After The Riots (a short-story)

After The Riots

By Paul Seaton

James looked at his clothes.  The tracksuit bottoms looked right, the boots looked right.  But the hoody looked out of place.  He pulled it back down and flipped it up again, over the baseball cap.  The peak hid his eyes well this time, and the thin black scarf he’d borrowed from his Dad (not like he’d need it, he wasn’t going out tonight) doubled up around his head to cover his mouth and nose.   He grabbed his keys off the hook, slipped the short, wooden rounders bat into his loose-fitting trousers, and caught his reflection in the hallway mirror next to the front door.  

It was his Dad’s bat – he’d used it as a boy for games at school.  Now it was sticking out of the top of his trousers.  James remembered sitting at his Dad’s knee when he was young, listening to the story he used to tell.  The bat had connected with a ball so hard that he’d almost run round all four bases before it hit the ground; that was the tale.  The game was won with that hit, and his Dad had been allowed to keep the bat because it was the end of term.  James smiled slyly at the mirror, and patted the bat.  Tonight it would be put to different use. 

The first thing to hit him was the smoke.  It had hung like a cloud over this part of London for nearly two days now since the first serious night of rioting, since this so-called Copycat Civil War began.  But tonight it wasn’t like a loose cloud, drifting higher, leaving a trail of bitterness in the nostrils whenever you ventured outside.  Tonight it was fresh smoke, with flames visible over the top of the houses opposite.  It was happening right now, and James knew he had waited long enough.  He had been waiting for the right moment to join in.  That was now. 

He ran like a child, his arms flailing, and the rounders bat shifting against his thighs as he searched for the right people.  The people he wanted to be with.  He cut through the massed looters, many of them smashing the large door at the front of a chemists.  He wasn’t interested in small business like that.  There were a number of gangs circling a large electronics store on the corner, and he looked among them.  He was smaller than some but bigger than others, and he moved his eyes quickly through the crowd.  It was important which gang he was a part of as they mad the attack.  The sirens sounded distantly, but they were getting closer.  The adrenaline really was something.  He didn’t think he’d feel it quite so much, but it was there, hammering round his veins and filling his body with an urgent energy he’d never felt before. 

Looking around, James saw one lad who was barely a teenager – his hood hanging down loosely over his forehead as he clumsily threw a bottle of whisky looted from an off-licence onto the rapidly-growing pyre of the last shop that had been raided, a branch of WH Smith.  Flames licked the glass front to the store, while smoked billowed from the top of the building into the grey night sky.  That was what they did, the looters, once the shop was barren, it was a husk, to be destroyed, burned from the inside as they left and from the outside as the loot was counted in the street.  There were no police in this area at the moment.  They’d been there last night for several hours, but right now the time was right. 

Finally, James saw the other members of the gang he wanted to be a part of.  He’d watched them last night, staring out at their activity from his bedroom window, his eyes red-ringed with exhaustion, but compelled to watch everything unfold.  Every attack, every thrown brick, every harried bystander.  It was the fuel behind him tonight, pushing him on, drawing him towards them, and he had to push past a couple of others to get to them. 

“Take the doors!!” The cry erupted from the ringleader.  He was tall, wearing a grey tracksuit, the hood pulled tight around his face.  Only the milky-white eyes stared blankly out at the scene as it unfolded to his decree.  Twenty or thirty of the youths surged forward, wrenching the metal bars open, and clawing their way into the building like animals.  They piled in like flies on a dead dog, and James joined the rush as they made their way inside.  The guy in the grey tracksuit remained outside, conducting the madness and waiting for the squeal of tires on the approach to the road that would herald the police arriving at the scene. 

It was a large shop, with one floor set out openly displaying iPads, iPhones, televisions, computers, hi-fis and other electrical goods.  Everything had a value, and James took part, swiping items from the shelves, pushing his hands into his pockets frantically, and helping one guy pull a mounted television from the wall.

“Get it down, get it down, yeahhhh!” yelled the man.  He was a bit older than James, maybe in his early twenties.  James braced his right foot against the floor, grinning with the boy as they shouted and growled and cheered as finally the 50” screen wobbled, and then came free.  They pulled it down gradually, as if to protect it, then caught each other’s eye and threw it gracelessly against the display surface, smashing the plasma screen in several places and crushing a dozen or so display digital cameras.     The man helped James down to the ground, and pulled him clear of the broken glass that was scattered across the floor. 

“James, safe. Cheers for the help.” James said, offering his hand.  The man pulled his thumb towards him and gripped him like James had seen them all grip the night before.  He reciprocated the motion and they bumped chests.

“Ariol. Let’s get the fucking…”

But Ariol was interrupted by the jamming of brakes and the brayed cry from others inside the trashed shop.

“Leg it!!!”

“I know where we can go. Follow me.” Said James, and they both ducked back under the makeshift exit and back into the street.  All around them were red and blue lights, and riot police coming at them.  There were ten, twenty, maybe more.  They looked organised and most had weapons or shields readied.  The man in the grey tracksuit had disappeared, and the youths that had electrical goods had either pocketed them or dropped them as they ran, like cockroaches.

James led his new friend through the streets, taking the back way.  They ran fast and hard, their breath hot in their throats as they first evaded the riot teams at the precinct and then dodged the regular police patrolling the side-streets.  James approached his house via the back door, and booted the door open violently.  He held open the door for Ariol, and Ariol raced inside.

“Shut the fucking door, shut it!” he shouted, and ran further into the kitchen, which was at the back of the property.  James shut the door and pulled the kitchen table across the floor, knocking a bowl and cup onto the floor.  They smashed on the tiles, the china skittering around the room as James barricaded the entrance.  They huddled against the wall as the noise and smoke raged outside, waiting to know if the coast was clear.  The house was in darkness, save for the light coming from outside, which with streetlights and the flashing blue and red light, was enough to see quite clearly.  They waited, tense, and Ariol withdrew a hunting knife.  He held it flat to his leg and smiled at James as he withdrew the rounders bat.

“Fucking old school, blood.  Like it.”

They waited for what seemed like hours but in reality were just a few minutes.  Staring at the door, imagining the first shadow of a policeman, the shout for back-up, the rush towards the door and pulling the table away before the attack, the relentless attack, because this wouldn’t work without that.  James snapped out of it, and guided Ariol into the living room.

“They ain’t coming here.  We’re clear, mate.”

Ariol grinned, that same smile, his eyes shining in the streaks of yellow light that came through the crack in the curtain.  James’s Dad was always telling him to pull them properly, but he never listened. 

“Wha’d you get?” asked Ariol, pulling cameras and a couple of memory storage devices out of his pockets.  He sheathed the knife into a full pocket.  James pushed him into the living room, happy to get out of the kitchen with its glass door.  Anyone could see in if they were walking – no, running, they would be running he taught as the sound of another bottle of alcohol exploded out in the street – past his house.   And it was his now, he owned this place.   It was an odd feeling, that.  Powerful?  Was that what it felt like?

Ariol was sat at the living room table, hunched over his spoils, flicking through the goods like a market trader searches for stock in boxes, quick and easy, familiar fingers dancing over well-used products.  Ariol had done this before. 

“I got a few bits, you know.” James answered belatedly, entering the living room himself and feeling for the light-switch.  He kept his other hand, his swinging hand, on the bat the whole time.

“Wish we hadn’t got interrupted, we would have burned that place, man.  Burned it to the ground.  Fucking pigs.”

“Yeah.” James said absently, but he was already thinking about other things, his mind not focused on what Ariol was saying.  It was a dimmer switch, and he brought the lights up slowly.  Easy, he thought, nice and easy.

“First night was the best, for real.  Such a rush, man, we ran this way as well.  Shit, I think it might have been this house…probably why there’s no-one here.  We cased the joint, took the jewellery, TV, box, everything.  Was easy once we…”

And then he saw him.  Ariol looked up from the cameras and USB keys that lay on the table in front of him and saw the man he’d killed on Monday night.  James’ Dad.

“Once you’d dealt with things.” James said quietly, and before Ariol could go for the knife, he swung the rounders bat swiftly and brutally towards his quarry.  Ariol lost both front teeth before he lost consciousness, and his head whammed back, cracking the back of the dining chair he’d grabbed.  He slumped to the ground, out cold. 

***

When Ariol woke, he was looking at James’ Dad again.  Only this time his hands and feet were securely tied to the dining chair and that in turn was bound with rope to the table.  James was just looking for the loose end of masking tape when Ariol spoke. 

“Whaf…you fu…” Ariol tailed off, his mouth in agony from the anaesthetic-free dentistry he’d recently experienced.  He’d been unconsciousness for twenty minutes, and coming round hurt.  But he struggle impotently against his bonds with ferocious anger.  James looked up from the masking tape, frustrated. He didn’t say anything.

“You know, it isn’t me you got to worry about, it’s my ends.  They’ll be here and when they find me, they will kill you, you get me?  They’ll take you apart piece by piece little boy.”

Finally, James broke his silence.  He tried to stay calm.  What was coming was going to be difficult, but he had made his mind up long ago.  He had come to several resolutions whilst standing at the window of his bedroom on Monday.  It was a night he would never forget.  The realisation that his Dad had been stabbed to death in front of his eyes was bad enough, but to have to lie there, under his Dad’s bed, cowering while his idol and protector died at the hands of such animals was unbearable.  It had changed him, not over great time but with profound effect.  He was simply not the same person any more. 

“Don’t struggle.  My Dad struggled, look what happened to him.”

And of course Ariol still was looking at it.  The rictus grin, the head, tilted grotesquely on the left shoulder, as if to say ‘I’ve travelled to the next life – won’t you join me.’  Ariol looked away, at the light coming through the curtains.  There was no crack in them now.  They were closed tight. 

“Look, you were there, right, what, in the cupboard?”

“Wardrobe…but no.  I was under the bed, holding onto the slats, looking at my knuckles as they turned into hot coals.  I think you’ve said enough.”

“Yeah, right.  What you gonna do, kill me?”

But James wasn’t shocked by the word.  He had put a lot of thought into what it meant to take someone’s life and although it meant nothing to some people, it was something that was beyond him.  He wanted to take the rounders bat and beat Ariol to a bloody death.  He wanted to wreak personal and bloody vengeance on him for what they had done.  What they had all done.  But he knew he wasn’t capable of it.

“I’m not going to kill you.  You’ll be killed by your own, I would have thought.”

Ariol started shouting, but James was quick, and got the tape on with the minimum of fuss.  One more swipe of the bat and Ariol was out for a little longer, giving him plenty of time to make himself and Ariol (and Dad of course, he would never forget Dad) comfortable.

When Ariol woke, some of the glare in those milky eyes was gone.  His head sported two lumps, but his eyes were crying out like a feral wolf.  He didn’t evoke terror, or power or anger.  He was cowed by fear.  And it looked natural to James. 

“My Dad was the best, you know?  I know everyone says that but he was.  What did you want to know about him?  Oh…right, you can’t tell me.  Well never mind.  I’ll tell you.  I checked the news while you were asleep.  Apparently the riots are moving on, but they’ll be back tomorrow night, won’t they?”

Ariol closed his eyes, blinking slowly, and reluctantly opening them again.  He shifted his weight, but the chair might as well have been soldiered to a steel floor.  He tried to focus on James.  Listen to the kid, don’t look at the Dad, he thought.  Never look at him.  He’ll take you with him if you look at him.

“I think most people round here will be pretty scared for days.  Most curtains closed, I reckon, yes.  Anyway, I want to tell you everything, give you a chance to get to know my Dad.”

Ariol struggled again against his bonds, shouting through the tape.  It was a squeal, like the tires on the tarmac outside the electrical store.  It barely made it to James’ ears. 

“OK, before I do that, let me tell you what’s going to happen.  I was vague before, and I apologise, but it’s been a very hard few days.  Do you know how long you can survive without food?”

Ariol shook his head slowly.  His eyes darted around the room, looking for something to give him hope.  He could see the telephone, which ran to a wire that had been cut. 

“Three weeks – that’s the good news.  The television says the riots are going to go on for days.  Your friends.”

This time, the head-shake was quick, urgent.

“They’re not your friends?  It don’t…matter…now…does it blood?” James said, the voice just a little off-kilter.  It would have felt like madness, a little screwy perhaps, but no-one really steps back from anger to see it for what it really is, do they?  Certainly James didn’t.  He was almost too calm. 

“It’s three days without water.  Three days, Ariol.  I’m going to try to keep you safe during that time of course.  I’ve barricaded the doors and I’ll be here to look after you.  Me and Dad.  I wonder how long these riots will go on.”

Ariol tried not to look at the Dad.  Really tried.  But it was no good. 

“Did I ever tell you about my father’s bat?  What makes it so special?”

Ariol didn’t move.  He was fixed on the Dad’s face now, the eyes.  How long would it be before…?

“Of course I didn’t.  Well, it’s a great story.  You’re going to enjoy it.”

Publishing Your Writing

If you're a new writer, one of the first questions you'll be asking is 'How can I get my work published?' Becoming a professional author is one of the greatest achievements in my life, and I have always maintained that although its a special feeling, it is a feeling that anyone can share in.  There's an oft-quoted phrase that goes 'Everyone has a good book in them.' - it seems improbable, but its absolutely true.

Finding a publisher is one of the most difficult obstacles that stands in the way of any writer.  The Writers Handbook is a vital piece of literature that gives you not only inspiration (yearly authors change to constantly inspire, even with the passing of years!) but a comprehensive list of agents, magazines, and where to send articles, novels, stories or scripts makes it an invaluable tome, the writers bible as I and other professional writers call it.  You really can't get enough good advice on how to improve your writing, but I found that after working on my books and taking others' advice, I was still stuck for a publisher.  The Writer's Handbook helped an immense deal.

Another helpful book which is a little easier on the wallet is the excellent How To Be A Writer. It's a great book for someone who's just starting out, and although some of the tips can sound a bit basic, it covers every base out there.

Stewart Ferris has put together a lot of bite-size pieces of industry-influenced advice that helps you pick through the pitfalls and tread a more confident path.  I've found that going back to this book has re-affirmed sections of my own work, and bolstered my enthusiasm in other areas.

Best of luck if you're starting out, and should you have any questions about certain specific stages you're not too sure about, then feel free to contact me by commenting on this blog or following me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/PaulSeaton

The Silver Sheen

Writing for television or film is a different beast to any other writing. And boy, it needs taming.

For a lot of writers, there are constraints in many different areas of their work. Money is chief amongst them of course. Any professional work needs to have commercial appeal if it is to keep you in the profession. If it only jumps off the page to two or three people, hell, ten or twenty, then its a hobby. But writing commercially is a balancing act at all times. What appeals to the general public? Is your work still original, creative, unique? Those questions can go head-to-head like Dane Bowers & Alex Reid (or not) but sooner or later, they have to be answered.

Television and film-writing is tough. Really tough. The British actor, writer and director David Schneider puts it brilliantly in an excellent film blog I came across this week : http://kidinthefrontrow.blogspot.com/2010/01/interview-with-actor-writer-comedian.html where he talks about the difficulty of getting a viable, popular script out there and made. But before that stage, creating the commercially appealing work is tricky enough in itself.

Editing is something that I constantly hear from Producers and other writers is the crucial thing. Writers can have a fear that the first draft is going to be diluted somehow by being edited, that it will lose its original lustre like a dusty vase left in the sun. The opposite is almost always true. Roald Dahl once wrote that the odd writer comes along who writes and is a genius, such as Charles Dickens. He then adds that someone like this comes along once every two or three hundred years, and that you (the writer reading Dahl's immortal words) are unlikely to be the next genius. And boy, is he right. Dahl wrote in a clear, detached way, of course. His first short-story took his seven hours - and a couple of whiskies - to complete. It made him just shy of $1000 unedited. But it was a one-off, and his next collection, upon which some would say his career was built was edited well, and it shows in the text. His career, of course, went from strength to strength and he became the legend he is now, not just for his children's books, but his adult work, the excellent My Uncle Oswald being one I've been enjoying immensely this week.

Dahl, who wrote the James Bond screenplay for You Only Live Twice, told how difficult that project was. Writing for the screen has limitations in size - something that clashed with his Big Friendly...er...imagination. These days, a lot is possible. An apocalyptic disease that wipes out the universe apart from Times square might once have been impossible to shoot. These days, as films such as I Am Legend and Vanilla Sky show, it isn't just possible, the idea is doable for film directors like never before. But the issue of budgetary constraints has hit the TV and film industry hard. Comparatively overnight, Hollywood, Pinewood and Bollywood budgets were halved overnight. Television no longer resists the urge for so-called 'reality' tv projects, most of which cost them nothing to cast, and little to budget in terms of set-up costs. To get commissioned now, your TV script needs to be under budget, low-cost in terms of cast and scenery, as well as appealing to hard-nosed executives, who rightly have to make harsh decisions on what script even makes the practical stage, let alone shooting. Film-wise, even the best script needs to justify itself financially, above and beyond artistic merit. Depressing? It could be - but independent films such as 2009's Harry Brown and Let The Right One In still managed to make good profits as well as warm the hearts of critics and audiences alike.

Perhaps nowadays the challenges and demands of scriptwriting are harder than in years passed. But the rewards are still worth it, and any success earned is more commendable than ever.

How The Years Pass

I know I normally write about writing. Which is normal, I guess. Writing inspires, frustrates, clouds and expands my mind in equal measures, and those measures are doubles. But today, right out of the blue, my mind got distracted from thoughts about my wife, my baby girl or my writing, all of which vie for space in that Hampton Court maze.

I was busy, really busy. Rushing around, doing a million things at once, not even looking at the clock between hours. And then, all of a sudden, I went back three years. At the time, I thought it might be only two years, wasn’t sure if it was three or two, but then I thought that it simply couldn’t be two. I was back at my Nan’s bedside, holding her hand, feeling her paper-thin skin in my hand, not knowing what to say.

I’m known as someone who always has something to say; an opinion, a reaction, an idea (I hasten to add, not always something worth saying, but said it nonetheless is.) If I’m quiet, something is up. But the day my Nan died, I was stumped. It’s not a moment in one’s life that you can prepare for - saying goodbye to someone for the last time.

I think maybe my mind was triggered by the emotional and moving accounts of three wives whose husbands were killed in Afghanistan. None of them got the chance to say goodbye, but all three wanted to, it came through in their words. If you get a chance, listen again to it here, it’s just under an hour, but I promise you, five minutes and you’ll want to hear everything the three women have to say.

Anyway, back to the hospice, the empty room, the silence. I like silence most of the time, I spent six months talking for a job, I talk a lot. But not knowing what to say, I felt almost guilty. Like I was letting my Nan down. I am just by calling her that. She was never Nan, always Grandma, said grandly, but in a nice way. And there were a million stories, memories, reminiscences about her incredible life and the richness and jollity she brought to mine. Every game of cards we ever played when she visited she won. I’m not talking generically there, she won every single one. It was like she had a magnet. If she needed an ace, it found her. If you had two aces, she had three*. She once wrote me an account of her experiences in the war. It was to help me understand it, and then, in History class, I’d be ahead of the game. Well, I could hardly read it. Her writing was almost inscrutable. Perfectly legible to my Dad, whose own style has loops and curls that outwit but to my own young eyes, it took a lot of work to make sense of it. But eventually I did, and when I told her I enjoyed reading it - it was brilliant - she told me about a story she wrote when she was younger, called the Burrowers. It was about a group of animals who lived underground.

The silence was broken by a nurse who came in to change something, I forget what. I asked her whether my Grandma would wake up. None of the family who had been with me in the room until a few minutes earlier (rotation had been employed) had asked the question, I guess because we were all afraid of the answer, whichever way it was answered. I imagined the answer would be difficult to deliver, but the nurse kindly told me : No. Suddenly, I knew what to say, that made it easier somehow.

It’s not exactly three years, but today I missed my Grandma. She was a great woman.

*A harmless joke, Grandma.

Method in my Madness

Writing is something that a lot of people believe to be constant, unchanging. And to a great extent, they're right. Writing is essentially the conquering of the blank page, as it always has been. Whether that's for the purposes of wringing emotion, laughter, pathos or ethos from your reader, it's basically been the same forever. But the method to that writing has altered considerably, not just over the last century, but my own writing life, which loosely I credit with starting in earnest near the beginning of 1997.

I would have loved to have written in Victorian England. OK, there would be no Spellcheck, a very basic Thesaurus, and fewer opportunities for publication. But the idea of writing by Quill and Ink, of sealing letters with red wax stamps, candlelit writing at a bureau stocked to the gills with notepaper, random notes, research books, maps, the idea thrills me to even think of it. However, my own methods of writing have changed enormously, and looking into them, they're no less interesting in reality.

I began writing a novel, which is odd to me really, as that desire didn't resurface after that for a full six years. Aged 18, and mid-GCSE's, it seemed at the time like more of a distraction from tedious revision. I made no notes, I just started writing, and it was called Alert, and based on my favourite TV programme at the time, Red Dwarf. There were three parts to it, 'Blue' (Alert), Mauve (Alert) and Red...well, you see where my primitive style was going. It was fairly imaginative, but went nowhere, and was handwritten, on A4 lined paper.

My second foray into writing was scrawls. Those random Victorian notes I dreamed of I guess. What I wrote were jokes, often puns, or observations. I stuck them onto the fridge of the pub I was cooking in, being a chef at the time (it's still a four-letter word to me) and in the evenings, rehearsed the delivery of them until I made myself laugh. It wasn't easy. And whilst it led to performances alongside Ross Noble and Tim Vine on a few stages, it didn't lead to the fulfillment I was looking for.

Having changed locations a lot, my writing style changed to screenplays, two plays were started and the experience of writing these stood in me in good stead. Again these were handwritten, the year was 1998, but I had no computer. All my work was handwritten. This continued in my writing of short-storied, a short film, more performance stuff, audition pieces, etc. It continued all the way up to my debit novel. The original copy of Cats Don't Eat Pancakes was handwritten, all 367 pages of it, and edited by scrawls in the margin, on the page, everywhere. It was a mess. Such a mess in fact, that when Micaila persuaded me to type it up, turn it into something solid and do something with it, it was a huge amount of work. Editing on the computer was difficult, time-consuming, slow and uncomfortable.

I still make a lot of notes, little pieces of paper, that eventually get copied up into a book. Nowadays though, it's more about the surrounding environment - desk-space, soft-light, chapter plans or logistical guides to how I progress the script or book with each chapter or scene. All those things are important, and yet the desire to make notes and develop these into chapters, scenes, whatever. My writing method is making a note, copying it, typing in a peaceful environment, printing it out and tearing it apart so that the person I give that work to (long-game, the reader) doesn't tear it up also!

Back To The Writing Board

It's an odd feeling; the idea of returning to something that is such a constant. But writing a new project, any new foray into creative pursuits of writing always brings twin senses to my mind. Excitement and fear.

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." A powerful quote, attributed to Franklyn D. Roosevelt, but adopted forever after by U.S. Presidents, Prime Ministers from any country going, and anyone who steels themselves against what is to come. I think what we also fear at times is the successes we have disappearing. They say rich people only fear the loss of their money; that's what makes them greedy, stingy and mean. Well the creative mind fears the lack of imagination, the possibility that the inspiration will dry up or the ideas will cease to come. I know I do, even if at present I have two ideas to work on.

Returning to script-work whilst writing a third novel is daunting, but challenging. That kinda goes without saying, I know, but balancing those twin emotions is what keeps me going. It's all about learning to love the blank page, not fear it. Each page gives me the chance to write something that will thrill people, bring them to the edge of their seat, not think of switching over. Writing for television has its additional thrills and demands, of course. The script essentially needs page-turning moments regularly.

Where a novel (my novel, I hope...) can come together slowly, building the imagination of the reader, the viewer is a different beast, and requires a very different kind of feeding. Action, drama, plot and suspense, all in three separate hours (at least until I pick up my editing scalpel!) - it's going to be juggling I've not done since March, when I wrote a screenplay that is currently in production. I'd be dishonest not to admit that payment for that project is an inspiration for new material, but not the financial aspect, more the feeling of earning my way in life through work that is close to my heart. It's an amazing feeling, and one worth going after with all of my effort.

To that, and the possibilities of another week at the desk of choice...

24 vs Josef Fritzel - Don't Have Nightmares...

Last night’s schedule on Sky One was textbook. They don’t muck about with news and cookery programmes on Sky. Oh no. It’s two hours of The Simpsons to soften you up, then it’s a double bill of scary programming to keep you shuddering into the small hours (where they hope you’ll eventually stumble blindly towards the Sky Poker channel).

24 (Sky One, 9pm) and Josef Fritzel - Story of a Monster (Sky One, 10pm) were a less-than-jovial return to the kind of horror double-bill that forced teenagers out of cinemas in the 1970’s, blinking and shaking into the night, terrified by their own shadow. But which was most scary?

Imagine the sky filled with explosions. And bodies. And guns. You’re not even close to 24 : Series 7. I say the following as a fan, but after six full series of 24, and a writer’s strike delay, America’s most iconic export in terms of television drama returned in January with so much hype piled up behind it, any feint dabbing of the brakes would result in the whole structure crashing down around its ears. So the pace gets faster and faster year after year, and this series has not been a disappointment.

Explosions? They don’t cut it after 6 years. New President? We’ve had one every year since 2000 - it’s almost expected. You’ve got to up the ante. We’ve had so many returning characters, I almost expected Jack’s wife to turn up in the form of a ghost, floating behind Jack as he careers around corners, slamming vehicles left, right and centre, to remind him that his daughter doesn’t speak to him any more but when she can, she’ll email him. Tony’s already returned, which was fine, but he was joined by everyone from Chloe ‘invincible yet spiky’ O’Brien, via the now-white-haired Bill Buchanan to Chloe’s brilliantly bonkers husband Morris O’Brien, whose beard is threatening to swallow his face whole. Everyone’s onboard, that is, apart from Elisha Cuthbert, who one imagines is casting anxious glimpses at the programme from her trailer on whichever crud movie she is starring in next.

The 7th series of 24 has already fought a raft of controversy from commentators across the pond, who have accused it being neo-Con, which basically translates to it favouring the use of torture of held terrorists, i.e.the sort of thing that was demonstrated in Bush’s Guatanamo Bay, as opposed to the now-elected Obama’s stance, that being to burn Guatanamo to the ground as quickly as possible. 24’s producer, Joel Surnow has defended the early episodes of series seven, saying it was never in favour of torture, merely that it wanted to display the problems agents face when a lack of time and a resistant captive could be prescient to an impending disaster. Of course, this makes sense (to a degree) in the fictional world of 24, and Jack Bauer ably brings this scenario to the fore when after vital information. But it’s certainly interesting that, with Obama coming to power a third of the way through the series, this thinking is reversed - or at least the other side of the argument is portrayed - after Obama’s inauguration.

Anyway, politics is not the core of this series. It’s big bangs, gunfights, violent fighting, the whole kit and caboodle. The President has been slapped about like a marinated cod, Jack has undergone more physical pain than a Guatanamo resident himself, and the whole world’s about to end. Everything is an Nth more attention-grabbing than the series before, to such a degree that the next series will probably centre around a squiggly virus that inspires such levels of psychotic rage and destruction that the entire cast will be wiped out by episode three.

With barely time to make a cuppa and exhale, Josef Fritzel : Story Of A Monster (10pm) was Sky One’s attempt to beat Panorama to the punch of a documentary around the mad Austrian, following his lifetime incarceration in a psychiatric hospital last week (on my birthday - thanks Fritz). The problem with rushing old footage together, and cramming interviews from all and sundry into a documentary before anyone else has the chance, is that the whole programme had the feeling of something that isn’t quite ready yet. Fritzel was seen looking maniacal snarfing back a rack of beef or some such meat. In slow-motion. With darkly menacing music behind it. Come on, Sky One, doesn’t anyone look slightly ghastly slobbering on a meat joint in slo-mo? Sixth formers are less obvious in their HD-digicam-ready performances of Romeo ‘N’ Juliet these days. We get it, he was a monster.

Opinions on Fritzel were predictably varied, with him being described as, at turns, “a despot” and others, “a good natured man”. What struck me as unusual about the case as it was re-traced with all the delicacy of a 5-year boy making his first tree-rubbing, was quite how stark and obvious the tragedy that was about to unfold before us must have been to those closest to it.
Remember how you felt when you discovered that Ian Huntley had a record as long as your arm about preying on young girls in previous counties, following his conviction in the Holly and Jessica tragedy? That sense of shock and disgust at the glaringly awful disaster that was waiting to happen, and how it could have been prevented. This sense was magnified exponentially in Fritzel’s case. Here was a man who had previously kept his daughter inside to prevent her socialising with her friends to such a degree she fled her family home in an escape-attempt with her friend. Fritzel was had - incredibly - already been convicted of rape on a previous occasion too. His wife, who took him back after this ‘misdemeanour’ (he only served one year of an 18-month sentencefor the rape) was portrayed as a weak, servile cretin, who pandered to the maniacal Fritzel’s every insane whim. Make of that what you will (they said the same about Rose West in the early reports)

But the story’s sense of disbelief didn’t stop there. I had read the headlines and listened to the news bulletin leaders thinking that the ‘family home’ they spoke of was just that. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Over a HUNDRED lodgers lived in the same building over the 24 years poor Elisabeth Fritzel remained a prisoner of her deranged and disturbed father. One told of partying in the flat above her cellar with no knowledge of her existance - footage was grainily but chilling, the merriment above mayhem making for an abhorrent spectacle. Another lodger told of how his dog used to snarl at the floor of his apartment in the silent hours of early morning. How tragic that the dog’s insight was never followed up, only the victims could relay, and one was left with a sense of loss just by watching the story unfold.

Fritzel, it was revealed, released three babies from the underground cellar under the pretence that the supposed runaway daughter returned them (no doubt near-blind from never having seen natural light) by dropping them off on the family home’s doorstep. No-one but Fritzel was allowed into the cellar (”Don’t go in there, the handle might electrocute you.” ). This was taken as read by those around Fritzel, and the clues kept racking up. Fritzel was seen on a friend’s camera footgae on holiday buying a dress which didn’t fit his wife, but would have been a perfect fit for his ‘missing’ daughter. The friend’s mortified disbelief at the monster who stayed hidden under the cloak of friendship for so many years was galling. But there again was that sense whilst watching that the programme had been thrown together - other players in the sad history of Elisabeth’s life foresaw a degree of what happened, but it seemed all too familiar that those around him took Fritzel’s word as the law, and more importantly, the truth.

Shocking, and yet presented in a glossy, OK-Magazine run by stoners kind of way, the Fritzel documentary prompted me to exclaim “But how could that happen?!” an incredible number of times. Indeed, it would have been a record, if I hadn’t watched 24 first.