I'll start with a complaint about the BBC. Well, what's new?

It really annoyed me that for several days the BBC website reported a vague claim that the further revelations of photos from Abu Graib were 'even worse' than the previous ones. This phrase was taken from the reactions of Senators who were given a private viewing of materials that in the light of Nick Berg's killing were to be (sort of) withheld from the public domain. You know, there are anti-war Senators out there, and even Democrats (shock), but the BBC reports the 'even worse' comment (unscrutinised) religiously among its headlines for days.

But what did the Senators mean by 'worse'? Well, I have heard no new revelations (we still have the naked prisoners, the leash, the masturbatory activities, the dogs, but no really fresh concrete images. These, of course, are more than we wanted). What I have heard is that 'Congress members, who viewed shocking new pictures of abuse in the Iraqi jail, said England appeared in a sicko video having sex in front of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and that she was snapped in graphic sex acts with other U.S. soldiers.'

And you know, I'm thinking that we in Britain used to make Carry-On films about things like this. And I'm wondering whether (hypothetically, as time's winged chariot hath taken many of the cast away and wrinkled others beyond repair) we could get away with Barbara Windsor as Lynndie England (phnaargh, phnaargh) and Sid James as Spc. Charles Graner (we could change his name to 'Boner').

But what I'm really thinking is that for days the BBC has been kidding its readers into imagining that the Abu Ghraib affair is worse than we've been told, and that means that instead of degeneracy (which we could have comfortably ignored) we've been visualising torture, and so have radical clerics in Basra and elsewhwere.