Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Missing presumed buried under a mound of media attention...

Am I wrong not to be getting heated under the collar about Canoe Man and his wife? If I were to take the police-orchestrated media coverage to heart, I should surely despise John and Anne Darwin, shouldn’t I? They have deceived people, they have defrauded, they have driven up insurance premiums. Why, then, am I feeling a tendency to side with the Darwins? Why do I wish them good luck? Why do I hope, against hope, that if it comes to the crunch, they get a fair trial?

Does the crime fit the media attention? I think not. There’s been something odd about this whole circus since the day John turned up and Anne withdrew a bit more coin from her under-scrutiny bulging Panamanian account. There are, are there not, ‘good’ crimes and ‘bad’ crimes? A bit of fraud never hurt anyone, did it? These people aren’t rapists, child murderers or gangsters. Yet they’re being portrayed as a 21st century money-molesting version of Fred & Rose West (A Daily Mail report revealed that Darwin paved a concrete floor to muffle the creakings of the floorboards in the couple’s family home).

There are no greater criminals in the world than the insurance companies and mortgage lenders that want the Darwins hung, drawn and quartered for their need to get by in life by taking the extreme step of “doing a Reggie Perrin”. The insurance company and mortgage lender would sooner John had kept going through the motions of living his dull old fucking teacher’s life paying those regular instalments until the policy had reached its full term and they’d made a mint out of this couple. When the boot’s on the other foot, they don’t appreciate the big rip-off, do they? Yet my own experience of the insurance industry and financial sector would suggest that there’s only one bunch of serious, good for nuthin’ robbing bastards at work out there, and it ain’t Anne and John.

I jump the gun, though, don’t I? The Darwin’s have only been charged, not convicted. Although it’s impossible to see this through the treacle of media attention and the onslaught of self-righteous reporting by people who wish they’d had the guts to rip a corporation off for £162,000 (some of it, sadly, fuelled by Anne herself, but I think we can excuse her for not quite thinking straight, can’t we?). There doesn’t appear to be any concern that all of these splashes and repeated allegations and insights into the dull as ditchwater lives of the Darwins are, well, a tad prejudicial.

And the poor blighters can’t get bail. What, scared they’ll get through passport control using fraudulent documents, are you? The only danger these two pose is to themselves.

Fuck me, my levels of debt are heading towards the amount that these two didn’t, allegedly, get away with. And, hey, I can’t service the debts, so maybe I’ll end up ‘disappearing’. Is that the great fear, as consumerism and capitalism spiral towards an inevitable collapse, that we’ll all end up saying “fuck you” to those in control of the purse strings and try and snatch a few bob back? Is that why this couple of dullards are being made an example of? For heaven’s sake, Hitler’s had an easier ride over the last 62 years. When will it end? When they’ve actually gone and killed themselves? And then what? Will the insurance co just claw back their money? Of course they will. And watch for the “this policy does not cover canoeing in the North Sea” caveat appearing amid the many other clauses in the small print.

*I’ve not really thought any of this through. It may not make sense.

4 comments:

Bazza said...

Makes perfect sense,
Media = twats
Insurance companies = twats
case rested.

More Chips (with gravy) on my shoulder said...

I posted summat similar on my blog today fed up of the fredandrosification of these two loveable dimwits. I'm so glad I've now joined the public secca so I can join the anti-meeja team, although even when I was working for them all I did was slag 'em!

Stephen Newton said...

It's news because it's a fantastical story isn't it? And the media loves a story more than it loves hard news.

Dave W said...

I don't object to the story - it's the stuff of fantasy and Hollywood, eh? Just the treatment of said story seems the wrong side of harsh and right from the off, no doubt due to the investigations into the Panama account, the police seem to have driven the coverage to their own ends in much the same way as they do when, say, an Ian Huntley is at large. Surely a backlash from the more liberal sections of the media is only a matter of minutes away?