Nice Guy

I've never strangled anyone, but I'm guessing that it's not an easy thing to do. Over and above the obvious physical difficulty in restraining someone and crushing their windpipe, there's the psychological issue. Strangling someone must take some time, and the strangler has to be there watching and holding their victim throughout the process. I imagine that the first victim is the most difficult. It must be much easier to stand 3m from a victim and fire a gun at their head.

The Suffolk Ripper seems to have strangled more than one of his victims, but the police haven't released the cause of death for all the other victims. Would it be psychologically easier for a serial killer to kill his victims with a weapon until he had learnt to deal with the trauma of the act? Peter Sutcliffe's weapon of choice seems to have been a hammer, though at least one of his victims does appear to have been beaten with a shoe and then kicked to death. Nice guy! He killed 13 and left another 7 for dead when he was the Yorkshire Ripper.

It's Christmas lunch day in the office tomorrow. I'm told there will be a free bar. Lucky I come on the train to work. I can have a couple of beverages. The fact that this kind of thing can be done here is a measure of the staff's maturity. I've worked at one or two places where this kind of thing would have ended in disaster. I'll bring you a report tomorrow.

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The above was written yesterday, but I forgot my flash disk once again and I didn't mail it to myself either, so it didn't get published. You'll all be pleased to know that the Christmas lunch went very well. I had the beef. There was also alcohol involved and I am typing this after three glasses of wine, so the odd spelling mistake is sadly inevitable. There were crackers, paper hats, mince pies, and cheese involved also. Unfortunately there was no roast turkey or potatoes. Most of my colleagues are currently watching Cars on the big projection screen in the conference room. Slackers, at least I'm at my desk and it looks like I'm working.

Today Tony Blair is in trouble over stopping an inquest into Saudi Arabian arms deals. Good! A man has got drunk and fallen asleep on the railway line. I mean actually on the line. He was sentenced to 180 hours community service. And nothing else of importance has happened.

Later then...