Saturday, August 12, 2006

[world] japan kills rare tuna market

Tuna are fast swimmers (they have been measured at 77 km/h (48 mph) but they’re not fast enough for the Japanese.

Richard McLoughlin, managing director, Australian Fisheries Management Authority, has found that Japanese fishers and suppliers from other countries caught up to three times the Japanese quota each year for the past 20 years, and hid it.

"Essentially the Japanese have stolen $2 billion ... read more here and comment.

[middle-east] canaan, israel, palestine, apocalypse

You know, I was thinking: if I were one of two brothers and the other had received the birthright and all the plaudits and I found myself the one out of favour, I wouldn’t be such a happy chappy about this.

I might just be tempted to re-invent myself as the last divinely inspired prophet sometime around the 7th century, go up on a mountain, find a burning bush [to throw other scripture into the pot], scratch a few things in some stones and then come down and look for 72 virgins to help soothe the fevered brow.

Then, somewhere in my literature, I’d insert something along these lines ... read more here and comment .

Friday, August 11, 2006

[living] vancouver on my mind


This is a nostalgic trip back to Vancouver, BC, scene of happy memories and a godawful cold I picked up in the late spring weather.

I’d met Brent in Perth, Western Australia, for the America’s Cup and found out he was a keen bike rider. Later I also found out that many of the people in his frontier town go in for some sort of strenuous activity. About this time …
read more here and comment.

[middle-east] israel – whither goest thou

At the diplomatic level, it’s a washout, of course:

The convening Friday of a UN Human Right Council emergency session to condemn "gross human rights violations by Israel in Lebanon" caps a month-long mad rush by the world body's human rights institutions to single out Israel for special censure. The Muslim states that initiated the meeting dominate the large African and Asian blocs, guaranteeing the adoption of an anti-Israel motion … read more here and comment.

[living] 10 best and worst places to live in the usa

Earlier today I did the best and worst places to live in Britain and now it’s the turn of the US. Personally, I’m for S. Ola Vista, San Clemente but tastes differ.


Here’s one list:

# The Best Places to Live

1 Salt Lake City-Ogden, Utah
2 Washington D.C.
3 Seattle-Bellevue-Everette, Washington
4 Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Florida

... read more here and comment.

[world] mass pardon rattles italy

There are some things only the Italians can do [apart from winning world cups]:

12,000 detainees in Italy have just been released or are about to walk free thanks to a mass pardon pushed through by Romano Prodi's centre-left government to reduce prison overcrowding.

Justice Minister Clemente Mastella says the July 29 pardon, which cuts three years off sentences including for convicted murderers and thieves, was an overdue act of clemency … read more here and comment.

[world] not too many injuries at the verslunarmannahelgi weekend

The Verslunarmannahelgi long weekend, last weekend, went relatively well, according to police and municipal authorities throughout Iceland. All major media kept a close watch on proceedings.

The weekend is characterized by outdoor festivals held in various locations around the country, that inevitably draw large crowds. Assaults and traffic accidents are an inherent part of the weekend’s activities and this year one individual was sent to hospital with a broken skull, two cases of sexual assault ... read more here and comment.

[living] 10 best and worst places to live in britain

Found this more than interesting:

The ten best places to live in Britain:

10. West Oxfordshire
9. Guildford
8. Mole Valley
7. South Cambridgeshire

... read more here and comment.

[daily life] how do you rate in society

Don't we all have at least a sneaking desire to know where we are on the social scale? This article is a response to five conversations I’ve had in the last two weeks about who is in which social category. Not so easy to research in fine detail, plus there are anomalies, such as being at separate levels socially, economically and in terms of influence.

But let's say, hypothetically, there is a man who is public school educated [private, in other words] then sent on to a good university, parents upper working class, slaving to send him there. Through his working life, he's variously been anywhere from B to E on the NRS system. He's been in board rooms, is a member of the MCC and at one point ran a Volvo, a Peugeot, and a classic sports. He's also been in the dole queue at Hendon ... read more here and comment.

[nuclear news] poland stripped of fuel; iran ‘peaceful purpose’ production rushing ahead; nuclear plant sailing the oceans

Can you see Poland getting all gung-ho and nuking Latvia? Nor can I. Can you see Iran getting all gung-ho and nuking Israel?

Yet this is what the International Atomic Energy Agency has just cheerfully facilitated. On Thursday they ‘safely removed a sizable quantity of Soviet-era highly enriched uranium from a facility in Poland as part of an effort to secure nuclear materials worldwide’ - 40 kilograms of the weapons-grade ... read more here and comment.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

[daily life] a reasonable man, pushed far too far

This article is not set in Britain but it might as well be. As you read, do you see any similarities with our situation? I'm reprinting it in its entirety, complete with public comments at the end, some as entertaining as the article itself:

For years I've been quietly fuming about the inefficiencies of our wretched, run-down, asinine public transport ticketing system, which is officially known as MetCard. I first met Ernie on Platform 7 at Flinders Street Station at 6:09:44pm. I remember noting ... read more here and comment.

[middle-east] troops 'deliberately under-equipped' in the middle-east

Interesting that the Beeb ran the piece [below] on shoddy equipment because I took a swipe at this business with my question in an earlier post: 'Why are the Dragonsuits [Dragon Skins] not allowed?' So to today's article by the Beeb:

British troops fighting in Iraq urgently need better-protected patrol vehicles to prevent more being killed by roadside bombs, MPs have warned. The all-party defence committee said the "under-equipped" soldiers needed more ... read more here.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

[film and music] james bond changes his underpants

From MI6 site Casino Royale [06-08-06]

The new James Bond is changing his underpants - reports The Sunday Mail. Daniel Craig will be flying the flag in his smalls after a cult British underwear maker won the contract to outfit the 007 star in new movie Casino Royale.

Fans can look forward to seeing Daniel wearing Sunspel boxer shorts. He may scare the living daylights out of his enemies but you can bet pictures like this will leave the Miss Moneypennies of this world swooning for more.

Last night, a Sunspel spokeswoman said: "This is a major deal for us so everyone is really ... read more here.

[health and spirit] dr. phil shapes up

Dr. Phil is controversial and I don't plan to get into Shape Up and the other issues. As a psychologist, he's been criticised for his 'in your face' style and yet ... and yet ... for all that, the paraphrase below of his first five lifelaws makes a person at least stop and think. Don't judge the man - judge what he says:

Lifelaw 1
- Life rewards action.

People don’t care about our intentions. They care about what we actually do. Good intentions, without action, take us nowhere. The difference between winners and losers is that winners do things losers don't want to do. People who win take meaningful, planned action; they don't just think about it. To have what we want, we have to do what it takes.

Lifelaw 2 - We create our own situation.

If we consider that we are no longer children, then we, ourselves, must ... read more here.

[britain] an independent central bank is the thin edge of the wedge

The arguments for an independent central bank include:

• lower inflation
• improved credibility
• reduced political short-termism

The arguments against an independent central bank include:

• a `deflationary bias’ may lead to higher unemployment
• reduced policy flexibility
• undemocratic [1]

Arguments for: The first is generally accepted. The second is highly questionable for the same reason the third is unsustainable. The third reason ‘for’ does indeed eliminate political short termism and replaces it with ... read more here.

[automobile] la mini change déjà sans pourtant marquer de rupture avec le précédent modèle

Nouvelle, pas nouvelle ? Le pas de deux qu'entame BMW autour de sa dernière-née sous la marque Mini, qui sera l'une des vedettes du Mondial de Paris le 30 septembre, témoigne au minimum d'une prudence de Sioux, au pire d'un malaise lié à l'image même que le constructeur souabe veut donner à la légendaire marque anglaise.

Cinq ans après le remake magistralement réussi d'une voiture qui, durant les quarante ans précédents, n'avait guère changé, BMW mesure la chance qu'il a d'avoir touché aussi juste.

« L'hypothèse ... read more here.

[love and all that] marry for looks: the power of self-delusion


Following the disintegration of Shane Warne's marriage, infidelity was back on the public discussion list.

Perhaps the discussion should have been about why women would choose such partners to father their children in the first place. I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard my women friends conclude from their failed Adonis connection: ‘All men are cheats.’

No, not all men are cheats – just the washboard stomach and chiselled jaw brigade [check Sam’s current blog for an example].

University of Western Australia researcher Dr Gillian Rhodes found that the more handsome the man, the more ... read more here.

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

[far-east] chinese weapons are perpetuating conflict

A damning report by Amnesty International, released yesterday, states: "China is fast emerging as one of the world's biggest, most secretive and most irresponsible arms exporters."

It accuses China of engaging pariah regimes such as Sudan, Zimbabwe and Iran, and says Chinese-made handguns are reaching criminal gangs from South Africa to Australia. The report cites regular military shipments to Burma's junta, and the export of helicopters, military trucks, guns and ammunition to Sudan's government, helping to perpetuate "widespread killings, rapes and abductions" in Darfur.

China also continued to supply thousands of ... read more here.

[far-east] china sits back and stirs the pot


Interesting that Stephen Pollard should run an article on China at exactly the same time as I'd prepared this:

Chinese writing often describes the future in terms of the Warring States era in Chinese history; the age in which the classics of Chinese statecraft were produced. According to interviews with the current Chinese military, these stories are embedded in Chinese culture, just as the West has its own history and its own literature. The military calls the future multipolar world "amazingly similar" to the Warring States era and declares that China's future security environment resembles the era in several ways.

Colonel Liu Chungzi of the National Defense University Strategy Department states that "in the 1990s, the world entered a multipolar era very similar to the time of Sun Zi." General Gao Rui, former Vice President of the Academy of Military Science (AMS), writes that the era is "extremely distant from modern times, but still shines with the glory of truth" and "the splendid military legacy created through the bloody struggles of ... read more here.

[la europe] de violents incendies aussi touchent l'espagne et le portugal

Après un mois de juillet relativement calme, la saison des incendies a repris avec force en Espagne – qui connaît sa troisième année de sécheresse consécutive –, et au Portugal, faisant trois morts, sans toutefois atteindre encore l'ampleur de 2005. Le week-end a été destructeur en Galice ainsi qu'en Catalogne et au Portugal, où plus d'une centaine de feux, dont une majorité hors de contrôle, restaient actifs lundi 7 août.

L'auteur présumé d'un feu de forêt meurtrier à Cerdedo, en Galice (nord-ouest de l'Espagne), a été arrêté. L'identité de ce jeune homme de 24 ans n'a pas été révélée. L'incendie, qui n'est toujours pas maîtrisé, a causé ... read more here.

[health and spirit] 14 foods you really should consider

Exercise, sleep, spiritual harmony and good diet – they’ll go a long way to creating well-being. Good diet without the others goes only part of the way so those diet fans out there are only doing one quarter of the job if they think it’s all they need to do.

However, regarding diet, if you get most of the following foods running through your system, and wean yourself off the junk, the results will speak for themselves. Include these in your diet and you’ll not regret it ... read more here.

Monday, August 07, 2006

[middle-east] sad israel

You’d best get across to David Lisbona’s site ’cause there’s some very subdued reporting there from the war zone.

I have no other country even if my land is aflame
Just a word in Hebrew pierces my veins and my soul
- With a painful body, with a hungry heart,
Here is my home.

I will not stay silent because my country changed her face
I will not give up reminding her
And sing in her ears until she will open her eyes

[love and all that] how to spot a psycho


These are some of the key warning signs of psychotic tendencies. The idea is to think about someone in your experience [only choose yourself if you can be brutally honest with yourself].

Score 2 for each sign which is absolutely true about him/her and score 1 for some indication of it.

Any score over 15 is danger and any over 25 – get away, quickly!


1 Does he/she have problems sustaining stable relationships?
2 Does he/she frequently manipulate others to achieve selfish goals?
3 Is he/she cavalier about the truth to your face?
4 Would you regard him/her as irresponsible?
5 Has he/she no apparent sense of remorse, shame or guilt?
6 Is his/her charm superficial, and capable of being switched on and off?
7 Is he/she easily bored and demanding constant stimulation?
8 Are his/her displays of human emotion unconvincing?
9 Does he/she enjoy acting on reckless impulse?
10 Is he/she quick to blame others for mistakes?
11 As a teenager, did he/she resent authority or steal?
12 Does he/she have no qualms about sponging off others?
13 Is he/she quick to lose his/her temper?
14 Is he/she sexually promiscuous?
15 Does he/she have a belligerent manner?
16 Is he/she unrealistic about long-term aims?
17 Does he/she lack the ability to empathise?
18 Does he/she have an air of self-importance, regardless of his/her true standing in society?


Stands to reason, really, don't you think?

[opinion] israel and hezbollah



Israel is on a hiding to nothing.

1948 is history and there the little nation sits, precariously, in the Holy Land. The question of who was there first, the Canaanites or them, is largely irrelevant, as is the original sin of Levi and his brother. Israel’s there and that’s that.

Hezbollah funding is limitless. Because Iranian funding is limitless. See my and countless other articles on oil. But oil is only part of the story. Every money-making excrescence is involved in underwriting Iran. Every pimp riding the streets of LA and NY is indirectly contributing. The thing is, you don’t need me to direct you to investigating Hezbollah funding. You can do it for yourself.

The logic is oh so clear. Israel accepts a ceasefire? Hezbollah creeps back in and all is as it was, minus a few hundred Lebanese and Israelis. Anyway, Beirut’s forever rebuilding. Just look at the story of Kim Philby to see the strategic importance of Beirut.

There is a saying by Nicolo Machiavelli [1513]:

Men should either be treated generously or destroyed because they take revenge for [the] slightest injuries – for heavy ones, they cannot.

I can’t believe that Israel did not know the full extent of the backup and supply lines to the suppliers of the suppliers of the suppliers of Hezbollah. I can’t believe that they don’t know that they must now either back off or else go the whole hog.

I can’t believe they were blind to the simple principle that a containment exercise on Hezbollah was never going to provide any more than good intelligence on the methods and training of that group, for a certain collateral loss.

I can’t believe that they don’t know the UN game plan, essentially as it’s a globalized game plan.

You don’t accept my thesis? Fine – then investigate it all yourself, but don’t leave any stone unturned, just because you don’t like its colour or fear what you’re going to find underneath. As Dr. Phil said:

The most we’re ever going to get is that which we ask for.
Meanwhile, David, on his site in Haifa, reports today:

An even greater miracle was that Irit's son-in-law came home for a short break this lunchtime from his emergency military service close to the Lebanese border where 12 reserve soldiers were killed today by a Katyusha rocket. Eli was with those same soldiers this morning and even took a picture on his camera-phone of one of those killed. This is the story I referred to in my previous report. It's very scary to know people involved and the bigger picture is hardly any more comforting.

David speaks of the bigger picture but I would hesitatingly posit that even he isn’t fully aware how big. In all recent posts, whether in the mainstream media or in the blogs I’ve so far seen, no one, no one blames the true culprit in this Middle-East business. Why don’t they?

John Buchan MP, in the first chapter of his classic The Thirty-Nine Steps [1915], has this conversation between himself [Richard Hannay] and a Jew-hating free-lance agent:

He told me some queer things that explained a lot that had puzzled me—things that happened in the Balkan War, how one state suddenly came out on top, why alliances were made and broken, why certain men disappeared, and where the sinews of war came from. The aim of the whole conspiracy was to get Russia and Germany at loggerheads.

When I asked why, he said that the anarchist lot thought it would give them their chance. Everything would be in the melting-pot, and they looked to see a new world emerge. The capitalists would rake in the shekels, and make fortunes by buying up wreckage. Capital, he said, had no conscience and no fatherland. Besides, the Jew was behind it, and the Jew hated Russia worse than hell.

'Do you wonder?' he cried. 'For three hundred years they have been persecuted, and this is the return match for the pogroms. The Jew is everywhere, but you have to go far down the backstairs to find him. Take any big Teutonic business concern. If you have dealings with it the first man you meet is Prince von und zu Something, an elegant young man who talks Eton-and-Harrow English.

But he cuts no ice. If your business is big, you get behind him and find a prognathous Westphalian with a retreating brow and the manners of a hog. He is the German business man that gives your English papers the shakes.

But if you're on the biggest kind of job and are bound to get to the real boss, ten to one you are brought up against a little white-faced Jew in a bath-chair with an eye like a rattle-snake. Yes, sir, he is the man who is ruling the world just now, and he has his knife in the Empire of the Tsar, because his aunt was outraged and his father flogged in some one-horse location on the Volga.'

I could not help saying that his Jew-anarchists seemed to have got left behind a little.

This last remark of Buchan’s was right then and it’s still right today. The problem is – no one will follow a lead through to its logical conclusion. There are enough people out there who know this thing’s connected with oil, who know it’s connected with Iran and the Arab world. What they then do is stop right there.

Whatever for? Because the names thrown up are cogent, plausible villains. The number two or three man will always take the heat, while number one is never, ever seen. For the Jews – it’s the Arab world and vice-versa, with the US thrown in for good measure. For the US – it’s the terrorists. No one wants to look any further. Don’t blame just Bush – he doesn’t count on this. Dick Cheney’s closer to the source than Bush and Kerry ever were.

For goodness sake, they even follow a manifesto:

1) Abolition of all ordered governments
2) Abolition of private property
3) Abolition of inheritance
4) Abolition of patriotism
5) Abolition of the family
6) Abolition of religion
7) Creation of a world government

“Oh, the globalists you mean?”

“No – the people behind the sustainable developers.”

“Behind, behind” – what’s this talk of behind? Sounds to me like conspiracy theory. Sounds to me like kook-speak.”

“Theory – an unproven supposition. And what constitutes proof? If you can’t accept ‘circumstantial’ in any shape or form, then who’s the kook? Might as well throw in your lot with the enlightenment philosophers. Circumstantial is good enough for the justice system, if there’s enough of it and if it’s august enough.”

This next quote – yes, I know it’s been debunked and bunked back again, discussed ad nauseam, used by the kook-press to support their insupportable ideas and so on. I know Churchill himself reneged and this quote is part of a greater whole with a slightly different angle to what the actual words purport to say … and yet he still said them:

From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, to those of Trotsky, Bela Kun, Rosa Luxembourg, and Emma Goldman, this world wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence and impossible equality, has been steadily growing.

It played a definitely recognizable role in the tragedy of the French Revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the nineteenth century, and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads, and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire." 1920

You can think and say what you like. I consider the man was in the know and I’ve yet to see a definitive debunking of Churchill’s 'being in the know'. At this point of his upwards career, he was not unlike Andrew Jackson.

I’m not even going to start on Louis McFadden.

So what’s this to do with Israel and Hezbollah? Everything. It was behind Beslan; it was behind Kosovo; it was behind Sudan. I’m soon going to reprint an article on Algeria. No one’s denying the culpability of the Hezbollah special forces but when you read that Iran and Syria are behind them, why don’t you just ask the question, ‘Who’s behind them?’

It’s a simple enough question. Then, when you’ve done your homework, as I have, and we find the mysterious Messrs and Mesdames X, with their names and affiliated organizations, why don’t you then look inside the UN. It’s easily accessible – cast your eye down the list of affiliated organizations. Now the thing – don’t stop there. Who’s behind them?

I showed all this to a good friend from the military and yes – my background is military - he smiled wryly. I asked why he didn’t accept what he saw. He asked, in answer, ‘How come the world doesn’t know about it then? How come it’s not in the press.’

I don’t know. Ask Katie Graham that question. And while we’re on it – why were the Dragonskins not allowed to be worn in Iraq? Now some people will get the idea.

So who exactly am I then? I’m just a very ordinary person who happened to enjoy a few years in the heady atmosphere, as a B2, and came into contact with some very interesting people along the way and some very interesting ideas on rest and recuperation. My early exposure to internalized Christianity, as distinct from pontificating and warring Christianity, prevented me going any further down that path and it was seen that there was something ‘essentially wrong with this guy’. My name’s not Colson but it might as well be.

I just do my homework, like a good student; and that’s all there is to it.

[love and all that] samantha revisited


Remember this girl from my piece here? Well she’s at it again – check her out and put your comment on the topic of the lies we tell each other.

Yep, I know that there are enough love and romance columns in the US and UK to sink a battleship but I say this one is different and as it’s a universal theme, well …

If this is not your cup of tea [and I think it's one of the best sites I’ve ever read for this sort of thing], then just check out her own site.

For my own postings on love and romance, try this one, this and this one on dress. On a more Aussie theme, try this and this. There's an article coming up on romance later today.

Sunday, August 06, 2006

[middle-east] israel, hezbollah and iran – full speed ahead


Charles Krauthammer, of the Washington Post Writers Group said, on July 28, 2006:

What other country, when attacked in an unprovoked aggression across a recognized international frontier, is then put on a countdown clock by the world, given a limited time window in which to fight back, regardless of whether it has restored its own security?

What other country sustains 1,500 indiscriminate rocket attacks into its cities -- every one designed to kill, maim and terrorize civilians -- and is then vilified by the world when it tries to destroy the enemy's infrastructure and strongholds with precision-guided munitions that sometimes have the unintended but unavoidable consequence of collateral civilian death and suffering?

In perhaps the most blatant terror campaign from the air since the London blitz, Hezbollah is raining rockets on Israeli cities and villages. These rockets are packed with ball bearings that can penetrate automobiles and shred human flesh. They are meant to kill and maim. And they do.

Israel's response to Hezbollah has been to use the most precise weaponry and targeting it can. It has no interest, no desire to kill Lebanese civilians. Does anyone imagine that it could not have leveled south Lebanon, to say nothing of Beirut? Instead, in the bitter fight against Hezbollah in south Lebanon, it has repeatedly dropped leaflets, issued warnings, sent messages by radio and even phone text to Lebanese villagers to evacuate so that they would not be harmed.

Rich Noyes's blog [sorry – lost the link but it shouldn’t be too hard to track down] reports that:
On Monday’s "Anderson Cooper 360," CNN’s Anderson Cooper related his visit to a Hezbollah-controlled section of Beirut where he was supposed to photograph certain damaged buildings, part of the terrorist group’s strategy of generating news stories about Lebanese civilian casualities caused by Israeli bombs.

But instead of merely transmitting Hezbollah’s unverified and unverifiable claims to the outside world, Cooper — to his credit — exposed the efforts by Hezbollah to manipulate CNN and other Western reporters. It’s quite a contrast from the much more accommodating approach taken by his colleague, Nic Robertson, in a report that aired on a variety of CNN programs (including AC360) back on July 18, a report that Robertson himself has now conceded was put together under Hezbollah's control.

Unlike Robertson, Cooper was explicit about how Hezbollah’s operatives had set all of the rules: “Young men on motor scooters followed our every movement. They only allowed us to videotape certain streets, certain buildings,” he explained. He countered Hezbollah claims that Israel targets civilians by pointing out that the group based itself in civilian areas and that Israel's air force drops leaflets warning of attacks.

Cooper exposed for CNN viewers that the sight of speeding ambulances, sirens blaring, was just a phony play staged by Hezbollah: “One by one, they’ve been told to turn on their sirens and zoom off so that all the photographers here can get shots of ambulances rushing off to treat civilians....These ambulances aren’t responding to any new bombings. The sirens are strictly for effect.”

CNN showed cameramen from other news organizations dutifully photographing the ambulances as they went by.

Cooper had left Lebanon and was stationed in Haifa, Israel for Monday’s broadcast. His report on his trip “Inside Hezbollah” appeared at about 10:40pm EDT Monday (6:40am Tuesday, local time), the first hour of his two-hour program.

“We'd come to get a look at the damage and had hoped to talk with a Hezbollah representative. Instead, we found ourselves with other foreign reporters taken on a guided tour by Hezbollah. Young men on motor scooters followed our every movement. They only allowed us to videotape certain streets, certain buildings. Once, when they thought we'd videotaped them, they asked us to erase the tape. These men are called al-Shabab, Hezbollah volunteers who are the organization's eyes and ears.”

He continued: “Hezbollah representatives are with us now but don't want to be photographed. They'll point to something like that and they'll say, ‘Well, look, this is a store.’ The civilians lived in this building. This is a residential complex.

“And while that may be true, what the Israelis will say is that Hezbollah has their offices, their leadership has offices and bunkers even in residential neighborhoods. And if you're trying to knock out the Hezbollah leadership with air strikes, it's very difficult to do that without killing civilians.

“As bad as this damage is, it certainly could have been much worse in terms of civilian casualties. Before they started heavily bombing this area, Israeli warplanes did drop leaflets in this area, telling people to get out. The civilian death toll, though, has angered many Lebanese. Even those who do not support Hezbollah are outraged by the pictures they've seen on television of civilian casualties.”

As the video showed a group reporters and photographers interviewing a single woman on a blanket, Cooper explained, “Civilian casualties are clearly what Hezbollah wants foreign reporters to focus on. It keeps the attention off them — and questions about why Hezbollah should still be allowed to have weapons when all the other militias in Lebanon have already disarmed.

“After letting us take pictures of a few damaged buildings, they take us to another location, where there are ambulances waiting.

“This is a heavily orchestrated Hezbollah media event. When we got here, all the ambulances were lined up. We were allowed a few minutes to talk to the ambulance drivers. Then one by one, they've been told to turn on their sirens and zoom off so that all the photographers here can get shots of ambulances rushing off to treat civilians. That's the story that Hezbollah wants people to know about.

“These ambulances aren't responding to any new bombings. The sirens are strictly for effect.”

Cooper concluded: “Hezbollah may not be terribly subtle about spinning a story, but it is telling perhaps that they try. Even after all this bombing, Hezbollah is still organized enough to have a public relations strategy, still in control enough to try and get its message out.”

Someone I can relate to is a chap in Israel right now and he’s blogging here. In his latest post, he says:

Since 12 noon today (at time of writing it is 3p.m.) in Israel over 100 Katyushas have fallen in the north of Israel, one of which killed 10 people and wounded many more. Someone very close to Irit and me was in the North these last few days and came back to Tel Aviv this morning. He was exactly in the place that was hit and knows at least one of the killed. It is a miracle that he was not there and was not hurt. Very, very scary.

Some people here are getting very angry that the Israeli military has not succeeded in stopping or significantly reducing the Katyushas being fired against Israel. The commentators are saying that either Israel should have decided on a short, sharp punitive action against Hezbollah or on an extensive land-based action to drive the Hezbollah out of missile-shooting range.

It is difficult to understand how decisions are being made. On the one hand the politicians are highly sensitive (some would say over-sensitive) to public opinion and the level of casualties the public can bear. On the other hand, the military, which is supposed to get its directives from the government, seems to have decided that there are more pressing military objectives. Maybe they are right from a rational strategic perspective, but they are missing the psychological perspective which evidently Nasrallah understands much better. Unceasing daily attacks on the Israeli civilian population with dead and wounded will not go unremembered, also within Israel.
Let's pray for better days.

Check David2’s other reports from the war zone as well. I replied to him that sadly, as many know, Hezbollah can’t be defeated byt the traditional means, not least for the reasons given by Anderson Cooper above. Hezbollah strike, then fade away and slip back into Syria and Northern Lebanon, only to reappear somewhere else, plus the collusion muddies their trail.

To do away with Hezbolah militarily, it would be necessary to take out Syria and Iran militarily as well. Or else nuke them, which no one has on the table. So what’s the alternative?

It’s vexed. It’s outrageous for Israel to accept a ceasefire which lets Hezbollah creep back in to reinforce Southern Lebanon and everyone knows it, deep down. Unfortunately, only one other Machiavellian solution suggests itself to me but that’s too frightening to even think about.

[life and times] barry humphries and garry mcdonald

Britain and America have had more than their fair share of great [English language] comedians over the years but it’s fair to say that Australia has never been world renowned in this field.

Two exceptions immediately spring to mind – Barry Humphries and Garry McDonald, one from Melbourne and one from Sydney.




Fearless reporter Norman Gunston [Garry McDonald] reporting on pollution in Melbourne’s Yarra River [The Age newspaper, Melbourne]

Garry McDonald’s humour spanned the 70s and 80s, and his most famous alter-ego, Norman Gunston, is best summed up by the ABC’s Nostalgia Central:

Conceived by Aunty Jack Show writer Wendy Skelcher, Norman Gunston, trooly rooly took on a life of his own. The hapless reporter tackled the big names in show biz, including a laughing Ray Charles and an unamused Rudolph Nureyev.

Gunston's hysterical interviews with the likes of Frank Zappa, Paul and Linda McCartney, Sally Struthers, Keith Moon (who responded by pouring champagne over Norman's head) and later, Kiss, are the stuff of legend.

The character of Norman Gunston was brought to life by accomplished character actor Garry McDonald, who already had a string of successes to his name.

McDonald was never afraid to make Gunston an appallingly dressed fall guy, who couldn’t even shave properly in the morning and Norman's real talent was in being able to bamboozle and confound his interview subjects with his seemingly ignorant and naïve satire.

He also managed to carve quite a musical career for himself in the 70s, before moving on to the internationally celebrated sitcom series, Mother & Son, with the late, great Ruth Cracknell.

One famous interview with British actress Sally Struthers remains a classic. When Norman tried to interview her, she pointed to his shaving cuts and the bits of toilet paper dotting his face and seriously advised him to use an electric razor.

"I do." he looked down, pitifully.

That just about finished her off. She fell back on the interview chair, convulsed with laughter and couldn’t speak for about two minutes.

Some Garry McDonald [Norman] classics include:

1. [to Linda McCartney]: "It's funny- you don't look Japanese."
2. [to Paul McCartney]: "Was there any truth in the 1968 rumours about your death?"
3. [to Mick Jagger]: "Do you have any regrets about leaving the Beatles?"
4.[again to Mick Jagger, asking about his recent arrest for drug possession]: "Between you and me - where were the drugs - under the bed?"
5. [to Hugh Hefner, founder of Playboy]: "Well I once took a rude picture you could have used in your magazine. My Aunt Naomi was bending down to tie up her tennis shoes and … well … I needed to finish the roll of film."

.o0o.

Barry Humphries was born in suburban Melbourne in 1934 but moved to London at 25, honing his comedy to a fine point.

Educated at the elite Melbourne Grammar School, he was noted for his stunts, one of the more memorable being to take an ordinary suburban commuter train to work in the morning at peak hour and at every station along the line, high-toned waiters would step on board to serve him silver service breakfast. At the end of the line, he folded his napkin and stepped off the train.

"Entertaining people gave me a great feeling of release - making people laugh was a very good way of befriending them. People couldn't hit you, could they, if they were laughing?"

He has been instrumental in defining the archetypal Australian word ‘ratbag’. The dictionary defines it as: "a mean, despicable person."

He redefined this as: "someone who does not behave properly", maybe someone highly individual or out of step with society. He went on to create various confrontational, egotistical, yet somehow loveable, satirical characters who seem to have, over time, become as real as their creator.

His most famous and enduring creation was Melbourne housewife, Dame Edna Everage, [internationally celebrated Megastar], who achieved worldwide fame for both herself and her creator. Her greeting to adoring audiences, 'Hello possums!' is now a part of the lexicon.

Humphries is also regarded as one of the country's best landscape artists and is the award winning author of several plays, books, novels, and autobiographies. A recipient of the Order of Australia in 1982, he is married to Lizzie, the daughter of British poet Sir Stephen Spender, and has two sons and two daughters.

Quotes

As Edna: "I was born with a precious gift - the ability to laugh at the misfortune of others."

To actress Jane Seymour: "Now Jane, you’ve been successfully married three times – can you tell the viewers the secret of a happy marriage?"

In Vanity Fair: "Forget Spanish. There's nothing in that language worth reading except Don Quixote. Study French or German if you must or, if you're an American, you could try learning English."

Other quotes: "Australia is an outdoor country. People only go inside to use the toilet and that's only a recent development."


The real Barry Humphries

"There is no more terrible fate for a comedian than to be taken seriously."

"I have a greedy attitude to life and I think that's not altogether bad. So I'm waiting for something quite unexpected and joyful to happen to me...and it probably will."

"I’d like to think I’ve encouraged people to look at Australia critically, with affection and humour; which is what all comedians should do."

Barry Humphries delivered a speech on October 6th, 2005, at the 20th anniversary dinner of the Committee for Melbourne. This is an abridged version:




Barry Humphries as himself

“LESS than a year after Hitler became chancellor of the Third Reich, I was born in Melbourne.

My birthplace was an ugly red-brick hospital in Kew and it was often pointed out to me by my parents whenever we went, like everyone else in Melbourne, for our Sunday afternoon spin in the Oldsmobile.

The purpose of these excursions was to look at the "lovely homes" and my father, being in the building trade, took more than a sentimental interest in the new cream brick villas that were springing up on the slopes of Eaglemont and Balwyn.

Indeed, the very parts of Melbourne that Streeton and Roberts and Conder had so lovingly painted in the 1890s were the ones Melbourne most enthusiastically now sought to obliterate.

Years later, some planning committee must have looked at the Yarra Valley and still detected a vestige of its former beauty, so they gleefully finished the job with the six-lane Eastern Freeway.
I was really more interested in slums, and on every Sunday drive I implored my father to let me see some.

It must be remembered that my parents were a post-Depression couple who came from the working-class suburb of Thornbury and thanks to the growing success of my father's business they had moved to Camberwell on the fringes of the metropolitan area.

Slums were the last things my parents wanted to be reminded of, though I was sure they existed somewhere at a place called Dudley Flats. We never went there.

"Don't forget," my mother said, "that poor people can also be quite nice."

I was reminded of my mother the other day when Barbara Bush, speaking of the victims of hurricane Katrina, said publicly: "But they were under-privileged anyway."

"Look at that little home," my mother once exclaimed, urging my father to reduce his speed to a kerb crawl. It was a drab little weatherboard semi with a scrap of iron lace on the veranda but with a gleaming brass doorknob.

"See how they've polished that brass," my mother said, "and see how clean the windows are. You don't have to be rich to be particular", at which my father would quickly accelerate, and soon, with a collective sigh, we would be back in the leafy streets of East Camberwell, lined with elms and plane trees and nice houses with a decent setback.

I used to bicycle to my prep school through those streets in the autumn, my favourite month, when cars were few and when the leaves were swept into pyramids to be burnt. The later banning of autumnal bonfires of leaves was a death blow to the aromatic Melbourne of my youth.
When I was moved by my parents to an expensive school in South Yarra, the transport arrangements were more complicated. Usually I took a suburban train to Flinders Street and a tram along St Kilda Road.

The train ride into town in a first class non-smoker was always a good reading opportunity and the compartments, with their green banquettes, were embellished with railway murals of Victoria’s beauty spots, none of which ever made me wish to visit the beauty spots depicted.

I was more interested in going to England, a mythical place full of castles, thatched cottages, Beefeaters and Winston Churchill.

In those days, there was an image of Churchill in almost every Australian home but you would have to visit the opportunity shops of Melbourne to find a Churchill Toby jug today.

The noticeable thing about the men and also the women who waited for the train on Willison Station was that they wore hats; workmen in particular. They could be seen rolling their own cigarettes and the older men often sported a returned serviceman's badge.

They always carried battered Gladstone bags, in which one presumed were sandwiches, wrapped in greaseproof paper and a copy of The Sporting Globe, Truth or Smith's Weekly.

These last two newspapers were banned at our house and I had only glimpsed their salacious contents when I visited Mr McGrath the barber, for a brutal short-back-and-sides.

The women on the station not only wore hats, but also gloves, for they were going into the city after all, whereas the proletarians would probably alight where the factories were at Richmond and Burnley, when after work, those collapsed Gladstone bags would accommodate six bottles of Abbots Lager.

Going into the city was always a ritual I enjoyed with my mother, for it meant hats, gloves, crumbed whiting [fish] at the Wattle Tea Rooms or creamed sweet corn (undoubtedly out of a tin) at Russell Collins. We would only shop in Collins Street.

Bourke Street was thought common and there were second hand bookshops around the eastern market — a paradise for germs.

I was still growing up in Melbourne when the '50s dawned, an era I have since called The Age Of Laminex. Australia had never been cleaner. Washing powders had yet to be called "detergents" and were still, prosaically, soap but the Bendix washer arrived at about the same time as the Biro [ballpoint pen].

Ballpoint pens were banned at Melbourne Grammar, since they destroyed calligraphy, though very few old Melburnians went on to write anything more interesting than cheques.

The new washing machines replaced the old fashioned copper and trough where boiled and soapy sheets were poked with copper sticks.

You won't find a copper stick in the opportunity shop today, though of course there are plenty of jaffle irons [a '50s invention for toasting sandwiches] among the fondue sets that young married couples received in multiples on their darkest day.

I was there in Carlton for the arrival of the espresso machine and the quaintly mispronounced "cuppachino" and when I worked for nearly a year at EMI in Flinders Lane - without ever knowing what the initials EMI stood for - I was present at the birth of the long-playing, microgroove record.

One of the most important Melbourne spectacles of this period was an establishment in Swanston Street, opposite St Paul's Cathedral, called Downey Flake.

Here crowds pressed against the window awestruck to observe an enormous stainless steel machine which stirred a vat of yellow sludge, scooped dollops onto a conveyer belt and dropped calamari like rings into a cauldron of seething fat from which emerged, on another belt, an endless succession of sugared doughnuts.

By the end of the decade there would be a television set in every house in Melbourne. The Best Room, often called "The Lounge Room", where paradoxically, no one was ever allowed to lounge or even relax, became a ghost room.

At the back of the house, the family huddled before the new instrument and driving down a Melbourne suburban street one evening in 1960, you would at first suppose it to be deserted; its inhabitants fled or evaporated like the crew of the Marie Celeste.

Yet, above the rooftops, when you looked a second time, was a bluish grey flicker, the shimmering Aurora Australis of television, the only Australian art form that never disappointed its public by improving.

I missed the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games but they changed Melbourne. This was the heyday of Whelan the Wrecker, a family demolition firm that proudly emblazoned its name over every act of civic vandalism in the '50s and '60s when some of our best Victorian architecture disappeared.

Some of my favourite old bookshops vanished as well. Used books harboured bacteria after all, and it would give visitors to Melbourne a very bad impression if it were implied that we couldn't afford new books.

However there were still exciting art exhibitions in Melbourne that didn't happen anywhere else in Australia. The city was full of commercial art galleries, now forgotten.

The trams were still an attractive cream and green as they had been since the 1930s when the colours were first suggested as the result of a state-wide competition.

I am not sure when Moomba [the provincial street parade] was invented but it has to have been in the '50s. We were told it was an Aboriginal word meaning "let's get together and have fun". Mrs Edna Everage said that it was a word that the Aborigines gave us when they had no further use for it.

There were also kings and queens of Moomba, now long forgotten. It was probably the synthetic gaiety of Moomba that persuaded me to leave Melbourne in 1959 for my travels and adventures abroad.

The boat, an Italian one, sailed from Port Melbourne to Venice, but I already had a taste for things Italian. After all, I had already mingled with the sophisticated crowd who hung out at the Florentino Bistro eating Spaghetti ala Bolognese and drinking Chianti.

I have lately been touring the Midwest of the United States and visited cities in serious urban decay. By contrast, what a pleasure it is to stroll through the streets of Melbourne safely at night, to visit small restaurants and to take coffee or browse in the bookstores.

It is a sign of progress that I have been asked to address you at all on the subject of my home town. I was long dismissed as a traitor, or worse, an expatriate, merely because I recognised the intrinsic bittersweet comedy of suburban life.

On a visit to Vienna recently I met an old museum guide who had come to Australia as a migrant in the '50s.

"You see, sir," said the old guide, gazing wistfully out of the window at the dying light on Stephan's Dom, "I stand here all day dreaming of … Broadmeadows" [one of the blandest Melbourne suburbs].

He made it seem so romantic that it has now become a place on the map of Melbourne that still awaits my pilgrimage.

[life and times] dr. hawley harvey crippen [part 2 of 2]

Part 1 is here.

That evening, Tuesday, he goes straight home, eats dinner. Grabbing the sack of body parts and some bricks, he walks the few blocks to the canal and drops the package into the water. Tired by this time, having had virtually no sleep for 48 hours, he retires early. "

According to his co-workers, Crippen seemed quite at ease when he showed up at work Tuesday, the morning after he killed Belle. In her memoirs, Ethel Le Neve reports, "He was his old calm self." On Wednesday morning, February 2, he drew her aside to inform her that Belle had left him. With that, the doctor surprised Ethel again by drawing from his pocket some women's jewelry. "She left these behind," he announced, "and I wish you would take one or two."

Ethel, catching her breath, replied. "Please pick one or two pieces for me, then, if you are sure it's all right. You know my taste."

Before he left, he handed Ethel a sealed envelope for the Ladies Guild. The letter read:

"Dear Friends,
Please forgive me a hasty letter but I have just had news of the illness of a near relative and I am obliged to go to America. I cannot return for several months and, therefore, ask you to accept this letter, resigning from the guild.
Belle Crippen"

From that instant, the good ladies of the Guild smelled a rat. First, the handwriting did not seem to be Belle's; in fact, it was quite masculine. Second, they found it strange that Belle would bother to write a note and send it through Hawley when she could have more easily called one of a number of women – that's what telephones were for!

But, whispers were only whispers until Crippen appeared at the Music Hall Ball, arm in arm with Ethel Le Neve. Ethel looked amazing in her lavender gown of silk and chiffon and as he held her tightly on the dance floor, the mouths at the tables gave one universal gasp. And then someone noticed that the brooch that Ethel wore had belonged to Belle. Like a telegraph wire, the scandal leaped across the room.

The outrage felt by the Ladies' Guild would grow over the coming months. Then, on March 24, he announced, "Belle died yesterday at six o'clock." By choosing that particular time for Belle's demise, Crippen was playing the romantic. Ethel had moved in with Crippen and a neighbor claimed that one evening she could see through an open window Ethel trying on one dress after another, handed to her by the doctor. There was also a new, young French maidservant named Valentina. Now they went on “honeymoon”.

After returning from his "honeymoon," Crippen had announced to Belle's inquisitive friends that she was being cremated in America. However, this didn't make sense; Belle was Catholic and Catholics did not accept cremation at that time.

In the meantime, the Guild found that the ship Belle was supposed to have sailed on, the La Touraine, had been under repair at the time and that no person named Belle Crippen or Belle Elmore (her stage name) had died in that part of America.

The Guild returned to Scotland Yard on June 30, meeting with both Dew and his superior. The detectives were impressed. Now intrigued with the situation, Dew agreed to speak with Crippen. A few days later, on Friday, July 8, he visited 39 Hilldrop Crescent at which time the doctor admitted that his wife had not died after all, but he had fabricated the tale to avoid the scandal. Dew reasoned it made sense. He drew up a statement, which the citizen signed, and then went back to his office.

But, the Ladies' Guild remained discontent. Dew agreed to try again and went to Crippen’s work. The firm's clerk told the two that Crippen had taken a rather sudden trip. When Dew asked to speak to Miss Le Neve, the clerk disclosed that she was away, too, accompanying, he believed, the good doctor on his voyage. Where they had gone the clerk did not know. Dew and another detective rushed to 39 Hilldrop Crescent.

The evening of July 8, after Inspector Dew first interviewed Crippen, he confessed to Ethel that he had lied to her about Belle's death. He did it to save face, he told her, but Ethel felt betrayed. "He had been untruthful to me for the first time in ten years. I had been faithful to him. I loved him although it hurt me frightfully. Tell me where Belle Elmore is. I have a right to know."

"I tell you truthfully, " he said, "that I don't know where she is. " He repeated this several times. He suggested that they go to Canada until the gossip wore thin, probably within a year. Ethel agreed. The following day, he and Ethel took the London Underground then the train to Harwich. From there, Crippen told Ethel, they would sail to Rotterdam, then Antwerp, then Canada.

The inspectors arrived at Crippen's to find only the maid at home. All she knew was that her employ had been terminated. Suspicion now thoroughly awakened, Dew made a further search of the house. On the 13th, he discovered a compact mass of animal remains. The smell was awful. Medical examination showed that they were of a thick female. Three days later, an arrest warrant was issued by the Metropolitan Police for the arrest of Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen and Miss Ethel Le Neve.

The voyage

"Everyone aboard the S.S. Montrose considered them to be a most loving father and son who were travelling to start a new life in Canada. Mr. and Master Robinson – to use the names they gave to the purser – were never seen apart, and although they were polite and agreeable, they spoke to no one else unless they had to..."

So begins the chapter on the doctor's attempted escape across the North Atlantic on the White Star liner Montrose. "Mr. Robinson" is, of course, Crippen, and his "son" is Ethel Le Neve masquerading as a teenage boy. She thinks she is doing this to save her reputation – an unmarried woman didn't share a cabin with a man in 1910 – but Crippen has talked her into the guise because he knows that authorities would be looking for an attractive brunette of twenty-seven in the company of a fortyish male with spectacles and a mustache. He has shaved off his mustache.

The article continues: "During the day, they sat together on deck, chatting quietly about the sea and the weather. But as the voyage continued, Captain Kendall's suspicions were first aroused when he noticed Master Robinson's trousers were too large for his slender body and were held in place by means of a large safety-pin." Harry Kendall, the captain, had been watching the tall, slim boy and soon realized that his hips swayed unnaturally for a male and "his" hair was very soft and feminine despite the hat that covered most of it.

The captain had brought along with him a copy of the local newspaper; on its front page were photos of Dr. Crippen and Ethel Le Neve. Studying the photographs, Kendall determined that Mr. Robinson closely resembled the dentist and that his companion, the boy with the pretty face, could very well be Ethel.

Captain Kendall made history when on July 22 he sent the first-ever wireless telegraph that resulted in the capture of a criminal. Sent from a point 120 miles west of Cornwall, England, to the White Star Company in Liverpool, it read:

"Have strong suspicion that Crippen and accomplice are among passengers. Moustache taken off growing beard. Accomplice dressed as boy. Undoubtedly a girl. Both travelling as Mr. and Master Robinson. Kendall. "

The cable was sent immediately to Scotland Yard, its recipient being Inspector Dew who was heading up the Crippen case. Dew contacted the White Star Line to book passage on its next transatlantic voyage to Canada. In the seats beside him were Sergeant Mitchell and two wardresses, Miss Foster and Miss Stone, who would take charge of Miss Le Neve upon arrest.

The British love a good mystery and, despite its gruesome nature, the Belle Crippen murder provided all the ingredients that promised a thrilling novel-like end. "It captured the imagination of the world," Would the couple whom Kendall 'strongly suspected' of being Dr. Crippen and Ethel Le Neve in fact prove to be them?"

On the Montrose and unaware of the newspapers, star players Crippen and Le Neve had no idea the country they left considered them now to be the talk of the town. Sometimes there were jokes, limericks and in verse. One music hall comic announced, "What a face Belle has! Crippen is innocent!" A popular song was: "Oh Miss Le Neve, oh Miss Le Neve, is it true that you are sittin' on the lap of Dr. Crippen, in your boy's clothes, on the Montrose, Miss La Neve?"

Dew was ready. The Laurentic passed the Montrose at midnight, July 27, in mid-sea. Crippen and Ethel continued to be seen together in disguise, keeping virtually to themselves, usually reading novels; the doctor read a thriller called Four Just Men, while Ethel read a romance. One afternoon, a little Belgian boy slipped on the deck in front of where Ethel sat reading and, if it wasn’t for her quick reflexes, he would have slipped through the railing into the ocean. Ethel became a heroine. But her scream, when grabbing his little arms, was definitely that of a woman.

As the Montrose neared Quebec, Crippen became less cheerful. Ethel noticed it, and asked him what was bothering him. He told her, "I might have to leave you once we disembark."

"What do you mean, leave me?" she was flabbergasted.

He hemmed. "I'm sure you will find yourself a great job in Canada. I suggest you go to Toronto - I hear it's a wonderful place."

"And what about you?" she pressed, astonished at what she was hearing.

"Oh, nothing," he answered. "Thinking ahead, I guess."

She felt that there was more, but didn't want to push it at this moment. Ethel didn’t realize that their time together had just about ended.

As Hawley Harvey Crippen listened to the noise of the new Marconi telegraph, maybe he figured out the truth. Maybe he had seen the questions in the eyes of the crewmen. But, he didn't react with great surprise when, just outside Quebec, a tall gentleman stepped up to Ethel and him and said, with a courteous smile, "Good morning, Dr. Crippen."

Crippen knew the man immediately. "Good morning, Inspector Dew."

The trials

Dr. Crippen and Ethel Le Neve were tried separately in October at the Old Bailey – he for the murder and she as a fugitive from justice. The woman's trial, merely a formality, was brief. After twenty minutes of deliberation, Ethel was found Not Guilty.

Crippen's trial, which lasted from October 18-22, had been just as nearly open-and-shut as Ethel's, but it spoke with an altogether different voice. What he had done to the victim was unforgivable, beyond human understanding. When cornered, he had lied time and again but most damaging of all, the day after he had been questioned by a Scotland Yard detective he’d absconded out of the country with his inamorata.

He pleaded not guilty, yet he knew the cards were stacked against him. He did nothing to help himself. Most legal experts are agreed that Crippen's only hope of escaping execution lay in entering a plea of guilty, then throwing himself upon the mercy of the court. But a guilty plea would have involved dragging Ethel in as a witness, and Crippen, of course, would not for a single moment hear of calling Ethel to his defense.

Taking the stand, the defendant stood his ground and denied having killed anyone. How Belle's body was buried beneath his home he could not say. He didn't tremble once. They all wondered: what could have driven this gentleman to do such a thing? Was it Jekyll and Hyde, a dual personality? Or was it something else?

He never gave any trouble and showed concern only for the woman he loved. We may consider Crippen a hateful man; but nobody who came in contact with him said so. Crippen murmured in court, "I still protest my innocence." It was no good. Lord Alverstone cleared his throat and spoke. "Harvey Hawley Crippen," he began, "I have now to pass upon you the sentence of the Court, which is that you be taken from hence to a place of execution, and that you be there hanged by the neck until you are dead...And may the Lord have mercy on your soul!"

His appeal failed. His execution would take place within the week, on Wednesday morning, November 23, 1910. Ethel visited her lover daily. They followed each visitation with a letter. "We shall meet again!" he vowed.

The night before her last visit to his cell, dreading their final moments together, he anguished, "How am I to endure to take my last look at your dear face; what agony must I go through when you disappear forever from my eyes. God help us to be brave."

He was granted, permission to take her photo and her letters to the grave with him. Both gave him consolation. And final dreams.

Epilogue

Number 39 Hilldrop Crescent remained virtually vacant for the next thirty years. The house met a sad end at the hands of the German Luftwaffe during World War II.

Montrose captain Harry Kendall nearly died four years after the Crippen incident, in 1914, when the ship he then commanded, the Empress of Ireland, sank at the very spot where Crippen and Ethel had been arrested. More than a thousand lives were lost, but the captain was saved and lived to be 91 years old. In the same year, the Montrose sailed to Britain and sank near the white cliffs of Dover.

Dew, at 47 years of age, retired three weeks before Dr. Crippen was hanged. It is believed his decision was due to the sympathy he felt for his prisoner.

Refusing to live in England, Ethel went to Toronto. She boarded the Majestic in 1911 the afternoon of her Hawley's death and couldn't bear to look back. She worked as a secretary in Canada for five years but in 1916, she sailed back to London.

Not long after her return to England, she changed her name to Nelson and married an accountant, who greatly resembled Hawley Crippen. The marriage was happy but her husband died young of a heart attack while at work, never knowing that Ethel Nelson had once been the famous Miss Le Neve. Ethel passed away in 1967, a content grandmother.

Ethel never forgot Hawley Crippen but refused to talk about it. One afternoon over tea, however, a writer asked the old lady, "If Crippen could come back today, would you marry him?"

"Yes, I would, " she said.