North Wales child abuse investigation: too late for some

What do the abuse-deniers have to say about the latest report?

It is too late for about a dozen people who have taken their own lives since suffering abuse, according to Wrexham Councillor Keith Gregory, speaking on Radio 4's "Today" programme. Perhaps, as in the case of Jimmy Savile, we will only have something like the whole truth when all the perpetrators are dead.

Here's hoping for another Welsh Football League club

Good luck to both Newport and Wrexham today. If they are able to hold on to their leads from the first leg of the play-offs, there will be an all-Welsh final to decide which team joins Mansfield in returning to the League for the 2013/14 season.

Not just a racist verdict

How the British Establishment helped a courtesan get away with murder

I remember the real-life crime specialist Edgar Lustgarten, in one of a series of great criminal cases on the Home Service (now Radio 4), describing one of the triumphs of the great advocate Edward Marshall Hall. In the face of overwhelming evidence, he secured the acquittal in 1923 of the French-born wife of a rich young Egyptian for his murder in the Savoy Hotel. I was struck by how a case playing on both sexual and racial prejudice could have succeeded even given Marshall Hall's great theatrical gifts. It seems that some journals at the time, and not just Egyptian ones, thought that there had been a miscarriage.

Now it seems that there was another factor that saved "Princess Fahmy". Because the Prince of Wales had been one of her lovers during the World War, the authorities made sure (as detailed in a Channel 4 documentary) that details of her past did not come to light. In protecting the heir to the throne, they indirectly hobbled the prosecution, who would normally have been permitted to raise the question of the defendant's character, her counsel having attacked that of the victim.

The question that intrigues me is whether Lustgarten, who moved in many interesting circles, was aware of this backstory.

[Later] I should have picked up on the fact that the documentary was yet another achievement of South West Wales' enterprising production company, Telesgop.

There is also a question raised by one of the links above: Marguerite Laurent/Meller/Fahmy apparently appeared in a few silent movies in France after her trial. However, there is no record of her on The Internet Movie Database. I presume this is not just because of an English-language bias to IMDb, but the probable loss of physical copies of the films, which would almost certainly have been on perishable nitrate stock.

Jonathan Winters

He was clearly more famous in his native country in latter years, but Jonathan Winters was part of that generation of American comedians who broke the mould in the 1950s and 1960s. I remember BBC Radio introducing us to him along with Lennie Bruce, Elaine May, Bob Newhart and Shelly Burman through Monday Night at Home. It isn't obvious why Winters failed to establish a transatlantic audience where the others succeeded, especially as he inspired a succeeding generation who we do know. Perhaps Winters' references were too local - rather like May, who is better known here, like her then comedy partner Mike Nichols, for her film work.

Skirting the minimum wage

The Independent has caught up with the campaign that has been running in Private Eye for some time, against organisations which avoid paying the minimum wage.

Even Labour-controlled councils may be guilty of encouraging the practice if they have contracted-out social services work to firms which exploit employees in this way.

It is good to see from the article that Vince Cable at BIS is concerned, especially as BIS, through Revenue & Customs, is responsible for enforcing compliance with the National Minimum Wage.

Colin Davis

I'm listening to the latter two-thirds of Music Matters which is dedicated to Colin Davis. All praise to Suzy Klein for her authoritative narrative and her drawing out of the personal recollections of the people who had performed under Davis. There is a free download, which I would recommend.

The programme did not shy away from the more unattractive aspects of Davis's character in the first half of his career, when he tended to behave towards orchestras as the stereotypical maestro of films and novels. I saw something of this when I had the opportunity, forty-six years ago now, of sitting in the Albert Hall when Davis had his final rehearsals of The Trojans before that evening's Prom performance with the Chelsea Opera Group. On that occasion, a player of one of the high trumpets queried whether what Davis was asking of him was possible on the instrument. Davis authoritatively contradicted him in a manner which must have made the man feel small. It is clear from today's programme that the Davis who returned from his tenures abroad to take up the principal conductorship of the LSO in 1995 was mellower, somewhat self-deprecating, much more collegiate and someone who would have taken that trumpeter aside quietly instead of putting him down in public. Without compromising his high standards, he had not been afraid to change. Orchestral players had changed, too, of course, as the programme also emphasised but most of those remaining whose feathers he had ruffled in earlier days came to respect and admire him.

I cannot help drawing comparisons with the way the BBC treated another recent death of an octogenarian. Just over an hour in total over Radios 3 and 4 was given to celebrating the life and work of someone who brought joy to millions round the world.

Another good reason for MMR vaccination

It seems that in addition to its primary effect of virtually complete protection against measles, mumps and German measles, the vaccine (if given at the recommended age) conveys a slight, though measurable, resistance to the development of severe asthma. A study in Denmark found that:
 a study in Denmark looked at the records of over 800,000 children and found that MMR-vaccinated children were 25% less likely to be hospitalised with asthma than non-vaccinated children, and were also prescribed fewer courses of asthma medicine

Thanks to asthma.org.uk for the information. The report of the study is at http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/168/11/1277.full.pdf

Post Office current account

BBC is reporting that the Post Office will provide a current account at selected branches within the next few weeks, with a view to a wide roll-out next year. It is to be produced in conjunction with long-term partner, Bank of Ireland.

It will be interesting to see what will be its relationship with the existing basic Post Office Card Account run by JP Morgan. This was first set up by the last Labour government when it was realised that a significant number of  clients of the New Tax Credits system neither had a bank account nor intended to open one. It was clearly intended as a temporary measure, but pressure resulted in its continuation.

As implied by the BBC report, this is yet another reversal of Thatcherism. Mrs Thatcher forced the sale of Girobank, which had been intended to mirror state-run Giro systems on the continent and operated through post offices. Girobank went to Alliance & Leicester Bank (formerly a building society), which finally wound it up in 2003. (Alliance & Leicester was taken over by Santander after the credit crunch in 2008.)