Fathers and daughters

In Germany the media, in particular the tabloids, are full of horrified indignation about the father in Austria who has kept his daughter a prisoner for twenty-four years and fathered seven children with her.

Already I don't want to know any more about the whole thoroughly disturbing affair.

Then in the United States we have the hysteria surrounding the very sweet Annie Liebowitz photo of Mylie Cyrus. Back in 1992 I hummed Billy Ray's 'Achy Break Heart' non-stop (it fitted my mood after a separation) and when I learned that he was the father of a daughter doing well as a juvenile actress I felt happy for them both.



But the hoo-hah surrounding the photo Vanity Fair put on its cover is threatening to become ridiculous. Thankfully Germaine Greer, Viv Goskop and Stuart Jeffries in The Guardian have been able to put it all into perspective. More here...

I suppose that each year demands a scandal image, one which polarizes and provokes, like the pap shots of Britney, Lindsay and Paris last year. At the time the two shots below had many a tongue wagging... today, hard to believe. I'm not sure if Christine Keeler had a father on her side. But Nastassja Kinski certainly would have had nothing but support from her then partner Roman Polanski (old enough to be her father) if not from her progenitor, the mercurial Klaus Kinski..



So I would tend to conclude that usually fathers know best. If it were not for tragic evidence to the contrary from Lower Austria.