“Yes, there exist men whose way of ‘conquering the enemy’ is to seduce and ill-treat their women. Why do you find it so strange: it has always been one of the main tactics in ugly wars, right up until the present.”

That reminds me of that scene in Braveheart when the King of England used to grant his noblemen “Prima Nocte” – the right of the lord to have sex with a subordinate woman on her wedding night. This was done out of spite to the Scottish. It has been around since at least medieval times.

Baxxter’s fan-club spans the generations, literally.

Perhaps. I just think he’d had to have a foothold among that class if he was dating one of their number.

[Daphne – Definitely not. He got his claws into her because he was her much older teacher and impressed her with his ‘glamour’. Three years on, and he wouldn’t have stood a chance.]

Anyone who’s really socially disadvantaged (me in my youth, for one) knows that rich, posh girls are out of our league. But then maybe times have changed.

[Daphne – They’re not out of your league. But they are out of his: for reasons other than his social background, viz. he’s ugly, stupid and very irritating. And seriously unpleasant. Plus he has no prospects and never did, which is a major factor. You, on the other hand…]

Erin Tanti is not a boy, and hasn’t been one for five years.

I think it is straining the evidence rather too far to say that Erin Tanti was motivated by class envy. He was, after all, firmly established among the new intelli-cool class. Hardly bottom of the heap.

[Daphne – As we used to say 30 years ago: you wish.]

Pat Zahra –

This is not used as an excuse to revile all teachers, but some schools really need to take a look at whom they employ, and what goes on on their premises.

One summer, my children attended summer drama school, which was organised and run by an independent school’s (though not St Michael’s) regular after-hours drama school.

One day, the children were asked to wear old clothes (or, I believe, swimwear) the following day. Mine opted for the former. It turned out that their male drama teacher took loads of different fruit to school on the appointed day. He then played various types of music, and asked the children – some aged 11, others a bit older, yet still children – to smear the fruit all over themselves, according to the rhythm, and depending on what inspiration they get from/feel with the music.

Needless to say, my children felt extremely uncomfortable it, without realising the kinky implications, and have not returned to that summer school since. I, on the other hand, had no idea what was going to happen, or would have found some excuse for them not to go that day.

Did I lodge a complaint? No, because I have done so on other occasions, and ultimately it backfires on the children. And also because there have been other occasions were my point of view has been thought of as the weird one in such an ‘open-minded’ country.

The teacher’s idea might have worked with a class of kinky adults. But with children? And (presumably) with his superior’s blessing?

Is it too hard to expect the management of this school to resign? Like hell would l put my child in this place.

Surely the parents of children attending this school at the moment are concerned. Apart from the lack of diligence in taking on Tanti, the comments which have been made by some of his pupils reveal an education which has seriously gone wrong. I refuse to accept the sweeping statements that “this is a new generation” and “teenagers nowadays are different”. We were all teenagers, and most of us knew almost instinctively what was morally wrong and unexcusable at all costs. Why would this have changed now, a mere 20 years or so on?

The (many) children who came out in favour of Erin seem to lack a fundamental part of a decent education, one which cannot be measured in grades and career opportunities. Who cares about grades, when you’re churning out children without a backbone?

“I really hope justice will prevail and since he said he wants a slow death may the guilt he has to live with be enough for him not to lift his eyes off the ground for the rest of his sorry life.”

My thoughts exactly. That is if this beast can even feel guilty.

Forget bleeding Mintoff for a minute.

[Daphne – Why? He’s the perfect example of the mentality I’m trying to describe to you, a mentality you clearly don’t understand or think even exists because you have never experienced it yourself or think it possible. Yes, there exist men whose way of ‘conquering the enemy’ is to seduce and ill-treat their women. Why do you find it so strange: it has always been one of the main tactics in ugly wars, right up until the present. Outside a war situation, you get one to become your ‘love slave’ and then proceed to demean her in every way possible.]

The point is that the difference in the social status of the “players” in this tragedy is neither here nor there.

[Daphne – Not in terms of the criminal proceedings, no, but most certainly in terms of his motivation in choosing this particular girl and behaving as he did towards her.]

I don’t think anybody in his right mind (besides a burglar) would get a thrill in being in someone else’s house when the owner isn’t in … or something like that.

[Daphne – Oh you have led a life of innocence, haven’t you. Not only do certain kinds of people get a thrill out of being in the houses owned by specific people (especially when the owner isn’t there and they are there as guests of the offspring), but some of them then proceed to do as much spiteful damage as they can. I was at one party, when I was 16, when a few boys and girls who we had always thought of as being all right (16-year-olds can be very inclusive) trashed the entire place and were clearly enjoying pouring drinks on the carpets, burning holes in the sofas, and smashing the glass of cabinets ‘by mistake’. I certainly had a moment of epiphany then: I remember thinking, ‘My God, they’re doing it because they’re jealous, and because they hate their hosts for what they’ve got while pretending to be their friends. And they’re most definitely not one of us.’ I suddenly saw those individuals as the rank outsiders they were, and it was their envy and simmering hatred that marked them out, when suddenly placed outside the usual context of a bar or the beach, and inside a house owned by The Others instead.]

This is exploitation of a vulnerable adolescent at the hands of a manipulative person. Don’t read anything else into it because there’s nothing else to read.
To borrow a phrase from Palahniuk (he of “fight club” fame): “fixation isn’t the right word, but it’s the first word that comes to mind”.

[Daphne – That too, of course. This is not an ‘either or’ situation.]

And Guz, it is not a suicide but a horrific homicide.