So, how far have we come to lifting the lid on the paedo ring in parliament?

As predicted, it,s all being covered up, bar from a few disposable, ageing celebrities. It stinks.

I reckon I must have been an early-adopter of vintage clothing, the cravat was a passing fad that I ditched when my peers took it up.
It had to be worn like a wide tie, not under an open-neck shirt like a country gent would wear it.

Taxi? Even thinking of a taxi was not an option, not on apprentice's wages.
One winter's night, I missed the one-o'clock flyer from Huddersfield and phoned my Dad to ask for a lift home.
His blunt response was that I should walk and I knew better than to try to change his mind, it just wouldn't happen ... eight miles that was, and in falling snow, wearing a thin suit (no cravat).
You try telling that to the young people today ...

Anyway, I digress.
You and I are, shall we say, of the same generation ... thinking back to those days, wouldn't you agree that just about every venue would have had at least a few older-looking under-agers and, of those, there must have been a fair old number who, in terms of the law and the way we look at it now, were abused ... even if it was willingly?
I reckon the biggest deterrent to lads of 17-18 back then was not the law or any real understanding, but the jeering you'd have got from your mates if they found out you'd even been out with a lass who was under sixteen.

There was a rather crude but well known saying of the time which I won't repeat here but which intimated a rule of law that if a girl was old enough to have menstrual cycles then she was old enough for sex, no such law in legal terms of course, but yes, if a 14 year old was to be found in a nightclub of the time (and they were) then they would be treated as fair game - 1970s rules.

To take that further you'd also have to understand that a female not in a relationship who went to a nightclub, or a pub or social club, whether on her own or in a group of similar females, would be considered by males to be "available" at the moment that she acknowledged his presence, I can't tell you how many times I was not-acknowleged, there aren't enough zeroes in the world



If it sounds like a different world then thats because it was and if I sound not surprised that the likes of a well-known Radio 1 DJ of the 1970s should be questioned about an alleged groping of one females breasts then thats because my only response would be "Just the one female ?" I doubt very much whether there is a male in his fifties/sixties who isn't now looking back and thinking that its only because these people were famous that they are now being brought to book as they are still easily traceable - if they offered an amnesty to any male from those times to come forward and declare indescretions that were considered acceptable in the 1970s but now would not be, then the queues at the police stations would last for weeks and weeks.

And for the record I don't include paedophilia in the above.

At last, police have finally arrested someone important, hope Max Clifford squeals like a pig.

I thought Stuart Hall had been charged?

It's perhaps indicative of something when people feel the need to stress that. I do wonder if we have, as a culture, actually gone - really very suddenly - down a very odd path of being, on the one hand, absolutely rightly concerned with genuine abuse, but on the other, actually conflating that with something different, ie the sexuality and sexual explorations of young people.

The media (in general) does not help by sensationalising everything. And at this point, I think it's correct to suggest that there's an air of Salem about this.

I equally feel concerned about some of the discussion this past few months about rape/non-consensual sex.

Gawd. I'll have to sit down and pen a big piece.

But what is most worrying, in many ways, is that the 'discussion' seems to have no nuances. And within that, absolutely no sense that, as you absolutely correctly point out, times have very much changed, but also of youth (and even child) sexuality.

I actually find a lot of what's going on very uncomfortable - not least because, strange as it may seem, I think there's a sizeable element of downright puritanism in the mix.

It is a strange thing because of course in my previous post I did exactly what I said I didn't intend to do - I DID include paedophilia in my summary because I spoke of 14 year olds being "available" in nightclubs, albeit in the guise of 18 year olds.

But thats what young girls did and still do, the only thing that has changed from the 1970s is the attitude towards them and I speak as a father of two 20-something daughters who I would be horrified to discover had been frequenting nightclubs at 14 years of age, hypocritical yes, aren't we all ?

What I do find heartening now is the concept that boys and girls of teenage years can be genuine friends with no sexualisation involved - it would be unheard of when I was a pimply youth but on the other hand I went to an all boys school and girls remained a thing of mystery until I was ... , well, they still are.





The most bizarre juxtaposition, the one that everyone notices and comments on, is that on the Daily Mail web site and I assume in its printed media too (although I've never looked), I just don't know how an editor can keep a straight face or wonder if he/she is losing their marbles when they preach so puritanically over child and teenage sexual abuse while not one column inch away there are numerous examples of teenage sexual exploitation being promoted by the same editors.

And I've mentioned this before, but the target market for most of this stuff is females, this is not page three "get yer knockers out love" stuff for builders to drool over in their Transits every monring, its gossip articles about other females who aren't shy about selling themselves and their semi naked bodies to the Mail so that females can read about other females bodies and compare notes.

...and then complain when they are sexualised by males.

My understanding is that paedophilia refers to 13 or under, so you're safe.



Single-sex schools, eh? It works the other way around too – or at least it did for me.



The [iMail[/i really is quite hideous, on so many levels. So, for that matter, is editor Paul Dacre. I've been close enough to a couple of situations to know how it's next to impossible to get the [iMail[/i to retract lies (or at least print a correction). It seems to work on the basis of having no responsibility to prove anything – it's your responsibility to disprove it. Thinking of one specific case, it took a press officer an entire week to screw a correction out of the bustards over something completely factually incorrect.

There's a reason that the likes of Dacre don't want any form of what Leveson has recommended.

[url=http://thevoluptuousmanifesto.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/this-isnt-just-journalism-this-is-daily.htmlI did a thing recently of looking at just one aspect of the [iMail[/i's sexualisation of underage children[/url – mostly girls but sometimes boys. Yet this is the same publication that, recently was shrilling away about Starbucks not blocking porn from it's free, in-store wifi.



And yes, it also essentially encourages a bitchiness – plus, together with that, insecurity. For goodness sake – the paper seems to live of health scare stories (I've had one cancer charity tell me that it sees a fall off in people seeking information whenever the [iMail[/i prints another sensationalist story about research showing that daylight will give yo cancer or some such other nonsense. The thing is, the research itself is almost certainly genuine, but publishing it outside of its scientific context can be misleading and usually means that it's sensationalised.

Then there's the constant stream of self-hating stuff – 'oh look: women in middle age get cellulite' etc. 'Oh, she shouldn't have worn that at her age' etc etc. It's quite nauseous.

The paper version is bad (I see it in the office) but the website is worse. And just to be clear, as Martin Clarke, the editor of the website, explained at Leveson, he is answerable to Dacre, who is not only the editor of the [iMail[/i, but is editor in chief of the family of papers.

Ah yes – the fragrant Dacre. Think again about all the things the [iMail[/i spouts hatred of. This is a man who is himself an adulterer – and is also a foul-mouthed bully.

His editorial meetings are so renowned for his language that they're known as 'the vagina monologues', and he's apparently an 'expert' at what has been described as 'double c**ting'. A truly lovely specimen.

If the [iMail[/i were just a comic, much of this wouldn't really matter. But the horrifying thing is just how much people believe it. These are people who (like my mother) consider themselves intelligent and educated – and absolutely of a certain class – and they believe it absolutely.

Perhaps people get the press they deserve? The trouble is, the rest of us then have to put up with the results, and that, in the UK, mostly means an utterly infantilised press and an infantilised public discourse.

No -BG.

We'll see you next season.

Do you actually have or know of any evidence for your increasingly frequent allegations? You've accused most of parliament of not only paedophilia but also complicity in the murder of children, now you're onto accusing individuals.
Do you have evidence? Or do you just love conspiracy theories?

Given the shameful misdeeds of Parliament over the last thirty years (tearing the NHS apart, university tuition fees, the poll tax, wholesale corruption, profiteering, dirty little - and not-so-little - foreign wars, countless assaults on the poor, the sick, the vulnerable etc. etc.) who needs paedophilia to justify lining them all up against the wall?

Seems like Paul Daniels thinks he is missing out on the controversy, I bet the lovely Debbie McGee is delighted!!! www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/ne ... linch.html

Seems like Paul Daniels thinks he is missing out on the controversy, I bet the lovely Debbie McGee is delighted!!! www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/ne ... linch.html

Quote ="EHW"Seems like Paul Daniels thinks he is missing out on the controversy, I bet the lovely Debbie McGee is delighted!!! www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/ne ... linch.html'" He makes a good point though about young girls behaving as if "groupies" towards entertainment professionals in the 1970s, putting "deliberate" paedophilia to one side (and there were those who made that their target) then the thought that a police group could be investigating every one night stand from over 40 years ago is just a bit of a step too far - the allegations against DLT and another unnamed entertainer who everyone seems aware of but shall not name are part of this step too far for me.

Quote ="EHW"Seems like Paul Daniels thinks he is missing out on the controversy, I bet the lovely Debbie McGee is delighted!!! www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/ne ... linch.html'" He makes a good point though about young girls behaving as if "groupies" towards entertainment professionals in the 1970s, putting "deliberate" paedophilia to one side (and there were those who made that their target) then the thought that a police group could be investigating every one night stand from over 40 years ago is just a bit of a step too far - the allegations against DLT and another unnamed entertainer who everyone seems aware of but shall not name are part of this step too far for me.

Absolutely spot on....As discussed already in this thread, Daniels' story is one that most blokes can probably connect to at some stage of their lives.

What was especially difficult for these celebrities, is that they would have had these young girls virtually throwing themselves at them - Christ, I was grateful if women would just accept the offer of a drink from me, so I know what my reaction would have been if I had been in Daniels or DLT's shoes.

It appears that McAlpine's Fusileer in Chief, solicitor Andrew Reid may be breaching the Solicitors' Regulation Authority code of practice by attempting to steamrollerpeople into paying up before any legal procedings. [url=http://solicitorsfromhell.net/index.php?option=com_sobi2&sobi2Task=sobi2Details&sobi2Id=218&ItemidLINK[/url.

It will be interesting to see what transpires with Sally Bercow now that Carter Ruck have agreed to take on her case. Those buggers NEVER get involved unless there is a more than high probability of winning.