So farewell then, Myra Hindley . . .

. . . a woman who should have received an OBE many years ago for services to the British newspaper industry. A generation of tabloid journalists are going to have to find a new meal ticket. Who or what will they dine out on now? One last splurge of stories and sales, and then Murdoch-et-al's minions are going to have to start working for a living.

A sorry sorry day.

This is the sort of thing weird French philosophers go on about. If he lived here, Baudrillard would be saying that the Moors Murders never happened. When (inevitably) challenged, of course, he'd explain that what he meant was that the media coverage had created an illusory awareness of the "Moors Murders" that was vastly more intense and common than awareness of the actual events, and far enough from the truth that it would be true to say that it didn't happen. This only goes to show that nobody who grows up with French as a first language should be allowed to indulge in philosophy - put the second way it's accurate.

The Grauniad is running a picture of Hindley today - but not the standard photograph. As befits the newspaper of trendy pseudointellectuals (Hi mom!) they have a photo of Marcus Harvey's portrait from an exhibition ("Sensations"?) at the Royal Academy a couple of years back. This picture, made using a stamp cast from a child's hand, also caused a media furore and earned huge amounts for the proprietors of tabloid papers - the same papers who had made Hindley's face so iconic in the first place. It's all so self-referential and ironic. If I was a mood to be post-modernist, I'd be celebrating this as a fantastic kitsch moment. As it is, I want to put all the journalists, editors and proprietors involved up against a wall and machine-gun them. It would be a mercy killing.

From (inevitably) the Guardian.

From an article today.

The cold-blooded murders of Revital Ohayon and her two young sons in their beds by a young Arab gunman last Sunday has not shaken Kibbutz Metzer's core belief in an independent Palestine. If anything, the killings have reinforced the conviction among its 500 or so residents that the peaceful coexistence they enjoy with their closest Arab neighbours is the only answer to Israel's problems.

"We were targeted because of our belief," said Dov Avital, the kibbutz's chief economist. "They wanted to show there is no such thing as coexistence. They think Palestinians should fight Jews. If they kill our dream, our vision of life, then they will have succeeded."

The belief in that vision - derided by the Israeli right as "pipe dreams" - was affirmed by the dozens of Arabs who came from villages miles away to express their sorrow at the killings on a kibbutz which is known for its opposition to Jewish domination.

Maybe there's some hope for the world after all.

When I got back from seeing Carter the Who's The Daddy Now (most excellent!) last night there was an envelope waiting for me, containing one (1) ticket to see Half (½) Man Half (½) Biscuit on Wednesday. Now, as long as I can make it to Sheffield . . .