BAN IT. CENSOR IT. HIDE IT AWAY. PRETEND WE ARE DOING SOMETHING.

Predictably enough, the politicians have started to bleat the above (paraphrased ever so slightly) in the wake of Luke Mitchell’s conviction. Seemingly the reason he killed Jodi Jones was because he listened to music. OK, he listened to Marilyn Manson which, whilst possibly questionable on grounds of taste, is unlikely to have driven him to murder no matter HOW bad the music was (have you listened to any of his album stuff, it’s only glam rock).

The talk is of either banning sales of certain titles or introducing a rating scheme in line with movies and video games.

I’ll let that sink in, shall I? Yes, our esteemed leaders think that slapping a label on a CD that contains “demonic imagery” will stop under 18s buying it, listening to it and wandering our streets with a bloodthirst. This is the same set of leaders who constantly remind us how “in touch they are with the people of Scotland”. Seemingly we are to complete that sentence ourselves with the unspoken but generally understood sentiment of “who are like us, not the general riff-raff though”.

Has it escaped their notice that many CDs DO already come with a parental advisory sticker. Granted it’s an American system but it’s usually very obvious and I’m sure that the parents who vet their children’s music will notice it.

Wait. I think I see the problem. Gosh, but they couldn’t say THAT could they? It couldn’t be partly the responsibility of the parents, could it? No it would be too much to ask that they have SOME idea of what their 14 year old son is doing? Of course it would. How silly of me.

And before anyone jumps on my head, yes I realise that being a parent is hard and you can’t monitor your children 100% of the time but every parent knows their child well enough to know when something isn’t right, whether they then want to admit that is a completely different question.

And remember, today is both the most depressing day AND the 70th anniversary of the beer can.