"Dark Annie" Chapman and the Town Pants

On September 8, 1888, Annie Chapman, also known as "Dark Annie," was found at 29 Hanbury Street, murdered and mutilated, one of the victims of the infamous Jack the Ripper. In life she had worked as a prostitute to make ends meet after the death of her husband. She was given to spending much of what she made on drink and only the last few pence on a room for the night. On the night of her murder, in need of the money for a bed, she had attempted to solicit a client, possibly from the nearby Ten Bells Pub (which is still in existence today) and may well have chosen the wrong man. She was 47 years old and ailing. She might not have lived much longer anyway, due to the state of her health, but her life was cut brutally short by London's most notorious serial killer.

The Town Pants, a Canadian band with an Irish sound, chose Annie Chapman as the subject of one of their songs. I wrote to them to ask if I could use this song as the background for this photo story, and they very graciously granted me permission to do so. "Dark Annie" can be downloaded from iTunes, along with their other great songs. One of the things I like about this band, aside from the fact that their music is just fun to listen to, is that they choose such unusual subject matter. In addition to this song about Jack the Ripper, there are "Hell's Kitchen," about Typhoid Mary; "Mr. Valentine's Dead," about a man who loves to party so much he can't bring himself to leave his own wake; "Rum Runner," about a woman who is waiting for her captain to come back, but also making alternate plans just in case; and "Unidentified Friend," about a man whose life is changed dramatically -- or maybe not -- when his picture appears in the paper next to a beautiful celebrity, to name a few. And you have to love a band with this line in one of their songs: "I got plastered in Paris!"

This photo story is in wmv format, 8.88 MB, and runs for 5:01 minutes.

Podcast Revisited

Now that I am back in Florida with fairly reliable Internet connections, I have redone my podcast on Famous British Murderers using PhotoStory 3 so that I could embed it in my blog. This file is 4.41 minutes long, in wmv format, and 2.61 MB.

A Jumble of Joyful Jobs

While traveling around the streets of London, Oxford, and Paris, I saw some very interesting occupations being performed. Here is a small selection of some of the positions that are available to enterprising folks. From the Royal Guardsmen to an itinerant juggler who was just trying to earn five pounds (probably to get himself a pint), they presented an intriguing tapestry of various types of employment. Just in case nobody's hiring librarians when I graduate, it gives me something to think about.

This video is in wmv format and is 97 mb, according to the information on my computer. It took about ten minutes to load, even here in the States. It's length is 3:05 minutes.

Multimedia Design, London and Paris, 2009

Click here to view this photo book larger

Here are a few of the many, many photos I took on this trip. It was very difficult to make the selections. Click on "Click here to view this photo book larger," then "View photo book."

Trip Motto: "Mind the Gap."

Recurring Photo Theme: Lion Monuments - Parliament, Trafalgar Square, Oxford, the British Museum, Highgate Cemetery, the Louvre, and the Lion of Belfort (copy) in front of the Catacombs (and there were a few others that didn't make it into the photo book).

Photo Emphasis:

*Stonehenge - Focusing on small point in foreground

*Salisbury Cathedral - Photo of building from unusual angle

*Trafalgar Square - Motion from a stationary position; sepia photo

*Oxford - Unusual signs

*British Museum - Duplicating another photo

*Regent's Park - Macro setting for flowers

*Abbey Road - Unusual angle

*Hyde Park - Reflections, repeat patterns, Stop-action water

*St. Pancras Station - Vertical and horizontal studies of same image

*Eiffel tower - Night setting

*The Louvre - Unusual angle of statue, reflections

*Epernay - French countryside, motion shot and 1600 ISO setting

*Catacombs - contrasts

*Pere Lachaise - Black and white (with a splash of color)

The Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace

This is a brief example of the pomp and circumstance that goes with the changing of the guard in front of the Queen's residence at Buckingham Palace. We viewed this procession with our Blue Badge guide Hugh. I'm experimenting with different video formats so that I can begin working on my movie assignment. This file began as an MVI/AVI, went to WMV, and is now an MP4. It is 3.55 mb.

How French Frog Came to Be in France

This is the story of how French Frog came to stow away in a suitcase and make the journey to England and France this summer. He is happy to be home now, but he did have a wonderful time taking in all the things to see in both countries and mingling with Shaun and Troy and all the other mascots. I don't know if this is significant, but I did find the phone book open to travel agents this morning...

This file is a Windows Media Audio/Video file, wmv, 8.18 mb. It is 4:59 minutes long.

Notre-Dame, a Deportation Memorial, and a Farewell Dinner, a Time to Remember

This was our last day in Paris. It was strange to know we would be separating so soon. The three weeks that seemed like a long time on our first day in London have flown by. Laurie, Connie, and I visited the home and museum dedicated to Victor Hugo in the morning. He resided for a number of years within walking distance of our hotel. Inside the museum are replicas of a room he decorated for his wife in Oriental style and another he decorated for his mistress, who was more appreciative of his interior design talents. His writing desk is made to be written at while standing up! He was exiled for a time because of his political beliefs, so in his day he was a radical.


Inside the Victor Hugo Museum/Home


Victor Hugo's writing desk. It is made for standing up to write.

In the afternoon we visited Notre-Dame Cathedral, famous for its antiquity (begun in the 1100's), its stained glass windows, flying buttresses, and gargoyles (and even for its hunchback, among literary fans). It is truly a marvel of engineering and very beautiful and majestic.



The famous flying buttresses of Notre-Dame


A beautiful stained glass window


One of the many gargoyles who live at Notre-Dame

Behind the cathedral is a Memorial to the 200,000 Jewish Martyrs of the Deportation. During World War II, many Jews were rounded up by the Germans in France, as elsewhere, and transferred to concentration camps. The Vichy government tried to shield its French-born Jews as well as it could, and most of those transported from France had been born elsewhere. The village of Le Chambon Sur Lignon, in the mountains of southern France, is famous for its role in saving 5,000 Jews, many of them children, by hiding them and smuggling them to safety. The 3,000 people who lived there risked their lives daily to help their fellow countrymen because it was "the right thing to do." Yet many still died, and the Memorial includes a wall of 200,000 glass pearls, one for each person who was deported. The inscription states: "Forgive --but do not forget."


A part of the Memorial


The wall of pearls, 200,000, one for each deportee

The afternoon saw us boating down the Seine for a tour of the historic sites from the water. Then we went to a delicious farewell dinner, where we were serenaded by two handsome gentlemen for the entire evening. It was a moment for looking back at the good times we have shared and for looking forward to new adventures abroad or going home. It has truly been a marvelous three weeks.

Cemetery Effects

A "street" in Pere Lachaise


A weeping figure mourns the one buried here


Monuments of every style and shape


All the way up the hill are monuments-A study in black and white

Today is Bastille Day, when the French celebrate their independence from the tyranny of the aristocracy with a holiday air and fireworks in the evening. We spent the morning at Pere Lachaise Cemetery, where the vaults are all above ground. It is laid out like a little city, with streets, street signs, stairs going up to higher levels, and covers quite a bit of area. The coloring is mostly in various shades of black, white, and grey, with a little greenery splashed about here and there. Our photography focus for today was just that, black and white with a splash of color. We spent some time here hunting for the graves of Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, and Proust. Jim Morrison's grave is sprinkled with flowers; Oscar Wilde's, with kisses.

In the afternoon we saw the famous Sacre-Coeur Church (from a distance, as there was a huge crowd surrounding it), then spent several hours wandering through the surrounding neighborhood of Montmartre. Among other things, we bought some interesting artwork and saw the outside of the house at No. 54 rue Lepic where Vincent Van Gogh and his brother once shared an apartment. We walked to the Cimetiere de Montmartre, which is very similar to Pere Lachaise with its above ground vaults. Emile Zola is buried here. We also saw a number of feral cats about the place. Then back to the hotel for a Thai dinner and listening to fireworks in the distance.

A cat at the Cimetiere de Montmartre

This wall in a little Montmartre park says "I love you" in 311 languages (maybe more, as visitors have added their own inscriptions).

A lavender seller at Montmartre

What beautiful fruit!

No. 54 rue Lepic is where Vincent Van Gogh and his brother once lived

A Day in the French Countryside with Wine

The wine celler looks a lot like the catacombs, only with higher ceilings and bottles instead of bones.

Today was a lovely, sunny day, and we had a great time with a tour of a French winery. We headed out of Paris by train and rode through the countryside, seeing quaint little villages along the way. Epernay is a beautiful town with a picturesque church and lots of shops and restaurants. We all had lunch at a pizzeria, and then we had an hour to explore the town before heading to the winery. I stumbled upon a small park with very colorful flowers and a town square with a fountain. Then we met at the winery for the tour. We were given a history of the Moet-Chandon family. It turns out Dom Perignon was a real person who discovered how to make wine effervesce, thus discovering the secret of champagne. We learned how the wine is actually a mixture of three different kinds of grapes and how they add yeast and sugar. The way the sediment is removed is quite fascinating. The bottles are turned upside down and rotated slowly every day for six weeks by hand (okay, some are done by machine, but some are still done the traditional way). Then the top of the bottle containing the sediment is frozen. When the cap is taken off the bottle, the pressure inside built up from the fermentation pops out the frozen sediment. Then more wine is added to fill the bottle, and it is aged some more. The tour culminated in a wine tasting event with both white and rose and ended up in the gift shop! This trip is easily one of the highlights of our stay in France. Tomorrow is Bastille Day, and tonight there is a free concert on the square down the road. We walked down the street to check it out.



French Frog waits patiently for his tour of the Moet-Chandon Winery.


He says it was well worth the wait.


The little park nearby held beautiful flowers

Versailles

Today we toured Versailles, the beautiful palace of King Louis XIV. Known as the Sun King, he liked to have everything decorated. Thus, wherever you look at Versailles, from the ceilings to the walls to the doors, etc., all is covered in gold, detailed carvings, magnificent paintings, etc. This must be one of the most ornate palaces in Europe. The most amazing room of all is the Hall of Mirrors, which has windows on one side overlooking the beautiful gardens and matching mirrors on the other. In the middle are chandeliers to reflect the light of thousands of candles. We also saw the royal bedrooms, complete with splended tapestries. It is a wonder the royal family didn't get lost with so many rooms to explore. King Ludwig of Bavaria patterned a room in his palace at Linderhoff after the Hall of Mirrors, and his plan was to make it the German version of Versailles. Both palaces are beautifully ornate, and both are surrounded by luxurious gardens, but the German palace is dwarfed by the size of Versailles.

Back in the Depths of the Earth

In the depths of the catacombs


Carving in the rock

Today's inside visit was to the catacombs beneath the streets of Paris. I had missed seeing the ones in Vienna because they were only open in the afternoon and on our one day there we had an afternoon tour of a palace. So I was looking forward to getting to see the ones here. If I thought I was a little morbid for wanting to go there, I was reassured when I got there and the line to get in was three quarters of the way around the block -- and most of the people in line seemed perfectly normal, like the neighbors who always say "hi" and wave when they see you. The museum does cap the number of visitors inside the catacombs at one time at two hundred, so it wasn't quite the same as the line to get into the Eiffel Tower, but we waited for about an hour and a half to get in. It was worth the wait. The only drawback was that they asked that no flash photography be done, so what pictures I took were basically black and blacker, as the lighting was not the best. One of the reasons I wanted to see this place is because I have read a series of mysteries set in Paris/France during World War II (by J. Robert Janes). One of the books climaxes with the French detective clashing with the murderer in the depths of the catacombs with the lights out. The French Resistance had their headquarters here, and it would be easy to "get lost" among the many tunnels before they were blocked off to keep the tourists from roaming. There are over a hundred steps down to the burial level, and about ninety going out at the exit. Near the entrance are several sculptures carved out of the stone, reminescent of the ones in the Polish salt mines near Krakow. As you move deeper into the underground passages, you come to the stacks of bones that were placed here when they were moved from the Cemetery of the Innocents during the 18th Century. It was thought that moving the bodies out of the cemetery and into the catacombs would halt the spread of disease. Under Napoleon, the bones were arranged into patterns with rows of skulls alternating with rows of other bones. Some of the other bones that were brought in after the French Revolution belonged to such famous people as Robespierre and possibly even Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI. Towards the end of the tunnel are several places where one can look up and see great caverns in the roof where there had been a collapse. Today the roof is repaired with injections of concrete whenever it gets shaky. Otherwise the cars traveling above might suddenly find themselves in a huge sinkhole. While this type of museum might not be for everyone (their website warns that it is not for those suffering with "nervous disease"), it was a very interesting way to spend the morning.




Today was our day for contrast photos. This sign for free Wi-Fi in the park was in direct contrast to all the trouble we were having at the hotel uploading photos and staying on the Internet. This is an example of irony!

It's Paris and the Louvre!

French Frog at the Louvre

The Louvre is the home of the Mona Lisa and many other famous paintings by such artists as Giotto, Raphael, Titian, Botticelli, and other names familiar from art classes. The building in which the museum is housed is so extensive it could take several days to walk through all the rooms and see everything, let alone absorb it all. We were allowed to take photographs without the flash, and our mission for today was to photograph a sculpture from an interesting angle or lighting source. We had about five and a half hours to spend there, and it was not nearly enough time. Connie and I looked at paintings by Flemish artists, Etruscan statues and carvings, Italian Renaissance painters, and the time was nearly gone. After allowing a little time to locate and peruse the gift shop and find the sortie (exit), we met up with the class and headed back toward our hotel. Then a group of us went out to a little Thai restaurant nearby and enjoyed some Asian cuisine to top off the day. I will post pictures when we can get them through on the Internet.

Stone Lion Carving

Front View

Etruscan Carving

This is how you feel after spending all day at the Louvre. Seriously, it is actually part of "The Repose of the Holy Family" by Gentileschi, but that was the first thought that crossed my mind when I looked up and saw this gentleman sleeping.

Platform 9 3/4 and the Eurostar to Paris

A horizontal view of St. Pancras Station

Thursday was a railway station day. First we went to King's Cross Station to Platform 9 3/4, which is the point of departure for Harry to go to Hogwarts. He actually leaves from St. Pancras Station, which is right next door, but the platform is at King's cross. It even includes half a trolly going through the wall. We all posed for pictures. Then we walked down the street to the British Library, which holds such treasures as the Gutenberg Bible and a copy of the Magna Carta. There are also original manuscripts by Jane Austen, Lewis Carroll, song lyrics written by the Beatles, and religious volumes from the Orient and Middle East.

After the library, we collected our suitcases and boarded the Eurostar for Paris. The Chunnel really offers nothing to see except blackness, but we enjoyed the beautiful French countryside once we had passed through. The train arrived in a little over two hours and ran as smoothly as butter. After stopping at our hotel to drop off our bags, we headed via metro to the Eiffel Tower. We got there while it was still light out, but it was growing dark before we came down, so we got to see the city begin to light up. We also had a bit of excitement along the way home. When we were approaching the tower, we encountered all sorts of souvenir sellers hawking mini versions of the tower for various prices. And while we were walking back, we saw several of these vendors running through the crowd. At first I thought they were lightheartedly cavorting because they were finally off duty from a thankless job, but then it became apparent that the police were chasing at least one of them. He pushed me out of his way once, then doubled back and pushed me again, then stood panting to my left, while to my right a police officer was beckoning him to come out of the crowd. He was arrested while we watched. There was actually quite a police presence around the tower. It didn't seem like a good place to commit a crime and get away with it. The rest of the trip back to our hotel was uneventful.
When we can get through on the Internet to post pictures, I will.


A vertical expression of the horizontal photo of St. Pancras


There really is a Platform 9 3/4


I didn't make it all the way to Hogwarts, but I did get to Paris


The Eiffel Tower is beautiful at night

The Other Photo Story - Lunch at Hampton Court - or Nate de Jour

Hyde Park, Hard Rock, and Harrod's

Today was a walk in the park, Hyde Park. We were photographing moving water shots and trying to make them appear as though frozen in time and standing still. We explored the the Princess Diana Memorial Playground. It has a pirate ship, Indian teepees, swings, slides, statues, and is quite something. The lucky children who get to play there on a regular basis must be very happy. We also walked to the statue of Peter Pan further down the park. There are several cafes in the park, as well. Hyde Park covers quite a large area, and we covered a good bit of it today. Later we had lunch at the original Hard Rock Cafe. I had to order chicken wings, because it's been at least two weeks since I've eaten that American dish. To top off the day, we browsed through the food halls of Harrod's. They really are truly amazing, containing everything from chocolate to sushi. It was a good thing we had already eaten. Tonight we're doing laundry and packing for Paris tomorrow!

A fountain at Hyde Park


A row of birds on pilings, reflected in the water

French Frog

French Frog playing in the Princess Diana Memorial Park

Connie and Jen taking photos on the Jack the Ripper Tour

Hampton Court Palace/On the Trail of Jack the Ripper

Today was spent at Hampton Court Palace, one of Henry VIII's sixty places of residence. It was an on-again-off-again rainy day, and we took the train out to the palace. There were quite a few people coming and going, as a huge flower show was being held there. On our way back, we saw people ahead of us hurrying to the train with carts full of beautiful flowers they had bought there. My favorite part of the palace happens to be the royal kitchens. Today they have reenactments of how things were done in Henry's day, and we saw a gentleman stoking a fire getting ready to roast some tasty-looking beef. In another room were bins of vegetables, while in several other rooms were pastries and meat pies laid out in various stages of baking. There are quite a number of food preparation rooms, and in Henry's day this would have been a major undertaking. Hampton Court originally belonged to Cardinal Wolsey, but Henry took a liking to it and began dropping hints. Wolsey, being a shrewd man, likely thought things over and decided his head was more important than his house, because he eventually ended by presenting the house to Henry as a gift. Elizabeth I and William and Mary are among the other sovereigns to live there.

In the evening, a number of us met at the Tower Hill tube stop to take the Jack the Ripper walking tour. Although there are not many of Whitechapel's old buildings left to see, our guide gave us a very informative narrative of what occurred at the time of the murders, while walking us to the locations of several of them. He even produced a top hat and allowed two of our group to reenact a murder at one point. We traced the path of the Ripper from victim number three, to victim number four, to the place where he dropped off an evidentiary kidney. It was quite an entertaining evening.

A Picnic in the Rain at Hampton Court