September 1997 – The Beginning of The End.

We find ourselves on this day -Tuesday 16th April 2013 – once again drowning in public outpourings of sympathy, grief and – paradoxically – sending ‘our thoughts’ en masse to victims a heavily reported terrorist attack in a Western Country (or rather THE western country, the United States of America). I’ve no objection to sympathy and thoughtfulness when it is sincere and meaningful, but life hasn’t always been like this. To look at why, I will take you back over 15 years.

The Summer of 1997.

I was 23 years old, apolitical and quietly aspirational. I was working in my first full-time job after a period of mixing & matching as much full-time education and part-time work (full-time hours) as I could over the previous seven years. Personally speaking I was young, free and single, hard-working but only just beginning to realise the path I was on was not capable of delivering what I really wanted for my life. I had – and have – no affiliations to any particular political party or movement, but was starting to notice the recently elected Prime Minister Tony Blair was very ‘good’ at spouting empty political soundbites, and becoming rather irritating with it.

It was an enjoyable summer for me – much the same as the three or four previous summers. I was aware of being susceptible to seasonal mood disorder when Autumn sets in, but it was not something that dominated my life. I was still a little short on self-confidence but – aside from my own personal ambition to be ‘free’ – I was fairly content with my social standing, my future and what I could achieve. I wasn’t fearing the future and I wasn’t overly sentimental about the past. As an intelligent young man I felt life was what I made it and the future was in my hands. I was too busy ‘living’ to take much notice of the mainstream, but it wasn’t something I rejected out of hand. If there was a paper at work I would skim through it – but my primary interests then (as now) were music and classic cars, with a smattering of local history and other things. I wasn’t an ignoramus not was I indoctrinated, I was simply – as I guess my ancestors had been immediately before me – reasonably happy but with more of an eye on my future than they perhaps had.

I – along with the rest of the Country – awoke on Sunday morning of August 31st 1997 to the news that Diana, Princess of Wales has died in a car crash in Paris. At this point in my life I had (perhaps wisely) taken my ‘news’ mainly via Spitting Image. I neither cared for nor was ‘against’ Diana at all – from what I had seen she was adept at playing the media to her own benefit, so whilst I did not bear her any ill will nor did I shed any tears. It was a shock, a sad situation and I could understand some people being upset – and even a fairly large number of people being utterly distraught. It was a ‘big deal’ that I knew – but I had failed to reckon in what was going on behind the scenes.

That Sunday I personally managed to avoid the tidal wave of grief by visiting friends who, like myself, had other interests. I imagine it would be harder to do even that these days, such is the power of the media and the need of all and sundry to over-emote at the drop of a hat.

It was the following days leading up to her funeral when they realisation of what was really happening hit me. This new Prime Minister, Tony Blair, had come over all presidential. The ‘grief’ didn’t subside it grew like a endless tidal wave. By the afternoon of the Monday (September 1st) I was beginning to feel more than a little suffocated. It was fast becoming national hysteria, and it was impossible to escape unless one was to withdraw to a place away from other people and from any form of media. That afternoon I felt the sun retreat behind clouds, and I believe in hindsight this represents what was happening in society for real. Diana had meant very little to me, and I knew this was the same for many other people. Why, then, was the hysteria spreading? It is not that this was ‘un-British’ or any else other such balderdash – it’s that wasn’t real, didn’t feel real and people were behaving in a completely unnatural manner – as if practically the whole country had been brainwashed. The reality is it had. Things would never be the same again – not for what Diana symbolised or was, but due to what was really happening to society before my eyes. I knew it was wrong and the start of something bad.

That week was very difficult for me because I wasn’t ‘grieving’ – I felt as though something had changed, but couldn’t put my finger on what. I felt like a car travelling down the wrong side of a motorway carriageway, travelling against the direction of traffic but unable – and unwilling – to spin into their direction, a journey I knew was wrong. I think I knew this was the start of an irreversible slide. What I didn’t anticipate was how quickly this

In hindsight this was definitely the beginning of the end for the society I was born into and was comfortable with. The Great British Public would never recover from it’s ‘Diana Hysteria’ and the effects would be widespread and insidious. First and foremost, it is now evident Mr Blair colluded with the mainstream media he was so ‘au fait’ with, and their ‘Cult Of Diana’ gave them the astonishing ability to dictate to the Queen what ‘functions’ (funerals etc) she will and will not attend. Blair’s presidential cap was found to be a comfortable fit for him, and one he would don for every conceivable occasion from then on. He later admitted to having “managed the situation” and “directing public grief” – in fact what he did change Britain forever, and for the worst.

When the events of September 11th 2001 occurred the shock and hysteria all around was familiar, but I personally felt only resignation and cynicism. A conspiracy theorist would perhaps be excused for thinking Diana was slain by foul means as a ‘warm up’ for future ‘disasters’ such has been the choreography of public reaction ever since.

The poisonous legacy of this one moment in time is all around us almost 16 years later in 2013. Every ‘tragedy’ or ‘scandal’ is met with a tidal wave of ‘outpouring’ very little of which has any meaning. People seem to have lost grip of what ‘grief’, ‘sorrow’ and indeed ‘feelings’ are amidst a river of meaningless emoting and insincere tributes. Social networking has only made this worse – you cannot ‘feel’ loss for people you have never met or who have never impacted on your own life in any way. There is no need to state the obvious to all and sundry about how much you ‘love Baby Taylor. Ur my world xxx’ – loving your children is a natural state of being for all parents, not just the halfwits that state such on Facebook. There is no need to write to pay tributes to someone you never met who died in a tragic car accident hundreds of miles away. And you certainly do not need to write to 500 so-called ‘friends’ how much ‘you love Mummy’ at the age of 24.

Ever since President Blair picked his conductors baton up back in 1997, this has been the end product – a nation of emotional retards who look to the state and the media in order to determine what and how they should ‘feel’. Those too young to remember life before 1997 simply do not know any different, and this is made worse by those who do ‘going along with it’ as if their brains have been wiped like the hard-drive of an old computer. They talk and emote about love and about grief like very young children, but the reality is we are unable to love or grieve without explicit instruction. Of course, as everything happens for a reason and the ‘benefit’ to those running society now is that the every ‘disaster’ or ‘scandal’ doesn’t have to be ‘explained’ in logical terms. This is of no benefit to people like me who still possess ethics, morals and an ability to think clearly. After I had written the bulk of this article, reports flooded in to the UK news organisation, horrifying news of a bomb going off in Boston, Massachusetts at the scene of a marathon. Details of 3 dead and many injured came thick and fest – but out-motoring the reports were the “thoughts” of thousands of other Westerners – it didn’t take long for people in the UK to be calling for the ‘old faithful’, the ‘minute’s silence’. “One Minute Silence” used to be the preserve of Remembrance Day to signify the sacrifice of others that was directly responsible for our own liberty, in recent years it has been applied to many ‘tragic events’ – the irony being we are no longer ‘free’ in the sense that we once were prior to Blairism. That 37 Iraqi civilians had also been blown to bits by terrorist bombs on the same day whilst attempting to vote in the new America-endorsed “Democratic Iraq”  barely figured in the UK news reports, so I was confused – should we have a minutes silence for Boston and five minutes silence for Iraq? Spend a day in bed? Divide up our “thoughts” and send a percentage across the Atlantic and a percentage to the Middle East? Maybe we could work out an ‘exchange rate’ on what a life is worth depending on nationality?

Although it took years for the bigger picture to become apparent, that afternoon on 1st September 1997 it was not just the sun disappearing behind the clouds, it was life as I knew it. It was also a sign of the struggle I would face in the future as someone clinging on to my very sense of self and ideals in a society that would disintegrate into a morass of artificial emotion and senseless idiocy. Sixteen years not only do we face empty vessels in terms of retarded young people (not just unwilling but unable to grow up) but in the ‘past’ I refer to – the time of considered intelligent opinion, of restrained and natural love and grief and of a better quality of life – being discredited by the forces that created the present status quo. What the future will bring people like myself I do not know – but I can’t see the artifice of the present being sustainable. Something has got to give, and along with the bombs of terrorism exploding on a daily basis around the globe, I feel the time-bomb of idiocy is not far off detonating. Do we have anything left to lose?

Selling David A Pup.

It’s been so long for me since I began the stressful and lonely path of ‘thinking outside of the box’ in terms of digesting the information I was being fed (and, of course, I often forget how blissful it must be to have faith in the media and the other ‘forces of good’). To give it a name I suppose I’d call it ‘personal empowerment’. I’m driven by a desire to get the most out of life, but I do not confuse this – as so many seem to – with ‘power over others’ and using people to further my own personal agenda.

In these 18 years since I started to really ‘open my eyes’ – the whole of my adult life – I have seen and experienced things I wouldn’t have otherwise noticed or encountered, or that I would have otherwise have put down to ‘luck’ or taken as written. In this time I have seen society and life in the UK descend to levels of banality even I didn’t foresee in such a short period of time. Or maybe I did (see my next article) I just hoped things wouldn’t happen so quickly?

The path of this self-education has taken in many authors and scholars – from the better self-help books, psychology and occasionally fiction; authors as varied Ayn Rand, Tony Robbins, M.Scott Peck, Stuart Goldsmith and David Icke. Taking no individual word as ‘gospel’ but going with my own sense takes self-belief I learned as an adult, not something I was spoon-fed as a child. For instance, although ‘life-coach’ and motivational guru Anthony Robbins has that cringeworthy kind of Whitehouse-endorsed corporate-friendly ‘your life is amazing’ Americanisms, there is no doubt that his love and self-belief based philosophy offers the open-minded a ‘yin’ to the ‘yang’ of the necessary but somewhat negative realisations of the Ickes and Goldsmiths.

Particularly in the area of ‘finding closure’ when someone is harbouring their own emotional damage, Robbins offers a valuable ‘forgiveness’ based antidote to the hate-based lawyer-assisted ‘closure’ proffered by the police and media which actually discourages forgiveness, encourages the damaged to wallow in hate and self-pity to their own detriment, and continues their own destruction in the name of being a ‘victim’. The only way to ‘get over’ abuse or emotional damage in the past is to empower oneself today – that doesn’t garner many column inches though, alas.

I would have thought this is the message the Mark Williams-Thomas’ of this society should be sending these all-important ‘victims’ but it is not. The sheer amount of real-life ‘monsters’ created by this culture of greed and hypocrisy seems to be never-ending – but the Mick Philpott’s & Karen Matthews’ did what they did because of aspects of the media actively encourage such mindless attention-seeking and narcissism. As Stevie Wonder said nearly forty years ago, ‘Love’s In Need Of Love Today’.

It’s true – love is in need of love today. What we are subjected to is a daily bombardment of hatred and contempt, seemingly now balanced out by the phasing out of the natural process of questioning and weighing up what we are being told. We are expected to believe everything we are told by agents of the media, and the reactions if we don’t tend toward finger-pointing counter-accusations and attempts at ridicule – or, worse.

Education – in the true sense of the word – has been replaced by the promotion of ignorance and hate, philosophy replaced by soundbites. It cannot be accidental that the secondary school education system in the UK produces amazing exam results and very little in the way of ‘knowledge’, and that a huge ‘Generation Gap’ has opened up between those born circa 1989, and those born before. To have an understanding of anything you need to apply an understanding of ‘context’, particularly in historical situations. For instance, you wouldn’t have a monarch beheading his wives in the 20th Century Britain.

There has also been what I’d describe as an annexing of children from adults in the past 15 years or so which has resulted in a massive cultural gap (something that very much extends into shared knowledge and attitude). I pretty much got on with people 10 years older than myself as I did people 10 years younger by the time I was in my early 20s, and vice versa. Teenagers embraced the assent of adulthood generally by wanting to appear like adults themselves – it was essential to ‘grow up’ if you wanted to be accepted in adult environments such as pubs, clubs and workplaces, and it was a gradual and natural process. Youth-based movements have existed in the past, but they were always founded upon ideals, there is something rather transparent about drives to “get young people interested in policing” or politics etc when they appear to lack the general knowledge or interest to apply context or ideology. They exist to become puppets.

Which brings me round to the main point of this article – the spread of misinformation created to brainwash people with no actual interest or knowledge of recent history – and specifically designed to befuddle a major irritant to the ‘New Work Order’ controllers of ‘information’. David Icke is a man who, against all odds and in the face of considerable ridicule, has managed to identify and articulate matters of great importance in both our wider society and attacks on real knowledge over the past twenty years or so. Information – and I mean actual factual information – has come to light which suggests shards of the ‘truth’ Mr Icke and his followers have been seeking to  expose for all these years have been deliberately contaminated with misinformation as a planned distraction in the case of future ‘Exposure’.

There is no doubt that most of what Mr Icke – and others, sneeringly referred to as ‘conspiracy theorists’ by the mainstream media – have been writing about is founded in truth. The existence and aims of The Bilderberg Group (and it’s membership), the 9/11 controlled demolition, The New World Order – all sadly true, and – more importantly – backed up by evidence. Even the much-ridiculed ‘shape-shifting lizards’ seem to be not so ridiculous when faced with the reality of odious teflon politicians such as Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson.

Some people who pose a threat to the powers that be meet sticky ends in ‘accidents’, ‘suicide’ or ‘heart attacks’ – some are dealt with by other means. The way of dealing with David Icke has been to create the fact he is a misguided nutcase and his theories are the ranting of a madman – and in mainstream terms this has worked. After all, if he were to meet his maker via a plane crash or assassination, this would be seized upon by his loyal students as ‘proof’ of a conspiracy. Recently though, Mr Icke has fallen hook, line and sinker for a media conspiracy that has no evidence and no credibility – other than the kudos given it by Icke himself. In fact Mr Icke has fallen so deeply into these morally choppy waters I find myself wondering if he has been ‘bought off’.

I don’t think the ‘conspiracies’ I have suggested above are at all unlikely – my personal belief system is based on logic, if there is a logical reason for something to be happening I will err on the side of logic. For instance, the consequences of 9/11 (social and fiscal) have outweighed the supposed ‘cost’ have they not? If I am to buy into the subject of “institutionalised paedophilia” high up in ‘the system’ I would also suggest that the perpetrators of such evil practices would have cover and distractions ready for dispatch in the event these matters being leaked and thus become a matter of record. Indeed – if this level of systematic evil does exist there it would be utterly stupid not to plant various fairytales to distract those brave enough to venture down the path of uncovering those deadly deeds.

In my humble opinion, it is also astonishingly naive to not consider that the keenness of politicians and others woven into the fabric of the UK Government to attach themselves to popular entertainers and popular culture was to court popularity with the view of increasing their appeal to the young, to the baby boomers. If this theory wants testing it is something that is still going on today! If there are powerful paedophile networks at play, it would seem – to me, at least – that there would be a history of ‘misinformation’ scattered around regarding these matters, perhaps with unprovable tales of modern-day court jesters being involved? This is what I assume would go on, and as I have said I consider myself a logical sort of person.

Call me an idiot – I’m sure there are Ickesters who will do – but I do not see the correlation they do in the present posthumous demonisation of Jimmy Savile as a supposed ‘paedophile’ and their supposed cause of ‘exposing the dream world we believe to be real’.

When a supposed conspiracy is presented to the country as a ‘fait accompli’ on prime-time ITV (which is now far more in the idiom of ‘state television’ than the BBC ever could be) using the methods synonymous with state propaganda, is it not naive to expect leading conspiracy theorists to address the concerns immediately apparent to me (and, it turns out, many others)?

When the maker of said documentary surrounds himself in inaccurate claims, spends the next six months (and counting) dining out on his wafer-thin supposed ‘Exposure’ and has avoided completely an unscripted interview/questions-and-answers scenario does that not smack of ‘conspiracy’?

Where is the evidence? If I work on the principles promoted by Mr Icke, it is more important than ever that any issues of concern are cleared up to our complete satisfaction – surely? The truth is the posthumous vilification of Sir Jimmy Savile serves to fulfill several long-term agendas, not least the ‘buying off’ of Icke and his barmy vitriolic following. There are several ways ‘the powers that be’ could have dealt with this 20-year thorn in their side, be it the time-honoured ‘bumping off’ or the nouveau method of having some woman claim he brushed her right thigh in 1978 and then trawling him across the nation, but such methods would only serve to promote ‘The Cult Of David’ in the long term. It would appear the method chosen is present him as a crank and feed his sillier claims.

When I see Mr Icke and his fervent followers quoting hateful articles from publications such as The Daily Mail and the various Murdoch press, I despair. Maybe his mind has been well and truly blown – or, realistically, he has been bought off. For a man who’s basic message is ‘remember who you are, don’t believe the illusions’ is it not sheer hypocrisy to promote the agenda of the mainstream media when it suits just one of his more minor (and very shop-soiled) claims?

He has enthusiastically promoted the agenda of a certain Operation Yewtree – a Metropolitan Police operation set up to create a ‘smoke and mirrors’ illusion to distract the brainwashed public Icke claims to want to ‘awaken’ and also – even more threatening to our ‘freedom’ – to prevent others who may well know the Savile ‘allegations’ are garbage – from speaking out and addressing this ‘big lie’. This is not ‘smashing institutionalised paedophilia’ it is promoting the dubious agenda of a vicious mainstream media and encouraging the bullying of individuals by this corporate cluster of organisations.

Does he really think a police force colluding with the corporate press – 30+ ‘reporters’, 7 police vehicles and 20 officers to arrest a 67 year old buffoon for touching a grown woman’s breast in 1978 – is part of his ‘wider truth’? If not, why does he associate himself and his greater message to such injustice on the grounds that he was fed a red herring about Jimmy Savile many years ago – when NOTHING is being done to ‘expose institutionalised paedophilia’ other than the bullying of hapless slightly right-wing light entertainers?

For those of use not blinded by the false lights of ‘Savilegate’, it would seem that David Icke is finished – which can only be the long-term aim of his supposed enemies, and the reason his head has been turned. It’s one thing being swept along by a tidal wave of bullshit on the belief it may reveal a ‘greater truth’ but another thing entirely to submit to a hateful mainstream media whilst instructing people to “Get Off Your Knees”

When David ‘gets off his knees’ and smells the coffee, I might start to pay attention again. Until then, thanks David – for information on 9/11, Monsato, the post-9/11 wars, the infowar, Bilderberg and the NWO hierarchy etc – but no thanks.

I’ve enough to investigate and educate myself with now, without bothering with mainstream media bullying and engaging with a very real national ‘dumbing down’ of the populace. If we are to believe justice is destroying deceased entertainers with lies, trawling hate figures for unprovable historic sex crimes, supporting a corporate media who are embroiled in criminal activity with disgraced police forces and consuming exactly what we are told by dubious figures who will not allow themselves to be questioned that is something I cannot support.

There is a lot of wrongdoing going on the world and there has been for a long time now. In the face of the culture of the past 20 years phasing out intelligence and ‘general knowledge’ to a population more easily pleased and bovine than ever before, I don’t wish to waste my time and resources on individuals pointing their finger at the likes of Top Of The Pops.

David Icke’s transformation over the past few months is akin to Howard Roark becoming a fervent supporter of his arch enemy Ellsworth Toohey in Ayn Rand’s ever-relevant novel The Fountainhead – as beguiling as it is foolish. I hope his new-found support of the police, ITV, The Daily Mail and Rupert Murdoch will provide him with whatever it is he seeking to benefit from – but this is not an agenda I can believe in.

LEGACY, TRUTH, LIFE and TOP OF THE POPS

 

One of the first things I learned upon starting school in the year 1978. was there was an element in society – a percentage of every group of people – who did not share the same values as myself. People who, for a variety of reasons, just did not see what I saw and hear what I heard. It’s hard for me to put myself in their shoes, as we naturally become drawn to people more like ourselves., but as we are all different it’s part of life. As we grow into adults, the joyless often stay joyless, destructive stay destructive, and the creative, if they’re lucky, find outlets for their creativity. The creative often cause trouble for themselves in life, the joyless and destructive cause trouble for others.

In 21st Century Britain, the worrying trend seems to be ‘The Rise Of The Idiots’ (to paraphrase ‘Nathan Barley’, written by Chris Morris & Charlie Brooker ten years ago). Whilst any business – creative or otherwise – needs ‘bean counters’ to guide it, the extraordinary change in recent years is the creative mediums of television and radio have been slowly taken over by the more destructive less creative types. In order to inspire you need to be inspiring, and yet what used to inspire is being transformed into either background or distraction. Furthermore, there appears to be a very real media agenda to discredit the latter half of the twentieth century, playing on the lack of knowledge, context and common sense afflicting so many of those born after 1989. Tell them everything was terrible in the 1970s and that everything is “awesome” in the 2010’s – and the chances are they will accept what you dictate without question. “Put your faith in us, we make everything better” seems to be the message – those of us fortunate enough to be older than 25 know the reverse is true. The reality is ignorance and misinformation is the order of the day, a vile mainstream constantly indulging in peoples worst fears and prejudice. The majority of people these actually want to ‘believe the worst’ of people – and certainly want to dismiss what they don’t know or understand.

Even as a young child I had – via the medium of radio and television -already grown to love music. The visual aspect of music (aside from the wonderful pictures painted in the mind’s eye of course) came to me early, firstly via Yorkshire TV’s lunchtime “pop” show ANIMAL KWACKERS and then, shortly after. TOP OF THE POPS. By the time I was 4 years old, my weekly treat was to stay up to watch Top Of The Pops every thursday. I always looked forward to thursday evenings, and always enjoyed the mix of music presented on the show. My eclectic taste in music today is a legacy of the early impact TOTP and the singles chart had on me, as easy as it now to look back and sneer at some of the content of late 70s TOTP and radio playlists. I was very fortunate to have grown aware of music and the pop scene in an era of phenomenal progression and variety. The “new wave” of pop ushered in with punk lastly roughly until the point when I started Senior School (the Summer of 1985).

Good fortune and good timing. I can remember first hand so many TOTP performances over those years, even tracks I never heard again (step forward TOTP hater Roger Taylor and his solo flop ‘Future Management’ – I was on a snowy holiday in North Yorkshire the night of  Thursday April 23rd 1981 and had to watch The Pops on a black & white portable – and yet I can clearly recall the song even now). This is not just dewy-eyed nostalgia – I am talking about the days when most pop music had a genuine intelligence behind it.

In my humble opinion, TOTP went downhill a bit in the latter half of the eighties with the producers unsure how to counteract the MTV-led Videolution and update the show’s format, and the show itself locked into a limited 30 minute slot after Eastenders began in early 1985. It got good again in the 90s, only to fall apart once and for all (hand in hand with my beloved pop music) once the 21st Century kicked in.

Classed by some elitist snobs as forever tacky, Top Of The Pops was producing legendary moments long before I was born. Sadly, most of the pre-1976 shows were wiped, but the memories and influence remain. You will be hard-pressed to find a British pop star from the 76-86 era who’s life wasn’t changed by seeing ‘Starman’ by David Bowie & The Spiders From Mars on July 6th 1972 or Marc Bolan’s first brush with glitter when T.Rex presented ‘Hot Love’ to an eager audience in March 1971.

The sheer clamour for the rediscovery of Bowie & co performing The Jean Genie LIVE on Top Of The Pops in January 1973 when cameraman John Henshall gave the world access to his private surviving copy in 2011 and the amount of people who had been carrying fragments of this seismic performance in the back of their minds for almost 40 years was phenomenal – and more enthusiastic than the music industry can muster for any of it’s current product. That one discovery has probably done more for the reputation and profile of David Bowie in the run-up to his unexpected 2013 return than anything else. Similarly, discoveries of stupidly scarce footage of Top Of The Pops from the Summer of 1967 created a tidal wave of interest, particularly the original Syd Barrett incarnation of Pink Floyd performing See Emily Play. Now, THIS is a legacy to be proud of and, in the words of Danny Baker “meant so much to so many people”. Even now, despite almost every single one of the first 600 shows wiped, we still have footage of the likes of The Kinks, The Who, Jimi Hendrix and The Bee Gees on Top Of The Pops in the 60s. The UK – certainly during the years 1964-70 and then 1978-84 – was the international leader in the pop music boom, and Top Of The Pops is a historical weekly document of those times.

What Top Of The Pops was NEVER about – not until the preening faux-ironic likes of Fearne Cotton in it’s dying years anyway – was the presenters. Sure, many of the faces who presented the show added something to the mix – be it the current ‘elephant in the room’ the late Jimmy Savile (64-84), Alan ‘Fluff’ Freeman (64-69), Tony “gaff” Blackburn (69-78), Noel Edmonds (72-78), Peter ‘Woo! Hey!” Powell (77-88), the under-fire and terminally uncool DLT (73-84), Simon “Timecheck” Bates (79-88), Mike Smith (82-88), Janice Long (82-88), Steve Wright (80-89),Bruno Brookes (84-95), ‘Woo’ Gary Davies (82-91), Simon Mayo (86-96) or the wonderful combinations of David ‘Kid’ Jensen (76-84) and John Peel (81-88) – but they were only ever there to link the tunes and performances, a little advert for BBC Radio 1. To now see the legacy I have described above reduced to hushed-tones and apologetic asides on the national network that produced that show on a weekly basis and still produces end of year specials is an absolute disgrace. What we have is all sides playing to the ignorance and immorality of our present sick society, planting “opinions” in the heads of people who actually have no idea what they are talking about. The “celebration” of the BBC’s legacy at Television Centre last week was somewhat tarnished by a reluctance to raise the issue of Top Of The Pops – a show that was filmed at TVC for over 25 years. The impression I got was TOTP wasn’t to be mentioned – with only the outspoken Danny Baker and (to a lesser extent) former TOTP presenter Noel Edmonds breaking the silence.

The BBC is ALLOWING the legacy of Top Of The Pops – not just a ‘National Institution’ but an international brand – to be destroyed. That Sir Jimmy Savile presented the show for the first twenty years is fact – that he did what he, in death, is alleged to have done many years ago is not, despite what The Metropolitan Police or ITV defective Detectives say. People connected to the show know the allegations of dressing room wrongdoings are at best highly dubious, so what I cannot understand is why the BBC are joining in on this attack on themselves when they should, on behalf of both themselves and us the TV license payers, be defending the show millions watched and loved. The legacy of Top Of The Pops is something that should be celebrated – somehow this cheaply-made show in a clinical TVC studio transcended the sum of it’s parts and changed many lives for the better over the course of over 30 years. Instead, to add insult to the injury of wiping 12 years worth of shows, the repeats many of us waited 35 years for have been ruined by an agenda set by ITV, a disgraced Police Force, a dubious unqualified TV “expert” working for ITV and several of their own artless self-serving so-called “investigative producers” wishing to engage in a tug-of-war amongst themselves at the expense of the BBC Light Entertainment legacy.

The present situation paints a picture of one host of the TOTP team running amok in the TVC dressing rooms – when the truth is Jimmy Savile spent as little time on set as he possibly could. A team of producers, lighting & sound engineers, cameramen – not to mention FEMALE dancers, make-up artists and designers – not to mention an audience policy of NO UNDER 16’s. We’re expected either to overlook the overwhelming evidence or assume every member of the Top Of The Pops team was covering up grave wrongdoing? If you believe that, you probably believe in Santa Claus too.

We are living in Orwellian times. The current position is very few people feel able to defend either Top Of The Pops or the pre-Matthew Bannister Radio One for fear of being picked off. There is a current police operation in place that appears to be serving an agenda of silencing those were there at the time – witness the arrests of Max Clifford and Jim Davidson after they had the audacity to publicly question the agenda of said operation.

No working DJ dare speak up against this shameless witch hunt in case they are either targeted themselves (after the mainstream round on them) or find themselves out of work by their mainstream media employers, and there are only a couple with the courage to speak out who aren’t ‘in that line of work’ anymore. They simply have to remain silent.

In being swept back, via the BBC4 repeats, to the time in my life when Top Of The Pops was my introduction to my lifelong love of music and the charts, I find it reprehensible and disgusting that at the exact week we arrived at the point in the run were no more episodes were missing from the archive, a shoddy ITV documentary made an unqualified charlatan full of unprovable allegations against a dead man backed up by  a transparent witch-hunt by a famously corrupt police force and spineless present-day BBC management have resulted in 40% of those shows being banned. I can’t help but feel that not only is my intelligence being routinely insulted by these ridiculous claims but they are destroying a time I lived through and loved, a time were music progressed so quickly and effortlessly – like a time capsule of real life being blown to pieces by that group of artless loveless destructive kids who have pushed their way to the front of the queue as adults.

To add insult to injury, one final point. BBC4 are refusing to show Top Of The Pops presented by Dave Lee Travis due to his arrest by the ‘Savile Police’ for fear of being criticised by the vile scum of The Daily Mail and the Murdoch rags. Challenge TV – owned by Sky – have no such qualms about repeating the BBC-made ‘Jim Davidson’s Big Break’. Is that fair and just?

YEW-TURN – SUDDEN DE’ATH

 

Scotland Yard attempted to dump news of the their case against Wilfred De’Ath being dropped due to the sole complainant withdrawing her statement very quietly. Unfortunately, amongst the bigger news of widespread legalised theft in Cyprus and ‘Teflon Boris’ vs Eddie Mair it was noticed by a few pesky truth-seekers. And, my, what a tangled little web of intrigue it is.

For a deeper analysis of Wilfred De’Aths contribution to Mark Williams-Thomas’ shallow character assassination of the late Sir Jimmy Savile I will guide readers to this EXPOSITION

http://jimcannotfixthis.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/exposition-pt2.html

For the sake of this article, I will recount some background details. Wilfred De’Ath was one of the ‘Star Witnesses’ on Mark Williams-Thomas’ “Exposure: The Other Side Of Jimmy Savile” aired at the beginning of October last year. Now, Mr De’Ath was a very strange choice for a star witness on a show claiming to shine a light on sexual abuse, and for more than one reason. Firstly, Mr De’Ath is a convicted – and very self-congratulatory – fraudster who has written at length about his deeds in both magazines (particularly ‘The Oldie’) and an autobiography, published in 2008. However, ‘fraud’ is one thing – perhaps former policeman come self-qualified television presenter Mark Williams-Thomas thought he would be still be a credible witness? Given his target was a dead man facing allegations of sexual misconduct, fraud does not make a witness completely unbelievable. Doubly strange, therefore, that in his book “Uncommon Criminal”, Wilfred describes himself as a sex-obsessed voyeur and a sexual predator. Not, one would imagine, a very credible mix for a ‘star witness’ in a supposed “Exposure” of Jimmy Savile?

http://www.pickabook.co.uk/bookdetails.aspx?ISBN=9781857252248

In common with his own ‘colourful’ past surely Mr De’Ath’s account of Jimmy Savile would not be very convincing? It certainly wasn’t – the fraudster described him meeting up with JS and an unnamed – and still unidentified – “girl” who might have been underage in circa 1964. It certainly wasn’t convincing, for a number of reasons (but again, rather than repeat Moor Larkin’s thoughts on this I’ll simply refer you to the ‘Exposition’ link above). My opinion is that Wilfred wasn’t the only witness on the show clutching at straws, but that is not relevant here. A few voices raised the issue of Mr De’ath’s incredulous account, particularly Private Eye, but the show was made to stir up a hornet’s nest as opposed to convincing intelligent people who knew only too well about ‘background’ and ‘context’.

Exposure’s discredited ‘star witness’ was discredited further on Remembrance Sunday when he was arrested at the break of dawn at his address. As expected, the arrest of this man in his 70’s at his home by a team of several police officers was much publicised. The charge against him was he was alleged to have ‘sexually assaulted’ a teenager in a cinema in 1965. Curiously, this teenager of the 60s was now a well-known actress and presenter with strong links to ITV – the network that had produced and broadcast Mark Williams-Thomas’ “Exposure” on Savile, and already had a ‘follow-up’ show planned. She is said to have seen and recognised Mr De’Ath on the said ITV shocumentary, and felt obligated to call The Metropolitan Police – who by then had embarked on a transparent post-Savile witch hunt against any ageing male they could lump in under Yewtree under a sly strand they named ‘others’, with some of their officers now known in MediaLand as “The Savile Police” – an ironic title for several reasons. A more sinister side of “Operation Yewtree” was the fact that each arrest was highly publicised – each of the accused stated clearly, as their names were dragged through the mud, that they wished to co-operate with police to clear their names. Despite these statements and the low risk entailed, each arrest was made using teams of highly visible police officers and mainstream journalists. In the case of Dave Lee Travis, his arrest in November was tied in to happen on the day one of his monthly stints as presenter of Top Of The Pops 35 years ago was due to be rebroadcast, therby causing maximum publicity for the arrest and maximum embarrassment to both Mr Travis and the BBC. Mr Davidson was swooped in Heathrow Airport as he landed in the UK for a stint on Celebrity Big Brother. These were not coincidences.

For each accused, the result is akin to being paraded through every town centre in the land, holding a banner with “make a complaint about me” written on. In the case of well-known well-established entertainers like Davidson and DLT, this method of trawling has worked a treat. In the case of Wilfred De’Ath it did not, primarily – one presumes – because very few people know who the hell he is anyway.

With no other “victims” coming forward to report our erstwhile fraudster/star character witness, the ITV colleague and friend of Mark Williams-Thomas felt, understandably, uncomfortable. The upshot is she has withdrawn her statement against Wilfred De’Ath, and “The Savile Police” have also dropped the case due to ‘lack of evidence’. The gameplan was to create a pool of complaints with each complainant effectively “verifying” the others, a ploy that may well make scapegoats of the other entertainers caught in this net.

It may also be that the seemingly highly contrived elements of this particular case – ITV star sees her accused on ITV show with the ITV documentary maker having a vested interest in the subsequent Police Operation, all parties very much part of what I’ll term loosely as the “Daytime ITV Family” also combined to influence the decisions to withdraw statement and block the case.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21930181

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21936350

Mr De’Ath is surprisingly eloquent (or perhaps not so surprising given his Oxford background) and has elected to speak out against his treatment and against the reality of ‘Operation Yewtree’. He is also, sadly, still making ill-considered soundbites against the man who he had a couple of dealings with, fifty years ago. Still, there’s no fool like an old fool – as The Metropolitan Police are gleefully wanting to find out.

OPERATION YEWTREE: AN IDIOTS GUIDE

“The Savile Police”. What an absurd concept, what are they? Policemen in blonde wigs and tracksuits? Sadly not, they are though as absurd as their chosen handle in the press. Set up as a knee-jerk reaction to a shoddy piece of so-called investigative journalism on ITV in yet another example – as if we needed any – of the continuing clandestine relationship between The Metropolitan Police and the gutter press (aided and abetted by their neighbouring force Surrey Police with their equally sinister relationship with the media), as if to raise two fingers at The Leveson Enquiry and all its legal and moral ramifications.

What is Yewtree for? This is a good question – for other than leading a media witch hunt against several former celebrities for crimes not involving “children” it appears to have very little purpose, certainly no element of real benefit. It is, to all intents and purposes, a media-led police trawl in which individuals are picked out by fitting a criteria – they either have to be apparently dislikable individuals of a probably right wing persuasion and with BBC connections (DLT, Jim Davidson), already ‘disgraced’ and ergo fit for the media bonfire (Gary Glitter, Wilfred De’ath) or – in a new Nazi-esque twist – pesky individuals who spoke out against this witch hunt and needed silencing (Davidson, Max Clifford). The only arrests connected to Jimmy Savile is any way shape or form were Gary Glitter and Freddie Starr (for an alleged and highly improbable orgy in an imaginary dressing room in the wrong building for a show in which neither appeared on the same edition of) and the easy target that is JS’ former Radio One presenter, the elderly Ted Beston. After 5 tedious months of maximum media exposure of this calculated trawl nobody arrested by “The Savile Police” has been charged. I must also point out – in targeting unpopular and/or risible individuals (‘easy targets’) precedents can be easily established. Once they are established, it will not just the right wing comedians of yesteryear or self-styled Hairy Monsters getting nick-nicked for whatever.

This week it transpired that Dave Lee Travis – former Radio One dj and Top Of The Pops presenter – had been ‘re-arrested’, despite still not being charged with any offence 4 months after his initial high profile arrest – 20 or so officers, 7 police vehicles and 30-odd press already waiting. Coincidentally, CPS spokesman Nazir Afzal also chose this moment to announce to the disgraced Red Tops of impending “very high profile figures” will be arrested over the coming weeks as “a growing number of sex abuse cases are uncovered by police”. This chief crown prosecutor then added “There are people you will be interested in”.
At what point did criminal investigations become dependant upon an immoral media to rubber stamp and conspire with the Crown Prosecution Service and The Police? What sort of sick game is this?
Mr Afzam also added that “none are directly linked to Savile” and, very helpfully, “THIS IS A GROWING INDUSTRY. THERE ARE MORE ARRESTS SCHEDULED OVER THE NEXT FEW WEEKS. SOME ARE VERY HIGH PROFILE FIGURES”
“An Industry”. In all his brazen hyprocrisy, Afzal has confirmed what we thought. This is a wicked collusion between The Metropolitan Police and the media and the CPS, and they do not care who knows.
What sort of criminal investigation targets the elderly, and actually – as Mr Afzal has highlighted – is booking in arrests like job interviews and plotting the public downfall of these people in an operation that has yet to charge anyone? They will be arranging events to fall into place for maximum exposure, like their high profile arrest of DLT – who had already stated he wanted to be interviewed – on the morning one of his Top Of The Pops was due to be re-broadcast on BBC4, or arrested in an airport (Jim Davidson). Utterly contrived and utterly disgusting.
It should not surprise anyone, as the whole posthumous Jimmy Savile scandal, is – as discovered by Anna Raccoon – a conspiracy of epic proportions, were dissenting voices are arrested, vilified or – for those like Anna, the wrong sex and the wrong intellect to be made a monkey of – completely ignored despite being in possession of evidence that disputes and casts a cloud against dubious stories now, no matter how absurd, taken as gospel by a public overrun with false media reports. The scandal was based around lies broadcast on a shoddy ITV shockumentary, and the grew legs by the fact that allegations could be made by anyone – however fanciful – and never challenged. The sort of things dreams are made of if you’re a hand-wringing shifty former detective trying to make a name for himself on ITV, a disgraced “news”paper looking to increase crashing circulation and deflect your own much-publicised moral failings or simply a trash chat show looking for rubbish to talk about.
“The Savile Police” have created their Operation Yewtree as a witch hunt. Set up in the shadow of the dreadful ITV programme, it is divided into “three strands”: ‘Savile’, ‘Savile & others’ and just plain old ‘others’. Other what? Other TV personalities? Other old men? No, it would seem “other” means “literally anybody”. For any reason – anything can be rendered ‘sexual’ out of context, nothing can be proved and nothing can be disproved. It doesn’t have to involve anyone underage or have any timescale. Anything, anyone. To announce to a newspaper under investigation itself under another criminal operation (one that it actually producing real charges and real convictions for real crimes) that this “is an industry” and that you are booking in future arrests – presumably when the press are available – is beyond corrupt.
In making their high profile arrests and pontificating to a disgraced media about “more to come” is to trawl for complaints. Each arrested individual may as well be paraded through every high street in the country, carrying a banner with “make a complaint about me” on.
There is no purpose to this operation other than to create an illusion that the police are doing something about an illusion. They couldn’t investigate the many ridiculous claims against Jimmy Savile because, conveniently for all, he is dead. So they create a bogus operation to trawl for scapegoats and call it “an industry”. Is this justice, is this what society has been reduced to? Phony documentaries, phony reports and a witch hunt. Policemen and Crown Prosecutors making stupid comments to the press and, in the case of the NSPCC – never shy to push their own agenda – and the joke that is Yewtree Commander Peter Spindler, failing to see that making lunatic statements to the corrupt UK press is not protecting any children, past present or future. We are way beyond parody here.

Oh, almost forgot. In an attempt to justify the existence of “Operation Yewtree” the Met have been piggy-backing other sex abuse enquiries – the victims involved in those enquiries do not know why they are involved in Yewtree when their experience has nothing to do with Savile, nor with any of his associates, nor “others”. The involvement of Yewtree in this completely unrelated operations is slowing down their justice.
Which all begs the question – if we can’t trust the police to have a decent agenda, if the media conspiracy to stop the truth from getting out is all-encompassing and if telling the truth gets us arrested, what is the law for now, Persecution and promotion? It certainly isn’t “child protection” as healthy-minded children need to have healthy-minded adults in order to become healthy-minded adults themselves, and the society in which we find ourselves now is a slave to paranoia, suspicion and ignorance.

Vile corruption.

Popped?

Watching the second show in “Danny Baker’s Great Album Showdown” I found it confirming all I had found out in the past year – that the basic, simple genre of “Pop” has now been twisted and subverted beyond all recognition. I watched with pleasure as Danny – along with guests Boy George, Grace Dent & David Hepworth – reeled off anecdotes of their favourite “pop” albums, and realised I wasn’t in fact going mad and that the likes of Kate Bush, Joni Mitchell and Paul Simon were indeed “pop music”, the pop I knew and loved but has now been sub-genre’d and formulated into submission.

I am roughly the same age as Grace Dent, brought up by parents roughly the same age as David Hepworth – and I had immersed myself in the joys of pop music ever since I clapped eyes on “Animal Kwackers” at the age of two. I was watching Top Of The Pops as my weekly “treat” from the age of three, bought albums from the age of five and was writing and taping the Radio 1 Top Forty from the age of seven. I was just 10 when I first subscribed to Smash Hits in early ’84. I spent the late 80s buying Jimi Hendrix albums alongside Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye alongside Stock Aitken Waterman and Public Enemy. I knew exactly what the shows panel were talking about because it was exactly the same place I was coming from. Pop to me is, and always has been fascinating and delightful – a world in which the simple and the complex can co-exist happily and often following on from each other. I was fortunate enough to grow up in the second “Golden Age of Pop” (77-85) and to experience the 70s, 80s & 90s first hand. I could go backwards in time (70s, 60s, 50s) whilst lapping up new releases and new styles with great enthusiasm.  It isn’t like that now, though.

I have, for my sins, recently spent a year working almost exclusively with young people, aged approximately 18-23, in an environment were music was on constantly. What I learned early on in this work was the majority of young people now have specific requirements and expectations in the music they listen to, and that these clashed completely with my own – and those of most people over the age of, say, 30.

I will admit to having lost my pop compass somewhat in recent years in terms of following the pop charts. Whilst I have maintained my collection of the “Now That’s What I Call Music” series, most of the last 15 have had just the odd flick through – a far cry from the days of yore (Volumes 1 (1993) thru’ to Volume 63 roughly, were each volume would be purchased as close to release date as possible and played repeatedly). Massive exposure to both what they call “modern pop” in my workplace told me there was a reason for this – ‘fings ain’t what they used to be”! Somewhere around 2007, mainstream pop mutated into a generic triple-headed beast that doesn’t stray far from type. Parented by what we used to call “R’n’B” in the 90s, much of what is now seen as modern edgy pop is computer-generated tuneless drivel, driven by half-formed lyrics rendered meaningless by a lack of any context other than mindless chemical-fuelled hedonism. In a society constantly putting the past to trial under the pretext of “child protection”, what those of us who went through 1978 undamaged by some supposed mass “grooming” by errant DJ’s make of todays kids hands-in-the-air’ big hits – songs like Lonely Islands moronic  “I Just Had Sex”, Khia’s “My Neck, My Back” (‘Right now, Lick It Good, Lick this pussy just like you should – My Neck, My Back, lick my pussy and my crack”) and Ke$ha’s “Die Young” (‘Let’s make the most of the night like we’re gonna die young, We’re gonna die young’). The music made by, say, Calvin Harris presented as typical of todays pop may have been charming once – but once that forumla is applied – and demanded by the modern pop consumer to be – on every other track in the Singles Chart the  innovation, and the charm, soon wear thin. The lyrical content of many of these tracks manages to be both trite and offensive at the same time, but with no trace of the intelligence that blessed previous examples of “offensive pop” (from Serge Gainsbourg to the Sex Pistols to Frankie Goes To Hollywood) or the genuine threat much of the greatest rock/pop – The Stone in 1969, The Sex Pistols in 1977, Guns ‘n’ Roses in 1987 – still has in spite of the subsequent ageing and acceptably of those artists So pop stars still “mean it, man”. Alas, not. They are confused, empty sexless vessels just like the youngsters who consume their product over and over again.

As well as jittery semi-worded dance-pop, there appears to be two other ‘default settings’ in pop. Whilst the world of ‘X-Factor’ talent shows could have seen a return to Tin Pan Alley- style songsmithery what it has tended to depend on is either teams of professional songwriter delivering songs-by-number or oversang (and often mis-sung) cover versions rendering yesterdays crafted masterpieces into slush. Bands like One Direction use a pop formula that manages to be both bland and utilize elements of the “pop nouveau”. The ‘Pop Ballad” has been rendered impotent by sticking to a set formula – songs have to be in “uplifting” keys and set to a precise sickly formula. Perhaps the most shocking lesson I learned recently was not “ver kids” slavish devotion to Nikki Minaj & Rihanna but how the music we knew and loved as “pop” rendered “depressing”. This label was applied to hit tracks by artists as upbeat as Madness, David Bowie and Jane’s Addiction – it would seem that a song possesses either words, key changes or – God forbid – minor keys and real instruments together, it is classed as “depressing”. To someone who finds early Leonard Cohen an uplifting inspiration this seemed even more absurd than it obviously is. Perhaps this is symptomatic of two deeper issues I encountered with this age group now – particularly widespread emotional immaturity and the  substitution of real emotion and experience with a combination of social instruction and copycat consumption of recreational chemicals.

The realisation that there has been a new “Generation Gap” created during the past 15 years – something that hadn’t reared it’s said in 50 Years Of Rock’n’Roll – and that this gap also includes the Universal Language of Pop is something I find both sad and fascinating.

Danny Baker and co on the glorious BBC4 channel – the only real of “actual” music television   now – confirmed that I am not alone in thinking Pop Music is a multi-faceted beast and home to the intelligent, varied and progressive music as we all knew it was for those glorious 40 years of incredible advances. It would be a shame if it all ended in a genuine Arrested Development (‘scuse the pop reference!) but that seems to way things are heading.

I myself have embraced iTuned as a vehicle for music, if not the scatterbrained AD/HD ‘randomisation’, and have banished “Genres” from my carefully ordered database of over 5000 albums (77500 tracks) – they are completely unnecessary and the sheer amount of potential genre’s make a nonsense of the music itself.

Don’t worry though, I still own and use such lumbering beasts like records, cd’s, Hi-Fi separates and quality turntables for the ‘organic’ experience!

ALL FALL DOWN – This Is The Age…. OF THE CLAIM!

 

“When I was a boy, there’s a dream that I had

That a war that was fought was for Good against Bad

And I woke up to find that the world had gone mad

and we’d All Fall Down”

So sang Midge Ure in 1986, a nice lilting number recorded by Ultravox with the esteemed Irish band The Chieftans. Unfairly ignored at the time, being a gem that part of a sharp fall from grace for Ultravox in the mid-80s, it is an all-but-forgotten song about the fear of cold war. Although the Cold War never really happened, it has been replaced by something just as frightening.

That above couplet sums up how I feel about today perfectly, and not without reason.

Before I go any further though, allow me to give you some background information on myself. I was born into The Three Day Week, the eldest child of hard-working but comfortable parents who strived for a life of home ownership in Suburbia, with both sets of my grandparents working and living in rented property. We had a nice semi-detached house, a rented colour TV and a 1972 Morris Marina, and by the mid-80s a detached house with a large mortgage, our own TV with a remote control and an Austin Metro to go with my dad’s Ford Capri. I have no background in the arts or literature, no friends or relatives with anything to offer in the way of connections or influence and also have the additional ignominy of being the eldest child of a humble (former) police constable who was unwilling or unable to climb the ranks of that particular career.

Throughout my life I have built my own confidence and concepts by absorbing and interpreting what I read, heard and studied. A mind that never stops thinking can be a blessing and a curse, but it diverted me from the path I was expected to take – one of local authority, management and a comfortable existence with a pension. There came a time when I realised that course would never satisfy me and I wanted ‘more’.

For those who wish to stick a political label on me, let me state here and now I am neither ‘left’ nor ‘right’. As well as being a concept designed to waste intellect and confuse great minds, those simplified terms have now been excised from modern politics in the West. Whether they were good or bad, the days of conviction politicians (be they Thatcher or Benn) have gone. What they have been replaced with is factory-built lookalike drones that spout the same gubbins and could in reality “belong” to any of the political parties. They are self-serving pointless robots, performing a role.

I have learnt to trust my own judgement, and my gut feelings.There are an increasing number of things happening that make me angry, but there a few that have set off warning lights in my head. Call it my ‘inner bullshit detector’ or just good old intuition, but there are 4 events I have experienced in my adult life that have caused me to be extremely concerned for the future – we know all about them, but I will briefly cover how they made me feel at the time and their relationship to the here and now.

MAY 1997

After 18 years of Tory rule, the John Major government were swept aside and a landslide victory awarded to Tony Blair and the previously left-wing Labour Party. The whole country was swept away in a tidal wave of ‘feelgood’ cheer, promises of great new tomorrows and a ‘cool Britannia’. Now, whilst I was no fan of the Major government, this jarred. It wasn’t “feel good” it was hysteria, the sort we used to sneer at when ‘mad Americans’ whooped and hollered and waved flags. The man himself had no principles, he had soundbites. I wasn’t buying it. At the same time the citizens of the UK (myself included) were given easy credit, to make us feel ‘great’ about this new tomorrow. Credit cards, mortgages, loans – they flowed like water. Was I the only one wondering where this ‘money’ was coming from and how it was going to be paid back? It certainly felt like it at the time. It all just felt ‘wrong’ – the country was being bought off, but with nothing.

SEPTEMBER  1997

We can probably all remember waking up to the news that Diana, Princess Of Wales had died. I’m not concerning myself with the conspiracy theories surrounding her actual demise (although they shouldn’t be dismissed), what troubled me was the aftermath – probably ‘the reason’ she was (possibly) bumped off was just as much about the role her death played in “The Masterplan” as her role in the Royal Family and her behaviour and dalliances. Grief on a national scale I would have expected – she had, after all, played the media and the public like proverbial fiddles. What followed over the next few days and weeks was unbelievable. We had the Prime Minister in his element, directing the “public grief” to ridiculous levels, a whole nation mesmerised by the empty words and gestures, mourning someone they did not know other than by how they projected. It was unreal, but it was all around and suffocating. I kicked against it, but it was inescapable. I found it depressing, but much more than that – I knew this was the step into an Orwellian nightmare and there would be no turning back. A period of depression beckoned, but I was powerless to avoid given I couldn’t move to a Desert Island.

SEPTEMBER  2001

By 2001 I was 4 years older, wiser and more cynical. I remember arriving at work on September 11th 2001 for a ‘late shift’. At approximately 2.40pm, my first contact of the day told me, ashen faced, of how “Islamic madmen” were “driving aeroplanes into the Twin Towers!” My response, and this is completely true, was a nonchalant shrug of my shoulders and “oh well, I’m sure it will make a good blockbuster movie” to which the man looked back at me, aghast. I didn’t change my opinion, everyone else was hooked by the horror of it all: the never-ending news coverage, the simplified tales of baddies, goodies, superheroes and supervillains. I’m not saying I envisaged a 9/11, or I was even thinking it was possible or about to happen or even knew the background information that would back up my beliefs of the time.. It just felt tiresome, crazy and somewhat inevitable. We had shifted into a new modern realm, a technicolour world in which the beliefs and behaviour of the United States of America that had gone under-reported in the West was being ramped up several notches and applied to the whole world. The so-called “Cold War” was just a warm-up for this, a war without boundaries and without end – another Orwellian step and something else that would not be reversed. As in the aftermath of Diana, I rejected radio and TV and stuck resolutely to playing my own choice of cd’s for a few weeks – yet still it was inescapable and suffocating. I slid into a period of depression, but never lost my ability to address right from wrong.

OCTOBER 2012

Eleven years on from 9/11 and fifteen years from Diana, and a different world. We’ve got a generation of emotionally crippled young people who have no recollection of pre-Diana times, have great problems doing anything – feeling, thinking, working, socialising – without instruction or following each other. I myself have read and absorbed work by a variety of philosophers and authors, from Ayn Rand to The Dalai Lama, Stuart Goldsmith to Tony Robbins, M.Scott Peck to Jon Ronson. Nothing would surprise me now, we’re off to hell in a handcart with no steering wheel, or so I thought.

Tony Blair, via Gordon Brown, has been replaced by a shiny-foreheaded Tory version of Blair in the eternally unpopular David Cameron. There’s another funny-voiced clone waiting in the wings for the next election, and there’s nothing to choose between them other than a label.  We’ve had 15 years of American-style presidential political leadership, the credit of the Blair years has dried up and the country (and indeed the western world) is practically bankrupt.

It is also morally bankrupt. We’ve had numerous side-shows since, most of which pointed the way further into hell. We’ve had paedohysteria, but it only ever happened to perennially unpopular ‘marmite’ celebrities like Gary Glitter and Jonathan King, and usually in very very dubious circumstances and trials. We’ve had Mr Blair and his merry men lead us into America-endorsed illegal wars by telling lies, got GCSE, A-Level and Degree results getting better and better each year despite the general trend of school leavers being more and more bovine and unknowledgeable, and a recent legal enquiry that exposed the UK mainstream of being involved in regular illegal practices, newspaper owners and editors effectively running the country by their financial influence and the police of working with the media in a most unethical manner. There was to be a backlash to the Leveson Enquiry, one that wouldn’t even wait for the results of that particular enquiry to be delivered.

The vilification of a deceased media personality has plumbed new depths in terms of the incestuous relationship between the Police (two forces in particular – The Met & Surrey Police) and the mainstream media, and is resulting in a continuing witch hunt against a certain kind of media personality of yesteryear. I covered most of that in my previous article https://chrisbarratt.wordpress.com/2012/12/22/nothing-has-been-proved-the-vilification-of-sir-jimmy-savile/

Since I wrote that article, we’ve had the publishing of two so-called “reports” – one had gone virtually unreported, the other has been infinitely mis-reported. All of which is covered in fine detail by Anna Raccoon here http://www.annaraccoon.com/politics/nonce-sense/

What hasn’t been discussed is “why Jimmy Savile”?

Why indeed – here was a recently deceased eccentric man who had, as I previously reported, led a long fruitful life and experienced a fairly protracted old age. Although he had associations with The Royal Family and politicians in his time, this was probably due to his fund-raising and seeking to put across a modern ‘less stuffy’ image at the time. Now we find ourselves in the midst of a crazy media storm, but one that is extending itself into the world of Law, Policing and Television. Claims have been made after a widely publicised media trawl by the Metropolitan Police, and presented as ‘fact’. Most of which are completely unbelievable but are warping our legal process beyond all recognition, and simply cannot be true. The acceptance of this witch hunt, of this report and the fact is being released as a fait accompli despite being, in many cases, contrary to official reports and evidence is exceptionally worrying.

However in Sir Jimmy Savile the thought-shapers found all their boxes ticked – people, generally, wanted this oddball to be ‘guilty’, knew nothing of him other than as “weird old man” and generally “his era” was a fading memory of which many of todays newspaper readers and voters know very little about (other than Raleigh Choppers, Space Hoppers and ABBA records) but – and here’s the real coup – had rumours about connections and wrong-doing circulating amongst the ‘conspiracy theorists’ for years. This particular cat out of an imaginary bag would have those (normally suspicious) people leaping up and down with glee – and indeed it did.

As I said previously I couldn’t “put my finger on what this was really about”, something is coming to light that is shedding new light on why this happened. Whilst this appeared to be a slapdash attack on Savile by a couple of pseudo-churnalists and a former detective who fancies himself as a superhero that mushroomed, as it was never convincing to me I knew there had to be a hidden agenda, above that of ‘merely’ reducing the law of the land to a joke and attacking the BBC. Now, whilst “Operation Yewtree” is, on the face of it an effort between The Metropolitan Police and the caring sharing NSPCC, in practice is has been two things: the “operation” combining the forces of familiar partnership of The Metropolitan Police and the mainstream media to boost their credentials and their circulation. Why would the NSPCC be so involved when *most* of the allegations against the dead man DO NOT involve “children”? This isn’t, after all, about “the protection of children” at all. Well, we appear to be coming full circle once again – it would appear that the NSPCC are having their strings pulled by the most lizard-like of all the NuLiebour Shapeshifters. Whilst I won’t pronounce this as ‘FACT’ as it has yet to be confirmed, this does actually make ‘Sense’ of the ‘Nonce-Sense” that is not only The Vilification of Sir Jimmy Savile but the destruction of the Rule of Law and The Burden Of Proof. Those at the forefront of the legal profession – so very often also prominent members of the political elite too (say, trained Barristers or Solicitors but practicing or former politicians – like to ‘protect their own’, and the current trend to “having it both ways” for “prosecution” and the need for more and more “defence” ensures they will still relevant, employed and, yes, wealthy. This is the ‘crux’ of the “Rise Of The Isms” – the erosion of basic civil liberties but the rise of “special cases”. Well I never!

The likes of David Icke are already furious about Operation Yewtree, but I could have explained to them they were being used as they tweeted stupendously ridiculous articles on Savile by the very newspapers and publication who seek to ridicule all “conspiracy theorists” (not least Mr Icke). Curiously, the “buck will stop” with a dead eccentric. Yes, we’ll see the besmirching of a few peripheral figures of yesteryear, but realistically this won’t make a shard of difference – unless you happen to placed on the bonfire, or are involved in ‘that side’ of the legal profession. Wings have been clipped, and new industry in claim and blame created. Who would ‘Adam&Eve’ it?

But, as a humble everyman, what would I know?

Nothing Has Been Proved – The Vilification Of Sir Jimmy Savile.

When Sir Jimmy Savile passed away two days before his 85th birthday in late October 2011, few begrudged the tributes and column inches afforded to the passing of this eccentric who had been at the forefront of the Entertainment Industry in the UK for 50 years. Jimmy Savile had “earned his stripes” by effectively overcoming a lowly start in life to pioneer the art of the “disc jockey” in an era of live “Dance Bands” in Ballrooms. Of course, JS was a self-publicisist par excellence (another word for this may be ‘bullshitter’) but there is no doubt that whether by good fortune or apparent ingenuity, he was at the forefront of both the “Pop Boom” in the UK (that began in earnest a few years into JS’ ballroom career) and in the burgeoning world of “Music Television” (then in it’s infancy). However, just 11 months after his death Sir Jimmy Savile was being labelled a “monster” and a “predatory paedophile” by the self-same mainstream media who had courted him throughout his 30-odd years “at the top”, and also through an eccentric and prolonged old age, a u-turn that was marked even by the infamously contradictory UK press. How could this be – surely the evidence for this about-turn had to be absolute and damning? Curiously not.

Rumours, of course, had dogged Sir Jimmy Savile throughout the last years of his life. After all, here was an old man who had never married, who’s timing and connections had placed him at the centre of industry that catered almost exclusively for the young. Always eccentric, he took the eccentricities to ridiculous levels in his crotchety old age but had dedicated his apparent solitary existence to raising millions for charity – a very real accomplishment that, regardless of the motives, actually created revenue and publicity for real hospitals, real schools and real hospices. Organisations that are, in fact, all suffering due the posthumous vilification of JS.
The point of this article is to examine what exactly this supposedly damning evidence is, why it has been consumed and accepted so avidly by the mainstream media and drip-fed to consumers who weren’t around and simply have no understanding and perspective on the 60s, 70s & 80s. We now live in what I’ll term a “post-pop” era; “youth tv” is an established format that currently dictates those shows are directed entirely at “post-pop” youths, where tattoos and skinny jeans rule, music goes “bleep” and “crash” and where the presenters of such television and radio are a reflection of their audience – metrosexual, anodyne, faux-ironic and inoffensively unaware of anything apart from the own “scene”. 50 years ago, things were different – in both the progressive American world of colour TV and in the stuffy black & white UK – entertainment shows were presented by authoritative established figures. When Top Of The Pops was born at the dawn of 1964, the presenters chosen were those who had established themselves in the burgeoning world of rock & roll radio and television. Pete Murray, David Jacobs, Alan Freeman and Jimmy Savile were all roughly the same age, were established and knowledgeable and their credentials were more or less equal. That they were all around 40 years old at the time has to be viewed in context – just because it would now equate to the likes of Jeremy Vine sat gurning on E4 instead of sticking to high-end quiz shows does not mean the people behind the likes of TOTP were establishing some kind of sinister “dirty old man” league to cherry pick “children” nor was this environment created to serve any such appetites – if they were we would have seen widespread accusations long before Savile finished his protracted old age. Slowly, the older DJ’s were replaced with younger DJ’s – though curiously even in their early 30’s the likes of Tony Blackburn, Ed Stewart and Dave Lee Travis all looked middle-aged!

Throughout the summer of 2012, rumours were abound that accusations had been made against the deceased DJ and that these were being “investigated” – not by the police, but by a couple of journalists and a “child abuse” expert and that – interestingly – these “findings” would be shown, not at a police station, but on a heavily-publicised prime-team ITV “documentary”. When this was aired on October 3rd I had at that no knowledge of the background of the show and it’s star turns (*I refer the inintiated to the following articles written by someone with much more knowledge in this area than me:
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/trial-by-posthumous-innuendo/ )

What I saw on Mark Williams-Thomas’ “Exposure” on Sir Jimmy Savile seemed to me to be basically a few “maybe I saw” uncorroborated allegation of possible misbehaviour of JS with teenage (post-puberty) girls (included one made by a convicted fraudster – more about him a bit later), unprovable conjecture based on out of context distorted footage and facts (the “holding Colleen Nolan on Top Of The Pops” being the most blatantly ridiculous, but we must not under-estimate her appetite for self-publicity or of double-standards) and allegations made by Karin Ward that Jimmy Savile had abused his celebrity status to infiltrate Duncroft School for Girls – again for DETAILED FACTS on this, I refer you to the Anna Raccoon articles above.
At that stage I did not feel the case against Jimmy Savile was either particularly convincing, either in the “evidence” put forward by Mark Williams-Thomas nor in the fact that we were being told to believe that this one man – a man who, lest we forget, had spent at least 15 years fading away in ill health and the previous 30 years constantly lampooned in all areas of the industry he was involved and who himself had lazily adopted the exaggerated persona bestowed upon him by various mainstream impressionists. Hardly the dominating “Godfather” who aggressively controlled both the BBC and the ferocious tabloid press. To be asked to believe that was the case was to suspend disbelief a bit too much for anyone with a degree of knowledge in the era we are speaking of – an era were ‘underage sex’ was neither secret nor really taboo (step forward a number of ‘rock legends’, all of which can be ‘googled’ easily and none of whom have had police investigations or media embargoes thrust upon them), nor that such (we were told) rampant abuse would have gone completely unreported. My own belief after seeing “Exposure” was, basically, that the whole thing was crap. When “investigations” have to resort to recounts by shifty fraudsters, “shocking” footage of Jimmy Savile hosting a show with the already disgraced Gary Glitter (Glitter was on umpteen shows, umpteen Top Of The Pops and was arguably the UK’s no.1 pop star in 1973 – hardly “shocking” unless you simply have no knowledge of the 70s & 80s whatsoever), dragging Esther “Bleeding Heart” Rantzen out to set herself up for a fall and second-hand clips of TOTP stolen from youtube. Add to this subsequent “shockers” such as one (grown) woman who allegedly had her bottom piched by JS on TOTP in 1976 and it subsequently “ruined her life” and broke up her marriage (which would implicate half the worlds male population and most women who have been on Hen NIghts of similar “abuse”) or the quotes from an autobiography published only 39 years ago. We also had the normally sensible Paul Gambaccini relating the rumours of JS’ alleged indiscretions and repeating the old rumour of JS as a necrophiliac as fact when it in was nothing of the sort – and again, something entirely without evidence. The motive in that particular instance was apparently revenge on his former colleages for mercilessly ribbing his homosexuality back then – but as I don’t know this for sure I will stop short of doing what he did and stating rumour as fact.

The fallout of this shoddy show shocked me more than any revelations ever could. I expected a degree of “news” – certainly from the gutter press who thrive on this stuff, but nevertheless let us not forget their own reverence and wholesale support of Jimmy Savile prior to this contrived piece of lowest-common-denominator television. The point at which I really smelt a rat was when the Director General of the BBC, George Entwistle, meekly announced that the BBC would launching an “independent enquiry” into the allegations against JS but also apologising for what were mere (and dubious) allegations. This told me that, no matter how flawed the accounts of this abuse were – that neither Clunk Click nor Jim’ll Fix It were recorded as Television Centre, that the accuser was born in 1958 yet was claiming to be – and widely reported as being – 14 in 1974, that is was very ‘convenient’ that the ‘incident’ she recounted involved an already-disgraced media demon (Glitter) as well as another (Freddie Starr) – and that whilst both men did appear on Clunk Click in 1974 they DID NOT appear on the same edition. Curiouser and curiouser. We also had Top Of The Pops implicated, though this was met with sheer bafflement by anyone with knowledge of Television Centre dressing rooms and TOTP age restrictions and studio policy – to suggest JS used that show to snare underage girls in the dressing rooms is also to implicate EVERYONE else being aware of this – from the producers to the make-up girls to Pan’s People to the other DJ’s and even the acts – is this being seriously suggested?

The floodgates had crashed open with aplomb. Given that Jimmy Savile had presented Top Of The Pops surrounded by young people for 20 years, had been ‘fixing it’ for kids for 20 years and had never hidden his appreciation for the female form there was no shortage there of ‘potential’ for claims of ‘that’ nature… factor in his involvement in charities for children and his work in hospitals, stories (good word that) of “abuse” came thick and fast – all unstantiated, all both unproven and unprovable and all ‘rewardable’ with compensation. Oops, I mentioned “compensation” – is that cold cynicism or mere realism? Hardly irrelevant though is it? When the world seems to have accepted each and every ‘allegation’ as fact despite the fact that it would take a ‘Through The Looking Glass’ suspension of disbelief to imagine one man committed hundreds of acts of abuse and not one was reported at the time. NOT ONE. Sure, Mr Williams-Thomas likes to hold a lot of sway on the fact that the Duncroft mob reported alleged 30-odd-year-old abuse allegation in 2007 and this wasn’t publicised – but it wasn’t deemed to have sufficient evidence or plausibility for the CPS to pursue – and their thirst for high-profile cases of abuse against celebrities cannot be disputed!
Within days, the mainstream media were promoting the dead JS as “paedophile”, the BBC themselves were quoting him as being “potentially the most infamous paedophile in history”. Their own hastily-made Panorama made as an answer to ITV’s “Exposure” was just as shoddy – no investigation into anything other than journalistic spats, repeating the same nonsense, trying to court favour by inviting the Duncroft Fantasist back to tell more stories. Had the world gone mad? Even now, almost three months later, I have yet to see one even half-credible case against Savile, NOT ONE. His own family have had to break rank and condemn – though in their shoes I think I would, this level of condemnation in such a savage society as this, I’d be fear of my life at the hands of baying mobs if I were them. A Sky News churnalist infiltrated collectors music forums on the trail of JS radio footage – and sneeringly referred to those suspicious of his motives as “Savile Protectors”. Mark WIlliams-Thomas himself seems to exist in a netherworld were people are either “abused” or “abusers”, and potentially either – a quick scan of his Twitter feed reveals he pretty much a walking talking Daily Mail, endlessly tweeting untold stories of abuse as well as feeding his obsession with JS, and completely ignoring any dissenting voices or opinions but feeding his adoring – and quite often illiterate – followers with tales of ‘grave concern’. My ‘grave concern’ when reading Williams-Thomas’ Twitter feed is that here is a dysfunctional man with an obsession with ‘abuse’ who is preying on the weak and abusing his position and influence to promote his own agenda – curiously this similar to how he is attempting to portray the late Jimmy Savile! His absolute reluctance to accept the reservations and criticisms of others is alarming to say the least – very unhealthy. Why on earth he is given the platforms he gets to promote his flawed agenda, not to mention the lack of challenges, is another sinister part of this whole circus.

The Metropolitan Police were quick to announce their investigation into “Savile and others” called Operation Yewtree. Savile and “other” what? Other DJ’s? Other TV presenters? Other Elderly Men? Other Men? No, the inference there is basically Savile & Other Sordid Perverts. Contrary to popular belief, “Operation Yewtree” is not (and never has been) an investigation into alleged offences by “Jimmy Savile”. What “The Savile Police” are doing in naming a dead man as a “predatory paedophile” and inviting complaints (the official name is trawling) from anyone who may have had an association with any of his friends or colleagues to come forward. Not a single one of these so-called ‘victims’ is even alleged to be a “Savile Victim”.
We saw them arrest Gary Glitter and Freddie Starr – though strangely not in the same week – for the imaginary Clunk Click orgy, Dave Lee Travis – another TOTP presenter & Radio 1 DJ – despite saying on record he wanted to clear his name with police – was arrested in a dawn raid which involved six police vehicles and an army of press who had obviously been tipped off – coincidentally on the same day BBC4 were due to repeat his Top Of The Pops of 20/10/1977. He has now joined Jimmy Savile in being banned (or “postponed” in BBC press-speak) from having his harmless Top Of The Pops shows repeated. His crime? Allegedly touching an adult woman’s breasts. In 1977. Coincidentally, she went to work for Sky News – funny that. Strangely enough, next up was one of Mark Williams-Thomas’ “star witnesses” – someone had apparantly recognised Wilfred De’ath on Exposure – and recognised him as the man who had abused her in 1965. Since then we have seen Max Clifford & Ted Beston dragged into the mellee, as well as officially ‘unnamed’ and much loved celebrity who Mark Williams-Thomas took it upon to name on his Twitter feed. Ted Beston was JS’s radio producer in the 70s – the Williams-Thomas angle is that Savile created “vehicles for abuse” with his radio and tv shows, so his mates at the Met will be keen to establish that for him. Saint Mark himself has been perpetuating the myth that Beston and Savile “Savile Travelled” the UK in search of ‘fresh meat’ – no wonder his mate from Sky News was seeking recording of these shows back in October! I imagine few people are sad about poor Max Clifford given his P.R. involvement in previous cases of highly suspect “historic abuse” but in my opinion his arrest makes this whole operation more sinister – he had been openly critical of the motives surrounding Operation Yewtree – his arrest also bring about his silence, and – significantly – an air of many others running scared. Savile’s former colleague, the whiter-than-white Tony Blackburn, has apparently dropped all 1970’s charts from his weekly Pick Of The Pops chart rundowns! Is the next arrest to be “The 1970s” as a decade, as suggested by Private Eye a few issues back? If all it takes is someone asserting that somewhere in the mists of time the had their body brushed against, then the question “who’s next?” can be answered “anyone”. I’ll make a bold statement here though – I’d say that anyone who’s legacy is making enough for the US-based multi-nationals will not be targeted, however well known their historic transgressions are. The UK media are, after all, ultimately controlled by their main advertisers (as are the “independent” television companies they hold shares in) and they will not wish to see their revenue chopped by having their cash cows disgraced – so whilst we may well see more dead UK celebrities having their reputations ripped to shreds, more elderly presenters and dj’s past their sell-by destroyed by media in old age and more two-bit entertainers sacrificed at the ITV altar they will be of “little worth” in terms of legacy.

There is a Hidden Agenda at work here. The “Exposed” programmes on JS were tawdry affairs – badly edited and unconvincing. The main evidence it presented falls at the first hurdle in terms of scrutiny – so why was it accepted so quickly and so ‘completely’? Why did the BBC make a basic admission of the inadmissable almost straight away, and why – despite the publishing on the subsequent “Pollard Report” – are they still maintaining the “no doubt Savile abused people” line when there has been no evidence of any such thing? I can see why Mark Williams-Thomas does what he does – he’s making a living by perpetuating peoples fears and thus has no duty – and seemingly no interest – in boosting his credibility to anyone savvy enough to see through his dubious stance. I can see, given their history, why the tabloids are enjoying the chance to both beat the BBC around the proverbial head and act out their fantasies of being able to make shocking statements about a dead man – but cannot see why the whole UK press refused to cover or promote Anna Raccoon’s articles that the Duncroft allegations – aka everything the first “Exposed” was based on – were false and why and how that was. I can’t see why there is so much hostility towards a relatively recent period in time – there has to be an agenda. The question is what that is – I haven’t worked it out. Is it anti-BBC? Is it anti-male? (see the recent entries at http://stevemoxon.blogspot.co.uk ) Is it the desperation of a press who feel their days are numbered? I’m not sure – but when fundamental questions are not asked, never mind answered I feel we are straying too far into the Orwellian Nightmare – but in using a figure as risible as Jimmy Savile, and a “cause” as unpeachable (and unprovable) as “child abuse” it is happening without enough protest.

Fifty Shades Of Phenomenal – Fifty Shades Of Snobbery

Even though we’re just into August, there’s no doubt that 2012 already belongs to E.L.James’ “Fifty Shades” trilogy of books. In just a few short months, the books have gone from Kindle-only erotic “fan-fiction” to topping the best selling lists worldwide. It has flown off the shelves courtesy not of some huge marketing campaign but via good old fashioned “Word Of Mouth” recommendation and has been the talk of every internet social networking site and workplace. And yet, in a world that normally considers mass popularity as a barometer of taste, these books have met with a somewhat mixed reception from the media.

My own ‘personal recommendation’ came in early April, and coincidently enough came from a female who had experienced my own personal ‘fifty shades’, couldn’t deal with ‘the real thing’, reacted accordingly – and ultimately had to be cut loose shortly after. It was, I was told, “a novel about 2 people and BDSM and so much more” and “I really had to read it” – so I purchased “Fifty Shades Of Grey” that week and took to it like a duck to water. Of course it helped that I recognised much of my own personality in the lead male character (as hinted at in the initial recommendation I had received) – sans extreme wealth and childhood neglect – and the trilogy continued to resonate with me throughout partly because of this. What happened since I purchased the first volume, less than four months ago, is something I certainly did not expect in spite of my wholesale approval of these works. It has, through word-of-mouth and recommendation on social networking sites, become an absolute phenomenon.
The reaction of the media has been interesting – one of general disdain and disinterest. The newspapers have been awash with female columnists sneering at this “mummy porn” and wrongfully concluding it encourages the portrayal of females as sexual submissive to horrible beastly men, journalists have been quick to declare the books badly written with “clunky prose” – and yet the phenomenon prevails. Whilst it would easy to take an elitist view and consider this the literary equivalent of, say, the music of Maroon 5 or Rihanna what these jealous journalists are failing to take into account is the impact these books are having on those swept up in the wave of enthusiasm. I could sneer at all the people I consider ‘unworthy’ of such a good read and bemoan it’s “populism”, but I would be failing to take into account how far reaching and possibly life-changing these books could be to some. I have seen these books bought and embraced by the barely literate, people who have never before sat down and read a ‘book’ in their adult lives. People for whom the intense passion, salacious but-never-tacky sex and the incredible relationship depicted in the book will be nothing they’ve ever imagined nor will never probably experience. People who’s very lives are those of adult children, who have sex “cos it’s what you do innit” but never experience passion, who live their lives as they communicate – in meaningless soundbites and minus the vowels, who treat cognitive thinking as “weird”. People for whom “music” is a constant wall of thumping monotone beats, computer-generated distortion and generic autotuned “singing” reading about incredible sex soundtracked by Thomas Tallis’ 16th Century layered complex choral music. All of this and more, in a society where the death knell had been sounded long ago for the artistry & wonder of the English language, with grown adults consistently making the spelling errors of the remedial children of yesteryear. All of whom being totally absorbed now by fictional books depicting seriously discerning lead characters. This impact goes way beyond the sneering contempt of populist hacks or even my own deep cynicism, and it can only be a force for good.
Aside from hypocritical swipes at the authors style of writing, the main issue raised in criticism of these books comes from other, supposedly intellectual. females taking issue with the depiction of BDSM sex and the dominant/submissive relationship between the male and female lead characters. Whether these hackneyed concerns are being raised in denial of the critics own sexual needs and habits, and in some knee-jerk defence of ‘feminism’ is unclear, but the criticism has been transparently uniform enough to barely disguise the true agenda. Aside from creating, outside of the ‘industry’, a literary phenomenon what is irking the female critics the most is the fact E.L.James has effectively let ‘the’ genie out of the bottle in terms of what women, if I may generalise so, really want from a relationship and from sex. That this is indeed just what the author has done is reflected in the incredible popularity of the books with women (and some men) of all ages. It is a fact of life that sex requires one party to be dominant and one submissive, and that generally in the sexual element of most heterosexual relationships the male is sexually dominant and the female submissive – it is completely natural, indisputable and, unfortunately for those in denial of these roles, a given. The male role – both in the bedroom and within relationships – has been diminished in recent years amidst hollow cries of “girl power” and the resultant trail of unhappy people swearing allegiance to broken frameworks and females happy to reduce the role of men to that of unwitting sperm donors and hapless (or reviled) stooges. Sex itself is an animalistic, uncivilised act based on a man fucking a woman, there is no place for ‘political correctness’ in this order as it is the very basis of our being – to put it crudely men are made to ‘fuck’, women made to ‘be fucked’. Whilst no-one is suggesting women exist purely as sexual muses for their men, this is the basic gist of life itself, and in this respect the sexual relationship detailed in the “Fifty Shades” books are just reflecting, from a woman’s perspective, this most carnal of desires. What this reveals, of course, is despite much post-modern posturing this base need is very much alive in women as it always had been and it is this fact that must infuriate the supposed feminist journalistic elite – what they completely fail to realise though is that “Fifty Shades” is not depicting a neanderthal beast dominating a submissive female (as so many columns have attempted to depict), and does not represent the sole reason why the books are so popular. As well as the graphic knicker-wetting descriptions of various fantastic sexual acts, the main point of the book and the true reason it has gripped so many of such varied backgrounds is the emotional relationship between the male and female leads – how they impact on each other, how they bond, how the relationship shifts and develops and how amazingly deep and rewarding that is. Of course, the sad fact is that most people never experience the type of relationship described in the books and never experience the highs (or lows) – but what the popularity of the book and, in particular, the lead character Christian Grey’s popularity reveals is most women – of all classes and walks of life – really want in a man. They want smart, they want slightly vulnerable, they want deep, they want cultured, they want discerning, they want looking after, they even quite like being ‘stalked’ and watched if the stalker is appealing to them – and the certainly want sexually dominating. Most men should be taking note and taking care of their future happiness, but in a sea of indifference, denial and endless distractions, most won’t. Most women too will read these books, get horny over these books, fall in love with these books – and then promptly return to their ‘safe bets’ and passionless, pointless relationships (a fate that seems to have befallen my ‘friend’) whilst spending a lifetime putting up with second or third best and occasionally wondering “what if”.

Of course, the bonus for the few wise “Christians” here is E.L.James has basically handed over an ‘instruction manual for women’. Those of us who already benefit from a “Mr Grey”-esque personality can, instead of channelling our intensity in the wrong directions and suffering for our ‘art’, bask in the glory of knowing we are what they want (what they really really want) and those who can’t handle it – well, it’s their loss isn’t it…..

Generation GaGa

Hundreds of years ago, man chose to domesticate dogs for pets and companions. Dogs were gradually – and deliberately – bred to become life-long ‘playful puppies’ with the ‘boring’ qualities adult animals needed in the wild banished in place of a ‘cute’ lifelong passion for playing with toys and pleasing their masters. Unwittingly, the same thing appears to happened to people. Which far off dictatorship can be responsible for such ghastly social engineering I hear you gasp? Ladies and gentlemen, it has happened under your noses to your own children.
A few years ago I strongly believed the concept of a “generation gap” was something consigned to the past….. at 25 I could relate completely to most 35 years old and to most 15 year olds, everyone seemed much the same in a social sense. Of course there were differences and obvious levels of maturity but, for the most part, there were no serious issues – no lifestyle incompatibility, no cultural issues. Everyone could work together, socialise together and all much ‘on the same level’. If you got into the pub ‘under age’ you acted like an adult and mixed like an adult, when you started work the same applied.
Somewhere in the past 10 years or so, things have gone sadly wrong. Though the ghosts of narcissism and immaturity cloud many of those born before this date, through my own experience I would earmark the approximate date of birth as being circa 1988 of those who appear to behave, to think and to act in ways alien to those born earlier. Though certainly not wishing to tar everyone under 24 with the same proverbial brush, this failure of a large number of people to embrace the concept of ‘growing up’ can be put down to a number of contributory factors.
Firstly, the education system – and the changes seen in by the New Labour government – has to shoulder much of the blame. Whilst some changes in education are laudable – the trend towards true accountability for the performance of every pupil being one – the drive towards training children to perform well in exams instead of learning is responsible for a generation of no-nothing half-wits unable to write cognitively, to spell anywhere near correctly or equip themselves with a reasonable degree of useful knowledge (general or otherwise), whilst still arming themselves with GCSE’s, A-Levels and stupidly expensive University Degrees.

Secondly the change in media has to be factored in – from the sudden widespread growth in internet usage circa 1999/2000 and the joint tidal wave around the same of (extremely) high profile trash ‘reality’ tv and Murdochisation of the press, media and populist politics when everything – and as we can see everyone – was ‘dumbed down’, spoon-fed ‘lowest common deniminator’ so-called news, bringing everything down to the level of – seriously – a pre-1990 John Craven’s Newsround under the auspices of adult information and education. Post-2000 we find ourselves spoken to like children in a Junior School assembly.

Thirdly, whilst the change in education has negated the need to truly ‘learn’, the manifestation of the ‘Nanny State’ has literally cancelled out the need to ‘grow up’. Many of us old and wise enough to remember life before the time when half-wits demanded to see ID to serve greying 30-somethings a packet of cigarettes at the local 7-11 can remember the elicit experience of underage pubbing and clubbing. As underage drinkers most of us made a concerted effort to behave like adults (to a degree of course)… now I’m not encouraging underage binge drinking in any way, shape or form but this desire to ‘act like young adults’ also applied to the workplace. Nowadays the instillation of the “Proof of ID” culture has bequeathed us a generation of 20-something children, reluctant to take on the weight of adulthood in an appallingly adolescent manner — emotional cripples who still unashamedly refer to their mothers as “Mummy”, who study and work only in specific ‘roles’ unable to ‘think’ for themselves without being cajoled and instructed and who seem, to those over the age of 24, to be almost retarded in their puppy-dog approach to life – one only has to befriend people on Facebook to be swept away in a sea of child-like over-enthusiasm and narcissistic self-centredness previously the domain of annoying 12 year olds. Not wishing to alarm anyone (well, I am actually) but these ‘Big Kids’ are now having babies of their own – and adopting the same childlike semi-responsible approach to parenthood including the utterly banal and crazy ‘need’ to express at every possible moment their unconditional love for said offspring to anyone and everyone – as if not telling everyone how much you ‘love’ your kids every waking moment makes you a neglectful disgrace unfit parent.
Now if everything was simple and this meant everybody became (in time) ‘shiny happy people’ this wouldn’t be so bad… the bad news is the uniform childishness of a majority of people is masking a mental timebomb that will result (nay, already resulting) in some serious damage to society and our future.
More to follow on why this degradation of adulthood has been tailored to suit the modern workplace and the nouveau servile society.