Public Breast-beating Over Middleton Paparazzi Photos
You must understand that there is no news today.
Everything is celebrity, sport and royal in the UK.
Everyone has a media correspondent, a sports correspondent and a royal correspondent.
Reporters just report on the latest twitter feed. No-one searches.
There are several aspects to this boob photos media blizzard.
- There’s the mass media almost to a man, fawning and groping at half truths.
- There are many ordinary people wondering what’s going on.
So I’ll explain. (As I see it, natch)
If you want the tit and bum shots, check at the end. If you can’t wait, click here for the latest information on modified sweat glands.
Private Pictures, Public Place?
We now have several (mainly establishment types) people making exaggerated claims about the camera location. Well, I’ve checked.
The photos were NOT taken “over a mile and a half away”, nor “well over a mile” away, nor “about a mile away”, nor “from a long way off, in private woods”, but about half a mile away. The house is clearly visible, along with the windows, railings and garden stuff that appear in the photos on Google Maps Streetview.
I’ve chosen a point ~ 900m from the building as one of many good vantage points. Go down now to see it.
If I used my hand-held camera taking a shot, I could see the whites of the eyes…. Yes really! To demonstrate — here are two pictures that show the capability of my hand-held Panasonic Lumix, DMC-TZ30.
Be careful when clicking as I’ve uploaded the shots at full resolution. Once loaded, click the little green arrow to see the pictures in all their full-size glory – you will need to scroll both vertically and horizontally to find the yacht when on full-size.
They are hand-held, on a normal day, just like many of my recent shots from my recent French vacation. I have many high-res scenic shots – I’ll have to check them through – who knows what I’ll find LOL.
No Zoom: There’s a Yacht here – Can you see it?
Click to see just how really small it is.
20x Optical Zoom of Yacht – Now can you see it?
Click and you’ll see a tanker in the background which I couldn’t see at all with the naked eye.
These two shots and more are visible at lower resolution here on Christine’s Beach Hut.
If someone was on the yacht, I could see them. The boat is several miles offshore – nearly on the horizon actually! So don’t let the Streetview shot below fool you – the house is a lot closer than it looks, even from the position I’ve chosen here. It is only 900 metres away!
The house is dead centre in this link. So it is a private house visible in public, much like me in my bedroom at night with the curtains open, okay? My camera could have easily shown them doing anything. Easily. Yet if I can be easily seen in my bedroom at night (i.e. clearly a private place as they keep repeating) I can get done for indecent exposure? Right?
Hopefully, by seeing the capability of my own camera in conjunction with a normal Streetview of the area, you can now see how incongruous the claims that this is a private place actually are?
(p.s. pan left – it’s a lovely view!)
View Larger Map
But surely, 900m is a Long Way, isn’t it?
The firstworldwar.com website shows the standard issue British rifle in WW1 as having guaranteed accuracy up to 600m. This had no optical scope, just sights to be used by a normal man. This means a kill shot at 600m, not just wounding, which shows the hand/eye/gun precision easily possible from anyone. 900 metres doesn’t look so far now, eh?
I also remember reading in “With a Machine Gun to Cambrai”, the author George Coppard saying that he picked off men at a similar range with just one or two rounds from his heavy machine gun. This is despite the juddery nature of a heavy machine gun.
Again, 900 metres doesn’t look so far now, eh?
A Right to Privacy?
Well almost.
The royals have done very well over the last few years with Elizabeth II’s annus horribalis being mostly forgotten. But let’s cast our minds back, shall we?
At that time, Diana and Fergie had caused much embarrassment with their girlie antics. Charlie’s behaviour outside the public face of marital fidelity was well known and became ever-more detailed as time passed. Phil the Greek was his usual self and scandal after scandal built up until the Castle burnt down. So that was that – then.
Now we have Harry getting his kit off to the amusement of the world (in a €6000 a night hotel suite on a serviceman’s salary, note), but being dismissed as “just letting off steam but must be more careful in future”. And almost synchronously in time with Harry, it now appears, Kate & Wills feel so assured in their new-found popularity that they can do anything. They certainly have the money for it.
But you know – they can’t.
If they want the esteemed position that they publicly project and behind which the combined forces of a fawning mass media enforce, then they must behave like it. They cannot behave like normal holidaymakers and not expect a come-back no matter how “ordinary” Kate was supposed to have been. You can’t be a “highness” and not expect attention? They cannot say and do anything – for one thing, our constitution forbids it!
For another, the public will hate it and they need the public much more than we need them.
Why don’t they all just go away? I won’t mind a bit. Maybe this’ll be a turning point as the penny drops?
Privacy – What Privacy? – added 18/9/2012
The BBC has now leapt onto my referencing Google Streetview as an aid to showing relative privacy. Of course, the devil-in-the-detail of this is not mentioned as I’ve done above.
BBC Copies Me – Chateau d’Autet
Click image for BBC webpage
But that’s not my point here, is it? Neither is my point that criminal proceedings are now starting. My point is that for all of us….
Our Own Privacy is Zilch.
We are (or will be):
- Subjected to full intimate body scans at airports by faceless private “agencies”
- Have our emails and web activity saved and analysed at leisure by faceless private “agencies”
- Followed down every street, across every junction, inside every shop by CCTV “security” cameras run by faceless private “agencies”
- Have our phones tapped by faceless private “agencies”
- Have our shopping habits monitored by faceless private “businesses”
- Have our finances, credit cards, driving licences all cross-referenced ad infinitum with our passports, our insurances, our taxes and more – by faceless private “agencies”
…and all of this is done to us while the few that own these “agencies” and “businesses” flaunt their wealth, hide their money, holiday in their tax havens, pay no taxes, are as secret and private as they choose to be, collude to manage information and the law, and then have the audacity to tell us how to behave. Royalty is just the icing on top of a very rich cake…..
Charles & Camilla recently visited the notable tax haven of Jersey on the of 18th July for a day – it cost us £60,000 which we paid to Jersey! The current SE Asia visit will cost on a par with the last Canadian tour which cost the Canadians alone nearly $2m in security.
- Why do we let them get away with it?
- What use are they?
- Where is our privacy?
- Where is our return on investment? I see none.
Reverting to Type?
I’ve just been to a “do” at the Lily Langtry in Bournemouth. This is the former house, bought by Edward VII as Prince of Wales for his actress mistress , Lily Langtry, the first face of Pears Soap..
And here’s where more hypocrisy creeps in as those reversions to type are conveniently forgotten.
As we all know, Charles, William’s dad, was knocking off Camilla his mistress both before and during his marriage to Diana, Wills’ mother. Much like Edward VII & Langtry. All of the UK knows this. Now Camilla is supposed to be “accepted”, according to our fawning press. A few grannies during the jubilee said she looked nice….well that’s it then!
Yet in France, for years the hobbled press kept secret the facts of former President Mitterrand’s mistress and his second family….a bit like secret polygamy, but in a Catholic country….? Yet millions get their kit off in summer all over France?
Ye-es, as Paxman would say….
The French press hid also the fact that 200 Algerians were slaughtered and chucked in the Seine in 1961 by the police. Now that’s privacy! Obviously, this is sarcasm, but the royals are using this weird French cultural mish-mash and press/law combo for their own advantage……. They think! They should hope!
Clearly, French privacy is wholly different to the British version. I can get done for undressing while forgetting to shut the curtains, but in France my privacy to do this is upheld?
Ye-es I hear Paxman saying again.
Media Guff and Fawn
So how can we accept protestations about “rightness” from these people when nothing is said about actions and happenings either then or now which go clearly against their public statements and media view of their lifestyle?
If the next likely Prince of Wales, Wills, turns out like other former Princes of Wales’, do we wash it away but say that sensationalistic reporting of public/private sunbathing “hotties” is wrong?
Because a “hottie” is what Kate is – she’s smart, apparently intelligent, elegant and (most importantly for the press), hot in a swimsuit – as earlier photos revealed. (Remember the debate in all the papers about who was hotter, Kate or Pippa? Of course you do, but you’d forgotten, hadn’t you?).
The success of the Daily Mail website hangs on her and other sensationalist voyeuristic shots of hundreds of “hotties” – here’s today’s Kate article; note the HUGE list down the right for articles, near half of which are for scantily clad women. n.b. Checking the Mail On-line now shows a huge dearth of the usual skin revealing links.
The comments at the bottom, like I said, for the most part, go totally against the fawning theme of the piece. One repeats the mile and a half lie so that mud has stuck again.
Indeed, for those with long memories, the video at the bottom harps on about Berlesconi’s ownership of the magazines and his publication of Diana’s car photos “minutes after the accident”.
Now, maybe you remember that following Diana’s crash, The Daily Mail solemnly pledged never to use paparazzi photos again?
Yet virtually all the links down the right of any Mail page are paparazzi pictures! They have to be – they’ve sacked nearly everyone and the paper would fold without them.
Porn Baron Protests and Threatens to Close Magazine!
Yes. It’s true. Here’s the chronology.
- French magazine publishes photos taken during the summer. – 14 Sep – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19595221
- Irish paper does the same on Saturday. – 15 Sep – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19611407
- Italian magazine follows suit. – 17 Sep (today) – http://www.metro.co.uk/news/912183-topless-photos-of-duchess-published-in-italian-magazine-chi
It’s the Irish one that’s interesting! It’s co-owned by Richard (Dirty) Desmond, who besides running UK TV’s Channel 5 and publishing the Daily Express and tit paper The Daily Star, also runs porn channels Red Hot TV and Television X. This growth was part financed by selling off his earlier publishing business which included such salubrious titles as Asian Babes and Readers Wives. Notably, his celebrity magazines of OK! and New! are full of paparazzi photos……. like, dah?
Now, to top it all, Desmond has said he wants the Irish paper closed….. – 17 Sep – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19621188 He must be after a knighthood or something because his history shows that prurient disapproval is not one of his strong-points. It’s laughable.
The lady (and Desmond) doth protest too much, methinks. – Hamlet
Mass Media Princely Support, Public Split
Checking the comments following news reporting, I note a two-thirds majority telling Kate to keep her kit on if she doesn’t want to be rumbled. This is despite the media claiming “over-whelming condemnation” or whatever.
It’s just simply not there. Most of the public aren’t swallowing it.
Sooner or later there will be a backlash against the Royals if they keep this up. Let well alone, it’d have blown over, much like Harry’s knob-tastic exposures. But keeping it going, on and on, using their inherited and publicly provided wealth to pursue legal redress shows them seriously out of touch with the common mood, no matter how much the mass media are beefing them up.
The recent Hilsborough revelations show that media collusion is not a new thing.
Tits and Bums
A lot of people are behaving like bums or making a tit of themselves.
Those in “the establishment” are doing what those in the establishment normally do, which is to fawn and whine, pontificate and lie, all to keep ranks under the firm expectation of a gong at some point.
Then there are the “granny types” who all think she’s lovely and that the queen does a marvellous job.
There’s a few who see it as an attack on women, part of the objectification of women that’s happened for millenia and has now gone past saucy postcards, through Page 3 and porn mags (like Dirty Desmond’s) to full on ubiquitous internet porn and the gyrating phone girls on Freeview. (All very valid, but not my gist)
Then there’s everyone else!
These are in two camps, I think;
- those that don’t care either way but think the royals should think themselves lucky to get free holidays and trips and well looked after for the whole of their lives
- those that just want to see the tits
Well, thanks to Kate & Wills’ explosive reaction, Kate’s bits are everywhere now.
For instance, here’s an enterprising guy (Oliver James) in Bath, UK, who’s got a domain up and running in record time! See http://www.katemiddletontopless.co.uk/ for all the shots you’ll need. A WHOIS puts the owner, Bee Digital Media Ltd, in California. But a company search places it here in the UK! (better watch out Oliver…..perhaps….?)
BEE DIGITAL MEDIA LIMITED (also has website bee-digital.co.uk)
Address removed since it’s been reported as changed, thanks Dan
Kate Middleton Topless Photos – Prince William and Kate Suing Publication
Apart from that, there are loads of others. One that caught my eye was a website called Divided States, a US political site. They had a web-page here, http://www.dividedstates.com/kate-middleton-topless-photos-prince-william-and-kate-suing-publication/ which they’ve now pulled. How coy.
Fortunately, the Google Cache shows us this – the full copy of their original posting – click here or the screenshot for the cache. (full image available on request)
- So am I a tit or a bum?
- Is Oliver above?
- Is Berlesconi? Berlesconi certainly has gripes with the UK following his latin faux-pas with the queen and others….? Maybe he’s publishing just for revenge?
Conclusion
Wills, with his experience, has behaved like a knob. He should have known better. He slipped up, which is a possible explanation for the rapid response unit being thrown into action. It was notably absent following the Harry incident.
But really, what everyone has totally forgotten, is the old adage:
Don’t throw stones when you live in a greenhouse.
The lady doth protest too much, methinks. – Hamlet
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