People In Glass Houses...

It's a Friday morning, so that must mean it's time for Jon Massey to write something about me in his Diary column at the Watford Observer.

Today Jon draws attention to a picture of me on Facebook (not uploaded by me, I hasten to add) where I am in the Lower Sixth at School dressed as a lay-dee.

Now for a bit of a background. This was a charity fundraiser where many of the pupils entered a light-hearted competition to discover the next "Miss Rickmansworth". I was happy to be involved and am not that embarrassed about it.

At the time I thought I actually made quite a convincing woman - although on reflection, I actually look like a cross between Robert Smith from The Cure and Morrissey. :-/

(BTW not only did my girlfriend of the time know about it she lent me the clothes I'm wearing in the picture - and worryingly it's all my own hair too.)

I am slightly concerned why Jon is paying such attention to 16 year old boys dressing up as women on the internet, but unfortunately for him the Watford Observer is not allowed to republish the photo for copyright (and decency?) reasons.

For that reason I'm not about to republish the photos in question on this blog because such a move would put them into the public domain - instead I've added the only other picture I have got of me in a dress to accompany this piece, performing as a toga wearing St. Peter in a musical play last year. (I don't think the beard makes me look that feminine though!)

Of course, if I were Jon I'd be careful about starting the game of trawling through other people's Facebook entries to find embarrassing/incriminating photos of them. For example I have some very nice pictures of a certain young journalist down the pub looking a little the worse for wear making obscene gestures at the camera.

However I am sure that for "copyright" reasons I will not be tempted to reproduce them on this site, it is worth considering that if my photos turned up in the public domain I may have no choice but to add these other photos in "the public interest".

I think we have what they call in the movies (and local press) a "Mexican standoff".

Thank goodness for that!
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