I confess

So, a lead story on today's BBC One's News at One concerned a former cricketer who's been forced to apologise after someone released a photo of him dressed up as one of his favourite rappers, Tupac Shakur, at a fancy dress party in 2009. 

His crime? Wearing JustinTrudeauface. 

I suppose I ought to confess too. When I was in my last year at primary school I played The Ghost of Christmas Future in Scrooge. I dressed in black and floated over the assembly hall menacingly, only slightly spoiling the effect by tripping over Scrooge's bed. But I'm ashamed to admit that I had gold make-up applied to my face at the time. 

Yes, I'm guilty of goldface. 

I was only 10 at the time, but that's no excuse.

And that, of course, as cultural historians well know, was why Auric Goldfinger was such a great Bond villain. He turned his enemies into racists. 

Mea culpa.

Meanwhile, that BBC report really laid it on with a trowel. The bit about Alex Hales [by the BBC's Laura Scott] said that Mr Hales ''became further embroiled in the scandal after a photo emerged showing him dressing in a racially offensive way at a fancy dress party in 2009''.