A QUESTION OF BALANCE..

I`m all for fair play, even handedness, equality and all that stuff.  It`s just that sometimes the balance of fairness seems tilted too far one way or the other.   For example, I`m a big admirer of the awards given for Music of Black Origin - the MoBOs......so I look around for an awards ceremony for Music of White Origin - the MoWOs....and I don`t see one.   In a similar vein, if, say, Brighton wants to hold its annual Gay Pride thingy, that`s fine but I don`t see them having a Straight Pride equivilent.   There are countless other examples but you get my drift - sometimes it all seems a little bit all one way.

Now, I confess I haven`t followed the intricacies of the Meredith Kercher murder appeals just heard in Perugia against the sentencing of Amanda Knox and Raffele Sollecito and I`m in no position to pass any comment on the case, so I won`t.   But I have been struck by the different reactions to the outcome, which say much about the question of balance I`m pursuing here.

On the one hand, we have witnessed all the razamataz of the homecoming of Amanda Knox with her journey from Italy, via Gatwick, to Seattle being followed every step of the way by the world`s media.   We have seen the predictable hootin` `n` `hollerin` bordering on triumphalism, the Oscar-esque speeches and the promise of more to come with multi-million dollar book deals, film deals and goodness know what else.   In a way it`s understandable - after all, this is America.

But on the other side of all this are the Kercher family, showing  admirable understated dignity in the face of an Italian court decision which, as they say themselves "puts us back to square one` and makes it impossible for them to even contemplate `closure` of the tragedy they have suffered.

So, in my unending yet unrealistic quest for some sort of balance, I think I would prefer to hear a little more of the Kercher family and much, much less of what America is likely to inflict upon the Knox family and the rest of us.