The Tower And Torture

The gang re-unions at the Tower of London. The last time I was here was in November '97 with some visiting friends and Alex and Spencer, who shared our first Thanksgiving shortly later. Alex on the fast-track at JP Morgan and Spencer a hedge-fund investor; both are now retired, living in Connecticut with their three kids. Back then, we drank martinis and thought, wow, London. How sad when they left us after two years.

But, dear me, I digress. Eitan enthusiastic to meet the "Beef Eaters" while the kids learn about England's medieval hanging, drawing and quartering described as "a spectacularly gruesome" and public torture saved for the most "heinous of murder" and treason; it was applied only to men while women burned at the stake (changed to hanging by the Treason's Act of 1790). Women were lucky. The convicted men were (1) drawn or dragged on a hurdle (a wooden frame) to the place of execution; then (2) hanged by the neck for a short time or until almost dead; and finally (3) the body beheaded, then divided into four parts (quartered). Typically, the condemned were disemboweled and emasculated, the severed genitalia and entrails burned in front of the victim, before the final, fatal, beheading after which the resulting five parts (ie, the four quarters of the body and the head) were "gibbeted" (put on public display) in different parts of the city, town, or, in famous cases, in the country to deter would-be traitors who had not seen the execution. After 1814, the convict was hanged until dead and the mutilation performed post-mortem. How nice. Gibbeting was later in 1843, while drawing and quartering ended in 1870 (source: George Neilson, "Drawing, Hanging and Quartering;" 1891).

A joke on Radio 4: A man in Colchester is accused of having sex with a horse and a donkey. The court does not release him on bail since he does not have a stable address.