Yak Yak Yak: Instrument of Terror

I was at the BBC the other day with the delightful Allison Ferns talking food as I do every month. I love going in to chat with her and taking along local food producers to talk about what they do. On this occasion we had finished our section and Alison was reading a little news item about the current craziness of people dressing as clowns and, brandishing weapons, leaping out and scaring people.

I happened to say that I had once studied clowning, in both London and for a short time in Paris. I have a clown face, a painted one I mean, although the natural one can look pretty clown-like I know. Alison turned on the mic and questioned me about it so I explained what and why. It was a long time ago, 37 years to be precise, and I have not “donned the motley” since. It was something I did, something I was fascinated by back then and something that I have no intention now of going back to.

I have not donned the motley since

I leaned how scary clowns can be back then and I totally understand why some people are freaked out by them. So I really do not understand how people can even think that it’s okay to dress up like that and go out with the sole intention of scaring people.

Okay plenty of us can cope, a bit of a scare is okay from time to time and some of us may even like it, going to see horror and chiller movies – each to their own.

But we also need to remember that there are a great many vulnerable people out there, people who might once have been protected by a care system that was well funded and, well let’s just say caring. Now they are less protected and often have to find their own way through life and the sudden appearance of “funny” clowns may not be funny at all. How cruel can someone be to take something meant to be fun and turn it into an instrument of terror, yes terrorism, that is after all what this is.