Would You Buy a Genocidal Secret War from This Man...?

Mary Austin - Freddie Mercury's Girlfriend

"The pair shared a bedsit and then moved into a modest one-bedroom flat in nearby Holland Road. They were blissfully happy but hadn’t discussed a future together. ‘Then, when I was 23 he gave me a big box on Christmas Day. Inside was another box, then another and so it went on. It was like one of his playful games. Eventually, I found a lovely jade ring inside the last small box. 

‘I looked at it and was speechless. I remember thinking, “I don’t understand what’s going on.” It wasn’t what I’d expected at all. So I asked him, “Which hand should I put this on?” And he said, “Ring finger, left hand.” And then he said, “Because, will you marry me?” I was shocked. It just so wasn’t what I was expecting. I just whispered, “Yes. I will.”’

But, impulsive as ever, he changed his mind on a whim. ‘Sometime later,’ she says. ‘I spotted a wonderful antique wedding dress in a small shop. And as Freddie hadn’t said anything more about marrying, the only way that I could test the water was to say, “Is it time I bought the dress?” But he said no. He had gone off the idea and it never happened.

‘I was disappointed but I had a feeling it wasn’t going to happen. Things were getting very complicated and the atmosphere between us was changing a lot. I knew the writing was on the wall, but what writing? I wasn’t absolutely sure. 

‘I never questioned him about it. But I think he must have been starting to question himself. Getting married was probably something he wanted. But then he began to wonder if it would be fair on me.’ The revelation that Mercury was gay ended their physical relationship, but Mary has always been grateful that Freddie one day had the courage to discuss his changing sexual feelings.

 ‘If he hadn’t been such a decent human being and told me I wouldn’t be here,’ she says candidly. ‘If he had gone along living a bisexual life without telling me, I would have contracted Aids and died.’ 

Mary started to notice he was staying out later and later and thought he was having an affair with another woman. Deeply hurt, she feared their relationship was over. But one day he told her he had something important to say – something that would change their relationship forever.

Gazing down at her lap, Mary says softly: ‘I’ll never forget that moment. Being a bit naive, it had taken me a while to realise the truth. Afterwards he felt good about having finally told me he was bisexual. Although I do remember saying to him at the time, “No Freddie, I don’t think you are bisexual. I think you are gay.”’

"The late Freddie Mercury's sumptuous music room, in his magnificent mansion in London's Kensington, has an excellent view of the walled Japanese garden. The main focus of the room is a massive window which filters the daylight onto a giant chandelier and mirrors, giving the whole room a bright and airy feel. Mary inherited the Georgian mansion and all the furniture within, including the piano where Freddie composed many of Queen's smash hits. Mary urged Freddie to place the house and its contents in trust, but he wanted her to have it."

Paula, Michael & Bob

Flesh & Blood: Paula, Michael and Bob from Spike EP on Vimeo.

"Yeah, It was getting weird for a while there... Your phones get tapped..."

- Michael Hutchence on "The Papparazzi"

"Time to change the tape, boys!"

- Standard phrase employed by Diana, Princess of Wales whenever "clicks" could be heard over her private phone line

"I know the difference between when the phone is out of order and when there's people listening - all I can say is, there's a lorra "repairs" going on in the cellar... They were following me - in a car; but not hiding it, y'see, they wanted me to know I was being followed..."

- John Winston Ono Lennon, 1972

"The verdict is unlawful killing, grossly negligent driving of the following vehicles and of the Mercedes."

- JURY FOREMAN

"Yeah, they're livin' large! They're at The Regent, I found out! They're in a better hotel than me!"

- Michael Hutchence on "The Papparazzi" stalking him, Paula and Tiger in Sydney

"I thought he must have left some kind of clue somewhere...."

- Michael's Brother

"I don't think he killed himself"

- Michael's Brother

"I just don't think he killed himself"

- Paula

"You said that Michael killed himself and that Paula killed herself - they didn't; they just didn't."

- Bob

"Perhaps you should try and figure it out for yourself!" Diamond snapped. "Michael and Paula were out of the country and during that time only a few people had any real access to the place: Bob Geldof, Anita Debney, the nanny who used to work for Bob for twelve or so years, and a woman called Gerry Agar, who had developed a grudge against both Paula and Michael. 

The police were called days after the nanny claimed she'd found two Smarty packets with opium in them.  Geldof immediately had a new custody application before the courts, 'in light of recent events.' The local police and prosecutors had the media on their case. There was enormous pressure on them, but even they had to admit something was a bit fishy. [The court] dropped all charges, remember, and Michael was issued with a certificate of non-prosecution by the Crown."

When asked if Hutchence "got off" fairly, Diamond snapped again: "Got off, GOT OFF?? I think the question should be who tried to get him on. You figure it out!" 

COMPERE: And finally the lurid life of Paula Yates has taken another tabloid twist with her decision to reveal graphic details about the poly-filler progenitive sex life of her partner, Michael Hutchins. (It's not often you get a chance to use that word!).

Ms Yates says she's bidding to overturn the New South Wales' coroner's ruling that the INXS star committed suicide. Ms Yates, who was previously married to Sir Bob Geldof, wants the coroner, Derek Hand, to overturn his findings and deliver an open verdict. She's told Britain's Channel 4 television network that she believes Hutchins accidentally killed himself while trying to perform a so called auto-erotic sex act.

Mark Tamhane reports.

UNIDENTIFIED: On the 22nd of November, 1997, Michael Hutchins, the lead singer of INXS, was found dead in a hotel bedroom in Sydney. The coroner of New South Wales said it was suicide. The coroner reached his verdict after studying a brief prepared by local police. Channel 4 has seen that brief and it contains evidence that points to a very different verdict.

MARK TAMHANE: As far as Britain's Channel 4 is concerned, Michael Hutchins was not a sad and tragic figure who took his own life in a Sydney hotel room because he was being ripped apart by a devastating custody battle between his lover Paula Yates and her former husband, Bob Geldof.

Instead, the makers of INXS, the death of Michael Hutchins seem convinced the singer accidentally killed himself while trying to perform auto-erotic asphyxia, a dangerous form of masturbation where the perpetrator deliberately restricts his or her oxygen supply supposedly in a bid to heighten the pleasure of the act.

As evidence, the programme interviews Professor Steven Hucker, a world authority on auto-erotic asphyxia who claims that the New South Wales police and state coroner Derek Hand missed vital clues which all point to accidental death rather than suicide.

There's the mysterious presence of a ring-bolt screw among the possessions discovered in Hutchins' room. Presumably an object from which one could hang a rope or belt, or to attempt auto-erotic asphyxia. But Channel 4's trump card is the testimony of Paula Yates, Hutchins' lover at the time of his death and the mother of his daughter, Heavenly Hirany Tiger Lily.

PAULA YATES: I told you, he's a dangerous boy. He's dangerous. Wild. He could have done anything at any time. The one thing he wouldn't have done is just left us.

MARK TAMHANE: The stories about Michael Hutchins' voracious sexual appetite and the way he's said to have continually lived his life on the edge dominate the programme. A friend, Nick Egan, relates a story about how Hutchins allegedly had sex with former girlfriend Kylie Monogue in a Qantas jet.

Former Prime Minister Bob Hawke is said to have been sitting a few seat rows forward in the same cabin. He's alleged to have turned around and winked at the couple at a particularly crucial moment.

It's all been great copy for Britain's tabloid newspapers especially as Monogue, who now lives in England, has refused to deny the story.

Paula Yates also claims that Hutchins has talked to her about attempting auto-erotic asphyxiation. She talks candidly about their sex life. She claims she's only spoken out to try to get coroner Derek Hand to change his verdict for the sake of Hutchins' daughter.

PAULA YATES: People should think of her. She's who... what drives me on this, what makes me talk about it. I want her to have some vision of her father that is true, and that he would never ever have taken a cowardly way out or left her.

Because people do do these things, lots of people do these things. It's no big deal. It went wrong, but it's no big deal what he did and I just want it stop being made grubby.

MARK TAMHANE: The sad thing the Channel 4 programme highlights is the way speculation about how Michael Hutchins died is still causing rifts between his nearest and dearest. Paula Yates is apparently convinced that Hutchins didn't mean to kill himself. His brother, Rhett, appears open to the possibility that Michael might have died in a tragic accident. 

But Michael's father Kel is convinced that talk of auto-erotic asphyxiation is rubbish. As far as he's concerned, his son took his own life during a sudden, inexplicable bout of despair.

This is Mark Tamhane in London for PM.

COMPERE: And that's all in the programme for tonight.

Death Aid : Sir Elton's Dead Friends

Death Aid : Sir Elton's Dead Friends from Spike EP on Vimeo.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, by all rights, I shouldn't be here.

I should be dead. Six foot under, in a wooden box.

Every day I ask myself, "How did I survive..?"

Because the AIDS Disease is caused by A VIRUS..."

"I mean, to be clear about it, he was diagnosed with AIDS.

It was not diagnosed HIV, he was not, anything like that, he had AIDS, when they told him in Spring of 1987"

Peter Freestone,

Freddie Mercury's personal assisstant 

"Ladies and gentlemen, by all rights, I shouldn’t be here.  

I should be dead.  Six feet under, in a wood box.

I should have contracted HIV in the 1980s and died in the 1990s.  

Just like Freddie Mercury.  

Just like Rock Hudson.  

Just like so many friends and loved ones of yours and mine.

Every day, I wonder: how did I survive?"

"In 1985, when the test was released for clinical use, did the CDC go back and test everyone that they had diagnosed with AIDS up until that point?

CDC Official: "(Chuckle) No, we did not."

With yer bitch-slap-rappin' and yer Cocaine tongue, y'get nothing done...

"Destroy them."

"Why am I telling you this?  

Because the AIDS disease is caused by a virus, 

but the AIDS epidemic is not.  

The AIDS epidemic is fueled by stigma.  

By hate.  

By misinformation.  

By ignorance.  

By indifference.

Freddie's Dead - Live Aid and the Social Construct of African AIDS from Spike EP on Vimeo.
The one enduring legacy of Live Aid (other than war) is the Social Construct and Public Myth of African AIDS.

Roald Dahl - British Spy, Adept of OTO and Children's Author

RAF Air Attaché Flight Lieutenant Roald Dahl

"The Irregulars", Operation Intrepid 1940-1945

Washington DC

Despite changes to tone down that aspect of the final manuscript, feminists saw The Witches as a complete disaster. Catherine Itzin reported that the book is an example of "how boys learn to become men who hate women." 

Michele Landsberg wrote that, "Almost every one of his numerous books rehashes the same tired plot: a meek small boy finally turns on his adult female tormentors and kills them."

He explained to an interviewer in 1983 that "there is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity. I mean there's always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere; even a stinker like Hitler didn't just pick on them for no reason." 

Eventually a class in San Francisco would write him a bunch of letters on this subject. Two children managed this effort:

Dear Mr. Dahl,

We love your books, but we have a problem... we are Jews!! We love your books but you don't like us because we are jews. That offends us. Can you please change your mind about what you said about jews!

Love,

Aliza and Tamar

CROWLEY:

“Let him train himself to think BACKWARDS by external means, as set forth here following:

(a) Let him learn to write BACKWARDS. . .

(b) Let him learn to walk BACKWARDS. . .

(c) Let him. . . listen to phonograph records REVERSED.

(d) Let him practice speaking BACKWARDS. . .

(e) Let him learn to read BACKWARDS. . .

(f) Instead of saying “I am he” let him say “eh ma I”

(Crowley, Aliester. Magick:Liber ABA, book four, 1994 Ordo Templi Orientis ediiton, p. 639)

This good luck gremlin mascot flew with 482nd Bomb Group (Heavy) 1942–1945.

I Quote The Enemy:

" The publication of The Gremlins by Random House consisted of a 50,000 run for the U.S. market with Dahl ordering 50 copies for himself as promotional material, handing them out to everyone he knew, including the British Ambassador in Washington Lord Halifax, and First Lady of the U.S. Eleanor Roosevelt who loved to read it to her grandchildren.

The book was considered an international success with 30,000 more sold in Australia but initial efforts to reprint the book were precluded by a wartime paper shortage.

Reviewed in major publications, Dahl was considered a writer-of-note and his appearances in Hollywood to follow up with the film project were met with notices in Hedda Hopper's columns.

Facing copyright problems and realising that the Air Ministry's "Clause 12" in the original film contract would restrict the studio, Walt Disney, who had a personal interest in The Gremlins, reluctantly began to "wind down" the project. 

By August 1943, Disney had even reconsidered an animated "short" based on The Gremlins and indicated to Dahl by correspondence that further work would not continue. After a year of story conferences and related research, Dahl realised that his book would be the only tangible product emanating from the aborted film. "

Flight Lieutenant Roald Dahl with notorious Jew-hater Walt Disney.

"I am all fucked out. That goddamn woman has absolutely screwed me from one end of the room to the other for three goddam nights. I went back to the Ambassador this morning, and I said, "You know it's a great assignment, but I just can't go on." 

And the Ambassador said, "Roald, did you ever see the Charles Laughton movie of Henry VIII?" 

And I said "Yes." 

"Well," he said, "do you remember the scene with Henry going into the bedroom with Anne of Cleves, and he turns and says 'The things I've done for England'? Well, that's what you've got to do."

Illustrations for the first British edition of 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'

 "I created a group of little fantasy creatures.... I saw them as charming creatures, whereas the white kids in the books were... most unpleasant. It didn't occur to me that my depiction of the Oompa-Loompas was racist, but it did occur to the NAACP and others.... After listening to the criticisms, I found myself sympathizing with them, which is why I revised the book" 

- (Dahl in West, 1988).

"I have to keep it warm inside the factory because of the workers!" exclaims Wonka. "My workers are used to an extremely hot climate! They can't stand the cold! They'd perish if they went outdoors in this [winter] weather!" 

- (Dahl in CCF, p. 69). 

"a Black man floats away to his death stupidly silent, and no one among his family or friends misses him," 

- Lois Kulb Bouchard

[Wonka describes it as "very sad" (122) that one of his volunteers who drank Fizzy Lifting Drinks disappears forever.]

"Despite his love for them, he could not stay completely faithful in middle age. He took up with the wealthy heiress and mother of Anderson Cooper, Gloria Vanderbilt, gamely coaxing her into the bed he shared with Neal while she shot another film on location.  He was finding women were still extremely attracted to him even in his advanced age."

Dear Roald,

This is not in response to the specifics of your last several letters to me and my colleagues, but a general response to everything we've heard from you in the past year or two.

In brief, and as unemotionally as I can state it: since the time when you decided that Bob Bernstein, I and the rest of us had dealt badly with you over your contract, you have behaved to us in a way I can honestly say is unmatched in my experience for overbearingness and utter lack of civility. Lately you've began addressing others here - who are less well placed to answer you back - with the same degree of abusiveness. For a while I put your behavior down to the physical pain you were in and so managed to excuse it. Now I've come to believe that you're just enjoying a prolonged tantrum and are bullying us.

Your threat to leave Knopf after this current contract is fulfilled leaves us far from intimidated. Harrison, Bernstein and I will be sorry to see you depart, for business reasons, but these are not strong enough to make us put up with your manner to us any longer. I've worked hard for you editorially but had already decided to stop doing so; indeed, you've managed to make the entire experience of publishing you unappealing for all of us - counterproductive behavior, I would have thought.

To be perfectly clear, let me reverse your threat: unless you start acting civilly to us, there is no possibility of our agreeing to continue to publish you. Nor will I - or any of us - answer any future letter that we consider to be as rude as those we've been receiving.

Regretfully,

BG

After Gottlieb sent it off, the entire office gave him a standing ovation.