***** This thread is now closed, please CLICK HERE to go to Volume 23 *****
Continuing debate.
Last edited by: VxFan on Fri 15 Aug 14 at 16:58
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Jailed for five years and nine months for 12 indecent assaults on four girls
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28163593
Reports elsewhere say he will also have to sign the Sex Offenders' Register (understandable), and will have to serve at least half of the sentence.
Last edited by: VxFan on Fri 4 Jul 14 at 16:09
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I find it all horrible.
That there are people actually like this who do things like this
That they can hide in plain site
That lives are destroyed by it
I am troubled though by;
How long justice took
By the approach to proof and the process of prosecution and the investigation.
I do hope that they tried or do try to extract any further names from him of other "offenders" he might be aware of or associated with.
And I think it completely ridiculous that Channel 4 (I think) should issue an official apology because they showed a repeated episode of a soap opera and Two Little Boys was played in the background.
Who were they apologizing to and what for? For goodness sakes, you can buy Mein Kampf from Amazon but might be offended over hearing a song? Utterly ridiculous.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Fri 4 Jul 14 at 13:43
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Well said NoFM2R, especially re the soap opera comment, I too thought that was bizarre and unnecessary.
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>> And I think it completely ridiculous that Channel 4
It was a repeat of Benidorm on ITV.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-28124959
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Who were they apologizing to and what for? For goodness sakes, you can buy Mein Kampf from Amazon but might be offended over hearing a song? Utterly ridiculous.
And you can download for free from You Tube a performance of the Horst Wessel song... If you don't know it, I suggest you read the Wikipedia article first as you probably won't want to after that!
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I thought ITV apologising because of a repeat of Benidorm was unnecessary. Yes Two Little boys was sung by one of the characters, and they referenced Rolf Harris. But have we now got to make sure of everything every (re-)broadcast doesn't reference someone it shouldn't?
It's terrible he was able to do this for so long (68-86?) and not be punished until now. Hiding in plain sight - and doing an educational video aimed at children about child abuse.... Hmm.
I think he should have got longer. Add up the sentences and if they run one after the other, he'd be away for nearly 12 years.
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And I'm not sure I agree that the victims aren't eligible for compensation from him. He has allegedly amassed £11m, part of this from when he was assaulting these girls (and I'm sure there were more).... so he should give some of that up IMO. At least to a charity or something.
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It's sentimental, but after a few drinks Two Little Boys can be a moving song. And Harris sang it very touchingly, with a break in the voice, just right. He's a performer.
Thinking about furtive groping in the presence of others, I can remember doing it myself, not just in the back row in the cinema, when very young and randy, although of course with like-minded girls in my own age group, not scared little kids. I didn't enjoy risking getting caught. Privacy would have been preferable, but the urge can be so strong that the risk of being noticed is ignored.
What a horrible old brute the man is.
Finger-lickin'
Headless chicken
Just past teething
Heavy breathing
Touchy-feely...
Kicky! Squealy!
(Pre-teen stunner
Does a runner)
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Talking to my wife about this last night I was a bit taken aback when she told me her reaction. Incidentally, she has a degree in Fine Art and claims that one of the earliest influences in getting her to paint as a child was watching Rolf Harris on the TV.
Anyway, I had said that I was surprised these things were only coming to light now and that surely some of the victims of these assaults would have spoken out at the time.
My wife's response was that 'it was a different world then' She is 50 now but went on to describe how as a teenager, it wasn't uncommon for the older generation of men, her parents generation, to try it on with young girls. She says inappropriate things happened to her on a number of occasions by several different men and although she spoke out nothing was ever done about it. Not major assaults she says but certainly events which were deeply inappropriate.
One specific character was a family friend who when drunk at parties etc was renowned for his behaviour. My wife told her mother about one of his wandering hand events at a party when she was a teenager and was told 'oh that's just "Harry", he's always been like that when he's had a drink, just keep away from him'. Well "Harry" has been dead for years and when I asked my wife how she felt about him she replied 'He was a dirty old git, but so were a lot of that generation, you just learned to fend them off, annoying and upsetting at the time but I don't dwell on it, no point, it was just the way it was, thankfully, things have changed.'
Like I say, I was quite taken aback at that but it seems it wasn't especially uncommon.
As a bloke, I guess I hadn't realised that it was like that. Just goes to show how different your life experiences can be.
Last edited by: Runfer D'Hills on Fri 4 Jul 14 at 14:29
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>>Just goes to show how different your life experiences can be.
These days the perpetrators of the worst offences - which go well beyond Humph's wife's experiences - are likely to be friends or acquaintances of girls. For every President of the Oxford Union who is arrested, the ones who are not are legion. And of course the girls don't tell anybody because they don't want their mothers to find out they're not as innocent as the mothers think they are.
Such is the penalty for our liberal world.
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>>www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/sentencing-remarks-mr-j-sweeney-r-v-harris.pdf
Well doesn't that just bring the focus on the level of his nastiness!
And he will continue to bring misery to his family for as long as he lives. Let us just hope that's not too long.
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The link stopped working for a while. They had to substitute the original version as it had not been completely edited and gave the forename of victim 'C' in a couple of places*. Seems OK again now.
* I know this 'cos I spotted it and contacted Judicial Office.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Fri 4 Jul 14 at 15:03
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Retirement flying by, eh Bromptarooney?
;-)
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Harris's "unduly lenient" sentence referred to the Attorney General according to the Telegraph.
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I see the sentence has already been referred to the Attorney General for being too lenient.
Following on from Humph's post above, whilst on holiday earlier in the year, an elderly woman (in there 80s) who we have got to know said she'd been abused when younger. She thought the perpetrators should be shot. I think she'd shared this because of Rolf being in the news at the time.
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The good old days, eh? When you could leave your door open all day and the local Bobby was all we needed to clip the few ears that needed clipping. Ah. Innocent, sweeter times.
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The ( possibly scary? ) thing I didn't add above, was my wife's almost afterthought comment when she said she supposed that at the time, these guys, or at least the ones she encountered, probably, if not almost certainly, didn't think they were doing anything terribly wrong and were just being a bit 'bloke-ish'.
Hard to believe now but maybe she is right in the context of the age.
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Humph, you can tell your wife I agree with every word she has said.
Not being believed or being brushed off and told to keep away from someone, is an experience you never really forget.
For some, I can understand them wanting revenge all these years later.
Pat
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>> The ( possibly scary? ) thing I didn't add above, was my wife's almost afterthought
>> comment when she said she supposed that at the time, these guys, or at least
>> the ones she encountered, probably, if not almost certainly, didn't think they were doing anything
>> terribly wrong and were just being a bit 'bloke-ish'.
>>
>> Hard to believe now but maybe she is right in the context of the age.
I know she is right - I don't mean that all men did it then or now, but that 'gropers' and bullies of all kinds have always been around, still are, and all that changes is what they think they can get away with.
I also think that fame for some people affects their perception of where the boundaries are - in all sorts of ways, not just indecent assaults.
Fame = power, and we know what that does to some people. Not all by any means, the more grown up ones understand that their power allows them to be better, not worse.
Last edited by: Manatee on Fri 4 Jul 14 at 16:24
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Had similar chats with my missus too. She worked in a major London bank after leaving school, there were oldies there who were touchy feely, she says sometimes complaints were raised but mostly not, and she wasn't aware of any serious action ever being taken when they were.
Although she won't say it, I do think she agrees that "times were different" - and as Humph says above neither side found it terribly wrong, not at the level it was. Obviously that wouldn't apply if it had been more serious than a quick squeeze of some protruding bit (back or front).
She says they all knew who to avoid being cornered by at the Xmas parties!!
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As one whose adolescence and youth took place in the fifties and sixties, I don't recall ever putting my hands inside the clothing of a girl who wasn't acquiescent at least. But then I was shy and well brought up, with in those days a slowly dispelling miasma of religious horse manure... I greatly envied promiscuous country boys of my acquaintance and many others more adventurous than I was.
The point about unwelcome blokeish groping, even then, is that any fool can recognise severe reluctance well before the hand down the knickers stage. In my day chatting up, dancing, etc. moved in some sort of progression. Only drunk rapists just leap all over some poor girl without warning. Tchah!
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I think I've posted this on a thread here before, but when I was a young man on the factory floor the girls in the office would only go anywhere near those of us oiks who were of a similar age because a very large proportion of the older men were blatantly lecherous old pervs who would now be doing time if they behaved in the same way today. Most of the teenage office girls would flatly refuse to go anywhere near the floor.
On one occasion two married thirty somethings sat in the canteen boasting about what they'd done with a couple of 15 year old girls they'd picked up on a night out to the delight of the assembled audience. Us younger ones found it a bit disturbing, but the older men - many of whom had teenage daughters of their own - saw nothing wrong in it. Different times, different world. Any man who'd been foolish enough to dally with an underage girl now would keep very quiet about it.
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"when I was a young man on the factory floor the girls" …………….. were a danger to any poor innocent young bloke who'd just started at the place!
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>> "when I was a young man on the factory floor the girls" …………….. were a
>> danger to any poor innocent young bloke who'd just started at the place!
>>
That was the older women Haywain, not the young girls. Woe betide any innocent young man who strayed into a part of the factory populated only by female staff.
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"That was the older women"
Well, that would be more accurate. Does this demonstrate that dirty old women are as bad as dirty old men?
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>> "That was the older women"
>>
>> Well, that would be more accurate. Does this demonstrate that dirty old women are as
>> bad as dirty old men?
>>
Not singly, but in groups they can be a fearsome bunch unafraid to find out what a shy young lad has in his pants.
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Why did "C" keep returning to Bray (counts 5, 6, 7, 8 & 9) after finding out what he was like in counts 3 & 4?
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>> Why did "C" keep returning to Bray (counts 5, 6, 7, 8 & 9) after
>> finding out what he was like in counts 3 & 4?
Because she felt she had no choice. Anything else would be reporting the crime - something she felt would not be believed.
Whether or not it seems rational to middle aged blokes like us it's a pretty common form of victim behaviour if you read these sort of cases.
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I don't know why "C" kept returning. She shouldn't have done, and I hope mine wouldn't.
But nonetheless she did. However wrong she was to keep returning, it pales into insignificance compared to his responsibility so much that it is not even relevant other than as a learning experience for parents.
I wish she had been more confident, more aggressive, had more faith, been trusted more, perceived that she was trusted more, more outgoing, that her parents taught her more strongly, that someone was more worldly, whatever it might have taken.
It would have been better.
It would also have been unnecessary if she had not been faced with a scumbag. And it is right that the scumbag is punished and that NO level of culpability is leveled at a child, or an innocent.
We want our children to defend themselves, but it is not their fault and it does not lessen the guilt of the molester if they do not.
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Thanks Bromp. Not pleasant reading but I'm glad I read it because it takes away that feeling a few others have mentioned of "wasn't that just how people were back then?" Well, no, it wasn't; this goes well beyond dodgy-uncle-at-wedding stuff and would - according to the BBC radio report I heard at lunchtime, which left out the judge's detail "for decency" - attract a possible life sentence if committed today.
It's also purged me of any lingering affection for Rolf Harris. Horrible, and a great pity he wasn't caught sooner.
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Not pleasant reading but I hadn't realised how bad the charges were. Now I see why a few women telling similar stories with very similar details had to be believed. The only thing I am surprised at is why he didn't just plead guilty!
I wonder how many more he assaulted and will he be charged with more. I suspect these cases weren't all of them.
And did he leave Australia in the 50s for a reason? You really start to wonder when someone who was such a popular person turns out to have been so horrible.
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The other thing I find surprising is why his wife and daughter stood by him. Apart from money. And details of the assaults on his daughter's friend was known about in the 90s!
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>>The other thing I find surprising is why his wife and daughter stood by him.
What would it take for you to walk away from your Mother?
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Well as far as Rolf's daughter is concerned it seems inheritance of £11m.
And we're talking about..... you have read what he did after licking his fingers?
Last edited by: rtj70 on Sat 5 Jul 14 at 01:44
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Yes, I read it. And it is appalling.
Walking away from a parent must be a terrible thing though, especially since one is probably walking away from part of them rather than their whole.
And I have no idea where my line would be.
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I read the piece as well, like RTJ I hadn't realised just how pervy his actions were...especially regarding Miss C.
Although not a particular fan, I liked the guy, but now all that has gone.He can rot on rule 43 now for me. It's a disappointment when someone who you respect for his talent turns out ' bad '. Same with Stuart Hall, He was North West news announcer for many years and seemed a regular fellow and a 'Jolly Japester'..well liked...no longer.
Has Clifford entered an appeal ? I thought he might, with all his cash and connections. I've not read anything. Perhaps he realised the game was up and he was bang to rights !
Next please !
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... Now this would be an example of why phone hacking if evidence was gathered and could be used was valid in my opinion.... And ironically sentencing on the same day.
Of course they were not onto the like of Rolf Harris, Stuart Hall, Jimmy Savile, etc.
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Does anyone really believe that 114 files related to alleged child abuse et al. have been LOST?
I hear the shuffle of establishment ranks closing up.
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>> Does anyone really believe that 114 files related to alleged child abuse et al. have
>> been LOST?
>>
>>
Only the terminally naive.
Rumours have surfaced from time to time about some very big names being involved. Even a government whose hands were clean would not want to have to deal with the political fallout of a major scandal like that as it involved people who are still household names.
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Does anyone really believe that 114 files related to alleged child abuse et al. have been LOST?
No one I suspect (and I'm not even wearing my tinfoil hat). I rather suspect the advisor pointed out that dealing with the current situation was far preferable to the other option. I wonder how many sitting government MPs are involved.
Last edited by: Slidingpillar on Sun 6 Jul 14 at 13:41
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>> Does anyone really believe that 114 files related to alleged child abuse et al. have
>> been LOST?
I wonder how many sitting government MPs are involved.
>>
I believe more than most would expect.
I also believe many would be surprised to hear the names of the ones that are...
Last edited by: swiss tony on Sun 6 Jul 14 at 13:58
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>> Does anyone really believe that 114 files related to alleged child abuse et al. have
>> been LOST?
Yes, basically.
In those days crime reports or investigation to see if a crime was committed were recorded on paper copies....then stored for a number of years (7 seems to spring to mind) ..then thrown away.
So it's quite feasible that allegations made in the early 80's have now had the files go missing, because they were weeded out at some point, en masse, and thrown away.
>> I hear the shuffle of establishment ranks closing up.
That may well have happened at the time and that would explain my people weren't nicked at then, but those in power today, weren't in power in the early 80's were they?
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If the process was to just throw away the paper records/documents after a time period then I suppose it might have happened. But why wasn't the process to scan the documents onto microfiche and therefore keep the documents in a more efficient format. And indexes to know which microfiche tape had what. I'm saying microfiche because back then computer storage was not an option.
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Something big was suppressed at the time. The sixties and seventies rumour mill worked overtime. Those subject to grave popular suspicion included Willie Whitelaw and Leon Brittan himself although he was trying to be a whistle-blower it seems. Lords and commons all up to their fetlocks in slime and rumpy-pumpy allegations.
Nothing new under the sun innit? Same old same old.
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>> Something big was suppressed at the time. The sixties and seventies rumour mill worked overtime.
>> Those subject to grave popular suspicion included Willie Whitelaw and Leon Brittan himself although he
>> was trying to be a whistle-blower it seems. Lords and commons all up to their
>> fetlocks in slime and rumpy-pumpy allegations.
>>
>> Nothing new under the sun innit? Same old same old.
>>
Now the press have got their teeth into this it could well turn into something that will make the expenses scandal seem like the good old days to those in Westminster.
We shall see.
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>> If the process was to just throw away the paper records/documents after a time period
>> then I suppose it might have happened. But why wasn't the process to scan the
>> documents onto microfiche and therefore keep the documents in a more efficient format. And indexes
>> to know which microfiche tape had what. I'm saying microfiche because back then computer storage
>> was not an option.
Micro fiche was pretty costly. Only in recent years with scan/pdf has it been straightforward to digitise.
If they did records management as we did in my last post they would have a document agreed with National Archive about what was retained and for how long. Correspondence was reviewed after 5 years and unless it passed muster as being of long term/historical interest it would be binned at that point.
Nothing surprising in a set of unsubstantiated/unproven allegations being untraceable after 30 years.
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www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10949463/Vanessa-Feltz-Rolf-Harris-sexually-assaulted-me-live-on-TV.html
Mind bleach, double strength, - quickly!
(Was he THAT hard up? Oops - double entendre: substitute "desperate")
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For heaven's sake, Roger! Read some of what's gone before in this thread and sort your attitudes out. Bright red textual scowly from me.
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>> For heaven's sake, Roger! Read some of what's gone before in this thread and sort
>> your attitudes out. Bright red textual scowly from me.
:-)
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No smiles here, Roger. I suppose you're the type that holds a door and considers himself a 'gentleman'. Do any of the 'ladies' in your life know how you really think?
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There was a scene in the radio drama, "I'm sorry I'll read that again' where a character arrives in Egypt and was offered a little girl. He all indignantly said.
"Don't you know I am, I'm an English lord".
To which the native said he was sorry and offered a little boy.
I rather suspect you could not broadcast the programme now.
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>> There was a scene in the radio drama, "I'm sorry I'll read that again'
I remember that from school days. A group of us used to skive off from gym and drink coffee in the RAF hut listening to the programme.
Father and son sharing a shower, "Daddy, what are those for?"
"FOUR ? !"
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>> No smiles here, Roger. I suppose you're the type that holds a door and considers
>> himself a 'gentleman'. Do any of the 'ladies' in your life know how you really
>> think?
>>
Are you really such a prig as you appear here, Billy Beast?
Lighten up a bit, it was just a bit of non-PC (somewhat sexist) humour!
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I expect your loathsome chum Godfrey Bloom would have offered the same moronic 'just a bit of fun' defence.
So it's 'just a bit of non-PC humour' to suggest that a serial sex offender's only error was to select a victim that didn't match up to your own (Olympian, no doubt) physical aesthetic? And only a 'prig' would object?
It deserved the red card just as much as our former canine's racist comment the other week.
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>> Bright red textual scowly from me.
All I can see is a thumbs up (no pun intended)
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...because (presumably) it's a textual scowly (ie. the line you quoted) as opposed to an actual scowly, to avoid accusations of cowardice.
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>> ...because (presumably) it's a textual scowly (ie. the line you quoted) as opposed to an
>> actual scowly, to avoid accusations of cowardice.
>>
A bit like the difference between being arrested and merely invited to the police station to be questioned under caution.
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www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-28190812
However, she said after telling the Daily Express about the assault, she received an "outpouring of misogyny and hatred" on social media.
She said she found the reaction "so upsetting".
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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!
I must confess to lusting (only in my head, of course) after a certain lady weather presenter of somewhat more advanced years!
Others have called her "mumsy" .
SWMBO knows I fancy said lady rotten & thinks it's funny! Well given the facts, I guess it is :-)
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Vanessa Feltz means little to me but I have noticed she is one of several women seen on TV who are the targets of unpleasantly misogynist comment on their appearance.
I can't bear that sort of thing. It's brainless and cruel. Some people are still basically seven years old.
I still feel like that when these women themselves behave in a shrill vulgar manner that does them no favours, as some of them do of course (along with their younger and more winsome sisters who are even worse because less wise).
I said yesterday or so that I love television. But you've got to hate it too sometimes.
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This woman is speaking with forked tongue.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-28189072
I notice the review is only about the police and prosecutors actions????
What about the Home Office and politicians that are alleged to have sat on it?
If the late Geoffrey Dickens MP tried and failed on many occasions to get senior politicians to sit up and take note and/or refer it to police to investigate ..then why concentrate the investigation on those lower down the food chain only?
If there's to be an investigation, it should be the whole damned lot.
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>> If the late Geoffrey Dickens MP tried and failed on many occasions to get senior
>> politicians to sit up and take note and/or refer it to police to investigate ..then
>> why concentrate the investigation on those lower down the food chain only?
On one take Dickens was a blatant self publicist with a bee in his bonnet about this stuff. Not much meat in his dossier and he's not on record as being dissatisfied. Here's a piece by contemporary minister David Mellor:
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/07/no-home-office-cover-up-over-geoffrey-dickens-dossier
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>> >> If the late Geoffrey Dickens MP tried and failed on many occasions to get
>> senior
>> >> politicians to sit up and take note and/or refer it to police to investigate
>> ..then
>> >> why concentrate the investigation on those lower down the food chain only?
>>
>> On one take Dickens was a blatant self publicist with a bee in his bonnet
>> about this stuff. Not much meat in his dossier and he's not on record as
>> being dissatisfied. Here's a piece by contemporary minister David Mellor:
>>
>> www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/07/no-home-office-cover-up-over-geoffrey-dickens-dossier
>>
+1
I watched David Mellor on the subject on C4 tonight. He pretty well demolished Dickens... quoting Hansard recording Dickens as "being satisfied with the replies to his dossier".
Having said that, there are some undisputed cases of coverups in the public domain.. I expect the report into the last Home Office Report to be popcorn worthy...
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Very good. It's surprising how many of the posters completely missed the point.
It's actually a good illustration of how things appear differently to a different age, and of the pitfalls in interpreting events through our viewpoint.
The point was Rolf in those days was widely perceived as a groaningly awful children's "entertainer", and the joke was children had to be kidnapped to appear on his show.
But as time goes by, recent knowledge of the real Rolf will cloud our perceptions of the older times. The sick-making "Two little boys", but the not half bad impromtu painter. History is truely written by the winners and survivors.
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>> It's actually a good illustration of how things appear differently to a different age, and
>> of the pitfalls in interpreting events through our viewpoint.
Indeed. The age of consent, for example, was set for much of history at a level that was felt to be normal, right and proper at the time, but today would be seen as monstrous and depraved.
I think you have to invoke the well worn phrase "by our standards" to make much sense of the comparison of "right" between societies and ages, and who, of course, is to say that "our standards" are right, especially when in a hundred years or so they may have changed to something else.
Some (to us) very young ages of marriage and consent explained here for example:
chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/teaching-modules/230
It's also an often made point, but it is interesting that Rolf Harris's "Two Little Boys" or whatever apparently has to be banned, but nobody seems to care about the statue of Ariel adorning the BBC. Hypocritical at the least. Selective revisionism?
Last edited by: Crankcase on Tue 8 Jul 14 at 09:03
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but nobody seems to care about the statue of Ariel adorning the BBC. Hypocritical at the least. Selective revisionism?
Daily Hate tried it on in 2013 (April 22nd to be precise). But if you replaced anything because one of the creators had been naughty (and remember, values change) you'd be forever replacing statues and buildings. The statues on the front of Broadcasting House have been talked about since the place was built.
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Indeed, and that's why I don't think banning or removing Harris' work helps much other than to perhaps be seen to appease anger in some quarters.
Waterstones this week were asked if they were going to remove a book Harris had been involved in and they said that if they did that they'd have to remove virtually 90% of everything ever written, or words to that effect. Bye, books about Caravaggio, you murderer, and so on.
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perhaps be seen to appease anger in some quarters.
Absolutely. Admittedly it is sometimes genuine and appropriate but there seems to be a type of person whose raison d'être seems to be to take umbrage on behalf of others - even if actually, they weren't offended in the first place.
I can't remember what I said (it was that important...) but somebody took me to task over a reference to 'disabled people', completely ignoring the fact as a deaf blue badge holder - I must be in that group somewhere.
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>> but nobody seems to care about the statue of Ariel adorning the BBC.
>> Hypocritical >> at the least. Selective revisionism?
>>
I care :-) - forum drift...
I was working for the BBC at TV Center in the early 1960s and we were all interested in the unveiling of " Golden Balls" as our workshop overlooked the central courtyard.
I still smile at the courtyard project that went horribly wrong.
The courtyard leaked into the basement where all the videotape editing was done so they had to lift all the paving to trace the leaks.
The original fountains made too much noise etc plus making a queue for the loo.
They were stuck with the vortex effect but the fountain had to go hence the odd look of the courtyard.
I have a full frontal, eye level slide photo of "Golden Balls " taken from our workshop.
I was a regular visitor to the club bar there. No segregation so mixing with the stars was the norm ( whatever that was in those days).
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My Red Face!!!
Wrong statue - Its Helios at TV Center
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Some posts deleted due to unsubstantiated allegations.
VxFan.
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...a bit belt & braces - but OK, I get it!
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A week or so ago over general lunch chat I mentioned that I wondered if Jill Dando maybe knew something as there has never been a reason for her murder.
I see one of tomorrows papers is thinking along the same lines......
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>> A week or so ago over general lunch chat I mentioned that I wondered if
>> Jill Dando maybe knew something as there has never been a reason for her murder.
>>
>> I see one of tomorrows papers is thinking along the same lines......
>>
tinyurl.com/p4njulg
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....and now historic accusations against the late George Thomas, Lord Tonypandy.
If true, I shall be very disappointed, having held him in high regard and also having met him on a couple of occasions.
He struck me as a real gentleman, in the old fashioned sense.
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>> ....and now historic accusations against the late George Thomas, Lord Tonypandy.
>> If true, I shall be very disappointed, having held him in high regard and also
>> having met him on a couple of occasions.
>> He struck me as a real gentleman, in the old fashioned sense.
>>
He probably was, but a person's sexual nature can be completely at odds with every other aspect of their character. And being a powerful driving force it sometimes leads them to act in ways they themselves know is abhorrent but find impossible to control..
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>>
>> He probably was, but a person's sexual nature can be completely at odds with every
>> other aspect of their character. And being a powerful driving force it sometimes leads them
>> to act in ways they themselves know is abhorrent but find impossible to control..
>>
That's the general point that people now are very reluctant to face.
Someone can be a genius painter but a murderer, a kind amusing person who beats his wife, a drug baron but a philanthropist, and so on.
None of the good things about someone's character die when a disreputable side is unmasked.
His art remains art, good or bad; his work as a constituency MP remains commendable; his fund-raising for charity still continues to bring benefit, etc etc.
Funny though to think that Lord Hanky-panky might yet live up to his name.
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>> being a powerful driving force it sometimes leads them
>> to act in ways they themselves know is abhorrent but find impossible to control..
Defective control system if you ask me. Even a 'powerful driving force' can be resisted for good enough reasons.
Perhaps it's tempting to brutalize or exploit a weaker, helpless person for some short-term pleasure. But is the temptation really irresistible? Not to a proper adult human one would think, only to a confused immoral toerag.
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>> >> being a powerful driving force it sometimes leads them
>> >> to act in ways they themselves know is abhorrent but find impossible to control..
>>
>>
>> Defective control system if you ask me. Even a 'powerful driving force' can be resisted
>> for good enough reasons.
>>
>> Perhaps it's tempting to brutalize or exploit a weaker, helpless person for some short-term pleasure.
>> But is the temptation really irresistible? Not to a proper adult human one would think,
>> only to a confused immoral toerag.
>>
In many of the cases of sexual assault that have come to light the perpetrator probably did not think he was doing anything particularly wrong. However much we know it is abhorrent behaviour there was a time when many men thought sticking your hand up a woman's skirt or grabbing her boob was just playful banter, and as I've said here before it wasn't just girls who were subject to that sort of thing.
Different times.
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>> Different times.
That's a slightly different area ROR, discussed at length elsewhere.
Self-indulgent use of power is immoral. Properly brought up people know that, and resist some temptations when they arise.
Obviously immoral people are strongly motivated to believe that they aren't doing anything out of the ordinary. Others may have a more objective angle on it.
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My driving force could be gambling. I very deliberately do not put myself in the way of temptation. (Except a punt on the National Lottery)
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"Someone can be a genius painter but a murderer, a kind amusing person who beats his wife, a drug baron but a philanthropist, and so on."
Indeed as W S Gilbert observed:
When a felon's not engaged in his employment
Or maturing his felonious little plan
His capacity for innocent enjoyment
Is just as great as any honest man
Our feelings we with difficulty smother
When constabulary duties to be done
Taking one consideration with another
A policeman's lot is not a happy one
When constabulary duties to be done, to be done
A policeman's lot is not a happy one
When the enterprising burglar's not a-burgling
When the cutthroat isn't occupied in crime
He loves to hear the little brook a-gurgling
And listen to the merry village chime
When the coster's finished jumping on his mother
He loves to lie a-basking in the sun
Taking one consideration with another
A policeman's lot is not a happy one
When constabulary duties to be done, to be done
A policeman's lot is not a happy one
When the drunkard shows no sign of where the drink went
He nobly bids all alchohol farewell
When the juvenile delinquent to the clink went
He hung his mother's picture in his cell
When the cardshark's finished wiping out his brother
He buys a rattle for his little son
Taking one consideration with another
A policeman's lot is not a happy one
When constabulary duties to be done, to be done
A policeman's lot is not a happy one
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Rolf Harris Jailed - VxFan