EE-k! The truth behind the internet and Britain’s rural life …

The internet zooms if, like Putin, you want to nuke the world – but not if you call granny from your English country garden…

Years ago now British governments clicked on the potent idea of super-fast broadband across the countryside from Ambridge to Middleton Scriven.

What a joke!

But Boris’s smug promise to “level up” our nation by providing next-generation-speed broadband to most homes within the next three years is about as useful as cyber spiders from Mars as people like me – those who live down the leafy lanes – are dumped by the hedgerows.

And this is according to parliament’s very 0wn slathery spending watchdog.

The report by the public accounts committee found that Boris and his boffins are just relying too much on BT Openreach and the likes of Virgin Media O2, to sign-in to Boris’s election manifesto pledge.

But these companies unfortunately focus on less costly urban conurbations across the country and are failing to deliver proper connectivity for those who live a little more remotely than London W1.

There is no doubt that chintzy cottage dwellers like me are being treated like village idiots.

So, here we have the true story of trying to get acceptable broadband in a commuter village equi-distant from Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds and the bizarre and arrogant way major players treat their customers.

The thing is, on the internet you can fight a war if, like Putin, you have your finger on the metaphorical button’

But if you chomp on a bit of straw like it’s a signal booster and talk to Bill and Ben about flower pots and a little weed, then you are flobber-lobbing f*cked!

If you live in a good signal area you can close down hospitals and governments as your fingers do the walking – you can find everything from how to make a chip shop curry to the best way of vaporising your next door neighbour.

The internet is an ignorant, arrogant, useless, unfeeling, uncaring robot of no determinable intelligence.

It purveys endless porn but also lets you share films of your little kittens. It tells you how to make bombs or commit suicide, extols conspiracy theories, lies without thought, fakes news designed to undermine society, allows you to accuse anybody of anything you feel like accusing them of, publishes pictures of carnage and horror. And steals your personal information and sells it to the highest bidder…

Wow! What an innovation – an invaluable link to the world’s secrets, sex, lies and video tapes.

AND YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR IT!

Trillions of pounds worldwide are pumped into this new age invisible man-woman by people like me (£60 a month FOR NOTHING), governments and businesses and disaffected groups across the world.

But what actually happens when a dissident group phones BT or EE – there are many other internet failures available – and says in a guttural voice: “Ello! Ello! I must have internet – I don’t care if it costs a bomb.”

Or what happened when old Vlad Put-it-in called and said: “I want to start a war involving obliterating a country and possibly nuking the world– can you do me a deal? I’m happy to have my mobile with you!”

Err, why doesn’t BT-ski or EE-ski just turn off Vlad’s internet because he’s been a naughty boy!

Well, the British equivalent trashed my account only a few days ago when I upset an Openreach engineer by complaining.

I was the messenger and they shot me a. because I’d complained about their service b. because I had no idea what the 2^nd and 5^th letter of my ex-wife’s mother’s maiden name is c. because I wanted my PA to speak to them and d. it was easier than getting me some broadband.

Do you know, all it appears Openreach had to do was re-instate the phone line we had cancelled, after 30 years, two days earlier. If they’d done that we could have plugged back in to our lives, no problem.

But they refused.

And, instead, told us to keep an eye out for the next few weeks AND MONTHS for any indication of fibre arriving at the brick toilet block of a ‘cabinet’ 15 feet across the road from our 300 year old cottage.

What a mirthless arrogant abrogating joke!

The problem is though, that they’re not longer afraid of me, the customer. They don’t need me or my business. There are plenty of other cyber-suckers waiting to be insulted by them.

No, I am just a customer! Yep, they just hang up on me when (a) they can’t solve the problem (b) I tell them off for incompetence (c) or they just get bored.

And so here I am, back in the Village of the Damned, after five years of travelling through 15 countries – we’ve had internet from Delhi to Doncaster, from Bratislava to Bolton and from Minnesota to Manchester.

But now I’m back in the garden of the UK, I’m left with no internet to speak of and I am condemned to spending hours talking to a robot masquerading as a human being.

This was what EE said two days after signing me up: “I’m sorry sir, but I can’t find an account for you.”

“But you’ve sent me two letters, two simcards!”

“I’m sorry sir, I realise you must be very frustrated but you have no right to talk to me like that!”

“Like what?”

“In that manner!”

(Pinch me! Have I just woke up!)
“What manor? I live in a cottage!”
“I’m sorry sir, I will not be spoken to in this way.”

And hung up.

Stupid robot!

So, I am left with an internet modem blinking at me like a one-eyed undertaker, nobody to communicate with, BT are sulking with me – and it’s costing me £60 a month!

UPDATE

DAY 7

EE confirmed they had mis-sold us a router which would never have worked at our property

After seven hours of trying to get somebody to sort it out we still have a service which is about as useful as a pair of dropped ‘b*ll*cks’…

To reach this point:

Seven EE operatives have tried to solve the problem – four hung up on us because things just got too difficult for them

EE operatives smugly told us that the internet they were supplying was perfect – and didn’t accept it didn’t work properly

Then, inexplicably, EE decided it was because my house consisted of flats – it doesn’t but Openreach told them it was, so who you gonna believe? Some robots who live in the cabinet across the road? Or the bloke who lives in the house?

The robots of course.

Then EE had a brainwave – they decided that we needed ‘fibre’ (I said I get enough fibre out of EE’s bullsh*t) – but then told us we couldn’t have it because there was no fibre in our village!

Yes there is!

DAY 9

I work nights for various broadcasters in the US so I wasn’t very impressed when the EE broadband team phoned before 8.30am, demanded to know the third and fourth letters of my ex-WIFE’S mother’s name and when I said I had no idea, they cancelled the order

Another EE operative then decided that the problem was because other people were living at the house. They weren’t/aren’t

EE are now apparently re-ordering our broadband and it could take two weeks to install! Who are they ordering it off, if nobody can supply it?

Yep, that endevour was doomed to failure

UPDATE:

It appears the problem is solved as far as EE is concerned – they say that the phone line used by broadband into our house is actually owned by ‘somebody else’ … BUT they won’t tell us who because of ‘data protection’

To help out, EE customer services refused to contact the ‘owner’ and get it sorted out – not within their job, they say!

EE customer services have decided to leave things as they are – perfect for them. They are not supplying broadband to us because it is too difficult. However, they are still taking our money

When we asked to be put on to a supervisor EE customer services told us that ALL their supervisors ‘are in a meeting’

UPDATE

We just received this message off EE – can anybody explain what it means exactly?

Hi,

You recently asked us to make some changes to what the user of mobile number can do with their SIM, which we’ve now done. This means they no longer have the control you gave them before.

Thanks,

The EE Team

UPDATE:

At about 4.30pm EE texted us saying that they were cancelling our order if we did not call them immediately. We did! They didn’t answer, so they cancelled our order!

EE then called us AGAIN to tell us they are not sure if we have fibre to the house – and told us it would take up to five days to confirm … 7 days since they pledged their service to us plus 5 days to confirm the fibre crisis plus 14 days to actually plug it in! That’s 26 days to potentially get broadband working for us – I could build a small telephone exchange in that time!

And so we wait for the next call!

We will update this as it happens – tell us you tales of woe too!

OOPS – AN UPDATE:

DAY 9:

We received a letter containing a demand for almost £100 for the Hub that doesn’t work and £40-odd for the first payment for internet we never received.

DAY 10

The executive office didn’t phone us back as promised.

But we did receive a call saying once more that the problem lies with BT Openreach … they have a problem with their ‘cabinet’ across the road. What?

UPDATE

Now they want their Hub back! (Children!)

DAY 12

Today EE told us again that they could not supply us with internet because BT Open Reach had basically broken their ‘cabinet’. Hohum

It is a funny thing though, there are maybe 700 house in the Village of Damned. And they all have internet.

There are dozens of businesses. And they all have internet!

About 1800 people live within the confines of the village. And they all have mobiles and use the internet.

The people who vacated our house less than two weeks ago were happy with their broadband and had it in place for five years.

Before we left the VoD to go working abroad, we’d had broadband for more than 20 years.

Watch this space.

THE FINAL SOLUTION:

EE phoned us and told us to try VIRGIN!

Surely that’s virgin on the ridiculous – recommending a competitor rather than just fixing the problem!

#virgin #ridiculous #EE #3g #internet #fibre #openreach #villageofthedamned #midlands

SEE VIDEO INSIDE:

SHADES of the mindless consumerism of the hedonistic Sixties have hit the virtual streets of Dylan’s latest anniversary.

Yep, a cyber-world ‘toy’ is our modern times equivalent of flesh-coloured Christs that glow in the dark…

In his dotage Bob has faced up to the dawning of the New Age and flicked the switch on downloads and streaming. And he’s definitely no toothless grandpa sitting on the stoop grinning out of the falling shadows as he zoom his grand-kids.

No, Bob still has one eye on the future as he writes, welds gates, paints his masterpieces, sells his history, auditions new voices and grins like a mock Mephistopheles as he continues to tour endlessly.

His creativity is still the song and dance man on his own endless highway.

Yet, somebody somewhere – at Columbia – came up with this cucumber-sandwich-and-a-nice-cup-of-tea virtual reality idea … 10 seconds to act surprised as you slip into a non-existent pair of Ray Bans and pose as Bob.

Maybe Columbia’s Eye Tea department came up with it – let’s give ol’ Bob some ‘specs appeal’ they may have thought!

The shades are, as far as I’m concerned of course, part of a rather perfunctory celebration of Bob’s art. I might be wrong however, so let me know what you think!

But would you like standing inside Dylan’s shades for just 10 secs? Would it be a drag to see you?

And what about the video that accompanies the shades of blue? Well, it’s very good, very nice indeed thank you.

But was it really worth the effort – particularly when Bob has re-invented himself yet again for all our futures.

To mark Bob Dylan’s 60th anniversary as a recording artist the new music video, “Subterranean Homesick Blues 2022”, has been launched. It pays homage to D.A. Pennebaker’s Don’t Look Back, with new lyric card visuals created by artists, filmmakers, musicians and graphic designers including Patti Smith, Wim Wenders, Bruce Springsteen, Jim Jarmusch, Bobby Gillespie and Jonathan Barnbrook.

Food on ‘em! But surely they could have all done better for Bob? And is Subterranean Homesick Blues the one to choose? I love it! But it’s not my favourite. It is a bright, chunky Chuck Berry sound-alike – but is it the best thing he’s ever recorded.

In fact is it all a little bit more pedestrian than the golden chair they stock outside Hibbing high school as a tribute to Bob recently?

There’s a microsite where you can catch up with all this ‘fun’ stuff.

Meanwhile, The Bob Dylan Center opened in Tulsa, Oklahoma, earlier.

Perhaps that’s worth a visit – cyberly or in reality – rather than the Dylan60 | 60 Years Of Bob Dylan On Columbia Records website…

Tell us what you think?

Cheers

Leigh

FAUX TRAIN COMING FROM BOB’S DREAMS OF IRON AND STEEL

Dark day in malice… dial ‘N’ for Nerds as BBC censors Dylan’s anti-racism anthem

Tough guys don’t dance when PA punches their lights out

I am a Manc, a back street boy born to be tough. Moston was my teenage hunting ground.

That’s North Manchester where footpaths were either made out of cobbles or broken bricks and windows. Suburbs of terraced houses, urban regeneration, mud holes and smoking guns. Toothless wives in elastic stockings, smoking Park Drive dimps, dads with death-rattles in their chests stumbling drunk out of The Thatched, The Museum, The Ben and The Bricklayers Arms… t

These were all my roll models.

Yep, this was our King Cotton town in the Sixties and the 70s.

There was One-Eye Jack who’d had his right eye sewn together for more than a decade. It gave him a wicked wink. Jack walked three miles from Newton Heath every day to drink gallons of John Willie Lees at the Blue Bell.

Brian ‘The Bear’ Dunn liked to throw fellow drinkers through pub windows, Brian Poole – who looked like Frankie Vaughan – would grin himself into a coma at the bar, Johnny White Boots liked to pour beer pover people’s heads to start a fight, Dougie Flood and his Quality Street Gang, Jimmy Swords and his cohorts holding war talks in the back room at the Galleon Restaurant on Kenyon Lane.

Peter Tut Tut, Savage Brian and Savatsi might not be street fighters but, like all Mancs, they knew how to look the part. Viagra for the eyes, it makes you look hard.

Yep, rainy North Manchester. At least brought you up tough and rough and ready for anything.

Except being kept from seeing your children by a cuckolded angry ex.

Nothing prepared me for that.

And nothing prepared me for it happening again thirty years later, this time in a pretty little cottage down a lane in the backwaters of Shropshire.

Three children used like an arsenal of emotional bombs by two mothers who just wanted to sit there nibbling Jammy Dodgers and watching Emmerdale while they ladled revenge like cold curdled soup.

I eventually got my children back after many years. But for so long afterwards there was a barbed wire fence between us. It was festooned with lies and fabrications, vitriol and bitterness. Like a bridge of broken locks.

To this day I believe that the scars of the lies their mothers and their families told, still sometimes turn the light black inside my children when we meet.

But despite the drink, the drugs, the insecurity, the worry, the lack of income after paying maintenance, the ‘gifting’ of houses to women who no longer wanted to share my life, I survived.

Some of us don’t.

Douglas Galbraith, a fellow writer, didn’t.

Douglas Galbraith is now dead and not even a stain in the universe.

In 2003 he arrived home from a work trip and was expecting to be greeted by Japanese wife Tomoko and his two sons, Satomi, aged six, and Makoto, aged four.

The doors were locked and Douglas had to break in.

But the house was stone cold and empty. The only clue to what had happened was a Royal Mail letter on the doormat confirming instructions for forwarding post to Tomoko’s new address in Japan.

Douglas had lost his children and he would never find them again.

For years he hammered away at the Japanese courts, the British government and lawyers. He wrote a book about the loss in the hope that they might one day see it, and contact him.

It never happened.

In 2018, Douglas killed himself. He was 52 and hadn’t seen his children for 15 years.

But the battle over them still goes on. On behalf of their grandmother and family, his sister Karen Macgregor, from in Glenborrodale in the western Highlands, is continuing the search.

She has hired a private investigator in Japan,

Karen says. ‘I remember visiting his home and realising it had become nothing more than a shelter. It was devoid of life and love. We could not believe that anyone could be so cruel.

‘He was a loving father and family. She was denying a father the right to love and support his children and she was leaving a family broken and in limbo.. At first, we did not know how to console and support him.’

Douglas had met his wife, Tomoko Hanazaki, at Cambridge.

In his memoir, My Son, My Son, Galbraith he describes their marriage as having descended into ‘an openly declared and exhausting war for the past five years’.

Douglas thought he had a major breakthrough when Interpol tracked Tomoko and the children down to a temporary address in Osaka. Then they moved police refused to give him their new address.

One of the problems was that in Scotland – unlike in England and Wales – child abduction is not an offence unless a residency order is in place.

And Japan is not a signatory to the Hague Convention on Child Abduction.

In 2013 all contact was lost.

Later Douglas was forced to sell his house to to send money to Tomoko to support the children.

‘Tomoko now has the children and the money and before long the telephone, predictably, goes dead,’ he wrote in his memoir. ‘It has been an expensive exercise. They were worth it.’

Douglas died in 2018. He hadn’t spoken to his sons for nine years.

Connaught boss Paddy brings Dylan’s work to his Chateau Kingdom in Provence

Moston, Manchester 10, for whatever reason, was my life’s hometown. Grimy, dark, dreary and rainy.

I don’t remember too much about it really, it was such a long time ago…

I can still see though rundown cottages on Moston Lane, they were crumbing buttresses to the Byronic Simpson Memorial library. Then there were the Gothic turrets and pungent beer stenches of the Blue Bell … feral children and stray cats scurrying at your ankles at the dower and paint-peeling Moston Imperial Palace.

The Mip had been a magnificent old cinema until, in the late 60s, they filled it with tacky market stalls, battered cans of beans, stinking cheese and fresh Eccles cakes.

As a child though, I remember listening to the trains in the rain at midnight. Stars were twinkling and I was all ready to hitch a dream-ride.

The trains were off in the distance but I could hear them, mournful whistles, click-clack of tracks, ‘faster than fairies, faster than witches, Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches’

Yep, dreams of iron and steel.

Even as a teenager I rode those trains every day in to town. I would watch the world become frozen inside its television windows.

Trains used to be the past heading in to the future.

And now Bob Dylan’s train has literally stopped off in Provence, southern France, and is parked a the bottom of hotels boss Paddy McKillen’s garden.

Bob’s biggest sculpture to date – made out of wheels, cycle parts and tools – is called Rail Car, and is a permanent exhibit at Château La Coste, a 600-acre sculpture park. 

Trains are part of his past, says Dylan. Rail Car represents the illusions of a journey rather than the “contemplation of one”.

Bob, coming up 81 years old, said: “The train represents perception and reality at the same time… all the iron is recontextualised to represent peace, serenity and stillness.”

He also spoke of the piece’s “enormous energy”.

Bob’s metal artworks were first shown to the public in 2013 when a set of iron gates called Mood Swings were exhibited at London’s Halcyon Gallery.

Dylan hails from Hibbing, in Minnesota which is home of one of the largest open iron ore pits in the world. said: “I’ve been around iron all my life, ever since I was a kid. I was born and raised in iron ore country, where you could breathe it and smell it every day.”
Château La Coste is the brainchild of Irish businessman Paddy McKillen, it is not just a working vineyard producing biodynamic wines, tasting facilities and a clutch of restaurants, galleries and more. It is also home to a range of ambitious architectural bonnes bouches from some of the greatest names in the profession.

And now Bob’s Rail Car has made it to its final destination, the rolling and thundery landscape of Provence.

And now Bob’s Rail Car has made it to its final destination, the rolling and thundery landscape of Provence.

Gates of bleating flashing … wonder if Dylan still likes to be in Mozambique?

Felix’s mystic garden where Bob sings to Woody forever

#bobdylan #art #metalsculpture #Provence #Château La Coste #Paddy McKillen #connaught

How Minder star changed a bouffanted Manchester hard-man’s life

When Dennis Waterman first punched his way on to our television screens, my mate Brian found a new lease of life.

It was 1979 and Brian and I were fashion victims in hard-man ‘town’ Manchester… I was six feet five inches tall, but stack heels pushed me perilously close to seven feet.

I was an ooh eck ectomorph…

In Brian’s case his hairline was retreating from the frontline like a frightened army. And what was left creeping about his pate he would have bouffant aka Sweet, The Faces and Stevie Marriott.

Brian was about five feet six inches tall, stocky but not wobbly, a nose as straight as an arrow, pugnacious eyebrows and thin lips with a fag always clamped between them.

He dressed in frayed jeans and a battered sports jacket, frequented back-street drinking dens in the Chinese Quarter and was well-known in Manchester’s Circus Tavern, a hard-man pub where the likes of Peter Tut Tut and Jimmy Swords would hold planning meetings before a job. Tut Tut sold carpets as a legitimate cover for his earning habits.

A coked-up Dougie Flood and his buzzing henchmen would hold court there occasionally. It was always a kangaroo court and Dougie would always make the same joke … “your’e for the high jump, son.”

So, one early evening after Brian had finished work in the flashing, spinning, bleating computer department of Norweb and I’d finished my shift at one of the national newspaper offices in the city, we squeezed between the criminals, the wannabees and the office workers to the tiny bar with its two beer pumps.

I’m not sure but I think the landlord – a bit of a ruffian himself I seem to remember – was called Terry (was the beer he served Tetley’s?) and as we walked in he announced to the Men of Quality as they liked to be called, “F*ck me! It’s the f*cking Minder!”

At that Brian’s hair stood up on end like a million tiny penises, he bared his nicotine stained teeth in what he considered a wicked smile, elbowed an insurance assessor out of the way and kicked an accountant in the shin, lit a Capstan Full Strength, coughed and accepted his new mantle as a Terry McCann look-a-like.

And got incredibly drunk on the free beer and whiskey that was sent to him like a homage.

But that’s the way it was back then, hard men, criminals, bent coppers, wise landlords, underground drinking dens, reflected glory – it might be that you knew somebody who accidentality p*ssed on a sheltering policeman in a shop doorway at midnight. That would enough to earn you a certain sense of notoriety – ‘Ere, e knows a bloke ooo p*ssed on a copper once!”

“Wow! Wot an ‘ero!”

Personally, I bought myself a 2.0S Capri and discovered what a babe magnet was … “Is this the same car as Terry McCann’s?” she’d ask.

“Ir is duck, dya fancy a quick one? A ride I mean!”

“I know exactly what you mean cheeky..”

And she jumped right in!

And that in a way was one of Dennis Waterman’s talents – through Minder and the Sweeney he became the model for all us hard drinking, chain smoking, rough housing hard men wannabees.

I lost touch with Brian many many years ago but I think that he would want to say to Dennis, ‘Thank you for making it classy to be a boufaunted drunk who everybody thought was a tough cookie.”

Minder, The Sweeney and New Tricks star Dennis died at the age of 74, at his home in Spain

#Minder #Newtricks #Sweeney

Dylan’s Hurricane is a song which, while factually a bit lacking, took on pomp, cruelty, American society, iniquity, the judiciary, justice, social conditions – and yes, RACISM

I have been a professional writer all my working life – and one of the greatest writers today still has to be Bob Dylan, a chronicler of the iniquities of the world, the human condition, unfairness, cruelty, love and heartbreak …his is a heady mixture of intelligence, awareness, wit and understanding.

When I became an editor I knew that I could LEGALLY publish something r*cist for instance, only if I identified the r*cist, quoted him or her correctly with a particular intention.

And the general intention has to be to condemn and expose the r*cist views expressed…

Nobody should ever be r*cist.

Why should you be, what’s the purpose?

Dylan’s Hurricane is a song, which, while factually a bit lacking, took on pomp, cruelty, American society, iniquity, the judiciary, justice, social conditions – and yes, RACISM.

Now, almost five decades later, that supposedly great bastion of equality and caring in the UK, the BBC (Radio 6 in particular), has edited out that other word which now must be spelt with hieroglyphics to avoid offending the internet spiders and bots and the awakened idiots of our cyber world.

That word is n*gg*r (do you recognise it?)

Here, Leigh, takes a look at the reaction to the BBC’s edit of an anthem and also takes a bit of a ribald look at just how simple it is to offend spiders and bots and of course the shallow world of the woke whinger:

“I often make a particular joke about racism which, I suppose, could be seen as offensive by those over-educated nerdy BBC knob-twisting producers with body odour and stinky trainers.

Or the whole of Italy might be offended.

Or, even my Italian ex-wife who is, dare I say, becoming more Italian the older she gets (Hang on! Hang on! I’ve done it again …I gratuitously used the word Italian. Now that’s racist isn’t it? I mentioned a woman too … that’s sexist. I also mentioned that my ex is getting on in years .. surely that’s ageist? Oops, I said publicly that she is my ex, so that’s against data protection – and I indicate she is becoming a bit of a Big-a Fat-a Mama … now that’s not only fat-ist, it’s racist, misogynistic, anti-feminist, anti granny and anti ex-wife. And just plain churlish!)

Myself, I’m very English, mainly because I come from English-land – and let’s face it, I am a bit of a gobby, beer swilling oaf! (Oops can I say that? Isn’t that Me-ist? Surely, I can’t describe myself in those terms! I might offend me! Oh, and all the other English people who are just like me – and that’s just the beer-swilling, tattooed, baseball cap-wearing women!)

Oh no!

A few years ago I was eeking a living – (Hang on? Eeking? Could that be derogetory against frightened people who scream?)

Anyway, I was eeking a living as a Talking Head on the BBC, both regionally and nationally.

Then something happened.

We ended up talking about farmers. I felt qualified to chat as I live in the countryside and number many farmers among my drinking colleagues and acquaintances in the Midlands Village of the Damned. (It was described as that by TitBits magazine in the early 1990s because of various tragic incidents culminating in the suicide of the local vicar.

I got the blame because I was the only hack in the village! Well that has to be hack-ist doesn’t it?)

And this is what I said on the BBC. And it was a joke… “Well Jim, it might not be life as we know it but almost all the farmers I know live in mansions, drive 4x4s to the stables where they take their horses for a trot round their acres of land!”

That was that then.

Had to go broadcasting midnight in New York and on AirTV and Netflix – oh no, how life let me down!

So, let’s return to those over-educated nerdy BBC knob-twisting producers with body odour and stinky trainers.

They censored all round good egg Bob Dylan!

Hurricane is about the boxer Rubin Carter, wrongly convicted of murder. It says ‘and for the black folks he was just a crazy n*****’ and this removed when it was broadcast on Tom Robinson’s 6 Music show on April 24.

Is that really how we deal with racism today? Don’t the woke idiots of this world realise that not talking about something, not using the words that identify the problem, doesn’t make the problem go away, it just drives it underground, from people’s minds, hides it away.

This is how propaganda works, hide the truth and get people to think it’s gone, eradicated. Not a problem any more.

But racism is a problem across the world and the BBC should hang its head in shame … not over those body odour and stinky trainer issues.

No.

It is their wokery in their little Wookery Nook world where equality for those who are different is available against a background of middle-class sniffiness, accusations of biased reporting, cover ups over the likes of Savile and Stuart Hall and a complete lack of understanding of what’s important any more.

#dylan #bob #rubincarter #racism #hurricane #jail #prison

Once, as I searched through the dusty old contacts book of a British evening
newspaper I came across the home telephone number of Brigitte Bardot.
St Tropez 271.
Every so often, perhaps when I’d had a couple of beers too many, I’d dial it.
Never got any answer, just an insistent and foreign-sounding bleat down the
line. But somehow that bleat made me feel exotically close to her.
But that was in 1978, I think, when I was tipped for journalistic fame. If I’d so
much as heard the living legend’s voice on her answerphone I’d have written
an exclusive interview.
Chance would have been a fine thing.
I never got so much as an ‘ello’.
So, when I arrived in St Trop under a sky bleached by the sun, I had this
nagging feeling that I still had some unfinished business with her.
Now don’t get me wrong I was well aware that old BB wasn’t going to be
any beaut any more – everybody’s seen the pictures, skin like a road map
and teeth on stalks … but even though she’s nearly seventy, I just wanted to
see her, talk to her. After all she was the star of And God Created Woman.
Well things don’t always work out the way you’ve got them planned and as I
dipped a sandled toe into the heat shimmer of the promenade I knew why
she still lives here.
Her anonymity is assured. There is no way she is going to stand out in the
crowd.
San Tropez is a haven for prunes in g-strings.
The beach has been turned into a parking lot for speedboats the size of
Cadillac’s and the still-rich-but-no-longer-young-and-beautiful pose like
crispy chickens on the decks, or creak along the beach on ridiculously thin
legs.
Amazingly, the beach, although it has fallen victim to overcrowding for
decades, is actually still unspoiled. It’s immaculate white sand goes on
forever.
It’s the people who haven’t survived. Yes, I’m sure 30 years ago they all
might have looked wonderful swaggering down Ramatuelle or Pampelonne.
from bistro to café, café to restaurant, in the hedonistic pursuit of spending
money. And I’m sure it was chic to dress down for everything from lunch to
a’mour.
But Just a Thong at the Twilight of their existence looks vulgar.
Anyway, with my crest fallen about as far as their arches, I decided to begin
my hunt for Ms Bardot.
Le Star beach bar seemed as good a place to start as any.
I got myself a blonde beer and leaned against the bar post at the corner of the
street in case that certain little lady came by.
Oh me oh my, what a place to be if your other choice is a rest home. There
were ghostly images of old men in hipsters and white slip-ons down by the
sea’s edge at Pampelonne.
Varicosed glamour girls wobbled past with threadbare French poodles and
wigs. No wonder Joan Collins bought a house here.
An Aston Martin purred by and then there was a convoy of Rolls Royces.
You know, when this kitchest of all kitches began in the 1950s St Tropez
was just a tiny fishing village. There wasn’t much to it really, a row fivestorey houses washed up against the quayside, a market still in Place des
Lices. and, appropriately enough, a cinema.
Nothing special, a sheet over an indoor washing line and an old rachety
flicker machine apparently. But the switch was thrown and glamour spun its
heady light. Wannabes arrived and sadly most of them stayed on to become
has-beens.
If only they’d listened to Brigitte when she said in 1986: “The myth of
Bardot is finished, but Brigitte is me.”
The quay is still there and the houses now look as if they’ve seen better
days. But the canopies that jut out onto the pavement are bright with acrylic
legends as bright as neons like Les caves du Roy or Aldo’s Piano Bar.
But away from these haunts of the once famous but still rich, a little inland,
is the charm. Painters still set up their easels as Paul Signac once did, and
there is the flower and food market on the Place des Lices.
Then there is the Musée de L’Annonciade with its masterpieces by Matisse,
Dufy, Rouault, Bonnard and Derain. Or the Maison des Papillons (Butterfly
Museum) and the Naval Museum in an old dungeon.

And as I wandered these streets of white stone I wondered why nobody had
ever thought of opening a museum of beauty … for there would probably be
my only chance of finding old Brigitte.

#BrigitteBardot #StTropez #animals #butterflymuseum

Police and family have been barred from opening Brady’s suitcase of secrets for decades … now new law gives them the key

Alan Bennett says a new Parliamentary Bill will help him finally find the body of his brother, murdered by monsters Ian Brady and Myra Hindley more than 60 years ago.

Brady, the madman who harvested and murdered children with his evil girlfriend Hindley, played a heart-breaking game of cat-and-mouse with the families of their victims, taunting and tantalising them from behind bars.

None more so than Alan Bennett, the brother Keith who was spirited away, abused, murdered and buried in a howling make-shift grave on the Moors above Manchester.

Last year Alan met with the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, to discuss the new Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. Part of it is designed to force people and organisations to reveal all relevant information to police.

He and many others have been battling for years to get Liverpool solicitor Robin Makin to open two briefcases entrusted to him by Moors murderer Ian Brady just before he died.

It is possible the briefcases, kept securely in storage, could contain clues to where Brady and his Hindley buried the body of Keith, who was 12 when he was snatched by the pair in Ashton-u-Lyne.

Alan said: “The law to allow police access to possible withheld information that may help in cases such Keith’s has passed through Parliament and will receive Royal assent. The clauses on human remains were agreed exactly as they were drafted.

”Great news for our family and for other families in the same horrendous, heart breaking and ridiculous position we found ourselves in.

“We now have real hope that the police will be able to overcome the obstacles to gaining access to information that had been placed in their way for far too long by certain uncaring, heartless, cold, cruel, insensitive and soulless people.

Thank you all for your support and care during this long battle for justice.

“Of course it is our never ending hope that something may be found that could give us the final piece of information needed to bring Keith home but it will also be a legacy from Keith that others in a situation such as our family will find some answers as well.”

However, responding to the passing of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK’s CEO, said: “This is dark day for civil liberties in the UK. This deeply-authoritarian Bill places profound and significant restrictions on the basic right to peacefully protest and will have a severely detrimental impact on the ability of ordinary people to make their concerns heard.”

The truth about what Brady and Hindley horrify did way back in the Sixties still horrifies the world.

And still today the families of victims are haunted by the secrets the evil pair of child killers have kept and the twisted games played from beyond the grave.

Not least of course is the continuing search for Keith Bennett’s body on the bleak moors above Manchester.

Surely, this must be Brady and Hindley’s most prolonged and agonising legacy?

But we must not forget the agonies of the family of Pauline Reade who was 16 when she disappeared on her way to a disco.

Think of it, she disappeared on July 12, 1963. And only now her family might be finding some kind of peace.

Let’s be honest, the true horror of having parts of your daughter’s body found in a dusty storage room at a university more than half a century after her murder is unimaginable.

Alan Bennett had this to say about Pauline. In so many ways it is a message of positivity.

Alan wrote: “On this day ( July 1st ) in 1987 the body of Pauline Reade was discovered and brought off Saddleworth Moor, 24 years after Pauline had been murdered and buried on the moor by Brady and Hindley.

“After being returned to her family Pauline’s mum, Joan, told us that ‘It was like a big dark cloud had been lifted off my shoulders.’ Joan found some small peace of mind eventually and the change in her life after Pauline was found was so very good to see.

“I met Pauline’s immediate family and I can honestly say that Pauline’s mum, Joan, who I met and got hugs from on quite a few occasions, was one of the nicest, gentle and sincere people I have ever met.”

The brother of ‘lost boy’ Keith Bennett had posed the question – how can police be denied access to secret documents about a murder case?

Alan Bennett said: “How can any information be seen as anything other than essential to an investigation?”

It is possible the briefcases, kept securely in storage, could contain clues to where Brady and his monstrous lover Myra Hindley buried the body of Keith, who was 12 when he was snatched by the pair in Ashton-u-Lyne,

Backing the move, Alan said: “I am really confident that the part of the Bill that is of specific interest to me – and will be to other victims and their families in the future – regarding the case of Keith will not be challenged.”

Relatives have demanded that the cases should be opened and access to the hidden papers given.

Police say they want access to the Samsonite briefcases which Brady kept locked in the bedroom at high security hospital Ashworth Prison in Maghull.

He spent most of his life locked up.

Solicitor Mr Makin rarely comments on the cases.

But a district judge sitting at Manchester Magistrates’ Court had refused a police appeal to access the cases because Brady and Hindley are dead so there is no chance of a prosecution.

I have an update after contacting the Home Office again today for answers as to what happens next after the Police, Crime, Sentencing And Courts Bill was passed after the second reading yesterday.

Alan said: “The Bill will move on for more detailed scrutiny and MP’s will be able to propose amendments and some may be voted on in later debates.

“It is hoped the Bill will receive Royal Assent by the end of the year.

“I have to admit that the timescale is longer than I expected/hoped for but at least things are in motion and moving in the right direction after years of arguing for justice for victims and families as opposed to the perpetrators and their representatives having more rights than the victims and families.”

Alan said: “Keith’s story will be known to many, but what may not be known is the struggle which our family has gone through to try and seek closure.

“I have fought long and hard on behalf of my brother to bring about the necessary changes and to ensure his case is not forgotten.

“I want to ensure a positive legacy for Keith, so I was pleased to meet with the Home Secretary and to hear about the work being done to support my endeavours.”

Priti Patel said: “I can only imagine the years of pain and turmoil that the Bennett family have faced following Keith’s tragic murder – no family should have to suffer the heartache of not knowing where their loved ones are buried.

“I am determined to give police the powers they need to access all available evidence and hopefully bring some closure to families in cases like these.”

We should never forget these names, names forever linked with true horror:

Pauline Reade

John Kilbride

Keith Bennett

Lesley Ann Downey

Edward Evans

#murdermostfoul #hindleyandbrady #myraian #saddleworthmoor #lostboy #keithbennett #moorsmurders #pritipatel #Pauline Reade #John Kilbride #Keith Bennett #Lesley Ann Downey #Edward Evans #ianbrady #myrahindley #moorsmurders #saddleworth

The chaps are at it again, putting the world’s wrongs to right

#Portugal #hauntings #ghosts #transgender

Bob loves Elvis, no doubt.

After all Elvis was the God of rock n roll, beautiful, handsome, sensual, wild, wiggly, outrageous and with a voice to sell your soul for.

And Bob was at the crossroads.

It was 1959 and Bob was in Fargo and was banging out ivory-clad bullets of rock for the Poor Boys and Bobby Vee and the Shadows. It didn’t last for long though … he was dumped by both bands.

The major problem was he’d sold himself to them as Elston Gunn, the imaginary owner of a state-of-the-art electric Wurlitzer-style keyboard.

Of course he wasn’t Elston and he’d never had a travelling Wurlitzer..

In an article in The Forum a decade ago, Bobby Vee’s brother, Bill, said: “We bought him a shirt that matched ours. When we picked him up, we were a little surprised he didn’t have a little electric piano with him. So, when we got to the gig, there was an old crusty piano there, and he played that.”

And, according to Bill, he wasn’t very good.

So, there Elston stood. Alone in Fargo, dumped by a hero for telling a lie.

It could have worked out so differently – so badly – for him and the rest of the world.

He could just have kicked up the dust outside this North Dakota town and left a scrawl at the crossroads bemoaning ‘Whatever happened to the Teenage Dream?’

But he still had Elvis.

And Woody too.

But Woody was old and tired and ill, a literary genius who could set an image on fire with two words, a political singer with power for the people. Elvis, on the other hand, was young and vital … and did Bob know it at the time? But he had the young and old elements for his alchemy right there and then at the crossroads … young and old which would keep him forever vital and youthful. And so the magic was mixed at the Fargo crossroads and Bob set off down the road armed only with his spell.

Elvis was one of Dylan’s key influences, after ‘Hound Dog’ there was no looking back. Bob said: “When I first heard Elvis Presley’s voice I just knew that I wasn’t going to work for anybody and nobody was going to be my boss. Hearing him for the first time was like busting out of jail.”

But did the kid with an alias who got fobbed off in Fargo ultimately become greater than Elvis could ever be?

From Fargo Dylan went down to Dinkytown, second-hand clothes, Second-hand Roses, battered books, coffeehouses and cheap, cheap bars.

There bob met a man named Gray and moved in to his drugstore.

Bob wrote in his biog; “There were great catch-phrases and driving pulse rhythms (in rock), but the songs weren’t serious or didn’t reflect life in a realistic way. I knew that when I got into folk music, it was more of a serious type of thing. The songs are filled with more despair, more sadness, more triumph, more faith in the supernatural, and much deeper feelings.”

It was then that Bob decided to go gaunt and finger-pointing and became a hero of the bearded ones who cupped their ears and called it a conch-ience.

But rock n roll had been around since the 1950s, heavy beats, black rhythms, white country, twelve-bars and fat old-lady basses and Animal drums.

When The King passed away dramatically in 1977, it was said the death hit Dylan harder than most and was unable to speak for a week.

Not only did Bob become a star but Elvis recorded Dylan’s ‘Tomorrow Is A Long Time’.

But for some reason Bob snubbed Elvis. There were talks of a collaboration in 1972 when Elvis invited Bob and George Harrison in the studio. Inexplicably Bob and George didn’t bother turning up!

He was in Minnesota with his children and their art teacher, Faridi McFree, and he wrote: “I went over my whole life. I went over my whole childhood. I didn’t talk to anyone for a week after Elvis died. If it wasn’t for Elvis and Hank Williams, I couldn’t be doing what I do today.”

Elvis, Woody, Hank, Tom … all of them are gone now, but Bob is still on that road. And as you watch his eccentric, idiosyncratic, brilliant shows, every so often you see the flash of a memory, Bob will craft moments in his performances and for a split second you catch a glimpse of his heroes.

Like the Indians danced in the dark with Jim Morrison, our Bob dad-dances for each and every one of us along with his heroes.

#ritamay #bobdylan #elvis #dinkytown #amannamedgray #wenttoseethegypsy #gerrylee