So... was an arm found?

[DrHopper]

According to this report (and others)

http://www.casebook.org/press_report.../18880929.html

An arm was found on the Lambeth Road on the 28th September 1888. This is clearly related to the arm found on 11th September 1888 on the foreshore of the Thames at Pimlico. We have two arms, and all's good so far...

However, according to the Star of 28th September 1888 nobody knows anything about it!

http://www.casebook.org/press_reports/star/s880928.html

And what's more interesting - the official inquest does not mention this later discovery in any way

http://www.casebook.org/official_documents/inquests/inquest_whitehall.html

So, my question is... was an arm found on this date, or was it all dreamed up by a very eager media?

I am in the process of checking myself, but wondered if anyone else had come across the same thing... and I'm looking in particular at a certain Debra A!

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Doc. Is that the one that turned out to be the bone of a bear?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

P.S. You don't have to create a separate thread for each item. An overall 'torso' thread that exists would work.

[mariab]

3 arms might have constituted a bit of a problem. With apologies for the silly joke.

[DrHopper]

Hi Doc. Is that the one that turned out to be the bone of a bear?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

P.S. You don't have to create a separate thread for each item. An overall 'torso' thread that exists would work.

Hi Tom.
Interesting!
The star report mentions the duty policeman hearing a rumour of a bone being found, but no reference to a bear bone. Where was this reported?
And yup, I shall start a General Torso discussion thread

Hi Maria
Well that's the problem when you're dealing with bits... blink and you end up with 2 left feet! I once excavated a skeleton with that same problem... seems like the Saxon churchy types reburied some earlier people and had some bits 'left over'...
Happens a lot in prehistory too... too many bones, not enough articulated bodies!

[mariab]

So, an anthropologist, not just an archeologist.

I have a feeling the bear bone was a joke. I'd have loved to see a bear walking down London Whitechapel. Unless it was a bear led on a rope by a performer.

[DrHopper]

So, an anthropologist, not just an archeologist.

I have a feeling the bear bone was a joke. I'd have loved to see a bear walking down London Whitechapel. Unless it was a bear led on a rope by a performer.

Ha! Well, not beyond the realms of possibility I suppose!

Yup, guilty as charged - anthropologist as well as archaeologist - with a PhD, and particular interest, in death and burial, and specifically the role that the dead play within the world of the living, and vice versa. Something I'm trying to bring to ripperology in the way I approach matters.

Begging your pardon, too. I didn't respond to your questions re: skateboarding and surfing. I have a 7'4" beauty with pale skin, awesome curves, and fixed fins (none of this new fangled (and probably better, LOL) removable fins). She's called Havalina, named after the Pixies song, and I don't get to ride her that often as I live a fair few miles away from the nearest good surf!

Skateboard wise - well, currently I have a 20yr old Think board that I bought really cheaply from a garage (car boot) sale. However, I'm still rocking orginal Kryptonic 77s 'cos I love the feel of insanely soft rubber when I'm riding street. My first deck was a Christian Hosoi Hammerhead, then a whole bunch of stuff, mainly Powell and Peralta (Rat bones are still my favourite wheel!), but also Jason Jesse (the Santa Cruz poseidon) and wicked Tony Alva that I broke in 1988 coming off a jump ramp and still regret!

I'm strictly old school - hurtling towards my 40s with some discomfort - and am less active than I used to be, but I love the surf/skate life. Now also hiking and some rock climbing - you might say I'm a "god-dammed adrenaline junkie!"

BTW I'm always amused by your Buffy references that are usually lost on most here - huge HUGE fan of the Buffmeister, reading series 8 at the moment - your thoughts, and are you ready for season 9?

[Errata]

Hi Tom.
Interesting!
The star report mentions the duty policeman hearing a rumour of a bone being found, but no reference to a bear bone. Where was this reported?
And yup, I shall start a General Torso discussion thread

Hi Maria
Well that's the problem when you're dealing with bits... blink and you end up with 2 left feet! I once excavated a skeleton with that same problem... seems like the Saxon churchy types reburied some earlier people and had some bits 'left over'...
Happens a lot in prehistory too... too many bones, not enough articulated bodies!

My biggest problem in my brief stint in archeology was a 3x3x6 foot test hole that no one checked to see if it was occupied before jumping down into it. My boss had to give me a helmet with a bike flag taped to it.

And this is going to sound pig ignorant, and I embrace that... Are there bears in England? I always thought they were long gone by then. I thought they imported them for circuses and bear baiting. Which may narrow the field down from there needing to have a bear in Whitechapel to simply needing a one armed stuffed bear in Whitechapel.

But my aunt's second husband does in fact have two left feet. He was a conjoined twin, shared a pelvis. But his twin died so they cut him off and he has two left feet, three testicles, and two kneecaps on his right left knee. He can't wait to be dug up 500 years from now. He wants to be buried in two sets of clothes just to mess with people. But he is also an archeologist, so he takes an unholy pleasure in the idea of salting someone's dig in such a fashion.

[DrHopper]

But my aunt's second husband does in fact have two left feet. He was a conjoined twin, shared a pelvis. But his twin died so they cut him off and he has two left feet, three testicles, and two kneecaps on his right left knee. He can't wait to be dug up 500 years from now. He wants to be buried in two sets of clothes just to mess with people. But he is also an archeologist, so he takes an unholy pleasure in the idea of salting someone's dig in such a fashion.

I LOL'd, thought bad about LOLing given the nature of the object of the LOLing, then thought, what the hell, too funny, and LOL'd again.
Thank you Errata (and more specifically, your aunt's second husband!). I completely concur, and encourage his wish to be buried in such a fashion! I think there is something about being an archaeologist, always rummaging around in people's pasts, or their mortal remains, but doing it in such a strict 'scientific' way that means we end up, when we finally hang up our trowels, being a nuisance to other archaeologists!
Interestingly, the comedian Spike Milligan wanted to be buried folded into a washing machine in order to confuse future archaeologists, but alas rules and regulations meant that he wasn't allowed. However, his grave stone is inscribed with his own chosen epitaph "here lies Spike Milligan - I told you I was ill"

[mariab]

short highjack

No kidding, a real skater/surfer. Street and kickers in skating, that's something! Do you also do rails and ollie over stairs? I still own a (broken) Girl skate signed by Pros and a Rodney Mullen model (he's God, though Hosoi and Alva were something too, plus from today's generation I mostly admire Andy Mac Donald AKA "technical Andy", favorite female skater: Vanessa Torres). Plus my fave documentary is naturally Peralta's Dogtown and the Z-Boys (the real thing, goes without saying, not the Hollywood remake). Never managed to do anything remotedly acceptable on a skateboard, felt the most comfy with flip tricks but not even landing them, but I'm a figure skater on the ice – got doubles, working on triples.
Currently surfing a 6.8´´. Fixed fins are better, but fragile when traveling.
I'm actually more of a freestyle snowboarder than surfer, favoring air, kickers, hips, and esp. a quarterpipe. Also do pipe, but I suck, and not much of a threat on rails either. Best trick on (small, straight) rails switch boarslide to 270° exit, warm up trick on kickers backside 1(80°) which I can do even in my sleep/injured/first thing in the morning out of bed, working on 540°s, have a tiny cab 180°. Best trick in the pipe a McTwist, just once. Best object ever, again, a quarterpipe (dig going 20ft straight up) or a series of throwing medium kickers, or a big hip to hit in 3 different ways during the same jump (up, bong down, rotational out). Better stop cuz I'm starting salivating like I had rabbies by now, lol. Oh, and my board is Burton's Seven, the old model (the twin tip good one).

And there are 2 excellent Ripperologists who are big time Buffy connoisseurs. Their initials are TW and CP. Haven't read season 9 yet, was feeling like reading Fray again one of these days.

[Errata]

I LOL'd, thought bad about LOLing given the nature of the object of the LOLing, then thought, what the hell, too funny, and LOL'd again.
Thank you Errata (and more specifically, your aunt's second husband!). I completely concur, and encourage his wish to be buried in such a fashion! I think there is something about being an archaeologist, always rummaging around in people's pasts, or their mortal remains, but doing it in such a strict 'scientific' way that means we end up, when we finally hang up our trowels, being a nuisance to other archaeologists!

Okay. Now I am totally going to be buried in a washing machine.

I'll tell you what I learned from my brief archeology internship. It is truly astonishing how many people die in mills. I mean, it's a shack with rocks, but these things are LITTERED with corpses. It's like every time there was an Indian attack, the entire county would run into one of these tiny little buildings and get slaughtered. Dug out three 16 and 17th century mills, no mill had less than five bodies, one had 17 bodies. Most of these people had to be closer to the house, which was secure, and presumably had guns. But no. It's like those horror movies where a monster is coming so they inexplicably try to get to a roof where they have no chance of escape. I won't go in them now. They're like architectural death beacons. It's the red shirted ensign of out buildings.