Thanks for clearing that up, Pete

THANKS FOR CLEARING THAT UP, PETE: Pete Townshend has attempted to ensure that he can argue press coverage means he can't get a fair trial... um, sorry, given an interview to clear his name to today's Sun. The pattern of a story slightly shifting is quite pretty if you hold it up to the light.

Now, it seems, he's looked at "three or four" sites after "accidently stumbling across one" - it's funny how it's so easy to accidently stumble across a child porn site, type your credit card details in, press the confirm button and start looking at pictures of children being abused - it happens before you even realise it, doesn't it? Though how Townshend squares the "it was all a horrible accident" with the "it was all done in the name of research" argument isn't clear.

“I have never purchased any forms of child pornography or wished to own any. I saw the first awful photo by accident. It repelled me and shocked me to my very core.

So shocked you went out and looked at other sites? Was this because you weren't shocked enough?

“I was not breaking the law at the time. This was in the winter of 1996/1997. It was then illegal to download, which I did not do, not to search and view.

Hello? Pete, mate, what do you think you're doing when you access a webpage? You're downloading it, aren't you? You might not be *saving* the document permanently, but you're still having to copy the thing from the remote computer to your own. And even if you didn't right click on anything, this is surely all a legal nicety, isn't it? Wouldn't you be as upset if I came and peered in through your bedroom window even if I didn't take pictures?

“I did not think using a credit card was illegal either at the time. As a public figure I would never have given details had I known I would be breaking UK law."

Right. So, you're expecting us to believe that you're so stupid that it didn't occur to you that paying cash to people who sell pictures of kids being raped might not only be stinkingly unethical but also illegal? And, hang on a moment...

"[The Internet] is allowing child porn to be circulated freely around the world, crossing borders, allowing laws to be ignored...

- hey, Peter - maybe all the people downloading child porn aren't ignoring the laws. Maybe they just didn't know what they were doing was illegal.