News of the World discovers that Gary Glitter still eats, breathes

Apparently believing it be some sort of public service, the News of the World has tracked down Gary Glitter:

EVIL pop paedophile Gary Glitter has adopted a cunning new disguise to dupe the public - he's had a Rolf Harris makeover and calls himself Darren.

By "Rolf Harris makeover", they mean that he's got grey hair and a grey beard. But "stopped dying his hair" doesn't, presumably, sound sinister enough for the paper.

Actually, "looking like Rolf Harris" isn't especially sinister, either, and means that the writer Lucy Panton switches her guff between trying to make yer bloods run cold, and knockabout humour:

Parents should study our pictures well. For the child abuser - who is on the sex offenders register - is still a constant danger and threat to innocent kids.
[...]
Glitter's new look in the style of Aussie artist, singer and TV presenter Rolf - catchphrase "Can you see what it is yet?" - is just the latest in a catalogue of images the beast has cultivated.

Why mention Rolf Harris' catchphrase at all? In fact, why mention Rolf Harris? Surely, if you really wanted to twist the knife, you'd draw the comparison with that other kindly old man with a white beard? "Unlike Santa, you wouldn't want your kids bouncing on his lookalike's knee"?

Lucy, it seems, can barely contain her contempt for the lengths Glitter is going to in order to disguise himself:

When he arrived at Heathrow he was clearly the Glitter we all know and loathe.

But now the fallen king of 1970s glam rock has ditched the silly hats, wacky goatee and raggedy clothes that made him stick out like a sore thumb.

It's a pleasing idea that a judge should force Glitter to always wear a jumpsuit and platforms, that the children of the nation might see him coming; I'm not so sure that having a goatee and old clothes would really have been making him "stick out like a sore thumb."

Unless, of course, the News of the World seriously wants its readers to believe that you can spot a paedo because they look a bit odd. Which, in the long run, would be a far greater disservice to a credulous readership than running photos of Glitter would be useful.