In 1932, the British Broadcasting Corporation, pride of the British people, commissioned the architect Lieutenant Colonel G. Val Myer, to design a building as their corporate headquarters which would embody the spirit of the organisation as they pushed their version of British values across the airwaves to a world still coloured pink on the map of ‘the Empire’.
The building was designed to look like a great ocean liner sailing across the airwaves. Today it is strangely reminiscent of the ill fated Titanic.
In the ‘bow’ of the building, Lord Reith commissioned a sculptor to carve out of stone the figures of Prospero and Ariel from Shakespeare’s The Tempest. So far so good.
Sadly, the sculptor he chose was none other than Eric Gill, a man who confessed in his own diaries to being a prolific paedophile; who had an incestuous relationship with his sister, his dog and his own young daughters…
Lord Reith could not have known this at the time – but he was alarmed when he saw the statue. Indeed, the BBC press office were kind enough to tell me that the matter of the size of Ariel’s penis caused such concern that not only were ‘young maidens said to blush’ on passing the statue, but the sitting MP for St Pancras at that time, tabled a question in parliament claiming that the statue was ‘objectionable to public morals and decency’. They are unfortunately not able to confirm that Lord Reith ordered Gill to take a chisel to his masterpiece and ‘circumcise’ it…a rumour that has been oft repeated.
Prospero, for those who have never read The Tempest, was the man who famously put to sea in the ‘rotten carcass’ of a boat. T’was only the applause of ‘an audience’ which could free him.
So there we have it, for students of hindsight. Lord Reith managed to chose a paedophile sculptor to embody the image of the BBC as a floundering creature in a rotten carcass searching for the applause of the audience whilst clasping a child with oversized genitals.
You couldn’t make it up.
Can I respectfully suggest to Lord MacAlpine, that he takes the £185,000 of tax payers money he has been awarded by the BBC for not actually being named in a broadcast by an outside unit under the auspices of an acting editor, reporting to an acting head of broadcast, under the watchful eye of an acting Director-General, and commission a new statue to represent the BBC.
Perhaps the figure carved in stone of the last remaining acting broadcaster speaking to the nation from the underground bomb-proof shelter they had built back in 1942? I’m told it is still there, probably packed full of acting head’s of something or other.
*Earlier posts on the subject of the BBC, paedophilia, and Jimmy Savile.
http://www.annaraccoon.com/annas-personal-stuff/past-lives-and-present-misgivings-part-one/
http://www.annaraccoon.com/annas-personal-stuff/past-lives-and-present-misgivings-part-two/
http://www.annaraccoon.com/annas-personal-stuff/past-lives-and-present-misgivings-part-three/
http://www.annaraccoon.com/annas-personal-stuff/past-lives-and-present-misgivings-part-four/
http://www.annaraccoon.com/annas-personal-stuff/past-lives-and-present-misgivings-part-five/
http://www.annaraccoon.com/annas-personal-stuff/past-lives-and-present-misgivings-part-six/
http://www.annaraccoon.com/annas-personal-stuff/past-lives-and-present-misgivings-part-seven/
http://www.annaraccoon.com/annas-personal-stuff/news-shite-and-the-perfect-storm/
http://www.annaraccoon.com/annas-personal-stuff/the-bureau-for-instigative-churnalism/
Ms Raccoon lives in the Monbazillac area of South West France, renowned for its fine wines and gourmet food, so she frequently finds better things to do than sit in front of a computer all morning. She is liable to take off traveling at a moment's notice. Consequently this blog only gets updated these days when it is raining - and it doesn't rain very often round here...
{ 108 comments }
He was indeed a bizarre man, but very talented as a graphic designer as well as a sculptor. I hadn’t known that there was that rather surprising sculpture of his on the old Broadcasting House.
Bizarre?!! Not just bizarre but also the damnable qualifier “but” As in “bizarre, but…”
What’s bizarre is your soft soaping downplaying crappola.
I’m think something more along the lines of – a miscreant scumbag demon who should be have been hanged sooner than later.
Well said.
People don’t half come talk thoughtless crap sometimes…
“…..the underground bomb-proof shelter they had built back in 1942? I’m told it is still there, probably packed full of acting head’s of something or other.”
Hmmmm. I know that part of it contains the archives of black propaganda developed during WW2 and much of it quite filthy. The most depraved minds of the nation were utilised in the war effort. Lies and accusations of sexual perversity were the stock in trade and of course some understanding – if not actual experience – of that sexual perversity was needed.
You couldn’t make it up? I think you could.
Mrs Raccoon, I have bowed down when faced with your undoubted integrity. I have read your enchanting accounts of events, some of which stretch credulity to breaking point. I salute your worshipping fans and I acknowledge your fundamental decency. For all that, I am sceptical because I think you bring a lot of baggage alongside your entertaining stories. That is not to say that you are lying, sometimes though, you tell less than the truth.
You can suggest that Lord MacAlpine takes tax payers money and then shuts up. (You did that yourself?) The difference being that he is a public figure and might have to deal with vilification and abuse when he has done nothing wrong. Not to mention the obvious, that the guy is too rich to be bothered with small change.
I appreciate what you write. Sometimes though your stories are inconsistent. That doesn’t matter if you’re writing a work of fiction, but if you’re holding yourself up as a bastion of truth, then you need to be accurate and accountable.
Aha! Ahoy there James, the man who thought I had a ‘privileged’ background! I wondered when you would show up…..
The suggestion that Lord MacAlpine use his money to commission a new statue to represent the BBC was made tongue in cheek – satire, not a genre I would expect you to understand.
For the benefit of anyone else devoid of a sense of humour, I think Lord MacAlpine was fully entitled to receive compensation.
The McAlpine thing is very strange. Messham had been apparently making this allegation for twenty years to anyone who would listen, yet had not been sued by McAlpine, presumably because he had no money. Now McAlpine is suddenly ready to sue anyone who passes on the allegation. McAlpine says he sympathizes with Messham!!!!!!!!!!!! Messham now says it is all a case of mistaken identity.
Question I have are who was the man in the photograph shown to Messham–if indeed this ever occurred? Could the police have been confused about the man’s title if he was a member of the same family, or could it have been a different Tory politician like Sir Peter Morrison, who was said to be a pederast and who lived in that part of the world (MP for Chester).
I think Messham has a lot to answer for, not least because he has cost the BBC license fee payers 185,000 pounds, but no one seems to want to hold him responsible for anything.
It’s possible that McAlpine didn’t sue Messham because he didn’t know that Messham was the source of the allegation. It seems that Messham has mental health problems (and given his experiences as a child, that’s not altogether surprising), making his witness testimony one that should be independently checked before being taken at full face value.
How McAlpine’s name came to be the subject of rumour in the first place is not explained; there again, the whole subject is surrounded by the unexplained, or it wouldn’t be subject to so many rumours, scurrilous or otherwise.
The best way forward is to allow the police to properly investigate complaints made to them in confidence, and not to go fuelling the already overheated fires of rumour and conspiracy. Investigative journalism may help, but not if it’s intention is party political mischief or smearing.
“I think Messham has a lot to answer for, not least because he has cost the BBC license fee payers 185,000 pounds, but no one seems to want to hold him responsible for anything.”
NO! The “journalists” who did not checkhis story are responsible. He is as much a victim as anyone in this sorry saga.
Precisely Wigner. They are the ones who are paid to fact check. When they find themselves dealing with someone with mental health problems, for entirely understandable reasons, then they should be checking and double checking.
The whole sordid affair has cost the tellytaxpayers ( oh I have an email today telling me mines is due in 2 weeks ) about £650k. Entwhilstle’s 450, Lord M’s 185 and the noble Lord’s expenses too.
I really hope however, that he takes “the knickers” off Mr Speakers mouthy unelected wife. And if he gets substantial damages from her, to donate those to the Conservative Party – very publicly.
I’m with davidb on this one. Mrs. Bercow is a sad trial to ‘er ‘usband… What (apart from her fairly obvious physical charms) could have attracted him to someone so apparently devoid of common sense? She is embarrassing in the extreme! Her dubious academic antecedents do nothing to recommend her either, yet the truth of Twitter and its ilk is that one merely needs to be famous, or semi-famous, or famous by association to attract ‘followers’ and thereby place oneself in a position to broadcast one’s thoughts to the masses, although in her particular instance it is fairly certain that ‘twits’ who follow her merely do so to see how far she can ‘drop herself in it’ next!
I have no interest in ‘twittering’ myself and, hopefully, Mrs. Bercow will soon come to realise that making fatuous broadcasts, in a horrid attempt to ‘out’ someone – who later proves to be completely and utterly innocent of any crime of that nature is an expensive one to make.
I thought the whole Messham MacAlpine matter was dealt with years ago in Richard Webster’s book http://www.richardwebster.net/print/xanniversary.htm
It is indeed odd. The BBC doesn’t name McAlpine but ends up behaving as if they had. Meanwhile the many places both online and in print that have kept this fallacious rumour going for years are ignored (though some of them certainly have the resources to make them worth suing).
Just to clarify: were I to say that the CEO of a FTSE100 company was a paedophile (but I refused to name them) and then someone came along later and produced a name (which proved to to be wrong) would I be expected to compensate the CEO? While nobody bothers to contemplate the possibility that one of the other 99 actually is a paedophile?
And will Lord McAlpine be suing Google for providing links to various websites that still perpetuate the rumour?
The press were allowed to run with a complete falsehood about the Duncroft situation. They didn’t do anything other than believe this falsehood because they wanted to – no fact checking, nothing.
There’s a blog here, which illustrates how the past can be a very foreign country indeed.
http://stoneletters.wordpress.com/2010/12/20/eric-gill-and-incest/
Hi Moor–Interesting link. Thanks!
A fundamental question raised by Anna’s post is: Must artistic/scientific/etc achievements be downgraded if we learn distasteful/disgusting/immoral facts about that persons life? The most famous candidate may be Leonardo da Vinci. He left no sexual diary, so we don’t know anything for sure. It is widely believed he was homosexual. He surrounded with young apprentices. The two most well-known are Salaì (arrived aged 10) are and Melzi (arrived aged 15). We don’t know for sure if Leonardo had sex with either, or if he did, at what age. It is reasonable to suspect he did, possibly at an age which by current law makes him a paedophile.
Now what? We can rest in comfort that we will never know for sure. But if we did, would it make any difference to Leonardo’s standing? I doubt it.
More contentious: Two of our National Treasures are Alan Bennett (78) and David Hockney (75), both gay. If they had sex before 1967, they were criminals. With 20 year-olds before 1994, with 18 year-olds before 2000, or 15 year-olds now–they are paedophiles. (I have no evidence of, nor am I suggesting, this.) That is if you equate paedophilia = sex below the legal age of consent. I don’t.
Better to restrict the term to those having sex with children–prepubescents.
Aha! Ahoy right back at you. I don’t care to be aggressive because you are a good person and you have had difficult times. How was I supposed to guess at your background? You should have been honest from the start because it was completely obvious that you were not some uneducated kid from Liverpool.
If I lack a sense of humour then so do you. You take all this stuff so seriously, like it makes a scrap of difference whether or not you were in the know about Jimmy Savile. Believe me, I’m not a fan, but the thought of digging up a body is truly ridiculous, and this over reaction is fuelled by your exclusive revelations.
The world is in a mess right now. People are in revolt across Europe, Israel is starting a war, the people of the USA are dependent on food stamps. And you expect anybody to care about the sensibilities of a school girl who didn’t see what was going on in some care home forty years ago? It’s really not that important. Jimmy Savile is dead. The issue is redundant, but I do believe in the BBC as, in the main, a force for good and truth.
I fail to see how somehhow it’s Anna’s ‘exhaustive revelations’ that are fuelling the country’s increasingly hysterical paedogeddon!
But then, given you think Israel is somehow ‘starting a war’, I’m not sure I’d care to see your explanations. They will no doubt be just as absurd.
Believing in the BBC as a force for good and that Israel is starting a war are happily consistent with one another.
The one tending to lead to the other…..
Maybe, jim, we should say the same about the world being in a mess and revolting people on food stamps, when so many were murdered by Stalin and Mao and co. Heck, all pales into the daily trivia and we should not talk about our own experiences.
But James – you did ‘guess’ at my background! You ‘guessed’ that it was privileged.
I am from Liverpool, and I think I qualify as ‘uneducated’ as a child. The fact that I had educated myself as an adult never occurred to you did it?
It doesn’t make a scrap of difference as to whether I was ‘in the know about Jimmy Savile’ or not. It does make a scrap of difference when the BBC is being hauled over the coals as to whether they were right or wrong to show a programme from some Duncroft girls making allegations that I knew to be untrue in some instances.
Quite how the current hysteria could possibly be fuelled by someone pointing out that there was much hysteria and not much solid fact, defeats me. You think I should have kept quiet and let the lies stand unchallenged?
For someone who so obviously dislikes me, and dislikes and mistrusts what I chose to put on my blog, you must qualify as one of my most regular readers – 1029 visits over the past 15 months…I have to ask – are you a closet masochist?
What do you do to enjoy yourself? There can’t be a lot of time left in the day after you’ve wound yourself up reading Anna Raccoon……
Jim, by the ‘Ahoy’ references, I take that you are a nautical type chap…
If so, then you have clearly ‘missed the boat’ with reference to Anna’s background, which is clearly recorded through this blog, if you could be bothered to make the effort.
‘As it happens’… oh, that phrase!! It DOES matter about the whole Jimmy Savile affair. The BBC have clearly made major mistakes. A dead man’s memory has been villified, without the necessary proofs. Clearly, he was a very odd man, but where is the EVIDENCE that he did any of what is now alleged? It may come to pass that such matters can be proved but… Others too have been dragged into this maelstrom, rightly or wrongly, like ‘usual suspect’ Paul Gadd (Gary Glitter). I suspect that many more will have their collars felt as well. We trusted the BBC as a bastion of truth and exemplary conduct. It has been proven to be far less than that. Anna, by contrast, can be relied upon to tell the truth, no matter how personally painful for her the act of doing so is.
So… either get your facts right or sail off somewhere else, perhaps where the sun doesn’t shine!
And… that’s ‘vilified’ for all you pedants out there!
You were gently but well rebuked by Anna,in the preceding ^post. She has every right and entitlement to post on what she wishes and you have the same right and entitlement to search out compmore
You were gently but well rebuked by Anna in the preceding post.
Smarting from this encounter you respond by saying that Anna isn’t writing about what is important in the world today, although you yourself took the time to join in this apparently unimportant discussion. It seems odd that you don’t explain how and why you are the right person to be the final arbiter of what people may write about. Odd that is, until you tell us that you believe that the BBC is ” in the main, a force for good and truth”.
Probably time to cut your losses.
Mr Amfortas, I don’t know who the fuck you are but for someone who claims an IQ of 149 you are surprisingly illiterate. Good for a laugh though, and obviously a complete prat.
So there you go Mrs Raccoon. I can still insult your commentators. Especially when they are delusional fools.
Is one o’ them kangaroos standing on your bunion again James, you seem remarkably bad tempered again……?
You don’t know who I am, Jim? You poor chap. You must be surrounded by illiterate prats and even suspecting I might be one more has obviously tipped you over the edge into impoliteness.
Jim/James (this chap has an obvious identity crisis), it is said that when one is reduced to making ‘ad hominem’ remarks about your interlocutor then… you’ve lost the argument. Time to cast off, mate…
Strange how attitudes vacillate. I’ve read several articles in various different published organs praising Gills’s artistry to the skies. Only one or two mention in passing his ‘unconventional private life’. I can’t help thinking that the same writers who praised Gill would excoriate any senior politician (especially a Thaterite one) found to have even looked at a naked child. Ever.
Maybe if the statue is replaced, it should be a representation of a hole beneath the waterline, the result of striking the iceberg of fact whilst several officers were not present on the bridge (and the captain was asleep with cotton-wool stuffed in his ears). Not one that will sink the ship, but definitely enough to cause the drowning of a couple of matelots, some panicky bailing-out by the minions, and a hefty repair bill.
Though quite how people of Gill’s mindset would interpret the request for a representation of a hole, one shudders to think….
An excellent idea – it could be represented by a carefully designed symbolic hole in the wall of Broadcasting House below pavement level, a major work of art for our time.
You could even have a small plaque set into the pavement to mark the spot – making the actual hole, is, of course, unnecessary, so it has the benefit of saving a great deal of expense.
Who knows, it might even win some kind of award!
Considering all the money they’ve made for the BBC over the years, there ought to be a Dalek up there.
+1
The Dalek’s inside running the thing
Dalek? I thought John Birt had left the building.
Maybe if the statue is replaced, maybe it should be a representation of the infamous Goatse image.
Many licence-payers consider a substantial proportion of Auntie’s output emanates for a similar source, and, has a similar constitution.
Wikipedia on Gill (Sounds like one of those ‘Massingberd’ obits in the Telegraph)
“A deeply religious man, largely following the Roman Catholic faith, his beliefs and practices were by no means orthodox.” -
Hi Thor2Hammer–Gill was a Catholic convert. Something chosen, rather than imposed by upbringing. That’s different.
How this relates to his sexual appetites must be interesting. Those appetites, incidentally, give a bit of a lie to Anna’s “The British Broadcasting Corporation – a Monument to Paedophilia”.
In fact he appears to have screwed anything that moved. Children were a minor part of it. “BBC–A Monument to (Unbridled) Sexuality”. Has a different ring. While being equally inaccurate.
Good to know that you keep track of the stats. I don’t dislike you but I don’t believe every word you say.
In the good old days your blog used to link to many others and so it was easy to read and then link. Now you have no such links so I’m not here so often. You know, I’ve seen you flounce off several times, vowing never to return, you’ve handed over the blog to others and then come back and pushed them out of the way. You’re obviously completely addicted to this blogging stuff and that’s fine but don’t expect slavish devotion because your stories are not always plausible even though I’m sure they are based on truth, as you see it anyway.
You have admitted yourself that you had a good education. That is not inconsistent with a difficult childhood. You were not self taught. That is almost impossible and also doesn’t tally with what you have previously admitted.
Your latest thing seems to be denigrating the BBC, because of some rubbish about Jimmy Savile that may or may not have happened in a particular school a long time ago. You seem to think it’s important, and warrants a series of posts where the readers await the next instalment with baited breath. You’re a good writer but I’m certain there was a lot of artistic licence in those accounts.
I am sorry if you are ill. I hope you make a full recovery. But really, you should reinstate your blog list and explain just exactly what you have done with the guy who took over this spot for all of five minutes, never to be heard of again. And next time you threaten to go you should probably mean it. Or better still don’t do it again. Because for all those who welcome you back there are others who do not understand what is going on or who you have trampled on.
Excuse an illiterate prat speaking up again, Jim, but who the fuck are you to tell someone what to do with their own blog? Go mow your own lawn.
I concur. I think that how yous spells it.
Why on earth should I reinstate a blog list or advertising or anything else on your say so?
Why would you bother to read a blog you have so many problems with?
I have banned you before because you are obsessed with attacking me and other posters rather than debating the issues under discussion. This is not a drop in centre for the mentally ill – and you are not welcome to drop in any longer…
You are now permanently banned and will remain so.
He thinks he’s Jim’ll Fix It.
Excellent!
Well done. Jim needs a long cure course with strong enemas thrice daily, at both ends.
Oh God – He’ll be full-time on Guido now.
@ denigrating the BBC, because of some rubbish about Jimmy Savile that may or may not have happened in a particular school a long time ago. You seem to think it’s important @
I have lived in the UK all my life and this whole Savile farrago has left me questioning the nation I live within. I have passed through Thatcherism and Blairism and a few wars along both those pathways, but this hate-filled Un-Reason that has been allowed to take hold of the country just now is deeply disturbing. I think the BBC has been seriously dysfunctional and it’s behaviour borders on the insane. Because the British have always believed it to be some home to balance and sanity, it’s plunge into the whirling waters of shape-shifting Ickeian monsters is dragging the national mindset with it.
The Police in this country are now arresting disc-jockeys on the basis that they may have groped a grown woman forty years ago. We have the BBC paying out £200k to McAlpine, while the book written by Icke in 1998, carrying that libel in print, remains unchallenged and is waved from the internet like a red flag at a mad bull. This is the level our legal system and public opinion has been reduced to – impotent rage and incipient madness. This IS important, and the BBC lies deep at the heart of the whole darkness.
Well said Sir!
“The Police in this country are now arresting disc-jockeys on the basis that they may have groped a grown woman forty years ago. “
Spot on! And they clearly feel that that’s what is expected of them. So will the new commissioners sort it out?
No. They can’t.
Nooooo! Vera Baird is elected as the first police commissioner…………time to slit my throat……….!
“I have lived in the UK all my life and this whole Savile farrago has left me questioning the nation I live within.”
I left England in 1980, and the country I once knew has become quite unrecognisable to me. The last time I visited was 10 years ago for my mother’s funeral and I have no plans to return again ever, even to visit.
I suppose the “arrest” of someone like Dave Lee Travis may really be an attempt to use the threat of confinement and prosecution to see if they can extract some evidence of some more substantial misconduct (like pedophilia) on the part of others out of him, but on the face of it, it seems quite absurd. Maybe the police are just going through the motions to placate one element of public opinion. I understand the police are now bound to investigate all complaints received, no matter how bizarre, even about insulting language used by footballers or referees during matches. I am just waiting for Australian cricketers to be arrested for “sledging” twenty years ago.
It’s interesting that over the decades the BBC and independent TV in the UK have made numerous TV series featuring police detectives of various kinds, but I don’t know if they have ever dealt with this kind of subject matter. It certainly never came up on Dixon of Dock Green.
It is clearly “unrecognisable” precisely because you left 32 years ago, and haven’t visited for ten years. I left the town of my birth at 17½, have spent 28½ years elsewhere, and rarely return. When I do, I find much of it changed to the point of bits of it being unrecognisable, but that’s as much a result of me not actually being there to witness the passage of time there, as the passage of time itself.
At teh time, Dixon of Dock Green certainly dealt with issues that people would now be convinced that it didn’t.
It is unrecognizable in the sense that it is hard to imagine that in 1980 the police would have arrested a man for jiggling a woman’s breasts in 1939.
I think Granada tv’s brilliant Prime Suspect series included ‘this kind of subject matter’ – Mirren at her best! Prime Suspect (Helen Mirren – Complete) series available in a 14.64Gb download on kat dot ph if your country of residence isn’t anal and you can download from said site. Excellent series, not to be confused with the US version which did not work.
We living here maybe don’t notice how changed it is. It has a much more educated ( well at least degree holding, so thats moot ) population. A much more cynical population. A much wealthier population, and a much more ethnically diverse population. But despite our grumbles it is still a quite good place to live. We don’t get all those bloody strikes we got in my youth. I never knew any kid at my school who’d been on an airplane. We have a long life expectancy. Few people live in damp overcrowded housing. Sure there are problems, but our government isn’t shooting at us – yet.
Its not all that bad.
I visited England 15 years ago after a long time away. I was delighted to visit again all the beautiful places , the villages, the Cathedrals, the Tudor and Roman bits and pieced-togethers, and I went to see my relatives in my old home town – Coventry. Clearly what the Luftwaffe started, the Coventry City Council finished. I was happy to get back to my new home but still retain the fond memories of the heritage.
I do wonder how many of the arrests made so far will result in charges being brought to court. I suspect that the police are investigating thoroughly, but not finding much real crime. Maybe we’ll end up with a couple of token charges of groupie-groping to justify the expense and expenditure of police time, and avoid the embarrassment of having to say that they found no real case to answer against anybody.
Yes, it may well end up like Operation Pentameter–a few people convicted, but no findings of forced human trafficking into the UK on a massive scale. Even now, with so many claims that Savile is one of the greatest pedophiles ever known, as far as I know there is no allegation known to the public that he had intercourse with any girl under 16–though something may turn up eventually.
Ah, but in the 80′s Gene hunt was the face of the police, so probably he would have been equally as culpable.
There’ll be no denigrating of Gene Hunt! :/
Perhaps a gene hunt will settle the matter.
er…… Gene Hunt is a fictional character invented just a few years back to give a particular impression of the Police way back. It is a bit like a portrayal of Mrs Pankhurst being the face of the struggle for women’s equality.
Moor, From this side of the world, I too often look back at the country of my birth in wonder. If it weren’t for frequent contact and reassurance of family members, and relying only on the semi-hysterical tone of the UK mainstream media, I would automatically assume the inhabitants were borderline psychotic.
@Bill Sticker
Indeed, some of my friends advise me not to get so het-up, and I must admit that I walked around the supermarket this afternoon and men, women and children were brushing up against each other constantly, seemingly without need of police escort or prior verification by the relevant authority. It is a parallel society perhaps, and parallel lines seemingly never meet..
I wish I had written that.
It’s exactly how I feel.
@ James – it’s ‘bated breath.’
That’s one that really grates, along with ‘Tow the line’..! It’s ‘toe’! Grrrr!
…state of the ark..
..off his own back…
Tow the line does have its own meaning if you think about it, but not the same as toe the line. My pet peeve over here in the US is “off of,” i.e. get off of my back, he ran off of the road, etc. Ugh. And of course, “He was hung for his crimes.” “No. “He was hanged for his crimes.” As my granny used to say, “Meat is hung, people are hanged.”
He could have been hung by his meat and two veg?
My beef is with all the journos and politicians who don’t know the story of King Canute, who never tried to hold back the tide, but used it in a demonstration of the limit of his power – and for his efforts, has been misrepresented ever since.
Licence payers pay 185,000 pound fine.
If that means the BBC can’t make another episode of “Strictly Come Dancing”, then I shall consider it, money well spent!
Lord McAlpine did say that he would not demand excessive damages from the BBC precisely because he was conscious that Licence Fee payers would be the ones paying. Perhaps if he had pressed a little further, we might have been spared Newsnight, Strictly, Eastenders and Radio 1.
It would be nice if he donated it to “Children in Need”.
So that Stonewall can get some and …. I wouldn’t give the steam off my coffee to The Terry Wogan Ego Show. (Edited to read ‘coffee’).
“I wouldn’t give the steam off my coffee to The Terry Wogan Ego Show.”
I thought I was the only one who really hated Wogan, step up to the bar and let me buy you a drink…
I too could never understand why he was so celebrated. I mean, you find him everywhere. You turn your back for a second and up he pops AGAIN, just when you thought he’d taken retirement!
A bit like the Last of the Summer Wine. Just why does the Beeb keep this particular programme going?
Whatever Eric Gill’s sexuality depravities were, he did leave us the Gill fonts and I was just looking at some of his copper and wood engravings – they’re quite exquisite!
Hitler left us the Volkswagen.
“Hitler left us the Volkswagen.”
No, that legacy belongs to Ferdinand Porsche…
No – that legacy belongs rightly to Hans Ledwinka.
It belongs to Hitler, at least as to design and specs. Of course, he didn’t manufacture the car, simply commissioned it. Here’s the explanation and his drawing of the car. http://raisingstar5.blogspot.com/2011/05/volkswagen-and-hitler-untold-story.html
“He could have been hung by his meat and two veg?”
I lived in the South (USA) for about 4 years, and a “meat and three” is the same standard. Btw, macaroni cheese is a veg by their standard.
“Children in Need” on BBC TV (Fri 16 Nov) was the annual opportunity for the population of UK to SHOW that they ‘Think of the Kiddies’
And the ‘stars’ who appear receive a lot of coverage in MSM. SO – what was the ‘Daily Mail’ headline this Saturday morning?
“Children are vulnerable, and news in recent weeks has been an awful reminder’: Wogan refers to Jimmy Savile scandal on Children in Need… but FAILS to name shamed star”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2234191/Children-Need-2012-Sir-Terry-Wogan-refers-Jimmy-Savile-scandal–fails-presenter.html
I seem to have come a bit late to this particular blog fight re Measham, McAlpine and Newsnight & BBC.
I believe that there are some facts which are facts but do not seem to be known to many.
The actual investigation work for the Newsnight’s piece was outsourced by them the The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. I am not sure whether initial idea was in-house or presented to Newsnight by the TBIJ
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/
The responsibility for the verification of the named individual was that of the BBC and I believe that they pulled his name for the transmission as insisted by the BBC Legal Dept. It appears that neither the BBC or TBIJ had asked Measham if it was the named individual or, had shown him a photo of him from the time of the abuse or even an up to date one. The BBC did not contact McAlpine to ask for his comments and thus give him a chance to refute the allegations. Pretty much secondary school journalism stuff.
The tweet that possibly started the wild goose chase on the blogosphere emanated from an individual in teh TBIJ before Newsnight ran the story. This has been accepted by the TBIJ and their Editor in Chief has resigned.
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/11/15/statement-from-the-bureaus-trustees/
Continuing with the named individual, there are any number or people carrying that particular surname but not so many within striking distance of that care home and only one who was known to visit it in his Rolls Royce.
I cannot find the reference, but is is from a blogger with a penchant for standing by his posts and he stated that the original inquiry into the abuse allegations stated that Meesham (correct spelling now) had not identified the named Lord but another member of his family. So how come the target changed during the TBIJ / Newsnight exposé.
It seems very convenient that the whole media feeding frenzy has been deflected onto the bloggosphere and any number of piss awful “journalists” are squeaking that the Bloggoshere needs to uphold the same standards of integrity and and conformity to the Law that the MSM have to. It seems that irony, or is it hypocrisy are alive and well in this endangered news sector.
Sorry if some of my points have been covered in earlier post but I arrived late and haven’t the stamina to read the entire thread.
B (tP)
Bugger (the Panda) said: “I cannot find the reference, but is is from a blogger with a penchant for standing by his posts and he stated that the original inquiry into the abuse allegations stated that Meesham (correct spelling now) had not identified the named Lord but another member of his family. So how come the target changed during the TBIJ / Newsnight exposé.”
Assuming Messham is the witness referred to as Leon here:
” And who was [Mr B]? For the first time in his long saga, Leon became reticent. He had been threatened and burgled and had had his car attacked, he said. He would give no more – except for this man’s surname. Which happened to match that of one of Mrs Thatcher’s most prominent supporters.”
Later adding: “Since Mr B has been identified only by surname, it is not clear whether the witnesses are referring to Mrs Thatcher’s colleague.
Leon’s evidence suggests that they are not – he said that he thought Mr B was dead, whereas Mrs Thatcher’s supporter is still alive and prominent.”
And if ‘Leon’ isn’t Messham then he could be the second person referred to to mention a name – that time positively identifying the man in a statement to the police but then not identifying the man at the tribunal:
“However, the Guardian has established that another survivor of abuse gave a long statement to police on September 9 1993 in which he provided a thoroughly detailed account of being sexually assaulted by a wealthy man. At that time, he positively identified this man by name and photograph as Mrs Thatcher’s former advisor and recorded in his statement how a friend had told him “You’re going to bring down the government”. However, when this witness came to the tribunal he declared that he was unable to identify the man.”
Just hang on a minute, when it came down to it (in court) the victim DIDN’T identify the perpetrator as anyone in the public eye? So what is the point of your post? More mudslinging? Because if you throw enough…..?????
Lord McAlpine WAS NOT involved in anything untoward in Wrexham. That is abundantly clear. What saddens me most, aside from the fact this poor chap was subject to trial by Internet, is that I’ve spoken to several “sensible” people who have been left with the impression that there may still be something dubious about this man. This is utterly unfair. That is why he is right to sue every person who named him online. I hope this is a watershed moment, this has happened (libel) to a lesser degree to many people in online forums/networks. I hope one of Lord McAlpine’s many positive legacys is that his decisive action here teaches all the irresponsible twitterers/ facebookers/ forum users, that they cannot defame people with impunity, accusing them of horrendous crimes, unless they have the proof to back it up. Or expect to be sued.
Ah, The Fragrant Lord McAlpine
Cop this
http://www.ishtarsgate.com/forum/showthread.php?3641-An-Open-Letter-to-Lord-Alistair-McAlpine
and this
http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2012/11/17/lord-mcalpine-shock-new-question-from-australia/
Anna-Marie,
Perhaps it isn’t clear enough. Bugger (the Panda) had commented that they had read a blog post by someone they find credible which said Lord McAlpine wasn’t named at the tribunal. My post with a link to a report about the tribunal written at the time it was taking place, and the quotes I have highlighted from it, is in support of that.
Of the two victims to be connected to this issue – ‘Leon’ and the second one – neither named Lord McAlpine at the tribunal. ‘Leon’ only said a surname and thought his abuser was dead (so could not have been Lord McAlpine). The second one *is reported to have named someone connected to Thatcher* in a statement to the Police some years earlier but changed their story at the tribunal. Whatever motive Davies had for including that comment to me that witness sounds unreliable.
@ Bugger (the Panda) and Alan,
Your points are abundantly clear. As are your motives. I have read the links provided…in short more aspersions about Lord McAlpine, none of which stand up to any kind of scrutiny or indeed mean anything. Lord McAlpine doesn’t need to be purer than the driven snow to have the right to sue for libel. I have no reason to believe he’s anything other than a decent chap with normal human strengths and weaknesses.
What is so difficult for people to understand?
Lord McAlpine is not implicated in the goings on at the N Wales children’s home.
Lord McAlpine’s cousin was implicated but the witnesses were deemed unreliable (appropriately it seems), therefore no further action was taken.
Lord McAlpine is not responsible for anything his cousin did or didn’t do. His cousin was never tried for these crimes so he should be afforded the presumption of innocence that we all enjoy.
Lord McAlister was horribly defamed. He is perfectly entitled to address that legally and frankly what he does with any monies received is nobody else’s business.
The real issues that arise here are;
The myriad of difficulties involved in maintaining the emotional and physical safety of “looked after children”
The huge potential for injustice for victims of abuse when they come forward due to the standards of evidence required (although I see no way around this)
The huge potential for injustice faced by the wrongfully accused.
The dangers of irresponsible journalism and irresponsible Internet use.
\Anne-Marie
This reply is actually to Anne-Marie below but this blog does me allow to reply to reply to replies.
Let us take your last post starting with an assertion that my assertions are abundant clear. That is an empty slur and no more than that. You know nothing of me as I of you and should not saw you do.
I never said ever, that Lord McAlpine was implicated in the goings-on at the N Wales children’s home. Please re-read my posts before drawing conclusions and then leading smoothly into making innuendo’s about my motives.
He was not and never was named by the BBC and they did not release his name to the Twitter and other social media. Again please re-read what I have written.
If the BBC did not name him and only said that his name was now bouncing around the blogosphere, that is not a a defamation. The people who did that was the TBIJ and the editor of that on-line journal has resigned.
Do you honestly believe that Lord McAlpine, and other members of his family, did not know anything about a member of the family, shareholder and officer of one of the family construction businesses? That, as far as it goes, does not constitute any crime but for him to say that it was not him, and he has been libeled as has his family businesses is a bit rich. The BBC by caving in tout de suite together with McAlpine’s solicitor menacing the social media commentators of legal action and demanding they contact him to settle is great wee manoeuvre to shut the whole thing down, when it needs ramped up to get the real truth aired. The BBC has been neutered and the inky fingers’ press is salivating at having a club to beat the web press over the head; so dire are their circulation figures.
As for “unreliable witness,” another old useful slur. If you had been buggered as a child, on a regular basis, I don’t think that is in dispute, if anyone did have major psychological I would be more than surprised.
One last point regarding the BBC’s cave in and pay out. There were many comments on the blogosphere naming Lord McAlpine some years ago and one or two books were printed naming him. He did nothing so was that or was that not a tacit admission of culpability or could it be used in defence later in response to subsequent and similar accusations?
I believe several bloggers are sitting and waiting with impatience for a writ to be issued against them for what the BBC deemed worthy of paying out from our TV taxes.
This is not going to fade away, I think.
Why thank you Ms Raccoon
@ Bugger (the panda)
I’m not sure how my clarifying that you and Alan had made yourselves abundantly clear could constitute a slur….
This I think will be my last comment on the matter, because I have the strong impression that your mind is made up, and sadly closed, resulting in your preoccupation with the reluctant Red Herring, Lord McAlpine.
Your postings are contradictory. While you state categorically that you do not believe Lord McAlpine was involved in paedophilia, you go on to bemoan his complaints of damage to his reputation on the grounds that “he must have known” his cousin had previously been implicated, although not by a credible witness. Do you really not see the lack of logic in your complaint? My grandfather was tried and convicted of treason in the 1950s, quite correctly I might add. By your logic someone can now accuse me or my mother of treason with impunity because my grandfather has already blackened the family name? Nonsense.
As far as previous accusations against Lord Mcalpine? Do you really not see the difference between being named by a small scale magazine (now defunct) or a book by someone who’s website constantly accuses politicians of all parties, celebrities and the Royal Family of being reptilian aliens, and an episode of Newsnight on the BBC broadcast with much fanfare? Which event made headlines? Which event led to Lord Mcalpine having the press outside his door? Perhaps that answers your question about why Lord McAlpine was compelled to speak out this time?
As for the term “unreliable witness” being “convenient” and a way to silence the abused due to the psychological damage caused by tha abuse; this is unhelpful and emotive. The fact is in this country it is required that individuals are not convicted of a crime unless a jury are sure “beyond a reasonable doubt” that they are guilty. I for one do not want to change this. Mr Messham’s evidence WAS unreliable. I do not doubt that he suffered abuse and I am dismayed by this. But my dismay does not change the fact that his story was found to be contradictory and changeable. Therefore it would be a miscarriage of justice were someone to be convicted of any crime on his word alone. When and if corroboration exists that evidence can and should be considered on its merits.
Has Mr Messham been abused? Has he been let down by the system that was meant to protect him? I don’t doubt it.
Should we lower the standards of evidence for criminal conviction in order to ammeliorate my own dismay? or to satisfy public lust for retribution? No.
A great deal of selfish filth on here who are more concerned with monetary concerns rather than the misery and death these vile paedo’s have inflicted on small children. It is a tremendous asset for the Zionist, Labour Government of Britain to be able to use D-Notices and gag orders, to stop investigations into the parliamentary ranks who are complicit in child rape. But, as long as there are the same said brainwashed filth who are only concerned with the ‘T.V. Licence’ and the financial ramifications, these paedophile rings will persist like a canker ion our midst. It almost beggars belief that there is anyone so immoral, that they are still willing to court and pay for a licence from the paedophile scum at the BBC. How low can some so-called ‘humans’ stoop?
Hurst – what we really need to be able to get vile child-abusers behind bars is hard evidence. So far, there seems to be very little of it about. The internet, and good solid investigative journalism has it’s part to play; but we all know that there is plenty of rubbish on the internet too – scurrilous rumour, conspiracy theories and general unfounded gossip. The sort of internet rubbish that accuses innocent people of vile crimes does not help one bit in bringing the genuinely guilty to justice, and what is more, it probably wastes a great deal of Police time in following up ‘leads’ that turn out to be unfounded or just plain vexatious.
I know I’m wasting pixels typing this, but someone has to state the obvious.
+1. Blimey!! We get rid of one nutter and another couple pop up!!
Oh blimey – tinfoil hat alert!
Are you denying that Blair didn’t put a 100 year D-notice on Operation ORE because Scotland Yard and the Americans were closing in on members of his cabinet? People like you are the reason there is so much misery in the world today. You are ignorant and suffer from cognitive dissonance. But, even more worrying, is the fact you want to remain ignorant. A stereotype T.V. watcher, completely gormless, exactly how the Rothschild owned paedophile BBC like them, totally stupified.
Tina – not quite clear which comment you’re ranting against? And – are you referring to yourself as a stereotype tv watcher, completely gormless etc., etc. (disturbingly self-effacing)? Your whole comment seems somewhat out of context.
Hmm. A rich seam of ass-hattery to mine here.
1. Op ORE was an utter shitting disaster. The reason it all went quiet in the press is because people realised that Steve Nelson and Micheal Meed were lying toe-rags (see Duncan Campbell’s “Sex, Lies and the Missing Videotape”). Now, I’m fairly sure that a few paedos got away with it. But then far more people had already their lives completely ruined for, frankly, buying access to adult porn and then having their credit cards used by scumbag web masters.
2. “D Notice”? You mean “DA Notices”, don’t you? Right – these don’t, generally, have an expiry date and have (sssh in the back, stop sniggering) absolutely no legal force what so ever. Do you really expect that if Paul Dacre had got wind that one of the zaNu-Liebour cretins was being investigated (and the bloody DA Notice would have told him if nothing else did) he would have kept his rent-a-gobs on leash? You may be deluded but you don’t need to a play an idiot on the internet.
3. The Yanks did no investigating of any UK IP addresses. These were passed, in bulk, to the NHTCU and then parcelled out to the relevant local forces.
4. Which branch of the Rothschild family do you think owns the BBC? ‘Cause, you know, the BBC Trust? You might just want to read the BBC Charter (2006 is the latest version.)
“D Notice”? You mean “DA Notices”, don’t you? Right – these don’t, generally, have an expiry date and have (sssh in the back, stop sniggering) absolutely no legal force what so ever. Do you really expect that if Paul Dacre had got wind that one of the zaNu-Liebour cretins was being investigated (and the bloody DA Notice would have told him if nothing else did) he would have kept his rent-a-gobs on leash? You may be deluded but you don’t need to a play an idiot on the internet.
Such a hoary old chestnut the ‘D’ notice one – I’m surprised that there are still people who believe it!
And even if Dacre was minded to take notice of the ‘advice’ – which is, as you rightly say, merely advice, then he’d have flogged the story to the Hindustani Times or the Kabul Courier or whatever and it would be freely available on the Internet…..
It’s a bit like the one about how politicians have policemen in their pocket – they can’t even get a copper to open a bloody gate for them without an outcry for God’s sake…..
Not only do I concur with your post but I must applaud your use of the phrase “utter shitting disaster”…..I shall store this for future use at an appropriate time. My gracious thanks
I wouldn’t know, not living in the UK these days – in fact not for about 45 years. When exactly were Americans closing in … we didn’t hear about that here? Obviously don’t watch British TV – presume you mean the BBC, so all that hot air was completely wasted on me. I wouldn’t pay any sort of money to one station though, too much monopoly. But expressions like ‘selfish filth’ ain’t going to win you any fans, my friends. Oh, and what Engineer said.
Details of the St John ambulance paedophiles and their paedophile protection network which stretches all the way to London, are here:
http://www.stjohnnz.com
Reply to Bugger (the Panda)
“As for “unreliable witness,” another old useful slur. If you had been buggered as a child, on a regular basis, I don’t think that is in dispute, if anyone did have major psychological I would be more than surprised.”
I think your grammar is mangled here, but I think Messham was an adolescent when this happened. In legal terms a child is anyone under the age of 18, but that is not the way the word “child” is used in normal usage.
If being regularly buggered as an adolescent caused major psychological problems that make a person unable to give true witness statements, then a large number of Old Etonians would probably fall under this heading. The fact is that Messham WAS involved in a libel trial involving a police officer and his testimony did not hold up. He named 49 men at the Waterhouse tribunal and made allegations of all kinds of other kinds of nonsexual abuse, none of which was substantiated by anyone else or by corroborating evidence. The finding that he was an “unreliable witness” was really a euphemism for saying that he was a chronic liar and that his evidence could never stand up in court under cross examination. This was the reason that the names of many of the accused were sealed by the Waterhouse tribunal–that they came solely from Messham and that there were no secondary witness statements to support his claims.
This is not to say that there wasn’t buggery at the North Wales care home, just that there was never enough sustainable evidence to bring Messham’s elaborate claims to court–a situation that could have easily been discovered by the Newsnight team if they had done a thorough job of checking out Messham’s credibility.
Excellent post Anne-Marie!
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