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jason_connachan
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - 5:17 pm: | 
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Can i begin by saying, this post is not meant in a derogatory way to any specific posters on these boards.
After reading these boards for some time im intrigued by how many "fantasist" theories have accumulated about MJK. For many years these theories centred around a Royal conspiracy. This conspiracy has now been largely refuted.
I believe we now have many MJK theories which are certainly more believable than the Royal coinpiracy but are still larglely unfounded. For instance that Hutchinson was her pimp; Hutchinson was her lover, Barnett was violent to her; Barnett killed her; she would not have let her killer inside her room; MJK was killed by an intruder in her sleep; and that she was a very attractive woman (it's more realistic imo that she was simply better than average looking for the area).
I suppose what im trying to say is that she in all likelihood invited in a client(a regular client perhaps) and was killed after she undressed from her wet clothing.
I think we are reading far too much into the surroundings of her death. |
Maria Giordano
Chief Inspector
Username: Mariag
Post Number: 529
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, December 03, 2005 - 3:44 pm: |
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Hear Hear!
five words five words
Mags
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Baron von Zipper
Inspector
Username: Baron
Post Number: 303
Registered: 9-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, December 03, 2005 - 4:12 pm: |
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Jason,
You are correct. There is a MJK cult that seeks to romanticize the woman. It is absolute nonsense. we don't know how attractive she was. We know she was stout and that means fat according to Webster. We have one statement where (I forget who) says she was attractive, but that is hearsay because he got it from others. she was a whore, plain and simple.
Cheers
Mike
"La madre degli idioti è sempre incinta"
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Leanne Perry
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 1944
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, December 03, 2005 - 4:29 pm: |
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G'day Jason,
Well, there has to be some story behind her murder. Everyone is just discussing the possible circumstances surrounding it. Jack the Ripper altered his modus operandi, (M.O.). Why? It is possible that he spent some time with this victim before he cut. Why did Jack the Ripper appear to stop his murder spree after her death. Did he? All these questions and more arrise around her slaying.
Because of the horrific photos of the dead body on the bed and the contents of her room, there is more surviving 'evidence' for us to examine today. People have been examining those photos closely to try to find something that could have been missed at the time, and could possibly point in the direction of someone's guilt.
The Ripper left no apparent clues behind after the earlier murders, and possibly left some behind after Kelly's. Not solid clues, but clues no one at the time could see.
LEANNE |
Judith A. Stock
Detective Sergeant
Username: Needler
Post Number: 63
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, December 03, 2005 - 4:30 pm: |
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Mike, There is nothing plain OR simple about being a whore, and I would wager that NOT ONE of the five women (although I vote for four, omitting Stride) that would have said her "job" was "prostitution". I would also wager that each engaged in casual prostitution to pay for a bed or a pint or a tot.... as required.
Kelly has probably been made into a cult figure because she was the youngest, and, of course, because we can see in graphic detail what was done to her.
Please don't jump so easily into sterotypes or assumptions,Mike; you know the old saw about "assume"...right??
Cheers to all,
Judy |
Baron von Zipper
Inspector
Username: Baron
Post Number: 304
Registered: 9-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, December 03, 2005 - 5:09 pm: |
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Judith,
I have said that in the past. None of them would have said "whore" as profession. I was trying to point out the fact that she was no better than the others, yet she is romanticized. But she was what she was. No assumptions on my part. I don't see where I made any sort of stereotype. A stereotype would be some sort of broad statement about a group. I never made any statements about a group. If you dislike my saying that she was a whore, well perhaps that may be considered a derogation, but certainly not a stereotype. I never offered any judgement about whores either, so derogation would be incorrect as well. So... I have no idea what you are referring to really. Perhaps it was a kneejerk reaction, or an assumption? You know what they say about assumptions Judith?
Cheers
Mike
"La madre degli idioti è sempre incinta"
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Howard Brown
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Howard
Post Number: 1213
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, December 03, 2005 - 5:20 pm: |
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Jason:
Its pretty easy to see why MJK would,if any of the poor women were to, achieve "cult" status.
She was the most defiled of any victims [ including those who often are discounted as canonical victims,such as Tabram and Smith and Millwood...].
She has often been described in flattering physical terms,based on associates' recollections. This offers an opportunity for enhancement by us today....
She is the least documented of the victims....hence the opportunity for our speculation, either correctly or incorrectly..
It has also been considered that she is NOT the woman who was murdered that night.
May I suggest a very good book recently written by the great [Chris] Scott....entitled:
Will The Real Mary Kelly ? 2005, Publish and Be Damned Press....www.pabd.com
Hope this helps,Jason....... |
Dan Norder
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Dannorder
Post Number: 1046
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, December 03, 2005 - 8:24 pm: |
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Hi Mike,
"You know what they say about assumptions Judith?"
I know this one, I know this one! They make an "ass" out of "u" and... well, "mptions," whatever they are...
As far as the cult thing goes, I would agree that some people want to draw Mary into some sort of strange overly dramatic premise from a B movie. See also Tony Williams' claims that she was Sir John Williams' former mistress, Christopher Smith's idea that she was an occult accomplice to the other murders, and various beliefs that she was a Fenian terrorist and whatever else.
On the other hand, I'm not sure why some of these other things mentioned above have been portrayed as outlandish. The idea that her killer sneaked into her room while she was asleep isn't overly dramatic or unrealistic... rather it's just the sort of thing many serial killers have done. While the idea that she met her killer under the guise of him being a john is, of course, not only very plausible but (apparently anyway) the MO with other victims, so it may have more going for it in general, we just don't know that that's the way it happened. Some of those other things mentioned are not really all that farfetched either.
As far as being a whore, well, sure, but realize that for many people that it an extremely loaded word, with strong implications of being worthless. I can understand why people might object to that phrasing, especially when given without any sort of caveat. These women needed to earn money like anyone else, and especially in such a male-dominated and economically disparate culture, I can't say I blame them for picking that route over getting fossy jaw working with noxious chemicals at a match factory for 12 or more hours a day (wasn't it?) or some equally demanding and often dangerous job that earned less than a quick knee trembler in some alleyway.
Dan Norder, Editor
Ripper Notes: The International Journal for Ripper Studies
 Profile  Email  Dissertations  Website
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Baron von Zipper
Inspector
Username: Baron
Post Number: 307
Registered: 9-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, December 03, 2005 - 11:32 pm: |
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Dan,
I agree with you. I could have just said prostitute, but it takes so much longer to type. next time 'ho' may do the trick.
Cheers
Mike
"La madre degli idioti è sempre incinta"
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Phil Hill
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Phil
Post Number: 1056
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, December 04, 2005 - 4:09 am: |
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I see the revisionist PC-brigade have struck again. As an historian, I prefer to use the terminology of the period and "whore" was such a word - whatever the unfortunate (another victorian phrase) women may have called themselves, or thought of themselves as being.
Mark you, I have nothing but respect for the women concerned, and I need take no lessons in that from anyone, thank you. But anachronistic language - as I have said before - is just sentimental indulgence and masks the truths of the period. It also makes it more difficult to get into the atmosphere, mood and beliefs of those times.
PC-ness usually says more about the person who promotes it than its object anyway. I prefer my history raw, authentic and un-cleaned-up.
Rant over.
Now, on Kelly and a cult.
Personally I doubt that the fascination of MJK will ever go away until or unless she is demonstrated not to be central to the case.
As it is, it seems that the murders stopped after her death; her identity remains enigmatic; her death was, if anything, even more monstrous than the other horrors. In addition, she has been made central to many of the theories about the murders - royal (wholly not mainly discredited by the way); Barnett-as-Jack; Kelly not the victim/substitution; Eddowes used Kelly as a name.... I could no doubt go on.
More - Hutchinson's statement and the description of the killer it contains is one of the most complete - but is it genuine? Kelly and her actions that night are crucial to interpreting those words.
Kelly was youngish (at least by comparison to her sisters in death); feisty, quite pretty by all accounts - food for romanticism in a way that Tabram, Chapman or Eddowes are never likely to be. Not least because we can see their faces, frozen in death, but all we have of MJK is a mutilated death's-head to work on our imaginations.
As anyone who has seen Jane's incredible portrait of Mary will testify, that can be powerful.
Whore Mary may have been in life (and I think she might well have called herself that and laughed) but in death she is - and I believe will always remain, NOt a cult, but simply the most emotive figure in a cast of almost Dickensian grotesques (and I don't mean the other victims).
Phil |
Jennifer Pegg
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 3273
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, December 04, 2005 - 5:36 am: |
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Ahem,
Let's be logical about this, which is difficult on a Sunday morning I’ll grant you.
Jason,
Of course most people who read these boards find a royal conspiracy laughable. But it’s a populist theory. For various reasons which I think have a lot to do with her being the 'final victim' in popular belief these populist theories tend to give her prominence. As though they ended with her for a reason. That really has nothing to do with the woman herself and more to do with our perceptions of the murders and why they would end.
But lets be honest , lets be fair to people who suggest these things, we don't know if she had a pimp and if she did we don’t know if it was Hutchinson or not (now I would say I don't believe either thing before you all have a go I’m just saying).
We don't know if Barnett was violent to her. We don't know if she was killed in her sleep.
There are some of these things we can't ever know. How can we ever be certain they are wrong?
We don't know why her clothes were neatly folded on the bed - all we can do is make an educated guess.
Phil,
You prefer to use the terminology of the period however offensive it may or may not be? I'm not saying you are wrong I'm just asking. I wonder where you draw the line.
Jenni
"You know I'm not gonna diss you on the Internet
Cause my mamma taught me better than that."
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Phil Hill
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Phil
Post Number: 1057
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, December 04, 2005 - 8:57 am: |
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I don't.
I study the Third Reich, a form of Government which most of us would agree is detestable - but I wouldn't understand it if I didn't try to appreciate the thought processes of the time. If i pre-judge a Himmler, I'll never be able tounderstand what made him tick - I need to think as he thought. Same with Hitler - that may offend some - I cannot help that, it is their problem not mine. But make Hitler an anti-Christ and you lose the essential question - how do we stop it happening again? he was, and perceived himself as a politician - I need to do the same.
I would never call a black person a "n****r", but I would have no problems using the term were I writing about the pre-Civil War South of America. (A period in which I am not particularly interested.)
One can surely differentiate quite easily between one's own personal expression of views, and those which relate to the past.
It's quite interesting that no one seems to be concerned about transferring modern terminology to the past - for instance labelling Wilde as "gay" - which completely confuses the mental and linguistic perception of the people of that period. It wasn't a concept they had - hence the importance of Wilde's seeking to vocalise the idea.
PC-obsessed people will take history (as a subject) back to the way it was perceived by (say) Shakespeare, or historical painters of the C18th - which is to say modern times in fancy dress with no deep interest in the way things were then.
Hope this explains things.
Phil |
Rosey O'Ryan
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Saturday, December 03, 2005 - 11:01 pm: |
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Hi All,
There is a photo of a younger "Mhairi O'Kelly" reputed to be the "Mary Kelly" of Millers Court. The photograph appears to be of the period 1880s. It is part of a curious exhibit in a curious collection and may be released for publication some time in 2006. We may get to see her in the flesh!
Rosey :-) |
Belindafromhenmans
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Saturday, December 03, 2005 - 3:56 pm: |
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On the contrary, Mags and Jason, I think we are waiting for some extraordinary truths to emerge about Mary Kelly rather than anything mundane. That there hs been no vital proof just yet, is not a reason to 'give up and mumble.' |
Stephen Thomas
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Sunday, December 04, 2005 - 11:32 am: |
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Jason: an excellent thread you've started here.
Baron Von Zipper: Erik,(hope you don't mind me revealing your first name), brilliant stuff as always.
Howard Brown: Hi "Howard", my friend. Brilliant stuff as always.
Phil Hill: Ditto as always. And thanks for putting the word 'whore' in perspective. I imagine I'm the same sort of age as you and I have never heard the word actually spoken by anyone though I have seen it a million times in print.
The murder of Mary Kelly was certainly the worst of all and I believe that it is this particular murder that has kept interest in the Jack the Ripper case going all these years. All the internal organs removed and the heart either burnt or taken from the crime scene. Amazing stuff and photos as well. And I think that she was indeed a relatively attractive young woman. A neighbour described her as being 'as fair as the lily' and a policeman who had known her said she was clean and presentable. As to her 'stoutness' I would think that, if so, this would have added to her attractiveness in that time and place. I've just remembered a Bill Tidy cartoon in Private Eye many years ago which had an Arab sheik type trying to stop a large belly dancer lady from leaving his tent and saying 'Stay, the night is young and you are enormous'. Sorry, I'm drifting off there. Yes, there is an ridiculous amount of nonsense written about the murder of Mary Kelly but this particular murder is, I believe, the reason we're all here. The problem is that some (most?) people don't like to have gaps in their knowledge so they make things up to fill the gap. There's a word for it which I think is 'confabulation'
Thanks again, Jason |
Belindafromhenmans
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Sunday, December 04, 2005 - 10:21 am: |
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Phil, the last thing Wilde would ever have done would be seek to vocalise the idea of being gay. His quasi erotic art, where he applied it, evolved from some of his own sensual experiences. His work is honest, but he was genuinely horrified and ashamed at allegations. Any other conclusion is a total mistake.
What is this recent mumbo jumbo that states that London didn't know what homosexuality was in the LVP?
How the blundering goes on. |
belindafromhenmans
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Sunday, December 04, 2005 - 6:15 am: |
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Jenny,
I think most people are waiting for the evidence on whatever theory there might be. Until then surely only people who laugh at theories without having any evidence for their own are laughable in a case like this? No one supports the old conspiracy theory, but that's not a free ticket for you while you don't have an alternative theory, conspiracy or not. |
jason_connachan
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Saturday, December 03, 2005 - 5:30 pm: |
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Since im not registered this post will not appear for a few days.
Firstly, thanks for the largely positive feedback.
Leanne,
The only real aspect of Kelly's murder i see as different is the fact that they seemed to cease after her murder.
She was a prostitute. We have two independent witnesses who state she invited men back to her room that night.
As far as MO is concerned, the main difference was that she was killed indoors. There is no reason to believe the Ripper knew beforehand that she had her own room(perhaps he did, who knows).
He probably thought all his Christmases had come at once when he found out she had her own room.
As far as Jack not having killed her i find this hard to believe. I dont see Hutchinson or Barnett having made it look like a copycat killing. Stride had many of the hallmarks of a copycat killing imo.
Kelly's mutilations were the result of Jack with "plenty of time to kill". |
Howard Brown
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Howard
Post Number: 1221
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Monday, December 05, 2005 - 5:21 pm: |
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Jason:
Quid pro quo,buddy...Please register and get involved, so you don't have to wait to see your posts. See how I'm thinking about you already?
Not that it matters,but I have a hard time imagining that the woman in Millers Court was anyone else but Kelly. I also think,again not that it matters...that the description of Kelly which is invariably romanticized in the positive,since she has no face...might be what we in Philly call..."The biggest midget in the circus" thinking. Since we gauge the other victims by their "death faces" and because she was younger than them...she might have been a "plain Jane" and no more attractive than Stride....not that any of them were especially bad lookers....just a thought. |
Phil Hill
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Phil
Post Number: 1058
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 2:30 am: |
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Belinda - I'm not sure whether I agree with you or not? I'd need to explore your thinking further.
My own view is that perceptions depend often upon a vocabulary existing or being created to express the view concerned. I think TE Lawrence (of Arabia) was probably what we would now describe as gay - as against bi-sexual which is what I think Wilde probably was - but I don't think Lawrence for all this intellect had words to describe what he knew he felt, and was confused by the morality of the world to which he was expected to conform. hence the angst so evident in his life.
I understand that in the Czech Republic there was until recently (when western ideas began to influence post-communist minds) no real concept of being gay among young men. So they did not make such life-style choices. Now they are.
It wouold, IMHO, therefore, be wrong, to ascribe 1990's UK or US views, and lifestyle and the words that go with them to Prague in the same period.
I don't know whether this makes sense, but please come back to (at) me if you wish.
Phil |
Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn
Post Number: 2685
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 3:55 am: |
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Phil,
What you say about language denies it its historical appropriateness in my view----today we dont get away with terms such as those you refer to above---!
Doesnt your" historical perspective"depend on the bias of the scribe who wrote it 9 times out of ten? Where for example do we get the "match girls' version of their working conditions recorded in the history books you and I were brought up on----or even some today in the less progressive areas of the Brotish Isles?
To look at this case without the blinkers of those British Empire scribesof the 19th century is so important to understanding this entire case.
In other words 'Whose version of History are you wanting to promote Phil?
You have such good things to say about so many things-gays/Rome etc etc why not get a bit with it over current ideas about Language ,Race and Class?
Dan's post above encapsulates my thinking on the matter in many ways----and thanks Judith and Jenny for picking up some other issues too!
Natalie |
Leanne Perry
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 1945
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 5:18 am: |
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G'day Jason,
I wish you'd hurry up and register so you can learn more about these murders and we can debate issues.
'The only real aspect of Kelly's murder i see as different is the fact that they seemed to cease after her murder.' That's what alot of people will think until they study the case.
Mary Kelly was the only one of the canonical five victims to be murderd indoors. The others were killed on the street or in a backyard where the Ripper could easily escape, and perhaps keep a clearer view of anyone approaching.
He had more confidence and must have known that no one else would be knocking on her door that night, or reaching through her broken window to reach the lock. Mary was known to have her prostitute friends stay in that room, (Julia Venturney and Maria Harvey), plus her live in lover, Joseph Barnett, had just moved out ten days before her murder.
Even if her murderer was someone who managed to break into her room, (which would have been a very difficult, risky and noisy maneuver), he couldn't have been sure that no one was going to visit.
'I dont see Hutchinson or Barnett having made it look like a copycat killing.' Neither do I, because if anyone wanted to make it look like a copycat killing, Mary's body would have looked more like the other victims. He would have murdered her outside, dragged her outside or the scene in her room when she was found would have resembled what was reported in the newspapers.
He also took her heart and would have taken her kidney or womb to copy the other victims, but these organs were left.
If 'Jack the Ripper' comitted any murders after Mary Kelly, his M.O. changed. Why?
LEANNE |
Phil Hill
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Phil
Post Number: 1059
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 12:48 pm: |
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Natalie - I don't agree at all with your take on my position.
On the contrary, I go to some lengths to try to see the past as it was perceived at the time - to try to see how language and concepts has changed.
What has that got to do with imperialism, blinkers, class etc? From what you say, it seems to me that you are seeking to impose some current fad (feminism, social equality etc, class war) on centuries gone.
I don't believe for a moment that an Elizabethan yeoman believed in equality, or would have wanted him. The hierarchical arrangement of the times gave him comfort and stability. Some Victorians may have aspired to greater say in Government or more share of the national wealth, but not many - and if such change had come (as it did) it would have (and did) worried many.
As for who's "version" of history I promote - the answer is, my own (since the whole subject is perceptual). I draw on as many sources as I can, my own insights and perceptions from visiting places and seeing artifacts. There never WAS one view of the past, any more than there is one view of today - George Bush; an anti-capitalist anarchist; a ninety year old WWII veteran and a socialist vicar in Reading will all have totally different takes on the world.
There was no one Victorian period - you can see traces of Regency values, morality and taste to the 1860s; the railways brought greater opportunities, changed the cities; republicanism was rife up to about 1872; there was a greater consciousness of empire from the late 1880s; and Victorian morality as we think of it today was a relatively late development which was basically middle-class; the East End changed with more immigration from Eastern Europe.
All that has to be filtered into the picture and as far as possible without hindsight or interpretation. Take it as it is, is my motto - don't judge.
Speculation and wider lessons are fun, but basically can only emerge once the work of mental re-creation has been began.
Phil |
Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn
Post Number: 2686
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 4:21 pm: |
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Phil,
Hang on! You are leap frogging here from doffing capped Tudor Yeoman past the turbulent British Roundheads and a civil war that executed a king,past an Industrial revolution that turned England on its head and made it,for two hundred years the richest nation on Earth!
And you forget in your haste the abyss,the vast under belly of this triumphant early Capitalism- the men and women of the "abyss" who so enjoyed their secure place in the pecking order
that in 1888, in the very East End which we are focused on here the match girls at Bryant and May"s that Dan refers to above, took on their bosses and changed the course of British History and Parliamentary Democracy for all time.Their victory over appalling working conditions and meagre wages led in turn to the biggest demonstration ever seen on the streets of the East End,or London for that matter, 200,000 marched in that Great Dock Strike and it led directly to the formation of Keir Hardie"s Labour Party and the Parliamentary Democracy we have today!
Thats the real backdrop to the ripper saga,the real reason -along with the Home Rule crisis, that the Police were flat out with exhaustion when Jack -with his remarkable speed and genius for timing- saw his chance!
The poor whores had gone to the wall long since---as had thousands of others in the East end of 1888.
Mary was a poor desperate girl,over dependent on the bottle---- just like the others were!
But I think those Match girls really deserve the place of honour they still have today, in the Labour Movement!
So thats my take on 1888 Phil-my version of history if you like
Natalie |
Phil Hill
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Phil
Post Number: 1060
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 5:47 pm: |
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What a rant!!
As Wilde once observed some are in the gutter face down.
History for me is indeed about decision makers - I cannot help the poor (they will be with you always) but they are, in any age part of the picture.
I cannot help their lot, improve it or change it - I can try to understand their condition and see why it was like that; but I'll admit i have no guilt or conscience about it.
There will be poor people, and disenfranchised people, and unfortunates in the future, and your ideas and mine will be mocked as you (not me) mock those of the past. That is progress and that is history.
But don't ever seek to inflict YOUR guilt trips on me. It's like champagne socialism and it doesn't wash with me - sorry.
Phil |
Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn
Post Number: 2687
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 6:31 pm: |
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Dear Phil,
I am not asking you to do any of those things you seem to think.I am talking about one"s understanding of history.
I am talking fact.What actually took place.
I am not talking facts though about how many times Prince Eddy had tea with the Queen -thats true and its what you seem to like to "rant" about actually so much so that some posters got fed up and left!
But hey- what on earth are you talking about regarding Oscar ---ever read his "In praise of socialism"-----quite a rant actually!
Natalie |
Stanley D. Reid
Chief Inspector
Username: Sreid
Post Number: 658
Registered: 4-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 7:30 pm: |
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The rich get richer but the poor do not get poorer. You can't have less than nothing even if you owe. |
Baron von Zipper
Inspector
Username: Baron
Post Number: 311
Registered: 9-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 9:50 pm: |
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Phil and Natalie,
Why don't we just blame all the ills of Victorian society on the Boy Scouts? I've suspected them all along. Just young Freemasons dressing butch, in my opinion.
Mike
"La madre degli idioti è sempre incinta"
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Diana
Chief Inspector
Username: Diana
Post Number: 886
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 10:19 pm: |
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I think I can clear up the seeming contradiction between saying Mary was stout and saying she was attractive. The Victorian perception of beauty was a little different from our ideas.
As recently as the 1960's Marylin Monroe was considered a great beauty but some sources suggest she wore a size 16 dress, considered beyond plump by todays standards.
I grew up in the fifties and sixties and my Grandmother lived with us. She used to embarrass me when I would bring home a friend from school who was er plump. She would inevitably compliment them. "What a nice fat girl." She wasnt trying to be cute. She meant it. |
Phil Hill
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Phil
Post Number: 1061
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 07, 2005 - 2:05 am: |
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...its what you seem to like to "rant" about actually so much so that some posters got fed up and left!
Well Natalie - how charming you are. It's Christmas, so your wish is granted. Goodbye. |
Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn
Post Number: 2688
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 07, 2005 - 3:55 am: |
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Phil,
My apologies for being so unpleasant last night and the political tract I took it upon myself to write at midnight!I have been a bit off colour for a couple of weeks with a cold and its after effect- a short fuse!Today"s the first day I feel much better!
Mike is right- why not let us blame it on the Boy Scouts wanting to look butch as Freemasons!
Diane,
Thats absolutely right-Marylin was quite often quite buxom.I remember that too and the attitudes to her hour glass shape!And she was certainly considered a great beauty-if not THE great beauty
of the age.
I think our images of Mary reflect our fascination with Marylin,that combination of rounded,fresh faced "womanly" looks and fragile,vulnerable, wildchild underneath the bluff.Thats maybe why they both have this iconic status!
Natalie
PS I am off to work now Phil,so once again
-apologies.
Nats
x |
belindafromhenmans
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 8:46 pm: |
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I think the truth might lie somewhere inbetween, Phil, it is true that bounderies were either blurred, as you say, or heftily defined, as I said. This is because it was taboo, there was no discussion. Homosexual acts were crimes, hence no relationship or developmental element could ever substantiate their existence. Oscar saw himself as dallying with it as an adventure, and was horrified both at what the legal system suggested and at what he himself felt he had become. He certainly was no advert for gay rights. That is pure fad! |
Baron von Zipper
Inspector
Username: Baron
Post Number: 312
Registered: 9-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 07, 2005 - 1:25 pm: |
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Marilyn Monroe wore size 12 which is a British size 16. A size 12 in the 50s is equivalent to a 4-6 today. Marilyn was about 5'5" and weighed 135-140. No one has ever called her stout. There is no valid comparison between Marilyn and MK. More glamorizing in my opinion.
Cheers
Mike
"La madre degli idioti è sempre incinta"
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Glenn G. Lauritz Andersson
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Glenna
Post Number: 4289
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 07, 2005 - 3:08 pm: |
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There are certainly enough circumstances around MJK:s death that makes it valuable to study other directions that her being the ultimate Ripper victim. The fact that she was killed indoors does not explain some of the anomalies, although some seems determined to think so.
As has been pointed out earlier, it is natural for someone like MJK to be romanticized, since we don't know exactly what she looked like. That in itself creates a certain kind of curiousity - that is not strange at all although I agree such intentions should be avoided.
As for the word 'whore' - which I myself have never liked to use since it is very heavily charged, I believe Martin Fido used that several times in his book. But then Martin Fido is always Martin Fido.
All the best
G. Andersson, writer/historian
-----
"It's a BEAUTIFUL day - watch some bastard SPOIL IT."
Sign inside the Griffin Inn in Bath
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Lindsey C Hollifield
Chief Inspector
Username: Lindsey
Post Number: 546
Registered: 9-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, December 08, 2005 - 6:45 am: |
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Marilyn Monroe wore size 12 which is a British size 16. A size 12 in the 50s is equivalent to a 4-6 today.
Crap. I felt pretty good until I got to the '4-6 today' bit.
Lyn x
My first reaction is, "OMG that's crazy". But then I'm thinking this just may be crazy enough to work.
copyright © Bradley McGinnis Sept. 2005
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shaun.devlin@btopenworld.com
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - 6:32 pm: |
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Hi, a good thread? maybe for some but aren't we forgetting one small point.That was a real woman in that room please remember that before you post yr comments.Shaun |
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