Dirty Old Men?

"GRANDFATHER CAUGHT IN INTERNET CHILD PORN STING" was roughly the headline on my local paper the other day. As I don't bother reading the dross which passes for a newspaper in this neck of the woods, I couldn't tell you what the actual content of the story was, but the image it was trying to conjure up was clear. Some dirty tramp-like figure in a threadbare dressing gown and frayed carpet slippers hunched over a flickering green-tinged monitor, cackling and grunting as he whacks off over the most depraved images possible, his false teeth in a grimy glass beside the monitor - that's what they want you to envisage. That's the summation of all evil they want to invoke. The truth was probably that the 'Grandfather' in question was some middle-class Honda-driving silver surfer, who wears sharp suits and is a member of the local golf club. Whilst the press, even at local level, want to cast everything in stark black-and-white terms, the reality is that evil is rarely obvious. Rapists and sex offenders rarely look like depraved hillbillies. Serial killers generally don't wander around cackling and waving meat cleavers. Likewise, burglars don't dress in striped shirts, wear masks and carry bags marked 'swag'. If only all miscreants followed such guidelines, crime detection rates would be through the roof.

Getting back to the original issue, the headline adorning my local paper, it is interesting how these days the media casually associates old people, children and porn. Back when I was a lad, the sight of some old bloke watching kiddies in a playground was simply an indication of a responsible grandparent keeping an eye on the kids to ensure their well-being. Nowadays, we'd have mobs of enraged parents descending on the playground screaming 'Kiddie fiddler' and kicking the shit out of the old boy. I remember in the 1970s Clive Dunn making a career out of dressing up as an old man and surrounding himself with little children singing 'Grand Dad, we love you'. Jesus Christ! He'd never get away with that now! The press would be whipping up a storm and, before you knew it, people would be painting the word 'Nonce' across the front of his house and burning their DVD boxed-sets of Dad's Army. But, back to the original point again, it really is a sad state of affairs when even our local press are resorting to peddling such sensationalist stereotypes of the old. Then again, I suppose they have to find some way of making the local news seem interesting. Face it, 'Cab Fares Hike' just isn't going to sell papers.