CRIME TIME - My weekly hour-long slot is sub-titled Crime Time with Hamilton Coe. More often than not, however, it becomes Crime Time with Hamilton Coe and whoever happens to be passing the studio with an uninformed comment about criminal psychology. Having put a lot of work into my broadcasts, I'm naturally irritated by the necessity of dealing with contradictions from people who've been wrongfully encouraged to express opinions on matters they know nothing about. At the outset of my broadcasting career, I arrived at the studio on several occasions to be confronted by the sullen features of Miriam Tobin, Drumfeld's neighbourhood watch co-ordinator. To be blunt, Miriam was a numbskull, determined to dwell on matters of total non-interest to serious criminologists. Crime Time with Hamilton Coe is not a forum for discussing the necessity of double locking doors or checking on elderly neighbours. Miriam, however, was determined to intersperse my carefully prepared broadcasts with such nuggets of irrelevance. “What about the old people?” she'd squawk apropos of nothing at all. If her point was ignored or rebutted she merely repeated it with enhanced volume. When she didn't, as was frequently the case, understand an argument, she rolled her eyes and repeated, “For the love of Mike” over and over in the expectation that her antagonist would concede the point. I'm made of sterner stuff. While I'm instinctively polite, I won't hesitate to put a bully in his or her place. The effort of dealing with someone as obdurate and obnoxious as Miriam, however, was exhausting. Rob McCaskill, ostensibly the show's host, merely interjected with idiotic comments such as “she's got you there, H!” On one occasion he asked us to pose for a publicity photo, grimacing comically, one's hands around the other's throat. Naturally, I refused inciting Miriam to launch into a predictable accusation that I was humourless. It was around this time that she had “For the Love of Mike”, which she'd been encouraged to consider a catch-phrase, printed onto t-shirts accompanied by a caricature of herself. In short, she grew too big for her boots, a situation exacerbated by the station who twice, when I was unavailable, renamed the slot Crime Time with Miriam Tobin.

 

Home

Glossary

Hamilton Live

Casebook

 

 

Contact