It’s an old family motto. All families descended from the shtetls of Poland have family mottos. And coats of arms, family ‘piles’ in the countryside (ours is a mud hut outside Omsk; nice in July). And the Conway motto is: “I stand therefore I play tennis.” I would say it in Latin but you wouldn’t know what it meant. It does translate in Yiddish though, as “oyyyy, such a mensch!!! A laban on his pipik!!!” Loosely.

But this isn’t about Joey. Joey’s fine, thank you very much. And will start his tennis lessons just as soon as he can take more than 5 steps without falling onto his bum. Even though such shortcomings never stopped his grandfather.

This is about sex offenders. And its also about socio-economic status. Because if I was a poor, perhaps unemployed, lowlife, council housed pervert, I’d get a much better deal from everyone than if I was a super-duper billionaire sicko, helicoptering from child abuse to sexual harassment with a team of flunkies, assistants and yes-men.

Harvey Weinstein? Didn’t stand a chance. Jeffrey Epstein? Was crucified by the press, before, during and after his death. And now, ‘poor’ Gislaine Maxwell. The spawn of possibly the most immoral man ever to walk the planet, Ms M has now been arrested for ‘procurement’ of young girls for her ‘boyfriend’ Epstein, and for committing abuse herself. And I’ve no doubt she’s as guilty as… as sin. As guilty as… Epstein. As guilty as… Prince Andrew. And IF SHE IS then they can hang her for all I care.

But she hasn’t been proven so just yet. In fact she was only arrested yesterday. In New Hampshire. And thus has a continued ‘presumption of innocence’ that every person has until found otherwise.

And yet one of the prosecutors, when making the arrest statement, made a big point that she’d been hiding out, under a false name, in a 152-acre home (presumably he’d measured it himself with his… errrr… acre-ometer) which she’d bought because of her ‘immensely privileged life’. Which is almost as true as it is totally fucking irrelevant. She’s not accused of money-laundering or fraud. She’s accused of sex offences. Why should the ‘presumption of innocence’ only apply to the poor? Unless that privilege is now a crime too in America. In which case their stupid president has much to answer for. Though at least he can plead grounds of mental frailty.

The red tops have a field day with the ‘mighty falling’, because everyone hates a spoilt bitch like Gislaine. We almost ‘want’ them to be guilty. So that it levels all that money and brings them down to our level. Financially if not morally. But you don’t expect the authorities to vent their jealousies and nastiness in the public forum. It almost acts to distract from the horrors of the crimes, rather than enhance them.

It’s like someone being arrested here for murder and the police telling you they’re an Arsenal fan. It causes immediate prejudice and calls into question all their actions and their basic decency.

Happy Day-after-Lila/Joey-day

A xxxx