Time to expose Savile's powerful friends

A READER writes: "Someone keeps leaving rose stems by my front door. Is it a stalker?"

STALIN said: "One death is a tragedy but a million deaths is a statistic." Over the weekend, as your BT broadband crashed, didn't you fear that you were the only one, a single, isolated, helpless customer whose broken connection would take weeks to fix? And then we discovered it was a huge problem and millions of us were affected. You're much better off being a statistic.

TIME after time, it is claimed, Jimmy Savile got away with sexual abuse because it was believed he was protected by people in high places. Which probably means he was. These highly-placed persons are probably comfortably retired by now on gold-plated index-linked pensions, paid for by you and me. Time to disturb their retirement?

TINY prediction. Jean-Claude Juncker will not complete his five-year term as President of the European Commission. Until a few weeks ago, no-one had even heard of the Luxembourg politician. Now he is famous. He is a celebrity on a lordly £2 million a year. Juncker rules over us, happy and glorious - and possibly a little too happily, for he is alleged to have a drink problem. So that's an instantly-recognisable face, a vastly important job, enviable wealth and constant surveillance by the media (a term which now includes any passer-by with a smart phone) of 28 nations. It is a potent combination. Few politicians could survive such scrutiny. If anyone gets a photo of Juncker looking druncker than a skuncker his political days will be numbered.

IN the meantime, the clever thing is not to be planning merely to withdraw from the EU. The clever thing is to get out of the EU, and take Germany with us. I'd also like to see Ireland join the Commonwealth, as suggested recently by Michael Fabricant. And the United States, too. No harm in dreaming.

DON'T you feel the days ticking away? The weekend marked the centenary of those two fateful pistol shots in Sarajevo 100 years ago. From now until August 4, a series of events, programmes and supplements will mark the agonising, mad and yet inescapable 37-day process by which Europe slipped and stumbled into the First World War. A war which once seemed old, forgotten and dusty has been brought to life and given the respect and attention it deserves. In the process, we see how short a space of time is 100 years.

HERE'S another little incident which shrinks history. A friend works in a nursing home. Last week she organised a screening of the film Zulu for the benefit of one of the residents whose grandfather won one of the 11 Victoria Crosses awarded for the defence of Rorke's Drift – in January 1879.

REMEMBER this for next year. To recreate the Glastonbury experience without slogging all the way to Somerset, simply put your telly in the window. Walk away from your house about a quarter-mile until you can only just see the screen. Make a mud pool and stand in it. Get a total stranger who is much taller than you to stand right in front of you and sing the wrong words, slightly off-key. Have a pee in a hedge. Enjoy.

IT was wonderful to see Dolly Parton getting such a great reception at Glastonbury. I can never see her perform without being reminded of her answer when a reporter asked how long it took to prepare her hair for a gig. "I don't know," said Parton. "I'm never there."