The media has tracked the dwindling horizons of paedophile ex-rocker Gary Glitter (not so ‘ex’ if you believe this, at his appallingly written official website, which seems to regard the offences as little more than an inconvenience – Associated Press go favour ‘faded’ or ‘disgraced’) with understandable fervour. We have slid from one extreme to the other, with the monster at first ‘free to roam the world at will‘, like a wayward beast of the plains, before it became rapidly clear that he would not be allowed to go anywhere but Britain. There, ‘The Leader’ is required to sign the sex offenders’ register. At its extreme, this will involve Glitter being banned from owning a computer, accessing the internet and going anywhere that children might be; swimming pools, playgrounds, etc. This, and the seizure of his passport.
Throughout his post-prison ‘odyssey’ the Boys Will Be Boys singer has appeared not of this Earth, maintaining a demented, dislocated grin for photographers as he claimed heart difficulties, was repelled from Thailand, requested a VIP escort in Hong Kong and – after a ‘two day odyssey‘ (a short odyssey, by most standards) – returned to Britain. The strange beard that evokes an Eastern sorcerer persists in varying states of dekemptitude, twisting its way groundward with terrible purpose.
While he may now be ‘in hiding‘, Glitter appears to be doing so mainly in a parallel reality.
News hour, with Jerry Caesar 