George Melly on Jimmy Savile

Found this interesting looking book in a local charity shop. Paid a little more than I'd liked considering the condition but as I'd never seen one before and the text was written by one of my heroes, the surrealist, jazz singer and usually on the ball critic and social observer George Melly, I figured it worth a punt.

The Media Mob

(Collins, 1980)

Text: George Melly

Illustrations: Barry Fantoni

I'll let the cover text describe the contents:

"The Media Mob have invaded our living space... and we have relinquished our territorial rights. The Mob are all household faces, your friends and mine, needing no introduction. They are the aristocracy of the warm cod's eye, the cognoscenti of the idiot-box. The exact quality which transmogrifies a face into an icon is mysteriously arbitrary. It has nothing to do with talent or lack of it. Now Ena Sharples and Elsie Tanner are as much part of our mythology as Pickwick and Falstaff."

"It is in the evening, as soon as we are home, that the spirits put on flesh. The National Grid judders with the shock of dealing with the vastly increased load: we abdicate our responsibility - the Mob take over"

I'm going to confess that I haven't really made much inroad into reading the book as of yet but like many (most?) purchasers my eye was initially caught by the many full page water colour charactactures scattered throughout the book, particularly this one...

So what has Mr. Melly to say about the man now reckoned to be one of the most prolific sex offenders in the history of British justice? A man who not only got away with his vile crimes during his lifetime but now thanks to undeniable revelations regarding a decades long proactive cover up of his offenses by the BBC is perhaps by proxy doing more than anyone to finally bring down that bloated arrogant out of touch corporation?

"He doesn't really do anything, he just is. The mop of inappropriate dyed hair over the craggy, patently heterosexual face, the eccentric but meaningless clothes, the cigar, the parrot cries of 'Howzabout that, guys 'n girls?', the flat Yorkshire accent: none of it should add up and yet somehow it does. The reason, I believe is that (Jimmy) Savile is that rarest of all human creatures, genuinely good right through, a kind of bizarre saint. He's genuinely odd, too, with his big cars and his job as a hospital porter and his passion for physical endurance tests. But his goodness is manifest; people respond to it automatically."

I'm not going to pass any judgment on Melly's opinions as he was only going on what evidence was at hand. And I openly admit that until the recent revelations I pretty much shared them. Jimmy was IMO, if not a genuine eccentric, a genuinely odd person who I could never figure out why or how he got so famous. But he did and he (appeared to) use his fame and fortune for much good. He puzzled and amused me and that's why I liked him. How wrong Melly and I were.