Brief notes

1. Apparently Richard O’Brien has not given his blessing to the proposed re-make of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, despite reports that he is to co-produce. He’s been quoted as saying that “I have no view on whether it should be remade but it doesn’t have my blessing”. I know that there’s a lot of people out there who’d like to see it re-made (Collin is looking for guesses on who could play the various roles) but, frankly, I’m not one of them. I love the film – it’s up there in my top five – but have never seen the stage show. Consequently, for me only Tim Curry can fill Frank’s corset and only Susan Sarandon could ever be Janet.

The fact that the re-make is being produced by Sky Movies and MTV also does not inspire confidence that this will be a quality film. And in today’s prudish prime-time climate, how much is the story going to get butchered? If you feel like me on this one, head over to Stop The Remake and make your feelings known.

2. Gary Glitter, 70′s leader of the gang and 90′s paedo, is heading back to the UK. His prison sentence in Vietnam ends on Tuesday and he’s going to be deported. It’s expected that he’ll move on to another Asian country, but when he lands in the UK he can expect to be interviewed by the police. But they won’t be placing him on the sex offenders register. Which seems a bit odd to me; here’s a guy who has committed repeated child sex offences in this country and abroad yet he’s not on the register? Doesn’t that make the register a bit of a waste of time?

3. Yet a father who gave his 13 year old daughter a slap for disobedience has had his job prospects ruined and had to give up his community work because he accepted a police caution rather than demanding his day in court. Years ago, back before we lived in such a nanny state, had the daughter called the police because her Dad had slapped her, they would have given her a clip round the ear for wasting their time. But now, parents are not allowed to use physical means to discipline their children and, if they do, their children can apparently get them arrested without any trouble at all.

But I’m sure that the continuing rise in violent crime (21 teenage deaths through violence in London alone so far this year) isn’t linked to this lack of discipline society that we live in.

4. Colin Stagg is back in the news, for the £700,000 compensation payout that he’s received over his wrongful arrest for the murder of Rachel Nickell. He was cleared in 1994. From all that I’ve read of the case, it seems that he was quite comprehensively set-up by the Met (who, let’s face it, have somewhat of a history in this area) and compensation is due. After all, in the mind of a lot of the public he will be forever guilty and the chances of him ever being able to get a job again are fairly small.

The problem comes with the amount he’s been awarded when you compare it to the amounts that have been awarded to wounded soldiers or victims of the London bombings. Mr Stagg is still in possession of all his limbs and is in good health. Many of the soldiers awarded compensation of less than a tenth the figure he got, have lost limbs, eyes, other organs in the service of their country. The system seems a bit cocked-up if deserving cases like theirs are seen as less important than cases like Mr Stagg’s.