Are we tainting art with our own dark guilty fears?

At the beginning of this month, police in Northumbria seized a photograph from the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art before it was due to be exhibited, on the grounds that it possibly contravened Britain's child pornography laws.

The picture is owned by Sir Elton John and called Klara and Edda Belly-Dancing. It was taken by the celebrated American photographer Nan Goldin as part of a collection of works that have been exhibited all over the world without comment. The picture shows two young girls dancing, one standing over the other with her legs apart and the other child naked on the carpet. Both children are clearly caught in a moment of childlike delight.



Nan Goldin

The objections to the picture are the usual ones. First that the standing girl has her legs apart - reasonable I would have thought if you are standing astride another - but the Witchfinder Generals of the 'lets seek out paedophilia wherever we can find it' lobby see this as a posed sexual posture. The lower child has no clothes on and her genitals are visible. Like no one has ever seen a child's genitals when it runs around naked on a beach...as frequently happens..and no one in bygone years has cared a toss.

Visitors to the gallery - and viewers of the BBC news - were shown the picture yesterday - with the lower child's genitals suitably covered of course - and nearly all of them said they couldn't see anything pornographic about the picture, though a couple did say that if it was their children they would be a little uncomfortable about the picture being on public display. But that's different. Sure its important to get the permission of the parents before any pictures of children are shown to the public and I'm sure Ms Goldin did that as part of her commission.

But thats not the issue. We are now saying that pictures of children caught in play where their gyrations might appear to SOME adults to simulate sexual posturing constitute child pornography in the repressive backwater that the United Kingdom is becoming.

The police statement said 'The picture could appeal to paedophiles'. Well if that is to be the criterion adopted for prosecutions then I suggest that a message is immediately sent out to all snappers of baby photographs, all beach photographers, all mail order catalogue distributors etc to withdraw any photographs of children that might excite any one person at any one time - and of course that would be all photographs of children.

Michele Elliot, the director of 'Kidscape' was on record saying that the picture had to fall within the scope of prosecution because the children 'could not give consent'. Consent to what? Presumably being photographed in a 'sexually provocative posture'. But its only sexually provocative if the mind of the adult viewer sees it that way..and is Ms Elliot suggesting that all photographs of children have to be carefully staged to satisfy the prude lobby? I am beginning to believe that the likes of Ms Elliot are becoming tainted in their judgment by the hideous circumstances of some children with which they have to deal every day. Rather a case of 'When you work in a sewer you tend to smell shit everywhere you go'. It's understandable but it doesn't contribute to a positive and objective analysis.

There is no doubt that children deserve to be sensibly protected but are we not going through a terrible dark age in terms of our fear of paedophila to such an extent that it is becoming totally irrational? It is not for nothing that this obsession with seeking it out under every stone has been termed 'the new witchcraft'. Many of the stances taken remind me of the old joke about the guy sent to the psychiatrist because he was sex obsessed. The psychiatrist draws squiggles, loops and circles and asks the guy what they remind him of and to each he says 'sex'. When told he has an unhealthy sexual obsession, the guy replies indignantly, 'Me? It's YOU who keeps drawing all the dirty pictures!'...and thats how I see some of the well intentioned but to me sadly misguided people who take critical stances of photographs like this.

I can only hope that someday soon the hysteria and the ballyhoo surrounding this subject will drop to a reasonable and rational level, that the public will find some new moral outrage to obsess them, that the very necessary child protection agencies will be able to do their job free of this heavy cloud of panic and paranoia, that people like Michele Elliot will get on with doing the job I'm sure she does excellently, that of protecting vulnerable children, and not allowing her obsessions with child abuse to make her the knee-jerk media mouthpiece on this issue ...and that photographs like Klara and Edda Belly-Dancing
can be assessed honestly and openly on their merits as works of art.

It's OK to be BRITISH again!

I've just watched the first Labour Party Conference speech by our new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and quite an impressive speech it was too. He will never raise the roof in the way Tony Blair could at his most messianic and inspiring - it's just not Brown's style - but I do like the way he tends to focus on specifics as opposed to 'feel good' concepts.



Oh there were a few of those 'feel good' moments too but not quite in the 'I have a dream' Martin Luther King manner which Blair managed at his most convincing. Brown concentrated on a fairly hard hitting message, promising tougher laws on carrying guns, selling alcohol to under age kids and a return of the Matron to hospitals...a Matron with clout who can demand higher standards of cleanliness from hospital contractors and a threat of contract cancellation for those who don't live up to standards. This message is sorely needed with a vast increase in MRSA infections in hospitals across the country.

He talked warmly about the NHS and about our education system, he talked angrily about not enough being done for the poor wretches in Darfur, about not enough having been done in the last ten years about crime in our society.

But most of all - and what shocked many of the pundits - he talked about the importance of BRITISHNESS and its values. He talked about people who come to this country not only receiving the benefits of our system but owing something to it. He talked about the need for every citizen of the UK to share in the common values of decent behavior and respect for authority. It was, as some reporters said, a portion of speech that could have come straight out of the Conservative manifesto.

But thank goodness someone is talking about getting back to a standard of decent behaviour and punishing those who fail in their obligations. I'm pleased that he spoke about being British as something to admire and be proud of. I am a little sick of many of the 'politically correct' fringe who say we mustn't mention Britishness, we mustn't fly the flag, we mustn't advocate standards we admired in the past because that appears to be aimed at ethnic minorities.

Well I don't buy any of that. I think it's good and refreshing that a Prime Minister of this country talks about inherent British values which everyone, regardless of religion, colour, creed or culture is expected to adhere to. Good for Gordon. All I hope is that it's not yet more meaningless rhetoric just to capture Conservative votes ahead of an impending General Election.

Of course Brown will, for some time, be hit with the charge - 'You were Blair's right hand man for 10 years in government. How can you divorce yourself from that and pretend you have something new to offer?'

Well it's a charge thats quite reasonable to put - and one that has to be answered. Only time will tell if Gordon Brown can answer it convincingly enough to convince the electorate that here is a new direction, and a man at the helm who can be trusted.

So far though I think he's off to a very encouraging start

The delicate balance of public confidence

Following the United States mortgage problems which have create ripples of financial unrest all round the world, Britain, in the shape of the Northern Rock Bank, has caught a major cold..and it's an indication of how sensitive is the issue of public confidence.

British banking has been caught out, as Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England pointed out today, by the very measures designed to instill confidence in British banking ie complete transparency.



Northern Rock has been speculating big time in the mortgage market and probably overreached itself when the massive downturn hit the US housing market and Northern Rock was forced to ask the Bank of England for help. It's not the first time this has happened and is not necessarily a sign of disaster. Banks used to get a short term loan and then good management made sure they got back on the straight and narrow.



But this was in the days when Banks could approach the Bank of England discreetly, the terms of the loan could be agreed over coffee and investors would be none the wiser, thus consumer confidence would remain high.

Then the law changed in order to protect consumers and to ensure that all banking business was above board and transparent. The result of this was that the Bank of England could no longer lend Banks money covertly. The law states that all such transactions must be published.

And so the very Acts designed to protect banking worked against it. As soon as news was published that Northern Rock was going to the BOE for funds, so consumer panic began and the long queues of savers seen last week queuing round the block to get their money out despite almost desperate reassurances from the Treasury that all savings would be underwritten by the Government.

The headlong panic has stopped but the crisis is not yet over. Northern Rock has suffered a major blow to its reputation for financial competence and its shares continue to fall prompting rumours of a take-over by one of the big High Street banks.

Many people are saying that there could be a silver lining out of this, in that cheap credit could come to a sudden end and people might have to start living within their means. This in itself carries its own problems of course.

What is absolutely clear is that Britain's much vaunted banking system and its inbuilt consumer protection measures as supervised by the Financial Services Authority, has a massive hole which needs to be filled very quickly. The prime issue is the level of insolvency compensation offered by the FSA should a bank hit the rocks, and this is currently set at only £35,000 per saver.

This is clearly totally inadequate as the value of money goes down over time and there is an urgent need to examine this. A second factor is this issue of published lending. There probably ought to be some reference point which can sanction the bypass of overt lending statistics if it is considered that the BOE as lender of last resort needs to do so in secret in order to sustain public confidence.

It's a delicate balance but one that needs to be dealt with soon or there will be other banks and financial institutions caught in the wake of a panic just like Northern Rock.

Now Greenspan says it too!

For years, since America invaded Iraq, those of us - and there are many - who claim that the United States was motivated, not by some lofty idea of democracy or a desire to remove a terror threat, but by a desire to get their hands on Iraq's copious supplies of oil have been written off as cranks and 'commies' by both U.S. and British politicians and media pundits.

Now we have support from the unexpected quarter of Alan Greenspan, the former head of the U.S. Federal Reserve, whose memoirs are released tomorrow. There are, contained within its pages, many criticisms of George W. Bush's economic policies but the real bomb-shell is the statement “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." Mr. Greenspan goes on to say that it was believed Saddam Hussein posed a threat to western oil supplies and thus had to be removed at all costs.



This has, apparently, provoked some consternation in Washington, where it has always been denied that oil supplies had any part to play in the decision to invade Iraq.

It has long been my contention that the right wing cabal which ran the Republican administration at that time saw a wonderful opportunity, after 911, to not merely go after the terrorists in Afghanistan but to secure oil supplies for the United States by getting rid of a troublesome despot with absolutely no connection to 911, under the guise of necessary defensive action. Whether this was with Blair's connivance or not it was certainly guaranteed to get the British on board. Any other story would have left America on its own as far as Iraq is concerned.

I may still be in a derided faction who will be accused of anti-Americanism for holding such cynical opinions. But its reassuring that I , and many others who feel as I do, now have such a respected American companion for company!

Is America facing a 'God - void' ?

Not my term but an expression used by Britain's 'Daily Telegraph' to describe the choice facing Republican voters at the next Presidential election in 2008. For the last thirty years the Republican Party has put forward a candidate for whom Christian faith is at the very heart of his personal appeal. George 'Dubya' Bush talked about 'Christ being his favourite philosopher' but there is a strong rumour that this is because it's the only name he could spell. Ever since the 1970s most Republican candidates have carried their Christian credentials around with them and thus had a massive inbuilt advantage from the strongly conservative church-going element that dominates the United States.

Now it looks as if things could change. Neither Rudy Giuliani or Fred Thompson are regular church goers and both are divorces.








John McCain has publicly scorned the 'evangelical wing' and is also a divorce. Mitt Romney is the only candidate who is deeply religious but Romney is a Mormon and that church does not find favour with many of the religious right, particularly the 'deep water Baptists'.

In fact, as the Telegraph points out, it looks like the Democratic Party has the 'God squad' edge this time with both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama being regular church goers AND both only once married.






The fact that Mrs. Clinton is married to a serial adulterer with a taste for pretty interns is hardly her fault..but whether it will gain her sufficient sympathy with right wing America who hated her husband is doubtful..and of course she is a woman. Mr Obama on the other hand may be morally blameless and thus a sound choice for the faithful...but then he is black. Is the conservative core of white America ready for that?

The current fear in Republican circles seems to be not so much a swing to the Democrats in terms of numbers but a massive apathy abstention by their core vote, the great and the good churchgoers of middle America saying 'a plague on both your houses' and not voting at all.

Certainly to me, 3000 miles away from the US, the scenario for the next US election is quite fascinating. Whoever the Democrats pick of their front runners, assuming it to be Obama or Clinton, if they win it will be a milestone in the American political scene, a major milestone in breaching the white male hegemony of the Presidency and if the Republicans win again, they will have overcome the most appalling legacy of incompetence left to them by any Republican Administration for many years....and without a clearly charismatic candidate with which to do it. And if the GOP does win in 2008 - after the Bush legacy - the Democratic Party must surely be rocked to the core and will need to take a long hard look at itself and what it needs to do to capture American trust.

At least, if the 'Daily Telegraph' is right the next election might possibly be won on political issues and not by 'God leading the way'. I have said this many times but 'God' is wonderful if you need Him as a personal path through life and I respect the views of those to whom God is important.

It worries me more than a little though when God tells Presidents of the United States what to do and when that faith leads them to doing Richard the Lionheart impressions in taking on the 'infidel'. I'd rather trust in sound earthly based common sense myself.

Anita Roddick: A tragic loss

There are few entrepreneurs in this world who live their beliefs in the way that Dame Anita Roddick, who died yesterday from a brain haemhorrage, did. She made millions from her Body Shop enterprises which now have nearly 2000 stores worldwide, having started in 1976 with one shop sandwiched between two funeral parlours and selling 15 lines of environmentally friendly animal fat free cosmetic lines.

Anita Roddick may have made a lot of money but she used it very much in the cause of humanity. She was an avid supporter of Amnesty International, Greenpeace, The Big Issue (which helps the homeless) and in 1990, after a visit to Romanian orphanages touched her heart, she founded the charity Children On The Edge which helps disadvantaged children in Eastern Europe and Asia.



Sadly Anita Roddick developed Hepatitis C in 1971 after an infected blood transfusion while giving birth. She knew this was virtually a death sentence, albeit a long delayed one as the disease is incurable and eventually creates other long term problems, in her case she developed cirrhosis of the liver.

It is easy to be cynical about people who have made money giving some of it away but in 2005 Anita Roddick gave away £51 million of her personal income to charity , selling her Body Shop business the next year to L'Oreal as she wanted to spend what was left of her life helping those in need.

I think the world has lost a genuinely kind and caring human being who lived her beliefs out and acted on them. We are poorer for her passing.

Can anyone make sense of the Madeleine McCann case?

The situation involving the missing Madeleine McCann becomes more bizarre and incredible by the day. Now after four months, the parents of the little girl have been named as official suspects by the Portuguese police and are now back in their Leicestershire home living under the prospect of being summoned back to Portugal very soon to face charges.

This is based on forensic evidence supplied from Britain that traces of the four year old's blood was found in a hire car which the McCanns hired 25 days after the child's disappearance.

All this is known from newspaper reports but what I am asking is how and why? Given the time scales involved the suggestion that the McCanns had something to do with the child's now assumed death seems on the face of it, incredible.

Here are two intelligent doctors, on holiday with their three children. They leave the kids in a room while they eat at an adjacent tapas bar. They did not eat alone but with three friends who, it seems all took turns to check on the children at half hourly intervals. So this is not a case of two nutty parents and unsubstantiated evidence. Unless these three friends are part of some inexplicable conspiracy and have lied all the way through, they checked on the kids regularly until Kate McCann checked and discovered the door open and Madeleine missing.

Now what could have happened if the friends have been telling the truth? Is it suggested that Kate McCann, in that brief visit back to her apartment, then killed her daughter while two twins slept peacefully next door, somehow hid the body, then cooly raised the alarm that the kid was missing. First off why would she do that?





The police, I note, are not suggesting murder but that Kate McCann accidentally killed the child and then covered it up. How did she do this in such a short time? Why, if you had just killed your child in an accident, would you return to a restaurant and say she was missing after hiding the body? If indeed the child had been killed accidentally, why would an intelligent young doctor, riddled with grief, not come clean about it? Why would you go to the lengths of hiding a body and then inventing a cover story of an abduction? None of this makes any sense.

There has been no suggestion that any of these kids have been on an 'at risk' register. No suggestion that the McCanns have been other than kind loving parents to all three of their children. No suggestion of an uncontrolled violent streak. So what is going on here?

If the blood in the hire car is Madeleine's then how did it get there 25 days after the child's disappearance. Is it being suggested that the McCanns found a convenient time, one month after the 'murder' and moved the body? If so with the media watching them 24/7 how, in a tiny goldfish bowl like Praia de Luz did they manage to do that?

If the blood in the car was Madeleine's, could it not have been picked up from a blanket or even an item of the parents clothing which had been in contact with the blood in the apartment? After all the apartment was not sealed off, the Portuguese police did not ensure a sterile crime scene and everyone was walking all over the apartment for months before any blood traces were spotted. Presumably all sorts of clothing could have been in contact with blood that had lain there for a month and not seen by anyone.

If Kate and Gerry McCann did not kill their four year old where did her blood come from? Well suppose the parents ARE telling the truth. Suppose someone who spotted an open door or window did get in and maybe either hit the child over the head or punched her to shut her up, then escaped with an unconscious child. Isn't that a possible scenario? Then the spots of blood on, say, a sofa could have been transferred to the McCanns clothing.





The trouble is, of course, thanks to the method of investigation we will not find out because the Portuguese police cannot discuss the case under Portuguese law. Now they may well be entirely competent. I am not going to fall for the British habit of sneering at foreign officialdom. But the method of investigation and the lack of contact with the media has led to a most unhappy situation for Kate and Gerry McCann and a sense of frustration for everyone who wants to see closure to the Madeleine McCann affair..and for justice clearly to be seen to be done.

Scottish 'Government' and whats in a name?

This week has seen what, on the face of it, seems a childish spat between the British Government and the Scottish Executive headed, since the last local elections, by the Scottish National Party led by Alex Salmond - all over a name.



Mr. Salmond announced that, as of now, all letter headings, emails, reports etc referring to the administration of Scotland will not be headed 'The Scottish Executive' but will henceforth be known as 'The Scottish Government'. The British Government in Westminster reacted immediately and forcefully to this saying that no such change would be recognised by the British Government and that no mandate for such a change had been granted to Scotland under the devolution Act of Parliament.

However the British Government may be pissing in the wind. The BBC in Scotland has already recognised the change and is using the new terminology while Scots in general seem happy with the new designation. It makes them feel more independent, even if they're not - yet!

And there's the rub - the British Government fears, with some justification, that the new title is part of Salmond's 'softening up' process to prepare the Scottish electorate for a referendum vote on complete independence for Scotland and that such 'title grabbing' appeals to the people of Scotland and thus enhances the appeal of Salmond's SNP - and that is the very last thing the British government wants!

I wrote a piece back in May when the SNP won the elections in Scotland and said what a black day this was for the United Kingdom. I have had no occasion to change my view since then and, despite the UK government's desperate optimism, 'he hasn't a cat in hells chance of getting a referendum result voting for independence', I sense that the mood is changing, both here in England and north of the border. Hence the angry row over a name change - a change the Scottish Nationalists see as the visible symbol of a new dawn and a change the UK government sees as the thin end of the wedge.

The Blair government carried out its manifesto pledges to give Scotland and Wales their own form of self government - and I applaud them for that, it had to be done - but sadly I fear that a mere scent of self government has created a new heady mood in Scotland. They like the idea of being an independent nation and the bubbling sense of 'lets go it alone' seems to be growing.

I am seriously worried about Salmond and his plans for an independent Scotland. I think its far more feasible than it was once considered to be by the British Government and this is what is frightening them. I hope the Scots come to recognise the tremendous amount of subsidy their country gets from the British exchequer and the English taxpayer but I fear that Salmond is determined to lead Scotland, like the pied piper, on a road which will eventually end in tears for all of us.

Are we heading for 'Dianagate' ?

I have posted before on this blog about the ludicrous circumstances surrounding the inquest into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in that Paris tunnel ten years ago. The inquest is now, as I commented before, on its 4th coroner, the others having stepped down in differing but equally unconvicing circumstances.

Now, as the long delayed inquest is due to open on October 2nd, it has been revealed that TEN THOUSAND documents, the core documentation surrounding police, medical and other witnesses evidence allied to photographs of the crash and the dying occupants of the car, have all gone missing from a Paris court house. Are they kidding us? Ten thousand documents simply disappear? It beggars belief and certainly feeds all those who suspect something very fishy occurred on that August evening in Paris.



The issue of the white Fiat Uno supposedly involved in the crash has been raised again, and documentation pertaining to witnesses statements about that car are missing along with other material. Shards of plastic and white paint were found at the crash scene yet investigators, while never satisfactorily explaining this, have dismissed the Fiat from their investigations.

A French photo-journalist who was said to own a similar Fiat, but subsequently said he'd sold it, committed suicide three years after the death crash and with his demise, the Fiat Uno conveniently disappeared from the investigation.

I really have no idea whether there was a British secret service plan to get rid of Diana. It sounds unlikely, though it's clear that her post marital liaisons and veiled threats to take her children abroad were causing great concern in official circles.

What is certain is that the loss of so many important documents, the constant obstructions over taking this inquest forward and the clear unhappiness of successive coroners about retaining any involvement in this case all serve towards encouraging the conspiracy theorists and making sure that when the inquest is opened, the interest throughout the UK and much of the world will be intense.

Will we be any the wiser at the end of it? Somehow I doubt it.

Personal reasons for wishing this Iraq occupation would end

I am very fortunate to have some wonderful friends in the United States, friends who, though I don't see them often, are as dear to me as people I see every day of the week. That's why, apart from any political opinions I may hold about the validity of the Iraq occupation, I wish the damn thing would end and the country handed back to the Iraqi leaders. I realise that can't happen overnight, but the longer the occupation goes on..and particularly now the there is a new British government led by Gordon Brown..the more strains are placed on Anglo-US relations, strains, which, for those of us who have always passionately opposed the conflict, have extended, to a limited degree, to personal relationships ..and I hate that.

It's not that you mean to hurt anyone but people always react strongly when their country and its attitudes are attacked and I have sensed a certain amount of hurt in dear friends across the Atlantic at some comments I have made on forums and on my blog. It's hard, though, if you feel deeply and passionately about something not to express that feeling forcibly.

The strains of this conflict are now beginning to tell at official level. Two days ago, General Sir Mike Jackson, former Head of the British Army (now retired) described the United States policy in Iraq as 'intellectually bankrupt' and has today been supported by Major General Tim Cross who was the most senior British officer in Iraq responsible for post-war planning. He has described the US post war planning as 'fatally flawed'. He describes Donald Rumsfeld as 'deaf to any advice or opinion'.



General Jackson

So far the American and British governments have played down these remarks but the US military has responded with criticisms of its own. General Jack Keane, responsible for the US 'surge' tactics currently driving the occupation around Baghdad, has described himself and the American military as 'frustrated' by the British tactics around Basra. He said 'the British must be disappointed with their lack of success in containing the insurgency there' suggesting that the UK troops have spent more time training the Iraqi army so that the British can pull out..and of course he is right.



Needless to say, British senior officers have been bitterly stung by such criticism but in one sense Keane is correct. He says 'Britain never had enough troops to do the job required of them'. And there is the nub of the problem for the UK government. The British Army does NOT have the resources for a land occupation on this scale...and unlike the US there is not the political commitment to build up our military to provide one and certainly it would be fiercely opposed by the British electorate. So we were politically committed by the Divine Tony to an occupation we really couldn't sustain.

What is clearly happening now is a simmering resentment building up between the US and British forces over policy in Iraq and there is clearly a desperate attempt by both governments to keep a lid on this. Which is why it would be in the interests of everyone if the focus was turned to creating a political structure which means Iraq can look after itself and remove all occupying forces. I hate to suggest this, particularly to any American readers, but maybe the UN has a role to play here?

Anyway to look on the bright side, there may be spats between the British and Americans over conduct of the occupation but it's nothing compared to the angry disagreements which broke out between our two nations near the end of the Second World War, particularly with regard to the taking, or otherwise, of Berlin. And we survived that and emerged as friends didn't we? And of course, we will survive this too...but in the interests of military harmony as well as my relationship with dear American friends, lets hope it's sooner rather than later!

The 'squick' factor

America has brought some good words into their version of the English language, some of which cover the gaps in, primarily, the description of a state of mind which is difficult to get across using conventional English. One of those words is 'squick' which according to the 'Urban Dictionary' means a sense of distaste which is entirely personal to the sufferer and which does not necessarily imply the situation is itself tasteless.

One of the situations in which 'squick' now describes my own state of mind is currently to be found in some high profile reactions to grief. There are two current examples of this, the first being the Madeleine McCann case where the two parents, who had been the victims of a child abduction, encouraged a media circus by deliberately encouraging press coverage everywhere they went, holding well managed press conferences and virtually becoming TV stars over the first few weeks of Madeleine's abduction. Now they are trying to get the journalistic coverage to be more low key, possibly because they themselves are now under an adverse spotlight - and poor little Madeleine is still missing.

The second involves the tragic, horrible shooting of an eleven year old boy, Rhys Jones, an Everton football fan, in Liverpool, shot for reasons as yet unknown while cycling home from football practice. His parents of course reserve the right to grieve over their son's death as they see fit and in any way that helps the police to find his killer or killers but to see both parents, 6 days after their child's fatal shooting, at an Everton football match, the father standing on the pitch in an Everton football shirt, leading the prayers and appeals for his sons killers to be found was just a little unsettling.



Later the father wrote a poem for his son which some local playwright read out on the radio, all about God picking his own football team from past Everton heroes and finding little Rhys a vacancy in the forward line.

Well I don't know about any of the readers but, again, I respect the right of any bereaved parent to write any old sentimental slop they like if it makes them feel better but surely the ingestion of that sort of maudlin treacle, like going to the lavatory, is something that should be done in private and not inflicted on the world at large.

I don't know what's happening to the British. Does it date back to Princess Di or had the rot set in before that and I hadn't noticed ? I always believed that grief was very personal, very private and to be handled with as much dignity as possible, not paraded in front of 50,000 people while wearing an Everton shirt, or strolling up and down an Algarve beach in front of press cameramen. We seem to be living our lives like a soap opera where every sensational facet, even if it involves the loss of your nearest and dearest, has to be paraded in front of as many people as possible.

I'm sure Mr and Mrs Jones don't think that way, and would be outraged to read this but thats why I relish the term 'squick' factor. I recognise that they, and the McCanns have the right to handle their personal situations in any way which helps them to cope...but from a purely personal perspective it all lacks dignity, the sort of quiet personal bearing I have always associated with grief.

In short, it squicks me out.