Archive
Ken Dodd
Okay, as you’ve seen, I can post videos now. What do you think of the show so far?
I’ve been assisted in this by a WordPress guy called Phil, who has helped me through, ironing out a couple of glitches in the process. Phil has the best job title I have ever seen, and he lives up to it. WordPress call him a ‘Happiness Engineer’.
Lance
As I’ve said in an earlier post, I have no idea of the truth in the Lance Armstrong case, but a few things about it seem just a little smelly to me. I am always wary of the zealots at the head of anti-doping agencies around the world, and of their methods.
That’s why a report I’ve just read seems to me worthy of independent investigation. A day after the Armstrong papers were released by the USADA, with its slightly sinister head, Mr Travis Tygart securing world-wide personal media coverage, it has been announced that five of Armstrong’s former team-mates have been given doping bans, reduced to six months each because they gave evidence against him. They will do their time over the winter and will be free to compete next year. If that is not suborning witnesses, then what the hell is?
When a kangaroo court is assembled, the smart play is usually to ignore it, and leave it to jump to its heart’s content. That’s what Armstrong and his legal team have done . . . so far. Let’s see where this finishes
Question
This is awful stuff, but I’m concerned that the lady making the allegations ‘waived her anonymity’ to tell her story to ITV. Why would she have to do that? Her claims would have been no less serious even if her name had been kept out of it.
Jimmy Savile and the two-faced watch
It has become impossible to miss the stuff that’s coming to the surface about the late Sir Jimmy Savile. If it’s true, am I shocked? Yes, very. Am I surprised? No, not very.
I had occasion to meet Sir Jimmy in the late 70s, when he was on a visit to the state mental hospital in Carstairs, Scotland, that being one of my civil service responsibilities at the time. I accompanied him on a tour of the place; it was, as you’d expect, full of very disturbed people, and I was struck by the way that he was able to communicate with all but one of two of them. He spent a couple of minutes with as many as he could and left each one calmer and happier than they had been. I’ve never forgotten that; the man had a genuine and unusual gift.
However I still remember also, the Jimmy who sat later and chatted with the small group of invited journalists who had been with us. As I listened to him, I tried to get a grip of the depth of the man, to see what made him different. But I couldn’t; he seemed entirely two-dimensional, as if his true self was hidden behind a very thick wall. But he let one thing slip. On that day he was wearing a wrist watch, or rather two wristwatches on a single strap, one front, one back. Someone asked him why. His reply: ‘Well, as it ‘appens, it’s like this. If you’re with a young lady in certain circumstances, it means you never need to move your arm to see what time it is.’
Seems that more than Jimmy’s time-piece may have been two faced.
Added October 6.
But then again, a few days down the road, and I’m disturbed for another reason. People are coming out of the woodwork with tales of abuse. They may well be genuine; let’s say they are. However they are not proven. Yet this morning I heard a BBC executive declare JS guilty, when he said that there is no doubt these things happened.
Sorry, mate, but while all this seems to have been an open secret, if his hand-wringing contemporaries are to be believed as they rush to distance themselves from potential scandal, not a single charge was laid while all these allegations were allegedly taking place. JS was never put on trial. Indeed a police investigation into a complaint was dismissed out of hand.
Now that Jimmy is dead, of course, there is no burden of proof, and in the current climate, anyone who comes forward to declare that he had horns under that hair and a hole in the ‘Jim’ll Fit It’ chair to accommodate his tail will be given a ready hearing and presented as a credible witness.
What we’re seeing now is a media lynch mob. If that doesn’t disturb you, it should.
Dave Haesler
FYI, a ‘Taggart moment’ is when a normally controlled character turns into a curmudgeonly Glaswegian and starts barking at his subordinates in the manner of the late and much missed Mark McManus, who conferred immortality upon that surname.
Marguerite Adam
Killed off Aileen? Are you sure about that?
Some further Ryder thoughts
Two Ryder Cup memories say with me this morning.
I watched it in Spain, via the Golf Channel on Canal + (if only we could access that in the UK; much better than Sky). When it was all over and the craziness was in full swing, its camera and mike picked up a private moment between Ollie, the captain and Luke Donald, who was given the massive task of winning the first game against Bubba Watson, a guy who could have been designed to play the long Medinah course, and who delivered. The voices were indistinct until the end, when Luke was heard to say, ‘Thank you for trusting me.’ That’s what team management’s about, boiled down: inspiration through trust.
Then there’s Tiger. He will be crucified in the US press for delivering only half a point out of a possible four, and maybe also for conceding a very missable putt on the last that turned a tie into a European victory. Nobody will suggest that he was badly used and badly served by his captain, in being put out three times with the same player, in a combination that should have been split up after its first loss, and in being put out in the last of the twelve singles matches, which, with USA’s four point overnight lead, was long odds against being significant. Nobody will suggest that, but it’s true.
Funky hot Medinah
To all the people who cheered when our players’ shots found sand or water and when their putts lipped out.
To all the people who laughed when one of our guys babied a chip.
Most of all to the guy who shouted ‘**** you, Seve!’ beside the 16th tee on Saturday afternoon.
To all of you, a thousand thanks, for without your added inspiration, our Ryder Cup team might not have done it.
But they did, and now they are legends, especially the bug-eyed monster that is Ian Poulter, the terrible time-keeper that is Rory McIlroy, the slightly bewildered forty-something that is Paul ‘Chippy’ Lawrie, the emotional wreck that Jose-Maria Olazabal became, and the lad who turned into Martin Kaymer again when it really, really mattered.
Quintin Jardine's blog 