I've suspected for ages that Jimmy Savile was impotent. Most of the allegations against him, even flavoured by the exaggeration of time on the memory, don't accuse him of any real sex. A lot of groping and leering and innuendo but very few accusations of serious sex and certainly no children or medically supported rape.

The stories about Cyril Smith MP - the late, of course - all sound quite ghastly but again don't seem to involve sex. Once more, inflated and coloured by time and memory (we have to be certain that always happens), still there seems to be no real sex, just perverted touching and beating and groping.

I suspect if anyone had said "Ooh yes please, let's screw like rabbits" both men would have run a mile.

Back in those days, of course, beating was not only allowed but encouraged. I was thrashed regularly by the horrid Headmaster at my prep school, before I reached my teens. Only recently have I wondered whether his other hand sunk deep in his pocket and his grunts and groans might have been sexually inspired.

Being gay was then, of course, a serious crime. There was no same sex age of consent.

I certainly don't agree with Dali, who was clearly barking mad, that all important or creative people are or were impotent, though I do love his art, which is quirky and funny. All those melting clocks!

But I do think that it goes some way to explaining the true nature of dead celebrity crimes.

Add the inflation of memory and the obligatory exaggeration of media coverage (is there any other kind?) plus the similar police behaviour - every crime MUST be coloured up to increase conviction chances and frighten the public, who then thank God for our fine officers - tells me I'm right.

Impotence is a far more likely cause of their behaviour than serious perversion.