An Inspector Calls (me a sicko)

It's interesting that murder has become quite a glamourous thing.

It's the ultimate crime - ending someone's life.

But it's become a staple of entertainment. Daytime TV is full of murder-mysteries, from Diagnosis: This Guy's Dead, to Stabbing She Wrote, the execution of another human being is not just acceptable, but entertaining; sometimes charming.

There's a certain jollity to the whole thing. I suppose murder has been the basis of so much art, that's it's just become a part of everyday thinking. It's part of the bloodstained wallpaper, it's the garrotted elephant in the room.

It's interesting that we fetishise this crime in particular. The same panicky moral guardians decrying the decline of the world are happy to watch someone killed, as long as the murderer is wearing a tuxedo and played by a credible character actor.

You never get an episode of Midsomer Murders where someone is killed, and the rest of the episode is about the psychological impact of this horrific act - just 45 minutes of sobbing in the bath. It would be boring.

It's also interesting that murder can be quaint and homely in these programmes, and intense and disgusting in films like Saw. It's weird that you can sit and watch a suspicious vicar killed on a village green with a cricket stump, and then go to the cinema to watch a screening of the latest gorno splatterfest, where the stump is used in a much less pleasant way.

I'm sure people think this is a terrible thing. But I quite like the variety available to the discerning murder connoisseur. It's just the explanation of ideas in different ways. Just because an idea is unpleasant, doesn't mean it doesn't merit exploration. I'm really pleased that we live in a world where we're allowed to use art to look at anything we want. There's probably some innate human fascination with killing, so different people have looked at it in different ways. We can use ideas however we want, and the diversity of our creations is pretty exciting.

I don't really want to watch Midsomer Murders or Saw. But I'm glad they're around.

But it's funny that it's only murder is acceptable. I don't think you could have a daytime ITV show about a pair of bumbling detectives trying to solve rape cases.

It just wouldn't pull in the viewers. I suppose murder has a kind of clean ending. Once someone's dead, you can draw a line after it. With rape there's a bit too much of a disturbing aftermath. And no-one wants to deal with that in the middle of the day. They'd probably turn to Countdown, where rape only exists as a disappointing four-letter word (in any case, you should probably choose 'pare', for propriety's sake).

It's difficult to match the glamour and sophistication of a good old-fashioned murder. Not on a council estate or anything, but in a grand country home, in the 1920s, with people wearing feather boas and waistcoats. In that context, the slaughter of another human becomes a symbol of upper-class gall. It's like sending young teenagers to their deaths at the Somme - regrettable, but ultimately a bit of a laugh.

I was planning on setting up a special weekend getaway, to give people a taste of this world. I know people who have been to murder mystery weekends and had a great time. Unfortunately, my Paedophile Mystery Weekend has started to seem quite ill-judged.

The premise is simple: a group of people, all playing characters, arrive at a stately home. On the first night, it will be revealed that a child has been sexually abused. The rest of the weekend involves trying to track down the culprit, by deciphering a series of clues.

Before they arrive, each person is given a card with their character on it. They also get told whether or not they're the child molester. When I sent out the cards, people didn't seem too keen on playing their roles for some reason.

Here are a few of the characters:

Barry Bitter

A washed-up glam-rock singer, villified by the British tabloids, returning from Asia to stay in the stately home for some reason.

Max Plunk

A strange bearded man with a bag full of sweets, who's come to stay in the stately home for some reason.

Mr Fingers

A former schoolteacher sacked from his job under mysterious circumstances. He wears glasses, and his legs jiggle about. He has a creepy voice, and is staying in the stately home for some reason.

Madame Chandelier

She runs a brothel and is addicted to absinthe. She wears a necklace of human ears, and is staying in the stately home for some reason.

Father Seamus O'McShamrock

A priest who smells and sweats, and always wears gloves. He owns the stately home. For some reason.

Apparently the scenario lacked the 'romance' of a murder mystery weekend. I suppose one mistake was making everyone the culprit, and it just became a bit of a seedy and unsettling idea.

My second mistake was asking people if they'd mind volunteering their children for the part of the victim. It's only an acting! But still, some people can be sensitive...

It just goes to show the odd moral hierarchy that people construct. Isn't killing someone as bad as abusing someone? It must be the same ballpark.

(My third mistake was having the child character both abused and killed. It didn't really give me any kind of moral grey area to play with).

I suppose it's just going to be me in that stately home this weekend. Playing all the characters myself.

For some reason.

***

I realise that I got off track with that elaborate scenario. But can we all just agree that I was making a genuine satirical point, and that I'm not sick?

Thank you.