h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>>Teachers have been know to trip over in this area<<

To be fair, it's not just teachers, though I guess teachers spend more time in that environment. I know I had a near miss when I was doing my teacher training: took a guy I presumed to be in his twenties home, a couple of months later when I moved schools I discovered he was in 6th form (so legal but still icky)

Hmm, bit pointless in that sense and if there is anything in it why don't the women concerned just get counselling and deal with it privately rather than publicly? I never understand the need to do that.

My just turned 16 year old looks more like some 13 year olds

And of course now, predictably and moronically, a plaque outside of his flat in Scarborough has been defaced with the word 'pardophile' and security at the graveyard where he is buried is being reviewed.

PP.

E and R are too close to each other on the keyboard at this time of night.

NOT 'pardophile'. Paedophile'.

PP

My problem with this story is that it absolutely requires me to believe something that sounds like a crackpot conspiracy theory.

On the one hand, I am expected to believe that Saville, although undeniably weird (and who wasn't in the 1970s? Television was wall to wall weirdos back then, or has everyone forgotten?) didn't do anything untoward, in which case there is, right now, some sort of conspiracy afoot to besmirch his name. This conspiracy includes a bunch of apparently unrelated people making attention-seeking allegations about his sexual conduct, and a bunch of people who worked with him claiming they "knew all along", and who paradoxically appear not to be ashamed of not having done anything practical to stop it at the time. Really? You expect me to believe that? I mean... look at the guy. And those victims surely can't ALL be lying?

On the other hand, I am expected to believe that the victims are telling the truth, and therefore Saville was a serial sexual predator cunningly using charity work as a cover for paedophilia (or strictly speaking it seems ephebophilia), and there was at the time and for over thirty years subsequently a massive conspiracy among his work colleagues to protect him from the legal consequences of these actions. A conspiracy, moreover, that was 100% successful (with the arguable exception of the 2007 "interview under caution" which led nowhere) until after his death. Seriously? The man was a TV presenter, not Don freakin Corleone. He wasn't untouchable. In an era of Brass Eye's "Paedogeddon", Jonathan King and Gary Glitter in jail and the freakin POPE implicated in covering up abuses, the idea that this guy could be successfully shielded from the law over decades seems, well, unlikely.

BOTH of those stories sound like a massive load of cobblers, the kind of thing a green-ink-using tinfoil hat wearer might come up with. But it seems that I have no choice but to believe that one, or the other, is the truth.

I find both possibilities depressing and disturbing.

Hoo - the Arts & Media world *is* strange & bizarre though. It seems to be dominated by "Alpha" types (male & female) who, because of their influence surrounded by so many wannabes are endowed with power. I've seen a GMTV presenter spend his entire time at an official function attended by MPs, celebrities and the like with his hands inside the jersey of a buxom blonde fondling her breasts. Nobody batted an eye. I know of several theatres where directors sleep with some and/or all of the cast (and crew in one case). There's a well known elderly Scottish actor who'll never get lonely because he shags theatre ushurettes. Funnily enough he's been interviewed by the Police several times with no action taken.

The Radio 1 Roadshows were the stuff of legend amongst the technicians I know who worked on them. Yes the young girls were "abused", but they were more than willing partners.

"as a cover for paedophilia (or strictly speaking it seems ephebophilia)"

And I think this is may well be key. Back in post 5, deb said that

"I'm really not saying I'd condone men going after underage girls. I'm just saying I can sort of understand it. Am I alone in this?"

And I think most of us, if we're honest, can "sort of understand it" in a way that we can't understand paedophilia. Partly because most of us find young, beautiful adults attractive, and partly because when most of us were in our mid teens, we found mid teens attractive. It's not an alien impulse that disgusts us in quite the same way.

At that point the rationalisation starts to take place.... isn't the age of consent arbitary anyway... there are 15 year olds and there are 16 year olds... it's all consensual.... what harm is there really... it's none of my business.... what if I've got this wrong... how old is she anyway... I won't be believed.... I'll ruin my career for no good purpose.... and so on and so forth. To be clear, I'm not excusing it, but it's not hard to understand how it might happen without it being some grand conspiracy theory.

"it's not hard to understand how it might happen without it being some grand conspiracy theory"

It's not hard to understand how he could maybe get away with it in the sixties or seventies. That, I'd be first to agree, doesn't require any leap of credibility.

What requires, I think, the leap of credibility, is the idea that he could remain 100% successfully protected from the consequences of those actions for DECADES, decades in which other very, very high profile people with similar proclivities were being charged, convicted and jailed, some for offences committed decades before. That not a single allegation could be stood up while he lived, despite the now dozens of people either alleging he assaulted them, or that they KNEW at the time what he was up to. It's his continued impunity I'm having trouble understanding, not his getting away with it at the time.

I can fathom that side of things a bit. Jonathan King and Gary Glitter were odious characters through and through. JS was a rather odious character with massive redeeming features such as running 50 marathons a year, voluntary hospital portering and generally raising shed loads of cash for charity. I can see that that could have helped.

Still I would generally tend to agree with you.

I'm not surprised people are now putting the boot in. Mainly because my husband predicted this within minutes of hearing about Jimmy Savile's death.

But the man is *dead*. I cannot see how the allegations can be proved 'beyond reasonable doubt' (I would accept it could be evidenced to a 'balance of probabilities' level, but the bar is higher for criminal cases, he isn't around to provide his version of events, and there will be absolutely no DNA evidence). So what possible benefit can there be from raking over it now? We *know* that things that were acceptable in the 70s aren't acceptable now - there's actually quite a long list.

I too find it hard to believe all those people knew, and conspired to cover it up for so long. I find it easier to believe that a journalist rang a load of girls who'd been on TOTP/JFI and coaxed similar stories out of some of them (because what else do we know about their backgrounds and experiences? - I'm really quite wary, some people will say literally anything for their moment of fame). But then I'm a bit cynical about journalists.

*I do accept I could be wrong about this*, however, so either way it's extraordinary.

I will be interested in what Private Eye says (I think there will be two editions stacked up for me when I get back home). If it was known about, and evidenced, at the time or later, it's likely PE will have made some reference to it - I can't remember one, but the years all do start to blur after a bit. If they did, I'm sure they will be reminding us of that now.

Mol

I'm just waiting to hear that an illiterate mob have attacked Jimmy Somerville...

For the conspiracy theorists:

Bronski Beat - It Ain't Necessarily So (from the 'Age of Consent' album, no less... ):

http://grooveshark.com/#!/search?q=Bronski+Beat+-+It+Ain't+Necessarily+So

Mol

Question is 'are you surprised?'

Evolutionary psychology consists largely of just-so stories, but a lot of it is undeniably convincing. It explains why people get overwhelmingly interested in fertile members of the opposite sex just as they become fertile themselves.

It is still struggling to explain why some people get interested in people they cannot fruitfully mate with. Yet that clearly happens. So we shouldn't be surprised, whoever it may be.

Surprised that a celebrity with moral standing abuses their position? Power corrupts.

Not surprised at all.

Surprised at the allegations? Maybe, maybe not. Speaking as an older unmarried man (and sometimes a little ) people might have doubts about me.

Surprised at hysteria that's being exhibited? Not in the least. People are calling for him to be stripped of his knighthood, which apparently even the Prime Minister doesn't know can't be done once a person is dead because the knighthood dies with them. And now this http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-19889974 "Sir Jimmy Savile's grave in Scarborough is to be dismantled following allegations he sexually abused girls." because of "the impact the stone remaining there could have on the dignity and sanctity of the cemetery".

The pivotal word there is 'allegations'. They're not yet proven. Wait until they are, or not. Well, maybe it should be removed and stored somewhere because some pillock is sure to take a sledgehammer to it in the dead of night.

I honestly don't know which I find more distasteful - the allegations or the hysteria.

Okay, I should have read that story a little more carefully. It's Savile's own family who are removing the headstone. Fair dos.

And the current estimates of numbers of women involved aren't really very credible.

30 victims over 40 years. Since few of them are likely to be repeats (due to the nature of the way that they were met / procured), this would be about one every 15 months.

I would have expected a man with a preference for young women, and to whom he had frequent access to have offended more frequently than that.

PP

In fairness, PP, it isn't 30 victims over 40 years. ASSUMING IT'S TRUE, it's 30 victims who are still alive, who were traumatised by it, who have not got over it, and who consider it worthwhile making allegations at this point and have had the motivation and the knowledge to do so. I heard on the radio that allegations date back as far as 1959, but are mostly from the sixties and seventies. Women in their teens in the sixties would now be in their sixties or seventies. A fair proportion of his victims may already be dead.

Sorry. It was late and i was writing 'tiredly'.

That was my point - that this is probably only the tip of the iceberg. Assuming that it is true.

Here is a bit more oddness and vagueness about the whole affair.

Yesterday (or the day before), on the radio, I heard Biddy Baxter the old Blue Peter producer who seemed to be saying (and I am paraphrasing), lets move on and there is nothing to be gained in stiring this up now other than to upset a lot of people. Sorry if this was not what was being said, but that was the impression that I was left with. And a Radio One DJ who's name I don't remember but I think was one of the following waves of DJ's (Blackburn / Hamilton / Wright sort of era) who seemed quite angry (worried?) that this was being trawled through now.

I noticed that one of the tabloids was trying to get it's teeth into Freddie Starr yesterday. I suspect that as the BBC pick this up and start to ask questions, that other names will end up being named.

PP.

I thought Freddie Starr preferred ham(p)sters...