Only one book to review this month, and 3 films. Why so?
This has been a month like no other in my life. Today, the 29th of January, is the day my trial on 13 counts of serious sexual offences against a young girl was due to begin. I might have been standing in the dock, rather than writing this, and listening to a woman describing the frightful outrages she claims I, and others, perpetrated on her. Hence you will forgive me if my media blog is rather briefer than usual. I’ve been a bit distracted, you see. Oh, and I’ve been busy putting the finishing touches on a book I have been writing about the whole sorry affair.
BOOK
A DRAGON APPARENT, by Norman Lewis
A roving reporter flies into the Saigon of 1951, with a view to checking out south-east Asia generally. His journeys take him through Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, much of it under French colonial rule at the time. He is enchanted by the traditions of these countries, but disturbed by the predations of the French, whose behavior in the region is not unlike that of the Nazis when they occupied France only a few years before.
I came to love Norman Lewis’s writing when I read Naples 44, his account of the British military occupation of Naples during WW2. And I was in no way disappointed by this piece, a beautifully written, carefully researched voyage through “French Indo-China” before they were dislodged by the Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu in 1955, and long before the Americans did their best to bomb it into the Stone Age. Hence Lewis describes a lost world. Marvelous, but heart-breaking.
FILMS
MACHETE (2010) D- Roberto Rodriguez.
Danny ‘pizza face’ Trejo (though I wouldn’t call him that to his face) plays a rather unlikely fed committed to taking down an evil drug lord (Steven Seagal, who, by this time was looking as if he had undergone a series of poorly executed cosmetic surgeries) in Mexico. His favored weapon is guess what, and he uses it to dreadful effect throughout this blood-fest which is strictly for those with strong stomachs.
Roberto Rodriguez is best known for the stylish Sin City, and this is in a similar, comic-book vein. Notable.
THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI (2017) D- Martin McDonagh.
A young girl is raped and murdered in a small Bible-Belt town. Her body is burnt, leaving no forensic clues. The police give up on the case. But that isn’t good enough for the girl’s mother (a fantastic Frances McDormand), who hires 3 old billboards and uses them to berate the town sheriff (an excellent Woody Harrelson) for his failure to make an arrest. But he is dying of cancer, and the townspeople are with him, not her. But this lady don’t give up easy...
Martin McDonagh established his rep with his very superior In Bruges, and here he goes one better, creating a modern masterpiece of cinema; funny, heart-rending and beautifully observed from first frame to last. The best film I’ve seen since Manchester by the Sea.
THE POST (2017) D- Steven Spielberg.
A reporter gets hold of some secret government files which show how the State has been lying to the American public about the situation in Vietnam for 30 years. The files find their way to The Washington Post, whose editor, Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) would publish and be damned. Only thing, Nixon’s White House says such a thing would be tantamount to treason, and Bradlee, the other journalists involved and even the paper’s owner, Catherine Graham (Meryl Streep, perfection as always) could all go to jail.
I’m so old I remember all this going down in ‘real time’. The ‘Pentagon Papers’, as they were called, were eventually responsible for bringing down a President. Spielberg tells the tale with his customary elan, and I have to say this is his best offering in years. I was actually moved to tears more than once, as we learned how powerful men were willing to send young men to their deaths in a war they knew couldn’t be won. Brilliant.
Monday, 29 January 2018
Tuesday, 23 January 2018
Dangerous ground
Ever since I was falsely accused of serious crimes of historical sexual abuse I have been calling for a change in the attitude of the investigating authorities. Last week the case against me and 4 other men collapsed dramatically 2 weeks before it was due to go to trial, when the CPS as good as admitted their complainant was a serial liar who was motivated by financial gain.
Whereas in the past rape and child sexual abuse victims were given short shrift by the police, the pendulum has now swung too far in the other direction, with the police and CPS now believing accusers implicitly and proceeding along those lines.
In my own case disclosures from the police and CPS revealed that this was exactly what happened in my case.
Last week I wrote about my case to my local MP, a female member of the Labour Party. I have had no reply as yet, and I’m not expecting to get one.
The ironic thing about this is that for me, for all my adult life a supporter of the radical left, I will find few supporters among those people in this arena. Left-leaning newspapers will have nothing to do with campaigning for any change in the existing structures, and it is the right-wing rags, The Telegraph, The Times (which last week devoted a whole page to my case, with the facing page occupied by coverage of the Oliver Mears case, where a young man, falsely accused or rape, nearly went to prison for a lengthy term), The Mail and The Express that have taken up the flag of the falsely accused.
But to the ‘New Feminists’; to the members of the establishment which seeks to see the end of the old patriarchy (which, by the way, so do I) and who might even see the swing of the pendulum as the right way to go forward, I would say this: wait till this happens to you. Wait till it happens to a close friend or loved one: then you might see things a little differently.
Whereas in the past rape and child sexual abuse victims were given short shrift by the police, the pendulum has now swung too far in the other direction, with the police and CPS now believing accusers implicitly and proceeding along those lines.
In my own case disclosures from the police and CPS revealed that this was exactly what happened in my case.
Last week I wrote about my case to my local MP, a female member of the Labour Party. I have had no reply as yet, and I’m not expecting to get one.
The ironic thing about this is that for me, for all my adult life a supporter of the radical left, I will find few supporters among those people in this arena. Left-leaning newspapers will have nothing to do with campaigning for any change in the existing structures, and it is the right-wing rags, The Telegraph, The Times (which last week devoted a whole page to my case, with the facing page occupied by coverage of the Oliver Mears case, where a young man, falsely accused or rape, nearly went to prison for a lengthy term), The Mail and The Express that have taken up the flag of the falsely accused.
But to the ‘New Feminists’; to the members of the establishment which seeks to see the end of the old patriarchy (which, by the way, so do I) and who might even see the swing of the pendulum as the right way to go forward, I would say this: wait till this happens to you. Wait till it happens to a close friend or loved one: then you might see things a little differently.
Friday, 12 January 2018
I’M FREEEE!
Yes! Yesterday was my birthday, and at the beginning of my 68th year I was presented with the greatest birthday present of my life.
For the last 18 months I have been under police bail, charged with a series of the most terrible offences against a single female complainant. I was accused of forcing her to masturbate me, digitally penetrating her, raping her, forcing her to commit acts of gross indecency against other children and lastly, but most significantly, performing an illegal abortion on her. As a doctor, this last offence is seen as the most heinous, as it would represent the most gross dereliction of duty in my privileged position as a doctor. This offence alone carries a potential tariff of life imprisonment.
Only problem? All these allegations were malicious and false, as they were against my 4 co-accused.
And yesterday, with less than 3 weeks to go before our trial was due to begin, the CPS finally accepted this and dropped all charges against us.
I’d love to tell you I feel fine today, that all the stress-related conditions I have developed have melted away. I’d love to, but I can’t. I continue to find myself in a state of shock, all the stiffness in my muscles still extant, and feeling an overwhelming sense of impotent rage at the serial liar who has tried so hard to ruin my life and that of 4 others. I have already been named and shamed in the media, with only a limited chance of hearing my name cleared by the same media who trashed my reputation. My accuser, of course, is guaranteed lifelong anonymity.
Why did she do it? Money. She has already been granted 22,000 pounds by CICA (the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority), and this years before any of the accusers were even interviewed, let alone charged. And since then she has added several additional charges, which could in theory attract more compensation of perhaps even greater value.
Why did the police and the CPS go so far in supporting this pathological liar and her insupportable claims? Because Alison Saunders, head of the CPS, told them to. “Bring us your stories of historical sexual abuse”, she announced a couple of years ago, “And you will be believed.”
This is part of the ‘feminisation of the justice system’ as my solicitor has dubbed it, a new attitude where women (mainly) are being encouraged to come forward without any corroborating evidence to back their claims, in the secure knowledge that the authorities will accept their claims unquestioningly, and the CPS will take the cases to court and let a jury decide. Only then, in the CPS’s calculations, will they be seen as doing their jobs properly. But juries are intelligent hive minds and are reluctant to convict in the absence of evidence beyond ‘he said/she said’. Thousands of cases are brought to trial every year; very few result in convictions. But some do, and there are, at this moment, hundreds of men (mainly) languishing in jail because a jury was persuaded the allegations were real. I should know. It nearly happened to me.
For the last 18 months I have been under police bail, charged with a series of the most terrible offences against a single female complainant. I was accused of forcing her to masturbate me, digitally penetrating her, raping her, forcing her to commit acts of gross indecency against other children and lastly, but most significantly, performing an illegal abortion on her. As a doctor, this last offence is seen as the most heinous, as it would represent the most gross dereliction of duty in my privileged position as a doctor. This offence alone carries a potential tariff of life imprisonment.
Only problem? All these allegations were malicious and false, as they were against my 4 co-accused.
And yesterday, with less than 3 weeks to go before our trial was due to begin, the CPS finally accepted this and dropped all charges against us.
I’d love to tell you I feel fine today, that all the stress-related conditions I have developed have melted away. I’d love to, but I can’t. I continue to find myself in a state of shock, all the stiffness in my muscles still extant, and feeling an overwhelming sense of impotent rage at the serial liar who has tried so hard to ruin my life and that of 4 others. I have already been named and shamed in the media, with only a limited chance of hearing my name cleared by the same media who trashed my reputation. My accuser, of course, is guaranteed lifelong anonymity.
Why did she do it? Money. She has already been granted 22,000 pounds by CICA (the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority), and this years before any of the accusers were even interviewed, let alone charged. And since then she has added several additional charges, which could in theory attract more compensation of perhaps even greater value.
Why did the police and the CPS go so far in supporting this pathological liar and her insupportable claims? Because Alison Saunders, head of the CPS, told them to. “Bring us your stories of historical sexual abuse”, she announced a couple of years ago, “And you will be believed.”
This is part of the ‘feminisation of the justice system’ as my solicitor has dubbed it, a new attitude where women (mainly) are being encouraged to come forward without any corroborating evidence to back their claims, in the secure knowledge that the authorities will accept their claims unquestioningly, and the CPS will take the cases to court and let a jury decide. Only then, in the CPS’s calculations, will they be seen as doing their jobs properly. But juries are intelligent hive minds and are reluctant to convict in the absence of evidence beyond ‘he said/she said’. Thousands of cases are brought to trial every year; very few result in convictions. But some do, and there are, at this moment, hundreds of men (mainly) languishing in jail because a jury was persuaded the allegations were real. I should know. It nearly happened to me.
Wednesday, 10 January 2018
Beware the new puritans
2017 was a massive year for women’s rights. In the summer, Rose McGowan and others went public about the obnoxious behaviour of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. It quickly emerged he liked to use the ‘casting couch’ to get his way with young actresses, a practice deployed since Hollywood’s earliest days, but more or less accepted as part of the game until last year. No longer.
Then tales of Kevin Spacey’s drunken and rather sordid exploits came to light, and like Weinstein, he fell dramatically from grace. From being one of the most celebrated actors in the world, he became untermensch, in a matter of days. The next development was the ‘Me Too’ movement, actually around for nearly ten years, but only brought to prominence since the autumn of last year. So many brave women came forward to tell their stories of harassment and abuse that the movement as a whole was awarded ‘Person of the Year’ on the front cover of Time Magazine.
Finally, over the weekend, Oprah Winfrey, speaking at the Golden Globes, spoke with such eloquence on the subject of ‘Time’s Up!’, referring to the time called on (mainly male) sexual oppressors, that people have started talking about her running for president in 2020.
However, just this morning a letter co-signed by a hundred notable French women, headed up by the great Catherine Deneuve, sought to put the whole matter in perspective, lest the whole rush to expose sexual harassment and abuse by men runs out of control completely.
The thrust of this thoughtfully argued letter is as follows: that it isn’t actually wrong for a man to place his hand on a woman’s knee, steal a kiss or even proposition a woman, provided he respect her feelings should he receive a negative response. And that by labeling all these actions as unacceptable threatens to undermine the whole intricate web of sexual politics, transforming men into pariahs when they they are really doing nothing wrong. She has received a torrent of abuse from the feminist movement in France for her forthright views, but I am inclined to agree with her. We must be very careful before we condemn relatively innocent behaviour, because if we aren’t, we may overlook the far worse abuse of women and children that goes on all the time, because it will all be seen as all part of the same thing. And it isn’t.
Then tales of Kevin Spacey’s drunken and rather sordid exploits came to light, and like Weinstein, he fell dramatically from grace. From being one of the most celebrated actors in the world, he became untermensch, in a matter of days. The next development was the ‘Me Too’ movement, actually around for nearly ten years, but only brought to prominence since the autumn of last year. So many brave women came forward to tell their stories of harassment and abuse that the movement as a whole was awarded ‘Person of the Year’ on the front cover of Time Magazine.
Finally, over the weekend, Oprah Winfrey, speaking at the Golden Globes, spoke with such eloquence on the subject of ‘Time’s Up!’, referring to the time called on (mainly male) sexual oppressors, that people have started talking about her running for president in 2020.
However, just this morning a letter co-signed by a hundred notable French women, headed up by the great Catherine Deneuve, sought to put the whole matter in perspective, lest the whole rush to expose sexual harassment and abuse by men runs out of control completely.
The thrust of this thoughtfully argued letter is as follows: that it isn’t actually wrong for a man to place his hand on a woman’s knee, steal a kiss or even proposition a woman, provided he respect her feelings should he receive a negative response. And that by labeling all these actions as unacceptable threatens to undermine the whole intricate web of sexual politics, transforming men into pariahs when they they are really doing nothing wrong. She has received a torrent of abuse from the feminist movement in France for her forthright views, but I am inclined to agree with her. We must be very careful before we condemn relatively innocent behaviour, because if we aren’t, we may overlook the far worse abuse of women and children that goes on all the time, because it will all be seen as all part of the same thing. And it isn’t.
Thursday, 4 January 2018
Media review of the year
History’s greatest diarist, Samuel Pepys, made a practice of reviewing his progress over the past year, financially, culturally and sexually. As always with him, these accounts were never self serving; rather they were brutally honest accounts of a man’s life in full. The following then, is an attempted emulation of the great man’s end-of year reviews.
BOOKS
I read 47 books last year- a new record. Some of them, it is true, were slim volumes of verse, but some were long and demanding. Many were directly related to MA course, though no less entertaining or enlightening for that. I propose a list of 6 of the best of them, all of which carry my strongest recommendation:
1. LIFE A USER’S GUIDE, by George Perec
2. A MEAL IN WINTER, by Hubert Mingerelli
3. A TIME OF GIFTS, by Patrick Leigh Fermor
4. TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG, by Peter Carey
5. A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS, by V.S. Naipaul
6. THE RINGS OF SATURN, by W.G. Sebald
Looking through my full list I find I have to leave many marvellous books out, which is a shame. But to add these to your reading list this year, have you not already encountered them, would enrich your life enormously. Go ahead! Get in there!
FILMS
I saw 105 films for the first time this year, just 2 short of my all-time record. Here I propose listing ten movies which affected me greatly this year, some old, some brand-new, all unmissable:
1. NAPOLEON, D- Abel Ganz (1927)
2. LOGAN, D- James Mangold (2016)
3. BLADERUNNER 2049, D- Denis Villeneuve (2017)
4. CASQUE D’OR, D- Jacques Becker (1952)
5. LA NOTTE, D- Michelangelo Antonioni (1961)
6. FAT CITY, D- John Huston (1973)
7. MANCHESTER BY THE SEA, D- Kenneth Lonergan (2016)
8. THE SET-UP, D- Robert Wise (1949)
9. THE AMERICAN FRIEND, D- Wim Wenders (1977)
10. CLASH, D- Mohammed Diab (2016)
TV
I watched an unbelievable amount of tele last year; nothing unusual there it’s true, but never before has the box been so important in helping maintain my sanity than it was last year. So let’s give a big hand to some of the programmes which passed my famous ‘20 minute rule’: if they kept me from thinking about the possibility of my shortly being sent to prison for the rest of my life for crimes I did not commit for 20 minutes at a time, they qualified. There weren’t many.
1. FRASIER
2. FARGO
3. BOARDWALK EMPIRE
4. GAME OF THRONES
5. THE VIETNAM WAR (documentary series)
All the other TV I watched? I just sat there and worried. I still am. But by the end of February it will be over, and I’ll either be a free man or working out how to post my blogs from a prison cell. Wish me luck. I’ll need it.
STOP PRESS!
I have just noticed something important: This blog is number 1001. Something of a milestone, I think you’ll agree. I’m thinking of holding an ‘I’m Free!’ Party later this year, especially if I am. I was also thinking of throwing a party to celebrate 1000 blogs. Guess I’ll just combine them. I’ll let you know when- you’re all invited!
BOOKS
I read 47 books last year- a new record. Some of them, it is true, were slim volumes of verse, but some were long and demanding. Many were directly related to MA course, though no less entertaining or enlightening for that. I propose a list of 6 of the best of them, all of which carry my strongest recommendation:
1. LIFE A USER’S GUIDE, by George Perec
2. A MEAL IN WINTER, by Hubert Mingerelli
3. A TIME OF GIFTS, by Patrick Leigh Fermor
4. TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG, by Peter Carey
5. A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS, by V.S. Naipaul
6. THE RINGS OF SATURN, by W.G. Sebald
Looking through my full list I find I have to leave many marvellous books out, which is a shame. But to add these to your reading list this year, have you not already encountered them, would enrich your life enormously. Go ahead! Get in there!
FILMS
I saw 105 films for the first time this year, just 2 short of my all-time record. Here I propose listing ten movies which affected me greatly this year, some old, some brand-new, all unmissable:
1. NAPOLEON, D- Abel Ganz (1927)
2. LOGAN, D- James Mangold (2016)
3. BLADERUNNER 2049, D- Denis Villeneuve (2017)
4. CASQUE D’OR, D- Jacques Becker (1952)
5. LA NOTTE, D- Michelangelo Antonioni (1961)
6. FAT CITY, D- John Huston (1973)
7. MANCHESTER BY THE SEA, D- Kenneth Lonergan (2016)
8. THE SET-UP, D- Robert Wise (1949)
9. THE AMERICAN FRIEND, D- Wim Wenders (1977)
10. CLASH, D- Mohammed Diab (2016)
TV
I watched an unbelievable amount of tele last year; nothing unusual there it’s true, but never before has the box been so important in helping maintain my sanity than it was last year. So let’s give a big hand to some of the programmes which passed my famous ‘20 minute rule’: if they kept me from thinking about the possibility of my shortly being sent to prison for the rest of my life for crimes I did not commit for 20 minutes at a time, they qualified. There weren’t many.
1. FRASIER
2. FARGO
3. BOARDWALK EMPIRE
4. GAME OF THRONES
5. THE VIETNAM WAR (documentary series)
All the other TV I watched? I just sat there and worried. I still am. But by the end of February it will be over, and I’ll either be a free man or working out how to post my blogs from a prison cell. Wish me luck. I’ll need it.
STOP PRESS!
I have just noticed something important: This blog is number 1001. Something of a milestone, I think you’ll agree. I’m thinking of holding an ‘I’m Free!’ Party later this year, especially if I am. I was also thinking of throwing a party to celebrate 1000 blogs. Guess I’ll just combine them. I’ll let you know when- you’re all invited!
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