Beatles Books, DVDs and Ephemera

This isn’t so much a blog entry as a list. I was thinking the other day of just what Beatles related ephemera I had, excluding CDs, so decided in true obsessive fashion to make a list of it all. It, of course, remains a list in progress which in itself is a scary thought.

Books

A Life in Pictures – The Beatles. Beatlemania 1963-1964

An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney: Howard Sounes

Backbeat: Alan Clayton and Pauline Sutcliffe

Can’t Buy Me Love  - The Beatles, Britain and America: Jonathon Gould

George Harrison Living in the Material World

Images of the Beatles – photography from The Daily Mail

John: Cynthia Lennon

John Lennon: Philip Norman

Magical Mystery Tours – My Life with The Beatles: Tony Bramwell

Paul McCartney A Life: Peter James Carlin

Revolution in the Head: Ian MacDonald

Shout! The True Story of The Beatles: Philip Norman

The Beatles

The Beatles – Hunter Davis

The Beatles: A Day in the Life

The Beatles Anthology

The Beatles in Scotland: Ken McNab

The Beatles on Television: Jeff Bench and Ray Tedman

The Beatles: The Story of the UK Tours 1963-1964: Martin Creasy

The Longest Cocktail Party: Richard Di Lello

The Mammoth Book of The Beatles: Sean Egan

Ticket to Ride – Inside the Beatles 1964 and 1965 tours that changed the world: Larry Kane.

Who Killed John Lennon : Fenton Bresller

With The Beatles:  Alistair Taylor

You Never Gave us Your Money: Peter Dogget

Magazines/Newspapers

Life: Remembering George Harrison

Liverpool Echo: Arise Sir Paul McCartney – March 10^th 1997

Mojo: The Magical Mystery Tour and Beyond

Rolling Stone – The Beatles 100 Greatest Songs

Uncut: 148 page John Lennon Special

Beatles Films

A Hard Days Night

Yellow Submarine

Films

Backbeat

Nowhere Boy

Concerts

Apple Rooftop

Paul McCartney – In Red Square

The Beatles at the Budakon Tokyo

General DVDS

John Lennon – The Death of a Beatle

John Lennon Through the Looking Glass

Rock Milestones – The Red Album 1962-1966

Rock Milestone – The Blue Album 1967-1970

The Beatles – Magical Mystery Tour Memories

The Rutles

Tribute Bands

Bootleg Beatles Concert Tour 2011-2012

Them Beatles 2011 Tour Programme

It Says Here

A free press is something that should be celebrated. Despite the proliferation of news that is available online the sales of newspapers in the UK remain relatively healthy.  

The best-selling of them remains ‘The Sun’, a tabloid that is sadly synonymous with the worst excesses of the more sensationalist end of the market.

A story that the British press, tabloid and broadsheets alike, have been covering recently has been the worrying allegations surrounding Jimmy Savile; the former DJ dying at the age of 84 last October.

The allegations themselves are extremely disturbing. Equally disturbing is the idea that Savile’s predilections for young girls, if indeed he had them, were well known and there was a failure to act upon that knowledge.

The fact that Savile is no longer here to answer these allegations adds a different dimension to the story, but its’ right and proper that the allegations are reported.  

Should the allegations be subsequently proved then Savile can only be posthumously punished through the blackening of his name and reputation. Those organisations though that may have turned a blind eye to them could, and should, be called to account.

It’s a sensitive issue and one that should be covered with balance and be free from hypocrisy.

The latter is a charge that can very easily be levelled against The Sun newspaper.

Their online edition makes reference to Savile’s “sick lust”, “predatory” actions and “depravity”. Emotive terms certainly, but ones that you couldn’t possibly argue weren’t accurate if it found that there is substance to these allegations against him.

What then of my charge of hypocrisy against The Sun?

I apologise for reproducing the image below but it central to my argument.

The cutting shows an image of the singer Charlotte Church, then aged just 15, and makes salacious reference to the breast size of a girl still in her early teens; the paper even refers to her as a child.

Jimmy Savile may well have been guilty of an appalling abuse of trust. It could then be argued that his employers, including the BBC, were complicit in that abuse of trust if they chose to turn a blind eye to it.

Could it not also be argued that The Sun was guilty of an abuse of the free press in publishing that picture of Charlotte Church?

Is it not harder to take their indignation over Savile’s alleged crimes seriously when they themselves thought nothing of drawing attention to the breast size of an adolescent girl much the same age of those allegedly abused by Savile?