Entertainment For Lively Minds
Andy Hayman - up for a raspberry?
Posted by Leedsboy on 13 July 2011 - 1:43pm.
Saw this clip on the news last night and was aghast at, what appeared to me, to be the most wooden performance of surprise and indignation I have seen for a long time.
The lad doth protest too much, methinks.
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Agreed!
...a whole career in policing and then a slightly murky transfer to NI's stable within weeks of retiring and now this: his defining moment is 30 seconds of bad acting.
A good policeman
would have been surprised if the question hadn't been asked....
I don't think he was surprised
It looked to me that he'd decided how he was going to react in advance, had been rehearsing for the moment, then delivered his lines badly. That doesn't mean he's guilty of anything beyond bad acting.
Yes, looks exactly like that to me too
Looked almost like he was more in control of his response than he was pretending to be. Can't be a stupid man though can he.
It's a thin line
A thin...
...blue line.
He's definitely guilty of
poor judgement. He'd have been far better off with a simple, "No". He was grandstanding, and ought to have known better. It didn't show him in a very good light at all, the prat.
I've had enough...
Fire up the quattro Dorothy.
"Shut it darling,
now pull your knickers on and make me a cuppa tea!"
Its
Detective Monkfish to you
Due sucre.
Taking The Piss
As well as the shilling was my impression.
I almost wanted somebody to tell him off, like the class clown.
Yup, there seemed to be something of the
smirk about him!
His manner certainly did him no favours, anyway, whatever the veracity of his testament.
Marcus Brigstocke
I was irresistibly reminded of Marcus Brigstock mugging his way through the recent telly ad for Just a Minute.
"Read my lips:
I did not have pecuniary relations with that paper"
A Bush-Clinton quote mash-up
Well done.
No
Can't take credit for a conscious mash up. I've just remembered that Bush Snr's "Read my lips" was followed by "No new taxes".
Don't know what that says about me: confusing tax and sex. Perhaps it was the word "Bush" that threw me...
Gives new meaning to the phrase...
...Making Hay, man, while The Sun shines'
But what is the appropriate response?
I've never in my life been in the room when anyone was asked whether they'd taken a bribe. Nobody's ever asked me whether I've taken one either.
I have however seen the question puts hundreds of times in TV dramas. Any idea I might have of what is an appropriate response would have to come from there.
Since TV drama is obviously where politics is headed, we'll have to make sure that in future we have leaders who know how to play the scene.
Surely a firm and serious-looking
'No' would be best? Added to an air of it being so obviously a non-starter that you'd move quickly onto the next question. Hayman reacts like a teenager who's been accused of smoking by his parents when his breath reeks.
Body language
I'm no Patrick Jane, but surely his body language and facial expressions when saying he could not believe he had been asked that actually screamed that he had been practising his horrified response.
That may be so....
....but I don't think in legal proceedings, board meetings and other such formal processes you're allowed to take body language into account. In court transcripts it doesn't add "he said, shifting uncomfortably". In fiction, however, it does. Which is my point. Next thing you know we'll have actors queueing up to appear on Newsnight....
Sadly
some of the actors who have been turfing up on Newsnight in recent weeks seem more adept at political discourse than the politicians they've shared the screen with.
But does that tell you about politics...
...or does it tell about the screen?
DVD Extra
Isn't it part of the essence of criminal trials that you are not only allowed but compelled to take such things into account? The demeanour of witnesses is a vital clue as to whether they're telling the truth and what kind of people they are. It doesn't come up in transcripts, granted, but that's because a transcript which described Captain Queeg's mad by-play with the marbles, for example, would be imposing an interpretation which the jury might not have agreed with.
So the jury might think that a given copper's grandstanding had all the gritty credibility of Dick Van Dyke's London accent. But the trial transcript couldn't draw raised eyebrows in the margin. Or make elaborate coughing noises. Or add "hem-hem".
My thought was
why didn't he just state the fact that no he had not taken payments.
It was the level of indignation and that he then started to push back on what she was suggesting. She wasn't suggesting, she was asking a question which is her reason for being there.
He, being a policeman, should understand that asking that question was an inevitable part of her job.
Appropriate response
Not sure that's relevant to the OP.
The point being made is that the way he responded has made more of an impression than the answer he gave. That impression is unfavourable ("Doth protest too much") and has created ground for (perhaps) unfounded speculation.
I'd have thought that as a policeman he'd have had a bit more knowledge of how body language is interpreted when being questioned than the average man in the street or indeed a room.
i was
always led to beleive that the ones who shout and holler are invariably guilty as hell. (*straw poll from an old next door neighbor who worked for CID)
It may just be
that years of getting histrionic denials from low-life scum(TM)who had been caught bang to rights (The Sweeney, passim) had conditioned him to provide this type of response
Surely then
we should have expected some kind of 'Big Vern' response?
"You f*ckin' WHAT? You F*CKIN' WHAT? You DARE ask me that, you bleedin' toe-rag, you piece of SHIT!?" etc etc.
Comforting to see
Comforting to see that pillar of integrity Keith Vaz in the chair.
spot on
old Vaz is about as slippery as a bucket of eels. That said, Hayman came over like a right twit.
deeply unconvincing
both sides attempting to uphold what's left of any credibility..
dreadful cock-er-knee inflections..
ham acting...
is guy richie involved?
(well..they must have tapped his phone, right?)
Feigned outrage
In his career as a policeman did he never, when interviewing a suspect who subsequently turned out to be innocent, suggest that the suspect was guilty of some heinous act?
He knows these questions have to be asked.
He struck me as someone who thought playing the role of the cheeky chappie was going to get him through unscathed.
"Did you take bribes?"
"NO!"
"Oh. That's OK then. Next.."
It's hardly a meticulous and forensic investigation, is it?
True
But the "no" is on public record.
That's the main point of these select committees. They're not legal proceedings but they put responses in the public domain that may come back with a bite.
Stuff like red-heads seemingly unaware that paying police officers for information could constitute a form of bribery.
He's got form
I was reminded of this BBC News article, on a hacking story that caused me to raise my eyebrows at the time - for much the same reasons as the OP:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11348560
Worth a read. However in essence, Andy Hayman accused John Prescott of making a fuss about nothing re the hacking allegations:
It seemed, even then, to be an extraordinary stance for an ex-policeman to take.
I expect that we shall be hearing more of Andy Hayman in the months ahead.
Senior Policemen
I am always amazed at how completely unimpressive and low calibre all senior UK policemen come across on TV. Hayman took the biscuit there.
And I am not comparing them with TV detectives, just to other senior figures in business.
I'm afraid I agree, KB...
...it seems terrible to tar a whole profession, or level of a profession, with a giant brush of mediocrity on the basis of a few examples like Hayman and Ian Blair, but one often wonders how some people get where they are in public sector work of all shades, police included. It seems to me there are people who can talk the right sort of talk, keep delivering the mantras and the jargon and keep filling in the paperwork, but have, simply, little or no imagination or ability to think pragmatically.
Having said all that, I think it takes a special sort of person to be a truly dedicated and efficient policeman, and I take my hat off to those who are.
And I concur with your last line too
Which makes it worse the fact that the senior guys always seem lightweight. (I have used 'men' by the way cos generally they are and in fact the senior female police officers, like the one at the same event Hayman was at above, are more impressive.)
the old problem
is that "I wanna be a Policeman" discussion, once had with the careers officer. Unfortunately by its nature, it doesn't attract the most intelligent people does it? Or the most liable to be politically objective.
Indeed...
...despite the fact that the woman leading what is now the third police enquiry/review into this business appears to be Sgt June Ackland from The Bill, she was calm and dignified at the hearing and seemed 100% focused on doing the job properly, no matter how long it takes.
The blokes all seemed to be one dimensional characters out of some cliched cop show.