{"id":18099,"date":"2012-12-08T00:02:19","date_gmt":"2012-12-08T05:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=18099"},"modified":"2012-12-07T13:13:21","modified_gmt":"2012-12-07T18:13:21","slug":"the-predator-who-hid-in-full-view-of-the-cameras","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2012\/12\/08\/the-predator-who-hid-in-full-view-of-the-cameras\/","title":{"rendered":"The predator who hid in full view of the cameras"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark Steyn<\/a> on the Jimmy Savile investigations:<\/p>\n

It’s tempting at this point to offer some musings on the price of fame, the burdens of celebrity. But Savile was cheerfully unburdened. Rather than a celebrity who happens to be a pedophile, he seems to have been a pedophile who became a celebrity in order to facilitate being a pedophile. Robbers rob banks because that’s where the money is. In the Sixties, Savile became a star disc jockey in Britain’s nascent pop biz because that’s where the 14-year-old nymphettes are. In the Seventies, he became a kiddie-TV host because that’s where the nine-year-old moppets are. He became a celebrity volunteer with his own living quarters at children’s hospitals and homes because that’s where the nine-year-olds too infirm to wiggle free or too mentally ill to protest are. He persuaded various institutions to give him keys to the mortuary because that’s where the nine-year-olds unable even to cry out are. (Stoke Mandeville Hospital is now investigating whether he “interacted inappropriately” with corpses.)<\/p>\n

His persona was tailored to his appetites: The child-man shtick meant no one would ever ask him to host grown-up telly shows or move to the easy-listening channel. He motored around the country in a famous silver Rolls with a caravan on hand should he espy a comely schoolgirl at the edge of the road. When opportunity for a quickie struck ten minutes before a recording of Savile’s Travels, it was easier to drop the gold lam\u00e9 sweatpants than unbuckle a belt and unzip a pair of trousers. And he more or less hid in plain sight. When Fleet Street reporters seeking a quote on something or other called him up and said “Is that Jimmy Savile?” he’d shoot back: “I never touched her!” On the one occasion we met, I remember being struck by the physical strength he projected, even at his then-advanced age. A few years ago, an interviewer asked, “You used to be a wrestler, didn’t you?”<\/p>\n

“I still am.”
\n“Are you?”
\n“I’m feared in every girls’ school in the country.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mark Steyn on the Jimmy Savile investigations: It’s tempting at this point to offer some musings on the price of fame, the burdens of celebrity. But Savile was cheerfully unburdened. Rather than a celebrity who happens to be a pedophile, he seems to have been a pedophile who became a celebrity in order to facilitate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,9,28],"tags":[311,263,374,343,101],"class_list":["post-18099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britain","category-law","category-media","tag-1960s","tag-1970s","tag-children","tag-crimeandpunishment","tag-tv"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-4HV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18099"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18100,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18099\/revisions\/18100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}