sex, can’t fall asleep afterwards because he/she is already asleep and then remembers nothing about it in the morning.

I could make jokes about the whole premise. Crack a few gags.

But it’s not funny.

Because a 16 year old girl brought a rape case to court this week and lost because the defendant claimed he was suffering from sexsomnia and various medical experts backed him up.

His ex-partner and his current wife also confirmed that [let’s call him] Mr Z regularly groped them in his sleep and had had sex with them but had no memory of it the next day.

Now, I’m trying not to pass judgement here because I don’t know enough about the case or the condition but... and it’s a but that won’t go away... various facts about the case make me feel uncomfortable and, dare I say it, suspicious?

This 16 year old college girl was spending the night at the defendant’s house. It was hot so in the early hours of the morning she went to sleep on the defendant’s bed – with him still in it and already asleep (according to him) – because it was cooler.

The girl then awoke later to find the defendant having sex with her. The next day he sent her a text asking her if she was OK and enquiring if anything had happened?

See, all that does not add up to me.

Where was the defendant’s wife? She cannot have been at home if the girl was able to sleep on the defendant’s bed with him in it. If the wife wasn’t at home why the hell did the defendant allow a 16 year old girl to stay the night on her own knowing that he suffers from this condition?

What 16 year old would take it upon herself to share a bed with a grown man no matter how hot it is? I’m not blaming the girl here, but - and I’m wary of making an accusation – wouldn’t she have needed some coercion? Wouldn’t the suggestion have had to have been put into her mind by someone else? Certainly not naming Mr Z here. *cough cough*

Mr Z clearly suspected something had happened because he sent her a text the next day asking the girl if she was OK.

No. she’s not OK. She’s been raped but this appears to be a crime with a victim but no assailant.

This cannot be right, surely?

To my mind, I can just about buy the idea of sexsomnia. Some geek in a white coat has staked his reputation on it so it must be real.

My problem is Mr Z knows he has the condition. He knows he is a danger to people sleeping in his house and sleeping in close proximity to him. He allowed this girl to share his house and share his bed – no matter what innocent reasons lie behind this. He knew he was a danger to others and allowed the assault to happen.

Sorry, Mr Z, but in the kangaroo court of my mind, you are guilty. Because the full weight of responsibility for managing your condition was yours.

I rest my case.

Chokey

Interesting to note David Cameron’s recent U-turn on UK prison sentencing.

For those of you that are out of the loop, the initial premise was very loosely based around the idea that an early guilty plea would have seen the subsequent prison sentence of the defendant reduced by 50%.

Which is rather a bizarre idea.

I mean, if I go on a teeth gnashing machete rampage around Lidl next Wednesday and get caught on their CCTV system decapitating the Store Detective with a frozen monkfish I would expect a hefty prison sentence. A good 30 years or so. But by coughing to it straight away - look, it’s a fair cop, I’m covered in blood, I stink of fish and you’ve got me bang to rights on camera - I could get that sentence drastically reduced. A good 15 years taken off. Possibly more for good behaviour.

Where’s the deterrent in that? I might as well take out a couple of the checkout girls as well. Kind of a serial killing BOGOF.

It’s not hard to imagine that Cameron was getting it hard and fast from all quarters (just like being in the prison showers) – hence the sudden U-turn.

But I bet the police were the first to complain to the Government too.

I mean, cutting sentences by half? That would undo all the hard work the police do fitting people up.

Just imagine.

You’ve planted evidence. You’ve employed the old ‘orange in the mouth and Tesco bag over the head’ instant confession technique and your chosen blagger has coughed to a list of crimes that would make Jake Arnott yank one off over his computer keyboard and then you realize that the 30 years you were hoping to drop onto your poor patsy have been instantly commuted to a measly 15.

Where the hell is the justice in that?

You’d be better off having the guy deny all knowledge and stubbornly plead not guilty in the light of all the evidence you have carefully fabricated against him.

At least that way if he does go down for a crime he didn’t commit he’s going to go down for the full 30.

I hope Cameron realizes how close this country just came to complete anarchy.

Innocent people getting their prison sentences halved by lying in court and pleading guilty to crimes that they haven't committed?!

That’s perjury, that is.

And is punishable by a custodial prison sentence.

But not, of course, if you plead guilty early...