Public mock latter-day lunatics

May 29 2011 by Ian Robson, Sunday Sun

IS David Charlton a criminal in need of punishment or a mentally-ill man in need of treatment?

It’s not an easy question to answer as viewers of the documentary series Strangeways can testify.

The prisoner has become a star after cameras exposed his dirty protest in the Manchester prison.

He has a Facebook page dedicated to him and is an attraction on YouTube.

His antics include soiling himself, refusing to leave a wheelchair even though he can walk, and constant abuse towards prison staff.

Charlton, who used to live in Washington, is undoubtedly an unpleasant man who is challenging the system.

It would be tempting to brand him a despicable human being and leave it at that.

Yet his appearances on Strangeways, warts and all, show either a bad man or a mad man and that’s the crux of the matter.

I don’t know if Charlton belongs behind bars or in a mental hospital but I do know that he is not served well by the documentary series which has made him famous.

I suspect there is an element of entertainment, rather than pity, in some of those who access the Facebook pages and the YouTube videos.

In the old days, members of the public used to gather outside the gates of lunatic asylums to laugh at the inmates.

Nowadays they simply click a few buttons to do what is essentially the same.

Charlton has left a trail of misery in his wake but he should not have been turned into a freak show.

Anyway, he wasn’t the worst the North East had to offer viewers last week.

I was going to ignore the car-crash TV that was Geordie Shore but the eight self-obsessed egotists who are taking part in the MTV show are just too grotesque.

Do people really behave like that? Should MTV have encouraged binge drinking and casual sex?

I felt sorry for David Charlton and felt nothing for the trashy boys and girls in Geordie Shore.

Singing while you scrub up

IT takes about 20 seconds to go through a verse of Old McDonald Had a Farm which is, coincidentally, the same amount of time needed to give your hands a good scrub.

I am indebted for this piece of vital information thanks to a public notice in a Newcastle loo.

Never associated the two things before but, apparently, we’re only giving our hands a cursory cleansing and need to spend a bit more time getting to grips with the grime and that’s where Old McDonald comes in.