It's The Return Of Our Favourite Phrase...

Speaking about the case last November, Detective Inspector Mick Foote, of the Metropolitan Police's specialist crime directorate, said: ... 'Both victims have suffered a very traumatic event. However, I would like to reassure the public that such crimes are very rare.'

Al Jahom immediately gives the lie to that one, however...

Well, Lady, Just Count 'em..!

'My husband told her she'd cut the finger off and she replied, “No I haven't”

It's like pantomime, isn't it? Altogether now:

'Oh, yes, you have!'

Looks Like The MONA Meme Is Dead...

Lots of descriptive taxt in the report of yesterday's park shooting:

A man was seriously ill in hospital last night after he was caught in the crossfire during a gunfight between two warring gangs at a street festival.

Two warring gangs, eh..?

Police said he was white and had suffered a single handgun wound.

'Police said'..? How odd. Note that they describe the victim, not the perpetrators. That, they leave to the witnesses:

Witness Lewis Barker, 22, a poet, said: ‘The park was packed, there wasn’t even enough room to move. We suddenly heard about three gunshots from 50 yards away and saw a group of black youths running through the park.

‘Everyone rushed over to the man who had been shot but he appeared to have had nothing to do with them.’

Quick to distance the victim from the perps. That's a refreshing change. He isn't the only eyewitness making that distinction either:

Another witness called Peter, from Dublin, said: ‘There were two groups of youths who were antagonising each other and suddenly one group started shooting at the other.

‘Then a white guy sitting around his barbecue with friends got shot in the crossfire.’

Wow, there's no doubt whatsoever that the Men of No Appearance aren't going to show up here:

And a festival-goer called Jacob added: ‘We were just sitting around playing our guitars when we heard a gunshot and saw a black kid running past wearing a white shirt and jeans. It was awful.’

Still, the Mayor of Hackney seems to be able to find a silver lining:

The Mayor of Hackney, Jules Pipe, said: ‘Despite this very worrying incident, hundreds of people were able to enjoy the event in London Fields safely.

'Thankfully the incident took place some distance from the event, but if anyone has any information, I would urge them to contact the police.’

Gosh, good for you, Jules! Hate to have anything so unseemly as a violent shootout between warring street scum spoil your little shindig...

MummyLongLegs wonders where Diane Abbott was. After all, Hackney's her stomping ground, and she's usually only too happy to get her ugly mug on the TV...

Sinister Moves Afoot…

Lurking in my pile of 'things to post when the router situation is resolved' was this odd story:

Pupils should be given spoken as well as written exams to prevent left-handed children falling behind, a leading headmaster has suggested.

Aha! A new 'victim' group to provide special favours for! Won't the Righteous be delighted?

Anthony Clark said left-handers may benefit from oral exams in subjects such as English and history because they find writing awkward, reducing their chances of achieving good grades.

Spoken exams would give left-handed pupils a chance to shine because they hone their verbal skills to compensate for difficulties with writing.

That sounds suspiciously like the 'blind people have excellent hearing to compensate for their lack of sight!' old chestnut, which must really aggravate blind people who are now expected to become Matt Murdock...

Mr Clark, head of Malvern College, proposed the idea ahead of a conference on left-handedness to be held at the school next week.

There's a conference for this..?

Mr Clark said he had observed left-handed pupils having greater difficulty producing legible script than right-handers.

'When I see students writing, sometimes with difficulty - and many left-handers have difficulty with script - one imagines that they write less and therefore perhaps achieve lower grades than those who write more, because they have simply put less on paper,' he said.

So this is all supposition, based on what you've observed. It doesn't appear that you've even spoken to any of these pupils, or you've have a heartwrenching anecdote to share with us...

He said: 'I understand that 11 per cent of the world population is left-handed and believe that left-handers have had a disproportionately significant impact on the development of the world. Why is this?

'Is it because they feel constrained by the right-handed world in which they live?

'Is it that they perceive the world is against them and they seek inventive ways in which to manage the environment which confounds them?'

So, you think that being left-handed is a handicap that holds pupils back in exams, yet they have a disproportionate effect on the world's development?

Sounds more to me like exams are no judge of success, Mr Clark...

Guardian In 'Just Not Getting It' Shock...

Well, I guess it's safe now to take a look at the finale of 'Ashes To Ashes'. But just in case...


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The 'Guardian's' review is, well, typically 'Guardian':

So that's it then, Ashes to Ashes to ashes. The end of Gene Hunt, the bullying, racist, misogynist, everything else-ist DCI the nation strangely fell in love with...

Ahh, bless. You can almost hear the baffled incomprehension that must have been in his mind when he typed that copy, can't you?

Rather like the now-notorious quote (attributed to Pauline Kael) that a liberal doyenne "couldn't believe Nixon had won", since no one she knew had voted for him, the Guardian just doesn't understand how anyone other than policemen (corrupt, racist, misogynistic policemen at that, ones not yet drummed out of the force by the professional standards people) could appreciate that show.

And certainly, it's proved popular with the police, if blogs are anything to go by. Even Inspector Gadget couldn't resist changing his header in tribute on Friday:


Yet it also proved hugely popular with the public too. And that makes nice, politically-correct, well brought up Guardian reviewers, secure in their insular bubble, head's explode...

Mind you, the reviewer is in good company, because even the creators are puzzled by that:

Some viewers may have been too busy enjoying Hunt's politically incorrect ways to notice. The gruff Gary Cooper fan surprised his creators by sparking the passion of some female viewers – there's even an online group called Hunt's Housewives – the admiration of some men, and leaving others obsessed with Gene and Alex's (or Galex's) relationship. "I'm still amazed that girls find it romantic, this big hulking bloke in a dated suit, that there could be anything even closely resembling a sex symbol," Graham says. "I find that baffling. It's great but I just don't understand it."

Oh, dear. Well, sometimes the best discoveries are the most unexpected. 'Fawlty Towers' wasn't expected to be a hit either, being savaged by the critics on release, only to see the character of Basil Fawlty - manic, cowardly, incompetent - voted second favourite TV character in a Channel Four programme.

It isn't just the maddeningly elusive appeal of the main character - for as we all know now, Hunt IS the main character, not Sam Tyler or Alex Drake - but the baffling (to the reviewer) ending, and the 'did they or didn't they?' question:

Got it? No, I'm not sure I have either. Did the people behind A2A know all this when they started, or are they just tying together all the loose ends together now, in a big old knot?

My guess is that they planned something like this, on reflection, if not the exact format of the ending. And I plan to go back and watch 'Life on Mars' all over again to see if there's any foreshadowing!

The bitterness at the popularity of the show with the public, and the obvious yearning for the 'old' police force seeps through in every line of the Guardian's review:

Heaven is the pub, the old one from Life on Mars, the Railway Arms, where CID went for a bit of R&R after beating the crap out of people all day.

Heh!

As shows go, this one - two?- has been one of the key shows of the Noughties (I loathe that term, but what else do you call them?). And the BBC almost passed up the chance to screen it. What a mistake that would have been...

So what is the appeal? Nostalgia? The retro soundtrack? A longing for the world to be put to rights, for a police force to concentrate on real villains, instead of politically correct trivialities? A longing for real heroes, uncomplicated by modern drama's need for 'conflict' and 'ambiguity'?

Probably all of the above. At least at first.

But then, like all great shows written by great teams, it took on a life all of its own beyond the soundtrack and the snappy one-liners, and became something that could support its internal mythology to produce something as splendid as the final episode, which ends - fittingly -with the Hunt character moodily contemplating his new 'decade' and new ride in his office, while outside another confused soul arrives, looking for his iPhone and wondering where the hell he's ended up...

Not a prospect that comforts our poor reviewer:

Hold up though, who's this at the end? A new arrival in Gene Hunt's purgatory? Does that keep the door open, just a crack, for maybe more to come? Oh Lordy no, surely not, they said this really was the end.

I don't think so, though. The ending is just too, too perfect. I think - I hope, despite wanting more - that the creators will resist the temptation to do one more series.

And if they don't win a BAFTA, there'll be no justice. But then, as the public longing for the world of 'Life on Mars' and 'Ashes to Ashes' shows us, there isn't any justice any more, is there..?

Memo To Novice Bootsalers

Careful placement of price labels is everything:

Fearing A Small State….

Madeline Bunting does not welcome the coalition’s plans for a smaller state and more self-reliance:

Liberalism has been a notoriously elastic word – as often used as a term of abuse applied to Islington chatterati as claimed to define an acceptable form of individualism.

‘Acceptable’ to whom, Madeline..?

At the centre of this re-emergent liberalism is the much used idea of a "self-authored life", in which individual autonomy is paramount to shape one's own version of the good life. The only role the state has is to ensure the individuals have the capabilities for autonomy, such as education and health. Power resides in individuals, who should be free to make their own choices in public services such as health and education. The state must leave people to run their own lives, dismantling big institutions and bureaucracies.

Sounds like paradise. More to the point, sounds like affordable paradise.

Who could possibly disagree?

What it can achieve in tackling welfare dependence, broken Britain, political disengagement and other objectives for which it makes great claims, remains to be seen. Liberalism, has, at heart, a deeply idealistic view of human nature: give people power and they will know how to use it.

Ah. Right. Of course.

The people who believe that we are basically children at heart, no matter how old we may be. Who believe that humanity is flawed, and they have the answers to putting things right, if only they can grasp the reins of power for long enough.

What is lost in this coalition – as Shirley Williams recognised in the Guardian – is any notion of state action to achieve equality and social justice.

Perhaps that’s because it’s been tried, and tried, and tried, and it doesn’t work.
Humanity is not perfectable by government edict and, god willing, never will be…

It's a set of ideas for government that will appeal to successful, aspirant England – southern England outside London opted for it en masse in the election in a flat rejection of Labour – but it offers as much loneliness and insecurity as it does freedom.

Not having the warm, soothing, expensive hands of government on your shoulders from cradle to grave is now to be prey to ‘loneliness and insecurity’, is it?

Well, bring it on!

N.B: Angry Exile finds that this attitude – that the state is mother, the state is father - has spread to the Land Down Under too…

Sunday Funnies

I had never even heard of the first one of these, which considering my love of true crime and Fortean events, is almost twice as spooky as the actual story!

How Urban Panics Start….

Terrified residents have been spreading false rumours of child abductions in south Essex, according to police.

Essex Police said it has been inundated with calls from frightened parents, asking about a spate of child abductions rumoured to have happened in Castle Point and Rayleigh in the past few days.

Residents started making the panicked calls around Saturday lunchtime, saying said they had received text messages or seen text messages on other people's phones containing the rumour.

I’ve seen this go around before. Once it starts, it’s very hard to stop. Old style gossip and Chinese whispers were bad enough, but the reliance on the Internet and texting means it now spreads exponentially faster and further than ever before.

But the police are doing their best:

But officers have been quick to stamp out the rumour and insist there is no truth to it.

However, judging by the comments, it isn’t going to go away.

Among the sensible reactions we have some that sum up how these panics start, and why they are so hard to stop:

milesawayfromessex, Downtown says...

So what about the incident last Thursday, in Hockley, 8pm, near the Spa Pub, 11 year old boy, very distressed, crying, saying 2 men had tried to get him in a car?
When i checked with Essex Police they had no record of it, dispite their PCSO comforting the boy after the incident and looking for the two?????
so whats happening ?

Instantly, this is now at best a cock-up, at worst a conspiracy: ‘the authorities know something, but they aren’t telling us!’.

This is helped by the ‘I’m not sure if this is a wind up, but better safe than sorry’ crowd:

buttonbaggins, Westcliff says...

If i see something like that I feel its best to pass it on, as you its always best to be alert whether its true or not. As for this rumour my friend was sent it via a text from a POLICEMAN! so go figure!

And then there’s the ‘hey, there’s a pattern emerging here’ people:

Publicdefender, Castle Point says...

THERE IS A LOT OF SEXUAL CRIMES GOING ON AT THE MOMMENT.
SEE THE ECHO ,
the Echo should have outlined this in there piece.
Canvey has had a number if incidents, Thundersley has had a flasher and an approach from a car,now Hockley, from memory there has been 5 or 6 in 2 months .

People have a right to be concerned.

And of course, since this is 2010, the ‘someone might be liable if they don’t!’ argument:

Hagrace, Hockley says...

My son's school sent a letter home Friday about the incident in Hockley so they obviously thought there was something to write home about (pardon the pun) Even if this is Chinese whispers, at least it makes parents alert. No matter what we tell our kids about strangers, there's nothing a youngster could do if a grown-up physically dragged them into a car. Vigilance is vital and I am glad the school took it seriously enough to take action. If they hadn't and an abduction occured there would be hell to pay as well as compensation claims!!!

We sometimes forget that though the technology changes, people don’t.

Take away the texting, the Twittering, the mobile calls, and how is this reaction any different to a bunch of superstitious, frightened peasants warning everyone they meet on their way to the fields to dig turnips for a living about the witch who is making their neighbour’s cows barren?

Headlines...

...they are deceptive. It always pays to read the story closely:


Sounds like another 'police in reckless pursuit' story, doesn't it?

Well....

The drama happened after a police motorbike saw four youths - who have a history of burglary, violence and robbery - acting suspiciously in the Honda Civic around 9pm on Monday.

The vehicle's lights were switched off and none of the occupants was wearing seat belts.

When he enquired what they were doing, the car sped off.

Thirty seconds later the Honda collided with parked vehicles in Fauconberg Road, a quiet suburban street in Chiswick.

Thirty seconds. That's barely enough time to read that headline.

Some 'chase', eh? Nice one, 'Daily Fail'....