Witchfinder General

I grew up in a place called Hadleigh. During my childhood, this particular bit of Estuary Essex was still undergoing the deep shock of having gone from a large village to small town in less than two decades. Ancient woodland still bristled with resentment of its reduced circumstances due to the encroachment of new housing. The 13th century walls of the local castle, already ruined and robbed of dignity by landslides and the Salvation Army stone thieves, faced the final insult of becoming a delight for clambering children.

Surviving the savage assault of supermarkets and seventies concrete, the spirits of Hadleigh still skulked in its shadows. For more than 500 years, the place had been known for producing witches and cunning men, crow doctors and wind stealers. As a boy I walked through a landscape where folklore stalked you. There were magicians buried in the boneyard of St. James the Less, old cottages with moon gardens and at least one tree-lined shortcut with rumours of a whispering black shade.

One thing I learned from voracious childhood reading at the local library was that the people of Hadleigh liked their witches. In 1646, Matthew Hopkins, the self-styled Witchfinder General, turned up to ply his vile trade of persecution for profit. Having tortured his way across most of the east of England, he must have thought he would get rich pickings in Hadleigh, rumoured to be the home to several witch families.

However, as he approached the village he was met with a large crowd. Having heard of his planned hunt for their cunning folk, the village turned out en masse. When he refused to leave them in peace, the villagers began to stone Hopkins and his entourage of witch-prickers.

This little bit of knowledge taught me a lot as child. The idea that confronting fear mongers and bullies was always possible resonated across the years. It was a perfect lesson on the effectiveness of both direct and group action; inspiring me to believe that the average person could be more brave and tolerant than usually portrayed. Beyond that, I became proud of Hadleigh. Here was a place that at least once in its history showed the answer to exploitative hatred is an absolute refusal to tolerate it.

I have been thinking a lot about witchfinders recently due to Sarah Palin. Having seen the video of her speech thanking Thomas Muthee, a Kenyan preacher and witchfinder associated with her church, my dislike of the woman has soared to a new level. In June she praised his ‘Very very powerful invocation’ which she claimed helped get her elected. Beyond finding this an ironic choice of words given she was talking about a smiter of witchcraft, the revelation strips much of the humour from the satirists portraying her as ‘witch-burner’.

Justin Webb, the BBC’s North America editor who writes a rather fine blog, usually gets it right. However, when he complained that ‘anti-Palin stuff in comments on recent postings has gone way over the top’ because they suggested she was supporter of a ‘dark witch-burning retreat into superstition and irrationality’ he missed the point. If she was a member of an Aryan church that advocated persecuting Jews, there would be no tolerance, no language too strong. We should never accept persecution of any faith. We should decry anyone standing for office who is a friend of those who perpetrate such villainy. Anyone who backs those advocating a gospel of hunting for witches deserves to be met Hadleigh style.

Boogled

Google Analytics is always fun. Aside from telling me I remain unloved in Greenland, a cult of one in Palestine, but surprisingly popular Patagonia, there is the warm glow which comes from knowing that I am widely read in Texas. Bill would be proud of me.

Of course, the biggest joy provided by Google Analytics is seeing which surreal searches have pushed people towards English Dreaming, English Rain. My favourites over the last few weeks include: ‘Michael Keaton sightings’, ‘celebrities and their Dobermans’ and ‘duck herding Essex’. However nothing quite tops ‘Kyle McLaughlin pursued by a bear’.

If my mind was not already boggling at though of Agent Cooper stumbling onto the darkness at hidden in the song Teddy Bears Picnic*, then it would definitely be boggled at some of the desperate searches for niche porn captured by analytic software. ‘Dirty pissing,’ ‘leather glove wank story’ and ‘Timotei advert girl fuck’ are probably all pretty standard things. Yet broadminded as I am, there is still surprise in finding people hit my blog looking for ‘Dame porn’, ‘wanking with ribbons’ or ‘badger sex pictures’.

David Icke and Anne-Marie Forker remain ever popular searches, though it is probably best not to interrogate some of the Boolean logic attached to their names by some researchers. There are cases with both of them where I think I need to move beyond the standard boggling and invent a new word, possibly boogled.

The biggest shocks and laughter came from those trying to answer really hard questions. ‘Is Stephen Grasso evil?’ ‘Is English jazz dead?’ ‘Where in the world is David Southwell? The chance of EDER ever being able to answer those imponderables remains slightly less than that of Southend United winning the UEFA Cup.

*Trust me, it is there. I can rumble the line: ‘If you go down to the woods today you are sure for a big surprise’ with such bear menace it makes children cry.

Atomic Sun Smile

I think I have more than fulfilled any contractual obligations to mention 1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die on English Dreaming, English Rain. Unless something startling happens when we begin to publicise it in Australia, this will be its last mention in the blog. Before it is officially retired as a topic, there is the matter of saying thank you.

Before I print the acknowledgements as they appear in the book, there a few extra people to thank. Firstly there is my editor, Roland, for gig itself. Then there are The Dove and Jeff Edmundson, who provided both writing soundtracks and the sustaining support of friendship. Most of all, there is Matt Adams. The book is truly a joint work and co-authoring with him made the whole writing process a lot less lonely and massively more fun than usual.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

David would like to thank:

Surreal Girl, who despite the five broken ribs, falls down stairs and death threats is always there to hold my hand and make the world a better place with an atomic sun smile and a cup of tea; Tim, Stephen and Sean – brothers by other mothers; and Dickon, the only man I know likely to die a more ridiculous death than me.

‘I am not a Morbid Man’

There is a full page in today’s Sunday Express on the new book. Allegedly written by me, it starts with the wonderful line: ‘I am not a morbid man.’ A disparate brigade of former acquaintances would argue with the ferocity of blood-frenzied sharks against that claim, but they would be wrong. The worst I could be called these is occasionally melancholic. My life now is about love and laughter. Mayfly days ripple throughout everything I do.

The feature generated one vitriolic email talking of ‘absolute DISGUST’ and ‘sick journalism’. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. I always have several. They include facts are facts and up for reporting; if you do not like something, do not buy it and while I would never wish to sadden anyone, on any topic I am entitled to think different, very different.

Beating Gordon Ramsay

Thank you to all the readers of this blog who have helped ensure that 1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die was yesterday the second ‘most viewed’ book on the Harper-Collins Australia website. Even more, can I offer my thanks for the surrealness of looking on the same site to see that I was the fifth ‘most viewed’ author – a whole three places above Gordon Ramsay. It was the first and probably the last time in my life that I find myself beating Gordon Ramsay in a Top 10 list, so I am savouring the moment as I would the final swirl of 1997 Chianti.

The Power of The Sun

I have often secured coverage for those I represent in The Sun. Although rightly detested by anyone who remembers Wapping, Hillsborough or the days when they used to call gay members of the clergy ‘pulpit poofs’, it is still the largest English-language newspaper in the world. More than that, it is a place to run and win heart and mind lobbying campaigns. If you want to defeat some ridiculous piece of legislation, you use The Sun.

There is a case for saying that if left-wing campaign groups could put aside their prejudice and cannily construct stories which The Sun would feature, they could see some real successes. The complex dance of articulation between the title’s journalists and their audience is both pull and push. Be as snide as you want to be about the paper, but never underestimate its readership or its readers.

If upon landing in America I was ‘detained’ thanks to the little bit of trouble I got into with the CIA when writing Secrets & Lies, I would bloody well want The Sun campaigning for my release. Yes a lead in The Independent is nice when you are up shit creek, but the firepower of Murdoch is actually more useful. Especially when it is combined with The Sun galvanising an English mob to raise a fighting fund and ensuring pub conversations feature the line: ‘Those CIA are bastards, nabbing that writer just because he wrote about them sinking a ship in the Thames’.

Even though 1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die was always intended primarily as a book for Australia and Matt and I were not doing any publicity in Britain, The Sun decided to cover our publication. Under the headline: ‘Way to go!’ the story started:

‘Some people have had such bizarre deaths there’s a danger you could die laughing just reading about them.

A new book has rounded up hilarious true stories of people kicking the bucket in truly crazy fashion.

In 1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die by David Southwell and Matt Adams you’ll find tales such as …’

Before going on to use 15 entries from our book to make a feature.

The power of The Sun is such that from this single bit of coverage, suddenly Matt and I were suddenly appearing in papers across the globe. Our names echoing across titles in India, Thailand, Australia and the United States. There has been a nice bump in sales and the analytics for English Dreaming, English Rain are even more interesting than usual. Not exactly a case of ‘It’s The Sun Wot Won It’, but neither of us are complaining.

‘Frighted to Death by Faries’

To celebrate the publication of 1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die yesterday, below is an unedited draft of the final entry in the book, written by Matt, which is one of my favourites.

HISTORICAL HILARITY

Somehow it is reassuring to realise that ridiculous deaths are not restricted to the present day, as the discovery of an old parish burial register listing deaths from 1656-1663 in the parish of Lamplugh, Cumbria revealed.

Among the causes of death listed in it are such gems as the following: four people were ‘Frighted to death by faries’; another died after he was ‘Led into a horse pond by a will of the wisp’; 11 people died after catching a cold from ‘sleeping at Church’; two were done for by ‘Mrs Lamplugh’s cordial water’; a further two met their end ‘By the Parson’s bull’ and a couple of ‘Vagrant beggars’ were ‘worried’ to death by the Squire’s housedog; one man died after drunken duel ‘fought with frying pan and pitchforks’ while another life was claimed when, a man died in a fight ‘between a 3-footed stool and a brown jug’.

If nothing else, the register reminds us that death and the ridiculous have always been and always will be, a part of life.

That's All Volks

To celebrate the publication of 1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die yesterday, below is an unedited draft of one of the entries that did not make it.

THAT’S ALL VOLKS!

While researching this book it became clear to us we could have easily written a book called 101 Ridiculous Deaths Due To Autoerotic Asphyxiation. From rock stars to politicians to actors such as Albert Dekker, there is no end of idiots who have lost their lives thanks to a fondness for the sexual kink of ‘scarfing’. The attraction to this dangerous activity may be easier to understand when you know that the process of cutting off the air supply is meant to greatly increase the intensity of orgasm. Many of those who tried scarfing swear by cutting oxygen – more than somewhat essential to life – at the moment of climax, their pleasure is increased tenfold.

Of all the deaths due to scarfing we have come across, possibly the most ridiculous was first reported in the pages of the Journal of Forensic Sciences in an article on Autoerotic Fatalities in 1983. It recorded how one native of the state of New York went to a clearing in woods, got naked and tied one end of a chain to his neck and other to his Volkswagen Beetle. The 40-year-old airline pilot then fixed the car so that it turned in circles, forcing him to jog alongside it, the chain squeezing his neck if he did not keep up.

Unfortunately for the scarfer, the chain got caught around the back axle and he was pulled to the ground. Although he avoided the automobiles wheels as he skidded along, the chain tightened around his neck. Whether it helped him achieve a tenfold orgasm as it choked to him to death is just one of life and death’s little mysteries we are never going to be able to solve.

1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die – Introduction

To celebrate the publication of 1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die yesterday, below is an unedited draft of its introduction.

INTRODUCTION

‘To die would be an awfully big adventure’ – Peter Pan

In writing this book we have come to learn that death is arbitrary. Impersonal, uncaring and indifferent to any force you care to invoke for protection against it. Death can strike anyone at anytime. The thing most frightening is that while many of the deaths we chronicle occurred to ridiculous stupidity, an equal number of them happened due to ridiculously bad luck.

Accidents happen. Wrong time, wrong place. Nothing you can do to avoid it. When whatever archetypal figure of death you pull from your imagination comes calling – whether it is a classic grim reaper with scythe or a top hat-wearing Goth girl from the pages of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman – your number is up. In the end, the apparent arbitrariness of the universe is a lot scarier and harder to confront than the mystery of what happens to us when we die. However, you can almost understand why some cultures see death as the ultimate stalker when you read tales of people narrowly escaping one disaster only to be struck by another within seconds.

One strange thing about death we have noticed is what some people, including authors John Keel and Andrew Collins, have called the ‘Cosmic Joker’. At times it is almost possible to believe that there is some universal force which loves irony and playing with coincidence. What else can you do but laugh when you come across tales of an 18-year-old girl called Jennifer Squelch being crushed to by her horse or the high number of reports we came across of undertakers being killed by coffins.

Sometimes the moment of death is not ridiculous, but the bizarre path that leads up to it. While many would argue there are plenty of causes worth dying for, we doubt you would find anyone who would argue it was worth dying over a can of beer, burnt toast or the loudness of someone’s snoring. Yet as we have discovered, the fatal spirals that lead toward death start over the most ridiculous trivialities of life.

We have tried to ascertain the truth of every tale told here. At every turn we have tried to rule out friend of a friend stories, tried to exclude all manner of shaggy dog stories. On some of the most unbelievable we were surprised when our phone calls to the police and other authorities turned up the answer: “Yes, that really happened” or: “I did not see it, but my colleague was on that case.” Of course, for some entries the best we got was: “We have heard that happened, but I cannot personally verify it.” It will be certainly be interesting to try to explain to the taxman why we are claiming calls to everywhere from Dubbo to Uzbekistan, Henan Province to South Carolina on our expenses.

Almost every entry we have included could be tracked back to an original newspaper or broadcast media report. However, having both been newspaper news editors, we are well aware that not everything that gets reported is necessarily accurate. You would be surprised at just what a hard-pressed or lazy journalist will write and try to slip through a news desk. Some papers will unwittingly report urban legends as fact only for their faux story to be endlessly repeated in other publications by those too indolent to carry out even the most cursory of checks. However, if you are ever tempted to think that any death recorded here seems too preposterous just think back and remember that moment in January 2002, when George W. Bush, at the time the most powerful man on the planet, almost choked to death on a pretzel.

All death is a tragedy for someone. However, it seems to us that instead of retreating into the elements of our culture that see it as taboo subject or turn it in a complex dance of fetishes and mythology, laughing at its most ridiculous expressions is a healthier way to go. Of course, by saying that, we are now probably doomed to fall victims to the strange humour of the Cosmic Joker.

In our own lives, both of us have already faced moments when we could have exited the stage of life in manner ridiculous enough to gain an entry in this book. From falling into a bear pit to choking on a bit of carrot or getting death threats from members of the Albanian Mafiya, we have seen that death can lie just around the corner. The only sane response to this knowledge is to laugh, love and live as much as possible. As one of the entrants in this tome, Sherwood Anderson once wrote: 'Life Not Death is the Great Adventure.'

Ancient Greece to Dubbo

I am probably contractually obliged to mention that I have a new book out today. It is my first humour book since the vile crime against trees I wrote with Anne-Marie Forker. Another co-authored affair, this time I had the pleasure of working with Matt Adams – a good writer, friend and man who shares my dubious taste in what is funny.

Called 1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die, it does exactly what it says on the cover. Written primarily for Harper-Collins in Australia, it records 1001 ridiculous deaths. From the 8th Century BCE to May 2008, ancient Greece to Dubbo, if someone has kicked the bucket in a bizarre way, they are probably in our book.

Released in the British Isles today, it is not due out in Australia till November 1st, when Matt and I will be doing the publicity rounds. An American version is due for release in January 2009.