Grope Around the Clock?

Apparently, paedophile rocker Gary Glitter is finally on his way back to the UK after being deported from Vietnam, and refused entry to either Thailand or Hong Kong. It's the 'paedophile rocker' description which gets me - what is that, some new kind of genre of popular music? You know, like hard rock, punk rock or glam rock. Actually, judging by the number of under-age groupies involved in them, perhaps they aren't that different from paedo rock. Joking aside, I really don't see why there is any need for the 'rocker' suffix. The man's a paedophile. Simple as that. After all, we don't go around describing non-celebrity nonces as - for instance - 'paedophile plumbers', as if they're a category you can look up in Yellow Pages, do we? But the media just can't help it when faced with a celebrity, even an old has-been sex offender, they just have to try and make out that they're somehow special. It's as if they're supposed talent somehow off-sets the kiddie-fiddling.

Whilst we're on the subject of pop performers, I was dismayed to read newspaper reports claiming that police had effectively baned Pete Doherty from playing at a Wiltshire pop festival, on the grounds that the audience might get 'over-excited' and pose a health and safety risk. In order to come to this conclusion, Wiltshire Constabulary apparently conducted an in-depth study of Doherty's music, even watching him perform. Consequently, they learned that he and his group deliberately varied the tempo of their beat so as to excite the audience. Well, no shit, Sherlock. And you had to spend public money to work this out? Make no mistake, I'm no fan of Doherty and think he's a prize twat. What concerns me, as a Moonraker (as we Wiltshiremen are known) by birth and upbringing, is that this farrago sets back the image of our County by at least a century. Our police have done nothing to dispel he impression that we're all a bunch of carrot-crunching yokels still living in the 1950s, by behaving in this way. I'm amazed that they didn't go on about the dangerous influence of those American beat combos, or the moral threat presented by Cliff Richard's pelvic gyrations. Believe me, as someone who grew up having to endure ignorant pillocks from London or the North going 'Ooooh Aaaarrr!' every time they heard my accent, this is exactly the sort of thing I don't want to read about! I really thought that we'd left that bloody image behind. But thanks to the boys of the Wiltshire Constabulary, we're back to square one!