The Ranter’s Guide to Avoiding Jail.

Like King Lear, Victor Meldrew and many other men of my age I’m much given to ranting. Until yesterday, when I read about the case of Martin Solomon, I’d considered it a fairly harmless occupation. Not so: this poor chap’s tirades at political programmes on the telly led to a four month jail sentence.

  Unfortunately for Mr Solomon he lacked his namesake’s wisdom. For although, to adopt the words of the Penny Catechism of my childhood, television sets, like relics and graven images, ‘can neither see, nor hear, nor help us’, your neighbours can. And having heard Mr Solomon’s tirades, instead of helping him they reported him to the police.

   A pity, for there are alternatives - tailored to various levels of education and intelligence - which would have not only spared the neighbours’ eardrums, and Mr Solomon an enforced absence from the comforts of his home, but also saved the taxpayer money. 

  If this unfortunate man has only received a rudimentary education, he should be advised to contribute ‘comments’ to on-line versions of newspapers. The ability to spell, avoid malapropisms, or employ the rules of grammar is not required. Nor is any knowledge of the subject on which you are holding forth. All that is required is the ability to rant. However, for all I know Mr Solomon may be able to string several sentences together with only the occasional orthographical or syntactical error. In that case, may I recommend he write a blog. Nobody reads them, so there is no one to upset and accordingly no danger of serving a prison sentence. 

  There is a third possibility. Mr Solomon may be a genuinely gifted man, who has aroused his neighbours’ ire not merely by the volume of his voice but through his cutting insights which undermine their dearly held political prejudices. If such be the case, fame and fortune await him. I’ve just finished reading James Hamilton Patterson’s third novel about Gerald Samper, a character whose whole existence is an endless rant. And an excellent read it is. One which I imagine has made Hamilton Patterson a great deal of money. So when Mr Solomon emerges from custody I would suggest that his neighbours bring this post to his attention, if it were not for the fact that being a blog they will be completely unaware of its existence.