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| Burke and Hare – murderers? Don't be so callous | Burke and Hare – murderers? Don't be so callous |
| (4 months later) | |
| There has been a great deal of misunderstanding about Alice Cooper's controversial song I Love the Dead, the last track on his classic 1973 Billion Dollar Babies album. Many have dismissed it merely as an unsophisticated and juvenile attempt to shock by glorifying necrophilia. I, on the other hand, have always thought that it is possessed of far more profound cultural significance. | There has been a great deal of misunderstanding about Alice Cooper's controversial song I Love the Dead, the last track on his classic 1973 Billion Dollar Babies album. Many have dismissed it merely as an unsophisticated and juvenile attempt to shock by glorifying necrophilia. I, on the other hand, have always thought that it is possessed of far more profound cultural significance. |
I love the dead before they're cold, | I love the dead before they're cold, |
| . | . |
| The song, I feel, can help those of us who are either contemplating death or who are struggling with the loss of a loved one. Perhaps, too, it gently mocks those who take the business of death and dying far too seriously. As such, Alice's challenging but sensible lyrics would have provided an appropriate soundtrack to a meeting last month of Holyrood's education and culture committee on the regulation of the press. This was the Scottish government's latest desperate attempt to appear relevant in the debate on press regulation post-Leveson. The meeting was simply about adding a couple of splashes of tartan into any royal charter on press regulation decided by Westminster. Under the charter, the Scottish Parliament would, of course, have no say in any amendments to the charter or its dissolution. | The song, I feel, can help those of us who are either contemplating death or who are struggling with the loss of a loved one. Perhaps, too, it gently mocks those who take the business of death and dying far too seriously. As such, Alice's challenging but sensible lyrics would have provided an appropriate soundtrack to a meeting last month of Holyrood's education and culture committee on the regulation of the press. This was the Scottish government's latest desperate attempt to appear relevant in the debate on press regulation post-Leveson. The meeting was simply about adding a couple of splashes of tartan into any royal charter on press regulation decided by Westminster. Under the charter, the Scottish Parliament would, of course, have no say in any amendments to the charter or its dissolution. |
| And lo, it came to pass that in some Holyrood committee room last month, a cadaver of ministers, MSPs and assorted Scottish newspaper editors spent an entire afternoon, which can never, ever be recovered, deciding to insert an amendment to a royal charter. It will, heretofore, be known as the Alice Cooper clause. This would ensure that "appropriate respect and sensitivity was paid to the recently deceased where the only public interest in them was in the manner of their death, and their near relations". | And lo, it came to pass that in some Holyrood committee room last month, a cadaver of ministers, MSPs and assorted Scottish newspaper editors spent an entire afternoon, which can never, ever be recovered, deciding to insert an amendment to a royal charter. It will, heretofore, be known as the Alice Cooper clause. This would ensure that "appropriate respect and sensitivity was paid to the recently deceased where the only public interest in them was in the manner of their death, and their near relations". |
| The clause is utterly meaningless, vapid and open to such wide interpretation that it could become dangerous in the hands of those who will always seek to hinder a free press: politicians, the police and the judiciary. | The clause is utterly meaningless, vapid and open to such wide interpretation that it could become dangerous in the hands of those who will always seek to hinder a free press: politicians, the police and the judiciary. |
| The amendment is merely a clumsily constructed disguise for what it really is: the beginning of a journey that, if some people get their way, would result in "defamation of the dead" legislation. If Scotland were to become independent, there would be very little to stop such legislation occurring. As things stand, Westminster will simply have a chuckle to itself at the Scots' historic and cultural fascination for matters pertaining to the graveyard. | The amendment is merely a clumsily constructed disguise for what it really is: the beginning of a journey that, if some people get their way, would result in "defamation of the dead" legislation. If Scotland were to become independent, there would be very little to stop such legislation occurring. As things stand, Westminster will simply have a chuckle to itself at the Scots' historic and cultural fascination for matters pertaining to the graveyard. |
| Nor has this come about because Scottish newspapers have a unique tendency to dance on the graves of the deceased. Dear Lord, no. In fact, the obituary pages of Scotland's two mighty broadsheets are among the finest of their oeuvre. It is simply the result of two stories, written more than 20 years ago, by two of Scotland's finest writers, Jack McLean and Meg Henderson, about events surrounding the playground murder of a schoolgirl by one of her schoolmates in Glasgow's East End. | Nor has this come about because Scottish newspapers have a unique tendency to dance on the graves of the deceased. Dear Lord, no. In fact, the obituary pages of Scotland's two mighty broadsheets are among the finest of their oeuvre. It is simply the result of two stories, written more than 20 years ago, by two of Scotland's finest writers, Jack McLean and Meg Henderson, about events surrounding the playground murder of a schoolgirl by one of her schoolmates in Glasgow's East End. |
| In attempting to unravel some of the complicated issues surrounding the case, including sentencing policy, each of these writers inadvertently caused distress to the surviving family of the victim. Neither McLean nor Henderson, each of whom is unimpeachable in their journalistic ethics, did anything that could be construed as illegal or unethical. At worst, they were insensitive and possibly wrong-headed. | In attempting to unravel some of the complicated issues surrounding the case, including sentencing policy, each of these writers inadvertently caused distress to the surviving family of the victim. Neither McLean nor Henderson, each of whom is unimpeachable in their journalistic ethics, did anything that could be construed as illegal or unethical. At worst, they were insensitive and possibly wrong-headed. |
| The sense of outrage of the victim's family may be understandable but what is not is the way that Leveson, Holyrood's culture committee and some Scottish newspaper writers have trashed the reputations of these two fine writers without allowing them the right to defend themselves. | The sense of outrage of the victim's family may be understandable but what is not is the way that Leveson, Holyrood's culture committee and some Scottish newspaper writers have trashed the reputations of these two fine writers without allowing them the right to defend themselves. |
| I fear now that civic Scotland's desire to be the greatest wee nation in the world for not offending people (dead or alive) may be about to come to fruition. Soon, we may need to rewrite the standard accounts of the lives and deaths of some of our more colourful and edgy characters and deliver them from rebarbative obituary writers. My top three for revisionism are: | I fear now that civic Scotland's desire to be the greatest wee nation in the world for not offending people (dead or alive) may be about to come to fruition. Soon, we may need to rewrite the standard accounts of the lives and deaths of some of our more colourful and edgy characters and deliver them from rebarbative obituary writers. My top three for revisionism are: |
| 1. Sawney Bean Executed in the 16th century for killing and eating more than 1,000 of his fellow human beings (or human beans, hence the surname). Mr Bean, a native of North Ayrshire, had been an agricultural entrepreneur of some note before he fell upon hard times after being conned by English landowners. He was head of a clan of 48 who would starve if he didn't do something about it and pronto. The product of a Catholic education, he soon became the subject of baseless innuendo linked to the deaths of local mendicants. The ruddy and well-fed faces of his followers in a time of economic privation led to jealousy. The tendency of his relatives to play chess with human heads was merely circumstantial. | 1. Sawney Bean Executed in the 16th century for killing and eating more than 1,000 of his fellow human beings (or human beans, hence the surname). Mr Bean, a native of North Ayrshire, had been an agricultural entrepreneur of some note before he fell upon hard times after being conned by English landowners. He was head of a clan of 48 who would starve if he didn't do something about it and pronto. The product of a Catholic education, he soon became the subject of baseless innuendo linked to the deaths of local mendicants. The ruddy and well-fed faces of his followers in a time of economic privation led to jealousy. The tendency of his relatives to play chess with human heads was merely circumstantial. |
| 2. Ally MacLeod The football manager died a broken man and reviled by the nation following Scotland's failure to reach the last eight of the 1978 World Cup. MacLeod was guilty in the eyes of the nation of displaying those two character traits that were once deemed to be capital offences in Scotland: optimism and a sunny disposition. If Scotland had merely been shite throughout our stay in Argentina, the nation could have forgiven him. MacLeod, though, made the fatal error of coaching his side to a 3-2 win over Holland, the best team in Europe. This sealed his fate because it also made him perverse. | 2. Ally MacLeod The football manager died a broken man and reviled by the nation following Scotland's failure to reach the last eight of the 1978 World Cup. MacLeod was guilty in the eyes of the nation of displaying those two character traits that were once deemed to be capital offences in Scotland: optimism and a sunny disposition. If Scotland had merely been shite throughout our stay in Argentina, the nation could have forgiven him. MacLeod, though, made the fatal error of coaching his side to a 3-2 win over Holland, the best team in Europe. This sealed his fate because it also made him perverse. |
| 3. Burke and Hare These two harmless scallywags were executed for the murder of 16 people in the first half of the 19th century. Yet often overlooked is their substantial contribution to medical science in ensuring that Edinburgh's surgeons had a rich source of healthy cadavers to work on. Most of their victims were miscreants who had probably initiated assaults on the two Irishmen because of their religion. This was a time of widespread anti-Catholicism and the two stout Irishmen were probably just defending themselves. Just think, if Holyrood's Dodgy Sectarian Behaviour Among the Lower Orders bill had been passed 200 years earlier, this would never have happened. And Scotland would still be a third-world nation in medical science. Three cheers, then, for the chaps. | 3. Burke and Hare These two harmless scallywags were executed for the murder of 16 people in the first half of the 19th century. Yet often overlooked is their substantial contribution to medical science in ensuring that Edinburgh's surgeons had a rich source of healthy cadavers to work on. Most of their victims were miscreants who had probably initiated assaults on the two Irishmen because of their religion. This was a time of widespread anti-Catholicism and the two stout Irishmen were probably just defending themselves. Just think, if Holyrood's Dodgy Sectarian Behaviour Among the Lower Orders bill had been passed 200 years earlier, this would never have happened. And Scotland would still be a third-world nation in medical science. Three cheers, then, for the chaps. |
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