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Odd moments in TV history: England’s ‘greatest’ pedophile introduces ‘The Smurf Song’
07.08.2013
06:38 pm
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“The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.”

They certainly do, as this clip from an edition of the longtime BBC music show Top of the Pops abundantly proves.

I was wondering how best to explain this bizarre clip, in which an evil kiddie-fiddling nonce, Sir Jimmy Savile, introduces the hit single to children’s TV series The Smurfs. The combination of these two unrelated things makes me feel queasy.

It starts with Savile interviewing Father Abraham, the stage of name of Dutch singer Pierre Kartner, who gained considerable success with “The Smurf Song.” The smarmy, reptilian Savile is full of the same fake charm he used to hood-wink a nation, before he introduces TOTP’s resident dance troupe, Legs and Co. (Gawd bless ‘em), who then interpret the The Smurf Song through the power of dance.

Sir Jimmy Savile was the world’s first disc jockey, spinning records on twin-turntables long before the twin decks became standard kit. Savile’s fame as a DJ ensured his later TV career, where the peroxide blonde freak made a career as TV and radio host on the BBC. At the same time, Savile was sexually abusing every girl, boy, man, woman (and probably dog) he could get his jingly-jangly hands on. Savile was like a modern Gilles de Rais. Surprisingly, after his death in 2011, a nation mourned his passing until stories of his sexual excess ruined his sainted reputation.

According to police estimates, there were an incredible 450 people abused by Savile. This figure may be as high as 1,350.

So, here, we have a moment of classic Seventies’ British telly. Not exactly Masterpiece Theatre, but one that shows how England’s greatest nonce hid in plain sight as a respected member of the British Establishment and as a much-liked (I can’t say “loved”) BBC entertainer.

I’ve had my share of weird trips but this one is certainly a dodgy tab of Smurf-flavored blotter acid!
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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07.08.2013
06:38 pm
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Paedogeddon: Margaret Thatcher and ‘friend’

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Either someone in the art department at CNN has got a terrific sense of humor, or else they have no idea who the bug-eyed kiddy fiddler is in this photograph with the late Baroness Margaret Thatcher.

Why it’s Sir Jimmy Saville, a man she called “friend.” CNN showed the photo four times in five minutes today when they announced Thatcher’s death on Starting Point today. BRAVO!

Via Raw Story:

Wall Street Journal Social Media Editor Neal Mann noted on Twitter that CNN “obviously didn’t get the memo” when it ran the photo of Thatcher with Savile.

Or did they get the memo, Neal?

“That is the picture CNN chose to run for Margaret Thatcher’s obituary? A pedophile?” Michelle Malkin’s Twitchy website asked, accompanied by a list of tweets by conservatives slamming CNN’s decision.

“Whoever’s doing the Thatcher montage on CNN is either an idiot or a sly lefty. Repeated images of Thatcher with Pinochet and Savile…”David Tumilty wrote.

I’d vote for sly lefty.

Posted by Richard Metzger
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04.08.2013
07:33 pm
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Rupert Murdoch and Jimmy Savile: Civil War at the Heart of the British Establishment?
01.14.2013
04:38 pm
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Back in 2011, when the UK was being inundated with revelations regarding the extent of News Corp’s nationwide espionage, it was interesting to muse on the hacking victims that weren’t coming forward – and the seamy secrets that weren’t spilled in the tabloids. After all, was there a powerful person in the land whose phone wasn’t tapped – you had to ask yourself what Rupert Murdoch didn’t now know about this country? It was such thoughts that made the subsequent castigation of News Corp so comic, as peasant after peasant was obliged to gingerly hurl a rotten tomato at a master who would all-too-soon be released from the stocks.

And, a few months on from “Hackgate” – wouldn’t you know it – there was “Savilegate.” These consecutive scandals betray a quite provocative symmetry. In the former, a media corporation was raked across the coals because of its perceived callousness towards a victim of pedophilia (the hacking of Milly Dowler’s phone), leading to a limb of that corporation – the News of the World – being lopped off. In the latter, another media corporation (the former’s nemesis, no less) was raked across the coals because of its perceived callousness towards the victims of pedophilia, leading to a limb of that corporation – Newsnight – almost being lopped off. Curious.

The genesis of Savilegate is interesting. An excellent source tells me: “the Savile accusations were going nowhere until the Spectator picked them up. An interesting osmosis then occurred: News Corp spotted it, and Rupert Murdoch himself said ‘we can use this.’” Indeed, who else would have the “great clanking balls” (to borrow Tony Blair’s unforgettable phrase) to break that longstanding media taboo?

While one presumed intention in Newscorp lifting the lid on Savile is obvious enough – “screw you, BBC” – an additional, subtler motivation is also feasible. Put simply, by instructing his media empire to turn up the volume regarding the real Jimmy Savile Murdoch must have known he would be sending very awkward reverberations through the wider establishment that was tentatively standing up to him and holding him to moderate account at the Leveson Enquiry.
 
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Yup, Labour, the Tories, the Royals, the cops – Savilegate must have had the lot of them squirming. You can release all the shtick you like about there being “no pedophile ring” involved (I actually caught some BBC Savile coverage where this reassuring message scrolled ceaselessly across the foot of the screen) but his lifetime license to abuse and access the nation’s children without a hint of trouble suggested otherwise, while his manifest intimacy with the great and the good carried further uncomfortable messages into the national unconscious.

Meanwhile, Leveson was still promising to damage News Corp’s reputation and influence around the world…

Step forward Labour MP Tom Watson, the person deserving of the most credit for the development of Hackgate. Savilegate certainly appeared to have influenced his research and thinking in the logical direction, and so, fresh from inflicting a flesh wound on Rupert Murdoch, Mr Watson thinks “fair enough,” and turns his trusty ole .45 on the Devil Himself, asking at PMQs about that “powerful pedophile network linked to Parliament and Number Ten.”

David Cameron’s expression said it all (“won’t someone rid me of this meddlesome priest”), and the ripple of silence that spread through Parliament betrayed the sense that this had an outside chance of going down as one of the most significant moments in British political history. You can only admire Watson’s chutzpah, but the damnedest things will happen if you try to shoot the Devil, and in this incident it was to transpire that the gun was loaded with some very magical bullets indeed – ones that whizzed away from their intended destination to bury themselves in the enemies of… Rupert Murdoch.
 
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Initially, it had all looked eerily promising, and the effect of Watson’s words on the public imagination was compounded when he revealed the death threats he had subsequently received. Coupled with Savilegate, all this was threatening to wake the British public up from its long, deep sleep. Nothing better illustrated the unlikely places extreme disquiet was creeping into than Phillip Schofield’s outright heroic (and, of course, widely reviled) confrontation with the Prime Minister on daytime television.
                      
Then, of course, there occurred that piece of grandiose chicanery regarding Newsnight’s incorrectly “naming” Alistair McAlpine as an abuser of Steven Messham. Only they didn’t name him – and his name had anyway already been in circulation for years, presumably due to a mix-up with a certain Jimmie McAlpine, his deceased cousin (the less said about him the better). This went almost completely unremarked of course, and most of the public was once again successfully frightened away from waking reality.

Understandably, much has been made on the blogosphere of the following exert from Alistair McAlpine’s 2001 book, The New Machiavelli: The Art of Politics in Business, and the following – shall we say coincidental? prophetic? fishy? – suggestions regarding dealing with the media.

“Another useful ploy is the false accusation. First, create a situation where you are wrongly accused. Then, at a convenient moment, arrange for the false accusation to be shown to be false beyond all doubt. Those who have made accusations… become discredited. Further accusations will then be treated with great suspicion.”

What was really interesting, however, is how the effects of this apparent masterclass in mass manipulation weren’t delimited to “discrediting” those who would like to see powerful pedophiles exposed and prosecuted, but also influenced Leveson, providing a smokescreen behind which Lord Leveson himself could switch costumes – when it cleared he was no longer the judge of News Corp (as he was supposed to be) but of the Internet, and the “online dilettantism” that had supposedly resulted in the conveniently close-to-hand defamation of Alistair McAlpine.
                      
Admire and wonder at the course of those magic bullets! Did someone get to Leveson (or rather the Establishment he represents)? Furthermore, was Savilegate somehow the instrument of this manipulation?

Certainly something is going on behind the scenes. The question is how much the British Establishment is able to put its collective interests (in other words, survival) above its intestine disputes. Since the outbreak of hostilities we’ve seen suspicious deaths (Christopher Shale and Sean Hoare) and death threats (Tom Watson and Steven Messham) – the stakes are clearly high. Meanwhile, there are thousands more people – including some honest and intrepid politicians and journalists – for whom Pandora’s Box is now very much ajar. Certainly the British Establishment can often look too rotten to burn, but you might once easily have thought that about the Catholic Church….
 
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Posted by Thomas McGrath
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01.14.2013
04:38 pm
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Jerry Sadowitz as Jimmy Savile (NSFW)
11.23.2012
10:52 am
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A shameless plug for Jerry Sadowitz’s new show at the Leicester Square Theater, London, December 2012.

Strange that after all these years that one of the funniest comedians in the world should receive some of the attention he rightly deserves, all because of a recording he made twenty-five years ago.

Thankfully Mr. Sadowitz (‘Comedian, Magician, Psychopath’) will be touring the UK in the New Year, so those who haven’t seen him can find out what they’ve been missing.

Meantime check Mr Sadowitz’s site for details.
 

 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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11.23.2012
10:52 am
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Savilegate: Some troubling questions for the new CEO of ‘The New York Times’

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I wonder if Mark Thompson had anything to declare when he went through customs en route for his new job at the New York Times? Probably not.

And now he is ensconced as CEO at the NYT, I wonder if “Gnasher” Thompson has anything to declare over the Jimmy Savile scandal that has engulfed the BBC?

Probably not.

Even so, I can’t help thinking that this is not the end of the story, for I find it hard to believe that Thompson knew nothing about those stories regarding Jimmy Savile, or was not at least aware of them. It now appears that I am not the only one who thinks this. Allegedly former BBC journalist, Keith Graves, finds it hard to believe, as he, or someone commenting under his name, posted on the Daily Mail:
 
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Mark Thompson says that during his time at the BBC he “never heard any allegations” about Savile. During his years in the television newsroom, culminating in a period editing the flagship evening new, rumours about Savile being ‘into little girls’ were rife as were often crude comments about hims and his behaviour. It is inconceivable that those rumours, which were, I recall, often discussed in the BBC club bar by news staff, did not reach his ears.

- Keith Graves, Valencia, Spain, 28/10/2012 13:27

Even Mike Hollingsworth, the man who first employed Thompson as his assistant at the BBC, said in the Daily Telegraph, Thompson would have had to been “tone deaf” not to have heard rumors about Jimmy Savile.

“He must be mad denying that he’d heard anything about Saville. We had all heard the rumours. You would have to have been tone deaf not to have heard them…

“I know that Mark has a strong Catholic faith, but it wasn’t as if this was something that people would whisper about when he came into a room – he is a man of the world. You just have to look at the programming he put out when he took over at Channel 4 to see that he wasn’t in the least bit squeamish when it came to all kinds of discussions about sex.”

This incredulity from former colleagues has only increased the growing disquiet over the “baggage” Thompson is perceived to be bringing to his new job at the New York Times, as one of the paper’s editors, Margaret Sullivan wondered in a blog: 

“How likely is it that [Thompson] knew nothing?....His integrity and decision-making are bound to affect The [New York] Times and its journalism – profoundly. It’s worth considering now whether he is the right person for the job, given this turn of events.”

The questions hinge on what Thompson knew about the Jimmy Savile scandal, when he was Director General at the BBC. It’s an important issue, one that saw his replacement, George Entwisle (or “Incurious George”) resign his position over not knowing about a Newsnight item that led to a gross libel against an innocent man. If Entwistle was considered guilty for not knowing about the serious allegations broadcast by his flagship news program, then where does that leave Thompson, who claims he knew little or virtually nothing about a planned Newsnight investigation into abuse allegations involving Jimmy Savile?

What little Thompson did know he dismissed in a letter to Conservative MP, Rob Wilson:

“What did happen is that, at a drinks reception late last year, a journalist mentioned to me the existence of the investigation and said words to the effect of “you must be worried about the Newsnight investigation?” This was the first I had heard of the investigation…Although I recall hearing at the time of his death that BBC Television might do something (a tribute) about Jimmy Savile in due course, again I had not been briefed about the programmes themselves. I assume they were commissioned and broadcast by BBC Vision, the BBC’s television arm, in the usual way.”

This is obvious buck passing. Moreover, as it was Thompson who tightened up BBC procedure after the scandalous Brandgate affair - where two BBC presenters (Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross) were involved in a prank call that was deemed to be offensive and “a catastrophic breakdown of editorial and compliance control by the BBC” - it seems incredible that Thompson did not take any real interest in a planned BBC investigation into serious allegations of pedophilia involving a major BBC star. 

 
More questions for ‘NYT’ CEO Mark Thompson, after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
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11.19.2012
08:25 pm
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Pervert Savile and the Dead Bodies

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As m’colleague Thomas McGrath and myself have reported before, those necrophilia stories about Jimmy Savile just won’t go away.

Now the Daily Star has published its version of those Savile corpse fucking allegations under the headline:

Pervert Savile and the Dead Bodies

Which is probably the best name for a Goth or a Country & Western band in years.

Unfortunately, the Star hasn’t put the story on-line yet, but I’m sure it will make for shocking reading.

Earlier today, broadcaster Paul Gambaccini told a stunned BBC Radio 5 presenter Nick Campbell that he was aware of accusations linking Jimmy Savile to necrophilia. Campbell then wrongly claimed this suggestion had never been made public - it had, on this very site in February this year. We suggest Nicky Campbell and the BBC should read Dangerous Minds more often, as they might learn something.
 

Irvine Welsh on Jimmy Savile: Was Savile a necrophiliac?


BBC faces serious questions over Sir Jimmy Savile under-age sex allegations

 
HT Nick Sutton and the Anorak
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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10.23.2012
06:30 pm
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Jimmy Savile Gives Tony Blair the Horn
10.17.2012
06:05 pm
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Following on from m’colleague Thomas McGrath’s blog on the high weirdness of a photograph of Jimmy Savile with Pete Sutcliffe (aka The Yorkshire Ripper) and world boxing champ, Frank Bruno, here’s an amusing picture of kiddy fiddler Sir Jimmy Savile giving former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair the horn.
 
With thanks to Gia Marie Barbera
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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10.17.2012
06:05 pm
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Savile de Rais: Jimmy Savile, Serial Killing and High Weirdness
10.15.2012
03:47 pm
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Above is a picture of Jimmy Savile with the prolific serial killer Peter Sutcliffe—aka the Yorkshire Ripper—and boxer Frank Bruno. Savile, who apparently befriended the necrophiliac murderer Sutcliffe through the his enigmatic “volunteer” work at Broadmoor (a high security psychiatric hospital), is introducing the two men, who appear to be sharing what looks a lot like a Masonic handshake.

What the fuck?

The more I read about Savile (I’ve already written about his probable necrophilia) the weirder it gets. There is something literally legendary about him – to me Savile increasingly looks like some kind of latter-day Gilles de Rais, the profligate aristocrat, pedophile and black magician who rode into battle alongside Joan of Arc and was later convicted for the deaths of over five hundred children.

What might Savile have to do with dead children? We’ll get to that. But first let’s look at the evidence that suggests he may have been… a spy (or spymaster).

Don’t take my whacky word for it! Let us instead refer to a 2008 Daily Mail article that began with the sentence “Deep cover is not the phrase which springs to mind when you meet Jimmy Savile,” before going on to consider what credibility there was in the following assertion made by Savile himself.

“I guess I am like Forrest Gump (…) I am like a sewing machine needle that goes in here and goes in there, but I am also the eminence grise: the grey, shadowy figure in the background. The thing about me is I get things done and I work under cover.”

Although the article goes on to tentatively soften some of Savile’s remarkable claims to world historical prestige, all are left pretty much intact. They include Savile’s extremely intimate friendships with successive UK Prime Ministers (including “11 consecutive Christmases at Chequers” with Margaret Thatcher) and several very high profile British royals – Princess Diana actually referred to Savile as “a sort of mentor for Charles” (nice) – and the fact that Savile “spent an afternoon entertaining the wives of the G7 leaders back in 1991 at John Major’s invitation.” (What did he regale them with? Tales of Broadmoor high-jinx with the Yorkshire Ripper?)

Beside Savile’s remarkable ability to insinuate himself at Chequers and Buckingham Palace, we can also chalk up the apparent ease with which the Catholic and enthusiastic Zionist strolled into the corridors of power in Israel, which he visited to record a 1975 Jim’ll Fix It (the following incredible anecdote is corroborated by Savile’s BBC producer Roger Ordish):

“I arrived at this reception and I was wearing a pinkish suit with short sleeves. When President Ephraim Katzir came to me, he asked how I was enjoying my visit to Israel.I said I was very disappointed: the Israelis had won the Six Day War but they had given back all the land, including the only oil well in the region, and were now paying the Egyptians more for oil than if they had bought it from Saudi Arabia. I said: ‘You have forgotten to be Jewish’. He said: ‘Would you like to tell my cabinet that? ‘Next morning, I went to the Knesset and they interrupted a cabinet meeting and I told them the same as I had told him.”

Strange privileges and experiences for a mere TV presenter don’t you think? A TV presenter, furthermore, who appeared to have endeavored to commit at least one sex crime every day of his adult life, while remaining blissfully immune to prosecution or even arrest…

Which brings us – reluctantly – to the shadow of dead children. Savile, notoriously, was photographed at Jersey’s infamous Haut de la Garenne children’s home (and is said to have been “named several times” by abuse survivors there). As many are aware, Haut de la Garenne is very frequently alleged to be the scene of one of history’s biggest cover-ups. To cut a long and exceedingly depressing story short, children’s body-parts and an apparent torture chamber beneath the orphanage were overnight reclassified as harmless bits-and-bobs a few days after embattled investigators – who had been regularly complaining of institutional hostility and interference – were replaced at the behest of Jersey’s authorities. Proceeding this, some of the abuse allegations were halfheartedly pursued, but many investigators and journalists feel that the real and unimaginable depths of the story – depths purportedly dark enough to bring down entire governments – were sealed up.

Well, it is possible that the universe does not favor alleged institutional child abuse after all. “Foul deeds will rise, Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes,” as Shakespeare put it, and the manner in which these (alleged) foul deeds have risen back up is fascinating. In short, hardly an article has been penned on Savile these last weeks that has not been adorned with the aforementioned photographic evidence of his visit to Haut de la Garenne: the image is like some stubborn morsel of something the mainstream media was long since instructed to digest. For doesn’t Savile’s very presence at Haut de la Garenne give immense credence to the allegations that there has been a cover-up there, not to mention the wide whispers that extremely prominent members of British and Jersey society regularly “visited” the place?

Then there is the longstanding allegation that Savile procured boys from Jersey orphanages for former British Prime Minister Edward Heath to rape and molest on the latter’s yacht. A month ago that would have looked like an extremely wild conspiracy theory. But now…

Savile was a Knight of the Crown, a Knight of the Vatican, a (probable) necrophiliac, a pedophile, the buddy of serial killers and future kings, a children’s TV presenter, a pop mogul and many more things besides… has there ever been a stranger Englishman? It would appear that when Savile died his considerable protection died with him, and the establishment are happy for him to now suffer public and relentless vilification. But his activities, place and prominence in British society is so strange, so sinister, that it is a like a chink in the armor of the very establishment that’s allowing his corpse to fend for itself, and through this chink some pretty astonishing things can be glimpsed.

I am indebted to the remarkable and remarkably strange Aangirfan blog for 99% of the above links and leads.

Posted by Thomas McGrath
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10.15.2012
03:47 pm
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Savilegate: Will the Jimmy Savile sex abuse scandal finish off the BBC?

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When asked by a reporter in 2001 whether he was concerned if he would be remembered as a “conning pervert and abuser when he died,” Jimmy Savile replied:

‘If I’m gone that’s that. Bollocks to my legacy. Whatever is said after I’m gone is irrelevant.’

The reporter then asked if Savile was ‘into little girls’, to which the BBC presenter replied:

‘I’d rather not even opinionate on this. I’ll leave it to the psychologists to sort out the psychology of child abuse.’

Every day a new allegation emerges about Jimmy Savile. These allegations now cover 6 decades, and include allegations of the rape of children, mentally ill patients and the sexual assault of a disabled girl. The police are currently investigating over 300 lines of inquiry.

Savile’s attacks occurred in hospitals, clubs and the BBC. And it is the latter organization that is coming under considerable scrutiny by the police.

The question is how did the BBC employ such an individual, when there were known allegations against him? And what was the everyday culture at BBC that could allow Savile’s behavior to go unnoticed? Uncommented upon? Even tolerated?

A glimpse of how things were at the BBC can be found in Stephen Fry’s second volume of autobiography, The Fry Chronicles (pages 296-297 of the paperback edition), where he described a meeting with the BBC executive Jim Moir in 1983.

Hugh [Laurie] and I were shown into his office. He sat us down on the sofa opposite his desk and asked if we had comedy plans. Only he wouldn’t have put it as simply as that, he probably said something like: ‘Strip naked and show me your cocks,’ which would have been his way of saying: ‘What would you like to talk about?’ Jim routinely used colourful and perplexing metaphors of a quite staggering explicit nature. ‘Let’s jizz on the table, mix up our spunk and smear it all over us,’ might be his way of asking, ‘Shall we work together?’ I had always assumed that he only spoke like that to men, but not so long ago Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders confirmed that he had been quite as eye-watering in his choice of language with them. Ben Elton went on to create, and Mel Smith to play, a fictional head of Light Entertainment based on Jim Moir called Jumbo Whiffly in the sitcom Filthy Rich & Catflap. I hope you will not get the wrong impression of Moir from my description of his language. People of his kind are easy to underestimate, but I have never heard anyone who worked with him say a bad word about him. In the past forty years the BBC has had no more shrewd, capable, loyal, honourable and successful executive and certainly none with a more dazzling verbal imagination.

Now retired, Moir recently told the Guardian that he had no knowledge of any allegations against Savile during his term at the Beeb, as either exec or as Head of Light Entertainment.

“There is so much talk about rumours, but I can tell you that neither from external sources or internally, neither by nods and winks or by innuendo, did I receive any scintilla of this story whatsoever, or discuss it or his behaviour with my superiors. There was not a scintilla of this either from Roger Ordish, his producer for 20 years.”

Should we be surprised? Not really. But it makes sense that Moir didn’t hear any allegations when it was seen as okay to use sexist, aggressive and offensive language such as ‘Strip naked and show me your cocks,’ or, ‘Let’s jizz on the table, mix up our spunk and smear it all over us,’ on a regular basis. This kind masturbatory boy’s club culture covers up for a lot of unacceptable behavior.
 
More on Savilegate, after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
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10.14.2012
10:48 am
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Irvine Welsh on Jimmy Savile (the Savile necrophilia rumors)
10.12.2012
10:44 am
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Like many thousands of others, I was anything but surprised by the recent Jimmy Savile “revelations” – personally, I had long been convinced of the presenter’s profound unwholesomeness ever since reading Irvine Welsh’s 1996 Ecstasy as a teenager, a collection of three mid-length narratives the first of which, “Lorraine Goes to Livingston,” features a character called Freddy Royle, a pedophile, TV presenter and transparent (for want of a better word) homage to Savile. Fiction it may well have been, but I took it very much as fact, which was arguably rather credulous of me, though it looks more and more intuitive with every passing day.

“Freddy Royle had had, by his standards, a tiring day prior to his late afternoon arrival at St. Hubbin’s. He had been in the television studios all morning filming an episode of From Fred With Love. A young boy, whom Fred had sorted out to swim with dolphins at Morecambe’s Marineland, while his grandparents were brought back to the scene of their honeymoon, was all excited in the studio and writhed around in his lap, getting Freddie so aroused and excited that they had to do several takes.”

Due to certain additional aspects of Welsh’s portrait, however, I have continuously expected further revelations regarding Savile, specifically relating to his hospital work. In Welsh’s tale (and I know this detail was consistent with many corresponding rumors about Savile), Royle is a necrophiliac as well as a pederast.

“There was nothing like the sight of a stiff to give Freddy Royle a stiffie.
- Bit bashed about this one, Glen, the path lab technician explained, as he wheeled the body into the hospital mortuary.
- Freddy was finding it hard to maintain steady breathing. He examined the corpse. – She’s bain a roight pretty un n arl, he rasped in his Somerset drawl, - caar accident oi presumes?”

Welsh’s Glen is onto what he considers a good thing with Freddie Royle (whose “Sommerset drawl” is an obvious substitute for Savile’s Yorkshire drone), providing the celebrity donor and volunteer with fresh-ish corpses in exchange for remuneration. While Glen appears to experience some minor moral twinges regarding this undertaking (no pun intended), he assuages them by assuring himself that his own profits are chickenfeed compared to those collected by the hospital trustees.

“Yes, the trustees knew all about Freddy Royle, Glen reflected bitterly. They knew the real secrets of the chat-show host, the authors of several books, including Howzat! – Freddy Royle On Cricket, Freddy Royle’s Somerset, Somerset With a Z: The Wit of the West Country, West Country Walks With Freddy Royle and Freddy Royle’s 101 Magic Party Tricks. Yes, those trustee bastards knew what this distinguished friend, this favorite caring, laconic uncle to the nation did with the stiffs they got in here. The thing was, Freddy brought millions of pounds into the place with his fund-raising activities. This brought kudos to the trustees, and made St Hubbin’s Hospital a flagship for the arm’s-length trusts from the NHS. All they had to do was keep schtumm and indulge Sir Freddy with the odd body.”

I think it’s fair to say that, with Savile (the real-life hospital trustees are another matter – I’m certainly not suggesting anything in that direction), where there’s smoke there’s fire, but it also increasingly looks like common sense that a man who appeared to spend his days working in young people’s television (not to mention his work with various youth charities) so as to simultaneously facilitate and obfuscate his pederasty, would not suddenly, after dark, become the decent and disinterested saint the public habitually imagined him to be, and volunteer as an intern at numerous hospitals - and fundraise for them so extensively - out of the goodness of his heart. No, this was a man who was obviously something of an evil genius when it came to multitasking, and who plotted his entire working existence around the curious and distinctly aberrant tendencies of his libido.

I suppose in this specific area witnesses will be harder to come by (um, no pun intended there either) than in others – as, if Savile was a necrophiliac there would be no victims left to tell the tale, only facilitators, like Welsh’s Glen, who will probably keep their heads down for obvious reasons. Also, I wonder if the mainstream news would consider its teatime audiences ready for a dose of Jimmy Savile Corpse Fucking. It’s certainly inching closer to the territory mind, not least with the broadcasting of the interview with a former patient at Leeds Hospital where Savile volunteered as a porter, who watched him kiss and then molest a brain damaged patient in an opposite bed. In the account it sounds as if this brain-damaged patient was fairly far-gone, and this would certainly give credence to the idea that for Savile, as for Royle, the ideal sexual partner was as far from being conscious as possible.

Of course, if Savile was indeed a necrophiliac, then it raises a fine irony as well as a hint of poetic justice – if anyone’s been posthumously fucked, it’s him…
 

Posted by Thomas McGrath
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10.12.2012
10:44 am
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Jimmy Savile: ‘Stranger Danger’
10.09.2012
02:16 pm
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You can’t judge a book by its cover.

This gives an idea how Jimmy Savile was once viewed by the British public - safe enough to look after your kids.

The above book Stranger Danger is available on Amazon, while a copy of the BBC’s child minder’s handbook has been sold on ebay. Which makes Savile’s years of alleged sexual abuse all the more horrifying.

The new Director General of the BBC, George Entwistle, apologized yesterday to all of the women who were allegedly abused by Savile:

“The women involved here have gone through something awful and something I deeply regret that they should have to go through and I would like to apologise on behalf of the organisation to each and every one of them for what they’ve had to endure here.”

Entwistle did not use the word “alleged” in his comment, which suggests Entwistle believes the evidence against Savile is comprehensive and damning. Entwistle added:

“When the police have finished everything they have to do and when they give me an assurance there is no danger of us in any way compromising or contaminating an investigation. I will take it further and make sure that any outstanding questions are answered properly.”

To give an idea of the horrendous scale of Savile’s alleged sexual abuse, the Metropolitan Police are currently pursuing 120 lines of enquiry.
 
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With thanks to Tommy Udo.
 

 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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10.09.2012
02:16 pm
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Creep Out: Gary Glitter goes on ‘Jim’ll Fix It’

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“We will haunt you in your dreams forever, luv!”

As Paul Gallagher has already comprehensively explained for Dangerous Minds readers here (and here), it seems that one of the BBC’s most popular family entertainment shows in its entire history, Jim’ll Fix It, might more accurately have been called Jim’ll Groom Ya, consisting as it did of a very widely alleged sexual predator and pederast, Jimmy Saville, granting special favors to an endless succession of children and teens…  some that he tried to extract favors from in return. They probably should have called the show Jim’ll Fuck It, but maybe not.

Why does it comes as no surprise that Gary Glitter, the English glam rock chart topper who enjoyed twenty-six execrable UK hit singles over three decades before his reputation was “irreparably tarnished”–as Wikipedia puts it in wry understatement–by convictions for child sex crimes both in the UK and Vietnam would have been a guest on the show? And, wouldn’t you know it, Mr. Glitter and Sir Jimmy coincidentally happened to be good buds. Indeed, they were so friendly that Saville gallantly stood up for Glitter in a 2009 interview (reportedly included in tomorrow’s ITV expose). Referring to Glitter’s 1999 conviction for possessing a computer full of child pornography, Saville boldly attested that his old friend “didn’t do anything wrong” because “he had not tried to show them in public or anything like that” (my emphasis).

Saville’s statement betrays a personal “philosophy” ideal for one leading such a quintessential double life: on the one hand, a light entertainer and philanthropic “saint,” and on the other a prolific sex offender (allegedly or whatever). The moral dimension, for Saville, apparently enters only in so far as what is or is not public, which is to say on television: if someone is abused and it isn’t on primetime – to paraphrase the old Zen adage – did it really happen?

Which is what makes the following excerpt from Jim’ll Groom Ya Jim’ll Fix It so uniquely disturbing, as it sees the two friends and former national treasures collaborate to make a young lady’s “dream” of being a singer come true. The lady in question, while not exactly the full ticket, is twenty-one, thank Christ (guests on Jim’ll Fix Itwere predominantly, but not unanimously underage), though this doesn’t seem to deter either sexual predator from getting their sleaze on.

Glitter’s actual performance is something else. I don’t think I’ve seen him in action since I was a kid and he was singing Christmas songs, but what must have at the time looked to any sentient observer like just a bloated parody of glam rock (meets rap?), has retroactively become something ten thousand times more sinister than Alice Cooper must’ve seemed in 1972. Glitter’s entourage – his “gang” – stomp about in bondage-wear for a minute, until Gary himself enters, prowling the stage and glowing bright red, for all the world an actual fucking demon (the tune is even called “Red Hot”). The manner in which Saville and Glitter enclose the half-witted woman at the end is pretty damn creepy too (”Shy, Gary?”). At least he didn’t perform “Do Ya Wanna Touch Me? (Oh Yeah!).”  Now THAT might’ve been too OTT.

All in all, it’s easily the scariest performance I’ve ever seen. Looking at this shit in retrospect, that tens of millions of adults considered this – and Jim’ll Fix It in general – good family entertainment blows my tiny mind.
 

 
After the jump, the presciently named 1974 Gary Glitter documentary Remember Me This Way…

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Posted by Thomas McGrath
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10.02.2012
06:24 am
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‘The Other Side of Jimmy Savile’: The rape allegations that will not go away

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This week a documentary called Exposure: The Other Side of Jimmy Savile will be broadcast in Britain on ITV1. The documentary centers on allegations made by 5 women against the DJ, and former Top of the Pops and Jim’ll Fix It presenter. It is claimed Sir Jimmy Savile committed acts of serious sexual assault, including rape, against girls as young as 12, whilst an employee of the BBC in the early 1970s.

The attacks are alleged to have taken place at various locations, including hotels, Savile’s Rolls Royce and at the Top of the Pops studio at BBC Television Center, which Savile is alleged to have described as a “happy hunting ground”..

A former detective, Mark Williams-Thomas carried out the TV investigation into the claims against Savile, in particular the presenter’s sexual activities at the BBC, which the program claims were an “open secret” at the BBC.

In response to the allegations which have appeared in various newspapers, the BBC issued a denial that it had investigated allegations of misconduct against Savile, but “no such evidence has been found.”

“Whilst the BBC condemns any of behavior of the type alleged in the strongest terms, in the absence of evidence of any kind found at the BBC that corroborates the allegations that have been made it is simply not possible for the corporation to take any further action.”

It’s the kind of bureaucratic doublespeak one expects form the BBC, which does not explain the fact some BBC employees were aware of Jimmy Savile’s sexual activities.
 

 
More on ‘Exposure: The Other Side of Jimmy Savile’, after the jump…
 

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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10.01.2012
06:26 pm
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Jimmy Savile: Legendary DJ’s belongings auctioned off for charity

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‘Now then now then… ‘

An auction of the late Sir Jimmy Savile’s belongings raised almost half-a-million dollars yesterday in Leeds, England. 700 on-line bidders competed with 350 buyers at the Savile Hall for an excess of gold lame suits, platform shoes, and a selection of the DJ’s bling.

549 lots were up for grabs in a sale organized by Dreweatts. These included gold lame suits, jogging gear, kilts, cigars, cigar boxes, shoes, trainers, furniture, records, record player, photographs, cartoons, numerous awards, assorted glasses, memorabilia, including Christmas cards from Royalty, and Jim’ll Fix It medallions, presentation gifts and the famous red-upholstered chair.

The auction lasted 13-hours, which saw the legendary DJ and broadcaster’s Rolls-Royce (nick-named “The Beast”) sold for $200,000, his famous red chair sold for $13,300, and individual items, such as one highly sought after Jim’ll Fix It medal reach $3,130.

All of the items reached over their original asking price:

Lot 174 - A pink satin padded bedspread with a gold J.S. monogram was sold for over $200.

Lot 185 - A novelty egg cup teapot with picture of Sir Jim holding it raised $60.

Lot 549 - Sir Jimmy’s favourite ashtray complete with a Romeo Y Julieta cigar - went for $220.

All money raised will be donated to charity.

The auction catalog can be seen here, and more on the story here.
 
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Edinburgh Evening News front cover printing plate.
 
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A photograph of Jimmy Savile with Elvis Presley.
 
More of Sir Jimmy Savile’s booty, after the jump…
 

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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07.31.2012
12:04 pm
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When a 70-year-old Grandmother played keyboards with Thin Lizzy

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If you ever needed another reason to love dear Phil Lynott then just watch this short clip from Jim’ll Fix It - Jimmy Savile’s classic dreams-come-true TV series - from 1982, in which 70-year-old grandmother, May Booker wrote to Sir Jim asking if he could fix it for her to play keyboards with her favorite band - Thin Lizzy. And you can guess what happened next.

May is rather good, and she has a fun time with Phil - who is such a delightful charmer.
 

 
With thanks to Tara McGinley
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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05.01.2012
04:24 pm
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