The camera never lies - but tabloid hacks do

I'm a massive cynic about the tabloid press. Hey, you noticed! But I do still fall for the occasional bit of rubbish here and there. Especially if there are pictures involved. It can be very difficult sometimes to disassociate what you see in a picture with what someone else has told you it shows, especially at first glance. You might believe a quite obviously decomposed swan has been stripped of its meat for food by Polish people, for instance.

But even I was taken in by this one 'Pictured: The moment a man punched a girl off her feet during a Facebook water fight'. It looks pretty clear, right - the guy's just socked her off her feet with his right hand.

Sweep the leg!

Except no.

Manic at Bloggerheads has the scoop, and opened my eyes to this particular bit of tabloid arsery - so head on over there to read the rest. Go on. He explains it better than me.

It appears the guy pulled the girl's hair with his left hand, while sweeping her legs out from under her with his left leg. He's not even making a proper fist with his right hand. Sure, it's still violent, sure it's still assault - but it's not as brutal or vicious as a punch in the face.

I've been playfighting with nephews for years. One of the few things you can do without hurting someone weaker is sweep their legs and place them on the floor. This guy was clearly more violent than that with his hair pull, but he still seems to have chosen to do something considerably gentler than a smack in the face that took her off her feet.

Sounds niggly. You might want to say, "Hey 5cc, that's niggly. Pulling someone over by their hair is just as bad as a punch in the face." And I would say to you - tell that to the tabloid journos. They're the ones that pretended one was the other for MAXIMUM OUTRAGE at how Britain is BROKEN and kids have knives that can FREEZE OUR SPLEEN.