I Fear for Peter Hitchens

I’m worried about Peter Hitchens. He wants to do bad things. He is compelled to do these bad things. Every day, he wakes up and he is assailed by temptation. Jesus had it easy in the wilderness compared to the trials and travails that he suffers. The only thing stopping him from lighting a crack-pipe, getting drunk and disorderly and, presumably, going on a terrible crime spree is his immense, monolithic, immovable self-will, and what remains of the Criminal Justice System.

Why do I worry about this? Well, in his now much re-tweeted debate about Drugs Courts on Newsnight with Baroness Meacher and Matthew Perry, he said this: “The whole point of the Criminal Justice System, and we forget this all the time, is to deter people from committing crimes.”

He is, of course, absolutely right about this. I know from personal experience that I am but a judge’s-day-off away from mass-murder. Every day, Peter and I must have the same experience. We want to tear into the streets with sub-machine guns, give into our ids, and gorge ourselves on the buffet of potential delinquencies available to us. We don’t, but only because we are deterred by the Criminal Justice System. That is what it is there for. That is “the whole point” of it. If it weren’t for that, we would be unleashed.

I am, of course, being facetious – displaying the sort of "levity" that Hitchens aspires to but can never attain, the sort of activity that he tries so hard to deploy but fails to deliver, and therefore resorts to self-righteous spite and venomous disrespect instead (note how he gets gradually more defensive on Newsnight) – but, of all of his ridiculousness and Matt Perry’s flippant rejoinders the other night, that single statement has to be the most stupendously ludicrous, and the most disturbing.

“The whole point of the Criminal Justice System … is to deter people from committing crimes.” The nonsense of this is immediately apparent. The Criminal Justice System enforces the law, certainly with an eye to deterring (something which, incidentally, you can never measure the success of, for there are no records of people who consider committing a crime and then don’t, nor of what their reasons for their change of heart was either), but it also has a look to retributive justice and, we hope, rehabilitation. None of this is easy, but all of it is necessary. The approach to law, morality, and justice must always be highly nuanced and considerate of each individual case according to its circumstances. There must never be a “whole point”. We can never afford to be so blinkered.

It is when you dwell on it that the sheer unpleasantness of thought behind that statement reveals itself. Its implication is that the only thing stopping some people from committing crimes is the threat of punishment. He seems to think, though, that human beings are inclined to failure, to laxity, to wrong-doing, and therefore we need a “stern and effective” CJS to keep us on the moral path prescribed.

Hitchens has no time for rehabilitation. He seems to have no time for considering the complexities of retribution. He is merely interested in the rules of the game. Transgress them, and you are gone, not because you have done something morally wrong necessarily, but because you have made a life-choice that Peter finds disagreeable. To jail with you then, so that others may choose better. Such a view is smug, arrogant, self-centred, uncompassionate, ill-informed, flat-out stupid, and, in his case, probably intellectually dishonest.

To err is human, but should erring (if erring this be) be greeted as something worthy of harsh punishment, solely for the reason that others may be deterred from erring again? Not only is this an unjust form of reasoning, it is also a rod for one’s own back. The recurrence throughout the ages of drug-abuse, for instance, suggests that this is a problem we will not be able to eradicate. If it is a scourge, then it is not one we can defeat, as the failure of drug policies worldwide have demonstrated. The condition is too rooted in human nature.

One needs to rise above the level of the primary school headmaster in our thinking here in order to find better solutions. Hitchens, the crotchety, snarling, disgruntled school teacher par excellence, is not the man whose reasoning we should follow.

The Sherlock Solution?

Having just rewatched The Reichenbach Fall, I am madly excited by the prospect of Series 3 of Sherlock (BBC1, 9pm, New Year's Day), not least because we will get the solution (we're told it's satisfying) to the greatest TV conundrum since Richard Whiteley revealed one with a Q and no U in it.

Theories have abounded, though I have to admit that I haven't gone looking for any of them. Here at any rate is my shot in the dark as to how Sherlock survived his fall from the roof of St Bart's Hospital.

Here are the facts:

1. John got a phone call saying Mrs Hudson had been shot, when she hadn’t been. This caused him to leave St Bart’s, but he would inevitably return within a broadly predictable period of time – the length of a return cab journey to and from 221b Baker Street.

2. Sherlock picked the location on the roof of St Bart’s. He may have guessed that he was going to be required to jump off the roof, or not. That is unclear, but he certainly chose that location.

3. Moriarty is definitely dead. His brains are all over the roof. If you look closely, there’s actually a little piece of brain. The rule of Sherlock is always trust your senses, and we saw his brains on the masonry, so he is dead. Dead. Finished. Extinct. A former-Andrew Scott. Bereft of life, he rests in peace. He’s run down the curtain and joined the criminal fraternity invisible. This is a late nemesis.

4. Sherlock definitely jumped. John saw him.

5. We definitely see a body hit the floor. Obviously, there are issues about what’s broadcastable and so on, but it doesn’t look like it’s hit the floor at a particularly fast speed.

6. When we first see “the cadaver” (marvellous word), it is partly obscured by a rubbish truck that is quite full with rubbish.

7. Before he can get to the body, John is hit by a cyclist. Afterwards, he is dazed and confused.

8. The cadaver on the floor is definitely dead.

9. Sherlock is definitely alive.

So, here’s my theory:

If Sherlock had jumped from that height and hit the ground he would be dead. He did jump from that height, and is alive. Ergo, he did not hit the ground.

The obvious option would be the rubbish truck. There doesn’t seem to be any other option for anything intercepting him with suitable cushioning to prevent him from dying. He must have landed in there.

Did he get lucky? No. I reckon Sherlock must have worked out that Moriarty wanted him to commit suicide to complete his story, and so he has this all set up, including exact timings. He would have found out what time the bins are usually collected, or there is another option which I’ll return to later.

That explains how he might have survived the fall, but not how we saw “Sherlock” dead upon the ground. Molly’s help is enlisted, and working, as she does, in the morgue, she will have access to cadavers. Find one that fits the symptoms of a severe trauma from a heavy fall, make it up to look like Sherlock and you’ll fool most, but not John. Surely not?

John can’t have been seeing straight. He saw what he feared he would see. When have we heard that before? Why, in The Hounds of Baskerville of course, with the gas that causes terrifying, suggestible hallucinations. So, give John some of that and he will see the dead Sherlock he fears he will. How would that be administered? By the cyclist – only option.

NO WAY. No way Sherlock could have organised that collision between cyclist and Watson. Apart from with the homeless network. That he could have done. He could also have arranged a similar thing with the rubbish truck. Because Sherlock picked the location, we can safely assume that he is in control of the environment to a reasonable degree.

Here’s the problem. Witnesses. Moriarty pointed out that there’s a crowd. People are milling around, buses are going past, and people rush to the body very quickly. It would be an unreasonable degree of control if it’s suggested that he controls all the people going past St Bart’s. So, how does the cadaver get there? Because at no point can that body be Sherlock’s. If it were, he would be very dead, which he isn’t, so it can’t be him.

So, how does Molly get the cadaver out onto the floor and how do people not notice that Sherlock actually landed in the truck? Molly must have dropped the cadaver from a lesser height – third or second floor, something like that. Then, it’s a magic trick. You see the body fall, you see a body hit the ground. Suggestion, distraction – it may well be seen, but it is not perceived.

Ok – even I’m not convinced by that last bit, but I can’t see any other way.

So, over to you Messrs Moffat and Gatiss. How did you do it?

Hard and Fast

The District and Circle

Are filled with prepubescents tonight –

Awkward, oblivious & nervous

In their youth.

And am I not a little envious?

Well,

Happiness is fleeting,

Unless it comes

Once in a while.

I’ve envied passers-by more
When they were with friends

Than when they were with lovers.

Your lover’s not my lover

After all.

Though she may share the same body

As mine once did,

Her face is somehow different.

And mine is waiting behind some other visage now –

By good grace, I hope,

Less mercurial than before.

There’s a reliability –

Sweet Reliability! –

In the laughter that has no other requirement

Than that you

(and it could only have been you)

Said that:

When people value not

That you have been funny,

But that you have been

You.

These friends I see,

Unknowingly across from me,

May not last,

But their memories will endure –

Through thick and thin,

Sickness and health,

Richer and poorer –

Hard and fast.

The 17:00

Fair Waverley, nestled in the ‘Burgh,

‘Neath castles and bridges,

A hidden gateway to the carnival above.

Fair Waverley sends us trickling, then trundling, then hurtling

Into the views of cliffs and forests of fir

And past rivers and seas quietly rippling.

Stirrings of magic here,

In the age-old glacially sculpted hills.

Wisps in the trees?

Endless childhoods of boundless imagination,

Flit past the eye as the train gathers speed

And a stirring brews with this quickening -

The heart rushing to keep pace.

Then, ‘cross the Tweed,

Into the elegant North,

The proud North,

The grand North:

Forged by its sons and its daughters

Into a breathing Turner,

A multi-dimensional Constable,

Replete with castles and cathedrals of stone and steel.

Teeming Newcastle gives way to stately Durham,

And vistas tumble forth like dreams

As the Lark ascends.

Onwards! Southwards!

Towards Summer’s heat -

Away from Summer’s sun.

Then comes the lingering warning.

Yorksire is undulating beauty, from Godliness to grimness,

As men spurned the divine for devilry,

Senselessly building Drax, Goole and Donny.

The clouds are gifted a corona of early evening sun,

And the violent, vivacious land revels below – majestic to the brim –

But steadily, imperceptibly declining.

The Midlands: pleasant monotony,

Dimpled and disturbed by small peaks and troughs of homes and hills.

A tame, mellow pastoral symphony –

Troubled by the rushing onward,

Onward,

To the metropolis.

As it draws closer, the dull accedes.

Dull, dull, flat, flat, flat,

Dull Anglia.

Flat Anglia.

Anglia – a melody of nothing

Save the cacophonous spouts of man’s unimagination.

And dull Anglia’s “jewel”: direst Peterborough.

Plastic, grey, vividless.

City of dark in the light.

Scented with all pervading hopelessness.

Saved by the sunset and the moon was Anglia.

Crescent glaring down on the Rothko painted death of day.

Divinity saving humans from men.

Then dark outside, and nothing to be seen, until,

Suddenly, Finsbury,

Before rolling stock slows respectfully for Islington,

So as not to disturb the middle classes,

Or clandestine, ill-fated political deals.

And finally grand but homely King’s Cross, and journey’s near-end.

What a vibrant mausoleum this is.

Filled with memories, once sweet, now bitter –

Or perhaps now mercifully bittersweetened

By the calming truth of life’s contradictions accepted.

The lark has now descended,

And a gently smoking saxophone teases through the night,

Under the looming lights, beneath the glass and steel.

Where are the stones and the hills?

Left some hours behind and

Buried beneath some years ago.

Only painted memories live here now

And, when time comes, merciful portals of escape,

To a splendour too crudely spent,

To a wealth that cannot be measured,

Beyond the accountant’s towers.

Equinox

Blue light on the leaves that fall

As they twist and turn on the breeze.

Past glories sadly admitting to present beauty.

The descent a slow and final dance.

Where is the heat of the sun?

Only remembered, in the ghostly forest –

Grey overhead and brown underfoot.

The promise is whispered in the branches

Of new roses coming into bloom –

But not now.

For when the sun breaks through bright

It shines cold on the skin.

Spark

My head turns to catch it,

But it is vanished in the trees.

There! Again!

This time it is truly glimpsed –

A floating ember slowly turning to flame,

Before flitting to nothing between the evergreens.

Again! Again! Again!

Like a will o’the wisp

And ever swifter.

It smokes into a blaze and disappears –

Dances through the forest

Abandons all paths.

It gains a voice,

Resonates with song

Echoing off the trees.

And, imperceptibly, the flame billows into form.

She glances over her shoulder –

Laughing, teasing with delight.

She promises everything.

She guarantees nothing.

Growing.

Consuming all sight.

And all the while vanishing,

And reappearing.

She lights all.

Devours none.

Then

Fades into song alone.

Leaving all alone

With nothing but fragments of music on the wind.

And the dimmed day upon the fallen leaves.

The Unenviable Life Prescribed

Ignore for a moment the media scrum. Forget all the many things which are ridiculous about this. If necessary, allow Republicanism to subside for a bit, and just focus on the noumena of the situation - the bare facts of what is about to happen.

A new child is about to be born. This is wonderful and beautiful, but in no way extraordinary or miraculous. It happens all the time. Move beyond that and see everything else that is about to happen to this particular child and just as a human story it's dizzying.

This child will be front page news the day it is born and the day it dies. It will be one of the most photographed human brings ever. Every stage of its development will be painstakingly followed by billions of onlookers. When they go to school, we'll all know when and where. When they have their first love, the romance will be broadcast, analysed, and dissected.

They have no choice of career. They have nothing to worry about, but little to dream of. Theirs is a life prescribed - a duteous pathway from which it is hard to deviate.

Now remember that this is nothing extraordinary. It is just a new child. Look at the life prescribed and apply it to yourself. Give due weight to the side-effects there of. Is it to be coveted and resented? 

Some people see their lives as a film in their heads, each moment caught by the unseen and often critical director in their minds. Now, imagine that director externalised, with his watching eye and his critical voice, showing you the rushes of your life in real time, and providing an unending and unwanted string of comment on every move you make. That is what the child is instantly heir too - a life in front of the unblinking lense. The concept is dizzying.

There shall be tremendous joy in this life. Few will have two million people cheer down the Mall at you for your very existence, but it is we who also make this child's life not as enviable as might be imagined. 

The child has the love of its parents, its family, a nation and vast swathes of the onlooking world. I wonder of those latter two. Will they also afford the infant the understanding it deserves?

And the Living Rooms of the Nation Exploded into Joy

Ramblings on the madness and mayhem of seeing a Brit win Wimbledon

He and I have one thing in common. Neither Andy Murray or I have any memory of what happened on that last point. I know that he served. I know that the point was awarded to him. I don’t remember if he hit a winner or if Djokovic lost the point. All I remember was jumping up and down, screaming like a lunatic with a number of others, and knowing that the living room I was in was like countless others around the country. A British man had won the Wimbledon title for the first time in 77 years.

Lord knows how many millions – how many hundreds of millions – had dreamt of this moment: the moment where, by hook or by crook, a British man would be “All England Lawn Tennis Club Single Handed Champion of the World”, as the trophy proclaims. No-one – not one person – could have known what it would be like to be alive when the final ball crashed into the net (Djokovic did hit it into the net - I checked). It was perhaps the single greatest moment of sport I have ever experienced. Better than any of the partisan footballing triumphs I have seen. Better (just) than the Ashes being reclaimed in 2005. I can only imagine that England finally getting over its paradoxical sense of entitlement and inferiority, before actually fighting to claim the Football “Coupe de Monde”, and then doing so, could top this.

Do you want a match report? Look elsewhere – I can tell you very little. It was a match of high quality, even if (thankfully) Novak Djokovic did not bring his superlative, very, best game. The rallies were extraordinary. These two are capable of doing things with a racquet that defy belief. When a point looks almost certainly lost, they see opportunity, They are deservedly the best players in the world, and any encounter is instantly going to be classic. It was extraordinary, and there were countless moments when my comrades and I had to say “Fair play to Djokovic”.

However, I cannot tell you what happened in sufficient detail. It was not a match one remembered in detail. It was a living, breathing thing that one experienced. The question was not “What’s the score?” The question was “How’s he doing?” Was he ahead? Was he behind? Numbers like 6-4, 7-5 and 6-4 again meant nothing. It was all about being there, in flesh or in spirit, and being absorbed.

There was no greater example of this than the final game. Murray had three championship points. Three! Surely, this was the time. Surely, there was nothing that could stop this now. We all believed. It would be blasphemy not to have faith. Nevertheless, one-by-one, the points slipped away and suddenly we no longer believed that the 77-year wait was about to end. Rather, we believed that the most astonishing sporting collapse could be about to happen. That from the most invincible position, the Scotsman might produce a calamity that even the England cricket team would be incapable of.

However, he somehow survived and then, somehow, won in a manner that Goran Ivanisevic might have thought a little risky. God knows how, but he did it. He bloody did it, and a nation roared with joy.

The relief was terrific and it is a memory that was instantly immortal, but, obviously, Wimbledon has blown it. They don’t have a next series. Like when a TV show answers the “Will-they-won’t-they?” with “They will”, there will never be the same height of interest. We should all sidle off now. However, I sense that we’ll come back for more. After all, did you know that by 2014 we’ll have been waiting for one year for a Wimbledon champion?