If you’ve read my SMT Editor’s Newsletters of late you’ll know that I’m not too fond of the national media’s risible attempts – because that is what they most surely are – at reporting security issues. Spurious facts, wildly inaccurate ‘prose’ and sensationalist statements abound in equal measure.
Let’s face it, when was the last time you read a positive news piece or feature on anything to do with security and policing in the daily press, be it a tabloid or otherwise respected broadsheet?
After I soundly kicked the recent Panorama documentary into touch for its skewed and vacuous 25-minute attack on the Regulator, a big player in the industry took me to one side at a gathering of like-minded security souls and said: “If you’re really that concerned, Brian, and it strikes me that you are, then why not make your own TV programme about the industry?”
My initial thoughts were that this is perhaps beyond the reach of what we can hope to do… but wait a minute. SMT is part of CMP Information, the nation’s biggest and best B2B security publishing operation. We sit inside a media company listed on the Stock Exchange. We’re already doing video ‘stings’ and podcasts on info4security, so why not take that extra step into The Magic Rectangle?
The only reservation would have to be: “Who will commission and show a feel-good ‘special’ about the security sector?” Well, someone ought to have the bravery to do so. The work of security officers in this country saving lives every day of every week is worthy of an hour in its own right, and that’s just skimming the surface of what goes on in the real world. That world which is all-too-often lost behind salacious red top headlines.
Anyway, suffice to say that I’ve not given up hope on this germ of an idea, so – if you’ll pardon the CCTV pun – watch this space. I’ll have a word with my publisher, Jonathan Collins, and see how the land lies.
Maybe, just maybe, I’ve already been pipped to the post (in a small way, at least). If any of you are regular aficionados of that great bastion of British soap that is Coronation Street, and you watched last week’s episodes, well… Security received top billing courtesy of an unlikely source. Take a bow Norris Cole, the busy-bodying prattler and deputy to the heavily lacquered ex-club singer Rita Sullivan who presides over The Kabin newsagents.
Norris has been having a spot of bother – as have many other people down Corrie Way – with a gang of three teenage ne’er-do-wells led by Kensey Judd, a boy with improbably messy hair (he’ll say it’s ‘designed’, no doubt) and severe difficulties in-between the ears. By that I mean he doesn’t have much grey matter to fill this particular void.
The knuckle-scraping gang’s anti-social behaviour culminated last week in two premeditated attacks on locals, the first against Norris and the second on Royston Cropper, wannabe local historian and cafe owner par excellence whose transsexual other half has flown from the nest leaving him to hold the bacon. Literally.
Poor old Roy. In the face of such adversity, one wonders how the man plays out his days with but a ruler-sharp fringe, a stewed pot of baked beans and an apron for company.
Shaken – and stirred – into action, Norris decided to furnish the shop (where he and Rita dish out humbugs and humbug in equal measure) with a bespoke, small-scale CCTV system! A local installer popped round, whacked in a recorder and a couple of cameras and, as if by magic, Mr Cole appeared… as a security manager (albeit of the grass roots variety)!
As is his wont, Norris project-managed this little job without Rita’s say-so, but credit where credit’s due. The bespectacled vigilante’s initiative paid dividends almost immediately after the gang had pinned Roy to his rolls and made off with the cash from the register. This time around, Norris was able to capture the tearaways on external camera as they fled the scene. Well, the classic ‘review suite moment’ in the ‘Control Room’ at the back of The Kabin (complete with Rita and straight-laced Emily Bishop in attendance) revealed that someone’s shoulder and an in-use hoodie had been recorded for posterity, at any rate… Better than nothing, I say!.
Alas, Norris’ bespoke ‘home security’ wasn’t good enough to prevent poor Kebab King Jerry Morton (formerly the rotund window cleaner Sinbad of long defunct Souse soap Brookside) from suffering a heart attack while chasing after the gang. Doesn’t he know that it’s a bad move being a Scouser in Manchester?
As an aside, how come Jerry’s son Darryl – a strapping, skinny lad who must run like a Walthamstow whippet – couldn’t catch one of these kids who (a) looked like he was only five yards in front when the chase began and (b) had obviously been on the worst side of a fair few offal burgers, processed Turkey Twizzlers and Mars bars when he should perhaps have concentrated a little more on the old homework instead?
The wonders of populist TV, eh? Maybe the Kebab King wakes up in one of tonight’s episodes and it will all have been a dream, Dallasty-style! After all, this is The Land of David Pratt [sic] so anything, as they say, must be a possibility.
On a more serious note, Corrie is Britain’s best soap, watched avidly and loved by millions (with a hatful of awards to prove it). The fact that this regular slice of Manchester life has brought security sharply into focus – pardon the second pun if you will, CCTV fans – is, in my book, pretty damn marvellous.
It will certainly bring a smile to my colleague Alan Hyder’s face, I know. The venerable (now there’s a word not known by every journalist) editor of Security Installer has been waxing lyrical for some long time now that the small commercial and domestic markets are big potential money-spinners for ‘his flock’, and that readers should be mining such rich seams with gusto. So come on guys, get with the programme (and I’m not talking about Coronation Street).
I wonder if Norris is thinking of submitting a discourse on his security installation in time for next year’s IFSEC Awards? Rita may not have been all that keen on his hastily-procured surveillance regime, but I rather suspect our esteemed Judges could well have a different opinion (assuming they’re not EastEnders fans, that is!)
See you next time
Brian
PS: CCTV was even mentioned on Saturday night’s Doctor Who episode entitled ‘Silence in the Library’. OK, the strange-looking cameras in question resembled those cheesy Casio digital watches from the 1980s with the crude red LCD display, but the point is the learned Doctor was grappling with surveillance technology and telling the world about doing so. It’s all good grist to the public awareness mill, folks.