The Rampton Weekly Disco

This week's News Of The World ran a lurid interview with Lee Harrington, the ex-boyfriend of Beverley Allitt. Seeing the headline and the photo of this heavily facially tattooed individual who had fallen for Ms Allitt I was puzzled as to how they met. It turns out they met at the Rampton Disco which is held every Friday. Harrington, it seems was also a member of the Kaotian Cult at the time, which treats women as slaves. According to Harrington, Allitt was quite happy to fulfill this role. The article goes onto say prior to meeting Harrington, Allitt had another boyfriend, Michael Heggie, a blood drinking murderer known as "The Vampire"... who she met again at the Rampton Weekly Disco. Now I am not trying to celebrate Allitt, Harrington or Heggie, but my mind absolutely boggles at the imagery conjured by this article and the truly Lynchian nature of the Rampton Weekly Disco. I think what is so disquieting about the story is the juxtaposition of the most normal human extincts - of sociability, courtship and dance, in the context of a place (Rampton) so utterly associated with pathology and with people who have acted on impulses of the most diseased and abnormal kind.

It is also interesting how the just the name Rampton has become a lurid brand name for the media and in particular the NOW and The Sun.

A look at the list of recent entries in the press complaints commission reveals the following:

Neil Syson The Sun "Fire maniac lives it up at Rampton"

Martyn Sharpe The Sun "Rampton holds gay disco for psychos"

The last entry is interesting because what we have is almost an incantatory use of trigger words similar to a grimoire: "gaydiscopsychos". Lots of harsh "K" sounds. On a similar theme it's interesting to note the frequent use of Xs and Zs both in barbarous names of evocation and brand names for anti-psychotic drugs, contraceptives and sanitary towels. It is as if the advertising industry is unconsciously attempting to demonise our relationship with such products: Prozac, Tampax, Durex,Seroxat,Abrasax, Azathoth,Pazazu all could as easily come from the pages of a medieval grimoire as from design teams of an advertising agency.