Rolf Harris' "earnings" from shares.

a completely fabricated tale including figures. All guestimates

His money and shares are managed by his brother who is a financial whiz kid in Australia and is a private corp. Very hard to find out the real figures and where the money is invested...

..and by now I guarantee it is totally untouchable by compensation claimants. They'll have to settle for state compo.

Spot on Hedda - the media adores constructing Towers of Babel, built on foundations of sand. Something gets inflated and coloured (for better media coverage and, remember, by police or CPS to get convictions). That is further inflated in court by dramatic lawyers and judges (how many times is something "the worst we've ever encountered"?). Add a touch of extra colour by media covering the eventual verdict. Then there's the follow up ("another 20 billion come forward in Scotland"). Then the money kicks in ("trillions").

Someone who becomes an object of this exercise in insanity simply cannot believe it is happening. I was fortunate; having used the media for 50 years I knew exactly how and why it works. So I expected it, watched it and used it. Knowing I'd never again be able to use traditional media, I made sure I used the new media (my regular posts from prison on this very website).

OK so we're cynical. But cynics are the truest lovers of humanity.

an excellent quote that will be immediately stolen:

cynics are the truest lovers of humanity.

Sadly already stolen - by me, Hedda. I believe it was originally Oscar!

Link to the story (the woman who wrote a similar article about me, ten years ago, (it's standard procedure) seems to have left the paper)…

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2954094...figures-suggest.html

The Mail article on me… www.kingofhits.co.uk/index.php/Attitudes...ions/Daily-Mail.html

Even in dumbed-down tabloids, the public comments (those that are not still fascist-BLOCKED) are finally starting to turn towards some TRUTH.

" Hanwell, London, United Kingdom, a day ago.

The witch hunt against old rich men for relatively minor offences 30 and 40 years ago in a different age is a strange thing. Why is it only the unattractive rich old men that get charged? We can all think of others who must have been just as involved because that was how the 60's were. If all "offenders" from those times were imprisoned there wouldn't be the space to hold them, it would account for a good 50% of men over say 55, several million people! An important part of a fair justice system is that all offenders are treated equally; it's not enough that they are "famous" or "ugly" let alone simply because they are wealthy! "


www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2954094...figures-suggest.html

Cynical (as ever) wrote:
Even in dumbed-down tabloids, the public comments (those that are not still fascist-BLOCKED) are finally starting to turn towards some TRUTH.

" Hanwell, London, United Kingdom, a day ago.

The witch hunt against old rich men for relatively minor offences 30 and 40 years ago in a different age is a strange thing. Why is it only the unattractive rich old men that get charged? We can all think of others who must have been just as involved because that was how the 60's were. If all "offenders" from those times were imprisoned there wouldn't be the space to hold them, it would account for a good 50% of men over say 55, several million people! An important part of a fair justice system is that all offenders are treated equally; it's not enough that they are "famous" or "ugly" let alone simply because they are wealthy! "


www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2954094...figures-suggest.html


I do get the feeling that a lot of the outrage is motivated by spite and jealousy of wealth. (as with foxhunting)

Spite and jealousy... I think that's very true here, and not necessarily just towards the defendant.

I reckon JK is right and false accusations can arise for numerous reasons- spite, genuine belief, mistake, 'recovered memory', desperation for attention or money / sympathy and so on.

Which is why Scotland has one extremely good law- witness testimoney is not accepted from just 1 , there must be 2 witnesses to a crime.

It's taken years for police to realise that a witness can have unreliable memory.

add 20 / 30 / 40 years and what hope does an accused person have?

Wilde also said that a cynic was a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

That's because, in the greater scheme of things, nothing has any value and everything has a price.

And George Bernard Shaw… "The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. "

No; cynicism is a characteristic that a lot of people share (the idea that people are basically only selfish), but what Wilde was pointing out (in the grand scheme of things) is that in the hierarchy of human characteristics cynics are at the bottom, ignorant or the higher human characteristics and emotions such as compassion, respect for each other, altruism, concern for others' welfare, an ability to appreciate higher beauty beyond bland commercial crap... The list goes on. He basically thought the majority of people were self-centred philistines who didn't know what they were missing!