jimmy

i have a confession to make. it might shock you. so sit down before you go any further.

i did not know i did not suspect that jimmy was a kiddie fiddler.

judging from the numerous people who have come forward to say that they knew it or had deep suspicions about jimmy’s taste in young flesh i think i must have been the only person who had no idea.

if i had been one of those famous people who worked in the entertainment industry who had seen or had heard rumours about jimmy playing with underage children and had done nothing about it in the intervening years i can categorically state now that i would not be coming forward to say anything. if anyone asked me about it i would calmly state:  ‘no. it has all come as a bit of a shock to me to be honest.’

why?

because the simple fact is what mr. savile is supposed to have gotten up to is vile and horrific and i would hate to have anyone think that i could have used my influence to have stopped it from happening by raising my concerns. each of those personalities who come forward now with their “i had my suspicions’ or ‘i heard rumours’ has to shoulder a degree of responsibility for any molestation that took place after they had their suspicions or had heard the rumours.

they may try to fob it off with talk of jimmy savilie’s powerful position in the media, considering that jimmy savile hasn’t been a ‘star’ for years this doesn’t wash.

as bad as the speak no evil personalities are it looks as if various organs of the press also knew about jimmy’s predilections but chose not to say anything at the time or in the years after. after all it is not like the paper’s have ever smeared a celebrity in the name of the public interest. obviously the rumours concerning jimmy savile were not enough to investigate.

i wonder do the various editors feel culpable. probably not.

still we all know who is to blame: the bbc. yes: the bbc is to blame.

not the people who kept quiet. not the news media who did nothing. the bbc is to blame.

now that the story has broken all those celebrity silent witnesses can’t shut up and the news media who ignored the story for so long can’t stop reporting it now.  yet more often than not the reporting takes the form of how rotten the bbc is and how the bbc has to be investigated for its failings. none of them are asking for inquiries to be held into why they did nothing with the information.

far be it for me to say that the savile case is manna from heaven for the various media companies because they are not fans of the bbc and in a perfect world the bbc would be gone. the same goes for the tory politicians who are raising a stink about the bbc – they don’t like the beeb and they would be happy to see it disappear.

what are the chances that they will all be as gung ho when it comes to dealing with the suspected child abuse that is being linked to mrs. thatcher’s conservative government? i doubt it.

the real shame of it all is that many victims of jimmy savile have been forgotten as this becomes a witch hunt against the bbc and a way for several celebrities to make sure they are getting lots of publicity.

the victims have suffered once at the hands of a sexual predator and now they are being sidelined while others follow an agenda that has little to do with justice. looking like the victims are going to get screwed over a second time.

together

the rallying cry of the con/dems is that we are all in it together.

it is all about strivers and doers.

nowhere is this better demonstrated when it comes to people paying their way. the bad people on benefits taking money for nothing – those terrible shirkers, they need to be named, shamed and punished. i mean what are they doing having kids? or living in houses? the cheek of it. (it doesn’t matter that an awful lot of people claiming benefits are working).

too many of them expect something for nothing, believing they are entitled to handouts.

mind you over in the world of corporate finances it looks like one or two very large companies are not paying their way. they are playing the system to make sure that they pay as little tax as possible. for shame! not so much outrage from the political class, not even indignation. just a resigned shrug of the shoulders and a wry smile ‘those pesky wealth creators they are just kidders’.

playing the system is fine if you are starbucks (we haven’t made a profit in the uk for years…) or ebay, or amazon, or apple or anyone of a number of companies you get to slide by that tax payment.

you happen to be out of work and on jobseekers well you are just scum of the earth.

then it struck me that the whole reason the con/dems are so keen on cutting benefits to as many people as possible (as long as they are already poor to start with) is that the money saved on paying the benefits makes up the shortfall from those tax shirking companies.

see we are all in it together – so those on benefits who are having to make hard choices between food and bills can rest easy now because they can bask in the warm glow of knowing that they are helping big companies cut down on their tax bills.

caring compassionate conservatism at work.

x-mas

you may remember that i am not a fan of x-mas.
the months long spending frenzy leaves me cold.

one of the sure signs that x-mas period is upon us can be seen by the increasing numbers of certain types of books that are published.
oh look here is a raft load of cooking books. don't own one. doubt i will ever use one.
check out the plethora of biographies of sort of famous people who haven't really done much with their lives. the numbers of these books only matched by the numbers of truly unfunny comedy books - all guaranteed to have you scratching your head wonder what the joke is?

these are the books that the ebook was designed for: no trees needed to be sacrificed in order that be published. i am sure there are one or two interesting books among them, but who wants to dip their toes into the reeking sewer of smug celebs and punchline free jokes?

talking of books that defy all reason but still get published there seem to have been at least four james patterson books published in the last month. who is buying this stuff - he is easily one of the worst authors i have ever read (ok i haven't read jeffery arher or jackie collins so there is a chance i am doing mr. patterson a disservice; i doubt it).
whoever it is who is buying his books just stop. think of the environment. 

tat

halloween has never really played a big part in my life.

never did trick or treating – it was always something that was for american kids. you would see it on tv shows and films. it was foreign and exotic.

for me and my mates it was guy fawkes night.

bonfires and fireworks.

more importantly it meant ‘penny for the guy’. we would make up our ‘guy’, old clothes stuffed with paper and even older clothes and a cardboard mask, a sign over its head and we were set. if we could find a pram then we would wheel the guy up and down the street harassing passing adults to give us a penny (or more) for the guy.

our ill gotten gains would be turned into bangers, catherine wheels and sparklers.

as guy fawkes night drew closer we would get more excited. fireworks! fireworks!

all the kids loved fireworks.

back then it wasn’t a case of going to the local park and watching a large display – no it was what your parents did for you in the back garden. i was lucky, because my parents ran a pub there was a large yard to use and lots of people who would come along with fireworks to watch them all go up in smoke. in a corner there would be a bonfire.

it was a magical night.

once our fireworks had fizzed, whooshed, sizzled and banged we would stay out to watch other people’s fireworks exploding in the sky.

i still love fireworks.

guy fawkes night has just become fireworks night and mostly it is a civic affair that is at once spectacular and slightly disappointing.

over recent years halloween has begun to replace guy fawkes night – a british tradition being pushed to one side by another slice of american consumerism. there are many reasons why this has happened. i would wager the main one can be seen on the shelves of my local sainsbuy’s.

recently diwali, the indian festival of lights, fell on november 5^th and my local sainsbury’s had their fireworks all marked up for diwali – anything to boost sales. this year’s fireworks in sainsbury’s is a smaller unit than the one they have erected to sell diwali sweets.

yet walked a few yards down to the aisle where they rack their toys and you will see tat upon tat of themed halloween gifts. scary lights, spooky lights, ghoulish lights. there are things to wear, things to carry, things to eat. things in the shapes of ghosts, ghoulies, demons, witches and cats. things that make scary noises.

mostly things that make lots of money for sainsbury’s.

halloween has taken off because a lot of commercial outlets have seen it as being a great way to make a lot of money for themselves. money they can’t make on a simple fireworks night.

kids pester power is easier to ignore when the treats are locked in glass cases and cost a small fortune. much hard to resist when they are cheap and on the shelves for the kids to touch and pick up.

yes i admit that some of that tat appeals to me. the big kid in me wants the thing that has spinning lights in it, or the bouncing ghost ball, or the mad cat toy.

just keep me away from the halloween candy.

remember remember the fifth of november
gunpowder, treason and plot.
i see no reason why gunpowder, treason
should ever be forgot...

oh except for the dosh that makes the tills chime in shops up and down the land.

libel

jeremy clarkson has described twitter as a libel free zone, and by extension it could be argued that all of social media is the same.
twitter does seem to bring the worst out in people.
some people just go on there to insult and stalk others others go and hunt down people who have dared to criticise them and have their followers 'bully' them (the fact that they are rich, successful and famous doesn't seem to be enough).

so i would like to combine the two and say clarkson is a cunt.
no really he is.


oh sorry i didn't mean that.
it was a joke. ha ha.
(right i have covered those bases).

certainty

they say there are only two things in life that are certain: death and taxes.

we all know how wrong that statement is.

why just recently we have had one of the more modern certainties of life kick in.

winter is here and the energy companies are increasing their prices. again. like they did last year at winter and like they will do next year. the same excuses are trotted out the increasing wholesale costs or the government’s drive to make the energy companies more efficient. this means prices have to go up in order that their profits go up.

so much for competition and efficiencies – instead of one large profitable company under the control of the state we have six large energy companies are highly profitable and socially suspect.

funny enough a few days back the daily telegraph had a piece in it about how it is time to stop bashing business (though to be honest i thought the only people who were fair game were those in the financial services: you know the ones who got us into this mess).

angelaknight, chief executive of energy uk, said “the energy industry has a big role to play in powering the economy,” (a clever pun) and that “profit is a good thing not a bad thing” she continues to say that the high level of criticism was damaging energy providers.

ironically this was said before most of the price hikes had been announced by the energy companies.

she is right profit is normally a good thing; it isn’t when all you are doing is putting up the price of your basic service. it is not like the energy companies aren’t aware of the issues surrounding wholesale costs or the medium term fragility of supply, it appears it is easier for them to hike the prices up, trouser the profit and pass the blame on to others than for them to do what any responsible business would do: invest.

it isn’t that people don’t like business – it is just we are aware that in some cases they will, as regular as clockwork, trot out the same excuses and with the same results of hikes in prices for a service that doesn’t get better. we also know that when people like ms knight talk about powering the economy and generating (see i can do it too) profits they are not concerned about how that benefits the average person in the street – they are only interested in how it affects their shareholders and potential future shareholders.

meanwhile we will just have to grin and bear this new regular certainty of annual prices accompanied by the spin of people who would just be as happy telling you it is raining outside as they piss on your head.

systems

we may not like it but bureaucracy and the systems that it throws up but the modern world means it is necessary.

what turns people into frothing maniacs is the, often, arbitrary way it works.

nowhere is this more apparent than when you come to deal with the social services. it seems that pretty much each time you go to meet them their role is to trick you or trip you up with yet another arcane rule. (perhaps if they spent their time actually trying to help people there would be fewer of us unemployed).

unfortunately i have been making my trips to the local jobcentre far too many times for my liking.

today’s trip was different because of eid, fewer members of staff in attendance and fewer signers on. it meant that i had a new person to sign on with.

for those of you lucky enough not to have signed on the regular signing on day is pretty much a formality: ‘what’s your date of birth?’ ‘do you have your job search with you?’ ‘how has the job search been going?’ ‘sign here’. ‘next please’.

it is all a little dispiriting.

your jobsearch is a record of what you have done to look for work. you have to have a minimum number of job searches or else you are deemed not to be trying hard enough. ever since i have been signing on (and the last time i was doing it) i have always included those searches that led to nothing. so if i had scoured all the new jobs on reed.com and there was nothing there i could do – then i recorded that as a search, but that there was nothing suitable. same if i had looked on the asda website to see what jobs they had going (other supermarkets are also available for job searches).

every fortnight i have been handing over that job search and it has been handed back without much comment, mostly barely even looked at (the porn jobs i have listed have never been spotted or commented on).  so ever cycle i have continued on in the same old way.

today different person and ‘oh you only need to list the jobs you’ve applied for’.

thanks for that – just a shame the other members of staff hadn’t told me that when i started, or the second or third or even the 10^th time they noticed i was doing it wrong.  one would like to think that they didn’t tell me because they weren’t aware of the rules, but based on experience there i would say they just couldn’t be asked to make the comment because then they would have to do some work and engage with their client: not something they want to do.

and that is why we hate the people who sit behind desks and tick boxes and push papers about because that is all they want to do – they are just not interested in the people they are dealing with.

still they have a nice new office so that makes up for it.

overheard

drinking coffee, minding my own business.
the sultry voice from across the room makes me look up every now and then. an attractive posh student chatting to her mate. among all the party planning and holidays there was a little bit about actually being a student.
then from out of the blue: "ugh hated it, horrible i think i would rather do a maths degree". 

it made me smile and i knew we were kindred arts and humanities based students. 

poorly

oh woe is me!
i am poorly.
down with the dreaded man-flu.
big sniffles and snuffles. a head that feels like someone has cramped wet cotton wool in it. my nasal passages feel as if they have been scrubbed the a scouring pad. sore eyes and just the beginnings of a raw feeling and hideous taste in my throat.
all topped off with some pathetic coughs.

lovely stuff.

the worst of it is that i won't be going into work tomorrow to show what a brave little soldier i am, oh and the spread my misery all around.
instead i shall be moping about the place like a feeble sick person who needs pity (self-pity doesn't count).

feel sorry for me.

007

so dr. no, as a movie, is 50-years old today.
makes me feel very old.

my reading habits were formed at a pretty early age. i went from the 'janet and john' books to enid blyton's 'famous five' and 'secret seven' books. sure there were other children's books i read: i have fond memories of a collection of hardcover books (each would have a list of the other books available and all numbered - maybe the genesis of my collecting habit) that included stories such as 'black beauty' 'treasure island' and others.

i am sure i would have explored many more children's books except for the discovery of a few of my parent's paperbacks. one of them was an ian fleming's james bond (the other was an ed mcbain 87th precinct story).
pretty much from that moment on my love of genre fiction was set.
(that i had also discovered comics was also a big help.)

so james bond was at the start of my love of thriller and action fiction.

007 soon became one of my favourite film heroes as well.
i would go to the cinema and see double bills of 'thunderball' and 'goldfinger' or 'dr. no' and 'from russia with love'.
the first new bond film i saw was 'diamonds are forever'. i saw it northfield's odeon during a school holiday. i didn't just see it once, i saw it multiple times and i loved it every time.

james bond has been a big part of my cultural life and has helped shape much of what i now read and watch. i have enjoyed reading the books and watching the films. even the radio adaptations have thrilled and entertained.

a big happy 50th to bond, james bond. long may he entertain