Jack the Ripper

After the Slaughter of Mary Jane Kelly:

This is my guess at the events following a savage episode. I post it because I have always felt overwhelming sadness for Mary Jane. She drifted into the wrong place at the wrong time. I have not posted a picture today but if you would like to see photographs of the Kelly crime scene then visit this page of the Ripper Casebook. Be warned, a couple of the photos are very grisly. The Casebook website holds all documented facts, reports, statements and photographs together with a wealth of other information on the Whitechapel Murders.

Whitechapel 9th November 1888
The empty, broken corpse of an Irish rose lies on grey sheets drenched in its own blood. The radiant beauty of youth hacked away, leaving in its place a carcase devoid of organs and a face stripped of identity. Exhausted and stripped to the waist, he stands tall and stares at the carnage in a detached way. The embers of her open fire still light up the horror but already his fury has waned. He picks his great coat from the floor then rolls his knife in a rag and stows it in the pocket.

As he crouches and stokes the embers he hears the creak of floorboards above. Sweat runs on his face but he pulls on the coat, covering his slick body. He thumbs the door latch off, clicks the door softly shut behind him and slips into the early morning dark.

He takes care, turning up his sticky collar. Even at this hour Londoners are about their business. Pools of dim gaslight illuminate street corners but the narrow lanes are black and safe. Head down, he passes a group of lurching revellers, hats askew and bumping walls in a passage. Moving south from Whitechapel Road he mixes with the first dockers but turns east at Wapping. He runs through dark alleys in shadow, fleeing the devastation his hands have wrought.

After a mile he slows his pace and stops to lean on a wall. Nausea overwhelms him as usual. Soon he will put great distance between himself and the Inspector’s inquiries but first he must sleep. In the corner of a dark yard he curls on the cobbles and shuts his eyes for an hour.

---

Morning reveals a cold grey mist settled over the hulking iron steamers in St Katherine’s Dock. Already, emigrant passengers are filing nervously over the gangway, shifting heavy cases from one hand to the other. Amid the clangs and shouts a tall man passes onto the upper deck, almost unremarkable save for the streak of blood behind his ear. He sits on deck and looks back at the City.

How easy to have tied a sack of rocks to his ankle and jumped from Westminster Bridge in the night, to have sunk into the icy brown Thames and ended this. But his wretched cowardice had spurned that solution long ago. Bile rises in his throat as he remembers her whimpering pleas for mercy.

A shudder in the ship’s timbers tells him the steamer is moving. As she turns in the basin her deep horn bellows over the East End. The echoes cannon off warehouses and ring across open water, yet even as they subside his keen senses catch the shrill persistence of a Metropolitan police whistle announcing a dread discovery. Too late. In two weeks he will be just one more unknown strolling through New York with a knife in his pocket. .

"A nuclear error but I have no fear
London is drowning and I live by the river."
The Clash - London Calling

Notes from a blog station

Here I sit and think of words. I want to see the most intensely personal emotions laid out on this screen. I want to show the results to people. A confessional to be read by others who know and respect the deepest feelings a soul is capable of. The next day my PC tells me there have been visitors. Good people who have read, understood, commented and moved on.

I try feeble poetry, short heartbreaking stories, reviews of matters musical and occasional rants on a pet topic. Tonight I see the last of the sun setting as I construct these sentences. A bat swoops in slow lazy circles under the trees catching insects on the wing. Stars wink on as I check grammar, spelling, punctuation and fiddle with vocabulary. Sometimes you settle into the zone. I have moved on now and am making notes for my next piece...

...TV audiences relish a case of multiple killing with morbid fascination. They are torn between the sheer brutality of the crime and the victims’ extreme suffering. Next they marvel at the skill of the forensic detective, absorbing details like thirsty sponges. Twist and turn as he may, the killer will be caught and exposed even by the faintest trace of his ten-year-old saliva. There can be no mistake, there will be no escape.

Yet serial murder is no new phenomenon. In 1888 the Streets of Whitechapel were paced by plodding policemen, always several steps behind the most notorious killer of all time. A warren of gas-lit Victorian streets lined with five-storey slums provided cover which would be unknown in the twenty first century. No CCTV, DNA Profiling or Offenders Register, not even finger-printing. Little surprise that his identity remains a mystery to this day.

His final victim was Mary Jane Kelly. He visited such savage wrath upon this girl that the few surviving photographs of the one hundred and seventeen year-old crime scene could not be shown even to a 2005 audience without explicit warnings. However there would be no more killings and an uneasy return to normality spread across London’s East End.

Soon I will consider what could have happened to bring deafening silence after that atrocity...

Sound and vision

Intermission time. Let's take a break from the intensity. Here are my latest Internet deliveries:

The Lost Highway - directed by David Lynch.
In the opening scene the central character listens to a message through his house entry phone. In the closing scene he is outside speaking the same message into the entry system. We are shown a series of incidents that seem to be related yet probably are not. Video footage is shot by an unseen intruder from an impossibly high vantage point which adds to the feeling of unreality.

The film’s success lies in its creation of a dreamlike atmosphere. The characters talk in very basic dialogue as if sleep-walking and the action is sometimes in slow-motion at others high speed. Ultimately this fascinating piece of cinema, shot in the style of a ‘film noir,’ defies strict interpretation. It explores schizophrenia and identity. We might be learning about a couple who smash a snuff video ring or it might just be a dream about paranoia.

Weezer - Make Believe
If you are expecting more songs like the current single Beverly Hills you’ll be disappointed. Instead the punk pop four-piece from LA deliver a convincing collection second only to the Green Album. Lyrics developed with the wisdom of age, melodies to lift the heart and lush, layered vocals over dirty power chords. Minor key choruses give that all important dash of melancholy. I’m forty seven going on seventeen!

Oasis – Don’t Believe the Truth
At last an Oasis album that can seriously claim to hold a candle to the great (Whats the Story) Morning Glory? Most noticeable is Liam’s voice, which has recovered from the gravelly dirge of recent years to the youthful energy and range of those early days. Song-writing duties are shared among the new band and the variety shines through. But Noel’s efforts are just too good to be overshadowed, a writer of such simple yet effective songs.

Turin Brakes – Jackinabox
The Optimist might just have been the only good set of songs these guys had in them. I feared they would sink without trace along with their pale imitation second album. Jackinabox is a rebirth with genuinely fresh material but all the quiet easy charm of old. Trademark harmonies soar over slide acoustic guitar and deft sticks. Saw these guys supporting Stereophonics at Southampton Guildhall four years ago, now they headline Brixton Academy.

(Where have bands like Smashing Pumpkins gone?)

"Today is the greatest day I've ever known
Can't live for tomorrow, tomorrow's much too long."
Smashing Pumpkins – Today

Let Loose in '57

Here I was about 23.
I meant this poem to be about growing up. I originally posted it several months ago, before I had readers! It probably deserves another airing.

Let Loose in '57

Churchill breathed and barbers' poles
Were red and white back then.
We warmed our bones with smoky coals
When I was under ten.

Sport was hard and fast but fair,
Our heroes cheap and clean.
Life was sweet and kind to all
When I reached middle teens.

The girls I knew wore candy stripes
And boys smoked Number 10s.
A Ford Capri drew looks of envy
Punk was light years off.

Beer was warm in dimpled glasses
Summer skies were blue.
Platform boots made men of boys,
Starman was fifteen too.

Special Brew fucked all the years
From then til ’93.
That’s twenty winters cold and numb
Before It shook me free.

Can’t remember summers’ days that
Should’ve been golden heaven.
But that’s the price I guess I pay,
Let loose in ’57.

Dying is hard

Mother, daughter or wife you die a hard death alone.

Motionless on her side. Unblinking eyes turned to the cold wall. A white coat pauses at the foot of her bed, studies her chart but won’t look at her. Turning, heels click away on the polished floor. Laughter rings out in a corridor full of warm lunch smells.

Cannot breathe, cannot call for help. There can be no help now anyway. Too tired to cry and too old to care. Starched white sheets are cold. Bitter taste and dry lips. Wallpaper pattern could be a face or a map. A familiar face, a country. The monitor bleeps slowly.

Blue blouse wheels in a trolley. Leaves it in a corner, fresh bed linen piled high, ready. Flowers in the window. Outside airbrakes powerful hiss. Heartbeat, twitch, breathe, try...

Ian Hunter - The Brook Southampton

Remember glam rock? Mott the Hoople were at the vanguard of the movement in the early seventies. Not so much glam as a stepping stone between rock and punk they had massive singles success notably with the Bowie penned “All the Young Dudes". Led by charismatic Dylan-voiced Ian Hunter they played notoriously raucous gigs. I was lucky enough to see them at the Bournemouth Winter Gardens in 1973 as a sixteen year old. Support that night came from four university types calling themselves Queen.

Fast forward thirty two years to The Brook in Southampton and a stage the size of a back bedroom bristling with the hardware of a touring rock band - a few square inches of floor bathed in blue light waiting between the amps for rock n’ roll feet. As is customary the support slot went to the England based Tracie Hunter Band, Ian’s daughter. Best I’ve heard her tight rock outfit play. She’s a chip off the old block, big lungs and plenty of rock snarl.

The main attraction strolled on at 9:15 to riotous applause. Gone now are the heady days of glam and the optimism of youth but still present are the flowing ginger locks, dynamic stage presence and killer rock songs. Now an American citizen, Ian Hunter took the tiny stage with his six-piece American band. This miniature venue is a far cry from the great halls of the seventies but the house was packed with fans every bit as fervent. Drums hammered, bass boomed, piano rocked and those Les Paul guitars just screamed. “It’s a mighty long way down rock and roll...”

Aged sixty five, skinny as a rake and rock n’ roll through and through, Ian put his heart and soul into twenty one songs featuring his best solo material, all the Mott standards and a few album track rarities. Two hours of pure nostalgia. What more could you ask for? Crashing through “Once Bitten Twice Shy” then raising the roof with “All the Way From Memphis.” We five hundred middle-agers enjoyed a sweaty evening of honest rock n’ roll from the master. Cameras popped the whole time recording this most grossly under-estimated of British songwriters.

Mick Ralphs, formerly of Mott the Hoople and later of Bad Company took the stage with the band for the five-song encore, as did daughter Tracie. This was an intimate experience where we could reach out and touch this icon of rock and feel the noise pounding through our bodies. Rock on Ian, we love you man!

Set list:
1. Hymn for the Dudes
2. Lounge Lizard
3. Once Bitten Twice Shy
4. Twisted Steel
5. Resurrection Mary
6. Wash us Away
7. Knees of My Heart
8. 23a Swan Hill
9. The Outsider
10. I Wish I Was Your Mother
11. All American Alien Boy
12. Restless Youth
13. Marionette
14. Dead Man Walking
15. All the Way From Memphis

16. Just Another Night
17. Blues Jam
18. Roll Away the Stone
19. The Saturday Gigs
20. All the Young Dudes

21. A Nightingale Sang in Berkley Square

"No matter if fools say we can't win
I know I'll fall in love again."
Mott the Hoople - Roll Away the Stone

Two boys and several girls

Our eldest son used to smile and bounce and chuckle while his dad was crashed out.

The baby above left home today. He has moved into a rented bungalow with his fiancée. All day they ferried possessions in boxes, peeling his life away from here. From the sidelines we watched as he sliced off chunks of his existence and put them in his car.

These two make a great pair and we wish them happiness. But events like this are tinged with sadness because they represent the end of a long period of dependence and life as a family. They will need to work out their way of living together and coping with the trials life brings. Over time they will uncover the people they really are.

Buying a first house is now almost impossible, the cheapest one-bedroom apartment here will cost over $250,000. Just as well I bought our current house ages ago, prices have outstripped incomes by a mile. Twenty five years ago I borrowed three times my annual salary, now that factor would have to be fifteen times! Almost unbelievable isn’t it? So today the young people rent while they wait for their inheritance.

The new breakaway family already has a head start, family and friends have generously chipped in, helping with all the necessary furniture, appliances and utensils. It’s up to the youngsters now to make a home of it.

I watched him grow from defenceless baby to 6 foot 3” adult in twenty three rapid years, then he’s gone. But I should not complain, I did just the same. I look forward to seeing my boy put into practice the skills he learned observing his mum and me. Cheer up though, I am sure we will see them often. They are only three miles away after all! This weekend it’s our twenty seventh wedding anniversary so we all meet up again Sunday for a meal out. (There is a saying about good behaviour shortening a life sentence. Maybe it illustrates why I haven’t been let out yet).

As for our younger son, he knows he’s well off at home so we still have his outrageous antics for entertainment. He is a funny, exciting, enthusiastic and optimistic guy. Most evenings a different car pulls up full of giggling young women to whisk him away to God knows where but he always comes home. The girls love his company and he has an army of great friends. He lives a full, fast life and tells us he loves us. He reminds me a lot of me when I was young. I’d rather he didn’t leave home yet, I’m not ready for that silence.

“Who do girls like, they’re boys.
Always should be someone you really love.”
Blur - Girls and Boys