Bad Boys

Long after its original release I still hear Alexandra Burke emoting her line about how 'the bad boys are always catching my eye'. I wonder what 'bad boys' she has in mind. Shoplifters? Cheats? Murderers? Serial killers? No doubt they catch her eye because they know they've found a potential victim. Or maybe these bad boys are just blokes who leave her to do all the dishes and their washing without so much as a thank you?

The song is still around because it taps into a fantasy subscribed to by many women: The Bad Boy, a man who will treat you mean to keep you keen. This fantasy was the subject of an IT Crowd episode, where Roy sets out to prove that women choose 'bastards' by writing an insulting lonely hearts ad and seeing how many replies he gets. He is almost instantly successful. Yet the show's idiot-savant Moss grasps the spirit of the game even better than he does, writing 'I will murder you'. As a self-styled 'good boy' (just as much of a fantasy of course) I've always loved this episode. It's a kind of strike back at the Bad Boys... Can't imagine them watching the IT Crowd, though.