The Captain Tom grift continues

[Fambo Number Mive]

The production is targeting an autumn shoot in the UK, Thailand and Barbados; UK firm Circus Studios is financing the project and has boarded sales, which it is launching this week in Cannes

What does this mean?

Can't wait to see ads for this on the sides of buses.

[idunnosomename]

The £39M went to NHS Charities together and benefitted NHS workers, none of it went directly to the NHS, which would've been silly (as in the scheme of things it's not that much). Handing all that over must've been so sore for them.

The Captain Tom Foundation started in its wake was entirely a rather directionless entity clearly meant for creaming off

[JamesTC]

I watched the GB News interview with her,  about the only significant detail is that her father said his young self should be played by "Spider-Man" (Tom Holland)

He's the only guy proficient enough at firing out white stuff from his body.

[Rich Uncle Skeleton]

surely the biopic is destined to (well should) end up shelved after all this? Who's going to want to watch it?

Picturing a reverse of this scenario where a screenwriter's telling them "this is a great story because of what happens in the middle, with the parasitic family working the poor old bastard to death. Then we see how they go on to trash his "legacy" to make even more money and piss off an entire village!"

[Fambo Number Mive]

I would find it very amusing if it was still released. Not sure who would play Tom though.

[Alberon]

The thing is there is a good film in this story. It's just not as a biopic of Captain Tom or even his war atrocities.

[Fambo Number Mive]

It would make a good Netflix or Channel 4 drama.

[JamesTC]

Coming soon to Netflix: Don't F**k With Caps

[Ferris]

Probably but they raised over £33 million so even if 99% went to charity and they only creamed off 1% that's over £330,000. You could build a cracking spa with that.

In reality it was probably a lot more than 1% though.

The £33m all went to the NHS charity (though not to the NHS directly because that is a taxpayer funded entity* and it would be insane to fund it via charity drives - like funding the Navy via bring and buy sales). There is no suggestion of any impropriety there that I'm aware of, though the website will have taken their 1-2% cut off the top.

More explanation below, spoilered for length. I've been reading about this for some time and I think this is a pretty comprehensive explanation to the story so far but to be clear I'm not alleging anything criminal has occurred at all and this is all under investigation by people with far more information than me.

Spoiler alert

The total was £38.9m after gift aid rebates, and that all went to the NHS charity to upgrade staff facilities etc and there's no suggestion of anything improper there. That cash couldn't be used for things like purchasing medical equipment or hiring/paying/retaining staff because those things are the remit of the NHS, not it's affiliated charity which you could argue limits the actual effectiveness of the campaign but whatever, fair enough as it goes, I don't think that was particularly clear at the time and I imagine a lot of people didn't really understand that when handing over their hard-earned but you can't help everyone. Line in the sand and move on.

The grift comes in with the separate Captain Tom Foundation, created after the fact and designed to further enrich his children protect his memory or help old people or whatever the last press release said. It didn't really have an aim that I can tell beyond "accrue capital receive donations", but started soliciting for contributions anyway. People are idiots, so off the back of the exposure from the first donation drive the charity raised a million quid in a year.

The snag: the people controlling it can't just award themselves a massive £1m grant and call it day - they'll have to work a little hard to see any of that loot. Instead there were potentially dodgy payouts, loans, and salary agreements and (some of) those are now under investigation.

The other part is around the private for-profit entities that Lord Tom's kids run. This all started in March of 2020. By April 2020 they had already trademarked his image, basically "we've copyrighted grandad" (and all during the first wave of adoring press and public attention which seems pretty fucking cynical to me but there you go). The trademarks were claimed by Club Nook, a private company run by Hannah and Colin. Those are (were?) presumably very valuable as the fucker was everywhere and any time someone used his image, Club Nook could request payment. They argue it's so people don't make knock off merchandise, but it also allows them to claim any fees as business income and subject to lower taxes and no public disclosure requirements. It's similar to the way footballers license their own image via Steven Gerard Promotions Ltd** rather than take payment directly for adverts or whatever.

The charity commission are arguing that if you set up a charity to protect someone's legacy and memory, you probably shouldn't allow a private for-profit entity to own the image and likeness (and therefore dictate "the legacy") of that person, otherwise the whole "charity" thing might ring a bit hollow and the copyrighting might look a bit like mendacious grasping for profit. It looks worse if the people running the charity and the private company are owned by the same self-interested people.

There's an interesting hypothetical here that Club Nook (the private for-profit entity, owned by Hannah and co) could have charged the Captain Tom Foundation (the charity, run by Hannah and co) a fee every time the charity used the old boy's image (licensed to and property of the private entity) in their ostensibly-charitable fund raising. Every time one printer in their house burped out a flyer with his fizzog on it and a hand out to help the aged (or whatever), the other printer in their house could have printed out an invoice for the use of his image. Kerr-ching!! Your charity would have suspiciously high operating costs but you don't have to itemize those really so who's the wiser? I'm not suggesting that happened, of course, only that it is a hypothetical example of the type of ethical problem that could arise and necessitate this kind of charity commission investigation.

The spa/pool shit is just low level planning fraud (intentional or otherwise). Largely unrelated to the Tom fiasco, but they were arguably using their newfound public position, name, and press power to steamroll a ludicrous addition to an already massive house through a planning department. They also pretty flagrantly disregarded the approval when it came, and did something totally different under the (mistaken) belief that they were untouchable.

<sub>*yes I know each nation has a different NHS entity along with other bits and pieces but I'm considering it as one thing for the sake of a caustic put down.

**this one is real, honestly. Look it up.</sub>

[close]

[Replies From View]

Hello something criminal has occurred definitely.  It has 100% happened and I hope I have managed to communicate that fact within this short post, cheers

[Ferris]

Hello something criminal has occurred definitely.  It has 100% happened and I hope I have managed to communicate that fact within this short post, cheers

I stand corrected!

[idunnosomename]

surely the biopic is destined to (well should) end up shelved after all this? Who's going to want to watch it?

there is a fair bit of spin towards "Captain Tom was a great, inspiring man, shame about his grifting daughter though". Even though of course, he was a regular man who happened to be a hundred years old, and anything else was just what people projected whatever they wanted (hope, brave boy, or child abuser). Saves a lot people admitting that they got duped when she started milking it

The film does look far more likely to happen than say, Fawlty Towers goes to the Caribbean, although I cannot see it getting a theatrical release. Destined to be dumped on to Hallmark streaming.

He was only a captain!! That's not a very high rank!!! Everyone that age had to fight in the fucking war!!!! He's not a very interesting man!!!!

On the GB News interview, commenting on the "Barbados and Thailand (standing in for Myanmar, for obvious reasons)" locations, one of dimwit hosts said "he got around a lot!!"
it was the fucking WORLD war mate. my grandad was in Sri Lanka, for instance! fucking hell, it was for everyone, and it was bloody awful. "GBeebies" is overdone but is really on the mark

[dead-ced-dead]

Do we know if he did anything of note during the war that's at all cinematic? Otherwise it's just "some bloke what went to fight Jerry". Did he personally deliver an insulting note to Goering while singing Old Man River? No? Then no movie!

[Icehaven]

The spa/pool shit is just low level planning fraud (intentional or otherwise). Largely unrelated to the Tom fiasco, but they were arguably using their newfound public position, name, and press power to steamroll a ludicrous addition to an already massive house through a planning department.

I dunno, according to the original plans the new building was referred to as the "Captain Tom building" and was to be used by the charity as office space, memorabilia storage and for charity events/press engagement. The actual building and subsequent revised plans have dropped half the things the charity would have used it for and a pool has appeared. I'd say that's directly related to the Tom fiasco in that they used the charity to get the original plans through with clearly every intention of it being a completely different building for completely different, private, use.

[Huxleys Babkins]

Do we know if he did anything of note during the war that's at all cinematic? Otherwise it's just "some bloke what went to fight Jerry". Did he personally deliver an insulting note to Goering while singing Old Man River? No? Then no movie!

He did laps of Omaha beach, dodging shells and shrapnel, to raise money for the Haig Fund.

[Quote]

It would be funny if they used the money for the film project to make a searing expose of the cynicism and greed of his grifting family, and the gullibility of the British press, instead of the weepy melodramatic life story of Tom everyone expected.

[Replies From View]

On the GB News interview, commenting on the "Barbados and Thailand (standing in for Myanmar, for obvious reasons)" locations, one of dimwit hosts said "he got around a lot!!"
it was the fucking WORLD war mate. my grandad was in Sri Lanka, for instance! fucking hell, it was for everyone, and it was bloody awful. "GBeebies" is overdone but is really on the mark

Remember that in those laddish circles "he got around a lot" specifically means his cock went into a myriad of grave locations ahead of him, and attempted to mate whilst there, usually before he had fully arrived.

[Huxleys Babkins]

GUEST STARRING TOM CRUISE AS CLIFF RICHARD AND JK SIMMONS AS RUSS ABBOT

[Thomas]

The film does look far more likely to happen than say, Fawlty Towers goes to the Caribbean

Aren't they essentially the same thing

[Ferris]

I dunno, according to the original plans the new building was referred to as the "Captain Tom building" and was to be used by the charity as office space, memorabilia storage and for charity events/press engagement. The actual building and subsequent revised plans have dropped half the things the charity would have used it for and a pool has appeared. I'd say that's directly related to the Tom fiasco in that they used the charity to get the original plans through with clearly every intention of it being a completely different building for completely different, private, use.

Yes, very fair point. I just meant it wasn't funded by the charity (although... they wouldn't, would they? Surely not, christ) and not under investigation by the charity commission (although who knows now I think about it, see previous point).

[JamesTC]

Aren't they essentially the same thing

Don't mention the walk. I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it.

[Uncle TechTip]

If Billie had shagged the boring old Tory cunt it all never would've happened. Makes you think.

Who is Billie, who is the old Tory cunt, and what is 'it' referring to - the charity investigation, the Captain Tom phenomenon, the pandemic, World War II?

[Fambo Number Mive]

Neighbours of the Ingram-Moores speak to the BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-66112255

Love the name "Bozdogan"

[Replies From View]

Bozdogan Sinclair

[superthunderstingcar]

If I could go back a year and give my Christmas 2019 self a piece of advice, it would be: "Get plenty of sleep, because you're going to need it."

Really? You could go back to 3 months before the pandemic hit Britain and that's the information you'd choose to bring from the future?

Also I'm pretty sure you can't just save up sleep like that.

[DelurkedToHelp]

Mrs Bozdogan, who lives with her 99-year-old retired mother

What's she going to do for charity then? An IronMan race or is she a workshy layabout unlike Our Tom?

[idunnosomename]

Aren't they essentially the same thing

papers arrived yet Fawlty

Not yet... Captain

[Replies From View]

Also I'm pretty sure you can't just save up sleep like that.

Well you can.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

papers arrived yet Fawlty

Not yet... Captain

oh no they're not scammers.... they're grifters, fawlty

[BlodwynPig]

Even this is flagrant nonsense. I mean:

Like... we're supposed to think "oh ho ho that old scamp!!" but what are we being asked to actually believe happened here? A 98 year old man setting up a chekky Amazon prime account?

Manipulative cobblers from the start.

I might be imagining things but wasn't cab consensus "fuck you" if anyone dared denounce Tom and family in those heady first weeks of the grift?