Our suspicions were first aroused when he claimed emphatically to not have killed the deputy

A few weeks ago, Will Self claimed in the New Statesman that the Met's armed police had placed themselves beyond reproach. Not by behaving well, but by letting it be known if any one of them was ever properly punished for breaking the rules, they'd all walk. That sort of beyond reproach. If they were firemen and said that, it'd be all over the tabloids before you could fact-check.

It's perhaps this apparent belief that they're untouchable which gives the backdrop for the claims that an armed officer had dicked about hiding song titles and lyrics in evidence at an inquest into the death of Mark Saunders.

If it wasn't so horribly inappropriate, there'd be something almost mesmerising about a news story which unites songs by Chris DeBurgh and The Membranes.

The "independent" Police Complaints Commission is carrying out an investigation. It'll be interesting to see if anything solid comes of it.

Membranes forming up again

The comebacks which delight are often, it seems, centered on All Tomorrow's Parties, and this one adds to that strike rate: The Membranes are getting back together at the behest of My Bloody Valentine. This is the Nightmare Before Christmas one.

John Robb is, naturally, verbose in his excitement:

Like King Arthur's knights buried beneath the soil of Merrie Englande we are ready to be called on in the country's hour of peril. We were called. And we will play.

It's not clear where they were during the time of Gareth Gates, but better late than never, eh?