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Mary Ann Cox testified that she saw Kelly go back to her room at 11.45 pm or thereabouts. She was drunk and was in the company of Blotchy Face, who was carrying a pot of beer. She starts singing as she goes into her room. At 1.00 am Cox, who has been out, returns. And Kelly is still singing. And she hears her singing as she leaves.
A couple of things occur to me on looking at this:
- An hour and a half or thereabouts is a hell of a long time for a drunk to keep singing. One assumes she shuts up while she's taking care of business. Im not sure why she would start up again. She's not likely to get drunker, she's likely to sober up a little. I doubt there's enough beer in Blotchy's pint pot to keep her going. So I wonder what exactly it was that Cox heard when she returned to her crib at 1.00 am. Was it Kelley in full, totally recognizable voice? Or was it a humming that she assumed was Kelley? Someone humming when he hears steps up the court, and the door across the way opening, so that people would assume that Kelley was alive.
- The pint pot. I don't know why this never occurred to me before. I guess I just took BF and his accoutrements for granted. It was common practice for a man to have his own pot, and bring it with him to a pub when he wanted to have a beer. No one has ever suggested that it was unusual for BF to have a pot of beer in his hand although he's nowhere near a pub. Against the law to drink off the premises, but I doubt anyone's paying much attention. And a man walking through the streets late at night with a pot in his hand is clearly a drinker off home to his bed. But a pint pot wasn't all that small. I reckon you could put all kinds of bits and bobs in there and carry them easily, unmessily and quietly wherever you wanted to go. If a policeman sees you with your pot in your hand, I doubt he'd stop and ask to see the contents. After all, he's looking for some clever West End fiend, not an East End working man who's gone home via a couple of pubs...
A couple of things occur to me on looking at this:
- An hour and a half or thereabouts is a hell of a long time for a drunk to keep singing. One assumes she shuts up while she's taking care of business. Im not sure why she would start up again. She's not likely to get drunker, she's likely to sober up a little. I doubt there's enough beer in Blotchy's pint pot to keep her going. So I wonder what exactly it was that Cox heard when she returned to her crib at 1.00 am. Was it Kelley in full, totally recognizable voice? Or was it a humming that she assumed was Kelley? Someone humming when he hears steps up the court, and the door across the way opening, so that people would assume that Kelley was alive.
- The pint pot. I don't know why this never occurred to me before. I guess I just took BF and his accoutrements for granted. It was common practice for a man to have his own pot, and bring it with him to a pub when he wanted to have a beer. No one has ever suggested that it was unusual for BF to have a pot of beer in his hand although he's nowhere near a pub. Against the law to drink off the premises, but I doubt anyone's paying much attention. And a man walking through the streets late at night with a pot in his hand is clearly a drinker off home to his bed. But a pint pot wasn't all that small. I reckon you could put all kinds of bits and bobs in there and carry them easily, unmessily and quietly wherever you wanted to go. If a policeman sees you with your pot in your hand, I doubt he'd stop and ask to see the contents. After all, he's looking for some clever West End fiend, not an East End working man who's gone home via a couple of pubs...
"What our ancestors would really be thinking, if they were alive today, is: "Why is it so dark in here?"" From Pyramids by Sir Terry Pratchett, a British National Treasure. 
Eventually I realised, duh, I'd brought a couple of Unigate milk bottles with me, so use them for measuring fluids now.
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