The allegations of serial sexual harassment and assault against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein are not all that surprising. The acting profession, particularly in the rarified and competitive atmosphere of Hollywood movies, has lent itself to such abuses for decades. When I was with the Rocks Players in my late teens, the rumours about who the director of the play(I was in) were constant and likely correct. I was scandalized at the time.

The casting couch, a polite though somewhat dark euphemism, has been a perk for the producers and directors and the management of movies and theatre for as long as can be remembered, and then some. I have been reading, on and off, a book about the scandals and shenanigans of Hollywood bigwigs (principally at MGM) during the time known as the Golden Years of Hollywood. It is far too prurient a book to read for more than short periods and I won't honour it by naming it, but it reveals in seedy detail just how ordinary the casting couch was at that time. Hundreds of budding young actresses, all hoping for a break, all keen to make it in the movies, spent time auditioning in a manner they had not bargained for. Weinstein fits perfectly into that historical period, though he is a distinct oddity now.

Likely, I think, he won't be the last to be caught. There surely must be others who have abused their power in this glittering profession. Each gleaming bauble, held aloft, reveals it's dark underbelly.