Norway: The Amy Winehouse Connection

One of the most irritating aspects of modern journalism is the tendency to make spurious connections between unconnected phenomena. The non-existent links between Saddam’s Iraq and al-Qaeda is the most obvious and pernicious of these. Many conspiracy theories originate from making connections where none exist. So when I tell you I am about to connect the death of Amy Winehouse to the massacres carried out by a right-wing anti-Muslim extremist in Norway, I would forgive you for being sceptical.

Both stories were running around my head while I was on holiday last week and I can’t stop thinking about them. I run the risk of sounding a combination of pretentious and fogeyish when I say that both tragedies have made me think that in western culture we do not do enough to look after our young people and help them make the transition from childhood to adulthood.