Greetings from Puerto Vallarta...

One of the donkeys who lives on the arroyo went missing again. This seems to happen nearly every time I visit Puerto Vallarta. The donkey escapes, runs through the neighborhood. Or disappears for a much longer period. This time he was gone for more than two weeks,* and when he reappeared (or was found, I’m not sure which), he was emaciated and dehydrated. He’s getting shots from a vet and extra food, courtesy of my friend who lives in PV in a house by the arroyo.

The donkeys are kind of a pain in the ass, in that one of them starts braying at unexpected intervals in the middle of the night – an incredibly loud “Hawww-HEEE-hawww-HEEE-hawww,” trailing off into a sort of exasperated donkey grumble. Maybe he’s complaining about his job. This is the other donkey, not the one who went missing this time, who works entertaining tourists at one of the bars on Olas Altas. I imagine that could get pretty irritating.

But I like the donkeys (I will not say the same of the roosters – note to those not familiar with roosters – they do not just crow at dawn – or the semi-feral Chihuahua pack that lives in the house behind this one). They are a part of what makes Vallarta, Vallarta. The city still manages to be itself in spite of the condos, the time shares, the all-inclusive resorts. It’s a tourist town, to be sure, and an expat Mecca, but it’s also a Mexican town. One of these places that exists in two worlds. A liminal zone.

I try to come here once a year. I’ve found that I like to do that with some places. See them regularly, get to know them, without the familiarity of a resident, to be sure, but with greater intimacy than a tourist. To mark what changes, and what stays the same. I go to China every year, and I almost always fly in and out of Beijing, and spend a few days there. I couldn’t write a series set in Beijing if I didn’t do this – the city changes so quickly.

So, coming here, people have asked, “Are you writing a sequel?” – I wrote a book set in Vallarta called GETAWAY that was published last year. I am, I tell them, but so far it doesn’t take place in Vallarta.

Some people wonder why I come, then. They especially wonder given the book that I wrote, which is a tale of a Vallarta vacation gone horribly wrong. “I’m a little too nervous to go to Mexico,” one told me. The drug war violence has scared a lot of people away.

There are a lot of ways to reply to this. First, the book I wrote is fiction. I usually start with that. I’m writing suspense novels, so things have to go horribly wrong, by definition. I do try to base what I write on some degree of truth, however. So, yes, there’s a drug war going on in Mexico, and it’s caused a tremendous amount of damage and an appalling number of deaths. But you don’t see this part in a place like Vallarta. Most of the violence is concentrated in border areas and in places where rival cartels contend for control.

Vallarta, traditionally, has been mostly peaceful. As long as you are not actively involved in dangerous activities, this is a safe place to vacation and to live. I’ve heard more than once, “this is a vacation town, for the cartels too.” And, more importantly, this is a “lavanderia” – a place to launder money. The confluence of entertainment venues and hot real estate make it ideal.

You look at some of those blaring discos on the Malecón, some of those massive condo projects that seem to spring out of nowhere, and you wonder: who’s paying for this? And why?

Here, everyone knows. 

“A lot of resort towns have that history, if you look,” a friend remarked at dinner last night. “I mean, Las Vegas. Atlantic City. The Catskills – that place was funded by bootleggers.”

If you look underneath the surface of just about anywhere, you’ll find all kinds of things.

There are societies that are more and that are less corrupt, to be sure. In the United States, most of us go about our daily activities with the expectation that people will be honest with each other, that contracts will be fulfilled. For all the loathing of Congress as an institution right now, for example, most people will say positive things about their individual representatives. Our society largely works well on that level, on the institutions both public and private that we encounter in our daily lives.

But look a little further. A little deeper. And not even very deep. I think about the financial crisis, the speculative activities that fueled it. You can call it incompetence, to be sure, but when the bankers and hedge fund managers who committed the damage get off with their careers and their bonuses intact, while millions of us lose jobs and houses and savings, you have to start calling it something else. Class warfare, maybe. Oligarchy. Plutocracy.

Or, simply, corruption. Corruption takes many forms, not all of which are as direct as a local cop demanding a mordita.

When you have the power, the money, to have laws written to your benefit, what do you call that?

So, greetings from beautiful Puerto Vallarta. I’m about ready to hit the beach, and have a margarita.

*Actually, poor Andale was missing for more than nine months! The theory is, he was stolen and forced to work, and then abandoned when he became more trouble than they felt he was worth.

Welcome to My World, Baby.

5:00AM Thursday morning.  Ugh, what an ungodly hour for an alarm to go off.  But if we hadn’t driven in last night from my farm in western New Jersey it would have been a 3AM wakeup.  Hmm, a quick check of the emails—what else does one do first thing in the morning?  It’s from a friend on Mykonos: “Call me. It’s important.”  My guess is it’s in response to my request for information about an esoteric Greek funeral practice tied into my new Andreas Kaldis novel.

I reply, “Am on way to the hospital.  Will call later.”

There’s another message from the same friend. “Call me after the baby is born.”

After the baby is born. Wow.  Seeing the phrase in black and white (pixels) makes an impact.  My baby girl is having her own baby this morning.  Her first.  It’s set for 7:30AM. 

I’ve been so busy this week cutting away the remaining trees downed by hurricane Sandy that I haven’t had time to work on my post for Saturday.  And I know that I won’t be able to focus on a “Greek piece” this week.  But come to think of it, with all the time Greeks spend obsessed with the “fixins” for babies, perhaps it might be a refreshing change to focus on the back end of the courting process.  My sort of in real time existential take on “Waiting for Baby.”

5:45AM.  We’re headed north to Huntington Hospital. It’s close by the Long Island Sound, not far from where we’re staying just south of the Long Island Expressway.  Officially the LIE is Interstate 495, Long Island’s commuter backbone, known affectionately to those whose lives are tethered to it as “the Long Island Distressway” or “The World’s Longest Parking Lot.”  I remember living out this way in the early 70s.  Beautiful place, offering a wonderful life…if you don’t mind rush hour commutes into NYC. 

6:00 AM.  Made it to the hospital and found the Labor and Delivery Waiting Room.  Impressive name.  Too bad the green carpeting and mismatched green-brown furniture doesn’t cut it. But who cares about the décor—which probably is why it’s as bad as it is—I just hope we get to see Karen before she goes into surgery.  She’s having a Caesarian delivery.  Strange name.  I always heard it came from the way Julius Caesar entered the world, but according to all-knowing Wikipedia (thank God the waiting room has wireless), that theory’s been debunked.  It’s now thought to derive from the verb caedere … to cut…as in to cut through the abdominal wall to deliver the baby.

It’s so much easier being a man.

I’m not worried. Nor is my daughter. At least she wasn’t when we spoke last night before she went to sleep.  Honest, I’m not worried.

6:15AM.  Karen’s mother, Judy, and Judy’s husband, Joe, arrive in the waiting room.  Three strangers also are in there and have been since before Barbara and I got there. They’re the quiet type.  Haven’t said a word to anyone.  But they won’t remain that way for long.  Judy—that’s my ex-wife—is naturally gregarious, capable of drawing monks vowed to silence into animated conversation.  She pulls out a photo of Karen taken less than an hour after she was born.  My handwritten note on the back gives the details. I was anal then. I was a lawyer.

6:45AM. Karen’s husband, Terry, pops into the waiting room to say we can see Karen. We follow him through a maze of turns and doorways, complete with one wrong turn attributable to an anxious pappy moment.  There’s the room and inside is Karen, all smiles and calm amid monitors and an IV hookup.  I can hear the baby’s heartbeat: loud, strong, and ready to take on the world.

7:15AM. Terry’s mom and dad arrive.  Three sets of grandparents hovering and waiting for the big moment. I sure hope the new kid is into hugging.  Terry says it’s our last chance to toss out name suggestions.  I’ll spare you that, but believe me when I say it’s easier to title a new book.

7:30AM.  Nurse comes in to prepare Karen and says we have to leave.  We head down to the cafeteria for coffee.  I think I’ll write.  Not a chance.  Judy has new photographs of our son’s children to share. 

8:00AM.  Terry shows up in the cafeteria.  Things are delayed.  A woman who’s been in labor all night now needs an emergency C-section, so Karen’s time has been pushed back a bit.  The nurse told Terry to get something to eat and Karen to rest. We tease him about his “deer in the headlights” look…a natural segue considering his up close and personal SUV run in with a Long Island Bambi the day before yesterday.

8:15AM.  Terry gets a call from Karen.  Everyone’s listening as he says, “Wow.” 

He hangs up to a chorus of “What’s ‘Wow’?” 

Answer:  “Doctor said that since Karen isn’t in distress and other women are facing more difficult situations, her delivery is now pushed back to at least noon, maybe as late as 2PM.  But Karen has to rest, and we have the choice of hanging around in the waiting room or cafeteria until then or leaving the hospital and coming back later.

Barbara and I vote for going back to sleep.

9:00AM.  Back at the hotel I receive a SMS from Terry.  He suggests we wait to hear from him before returning to the hospital because the doctor said there are likely to be more delays. I try calling my friend in Greece.  No answer. I send a SMS on the situation to my son and brother.  I fall asleep.

11:00AM.  Message from Terry:  Looks like she’ll go in at 2.

12:30 PM.  I never realized how many Dunkin’ Donut shops there are on Long Island. Maybe it’s just how many times we’ve driven past the same one in the last twelve hours, but there does happen to be one right next door to the baby store we’re looking for.  Barbara suspects it has the “perfect” stuffed animal.  In exchange for her promise that we can go to Dunkin’ Donuts for coffee “after,” I join her in the hunt for bunny rabbit. It’s decision time: Do I prefer the pink, blue, beige, or white one?  I try feigning nonchalance:  “Whichever one shows the least dirt.”  That’s how I choose my cars these days, so why shouldn’t it work for bunny rabbits? 

I know, it’s pink for girls and blue for boys, but that requires you know the sex and we don’t.  Karen doesn’t want to know the ending before she finishes the story.  Sounds like a mystery writer’s daughter to me.

2 PM.  Back in the Labor and Delivery Waiting Room. It’s just the six of us on baby watch, plus a receptionist.  No one wants to talk about anything serious…even baseball’s off limits. It’s just old memories retold, recast, reminisced.  Funny isn’t it how life’s genuinely significant events are so often surrounded by mindless waiting.

A television mounted on the far wall is running a (badly written) soap opera. I’m sure the last time I knowingly sat in one place for so long with a soap opera playing on television was in some Greek hospital’s waiting room, but that show would have made more sense.  The only person watching it is the receptionist.  Perhaps it’s “General Hospital” and she considers it part of a work-study program.

2:15 PM. Another couple comes in.  Now it’s eight people plus the receptionist and she’s still the only one watching TV.  Two are reading newspapers, one a magazine, another a Kindle, two are on iPads, and one is just staring off into the middle distance. I’m typing away on my Macbook Air.

A Reese’s mini-pieces commercial comes on the TV.  I look up.  Finally, something on TV I can sink my teeth into.

More waiting.

2:30PM. Terry stops in to say Karen is now in the delivery room.  Everyone’s quiet. We know it’s time.  He leaves.

2:55 PM. An SMS from Terry.  “In for epidural.”

3:15PM.  The hospital’s PA system breaks the silence with Brahms’ Lullaby. We’re told it’s played throughout the hospital every time there’s a new baby born.

My heart jumps.  Could it be ours?  I’m really excited, almost in tears. “Oh my gosh,” says Terry’s mother, Joyce, to her husband, Tom.  Judy’s husband starts taking photos of everyone.  I try imagining my daughter’s face at that moment.  Six very excited people are now waiting for confirmatory news.

3:30PM.  No one’s told us anything yet.  Terry’s mom walks down to the nursery.  Comes back with no news.

3:55PM.  Still no word. Where’s Terry?  Where’s an SMS?  The mothers are getting worried, the fathers are acting as if they’re not.

4:00PM. Tensions are rising. Talk is now onto politics.  If the baby doesn’t show up soon we might need to switch the TV to the World Wide Wresting channel to properly reflect the changing mood in the room.

4:05PM.  Right on cue Terry shows up in the doorway. His mother cries and hugs him. He says to come with him to see Karen and the baby.  “So what is it?” we ask.  He says they want to tell us the details together. Dramatists both.

It seems a long walk, but Terry knows the way perfectly this time and it’s only a couple of minutes before we’re standing in front of a large wooden door marked “recovery room.”   Terry knocks, we wait for someone to let us in, and six of us herd in behind him.  Karen is on a bed off in the corner covered in a blanket and wearing some sort of scarf.  I look closer.  It isn’t a scarf.  It’s a snuggly wrapped baby. Her baby!

Terry goes to the far side of the bed to stand beside his wife and child as my theater trained daughter announces,  “Baby was born precisely at 3:00PM, weighs five pounds, ten ounces, is eighteen inches long, and is a” … drumroll please … “She.” 

No longer an “it” but a she!  A babe!  A moll! A lassie! And a genuine beauty if I may say so myself.

We only have time to get in a quick peek at her before the nurse starts shooing us out of the room saying we’ll get to spend more time with baby and mom in about an hour.

As I’m leaving the room Karen calls out, “Dad.”

“Yes.”

“Come back, please.”

I walk over to her bed and lean down.  “Yes, honey?”

She whispers, “I watched your face when I told you about my baby.”

I smile.  “I was crying.”

“I know.”  And my baby cries as she squeezes my hand.

God bless you, my beautiful baby granddaughter, your Mommy, and your Daddy.

Jeff—Saturday

Bad Women

“In a world where independent voices are increasingly stifled, PEN is not a luxury it is a necessity.”

 These are the words of Margaret Atwood the Vice-President, International PEN.

It's a fantastic organisation and one I am proud to support. At the Aye Write Festival in Glasgow they usually host a big event at the weekend. This is the third year that they have asked me to be part of it. I think it’s my job to balance the academia (read into that what you will!). My co panellists normally have more letters than alphabet soup after their name. They tend to close their eyes while talking, hands spanned, fingertips  touching, nodding in concentration... like they  are  in  a channel  four midnight chat  show.  I have such a short attention span that I have usually forgotten the start of their sentence by the time they get to the end of it. I think the point of it is the audience enjoy the contrast. This year the title is; 

  Bad Women. "Why do some women commit criminal acts? Jean Rafferty (author of Myra, Beyond Saddleworth) discusses Myra Hindley and the taboo of female violence with Zoe Wicomb, followed by crime writer Caro Ramsay and Dr Lizzie Seal (author of Women, Murder and Femininity: Gender Representations of Women Who Kill) discussing the transgressive female in literature."

Like I say I'll do the jokes.

                                                           Virginia Soares de Souza

When I say in talks that female serial killers tend to fall in to two types - either acting with a man (folie de deux)... or a member of the medical profession,  it  tends to get a laugh as I am one of the latter (medic not serial killer!) So the current case of Brazilian doctor Virginia Soares de Souza   has been catching my interest. Details in the British press are scarce and contradictory but she seems to be charged with the murder of seven patients and investigations are going on for another 300 incidents. She is accused of cutting the oxygen supply to patients on life support and then administering Pavulon which relaxes the diaphragm muscle making respiration even more problematic.  I believe that they are analysing over 1700 hospital records. Which could make her the world's worst serial killer. British GP Harold Shipman was convicted in 2004 of killing 15 patients but is probably responsible for 260 plus.

                                              A typical headline- the terrible revelations seemed never ending

The De Souza case is fairly typical of the way that female serial killers operate.

They have moved with the times though. In the Victorian age they poisoned, (the black widow image) and they killed men (their husbands or live in partners or 'the insured'), and children (their own or other people's) usually for financial gain.  Things have moved on slightly and the psychology of the motive of the female serial killer is becoming less clear. They tend not to kill for material gain now. In the medically trained there might be some unusual psychopathological behavioural factors (Munchhausen's syndrome) and obvious issues of what we as a society expect women to be i.e. caring and nurturing. Sexual and sadistic motives are very rare but suffering childhood abuse seems to be a consistent finding.

Female serial killers are much rarer than male, about 15%. But something inside me wonders how accurate that figure is. Or does the quiet nature of their crimes mean they are going unnoticed.

Obviously anybody with a psychological and perhaps unhealthy interest in the power of life and death will be attracted to the medical profession in any form.

Britain’s  worst medical female serial killer was  Beverley Gail Allitt. She was  convicted of murdering four children, attempting to murder three other children, and causing grievous bodily harm to another six all in a  59 day period in  1991. She killed by injecting insulin or altering the air supply to her young patients. She received 13 life sentences, a minimum term of 40 years - one of the longest minimum terms ever suggested by a trial judge and is unlikely ever to be considered safe enough to be released.

                                                      Beverley Allitt was a well liked nurse

Reading some of the Shipman transcripts it is noted how often his patients said what a great doctor he was, genuine and considerate. The concept of a compassionate carer is echoed in the fact that when two month old Becky Phillips was admitted to the care of Beverly Allit and died, her twin sister was also admitted as a precaution.  Katie Phillips had to be resuscitated twice after unexplained breathing difficulties. The second time she stopped breathing she suffered brain damage which led to a degree of both paralysis and blindness. She was then transferred to another hospital.

Her parents had been so grateful to Allitt for Becky’s care, they asked her to be Katie's godmother. That is the measure of how much the parents appreciated Allitt within their daughters' health care team.

Allitt's motives have never been fully explained. Was it Munchausen’s by proxy? Does that even exist?

                                                                Brady and Hindley

The crimes of Myra Hindley are still beyond the comprehension of most people.  She is one of the most reviled women of the twentieth century but worth mentioning here because she is a classic example of a folie de deux. Rosemary West is another. The big question is, would these women ever have killed if they had not met those men?  Personally I don’t think that is the point, we all have a degree of responsibility for self.  Or is it that we as a society can't quite comprehend that the female gender is capable of 'evil' for want of a better word. Something inside me thinks that a clear headed woman would have given Fred West and Ian Brady a wide berth but there was a need in Rose and Myra that these men fulfilled for them. The main issue still is both Myra and Rose killed children. End of.

I am a little too young to be aware of the impact The Moors Murderers had on the media and on wider society. I do recall, age 14/15, my modern studies teacher refusing to answer the direct question What did Myra Hindley actually do that was so awful? Given Hindley's status as a co-defendant in the first mass-murder trial held since the abolition of the death penalty, the class debate was that the death penalty should be reinstated for her and Brady.

No matter how you approach the subject of Hindley, you will get a different picture of the woman.   She was a sensible young woman, but when she met Glasgow born Brady, she fell for him in a big way. He encouraged her to read works by Hitler and de Sade.  He was her first lover and some sources say she was totally under his control.  She certainly acted and dressed to please him but that is a million miles away from accepting his ideas that murder and rape were the “supreme pleasure”.
 The murders of 16-year-old Pauline Reade, 12-year-old John Kilbride, 12-year-old Keith Bennett then 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey are all well documented. Brady and Hindley themselves photographed and taped the torture of Lesley Ann Downey. The last murder was that of 17 year old Edward Evans. Their recorded nonchalant attitude to their vile actions helped to ensure the lasting notoriety of their crimes;

 But it was Hindley's gender that made her so vilified. Her photograph has been referred to by Helen Birch as "synonymous with the idea of feminine evil".

                                                                   Myra Hindley

This one picture has sunk deep into the British psyche.

The circumstances of Myra Hindley were a million miles away from the circumstances of Ruth Ellis, but a mere ten years apart. One lived out her days in a relatively comfortable jail whilst the other was sentenced to death. This is a subject I may return to after I have debated with my co-panellists as it is fascinating and I've interested to see what my fellow panellists have to say.

This blog was typed on the banks of Loch Ness but as yet I have seen nothing. Still watching...

Caro GB 05/04/2013

Apartheid and James McClure

James McClure

In retrospect it seems strange that the wave of good crime fiction that we have in South Africa now almost all developed after the apartheid era.  It seems a natural genre to use to display the rigid behaviors and eventual breakdown of an artificial system, a context that would display the excesses as well as the successes of the police.  It was also an era when some great writing talent was focused on the country – Alan Paton, Nadine Gordimer, JM Coetzee.  Writers at that level choose their own subject matter, of course, and may have felt the crime genre too superficial for the sort of issues they wanted to address.  Certainly many of their books revolve around violence but not in the context of a mystery.  

South African writer Wessel Ebersohn wrote three thrillers at the time, exposing the security police and exploring the nature of evil.  His books were initially banned in South Africa.  He moved “up” to a fictional study of Adolf Hitler (although he’s returned his focus to South Africa in recent years).  Only one writer took a serious look at the nature of apartheid through crime fiction and that was a writer living outside South Africa.

James McClure was born in Johannesburg in 1939.  He became a teacher and then a journalist in Natal until in 1965 he immigrated with his family to England.   In 1971 he published his first novel set in South Africa – THE STEAM PIG – in which he introduced his detective duo, the white Afrikaans Lieutenant Tromp Kramer and the black Bantu Detective Sergeant Mickey Zondi.  He set them up in a conservative fictional town, Trekkersburg, and let the South African context generate the stories.  The relationship between the two detectives and the artificial structures in which they live and which they largely accept, provide a clear illustration of the apartheid set up of the time and of the way it twisted the lives of ordinary people.  If you are interested in South African crime fiction (as we hope you are!) then these are excellent books to read.  Even now as historical fiction, they are very revealing and very good.  The whole series was recently reissued by Soho Crime.

I’m interested in what McClure thought about his own writing and what he was trying to achieve with it.  His books were never banned in South Africa as ‘subversive’ – as many were – and he was accused of being an apologist for apartheid for not explicitly condemning it in his books.  Then, again, is that what being a novelist is about?  So I was pleased to discover that in 1988 he was interviewed by Don Wall, Professor of English at Eastern Washington University.  It was published in a book titled “Mysteries of Africa” edited by Eugene Schleh.

When asked why he had chosen the mystery genre, this was McClure’s reply: “Because crime is something I knew quite a lot about, and because I wanted to write about South Africa in a context which would allow South Africa to become incidental to the story.  Which doesn’t mean it isn’t very much part of the story.  Unlike some other writers about South Africa, I try to make sure that the action is peculiar to that environment and arises out of it.”  He went on to compare the audience he was trying to reach to that of the Big Name authors: “I chose this genre also because it allowed me to reach a much greater audience than it would if I wrote about South Africa in a straight novel.  That way, you preach to nobody but the converted, usually – or to the so-called intellectual reader.  You’re not reaching the ordinary guy at all.”

In fact, he didn’t enjoy the Big Names’ work that much (except for Herman Charles Bosman – see my post about him  here.) questioning – among other issues – their lack of humor.  “It’s all as deadly serious as a political meeting.  I always hear laughter as well as sobbing when I recall life in Africa.”

On the issue of apartheid he was quite outspoken, pointing out that a novel is about people not about systems.  Speaking of black security policemen, he said: “But I know they’re not all monsters – far from it.  What fascinates me is the man who isn’t a monster who works as a monster.  I find that much more interesting than monsters.  There’s no insight into these people – a form of literary apartheid.”  He continued that he couldn’t stand stereotyping and found it repulsive whether in a novel or “as the outright fascism and racialism of the more rabid Nationalist Party member.” 

Don Wall summed up McClure’s views as follows (and McClure agreed with him): “You’re not an apologist for (apartheid) and you certainly don’t defend it, it’s an abhorrent policy to you, but, on the other hand, you understand the people who live under that system, and you see that good men can live under a bad policy and do good things, too.”

A moral as true today as it was twenty-five years ago.

Michael - Thursday.

Teething

Books are great for many things, reading, weighing things down and for multipurpose stacking. However, they do not work so well if you decide to use them as curtains to fend off the sun. I tried and ended up with a cracked window as most of the books I own come with dark or black covers which apparently muster up enough heat when exposed to direct sunlight to smash glass. The books are not to blame, we should have picked out blinds a long time ago. The decision as to which side the pulley thing was supposed to go was our undoing.

Back from Egypt I cannot skip giving the country a huge seal of approval. Everything was good. The people nice as can be, the food good and not a cloud in the sky - ever apparently, which is probably a drag if you live there and are would like to take up gardening. The pyramids were disturbingly mammoth and the museum of antiquities so brimming with ancient treasures that it is mind-blowing. How can there still be stuff from Ancient Egypt around when at my house we cannot own a set of any sort of cutlery or silverware without some pieces getting lost or broken from the set? Of some sets we now have one cup left or one saucer – not from the same one even. And how can their paintings and writing exist after five thousand years when my photographs from childhood are diluted into mere shadows? I just do not get it.

The Red Sea is a diver‘s paradise and one of the things we intended to do was to dive. I personally ended up having to pass due to writing dutieswhen it turned out a simple dive was anything but a rapid process. Through a conversation which must have involved language difficulties although at the time everyone seemed to understand each other, my husband and daughter ended up in a diving school that took many days and even had exams they had to study for. We have gone diving before and no one then made us do more than just get in a pool and practice clearing our mask of water. You could do it wrong sixteen times in a row and then when you got it right on the seventeenth time you graduated. But not so in the Egyptian diving school my family accidentally got enrolled in. We are not sure but we think the two of them now have a licence to open up their own diving school. Too bad the water in Iceland is a bit cold for that. And no one goes diving to see a herring.

Since this post is rambling I am going to continue along that vein. This bit comes with a warning. It is gross. Recently I came across an article about remains of a woman that died in Ancient Rome. The pelvis of the skeleton contained a calcified tumour of a type not previously found in people from this time. Such tumours are an oddity and easily recognisable since they are formed from the uncontrolled growth or multiplication of the stem cells that form teeth, hair and nails. So these tumours tend to have teeth. Not messed up crazy things made of tooth material but teeth that look like perfect teeth. Molars, incisors and flat front teeth – all can be part of such tumours. Sometimes there are lock of hair that even look combed. You see I made the mistake of goolging images of these tumours that on top of everything turn out to be more common that I personally care for. The vileness is indescribable. For sake of prudence I am not going to give you the name of these growths. I will just post one photo, it is not photoshopped. On second thought I cannot bring myself to do it. This blog is too precious for that. But the tooth thing is not completely lost at sea here on this blog as it could be used in a murder mystery - teeth in a skeleton. The idea would need some tweaking of course.

They also have other versions of these tumours. Some have eyes, fully formed fingers or toes, even a larynx – you name it you‘ve got it. The natural world is a truly remarkable place.

To end on a more jolly note, the tumours I described are usually benign. They do not kill people except in rare circumstances. And they are being looked at as an alternative source for stem cell research since they can grow whatever but never into a functional human being. All dressed up but nowhere to go.  

Yrsa - Wednesday

April Fools in Paris - watch out for fish

Picture this - a man enters his office in Paris. He nods to the receptionist, his boss and hears guffaws in his wake. Does he have something stuck to his shoe? Non, he's been stuck with a fish.
Gallic humor calls for the traditional joke is pinning a fish - these days a picture - on another's back. When it's discovered they yell 'Poisson d'Avril'

Although the origins of April Fools is obscure and debated, the most widely accepted explanation actually credits the April Fools as starting in France. The most popular theory about the origin involves the French calendar reform of the sixteenth century.

The theory goes like this: In 1564 King Charles XIV of France reformed the calendar, moving the start of the year from the end of March to January 1. However, in a time without trains, a reliable post system or the internet, news often traveled slow and the uneducated, lower class people in rural France were the last to hear of and accept the new calendar. Those who failed to keep up with the change or who stubbornly clung to the old calendar system and continued to celebrate the New Year during the week that fell between March 25th and April 1st, had jokes played on them. Pranksters would surreptitiously stick paper fish to their backs. The victims of this prank were thus called Poisson d’Avril, or April Fish—which, to this day, remains the French term for April Fools—and so the tradition was born.

Today a common prank - not only among school-aged children - is to place a paper fish on the back of an unsuspecting person. When the paper fish is discovered, the victim is declared a “Poisson d’Avril.”

While it is not clear of the origins of fish being associated with April 1, many think the correlation is related to zodiac sign of Pisces (a fish), which falls near April.

If you are looking for an easy way to prank your friends or family, doodling or cutting out a paper fish and sticking it on the back of an unsuspecting victim is an easy way of commemorating the origins of April Fools’ Day.

Of course as someone who enjoys France in large part because of all the amazing food, my personal favorite part about Poisson d’Avril are the plethora of bakeries and cholocatiers that make fish shaped pastries and chocolates in honor of the holiday.

Cara- Tuesday 

For Every Action...

Authorities in the little town of Ferraz de Vasconselhos in the State of São Paulo became incensed when they discovered that municipal employees were signing in for each other at the beginning of their workday and signing out at the end, thereby enabling them to take other jobs when they were supposed to be working for the city.

They reacted with technology.

Biometric readers similar to the one shown above were installed and programmed with digital impressions of everyone on the payroll.

And that should have put a stop to that little scam.

But it didn't, because, six tech-savvy physicians were among the perpetrators.

One of them was this lady, twenty-nine-year-old Thauane Nunes Ferreira, shown at the moment of her arrest. Doctor Ferreira and her five cohorts rose to the challenge by casting latex impressions of their own fingerprints.

And then making sufficient copies so that one of them, acting alone, could “sign in” for all six.

The author of the scheme, according to the local cops, was Ferreira’s boss, and the head of the town’s ambulatory emergency services, Doctor Jorge Cury.

Shown here on the right, Cury was photographed when he arrived to defend himself, and his twenty-five year record with the municipality, during an interview with the local cops.

They claim he was charging his colleagues about US$ 600 for every twenty-four-hour period in which they were certified as showing up for work – and didn’t.

Between their municipal salary, and the money they earned by working another job, it turned out to be a good deal for everyone concerned, except, of course, for the poor pigeons who lay around waiting for emergency treatment while the people who were supposed to be caring for them were employed elsewhere.

Cury and the others were apprehended after Ferreira was recorded on video, one fine morning, using one phony finger after another to register the arrival on-shift of the entire gang.

Every member of which was working elsewhere - and quickly identified through (duh!) their fingerprints.

Leighton - Monday