Saturday, February 08, 2003

Shambone

I was a little late on the Jackson interview having played 5-a-side on Monday night so it’s taken a little time to work out what all the fuss was about.

I’m not a big Jackson fan, he’s made two great solo albums, one good one and a whole heap of crap. I wouldn’t break down crying if I saw him in an underground car park. What was so shocking about it? He’s a bit weird. But did people expect Martin Bashir to earnestly comment that he “Followed Jackson into the sitting room of his two-bed semi in Rochdale”. It’s no secret about the fun fair and the zoo. It’s no secret his face is a victim to over zealous plastic surgery and his shopping trip demonstrated what we all surely knew, that he has terrible taste. Do you really expect a man who dresses like Rita Fairclough and has worn white socks and slip-ons for 20 years to have a minimalist and tastefully appointed house? But taste is all about when to stop, what’s the point of stopping when you’ve so much to spend? Let the man shop.

And to the outrages of “The Children”. Look at the facts; Michael Jackson had one unfounded accusation of child abuse in 10 years ago. He has always openly admitted to preferring the company of children and having them to stay. The abuse was clearly so abhorrent the parents and authorities weren’t prepared to rest until justice was done and the predatory paedophile was safely locked away in jail. Oh, I’m sorry, that should read; it was clearly so abhorrent the parents weren’t prepared to rest until they received a substantial pay out. Your morale code is defined by how passionately you feel about something; this was clearly a crime that was neutralised with a few million quid.

And there hasn’t been a complaint before or since. The fact the most famous and subsequently vulnerable man in the world has received only one accusation of impropriety in his life is the biggest surprise of them all.

And so, ten years later Jackson has children running around his ranch, but if you took out Jackson and replaced him with Carol Vorderman, everyone would go on about what excellent work she does for under privileged kids. He sleeps in the same room as children, something he openly admits, if he had something to hide, maybe he’d deny it completely. The kid with cancer didn’t look too troubled by the ‘abuse’; in fact he seemed to enjoy the whole experience. If Bashir is so disturbed about the presence of children playing whilst an adult looks on, he ought to get out more.

All I’m saying is the ‘facts’ of the programme don’t add up with the analysis it subsequently endured. The police won’t be investigating Jackson, according to the papers…. Why the hell would they? He didn’t do anything wrong. He appears to protect, maybe over protect, his children, and his parenting skills in feeding ‘Blanket’ are somewhat unorthodox, but far better than my attempts to play and bond with Sophie, who screams the place down every time I go near her.

As Spike Milligan said in 1964, the media is so shocked and appalled about things that the following week they re-shock themselves as a “Public Duty”. That’s what’s happened here, nothing new came out of that documentary, it just reaffirmed everything we’ve seen before, it’s the media that seem to have forgotten that we’ve seen it all before and once again they’re appalled by it, then we The Public feel we should be appalled. And so the cycle begins, I suppose its just a way of selling papers.

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