Roman Polanski

At the risk of sounding a bit like a Daily Mail journalist jumping on any old middle England bandwagon, I’m a little bit confused by this whole Roman Polanski thing. In the extremely unlikely event that you head to this blog before reading the news, the acclaimed director has been arrested in connection with having sex with a minor (as opposed to the less serious crime of having sex with a miner) back in 1977.

No great surprise there, as he has effectively been on the run since pleading guilty to the crime over 30 years ago. What I do find surprising is the fact that he seems to be receiving overwhelming support almost everywhere you look. The French government has waded in, claiming that the arrest is ‘a bit sinister’ and ‘a disgrace’. I’m trying to understand if I have missed something obvious here.

I’m certainly no fan of Gary Glitter (real name Paul Gadd), but he must be feeling fairly aggrieved at the moment by the media reaction. I’m not suggesting for a second that their individual crimes bear any real comparison, but the fact is, Roman Polanski committed a serious crime, he was convicted of that crime and he has not yet served his sentence. Why are the Sun and the Daily Mail not all over this like a rash? Surely it couldn’t be because he is an incredibly gifted filmmaker? Could it?

No newspaper I have read has been able to convince me to feel sympathy for Polanski, no matter how hard they try. They keep reminding me that he is 76 years old; that he has suffered a great deal of tragedy in his life; that he was greatly affected by the murder of his wife. All true, but that doesn’t explain what he did and the fact remains that he has not served his sentence.

All this sympathy stems from his ability as a filmmaker. He is so revered as a great director that people seem to think he should be forgiven the odd ‘mistake’. Like he only did this because he is an artist. That we should allow artists to get away with whatever they like because if they do enough artisty things, we might get another masterpiece resembling Rosemary’s Baby (unlikely – I think those days have gone Roman) or Chinatown (overrated, and you probably want to be avoiding Jack Nicholson anyway.) It’s like when a football manager defends a player who ends an opponent’s career with a horror tackle by claiming ‘och aye’, (because it’s usually Alex Ferguson defending Wayne Rooney) ‘it shows he’s passionate – if you took that part of his character away from him, he wouldn’t be the same player’. No, that’s a good point. He wouldn’t be the same player, but the opponent with a hole in his leg would also not have a hole in his leg.

Thinking this all through, it’s not the fact that we (for we, read ‘the media’) allow certain people to escape moral censure for their actions. It’s the way they’re so damn inconsistent about it. Roman Polanski drugs and has sex with a 13 year old girl and is treated like some poor hard done by gentleman, Russell Brand leaves a message on an old man’s answering machine and he’s the next incarnation of Satan himself.

Right, I'm off to watch Rosemary's Baby again now. I know I probably shouldn't out of some kind of protest, but it is so good. 'What have you done to his eyes?'. Genius - but also a criminal.

Introduction

As this is the first of hopefully many entries to this weblog, it is my first duty to introduce myself. At the time of writing this, I am a 29 year old human male, approaching that stage in life where I am not yet mature enough to take on full responsibility for my actions, yet established enough in my life and career that I can’t drop everything and start everything again from scratch. Maybe that’s the point of this blog. It’s an imitation of a writing career without any of the pressure of being good. People can read it or not read it. They don’t have to pay for it so they have little right to complain if it’s rubbish. It’s a way of being allowed to spout crap now that it’s too expensive to go to the pub every night. What could be better?

I’ve always thought the idea of writing a blog is slightly arrogant. Kind of like those facebook status updates that tell you how many times Roger has visited the lavatory today or how Mary is vowing never to drink again. Again. That’s the last thing I would want. My aim is not to bore anybody with the minutiae of my life, although for the purposes of journalistic interest, I have been to the toilet a couple of times today and I fully intend to drink again – starting in the next couple of hours.

I am a man of many interests, but few of those interests are deep. I would consider myself slightly above the level of Jack in most trades, but certainly not approaching Master status in any. My life outside work closely resembles the vagueness of the final paragraph of a CV: I enjoy reading and I take a keen interest in sport/music/needlework/pulling the wings off flies, but don’t dare question me too far on any of those interests as I may go all quiet and stare off into the distance.

With this in mind, the intention is that each entry to the blog will comprise various musings from my oft tedious but occasionally interesting life. Different subjects each time, some of which may be interesting, many of which will be repetitive and meandering and almost all of which will contain a good standard of grammar. Inevitably, these musings will veer away from my life to people and subjects of far more interest. News articles, album reviews, knitting patterns; nothing is out of bounds for me.

I therefore advise you, dear reader, to sit back (or forward if you tend to hunch your shoulders like me) and enjoy the ramblings of a dangerously sane man.