[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.

[world trade] the fundamental interconnectedness of all things

I should have called this blog the fundamental interconnectedness of all things because it keeps cropping up in the most interesting ways.

It doesn’t take a great deal of research, you know. It really doesn’t. You just follow your next lead, see something interesting, follow that, then combine or filter it all through your own knowledge and experience. The essential problem is that you always end up with the same three questions:

1 Can I go any further down this track;
2 Can I publish anything about it, even if I do;
3 So what?

It began with a look at speculative capital and the fall of Enron. By a convoluted route, this led to the July 25th Fitch upgrade of Russia:

Russia’s sovereign rating was raised from BBB to BBB+, the highest investment evaluation assigned to the country. Standard&Poor`s and Moody`s are expected to follow. Standard & Poor`s and Moody`s currently rate Russia BBB and Baa2 respectively, which corresponds to the second stage of investment level.

These positive factors are listed for Russia:

· continuously high prices for crude [I touched on this in an earlier article]
· possible settlement of Paris Club debt [no comment]
· sizeable gold/foreign exchange reserves
· stabilization fund

Constraining factors include legal regulation problems in the country. Er, yes, we all know about those. So, cutting to Fitch itself, part of its explanation says:

“Enduringly high commodity prices are strengthening Russia’s macroeconomic and financial position at a remarkable pace, further reducing the likelihood of any future risk to sovereign debt service.”

Fitch said the rating actions reflected its view of the Russian authorities’ improved capacity to support the banks listed below if required:

· Russian Agricultural Bank, upgraded to IDR BBB+ from BBB with a stable outlook.
· Sberbank savings bank, upgraded to IDR BBB+ from BBB with a stable outlook.
· Vnesheconombank (VEB), upgraded to IDR BBB+ from BBB with a stable outlook.
· and so on.

Basically, I was looking around for details of one particular bank. So this took me to the Fitch site and it was therefore just a hop, step and a jump to Fimalac SA.

This immediately brought to view one interesting name - Véronique Morali, whose claims to fame include:

· Former Tesco director
· President, Force Femmes
· Co-opted to Fimalac by Marc Ladreit de la Charriere

That gentleman’s name itself is found on the board of l’Oreal, of which a great deal has been said by others who have been largely discredited, of course. This, in turn, then takes us to a meeting way back in 1991, when the following august people were present:

Queen Beatrix, Prince Bernhard, Lord Black of Crossharbour, Nicholas Brady, Gordon Brown, Lord Peter Carrington, Bill Clinton, Marc Ladreit de la Charriere, Arthur Dunkel, Lawrence Freedman, Fritz Gerber, Katie Graham, Hank Greenberg, Henry Kissinger, Veronique Morali, David Oddson, David Rockefeller Sr, Queen Sophia, Michael Wilson, Grant Winthrop, J D Wolfensen

That’s the point where I stopped but isn’t it great that Russia has so assiduously attempted to pay off its outstanding external debt?

[britain] it all happened on the 11:20 from hainault to redhill via horsham and reigate, malmesbury, tootingbec and croydon west

I know, I know it's not one of our trains but it's the only photo I had; and of course, with one click you can get the text below yourself, without my help but still, here it is - one of my favourite pieces:

(SIR HORACE lies dead on the floor. JOHN (Eric Idle) and LADY come into the room, which is decorated nicely. They are both dressed in nice older style clothing, as are the later characters)

WOMAN: Anyway John you can catch the 11:30 by Hornchurch and be at Beasing at one o'clock. Oh, and there's the buffet car and…oh! Daddy! (Sees SIR HORACE on the floor)

JOHN: My hat! Sir Horace.

WOMAN: Has he been…?

JOHN: Yes, after breakfast but that doesn't matter now he's dead.

WOMAN: Oh poor daddy.

JOHN: Looks like I won't be catching the 11:30 now.

WOMAN: On no John you mustn't miss your train

JOHN: How could I think of catching a train when I should be here helping you?

WOMAN: Oh, John, thank you. Anyway you can always catch the 9:30 tomorrow. It goes by Catterham and Chipsted.

JOHN: Or the 9:45 that's better.

WOMAN: Oh, but you have to change at Lamb's Green.

JOHN: Yes, but there's only a seven minute wait now.

LADY: Yes of course I forgotten it's Friday. Oh who could have done this?

LADY PARTRIDGE (Graham Chapman): Come and hurry up Sir Horace! Your train leaves in 28 minutes and if you don't catch the 10:15, you won't catch the 3:45 and that means…oh! (Eyeing SIR HORACE)

JOHN: I'm afraid Sir Horace won't be catching the 10:15, Lady Partridge.

PARTRIDGE: Has he been…?

WOMAN: Yes, after breakfast.

JOHN: Lady Partridge, I'm afraid you can cancel his seat reservation.

PARTRIDGE: Oh and it was back to the engine, fourth coach along so that he could see the gradient signs of Swansbourgh.

JOHN: Not anymore Lady Partridge. The line's been closed.

PARTRIDGE: Closed?! Not Swansbourgh.

JOHN: Yes, I'm afraid so.

INSPECTOR (Terry Jones): Right, nobody move. I'm Inspector Davis of Scotland Yard.

JOHN: My word you were here quickly inspector!

INSPECTOR: I took the 8:45 Pullman Express from Kings Cross. And missed that bit around Hornchurch.

PARTRIDGE: It's a very good train

WOMAN: Yes, a very good train.

TONY (Michael Palin): (bounding through the French doors of the background) Hello, everyone!!

ALL: Tony!

TONY: Where's Daddy? …oh golly! (Seeing SIR HORACE) Has he been…?

ALL: (matter of fact-ly) Yes, after breakfast.

TONY: (innocently) Then he… he won't be needing his reservation for the 10:15.

JOHN: (Accusingly) Exactly!

TONY: And I suppose as his eldest son it must go to me.

INSPECTOR: Just one minute there Tony. There's a small matter of…murder!

TONY: Oh, but surely he simply shot himself then hid the gun.

PARTRIDGE: How can anyone shoot himself then hid the gun without first canceling his reservation?

TONY: Well, I must dash or I will be late for the 10:15.

INSPECTOR: I suggest that you murdered your father for his seat reservation.

TONY: I may have had the motivation Inspector, but I could not have done it for I had only arrived at Gillingham at 8:13 and here is the restaurant car ticket to prove it.

WOMAN: But the 8:13 from Gillingham doesn't have a restaurant car.

JOHN: It's standing buffet only.

TONY: Did I say the 8:13? I meant the 7:58 stopping train.

PARTRIDGE: But the 7:58 only arrived at Swindon at 8:19 owing to annual point maintenance at Wisbourgh Junction.

JOHN: So how did he make the connection 8:13 which left six minutes earlier?

TONY: Simple, I caught the 7:16 football special which arrived at Swindon at 8:09.

WOMAN: But the 7:16 football special only stops at Swindon on alternate Saturdays!

PARTRIDGE: You surely mean the holidaymaker special.

TONY: Oh yes! How daft of me! I took the holidaymaker special calling at Bedford, Colmworth, Fenton Sutton, Fen Ditton, Wallingworth, and Gillingham.

INSPECTOR: That's Sundays only!

TONY: Damn! All right I confess I did it. I killed him for his reservation. But you won't get me alive! (TONY tears for the door) I am going to throw myself onto the 10:12 from Reading.

JOHN: Don't be a fool, Tony. Don't do it. The 10:12 has the narrow traction bogies you wouldn't stand a chance!
TONY: Exactly!

(dramatic tone)

(curtain falls as characters freeze, TONY at the door, JOHN holding LADY, LADY PARTRIDGE staring in shock at TONY, SIR HORACE dead on the floor, and INSPECTOR at the French doors stage back)

VOICE-OVER: That was an excerpt from the latest west end hit, "It all happened on the 11:20 from Hainault to Redhill via Horsham and Reigate, Malmesbury, Tootingbec and Croyton West."

The author is Mr. Neville Shunt.

[health and spirit] sleep or die, folks

CEOs, ordinary mortals, doesn’t matter who - - your existence is built around four pillars:

1. Diet
2. Exercise
3. Sleep
4. Spiritual calm and being positively valued by others.


My take is that if you religiously practise the first four, the fifth will often suggest itself to you anyway. I’m not a guru – it stands to reason. I have a day job, which is varied. Basically I give consultations, a pompous way of saying that I natter on about things and get paid for it.

This blogging though – it’s taking it out of me. I need sleep and that’s what this is all about today:

Sleep ...

One of the tricks is to schedule rest and sleep. There are enough stats on the web not to clog up the blog with these but in a nutshell, what it comes down to is that a scheduled 20 minute nap in the middle of the day is the best, followed by adequate sleep at night at home. Sleeps during the day are right out!

How to schedule it? That’s easy – you have a meeting with Mrs Jones at that time, can’t be disturbed under any circumstances [mobile off] and the office door is locked. Poontang with the secretary is one thing but a 20 minute snooze, not a deep sleep, is the best.

But it’s not enough to schedule sleep and this takes enough aggressive planning in itself. It’s being able to wind down that’s difficult. Right now I leapt out of bed, via a short prayer, to the computer keyboard, repaired my Microsoft Word which broke down, reinstalled Windows which broke down and changed the valve on the faucet which broke down then sat down to write and wash the clothes and fix breakfast.

Hyped up – that’s the problem. OK, so it comes down to temperament, you say. Some of us are more sanguine than others. Yes, what you say is very true and the Sherlock Holmes thing about his mind being a train ,running wildly out of control and running off the tracks if it’s not connected up with the work for which it was designed, holds water - but stop!

Holmes had his breakdowns as well and I’m sure as hell not going to hit the opium. Sleep. At night. Diet and the others we’ll touch on next time.

Don’t ask me to attribute this next quote, as it’s lost in the mists of time but I've kept these words on stress:

Stress is the "wear and tear" our bodies experience as we adjust to our continually changing environment; it has physical and emotional effects on us and can create positive or negative feelings.

As a positive influence, stress can help compel us to action; it can result in a new awareness and an exciting new perspective. As a negative influence, it can result in feelings of distrust, rejection, anger, and depression, which in turn can lead to health problems such as headaches, upset stomach, rashes, insomnia, ulcers, high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke.

Whoa! You thought we were talking about sleep? We were. I also quoted Douglas Adams in a recent post about the ‘fundamental interconnectedness of all things’ a repackaging of an old truism.

So let’s become more scholarly and quote:

A report released by VicHealth yesterday shows that workplace stress is directly linked to up to a third of cases of cardiovascular disease in men and a third ___ depression cases in women.
But it is not only individuals who are paying the price. Businesses are hit by increased absenteeism and employee turnover, the report says.

"Workplace stress costs the entire community dearly in terms of human suffering and lost productivity," VicHealth chief Rob Moodie said.

The report reviewed 90 international studies, assessed exposure to stress in more than 1000 workers, and interviewed public and private employers, employer groups and trade unions.
Professor LaMontagne said exposure to stress at least doubled the risks of leading chronic diseases, including depression, cardiovascular disease and anxiety, and was therefore a significant contributor to the overall burden of disease in society.

[Melbourne Age, By Chantal Rumble, May 26th, 2006]

Suggested solution?

Flexible work schedules, improved communications, family-friendly practices and adequate compensation were key features ___ a less-stressful work environment, he said.
"The first thing all companies can do is communicate ___ their employees and work together in redesigning jobs to reduce workload and give them greater say or control ___ how their work gets done."

And one of the most quoted aspects of stress – was it sleep? Was it heck – most people don’t even consider it a risk. Oh, I only need three hours and a cup of coffee. Rubbish. Bet if I followed you round and did a time ad motion on you, I’d find plenty of examples of how your body was fighting back.

Also, in my neck of the woods over here, stressing out is seen as a badge of honour – a sign of a man who’s making money hand over fist. Retire to Sanitori for two weeks and Bob’s your uncle. Except that he’s not and the overall effect is cumulative and then we finally arrive at that pseudo-scientific syndrome – being burnt out.

Robert Roberts, MD, director of cardiology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston says:

During sleep, blood pressure and heart rate have a chance to rest, and adrenaline quiets down. "That's good not only for the cardiovascular system but also for tissue repair. However, let's remember that the major risk factors for heart disease include high cholesterol and smoking," he says. "And certainly the biggest one today is obesity, which induces diabetes and increased blood pressure. The fact that sleep reduces blood pressure is reason enough to get more sleep."

[Jeanie Davis, Sleep, Less and More, Linked to Heart Disease, reviewed By Brunilda Nazario, MD on Monday, January 27, 2003, WebMD Medical News: Too Much or Too Little Sleep Can Raise Blood Pressure, Stress Hormones]

And don’t forget sleep apnea:

With each apnea, the brain receives a signal to arouse the person from sleep in order to resume breathing, but consequently sleep is extremely fragmented and of poor quality.

People with untreated sleep apnea are generally not even aware of the awakenings but only of being extremely sleepy during the day. They may, however, realize that they snore or gasp for air during sleep. Loud snoring, punctuated with periods of silence (the apneas), is typical but is not always present, especially in children.

Consequences of untreated sleep apnea include high blood pressure and other cardiovascular disease, and weight gain. People with untreated sleep apnea may also complain of falling asleep inappropriately, morning headaches, memory problems, feelings of depression, reflux, nocturia (a need to use the bathroom frequently at night), and impotence.

Sleep apnea is treatable but it’s my guess that if you have it, you’re so stressed out already that you’ll not stop long enough to go out and fix it. Check these boxes:

Are you a loud, habitual snorer?
 Yes  No

Do you feel tired and groggy on awakening?
 Yes  No

Are you often sleepy during waking hours and/or can you fall asleep quickly?
 Yes  No

Are you overweight and/or do you have a large neck?
 Yes  No

Have you been observed to choke, gasp, or hold your breath during sleep?
 Yes  No

[The American Sleep Apnea Association, 1424 K Street NW, Suite 302, Washington, DC 20005, phone: 202/293-3650, Fax: 202/293-3656, www.sleepapnea.org]

Another one:

"We found that ... six ... hours of sleep is not optimal [when compared with eight]," Alexandros N. Vgontzas, MD, tells WebMD. "Two hours of sleep deprivation per night for one week is associated with increased sleepiness, decreased performance, and activation of the inflammatory system." Vgontzas, a professor of psychiatry at Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey, is the author of a study on the effects of sleep deprivation.

In other words - fatigue.

Fatigue is a feeling of tiredness, exhaustion, or lack of energy. You may feel mildly fatigued because of overwork, poor sleep, worry, boredom, or lack of exercise.

Any illness, such as a cold or the flu, may cause fatigue, which usually goes away as the illness clears up. Most of the time, mild fatigue occurs with a health problem that will improve with home treatment and does not require a visit to a health professional.

A stressful emotional situation may also cause fatigue. This type of fatigue usually clears up when the stress is relieved.

Many prescription and nonprescription medications can cause weakness or fatigue. The use or abuse of alcohol, caffeine, or illegal drugs can cause fatigue.

A visit to a health professional usually is needed when fatigue occurs along with more serious symptoms, such as increased breathing difficulties, signs of a serious illness, abnormal bleeding, or unexplained weight loss or gain.

Fatigue that lasts longer than 2 weeks usually requires a visit to a health professional. This type of fatigue may be caused by a more serious health problem, such as:

A decrease in the amount of oxygen-carrying substance (hemoglobin) found in red blood cells (anemia).

Problems with the heart, such as coronary artery disease or heart failure, that limit the supply of oxygen-rich blood to the heart muscle or the rest of the body.

Metabolic disorders, such as diabetes, in which sugar (glucose) remains in the blood rather than entering the body’s cells to be used for energy.

Problems with the thyroid gland, which regulates the way the body uses energy.

A low thyroid level (hypothyroidism) can cause fatigue, weakness, lethargy, weight gain, depression, memory problems, constipation, dry skin, intolerance to cold, coarse and thinning hair, brittle nails, or a yellowish tint to the skin.

A high thyroid level (hyperthyroidism) can cause fatigue, weight loss, increased heart rate, intolerance to heat, sweating, irritability, anxiety, muscle weakness, and thyroid enlargement.

Kidney disease and liver disease, which cause fatigue when the concentration of certain chemicals in the blood builds up to toxic levels.

Chronic fatigue syndrome is an uncommon cause of severe, persistent fatigue.

If fatigue occurs without an obvious cause, it is important to evaluate your mental health. Fatigue is a common symptom of mental health problems, such as anxiety or depression. Fatigue and depression may become so severe that you may consider suicide as a way to end your pain. If you think your fatigue may be caused by a mental health problem, see your health professional.

[Healthwise, Incorporated, P.O. Box 1989, Boise, ID 83701, 2003]

Back to the question of winding down, which is all in the mind and to do with your pre-set character pattern. I find whisky and one’s woman helps immensely but be careful with the latter remedy – a woman can cause the opposite, stressing out, as well. And that’s another story too – mutual stress reduction of two willing partners. Sigh. What an idyll.

So how to wind down? It takes great willpower. You MUST schedule time in your ‘graphic’ for the week. It’s as simple as that. Then, when you get there, it all depends ifyou have a good secretary or not. If you do, then you can trust her not to allow ANYBODY through that door or onto that phone. If you know your 20 minutes is yours – all yours – then that’s a huge boost to be going on with. The next part you can do yourself.

The next article on sleep will deal with Professor Chris Idzikowski’s ‘sleep positions’ – a fascinating study in itself.

And people – I’m deadly serious – schedule some sleep and wind down.

For those who are interested, my archived postings on the rich and the dead [1&2] also addresses this matter. Johnathan Pearce, over at Samizdata knows exactly what I’m saying here.

[world trade] antigua versus ... the u.s. of a.

My interest being in global trade, this little snippet initially tickled the fancy but as I read on, it became something just a little more.

OK, according to Paul Blustein, at the Washington Post, this is what happened:

U.S. prosecutors put Cohen behind bars in 2002 for running an Internet gambling site in the Caribbean country of Antigua and Barbuda. Not long before the prison gates clanged shut, he had learned that the federal crackdown on online betting might violate global trade rules.

So Cohen [interesting name] got Antigua and Barbuda to instigate a complaint at the WTO. "It kind of helped keep my spirits up," he said.

Fast forward: Antigua and Barbuda, population 69,000, is winning. The US may have to capitulate to a country whose entire population could easily fit into the Rose Bowl.

Never has such a tiny nation brought a WTO complaint against the United States, which is one reason the dispute has implications well beyond the issue of gambling.

And that’s more than interesting, isn’t it?

In global trade, developing countries say their destitute farmers get the short end of the stick because of the subsidies and protections that rich governments give their farmers. Just last week, negotiations to redress such grievances collapsed.

The WTO, the body that referees global commerce from its offices in Geneva, claims to play equalizer: A win for Antigua would improve the WTO's image of requiring all nations, Davids and Goliaths alike, to follow the rules.

At the same time, sentiment against online gambling remains strong in the House, which recently voted to bolster a U.S. ban.

Gambling was legal in Antigua, so Cohen and his buddies figured they would have no problem operating a business that took sports bets from people in the United States. Between golf rounds and fishing trips, they built World Sports Exchange Ltd., one of several dozen Internet betting parlors then springing up in Antigua and elsewhere.

Back in the States, though, many leaders grew alarmed, citing a risk that computer betting would lure teenagers and fuel gambling addiction. A crackdown ensued. "You can't go offshore and hide. You can't go online and hide," said Janet Reno, the attorney general at the time.

In 1998, federal prosecutors charged several operators, including Cohen, with violating a 1960s-era law forbidding the use of phone wires for gambling. Convinced that the law didn't apply in Antigua, Cohen returned voluntarily to U.S. soil.

A jury convicted him, the judge gave him 21 months, and the Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal.

Out of the blue, not long before Cohen entered prison in Nevada, a strange letter arrived, suggesting the U.S. government's position left it vulnerable to a trade complaint.

Several years earlier, Washington had pledged in a trade treaty to open the U.S. market in "recreational, cultural and sporting services" to global competition.

Cohen alerted the Antiguans. They hesitated to file a case, citing one of the biggest inequities in the WTO system: a dearth of funds and legal expertise that often shuts out small countries. Antigua's budget is $145 million a year, and a trade case promised to cost at least $1 million.

The gambling industry finally agreed to foot the bill. Antigua filed. "Did we not have a duty to our citizens to protect their jobs?" said Sir Ronald Sanders, who was then Antigua's ambassador to Britain and the WTO.

The United States had a seemingly strong defense -- the need to protect "public morals and public order." WTO member countries can ban goods and services that might harm their social fabric, a classic case being the prohibition of liquor imports in Muslim countries.

"Gambling in general, and remote supply of gambling in particular, raises grave law-enforcement and consumer-protection concerns," the U.S. trade representative's office said in a legal filing. Attorneys for the trade representative declined to make additional public comments.

There was, however, a hole in the U.S. position: Numerous U.S. sites, including Youbet.com and Xpressbet.com, let users wager on races from the New Jersey Meadowlands to the Louisiana Downs.

The principle essentially requires a government to treat foreign goods and services the same as domestic ones. To outlaw liquor imports, a Muslim country must ban domestic brewing, too.

Likewise, the Antiguans contended, the United States can bar citizens from using overseas gambling sites only if it bans domestic sites. Yet Congress has refused to enact a comprehensive ban -- in part because horse racing depends on phone and Internet wagers.

WTO judges bought the argument. Antigua won in 2004, and though an appeals panel scaled it back, Washington was still in a tough spot. The final ruling essentially said that the United States must outlaw all forms of online gambling, including on horse racing, or Antigua wins.

The U.S. government has refused to concede defeat.

The Bush administration first vowed to secure legislation "clarifying" that all forms of online betting are illegal. But the horse racing industry has blocked such efforts on Capitol Hill.

Next, the administration cited testimony by the Justice Department in April claiming that all Internet wagering across state lines, including that on horses, violates existing laws. That was news to the horse racing industry.

Scoffing, the Antiguans are asking the WTO to declare that Washington is defying its ruling. Many experts expect Antigua to win again, after months of delay.

Then comes the hard part for Antigua.

The WTO cannot force a country to do anything. Even if found guilty, a country can refuse to change its trade practices. The WTO largely enforces its rulings by giving the victorious country the right to impose punitive duties on the loser's products.

That enforcement mechanism works for big, rich countries such as the United States because other nations fear losing the vast U.S. market. But Antigua's economy is so tiny that few U.S. companies would notice.

"The WTO gives the little guys clout, but it cannot guarantee symmetry of justice," said Claude Barfield, a trade expert at the American Enterprise Institute.
So the Antiguans plan to ask the WTO for the right to impose sanctions that would hurt -- namely, permission to copy and export U.S.-made DVDs, CDs and similar material. Hollywood is not amused.

It's unclear whether the WTO will allow Antigua to exact such a pound of flesh. For now, the Antiguans are trying shame, accusing the United States of being a scofflaw. If Washington refuses to obey WTO rulings, the Antiguans say, other countries may follow suit, undermining global trade.

Now we’re getting down to it. In the wake of the collapsed Doha round, and with Europe looking for leverage on the US to break the impasse, what better way than to fund the Antiguans and allow US pirated audio and video material onto their market?

The WTO would then get its Doha off and running again, Europe could concede a little on Microsoft, the US would secure guarantees for its horse racing and everyone would be sweet, except for some minor egg on the face of a few federal prosecutors but with these stakes, who’d care?

Far fetched you say? Why? Seizing pretexts is not unknown in the rarified atmosphere of world trade. And what if the US went magnanimous on Antigua and backed off completely? Well that one really is in the realms of fantasy.

[middle-east] arab disquiet over hezbollah

Neil Macfarquhar, Damascus
August 5th, 2006

In the Melbourne Age not long ago, there was a very interesting article. What it actually said was par for the course – we all knew that anyway.

The fact that such an article ever saw the light of day illustrates something Hezbollah had no idea would happen – journalists would finally read between the lines and slowly push their editors to print the truth.

"They think they will be the leaders of all Muslims, and I don't want that," a 45-year-old high school maths teacher from Riyadh said. "Hezbollah is Iranian; everyone knows that."

Firstly, Hezbollah are alienating quite substantial sections of the Arab world – please read the Age article.

Secondly, their arrogant manipulation of the western media is slowly backfiring. Of course, Al Beeb will hold out till the end, as will the FCO, but there are ways around the impasse.

This is the power of both mainstream journalism, when it is permitted, and the power of blogging when your traffic is high, as Melanie Phillips’ and Stephen Pollards’ traffic is. Mine is not and yet it’s a little bit to add to the push.

[love and all that] the war between men and women

Her comment ..... His comment

Women tend to be more concerned about their marriages than men. They buy most of the books on marriage to try to improve and they respond to outside advice more. They often complain about their marriages to their closest friends and sometimes to anyone who will listen. They treat marriage as a profession.

‘Complain’ is the word here. Women are forever trying to create problems where they just don’t exist because someone or some magazine told them their marriage must be bad. If they would only stop analyzing awhile and just relate to their men, everything would be much happier.

Marriage is a vibrant and lively river, not a stagnant swamp, of which getting married is only the first part. The two people in the marriage need to grow with each other and within themselves, personally. It’s essentially an onward and upward process.

It’s not unlike buying a quality car. Infinite care, long homework and patience lead you to a certain choice. Having made your choice, knowing in your heart you will always love that choice, you now do everything in your power to get it, paying as much as you need and even more. Then you can relax, sit back and enjoy what you have – you don’t expect it to start acting up and causing you problems – it’s supposed to be quality, after all.

Women file for divorce twice as often as men.

That says everything about women – restless and dissatisfied by nature. They just will not let a marriage grow by itself – they have to force it and it dies. A man has no chance.

Women usually express no hope that their husbands will ever understand what it is that frustrates them, let alone change enough to solve the problem.

What problem? If you start looking for problems, you’ll find them. For a man, it’s far simpler - she’s beautiful, he loves her, he wants to be with her, end of story. What more do people want?

Marital problems are created by husbands who do little or nothing to solve them. Wives are the major force for resolving conflicts, and when they give up trying to solve the problem, the marriage is usually over.

A man’s primary instincts are to hunt and to protect. He goes out hunting for what the family needs and then he comes home and looks for peace and quiet and loving tenderness from her. His job is to maintain stability and to prevent threats to his family, even from within. When a woman starts acting unreasonably, he must ignore it, placate her, soothe her and let time do the rest.

It is the woman who runs the family and keeps it operating, buying the food, looking after the children, cleaning the house. The man makes some of the money and does some of the work but he usually thinks he does so much more than he really does. If he does one little thing for the family, he thinks he should get a medal. The woman does things for the family 24 hours a day, with no one praising her.

When a man marries a woman, he gives up all his rights and freedoms and his resources, financial, physical and mental to the woman he loves. He gives it all. If she eventually leaves him, she takes it all and he pays and pays for the rest of his life. It’s a huge responsibility. Men take their families very seriously. Her thanks is to give him no credit, to put him under enormous pressure to improve his financial position and to constantly try to change him. Most men are emotionally exhausted from the constant battle!

The simpler role of husbands in decades past has now been replaced by a much more complex role, especially in their relationship with their wives. Women are not trying to change their men, just improve them and change the direction they are going in; in the same way women are constantly trying to improve themselves. But men don’t seem to want to improve.

For thousands of years, women have always fallen back on this ancient lie, the word ‘improve’, to justify their impossible, unreasonable and permanently dissatisfied demands. Men have always operated differently. In life, as in lovemaking, a man puts in huge bursts of energy and huge bursts of spending, to be followed by periods of quiet consolidation and relaxation. For her to expect 110% effort 24/7 shows both an ignorance of male biology and unbelievable selfishness.

The most common reason women give for leaving their husbands is "mental cruelty" often meaning indifference, failure to communicate and neglect. This includes both emotional abandonment and physical abandonment. Husbands who spend long periods away from home fall into this category. Neglect is way ahead of all the other reasons, combined, that women leave men.

Have women ever stopped to think why they are neglected in the first place? They drive their man away from them with their bitter, mocking disdain and list of faults. Only a masochist would come back for more of this.

Women need a soul mate, someone they trust who is there for them when they have a problem, who takes their feelings into account when decisions are being made; someone to whom they feel emotionally connected. Is that too much to ask?

Most husbands are mystified by this complaint. A man has to be away from home to make the money, he must take exercise to keep physically fit for her. She enjoys the results of all this pain but has no understanding, nor interest, in how it was achieved; so she turns around and complains that he’s not with her 24/7. Is that crazy or what? He’s with her as often as he possibly can.

A man has many rooms in his daily life – one for his work, one for his mates, one for his sport, one for his children and one for his wife. He visits each in turn and is happy if they’re all balanced. Trouble is, he blocks her out of all his other rooms and it goes against her whole idea of ‘partnership’. She has given him her whole future by having his child, by letting him have sole rights to her and she wouldn’t even think of making any major decisions without her partner being involved. She wants to be integrated into his entire life, not relegated to one corner of it.

A man needs the space to take care of all aspects of his life, one by one. Each, in turn, requires his undivided attention. When he’s making a decision at work, he can’t be exchanging loving words with her on the phone. How seriously would he be taken in his workplace? When he’s at home in the privacy of their bedroom, he doesn’t expect to be interrupted by his mates. It just seems so basic – why the need to even explain it?

Without integration of both partners into one unit, there can be no emotional bonding, no uniting of the spirit, no feeling of intimacy and, in the end, no sex. Each partner's feelings must be taken into account whenever they make a decision. They must avoid thoughtless habits, learn to mutually enjoy a life which is equally theirs and mutually resolve their conflicts. All of this creates marital compatibility.

Once a woman occupies every room in a man’s life, which is her fervent wish, she’ll soon take over completely and rob him of his identity as a person. A woman needs to possess a man, [she calls it ‘devotion’], to turn him into a compliant slave. He then becomes a shadow of what he once was, a wraith.

A woman wants a strong, vibrant, yet calm man who takes an active interest in her and who’ll protect her in time of need. She needs a man she can look up to and respect for his firmness, sense of direction and good humour.

Every man who ever believed that found out the truth the hard way. It was even a woman, Helen Rowland, back in 1922, who said, ‘A husband is what is left of a man when the nerve has been extracted.’ And who extracted it? The truth is that women want compliant service robots who’ll do their will, calling it ‘mutual decision making’. A husband complies because he’s been trained, over many years, that if he disagrees, she’ll cause endless trouble and so he opts for peace and quiet. As for a sense of humour, that is usually the first casualty.

[life and times] dr. hawley harvey crippen [part 1of 2]

This is a magnetic tale of death and love, sin and virtue. There are two sides of the story – the physical, which is sordid, dreadful and revolting, and the spiritual, which is good and heroic.

Number 39 Hilldrop Crescent was near Camden Road, Holloway, North London. By 1910, the neighborhood had slightly gone down in the social scale but was still cobble-stoned, tree-lined and pert.

This smoky July morning, Inspector Dew alit from his carriage and, tipping the cabbie, ascended to jingle the doorbell. A brass plaque beside the bell read, "CRIPPEN". A small, delicate girl, of no more than 16 years of age, answered, "Oui, monsieur?" Dew hoped she understood English.

"Is your master at home?" the detective asked.

"Mashter?" she was quizzical.

Dew had no idea what the French word was for doctor, so he asked, "Yes, Monsieur Crippen. Is he inside? This she understood. From the top of the staircase he now heard approaching boot steps and Doctor Hawley Harvey Crippen entered.

He was a small man in his mid-forties with a fresh complexion, light brown hair, which he brushed carefully over a bald spot, and a straggly sandy mustache above a receding chin," explains Tom Cullen . "His gray eyes, which were magnified slightly by gold-rimmed spectacles, were undoubtedly his most remarkable feature.

"Hello." The little man – no more than 5'5" -- held out his whitish hand. The policeman shook it and found, while doing so, that it was not as weak as it looked. "Dr. Hawley Crippen?" Dew inquired. The other nodded, not sure whether to smile or frown.

"I need to grab just a little of your time to ask you a few questions."

"Oh?" Crippen answered. "Why don't we step into the front parlor, if that’s all right."

The inspector followed the doctor into a room of tasteful furniture and potted palms. There was a definite scent of a woman's fine perfume – but not the maid’s. Noticing trifles were all part of his work, having been a professional investigator for the past 23 years.

The detective liked the fact that Crippen didn't seem at all nervous. Yes, Dew thought to himself, nothing wrong here. "Dr. Crippen, first, allow me to express my condolences over the recent death of your wife, Belle. I understand she is sorely missed by your friends."

The other nodded in appreciation.

"But, because of her passing, there is, I'm sorry to say, a mystery. Dr. Crippen, a number of your wife's professional acquaintances have doubts about her sudden trip to America, which caused her sudden death abroad."

"The Ladies' Guild," Crippen nodded.

"They are...what?... actresses, as was your wife?"

"Music hall people, mostly. My wife, she was a singer, not very famous, mind you, but she enjoyed it. They raise money for charities, mostly."

"Remarkable," Dew whispered, "I can go back to Scotland Yard now and reassure them that nothing out of the ordinary has occurred."

"Inspector, are they saying I've killed my wife or something?"

Dew was surprised. "Actually, they claim that she had many commitments with them in February and thought it out of character for her to flee without a personal word. "Doctor, I must be direct: your living here with another lady. Miss Le Neve, I believe her name is..."

Crippen remained unshaken. "I know...I know it does look suspicious, Inspector... may we talk man to man?"

"Please!" Dew urged.

"Inspector—" he paused, breathed deeply, and went on, " I admit: I lied. My wife did not to go to America to visit a sick relative. She did not die. That was all a story."

Dew sat upright. "Then where is she?"

"Oh. she's in America all right, but... she left me for another man, Inspector." He looked glum. "We never got along, her and I, guess I couldn't please her...in many ways. She told me she was leaving for Chicago, but Lord knows if she really went there or not. Bruce Miller's his name."

"Then there have been marital problems for some time?"

"For years, Inspector."

Dew smiled softly.

"I...I panicked when she left that night in February, for I could see that scandal could ruin my professional standing. I was probably more ashamed of myself, really. No man likes to think he can't hold on to his wife."

"I see." Dew pondered,. "What about your friend, Miss Le Neve, who...shares your quarters here? Does she know Belle exists?"

"She...she believes like the rest of my friends that Belle has died."

The detective grimaced. "Dr. Crippen, do you think it's right …"

"Inspector, Ethel and I have become as man and wife. We love each other to the bone. She knows the history of Belle and I," the other answered, "Belle's unfaithfulness to me, our quarrels. "

"I'm sure Miss Le Neve is a fine lady."

"And a wonderful help in my business!" Crippen perked. "She's my secretary, you know. In fact," he glanced at his pocket watch, "she's at the office as we speak, catching up on some early work. I was about to go to her."

"Yes, well, first off, Doctor, we need to find Belle. A formality, you understand.

"I agree wholeheartedly!" Crippen replied. "Inspector...you think I'm a mouse, don't you?"

"A mouse? Oh, you mean in Shakespeare."

Dew was satisfied. He drew up a quick statement, which Crippen read and signed, and the detective felt it had been a good morning's work.

Crippen shut the door, and exhaled, deeply. His head throbbed. He remembered how he had cut out her heart and had thrown it in the canal after he had killed her and buried her beneath the house.

Belle had wanted glitter and tinsel, he’d wanted to be thought of as something more than just a little man.

Hawley Harvey Crippen was born near the Coldwater River in Michigan, U.S.A. As a child, he would tell his friends he was going to be a physician. After graduating from the University of Michigan, he earned an M.D. then relocated to New York City as an eye and ear specialist. While there, Crippen wooed and won Irish Charlotte Bell, a nurse but she died of apoplexy in January, 1892. He returned east and met Belle.

To a man like Crippen, raised with the idea that work, work, work is all that matters, Belle was a strange and alluring animal. 30-year-old Hawley Crippen fell for her high spirits and free sexuality. Belle, in turn, felt attracted to Crippen by his profession. Hawley Crippen, M.D. could buy her way up. Leaving home at 16 years old, she’d been taught by high-class teachers in exchange for sex. But, fate can be darkly comical. Almost immediately after their marriage, Crippen’s branch of medicine became unfashionable, money had run dry. Belle, stuck at home ironing, suffocated slowly out of her element.

For a while, Crippen practised dentistry. Then Professor Horace Munyon gave him the chance of a lifetime: to establish and manage the first of Munyon's overseas offices. He was going to London, England, guaranteed a salary of $10,000 a year – exorbitant for 1897. Belle covered her wrists and huge cleavage in gems and expensive baubles. She met a swaggering man-about-town named Bruce Miller.

Belle went on stage but failed to charm her nightly audiences – one evening they booed her – and the production closed within the week. Her voice matched her personality, and was loud, vulgar and lacking in feminine charm. Short and big, she sang lyrics such as, "I'm called little Buttercup, dear little Buttercup, though I could never tell why." Audiences laughed.

But Belle loved the nightlife and Bruce Miller proved to be everything that her Hawley was not; he was all muscle, with a beastly-grunt that a woman like Belle desired. Men. She loved men. It wasn't that Crippen was cold to her needs, but she continued to flirt – and sometimes wander home at sunrise, with poor excuses.

Things might have been different if he’d loved her. Or if she’d loved him. They either argued incessantly for days and nights or would sink into unemotional statements of Good Morning and Good Night. When they had sex, it was mechanical.

The one time that Crippen did show support for her, he listed himself as her business manager but Professor Munyon heard about it and Crippen was instantly fired from his $10,000 a year position. To make matters worse, he found letters addressed to Belle from Bruce Miller, who signed off, "Love and Kisses to Brown Eyes." Belle's reaction was not repentant, but defensive.

He found a new job. Monthly income fell far below what he had earned at Munyon's, but the job did have its benefits. For one, he was given a beautiful office of Chippendale furnishings and another benefit was pretty and elegant Ethel Le Neve.

Ethel was 18 years old when she met Hawley Crippen; he was 39. A romantic relationship eventually developed between them, though it took nearly a year. Ethel took her place as Crippen's private secretary and bookkeeper.

Born in Diss, Norfolk, Ethel liked climbing trees, or playing marbles, or shooting with a catapult. For dolls or other girlish toys she had no longing. But, underneath the dirty cheeks of a tomboy a sentimental girl blossomed, dreaming of far-off places and knights in shining armor, and she fell in love with Crippen's noble maturity, something that boys her age lacked. Ethel found Crippen at all times galante. He would treat her to dinner at her favorite restaurant; and, through it all, he never once ventured beyond the role of gentleman.

Their conversations remained professional; even when alone, he never behaved inappropriately.
To Crippen, Ethel had everything Belle lacked – she was sweet, considerate and graceful. She was no beauty, but she had the kind of face that made a married woman clutch her husband's arm a little tighter. Her mouth could be either tragic or sensual. She made him feel like a man again but most important of all, she was the one person with whom he could discuss his shameful and humiliating home life. They fell in love -- deeply, passionately, hopelessly in love. By 1903, the boss and his secretary were inseparable. At least in spirit.

On the other hand, there was still Belle. Belle hadn't noticed. She had joined the Music Hall Ladies' Guild, whom Crippen found to be old hens. In September, 1905, they moved to 39 Hilldrop Crescent, Holloway, for £52 per year. A coal cellar lay just below street level behind the garden steps. Belle redecorated her home. The lampshades were pink, the vases were pink, and even the lights were pink. Crippen found her taste nauseating at times, but learned to ignore it and went with Ethel.

The lovers wined, dined, and kissed but that was all. Ethel and Hawley were both brought up with old-time religion and dared not commit adultery. Crippen remained timid in that direction, promising but not delivering his freedom from Belle.

However, in late 1906, things changed. Belle, it seemed, had changed and had gone back to being modest. The Crippens now took in lodgers for extra money, two German boys. One afternoon, December 6, 1906, Crippen came home from his office earlier than usual and found one of them in bed with Belle. Rushing to Ethel, she gave him her full passion. They awoke in the light of morning in Ethel's bedroom and they referred ever after to December 6, 1906, as their "wedding day".

Even though Crippen continued to live with Belle, he was a happy man. All allegiance to her had vanished. He lived for the day he could cast her off like a dead canary. She had become suspicious, and when she demanded to know who the other woman was, he remained silent.

People began to talk. When Dr. Crippen left Drouet's for another position, he took his secretary with him. Knowing that he’d once practised dentistry in New York, Ethel persuaded him to open a dental practice in a fashionable locale. If Belle hadn't known who her husband's "other woman" was until that time, she knew now. Ethel and Belle had met in person a few times. She raged and bullied and he could bear the ill treatment of his wife no longer.

Things were coming to a head. One morning Ethel admitted that she was pregnant. Crippen took the news as she’d hoped he would, with elation. Although she miscarried, Belle knew that Ethel was in her late twenties and could easily conceive again. Belle bet her booties she would try. This time, though, the wife would stop her. Despite her own adulterous wanderings, Belle did not take "a philosophic view of her husband's liaison".

Towards the close of 1910, their life fell apart. Belle hoped to either scare Crippen out of the house or enrage him so that he would divorce first. Then, her conscious clear, she could find another Bruce Miller. But, the experts agree, Belle may have gone too far, driving Crippen to desperation, calling the beloved Ethel whore and worse. Home-wrecker? Trollop? Whore?

To a man so tempestuously in love with a woman, there was no forgiving those words said of his angel. Belle had crossed the line; she had insulted and had threatened him. No, he would never let those insults pass to public ear. He would die first... or perhaps Belle would.

At the stroke of midnight, New Year's, 1910, Ethel Le Neve and her aunt were miles away from Hawley Crippen. At the same time in London, the Crippens had dinner guests but Hawley, wasn't going to make a wish. He would make his own in 1910.

On January 17, Crippen ordered five grains of the poison hydrobromide of hyoscine from chemists whom he dealt with through his profession. The drug was so lethal that if injected in a quantity above a quarter-grain it could kill instantly. Two weeks later Belle disappeared.

Because Hawley Crippen never confessed to the crime, no one has ever been able to explain in detail what really did happen that morning of February 1, 1910. There remains only conjecture. Here is one such conjecture:

"Crippen mixes a drink for his wife before retiring, something he is known to do. But, this time, he laces it with the drug. His plan is to wait many hours then, feigning shock, telephone a personal friend and colleague, Dr. John S, Burroughs, informing him that he has found Belle dead in bed. Crippen had told Burroughs in mid-December that he had been worried about his wife's health, as she had been feeling ill lately.

Belle does not react to the toxin as expected; she begins to scream. Crippen realizes that he has administered too large of a dose. A half-grain can kill, a little more can cause vomiting, hallucination and lunacy. Crippen panics. Afraid that neighbors will rouse from their beds by her screams, he panics and grabs a revolver. The doctor shoots his wife in the head.

With a corpse on his hands, Crippen must dispose of the evidence, the body itself. The only solution is dissection. It must be performed in Crippen's enameled bathtub, next to the bedroom.

Knowing at this point that he will bury her in his cellar, which isn't very large – two metres by three in fact – he reduces her body into parts, cutting off arms, legs and head. Belle was a thick woman so he literally fillets her, and in the morning he will pulverize what is left. After wrapping the torso in a pair of his own pajamas, he buries it in the cellar, just below the back staircase. He returns to the bathroom, gathers up her limbs, head and severed organs, including her heart, and stores them in the dustbin.

It has long been daylight. He throws his bloody clothes into the fire, and then dozes a little. At the time he would normally get up for work, he rises. Waking, he checks for traces of blood that he may have overlooked through tired eyes. Dressing, shaving, he heads to work, arriving at the dental office on time, 9 a.m.

He acts as if nothing has happened.

Part 2 continues here.