Literally, Bonseki means “tray rocks.” Bonseki are miniature pictures of the natural world made from nothing more than white sand and small rocks on a black tray.
The art of Bonseki is said to have developed in the 7th century with the Emperor Tenmu who would use a tray and sand to create images of the world around him. It may be that Bonseki was invented as a way of creating images or temporary blueprints of gardens that were being planned. Very temporary – the sand and rocks are not fixed to the tray can can be easily erased.
This is not a flaw in the art but part of its charm. Sitting over the tray and moving grains of sand with a feather is a contemplative act. As one school of Bonseki says “The importance of Bonseki is the peaceful feeling and satisfaction you derive from creating a Bonseki scene and not the result of the work.”
«The Purloined Letter» was written by Edgar Allan Poe. The storyteller is Shep O’Neal.
Poe is generally known for his horror stories. This is the third of three stories he wrote about Auguste Dupin and how he solves crimes. The story first appeared in 1844 in a yearly magazine. It was reprinted in many publications, newspapers and books. This is one of Poe’s stories that influenced the development of the modern detective story.
The Purloined Letter
Purloin [pɜːˈlɔɪn] похищать.
Purloined [pɜːˈlɔɪnd] похищенное.
Puff [pʌf] пыхтеть, дымить, попыхивать.
One evening in Paris, during the autumn of 1845, I went to visit a friend, Auguste Dupin. We were smoking our pipes and talking when the door of his apartment opened. Mr. Germont, the head of the Paris police force, came into the room.
«I came to ask your advice,» Germont said to my friend Dupin. «I am trying to solve a very important case. It is also a very simple case, so I really need your help. But I thought you would like to hear about it, because it is so strange.
«My men and I have worked on this case for three months,» Germont said. «It is a very simple case of robbery. But we still cannot solve it.
«Dupin took the pipe out of his mouth. «Perhaps the mystery is too simple,» he said.
Germont began to laugh. «Too simple?» he said. «Who ever heard of such a thing?»
I looked at Germont. «Why don’t you tell us the problem?» I said.
Germont stopped laughing and sat down.»All right,» he said. «But you must never tell anyone I told you this.»
«The wife of a very important person needs help. I cannot tell you her name, because her husband is a powerful man in the French government. Let us just call her Madame X. Three months ago, someone stole a letter from Madame X. She is offering a large amount of money to anyone who can return the letter to her.
«We know that her husband’s political enemy, Mr. D’Arcy, stole the letter. We also know it is somewhere in his apartment. D’Arcy plans to use the letter to embarrass Madame X’s husband and destroy his political power.
«As you know, I have keys which can open any lock in Paris. For the last three months, my men and I have spent every evening looking for the letter in his apartment. But we cannot find it.»
Dupin stopped smoking. «Tell me how you looked for it,» he said. Germont moved forward in his chair.
«We took our time,» he said. «First, we examined the furniture in every room. We opened all the drawers. We looked under the rugs. We searched behind all the paintings on the walls.
«We opened every book. We removed the boards of the floor. We even took the tops off the tables to see if he had hidden the letter in the table legs. But we cannot find it. What do you advise me to do?»
Dupin puffed on his pipe. «What does the letter look like?» he asked.
«It is in a white envelope with a red stamp,» Germont said. «The address is written in large black letters.»
Dupin puffed on his pipe again. «I advise you to go back and search the apartment again,» he said.
About one month later, Germont came back to see us.
«I followed your advice,» he said. «But I still have not found the letter.»
Dupin smiled. «I knew you would not find it,» he said. Germont became very red in the face. «Then why did you make me search the apartment again?» he shouted.
«My dear Germont,» Dupin said. «Let me tell you a little story. Do you remember the famous doctor, Louis Abernathy?»
«No!» Germont shouted. «Get to the point, Dupin!»
«Of course! Of course,» Dupin said. «Once, a rich old man met Abernathy at a party. The old man was not feeling very well. He decided he would get a medical opinion from the doctor without paying for it. So he described his problems to Abernathy. ‘Now doctor,’ the old man said, ‘suppose you had a patient like that. What would you tell him to take?’
«‘Oh, that is quite simple,’ said Abernathy. ‘I would tell him to take my advice.'»
Germont looked embarrassed. «Look here, Dupin. I am perfectly willing to pay for advice.»
Dupin smiled at Germont. «How much money did you say the reward was?» he asked. Germont sighed. «I do not want to tell you the exact amount. But I would give fifty thousand francs to the person who helps me find that letter.»
«In that case,» Dupin said, «take out your checkbook and write me a check for fifty thousand francs. When you have signed the check, I will give you the letter.»
Germont looked at Dupin with his mouth open. His eyes seemed to jump out of his head. Then he took out his checkbook and pen, and wrote a check for fifty thousand francs. He gave it to Dupin.
My friend examined the check carefully and put it in his pocket. Then he unlocked a drawer of his desk, took out the letter, and gave it to Germont.
The policeman’s hands shook as he opened the letter. He read it quickly. Then he put it in his pocket and ran out of the room without saying a word.
«Dupin!» I said, as I turned to my friend. «How did you solve the mystery?»
«It was simple, my friend,» he said. «Germont and his policemen could not find the letter, because they did not try to understand the mind of the man who stole it. Instead, they looked for the letter where they would have hidden it.
«Mr. D’Arcy is not a policeman. He is, however, very intelligent. He knew the police would search his apartment. He also knew how police think. So, he did not hide the letter where he knew they would look for it.
«Do you remember how Germont laughed when I said the mystery was difficult for him to solve because it was so simple?»
Dupin filled his pipe with tobacco and lit it. «Well, the more I thought about it, the more I realized the police could not find the letter because D’Arcy had not hidden it at all.
«So I went to visit D’Arcy in his apartment. I took a pair of dark green eyeglasses with me. I explained to him that I was having trouble with my eyes and needed to wear the dark glasses at all times. He believed me. The glasses permitted me to look around the apartment while I seemed only to be talking to him.»I paid special attention to a large desk where there were a lot of papers and books. However, I saw nothing suspicious there. After a few minutes, however, I noticed a small shelf over the fireplace. A few postcards and a letter were lying on the shelf. The letter looked very old and dirty.»As soon as I saw this letter, I decided it must be the one I was looking for. It must be, even though it was completely different from the one Germont had described.»This letter had a large green stamp on it. The address was written in small letters in blue ink. I memorized every detail of the letter while I talked to D’Arcy. Then when he was not looking, I dropped one of my gloves on the floor under my chair.
«The next morning, I stopped at his apartment to look for my glove. While we were talking, we heard people shouting in the street. D’Arcy went to the window and looked out. Quickly, I stepped to the shelf and put the letter in my pocket. Then I replaced it with a letter that looked exactly like it, which I had taken with me. I had made it the night before.
«The trouble in the street was caused by a man who had almost been run over by a horse and carriage. He was not hurt. And soon the crowd of people went away. When it was over, D’Arcy came away from the window. I said good-bye and left.
«The man who almost had an accident was one of my servants. I had paid him to create the incident.»
Dupin stopped talking to light his pipe. I did not understand. «But, Dupin,» I said, «why did you go to the trouble of replacing the letter? Why not just take it and leave?»Dupin smiled. «D’Arcy is a dangerous man,» he said. «And he has many loyal servants. If I had taken the letter, I might never have left his apartment alive.»
Angel Hair is a rare phenomenon that has so far defied explanation. It is made up of silken threads that rain down on to the earth, but reach out to touch it and it will almost certainly vanish before your eyes. It is seen world wide, mostly in North America, New Zealand, Australia, and western Europe.
Angel hair was witnessed during the 1561 celestial phenomenon over Nuremberg and also at the Miracle at Fatima on 13 September and 13 October 1917.
The most widely known incidence occurred in Oloron, France in 1952, when «great flakes» were reported as falling from a nearly cloudless sky.
On October 27, 1954, Gennaro Lucetti and Pietro Lastrucci were standing on the balcony of a hotel in St. Mark’s Square in Venice and seeing two «shining spindles» flying across the sky leaving a trail of the angel hair.
There is no known proof for what causes this substance, or even what it is made up of. Speculations are that it comes from spiders or another type of silk-spinning insects, and even UFO’s as it has often been associated with UFO sightings. Because of its sensitive nature, it has been difficult to collect, and to analyse as it is subject to contamination from car exhaust fumes, and even human contact, which could skew the chemical results.
Children are seemingly not safe in Japan, either, especially since a demon named Eight Feet Tall uses a masculine voice to call out “Po . . . Po . . . Po” in an attempt to lure kids between the ages of 9 and 11.
Eight Feet Tall (aka Hachishakusama) often takes the form of a 244-centimeter-tall (8’0”) woman with long black hair. She wears all white and no shoes.
She stalks children for several days or even months. When she spots a gap, she grabs the child to torture and kill him. Sometimes, Eight Feet Tall takes the form of a trusted family member to lure a child away faster.
William Archibald Spooner is forever locked into history because the linguistic phenomenon known as a “spoonerism” is named after him. A spoonerism involves the accidental (or sometimes intentional) swapping of letters, words, or vowels in a sentence – for example: “Go and shake a tower” (meaning “go and take a shower”).
Spooner was a professor at Oxford and he became so famous for his spoonerisms that people would attend his lectures just to hear him make a mistake. He was not pleased about the great publicity that surrounded him but as he neared death his attitude softened and he gave interviews to the press. Spooner not only got his words wrong: he once wrote to a fellow professor to ask him to come immediately to help solve a problem. At the end of the letter he added a post-script that the matter had been resolved and he needn’t come.
Some spoonerisms attributed to Spooner are:
«Mardon me padam, this pie is occupewed. » — Pardon me, madam, this pew is occupied.
Can I sew you to another sheet?” — Can I show you to another seat?
“Let us glaze our asses to the queer old Dean” — Let us raise our glasses to the dear old Queen.
“When our boys come home from France, we’ll have the hags flung out” — When our boys come home from France, we’ll have the flags hung out.
«Is it kisstomary to cuss the bride?» — Is it customary to kiss the bride?
«The Lord is a shoving leopard.» — The Lord is a loving shepherd.
«A blushing crow.» — crushing blow.
«A well-boiled icicle» — A well-oiled bicycle.
«You were fighting a liar in the quadrangle.» — You were lighting a fire in the quadrangle.
«Is the bean dizzy?» — Is the Dean busy?
«You have hissed all my mystery lectures. You have tasted a whole worm. Please leave Oxford on the next town drain.» — You have missed all my history lectures. You have wasted a whole term. Please leave Oxford on the next down train.
This encounter occurred in 1961, the same year as the UFO sighting above East Mountain in Vermont. It was also one of the earliest publicized reports of abduction by beings from another planet. Betty and Barney Hill claim to have been abducted by extraterrestrial beings on the night of September 19 during their journey home to New Hampshire. While on the road, they saw a light flash in the sky. They initially thought that it was a shooting star but quickly changed their minds when they saw the light begin to change direction. They then decided to pull over in hopes of getting a better view of this unusual light. Using binoculars, they discovered that the light was actually an unusual ship flashing lights of all colors.
After seeing this, the couple drove off and continued to head home. As they traveled, the couple noticed that the aircraft was descending closer to their vehicle. They estimated that the aircraft was about 12 meters (40 ft) long. The UFO dropped so close to their car that they stopped. This time, Barney was able to see humanlike or humanoid figures in black uniforms through the windows of the ship. Startled, the couple took off again, this time at much faster pace! They then began to hear noises emanating from the UFO while experiencing a tingling sensation throughout their bodies. The couple then blacked out and awoke nearly 56 kilometers away from where they originally were.
After enduring this frightening experience, both Barney and Betty Hill later gave statements (under hypnosis) that they were taken onto the UFO and were examined by the extraterrestrial beings that occupied it. Today, there is sign near the area where the Hills were abducted, describing the event that reportedly took place that night in 1961.
I think you know the English word “famous”. If someone is famous, it means that everyone has heard of them, that they are well-known. So, Beethoven was a famous composer, and the Eifel Tower is a famous landmark in Paris. But, suppose that someone is well-known for bad things and not for good things. Can we still say that they are “famous”? There are two words which we can use to describe someone or something which is famous for bad things – “infamous” and “notorious”. So, we would probably not say that Hitler for example was “famous”, we would say that he was “notorious”.
This is a long way of introducing today’s podcast, which is about the most famous – or perhaps the most notorious – crime in Britain in the last 100 years. It happened 45 years ago, in August 1963. In those days our Post Office used to send mail from one part of the country to another in special mail trains called Travelling Post Offices. During the journey, the Post Office staff sorted the mail so that it was ready to be delivered the next morning. Some of the mail was valuable. For example, the banks used the mail trains to send banknotes around the country.
In the summer of 1963, a group of criminals planned an attack on one of the Travelling Post Offices. They interfered with the railway signals in order to stop the train. Then they uncoupled the railway carriage which contained the banknotes, and used the railway engine to take it to a place where the railway crossed a bridge over a road. They threw 120 packages of banknotes over the bridge to other gang members, who loaded them into Land Rovers. The gang escaped with over £2.5 million pounds in used banknotes. This is equivalent to over £40 million today. It was at the time the biggest ever robbery in Britain.
A few days later, the police found the gang’s hideout, in an isolated farmhouse. And in the weeks after that, the police found and arrested 13 of the 15 gang members. They were tried, and sentenced to long periods in prison. However, most of the stolen money has never been found.
The story did not end there. Two of the gang members escaped from prison. Charlie Wilson fled to Canada. He was eventually brought back to England and to prison. Ronnie Biggs fled first to France, then to Australia, and then to Brazil. The British police found where he was, but they could not persuade the Brazilian courts to send him back to England. So Ronnie Biggs lived in Brazil for more than 30 years. He had a home and a family and friends there. But in 2001, when he was 71 years old, he returned to England. He said that he wanted to “walk into a pub as an Englishman and buy a pint of bitter“. In other words, he was home-sick. I do not know if he was ever able to buy his pint of bitter in a pub, because he was arrested and sent back to prison, where he still is.
The story of the Great Train Robbery has fascinated the British public over the years. Our newspapers reported every detail of the robbery, the capture of the gang, their trial, the escapes from prison and Ronnie Biggs’ return to England. Only a few weeks ago there were reports that Biggs, who is now old and ill, would shortly be released from prison. Why are we so interested in the Great Train Robbery? Some people sympathise with the robbers. They think that the Great Train Robbery was a clever, daring plan, and that the robbers were unlucky to be caught. Ronnie Biggs is the most famous (or the most notorious) of the train robbers, and many people therefore think that he was the mastermind behind the plan.
The truth is more complicated, however. The robbery was not particularly clever. Ronnie Biggs was not the leader – in fact he played only a small part. The gang was too large – 15 people in all – which increased the chances that one of them would do something stupid. They had planned to drive the train themselves to the bridge where they unloaded the banknotes.
But after they had stopped the train, they realised that they did not know how to drive the engine, so they made the real train driver drive it for them. And they left their fingerprints all over the train, and the farmhouse where they went after the robbery. So, was the Great Train Robbery Britain’s most famous crime? Or the most notorious crime? What do you think?
Father Urbain Granadier was a French Catholic priest who was burned at the stake after being convicted of witchcraft. He served as priest in the church of Sainte Croix in Loudun, in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Poitiers. Ignoring his vow of priestly celibacy, he is known to have had sexual relationships with a number of women and to have acquired a reputation as a philanderer.
In 1632, a group of nuns from the local Ursuline convent accused him of having bewitched them, sending the demon Asmodai, among others, to commit evil and impudent acts with them. At his trial, the judges, after torturing the priest, introduced documents purportedly signed by Grandier and several demons as evidence that he had made a diabolical pact.
They were written backwards in Latin and even included the signature of Satan himself. The text of the pact read as follows (the original can be seen above – click for a larger view):
We, the influential Lucifer, the young Satan, Beelzebub, Leviathan, Elimi,and Astaroth, together with others, have today accepted the covenant pactof Urbain Grandier, who is ours. And him do we promise the love of women, the flower of virgins, the respect of monarchs, honors, lusts and powers.
He will go whoring three days long; the carousal will be dear to him. He offers us once in the year a seal of blood, under the feet he will trample the holy things of the church and he will ask us many questions;
with this pact he will live twenty years happy on the earth of men, and will later join us to sin against God.
Bound in hell, in the council of demons.
Lucifer Beelzebub SatanAstaroth Leviathan Elimi
The seals placed the Devil, the master, and the demons, princes of the lord.
Guiseppe Desa, born in a stable in 1603, did not seem to have the natural makings of a saint. Poor and notably uneducated he was rejected by the Franciscan Friars when he attempted to become a monk. Eventually the Capuchins took him in but Desa continued to experience visions and moments of ecstasy that had happened from childhood. These moments of mystical wonder saw him drop plates he was carrying and fail to do even the simplest of tasks. Thought unfit for work he was ejected and only later found a place in another monastery taking the name of Joseph.
His visions continued. He would “stand fixed as a statue, insensible as a stone, but nothing could move him.” Sticking him with pins or burning him could not make him move. But Joseph’s miracles really began in 1630 when, during a procession, he “suddenly soared into the sky where he remained hovering over the crowd.” At other times he floated in the air during Mass and during an audience with the Pope.
A century after his death Joseph was made a saint by the Catholic church and became Saint Joseph of Cupertino – patron saint of aviation and astronauts.
At the Museo Regional de Ica, you’ll find some oddly shaped skulls on display. Throughout history, different cultures have changed the shape of their children’s skulls by tying two wooden boards to their heads and making them fit tighter day by day. One look at these skulls, and you’ll swear their mother rolled them down a mountain like pizza dough on a daily basis.
The Paracas skulls were discovered in the Paracas Peninsula on the southern coast of Peru. Peruvian archaeologist Julio Tello found them back in 1928, along with a complex and sophisticated graveyard. The skulls reportedly have some odd characteristics aside from their atypical shape. For one, the foramen magnum (the hole at the bottom the skull that the spinal cord passed through) should be closer to the jawline. Also, the Paracas skulls are said to be missing sagittal sutures, the fixed joint you typically see across the top of a human skull. In other words, these skulls don’t look human. (You can probably guess what some claim they do look like.)
It has been repeatedly claimed that when DNA testing was carried out in 2014, it was found that the Paracas skulls have mitochondrial DNA with mutations unknown to any human, primate, or animal known so far. Other sources have just as repeatedly debunked these claims, pointing out that any abnormalities in the DNA can be explained by any number of factors and don’t mean the skulls are alien-human hybrids.
