The Crown Prosecution Service provoked indignant outrage this week for failing to provoke the indignant outrage to which we’re entitled. 

The controversy is centred round a photograph owned by Elton John that is due to be exhibited at Gateshead’s Baltic gallery, Klara and Edda Belly Dancing, by an American snapper, Nan Goldin.

The photograph was removed last month pending an investigation by the CPS as to what is and what isn’t kiddy-porn.

But now Kerrie Bell of the CPS Northumbria South Unit has let down the country by failing to trash the reputation of the country’s best-loved ivory-tinkler.

She implied that she’s not sure Elton would be branded a sex pest if the case went to court. 

The same photograph was under investigation in 2001 to determine whether it was at that time sufficient evidence to justify proceedings for offences of possession or distribution of an indecent photograph.

It might seem unlikely that the picture will have changed a great deal in the intervening years, but I for one am glad that Paedo Cops took another squizz at it. Just to be sure, like. To see if it was really naughty: whether it gave them a tingly feeling. 

I might even get on the train to Newcastle to see for myself how disgusting, depraved and perverted this picture really is.

Then I’ll whip myself into a state of indignant outrage at the fact that such images can be put on public display, that this filthy exploitation can be called art.

And then I’ll go round to Elton and David’s place with a placard, screaming venom at their door, bigotry and hatred filling my eyes, drool dripping from my morally superior mouth. 

In lieu of indignant outrage, however, I am this week full of righteous disgust that no misery memoir has made it into the Bestseller lists.

Not one of the Hardback Non-Fiction Top Ten promised to inspire me with the heartbreaking true story of one woman’s struggle following years of psychological, physical and sexual abuse ending with an underlying message of hope.

I’m sorry indeed that the public seem to have had enough of guilt-edged tales of whisky-soaked stepfathers slipping silently into adolescents’ rooms to feed them chocolate buttons.

How else am I to show my support for those damaged children who suffered so hideously at the hands of priests if not to titillate myself with stifled-sob-a-line accounts of clumsy, illegitimate fumblings? 

All is not lost, however, since we still have Belle de Jour to beatify.

Her sticky-knickers account of being botty-sexed by strangers for money really has turned the tables on those men who have previously been mistaken for the ones doing the exploiting.

We need more empowered young women ready to show how sad and lonely these people are, to inform us that, even as they close the door on the third client of the evening, raw as a clubbed seal and forty quid in their sock, it’s the girls who are finally calling the shots.

It’s even easier to see in Belle’s TV manifestation, played by Billie Piper, that it’s actually a massive sense of irony hanging out the back of her, that it’s a post-feminist witticism that’s using her as a lavatory.

So thank the lord for Belle and her emancipatory message. At least, I think that’s what she said it was, but she don’t speak too clear with her mouth full. 

I wouldn’t be doing my job responsibly, though, if I didn’t make unpleasant insinuations and cast a few careless aspersions.

It wouldn’t come as a great surprise if in the not-too-distant future it is revealed on the appropriate talk show that Belle is actually fictitious, the product of some grubby male hack cashing in on the sexual exploitation of women.

If it does turn out that Belle’s erotic memoirs are fictitious, I will feel outraged and indignant for being misled; justifiably I’ll feel cheated by a work than attempts to turn me on with made-up stories of female degradation. 

However, for the moment I’m more than happy to believe that these naughty middle class adventures are indeed true.

But I’m shocked and appalled by a work that turns a profit – and me on – with real life stories of female degradation. Either way, the hypocrisy is going to sicken me as I soak up this week’s episode.