If Schwartz Lied ...

[JeffHamm]

I cannot see why the HO person would suppose that the police do not suspect the 2nd man, if Swanson's report refers to the 1st man calling Lipski, apparently to the 2nd man, who then follows Schwartz.

? I think you must have mis-read my post. It was a different report from the one with the above note where the police informed HO they thought Schwartz was the target of "Lipski", and in which they expressed doubt as to pipeman's involvement. The note placed on this report appears to be carrying that information forward, so that a reader of this report is aware of related pertinent information from another report, also in HO's possession.

That is why I suppose the note writer is drawing on external knowledge.

Yes, and that external knowledge is the other report in HO's possession. The footnote is collating the information. That's what people do, and that is the purpose of such notes.

However, let's suppose that I am entirely wrong, and Wickerman is entirely correct, and it's though the note writer is saying something like this...

Well the inspector gave no commentary on his thoughts about the 2nd man, or anything the police may have discovered about the 2nd man, so I guess the police just do not suspect this man.

If that interpretation is correct, then for me it begs the question; why does the note writer deem it appropriate to speculate on the situation with the 2nd man, in a marginal note, yet Swanson himself tells us nothing about the 2nd man, other than his description of the Schwartz incident? Swanson doesn't bother giving us a single sentence about the investigation of man. No wonder the note writer feels it necessary to fill in the gaps. So why didn't Swanson give us even a single clue? Is it because the news is bad, in the sense that Pipeman has been identified, and he contradicts Schwartz to the extent that Abberline could potentially be embarrassed?

I don't think that interpretation is correct because it is clear the note writer is referring to information provided to HO in the other report where the point in the note is outlined. It's not really very complicated, it's just someone at HO bringing relevant information from different reports together.

- Jeff

[Wickerman]

Hi Andrew,

My suspicion is that his parcel was the political literature that Wess spoke of leaving at the printing office.

I believe Schwartz ran down Berner St, if it is that to which you refer.

Cheers, George

Hi George.

This is what I don't understand.

- PC Smith saw a man with Stride, carrying a package, outside/opposite Dutfields Yard about 12:30 am.

- Packer served a man with grapes 'wrapped', who was with Stride, and the pair stood outside/opposite Dutfields Yard about 12:30 am.

How could Stride have been with two different men at the same time, at the same place, and both carrying a package?
Clearly, in my view, they are talking about the same man.

I get it that Packer wasn't certain (he changed his story), whether he saw the couple about 11:00 -11:30, or 12:00 - 12:30, so we dismiss his role in this drama.
Yet we know he couldn't have seen Stride at 11:00 because she was at the Bricklayers Arms around that time, so the 12:00 - 12:30 time must be the correct time.
Which means Packer's story is corroborated to some small extent by PC Smith.
Therefore, in my opinion, we must include Packer's account on this part of his story.

The package/parcel wasn't newspaper or flyers, it was just a parcel of grapes wrapped in a newspaper bag.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

I get it that Packer wasn't certain (he changed his story), whether he saw the couple about 11:00 -11:30, or 12:00 - 12:30, so we dismiss his role in this drama.
Yet we know he couldn't have seen Stride at 11:00 because she was at the Bricklayers Arms around that time, so the 12:00 - 12:30 time must be the correct time.
Which means Packer's story is corroborated to some small extent by PC Smith.
Therefore, in my opinion, we must include Packer's account on this part of his story.

That period could be narrowed down by considering when Smith was in Berner street the time before. Perhaps a few minutes either side of 12:05? Also, if the 'walking couple' are also considered - the pair that went for a walk along Commercial Road and then down and up Berner street - and it is assumed they would have noticed had Stride been on the street, then the grape sale period is possibly as narrow as 12:10-12:20. Rather like Batchelor and Le Grande suggested.

[GBinOz]

Hi George.

This is what I don't understand.

- PC Smith saw a man with Stride, carrying a package, outside/opposite Dutfields Yard about 12:30 am.

- Packer served a man with grapes 'wrapped', who was with Stride, and the pair stood outside/opposite Dutfields Yard about 12:30 am.

How could Stride have been with two different men at the same time, at the same place, and both carrying a package?
Clearly, in my view, they are talking about the same man.

I get it that Packer wasn't certain (he changed his story), whether he saw the couple about 11:00 -11:30, or 12:00 - 12:30, so we dismiss his role in this drama.
Yet we know he couldn't have seen Stride at 11:00 because she was at the Bricklayers Arms around that time, so the 12:00 - 12:30 time must be the correct time.
Which means Packer's story is corroborated to some small extent by PC Smith.
Therefore, in my opinion, we must include Packer's account on this part of his story.

The package/parcel wasn't newspaper or flyers, it was just a parcel of grapes wrapped in a newspaper bag.

Hi Jon,

I agree that it was the same man, and I don't dismiss Packer's story as do many. I seem to recall that Packer said he sold them half a pound of black grapes. Smith said about the package:- He had a parcel wrapped in a newspaper in his hand. The parcel was about 18in. long and 6in. to 8in. broad. Does not that seem an odd shape and size for a package containing grapes? Particularly if they had already consumed some of them? Smith gives only length and breadth, no depth, so I infer from that that the depth was small, as in a package of posters or flyers.

Cheers, George

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Those are different quotes from the one's you posted before and to which I referred. What we see is that Fanny's story is told in different ways. A few extra minutes is neither here nor there in the telling, but her previous phrasing leads to a different interpretation. Why should we give priority to a presentation using far less precise language?

I'm can't agree with that interpretation - that's it's preparing for bed plus 4 minutes. The period starts from the locking of the door. Furthermore, that 4 minutes reference is not something that was ever spoken by Fanny, rather it's an estimation of the reporter, or whoever took the 'important statement'. Who talks about periods of 4 minutes? It's in the quoted remarks that we get the real Fanny Mortimer, not a report that refers to a statement of unknown origin, made by an unnamed, unquoted woman.

Anyway, as we know, people's ability to recall temporal intervals is very poor, and associated with wide margins of error. You are suggesting we ignore that fact, and treat her 4 minutes as if it is somehow accurate. We know it won't be, people just are not very good at doing that. And, as I said, the interval in the proposed reconstruction time line falls within the expected margin of errors for someone who gives an estimate of 4 minutes, so there isn't any need to re-interpret what she said but as it looks like it could be read as if she intended something other that what we've supposed, that would only make the fit better, but it doesn't need to be any better than it is.

Let's suppose the important statement taker knows that Diemschitz has claimed to arrive home at 1am, or possibly the reporter (assuming that's two different people). The report - THE MURDER IN BERNER- STREET, says...

The man possesses a pony-cart, with which he is usually out during the greater part of the day, selling, it is said, cocoanuts and sweets. It was this man who, on returning in the cart at one o'clock yesterday morning, discovered the body.

Assume also that the hearing of Smith's plod is known, the 10 minutes doorstep period is known, and a gap between lockup and hearing of the cart is known. Subtract each from 1am, and what do you get? You pretty much get what's in the report. The references in that report to 'shortly before a quarter to one' and 'in about four minutes' time', can basically be inferred. There is no need to suppose that 'Fanny said this' and 'Fanny said that', as people do.

Also, the commotion would be the men starting to run south to Fairclough, and if Deimshutz finds the body at 1, that would mean it would be "just after 1 o'clock" when she heard the commotion and went out, so if you hold her to her words then you are saying she supports Deimshutz's arrival at 1 o'clock.

So where's the problem?

The problem is that 'measured, heavy tramp' + 10 minutes, does not equal 1am - if Smith Time is close to correct - and I'm not willing to suppose that she locked up 15 minutes or more previously. That just doesn't fit with the words she uses. Perhaps instead of tripling or quadrupling the Mortimer-Diemschitz interval, we could double the 10 minutes to 20? Of course, no one is going to accept that, because Israel Schwartz.

[JeffHamm]

I'm can't agree with that interpretation - that's it's preparing for bed plus 4 minutes. The period starts from the locking of the door. Furthermore, that 4 minutes reference is not something that was ever spoken by Fanny, rather it's an estimation of the reporter, or whoever took the 'important statement'. Who talks about periods of 4 minutes? It's in the quoted remarks that we get the real Fanny Mortimer, not a report that refers to a statement of unknown origin, made by an unnamed, unquoted woman.



Let's suppose the important statement taker knows that Diemschitz has claimed to arrive home at 1am, or possibly the reporter (assuming that's two different people). The report - THE MURDER IN BERNER- STREET, says...

The man possesses a pony-cart, with which he is usually out during the greater part of the day, selling, it is said, cocoanuts and sweets. It was this man who, on returning in the cart at one o'clock yesterday morning, discovered the body.

Assume also that the hearing of Smith's plod is known, the 10 minutes doorstep period is known, and a gap between lockup and hearing of the cart is known. Subtract each from 1am, and what do you get? You pretty much get what's in the report. The references in that report to 'shortly before a quarter to one' and 'in about four minutes' time', can basically be inferred. There is no need to suppose that 'Fanny said this' and 'Fanny said that', as people do.



The problem is that 'measured, heavy tramp' + 10 minutes, does not equal 1am - if Smith Time is close to correct - and I'm not willing to suppose that she locked up 15 minutes or more previously. That just doesn't fit with the words she uses. Perhaps instead of tripling or quadrupling the Mortimer-Diemschitz interval, we could double the 10 minutes to 20? Of course, no one is going to accept that, because Israel Schwartz.

You don't have to accept it, there's no requirement to agree with me after all. But, as I've shown, people actually do research on memories for how long events were and the data on people's recollection of time intervals is really bad, and highly variable, and when we recognize that, her statements are not inconsistent with Deimshutz's arrival at 1. It's not an opinion, that's a description of human performance.

I've outlined what I've done, and I've provided all the information you would need to create your own model. I presented one that does not require excluding any of the statements, and one where all of the times and intervals fall within the range of error that is considered acceptable from a research perspective. You are more than welcome to produce your own, but you cannot claim that because you can produce a timeline that doesn't work for Schwartz that it means Schwartz was lying because I've already shown that it is possible to create a recreation, following a very standard protocol, that easily fits with all the statements. And the story that emerges is pretty much the sequence of events that people said, with their interval statements showing the kind of errors we know people make.

I look forward to you presenting your version though (seriously, I like this sort of thing), and explaining the methods you followed to derived it (one cannot assess a model without knowing how it was built, faulty methods faulty model). I would like to point out, when I started I had no idea if, in the end, all the pieces would fit together and tended to think they would eventually just make a mess of things. I outlined the method first, and then applied it to see if things would fit. I would have presented it even if it didn't allow for the Schwartz event because what I'm interested in is seeing what we can do to try and recover what happened; or what didn't happen. And from having performed that exercise, there was nothing that suggested any deception on anybody's part. Most of the potential clocks appear to be more or less in sync, with PC Smith's being the most divergent (by about 5 or 6 minutes, which really isn't that bad all things considered). And all the pieces fit together easily. But seriously, have a go at it. I've put the table of duration errors out there for people to use in their own modelling.

- Jeff

[NotBlamedForNothing]

I find myself unable to share your opinion regarding the possility of Spooner plus one being the couple that Brown saw as Spooner said he was at the Beehive until joining Deimshitz on the latter's trip back to the yard. It does seem perculiar that he abandoned her under the circumstances, but there is no mention of her after the Beehive. Could be that he had decided that he didn't like her and just dumped her there and then.

In the Daily News 'measured, heavy tramp' paragraph, there is story about Diemschitz' discovery, and the immediate aftermath.

...he called to his wife, who was in the parlour on the ground floor, making tea, to bring a light. She did so, and they immediately found that the woman's throat was deeply cut and that her shoulders and hair were saturated with blood. Rushing into the club, the man raised the alarm, and the next minute a number of persons who had been engaged in festivities in a room at the back of the building poured into the streets. Some ran for a doctor, others for the police, and very soon people with frightened faces began to gather on the spot. A very brief interval elapsed before a constable arrived. He took up a position beside the body and said:-"Nobody is to touch it before a doctor comes." In spite of this order, however, a man placed his hand upon the face of the corpse and, in response to anxious inquiries, declared that it was still warm.

Who was this constable who supposedly arrived after a very brief interval? Was it Lamb, who arrived with another PC? The constable is said to have taken up a position beside the body, which does not sound quite like Lamb, examining for signs of life. It actually sounds more like Spooner. So who is the man touching the face? That sounds like Spooner too. So if that man is Spooner, and Lamb is yet to arrive and would not let anyone near the body when did (out of concern for incriminating themselves by getting blood stained), then who is this man, said to be a constable? There can be only one.

Spooner: I did not meet any one as I was hastening to Berner-street except Mr. Harris, who was coming out of his house in Tiger Bay, having heard the police whistle.

Spooner, Harris, and probably Herschburg and Koster also, were all associated with the vigilance committee. Mr Harris was the WVC 'constable', referred to in the report. All these men knew each other. Spooner's lady friend was probably never with him, or perhaps she just visited him briefly at an earlier point.

Swanson: Schwartz cannot say whether the two men were together or known to each other.

Schwartz cannot say, but I can.

[Wickerman]

Hi Jon,

I agree that it was the same man, and I don't dismiss Packer's story as do many. I seem to recall that Packer said he sold them half a pound of black grapes. Smith said about the package:- He had a parcel wrapped in a newspaper in his hand. The parcel was about 18in. long and 6in. to 8in. broad. Does not that seem an odd shape and size for a package containing grapes? Particularly if they had already consumed some of them? Smith gives only length and breadth, no depth, so I infer from that that the depth was small, as in a package of posters or flyers.

Cheers, George

Hi George.

I think 'we' are focusing on the wrong detail.

Earlier I was trying to make the same point to Andrew, where Wess said the side door of the club was 18ft back, some take that as gospel, yet we all know he was guessing.

If you recall Maxwell's testimony in the Kelly case, Abberline interjected by saying the distance from Millers Court to the corner of the street by the Britannia was "about 16 yards" (48ft), but then he corrected himself, he said; "on consideration I should say the distance was 25 yards" (75ft).
It was neither, Abberline was guessing, in actual fact using the Goad Insurance map we can see it was 118 ft.

Numbers have always been a bone of contention here, whether it be the estimated times, peoples age or distances, it seems witnesses had difficulty putting a number on anything.
The fact two witnesses saw Stride with a man carrying a parcel, at the same time, the same place, with the same woman, isn't contested by an estimate of the size of a package that we know was not measured. PC Smith guessed the size wrong that's all.

[Wickerman]

My suspicion is that his parcel was the political literature that Wess spoke of leaving at the printing office.

I recall Michael & Tom Wescott suggesting parcel-man was Wess carrying some flyers, yet Wess had left the club by 12:15, and he left with his brother & a friend, three men walking together. He wasn't carrying any flyers, he was going home.

How can anyone connect Wess, who had left by 12:15, with parcel-man outside the club at 12:35?

[Wickerman]

Well the inspector gave no commentary on his thoughts about the 2nd man, or anything the police may have discovered about the 2nd man, so I guess the police just do not suspect this man.

Close enough, yes.

If that interpretation is correct, then for me it begs the question; why does the note writer deem it appropriate to speculate on the situation with the 2nd man, in a marginal note, yet Swanson himself tells us nothing about the 2nd man, other than his description of the Schwartz incident? Swanson doesn't bother giving us a single sentence about the investigation of man. No wonder the note writer feels it necessary to fill in the gaps. So why didn't Swanson give us even a single clue? Is it because the news is bad, in the sense that Pipeman has been identified, and he contradicts Schwartz to the extent that Abberline could potentially be embarrassed?

The above is written as if you think Swanson was talking to us.
His report is intended to contain pertinent details only, it was a summary of necessary points concerning the investigation. If you recall in September Warren had insisted on receiving a summary of all the murders, Swanson was assigned to the task, this is why it was written. It was not intended to contain every detail, only what was most important for Warren to know about the murders.

[Wickerman]

Again, I don't think it is advisable to read the times stated, or the length of the durations, as if those are hard and fast "facts", rather, they are reconstructed memories of things, and memory is very error prone. This is why eye-witness testimony alone is a horrible basis for a case, and police always try and get objective confirmation. Police, and prosecutors, know how bad eye-witnesses can be and we would be wise to keep that in mind as well. That's why I avoid suspectology, the evidence we have to work with is primarily of the worst kind, and that is no basis upon which to claim a solution. My focus is more on trying to work through the error that comes with witness statements and see if we can find a singular coherant story that still resembles what they are describing, but may differ in specific details (like times and durations) - but not differ beyond the amount by which we might expect them to differ from the truth.

Which is why I place more reliance on establishing a sequence of events ('a' happened before 'b', etc.), rather than nit-pick the stated times, which were mostly guesswork anyway - meaning less reliable.

[JeffHamm]

Which is why I place more reliance on establishing a sequence of events ('a' happened before 'b', etc.), rather than nit-pick the stated times, which were mostly guesswork anyway - meaning less reliable.

Hi Wickerman,

I agree. That's how I chained the events together in the recreation I presented earlier in this thread (a few pages back now I think). I used the events to string them together, then I estimated the duration of events where I could (journeys I could measure the distance and use average walking speeds, for example, and get an estimated duration). I did a literature and found a study where they asked people to estimate how long something had lasted (which they had timed, so they knew the true intervals). They were looking at eye-witness reliability of time estimations, and it was the closest to what we're trying to do. Short story - yup, people are really bad at it, and tend to overestimate real durations that are under an hour, but underestimate real durations that are over an hour. I was able to use their presented data to work out the relationship such that if someone gives an estimation (say 15 minutes) what is the average length of the true duration. And, I was able to work out a 95% confidence interval (what range of durations will contain the true duration 95% of the time). So, if I didn't have a journey, but did have someone stating a duration, I used the average after correcting for overestimation to chain those events together. GBinOz had recreated Deimshutz's activates from arrival to leaving through the gate, and he found that required 1m 50s, so I've used that.

This allowed me to build a chain of linked events from Dr. Blackwells arrival at the scene back to Deimshutz's arrival. Dr. Blackwell reads his watch at that time (1:16), and since I have a chain of calculated durations, I can now estimate the times based upon Dr. Blackwell's watch. And that works out to Deimshutz arriving at the scene around 12:58 or something like that, which, given his stated time of 1 o'clock is based upon a different clock, is more than acceptable.

James Brown can be fit in as well, as he ties in to the start of the commotion (when Deimshutz heads out the gates, 1m 50s after his arrival), and his sighting he estimates was 15 minutes prior, so he gets tied in. PC Smith, who arrives after PC Lamb and after another PC who comes up from the south (I think) appears to arrive a bit later than he states, but again, he's using a different clock than others, which appears to be out by maybe 5-6 minutes (relative to Blackwell's watch), which really isn't a great deal. Once he's slotted in, Fanny Mortimer's coming out onto her door step can be tied to PC Smith's previous patrol, her 10 m vigil (which translates to just shy of 8 minutes), has her go back inside before James Brown returns home (and she doesn't say she saw him, but I wouldn't make too much of that), and we end up with close to a 10 minute window in which the Schwartz incident could occur. Given what Schwartz describes all occurs as he walks the length of Berner Street (ok, he runs the last wee bit), then that event requires about 1 m 30 seconds (that's how long it would take to walk Berners Street at an average pace). If you like B.S. as her killer, then add, say 30 more seconds to kill her and flee (more if you want, there's still 8m 30s of room after all), and it's good.

In the reconstruction (you can check it out in post 2620 if you're interested), none of the witness stated times end up being all that far off of the times I calculated, with PC Smith's times being the most divergent. Also, none of the durations that emerge as I place each piece of the chance fall outside the 95% interval of expected error (obviously, when I'm using a duration to link it those work because I use the average, I mean things like Fanny's 4 minutes between going inside and hearing Deimshutz - since I didn't use that to place Fanny, but linked her to the PC Footsteps, it ends up suggesting she was inside around 11 m or so, but the 95% interval spans from 2m 2s out to over 12m (meaning, when people gave an estimate of 4 minutes, the true duration was anywhere from 2m 2s out to between 12 and 13 minutes 95% of the time; 2.5% of the time the true duration was even longer, and 2.5% of the time it would be even shorter). Her 4 minutes falls within the range that tends to be used as "within tolerances" (within the expected range of error given the reliability, or perhaps unreliability, of time duration estimation).

- Jeff

[Wickerman]

Hi Wickerman,

I agree. That's how I chained the events together in the recreation I presented earlier in this thread (a few pages back now I think). I used the events to string them together, then I estimated the duration of events where I could (journeys I could measure the distance and use average walking speeds, for example, and get an estimated duration).....

Thankyou Jeff, I read your post #2620, a good read. You have pursued the issue as I would have liked to myself. Laying out the sequence of events will naturally include a few anchor points of time. Obviously, Blackwell's reference to his watch being the most significant. My first caution is the time given by Diemschitz may have referred to the actual time he passed the clock out on Commercial Rd, not the minute he pulled into the yard.
I know in our mind the times would be different but in the late 19th century when most activities were governed by a clock chime every 15 minutes at best, it would be normal for Diemschitz to make no distinction. Passing the Tobacconists at 1:00 am meant he arrived home at 1:00 am, it being only a short jog down Berner St. to the yard.
However, I liked your post, the rationale is perfectly reasonable.

The only points I would take issue with is your inclusion of the testimony of James Brown, and you made no mention of the second couple seen by Mortimer.

If you had included Packer that would have eliminated Brown, who didn't see the flower on the woman & did see a man wearing a long coat. Brown saw some other couple in my view.
Mortimer saw a couple across the street by the corner of the Board School, which is where James Brown saw a man & woman as he passed by.

In the Daily News, 1st Oct. we read Mortimer's words:

"...A young man and his sweetheart were standing at the corner of the street, about 20 yards away, before and after the time the woman must have been murdered, but they told me they did not hear a sound."

Note:
The "20 yds" coincidentally is from Dutfields Yard to the corner of the Board School at Fairclough St., but from her press statement it seems she meant from her house at No.36, the actual distance was 30 yds = roughly 100ft.

[erobitha]

Hi George.

This is what I don't understand.

- PC Smith saw a man with Stride, carrying a package, outside/opposite Dutfields Yard about 12:30 am.

- Packer served a man with grapes 'wrapped', who was with Stride, and the pair stood outside/opposite Dutfields Yard about 12:30 am.

How could Stride have been with two different men at the same time, at the same place, and both carrying a package?
Clearly, in my view, they are talking about the same man.

I get it that Packer wasn't certain (he changed his story), whether he saw the couple about 11:00 -11:30, or 12:00 - 12:30, so we dismiss his role in this drama.
Yet we know he couldn't have seen Stride at 11:00 because she was at the Bricklayers Arms around that time, so the 12:00 - 12:30 time must be the correct time.
Which means Packer's story is corroborated to some small extent by PC Smith.
Therefore, in my opinion, we must include Packer's account on this part of his story.

The package/parcel wasn't newspaper or flyers, it was just a parcel of grapes wrapped in a newspaper bag.

I was open-minded to Packer until I read about his stories of being stalked by The Ripper. He was cuckoo and I can see completely why the police could not trust the old man.

I haven't followed the whole this thread and perhaps I should go back, but I was hoping we had got to the part when we all realised that Schwartz was mistaken, or at worse lying. His timings and chain of events do not corroborate with anyone else.

[GBinOz]

You don't have to accept it, there's no requirement to agree with me after all. But, as I've shown, people actually do research on memories for how long events were and the data on people's recollection of time intervals is really bad, and highly variable, and when we recognize that, her statements are not inconsistent with Deimshutz's arrival at 1. It's not an opinion, that's a description of human performance.

I've outlined what I've done, and I've provided all the information you would need to create your own model. I presented one that does not require excluding any of the statements, and one where all of the times and intervals fall within the range of error that is considered acceptable from a research perspective. You are more than welcome to produce your own, but you cannot claim that because you can produce a timeline that doesn't work for Schwartz that it means Schwartz was lying because I've already shown that it is possible to create a recreation, following a very standard protocol, that easily fits with all the statements. And the story that emerges is pretty much the sequence of events that people said, with their interval statements showing the kind of errors we know people make.

I look forward to you presenting your version though (seriously, I like this sort of thing), and explaining the methods you followed to derived it (one cannot assess a model without knowing how it was built, faulty methods faulty model). I would like to point out, when I started I had no idea if, in the end, all the pieces would fit together and tended to think they would eventually just make a mess of things. I outlined the method first, and then applied it to see if things would fit. I would have presented it even if it didn't allow for the Schwartz event because what I'm interested in is seeing what we can do to try and recover what happened; or what didn't happen. And from having performed that exercise, there was nothing that suggested any deception on anybody's part. Most of the potential clocks appear to be more or less in sync, with PC Smith's being the most divergent (by about 5 or 6 minutes, which really isn't that bad all things considered). And all the pieces fit together easily. But seriously, have a go at it. I've put the table of duration errors out there for people to use in their own modelling.

- Jeff

Hi Jeff,

Good luck with persuading Andrew to produce his own timeline. You have produced and published one based on Blackwell time, I have based on Police time, and Frank has with sequences but no times. I have suggested on a number of occasions that, rather than sniping at the work of others, he might care to publish a timeline of his own for peer comment. No result on that suggestion as yet.

Cheers, George