Carry On Vamping

It’s been a long, long day at work, comrades, so you may have to once again forgive me for being self-indulgent in the absence of time to research a decent blog entry. Yes, I do research these things. Shut up, I totally do.

So anyway, today I’m going to talk a little bit about comics. Now, comics are big business these days – think of the number of comic book movies that have come out in recent years. Iron Man, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, Scott Pilgrim, Green Lantern, Kick-Ass, Watchmen, 300, The Dark Knight, X-Men: First Class, the list goes on and on.

Yet there’s one comic that, notably, doesn’t seem to get as much love from Hollywood as it ought to. In Britain, undoubtedly the best known comic is the weekly anthology 2000AD. Now, granted, unless you’re a comics afficionado, you’re not likely to have heard of many of its stories other than Judge Dredd. But it’s been one of the most fertile grounds for the nurturing of comics talent around. Some of the best-known creators in comics have spent time working on 2oooAD. Alan Moore, Mark Millar, Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison, Garth Ennis, Kevin O’Neill, Jamie Hewlett, Brian Bolland, Pat Mills, Simon Bisley, John Wagner, Dave Gibbons - all have, at one time or another, worked on the comic. Some still do. Yet the only films to have been based on 2000AD titles have been the appalling Sylvester Stallone version of Judge Dredd (ironic, given that Stallone was a source of inspiration for the creation of the character) and an obscure sci-fi horror film called Hardware that was plagiarised from a short story. There’s a new Dredd movie in the works at present, which looks a lot better than the Stallone one, but we’ll see.

The thing is, though, there are plenty of other stories the movie makers could be plundering. The punky up-yours philosophy of the comic has thrown up some concepts unlike anything else in the mainstream press. There’s ABC Warriors, the misadventures of a group of elderly robots on Mars. Strontium Dog, a sort of X-Men for Thatcher’s Britain about a mutant bounty hunter and his Viking partner. Nikolai Dante, the bizarre and swashbuckling adventures of a thief and swordsman in a far-future Russia that’s mysteriously reminiscent of the 19th century. Personally, I think the cyberpunk adventures of the pun-happy assassins of Sinister Dexter would be tailor-made for an Edgar Wright adaptation.

And then there’s my personal favourite – Devlin Waugh. Even by the standards of 2000AD, Devlin is a bit of an odd character. Set in the same post-apocalyptic world as Judge Dredd, Waugh is an arse-kicking exorcist working for the Vatican. Oh, and also, he’s a vampire. So that’s two of the boxes ticked for box office gold – comic books and vampires.

What makes him unique as a comics character is that while he is an occult expert and martial arts badass, he is also a middle-aged, flamboyantly camp aesthete. Openly gay and just as openly shallow, with a taste for watercolours and vintage fashion. Think Oscar Wilde with more vampire-punching.

He is, in short, the first Chap superhero. In the early 1990s, when he first appeared, he was also perhaps the first gay mainstream comics hero (no doubt some comics expert will come along and tell me different, hence the qualifying “perhaps”). Gay characters in comics are something of a touchy subject, often coming across as a cheap publicity stunt, a pointless piece of tokenism or as a slightly embarrassing stereotype. Oddly enough, I’ve never seen any of these gripes brought up by 2000AD readers. This despite the fact that, as I mentioned, Waugh epitomises the most flamboyant excesses of camp. If I were to suggest a reason, I’d say that perhaps it’s because the character is not just gay. He’s selfish, lazy, misanthropic, arrogant and preening, and proud of all of these things. The fact that he sleeps with men is a minor point. Or maybe it’s simply the fact that he is so brazen about it – his homosexuality is not presented as a novelty or a freakshow, but something that he does. Just as James Bond has his eye on the ladies, so Devlin Waugh has his on the gents.

Then there’s the world he inhabits. One suspects that Smith only set it in the Dreddverse to make the concept more saleable to 2000AD. The first Waugh story, ‘Swimming In Blood,’ revolves around an undersea prison that gets taken over by a centuries-old fast- evolving vampire with the help of the psychopaths in the maximum security wing and a swarm of cockroaches. This is the most mainstream story by far – later tales would involve snake women, time-travelling French dwarves, a bone golem, ancient astronauts, African fetishes, demon plagues and Devlin’s mum, all told in Smith’s stream-of-consciousness style with plenty of literary and folklore references for those who live for such things.

Actually, to be honest, I can’t see Hollywood picking this one up. Even though ‘Swimming in Blood’ would, I think, make a superb film (probably could be done for a reasonably low budget, too), can you really see the money-men signing up for a screamingly camp action hero? Ah well, a chap can dream.

Captain Planet, you jerk.

There are certain topics of conversation that are perennial favourites around the office. What’s in the news, what books people are reading, why the tea tastes strangely chemical when I make it, you know the sort of thing. One that often comes up is nostalgia for kids’ TV from Back In The Day. A show everyone remembers from around the time Yr. Humble Chronicler was growing up is Captain Planet and the Planeteers. Pause for the recognition/reminiscence to kick in. Ah yeah, there you go.

If you aren’t familiar with the premise, basically it was that Gaia assembles a team of young people from around the world to fight pollution with the help of rings that gave them elemental powers in what would appear to be a rather literal interpretation of the Gaia Hypothesis. When things got too hot for our heroes, they could combine their powers and summon a superhero named Captain Planet, whose only weakness was pollution (following the lead of Spider-Man’s arachnophobia and Superman’s crippling vertigo). The message at the end of every episode was that, when it comes to stopping pollution, “the power is YOURS!” Although in practice, most pollution in Captain Planet’s world seemed to be caused by a few asshole supervillains, so really the power belongs to whoever has a gun.

But like so many of these cartoons that seemed wicked-awesome at the time, there are certain aspects of Captain Planet that in retrospect seem a little, how can I put this, embarrassing today. And Captain Planet had an unfortunate tendency to punch above its weight in terms of the issues it dealt with, making it extra-cringeworthy today. Let’s look at some examples, shall we?

Case Study 1: Captain Planet versus the Goiânia accident

Reality: The Goiânia accident took place in 1987 in Brazil. Two men broke into an abandoned hospital in Goiânia and took, among other things, an X-ray machine containing highly radioactive caesium. This was sold to a local scrap dealer, Devair Alves Ferreira. Ferreira, fascinated by the eerie blue glow and ignorant of the danger, took the caesium home and showed it to a number of friends and relatives. Four people, including Ferreira’s wife and six-year-old daughter, died of radiation sickness and an estimated 250 people were contaminated.

Captain Planet’s take: The episode ‘A Deadly Glow.’ In this episode, a couple of kids steal a radioactive source from, yes, a hospital. The cartoon adds a giant radioactive rock monster in a Hawaiian shirt who wants the radiation for himself for reasons I don’t quite recall. Does he eat radiation? Something like that. Also the American kid takes the piss out of a child undergoing chemotherapy.

The Message: The real enemies are negligence and ignorance. And radioactive rock monsters.

Case Study 2: Captain Planet versus The Troubles

Reality: The Troubles was a period in Northern Ireland lasting approximately from the late 1960s to the late 1990s during which there was extensive violence arising over tensions between the Catholic and Protestant communities and the question of whether Ulster should remain part of Britain or join the Republic of Ireland. The roots of the conflict go back to the early 17th century and although the Troubles are generally considered to have ended with 1998′s Good Friday Agreement, violence and tension between the communities remains.

Captain Planet’s Take: A weird rat-mutant who goes around spreading hate, again for reasons that are not entirely clear to me, is selling nuclear weapons in troubled areas of the world, including the Middle East, South Africa and Belfast. Because everyone is so blinded by hatred, they don’t realise that a nuclear bomb would actually destroy the whole of Belfast. Also their rage causes their accents to leap all over Ireland and sometimes as far as Scotland. With the help of the cancer-patient-hating American kid, however, they are able to put their differences aside and work together to stop the bomb and live in perfect har-mo-ny. At the end, the Planeteers are satisfied with the fact that they have brought about the beginning of the end of the Troubles. Look, the relevant parts of the episode can be seen here.

The Message: American money may have funded the Troubles, but American know-how will resolve them. And Catholic, Protestant and Scotsman alike can find peace and understanding.

Case Study 3: Captain Planet versus the AIDS epidemic

The reality: HIV is a disease that attacks the human immune system, transmitted via blood, semen, breast milk and vaginal fluid, which causes the condition known as AIDS. Although treatable, there is no cure and it is estimated to have killed tens of millions of people worldwide.

Captain Planet’s Take: A school’s star basketball player learns that he has been infected with HIV, probably due to the heinous amounts of needle-sharing and unprotected anal intercourse he’s been having lately (I forget whether they specified the reason, actually). That fucking rat mutant thing decides to use this to spread hate, which is a bit rich coming from something that looks like it came off a Nazi propaganda poster. Somehow, telling a bunch of kids that they can get AIDS from touching a basketball player means that the rat-man can take over the world. Fortunately, the Planeteers are able to educate everyone as to the truth, and presumably they halt the AIDS epidemic.

The Message: Too much Captain Planet makes you lose the will to live.

Case Study 4: Captain Planet vs Hitler

The Reality: If you don’t already know about Adolf Hitler, then I don’t think I can help you.

Captain Planet’s Take: A mad scientist voiced by Meg Ryan travels back in time and tries to sell an atomic weapon to a Teutonic gentleman who is basically Hitler but not quite. Having established our villain as a moustachioed German dictator of the 1940s, I don’t know why they’re so squeamish about saying “and it’s Hitler.” Anyway, the Planeteers also travel back in time and, with the help of the Allied forces and Captain Mullet, they save the day. On the way back to the present day, the mad scientist drops her notebook. Captain Planet doesn’t return for it and one of the soldiers comments that it might contain useful information.

The Message: Through his negligence, Captain Planet is responsible for the creation of the atom bomb. Every night, when he goes to sleep, he sees the faces of every Hiroshima victim burned into his soul.

Silence in the court

As you are no doubt aware, this April sees one of the most exciting events of our times – children dance and sing, old ladies wipe a tear and people all around the world take to the streets in celebration of the happy occasion. I refer, of course, to the start of the new series of Doctor Who. And so, as is traditionally the case, I shall once again stretch the definition of “London blog” to talk about it.

First impressions, I have to say, were pretty favourable. The first episode of the series has a tendency to be a bit ho-hum, usually because it’s introducing a new Doctor or a new companion – whatever beastie they’re facing down tends toget a bit sidelined. So it’s a bold but not unwelcome move to give us a crazy two-parter right at the start of things. We are – oh yeah – SPOILERS AHEAD! - thrust right into a bizarre, creepy story featuring non-linear time, memory-stealing aliens, mistrust among friends and, of course, Richard Nixon.

From the outset, writer Steven Moffat seems determined to mess with our heads – in a rather shocking early scene, we see our friend the Doctor gunned down in cold blood by what appears to be an Apollo astronaut. Yes, it’s definitely the Doctor, and yes, he’s definitely dead. So when he shows up a couple of scenes later, two centuries younger and very confused as to why everyone’s so upset, it raises questions to say the least. To some extent, this is business as usual for Moffat, who seems to love messing about with the time travel element of the show more than any other writer. Not that this is particularly a bad thing, it keeps the old viewer brain working, although I would question how accessible a story like this is to the younger viewers.

Speaking of things that are accessible to younger viewers, we’re presented with a new and very creepy villain in the form of aliens known simply as “the Silence.” These are a weird and unholy cross between Greys, Men in Black and the Elephant Man’s skull and, as if that wasn’t enough, you forget they exist as soon as you stop looking at them. Moffat’s got it all figured as to what gives the kiddies nightmares – I would imagine the concept of creatures that might be right behind you but you’ve forgotten will cause no shortage of pants-soilings over the coming weeks.

The terrifying Morbius creature from the classic series. No, really, it's terrifying. What do you mean, "which one's the creature?"

One of the criticisms frequently levelled at the old pre-cancellation Doctor Who was that it always looked wobbly and low-budget. Which is true, it did – although this criticism is perhaps a little unfair, given that your average drama series (Coronation Street, say) doesn’t have to create aliens, spaceships and distant planets on a weekly basis. Nevertheless, Doctor Who‘s strongest elements are those that arise out of clever writing rather than spectacle. Some of the most effective monsters of the revived series have been those that play on simplicity. The Weeping Angels, for instance, which are completely harmless as long as you don’t take your eyes off them for even an instant. And the Vashta Nerada, which strip you down to your skeleton if you step into a shadow. And the Twilight creature, which – actually, what the hell was that thing? The Silence are a continuation of this head-messing tradition.

It looks like the Silence might be more than just another one-off monster. A number of elements in this episode tied in with loose-dangling plot threads from the previous series. For instance, that weird spaceship from ‘The Lodger’ reappeared, albeit now we learn that it’s part of a worldwide network of similar vehicles. And it’s surely not coincidence that the word “silence” should crop up so often in the previous series, only for a race of beings by that name to show up. It seems, based on the trailer at the end of this episode, that we may be gearing up for a full-on secret invasion-type storyline spanning the entire series. And the beauty of instantly-forgotten creatures is that they can be retroactively introduced anywhere you like – they could even be inserted into the settings of previous episodes on the grounds that we, the viewers, “forgot” they were there. It’s all very exciting.

The other great plot thread that we’ve been told will be resolved is that of River Song. This character is the very epitome of Moffat’s temporal jiggery-pokery, being as she is a character whose encounters with the Doctor are out-of-order. His first meeting with her was her last, and each time they meet they have to synchronise diaries. We know she’s a prisoner, and she killed “the best man [she had] ever known.” Is that the Doctor? We don’t see the face of the person who kills him. However, the fact that the Doctor is a terrible man would seem to eliminate this as a possibility. We also know that she learnt to drive a TARDIS from “the best,” but that wasn’t the Doctor. One hint in this episode is that she might actually be future-Amy, which leads me to think that that’s exactly what she won’t be. Really, she could turn out to be anything.

A part of me is wondering if my theory about the last series may yet turn out to have some validity, i.e. that the Dreamlord character introduced in the last series may not have been the hallucination he appeared to be. Maybe River Song is the companion of a Doctor, but not our Doctor. But I’m getting into nerdy fan speculation here. Sorry. I’ll stop.

A hiatus

I have to apologise for this entry, I’m afraid it’s not going to be particularly enlightening and most likely won’t even be funny either. I’m not at my best right now.

I found out yesterday that my grandpa has passed away. Not under any particularly tragic circumstance – he was in his nineties, most people don’t even make that. But still, it came as a shock. I’d just become so used to him being there that the idea that one day he might not be had never occurred to me. Not in any serious way, anyway. Stupid, I know. No one lives forever.

I’m not very good at emotional stuff – I got the call on the way to work. Somewhat stunned, and unable quite to process what I’d heard, I went in anyway. Didn’t tell anyone at work about it, beyond hinting that I’d had some bad news. Didn’t get anything done, either. Might as well have not gone in. I have no idea what my thought process was. Then I got home and had chocolate cake for dinner, because really, why the hell not?

Today I felt a little better, and was able to use my usual coping mechanism of making stupid jokes about everything (like the guy on the right). I also took a long walk down Oxford Street, in theory because I knew I had nothing in the line of funeral wear that wouldn’t hang off me like a sail. In practice, though, it had more to do with the need for a long walk.

Anyway, I have no idea what to do with this entry now. I didn’t really intend to write a self-indulgent emotional entry. Actually, I didn’t intend to write any entry at all, beyond a “we apologise for the inconvenience, normal service will be resumed as soon as possible”-type announcement.

Just assume that’s what I did, yeah?

Now

‘Til you drop

I’ve had an utterly boring weekend where I saw no one, went nowhere (nowhere special, anyway) and did nothing (useful). Yesterday consisted of a trip to Kingston and today of a trip to Camden followed by a long and pointless walk from Angel to Kennington via a circuitous route. I’d love to say that I reached some sort of exciting conclusion or saw something really interesting, but no.

Compounding matters somewhat is a delay in payment of my wages, which means I’m subsisting at poor person level (or at least, the middle-class London version of “poor”) until Wednesday. Not necessarily a problem, except my birthday falls on Tuesday and I’d quite like to enjoy myself a bit. Having said that, for possibly the first time I’m utterly indifferent to the day, possibly because it’s one of those non-milestone years that serves only to remind me that I’m edging ever-closer to 30 and am notably not a multi-millionnaire yet.

So you’ll have to forgive me for the fact that this entry may come across as slightly bad-tempered. There’s just something about wandering around shopping centres filled with people who are younger or richer or both-er than you that depresses. I hope I’m not turning into one of those Grumpy Old Men, because 28 is far too young for that sort of thing. Not to mention the fact that I hate this industry that’s been built around whining about everything. Don’t get me wrong, I like satire – I love satire. But honestly, if I see one more comedy programme about a writer who’s depressed because his housekeeper isn’t up to scratch and the BBC feel his latest script needs work, I’m going to kidnap the author and drop them in Afghanistan just to give them some fucking perspective.

Wait, that entire rant makes me a hypocrite. Damn.

How did I miss that one?

You know what I totally failed to notice? The one-year anniversary of this blog. It was back on 26th January. Ah well. Happy birthday this blog, I suppose.

Fantabulous Festive Facts

I don’t know about you, but I believe in keeping Christmas traditional. That is to say, spend the entire festive period in a food-and-alcohol-based stupor, slumped in front of the television watching Doctor Who at the family home while the sis screeches like a banshee.I was most pleased with the presents I received this year and, I hope, so were my folks. Londonwise, I was given the book Mother London by Michael Moorcock, which is one of the great London novels, and a history of Eel Pie Island in Twickenham. Eel Pie Island is one of the strangest places in London, if not the strangest, and I really need to write an entry about it one of these days.

The marvellous thing about working in London is that Christmas shopping is really easy. Bloomsbury and environs have an abundance of shops ideal for unique presents. The Ma’s present came from Persephone Books in Lamb’s Conduit Street. Persephone, which I have mentioned before in these pages, is an independent bookshop/publisher which specialises in excellent nineteenth and twentieth century books by female authors that have gone out of print. The Sis’ present came from the Bloomsbury branch of Waterstones, which has an extensive selection of history books. The Sis is a fan of historical stuff, you see. I ended up having a pleasant conversation about London history with the shop assistant. It’s nice to meet a shop assistant who really knows their stuff – the bro tells me he had a frustrating time with one of the staff at Waterstones in Richmond, whose spelling was so atrocious that she couldn’t find any of the books he was trying to find (searching on the system for Evlin War’s Vyle Bodys and Ernest Hemmingway’s A Farewell to Armes apparently drew a blank). The Bro’s present came from Gosh! Comics opposite the British Museum, which to my mind is one of the best comic shops in London if not the best, particularly if you’re looking for indie and classic stuff. The only present I couldn’t find in Bloomsbury was the Da’s, which was an antique Hornby Dublo (that’s “train set” to you) railway carriage – I found it on a model railway dealer’s stall in Tolworth.

But I’m sure you didn’t come here to read about me (although if you did, thanks!). Here, in lieu of something more London-based, are some Festive Facts I’ve accumulated over the years.

• Despite what they may want you to think, Coca-Cola did not invent the modern depiction of Santa Claus. Rather, the modern version of Santa Claus is an amalgam of many different winter gift-givers, dating back to Odin and the Tree-Father of Norse mythology. The tradition of leaving out carrots and hay for Odin’s flying horse in exchange for gifts was absorbed, along with many other Yule traditions, into the European version of the Christian festival of Christmas. The Christian Saint Nicholas (or Sinterklaas), a man famous for his generosity, came to be identified with this gift-giving tradition. In the nineteenth century, this gift-giver was merged with the Danish elf Tomte and the British Father Christmas. Contrary to popular belief, Father Christmas and Santa Claus are not quite the same person – Father Christmas was traditionally a personification of Christmas rather than a gift-giver (like Old Father Time or Old Father Thames). He was traditionally depicted as a huge man in fur-lined green robes – think the Ghost of Christmas Present in A Christmas Carol – although Yr. Humble Chronicler has seen Victorian pictures of him in red and blue robes. The various elements of the Christmas gift-giver were ultimately assembled in America as a result of immigration from all over Europe.
• If any one man can be said to have created the modern Santa, that man is Thomas Nast. Nast was one of the great American cartoonists, who can also be credited with creating the Republican elephant, the Democratic donkey and the modern image of Uncle Sam among other potent symbols. His version of Santa, shown just above there, was drawn in 1863 for Harper’s Weekly. It incorporated elements of the jolly fat elf seen in the legends of Tomte and The Night Before Christmas with the larger-than-life Brian Blessed-esque Father Christmas and the white beard and red robes of Sinterklaas. While Haddon H. Sundblom’s Coca-Cola portrait of Santa is a fine piece of festive artwork, it’s just one of a number of Nast descendents. If one were to be cynical (which I never am, of course), one might point out that it’s a pretty fine piece of corporate brainwashing to make people associate the pleasant feelings of their childhood Christmases with the great taste of Coca-Cola. And yet even though I know this, I’ve got a glass of Coke at my elbow right now.
• The Christmas tree is another pagan tradition absorbed into Christmas, originating with the story of Odin hanging from the bough of an oak tree. These pagan origins are acknowledged in Christian lore. Saint Boniface supposedly came across a bunch of pagans worshipping at an oak tree and, being a total buzzkill, he cut it down. He then found a pine sapling growing among the roots, which he took as a symbol of the rightness of Christian faith (I think if I was a pagan, I would have taken this as a sign that Odin can’t be cut down so easily, but there you go). The evergreen is a potent sign of everlasting life, which of course is very much a Christan thing. Contrary to popular belief, the Christmas tree was not introduced to Britain by Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria. In fact, it was introduced by King George III’s wife, Queen Charlotte. Victoria and Albert, however, did popularise the tree by being depicted around it in engravings published at the time.
• The tradition of the Christmas turkey is, as you might imagine, an American custom. In medieval England, a peacock or boar was preferred. At some point between the medieval era and the nineteenth century, goose became the popular Christmas bird in Britain. Norfolk is the great poultry-farming region of Britain, and before the arrival of the railways the geese had to be physically walked from Norfolk to London. For this, the birds were fitted with dear little shoes to protect their feet. And no, I have no idea how one herds geese, which are not exactly pack animals nor especially docile (they are regarded by poultry farmers as being better than guard dogs).
• A common observation made around Christmas time is that the mince pie – a favourite in Britain around Christmas – does not contain mince.  Stranger still, the spicy, fruity substance that fills the pie is known as “mincemeat.” In fact, in the medieval era, mincemeat did indeed contain minced meat. It was common for sweet and savoury substances to be mixed in the medieval banquet – for instance, sugary comfits were often used to decorate joints of meat. The spices were also believed to help preserve the meat. I’ve not come across this theory in any of my sources, but one might also suggest that if the meat had gone off, the fruit and spices would disguise the taste. In the nineteenth century, actual meat was removed from the recipe, but beef suet remained. Tastes changed, and eventually people realised that beef fat and fruit were totally gross together.

So, in conclusion, may I wish you a very happy remains-of-Christmas. I advise you to continue eating and drinking as much as possible – you can feel guilty about it in January.

Paedageddon, Facebook-style

I found something today so very worthy of attention that I can’t even be bothered to work out how it could be made to be on-topic. Because, you know, this blog is the epitome of journalistic integrity. So here, unashamedly, is an off-topic entry.

I have a friend who goes by many names, and the one on his birth certificate is probably the least believable. He drew my attention to a group on Facebook called – I kid you not – “STOP MEDICAL RESEARCH ON ANIMALS USE PAEDOPHILES.”

Having written an entry a couple of days ago dissing Pudsey Bear and noting that I work for a children’s charity, this entry will probably be enough to get me put on some sort of register, or at least get me torn apart like a dummy full of guts (Chris Morris REPRESENT!). But really, groups like this are alternately funny and disturbing. You read the things people write on them and it’s hilarious, but then you realise that no, this person genuinely believes the things they are saying. Here are some fine examples of what people have to say in the group.

Paedophiles never get punished enough they take something from children that can never be returned they break them wreck there lives at a young age so yes they should be used for medical research if there is no medical research use them as crash dummies either way as long as there dead at the end the world will be a better place.

Yep. Yeah. That’s a pretty well-informed opinion right there. I suppose I should just get this out of the way – I don’t think I’m a grammar Nazi per se, but I always think a mad, foaming rant loses its impact when the author doesn’t know the difference between “their,” “there” and “they’re.” Along those lines…

The Branding Is A Cert!!!
A Nice Bold Tattoo On The Forehead ” I’M A PEADO”
This Should Be Their Punishment! All The Goverment Would Have To Do Is Throw Them Back Into The Population…… Then Sit back And Watch The Fireworks.

“Excuse me, what’s a ‘peado?’” Also, I Know You’re Not Sure Where The Capital Letter Is Supposed To Go, But Here’s A Clue. It’s Not Everywhere.

They deserve slow painful torture, being humuliated in front of everyone. A very slow harsh death!!!!!!they knock me sick, the filthy bastards!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To quote Terry Pratchett, “Multiple exclamation marks. The sure sign of a diseased mind.” As is this:

They should be castrated, then fucked in the ass with a molton iron rod.

I’m sorry, who did you say was a sicko pervert again? I mean, are you volunteering to do this? Is this what you want to see happening?

Perhaps I should explain myself here. I’m as anti-child-molestation as the next guy. But these rants come across as, frankly, way psycho. I mean, some of these people have really thought about what they’d like to do. Possibly late at night, trousers down if you know what I mean. Take this, for instance.

They should be put into the General Population in Prison. And Let the Men there deal with the Baby rapers. Or a shot to the head a Bullet is only a few cents. As a Matter of fact I volunteer to supply the Bullets. So the cost is now $ 0.00 to the Taxpayers. Problem solved. Or they should stuff there penises with Red Hot Peppers and sew it into there ass cracks. Or they should butter up a flag pole and stick there ass at the top and let gravity do the rest. Or they should cut a glory hole into the door on a microwave oven. And make them stick there sex organs in it. Far a few hours.
Or they should cut down a tree waste high, and nail there peckers to it with a wide head nail . Then put a rusty metal spork there and leave them.So they can die of thirst and starvation. Or they can saw there peckers off with a rusty spork. He he. Or …I could go on and on.

No, you already have gone on and on. Incidentally, the chap who wrote this rant is, judging by his profile pic, a father himself. So hey, kid, that’s what your dad thinks about on the quiet. Pretty cool, huh? Witness also:

the only way to stop these dirty vermins is to cut off their peckers so they cant use it on children rip out their eyes so they can never perve on any kids again and then cut off their hands so they cant use them physically on a child.

wot about victims human rights its always pedophiles/molesters that get special treatment who the hell made them king/queen they are PURE EVIL they all should rot and burn in hell where they belong the dirty stinking rotters.

victims should have more human rights then these dirty fuckers.

a dog that attacks a human it faces instant death sentence well i say same should apply to these feral freaks. (sick and tired of the dumb judges and do-gooders)

Jesus, the only way this could be more brimming with rage is if the woman typing it started headbutting the keyboard. If you started talking like that about, say, burglars, you’d be regarded as a Talibanesque fascist. Except for the slightly incongruous “dirty stinking rotters.” I didn’t know the Famous Five had Internet access, but now I do. Also, that “sick and tired of all the dumb judges and do-gooders” comment is making me wonder if this might be the birth of a new superhero. Like Rorschach, only functionally illiterate.

this citty is afrade of me. i hav seen it’s true face. teh streets r xtended guttrs and the guttrs r full of blud & wen the dranes finlally skab over all teh vermin will dronw.

teh acumilated filth of all there sex & mudrer will fome up abotu there wastes & all the hores and politish pollytic politisians will look up & shout save us

& ill look down & wisper

no

God damn I’m going to get funding for this thing if it kills me.

Anyway. Sidetracks aside, I think what annoys me most about this group is the sheer pious hypocrisy of it. Groups like this, whether on Facebook or elsewhere, exist primarily so that respectable, decent, hardworking folk can find some “valid” outlet for their own desires which, as you can see, are as bloodthirsty and perverted as any paedophile could dream up.

I’m not a believer of capital punishment as too many innocent people were wrongly sent to the gallows but for people who abuse children and wreck there lives it should be brought back, especially in an age where DNA and forensics removes all possible doubt.

This contribution says it all. Translated: “I’m a good, caring, thoughtful sort of fellow, but secretly violence gives me a boner.”

In conclusion, yes, convicted paedophiles don’t deserve an easy sentence. There’s no denying that child molestation is a repulsive crime, and I can see why people get emotional about it. But how about you wipe the foam from your chin, take a few steps back and start thinking like an adult, twenty-first century, non-psycho human for a little while? Chill out, have a drink. And enjoy this double-page spread from the Daily Mail.

 

Here’s an idea

If I didn’t work for a children’s charity, I’d love to start a Facebook group called “Support Your Local Paedophile.” I wonder how many fury-induced heart attacks would ensue? Maybe we could get the tabloids in on this.

Further Reading

If you’ve read those quotes (or got someone to read them to you) and you still think, “Yes, I want to go on about ripping into another human being like a wolf on a chicken when in reality I wouldn’t even pipe up if someone pushed in front of me in the queue at Tesco,” then the actual group is http://www.facebook.com/board.php?uid=99926085654#/group.php?gid=99926085654. Enjoy, and remember to close your mouth in the shower.