Chump.
Henrietta Helen Olivia Robarts Durand-Deacon. I am tempted to say this is the only picture of her, but on closer inspection, it would appear there are two of them taken on entirely different days in completely different outfits, but nearly identical.
She was one of the victims of John George “Acid Bath” Haigh, mentioned in the previous post. He took her to his ‘workshop’ on the pretext of discussing an invention of hers, whereupon he conked her on the head and dissolved her in a vat of acid. For her lambswool coat and the small change in her purse. Kind of a moron, was Haigh.
I very nearly started a True Crime blog years ago, before this one. There are millions of them now — there were probably dozens of them then — but I like to think I’d have brought something a little different to the genre. A little weaselly.
Like, for example, I’d always rather lead with the picture of a victim than the killer (though I was awfully tempted to illustrate this with a picture of Mrs D-D’s gallstones: the only part of her body to survive the acid bath).
I am not fond of murderers. It’s a damn shame that cults of personality spring up around serial killers, because they are always, always, ALWAYS giant losers. Too dumb to make a living some other way or too stunted and damaged to relate to other humans like an actual person.
And it’s tragic when journalists refer to them as “monsters” — they love that. It’s sounds so powerful and scary. And aspiring not-yet-serial-killers hear that and think, “monster. Yes. That is just how I would like to be remembered.”
Anyway, every true crime story has one — or at least one — little nugget of…je ne sais quois. A little factoid, often overlooked.
In Olive’s case, it’s the invention she wanted to discuss with Haigh: artificial fingernails.
Mrs Olive Durand Deacon was the widow of a war hero and had been an active suffragette in her day, even spending a night in the cells after throwing a brick through a window. But now she was a respectable lady in her late sixties – and rich. She was delighted to hear that nice Mr Haigh, who sat on the table opposite her in the hotel, was an inventor. She had a scheme herself to produce and patent artificial fingernails. This was 1949 and the post-war period when women wanted a bit of glamour. Mr Haigh liked the idea, and suggested she come down to the workshop to look at a few blueprints he’d knocked up for the project. That was the last they ever saw of her.
I’m no expert on artificial fingernails, but a cursory Google makes this at least thirty years before artificial fingernails became a thing. I like to think there’s a universe in which Haigh wasn’t an insufferable twat and they both died stinking filthy rich cosmetics barons.
February 19, 2019 — 8:17 pm
Comments: 16
The brown acid, man
I was a printmaking major in art school. Did I ever mention that? Maybe not. I was a printmaking major for about two weeks before I dropped out. It was mostly down to financial issues; I loved printmaking.
Downside of being a printmaking major: I ended up with a big glass carboy of nitric acid in my closet that worried me exceedingly, especially when it came time to move. How do you get rid of such a thing?
As it happens, I paid a man to take it away. I have no idea what he did with it. All’s I know is, the answer to most problems in life is to pay a man to take it away.
I signed myself up for a local printmaking course today, hoping to get back into it. I then went shopping for materials (shopping for materials is the best bit of any artmaking endeavor). These days, it’s apparently murder to get your hands on nitric acid — you can’t mail the stuff and you have to promise you have a proper chemical hood and everything before anyone will sell it to you in person.
All the tutorials are saying to use copper sulfate instead, which is safer to handle and and etches metal just as quickly and well.
My question is…if it’s safer to handle and just as good, why did we ever use nitric acid?
Stay tuned.
Pictured: acid carboys from my field trip to the True Crime Museum in Hastings. They were bought from the workshop of John George “Acid Bath” Haigh. The Museum bought six empty carboys; the acid from three of them was used to dissolve the body of Olive Durand-Deacon…and they don’t know which three.
February 18, 2019 — 8:47 pm
Comments: 10
Dead Pool Round 119: extra special romantic Valentine’s edition
John David Dingell Jr. was the longest-ever serving Congressman in American history, representing Michigan for nearly 60 years. Also co-author of the Dingell-Norwood bill. Also dead. And for this, xul’s fedora is richer by exactly one dick.
Dear people from the future: I assure you, that last sentence made sense.
And now, if you’re all sitting comfortably, we’ll begin:
0. Rule Zero (AKA Steve’s Rule): your pick has to be living when picked. Also, nobody whose execution date is circled on the calendar. Also, please don’t kill anybody. Plus (Pupster’s Rule) no picking someone who’s only famous for being the oldest person alive.
1. Pick a celebrity. Any celebrity — though I reserve the right to nix picks I never heard of (I don’t generally follow the Dead Pool threads carefully, so if you’re unsure of your pick, call it to my attention).
2. We start from scratch every time. No matter who you had last time, or who you may have called between rounds, you have to turn up on this very thread and stake your claim.
3. Poaching and other dirty tricks positively encouraged.
4. Your first choice sticks. Don’t just blurt something out, m’kay? Also, make sure you have a correct spelling of your choice somewhere in your comment. These threads get longish and I use search to figure out if we have a winner.
5. It’s up to you to search the thread and make sure your choice is unique. I’m waayyyy too lazy to catch the dupes. Popular picks go fast.
6. The pool stays open until somebody on the list dies. Feel free to jump in any time. Noobs, strangers, drive-bys and one-comment-wonders — all are welcome.
7. If you want your fabulous prize, you have to entrust me with a mailing address. If you’ve won before, send me your address again. I don’t keep good records.
8. The new DeadPool will begin 6pm WBT (Weasel’s Blog Time) the Friday after the last round is concluded.
The winner, if the winner chooses to entrust me with a mailing address, will receive an Official Certificate of Dick Winning and a small original drawing on paper suffused with elephant shit particles. Because I’m fresh out of fairy shit particles.
February 15, 2019 — 6:00 pm
Comments: 79
Let me call you sweetheart…
Twelve. The number of the bloggiversary is Twelve. What this blog lacks in content it has surely made up for in staying power.
Oh. And. This is also our tenth wedding anniversary, Uncle B and me. The tenth anniversary is tin or aluminum. And I’m, like, you’ve got to be shitting me! Ten years of my life and I’m going to get, what — a can of beans?
Screw that. He bought me chocolate and I bought him meat. And we bought ourselves a nice 17th Century coffer for the living room. It is not made of tin or aluminum.
I’m also taking tomorrow off, but I’m going to stop right now and queue up a Dead Pool ready to go. So tonight raise a toast to your favorite mustelids, probably, and meet us back here tomorrow, 6pm WBT for Dead Pool Round 119!
February 14, 2019 — 6:11 pm
Comments: 20
The Beast
Uncle B heard the most horrible galomphing up and down the roof today. Her ran out to find…this.
I really like the full size, color version. It’s like one of those Find the Hidden Pictures thing you used to see in Highlights for Children in the dentist’s office (if that made sense to you, you are American. And old).
Can you spot: a wheelbarrow? A chicken house? A fallen tile? A sheep? A holly bush? A lavender? A fruit cage? A hop vine? The first daffodil of Spring?
And some horrible child had always drawn a circle around all the right answers in crayon.
February 13, 2019 — 8:46 pm
Comments: 15
This hamster broken
I was out late at a Parish meeting tonight. Not the official Parish Meeting — that’s in May — just a little one where we divvy up chores and gossip.
I suggested a chicken theme for the flower festival. I don’t think it’s going to happen. Just a guess.
So hurrah for the tiny hamster with his widdle weg in a cast, courtesy of a veterinary clinic in Petrozavodsk, Russia. And you guys said Twitter wasn’t good for anything.
February 12, 2019 — 10:23 pm
Comments: 7
How have I not seen this before?
This thing crossed my path yesterday. It’s called a Vein Viewer.
It’s a hand-held wand that you pass over the surface of the skin. It emits near-infrared light that is absorbed by the blood but bounces off the skin, showing the shape and position of veins – the closer to the surface, the better the image. Then the hand-held dingus makes a display out of that in real time and projects it onto the person with a laser.
I would really, really like to have one of those to play with for an afternoon. Its use is mostly just for precise needle sticks, particularly with difficult patients (like babbies). But it is very cool to watch in action.
So how come the top video on that page is eight years old?
February 11, 2019 — 8:07 pm
Comments: 1
DINGELL-NORWOOD, muthafucka!
Xul’s fedora has won the dick with John Dingell. I’ll be honest witcha – I thought about disallowing this pick. Dingell is not exactly a household name. Not anymore, anyway.
And then I recollected that he gave me, albeit indirectly, one of my favorite ever moments in politics: the moment Al Gore tried to intimidate George Bush in the 2000 presidential debates.
Remember? Somebody must have told him to get in George’s space, so he goes clickity-clacking over in the middle of an answer and blares, “WHAT ABOUT THE DINGELL-NORWOOD BILL?”
George gave him a little nod, got a little laugh and Al looked like a Boston Dynamics prototype reject.
So congrats, Xul. It’s too late to queue up a Dead Pool for today, obviously, so everyone keep your powder dry and come back next Friday for DEAD POOL ROUND 119.
p.s. you owe me one. The header graphic I originally did was animated, but I decided to be merciful. Do go watch the clip at the link above, though. And have a good weekend!
p.p.s. If you haven’t seen the video making the rounds of the Boston Dynamics door-opening robot dog, here you go. It’s creepy as hell. Though I have to admit, I feel an awful pang when the demonstrator hits it and kicks it and pulls its tail.
February 8, 2019 — 6:30 pm
Comments: 13
There I was, shopping for antiques…
When all of a sudden…GIANT FRENCH STONE LAWN SNAILS! And only £650 each.
I don’t think Uncle B would appreciate the joke. Snails are a scourge upon his horticulture.
If you’d like to see the sort of antiques you can get over here, it’s pretty cool. Even here, there’s a general movement of antiques from East to West. Quite a lot of the stuff we see in Britain comes from France at the moment.
Not my favorite stuff. I like local rustic furniture, appropriate to our local rustic house.
February 7, 2019 — 9:28 pm
Comments: 10
Ew…skeevy…
This thing has been turning up in my FaceBook feed for days. It’s a sponsored post (meaning, they paid for an ad) for these tiny cameras.
Can you appreciate the size of them? I mean tiny. About an inch cubed. And according to the page, they run for 100 hours wirelessly and record to SD card. According to the website at the link, they’re $25.
I know there have been seriously tiny spy cameras for a while, but these things are so little and cheap and simple, and something about them being advertised on grandma’s social media platform of choice is just creepy.
February 6, 2019 — 7:58 pm
Comments: 6