Apres Moulin, le deluge

Oh good. The success of Moulin Rouge and, latterly, Chicago, is set to swamp cinemas with a load of pisspoor musicals. And, as is common in the music world at the moment, rather than create something new, old stuff is being dusted down and remakes are seen as the way forward. For example, Ashanti is lined up to appear in a remake of Sparkle (What Irene Cara did before 'Fame' and, indeed, fame.)

We're waiting for Kelly Osbourne to announce her lead role in a new version of the Sound of Music, with the action relocated from Nazi-era Austria to 90's Kuwait.

We mentioned this in passing yesterday

But that Van Morrison sexual harassment tribunal has been settled - there's a full report on icWales. Jerry Lee Lewis' sister Gail Lewis has withdrawn her allegations; Van has made a big cash payment. Luckily, the out of court settlement was reached the day before five counts of sex discrimination were going to be heard.

The Times - First with the news

No, seriously, it was nice to see a passionate piece about Fanzines in The Times yesterday, especially since it mentioned - for the first time in the proper newspapers - the triumvirate of Adventures In Bereznik, Trout Fishing In Leytonstone and the marvelous Are You Scared To Get Happy? It's by Bob Stanley, too.

Hmmm. I wonder why The Times should feel empathy with people producing a publication that exists solely to channel the views of the owner of that publication?

No vertical integrated content fun

Apparently by pretending to be from Billboard, the Hits Daily Double claim to have wangled an interview out of Howard Stringer (Sony Corporation of North America's Chairman) and Andrew Lack, the hack-turned-head-of Sony Music. Unfortunately, it sounds pretty genuine to us.

Asked if Lack's lack of music industry experience - he's spent the past few years of his life tinkering about with NBC news - would be a problem, Stringer replies

"I am confident Andy can communicate and work with Sony’s other business units horizontally and globally and will bring all the forces together."

Good. Turning to Lack, they ask what parallels there are between running a TV network and a music group. His reply?

"Whether you are talking about film, TV or music, the twin pillars of all content-driven businesses are creativity and the need to reach the broadest possible audience."

Now, assuming that this really is the voice of one of the new major powers in the music industry and not some sort of postmodern joke, how scary is that? He believes that music should "reach the broadest possible audience" - which suggests the new policy at Sony will be to bland down its roster even further.

This just in

Ikara Colt and Yeah Yeah Yeahs - on tour, together:
Mon 24th Feb GLASGOW CMU
Tues 25th Feb SHEFFIELD Leadmill
Wed 26th Feb MANCHESTER MDH

The King is half-undressed

Doubtless Pete Townshend will be delighted at Jonathan King's kind words of support for him on the Tip Sheet. Pausing only to murmur how sad it is about Maurice "I knew him well in the sixties" Gibb, King then suggests its "even sadder" about Pete Townshend (because, after all, being caught buying kiddie porn really does knock dying young after a screwed-up operation into a cocked hat, doesn't it?

King continues:

"but I warned you all when it happened to me. The unholy alliance between police and media, combined with Britain's extraordinary sex laws has meant its open season on celebrities.

But hold on Jonathon, weren't you convicted of sexually abusing minors - not the same thing at all. Indeed, at least publicly, hasn't Townshend been saying how angry people like you make him?

"Whether it's false allegations provoked by publicity as it was for me, and will be for Pete, John Leslie and all the others, or, true past skeletons coming out of star's closets, it's going to get worse. Watch out for those tabloid Pete stories acquired by agents like Maxi boy. I see there are now senior politicians in the frame. Could that be ugly rumours? (all you need for conviction, evidence is not necessary)."

This is just pure bollocks, isn't it? Apart from anything, Townshend said he went to the police himself a couple of months ago. And while false allegations are certainly worrying - we see Van Morrison's shaken off those allegations about sexual harassment - what's the problem with celebrities who've sexually exploited children being exposed? "True past skeletons" are, you know, Jon, crimes. Are you really suggesting if you're famous you should be allowed to get away with buggering small boys?

And "all you need is ugly rumours -[clever wording, King - cheers] - evidence is not necessary" is just extreme ridiculous. Indeed, Gary Glitter's case shows that the interest of the press tends to work in the person's favour, since it was the press involvement that led to his acquittal in the trial over him shagging that fourteen year old. Evidence is still all. You got caught. I hope that your lack of remorse is noted by the parole board.

"What I want to know is - do they do kiddie porn in braille?"

Maybe you should ask one of your contacts?

They should have said it was a beauty treatment

Birmingham's BRMB radio is being prosecuted for getting listeners to sit on dry ice. Wouldn't it be cool if they could be forced to do community service - like handing over one third of their airtime to community groups or local unsigned bands?

Bitch does Vicar

Internet now collapsing in on itself, say observers

Phair enough?

We've already reported the aptly named The Matrix (the people behind Avril Lavigne) are working with Liz Phair. Now, (apparently) Liz has addressed everyone's fears, although as Glorious Noise points out, not allayed them. It's a wonderful piece. Go and read it. No, now. Okay?

Because the problem is that it's right. You can't begrudge Liz wanting some of the candy; a dance in the sunlight. But one of the things that has made us love her thus far - supported her dreams - is that she seemed to be one of us; rather plough a "quirky" line than just whack 'em out for Big Success. The whole argument is self-defeating on so many levels - "Nobody likes the stuff I make, so I'll do someone else's stuff to get popular" edging around with the ridiculous claim that the woman who wrote "Fuck and Run" seems to believe that if she put her mind to it (or, rather, about a quarter of her mind) she couldn't create something on a par with (on a par with) Sk8r Boi or Complicated.

Since its "Top of the Pops or bust", we look forward to the swimsuit photoshoot for Maxim. (Actually, we do, but we would, we're hounds.)

Maybe you want to rephrase that?

Bearing in mind most of yesterday's papers carried the hideously swollen bruised eye of the woman punched in the face by Girls Aloud singer Cheryl Tweedy - the John Prescott of manufactured pop - maybe the spokesperson for Polydor should have thought before saying "There's more to this than meets the eye."

Polydor seem very keen to deny that there was any racial element to Cheryl beating the crap out of a toilet attendant, as you'd expect. They're threatening to sue someone, which could be quite an interesting court case. Popstars experiencing mood swings in nightclub toilets. Hmmm.

He's funding his own investigation

According to the Celebrity-tax-ometer thingy at Tax Central, (assuming he doesn't do anything like tax avoidance), Pete Townshend should be paying thirteen pence a second in income tax - nearly four million quid a year. That's double the amount the police were hoping for to carry out all the investigations under Operation Ore...

Here is the injury... do you want an insult with that?

Useless waste of space Chris Moyles has had his TFI Clone show on Five axed. He's being replaced by former Juice FM breakfast corpse Christian O'Connell. O'Connell, who's since gone on to X-FM (presumably to avoid the station challenging parent company Capital's Chris Tarrant at Breakfast) will presumably be doing much the same thing, but at a quarter of the cost.

From the Brits, to the AMAs

The 'peoples choice' of American Music Awards, the, um, American Music Awards (20,000 record buyers are polled - odd, since if you believe the RIAA, there aren't that many people left in the states still buying records) have been announced at what can only be described as some sort of ceremony.

Billboard reports "Nickelback got the crowd on their feet following its performance of How You Remind Me" - lets hope the parking garage didn't get overwhelmed with so many people leaving so early. Kelly Osbourne - the amusing comic creation - did one of her songs; Christina Aguilera was there, too. It really does sound like a night in hell, which is why Eminem probably couldn't be arsed to turn up and collect his four awards. Sheryl Crow won an award. Another award went to the Dixie Chicks. Then Celine Dion won something.

The Michael Jackson International Artist of the Year prize went to Madonna. Next year, Michael Jackson is expected to receive the Madonna International Artist of the Year.

Maybe he was filled with the Holy Spirit? Or some sort of spirit?

Normally, we'd say that anyone daft enough to pay good money to see Jesus-suck-ups Creed live would deserve anything they got. But, by all accounts, the recent Chicago gig was a wonderful piece of work. Bishop Scott Strap was alleged by some to be "high out his mind", reports Billboard, falling down, forgetting songwords and leaving the stage for ten minutes.

Not surprisingly, even the devout amongst Creed's fans were a bit miffed and - after weeks of moans and grumbles - the band have apologised. Or rather, the management have stuck out a lame attempt to save face. Unfortunately, it comes across more like a slap in the face:

"The band has heard that you are unhappy with the quality of the recent Creed show in Chicago," reads the letter sent to fans from Jeff Hanson Management. "We apologize if you don't feel that the show was up to the very high standards set by our previous shows in Chicago."

So, the band has heard that their fans think they were rubbish, but have passed the apology to their managers to do?

"We also understand and appreciate the fact that there has been much concern about Scott's health and we want to assure everyone that he is doing very well and is taking a much needed break at home in Orlando after a very long and rigorous touring year."

We take this to be that Rock's Ned Flanders is sleeping it off.

"For now we hope that you can take some solace in the fact that you definitely experienced the most unique of all Creed shows and may have become part of the unusual world of rock'n'roll history!"

Oh, right - so the fact the show was pissed up against a wall shouldn't matter - hey, we did a shit show. We've never done that before. You're lucky we don't charge you more for having seen this one off event. Righto.

"Again, we apologize if you didn't enjoy the show but remember, 'It's only rock'n'roll but we like it!'"

"We really couldn't give a fuck. We've got your money, suckers."

What does saying 'It's only rock'n'roll but we like it' actually meant to mean? "It doesn't matter we put on a performance that even our biggest fans thinks was rubbish, because, it's hey - rock and roll." The band might know their bible, but they seem to have skipped all the bits about humility.

Meat (free) Conor Oberst

A quick plug for PETA's video interview with Conor Oberst, the acceptable musical face of veganism (i.e. not the one you want to slap - hello, Moby).

It's curious that the meat eating, fox-killing majority don't manage to get anyone cool to talk on their behalf - aside from the people tempted to by McDonald's cash to promote their products. Nobody ever really pops up saying "Meat is cool", do they?

Not taking the rap

We thought, since her colleagues are so busy damning rap, we'd just point out an instance where rap has helped cut street crime, the Splash Extra project:

The scheme gives youngsters the chance to take part in activities such as drama, abseiling, circus skills and making videos and rap music.
Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell said robbery and street crime had fallen by an average of 5.2% in these areas.
And in Avon and Somerset, it had fallen by 31% in parts of the region where Splash Extra was held, and risen by 56% where it had not.

Ms Jowell said: "Splash Extra is about getting young people off the sofas - and off the streets - and showing them that

Oh, Romeo

While we have a certain degree of sympathy for the view that Gangsta rap isn't to blame for the use of guns, you have to swallow hard when Romeo tells the Standard "you can't blame So Solid for all the gun violence out there." True, but you can blame it for the gun toting actually done by members of the Crew, surely?

Brittle-tattle

The lights returned in the sky last night; after the mists cleared, we found they'd left the nominations for the Brit Awards behind:
British Male Solo Artist -
* Badly Drawn boy
* Craig David
* David Gray
* The Streets
* Robbie Williams
Interestingly, Williams is nominated here and nowhere else - so we're expected to believe that he's the best solo artist despite not actually producing anything considered in any way worthy of praise. That makes sense then. And don't even let's get started on whether The Streets is a solo artist, or are a collective or whatever. Let's push things forward (DYSWIDT?) and give 'em an award...

British Female Solo Artist
* Sophie Ellis Bextor
* Ms Dynamite
* Beverly Knight
* Alison Moyet
* Beth Orton
Rrright, because that Alison Moyet comeback really burned itself into the nation's consciousness, didn't it? It was almost as if Shergar had been found. And much as we love Sophie, wasn't her contribution to music in 2002 repackaging her album from 2001? We'd like Beth to win it, but we know Ms D has got this one stitched up.

British Album
* Coldplay - 'A Rush Of Blood To The Head'
* Ms Dynamite - 'A Little Deeper'
* The Coral - 'The Coral'
* The Streets - 'Original Pirate Material'
* Sugababes - 'Angels With Dirty Faces'
Three great albums, an alright pop effort and an album that at least has some ambition to it (even if its very limited) - not a bad line up, even if the last of these - the Coldplay - is probably going to win it.

British Group
* Blue
* Coldplay
* Doves
* Sugababes
* Oasis
We're wondering why Oasis are on this list? Is it a joke? Had they forgotten to clean the slate properly from last time round? Were we in a coma and missed Oasis doing something worthwhile? Nice to see Doves nominated, even if they're hugely unlikely to lift the prize. Blue? Coldplay?

British Single
* Atomic Kitten - The Tide Is High
* Gareth Gates - Anyone Of Us
* Gareth Gates - 'Unchained Melody'
* Liberty X - 'Just A Little'
* Will Young - 'Anything Is Possible' / 'Evergreen'
This really does imply the state of British Music is more fucked than it actually is, doesn't it? When the rest of the awards nominations hints at the margins moving into the mainstream, this line-up reads like a particuarly bad night on the Smash Hits channel. Two cover versions (which surely should be more or less ineligible anyway, shouldn't they?). We know Just A Little was nowhere near the best single released last year - it wasn't even the best chart whore single - but we find ourselves throwing our moral weight behind it


British urban Act
* Beverly Knight
* Big Brovaz
* Craig David
* Daniel Bedingfield
* Mis-teeq
* Ms Dynamite
* Romeo
* Roots Mauva
* So Solid Crew
* The Streets
Why so many nominations? Is this the BPI trying to show off how wide their knowledge of black (sorry, urban) music is? Presumably they're also unable to tell the huge difference between So Solid Crew and Beverley Knight?

British Dance Act
* Chemical Brothers
* Groove Armada
* Jamiroquai
* Kosheen
* Sugababes
Sugababes as dance? And what, precisely, did Jamiroquai do to earn this nomination? Is it just so there's a worse hat than Badly Drawn Boy's in the nomnation list?

British Breakthrough Artist
* Liberty X
* Ms Dynamite
* The Coral
* The Streets
* Will Young
This is "new artist by any other name" - now its called Breakthrough, we presume the prize is more for size of achievement rather than novelty. On which scale, Will Young would be the victor - but since he had the entire weight of the Granada corporation behind him, that seems unfair. Ms Dynamite's zero-to-hero achievements have been great, but The Coral have overcome the double handicap of being unknown and from a city that's been given pariah status by the music industry for the last few years, so they deserve it more.

Pop Act
* Blur
* Enrique Iglesias
* Gareth Gates
* Pink
* Will Young
Eh? Did we miss something here? When did Enrique and Pink become British? Does this mean we don't get to marry Alecia to allow her to apply for citizenship? Bah. I'm not sure if I'm more bemused by the increasingly art-wanky Blur in the Pop category, or their appearance in awards aimed at praising the best of last year. Pink's prize, by a mile.

International Male Solo Artist
* Beck
* Eminem
* Moby
* Nelly
* Bruce Springsteen
Hey, Brit award people - we don't have to give a prize to people simply because they wrote about September 11th, you know. That's very much an American trait. Beck seems to be nominated in this category every year; presumably a cruel joke on the Brit's part. Eminem should walk this.


International Female Solo Artist
* Missy Elliot
* Norah Jones
* Alicia Keys
* Avril Lavigne
* Pink
Apparently cut and paste from the Grammys without a second glance - we can just about see that Jennifer Aniston's kid sister Avril may have a small profile here, but I can honestly say I have never met anyone in the UK who gives a chicken McNugget about Norah Jones. Again, if this isn't used to give us an excuse to see a slightly squiffy Pink spending our money wisely, we'll pout.


International Album
* Eminem - 'The Eminem Show'
* Norah Jones - 'Come Away With Me'
* Alicia Keys - 'Songs In A Minor'
* Pink - 'Missundaztood'
* Red Hot Chili Peppers - 'By The Way'
Pink album from 2001, wasn't it? So, much as we'd love to applaud her again, we're hoping that the Chilli Peppers get this - even if its on the basis of "long time career, first time winners" buggin's term

International Group
* Foo Fighters
* Nickelback
* Red Hot Chili Peppers
* Royksopp
* White Stripes
How sad that Nickelback are disfiguring this category, which otherwise would make a pretty good second day at Glastonbury, don't you think? The brave winner would be Royksopp. So expect to see Dave Grohl's victory speech.

International Breakthrough Artist
* Norah Jones
* Avril Lavigne
* Nickelback
* Shakira
* White Stripes
Again, if we apply some sort of tape measure, Shakira would trounce all comers in this category. And if Shakira is a mighty thoroughbred, Norah Jones is My Little Pony. Why are the Brits colluding in some sort of profile raising for her?

Outstanding Contribution To Music
* Tom Jones
Apparently, Frasier lost in a one-man election for head of Condo Board back in 1998. We can but hope the panel remember the man's many crimes, and vote for Reopen Nominations. They could give it to Maurice Gibb - I'm sure Tom would understand.

Um...

The usually wonderful Undercover are hailing Electric Six as "The New Face Of Britpop." Erm... except, of course, they're about as British as Rupert Murdoch.

The shame

Let's skirt as quickly as possible past the obvious jokes - The Kids Are All Tight; Hope we date before you get old, etc etc - and ask: what the hell was BBC News 24 doing last night?

Obviously the police search of Townshend's home was news, and you can understand the minute-by-minute news service waiting to pounce the moment anything happened. But yesterday evening, the 6 pm bulletin carried a continuous live feed across the bottom the screen of Townshend's front door. This added nothing to our understanding, told us nothing about the story (child porn users have white front doors?) and turned the serious search of Townshend's home into a Rolling News Circus. Fair enough, the media scrum would have been bad enough anyway, but for the BBC to ensure we could keep an eye on a closed door lest the other news - impending war, cabinet splits, missing women - bored us a little too much. Had we flipped, we might have missed... erm, a policeman in shirt sleeves (child porn users = well heated homes?) emerging, saying nothing and getting into a car and driving off. The excitable editors at N24 should take away a valuable lesson that something doesn't become news just because there's a news camera pointing at it.

Meanwhile, we were amused to see the Star's editorial yesterday - "How many more celebrities will it take before the government understands that we hate paedophiles?" So not only do we need celebrities to help us choose which supermarkets to shop in and how to vote, but we can't even know something is wrong until someone we've vaguely heard of commits a crime now? No wonder the gangsta rap/guns story is such a runner, as it involves Number One Recording Artists. Presumably burglary must wait until that one off Hollyoaks who's just dyed her hair black buys a tin of treacle and some brown paper. But it's nice to see the Star on its high horse about child porn. Remind us which national daily ran a front page picture of a child in a bikini top with the headline "She's Fifteen, She's 38DD*, and on her sixteenth birthday she's going to show them to you?" That would be The Star, of course.

(* - we can't remember the actual size of the breasts in question)

Girdles round the earth

It's a mighty impressive list, it's Jason Gross's 25 Favourite Scribings for 2002. Of course, it's arguable, but its a great starting point. Nothing from NME, you note...

[Ta to TMFTML]
[Update: 20-09-08 - Archive.Org copy of the original list which is now no longer on RockCritics.com]

He doesn't even get it right when he's talking about himself

From Media Monkey:

Writing in his column for the Sunday Express, Boy George takes the opportunity to "shamelessly plug" (as he puts it) his new radio show on "GLR". Not only does GLR no longer exist, but the station that replaced it, BBC London Live, is probably the biggest rival of the station he really works for - LBC. Here's hoping he has a good relationship with station owners Chrysalis.

Mind you, the Guardian's media column should be a bit kinder - after all, London Live was replaced by BBC London almost a year ago; and what paper has led to the internet suggesting that Jerry Hall has made up a defence of Pete Townshend because it misplaced their conversation about kiddie porn online from 2001 to 1991?

"You can trust my judgement"

Amusing musings from Fred Durst - defending hanging out with Britney. Um, Fred, sweetie, with the teaming of you and Brit, it's not you who's diminished in our eyes, mmmkay? Meanwhile, the next Limp Bizkit single is going to be called "Crack Addict." Oooh, how shocking you are, Mr. Durst. I fear society might never recover from your onslaught.

If you want any further proof that Bizkit and their fans are pussies - check out their Vision On style Gallery - but I'm sorry, we can't take any of your pictures seriously.

More trouble in paradise

Another Major Label In Trouble; this time Warners with uberhead of AOL Time Warner stepping down after the apes, ivory and peacocks he promised shareholders when AOL merged with Time Warner failed to materialise. Nothing to do with the complete over-statement of what AOL was worth, of course (no wonder their mascot's called Connie). More shake-ups expected soon throughout the group.

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.

Tragedy

It's almost incredible to us, but somehow the BeeGees managed to really piss away any wave of sympathy we felt for them during their BBC interview [Real] this morning.

Of course, it's terrible to lose a brother under any circumstances, and to believe that it might be as a result of medical malpractice is even worse. But Robin and - especially - Barry just came across like the worst northern stereotypes, arranging a scrap before the wake's even taken place. Self-aggrandising and aggressive, they actually managed to make their walk-out on Clive Anderson's show look even-tempered and considered.

Perhaps the highlight came with Barry stating Maurice was "one of the greatest recording artists of all time", leaving no doubt that he meant the other two were sitting on that sofa.

We were so angry when he was kicked out, you know

Limahl follows in the shoes of, um, Jimmy Young and, uh, Noddy Holder and makes the small but significant leap from singer to dj, with a new slot on the Magic stations on Sundays playing a surprising mix of 60s soul and heavy gospel. Okay, it's an 80s show and he kicked off with Too Shy, but we always thought he looked sexy in a vest so we're happy to wish him luck.

Ten

Top ten TV musical moments, as voted for readers of TV Guide Online (the world's most sophisticated electorate):
1. Buffy Musical Episode 27%
2. Elton doing 'Candle In The Wind' at Diana's funeral 9%
3. America: Tribute To Heroes (post sep'ven benefit) 8%
4. Eric Clapton doing 'Tears In Heaven' for his dead son on Unplugged 5%
5. MTV plays 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' for the first time 5%
6. Bill Clinton on Arsenio 4% (highest non-death related entry)
7. Whitney does the Star Spangled Banner at the '91 Superbowl 4% (not the only time you'll find the words "Whitney" "does" and "bowl" in the same sentence)
8. Premiere of the Osbournes 3%
9. "American Idol fever" (like Winter Vomiting Disease, we'd imagine) 3%
10. U2's Superbowl tribute to themselves ("victims of September 11th") 3%

One of the greatest stars of 70s music has died

No, not him, Micky Finn, "the other guy in T-Rex."

Ah - it was an academic interest, was it?

Let's not be too quick to condemn Pete Townshend for using his credit card to buy kiddie porn - it may be easy to suggest that if he really was researching a book and "wanted to know what was there" - and who wouldn't be puzzled what may lay behind a link saying "Kids being fucked here", after all? - that maybe he should have contacted, say, a police department or one of the many academics (actual academics) who have already done this sort of research.

It would be cheap, wouldn't it, to suggest that it would be of little comfort to know that the person paying the bloke flogging pictures of her being raped was only handing over the cash to gather some material for a book - I know I have no problem with kiddie pornographers getting rich from flogging images, providing the end users are merely writing details of the pictures down in spiral bound notebooks, after all.

After all, how could Peter be a paedophile - look, he's calling people who find that sort of thing "mentally ill" (although if he believes child porn users are mentally ill, wouldn't his "anger and vengeance" be misplaced?)

Let's take him at word. Which still makes him at best morally dubious and very, very stupid, doesn't it?