A Post of Two Parts

There are a number of things I want to cover today.  First up: I told you so.  My regular reader might recall that, a while ago, I warned that the government's insistence on search engines 'filtering' alleged search terms for child pornography would be the thin end of the wedge as far as web censorship was concerned.  Lo and behold, today we hear that the government, flushed by its 'success' in fighting online child abuse, now wants ISPs and search engines to block 'extremist' or 'terrorist' websites.  Of course, there seems to be no actual definition of what constitutes 'extremist' material.  Just like they were vague on what 'internet pornography' actually was, the government wants to keep the definition as vague as possible, so as to be able to ban just about anything it doesn't agree with.  This time around, the ISPs and search engines seem to be more alarmed, worried about the suppression of free speech online.  Trouble is, it is a bit late to worry about that now - their kow-towing to the Tories over the porn issues set a dangerous precedent.  We really should be getting worried about the way this government is trying to censor the web - it is disturbingly reminiscent of the 'Great Firewall of China' designed to try and stop the Chinese from viewing any opinion or idea that wasn't officially approved by the Chinese Communist Party.  These are dangerous times.

Moving on, I was saddened to learn of the death of Lewis Collins today.  Like most people of my generation, thanks to his role as Bodie in The Professionals, Collins was a semi-permanent feature of my teenage years.  Eclipsed in later years by the success of his co-star Martin Shaw, some of Collins' pot-Professionals performances suggested that, given better roles, or a better choice of film and TV projects, he could have been a much bigger star.  I particularly remember his performance in the unintentionally hilarious ITV Jack the Ripper miniseries from the late 1980s, in which he played Sgt Godley to Michael Caine's Chief Inspector Abberline.  Amongst the over-the-top performances and bizarre characterisations, Collins was a model of restraint, creating a likeable and realistic character that viewers could identify with.  Like many actors of his generation, he ended up not being James Bond, having been considered 'too aggressive' in his audition by 'Cubby' Broccoli.  Which seems ironic now, in view of Daniel Craig's hard-edged characterisation in the role.  But back in the eighties, people were still used to Roger Moore's more laid-back performances as Bond.  That said, Lewis Collins would have been a better choice for Bond than many of the other names bandied about in the eighties. 

So there you have it.  A post of two distinct parts: a warning against the new age of censorship we seem to be sliding into and a reminiscence of a childhood TV hero.