Polanski Prize for Paedophiles

Roman Polanski will return to Zurich to receive a prize for his life work. While the paedophile filmmaker will be holding court to lap up public adulation from fellow paedophiles, Switzerland is powerless to hinder him due to a malfunction in the American legal system.

Roman Polanski, paedophile film director

Roman Polanski will return to Zurich to receive a prize for his life work. While the paedophile filmmaker will be holding court to lap up public adulation from fellow paedophiles, Switzerland is powerless to hinder him due to a malfunction in the American legal system.

The Zurich Film Festival issued a statement that they are proud to receive the paedophile and give him a public forum to advance perversity. Strange people have strange ideas, I suppose. Switzerland is powerless (this time) to prevent it as the United States botched their extradition request two years ago.

Then, Roman Polanski had been apprehended on arrival at Zurich airport in Kloten. He was held in prison for several weeks over an international arrest warrant issued by the United States. In 1979, Roman Polanski had been found guilty by an US court of sexual intercourse with a girl of 13. He had been bailed but fled the country for Europe where he found willing accomplices in France and Poland to shield him from justice.

Switzerland put him under house arrest in his lavish villa in the luxury ski resort of Gstaad after a 4 million Swiss franc (2.9 million Pounds Sterling, 4.4 million Dollars) caution had been paid in cash. An offer of payment in kind by handing over his villa to the authorities had been rejected previously. Quite rightly, Swiss authorities classified him as a person highly likely to flee, as he had shown in 1979.

When Switzerland demanded the relevant papers referring to the case, the United States botched it. Either, the persons dealing with the Swiss request thought that they could use their usual bullying tactics to get what they want or were just the usual incompetent government employees taxes are squandered on. The Swiss government never got a reply and duly ditched the extradition request sent to them.

The outrage in the United States and across the world was loud, but for once and inexplicably the United States didn’t invade the country they had been unable to bully, probably because there is no oil to be found there. Instead, they are bullying the Swiss government over ‘low’ taxes and other inventions that only exist in Americans’ diseased brains. That’s why they are universally loved and admired.

A commission called in to look into the failings that led to the disaster has never been heard of again. Obviously, all the failures working for the government kept their overpaid jobs and nothing will be done to fix the obviously failing legal system. The gist of all this is that a convicted paedophile is allowed to preach to his followers in Zurich. Roman Polanski knows that it is safe to enter Switzerland as he did a trial run to Montreux meanwhile.

And so it comes that for a time Zurich becomes paedophile capital of the world. Paedophiles unite! Your idol is preaching at the Zurich Film Festival, don’t miss it and go there! The Zurich Film Festival is very proud to receive you all and bestow prizes. They might call it the Polanski Prize for Paedophiles, who knows?

Further reading
The White Sex Slaves of 1874
The Sex Workers of Georgian London
These Good Old Times

Carl Hirschmann Appeals Against Prison Sentence

Carl Hirschmann had received a 33 months prison sentence in a trial by the district court of Zurich. Unsurprisingly, he and his lawyers now have appealed against that sentence issuing from a trial on sex, lies, and videotapes.

Carl Hirschmann and Pierre Casiraghi of Monaco

The Carl Hirschmann trial had been about using force in his aim to get sex from several women, using force and causing bodily harm to his ex-girlfriend, and having sex with a girl of 15. The attorney general for the state of Zurich had asked for a four years prison sentence, but the judge ruled certain incidents that had allegedly taken place in London to be outside of Swiss jurisdiction and therefore sentenced Carl Hirschmann to 33 months in prison. 19 months have been set out on probation while 14 months will have to be served.

An appeal had to be expected under these circumstances, as the team of lawyers under the leadership of Dominique von Planta had obviously set their sight on a sentence below 24 months that could be set out on probation in its entirety. To add insult to injury, the judge had at the same time set a new bail amount for Carl Hirschmann, too. Hitherto, the bail had been set at 1 million Swiss francs (1.13 million dollars, 0.7 million pounds sterling); the judge raised it by 4 million Swiss francs to a total of 5 million. That is higher than the bail amount that had been set on Roman Polanski; they really don’t want to repeat the mistakes of the American legal system with that one.

Carl Hirschmann holds beside his Swiss passport also a French one; lawyers of victims had therefore demanded that bail should be withdrawn and Carl Hirschmann imprisoned immediately as a flight to France would remove him from immediate access for Swiss authorities. In such a scenario, a lengthy and costly extradition attempt would have to be made with a very uncertain rate of success. The judge moved for a punishingly high bail amount against which an appeal is not possible.

Dominique von Planta on the other hand has her work cut out for her. Her tactic of proving the women plaintiffs as liars and psychologically disturbed personalities did not work. IF at all, her final harangue against the plaintiffs was contra productive. The sentence of 33 months is high enough, considering that quite a few of the alleged charges had been removed from the tally for having occurred in London, to be considered a total defeat. She’ll have to devise a completely different approach for the appeal hearings.

It has to be said, though, in favour of Carl Hirschmann’s lawyers that they had a difficult position to maintain. With the allegation of having had sex with a minor uncontested and the record of several incidents of having caused bodily harm on record, it is difficult to paint the accused in the guise of innocence. The startlingly high pecuniary claims by the plaintiffs (for Swiss standards) on the other hand do nothing to prove their truthfulness.

Whatever the outcome of the appeal, we seem to be continuing the almost interminable Hirschmann saga into 2012. The story broke in 2009, when the attorney general of Zurich botched a press conference. Since then, the name of Carl Hirschmann has been permanently in the news.

Further reading
The Carl Hirschmann Trial: It Was All About Sex
Carl Hirschmann's Home Theatre
Poor Rich Boy: Carl Hirschmann

The Carl Hirschmann Trial: It Was All About Sex

It has been a long time coming, but finally the trial against millionaire Carl Hirschmann has taken place in Switzerland. Accused of various charges of sexual harassment and on one count of sex with a minor, Carl Hirschmann was tried in a two days trial. 

Carl Hirschmann

Carl Hirschmann finally had his trial at the district court of Zurich. The list of allegations was long and almost all of them had to do with sex. It was alleged that he had used force and coercion to reach his aims, that he had forced sexual intercourse with several women just stopping short of rape, and that he had sex with a minor. The press would have had a heyday if the court hadn’t decided to restrict access to the select circle of accredited journalists which abide by its secrecy rules on such occasions.

The restrictions were not put in place for Carl Hirschmann’s benefit, but to preserve the anonymity of the women involved in the case as plaintiffs beside the state. Despite being closed to the public, the trial was packed with all the lawyers of the plaintiffs and the state prosecutor as well as the teal of lawyers representing Carl Hirschmann who were headed by Dominique von Planta.

The prosecution had demanded a sentence of four years in prison for Carl Hirschmann; his defence lawyers demanded his acquittal. The court in the end decided to send him to prison; 14 months in prison have to be served, 19 months were deferred in probation with a probationary period of two years. At first glance, this might look like a lot less than the 48 months demanded by the state prosecutor, but at closer inspection it actually isn’t.

The prosecution had included incidents of force and physical abuse alleged by Carl Hirschmann’s ex-girlfriend which had supposedly taken place during their stay in London. The court ruled that it was not responsible for incidents happening in the jurisdiction of Great Britain and excluded them from the considerations. Until she takes them into a court in London they will therefore remain alleged.

Otherwise, the court considered the allegations made by the three women as proven; the case of sex with a 15 year old girl was not in contention as Carl Hirschmann had pleaded guilty on that count from the beginning.

Looking at it that way, the tactics of Carl Hirschmann’s defence was an unmitigated disaster. Dominique von Planta had tried from the start to depict the women involved as being untrustworthy and as liars. In her closing statement, she had attacked them one by one trying to discredit them and their allegations. She also had a go at the state prosecutor for the press disaster that had brought the whole affair into the press over two years ago.

The state prosecutor retaliated by calling Carl Hirschmann media hungry and proved it with an e-mail sent by Hirschmann to a friend: “It’s quite a sexy feeling to be public enemy number one.” The prosecutor has a point, at least to my way of thinking. A man who has to claim having had a fling with Paris Hilton is asking for trouble with the media because there really is nothing else to attract one to Paris Hilton except a terribly bad taste in women.

The state prosecutor said after the verdict that he probably will not appeal against the sentencing as it seemed balanced under the circumstances. Dominique von Planta on the other hand reserved judgement on launching an appeal on part of the defendant until she had studied the written ruling in detail. Should she decide to go into an appeal, she will have to change her tactics drastically. Otherwise, the appeal might even backfire.

Further reading
Carl Hirschmann's Home Theatre
Poor Rich Boy: Carl Hirschmann
When a Sassy Headline Becomes an Embarrassment

Dr James Barry, Transvestite Surgeon

Dr James Barry studied at Edinburgh and qualified with a Medical Doctorate. He entered the army and had a sterling career there. But not all things were as they seemed at the time. Who was Dr James Barry? 

Dr James Barry and servant

In 1809, a young man freshly arrived from Ireland entered Edinburgh University as a literary and medical student. He qualified with a Medical Doctorate in 1812 and moved to London where friends of his uncle the painter James Barry lived. His uncle had been a well-known Irish artist and professor for painting at London’s Royal Academy until his death in 1806. In London, Barry signed up for a course with the United Hospitals of Guy’s and St. Thomas’. In 1813, he passed the examination for the Royal College of Surgeons of England and qualified as a Regimental Assistant.

With stops in Chelsea and Plymouth, he was first posted to India and then to South Africa. He arrived in Cape Town for the first time in 1815 and again in 1824. He was promoted Medical Inspector for the colony within weeks of this arrival and stayed until 1828. In his time in the colony, he revolutionised Cape Town’s water supply, undertook one of the first successful Caesarean sections (mother and child both survived) in 1826, and made a general pest of himself criticising local medical matters. His local enemies were numerous and they all pounced on the scandal when he was accused of having a homosexual relationship with the colony’s governor Lord Charles Henry Somerset.

From his first Cape Town posting, he was then sent to Mauritius, Trinidad and Tobago, and finally Saint Helena, followed by a curious gap in his records for the year 1819 where he virtually disappeared from records. In Saint Helena in 1817, James Barry was called to attend the son of the Comte de Las Cases in the retinue of Emperor Napoleon. The Count wrote the following in his diary: “I received a visit from one of the captains of our station at St Helena. Knowing the state of my son's health, he brought a medical gentleman along with him. This was a mark of attention on his part, but the introduction occasioned for some moments, a curious misunderstanding. I mistook the Captain's medical friend for his son or nephew. The grave Doctor, who was presented to me was a boy of 18, with the form, the manners and the voice of a woman. But Mr Barry (such was his name) was described to be an absolute phenomenon. I was informed that he had obtained his diploma at the age of 13, after the most rigid examination, and that he had performed extraordinary cures at the Cape.”

His further postings included Jamaica, Canada, Malta, and Corfu. When he requested being sent to the Crimea during the Crimean War, he was refused. Instead, he took a holiday and embarked to Cyprus, from where he sailed to the Crimea and did what he wanted. That meant, mainly making a pest of himself over the food and sanitary dispositions in the field hospitals as well as the food served there. He met Florence Nightingale and the two loathed each other on sight, while appreciating the other’s work.

Dr James Barry was made to retire in 1864 from his posting in Corfu and died in London in 1865. The charwoman preparing the body for the funeral discovered the true sex of the corpse as well as signs that this woman had born a child. Still, Dr James Barry was buried under this name at Kensal Green Cemetery. But what had been going on prior to 1809?

In 1789, Margaret Ann Bulkley was born as the daughter of Jeremiah and Mary-Ann Bulkley in Ireland. Mary-Ann was the sister of painter James Barry. When Mary-Ann’s life slithered into chaos with her husband in prison for fraud and her son married and with a family to look after, she had to take steps to safeguard her and her daughter’s livelihood. Upon contacting some friends of her brother’s in London (namely the Beaufort family), she and her daughter planned a trip to Edinburgh.

The day of the ship’s departure saw Mrs Bulkley embark with her nephew James Barry but without her daughter. A letter sent by the young Mr James Barry to the Bulkley solicitor back home mentioned the great comfort his aunt had taken from being accompanied by a young gentleman. Solicitors are sticklers for details, and the solicitor therefore noted on the back of the envelope ‘Miss Bulkley’. It’s the one thing that links the disappearance of Margaret Ann to the sudden appearance of James. 

Further reading
Wear Skirts if Shorts are Not Allowed
Eccentric Aristocrats' Stories
The Invention of George Eliot

Skywalker Freddy Nock Skips a Rope Record

Circus artist Freddy Nock had to break off his latest attempt at a further world record on the rope. The planned record should have been completed in Bern by driving a bicycle over a tight rope 150 m (492 ft) in length and 50 m (164 ft) from the ground. The disappointment was obviously great.

Freddy Nock, circus artist

Freddy Nock had planned to cycle over the length of a rope of 150 m (492 ft) suspended between two cranes at a height of 50 m (164 ft) in Bern, Switzerland. Due to technical problems, the attempt was abandoned before the circus artist even started. It emerged that when the rope had been deployed and spanned, too much grease had been used in the roll-out. As it would have taken all day to remove the surplus grease to allow the stunt, Freddy Nock decided to call it a day despite the disappointment this caused him and his many fans.

Freddy Nock started his incredible stunt tour on the Zugspitze in Germany, where he ascended the cable of the cable car over 995 m (3265 ft) without a safety harness or safety line and without the use of a balancing pole. It kicked off a tour of stunts covering Germany, Austria, and Switzerland under the name of Seven Records in Seven Days in promotion of UNESCO’s educational charity.

The tour continued on the Feuerkogel in Austria, where he ascended on the cable of the cable car over a distance of 2,917 m (9,570 ft) with a steady incline of between 41 and 52 percent. Though he had to take a break in the gondola on the third pylon after 1,980 m (6,497 ft) and skipped the last 200 m (656 ft), a new world record was set there, too.

Over the next two days, Freddy Nock ascended over the cable of the Diavolezza cable car on the Bernina Pass over a distance of 3574 m (11726 ft) first, and descended the cable of the Corvatsch cable car near the Maloja Pass over the distance of 1600 m (5249 ft) second. Both world records attempted above the Engadin Valley in the Canton of Grisons in Switzerland were a full and unmitigated success.

The abandonment of the cycle stunt in Bern means that the record setting Seven Records in Seven Days is not possible anymore. But true to his credo that nothing is ever impossible, the attempt in Bern has been rescheduled to later next week.

The planned record attempts on the Jungfrau and in Thun will still take place as planned. Below the Sphinx on the Jungfrau, he will attempt the highest rope walk ever done at an altitude of 3400 m (11155 ft). And in Thun he will attempt the longest rope walk over water over the distance of 3300 m (10827 ft) by crossing Lake Thun.

Further reading
The Real Skywalker: Freddy Nock
Skywalker Freddy Nock Knocks Down Another World Record
History in the Alps: Flüela Pass

James Greenwood Started Investigative Journalism

James Greenwood started out as a printer. Later, he began writing adventure tales before entering journalism. As a journalist, he was the first to go undercover and to invent investigative journalism in the process. His subsequent writing was nothing short of revolutionary.

James Greenwood

James Greenwood was born in 1832 in London. He worked as a printer until the writing bug caught him and he started publishing adventure stories in Boy’s Own in 1861 with Wild Sports Of The World. Over the next four years, adventure stories of his were regularly published and promoted in Boy’s Own and Boy’s Own Annual. His article series Lion King published in the 1864 Annual is thought to have inspired Rudyard Kipling to write The Jungle Book.

In 1865, he joined The Pall Mall Gazette where his brother Frederic was its first editor. On the suggestion of his brother, James Greenwood dressed as a vagrant. He subsequently went undercover and checked in at Lambeth workhouse for the poor. Out of his experience there, he wrote the three-part article A Night In A Workhouse to be published in the Pall Mall Gazette in 1866. The article caused a furore.

Other articles had treated social issues before that. But their authors had stuck to the Victorian principle of obfuscation by omitting any offensive themes and couching everything in the most blatant euphemisms. Greenwood dispensed with niceties and the nerves of his readers and told them stark truth. The article told for the first time of the dehumanisation of the poor; of how they were stripped of their meagre possessions and clothing and stuck into dirty bathtubs filled with water as dirty as rotting soup; and how Greenwood found his mattress soaked in blood from his predecessor and how he was told to flip it over and use it. The article set fire to Londoners’ world view, and a public outcry for social changes in workhouses ensued.

Upon leaving The Pall Mall Gazette (long before it was merged with The Evening Standard), James Greenwood joined the Daily Telegraph. He continued his double career as writer of adventure stories and social journalist there. His involvement went further than mere writing, though.

In 1895, he joined The Ragged School Union in arranging to send poor children from London to the countryside for summer holidays. He also set up an appeal that provided £80,000 (that is about 4.8 million pounds in today’s money) for Christmas hampers to be handed out to crippled children. He died in London in 1929.

James Greenwood’s extraordinary works were largely forgotten and have only quite recently been rediscovered as noteworthy. In fact, his work is not only noteworthy, it is partly revolutionary. Critical social writing as produced by Jacob Riis, Jack London, Henry Mayhew, and Arthur Morrison would have been unthinkable without James Greenwood setting the pace. And wouldn’t we all be the poorer (and Walt Disney even more so) for missing out on The Jungle Book?

Further reading
Prophet of The Great War
High Literature: Being Politically Incorrect
When a Sassy Headline Becomes an Embarrassment

Skywalker Freddy Nock Knocks Down Another World Record

Circus artist Freddy Nock did it again. Only two days after completing a Guinness worthy world record on the Zugspitze in Germany, he completed another world record attempt successfully on the Feuerkogel Mountain in Austria, this time on a slack rope with a steady incline.

Freddy Nock, circus artist

Skywalker Freddy Nock attempted his second world record bid on the cable of the Feuerkogel cable car in Austria. The Feuerkogel is a rather low lying mountain in respect to geographical altitude; its station building in the valley is at 475 m (1558 ft) with the cable car leading up to 1585 m (5200 ft) over a distance of 2,917 m (9,570 ft). The steady incline on the cable over that distance varies between 41 and 52 percent. His aim was to complete a new record for the longest rope walk with a steady incline and at the highest geographical altitude.

As on his previous world record bid on the Zugspitze in Germany, the cable of the Feuerkogel cable car is 5 cm (2 inches) in diameter; unlike on the Zugspitze, weather conditions this time were far from perfect from the performer’s point of view. Sizzling heat of 32 degrees Celsius in the shade made the trial an ordeal. Despite being handed water at regular intervals from the gondola tracing him, Nock had to take a break in the gondola on the third pylon after 1,980 m (6,497 ft) for fear of dehydrating and overtiring his body. He also decided to make a full stop 200 m (656 ft) short of the mountain station and to let himself be conveyed the distance in the gondola.

A new record worthy of the Guinness Book of Records was set all the same albeit over a shorter distance than anticipated. The record was set using a balancing pole but no safety harness or safety lines despite of the cable hanging 305 m (1,001 ft) over ground level at places. The new record came only two days after his successful completion of a similar feat on the Zugspitze in Germany.

There, Freddy Nock completed a walk over 995 m (3265 ft) without the aid of a balancing pole and as on the Feuerkogel unhampered by safety harness of safety lines and under perfect weather conditions. The two records set so far form part of a charity stunt tour in favour of UNESCO’s educational charity under the name of Seven Records in Seven Days.

Further stations of the tour will include destinations in Switzerland with the Diavolezza on the Bernina Pass, Corvatsch near the Maloja Pass, the city of Bern, the Jungfrau, and the city of Thun.

Freddy Nock is the scion of one of Switzerland’s most prestigious circus dynasties. He virtually spent his life on a rope wince the age of four. In 2009, he garnered the title of World Champion as the fastest rope walker covering 1,000 m (3,280 ft) in 10 minutes. During his career, he broke 10 world records; six of those are currently listed in the Guinness Book of Records not counting the current bids for further records.

Further reading
The Real Skywalker: Freddy Nock
History in the Alps: Flüela Pass
Bern: Seat of the Swiss Government