I Know Who Didn't Do It
You may remember me getting in a grump over Vic walking the Jack the Ripper tour with Sara and Stasher, whilst I had to stay at home revising.
In order to answer some of the questions posed by the tour, I bought her John J. Eddleston's Jack the Ripper An Encyclopaedia for Christmas.
True Crime is not a genre I'm really interested in, and thought this Ripper book would be -- like most media on the subject -- rather sensationalist and tabloid.
I was wrong. I've been reading the book for the last couple of weeks (it's the sort of book you can pick up and put down, rather than having to blitz read it in one session), and have been really impressed by it. The author has gone back to the original source material -- much of which is reproduced in the book -- and structured the analysis as a critical case review of the kind that is now used to scrutinise unsolved crimes. His aim is to clear up a century of misinformation and myth surrounding the subject, and he's very successful, pouring scorn on the majority of the half-baked theories out there.
From a "historian" point-of-view, I acknowledge that the author has summarised the facts, conjectures and eyewitness reports -- subjective intrepretation on his part - but as he keeps his own views on whodunnit to a minimum, he comes over as a credible writer.
A favourite passage from the book (with my scene setting):
Elizabeth Stride was murdered on Sunday the 30th of September 1888 at around 12.58 a.m. Her throat was cut, but Jack was disturbed before he could mutilate the body. Elizabeth was discovered at 1.00 am, but in that time had bled to death. An Inspector Edmund Reid arrives on the scene much later at 1.45 a.m.
At 4.30 a.m. Elizabeth's body was moved to the mortuary in Cable Street, and Reid followed it there to take down a description. According to his notes, the dead woman was about 42 years old, 5 feet 2 inches tall with curly dark-brown hair. Her complexion was pale.
She had bled to death Inspector - of course she looked pale!
Tomorrow I shall reveal who Mr. Eddleston believes was Jack the Ripper (I'm just getting to his conclusion).
And don't ever bother watching the Jonny Depp Ripper movie From Hell on DVD: The plot is complete fantasy and the Hollywood depiction of Victorian London is woeful. As is Depp's english accent.
Tuesday, February 11, 2003
Monday, February 10, 2003
Another Clue For Simon
The second-hand car market is quiet at the moment. I guess it's like the housing market: nobody is interested in buying a car in January and February because there are Christmas credit card bills to pay, and life in general troughs at this time of the year.
Two weeks ago I put my Clio -- a "nice little runner" [said in my best Mockney accent] -- in the local paper at a very reasonable price. I got the grand total of three phone calls from prospective punters who all asked me for more information and then, when I asked them if they would like to view the vehicle, hung up after saying that they would get back to me. Predictably, none of them did get back to me, and my Clio sat unsold outside my house.
You could see in her headlamps that she felt unloved and unwanted.
Determined to sell the pretty motor, I placed a new advert in the Thames Valley Autotrader magazine -- a 200 page booklet of classifieds for serious used car hunters -- and renewed the ad in the Thame Gazette, this time dropping the price by a hundred quid.
Thankfully I got a fish biting on the bait immediately, and seeing what a class motor my Clio was, she paid in cash for a price satisfactory to us both. I got my money, she got a nice little runner at a bargain price.
As I waved Clio off, I hoped she would forgive me for selling her. I loved that car, but a good home and a fresh new start await her.
Today I invest the cash from the Clio deal in my new car: a Rover 620 Sli Auto bought from work. It's an ex-company car. It's a "luxury" motor. It's twice the size of the Clio and will drink twice the petrol, but the comfort factor -- and the difference it will make driving up the M6 to Carlisle -- make up for that.
In an effort to undermine the Rover's image of an old man car, I will be donning my driving gloves, flat cap and walnut pipe at lunch time.
It p*sses on Simon's Lotus.
The second-hand car market is quiet at the moment. I guess it's like the housing market: nobody is interested in buying a car in January and February because there are Christmas credit card bills to pay, and life in general troughs at this time of the year.
Two weeks ago I put my Clio -- a "nice little runner" [said in my best Mockney accent] -- in the local paper at a very reasonable price. I got the grand total of three phone calls from prospective punters who all asked me for more information and then, when I asked them if they would like to view the vehicle, hung up after saying that they would get back to me. Predictably, none of them did get back to me, and my Clio sat unsold outside my house.
You could see in her headlamps that she felt unloved and unwanted.
Determined to sell the pretty motor, I placed a new advert in the Thames Valley Autotrader magazine -- a 200 page booklet of classifieds for serious used car hunters -- and renewed the ad in the Thame Gazette, this time dropping the price by a hundred quid.
Thankfully I got a fish biting on the bait immediately, and seeing what a class motor my Clio was, she paid in cash for a price satisfactory to us both. I got my money, she got a nice little runner at a bargain price.
As I waved Clio off, I hoped she would forgive me for selling her. I loved that car, but a good home and a fresh new start await her.
Today I invest the cash from the Clio deal in my new car: a Rover 620 Sli Auto bought from work. It's an ex-company car. It's a "luxury" motor. It's twice the size of the Clio and will drink twice the petrol, but the comfort factor -- and the difference it will make driving up the M6 to Carlisle -- make up for that.
In an effort to undermine the Rover's image of an old man car, I will be donning my driving gloves, flat cap and walnut pipe at lunch time.
It p*sses on Simon's Lotus.
