No Rock And Roll Fun

WILL THE REAL GARY GLITTER STAND UP?: So, last night Channel 4 promised to show us The Real Gary Glitter, and almost straight away shot itself in the platform boot by admitting that there, erm, wasn't one. Gary Glitter, you might be surprised to learn, was merely a construct - Paul Gadd made him up, this documentary could, um, reveal.
Of course, minor celebs of this sort hardly ever bother 'The Real...' franchise, but the Glitter had enough mud to make his laundry an audience-gathering public washing - although the paucity of commercials during the show suggests that on this occasion, the muck may have come without brass. There also wasn't much in the way of illumination in the show - the teary eyed testimony of a girl allegedly raped by Glitter when she was eight was fresh, but felt more like an intrusion into her grief than an insight into Glitter's actions.
Indeed, the whole show seemed reluctant to offer any reason for why Glitter did the things he did, beyond vague suggestions that he was looking for a family (eh? did he hope to find them amongst jpegs of two year olds being raped?); there also wasn't much of an ending - Glitter's cruising round the far east looking for a home that doesn't mind foreign men shagging their kids was totally missing, even although it might have given something a bit more to hold against him than the shocker that he was aggressively determined to be successful (didn't we get over the whole ambition as a fault thing in Julius Ceasar?)
Most interesting was the Glitter fan who had bought a suit during an earlier spot of Gary Crisis. Shocked but with his admiration undiminished by the child-shagging allegations, he did seem to have been mortally wounded by the 90's Gang Show comebacks; admitting he was jealous of people coming to the gigs in groups "discovering Glitter for the first time." To the superfan, there is no greater shame than popularity.
Oddest quote goes to Gary's chauffeur, who looked grimly at the camera and said "Paedophillia is never sexy in rock and roll." Strangely, he was unchallenged, although the words 'Baby one more time video', 'jerry lee lewis', 's club juniors', 'Vanessa Paradis' and 'Moi Lolita' surely must have occured to the director, even if 'Jonathon King' didn't.
And the ommission of JK is curious - another boy made good from the same era, another self-made-up character, also caught dipping his hand in the honeypot. And yet, while Glitter scuttles from Cambodia to Vietnam, branded by Channel 4 "the most famous pervert in britain", King sits in his cell largely forgiven by his circle of friends who raised bringing Gina G to the public as more important than fucking a few teenagers. It's a strange double standard.
And 'the most famous pervert in Britain"? Nah, he's just the man most famous for his perversions. Their must be more famous perverts; we just don't (to quote the late Peter Cook) know who they are.
In almost related news: Chris Moyles gets rapped for suggesting he was going to fuck Charlotte Church - apparently the authorities were worried about her age, and not the mental image of the world's most unattractive man having carnal relations with the Monobrow From The Valleys.