'I assumed the Glittercution would feature dry ice, disco lights, and a hundred party poppers going off as his neck cracked'

I'm the pleader... The Execution Of Gary Glitter.

Don't know about you, but sometimes I can't sleep at night for wondering what it might be like if Gary Glitter were executed. I just can't picture it in quite enough detail for my liking. Would they fry him? Gas him? Or pull his screaming head off with some candy-coloured rope? I can never decide, and it often leaves me restless till sunrise. Thank God, then, for The Execution Of Gary Glitter (Mon, 9pm, Channel 4), which vividly envisions the trial and subsequent capital punishment of pop's most reviled sex offender so you don't have to.

I can't believe what I'm typing: this is a drama-documentary that imagines a world in which Britain has a) Reinstated the death penalty for murder and paedophilia, b) Changed the law so Britons can stand trial in this country for crimes committed abroad, and c) Chosen Gary Glitter as its first test case. It blends archive footage, talking-head interviews with Miranda Sawyer, Garry Bushell and Ann Widdecombe, and dramatised scenes in which Gary Glitter is led into an execution chamber and hanged by the neck until dead.

He's not just swinging from a rope, mind. The Glitterphile is all over this show, like Hitler in Downfall. There are lengthy scenes in which he argues with his lawyer, smirks in court, plays chess with the prison chaplain, weeps on the floor of his cell, etc. Visually, we're talking late-period Glitter, with the evil wizard shaved-head-and-elongated-white-goatee combo that makes him resemble a sick alternative Santa. It would be funnier if they showed him decked out in full 70s glam gear throughout, being led to the gallows in a big spangly costume with shoulder pads so huge they get stuck in the hole as he plunges through. I assumed the Glittercution would feature dry ice, disco lights, and a hundred party poppers going off as his neck cracked. But here there's not so much as a can of Silly String. This is a terribly serious programme.

Yes. It's illegal to laugh at this, see; it's not a comedy show, but "an intelligent and thought-provoking examination of the issue" which "confronts viewers with the possible consequences of capital punishment in the UK". There's going to be an online debate afterwards and everything, which should help clear up all our thoughts about the death penalty. Let's face it, none of us really knew where we stood until we were "confronted" by the sight of Gary Glitter staring wretchedly at an expectant noose. It really crystallised things, y'know? Before, I always thought of hanging as an abstract, faraway event existing only in ancient woodcuts or the minds of passing clouds. This makes it so much more real. My sincere thanks, Channel 4, for the searing moral clarity I've been granted. By the way, is the real Gary Glitter going to be taking part in that online debate thing afterwards? That'd be awesome.

What with this and the previous Killing Of George Bush drama-doc a few years ago, the Channel 4 family is establishing itself as the home of thought-provoking celebrity death fantasises. Now they've whacked a president and strangled a paedo, what next? How about a two-hour drama-documentary that wonders what Britain might look like if al-Qaida attacked the Baftas? Lots of detailed close-up slow-motion shots of bullets blasting through the ribcages of absolutely everyone off Coronation Street, that kind of thing. It'd really kick-start that debate about terrorism we're all gasping for. Perhaps it could solve it altogether.

Or what about a mini-series showing what'd happen if you kidnapped a bunch of newsreaders and X Factor contestants and kept them on a remote island and glued masks on their faces and fed them LSD and MDMA for two years until they started killing each other and rutting the corpses and shoving bits of blunt stick in their eye sockets and howling at the sun? That'd help society explore its relationship with authority, celebrity, identity, controlled substances, sex, violence and sticks. And God knows we need to. Help us, Channel 4. Guide us. You're our moral compass. You're our only hope.

My first young adult novel, Little Brother, tells the story of a kid named Marcus Yallow who forms a guerilla army of young people dedicated to the reformation of the US government by any means necessary. He and his friends use cryptography and other technology to subvert security measures, to distribute revolutionary literature, to liberate and publish secret governmental memoes, and humiliate government officials. Every chapter includes some kind of how-to guide for accomplishing this kind of thing on your own, from tips on disabling radio-frequency ID tags to beating biometric identity system to defeating the censorware used by your school network to control what kind of things you can and can't see on the Internet. The book is a long hymn to personal liberty, free speech, the people's right to question and even overthrow their government, even during wartime.

November 7th, 2009 by Ben Goldacre

This is important for one simple reason. If you wish to justify a policy that will plainly increase the harms associated with each individual act of drug use, by creating violent criminal gangs as distributors, driving the sale of contaminated black market drugs, blighting the careers of users caught by the police, criminalising 3 million people, and so on, then people will reasonably expect, as a trade-off, that you will also provide good quality evidence showing that your policy achieves its stated aim of reducing the overall numbers of people using drugs.

Jim Stevens standing next to his truck with the image of Jesus on the window. The image has been there for two weeks and appears every morning when the morning dew is on the window.
(Lee Talbert / Johnson City Press)

Did Jesus take the wheel? Jonesborough resident claims image of Jesus appears in truck window

By Brad Hicks
Press Staff Writer
bhicks@johnsoncitypress.com

 

Jonesborough resident Jim Stevens admits he’s not a particularly religious person, but even he is awed by what he has seen nearly every morning for the last couple of weeks on the driver’s side window of his Isuzu pickup truck.

It was two weeks ago today that an image, resembling the face of Jesus, made its first appearance on the window. Stevens, who said he has a “bum shoulder,” was having friends from Rogersville help move some items. He entered his truck from the passenger’s side to put his drink inside the vehicle. He said when he went around the truck to the driver’s side, the image was there. Initially, Stevens said he figured the image would go away and that would be the end of it.

But since it first showed up, a morning dew has led to the appearance of the image. Later in the day, when the dew from the morning evaporates, Stevens said the image goes with it. However, when the dew returns the next morning so does the image on the window. Even rolling the window up and down has not stopped it from reappearing.

Stevens said no matter who sees the image, the reaction is the same, as a recent trip to the grocery store proved. He said a woman at the store had seen the image prior to him entering. By the time Stevens had bought a few small items, a number of the store’s employees and patrons had been out to catch of glimpse his window.

“There was no doubt when they came out they saw what they saw,” he said.

Stevens said he has not done anything to or had anything in the truck to explain the sudden appearance of the image. However, he’s not ready to see it go.

“Of course, I’m not going to wash it,” he said of the window.

Stevens said he believes strange things happen and that he has no explanation for the image on his truck’s window.

“Why it happened to me, I don’t know,” he said. “I have no idea.”

Who's taken my fur coat? Vets baffled by bald bears with mystery condition

By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 12:37 PM on 05th November 2009

You'd have thought a fur coat would have been the ultimate bear necessity.

But not for the unfortunate Dolores who has lost all her body hair and has just been left with a few tufts around her head. 

Vets have been left baffled by the condition of the bespectacled bear, who lives at a zoo in Leipzig.

Bare-faced: Dolores has a condition which means she has gone totally bald

 

And Dolores isn't the only one. The sudden hair loss has affected all female bears at the zoo. 

Some experts believe it could be due to a genetic defect though the animals do not seem to be suffering from any other affliction.

The bears, which originate from South America,  normally have fluffy dark brown fur and would now be growing a thicker fur coat to keep warm during the winter.

Wrinkly: All the female bears at the zoo have the same condition. They have become a bit of a crowd puller

 

Where's my fur coat gone? Dolores still has a ring of fur around her face. She lethal claws are clearly visible

 

But instead they have developed nasty rashes and inflammations on their skin.

Unfortunately for the bears, their lack of hair has been pulling in the crowds who want to see want to see the wrinkly animals.

Hopefully the zoo will be turning up the heat in their enclosure.

Full head of hair: These is how Dolores would have looked before she lost her fur. The spectacled bears have a thick, dark coat normally

'There is nothing we can say to reverse the situation,' Met police watchdog tells relatives

• Paul Lewis
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 5 November 2009 17.17 GMT
• Article history

Ian Tomlinson's widow Julia and his son Paul. Photograph: David Mansell/Guardian

The family of Ian Tomlinson, the man who died at the G20 protest after being attacked by the police, has been told it would be "inappropriate" for an official watchdog to consider whether officers were involved in a cover-up.

Five members of Tomlinson's family, including his wife, Julia, attended a public meeting at London's City Hall today to complain that events surrounding his death were being ignored by officials.

They told the civil liberties panel of the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA), which is conducting an inquiry into the protests, that police tried to "cover up" police involvement in his death, an aspect of the controversy which they feel has been ignored.

Tomlinson, 47, collapsed and died near the Bank of England on 1 April, minutes after a member of the Met's territorial support group struck him with a baton and pushed him to the ground. The newspaper vendor, who was walking home from work when he was attacked from behind, also received suspected dog bites to his legs.

"We hope your report will look into whether police tried to cover up our father's death," Tomlinson's son, Richard King, told the panel. "We feel we were led down the garden path. We do feel it was a cover-up from the beginning. He [was struck] in front of 18 officers. Not one of the officers came forward to say they witnessed what happened. Not one of the officers went to give him first aid. Not one of the officers went to help him off the floor."

His brother, Paul King, added: "There have been four inquiries into the demonstrations and the policing of G20 and we want to know why the dog that bit Ian, the baton strike and the push to the floor have not been mentioned. He was an innocent man on his way home. We have lost our dad."

However, Victoria Borwick, the Conservative chair of the panel, told the family that she believed it would be "inappropriate" for the MPA – the body responsible for holding the force to account – to take up their concerns. "There is nothing any of us can say to reverse the situation of what happened last April," she added. "We are extremely sorry."

After the meeting, Borwick said she meant to say her committee would take legal advice on whether it could investigate the alleged cover-up.

Within 24 hours of Tomlinson's death, police became aware that their officers may have been involved in a physical altercation with him. However, in public, police refused to confirm there had been contact and resisted calls for an independent investigation until five days later, when the Guardian revealed video footage of the incident.

The officer who struck Tomlinson was suspended from duty on full pay. The Crown Prosecution Service has indicated it will decide whether to charge him with Tomlinson's manslaughter in the next two months. An inquiry by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) into complaints the Met and City of London deliberately misled the public about Tomlinson's death has yet to conclude.

Among several reports into the policing of the G20 demonstrations has been a report from the Met, two parliamentary inquiries and an official review by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, the national watchdog. All have made just glancing references to Tomlinson's death, claiming they cannot prejudice the investigation into his death.

However Tomlinson's family point out that concerns which are separate from the criminal investigation into what caused his death – such as their belief they were "deliberately misled" by police – have not been addressed.

When an initial postmortem found Tomlinson died of a heart attack, the family were not told that the pathologist also found large amounts of blood in his stomach, bruising on his body and bites on his leg. Instead, they were told by police at an early stage that witnesses had seen him "run out of batteries". A second postmortem found he died of internal bleeding.