Itisi

He's gonna fight for his right to Bieber

So, the big news this week has been the riots, I was going to write something about that, but I don’t really have anything to add to the opinions already aired so it would be pretty redundant. However,  if I must say something it would be that I don’t think poverty is the main motivator – few of the rioters appear to be poor, and for every area where people did riot, there were others which are just as poor or even poorer where people didn’t*. I don’t think it’s straightforward criminality either – few of the rioters appear to be criminals, just opportunistic types who like to get free stuff.

I think the rioters are mostly self-absorbed types who don’t understand the illogicality of smashing up their local area and making life difficult for their neighbours; and who don’t care that their actions will make it more difficult for legitimate protesters who actually have a real grievance. I also think we should take some time to figure out why we have such people, and why people living in similar areas didn’t riot, but on the whole the accompanying photo  is the best response – we should mock them using the magic of Photoshop. I mean, how silly is that man going feel in years to come when that photo resurfaces again and again? Imagine trying to explain that to your children when they ask, ‘Daddy, why is there a photo of you on the internet looking like a grade A plonker’?

Instead I’m going to talk about something that was hidden away in the news: the announcement by the unfortunately named Jeremy Hunt that 65 towns and cities will be eligible to bid for local television licences. Many people are criticising this scheme, saying that daily local news programmes will be dull because local news tends to be dull. At first I thought they had a point, but after closer scrutiny of the local news in my area I’m not so sure.

For a long time I thought the local news in my area was duller than the dullest thing you can imagine, and then some. The weekly papers usually have a front page story – something about a mugging, or maybe a fight outside a town centre pub – but then it’s page after page of talented pets**, primary school children holding swimming galas, photos of large and/or unusually shaped vegetables and profiles of people reaching their 100th birthday. Only one type of crime seems to proliferate: thefts from garden sheds. The police usually put this down to organised gangs, and for a while I believed them, but then I started to have doubts. I mean, organised gangs of bicycle thieves? I can believe in gangs getting organised to smuggle diamonds or valuable works of art, but hovermowers?

I think the police are missing a trick here. It’s obviously not a series of organised gangs – why would there be so many, and why target Doncaster? -  this can only be the work of an evil but financially embarrassed genius.

Unlike most evil geniuses, this guy doesn’t have the wherewithal to build a secret base beneath a volcano, so he’s reduced to working from his garden shed. He also can’t afford snazzy equipment to build the evil genius machine that he plans to use to take over the world, so he’s cobbling something together out of old bike wheels and lawnmower fan belts which he pilfers on nightly excursions to the suburbs and villages of the greater Doncaster area. It’s not entirely clear what the machine will do, but it does have ten gears, a switch to adjust the height for different surfaces and a complimentary water bottle.

So far, I haven’t able to identify this hideous fiend, but I have put together a psychological profile based on my own weird imaginings state of the art scientific principles. I think we’re looking for an older gentleman, one of those chaps who decides to take up a hobby when they retire, after all, who else would have the time? And who else could avoid detection for so long? He’s probably doing it under the very noses of the police who don’t suspect a harmless old man***.

This menace to all we hold dear probably started out quite innocently, maybe he was trying to build a more efficient pump for his tropical fish tank. However, several months of soul-destroying daytime television combined with eating his own body weight in rich tea biscuits sent him over the edge. One day he was ranting at Jeremy Kyle, the next he was hell bent on world domination with the view to forcing us all to wear beige slacks, play cribbage and listen to the Nolans’ Greatest Hits. Despicable.

That’s as much as my inquiries have revealed, but I’ll keep investigating, I’m sure more clues lurk amongst those seemingly innocuous tales of endearing school choirs, novelty vegetables and uncatchable pike.

* Plus, why were people raiding pound shops? They’re hardly aspirational and I find it difficult to believe we have people who can’t afford to spend a quid on a novelty plant pot in the shape of a teletubby, or a 15 gallon vat of neon-pink hair gel. I suppose it’s possible they are fobbing the good people of Doncaster off with tat while those in Birmingham and London are offered Tiffany lamps and  pashminas, but that seems unlikely given the overheads.

** Sadly that is usually a cat who makes a noise that sounds a bit like hello, or a dog who looks a bit like his owner. I’d be more impressed if these pets were genuinely talented, if they could juggle, or spin plates, or perform Swan Lake in the manner of Margot Fonteyn, something like that.

*** This why Scooby Doo should be required viewing at police training colleges.