Naked Justice

So, the government doesn't really want us to become vigilantes in the fight against Britain's so-called yob culture. They just want us to be curtain-twitching busybodies reporting any young person we see with an offensive haircut or suspect fashion style, to the police, instead. In some ways I'm quite relieved - I wouldn't recommend becoming a crime-fighting street vigilante. Last time I tried it, I was the one who ended up being arrested. Mind you, I suppose I asked for it, approaching a group of teenagers whilst wearing a skin tight latex suit and rubber mask is just asking for trouble, really, isn't it? I was lucky not to be put on the sex offenders register - you wouldn't believe how long it took to convince the police that I was just trying to recruit a juvenile superhero sidekick. However, I'm also slightly disappointed - we just don't have enough costumed vigilantes in this country. Believe me, if our streets were being patrolled by masked men and women in bizarre costumes with whacky names, prepared to solve every problem they encounter with extreme violence, Britain would be a far safer place. But when was the last time we had a decent masked crime fighter in this country, eh? OK I know that after he was sacked as Home Secretary David Blunkett briefly pulled on the tights and tried to continue his crusade against crime in the guise of Blindman, but that all came to an abrupt end after he tried to leap through that skylight with his guide dog...

I remember when costumed vigilantism was something of a cottage industry. Back in the Nineties a friend of mine would regularly slip into South London phoneboxes, strip naked and emerge as Nude Man, Lewisham's most popular superhero. Tales of his exploits - chasing terrified muggers through parks and leaping out at gay bashers from the cubicles of gents' toilets - became the stuff of legend, discussed in hushed tones in pubs and bars from Blackheath to Greenwich. For several years the very sight of his mighty 'super-tackle' flying up and down as he leapt from tall buildings would strike fear into the hearts of villains across South London. However, he found his stature slightly diminished that very cold winter in '95, when he found his powers sapped by frost bite. He never really recovered. Mind you, he wasn't the only one. Many good citizens of Ealing vividly remember the crime fighting escapades of The Blow Fly during the Summer of 1997. According to local rumour, this superhero had his genesis when a small boy accidentally swallowed a bluebottle which subsequently laid eggs in his stomach. Twenty years later, he was able to put this misfortune to good use when, clad in his distinctive fly costume, he patrolled the streets of Ealing, blowing a swarm of flies into the faces of miscreants! He famously foiled the Gladstone Street bank robbery when he covered the windscreen of the robbers' getaway car with flies, causing it to crash into a bus queue. Sadly, The Blowfly was eventually felled by an eleven year old shoplifter armed with a can of Vapona. There were many others back in those heady days - who could forget the Golden Shower, who washed away his opponents with a powerful stream of super-urine? - but, one-by-one, they all vanished, in the case of the Golden Shower, as a result of tougher public health measures .

I fear the day of the costumed vigilante is gone for good. I mean, they'd never allow it now under health and safety rules, if nothing else. Bastards!