Sex scandals just ain't what they were!
SING-A-LONGS round the piano, clips round the ear, bobbies on bicycles, guilt-free smoking ...
The list of things we miss from a (probably mythical) golden age of British life seems endless.
I think with recent developments we can confidently add another item: sex scandals.
I'm talking about stories involving sexual misdemeanours that enable us to feel simultaneously titillated and sanctimonious.
A book by Matthew Parris and Kevin Maguire, Great Parliamentary Scandals, reminds us of some of the classics.
There's nothing here to match Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, but in our quieter, British way, it's fair to say we've done our bit.
During the Cold War we managed some spy-movie glamour with the Profumo affair of 1963, in which the Secretary of State for War shared a mistress with a Soviet naval attache.
(The Cold War – now there's a threat to national security we can feel nostalgic about. At least then we could use cool phrases like 'Soviet naval attache', instead of having to wrap our tongues around, for example, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.)
And Lord Lambton in 1973 was caught in a News of the World sting, in a colourful tale involving prostitutes, marijuana – and a camera hidden in a teddy bear's nose.
Perhaps because we're less easy to shock these days, the rent-boy confessions of the Lib Dems' Mark Oaten seem less intriguing.
In general we seem more tolerant of adultery among the third party. Perhaps it's the 'liberal' part of their name that encourages us to be more accepting of them.
Paddy Ashdown didn't seem to suffer from the publicity of his affair with Tricia Howard.
Whereas during the 'Back to Basics' period the Tories were badly battered in a barrage of revelations which, it was said, epitomised their hypocrisy.
With their expenses, MPs have given us plenty to be scandalised about lately.
But when it comes to sex, it's non-political celebrities who've hogged the headlines, in scandals that have been more depressing than intriguing.
Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand phoning up a veteran actor and leaving lewd messages about his granddaughter was depressingly juvenile.
Likewise Vernon Kaye and his text messages to page-three girls.
Footballers are of course habitual offenders.
Wayne Rooney's alleged involvement with a 48-year-old grandmother looks admirably independent-minded compared with some of the more prosaic misadventures of his peers.
Ashley Cole disgraced himself recently, again via the terminally naff medium of the erotic text.
I blame technology. Not only has it provided more ways in which philanderers can be caught out, it has also lent their philandering a virtual distance. In the good old days, according to rumour, John F Kennedy had women stashed in various rooms around the White House, just in case he felt the need to satisfy his 'addiction'.These days, JFK would probably be addicted to nothing more than sending blurry images on his i-phone.
The recent scandals involving footballers have left me more glad than ever not to be a fan of the so-called beautiful game.
The non-handshake between John Terry and Wayne Bridge last weekend reminded me that often it's not the glorious game itself I find off-putting, but the inglorious behaviour of those playing it.
awolstenholme@ywng.co.uk
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Weather for Batley
Wednesday 08 February 2012
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