Hikari

Hi, Herl, Trudging along here . . still alive so that's something. Are you still actively involved in your Ripper community? I guess as with Sherlock Holmes aficianados, there's no danger of interest in the Ripper dying down. I discount Mr. HH Holmes since I'm convinced that the Ripper was a man local to Whitechapel. A visiting American or even a visiting toff from the better parts of town would have really been disadvantaged in navigating the district. Not to mention the MO of the crimes that Holmes committed is worlds away from the Ripper's work, geographically and stylistically. It's really rare for a serial killer to alter his hunting grounds and his signature methodology that much. It's usually what trips them up in the end . . their little habits. One suspect I've always felt incredibly sorry for is Montague Druitt, who seems to have been targeted for no other reason than because his body was found in the Thames shortly after the murder of Mary Jane Kelly. No less a personage than the Assistant Chief Constable of the Met published his theory that Druitt was the Ripper. Druitt was accused of 'sexual insanity' . . which I believe meant that he was a homosexual. He had been dismissed from his post as a a schoolmaster owing to having been outed, and killed himself in despondency, at least so it seems to me. His unfortunate death was coincidental to the cessation of the murders but because people theorized that the Ripper had stopped because he'd drowned himself in the Thames, Druitt being found there was convenient 'evidence' of the theory. Evidently some of Druitt's associates/family members even accused him posthumously of these crimes. I think they must have been looking for notoriety and profit from a man who could not defend himself against the charges, because apart from the fact that Mr. Druitt lived a considerable distance away from Whitechapel in Kent, he had rock solid alibis for several of the killings, having been away as far as Dorset playing in cricket tournaments. To have boarded a train and done a round trip of some 200 miles each way to cut up some wh*ores in Whitechapel and make it back to the cricket pitch seems . . well, fantastical. I hope that poor man has found some peace. If he was actually the Ripper, it would have been quite a feat to pull off. Seems unlikely that a barrister/schoolmaster would have chosen that milieu.

Yes, that Marple episode was he first in the series and it’s a very good one. One of the best. Geri is my favorite Miss Marple and I often revisit her episodes. My most favorite is 4:50 to Paddington which I rewatch every Christmas season. Mark also appeared as a tortured vicar in the Sword of Guillame episode of Midsomer Murders several years later. While Bamber Gascoigne of Starter for 10 is droll, Mycroft Holmes remains his greatest acting achievement. Mycroft is possibly my favorite character in the series, probably because I am an eldest with annoying younger siblings too, and if I can say it without sounding like an egotistical arse, the smartest in my family. I don’t think they would dispute me. Mycroft’s scenes were a highlight and too brief to suit me. I love Deductions from The Empty Hearse. “Tea at the Palace” from Belgravia is his shining moment, though. Mycroft takes his duties as the eldest seriously and he is always looking out for his frustrating little brother. I love him. And I love the fandom explorations of his secret torrid affair with the hot Inspector Lestrade, ship name: Mystrade, Even though it makes no logical sense. The two characters have zero screen time together though they are definitely aware of each other, and Lestrade is my own lust object, the extremely hetero Rupert Graves. And all the ladies say amen!

You got it all in one! Exactly what I was thinking. I was inspired by a fandom video of BBC Sherlock set to the song “Titanium.” The lyrics were from Sherlock’s POV, but they could also describe Watson. And SH would not choose anything so sentimental as a picture. He’d probably give himself the ink. I had a year of chemistry and it was a terrifying experience. On a whim I looked up the properties of Ti and by Jove, it’s perfect. that Blog line got stuck there when I cut and pasted from a webpage and I tried to delete it but couldn’t.

Upon consideration, and knowing Sherlock's background as a chemist, I think he would select the elemental number for Titanium (Ti) to signify his 'Boswell'. Consider: Titanium has the highest strength to weight ratio of all the elements It has a very high melting point of 1800 degrees Celsius Because of its stable properties, Ti is used to store nuclear waste securely Titanium does not occur naturally as a metal and will always be bonded with another element. Due to this, Ti is considered rare and costly. It alloys well with iron and aluminium (crutches)

Mark also appeared as a tormented vicar in the Geri McEwan Marple film 'Murder at the Vicarage'. It was these two roles I saw MG in first, before I ever saw Mycroft Holmes. For an absolute laugh riot, watch 'Starter for 10' with James McAvoy, Rebecca Hall, Bendi and Alice Eve. Mark plays University Challenge host Bamber Gasgoigne. This is actually where Mark met Ben.

Another fascinating Victorian serial killer! I don't know enough about H.H. Holmes to comment as yet but you have sparked my interest to look further into the case. I currently reside about 5 hours east of Chicago.

Lyndsay Faye's book is fiction but she lays out a very similar theory--'Jack' as a police higher-up. Who better to know the movements of the police than the very man who designed the beat timetables, for instance? Or, if the medical examiner, that would explain Jack's knowledge of surgical techniques to remove organs and also give him the freedom to move about and visit and revisit the scenes of all his crimes. For years my favorite theory of the Ripper was the one espoused in Bob Clark's "Murder by Decree". I do so love a good conspiracy theory. "From Hell" was very similar. How titillating to have the Queen's own physician responsible for the most heinous murders of all time . . or someone even closer to the Queen--Prince Albert Victor. Now, though, I have come to the conclusion that the Ripper murders and the Ripper himself were most likely a lot more mundane than they are given credit for. That Jack had more than average knowledge of human anatomy is clear. The removal of some of these organs whilst working at speed in the dark would not have been doable by a run-of-the-mill knife criminal. The kidneys, for instance--not only are they very small but they are inconveniently placed in the back. Taken as a whole, Jack's surgery and ritualistic arrangement of body parts is, while blatant evidence of a very disturbed mind, ultimately too crude to be the work of a highly skilled surgeon. Jack loved his knife and was pretty good with knife work but not a doctor. I had considered perhaps a failed medical student?--one who'd had a bit of training, maybe a year or two before being dismissed perhaps on the grounds of disturbing/inappropriate behavior. Wonder if the medical colleges were looked at during the investigation. I think it is most likely that these were crimes of opportunity; the women may have been known to him or he might have just happened upon them and took his chance. Each of the women were known to frequent certain pubs and all were alcoholics; maybe Jack even drank with some or all of his victims at some time or other. Living as they did, in doss houses and sometimes not even that much, pinpointing a particular routine to any of them would have been hard, as they roamed around. I think Jack went out with his knife and took who he could find on those evenings--whoever was alone, incapacitated, vulnerable. All of the crime scenes where found to be on Charles Lechmere's regular routes to and from home on his rounds as a lorry driver. He was discovered with Polly Nichols' body even before her wounds had begun to bleed out and fled the scene, later providing an alias to the police. I've gotta say he looks pretty good for it. He lived on for many years after the killings ceased and never came to the attention of the police again, so he might have been like BTK in that regard--only never caught. Did the Ripper have a particular grudge against *these* women, not needing to kill others after they were all dead? Or did he just kill whoever he stumbled upon, quite literally? It has to be one or the other as it can't be both. David Cohen was also positively identified in Mitre Square by a witness though that witness later refused to testify to it at the inquest. The Jewish community closed ranks to protect one of their own, even if he was crazy as an outhouse rodent. The debate rages on. Have you seen the BBC series "Ripper Street"? If not, I highly recommend it. Whitechapel, 1889: Residual fear of the Ripper hangs over the district like a miasma as DI Edmund Reid (Matthew McFadyen) takes over the helm of H Division from his former CO, DI Fred Abberline (Clive Russell) recently promoted to Chief Inspector and out of the nick. The coppers on on the continual lookout for the resurgence of Saucy Jack but it turns out there are a lot of other equally depraved persons living in Whitechapel. Reid is a posh, fast-tracked type from money but his sergeant, Bennet Drake (Jerome Flynn) is a Whitechapel lad born and bred. The series follows H Division in the years following Jack's crimes and a highlight of first couple of seasons is the antagonistic relationship between the police and the new 'yellow journalism' as epitomized by The Star newspaper and its editor, Fred Best (David Dawson). The Star is the reason Jacky Boy is the prima donna of psychopaths and the biggest star serial killer ever despite not being anywhere the most prolific or even the most twisted. He was the first to have his exploits detailed in the papers. Not the first serial killer but the first to become a media sensation, and that's why he's still infamous today.

Stolf, The first instance that jumps to mind is this passage from "The Sign of Four". I'm sure there must be more. I will continue to research and hope that my mate Herlock Sholmes happens by. He can think of some more https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2097/2097-h/2097-h.htm#:~:text=Sherlock Holmes took,in unraveling it.”.

Hello, SLarratt and welcome to our society. Your comment is the first action this thread has seen in nearly 5 years . . . can it be? I hope my friend Herlock Sholmes will be along momentarily because he is the resident Ripper scholar here. He dislikes the term 'Ripperologist'. My theory as to the identity of 'Jack' has shifted over time. Nathan Kaminsky aka "David Cohen"'s death in Colney Hatch lunatic asylum coincided with the cessation of the murders. One supposes "Jack" might have continued beyond the Five, if he were able. Being incarcerated or dead would make that impossible. Another resident until his death many years later in Colney Hatch, Aaron Kosminski seems to have been a victim of misidentification by the authorities. Charles Lechmere aka Charles Cross is a name I only recently heard but the circumstances are certainly compelling for him to be a person of interest. All three of these men are from the working class, though perhaps only Lechmere would be likely to use the term 'Boss'. I guess "Teamster" would be the modern equivalent of his occupation. Though it has also been posited the the letters received by the police bear evidence of being the work of an educated person attempting to ape an illiterate manner of writing. Many Ripper experts discount the 'Dear Boss' letter as being genuine. The popular conception of "Jack" being a highborn gentleman, one with Royal connections even, slumming it in Whitechapel is more captivating but probably not at all likely. The Ripper was a local man who was probably known to the women and they him, not a highborn client visiting from the tonier part of town. Moneyed gentlemen in the market for some night birds would have gone to the brothels. I've taken a number of virtual Ripper tours from guides passionate about this subject and they've also got their own theories. Martha Tabram, killed in August 1888 may well have been a practice run. She was stabbed 30-odd times though not dissected. A number of people are inclined to add Martha to the tally of victims but take away Elizabeth Stride. Who can say? It seems that all but one of the Ripper victims were married or formerly married women who had fallen on hard times despite trying to make a living by other means and only resorted to selling themselves when desperate for a bed or a drink. Polly Nichols may have been attacked when passed out on the street and not 'streetwalking' in the normal sense. Of all these women, only Mary Jane Kelly, the youngest, was a prostitute by profession. One of the more whoo-whoo suspects that has been suggested is Lewis Carroll, reclusive Oxford mathematics don. I have entertained the thought that 'Jack' could have been a beat constable in Whitechapel, hence his ability to elude the beat patrols and melt into the night, since he would have memorized the time tables. A dark uniform would have hidden bloodstains and beat bobbies were also known to carry chalk in their pockets. As did tailors, which was David Cohen's profession, when he was in his right mind. Lindsay Faye BSI makes a compelling case for a beat constable in her book "Shadows & Fog". A policeman would have had an excellent reason for hanging around the scenes of his butcheries if he was 'on duty' and therefore supposed to be there. If he presented as the friendly local copper willing to overlook 'business' in exchange for a freebie, he would have been known to the women, and they might have been more willing to go with him into a dark corner. The issue I have with either of the Jewish lunatics being "Jack" is that I'd expect the women to avoid them at all costs if they were conscious, and not get close enough to have their throats cut. Kosminski in particular never bathed so the women would have had advance warning of his approach. Both men were well-known in the neighborhood for violence and lunacy, and if either of them got the jump on street smart women, it's because their victims were too drunk to fight them off or make a run for it. Jack was obviously a psychopath, but could a person as consistently and chronically subject to bouts of insanity like Cohen and Kosminski really been mentally organized enough to commit these crimes and elude capture for so long? By the time of the "From Hell' letter, if that's genuine and the Kelly slaying, Jack had deteriorated precipitously. Late stage syphilis? Or was Mary Kelly, as you suggest, butchered by another person(s)? The MO was so very different. The late author Michael Dibdin's first published novel, when he was barely 30 years of age caused an international sensation when it laid out a devastatingly logical case for the identity of the Ripper, but as brilliant as his hypothesis was, it doesn't help us with the truth, strictly speaking, since his suspect is fictional. At least, according to some.

I was a dedicated "Three's Company" watcher back in the day. I can't attribute any sinister motivations behind either the loveable klutzy goof played by the beloved late John Ritter. I think "Tripper" came about due to the frequent physical comedy/pratfalls that were a hallmark of this character and series. In the swinging SoCal 1970s, a man living with two beautiful single gals could be seen as a fox among the pigeons--leastways Mr. Roper certainly thought so--so Jack had to pretend to be gay in his landlord's sight. The true skeeze was Jack's friend "Larry". "Jack Tripper" might have been inspired by Jack the Ripper in terms of the sound and cadence of the name but I don't think we were supposed to read too much into it. The series would have had a darker tone instead of the zany screwball flavor if 'Jack' wasn't harmless. He and Larry were always on the make--badly--for other girls, but the vibe with Chrissy and Janet was definitely fraternal. And Jack really did trip a lot. Not a reference to drugs, which wouldn't have been unheard of on the beach in the '70s but they had to get this stuff past the censors.

RED SPARROW (2018) Starring Jennifer Lawrence & Joel Edgerton This movie only garnered 45% on Rotten Tomatoes and on first viewing I was inclined to agree that it was bad. But it stuck with me nevertheless and I ended up watching it again, with a better opinion of it, or at least, of JLaw's performance the second time around. It is definitely flawed, overlong at 2 hours and 20 minutes, and even for a spy thriller, the scenes of sexual and physical violence become gratuitous. The movie definitely had Bourne-sized aspirations, with an established director (Francis Lawrence, no relation to star Jennifer Lawrence, helmed the last three films in the Hunger Games franchise) and a cast of surprisingly heavy hitters in support (Jeremy Irons, Joely Richardson, Mary-Louise Parker, Charlotte Rampling and Matthieas Schoenaerts) and two leads who gamely go through their paces. They deserved a better, tighter movie but I didn't think it was as bad as its reputation. Rolling Stone gave it 2/4 stars . . I'd stretch to 3 overall. A watchable popcorn thriller if you like spy films like Bourne . . which I do. After breaking out as Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games, and picking up an Oscar the same year for Silver Linings Playbook, making her the second-youngest Best Actress winner ever at just 22 (Marlee Matlin was a year younger when she won), and gathering a slew of subsequent Golden Globe and Oscar nominations afterwards, JLaw embarked on a trio of consecutive box-office flops from 2016 - 2018. This film is the last in that run and having seen one of the others, I will confidently say this one is the least-bad of the JLaw clinkers, if you can buy into the premise. Having so many excellent actors around helps. The casting is inventive to say the least, with Louisville, Kentucky native JLaw tasked with playing a Russian prima ballerina with Moscow's Bolshoi Ballet, with a heavy stereotypical Russian accent and even heavier brunette bangs. The set-up says Black Swan but the hair is decidedly Fifty Shades of Grey as sported by Dakota Johnson. JLaw looks good as a brunette, though halfway through the film she will undergo the obligatory Covert Agent in a Spy Thriller Makeover to Disguise Her Identity which entails keeping the identical hairstyle, just dying it blonde with drugstore dye from a kit in an inadequate bathroom. One of my failures of suspension of disbelief, though not the first was the implausibility that a woman with that bulk of dark hair extensions could become a convincing blonde with only one box of hair dye. As if. A larger implausibility is accepting someone as curvaceous and endowed as JLaw as a prima ballerina in the first place but the dancing parts are minimal, all the quicker to get to the spy action. As an Oscar-winning actress, Lawrence is deeply, deeply committed to stripping off whenever possible and/or spending a great deal of time with very little on to bring that extra dose of authenticity to her characters. Dominika (Law) lives in a state-provided apartment with her disabled mother (Richardson) and acts as her caretaker by day and by night she dances at the Bolshoi. One night, her partner accidentally (or not so accidentally, as Dominika later discovers) breaks her leg during an awkward jump, instantly ending her dance career. Since she can no longer perform, she will lose her apartment and her mother will have to go into a state hospital, unless she can find another way to be useful to the state. When she becomes a witness to an assassination of a government official, her days are numbered. Her uncle Vanya (Schoenaerts) is a highly placed spymaster with the KGB with connections and also a very non-uncle appropriate fixation on his niece. So Dominika is sent to training to become a Sparrow--a covert operative specializing in seduction as well as an array of other spycraft skills. Her first mission: get close to American CIA agent Nate Nash (an equally miscast Joel Edgerton, pride of Blacktown, New South Wales, Australia) who's been running Russian informants to see what he might know about a mole high, high up in the Russian intelligence community. With a new identity, Dominika follows her prey to Budapest, but while she's watching Nash, his cohorts in the CIA are watching them both. JLaw gets to wear some really great outfits and the locations, principally Budapest and Vienna, give the feel of a Bourne movie. Red Sparrow may have done disappointing box office but it had a lot of budget lavished on it.

THE OUTFIT (2022) Starring Mark Rylance & Zoey Deutch Mad Men style meets The Tailor of Panama in an intimate mob drama that manages to be edge-of-your-seat thrilling despite taking place, like a play, on one set. This is the directorial debut of screenwriter Graham Moore, Oscar winner for The Imitation Game starring Benedict Cumberbatch. 1956, Chicago: English tailor Leonard lives and works quietly in his shop where he cuts bespoke suits for the discriminating gentleman. Many of his gentlemen are actually 'wise guys' from the local Irish mob family, the Boyles, who use the unassuming Leonard's premises as a stash house for dirty money and other aspects of 'family business'. Leonard is forced to tolerate this arrangement because he owes his shop and his livelihood to the Boyles, who control the entire neighborhood. Leonard has a mouthy receptionist, Mable, who is secretly dating the mob boss's son, Richie, unbeknownst to her boss. When Richie is shot and seriously wounded in a skirmish with a rival family, he comes to the family tailor to be sewn up since he can't go to a hospital. Over the events of one chaotic night, the mousy little tailor will reveal hidden talents. Until then, Leonard knows how to keep his head down and learn more than he gives away. It doesn't sound like a weighty enough premise for a whole movie but Mark Rylance (Wolf Hall, Bridge of Spies) is captivating as Leonard, a quiet man with a quiet gift and a murky past, living on the edge of a very dangerous world. Rylance, the former director for a decade of the Globe Theatre in London is one of the best actors of his generation, bar none. I try to see everything he's in. And if Ms. Deutch as Mable looks familiar . . I will save you the aggravation of wondering *why* she looks so familiar: She is the daughter of Lea Thompson and director Howard Deutch. She's got promise--it's in the genes.

Really enjoyed this from Amazon Studios (streaming on Prime) that I watched yesterday . . ALL THE OLD KNIVES (2022) starring Chris Pine and Thandiwe Newton Fans of espionage thrillers like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and the Bourne franchise, check this out. 8 years ago, Islamic terrorists hijacked a plane, killing all aboard on the tarmac at Vienna airport, including 9 children and a member of the Vienna station of the CIA who was feeding information about the terrorists to his station colleagues. When this agent was executed on camera and his body thrown off the plane as the first hostage to die, it's clear that someone in Vienna station gave up his identity. The mole was never discovered. Present day, field agent Henry Pelham (Pine) is dispatched by his boss (Laurence Fishburne) to re-interview the two chief suspects of the mole hunt in a reopened investigation into the incident: ex-section chief Bill (Jonathan Pryce) and Henry's former colleague and lover, Cecilia (Newton). After seeing Bill in London, Henry goes to Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA to rendezvous with his old lover, now retired, married and a mother of two, at her favorite wine bar with an ocean view. As the two old flames play a game of intellectual cat-and-mouse over the course of the evening, interspersed with flashbacks to the days in Vienna, will Henry get the answers to his questions? Is Cecilia the mole? Is that why she left him suddenly and without explanation in Vienna, the morning after he asked her to move in together? This twisty and cerebral thriller has got some surprises up its sleeve. Despite the title, there are no actual knives that make an appearance; only the figurative knives of memory, loss and regret. I have wanted to live in Carmel ever since I watched Clint Eastwood's Play Misty For Me back in high school Clint fell in love with Carmel, too. After filming there, he moved there and became Carmel's mayor. The cinematography does not disappoint.

In the mode of The Mentalist meets Columbo with a bit of Sherlock Holmes thrown in for good measure, may I suggest Jonathan Creek? That is a British detective series that started in the late '90s and kept on with intermittent specials until 2015 or so. The show underwent a number of cast changes during its run so I can only wholeheartedly recommend the first three seasons, but this show was a charming little discovery. I'm not sure where it's available for streaming presently but you might find it on BritBox. I watched in on DVD back when Netflix was a DVD-by-mail subscription. The show is named for its eponymous detective played by Alan Davies. Jonathan is a retiring young man who lives in a windmill and engineers stage illusions for a living. Like Sherlock Holmes, he is more comfortable with his solitary work than mingling with a lot of people, and often wears a signature coat. His line of work makes him into a useful consulting detective when it comes to unraveling the threads of 'locked room' mysteries--most often murders--which have taken place under seemingly impossible conditions. He's got a more extrovert friend in wordsmithing business--investigative journalist Maddie Magellan (Caroline Quentin), who gets the duo involved in these cases. Maddie is the 'Watson' of the partnership, I guess, but she's a lot more pushy and less deferential to her star detective than was Watson. Series creator David Renwick was trying for a 'Columbo' vibe, he said . . the cases could get dark but were mostly in a more lighthearted vein, with some zany humor. The protagonist is a bit different than we normally see in this genre. A magic trick engineer who is aces at sleight of the mind. Good chemistry with the leads. Quentin left after 3 seasons to head up her own procedural show, Blue Murder. JC carried on with different co-stars but it was never the same. Quentin's show was good too . . sort of British version of The Closer, with an elite Manchester murder squad headed up by a female Det. Superintendent. Short form, hour long episodes. More lighthearted than Prime Suspect. Then of course, there's my favorite British detective series bar none, New Tricks. I envy the viewer who gets to start at the beginning with those. Incidentally, David Renwick's first choice for Jonathan Creek, Nic Lyndhurst, appears in the last two seasons of that show. I liked his character on NT, but I think Alan Davies was the best choice in the end for the earlier series.

Welcome, Inspector Baynes! It's not often any more that we see new faces around here. You're right about House--his caustic charms do wear quite thin relatively quickly. I've been revisiting the series and my impression on a rewatch is that it's not as good as I remember . . it can seem pretty contrived, and House's tics and misanthropic tendencies only get more cartoony as the series wears on. I really do not believe that anyone who was that big of a arschbole to patients and colleagues would get to retain his position as department head of a major metropolitan research hospital, no matter how brilliant. Sherlock Holmes took the initiative of becoming self-employed so he can do as he likes but Greg House is a man under authority, as much as he resists that authority. The problem is that his field of medicine is by its nature collaborative; House needs entire teams of Others to assist him in doing his work. He must envy Sherlock Holmes a great deal. I'm up to Season 3 which ushers in a particularly good run of episodes as House meets his match in a police detective played by David Morse. House is particularly rude to this detective when the man presents himself at the clinic with an ailment and owing to his misuse of a rectal thermometer, House makes a dedicated enemy. Soon he finds himself arrested for driving his motorcycle under the influence of narcotics, his stash of Vicodin is confiscated and the world of pain is just beginning for his colleagues who are going to have to lie for him in a court of law. Yeah, House's appeal as a character was pretty well exhausted by the end of Season 3 but they dragged it out for another 5 seasons with diminishing returns. I wonder if you would like The Mentalist with Simon Baker. Baker plays a man who occasionally pretends to be a bumbling genius but the bumbling is a bit of an act. I find his character Patrick Jane to be be more of a true homage to Sherlock Holmes than Greg House, because as Patrick, Simon captures the charisma which SH possesses when he's on good form, doing what he loves to do . .solving puzzles. Even when he's witty, House never exudes anything like joie de vivre.