John Richardson

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Paul,

Be warned that Edward Stow, like Christer is persona non grata on this forum - not with me. I don't know Edward but I number Christer amongst my friends.

Cheers, George

Stow is only ‘persona non grata’ for very obvious reasons George.

[GBinOz]

My original point was that the outside loo wasn’t only likely to be used in the early morning (when the killer was there) but all through the night (when an earlier ToD) would have occurred. I made this point to show that no matter what time Chapman was killed the killer was in danger of interruption.

Sorry Herlock, but I must dispute this theory. My grandparents were born around the turn of the 19/20th century and they used to speak of the chamber pot (much to the revulsion of their younger descendants) as a means of avoiding the outdoor toilet in the hours of darkness. At sunrise there would be traffic to the outside Loo, including the emptying of said chamber pots.

Cheers, George

[Herlock Sholmes]

Sorry Herlock, but I must dispute this theory. My grandparents were born around the turn of the 19/20th century and they used to speak of the chamber pot (much to the revulsion of their younger descendants) as a means of avoiding the outdoor toilet in the hours of darkness. At sunrise there would be traffic to the outside Loo, including the emptying of said chamber pots.

Cheers, George

And we also here numerous anecdotes of the miseries of treks to the outside loo at night. Of people kicking the door before they entered to scare off any loitering rats. I completely accept that there would have been more ‘traffic’ in the early hours though George.

[GBinOz]

Ok, I’ll respond because this is clearly aimed at me (and perhaps others)
"that's just perfectly normal paranoia. Everyone in the Universe has that.” - Slartibartfast

There are no hatred’s but there is irritation but there’s a very good reason for it. There is much in this case that is debatable and down to individual interpretation but some things are simply facts and when we see facts being constantly disputed because they don’t fit in with a preconception then they have to be called out. The biggest example of this (and it’s important) is that the actual authorities in forensic medicine tell us that the methods used by Phillips to estimate a ToD were unreliable.
Hold it right there my friend. It's a bit rich to be citing preference for modern forensics over an 1888 surgeon for the Chapman case, but when Trevor cites modern forensics experts on the Eddowes case you suddenly revert to quoting Brown and Sequeira.

You appear to reserve all of your criticisms for those who favour a later ToD Paul. I accept my own faults. But should we keep assuming that others are paragons?

Out of the mouths of babes?

[GBinOz]

And we also here numerous anecdotes of the miseries of treks to the outside loo at night. Of people kicking the door before they entered to scare off any loitering rats. I completely accept that there would have been more ‘traffic’ in the early hours though George.

Hi Herlock,

It may surprise you to know that when I was growing up I suffered the indignities of the 25 yard trek to a backyard toilet, which consisted of a seat over a creosoted cylindrical pan, which was once a week collected by doomed individuals and transported on their shoulders to a truck waiting in the street. In some suburbs there was a lane for this specific purpose, and the pan could indeed be removed while you were still seated on the "throne". Rats were not a concern, it was the tyranny of distance, the dark, and the cold in winter.

Cheers, George

[Abby Normal]

Hi Paul,

Be warned that Edward Stow, like Christer is persona non grata on this forum - not with me. I don't know Edward but I number Christer amongst my friends.

Cheers, George

hi george
stow is, and should be. and is actually officially persona non grata. Fisherman is not.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Out of the mouths of babes?

I don’t know why you object to my ‘some things are just facts’ George. That the methods used by Phillips were unreliable is a fact. So why are they still disputed? Why don’t posters simply accept a fact? Wouldn’t you find ut frustrating if you presented an absolute fact and then got bombarded with a plethora of ‘yes but’s?’ There are no ‘yes but’s George. It’s a fact which should be accepted.

If you think that Trevor’s opinions trump everyone else’s that’s fine George (Trevor would no doubt agree with you) but I think you’ll find a huge number that disagree. Is Trevor fault-free in your opinion?

And it’s not paranoia George, it’s experience. I get more criticism that anyone for the tone of some of my posts but there’s a lot of blind eyes being turned to when others do it. Would you like me to take the time to put together a very lengthy list of the insults that I’ve received from Trevor? They don’t bother me in the slightest but is he exempt from criticism because it appears so. Heated arguments take more than one person and the same person shouldn’t be constantly singled out.

I have nothing personal against Trevor or anyone else but I won’t assume that he’s right on something purely because he used to be a police officer (a job I certainly respect) After all, the stupidest thing that was ever said in this case was said by a modern day police officer.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

It may surprise you to know that when I was growing up I suffered the indignities of the 25 yard trek to a backyard toilet, which consisted of a seat over a creosoted cylindrical pan, which was once a week collected by doomed individuals and transported on their shoulders to a truck waiting in the street. In some suburbs there was a lane for this specific purpose, and the pan could indeed be removed while you were still seated on the "throne". Rats were not a concern, it was the tyranny of distance, the dark, and the cold in winter.

Cheers, George

Hello George,

I’ve heard similar stories from relatives. I can only imagine trekking all the way out there across the snow only to find someone already in there!

[Paul Sutton]

Ok, I’ll respond because this is clearly aimed at me (and perhaps others)

There are no hatred’s but there is irritation but there’s a very good reason for it. There is much in this case that is debatable and down to individual interpretation but some things are simply facts and when we see facts being constantly disputed because they don’t fit in with a preconception then they have to be called out. The biggest example of this (and it’s important) is that the actual authorities in forensic medicine tell us that the methods used by Phillips to estimate a ToD were unreliable. No one has said that he couldn’t have made a correct estimation but it means that he could also have been wrong. I, and others, have produced reams of categorical proof of this fact. And yet we still have laymen (as I am) disputing this by adding their own “yeah but’s,” or “I still don’t think’s.” So this is a constant source of irritation that has tainted the discussion. All because certain posters simply refused to accept something that should have been beyond debate.

I have no hatred or dislike of Trevor. We disagree on some things but you’ll find that many people disagree strongly with Trevor on certain subjects including people like Paul Begg. I have two main issues with Trevor (as he undoubtedly will have issues with me) One is that he assumes that his opinions should be accepted as fact and that no one but him can assess evidence. He often posts saying “I’ve already told you this….” Another is that he attempts to dismiss witnesses that don’t favour his viewpoint (often using generalities like ….’we know that witnesses can be mistaken,’ or by finding a minor discrepancy and using it dismiss the testimony as a whole) Numerous examples of this could be listed but I won’t bother.

Christer’s approach is exemplary?!! I’m sorry Paul but you haven’t had the experience of discussing the case with him over a length of time that others have. The constant talking down to people, the mockery of opinions (far more subtle than I’m ever guilty of) and the constant wriggling over various points. The manipulation of evidence. The twisting of the English language. I can’t think of a more consistently patronising poster. This is someone who left out the word ‘about’ to try and manufacture a gap of time and so incriminate Cross after all. Examples are numerous. This is someone who, on here admitted that the majority of journalists said that Cross had said that he’d left the house at ‘about 3.30,’ (which they did) and yet previously, in his book had said that the majority of journalists had said ‘3.30.’

You appear to reserve all of your criticisms for those who favour a later ToD Paul. I accept my own faults. But should we keep assuming that others are paragons?

I have absolutely no position on the ToD, and if I did, I'd not be worried by disagreement.

No, it wasn't aimed at you. I got pissed off - perhaps childishly - with some snotty post which asked me if I was aware that risk could be exciting. But looking back, who cares? I've been an active reader of this blog for many years, and am well aware of all you say.

I'm a scientist by training - a physical chemist - degree/DPhil (i.e. an Oxford doctorate). I say that not to be superior but because feelings are irrelevant in technical discussions. But we all have them, of course. I'm argumentative myself - and very flippant - so don't imagine I'm claiming to be some angel!

All the very best

[Herlock Sholmes]

I have absolutely no position on the ToD, and if I did, I'd not be worried by disagreement.

No, it wasn't aimed at you. I got pissed off - perhaps childishly - with some snotty post which asked me if I was aware that risk could be exciting. But looking back, who cares? I've been an active reader of this blog for many years, and am well aware of all you say.

I'm a scientist by training - a physical chemist - degree/DPhil. I say that not to be superior but because feelings are irrelevant in technical discussions. But we all have them, of course.

All the best

No problem Paul. I tend to think that the nature of online discussion/debate can in itself lead to frustrations and irritations that probably wouldn’t occur in face to face discussion. We can all perhaps mistake the tone or intent behind a comment far more easily than when face to face.

[Paul Sutton]

Well, if the viscera is removed, a part of the stuff keeping the body warm is removed.
If there is a lot of blood removed, the same.
That reduces the size and volume of the "core" and means it has less heat storage capacity.

The small intestine is named so because it has a narrower "gauge" (for want fo a better word) than the large intestine not because it is smaller in volume.
It's BIG.
The small intestine is (in Chapmans case likely...) somewhere in the region of 5 metres long, and weighs about the same as a full face motrocycle helmet. It's just under 7% of the internal mass in the body cavity.
If you remove that and leave the gap open, along with the loss of blood, the air gets to a larger surface area within the cavity. That larger surface area combined with a smaller core would increase the rate at which a solid or fluid cools. (That's Physics.)

Philips was basing his estimation on a standard body temp decline. We know this because he states pretty clearly that he hadn't factored in loss of blood or the ambiant coolness of the yard.
No one will convince me, no matter how much they paid me, to ever accept that he did the equations in his head to figure out the alteration in the curve at which the temperature would decline when (typically) 6.98% of the typical internal body mass was sitting on the floor by the step, when he didn't even take blood loss or external tempearture into account, and didn't even take his thermometre out and hang it from a fence post to determine the bloody ambiant temperature. Didn;t need to stick it anywhere near the victim... a measure of the yards temperature would have been valiuable to further study at autopsy..
He had no idea to do even THAT!

I'm going to leave you to come to your own conclusions as to whether any of that would have caused a 1.5 degree C drop in temp comapred to the normal situations he would have encountered over his years. (But it would!!)

But... he was very confident in his own opinion was old George... so there's that.
Seems to be enough for some people and "Bugger basic physics... what can THAT tell us?"

Thanks. This area is fraught with massive uncertainty.

I think (but could be wrong) that pathologists don't treat it as that reliable and would look on this discussion as largely pointless. Before I get my head kicked in - and not to be dismissive - my father was a Prof of Pathology, and did regular Home Office PMs. I read the excellent book on David Kelly An Inconvenient Death, and was astounded that the pathologist there didn't even use a thermometer (and this was in 2003). Dad told me it's a layman's myth that this is always done, and although an omission, he wasn't as critical as I expected.

I'm sure what you say makes sense, and obviously the body would cool more quickly. But I think so many other factors would also affect that, that the whole thing cannot be given the centrality it is here. I certainly know from my own field (gas kinetics) that single measurements are not to be relied on so heavily.

[A P Tomlinson]

Sorry Herlock, but I must dispute this theory. My grandparents were born around the turn of the 19/20th century and they used to speak of the chamber pot (much to the revulsion of their younger descendants) as a means of avoiding the outdoor toilet in the hours of darkness. At sunrise there would be traffic to the outside Loo, including the emptying of said chamber pots.

Cheers, George

My grandparents are of a similar vintage, George, and while my grandmother would gladly wait till the morning for...certain ablutions, my grandfather was forbiden from anything other than "peeing in the pot" and would regularly take the trip to the garden at night.
Grandma's opinion on the matter was that she would rather be woken by the sound of him going to the toilet, rather than the smell...

He also worked peculiar shifts as a lorry driver, and would get home from, and return to, work at different times from day to day. I think that irregularity in his sleep and work patterns probably had him "up in the night" more than would be considered normal these days.
Whenever we used to ask him questions about what it was like in "the olden days" it was always grandma who would fill in the embarrasing details about him, while he would mutter under his breath at her.

When I was very young and they still had an outside privvy grandad considered that "The Gents" and the upstairs toilet was for my mum and grandma and was "the ladies", He would grumble and chunter under his breath when I would use the indoor toilet.
I was terrified of that little building at the end of the garden, no ***ing way was I going in there at age 5 or 6.

[Paul Sutton]

No problem Paul. I tend to think that the nature of online discussion/debate can in itself lead to frustrations and irritations that probably wouldn’t occur in face to face discussion. We can all perhaps mistake the tone or intent behind a comment far more easily than when face to face.

Yes, that's bang on! I'm very guilty of it. The problem is that - all of us - rightly see this as partly performative. So, we read for content, but also can't help judging other things. Oddly, i think this happens less in social face to face discussion.

[Paul Sutton]

hi george
stow is, and should be. and is actually officially persona non grata. Fisherman is not.

Good God, he's not the Ripper is he? But surely he'd then be a hero, for providing such activity? I'm intrigued - what can he have done, to 'get buckled'?

[GBinOz]

If you think that Trevor’s opinions trump everyone else’s that’s fine George (Trevor would no doubt agree with you) but I think you’ll find a huge number that disagree. Is Trevor fault-free in your opinion?

"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Hi Herlock,

I don't think Trevor's opinions trump everyone else's, nor that he or anyone else, including myself is fault free. I don't agree with some of his opinions, but others I find have a validity that is unnecessarily panned. There is much to be learned from a newbie (Paul) on unbiased opinion on observed entrenched hostility.

You didn't address my main comment, that being:
It's a bit rich to be citing absolute fact of modern forensics over an 1888 surgeon for the Chapman case, but when Trevor cites modern forensics experts (on his video) on the Eddowes case you suddenly revert to quoting Brown and Sequeira.

IMO one of the keys to legitimate debate is consistency.

Cheers, George