The Astounding Story of the Brain of Dr Morbius

One of the reasons that none of us is too specific about the the location of the Diogenes Club is, to be brutally honest, because we want to keep it to ourselves. This is not for any reason of elitism on our part, far from it. It's simply a matter of self-protection. The fact is that once it gets out that a collection of writers, editors, scientists, philosophers and a newspaper proprietor are meeting together, it inevitably attracts all manner of weird and wonderful people who just want to have someone listen to their latest crack-pot ideas.

We are always very happy to welcome guests as long as they have been vouched for by a fellow member but one thing that none of us can abide is the gate-crashers who pick up on our meetings and weigh in with their own peculiar and strident views. We have been the target of all manner of Conspiracy Theorists who have been kidnapped by aliens, Knight's Templar hunters who have discovered the Grail, Bogus Scientists who have invented a perpetual motion machine and the woolly minded who just know the Truth is out there.

Though it was said to me, in all earnestness, by someone who met a few of us recently, that they thought the four best minds in the country congregated at the Diogenes Club (modesty prevents me from naming the individuals so identified) I wouldn't want you to think that all our conversations were highly erudite and intellectual. It's true you may find the odd conversation here and there about the nature of Time or the workings of the grand unified field theory, but you will also hear about the history of the seaside or the films of David Lean or even the building of garden sheds. And in the reading room together with well thumbed copies of The Times, you will also find some of our more interesting provincial newspapers such as the Hengistbury Head Times.

One thing that may surprise you is the club's most widely-read journal (which used to be the The National Enquirer - that hotbed of unbelievable truth, alas no longer with us) is now past issues of Astounding Stories, which has to be admitted does contain some elements of fiction. I think the reason for the popularity of this particular magazine among club members is the resonance it produces, as much of the goings-on in and around the club are not too dissimilar to the kind of events that you read about in Astounding Stories. In fact many of the club's more interesting events have ended up (rewritten and anonymize of course) among the pages of that august journal.

One example which came to mind recently was the strange tale of the brain of Dr Morbius. Morbius or Professor Morbius F.R.S. to give him his full title, was one of the founding members of the Diogenes Club. He was well known within his own academic circles as the greatest living expert on arthropods - every genus, family and species he had personally committed to memory due to his extraordinary facility of having a true photographic memory. From the age of 2 he had shown the most astounding ability in being able to remember word for word everything he had seen or heard. Every book, every newspaper article, every parliamentary debate he had ever read or heard was at his total recall.

Many is the time he would sit in the long gallery of the club and entertain the members by reciting, word for word, any part of Great Expectations, or The Old Curiosity Shop or any other book which he had read. He would just start at any chapter you named and without book or paper or any aid would just recite the whole thing with complete accuracy. You would inevitably have some members checking him with the book open in their hands but never once did anyone hear him make a mistake even though he had not read some of those books for over 20 years.

And his facility with hearing was just as astounding. He could recall exactly every word of a conversation that he had heard, even if it had taken place years before and lasted many hours. I recall the time when often Dr Morbius would be called to settle some argument in the Club about who had said what last week. You know the kind of thing, one member would accuse the other of having said so and so and the other would say he never did. Morbius would be sent for, and if had been present his pronouncement would settle the matter unequivocally.

Of course as you might expect, Dr Morbius' abilities became centrally important to the running of the club. All the rules, amendments, deliberations, protocols, commentaries, minutes, membership rolls and decisions of the club were stored in Morbius' head. You could go so far as to say that Morbius was the club - so reliable was he that he eclipsed every other form of record and eventually no other form was used. And this was the how things persisted for many years.

So it came as a great shock to the club to discover one day that Morbius had consulted his doctor only to find he had been diagnosed with an incurable complaint and was give just 6 months to live. Being a methodical and practical person it was professor Morbius' desire to ensure that all his effect were in order before the 6 months were up. But things are not so straightforward with a person like Morbius. What would become of all the archives held in his brain? He started at once writing down everything he recalled of the club's activities into a set of journals. But it was soon realised that even if Morbius was to spend all his six months transcribing everything in his head, he would only be able to cover a small part of it. Still Morbius pressed on believing it his duty to the members to at least record as much as possible.

Being the scientist he was he began to conduct investigations into other ways of preserving the information in his brain. And it was not long before he came up with an astounding but nevertheless practical plan. He addressed the assembled members one day "I have given the problem much thought. The disease that is in my body is not affecting my brain in any way. So I have come to the conclusion that the best way to protect the brain from the body is to sever one from the other.

A gasp went round assembly. "What do you mean professor?" called out a voice.

He looked at us solemnly. "With any serious illness you have to cut away the diseased part. I my case that means cutting away the body in order to preserve my head and my brain. It makes clear logical sense."

"No one can survive if they have their head cut off," shouted Carruthers, rather stating the obvious.

"I am not proposing to cut off my head, but rather cut off my body. There is an important difference. It is not my head I am proposing to throw away." He smiled benignly. "I have looked into this whole matter very carefully. My head shall be preserved in a machine that will supply all the necessary blood and nutrients. It is all rather simple and straightforward from a scientific point of view and I have already engaged my colleagues at University College Hospital to begin constructing the machine. I have calculated that with 12 pints of blood and the appropriate filters and glucose and enzyme injectors the machine would run without problems. With your approval I propose that my head will be bequeathed to the Club who will look after it here."

And so it was. A quick resolution of the club members agreed that Dr Morbius brain with all its essential information would be preserved for the club and for posterity. Within the month the procedure was scheduled. A team of surgeons from UCH came and after an eight hour operation the professor's head was duly removed and place in the machine. Apparently it was quite a straightforward procedure. It was just a matter of connecting the veins and arteries to the appropriate pipes and pumps that took away the blood, cleaned and filtered it, added the appropriate level of hormones, enzymes, vitamins and nutrients (mostly in the form of simple glucose) and the task was completed.

The machine itself was where all the complexity lay. It had to perform all the tasks that the various organs in the human body did. Top of the list was the liver with over 500 functions. But there are also the functions of the kidneys, pancreas, spleen, adrenal glands etc to duplicate. Fortunately not all functions are as vital as others and the medial team reduced the total number to 27 essential processes that the machine could perform. However even 27 processes take up a lot of space which meant the machine was of a serious size and had to be installed in a dedicated room that was given over by the club to the sole purpose of storing the head. Later on it became possible to create a more portable machine that the brain could be transferred to and wheeled around from room to room. But the brain could not survive long in the portable machine and had to be transferred back to the main critical-support unit within 8 hours or necrosis would begin.

I don't know what we were all expecting to see once the transfer had taken place but I can tell you that the vision of a disembodied head staring out at your from above a rack of technical equipment was unnerving for even the hardiest of the members. One or two could not bear to be in the same room as 'the head' as they called it. Some had even been physically sick when first confronted by it. What Morbius himself would make of it we could only guess.

At first there was little in the way of communication. The head made no movement and seemed asleep or even dead, so little happened. But we were assured by the medics that all was well and we needed to give Morbius' head time to recuperate from the ordeal. Then around 10 days after the operation the eyes flicked opened and stared unresponsively back at anyone who care to look into them. It took another day or so before I noticed that the eyes started to follow people around the room. Progress was swift after that.

It was the next day that communication was established. I suppose most of us were thinking that Morbius would just start talking when he was good and ready but it was not so simple as that. To talk you not only needed a pair of vocal chords but also the diaphragm and lungs to push the air over them in a controlled way. But Morbius had neither.

Blinking was the only means of communicating to begin with. We set up a simple code, once for yes, twice for no, and different blinks for other words, but the whole thing was damnably slow.

"Are you alright, Professor Morbius?"

Blink

"Is there anything we can get you?... do for you?"

Blink, Blink.

It was Morbius himself who, through this tortuous means, eventually suggested that we run a line of compressed air from the critical-support unit in through the severed neck and over the larynx and by a method of trial and error and with a good deal of patience Morbius was able to talk again. So successful and rapid was the progress with restoring the voice of Morbius that a closed club meeting was announced for Morbius' first public appearance.

"Thank you all gentlemen for coming," began the head. The words didn't sound human, more mechanical and aspirated with a gentle hiss of air in the background. "The experiment has proved a complete success and I am very pleased with the outcome. As far as I can tell, all my faculties remain fully intact and completely under my control. My memory is still as comprehensive as ever it was and my powers of recall are total. And I am please to put all of this at yours and the clubs disposal."

An appreciative murmur circulated around the assembled throng. "Let's hear it for Dr Morbius! Hip Hip Hurray!" Everyone cheered. I looked over at Manton who had always deprecated these kinds of shows of enthusiasm which he said were artificial, but I noticed even he joined in on this occasion.

Well it was not long before the brain of Morbius was again at the centre of the Club's activities. It became a daily routine each morning to detach the head from the critical-support unit and place it on the portable unit. In order to spare the sensitives of those members who could never come to terms with shocking sight, it became customary to place a black silk cloak around the whole apparatus buttoned right up to the neck of Morbius' head. This gave the impression of some kind of conical body below the head that glided smoothly on wheels. In this fashion Morbius was moved from room to room to partake in the day to day running of the club. He even spent some time in the long gallery enjoying the informal conversion of club members who dropped in.

And in this way Morbius continued to take part in the life of the club, though what sort of life it was only Morbius could know. On the surface he seemed at ease with his new situation and said the he felt more like a machine than a human being and that suited him fine - though a few of us who knew him well did not believe that. Being more machine, than human enabled him to think more clearly he told us. It gave him a detached view of things - a less emotive view. But I thought that I caught sight of those emotions he sought hard to suppress, cross his face now and again. Often we would see him with what I took to be tears in his eyes but which he assured us was no more than a fluid mis-adjustment in the support machine. However one thing that no one could doubt was that Morbius' brain was more creative and productive than ever. But whether by design or accident it was one of Morbius' brilliant innovations that brought everything crashing to an end.

Morbius had realized in his disembodied state that the storage capacity of his brain was, if not infinite, at least much larger than had been understood and could accommodate much more information than he had so far fed into it. He also learned that the processing speed of his brain could be greatly increased allowing information to be fed into his brain at 10, 20 or even a 100 times the rate he had previously. And as there was very little else that Morbius could other than acquire information, that became his main goal.

This lead him to the design of what he called his 'brain cramming machine' It worked rather like a huge reel to reel tape recorder. The idea was simple. He could employ people to read books for him, encyclopedias, novels, textbooks, everything directly onto the recording machine and then he could listen to it playback over the loudspeaker at 100 times the speed it went in. No one else could understand the sound that came from it, and I dare say Morbius himself couldn't understand the sound in real time either. But he found that it all lodged in his memory and when he mentally played back the unrecognisable sounds to himself and slowed them down appropriately in his head he could understand everything and had access to all the information in compressed form.

And so the process began of assistants recording everything they could lay their hands on. They spoke directly into the recorder and Morbius would listen to the playback in 100th the time and remember it all.And that was how it all came to an abrupt end.

As I said before, we don't know if it was an accident or not but if it wasn't then I can confidently say that only Morbius himself could have thought of this as a way of ending it all. He instructed his assistant to leave the recording facility switched on. The assistant was quite adamant about that in the later inquest. Morbius then instructed him to switch on the playback, turn the volume up and leave the room immediately and silently. This he did without question, not knowing what it was for or what the effect might be.

It was only an hour or so later that he returned to find Morbius dead and with his eyes staring unresponsively straight ahead. There was a high pitched whine coming from the recording/playback machine which clearly had entered some kind of feedback loop. It appeared from the investigation later that Morbius had spoken some words into the recorder and with the loudspeaker switched on those words had been speeded up and heard all over the laboratory. The compressed words were then pick up again by the recorder and came out of the loudspeaker even faster and so the loop went on louder and louder and faster and faster. Round and round it went through the recorder and out the other end till the information became a whirring blur of sound. Morbius of course heard all of this and it was fed directly into his brain at increasing speed. It seems that some kind of limit must have been reached and a mental overload occurred. Metaphorically it blew a neurological fuse.

The inquest ruled that it was just a tragic accident. Death by misadventure. But I am not so sure. A couple of days after the inquest, I went back into the lab and I fished out that final message that had been screeching out of the machine and did my own analysis on it. I wanted to know if that sound held any clue to what had happened. I had to run it backwards through the recorder for around an hour before I could make sense of it. It was Morbius himself speaking. It wasn't much but it was enough.

Morbius' last words were unmistakable. He had spoken ten simple words that had wrapped themselves up into a torrent of information repeated over and over again. "I am not a machine, I am a human being".

Identity Crisis

"Good God!" boomed Manton, as I handed my coat to Henry, "Look who the cat's dragged in."

"Hello chaps." I said, shaking Travis's hand, "long time no see."

"I should say so. Where the devil have you been?" Without waiting for an answer, Manton switched his attention to the empty glass in his hand, "HENRY - another round of drinks, if you please."

I turned to the smartly dressed man who was sitting next to Manton.

"Hello there, Treworthy. Is Abrahams not here?"

"No, he seems to be running a little late today. He and Manton have been..."

The rest of his sentence was drowned out by Manton.

"Never mind about Abrahams, old man, where have you been hiding yourself for the past 3 months?"

"All over the place. I'm not sure where to start." I leaned back in my chair, gratefully accepted the drink offered to me by Henry, and tried to organise my thoughts.

"Well, the first thing was that I've had to find myself new digs - spent most of March looking for a property and April trying to get the money side sorted out. Seemed to take forever - and then all of a sudden I found that I had to move in a bit of a hurry."

"Why so?" asked Treworthy.

"Well, Travis tipped me off - he said that the credit crunch was going to really start to hit home soon, so if I was going to move, I needed to get on and do it, as soon as possible. I had wondered if it was worth waiting for prices to fall, but he pointed out that there wasn't much point in prices falling if no one was going to be able to get a mortgage for the next couple of years, so I decided to take the plunge."

"Along with the housing market and possibly the global economy - although you can still get a mortgage if you can afford a crippling interest rate and a 25% deposit." added Travis, helpfully.

"Which I can't - so I appreciated the warning."

"Think nothing of it old chap - I shall accept payment in the form of a small measure of pure malt, later on in the evening."

"It will be my pleasure. And then, just after I had got all that settled, I had to make a short trip abroad - mainly business."

"When you say mainly...?" enquired Treworthy.

"Well, Prentiss did ask me to also have a discreet look at a few places while I was out there. A bit of prep for a forthcoming expedition, by all accounts."

"You were spying, in other words." said Treworthy, who did not try to hide his disapproval. He had a slightly puritanical streak to his character, and disliked what he called 'sneakiness'.

"My dear Treworthy," interrupted Manton, "if a chap asks another chap if he would mind taking a few snaps during an entirely legitimate business trip to another country, and if the other chap does so, and gives copies of his snaps to the first chap when he gets back, and if the first chap should coincidently have some minor position at the Foreign Office, I fail to see how you could construe it to be anything more than one chap helping out another chap."

"I suppose it would be indelicate of me to ask which country it was." asked Treworthy.

"Almost certainly, although I don't particularly mind. Let's just say that the back streets of Ulan Bator no longer hold any mysteries for me." I lifted my glass to my mouth again, trying to think of some way to get them off the subject before they started asking too many questions.

"Anyway, what have I missed - what great topics have occupied the most incisive minds that the Diogenes club can boast?"

Manton was about to answer when I saw his attention shift to the doorway. Abrahams entered the library, shrugging off his overcoat into Henry's waiting hands.

"Thank you Henry. My usual drink if you please."

"At once sir."

"Ah, Abrahams, at last." said Manton "I was starting to think that you had lost your nerve."

"Most certainly not, Manton, most certainly not. If you will wait until I have my drink, we can continue."

"Of course, my dear fellow."

I leaned over to Travis. "What's going on? What's all this about?"

"Oh, it's Identity Cards. Abrahams has been trying to convince Manton that they are a good idea. Without much success so far, it has to be said, but for the last month or so he's been coming in every week with a new argument."

"To continue where we left off, Manton," started Abrahams, in his best lecture-theatre voice, "are you saying that the Government has no right to know who is living in this country?"

"The Government is always, without fail, a corrupt crowd of vain, egotistical, self-serving fools who are incapable of seeing past the next election - and it doesn't matter which side of the house they sit on."

"Alright, let's say the state. Do the state not have a right to know who is making use of their services?"

"Of course, and there are already an ample number of ways for them to find those things out. Driving licences, credit cards, bank statements, birth certificates, store membership cards ... do you want me to go on?"

"But think how much easier it would be for them to check up on suspected criminals and terrorists, if everyone was required to carry around an identity card."

"It may well be easier for them, but the state should be here to make our lives easier, not the other way round. Besides which, checking up on someone's identity should not be easy, and it should not be made easy. It should be difficult."

"Rubbish."

"Abrahams, you are an academic. When I was a research student, we were told, over and over again, never to trust a single source. You should always try to find several sources and use them to verify each other. That way you can increase the likelihood that you haven't made some soft of awful mistake. The same thing applies here. If a policeman thinks that all he has to do, to identify someone, is check their ID card, he will start to trust it too much. Which means that if I have an ID card which identifies me as Richard Nixon, and everyone has come to rely on ID cards too much, that is who I will be, to all intents and purposes."

"Manton, the card will contain biometric information...."

"It doesn't matter what biometric information is on the card. I am not criticising the technology on the card, I am criticising the human beings who will be using the card as an excuse not to think. That is the danger. If I am carrying a card with my name on it, all it proves is that I have a card with my name on it."

"I am sure that adequate safeguards will be put in place."

"Why?"

"For goodness sake Manton.."

"What makes you so sure? Look, last year, I read a story about the website of Oklahoma Department of Corrections, which was so badly designed, that it was possible to access any data that was stored in the database from any website in the world. Which is worrying anyway, but the database contained the state's sexual and violent offender registry, as well as details of any offender that had been sentenced to probation or incarceration in the Oklahoma state prison system. There were even worries that it may have been possible to not just see information, but also insert, delete or alter existing records. Even if I trusted the technology, I most certainly do not trust the people that are setting up or using it. How may CD's or laptops have been lost? How may reports have been written lamenting the way that data is handled by large corporations or government departments?"

"There are plenty of competent security experts out there, Manton."

"Agreed. Perhaps the Government should consider employing them, instead of the cack-handed cowboys that they currently seem to favour."

"You know as well as I do that if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear..."

"Abrahams...." Manton tripped over his words, and then seemed to have trouble breathing as he struggled to bring his fury under control. "I cannot have a serious conversation with someone who talks like a Daily Mail editorial. Even you cannot be naive enough......God, give me strength...."

I leaned over to Travis: "Look at Manton's face....what would you call that colour.......crimson?"

"Hmmm...interesting. Possibly vermillion?"

"Yes, vermillion - I think that might be it."

"I hope he's not having a seizure."

"Abraham's isn't doing this on purpose is he, just to wind him up?"

"No, no, impossible." He took a thoughtful sip of his whisky. "If it was either of us I'd say almost certainly yes, but Abrahams isn't capable of that sort of sarcasm. Everything with him comes down to logic. Reminds me of a maths master at my prep school. He worked out the statistical likelihood of being knocked off his pushbike by a car, and injuring his head, and as a result wore a motorcyclist's crash helmet every time he rode to work. This was a long time before bike riders started wearing those helmet things, and so we all thought this was hilarious - made fun of him at every opportunity. But he didn't care, because it was the logical thing to do. Everyone else just thought he was wildly eccentric. Abrahams is the same - he really believes what he is saying is true."

"Abrahams," spluttered Manton, who had almost recovered, "have you ever seen the film 'Brazil'? Due to a computer malfunction, the wrong person is carted off for interrogation and executed. The state is very apologetic but explains to his wife that she will still have to pay the state for his interrogation. I used to think it was a comedy...."

"There will be obviously be safeguards - biometric information, encryption...."

"Anything that one man can invent to prevent unauthorised access, another man will be able to crack, given sufficient time and resources. Call it Manton's first law."

"That statement is highly...."

"But let's say that the data on the card is secure, and it can't be copied or altered, and nobody loses their card, and a massive black market in stolen or forged cards doesn't develop, and everyone only carries around their own card and no one elses. Just for the sake of argument."

"And?"

"Well, an ID card scheme is only as good as the database that supports it, and the Government's track record with databases is, and I'm being charitable here, a complete and utter BLOODY SHAMBLES!"

I decided to interrupt, if only to give Manton's blood pressure time to go down.

"Yes, come on Abrahams, you must admit that they don't seem too good at looking after data."

Manton had taken some deep breaths and gulped down another huge mouthful of whisky.

"Just explain one thing to me, Abrahams. How exactly does this identity card prevent terrorism? For most of my teenage years we lived under the threat of a mainland bombing campaign by the IRA, but we seemed to manage without identity cards. What is different this time? I can see how they might make civil servant's lives easier, but I'm astonished that any politicians think that it is a good idea - even Jim Hacker could see the warning flags a mile off. I really would like to know. I haven't heard one politician or civil servant or police officer answer that question. What do they enable the state to do, that the state can't do already?"

Before Abrahams could answer, Henry appeared at the door, and announced "Dinner is served, Gentlemen."

"What do you think Henry?" asked Treworthy. "Would it make your job easier if every member of the Diogenes Club had to produce an identity card in order to prove their identity?"

The merest hint of a frown flitted across Henry's normally imperturbable features.

"There would be no need for such a system, sir. I am able to address each of the 2,459 members by name and can tell you what their preferences are with regard to drink, food and newspapers, without recourse to any artificial aide-memoires."

"Well said, Henry" said Manton.

"Thank you, sir."

"There, you see, Abrahams? What we need is more chaps like Henry. Much better than some bloody identity card scheme. Allow me to buy you a drink."

"Ah well, I can't argue with that, Manton old chap." said Abrahams, wincing slightly as Manton slapped him on the shoulder and guided him towards the bar.

The Strange Death of David Kelly

While we are on the subject of murder, Carruthers reminded me the other day that we are not strangers to political assassinations here in Merry England. He had been reading a recent book by Liberal MP Norman Baker called "The Strange Death of David Kelly". This was the British weapons inspector who fell foul of both the Bush administration and our own Blair Governement by contadicting them. He expressed doubts that Iraq had any weapons of mass destruction and they certainly couldn't launch them in 45 minutes. Two key points that both governements had used to whip up support for the war.

By all accounts a week later, the weapons inspector was found dead in a wood propped up against a tree. His left wrist had been slashed and in his pocket were three blister packs of coproxamol tables. Twenty-nine of the thirty tablets had been removed. A half empty bottle of mineral water lay just within reach. As did a penknife. All seems clear on the face of it. Dr Kelly had sat down against the tree, swallowed the 29 tablets with the water and then used the knife to sever the artery in his wrist. And there he died.

However closer inspection threw up a number of strange anomolies. There are 12 things which are hard to explain:

1. His left wrist had been cut from little finger side to thumb side - a very difficult way to cut your own wrist (try it), but a natural way for someone else to cut your wrist for you.

2. Despite the wrist cut, there was very little blood at the scene. The two people who discovered the body did not even know he had cut his wrist despite the fact that pints of blood should have been everywhere. This suggests he had either been cut elsewhere or was already dead at the time.

3. Although 29 coproxamol tablets were missing, only half a tablet was found in his stomach.

4. There were vomit stains visible on his face but these ran horizontally from the corner of his mouth to his ear giving the impression that he had been lying on his side when he vomited, but here he was upright against a tree, which suggest he had been moved into that position.

5. According to a friend Dr Kelly had an aversion to swallowing tablets.

6. A coproxamol overdose is not a quick death and can take up to 3 days and may include convulsions and liver failure. Dr Kelly as a chemist would have known this.

7. When the body was found rigor mortis had not set in suggesting that he died sometime on Friday morning. In which case where was in in the ten or so hours after leaving his home?

8. Another curious thing. There is a police file on the incident which has not been released. Only the cover page of the file is public and contains the codename and date of the operation: "Operation Mason. Start 2.30pm Thursday 17 July, Finish 9.30am Friday 18 July" The finish time is shortly after Dr Kelly's body was found. However the start time is half an hour before he left his house and well before he was reported missing. How did the police know about the events before they happened?

9. The position of the water bottle was ten inches from Dr Kelly's left shoulder which is curious as he was right handed and he would have found it awkward to place it there. It would be much more natural to have placed it to his right, by his right hand.

10. The amount of water left in the bottle suggested that not much had been used. Certainly not enought to drink down 29 tablets.

11. There were no fingerprints on the water bottle or the knife. Not even Dr Kelly's. And he wasn't wearing gloves.

Of course all this may add up to nothing. It may be just a collection of curious coincidences in the same way that it may be just a coincidence that the timing of his death was less than a week after he had contradicted Bush and Blair and put the proposed war with Iraq in jeopardy by his insistance that there were no weapons of mass destruction and there is no 45 minute deployment. He was one of the few people who knew the real facts.

Oh, but I did say that there were 12 strange and unaccountable things about this death so I owe you one more.

12. A few weeks before, Dr Kelly told a trusted friend that if he goes on like this, he expected to 'end up dead in a wood somewhere'.

JFK - Assassination Solved

At the monthly meeting tonight, the collective minds of the Diogenes Club were challenged by Carruthers to finally settle the matter of the Kennedy assassination. It has been rumoured for a number of years that the Diogenes club has inside information on most world events but a careful scrutiny of the club archives revealed that the relevant pages had been mysteriously torn from the book. However this did not prevent Carruthers from presenting his theory.

"The least important information is to do with how many gunmen?... was there anyone on the grassy knoll?... did Lee Harvey Oswald fire the shot?... was he shot from the front or the back? All of that is irrelevant insisted Carruthers. What really matters is who was behind it? Not who pulled the trigger. But who ordered the shooting? Who planned it? Three pieces of evidence point to a government planned killing.

The first is a confession. The real evidence can only come from an insider who alone can tell what happened. Was there such a person? Yes. Howard Hunt - a top man at the Whitehouse. He made a deathbed confession in which he indicated that the main person who benefited from the assassination was the man who planned it. Lyndon Baines Johnson. He and a CIA man, Clyde Tolsen, whose wife Kennedy had taken as one of his mistresses was also involved.

The second is from LBJ's mistress, Madeline Brown . She tells that there was a violent hatred between JFK and LBJ that has never been fully told. On the day before the killing, she said LBJ had a meeting with Howard L. Hunt, J. Edgar Hoover, Clyde Tolsen, Richard M. Nixon, and John J. McCloy. "The group immediately went behind closed doors," she said, "and a short time later Lyndon, anxious and red-faced, reappeared... Squeezing my hand so hard, it felt crushed from the pressure, he spoke with a grating whisper, a quiet growl, into my ear, not a love message, but one I'll always remember: "After tomorrow that Son of a Bitch will not embarrass me any more. That's not a threat its a promise".

The third is the action of the CIA men who were supposed to protect JFK. Video footage shows them being told to stand down before the shot, to their own obvious bewilderment, leaving JFK less protected at the vital moment. Furthermore, in the hospital, the moment JFK was pronounced dead CIA men wheeled the body away to prevent an autopsy and detailed investigation. The lead doctor barred the exit and tried to stop them, but he was flung bodily against the wall and they pushed their way out with JKF's body.

Carruthers was quite convinced that he had solved the crime. And I think I have to agree.
PS: Three men dressed as 'tramps' were found in a rail car in Dallas leaving town at the time of the assassination. They were detained for questioning but later released. It appears that one of the 'tramps' was none other than Howard Hunt.

PPS: By another 'coinicidence' Richard Nixon was also in Dallas on the day of the assassination.

Let's mount an expedition?

At the most recent meeting of the Diogenes Club our sedentary wonderings and epicurian excesses made me think, when did we last actually discover anything new.

Or do I mean old.

For example, no-one apparently has found the remains or tomb of Temujin, better known as Genghis Khan, (1162- 1227) the legendary Mongol empire builder. This surely could be a task for at least some desk research, if not an expedition to garner some treasure, at least in the form of his DNA.

An excuse might be that it would be an expedition into oil bearing territories that might be of use to Western and Eastern governments seeking new plunder and/or old myths to exploit as we near a scenario of “peak oil” when we will be looking for new connections and alliances based on any fragment of similarity.

For we are all brothers. And sisters. When the oil runs out.
This phenomenon of helping those in peril seemed to operate with the recent earthquake in nearby China. We need to exploit our connectedness.

But I note that the director of the most recent Genghis film was thrown out of Mongolia for failing to get the record straight. Genghis Khan, the Master of the Blue Wolf, is revered there. Artistic licence is one thing, exploitation another, but our common heritage needs emphasis in troubled times.

And the Diogenes Club has always wanted to pay homage to the oral tradition, not just by academic training, but by instinct, for whilst error and falsehood may be repeated, so too may truth kept alive at the knee of ones ancestors and the traces they leave behind in our memories.

Millions of people (some 16 million males at least,) carry the Y chromosome unique to Genghis Khan, just as certainly as we know he was responsible for the violent deaths of 18 million people in his conquests.

As beachhutman I, even, apparently share this genetic lineage, so I felt I should explore this birthright that I share with so many.

That is one man in every 200, never mind the female descendants (who pose problems of evidence for the geneticists).

Genghis Khan was a slave once. I hate slavery. My real name, Tim Baber, given to me by my parents aware of this tradition, both reveals and conceals a custom any such connection is worthy of even only idle consideration.

Personally I have always believed the milkman is a useful antidote to such harpings, but DNA can now reconstitute a tortuous trail over the centuries. And with milkmen numbering perhaps 1 in 200 men (I made that up) this might explain their calling, for whilst Khan had many wives, he was enthusiastic in his attentions to other women. Milkmen share this trait by tradition. I share this trait. Now we know Y.

There are arguable links of lineage between Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Tamurlaine, Babur and Vlad the Impaler. The trail and my family’s research gets a bit fuzzy thereafter, despite the evidence of some 16, 17 or 18 million males (that is, depending on when the research was validated).

See http://www.oxfordancestors.com/genghis_khan.html

This offers some confirmation and how testing was achieved dispelling much doubt and ignorance, which are equal enemies of progress and illumination. Of course, it might cost you over £200 to get this particular satisfaction in the form of a DNA test. And even then Diogenes might ask, So What?

After most conquests in which the men were slaughtered the most beautiful women were kept for the Khan ensuring little doubt that the mechanism worked. There is some doubt of course about his DNA, his grave has yet to be discovered, hence the Diogenes efforts being mustered to establish some veracity here.

This is in the face of some secrecy in the past. Legend records the escort of the body killed anyone that strayed across their path, so as not to reveal the burial place.

The favourite location is apparently today Mongolia. I am watching events closely, and gathering research and contacts to grace my desk; This literature search is prior to a bid to the Diogenes Club to fund future expeditions.

Kubilai Khan was Genghis’s great-grandson and he managed to add 30 virgins to his harem each year, so a patrilineal pattern would emerge, wouldn’t it.

Despite that bald fact it used to be said a virgin (a woman) carrying a bag of gold could walk from one end of his empire to the other and remain completely unmolested.

On the other hand he did slaughter 18 million lives to establish his own progeny. He is quoted as having said:

“The greatest happiness is to scatter your enemy, to drive him before you, to see his cities reduced to ashes, to see those who love him shrouded in tears and to gather into your bosom his wives and daughters”.

Did I say he was my role model? Well the bit about others being shrouded in tears seems unnecessarily cruel.



I suspect the later introduction of Buddhism to Mongolia may have been a mixture of softening warlike tendencies and social engineering, and guess what, I would be right, according to one source I have consulted.

Various diseases and attempted monkish serfdom has had a part to play too, according to the same source, but here I am erring into the realm of politics, conspiracy theories of history and war, we should focus on the DNA, the Khan, and leave the speculation over the genetic contribution to warfare to others who actually do understand such things. This is just a bit of flag-pole waving, you understand, based on a few tantalising glimpses of areas to understand.

Of course Mongolia today is still a place of extremes. Drought can wipe out 25% of the gazelle population in a month, sending 20,000 to face death (becoming entangled recently in the border fence with neighbouring Russia).

Mongolia ‘s population is half nomadic even today, and probably find fences as annoying as I do today, (the damn things limiting my freedom and anyone else’s). I live on an island, what do I want with a fence?

The nomads (literally scratching a living from the earth or their cashmere goats) under this stunning Asian sky face winter temperatures of 40 degrees below zero and if anything things are getting worse year on year for their survival.

At the moment as I write there are 15 wildfires threatening life and property that would destroy everything and anything that has survived this long. Do we read about this in the media here, No! Yet this land needs exploration. It offers much by way of explanation of what we are, what we were, and what we may become.

Now, with the benefits of Range Rovers, satellite imagery and location finding, and modern expeditionary technology, we may even attract sponsors for such a Diogenarian enterprise with the otherwise preoccupied Mongolians.
The focus I suggest, genetic research combined with archaeology could be a skein behind which much could be revealed.

This is very much virgin territory for the West, few encounter this part of the world these days, but as I say, technology is catching up and the Diogenes Club, no slouch in its long history, should consider this question.

The Diogenes Club may have contributed to adventures in the region in the past, some yet to be found in the library, but focusing on establishing the grave of Genghis Khan seems a timely act as old and new superpowers tussle with Mongolia’s past, present and future. It might build us all up and unite us, as he once did with his empire.

Unfortunately there are signs that the treasure for the superpowers are the countries raw materials and global economics are going to pursue a path that results in a tragedy of the commons. This might be something of a rescue dig… a rescue of our common past.

The Diogenes Club seeks to extract not mineral wealth or exploit human labour, but respect the great mans last wishes, that:

” If my body dies, let my body die, but do not let my country die.”

He is, after all, a part of 1 in 200 of just our male population, so if his contribution was a poor one, we are the poorer for copying the evil that he did. We should seek the truth, not so much for any nation state, but to countenance the truth in ourselves. We are his country. We breathe the same air, something the Olympics will experience in Beijing as Mongolia’s savage dust storms are heading that way this month at least.

Of course, the oral tradition Khan’s remains are in today’s Mongolia is not without fresh challenge. Unexpectedly the oral tradition of his strong genetic links with northern Pakistan have been unexpectedly newly proved by the science, so nothing should be ruled out.

These are early days.

A fortuitous article on a similar endeavour that fell into my in box was about nearby Taklamakan. Trust me, you should follow this link,

http://barista.media2.org/?p=2971

now that you have laboured through this idle conjecture of mine. Barista is worth some attention, even if they hail from the other side of the world. We are all connected now.

Perhaps that is the real treasure of this piece, and if nothing else my wanderings were to prepare you for this new slant on world history, where NOTHING is what it seems, and EVERYTHING was more once than it now is. The trick is to go back and unravel the past to realise what we have become involved chance and choice.

The Diogenes Club could chose to ignore this subject. This is a chance to pool together not just our genes, our garlic or our wine, but our future, dismantling the fences that will trap us in our petty nation-states.

Genghis demonstrated desire and motivation to succeed, yet sought the failure of others.

He said famously,: "It is not sufficient that I succeed - all others must fail."

The secret is to seek the success of others, for we are all connected and we need to keep our enemies close to ourselves, for they are his sons, and our brothers. They may be our allies in the turbulent times ahead. And as for the daughters and wives, …they too are our sisters, it is just the proof is a little hazy for them, so we should spare them our aggression most especially. I have come to the conclusion overnight that the Y chromosome encouraging conquest and domination needs to be countered by the kinds of kindness Buddhism can inspire in the human heart for the success of others.

The Inner Diogenarian

Last month, conversation turned to how many of us had refused to buy a TV set, leading to warning letters and then home visits by sceptical HM Inspectors looking to take us to court for failure to buy the official TV-viewing license. They simply could not believe anyone could survive without watching TV. And of course the newspapers encourage this view by uncritically printing official press releases from Her Majesty’s TV Licensing Inspectorate about the numbers of cheaters, and the endless lies they tell trying to pretend they don’t have a TV. While most people now believe one cannot survive without television, we here at the Club tend to differ in this, as in other things in life. Television today, we agreed, simply does not provide the same inner sustenance, the balance between a comfortable sense of continuity with the past, and exciting new ideas, which we recalled from our youth.
... We were also lamenting how we rarely go out to the cinema anymore, as the sound levels are ramped up to 150 decibels to cover the incessant jingles of teenagers’ mobile phones. Out of this came the idea we should have our own Film Evening. We would set aside an evening to view old films dedicated to the values we support – in short, a simple, better life beyond the horizons of consumerist thinking, and excessive modern bureaucracy.
Pridian suggested stiff-upper-lip British war films celebrating the value of stoicism in times of danger and privation. Dr Phil said we should show vintage British comedies of the sort we all fondly recalled from our youth, evoking nostalgic memories of happier times, before we knew what we now know about the world. There were many of these, and he said he would put up a list of ten [see post below] to help us select one. Zeno, as befits his name (meaning stranger or foreigner), said we should also have the odd foreign film, to which we assented, to demonstrate we were not too insular in our tastes. Beachhutman spoke of how stories featuring trains carried a lot of symbolic traffic, so to speak. And so, on this wave of enthusiasm, it was all arranged.
There would also be a meal beforehand, to sustain what travellers’ accounts used to call “the inner man.” It was Harris of course - trying to stir up trouble as usual - who suggested we have exotic dishes. He reminded us how our Victorian predecessors on expedition would have to eat everything and anything to survive. Indeed this was the test of a true Diogenarian – to live off the land, so to speak, away from civilised comforts, which can require a strong stomach. He reminded us of Buckland, the great Victorian man of science who made it his life’s work to eat one of every species – exotic (panther, crocodile etc) as well as British. (He said the vilest-tasting here was a toss-up between stewed mole and boiled bluebottles.) He also got hold of the heart of Louis XIV, preserved in a silver casket, and ate it for a boast. Harris also mentioned Clarence "Bugs" Birdseye, the American who invented the frozen fish finger, and patented the modern frozen-food industry, via his Birds-Eye Foods. In college he had boasted he would eat any species, and during WWI was sent secretly by the US Government to the British colony of Labrador, where he learned the secret of successful freezing of food from the local Eskimos. He said one could eat anything, demonstrating by trying polar bear, beaver tail, lynx, mice, chipmunk, gopher, packrat, and skunk - the front half of which, he said, was excellent.
Neither of these two show-offs was ever a Club member, and so it was to Harris’s surprise we agreed unanimously. For we knew this would ensure Harris himself would not attend, he being strictly a beefsteak and two-veg sort of fellow, who could never stomach a more adventurous menu. (Sure enough in the event, he left a message saying he could not come as one of his cats was poorly, having swallowed a furball.)
... Thus the evening began with a suitably Diogenarian meal. An outdoors barbecue was planned, but the prospect of rain forced us indoors, where the club kitchen was soon filled with the appetising smells of smoke and burning flesh. For, as a tribute to the other, lesser-known Diogenes, who explored the source of the Nile in classical times, the menu included crocodile-tail steak. Croc tail of course has to be cooked at high temperatures to eliminate any pesky tropical parasites. (And if you’re wondering, it tastes like a cross between fish and pork, and looks like a pork chop, due to the bony spine.) There was also an ale-tasting ceremony to choose from a selection of finest English ales. I believe the winners here were the slightly “hoppy” Hopping Hare and the gingered-up Blandford Fly (actually the name of a notorious local biting fly, to remind us of the discomforts of tropical expeditions).
But of course “the inner man” is not sustained only by satisfying one's innards, but by inner contemplation. So we repaired to the Library, where a projector had been set up to show films in a gap on the wall over the fireplace, between the shelves of oversize rare books. There we watched a thought-provoking film, whose name at present escapes me, due to the after-effects of the ale-tasting. (I seem to recall, before lapsing into post-prandial somnolence, it featured the sight and sounds of some wonderful old steam locomotives.)
All in all, a splendid time was had by everyone who attended, and other such evenings are now planned, with a programme of vintage black-and-white films, to be selected by each member in turn.

Ten Funniest Moments in British Comedy

As I was sitting in my favourite armchair at The Diogenes Club and tucking into a plate of buttered crumpets I heard old Carruthers chortling away. We all looked up from our copies of the Times and and Manton asked him what was up. He said the funniest line he had heard in any movie was from a strange man with a black moustache and a big cigar who had said "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it".

Well we all looked at him strangely but then this led us to a club discussion as to what were the top British comedy moments on either the big or small screen. No one could agree so I thought I would record here my own personal top-ten list for posterity. I am sure other members would have a different list. Here are mine in reverse order:

10 Morecambe and Wise
Andre Previn: "You're playing all the wrong notes!"
Eric(menacing):"I'm playing all the RIGHT notes...just not necessarily in the right order!"

9 Kenneth Williams - Carry on Cleo
Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it in for me!

8. John Cleese - Fawlty Towers, The Germans
Fawlty: "You started it............."
German Guest: "No we didn't"
Fawlty: "Yes you did! You invaded Poland!"

7. Monty Python - The Holy Grail
ARTHUR: Does your master want to come with us to search for the Holy Grail?
GUARD: Well, I'll ask him, but I don't think he'll be very keen... Uh, he's already got one, you see.
ARTHUR: What?
GALAHAD: He says they've already got one!
ARTHUR: Are you sure he's got one?
GUARD: Oh, yes, it's very nice-a (I told him we already got one)
ARTHUR: Well, um, can we come up and have a look?
GUARD: Of course not! You are English types-a!
ARTHUR: Well, what are you then?
GUARD: I'm French! Why do think I have this outrageous accent, you silly king!

6 Dirk Bogarde - Doctor in the House
The great Sir Lancelot Spratt is asking his students about the time it takes blood to stop flowing from a cut.
Sprat: "You! What's the bleeding time?"
Sparrow: [looks at watch] "10 past 10"

5 Tony Hancock - Twelve Angry Men
Hancock makes an impassioned plea to his fellow jurors.
Hancock: "Does Magna Carta mean nothing to you?... Did she die in vain?"

4 Will Hay - Ask a Policeman
Granddad: "I think I'll have a sweet. Want one?"
Will Hay: "Yes, I'll have a blackcurrant." He pops it in his mouth
Granddad: Spitting out his own sweet, "Eee, blackcurrant!"
Will Hay: "What's the matter? don't you like them?"
Granddad: "No! I always put them back in the bag"

3 Arthur Lowe - Dad's Army
Private Pike has just sung an insulting song about Hitler to a captured U-boat crew.
U-boat captain, "What is your name?"
Mannering: "Don't tell him Pike!"

2 Moore Marriott - Oh Mr Porter!
Will Hay and co. put their watches on on a railway line when the engine starts to role forward and crushes the watches to pieces. Harbottle picks up the crushed watch and holds it to his ear.
Harbottle: "... it's stopped!"

1 Tony Hancock - The Blood Donor
"A PINT? That's very nearly an armful! I'm sorry - I'm not walking around with an empty arm for anybody.”