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December 28, 2003

Townshend on Operation Landslide

The Observer | Won't get fooled again...

Pete Townshend is finally talking about his questioning and police caution for viewing child pornography and providing a credit card to a child-porn site.

Pete seems to not even know exactly what he was accused of, or the legal status of child porn in the UK:

He even says at one point: 'I feel that what I did was for the best of intentions, and I know I broke the law legally, but the law was broken when it was retrospectively changed. I wonder whether Blunkett changed the law to gather up the names that had been found by the FBI on the Landslide list. It's quite possible he did.'

This, in the words of John Carr, internet adviser to the children's charity NCH [National Children's Home], is 'the realm of total fantasy'. (Carr is actually a life-long fan of the Who, who tells me he has just bought the band's retrospective box set for his son for Christmas.) Carr points out that the current legal framework governing the viewing of child pornography was established in 1988.

If you have any interest in Townshend and The Who (and I think he's absolutely brilliant), this is a very interesting look into his personality, not just because of the accusations, but because of how he reacts to them.

There's a pretty good biography of Townshend available.

December 28, 2003 in Seen browsing | Permalink

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Comments

I'm not that big a fan: I think they were dynamite in the 60s and early 70s but can't listen to much of the stadium era stuff. Those tedious synth backdrops drove me nuts (like there's not enough Pete in the mix, with his having written the track and playing on it, we need this as well?).

As for his involvement in this child porn thing, I haven't looked into it: I just chalked it up to old impulsive Pete. (not that the whole quartet couldn't have used a little help on self-control issues . . . . )

Posted by: paul at Dec 28, 2003 11:37:41 PM

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