The Jack the Ripper tour – Featuring the mystery of the suitcase on wheels
After weeks of attempting to organise a ghost walk, it was kind of inevitable that it would end up being a “Jack the Ripper tour” instead. I ask you, what is the world coming to when you can’t find a ghost prepared to work on a Monday evening in London? Jack managed to entice 40 or so brave souls (before you get totally impressed with my gathering skills, I was only responsible for six)
- Myself and the long suffering Mrs B
- Mitch, You may have seen pictures of his wedding in the BlackLOG
- Ediane my Brazilian friend from work (Aside 1). She was less than impressed as it was meant to be a Ghost walk which got changed at the last moment. She had brought along her Italian Husband, Costa, for protection (what a multicultural experience this was turning into), unfortunately he was only certified for ghost protection work and was only part way through his Ripper protection course.
- PP or "Picture Pimp", who used to supply us Govinda Pictures (hense the nickname), before she moved out of art and into the exciting world of promotion (Aside 3).
The rest of group, rather impressively managed to make their own way to the event. It all got a bit fraught before we even got started, with Mrs B doing her inevitable fashionably late entrance and was stuck on the DLR. I was making emergency plans to borrow one of PP’s sandwiches (the girl sure can eat, I just don’t know where it all goes) and leave a trail of crumbs for Mrs B to follow, but unfortunately PP had still not forgiven me for her boss incident and had wolfed down the lot. This left me with the prospect of having to talk Mrs B through the dark alley, using just a mobile phone and a hazy idea of the area. Not a great prospect considering Mrs B has difficulties finding our en-suite some mornings, and that is with the lights on. Fortunately the DLR had had enough and released Mrs B and she just made it in time.
Our tour guide for the evening was an interesting individual; he appeared knowledgeable, spoke with authority and had even written a book on the subject. He did however display some slightly worrying traits :-
- The first was an apparent fear of Taxi’s; he would get all stuttery and repeated entire sentences, every time a taxi came close to him.
- The second was a particular glint in his eye, every time he uttered his favourite description of the Ripper victims’ deaths, each one being “Slashed from vagina to breast plate” Alarmingly he seemed to get more excited each time he said it, thankfully there were only Five victims.
- The third trait was a dislike of having more than a couple of pictures taken of him at each stop of the tour. He got quite irate with one of the party. To be fair they were doing a David Bailey impression and constantly taking pictures of him (Aside 4).
- The final trait was most worrying of all. He was accompanied everywhere by a suitcase on wheels. Various rumours about its contents were going around the group from, “it contained the body of one of the victims or at least some of the more gruesome body parts” to “a complete prostitute get up, high heels, fishnets and all” I personally had my fingers crossed praying for a ripper costume complete with a rubber knife.
Our Tour guide refused to speculate on who he thought the identity of Jack the Ripper might have been, although he was more than happy to drop into the conversation that he had taken Johnny Depp on this very tour, in preparation for his role in the Film “From Hell”. He spoke highly of Johnny (I guess Johnny did not take many pictures) but was less than impressed with the actual film, probably because he was not asked to be an advisor on it. (Aside 5) One of the highlights of the tour was the prostitutes’ church (mainly because it still existed, while most of the places that the murders had taken place had changed beyond recognition with buildings and alleyways long since demolished and built over) where the ladies of the night would circle looking for custom, apparently as long as they kept moving they could not be arrested. This effectively turned the building into a kind of roundabout or possibly a type of sordid musical chairs, without chairs, nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more. PP got most upset about this, feeling it was a slur on the house of God. I found this a bit strange, as the closest that I am aware that PP has got to God recently, was accusing me of being religious. The cheek of it, I’ve had nothing to do with him since he stopped answering my prayers for Christmas presents. I mean how can you mistake a request for a 100” flat screen HD TV for a toothbrush and a bag of half rotten potatoes? At least the large fat one in the red dress makes an effort and wraps the damn things (before any one gets the wrong Idea, Mrs B is neither large nor taken to wearing red dresses).
Before he left us, our guide warned us of the ladies of the night that still prowled the streets in this very area (I thought he was touting for business so gave him my number, he never did ring me), before finally revealing what was in the suitcase. The group visibly took a step back and gave a little gasp of apprehension, as he sprung the locks on the case…………..….. revealing
…………………not bodies…………
..…..not a Ripper costume ……….
.… not even a pair of High heels and fishnet stockings ………….
.…but ………….
rather disappointingly books. Loads and loads of books. Signed copies of his book, to be precise, or in other words just another retail opportunity. The last anyone saw of our guide, he was trundling off down a particularly dark alley with his suitcase full of unsold books.
To wrap up the evening we went to a Thai restaurant around the back of Liverpool street, which was OK except typically I ordered the worse dish on a rather confusing menu. I wanted Dish 124 but the waiter refused to serve me this and made me have a number 60 – it was never made clear why I had to have a 60 rather then a 124, but since the difference appeared to be only mathematical I decided not to push the point. At least I did not demand a 69 from the waiter, unlike Mrs B, who only cottoned on to her faux pas when her rather immature husband came close to falling off his chair. Mrs Bs response was a rather cute “oops!” and an almost blushing of the cheeks, mine not hers, as I teetered on the edge of a rather deserved slapping.
Mitch almost quite literally put the evening to bed, when he got abandoned outside the restaurant. (Aside 6) Within two minutes of being left to his own devices he found himself being propositioned by a lady of negotiable virtue in broad nightdark (Aside 7), Mitch claimed he could tell she was not girlfriend material because of the white thigh length boots, Fishnet stockings, Amy Winehouse shrink to fit skirt, white leather jacket and as final proof her opening line “your place or this brick wall, lovey!” He said he was so overcome with shock, all he could manage was a slight giggle, before fleeing into the night. I still believe it was the tour guide who had hidden the costume under his unsold books and waited patiently to find one of the tour group alone and vulnerable.
Enough of all this gruesome murder and mayhem business, next week I am planning a trip to Ipswich, for some nice walks around some of the local villages. I am particularly looking forward to hearing about a much more gentle and safe way of life. (For those of you who don't get this reference this Blog dates back to when Ipswich was suffering a spate of killings. Interestingly enough the Ipswich murders stopped since Mitch fled to Canada.........That and they caught the killer......or did they......)
The end, stray any further and you will run into the asides but I'm you don't need to see them again as I'm sure you will have already clicked on the links, thus reading them in the correct order as the author intended....... For anyone interested there is a "so to speak" live BlackLOG available, which gives a more current picture of events in the Black household.....
(Aside 1) I was quite frankly shocked that Edian joined us for the walk, having already had to suffer my company for Lunch. I had prepared myself for the phone call from her saying that she had to drop out due to “Niely Overexposure”. Mrs B has to have annual injections in order to be able to tolerate me on such a regular basis. One of the side affects of this is injection is falling asleep during films. The fact that she recently stayed awake for the entire “Mission impossible III” movie and the majority of “Sunset Boulevard”(Aside 2) leads me to believe she is due for her annual boost.
(Aside 2) rather impressively Mrs B actually managed to fall asleep while “standing” over the ironing board. I though at first it was the steam iron that was making the gentle breathing sound. This must be worth an entry in the “Guinness book of records” or failing that an entire chapter in “10 strange and ever so slightly dangerous places to sleep”
(Aside 3) I almost disastrously made it seven, when I inadvertently invited PP’s Boss. I was just attempting to make polite conversation, as Mitch the Shed Slave and I dropped by the Gallery to pick up PP, and accidentally mentioned the tour. I thought I was going to turn to stone on the spot, under PP’s fearsome stare, when her boss said, “It looks like I’ve been stood up, so why not?” Apparently they had not had the most harmonious of days together and PP had been counting down the hours until she could get away. Fortunately for me we managed to give her boss the slip, while she was locking up. PP assured me that she would have forgotten all about by the morning and would be moaning about something else instead. This just serves as a reminder that I am much better off sticking to being my normal rude and ignorant self.
(Aside 4) At one point our tour guide looked like he was going to retaliate and go all Tarantino on David (all that blood and guts would have been quite appropriate for the evening), but David seemed to get the message and slunk off before any actual hacking and swearing could take place.
(Aside 5) I am eagerly awaiting the sequel, which will no doubt, in true Hollywood style, have an imaginative title like “From Hell2 – the tour guide hacker” in which Johnny Depp plays a deranged tour guide, driven mad by continuous exposure to photographers; he develops a fear of passing Taxi’s, which manifests itself in him repeating entire sentences. The final scene where he hacks to death a tour party who refuse to purchase any of his books is particularly poignant and just goes to show what a lucky escape we had.
(Aside 6) It was his own fault, he had driven only part way into London and parked his car in Beckton, where he works. I had dropped subtle hints (forgetting that us men don’t really do hints, subtle or otherwise) by sending him maps of where to park and how to avoid the congestion charge. I had guessed that given the choice of trailing off in the wrong direction, to the middle of nowhere, to get a lift home or hopping on a train 2 minutes walk away, Mrs B and PP were always going to choose the latter.
(Aside 7) I feel the English language is all the poorer for not including Nightdark in any dictionary yet published – surely it can only be a matter of time before it gets proper recognition.
Nightdark – A low quality light leading poor unsuspecting ladies of the night to mistake Mitch for a high class punter....(Mitch please note, high class punters don’t giggle)
Other words that are sadly missing from the dictionary:
Iriphotate – To upset someone by the excessive taking of photos
Wrongplacetoparkuburk – To leave your car in the wrong place, often resulting in the feeling of abandonment and getting home later then everyone else. This is particularly true when maps and details of congestion charges have been provided in advance.
Inaproprigobusage – To inadvertently invite an inappropriate person to join an activity
Sixtynineatrocias – Accidentally propositioning a Thai waiter in front of your immature husband
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