Friday 14 February 2014

Valentine Day Blues

I am writing this under great duress.

After almost a year of looking, thinking, rejecting and discussion we have finally found our ideal bathroom cabinet and Peter is in the process of putting the thing up. This involves a lot of drilling and banging about, naturally, and as the bathroom is next to the study it's a wee bit noisy in here. We still haven't come to any agreement over the flooring and at the rate we are going the bathroom will need doing again before we get anywhere. We really need to stop dilly dallying and get on with it. If only we could agree.

Yesterday we took advantage of the weather and took a trip to....wait for it...Watford.

Peter had some electronics to pick up so as it was dry, sunny and relatively warm we decided to do a quick sprint around the charity shops. I came back with armfuls of books, even though I promised I wouldn't, and Peter came home empty handed. Still it was fun and I enjoyed getting out and about in the fresh air.

Today we are back to normal which is to say dull, wet and windy. The forecasters are predicting up to a months worth of rain in some areas over the next day or so and our area is expecting very high winds over night. I am worried as to how much more punishment the silver birch can take.

I have to say that with all this dashing about I'm sleeping like a baby. However my cough has started to come back. I feel fine and there are no other symptoms but it is a bit worrying as it has gone on so long. If it continues through next week I'll have to go back to the doctor's but for now I'll rest up and hope it is just a blip.

In the news over the last week we have seen both William Roach and Dave Lee Travis cleared in their respective trials.

I am really, really not surprised. There has to be an element of doubt as after all this time it basically boils down to their word against their accusers. Certainly in the William Roache trial the 'victims' were not exactly reliable. Changing their stories and generally messing things up big time. William Roach admits to having slept with a lot of women but then so, no doubt, has Tom Jones, Axel Rose and Barry White, to name but a few. The famous, especially the male famous, have women throwing themselves at them and sometimes they give in to temptation without asking the age of their teenage temptresses. However those women shouldn't turn around several decades later and decide that they had made a big mistake.

The doubt must be why on earth, if the things they say are true, didn't they report the crimes at the time. OK, the attitude to celebrity was very much different then and women claiming sexual assault or rape were treated appallingly by the police and society alike. However they could have told somebody, a friend, a relative, even written it in a diary. Then at least they would have some evidence to back up their claims. The fact they waited so long and only came forward after the Savile affair broke adds a definite doubt as to their motivation if nothing else.

As Dave Lee Travis said after his trial there are no winners here. The men and their families have gone through a horrendous ordeal. In some cases their careers will never be the same again because there will always be that shadow of doubt. The accusers have come away without the huge payout or the tabloid spreads they were hoping for. And the CPS and police have come away looking rather silly and vindictive.

However the biggest losers are the women past, present and future who are real victims. Anyone being sexually assaulted by anyone famous, or not for that matter, is going to have a harder time of it now. Unless they report the event within hours of it happening the police are going to be very wary. Once bitten, twice shy, or so you'd think.

However like a dog with a bone the police are still relentlessly pursuing anyone who was famous in the seventies and eighties and has had a finger pointed at them. No matter how tenuous the chance of gaining a prosecution. It's almost as though their dogged pursuit is in some way a compensation for the one that got away. Jimmy Savile did do all those terrible things, there is proof, but he is dead and cannot be touched and no matter how many more famous names they drag through the mud they can never compensate for that..

Right time for a cuppa and feet up to watch some Olympics. Still trying to get into them, still failing.

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