The Judge
RAVES!
Date: 25/10/05
What The Cluck...?
Sometimes life is kind. Today it has dropped into my lap a story
which brings two of my bêtes noirs into the gunsights so
that they can be felled with a single shot.
Firstly, I freely admit to a deep antipathy for anything concerning
Liverpool - as a place, as a concept and as a breeding-ground for the
thieves, pushers and no-marks who have infested much of north Wales
over the past twenty-five years. On top of which, don't they like to
think that they're s-o-o-o-o special? Every Scouser thinks he's
a comedian, a wit, the very model of the chummy super-scally.
Ken Dodd and Eddie Braben apart, however, real comic talent is not to
be found there.
Once, at the age of twelve, I went on a coach trip to Southport. We
stopped off in Bootle for the driver to have a slash, and parked near
an entire estate of demolished terraced houses. I remember thinking at
the time that it might be a good idea to adopt the same scheme right
across the city.
And, of course, it was the people of Liverpool who got in the
immaculately-kempt hair of Boris Johnson a little while back, bringing
on an attack which cost the Permanently-Stunned-Looking One one of his
jobs, when he criticised them for their maudlin sentimentality. Which
brings me on to...
...what I call Spencer-Windsor Syndrome. This is my name for the
virulent psychiatric disease which causes otherwise supposedly sane
people to go rushing to place flowers, teddy bears and goodness knows
what else at the scene of a tragedy, be it accidental or homicidal. You
simply can't see footage of such a story on television without being
confronted with the sight of bouquets, bunches and Barney The Dinosaur
tied to railings or propped up against walls. Leaving aside the point
that it probably gets badly in the way of the Police's investigations
and is littering by other means, what the hell is the point of this? Do
we live in a society which is so mentally disordered that people feel
that they have to flash their grief (real or, more frequently,
appliquéd) to everyone? If they want to display their dismay,
then they should do so quietly and discreetly, and stop doing something
which is merely attention-seeking, bringing no real benefit to anyone
other than Interflora and the soft-toy industry.
In the light of all this, you can perhaps understand my delight in
coming across this
story.
