ROFL…

So, Rolf Harris is put away and up rise the strident, angry voices demanding a harsher penalty. Stripped of all honours, likely to be the target of nonce-fuckers inside, reputation gone forever, no friends anywhere, 84 years old and very likely to die inside, but if he ever does get out he will die a miserable recluse. I’d say that’s a pretty tough and short future and an ignoble end to a lifetime of near-universal adoration. But if you think that’s not enough, what might it be saying about you? (I don’t have an opinion on that – I don’t know you – but you may wish to reflect.) Or did you want Rolf to pay the penalty that Savile neatly sidestepped?

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m not excusing him in any way at all; it’s you lot I’m concerned about. Because at times like this people begin to believe stuff such as the existence on earth of pure evil and the pundits rail against ‘dark forces’ and variously malevolent ‘Satanic’ agents at work to somehow pervert the otherwise pure motives of angelic humans. We use words like inhuman and beast and deviant in order to assure ourselves that we could never be capable of such heinous acts. There but for the grace of another imaginary deity…

But, you say, think of the victims! They have been given a life sentence from which they can never recover. While meaning in no way to diminish the hurt that some people have undoubtedly endured, others have recovered from truly horrific events; torture, witnessing genocide, being bombed, shot at, gang-raped, beaten or trafficked for sex-slavery; not everybody who goes to war suffers PTSD. Again, I’m not saying suffering isn’t very real and debilitating, but the pendulum swings…

Just as labelling a child dyslexic without real evidence, because it suits the equality agenda, surely allowing without query a victim mentality to flourish, can’t be always healthy. Again, before you start, I am not saying what some of you have already convinced yourselves I’m saying. I’m not a monster; I just can’t blame my present on my past. That isn’t to say I don’t have regrets, or wonder how things might have turned out differently had I been, say, a Rockefeller, but where we are is where we are. We can’t change the past but we absolutely can try to change our future.

Rolf is being punished, he really is. For a small number of people that in itself is a small balm, but why do the unaffected spectators get such a buzz from the misery of others? It’s not your fight; your fight is against your own limitations. You can choose to get swept up in the mob of pitchfork-toting peasants at the gates or you can choose to get on and make yourselves better people. It’s a bit like religion; if you need to cling onto a faith, if you need to believe a higher power controls your destiny, if that’s what you rely on for your moral guidance, maybe it’s because there isn’t enough of ‘you’ to save your own soul?

For the love of Paed...

Let’s look at the facts – or failing that, let’s leap to a few conclusions. First, Jimmy Savile seems to have been a right wrong ‘un. Quickly thereafter the Feds knock on the door of the nation’s favourite go-to paedo, Gary “do-you-wanna-be-in-my-gang” Glitter and before you know it, nature-lover Freddie Starr is engaging lawyers.

Bloody hell, we thought, who knew? Then the whispers… John Peel and his ‘Schoolgirl of the Year’ competition and of course the BBC (who in the main appear to have employed or otherwise paid lots of dosh to the majority of the accused) gleefully touted the unsubstantiated ‘Tory-peer-who-shall-remain-nameless-but-it-was HIM’ story. In the oh-so-apt Twitter phrase, *facepalm*.

And now, just as it seemed to be settling down, The Hairy Cornflake, Dave Lee Travis is having his collar felt and all of a sudden it’s the Seventies in flashback. Flowers, flares and fanny could have been the mantra of the post-pirate DJs and ‘popsters’. Jonathan King had some sort of fling, around the time Chuck Berry was singing about his ding-a-ling.

Aargh, I need mind bleach! It’s everywhere! Every famous person I remember from my childhood is in the frame. If I was Simon Bates, or Mike Read, or Noel Edmonds, I’d be getting out the Cillit Bang and making sure all my records were scrupulously clean. (I’m betting David ‘Kid’ Jensen is starting to regret that chirpy nickname now.)

And what of poor old ‘Whispering’ Bob Harris… Even as I say his name – and, dear God, please don’t let this be true – you can’t help yourself imagining a dark room, a hand on the shoulder and a gentle “don’t worry, I won’t hurt you…” before a new talent is subjected to the Old Grey Whistle Test.

In the Seventies (thanks, Marilyn French) all men were declared rapists. In the Noughteens (I'm baggsying that word) we’re all paedophiles, guilty whether innocent or not. Careers will be wrecked and reputations ruined as this most emotive of accusations turns good lives bad and idols into monsters. Once you pin on the paedo badge you’ve branded somebody for life.

Kangaroos in bondage, Rolf? Noooooo!

So what can we expect over the weekend? Were you paid by the BBC in the seventies? Have you ever had a hit record? Did you appear on Top of the Pops? Have you ever presented a show in which children were featured? If I was Rolf Harris I’d really be shitting myself right now… If only those Two Little Boys could talk?