McAlpine gets some compo. £185k

I bet there are hundreds, and I mean hundreds, of pop stars/celebrities from the last 50 years who are bricking it at the moment.

The problem is, the media have been happy enough promoting the heart throb image of countless pop acts, from the Beatles to the Bay City Rollers, Duran Duran, Bros, even upto One Direction nowadays, an image that as often involved young girls screaming and throwing themselves at these young, often naive, blokes, who must have thought it was Christmas, with all the girls on offer.....I don't think asking a girl her age is on a young bloke's mind, when the girl is offering it to you on a plate.

It now seems very hypocritical that the same media is now happily crucifying all these celebs who they have happily built up as some sort of demi-gods over the years.....It seems the 'build them up, knock them down mantra' is even more ruthless than normal.

And at the moment its focusing on those who were alleged to have been accepting what was handed on a plate in the 1960s and 70s, is it just cynical to believe that this is because they are easy prey, having been away from stardom for several decades and unlikely to now have the means to mount a robust and expensive defence whilst at the same time now being in their 60s and 70s and fitting the "dirty old man" image.

Will the spotlight turn on those who are still independently successful and wealthy and/or much younger when they can either fund a defence and attack, or not fit the predator profile with a pretty young face ?

Thats not to defend any who are guilty, but the media are VERY selective on who they crucify at times, and its worth repeating again NO-ONE has yet been charged let alone convicted..

NO-ONE has yet been charged let alone convicted.

And we don't know how many of these hundreds were coerced into it, or how many looked older than they were and threw themselves at the pop stars.

Jeez, when I think back to when I was eighteen and frequenting various discos around Yorks/Lancs, there's a few thousand probables for a start.

Ah you trend-setting cravat wearing old smoocher you, you're the sort who would frequent Rockafellers rather than Cinderellas and take a taxi home instead of walking five miles like I had to.

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?