Time To Pay The Piper

Things were a little unsettled when I called into the Diogenes Club last week. There was a certain restlessness in the air, due in no small part to the fact that many of our number work in the City. The unprecedented turmoil in the world financial markets had even reached into the sanctury of the library. Manton was holding forth on some subject dear to his heart, and getting increasingly irritated by Travis fidgeting and looking nervously at his watch every 60 seconds, until the inevitable eruption occured.

"For God's sake Travis, you are like a ..." at which point Travis's phone rang, robbing us of yet another of Manton's colourful metaphors. Travis put the phone to his ear, listened, and with a muttered oath, ran out of the library. We watched through the window as he hailed a taxi and climbed in.

"Did my eyes deceive me, or did his face actually turn as white as a sheet?" said Abrahams, to no one in particular.

"It did. I thought that was just a figure of speech."

"It looks like it might be a busy day in the City."

"Treworthy, I've never thought of you as a master of understatement, but I can see now that we are in the presence of greatness" said Manton.

"Well, I know things are a bit lively at the moment.."

"A bit lively? I've just heard on the news one of the most important bankers in the world describing derivatives as 'Financial weapons of mass destruction'. I've heard how some of the richest companies in the world have turned out to be almost completely worthless - they have absolutely no assets at all, other than the buildings that they own. Banks are buying each other in the same way that most people buy hotels in a game of Monopoly. They are actually talking about a crash as big as 1929. Economists never talk like that. They are always trying to put a postive spin on things to stop the market from panicing. It's quite refreshing really. This sudden need for reflection and self-awareness. They actually seem to be in touch with reality for once."

"Manton, the economy is in a perilous state. You cannot possibly be happy about this state of affairs."

"Treworthy, I haven't enjoyed myself so much for years. I am only sorry that the Government lost it's nerve at the last minute and starting bailing out some of these charlatans. I think they should be made to face up to the consequences of their actions."

"Rubbish. You wouldn't plunge the global economy into chaos just to satisfy some juvenile wish for moral justice, surely?"

"I haven't plunged anything into chaos. They have. And they ought to be made to pay for it. Personally. The speculators have just been stupidly short sighted, but that's the nature of the beast. That's what we have regulators for. But they have been content to look the other way, or go through the motions of checking up on them, because they are enjoying all this money appearing from nowhere. The government have not bothered to ensure that the regulators do their job properly, or put into place laws to prevent it happening, because the richer that the City appears to be, the more likely they are to be re-elected. They are all as bad as each other."

"But if the economy crumbles, it will be ordinary people who suffer."

"Well that didn't seem to weigh too heavily on their minds when they were constructing these idiotic financial packages. Or maybe it is just possible that they are not incredibly intelligent people who are worth every penny of the bonuses that they are paid. Maybe they are short-sighted morons who don't give a damn for the society that they live in, or the people that they share the planet with?"

"Manton, you cannot hope to understand the complexity of the money markets..."

"They aren't complex. Money markets are very simple. They are deliberately made to appear complex, by these idiots, so that they can make themselves appear intelligent by making money appear from nowhere, without doing any useful work. Except of course, money doesn't appear from nowhere. It's just financial misdirection. Like a magician drawing attention to his left hand so that he can make the coin appear in his right hand. But sooner or later you have to pay the piper. The place where you really did get the money from will want it back."

"It's not that simple."

"Isn't it? Well let me tell you about a lady of my aquaintance, who wished to know what this sub-prime mortage crisis was all about. I explained it to her, and after thinking about it for a while, she said:

"It's a bit like the rummage sale that we do at the church hall, every month."

I, in my best patronising way, said: "I think it's a bit more complicated that the Women's Institute rummage sale, my dear." And do you know what she did? She made me realise that it isn't. She said:

"No, I don't think so. You see, at a rummage sale, you tend to sell scraps and small items in bags, and you always put some rubbish in to fill the bag up - otherwise you wouldn't be able to get rid of it. Most of the time, people don't mind getting a bit of rubbish if there are some decent things in there as well.
What's happened is, people have been buying bags without looking inside them. Then they have worried that they might have bought a bag that isn't really worth what they paid - but instead of opening it and finding out, they have just sold it on again, and congratulated themselves for making a profit.
And even more stupidly, even if they do look inside the bags, the contents are so mixed up and have been made deliberately obscure, that no one can possibly work out what they are worth anyway. Which means that now, everyone is too scared to buy anything."

"And I realised that she understood the situation all too well."

"Well, it's easy to be wise after the fact, Manton."

"Treworthy, I may not be an economist, but if someone asked me whether or not it is a good idea to lend money to people who have no hope of paying it back, I think that even with my limited financial acumen, I would have said no. I mean, I'm no biologist, but the notion of feeding crushed up diseased sheep carcasses to cows strikes me as slightly unwise."

"You don't really think that the country would be better off without the money markets, do you?"

"I don't really mind the money markets, as a way for rich people to get even richer. It's a bit like horse racing, or playing poker. As long as they pay the price when they do something really stupid. But you wouldn't want to base your entire economy on them, would you. I mean that would be complete and utter madness."

As Manton was speaking, Henry appeared at the door and glided over to stand by his chair.

"Ah Henry, your timing is as impeccable as ever. A fresh glass of whisky, if you please."

"I'm afraid I can't, sir."

"I beg your pardon." Manton looked stunned - as indeed did we all.

"It's a slightly delicate matter sir..."

"Never mind all that. Explain yourself, immediately."

"As you wish, sir. I'm afraid it's time to pay the piper."

"Time to...what the hell are you talking about, man?"

"Your club subscription, sir. The secretary wondered if you could drop by his office for a quick word. At your convenience, sir."

"Ah....good Lord. Has it come round again...I'll...er... pop and see him now, Henry. Thank you." The rest of us laughed heartily. It wasn't very often that we saw Manton at a disadvantage. He got up, searching for his wallet. "Henry, my dear fellow, I'm sorry if I was a little brusque just then."

"I can't say that I noticed, sir. When the secretary is satisfied, I will be happy to serve you."

"Don't worry Manton, the next drink is on me." said Treworthy, enjoying the moment immensely.

Count Down to the End of the World

We are not really a morbid bunch down at the Diogenes Club, though it is true that the conversations in the library can turn from the funereal practices of the ancient Egyptians to how best to murder your wife in the blink of an eye -all in a purely academic realms you understand. But this week it was old Entwhistle who set our minds racing along eschatological lines.

Entwhistle had been involved in some kind of hush-hush work for some government ministry or other during the war and it was said he had been behind the development of almost every atomic device the government had ever worked on. His services had often been used by those colonials across the atlantic who called upon ' The Prof ' (as they used to refer to Entwhistle) when they got bogged down in some of their more complicated mathematical theories. It has been said that the atomic bomb would never have been got off the ground without The Prof's intervention.

So it was with some surprise and alarm we learned that yesterday Entwhistle was talking about the end of the world because of the LHC.

None of us knew what the LHC was, but we knew it was serious because he had cancelled his copy of The Times.

"I think it's this new fangled machine jobby they are building at CERN," said Xeno, one of our more technically minded members.

"Yes I read about that," said Carruthers, "- the... Large something or other," he rumaged through the pile of old copies of The Times on table next to him. "Yes, here it is - the Large Hadron Collider. It says here it is a £5 billion pound machine that's 20 miles long and has taken 13 years to build and they are going to use it to smash particles together with cataclysmic force."

"What's the point of that?" shouted out Pridian.

"You're just a technological philistine," replied Xeno

Carruthers ignored the interupption. "It's a vast circular tunnel running under the French-Swiss border made up of more than 1,000 cylindrical magnets arranged end-to-end."

"What a bloody waste..." said Pridian.

"The magnets will steer the beam of protons around the ring at close to the speed of light and two proton beams will be steered in opposite directions around the LHC until they smash into each other."

LHC Large Hadron Collider

Yes, and that's the danger'" it was the Prof. "My calculations show that there is a real risk of the collider creating a miniture black hole."

"And what will happen if it does create one?"

"Oh, not much... to begin with. It will eat up anything it comes in contact with. First it will fall to the centre of the earth under gravity, eating everything as it goes. Then it will ocillate around the earth's core till it is all consumed. Then all that will be left of the earth is a crust that gets thinner and thinner until it all collapses destroying the earth. Next the moon will be sucked in and eaten, then Venus and Mars and the rest of the planets, and then finally it will be drawn into the centre of the sun and consume it from within."

"And when does all this happen?"

Switch on is Wednesday 10 September -tomorrow.

"How probable is all this?" asked Xeno

"I calculate a 1 percent chance."

"That seems reasonable odds."

"That's what the people at CERN said to me. An acceptable risk they called it."

When The Club Went World Wide

In the Sherlock Holmes stories, Conan Doyle describes the Diogenes Club as a place where odd and unsociable men go only to read the latest periodicals, all talk being forbidden. This was an exaggeration, but under the circumstances, the Club felt it was better to leave well enough alone, rather than risk drawing attention to activities which were, in both government and Club terms, unofficial and often diplomatically sensitive. Now, a century on, there is no longer a compelling reason to withhold the explanation as to what the great interest was in all that reading.

In 1891, a publisher named George Newnes had created The Strand Magazine, which quickly became the regular home for the Sherlock Holmes stories (he having first appeared in Beeton’s Xmas Annual). A self-made man from the Industrial North and a philanthropic exponent of “Muscular Christianity,” Newnes built a publishing empire with titles such as Tit-Bits, a popular-miscellany magazine now classed as a harbinger of ‘the New Journalism,’; the Review of Reviews, whose monthly digests of leading journals and magazines appealed to busy professional men; the Westminster Gazette (an evening paper printed on green paper); Country Life; and The Captain, one of those youth periodicals meant to inspire ideals of sportsmanship, fair play and Empire. (A Liberal MP from 1885 on, Newnes became Sir George in 1895, and a country gent with an estate in North Devon.)

Since 1891, The Strand Magazine has been the title familiar to Holmes fans the world over, but from it would come a longer-running spin-off, to which Club members frequently contributed, it soon becoming the most requested title in the Club library. This was The Wide World Magazine, which survived (later as plain “Wide World”) until 1965, outlasting The Strand by 15 years. Throughout the 1890s Newnes kept receiving articles from all around the world on travel adventures, colonial experiences, and the like, which didn’t fit in with The Strand’s cosmopolitan mandate. Such true-life outdoor adventure stories did find publication in other periodicals, but there was no magazine dedicated to suchlike. Thus in 1898 was born The Wide World Magazine, subtitled 'The Magazine for Men'. It has to be said this was nothing like the later American pulp men’s magazines, whose covers featured red-blooded action heroes and blondes in revealingly-ripped underwear, in some type of jeopardy such as Nazi torturers or crazed beasts.

WWM contributors included authentic explorers like the African explorer Stanley, and keen-minded travellers like Conan Doyle himself, who had wide-ranging interests. Most were amateurs contributing a single article on their experiences abroad, and each issue had articles describing first-hand experiences all over the globe (helpful diagram map provided each issue). Club members would lap up articles like ‘Queer Scenes in Sumatra’, ‘The Hasheesh Smugglers Museum’, ‘Savages At School’, ‘How We Hid The Nihilist’, ‘Klondike Pictures’, ‘The Queerest Fire Brigade In The World’, ‘Rock Climbing In Great Britain’, ‘Across Europe Without A Passport’, ‘The Motor Cab School’, ‘My Cycle Ride To Khiva’, and ‘How I was Buried Alive.’ These are all examples from a single bound volume, representing the first half-year’s worth.

The magazine’s commitment was to strange-but-true stories, but from the outset it was beset by the problem of verifying whether any given submission was indeed true, and they were soon the victim of hoaxes. The very first year, WWM’s ‘How I was Buried Alive’ by one Baron Corvo, proved the work of a now-famous literary fantasist, Frederick ‘Hadrian VII’ Rolfe. The same year was the more spectacular case of the self-proclaimed ‘King of The Cannibals’ who in a year-long series of WWM articles told how after being marooned off NW Australia he had spent 30 years among the aborigines. Newnes got the Royal Geographic Society to agree to sponsor talks by the author, Louis de Rougemont, and circulation soared. However certain details (like a reference to flying wombats) made knowledgeable club members suspicious, and they alerted Newnes, who foolishly tried to brazen it all out. The author soon proved to be one of those types who reinvent themselves every year with some new scheme, and was known to the Australian police as Louis Grin. It turned out Grin had added to his knowledge by spending time in the British Library Reading Room – something that helped convince the Club Secretary to stock all the major periodicals – not just The Wide World.



Newnes personally brought over a selection from his publishing empire for the Secretary to peruse. Of course it was Wide World that was most avidly read, with its focus on expeditions to remote territories – and the fact Club members would often know the authors. They would sit there for hours over a pot of coffee, entranced by accounts like “Exploring The Skeleton Coast,” “Australia's Mounted Police,” and “Killer Cats Of British Columbia” (to use 3 examples from one issue). The Reading Room, which was not large, would soon fill up, and even the front lounge was given over to reading rather than talking. The quite clubbable Conan Doyle had visited the Club one day in 1890 (the Secretary wanted him to join) and saw this for himself, later calling this behaviour “queer” in print. (The great man joined several other clubs, including the most prestigious, the Athenaeum.) Club members, who were often self-educated, self-made men like George Newnes, clearly did not think so, but did not try to change this view.

One reason for being circumspect was that in those days, travels to remote districts were often a cover for intelligence work. Too often, travellers who kept diaries and sketchbooks or took photographs were arrested as spies, and some indeed were. Newspaper tycoons would openly finance expeditions with political ambitions, and even try to stir up colonial wars. (Many readers will be familiar with US tycoon William Randolph Hearst’s role in helping foment the Spanish-American War of 1898, and Evelyn Waugh’s satiric novel Scoop, based on his experience as a war correspondent in 1930s Abyssinia.) Similarly on the exploration front, Stanley’s explorations to find Dr Livingstone were backed by a newspaper (Gordon Bennett’s New York Herald), which led to the Belgian king offering him a chance to run the Congo as a slave colony.

Over the years, there were endless press-involved expeditions to remote regions from Asia to the Poles - any of which might lead to a diplomatic claim to the territory, accusations of spying, and possibly even a war with rival powers. In 1898, to help kick-start WWM, Newnes had financed an Antarctic expedition, after the Royal Geographical Society spent years in political wrangling over details, and had himself filmed seeing the expedition off. Ironically, the news was knocked off the front pages by sensational tales of the hoaxer Louis de Rougemont, by then taken up by other newspapers. But there would be another six decades of Wide World expeditions, some no doubt with covert backing – and the help of other well-placed Club members. For a long time “DC” was not used just the Club’s initials, but was short-hand for “Decent Chap” – a man you could trust with your life (and who wasn’t afraid to smoke a pipe either).

A few of these Club-backed expeditions have become legendary within the Club portals, and now the protagonists are all safely dead, perhaps we can recount a few tales someday soon... Such behind-the-scenes arrangements have mostly never come to light since the archives of Wide World, which included correspondence with many great men of the time, mysteriously disappeared during WWII, after they were put in “deep storage” during the 1940 invasion scare. Perhaps it is no surprise they never resurfaced. There would have been Whitehall concerns that colonial history would have to be rewritten in places. Even today, the entire clutch of issues raised by the WWM - what was real, what was propaganda, who was financing an expedition, what its real aims were etc - remains touchy. The compiler of a recent reprint-anthology (an English lecturer described as “long obsessed with the treasure trove of Wide World Magazine”) had to use a pen-name to protect his identity, and his anthology, published by Macmillan, vanished from print so quickly that searching for it on Amazon showed no results.


Another sensitive factor was the secret existence from 1898 to 1948 of the WWB – The Wide World Brotherhood, set up 'to treat fellow members as brothers and, if need arises, give them any help possible'. Until 1949, the WWB was kept a secret from ordinary readers, known only to contributors. Among these were of course many Club members, who were able to use it when in remote ports, on expeditions and cruises often diplomatically sensitive and not officially supported. After 1949, the WWB was turned into an organisation open to any reader who undertook its guiding principle of helping other Brothers as “a solemn pledge.” The magazine explained “The WWB is a fraternity of men and women of goodwill, linked by the common bond of a love of travel and adventure.” The magazine also published looking-for-pen-friends lists, so members could contact one another.

There was no fee, the only cost 5 shillings for a discreet gilt and enamel buttonhole badge to identify oneself to others in the Brotherhood. There was a brooch for lady members, of whom there were soon a surprising number (it turned out they were being encouraged to join by love-starved bachelor Brothers.) These identification pins could of course be worn strict school-uniform style, i.e. on the underside of the lapel, if discretion was wanted. You also got a certificate of WWB life membership, and could also purchase a pure-silk WWB tie (British-made, of course) and silk ‘muffler’ cravat. There were also heraldic-style shields and seals that could be variously mounted around den or office. Motoring members could obtain a windscreen sticker and a pennant that bolted onto the radiator cap.

Throughout the century, the world became less and less an unknown region, and soon the magazine became more for the armchair ‘adventurer’ (and today, a nostalgic collectable). The WWB developed a domestic version, becoming the basis of small local social groups here in England. They would meet in corners of quiet pubs and go on modest outings by motor car into the depths of the countryside - much as we still do today.

Old Peculiar

http://www.flickr.com/photos/roonbaboon/2093860966/

I was sitting in the library at the Diogenes Club the other day, when the conversation turned, unsurprisingly, to books. Manton reminded me that it was my turn to recommend a book for the shelves. The club library is maintained from the subscriptions of the members, but there is a tradition that each member in turn must choose a book or books, and justify that choice to his fellow members. If the choice is approved, then library funds will be used to buy a copy for the shelves.

Funnily enough, I had been waiting for the right moment to introduce to my fellow Diogenerians London's longest serving and most unlikely pair of detectives: Arthur Bryant & John May. There are six books in the series, but if I had to choose one as representative, I would probably pick 'Seventy-Seven Clocks'.

Christopher Fowler writes tales of urban unease - not exactly horror, and not quite supernatural - set in a London that most people only catch momentary glimpses of, out the corner of their eye. His city has never quite shaken off it's violent, blood-soaked past, and despite the shiny high-rise office blocks and brightly lit footbridges, it is in the dark alleys and deserted tube stations that he finds his stories.

Arthur Bryant and John May have been members of the Metropolitan Police's 'Peculiar Crimes Unit' since it was set up by Churchill's government at the start of World War 2. The PCU's somewhat vague remit was to tackle any crimes that might cause social unrest, or a lowering of national morale - obviously something which had to be prevented at all costs during the dark days of the blitz. They often found themselves tackling high-profile, possibly politically sensitive crimes, cases which the regular police force did not have the experience or training to cope with.

Indeed, some of their cases were so sensitive, that even sixty years on, details have yet to be released by the National Archives. There are some in Whitehall who say that the world will never be ready to learn the truth about the Deptford Demon, or the secret underground rivers of St Pancras.

Although both of them are now clearly beyond statuatory retirement age, no one seems to know exactly how old Bryant & May are - their records were 'lost' when they moved to their current offices above Mornington Crescent tube station - and they show no signs of wishing to retire. They have always refused to accept promotion and insist on tackling crime 'on the street', something which has not endeared them to their superiors. The acting head (since 1973) of the Peculiar Crimes Unit, Raymond Land, has repeatedly complained to them about the way that they treat their colleagues as equals, the lack of a proper management hierarchy within the unit, and the way that they are always asking completely unqualified outsiders for advice, but all to no avail. The fact that Bryant invariably calls him 'Raymondo' when speaking to him does little to placate him.

On the surface, Bryant and May make a very strange partnership - they are not alike in character or appearance, and they frequently get on each other's nerves.

John May looks younger than his years. He dresses smartly, is computer literate, interested in the latest developments in criminology, and has a freshness of outlook that he attributes to being a life-long admirer of Rousseau. Perhaps as a result of this, he still has no shortage of female companions, however, due to a disasterous misjudgement during a case, that led to the death of his daughter and the break-up of his marriage, he has never really felt able to settle down with anyone else.

By contrast, the only woman in Arthur Bryant's life is his long-suffering landlady, Alma Sorrowbridge, a God-fearing woman who has put up with his carnivorous plants, occult paraphernalia and lethal chemical experiments for decades, possibly because she sees him as a lost soul, one that it is up to her to save.

Bryant leads a more ascetic lifestyle, usually clothed in a selection of worn-out cardigans, under an overcoat of indeterminate age, with something that might once have been a trilby on his head. He makes no attempt to understand anything about the world of technology, and is continually warned about his inability to follow procedural guidelines - much to May's horror, he has a nasty habit of picking up evidence before it has been cleared by the forensic scene-of-crimes officer, saying simply 'We didn't have to worry about that sort of thing in my day', if challenged.

To date, he has managed to destroy or lose seventeen mobile phones, and the police force's IT department have stopped giving him a laptop computer since he somehow managed to reprogram the main Police transmitter so that it could only receive selections from the Pirates of Penzance. He also has a habit of playing vicious practical jokes on his line managers, usually in response to their complaints about his repeated failures to write up his case notes in the properly approved fashion. Simply muttering darkly that 'it's best that you don't know the truth' just seems to irritate them even more, which is, of course, why he does it. It also turns out to be true, most of the time.

Rather than relying on fingerprints and DNA testing, Bryant tends to ask for help from slightly more unorthodox sources - Maggie Armitage, Grand Order Grade IV White Witch and leader of the Coven of St James the Elder (North London Division) is an old friend who has provided help on more than one occasion. He also sometimes calls upon the services of the Insomnia Squad, a loose-knit group of academics, librarians and other rogue intellectuals, who spend their nights on-line, discussing anything that takes their interest, from pagan nature mysticism to quantum computing, before returning bleary-eyed to their jobs in London's museums and art galleries.

Rather worryingly, it is that sort of help that often proves most useful, given the sort of cases that the PCU investigates. Their unique combination of knowledge, skills and experience make Bryant & May ideally suited to tackling London's peculiar crimes.

There are six books in the series.

Full Dark House
The Water Room
Seventy-Seven Clocks
Ten Second Staircase
White Corridor
The Victoria Vanishes

More information can be found at: http://www.christopherfowler.co.uk

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'.