Be Excellent To Each Other

The coverage on ITV is making me seethe. The media have never been able to get their pound of flesh from him (though they've taken ten times that amount out of the Bulger story, so they are just dying to get their teeth into this one.

Is there even anything to report?

Nah, he could've been letting off steam to his PO and expressed a desire to do something illegal as a figure of speech and been hauled in. Considering they're not allowed within x distance of the child's family the mother has certainly been in the press about tracking them down and sitting in a car right next to where they are walking - they are always a gnat's chuff away from being back inside whatever they do. Could be anything or nothing.

Ah the hard life of a convicted murderer. Poor love.

I thought he was overrated anyway. A decent manager would have won Euro 96 with that squad.

Read a good article in the Grauniad the other day by a woman whose dad runs a camp for troubled kids. She lamented that society won't let you tell Bulger's mum to fuck off and mind her own business when she started going on about how they should release the names of those two kids who beat up those other two kids up north somewhere.

And of course, by writing said article, did just that.

I know. Passive aggressive liberals are awesome.

Mrs Bulger! (Or whatever your name is!) Two things:

(a) Having a kid killed doesn't make you an expert on child killers, or how best to change the law to protect kids. In fact it probably makes you just about the worst person possible (other than perhaps the Sun leader writer). Same goes for you, Mr and Mrs Payne

(b) Maybe next time you may watch your kid a bit better.

Harsh!

Mr Kissyfur: Tough on the causes of child murders.

I reached the peak of anger yesterday morning. They had the copper who led the murder investigation on BBC news, and to paraphrase what he said.

"Well, whatever his name is now, John Venables is a 27 year old from liverpool who has been locked up again in the past few days. He's going to have some difficulty accounting for what he was doing between the ages of 10 and 18, which is when he was first imprisoned. So, if you're in prison, watching this, and a scouser in his late 20s has arrived in the past couple of days with no real explanation, then test him out on a few points, and beat the living crap out of the nonce if it is him"

And yet the police don't understand why they are not very well liked.

I doubt he'll have a particularly strong scouse accent, tbh. Pretty sure he's been kept away from the NW in general as a fair few people would recognise him on sight

He spent 8 years in an prison. The possibility of him developing a scouse accent from a starting point of nil is high.

Whilst the tabloid nature of the press coverage of this is frustrating, I do feel that, bearing in mind that Venables and Thompson initially set out that day to abduct and push a child in front of a car, but instead decided it would be more fun to lead the 2-year old they'd grabbed on a 2.5 mile walk where they repeatedly hit and attacked him, before leading him to a train line, severely fracturing his skull by hitting him with a metal bar, forcing batteries into his mouth and throwing and hitting him with bricks until he was dead, before anchoring the body to the train line with rocks so that it would get hit by a train in order to make it appear to be an accident, thus taking one young life and ruining several others, before apparentely setting out the next day with the intention of doing something similar, I find it very hard to feel sorry for the guy. Even if he was only ten when it happened. That may just be me though, obviously.

According to Wikipedia, via The Grauniad: ‘Upon release, both Thompson and Venables had lost all trace of their Scouse accents.[32]’

Yeah, I don't think that was the point.

I should have left out Riles' quote there. I wasn't really talking to him, heh.

That wasn't really my complaint anyway. My problem is that "Ooooh, we've heard something but can't give you the details" doesn't actually constitute news. At least, not until someone tells Matthew Wright and he says it on air by mistake.

Charlie Brooker covered it a few weeks back. 24hr news trying to justify their budgets sending reporters everywhere to stand next to buildings and exit doors and fields where things happened.

In the absence of news, banality will step in.

Someone pointed this out to me a few years ago. He said "I've stopped watching the news as all it does it tell me things that are either going to happen or things that might happen. It's stopped telling me things that have actually happened."

The twisted brain-wrong of a one-off man-mental!

Got to say that I pretty much agree with Zio.

That's why it's "News" not "Olds", dear fellow.

The boyfriend of the twin sister of an ex-girlfriend of mine didn't buy newspapers as "..it's stuff that's happened already". First time I met him, the then MrsA and her sister fucked off to the shop leaving me with him and some beers. He sat petrified on the sofa as I asked him questions whilst drinking beer. I did offer him some, though. I didn't much like him.

To which I respond "Yes and so what?"

The Bulger killing was horrific, of that there is no doubt and no dispute. However, it has stirred up the worst and nastiest of reactions from a wide range of people.

The media, who are using it to make money. Forget any pretense of public interest, they are whipping up hype to make money.

Bulgers mother, who seems to think she has a right to decide the fate of other people.

Politicians, including Jack Straw who interfered with the judicial process for political gain and got slapped down for it.

A large part of the General Public, who haven't a clue how the law actually works.

Venables and Thompson did the crime, were convicted and served the sentence handed down by the extent of the law. End. Of. Fucking. Story. Otherwise we move one step closer to the law being dictated by headlines.

I'm aware that they have served their time, and have been judged as fit to re-enter the community. I paid no heed to the unconfirmed stories about them having Playstations and other such luxuries while in detention. I understand completely why they have been given new identities. And I understand that the eventual goal of any sentence in this country is rehabilitation, and that prison cannot function if used as solely as a punishment. I completely get all of that, and I agree with you totally that government figures and (especially) the media can fuck right off.

However, I hope they find him and tear his face off. Slowly.

Like sex whenever they wanted!

You've got an overdeveloped sense of vengeance.

...it's going to get you in trouble some day.

High five?

I thought about putting the full quote, but it soundly slightly threatening.



o/

Ah, but it would only be threatening if you didn't know the quote, and not to know ace quotes from this most ace of movies would be uncool, and we don't thin grim... can be that uncool, right, Grim...?

RIGHT, GRIM???

Yeah, I must watch The Princess Bride.
But you're right. It's rare I feel this way about things unless they [a|e]ffect me directly.
Without wanting to roll out the dull old stereotype, I think it might be since I had a kid of my own - I certainly can't remember having any strong opinions on it before.

I think that that might actually be a healthy opinion to have.

I hate the saying, though. It's like I'm somehow better than you ("Oh, you couldn't possibly understand until you have children of your own!" and all that), or my opinions are suddenly more valid because I happen to have hung around once a woman had my kid.
Which, of course, they are not.

Probably is true though, I've not had any children of my own, nor done whatever it is that parents do, but can imagine the change of worldview that comes with it is something short of plate-tectonical when things like this might happen.

Heh

True enough. I don't recall feeling too strongly about the whole thing before Zioette came along. Put it this way, I can now understand why James Bulger's mother would feel she has an ample understanding of what should become of her son's killers. Of course, that's precisely why the decision isn't up to her, but it doesn't necessarily make her wrong for having it.

Of course it doesn't, but it does make journalists repeatedly asking her thoughts on the matter a tad questionable.

Of course, as a parent, the thing that the Bulger case, and other similar occurrences, should be making you think most about is how it is that parents end up creating kids like Venables and co. They don't get born evil.

EDIT - Sorry. SORRY. Bit liberal there. Kill them all, obv. And anyone who looks a bit like they might do something bad in the future.

Being a bus traveller, I understand perfectly how evil kids are made. There should be a compulsory parenting class. Attend or no nhs birth!

Well, thats me going on the run before Mr Chris's new regime takes hold.

There will be a special punishment reserved for tax evasion avoidance advisers.

Especially those who do it to children.

Or something.

PAEDOTAX.

Evoision

How very dare you! I was researching for a book I was writing! The Townshend defence, I believe it is called

If I recall correctly, Jamie Bulgers dad split up from his wife after all the court case and ting reached its' conclusions.

I'd be genuinely interested to hear his views.

I think they do, to an extent. Environment makes a lot of difference, obviously, but I reckon a good dose of personality is stamped on the kid from the moment it's conceived.
Parents can take a whole load of the blame, but not all the time.

Sociopathy and related conditions are proven to have genetic traits, certainly.

I think that various potentials are there, if not from conception certainly during physiological development.