Mr Keith Fortner (7/7) By The Silver Fox

(1/7), (2/7), (3/7), (4/7), (5/7), (6/7), (7/7).

"I've still got the money, sure; but what's the point of spending it on anything more than the essentials? I can't go anywhere decent, can I? Meet a load of fuckers that I used to work with; who know me? Balls to that! I've got a roof over my head and can't be got out from under it, and I'm pissed rotten by four o'clock every day. At least that way I don't have to watch any fucking television!" He paused before launching into a wracking, moist fit of laughter; the doomed cackle of a pariah beyond all hope of redemption, I thought at the time, but upon further acquaintance, I wasn't so sure. Redemption, he claimed, wasn't what he was looking for, because he'd never done anything wrong.

I ventured to suggest that Paedophile Temptation Island was, to say the least, a moral grey area, but he dismissed the idea: according to him, his intentions to open peoples' minds to a horrifying and wide-reaching problem - and possibly help those qualified in finding more effective solutions to it - were not only genuine, but laudable.

Besides, he claimed that Maelstrom Media and their ilk's resistance to his pitch had had nothing to do with considerations of taste or morality: "All about money," he drooled, worrying a crumb of Monster Munch from his back teeth with a finger the colour of a vegan's poo. "They were worried about the cost of feeding a troop of Cubs for a month - those Bernard Matthews Golden Drummers ain't cheap, you know. And they don't eat anything else; everyone knows that." There was something about him as he spoke; an air of absolute conviction rarely seen on a face not fashioned from stained glass. Perhaps it was the sun and the sherry, but at that moment, Keith seemed to be touched by something almost … divine. Rightly or wrongly, he believed in what he said, and in the purity of his own intentions.

It shook me, I must say, and I like to think that - however grim things may seem from time to time - a part of his quiet, dogged, and saintly confidence, has stayed with me. So now, whenever I face an ethical crisis, I seek out Keith Fortner, and we talk it through over a bottle or two of an inexpensive (yet refreshing) beverage. He's an obliging, generous soul, and has no time for pretence or self-deception. Many of my friends question me for having my moral compass periodically reset by a grime-encrusted drop-out with a weak bladder, but I assure them - and you - that I could be doing a lot worse.

As I said: it never hurts to know the back-story.

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