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Sunday 29 October 2023

Ten Years Ago Today.

 Ten years ago today, I was in Leeds, walking around a lake. The forthcoming event was actually the subject of my very first blog post on 24th September 2013. This !

http://rabbitaway.blogspot.com/2013/09/in-seven-weeks-time-group-of-people-who.html

And here's how others were invited to join in with the event, days before, along with a bit of an explanation for it. 

https://jimcannotfixthis.blogspot.com/2013/09/time-to-walk-talk.html?view=flipcard

I won't say anymore about the matter right now. I merely wanted to tell the world, we are still here. The world, as it happens, knows we're here and it still cares. Those wanting to know more can read more of my blog posts along with Moor Larkin's. 

Tips on how best to navigate the archive of my blog : 

Read the 'web view' of any particular post. The link is at the bottom of the page. On clicking you'll see this and away you go. 



Thank you for reading this. Thank you for those pals that have been there from the start. 

"Onwards" !







Sunday 8 October 2023

How TV does 'reckonings' Part 2.

 A few days back, when I was looking for any clues about what ITV's 'The Reckoning' might contain, one of my first ports of call was imdb, which yielded nothing, thus - next stop was wikipedia, which gave me this :



OK, so I then knew that Ray Teret and Bill Cotton was being portrayed, but who were the other three playing ? Various articles appeared yesterday, including one that contained this photo.



I got it from the telegraph dated yesterday (7th October). I had to scale a wall to get it.



I now knew who those two were playing then ! I'll include another image from the article, for no other reason than that it's actually quite artistic, like an oil painting ! One must find some good even in the most terrible of places ! This is Bill Cotton, who's 'dead so he can't sue', so that's alright !


https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2023/10/07/the-reckoning-bbc-review-steve-coogan-jimmy-savile/

McKay alludes to 'excellent sources' for one particulary horrible scene in TR. Naturally he does not elaborate on this.  I did check and NO, nothing in the earlier article either.  There wouldn't be would there ? 




Anyway, I'm making this short and not sweet. Here's the main things I want to convey to the reader.

1) McKay did NOT speak to Charles Hullighan, former head porter at Leeds General. Thus far, my research suggests that he died in 1995. His wife, I can find nothing on, except this ! Beryl had NOTHING to say in 2012 when the telegraph came a calling on her. Of course, it was the money angle they were chasing at the time, so that generally tightens folks' jaws. 








Beryl was singing like a canary by the time McKay got to her. But she's dead too now, so who knows what - if any weight can be applied to what he says, she said to him. 






Book ? What book I hear nobody ask ? Well, it's the one written by Dan Davies of course - the 'man who knew Jimmy Savile best' and the last piece in the : "who the hell are those three playing" wikipedia casting jigsaw puzzle !

Folks, I've had enough of this for now. I'll leave you with something that made me smile anyway. The description of Davies' 'reporter' character in one review ! From the independent, if you want to read the whole thing ! 





"Don't let this happen again". Now, there's a thought !

Meanwhile, back in 2011,




https://rabbitaway.blogspot.com/2014/07/just-plain-shite.html

https://rabbitaway.blogspot.com/2014/07/in-plain-sight-of-us-all-part-1.html

https://rabbitaway.blogspot.com/2014/07/in-plain-sight-of-us-all-part-2.html

This is the real Charles Hullighan.




And this is Agnes Savile on her 80th Birthday.



 









Friday 6 October 2023

How Television Does 'Reckonings'.

 On Monday night anyone who chooses to can watch "The Reckoning". A three page article about the 'factual drama' is contained in this week's Radio Times. This is it.





























Let the fact-checking begin !

Saturday 30 September 2023

The Reckoning - When It Comes, Won't Be Televised.

 OK, let's get this done. Next week the BBC* are finally going to Broadcast what they describe as a "factual drama" on the life of Sir Jimmy Savile called : "The Reckoning". Apparently the writer started writing it in 2013 or 14, I forget, filming completed in 2022, but transmission was delayed for various reasons, none of which interest me.

What does very much interest me is this :




I haven't been able to find a full cast list for TR, but apparently this is Steve Coogan (Jimmy Savile) and Gemma Jones (Agnes his mother). 

His mother - whom millions of people knew as 'The Duchess' J.S's pet name for her back then and who had not just one child, but seven*. Those children had children themselves, as did JS's siblings and many of these people are still alive and apparently, not ONE of them was contacted by ITV, save an email that ended thus :




I had to make the image extra large so you could read it. 

Read it and try to imagine yourself in the position of the recipient of this - someone who knew SJS all their life, ran marathons with him, appeared beside him in many press photographs, someone who loved him and - more importantly, someone who still loves him, whose voice has been silenced as have all but one or two of JS's friends and family. Those who knew him best, not some hack, nonentity, who latched onto the man whilst he was alive, hero-worshipped him (he was desperate to get an invite to the funeral), only to jump on the first bandwagon that came along a year later, writing a book full of the nonsense peddled by the media posthumously, now being regurgitated in this factual drama.

Here's one of my reviews of Mr Dan Davies' work.



https://rabbitaway.blogspot.com/2014/07/just-plain-shite.html

But back to the factual drama : as mentioned earlier, I don't have a complete cast list for TR. I suspect IMDB has this wrong - who the hell are any of these people after Steve Coogan ?



The next lot include one BBC bod, so maybe there's mileage in this (I doubt it).


'BBC worker' ? Really ?

I'm going with the wiki effort for the time being. Ray Teret and Bill Cotton is in it, so that might take care of the factual bit. These men did exist after all.



 But, what the hell is this ? Is this alleged incident really featured ? 



 My source for these photos, is an article published two years ago, which - despite getting the BBC and ITV (as the makers of TR) mixed up, provide a useful link to the alleged source of the scenes depicted : a newspaper article from 2016. The contents of which (per the alleged attacks on two teenage girls) sound about as believable as Carl Beech's wasps !

Here's both of them, so you can read it yourselves. It sounds like lies to me. Has ITV really used this in TR ? Is this the standard of their research ?

http://www.scoopyweb.com/2021/11/steve-coogans-eerie-transformation-into.html






 


https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/665990/Girls-told-toddle-off-reporting-Jimmy-Savile-Scarborough-police

The photos though ! 





She looks nothing like The Duchess. Even I can see that.

No sign of any photos of Gemma Jones in a more recent article, but the few commentators' comments did make me smile.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-10195283/Steve-Coogan-transforms-old-Jimmy-Savile-set-Reckoning.html#comments




Toddling off for some tea now. I'm not finished yet ! 

Jimmy Savile had a family who still love him. I dedicate this to them ! 

Addendum 4/10/23

*Many thanks to the anonymous commentator who, quite rightly, corrected me. I have my first sentence to read that the BBC are broadcasting this miniseries, not ITV. 

How strange :The BBC commissions ITV to make a programme  so that they can broadcast it ? Only in this day and age folks. Only in this one ! I'd laugh, but there's nothing funny about it.

How  appropriate are the words SJS gave to Mensa Magazine in 1992. 

"Corruption spreads.  If the boss is corrupt then the deputy boss is corrupt.  And so is the deputy's deputy and so on and so forth, right down as far as it can possibly reach.  If one poses the question, 'Will you ever eradicate corruption', the answer is 'No'.  Because the resolution of the vast majority of things in the world is attempted by debate.  But very few bring into the frame the thing called human nature.  CORRUPTION IN ALL IT's FORMS, IS THE BEDEVILMENT OF THE WORLD (My emphasis) .

https://rabbitaway.blogspot.com/2014/06/business-as-usual.html


Another addendum 05/10/23 :

*Correction from first draft : Agnes Savile had seven children, not eleven.

Sunday 16 July 2023

The Sun : Part 2 : The Public Interest

 On the 15th October 2015 'Two Sun Journalists' were found 'not guilty in what ITV News labelled : the "final 'cash for stories' trial'.

The two men along with hundreds of their peers were delighted with the verdict in the two men's retrial. The first Jury failed to reach a decision after nine days of deliberation, making their delight all the more poignant. And with joy came anger - anger that they'd been made to go through this in the first place. After all, as Pyatt said in his defence : the stories he purchased were 'trivial' and publication of the same was 'in the public's interest' (my words paraphrasing) etc etc etc.





Try as I might, I have so far, not been able to find any reference to Jimmy Savile during the first trial. I've scrolled through Twitter for any mention in the rough time frame he was on the stand. If it's there, I'll happily stand corrected. But, if it isn't, I for one, want to know why ? 

He'd claimed to have been ready and willing to have exposed Jimmy Savile whilst he was still alive. He had, he claimed - four women ready to go on record to say JS had abused them, but he didn't because, and I paraphrase again Surrey Police, 'blocked him'. In other words ; Surrey Police would NOT confirm that JS was being investigated, when Pyatt says he asked in 2008 or thereabouts. So the story didn't make the presses and the Police were left to do their job without some journalist naming their 'suspect' and potentially ruining their investigation.

Let me remind you of the reportage of Pyatt's testimony on 2nd October 2015. 






Did this revelation assist Pyatt's case ? His barrister must have thought so, he certainly pushed it going so far as this exchange.



'If a source had stood that up ...' ?

What hypothetical 'source' is Kovalevsky Q,C on about here - that old catch-all : a police source' which, by the way, would appear to be anyone from the chief constable at Scotland Yard down to the woman who cleaned the Bow Street bogs ! Pyatt and his mates had a police source who could indeed 'stand that up', as much as his criteria for publishing generally replied : the public had a right to know etc etc.

You see folks, not only did Pyatt have officer 2004 a (at that time a serving) Surrey Police officer, that Police officer Simon Quinn, was feeding information to the hacks directly from the police national computer : HOLMES. Old hands of this blog, and my rants over the last ten years, might recall me mentioning HOLMES a few times, because in 2008 when Pyatt's police source was digging up all sorts of dirt on other famous people, Sir Jimmy Savile was being - and I recall the words quite clearly from the various official reports that I've poured over 'created as a suspect on HOLMES',

It gets better - or worse if your name happens to be Simon Quinn, because - not only was Quinn convicted for his part in this 'cash for stories' case, he was in the same year convicted of something else. This :





The Jury in Pyatt's retrial were not told about Quinn's convictions - either of them.

I guess the information was deemed not relevant to the case. Or maybe the CPS along with everyone else involved, wanted the Sun Men to get as fair a retrial as possible. The Police did not name Pyatt when he was arrested in November 2011 by the way. 

His nightmare ended in October 2015. He was lucky wasn't he ?

By the way, I checked - double and treble checked to make sure that the ex Police officer convicted in both these cases, were one and the same Simon Quinn. Until I found the article above. I made sure it 'stood up'.

Meanwhile : 




Onwards !

https://rabbitaway.blogspot.com/2015/10/over-exposure-to-sun.html