Still lots of work for the new DG to do....

[french frank]

which presumably includes lostprophets and Jonathan King. But not Robert King. This seems odd.

Ian Watkins was jailed for 29 years, Glitter for 16 years. They are both in prison.

Jonathan King has appeared in a BBC documentary, apparently to 'public outrage'. I don't think he was that big a recording star - there must be others of similar importance, without any convictions, who also don't have their records played.

Obviously, 'le grand public' neither knows nor cares about Robert King, and they appear to be the keepers of the country's morals.

[teamsaint]

Ian Watkins was jailed for 29 years, Glitter for 16 years. They are both in prison.

Jonathan King has appeared in a BBC documentary, apparently to 'public outrage'. I don't think he was that big a recording star - there must be others of similar importance, without any convictions, who also don't have their records played.

Obviously, 'le grand public' neither knows nor cares about Robert King, and they appear to be the keepers of the country's morals.

It would seem that Ian Watkins offences were of a different order to those of R King and J Rees Williams. Glitter did get a long sentence, but he was effectively blacklisted after a much shorter sentence for offences abroad, so FWIW, I would bracket him , at the time the BBC ban took hold,in a broadly similar category to R King.
Jonathan King was, as you say, only a recording star for a short time, before his more important career behind the scenes.

I do think that it is important that the BBC shows as much consistency as is possible and reasonable, although judgements are not easy.
I am very strongly of the opinion that the use of a recording of his as it was used on Saturday was exceptionally crass, at best, and if the BBC feels content with banning other performers, it ought to take responsibility for when and how it programmes recordings by people with similar convictions.

The public may not know or care about Robert King, but the BBC does, and should. Perhaps the "R3 public " don't care. i'd be happy to bet that if Robert King was a pop performer, the R1 public wouldnt accept him back on the station.

oh dear, I think I Sound like a vigilante now.

[Honoured Guest]

The public may not know or care about Robert King, but the BBC does, and should. Perhaps the "R3 public " don't care. i'd be happy to bet that if Robert King was a pop performer, the R1 public wouldnt accept him back on the station.

"May?" In fact, the public has never heard of Robert King. Whereas Gary Glitter is very well known to most over-50s and would stir up controversy with any mention or airplay. But, as someone said above, Gary Glitter wouldn't be played on radio anyway, except occasionally on Sounds of the Seventies.

By the way, I've never heard of "DBS" and don't know either what it is or what it has done to annoy you. Why not start a new thread about it and explain it, perhaps with a link, in the opening post?

[doversoul1]

'le grand public' may not but I’d be surprised if most regular listeners of classical music weren’t aware. This has been discussed many times but it does seem to me that King’s status as a performer of ‘the highest art’ is in some way keeping him separate from many other ex-child abusers. Music (art/classical) transcends a few children’s misfortune….?

HG
DBS
Disclosure and Barring Service

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disclosure_and_Barring_Service

[french frank]

the R1 public wouldnt accept him back on the station.

Which brings us back, irrelevant as ever - except that it's not - to Jeremy Clarkson, whose sacking has made 'le grand public' very angry indeed. People have been reported as saying that, while they don't condone Clarkson's behaviour, they - effectively (to use your word) - think he's too great an entertainer to be stopped from entertaining.

This was a decision that was always going to enrage some section of the public.

Take theft: there must be a distinction between someone who embezzles millions and someone who steals a CD from a record store. You don't simply say: 'They're both thieves: they should be treated exactly the same.'

Take crimes of 'violence': fatally injuring a child by shaking it because it's been naughty is not the same as giving a child a slap for doing what it's been told not to.

Incidentally, Gary Glitter appears to have been played on 12/5/12 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00rm370 and21/12/11 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b018jl97 and so on back ... He was first jailed in 1999.

[Alain Maréchal]

It does seem that it's Nikisch. The pianola institute has the same photo, with some blurb about the Welte-Mignon invention and saying: "Arthur Nikisch, the Hungarian pianist and conductor, was photographed on 9 February 1906 - the cabinet on his left contained the roll marking machine, and Karl Bockisch, one of its inventors, can be seen sitting at the controls."

http://www.pianola.org/history/history_rolls.cfm

That seems to be a description of this photo.

I apologise for coming late to the party, and for restarting an earlier discussion, but having read through the linked (and fascinating) article I rather think the relevant paragraph refers to the following photograph, and Nikisch is the gentleman seated at the grand piano, accompanied, not in the musical sense, by the lady with the bowl of salad on her head.

[Nick Armstrong]

Which brings us back, irrelevant as ever - except that it's not - to Jeremy Clarkson, whose sacking has made 'le grand public' very angry indeed. People have been reported as saying that, while they don't condone Clarkson's behaviour, they - effectively (to use your word) - think he's too great an entertainer to be stopped from entertaining.

This was a decision that was always going to enrage some section of the public.

But the only one possible. (I happen to have a first hand account from someone who was around at the time of the 'fracas' - now quite rightly being called an 'attack'. That person threw up, the incident was so literally sickening. Inevitably, 'le grand public' who showed support did not know the facts).

http://news.sky.com/story/1452410/sa...-police-action

[mercia]

G Fawkes, who I think started the million-sig. petition, regularly popped up on the radio from 4:30pm onwards yesterday. He seemed to want it two ways. One, that JC's behaviour was unacceptable but that the BBC had handled it badly and unfairly (citing some incident back in 1988 involving Mark Thompson* that went unpunished) - but secondly that the fracas (not of course that he witnessed it personally) was not particularly serious, comparing it to a drunken Christmas party argument to be settled amicably by the two parties the next day (which evidently wasn't the case). Fawkes seemed to suggest that certain people at the beeb had had it in for Clarkson for a long time. I was disappointed that this became the 'top story' on all the evening bulletins.

* http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1370723/posts

[Nick Armstrong]

G Fawkes

Yes Paul Staines aka "Guido Fawkes" cropped up on the telly too and was equally disappointing in terms of both the coherence of what he said, and the unpleasantness of his character and manner.

[Richard Tarleton]

I apologise for coming late to the party, and for restarting an earlier discussion, but having read through the linked (and fascinating) article I rather think the relevant paragraph refers to the following photograph, and Nikisch is the gentleman seated at the grand piano, accompanied, not in the musical sense, by the lady with the bowl of salad on her head.

Yes indeed. I now see where the confusion has crept in. The second picture posted on the Facebook page (ff's #6) is still not Nikisch, as claimed in the caption, but the bloke in the picture you refer to, Alain, captioned "Prof Arthur Nikisch...." with the lady in the salad bowl is indeed him.

On the Pianola Inst site the image captioned on the Facebook page as "Delibes' Valse from Coppelia....." is captioned "Recording a Roll at the Perforated Music Company - London, England, July 1909", so the mistake is that of whoever put that image on Facebook. Which leaves us back near where we started, digressions notwithstanding

[Richard Tarleton]

Which brings us back, irrelevant as ever - except that it's not - to Jeremy Clarkson, whose sacking has made 'le grand public' very angry indeed.

Except....he hasn't been sacked, technically speaking. Alan Yentob was pressed very hard on this by Eddie Mair and later a little less hard by Emily Maitlis. All the BBC will say is that his contract is not being renewed, and considering he still has a few days of the current one to go means he's still under contract to the BBC but not actually doing anything. I think EM was making the point that anyone else in this situation would have been sacked.....

[Barbirollians]

Defending Clarkson beggars belief - it is a question of culture . Bullying at the BBC was found to be rife by Dinah Rose Q.C two years ago when she found much of the problem was due to a failure to address the behaviour of superiors who were thought to be above the rules .

Clarkson's commercial value to the BBC had helped him up to now - compare Carol Thatcher's sacking from The One Show for one racist comment whilst Clarkson makes several and survives .

There was no way the BBC could comply with its own policies and keep him on . Any person defending him should be asked if your superior punched you in the face at work when he was on a final warning would you expect him to be sacked ?

[Nick Armstrong]

Defending Clarkson beggars belief

It does if done with knowledge of the facts. That's what made Staines's defence (as mercs points out, 'like a scuffle at the end of a Christmas party') so laughable and moronic.

However I think most of the people who came out and supported early did so without full knowledge - indeed, the BBC partly has itself to blame for trying to play it down and calling it a 'fracas', (a word which turned it into a bit of a French farce and had everyone googling it and tweeting in a jolly fashion about it and thinking it was little more than hand-bags being waved around).

One hopes a sizeable chuck of the signatories are ashamed to have expressed support now they know it was a protracted attack.

However the horrible twitter threats against the victim since yesterday suggest that there is a predictable rump of morons among the Clarkson supporters that will never understand.

[french frank]

However the horrible twitter threats against the victim since yesterday suggest that there is a predictable rump of morons among the Clarkson supporters that will never understand.

In spite of expressing 'disapproval', the nub of it is that they don't want anything to interrupt their enjoyment. And that this is how besotted people have become with celebrities and popular entertainment. These are the important things in their lives and they'll fight for them.

There are even (I see) some comments on the lines that this is further evidence of the BBC's 'left-wing bias' - getting shot of an outspoken, politically incorrect chum of the Prime Minister. (In fact, a few days before, our 'team' had been cleared of using another racially discriminatory term which even with my limited experience was better known to me as such than the word 'slope' which had got them into trouble.)

[Beef Oven!]

Suarez bites people in front of millions of people and then the world's richest football club hands him an employment contract with an astronomical salary. If you are talented and you can generate money, you'll get away with it. Capitalism isn't a moral system.

If the BBC sack JC, someone will engage him on even better terms and conditions. I suspect some enterprises are champing at the bit, because his sacking (if it comes about) is taking so long.