Seeing The Light
BARELY a week into his world tour, and George Michael had made it about a mile from his Highgate home.
“GEORGE IN 999 DOPE DASH,” announced the front page of Monday’s Sun. “Singer slumped at wheel again.”
We joined George at the junction of Cricklewood Lane and Hendon Way, North London, a busy thoroughfare.
At his current rate of progress, George is thought to be on schedule to arrive in Wembley, North London, in time for his November show. Good luck with that, George.
But on Monday he wasn’t going anywhere. George was sat at the traffic lights. Look at them. There’s a green one. Then an orange one. Now a red one. Then orange. Green. Red. Orange. Green. And so on. It was just so awesome.
Even more so when the blue flashing lights arrived and George was hauled off to the local police station.
But on Tuesday, George told us that it had all bean a colossal misunderstanding.
“There was spliff in car but I don’t have drug problem,” said George Michael on the Sun’s cover.
And we hang our heads low. Poor George. Has it come to this? Once he was a top lyricist, rhyming “Wham!” with “Bam!” – George is now too tired and emotional to use anything but the bare minimum to communicate.
The very real fear is that George is but a toke on a Thai stick away from speaking in a series of grunts, his work reduced to one long Gregorian Chant.
While we and the police asked questions, Wednesday brought stunning news: Prince William had gone to Mecca.
No, silly. He might be his Koran-reading father’s son, but William is not one to make a pilgrimage to Islam’s holiest city.
The news was that William had gone to the Mecca entertainment complex in Reading, Berkshire to play bingo.
“If he had won we were wondering if he would have shouted ‘palace’ instead of ‘house’,” said a “regular” in the Sun. Indeed. And perhaps William sees the numbers in terms of succession to the throne – Charles after his mum, No. 1; Princess Anne on a racing line, No. 9; and so on.
It was all jolly good fun. But Wills seemed unsure. Know that he joined the club using the moniker “William Harry”.
This fraud was topped off by Wills sporting a baseball cap, in the manner of young Prince Harry Baseball Cap, well known gadabout and goodtime guy.
Perhaps this was just the tip of Wills’ cunning plan? Were he to have scooped the £20 jackpot, the prince may have squandered the booty on cigarettes, women and hooch. First the Mecca then the Rattlebone Inn.
But just say William had gone to Mecca, that he had converted to Islam, would the Royal Protection Squad want to protect him? Or would some of the elite group take issue and say that on moral grounds they didn’t fancy it?
On Thursday we learnt that policing is a subjective thing. PC Alexander Omar Basha felt disinclined to protect the Israeli embassy in London. He told his superiors. And he was duly excused such duties.
PC Basha, part of the Met’s Diplomatic Protection Squad, does not care to look after the Israeli embassy in Kensington Palace Gardens. He doesn’t like what the Israelis did in Lebanon.
PC Basha is a copper with principles, who values the sanctity of life. And we look forward to his now boycotting duties at the Pakistani embassy, the Iraqi embassy, the Iranian embassy, the Jordanian embassy, the Algerian embassy, the Kuwaiti embassy, the Turkish embassy, the Afghani embassy, the Syrian embassy, the Saudi embassy, the Lebanese embassy and every other embassy of a country that has killed or persecuted a fellow Muslims.
And those are Muslims both in and out of a veil. While British actress Anna Friel was making us wonder if she had given partygoers a view of her unveiled vagina, Home Secretary Jack Straw was eyeing his constituents.
On Friday, his message was that he felt “uncomfortable” when talking to someone whose face he cannot see. “In our society, we are able to relate to strangers by being able to read their faces,” said Straw. “If you can’t read their faces that does provide some separation.”
The papers talked of uproar and fury in the Muslim community. But rather than cause a row, might it be argued that Mr Straw has opened a dialogue with British Muslims?
It is not only some non-Muslims who feel the veil is a barrier to communication and understanding but some of them too. We are not so different after all.
And perhaps one day Muslim women will remove their veils and be just as expressive as Western women. So Anne Robinson, what do you think of Jack Straw’s stance on Iraq? What about you, Cher? Or you, Joan Rivers…
Posted: 6th, October 2006 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
