Jacko Flacko

So, Michael Jackson's lawyers have complained to the Broadcasting Standards Council [BSC] about Martin Bashir's programme. It's hard to see on what grounds, though. Clearly, there's no way the show can be considered to have breached the pale one's privacy - "come on into my world" seems to have closed off that avenue - so, presumably the grounds will be unfairness. Which will be tricky to demonstrate, I'd have thought.

Unless there's a big bucket of unused footage of Jackson not making his kids wear scary masks, not twitching like an electric eel in a barrel of Watneys Red Label while feeding Blanket, not pretending to be Peter Pan with the umbrella and the rope walk and the following children, Bashir and Granada will be sleeping soundly.

If anything, the documentary was a little bit too fair to Jackson, giving him ample space to defend his actions and justify his behaviours. The bottom line should be: if you don't want to give ammunition to the people who think you're weird, it's best to avoid inviting cameras to watch you sitting with mannequins in a hotel room, or begging for an ice cream cone, or dangling your kid out of a window, rather than complaining about it afterwards.