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Owzabout That Then? The Jimmy Savile Revelations & Aftermath

PeteS said:
Well except for the 200 plus formal complaints she's made about her treatment in prison.
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You'd expect that. It's in her interest to keep her name cropping up inside the system.
Let them know she's there. Keep and eye on her, fend off the Ninja suiciding squad.

The outside world isn't interested though. She's not news any more.
 
Analogue Boy said:
Clearly the It’s A Knockout Annual’s claim to have the ‘Stories behind the scenes’ is a case where rigorous Christmas Annual journalism and editing could be called into question.
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First thought: Eddie Waring seems to be innocent of most accusations, so we have to be thankful for small mercies. (I say "seems" and "most", as you never know and could be proven wrong).

Stuart Hall: if you lived outside the North-West, you may never have heard his football commentaries for BBC Manchester. (syndicated to Radio Two's Saturday afternoon sports show, perhaps...) . These were joyous, glorious, and articulate in a world full of David Colemans. SH was as knowledgeable when he commentated Stockport County v Rochdale Town as he was for United v City, and it was as if the compere on The Good Old Days had chosen to do footie commentary - maybe not to THAT degree of arcane wordiness, but impressively and wonderfully verbose. He made Saturday afternoons back then.

And then you hear about what an utter shit he was when away from the mike.
 
Mythopoeika said:
It is hard to believe, really.
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Not when you remember that he worked for the BBC, which protected its talent at all costs including covering up abuse. He had private dressing rooms like Savile did where he could take victims to abuse in privacy. The BBC knew what was going on.
 
escargot said:
Not when you remember that he worked for the BBC, which protected its talent at all costs including covering up abuse. He had private dressing rooms like Savile did where he could take victims to abuse in privacy. The BBC knew what was going on.
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One of the many reasons why I don't watch the BBC.
 
Mythopoeika said:
One of the many reasons why I don't watch the BBC.
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Yup, I especially despise the BBC Children in Need farrago for that reason.
The managers of the charity decided to exclude Savile in about 2002 but he was still able to carry on abusing elsewhere. It was an open secret; nobody was protecting children, they just didn't want to be caught out if Savile was rumbled. Arse-covering.
 
I remember how one now-disgraced - and dreadfully corny - Radio 1 DJ was, reportedly, allowed to go unpunished at the time after women complained that he'd groped them...because he was regarded by employers as 'the talent'(!) and R1's so-called talents were evidently untouchable. Jesus H. Christ...:(
 
escargot said:
Yup, I especially despise the BBC Children in Need farrago for that reason.
The managers of the charity decided to exclude Savile in about 2002 but he was still able to carry on abusing elsewhere. It was an open secret; nobody was protecting children, they just didn't want to be caught out if Savile was rumbled. Arse-covering.
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Or maybe some of those involved in the cover ups were in some way doing the same themselves but differently to Saville. This problem of child abuse, child sex trafficking, etc, is far, far bigger than most suspect.
 
I might sound out of step here but ...
While the BBC may've covered up for these monsters then - and the organisation itself tried to gloss over the past criminal actions - can't we accept the idea that such wrongdoing might be addressed now?
After all, the BBC knows it's under examination and fire for past horrible cover-ups.
Are they damned for what has passed or damned for all time?
 
Long, long ago, when Stuart Hall was a fixture on the BBC Look North regional news, he weathered two blows to his reputation. One was the collapse of his travel business, launched with other people's money. The second was his exposure as one of several celebrity shoplifters.

A relative of mine tapped his nose and said, "Stuart Hall has his finger in a lot of things . . . "

I'm not saying he knew anything about what was to come . . . :omg:
 
Stormkhan said:
I might sound out of step here but ...
While the BBC may've covered up for these monsters then - and the organisation itself tried to gloss over the past criminal actions - can't we accept the idea that such wrongdoing might be addressed now?
After all, the BBC knows it's under examination and fire for past horrible cover-ups.
Are they damned for what has passed or damned for all time?
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It's a fair point. Though - while acknowledging I can only really speak for myself - perhaps people are fed up (to put it mildly) of how scandals are dealt with in the UK, often at the hands of authority figures of the same social or commerical class. There's a depressingly familiar pattern to both scandals and investigations:

* The scandal isn't deemed worthy of investigation.
* Years later, with the culpable either safely dead or out of power, an inquiry is grudgingly or (opportunistically) granted.
* A blaze of headlines, mooting the possibility of 'harsh' sentencing.
* Frequently, the inquiry's chosen investigators have links of some kind to the ruling classes. We've learnt not to fully trust the word 'independent'.
* Justice is finally and apparently 'seen to be done'.
* We're encouraged to 'move on' after lessons have supposedly 'been learnt'.
* While the designated - though nonetheless guilty - scapegoats may die in prison, often the truly guilty remain untouched by justice. And anyway, those 'harsh sentences' are often quietly reduced, over time; and the 'harsh' prisons & conditions the media promise and placate us with, as a kind of consolation, turn out to be no such thing in reality.

Sadly, none of the above feels like the 'mad conspiracy theories' we're frequently taught to dismiss without ever looking closer; rather, it's a pattern I've witnessed again and again in my lifetime, from Aberfan to Hillsborough and beyond. I'm not a cynical or even a jaded person but am simply resigned to injustice and bad, sometimes criminal, leadership.
 
For myself, 'lesson should be learned' applies only when that is applicable but not when it is blatantly obvious to all and sundry that it should never have happened in the first place especially when it's a very serious matter. Those involved at the BBC need harsh consequences because they knew right from wrong at the time and they chose 'wrong'.

The pattern @Steven mentioned above has happened so many, many time that to my mind it's not a pattern, it's a well rehearsed plan of action and it always has the same outcome, a cover up with no real punishments.
 
As far as values are concerned, the BBC is adorned with a sculpture of Prospero and Ariel by Eric Gill - a sick, degenerate paedophile who abused many family members not excluding the dog. The statue was defaced in 2022 and the BBC later committed to restoring it. After Steve Coogan’s ill-advised raking over the coals, I’ve got a strange feeling the BBC hasn’t yet fully grasped how distasteful the licence paying public (compulsory) view their stance and their record on turning a blind eye while all this sort of stuff was going on.
 
Analogue Boy said:
As far as values are concerned, the BBC is adorned with a sculpture of Prospero and Ariel by Eric Gill - a sick, degenerate paedophile who abused many family members not excluding the dog. The statue was defaced in 2022 and the BBC later committed to restoring it. After Steve Coogan’s ill-advised raking over the coals, I’ve got a strange feeling the BBC hasn’t yet fully grasped how distasteful the licence paying public (compulsory) view their stance and their record on turning a blind eye while all this sort of stuff was going on.
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I've just looked at that sculpture for the first time...it's quite an odd statue...it leaves me ill at ease.
 
Analogue Boy said:
As far as values are concerned, the BBC is adorned with a sculpture of Prospero and Ariel by Eric Gill - a sick, degenerate paedophile who abused many family members not excluding the dog. The statue was defaced in 2022 and the BBC later committed to restoring it. After Steve Coogan’s ill-advised raking over the coals, I’ve got a strange feeling the BBC hasn’t yet fully grasped how distasteful the licence paying public (compulsory) view their stance and their record on turning a blind eye while all this sort of stuff was going on.
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They don't have an option, it's not a question of them not grasping
how distasteful the licence paying public (compulsory) view their stance
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Broadcasting House is listed.
 
JamesWhitehead said:
Long, long ago, when Stuart Hall was a fixture on the BBC Look North regional news, he weathered two blows to his reputation. One was the collapse of his travel business, launched with other people's money.
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The fact he called it Stuart Hall International Travel was a small but significant part of the reason for the collapse.
 
escargot said:
Has everyone who abetted Savile and Hall (to name but two) been named and brought to book? No, of course not. Why not? Because they were allowed to get away with it. How? There was a cover-up which is still going on.
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I couldn't agree more. The only conclusion I can come to is the whole Saville, may he rot in hell, exposure was possibly a distraction from what else was and is still going on in corridors of power at the BBC. Also, the view that many or some in the government didn't know what was going on as well points to a whole web of deceit.

Saville, it should be remembered, had a virtually free pass to visit Prince Charles at the Palace and also visited Thatcher at Chequers at least once. The idea both of those didn't know beggars belief.
 
kesavaross said:
I couldn't agree more. The only conclusion I can come to is the whole Saville, may he rot in hell, exposure was possibly a distraction from what else was and is still going on in corridors of power at the BBC. Also, the view that many or some in the government didn't know what was going on as well points to a whole web of deceit.

Saville, it should be remembered, had a virtually free pass to visit Prince Charles at the Palace and also visited Thatcher at Chequers at least once. The idea both of those didn't know beggars belief.
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Whereas Princess Diana loathed Savile. :nods:
 
JamesWhitehead said:
I thought this was a gag but

"In 1981, he launched a travel agent in Manchester City Centre but was obliged to change the name of Stuart Hall International Travel when the acronym caused offence."

from the BBC, so it must be true! :actw:
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I remember hearing about this in the early 90s. I don't know if it was an urban legend or true though.

Stuart Hall seemed a slimebag to me when I watched him on telly as a teenager. I was too young to pick up the slime vibes on Its a Knockout.
 
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Analogue Boy said:
As far as values are concerned, the BBC is adorned with a sculpture of Prospero and Ariel by Eric Gill - a sick, degenerate paedophile who abused many family members not excluding the dog. The statue was defaced in 2022 and the BBC later committed to restoring it. After Steve Coogan’s ill-advised raking over the coals, I’ve got a strange feeling the BBC hasn’t yet fully grasped how distasteful the licence paying public (compulsory) view their stance and their record on turning a blind eye while all this sort of stuff was going on.
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Dealing with Gills work would be problematic.

Theres a lot about.
 
Kondoru said:
Dealing with Gills work would be problematic.
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Not for me it wouldn’t.
The BBC is an institution based on cultural education, information and entertainment. It should stand also for our shared moral values. If an MP was seen driving around in a Rolls Royce with a Jim’ll Fix It medallion as the bonnet ornament, the outcry would be one of unceasing rage until he was forced to resign and live in a cardboard box for the rest of his life as penance.
To have the Gill statue in place and the desire to keep it at the BBC is disgusting to my mind - or the greatest act of cultural trolling ever.
There’s a lot of structure around it. They could commission and build a nice screen around it or dismantle it and erect it in the back garden of Downing Street where the Secretary of State for Culture could visit and admire its cultural beauty and importance so we don’t have to.
 
I wasnt talking about one statue, but the others.

(I cant recall where but I see his name come up lots in architectural studies.)

Also, what about his inscriptions?

And Gill Sans?
 
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