Was Dr Crippen innocent? Meet the man staging a retrial who wants you to be in the jury

Dr Hawley Crippen is, by common reputation, one of the guiltiest men in British legal history. His guilt is canonical, so much so that when in 1946 George Orwell outlined his ideal of the “perfect murder”, he found Crippen to be a model killer.

“The [perfect] murderer should be a little man of the professional class…living an intensely respectable life somewhere in the suburbs…he should go astray through cherishing a guilty passion for his secretary or the wife of a rival professional man…the means chosen should, of course, be poison.”

That sounds like Crippen alright. And Crippen sounds like death. His name is synonymous with guilt.

Why then, over a century after Crippen hung in Pentonville prison for poisoning and dismembering his wife, is a retrial of his case scheduled at Islington Museum in autumn this year?

Greg Foxsmith, the legal impresario behind the event has the audience’s interests at heart:

“It’s entertainment first and foremost. I hope it will be a fun event and lots of people will come.”

Greg, a solicitor and local councillor, has form for this sort of thing, having already overseen a retrial of Joe Orton, the angry 60s playwright who was convicted of defacing books in Islington library. But now he turns to murder, and in Islington that means Crippen, who lived and killed, the story goes, in a now-demolished house at number 39 Hilldrop Crescent.

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Greg has signed up a QC to defend Crippen, and a proper judge to provide oversight. But, this being 21st century entertainment, it’s the audience who will decide Crippen’s guilt.

“Everyone who comes will be given a number and twelve will be randomly picked as jurors,” he says.

But isn’t this all rather pointless, considering everyone from George Orwell to the History Channel knows that Crippen is as guilty as sin?

Perhaps everyone is wrong. In recent years, a case for the defence has begun to appear. New, but disputed, DNA evidence from the fleshy torso (head, legs and bones removed) dug up from Crippen’s basement suggests that it may not have belonged to his wife. It’s been suggested that his wife Cora, who had withdrawn her savings from the bank prior to her disappearance, might have used her money to escape her dreary husband for a new life in America. It’s said that the body in the cellar was not hers, but that of a woman who came to Dr Crippen for a backstreet abortion which went wrong, and which he tried desperately to cover up. This would make Crippen guilty of something different from cold-blooded wife murder, perhaps something we might be able to understand.

This is what Crippen’s descendants believe. They want him pardoned. The retrial might give their cause a push.

“I hope it will be a tongue in cheek airing of the issues, but one that’s sensitive to his relatives”, Greg says. “The barrister instructed to defend Crippen, John Cooper, is also instructed by the family seeking a pardon, so there is some overlap bewteen a real live issue and this macabre crime from the past.”

Without wanting to prejudice the trial, what with all these lawyers about, it’s worth noting that not everyone is buying this innocence guff. Responding to the new evidence, David Aaronovitch wrote a column in The Times entitled I’ll eat my hat if Dr Crippen was innocent, OK?

And if the new botched-abortion theory is correct, why didn’t Crippen say so? What he actually did might have been comic if it wasn’t the prelude to a hanging. For having shaved off his moustache, taken an assumed name and disguised his lover Ethel le Neve as his not-very-convincing son, he jumped on a ship for Canada. It wouldn’t be out of place in an episode of Blackadder.

These shenanigans, and the fact that he was the first suspected murderer to be caught by the new-fangled telegraph technology, ensured a bumper turn out at his trial. It was the reality entertainment event of 1910, and Greg Foxsmith hopes some of that drama has survived the 100 years that have followed.

Was Crippen innocent, or guilty? YOU DECIDE.

The organiser – @gregfoxsmith
His previous – Legal Am-Dram: Lawyers Retry Playwright Joe Orton
Full overview of the case and the new evidence at Crippen’s Wikipedia entry
Islington Tribune – John Cooper QC: My mission to prove Dr Crippen was innocent
George Orwell – The Decline of the English Murder

El Bulli chef Ferran Adrià plans to open London venue

Ferran Adrià, once head chef of El Bulli, the Catalan joint consistently rated best restaurant in the world by the three people who actually got to eat there, wants to open a place in London.

He told Fine Dining Lovers:

“With my brother we have decided to open a place of snack and cocktail in London. It will be a new 41 degree concept and we will have to work a lot on this. This was a decision we took recently and now we are looking for partners to move to London.”

41 degrees is the Barcelona snackaurant which Adrià opened last year. The focus is on drinks and nibbles. But what nibbles.

The New York Times went there and found:

“…pistachios wrapped in a delicate lattice of yogurt and dusted with an otherworldly sweet white yogurt-based powder…Crispy pork rinds topped with bright green and red powder (a mixture of spices including lime peel, freeze-dried corn powder and tomato powder)…But nothing matched the spectacular desserts: meringues of dried raspberries with hazelnut, cubes of marshmallow that tasted like key lime pie, profiteroles flavored with black currant and anise that melted on the tongue like cotton candy.”

Venue and opening date still undecided. Maybe it will all fall through. But if it doesn’t, prepare for a stampede.

Fine Dining Lovers – Ferran Adrià to open a venue in London
NY Times – Restaurant Report: 41° in Barcelona

Labour candidate blasts election organisers over "Islamophobic" BNP leaflet

Murad Qureshi, a Labour party London Assembly Member standing for reelection, has criticised election organisers for allowing the BNP to distribute a leaflet which he calls “islamophobic”.

The leaflet, the text of which is also carried on the London Elects website here and which can be viewed online here, includes mini-manifestos for the Mayoral candidates. That of the BNP’s Carlos Cortiglia contains the following quote from one Reverend Robert West:

“I’m backing the British National Party because they support our traditional Christian faith. We need strong leadership to protect our national identity from the threat of Islam.”

Qureshi wrote on his blog:

“This is clearly islamophobic in its intent. In my letter I have asked London Elects to explain how it saw fit to sanction such islamophobic comments. It is simply not good enough for them to tell us it’s not its role to make value judgements about the contents of the booklet from all the various political parties. Such remarks fall foul of Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, as it denotes that all persons of the islamic faith pose a threat to the wider population.”

He then tweeted:

Tweet

A spokesperson for London Elects provided a stout defence:

“The Greater London Returning Officer has to ensure that each candidate’s entry complies with election law and doesn’t break any other laws. The only responsible way for us to do this is to seek legal advice. That legal advice was that all entries complied with the law…The Election Addresses Order has specific rules for the material which the mini manifestos may contain. It is designed to govern political messages some of which by their nature may be distasteful to some readers. It is not intended to suppress offensive political views.”

So, who is right?

The quote is offensive.

But London Elects are absolutely right to stand their ground. Do we want election organisers censoring leaflets, even potentially offensive leaflets? Surely not unless the material is illegal, and London Elects are adamant that this is not.

Everyone who reads the leaflet will know what the BNP stand for. Better that than they campaign in code.

Qureshi, who will have done himself no harm with his electoral base in this dispute, finishes his blogpost in exactly the right way:

“We have to make sure that enough people vote across all the political parties to ensure the BNP do not make the 5 per cent threshold needed to get one of their Assembly Member [sic] which [would] only serve to peddle further their islamophobic views.”

Full list of items you'll be banned from taking into the London Olympics

This is the list of banned items which you will be prohibited from taking in to London Olympic 2012 venues. It’s mostly standard stuff, although the ban on tents caused a stir earlier this year. The restricted, rather than prohibited, objects are altogether more interesting. Scroll to the bottom for those.

Prohibited
• Liquids, aerosols, gels or other items of a similar consistency in amounts greater than 100ml
• Alcohol
• Tents, placards, spray paint or any other item which could be used to demonstrate within the venue or sabotage property
• Glass bottles (excluding medication contained in glass bottles)
• More than one soft-sided bag of 25L capacity (all bags must be able to fit under your seat)
• Walkie talkies, phone jammers and radio scanners
• Personal/private wireless access points and 3G hubs (smart devices such as android, iPhone and tablets, are permitted on venue, but must not be used as wireless access points to connect multiple devices)
• Laser pointers and strobe lights
• Large items too large to be electronically screened
• Bicycles, folding bicycles, roller-skates and skateboards
• Pets or animals (excluding service animals)
• All types of knives and bladed items, including pocket knives and knives carried as part of cultural dress (excluding the Sikh Article of faith kirpan/ceremonial dagger)
• Offensive weapons or implements such as bayonets, flick knives, extendable batons, sharpened combs, modified belt buckles and loose blades modified into weapons
• Personal protection sprays such as CS or pepper sprays
• Firearms and ammunition (including replicas, component parts or any device suspected to be a firearm)
• Fireworks, explosives, flares and smoke canisters
• Hazardous and toxic materials
• Controlled drugs including substances which look like controlled drugs
• Items that resemble prohibited items such as replica guns or hoax explosive devices

Restricted
• Large flags (bigger than 1m x 2m), banners and associated poles
• Oversized hats
• Large golf style umbrellas
• Large photographic and broadcast equipment over 30cm in length, including tripods and monopods. Please note that it’s also prohibited to use photographic or broadcast equipment for commercial purposes unless you hold media accreditation
• Excessive amounts of food
• Balls, rackets, frisbees or similar objects or projectiles
• Noisemakers such as hunting horns, air horns, klaxons, drums, vuvuzelas and whistles
• Any objects or clothing bearing political statements or overt commercial identification intended for ‘ambush marketing’
• Flags of countries not participating in the Games

“Excessive amounts of food”, “flags of countries not participating in the Games”, “any objects of clothing bearing political statements”.

Hmm. Also no pets, no oversized hats, and no vuvuzelas. Has this list completely ruined your outfit?

Full PDF document can be read here

How about an Oyster card for London's roads?

Think tank (or “policy wonks”, if you prefer) Demos are outlining 10 policies they think would benefit London. The latest:

“One simple idea might be for the Mayor to refund to all car owners the cost of their annual vehicle tax, while introducing road pricing at the same time, perhaps paid for via the Oyster Card. Those that make little use of their cars could well find themselves better of at the end of the year than they are currently. Similarly, discounts could be offered on less polluting, greener vehicles. Integrating congestion charging with the Oyster Card, would allow people to make a direct calculation as to the costs and benefits of using the car versus using public transport.”

This won’t happen anytime soon. We’ve seen the uproar that ensues when a council tries to take away a few parking spaces. But it feels like an idea whose time might not be all that far away.

With three more yet to come, here’s the full list of Demos’s ideas so far:

#1: Let London employers decide on transport
#2: Pop-up Parishes for London
#3: Give the Mayor control over JobcentrePlus and the Work Programme
#4: Tighten London’s property tax loopholes for foreigners
#5: Give cyclists more freedoms on London’s roads
#6: Create a London Commissioner for Schools and Young People
#7: Introduce an Oyster Card for London’s roads

Newly discovered "Philosopher's Stone" alchemy scroll on show at Science Museum

The Science Museum have found a new Ripley Scroll, the name given to a series of mysterious alchemical documents containing instructions for making the Philosopher’s Stone, among their archives. It will go on display tomorrow in an exhibition entitled Signs, Symbols, Secrets: an illustrated guide to alchemy. There’s a distinct possibility that, If we follow its instructions very carefully, any one of us might be able to convert base metal into gold, or even to discover an elixir of eternal life.

The image above is taken from another copy of a Ripley scroll held at Yale. You can see from the dragons and the fire and the tongues and water and blooded feet that these scrolls are a fun read.

But how do they help you discover the Philosopher’s Stone? Just how do you make this substance which can change base metal to gold? The language of alchemy is notoriously elusive and resistant to all but the most subtle and well informed interpretation. But sod that, here’s a 5 point guide:

1. Ingredients

George Ripley’s allegorical poem which features in the scrolls is obviously a good place to start.

“You must make Water of the Earth, and Earth of the Air, and Air of the Fire, and Fire of the Earth. The Black Sea. The Black Luna. The Black Sol.”

So you’ll need some Air, some Earth, some Fire and some Water. That sounds easy enough. Also maybe some sea, moon and sun but I’m guessing those can be skipped?

2. Equipment

This picture by Joseph Wright of Derby has two titles. One is An Alchemist in Search of the Philosopher’s Stone. The other title is The Alchemist Discovers Phosphorus. I can tell you that in the glass container is some boiling urine, and that the light is phosphorus being given off by it. So for this bit you’ll need a kettle and some urine. All perfectly do-able so far.

3. Snakes

“On the ground there is a hill
Also a serpent within a well
His tail is long with wings wide
All ready to flee by every side”

So you’ll need a snake with wings. Maybe the zoo has one?

4. Mixing

“The fire with water bright shall be burnt
And water with fire washed shall be
The earth on fire shall be put
And water with air shall be knit”

Clearly the first two lines mean you should throw a bucket of water on a fire, and the third line means you should chuck some mud on it. The last line I’m taking suggestions on.

5. Eh?

“Thou must part him in three
And then knit him as the Trinity
And make them all but one
Lo here is the Philosophers Stone”

Nope. You’re on your own. Best of luck!

Links:
Science Museum – Alchemy Exhibition
Sir George Ripley – Poem from the scrolls
Wellcome Library – How to conserve Ripley Scrolls
Beinecke Library, Yale – Pictures from their Ripley Scroll
Wired – Science Musuem discovers Philosopher’s Stone scroll

New films about Bob Marley, LCD Soundsystem and Paul Simon - the musical biopic is a genre on the rise

Since 2005 there have already been four great musical biopics: Walk The Line, Control, Ray and I’m Not There. And now, in 2012 alone, it looks like we might see three more, says Mike Bonnet.