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AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 1347
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 07, 2004 - 2:35 pm: | 
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Thanks for all that, Jeff.
A fascinating case and I shall certainly read up more on it, and in the meantime I have found some legal niceties associated with the case which might be applicable to this case we discuss on these boards, which I will post in the due course of brandy.
Connected with that case I keep getting references to a case known as the 'Crookenden Burial Case' but am unable to find more information, it appears to have some strong connection to murder and pardon of the time.
Any ideas? |
AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 1349
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 07, 2004 - 3:42 pm: |
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For some reason, as yet unknown even to my good self, I am much drawn to this neat piece of 19th century legal argument, as applied to pardons such as the very one we discuss, in the case of Mary Jane Kelly - and the edible cabin boy - and it is worth pointing out that this slice of Groucho Marx humbug is still in use today in major murder trials and pardons:
'Comments on the defence of necessity
Necessity has been defined by eminent 19th Century lawyer Stephen as follows:
An act which would otherwise be a crime may be excused if the person accused can show that it was done only in order to avoid consequences which could not otherwise be avoided, and which, if they had followed, would have inflicted upon him or others whom he was bound to protect inevitable and irreparable evil, that no more was done than was reasonably necessary for the purpose, and that the evil inflicted by it was not disproportionate to the evil avoided. The extent of this principle is unascertained.'
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Jeffrey Bloomfied
Inspector
Username: Mayerling
Post Number: 469
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 07, 2004 - 10:58 pm: |
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Hi A.P.
I never heard of the Crookenden Burial Case. If you discover what it is, please inform me.
I guess the lawyer Stephen with his definition is James Fitzjames Stephen, the judge who handled the Lipski and Maybrick cases, and father of James Kenneth Stephen.
Best wishes,
Jeff |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 2972
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 08, 2004 - 4:56 am: |
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Hi AP
burial ahead of its time? The Crookenden burial case and the sanctioning of cremation in England and Wales
Stephen White
Abstract:
For more than 1000 years before the 19th century burial was the conventionally respectful way of dealing with dead bodies in Christian Europe. From the moment in 1874 when it was founded to replace burial by cremation, the Cremation Society of England was always concerned to appear respectable. Although it was not clear that cremation was lawful, it was far from certain that it was illegal--indeed the Society received legal advice that cremation could be conducted lawfully. One consequence of the Society's concern for respectability, however, was that it was unwilling to take the risks involved in testing the law. It wanted legislation expressly permitting cremation or assurances from the Home Office that it would not be prosecuted should it carry out a cremation. Neither were forthcoming. A single adverse judicial precedent would be a great impediment to the Society, but since it was not prepared to force the issue, it was not able to shape the contexts in which judicial precedents might be created. In this it was at the mercy of others, and it is extremely unlikely that it would have chosen the first two occasions on which the issue did come before the courts. The first was provided in 1882 by the litigation that arose from the exhumation in England and cremation in Milan of Henry Crookenden in 1878, which the Society had helped arrange. It is probable that the view of the judge who decided the case was that cremation was unlawful but the Society was fortunate that he did not find it necessary to come to a firm decision about that. On the second occasion when the issue came before the courts--the prosecution of William Price in 1884 for cremating rather than burying his son's body--the circumstances were even less favourable to the Society's cause and the issue could not be avoided. Fortunate previously, the Society was triply fortunate now: James Fitzjames Stephen, the judge, was not unsympathetic to cremation, he liked William Price, and the views of the judge in the Crookenden case about the legality of cremation had not been recorded in the official law report. Stephen was therefore able to say that there was not even an obiter dicta adverse to cremation and he ruled that cremation was lawful. This ruling, being no more than that of a single trial judge, was not a binding precedent, but it was authoritative and the Society was emboldened by it to begin cremations. There were no further prosecutions and, when legislation came in 1902, it was permissive and regulatory rather than prohibitive . Though now of less relevance to cremation, the decision in Price is still an authority about the permissibility of other--indeed of any--means of dealing with dead bodies. It is likely to be increasingly regarded as people take greater initiatives in devising their own funerary rituals.
The references of this article are secured
Robert |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 2973
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 08, 2004 - 5:09 am: |
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(That was at http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/archive/disposalofthebody.asp)
Robert |
AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 1350
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 08, 2004 - 5:12 pm: |
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Thanks to you both, Robert and Jeff.
These Stephen's are a rum old lot are they not?
I seem to trip over the varmints in every lunatic asylum I visit.
The old judge Stephen was madder than a bag of hungry ferrets.
I must take a few months off to investigate this remarkably insane family. |
AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 1351
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 08, 2004 - 5:32 pm: |
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The LVP was a fun-time to be around, not only were cabin boys edible but the women were combustible:
'In an 1872 case of a drunkard pushing his drunkard wife into the fire and holding her there until she died, the Pall Mall Gazette complained of his being charged only with manslaughter. And it especially attacked the jury for adding a mercy recommendation on the ground that "the wife's state of drunkenness might have provoked him." "It would seem," the paper sarcastically observed, "that a new mode of correcting wives—by placing them on the fire—is growing into favour among husbands. Nay, it would even appear from a verdict recently given by a Lancaster jury that the punishment in question is felt to have so peculiar an appropriateness under certain circumstances that a husband must not be too severely judged for resorting to it on such occasions." As for the jury's view of provocation, the paper went on, "no grosser provocation can present itself to an intoxicated man than the discovery that his wife is intoxicated also; and when once his passions are fully aroused by this discovery the idea of putting her on the fire would suggest itself so naturally and with such irresistible force that to refrain from this act would demand a larger measure of self-control than can be reasonably expected from our weak and erring humanity." |
Jeffrey Bloomfied
Inspector
Username: Mayerling
Post Number: 470
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 08, 2004 - 9:18 pm: |
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Hi A.P. and Robert,
If you wish to research the Stephen clan, keep in mind that James Kenneth's cousin was Virginia Stephen, later Virginia Woolf. Ms Woolf was a fine novelist and early feminist, but she had the same mental taint as her cousin and her cousin's father. In 1941 Ms Woolf drowned herself in a fit of depression (though not off the site of the Thorneycroft Works, but in the river Ouse).
I am currently looking at the story of Neill Cream, and while I am not looking at his pardon in 1891 (admittedly an American pardon) I hope to discuss it one day.
The only thug I recall who put a woman on a fire was Richard Turpin, the highwayman that legend made into a "gentleman". He was hanged in 1739 for horse stealing, but in his career he was a member of a gang of burglars who put an elderly lady into a fireplace to force her to reveal where her treasure was. It strikes me that a punishment using fire on the miscreant would make more sense than hanging or imprisoning them, but then I am not the Mikado in G & S's operetta.
Jeff |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 3047
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, September 18, 2004 - 1:56 pm: |
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This is a near-contemporary pardon offer. "Times" March 25th 1887 :
Robert |
AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 2336
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, July 29, 2005 - 2:23 pm: |
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Robert, sorry, but I've only just come across your post, after finding it myself in The Times.
You have my belated congratulations, as I believe this case does clearly show that in the murder of MJK the authorities believed that the murderer was not acting alone.
They must have gained this insight from police evidence. |
Diana
Chief Inspector
Username: Diana
Post Number: 708
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, July 30, 2005 - 6:59 am: |
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Are we talking here about some miscreant who actually plotted with Jack as to how to do this and was on the scene facilitating the action?
Or are we talking about a horrified relative who,concerned for the respectability of the family name, knows that his relative is Jack, but hasn't said anything?
There are degrees here.
Does this really mean the authorities believed the murderer was not acting alone? Or does it mean they wanted to cover all bases just in case?
Maybe it means that despite believing Jack was acting alone they knew the public expected this. |
AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 2338
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, July 30, 2005 - 2:20 pm: |
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Diana
Both Robert and myself spent a lot of time looking into the circumstances of the granting of HMMGP, but I think the last case Robert posted says it all.
The police knew that three men were involved but they also knew only one man was likely to have been the killer, and that the other two men were likely to accept such a pardon rather than the gallows that waited for them otherwise.
It is of course impossible to second-guess what the police and Crown had in mind when they offered such a pardon in the case of MJK, but I would speculate that the true motive behind the pardon was the fact that the police had evidence that another person beside the killer was involved in some manner or form with the crime.
It fits with what we have found so far.
I believe I have already stated that it is entirely possible that such a pardon could have been granted in the case of MJK and we would be none the wiser, as this is and was privy information… see my example of the Irish rebels above. |
Dan Norder
Chief Inspector
Username: Dannorder
Post Number: 808
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, July 30, 2005 - 4:13 pm: |
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Hi AP,
The fact that the police had reason to believe other people were involved in another case in no way shows that they did in the Ripper case.
I'm all for looking at other examples to show what's possible, but when you take an isolated case and assume that the Whitechapel murders had to have happened the exact same way you're not really supporting your conclusions at all. Researching other crimes gives you a range of options, it doesn't narrow all cases down to only whatever you happen to be looking at at the time.
Dan Norder, Editor
Ripper Notes: The International Journal for Ripper Studies
 Profile  Email  Dissertations  Website
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AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 2340
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, July 30, 2005 - 5:15 pm: |
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Sorry Dan, but I wasn't saying that.
In fact I said nothing.
Apart from that HMMGP was only issued in non-political cases where the police were already aware that more than one person was concerned in the crime.
That's it.
In such circumstances HMMGP was used as a tool of detection.
In all other cases it was - and still is - used as political persuasion or excuse. |
Donald Souden
Chief Inspector
Username: Supe
Post Number: 649
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, July 30, 2005 - 5:24 pm: |
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AP,
I studied this business awhile back on another thread and came to the conclusion it was only an exercise in public relations by a beleagured Home Office. For what it is worth, this is what I wrote at the time.
The government continued to offer rewards until 1884. In a letter dated October 6, 1888, from Sir Charles Warren to Home Secretary Henry Matthews this matter is discussed directly:
Up to 1884 the Commissioner was in the habit of recommending rewards in cases of murder &c.
Then occurred what is called the "German explosion case" which is supposed to have been the result of a conspiracy in order to obtain a reward.
After this, on 3rd July 1884, the Commissioner recommended a reward re attempted murder of P.C. Chamberlain, which the Secretary of State declined to approve, and at this time he said "since the case of the of German Explosion I have profound distrust of rewards."
At this time the view of the Commr. and others at Scotland Yard was that although a reward might not offer inducements which are likely to be accepted with a view to giving information, the offer of a good reward assists the Police by calling attention to the subject.
On the 31st July 1884 the Commissioner said "in the face of Sir Wm. Harcourt's memo I think we had better discontinue recommending the offer of rewards except in special cases."
The first special case that occurred that I am aware of, was the murder of Mrs. Samuels in 1887, in which it was supposed that there were several persons implicated. In this case the Commissioner recommended a substantial reward for information and a pardon to anyone implicated, but not the actual murderer.
In reply the Secretary of State approved the pardon but did not approve the promise of a reward.
Thus, it would seem that there was established a recent precedent for offering a pardon, but not a reward.
The decision to offer a pardon, as recorded in a memo from Matthews to Godfrey Lushington dated November 10, 1888, was made by the Cabinet. That decision was then passed on to Warren, the police, the press and ultimately the public. Coming so quickly in the wake of the murder and coming from the top down, so to speak, it would seem it was an exercise in PR and that there were no special suspicions by the police of an accomplice.
The phrase "certain circumstances" about the Kelly murder was first used by Matthews in Parliament on November 23 and may only have been so much eyewash. As it was, later in the same debate Matthews agreed to extend the pardon to cover the "previous Whitechapel murders."
Now that I have researched the matter, however, I don't think the "certain circumstances" phrase meant anything at all.
Whatever else they were, the murders were an embarrassment to the government and after the latest, most horrible murder yet, it would seem that within hours the cabinet decided to issue the pardon offer simply to give the appearance of doing something. There were no references in the initial correspondence about the pardon to any special circumstances in the Kelly murder.
It was not until two weeks later, in Parliament, that Matthews used the phrase "In the case of Kelly there were certain circumstances that were wanting in earlier cases,..." and that was said as he sought to defend when and why the pardon was offered. Regardless, under pressure the pardon was expanded to cover all the supposed Ripper murders.
I am now convinced that there were no "certain circumstances" at all and Matthews's use of the phrase nearly two weeks after the pardon offer was simply spin doctoring, so to speak.
Don.
"He was so bad at foreign languages he needed subtitles to watch Marcel Marceau."
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AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 2342
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, July 30, 2005 - 6:18 pm: |
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Don
I could go with what you are saying, it makes good sense, but my only misgiving is that by the time of the Kelly murder, the political pressure on the government and police had actually decreased rather than increased over the previous year.
Although there were still problems, they were minor compared to the parlous state of affairs that guided 1887 into 1888.
The struggle - by the time of Kelly's death - had very much become an internal one rather than the dangerous external one it had been earlier in the year.
Political bickering by that time.
If the Whitechapel Murders had taken place in 1887 I might agree with you. |
Dan Norder
Chief Inspector
Username: Dannorder
Post Number: 809
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, July 30, 2005 - 7:46 pm: |
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Hi AP,
I don't see at all where you are coming up with these conclusions.
"Apart from that HMMGP was only issued in non-political cases where the police were already aware that more than one person was concerned in the crime."
You don't think they'd be offered in cases where they were unable to get anywhere and merely hoped that it might help? Or in which they had no proof that more than one person was involved but just assumed that someone must know something? Or, most importantly, for high profile cases in which they want to try to reassure the public that steps are being taken to do all that they can?
"by the time of the Kelly murder, the political pressure on the government and police had actually decreased rather than increased over the previous year."
And where did you get that idea? But then it sounds like you are trying to talk about overall political pressure on unrelated issues and then ignore the very incidents we are most concerned with.
Dan Norder, Editor
Ripper Notes: The International Journal for Ripper Studies
Profile Email Dissertations Website
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Donald Souden
Chief Inspector
Username: Supe
Post Number: 650
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, July 30, 2005 - 8:18 pm: |
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AP,
I certainly defer to your knowledge of LVP politics; my graduate school seminar in Victorian England is no longer even memory (aside from the continuing delight at reading the first three volumes of Mayhew's London Labour and . . .), but I'm not so sure that the usual pressures upon a governing party were in play here.
Certainly, the public was demanding an arrest of the Ripper, the newspapers were having a field day (and not just in Britain -- Jack was the first global fiend, his depradations read over breakfast in Topeka and Tasmania), the police were coming in for increasing criticism and finally, when a certain lady takes time from her chronic mourning to write letters about Jack . . . well they must have felt real pressure to do something.
There is considerable correspondence from the police, who thought (rightly or wrongly) an official reward would be helpful, but the Home Office would not do so for the reasons cited before. Thus, I still believe the compromise offer of a pardon was meant to be seen as doing something rather than being based on anything discovered in the immediate wake of the Kelly murder.
Unless there was a suppression of evidence and destruction of documents far greater than anyone has so far alleged, there seems to me little to suggest the police had reason to believe there was an accomplice to the Kelly murder. I suppose the statement of Sarah Lewis (and/or Mrs. Kennedy) might have suggested a lookout, but that seems slim pickings upon which to promise a pardon. Then, too, they might have been operating under the notion that Jack was "somebody's brother, somebody's son" and someone must have suspicions about a relative or friend, but that is rather general in scope and would apply to all the suspected Ripper murders -- and the pardon was actually extended to all the murders.
The timing of the pardon (before the police had scarcely collected their notes or even sifted the fireplace ashes), the fact that it came from the top down without any hint anywhere that it had been a two-man job and everything I wrote earlier still leads me to believe the pardon offer was based solely on hope and not new evidence.
Don.
"He was so bad at foreign languages he needed subtitles to watch Marcel Marceau."
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Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn
Post Number: 2263
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, July 31, 2005 - 11:58 am: |
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On the other hand its easy to see why the police may have thought the ripper had an accomplice.The double event [two murders less than an hour apart,and [later] the inconsistency of witness statements following the MJK murder[Mrs Maxwell"s conflicting with Elizabeth Prater"s statement etc]
-the offer of a pardon in itself need not have been a big deal in fact- just a chance that this could have been a possible bait if indeed there was either someone concealing his identity[a relative or friend] or someone in league with him. |
AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 2343
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, July 31, 2005 - 2:10 pm: |
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I think I need to look at the entire situation regarding HMMGP again before I reply to the good points raised, but needless to say I'm not convinced that the pardon was offered as a 'sop' or anything else other than a genuine offer to pardon an accomplice to the crime.
I will justify this point of view as soon as I have trawled through the material again.
But be warned, HMMGP was a rare jewel indeed when that case was neither political or piratical. |
D. M. R.
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 02, 2005 - 7:39 pm: |
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"...it is entirely possible that such a pardon could have been granted in the case of MJK and we would be none the wiser..."
>>There are all sorts of things that could have happened in 1888 that we can't know about. This is just the point of correct, logically satisfying theorization on the case. If we can't rate the game, we don't use it. We only use that empirical evidence that advances when it is questioned by a rigorously derived center.
If you don't theorize in this manner, you have no hope of solving the case. You have no hope of even getting started solving the case, because you have no ratable proposition from which to start.
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AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 2382
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, August 13, 2005 - 3:21 pm: |
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Robert
I think it well worth posting the full report of the pardon offered in the Samuel case which is reported in The Times of March 30th 1887. |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 4779
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, August 13, 2005 - 3:52 pm: |
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Here you go then AP.
Robert |
AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 2386
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, August 13, 2005 - 4:57 pm: |
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Thanks Robert.
It would appear then that the question of 'rewards' was settled a long time before Jack ever appeared on the scene.
So no cover up or conspiracy there.
As regards HMMGP in cases that were not political or 'piratical' in nature... I stand by my guns.
It was only offered when the police were actually aware that the murderer had an accomplice.
Under no other circumstance. |
David O'Flaherty
Chief Inspector
Username: Oberlin
Post Number: 982
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, August 13, 2005 - 5:06 pm: |
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Hi A.P.
The Home Secretary explained his stance on rewards in the House of Commons.
Daily News 13 Nov 1888:
Mr. MATTHEWS—Owing to the public interest taken in this question I hope the House will allow me at greater length than is usual in answering a question to state why I have hitherto refrained from offering a reward in the Whitechapel cases. Before 1884 it was the frequent practice of the Home Office to offer rewards, sometimes of large amounts, in serious cases. In 1883, in particular, several rewards ranging from 200l. to 2,000l. were offered in such cases as the murder of Police-constable Boans and the dynamite explosions in Charles-street and at various railway stations. These rewards, like the 10,000l. reward in the Phœnix Park case proved ineffectual and produced no evidence of any value. In 1884 there was a change of policy. Early in that year a remarkable case occurred. A conspiracy was formed to effect an explosion at the German Embassy, to plant the papers upon an innocent person, and to accuse him of the crime in order to obtain the reward which was expected. The revelation of this conspiracy led the then Secretary of State (Sir W. Harcourt) to consider the whole question. He consulted the police authorities both in England and Ireland, and the conclusions which he arrived at were that the practice of offering large and sensational rewards in cases of serious crime is not only ineffectual but mischievous; that rewards produce, generally speaking, no result beyond satisfying the public demand for conspicuous action, but operate prejudicially by relaxing the exertions of the police, and that they tend to produce false rather than reliable testimony. He decided therefore in all cases to abandon the practice of offering rewards, as they had been found by experience to be a hindrance rather than an aid in the detection of crime. These conclusions were publicly announced and acted upon in very important cases in 1884—one a shocking murder and violation of a little girl at Middlesbrough and the other the dynamite outrage at London-bridge, in which case the City offered 5,000l. reward. The principle thus established has since been adhered to. The whole subject was reconsidered in 1885 by Sir R. Cross in a remarkable case of infanticide at Plymouth and again in 1886 by the right hon. member for Edinburgh (Mr. Childers) in the notorious case of Louisa Hart. On both occasions, with the concurrence of the best authorities, the principle was maintained and a reward refused. Since I have been at the Home Office I have followed the rule thus deliberately laid down and steadily adhered to by my predecessors. I do not mean that the role may not be subject to exceptions, as for instance where it is known who the criminal is and information is wanted only as to his hiding-place or on account of other circumstances of the crime itself. In the Whitechapel murders not only are these conditions wanting at present, but the danger of a false charge is intensified by the excited state of public feeling. (Hear, hear.) I know how desirable it is to allay that public feeling, and I should have been glad if the circumstances had justified me in giving visible proof that the authorities are not heedless or indifferent. I beg to assure the hon. member and the House that neither the Home Office nor Scotland-yard will leave a stone unturned in order to bring to justice the perpetrators of these abominable crimes, which have outraged the feelings of the whole community. (Hear, hear.) With regard to the question put by the hon. member for Aberdeen, I will carefully consider his suggestion.
Cheers,
Dave |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 4782
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, August 13, 2005 - 5:12 pm: |
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AP, Dave
Interesting - "perpetrators" plural.
Robert |
Stef Kukla
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Saturday, December 31, 2005 - 7:06 pm: |
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What a waste of time it was, putting a commentary track on the 'Special Edition' DVD of JACK THE RIPPER [1988]. Still, it wasn't TOTALLY without its revelations:
According to David Wickes (& his chief researcher) NO-ONE had ever researched the case as thoroughly as THEM before. It turns out that -- despite the numerous books on the topic, Wickes assures us that nearly all of them are rubbish [probably owing to the fact that none of the authors can research the way Wickes can].
This MUST be why it bore such little resemblance to the case as EVERYONE ELSE knows it.
But the absolute cherry-on-the-cake was that [in contrast to his general vagueness throughout the "commentary" track], the one thing Wickes IS pretty damn certain of . . .
. . . He only made up all that stuff about 'Her Majesty's Most Gracious Pardon'!!!
Artistic licence, apparently...Never existed in real life.
Those were 3 hours I'll never see again! |
Dan Norder
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Dannorder
Post Number: 1090
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Monday, January 02, 2006 - 7:44 pm: |
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LOL... Wow, see, now I almost want to see that just so I can see how ridiculous it is.
Dan Norder, Editor
Ripper Notes: The International Journal for Ripper Studies
Profile Email Dissertations Website
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George Hutchinson
Chief Inspector
Username: Philip
Post Number: 974
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Monday, January 02, 2006 - 9:42 pm: |
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Aw... unfair.
We all know that as far as fact goes, it is a piece of plop. ALL the Ripper films are. However, as a nice story and work of fiction I really enjoyed it. It looks great. For me, I am very glad I did watch it. If nothing else it proved that Michael Caine is a cold blooded killer and erm... hang on... was I watching this properly?
PHILIP
Tour guides do it loudly in front of a crowd!
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Jennifer Pegg
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 3454
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 03, 2006 - 12:19 pm: |
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guys,
i wouldnt mind it being - as Philip says - a pile of plop if it didnt make out to be true.
And then of course there is my RJL prejudice but we wont get into that - shouting might occur
Jenni
"The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution"
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