Bank Holiday Throwback - 'Blue Monday'

Normal blogging service should resume sometime in mid-June, with more missing persons cases and Dust Spank chapters. In the meantime, here's a deleted post from 2012. Heads up: there's quite a lot of complaining. 

Twenty-three days into 2012 and my New Year hopefulness has dissipated into a rose wine and full fat cheddar cheese blur of ‘’meh’ and ‘blah’. I can’t run. My stupid left knee has seen to that. (I refuse to accept any responsibility for my own dodgy knee. It has absolutely nothing to do with pushing it far too hard on the treadmill, but oh well, 6k in 45 minutes is ‘not very much’ according to the physio lady, who sounds like that teacher from South Park and keeps going ‘Mmmkay?’ at the end of everything she says.)

I still haven’t smoked, though, so have been giving myself big pats on the back for that, for not giving in to the temptation of sweet, sweet nicotine. I just kick and punch stuff instead, or slam doors. Maybe I should ‘run it off’.  Mr. W’s, answer to everything....’I had the most awful day at work’ ‘Run it off!’ ‘Some total twat drove into the back of me this morning,,’.....‘Run it off!’ ‘The doctor says I’ve got three weeks to live,’ ......‘You know what you wanna do? Run it off!’

I have just phoned him to talk about the sudden crippling realisation that if I died on Wednesday, say on the way home from work, my contribution to the world would consist of: (includes a brief itinerary of worldly goods....lump it all in together, why not?)

·         Some appalling teenage poetry

·         Embarrassing journals in which I write down sexts from a sometime fuck buddy and whinge about everything not ever going my way, as well as slagging off a lot of people, including some I call my friends.

·         A wash bag full of vibrators – when I was going through a chronically single patch every single one of my friends thought it would be hil-arrr-riii-ous to buy me a cock shaped vibrating toy. One girl bought me a glass dildo and said, ‘the bloke in the shop reckons you can hammer nails into walls with one of these!’ So when I can’t find a hammer I’ll know what might come in useful.

·         A not very impressive collection DVDs that suggest a somewhat schizophrenic taste in films. Pretty in Pink is on the same shelf as Pan’s Labyrinth (of course it is, they are arranged alphabetically.)

·         About a thousand paperback books, mostly purchased from charity shops, which means they carry handwritten inscriptions, like: ‘Debbie – this could be you! Here’s to more Long Island Iced Tea nights, whhhoooo, love Sandra. Xx’  (in a copy of ‘He’s Just Not Into You’)

·         Photographs of myself in my underwear on my new digital camera. Because I’m monitoring how body changes with my new exercise programme. On the camera, they looked OK. I put them on the laptop, and full screen I look fat, moody and there is a mug in the back ground that says ‘I Heart My Dad’ which just looks really weird when you’re taking semi naked pictures of yourself.

·         Several drafts of terrible fiction. I might at least win the Bad Sex in Fiction Award. Can you win that for something that hasn’t actually been published???

·         A few half used bottles of perfume, because my favourite ones I save for ‘special occasions’ which means I hardly ever wear them....what a waste.

·         Loads of dresses I am saving for special occasions, or when I finally achieve the body I want, which means I hardly ever wear them....what a waste!

·         Millions of buttons and beads and scraps of fabric.

·         Massive amounts of hair blocking the shower drain. It’s quite fun pulling out disgusting, slimy, clumps of ancient hair.  When I was little, me and my sister thought it would be fun to bury hair in the vegetable patch....our mother did not think it was fun and went mad.

·         About four pairs of glasses with old prescription lenses in them.

·         A pile of magazine that no-one will be able to work out why I wanted to keep, because I myself forgot why I wanted to keep them. Many, many years ago I forgot why I wanted to keep them.

The idea of taking the big nap doesn’t bother me, I didn’t know where I was before I was born, why would I care what happens after I die? So it doesn’t really make any sense that I should be so bothered about trying to find some meaning in my life. After all I’m not going to care too much when I’m dead. But it’s still there, that little wriggling, nagging feeling that wakes me in the middle of the night, tugging on my sleeve, whispering, ‘You! Hey you, thunder thighs! Whatcha gonna do, then? Same you always do! Get up too late, moan about shit and eat enough junk to negate the hour you spent working out. That’s what! You frickin’ loser!’

Some of the time I can silence the voice by having fantasies about famous men or thinking about nice things I can have for breakfast. The rest of the time, I lie awake in a paralysed, sweaty, panic until it all becomes too much and my overloaded brain shuts down and lets me get some sleep.

So please, please, please can someone not let me get what I want, but just tell me???

Who Killed Dorothy Jane Scott?

The man had called thirty-two year old Dorothy Jane Scott’s workplace before and she had told her mother, Vera, that she thought she recognised his voice. The caller would tell her that he loved her and that he would kill her, that he would get her alone and cut her up into pieces and that no-one would ever find her. He told her that he knew what she was doing day-to-day, and he was right, accurately recounting her activities and whereabouts.  On this day he called to tell Dorothy she should go outside, because there was something there for her. Dorothy went outside and found a dead, red rose on the windshield of her car.

Dorothy started taking karate lessons.

She was a single mother, living in Anaheim, California, with her four-year old son and her aunt. She worked two jobs as a secretary for jointly owned stores that sold things like lava lamps, hippie jewellery and weed paraphernalia. Her parents looked after her son while she was at work. Dorothy was a devout Christian, and her friends and colleagues said she preferred quiet nights in to going out, and that she did not drink alcohol or take drugs. She didn’t have a steady boyfriend that any of them knew about, though her father Jacob said she dated occasionally. She was a person that stuck to her well-worn routine; going to work, going home and looking after her son. She was even described by some who knew her as dull and boring as the phone book.

On May 28^th, 1980, Dorothy had a late meeting at work. During the meeting, she noticed that her colleague Conrad Bostron didn’t look well, and had a red mark on his arm. Dorothy and another colleague, Pam Head, took Conrad to the A & E department (ER) at UC Irvine Medical Centre. On the way to the hospital, they stopped at Dorothy’s house so she could check in on her son and tell her parents she was taking Conrad to the hospital.

Dorothy and Pam stayed with Conrad while he waited to be seen, and then Dorothy and Pam waited while he was being examined. Pam said that she was with Dorothy for this whole period, and that they read magazines and chatted to other people in the waiting room to pass the time. At 11pm, Conrad was discharged. He had been treated for black widow spider bite, and was given a prescription.  

Dorothy went to use the toilet before they left, and said she would bring the car round to the front as she didn’t feel that Conrad was well enough to walk the distance to the car park.

While Dorothy went to get the car, Pam went with Conrad to collect the prescription and complete his medical insurance forms. They then returned to the entrance to wait for Dorothy. They were just starting to wonder where she was when Pam saw Dorothy’s 1973 white Toyota station wagon (an estate type car to British readers) driving towards the hospital at speed. It’s unclear if Pam was already outside the hospital by this point, or if she went outside when she saw the car, but it had its full beams on and she couldn’t see who was driving. Pam waved, trying to attract Dorothy’s attention, but the car went past her, and drove out of the hospital grounds, exiting right.

Pam and Conrad assumed that Dorothy had driven off because there was an emergency with her son, and waited at the hospital for another two hours. When Dorothy didn’t come back, they alerted hospital security and Dorothy was reported as missing to the police.

Dorothy’s burning car was found in an alleyway in the early hours of 29^th May, about 10 miles away from the hospital.

On 12 June, 1980, a man called the Orange County Register newspaper. The editor told the police that the man had said he’d killed Dorothy because she was his love and she’d been unfaithful. The caller knew about Conrad’s spider bite, and that Dorothy had swapped a black scarf for a red one after the team meeting. The caller said that Dorothy had phoned him from the hospital on the night of 28^th May. Pam said this wasn’t true. She had been with Dorothy the whole time, and she had never left her to make a phone call. There’s no mention of Dorothy potentially making the call before she went to get the car, but it seems unlikely she would have called anyone that night apart from perhaps her parents to let them know she was leaving the hospital.

✴✴✴✴

‘Are you related to Dorothy Scott?’ the caller asked. 

‘Yes,’ Vera replied.

‘I’ve got her,’ the man said.

These calls to Dorothy’s parent’s house would continue until the spring of 1984, every Wednesday for four years. They would usually come when Vera was in the house alone. The caller would say different things; that he had Dorothy and she was alive; that he had killed her, asking if she was there. He was obviously disguising his voice, and despite police installing call monitoring equipment, the calls were too short to be traced. One day Jacob answered the phone. The calls stopped for a while after that.

On 14 August, 1984, a pelvis, two arms, two thighs and skull were found on the Santa Ana Canyon Road (approximately 7 miles from UC Irvine) by a construction worker. With the bones were a watch, a turquoise ring, and canine bones.

An autopsy (post mortem) confirmed that the remains were those of Dorothy, but it wasn’t possible to determine a cause of death.  Her mother Vera later said that the watch had stopped at 12.30am, about an hour after Pam and Conrad had last seen Dorothy’s car.

When the local paper ran the story that Dorothy’s remains had been found, the man called Vera and Jacob again.

He asked them, ‘Is Dorothy home?’

Questions and Notes:

1)      Dorothy’s remains were found about 7 miles from the hospital, and her car ten miles away, meaning the killer had dumped her body and then the car. Where did he go after that, and how did he get there? Did he live close to where he ditched the car? If this is the case, how did he get to the hospital in the first place? Had he taken a taxi, or a bus? Was this ever explored by the police? Where was she killed?

Map showing the approximate distance between UC Irvine and the road where Dorothy's remains were found

2) We have to assume the car was burnt to destroy any contact evidence left by the killer, but the first use of DNA in a criminal case in the States didn’t happen until 1987, 7 years after Dorothy was murdered and 3 years after her remains were found. Despite this, it seems like the killer knew he could be traced to Dorothy’s car, and burnt it to destroy evidence. Was she killed in the car? If so, how? Was the interior of the car covered in her blood? His fingerprints would have been left on the car, were his fingerprints on file?

3)      Where did the dog bones come from? Dorothy didn’t have a dog.  Was the dog used in some way to entice or coerce Dorothy?

4)      Not all of her remains were recovered. Had her killer taken trophies, or did wild animals carry some of the remains away?  

5)      Did the change in Dorothy’s routine give the killer the chance he needed to get her alone? He told the newspaper he’d killed her because she was with another man – was he talking about Conrad? Did the stalker see Dorothy with Conrad and assume that he was her boyfriend? Did this push him over the line of threatening violence to actually carrying it out?

6)      Was Dorothy this killer’s only victim?

Conclusion:

US department of justice homicide trends more here

I don't think a stranger murdered Dorothy. Women are more likely than men to be murdered by someone they know; a husband, an ex, a friend, a colleague, a neighbour. I believe that Dorothy knew her killer. She recognised the voice of the man that called her at work. I think it was someone she had met briefly before, had perhaps dated and then rejected or didn’t want to see again. He became obsessed with her, and stalked her.

Perhaps it was someone that had come into one of the shops while she had been there.  it is possible it was someone she knew from church?

I think he either followed her from the team meeting to the hospital and took the chance of her being on her own (the car park was some distance from the hospital building) to abduct her, or had been waiting outside her house when he saw her stop by with Pam and Conrad.

 As no one around the hospital heard her scream, I am guessing that he was either already in her car when she got there, or he subdued her in some way. Either that or the car park was too far away and isolated for anyone to have heard her. There’s no mention of a blunt force injury to her skull, so perhaps he punched her, rendering her unconscious, and then put her in the car. Pam and Conrad couldn’t tell who was driving the car, because the full beams were on. I am going to assume that it was either Dorothy’s killer behind the wheel, or that she was driving with perhaps a gun to her head.

What happened to Dorothy after that is something I’d rather not know. She must have been terrified. I can’t imagine how she would have felt if she was conscious when they drove past her friends, and she was unable to ask them for help.

 Her son would be in his early 40s now, and grew up without his mother, who sounded like a caring, gentle person. 

Jacob died in 1994 and Vera in 2002.

 Thirty-seven years after her death, it is unlikely that Dorothy’s killer will ever be brought to justice. 

Fifty Shades Darker Film Review

I saw the first Fifty Shades of Grey film when I’d had a few drinks. (They didn’t help make it any better) I thought that the film-makers had done a not too bad a job, given the source material and the fact that EL James apparently hung around the set like David Brent at the Wernham Hogg Christmas party after he’d been sacked.

This week, on a appropriately windy afternoon, I went to see Fifty Shades Darker.

James’ husband Niall Leonard takes the reins on the Fifty Shades Darker screenplay (I am sure there is a BDSM related joke in there somewhere, but alas today I feel like a bear shat in my head and can’t think of one. Who says that booze kills brain cells?) and James Foley (Glengarry Glen Ross) takes Sam Taylor-Johnson’s still warm spot in the director’s chair.

The film naturally follows the ‘plot’ of the book closely, and opens straight in to the aftermath of Ana’s break-up from Christian. Luckily the film spares us the book’s over-the-top grief fest and we’re not subjected to Ana moping around in PJs and snot-crying because she broke up with an abusive fucktard that she’d only been seeing for a couple of weeks.

Ana goes to Jose’s photography exhibition (remember him? The token ethnic guy from the first book that tries to kiss Ana?) and she finds out he’s creepily taken black and white circa 1992 Calvin Klein advert style snapshots of her. (Because everyone loves Ana!) Christian BUYS ALL OF THEM and instead of thinking, ‘fuck this shit, the next step is waking up in a box with all my limbs removed,’ like a normal person would, Ana agrees to go for dinner with him.

Then they get back together, the end. NO WAIT I’M FUCKING WITH YOU, THERE’S STILL AN HOUR AND A HALF TO GO.

Ana gets a job at a publishing company, SIP, as assistant to Fiction Editor Jack Hyde. Mawah ha ha haaaa. I did the Mawah ha ha’s as Jack Hyde is such an obviously villainous name and EL James likes to smack you about the head with FORESHADOWING. At the end of the film, we see Jack in a leather jacket, smoking and looking moody.  Ooohh, do you think he might be a baddie? Props to Eric Johnson, though, for not going totally OTT with the villainy and playing Jack Hyde as that creepy guy that seems kind of off in a way you can’t quite put your finger on. Like all the other characters in this hot mess, he has some truly bad lines to say and that’s not his fault.

After Jack attempts to sexually assault Ana, he’s fired.  While Christian’s bid to buy SIP is still not finalised, he ‘knows the CEO’ and so he’s able to get Jack sacked without so much as a formal investigation by HR.

'I'm a baddie. Case you couldn't tell.'

In a story that’s already stretching plausibility to snapping point, Ana is given Jack’s job, and her own assistant, who is confusingly called Hannah. In the book, Ana likes Hannah  because she’s black and not a threat to her relationship with Christ-pain, and because EL James has to inelegantly shoe-horn in efnics to prove she’s all up on her equality and diversity stuff. (she still hates blonde haired gals, though. Was she wronged by a blonde woman once? I need to know.)

We also meet Mrs Robinson (Kim Basinger – blonde!) the woman who groomed a 15-year-old Christian and introduced him to ‘BDSM’ (it’s going in the quote marks because it’s not BDSM) She has an issue with Ana, because all blonde women hate Ana. Despite Mrs R (her name’s actually Elena) being pivotal to Christian’s backstory, she’s a bit of a McGuffin in this story, essentially appearing solely for the purpose of a Dynasty style show-down between her and Ana before she vanishes, like a cougar performing a magic trick.

This is also true of Christian’s mad, sad, ex Leila. It’s kind of confusing when whole the plot hangs on characters that appear, do their thing, then disappear. Poor Leila is driven mad by Christian’s rejection and her husband’s death and she follows Ana around, waving her bloodied and bandaged wrists at her, calling Christian ‘Master’, in the manner of Dobby from Harry Potter.

Dobby loves Harry Potter

We also finally get to meet Mrs Jones, Christian’s housekeeper. Mrs Jones is probably my favourite 50 Shades character. That woman is a SAINT, cleaning the Red Room of pain, washing ben wa balls and turning a blind eye to the kinky fuckery that’s going on the bedroom while she’s doing the dishes. I’m hoping someone out there is writing Mrs Jones / Taylor fan-fic, because that I’d like to read.

The editing on this film is all over the place. I don’t know if this is because the film follows the book so tightly, and the editing on the book is also a shitty mess, but it’s honestly terrible. We cut from a late-night text conversation between Ana and Christian to a plane crash. I’ll repeat in case you didn’t hear the first time. A plane crash.  The shift in tone – from romance to high peril is so swift, it’s jarring.

Hilariously, Christian’s plane crash is on the news, because everyone worries about where rich business men are when they go missing for a few hours, and there’s a tense few minutes (just kidding, it’s about as tense an episode of Peppa Pig. That bit with the little baby lizards and the racing snakes in Planet Earth II was tenser) when we wait  - and hope - to find out if Christian has died in the plane crash. Sadly, no he hasn’t.

I expect you want to know about the sex. Tell us about the sex, Parker, I hear you say. Was that at least good? Er….. those who know me well, will know I am the sort of perv that likes watching Youtube videos of Jake Gyllenhaal working out. The sex scenes in this film left my lady-boner as flat as a month old glass of Coke.

1)     Christian keeps his trousers on for 95% of the sex scenes. That’s not only unrealistic, but also an appalling waste of Jamie Dornan’s fine booty and spectacular back. We see him naked when he’s working out, which is a lot, but not when he’s boffing Ana.

2)     They are tame, tame, tame. They might start off in a more adventurous position, but just when it’s getting interesting, he turns Ana onto her back and it’s good old missionary, fish pie for supper and Newsnight before bed (thanks Peep Show)

3)     The spreader bar. I am assuming that’s what this contraption is called. It’s basically an adjustable bar with ankle straps at either end. Christian is using it on Ana  - she’s face down – and then he flips her over. The other 8 people in the cinema collectively went, ‘Eeeee!’ probably imagining, like we were, that Christian had just snapped Ana’s spine in several places. On the way out of the cinema, the first thing my friend said was, ‘I wonder how many times they had to rehearse that scene with the bar? Do you think they had to do it a lot?’

There are some intentionally funny moments, but I think this is largely down to the charm of Dakota Johnson, who makes James’ simpering half-wit a little feistier and funnier.

Despite Dornan and Johnson both being fine actors, there is almost no chemistry between them. It seems unfair to compare them to the second most famous on-screen couple of 2017 so far, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone in La La Land, but thems real sparks flying there, and you’re deeply engaged with Seb and Mia’s relationship in a way you aren’t with Christian and Ana’s.

So that was Fifty Shades Darker, and it actually wasn’t that bad. My ticket was free thanks to my friend having vouchers, so I don’t feel like I stuffed any fivers into the tops of EL James’ stockings. I am just left with the slightest sense of unease that I enjoyed it far more than I was expecting to.

Dishonourable Mentions

Consumerist Porn

Boats! Massive apartments! STUFF!

Ana’s magically disappearing bra straps

In the scene where Christian inserts the ben wa balls into Ana’s down there (‘Those are NOT going in my butt!’) Ana is wearing a black basque with straps. Cut to masked ball scene, Ana is in a slinky dress and the bra straps have disappeared. Did they go the same way as the ben wa balls? I don’t know why this bothers me, but it does. She could have just been wearing strapless underwear to start with.

Now You See Them....

....Now you don't. Ana wonders where her bra straps have gone

Lift Fingering

This is just gross, and weird, and seems like something teenagers do, not sensible adult men. Noping the fuck right out of that one. 

I think Christian may be fingering the wrong woman in this photo...that blonde lady looks a little startled to me

Dusk Spank - Chapter 9

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

What Happened to Brandon Lawson?

Brandon Lawson has been missing since the early hours of 8 August 2013.

The 26 year-old father of three left his home in San Angelo, Texas at approximately midnight after having an argument with his long-term girlfriend, Ladessa. Brandon had planned to drive to his father’s house to cool off from the row.

On highway 277, near Bronte, Texas, Brandon’s car ran out of petrol. He phoned his brother Kyle for help. After calling Ladessa, Kyle and his girlfriend Audrey set off to find Brandon, stopping to collect an empty petrol from Brandon’s front porch. Kyle had no money in his bank account to pay for the petrol, so he intended to pick Brandon up and drive him to the petrol station then drive him back to his truck.

 When Kyle and Audrey arrived at Brandon’s truck at approximately 1.10am it was empty, with the front bumper slightly pointing out onto the carriageway. There was no damage to the truck, and Brandon, his keys and mobile phone were missing. A Deputy Sheriff’s truck arrived at the same time as Kyle and Audrey.

It seems that Kyle and Brandon spoke a further two times that night; once when Brandon told his brother that he was ten minutes up the road and bleeding, and a second time where he said he was ‘in a field’.

Audrey also texted Brandon at 1.18 to tell him, ‘a cop is at your truck.’ Earlier that week, Brandon had learned of a two-year-old outstanding warrant for possession of controlled substances and this is possibly why Audrey had texted him to the presence of the officer at his truck.

At around one am, Brandon called 911. Kyle, and the deputy who arrived at his empty truck, were unaware of this call.  The call is garbled, and difficult to understand; Brandon sounds out of breath and his words run into each other.

You can listen to it here:

Below I have transcribed what I think I hear, the text in brackets is only what I think is said.

Dispatcher: 911 emergency.

Brandon: Yes, I’m in the middle of a field [a stooper /staper]  ****‘stooper’ is a blend of ‘State Trooper’ and is commonly used in parts of Texas*** just pulled some guys over going towards Abilene on [both/ Bronte] sides [unintelligible] my truck ran out of gas. [There’s one car here. got chased into the woods.] Please hurry.  **Stooper**

D: Ok, now, run that [by me]

B: [I don’t want to talk to them, I ran into them]

D: Ah, ok, you ran into him, ok

B: Yes, [the first guy]

D: Do you need an ambulance?                                     

[voice in background says. ‘yeah’]

B: No, I need the cops

D: DOk, is anybody hurt?

B……… (sounds of traffic / wind)

D: Hello?

B………

D: Hello?

B……..

D: Hello?

At the time of Brandon’s disappearance, 911 calls were routed not to a call centre manned by trained call handlers, but to a local nursing home. The dispatcher does not ask Brandon his name, or where he is. This has since changed, and dispatchers are given training.

The Local Newspaper, The Sheriff and His Wife

The local newspaper, The Observer Enterprise, is owned by the sheriff (who was away the night Brandon went missing) and his wife.

From the ‘Missing Brandon Lawson’ blog:

From all media reports written by The Observer Enterprise, owned by the Sheriff and his wife, that the 911 call was only reported as " a stranded motorist who ran out of gas." No mention of the urgency nor any mention of "I ran into them"( as understood by the dispatcher)  The Deputy put emergency flashers on , locked the truck and proceeded to "leave the scene" and arranged for a tow in the morning.  According to reports the Deputy drove up and down the roadway to see if he could spot Brandon walking.  Kyle and his girlfriend left the empty gas can in the bed of the truck thinking if Brandon came back he would have the can and could retrieve gas. They began to go look for him. When morning came, and still no sign of Brandon, Kyle's money was available in his account and he went back to the truck and filled the can and returned it to the truck. At this point he was now starting to become concerned and felt that Brandon may not have been hiding and may be in trouble. In talking with Investigators he now gave them the full account of Brandon being on the phone at the time the Deputy was at the truck.

Brandon’s family would later tell the Brainscratch YouTube channel that their requests for the police to involve the press in Brandon’s case were blocked and that Ladessa was told, ‘we’re not going to have a three-ring circus in this town,’

The family claim that the only news source given any police information was the one owned by the Sheriff and his wife.

Privately Owned Land Not Searched

This Buzzfeed map shows just how large Texas is:

 The area Brandon vanished in was vast, and very remote. It’s dry, scrubby land, with little or no trees, just miles and miles of highway and desert punctuated by buildings and bridges. When I first heard the 911 call, I imagined Brandon running off the road and into a densely wooded area. If he had been trying to hide, he would have failed miserably; there wasn’t anywhere for him to conceal himself out there. 

Large areas of the land are apparently privately owned, and requests by Brandon’s family to search the land have been refused. Allegedly, land owners have said they will allow searches if the sheriff issues a warrant. The sheriff has yet to issue any search warrants.

Theories

1)      Brandon encountered illegal activity – possibly perpetrated by State Troopers, with the local sheriff’s knowledge. Bronte is 736 miles (a 12 hour car drive) from the Mexican border, but Texas is a common people trafficking route. Did Brandon see ‘coyotes’ trafficking people into the USA?  Or had he stumbled across a drug deal?

2)     Did the sheriff know about these activities, and did he cover them up because he was taking a cut?

3)     Was Brandon shot trespassing on private land? It seems unlikely – though Brandon was a large, physically fit man, he was also unarmed, and by his own account, bleeding.  It would be usual for a landowner defending their property to issue a warning for Brandon to leave before shooting to defend their property. The ‘stand your ground’(Castle Doctrine) law does not apply if someone is trespassing on land. The owner of the land may use reasonable – but not deadly – force t remove somebody from their land.

4)     Brandon was attacked by wild boars – again unlikely. Boars will generally not deliberately attack humans, though it may be that they were used to help ‘dispose’ of human remains. 

What do you think happened to Brandon?

Photos and links

Brandon's truck (Missing Brandon Lawson)

Highway 277 Near Bronte (Google Maps)

Texas / Mexico border map

Missing poster (Missing Brandon Lawson)

Brainscratch -Episode one

Brainscratch - Episode Two

Missing Brandon Lawson Website

Understanding Castle Doctrine

 Thanks: J McCabe

I'll Be Right Back....

Apologies to readers who have come looking for further Dust Spank (FSOG) posts or more strange true tales and have found nothing new for the last couple of months. Please be assured they are on their way soon.....stay tuned.

Dusk Spank Chapters 6, 7 & 8 Or, 'We Need to Talk About Christian'

And now we reach problematic chapters 6, 7 and 8 of FSOG. Sorry Bella / Ana / Annie, I’m taking over for this one. For purposes of this chapter, ‘original’ character names will be used.

We need to talk about Christian. I think he grooms Ana. Don’t jump in and say, ‘But she’s an adult!’ firstly, abusers DO groom their victims, and secondly, Ana is infantilised throughout the book. She claps her hand like a child, giggles like a child, says she feels like a child. Let’s look at the evidence for grooming.

1)      Buys her gifts

First it’s the books, later on it’s a phone, laptop and a car. The phone and laptop are so he can control the contact he has with her. In Darker, he gets angry with her for using her work computer to contact her, telling her to use the Blackberry (it would seem simpler for her to use a private email account instead of a work one, but that’s a writer fail there.) He will also go on to buy her jewellery and even a whole publishing company.

2)     Gives her alcohol

To make her compliant enough to sign the NDA, show her the Red Room of Pain and the contract. These chapters made me so angry I wanted to smash things.

Ana is a virgin. She blushes at the thought of sex; she’s embarrassed to even tell Christian she’s a virgin. When she does tell him, he charmingly calls it a ‘situation’. This is not the man to lose your virginity to. She’s also drunk, so her ability to make decisions (and therefore to consent) is impaired, but Christian has sex with her anyway.

I find it hard to believe that Ana, a 21 year old university student, has never had sex or kissed anyone (EL James forgets about the ‘never been kissed’ bit in Freed and Ana talks about kissing boys when she was in high school.)

So I find it hard to believe that Ana would go from ‘never been kissed’ to ‘orgasmic sex kitten’ in a few pages. SHE’S NEVER HAD SEX BEFORE. Wouldn’t she want to try other things first? Like, French kissing, hand-jobs and oral sex? Go on a few 'getting to know you' dates and do some of the beginner sex stuff first? I know that this isn’t the way most adult sexual relationships would go, but Ana isn’t a normal adult. We’re repeatedly told of her inexperience, her naivety, her innocence. She doesn’t even know if his penis will fit inside her! This is not a girl that should be having sex on a second date, and this is not a girl that should be going into a ‘BDSM’ relationship (I put BDSM in quotes, because that isn’t what Christian is in to, he’s just into controlling and hitting women, he doesn’t care if they like it or not.)

That's better!

3)     Ingratiates himself into her family / isolates her

This doesn’t happen until later in the book, when Ana goes to visit her mum to get some space. Christian then TURNS UP and he charms Ana’s mother.

Oh mom, et tu, Brute?

‘You too, Brutus?’  These were said to be the last words of Julius Caesar before he was assassinated. I am not sure what Ana’s mum has actually done – she’s not betrayed Ana, but it tells you something about Ana’s feelings for Christian and they’re not healthy.

Mother of the year award goes to Carla:

‘Wow’ she mutters. ‘Ana, there’s something going on between you two. I’ve been trying to figure it out since you arrived here,’

Ana starts crying, probably because she wants her mum to say what most mums would say, which is, ‘What a fucking weirdo, flying all this way when you said you needed some space, I don’t like him, he’s a creep,’

But Carla says:

‘I don’t care how rich you are, you don’t drop everything and get in your private plane to cross a whole continent just for afternoon tea. Go to him! This is a beautiful location. It’s also neutral territory.’

Just think about this for a minute. Imagine you go on holiday with your mum, because you need some time out from your confusing relationship. You’re in Greece, you’re in a taverna, having a few cocktails before dinner. Then imagine that the man you’ve been seeing for a couple of weeks (and it is only a couple of weeks by this point) walks in and announces he got a package flight to come and see you. Is it still ‘romantic’? It’s not romantic. It’s weird.

Christian makes it clear that he does not like Kate, Jose or Paul, further isolating her from support networks.

As Ana has signed the NDA, she is prevented from telling anyone about what’s going on in the relationship.  I’d argue that she was coerced into signing the NDA, so it doesn’t stand.

4)     Emotional manipulation

Those of you that have read and remembered the book, I want to try and describe Ana. What’s she like? Try and think beyond, ‘She has blue eyes and brown hair, and she’s skinny. She’s also innocent and bookish until she meets Christian,’

What else?

Because Ana Steele and Bella Swan are the same person and author / reader inserts, neither of them have particularly striking personalities. I’ve been reading Twilight, and Bella always just seems irritated, annoyed, sulky, exasperated and bored on a continuous loop. The only time she’s happy is when Edward is around. Sure, Meyer throws in that Bella is ‘clumsy’ - her clumsiness almost gets her killed, but Edward saves her. We know that Ana is also graceless and uncoordinated (because Bella is) as she falls into Christian’s office, and later on, she’s almost hit by a bike.

Both characters are ‘blanks’, so the reader / author can slot themselves into the fantasy. This makes it easier for Ana to be manipulated by Christian – Ana has no agency of her own. Her decisions are made by Christian, for his benefit. It also makes it easier for Ana to be EL James’ puppet for ‘plot’ arcs, instead of rewriting bits that don’t fit with what she wants to happen.

Just because an author keeps telling us their character is strong and intelligent, it doesn’t make it true. We see absolutely no evidence of Ana’s intelligence or strength. She’s a void.

I know some of you are going to say, ‘but what about the all the times she stands up to Christian?’ She doesn’t. She might say, ‘No Christian, I don’t want to do that,’ but then she backtracks, agreeing with him, and he gets his own way.

How does he manipulate her?

He sulks. He uses his past as a way to get her to feel sorry for him. His moods change very rapidly (from line to line) he gets angry with her for no reason and she feels that she needs to placate him. She is afraid of the consequences of not complying with him.

Over and over again, she says

Oh no, what have I done?

Have I done something wrong?

Oh, he’s angry

And this, this line from the dinner at his parent’s house (where he tries to finger her under the table, by the way, I can see why women everywhere are falling in love with this guy.)

It is even more palatable since Christian manages to retain his good humour for the rest of the meal. I suspect it’s because I’m eating so heartily.’

Can you imagine how exhausting it would really be to date someone like Christian?

Christian also repeatedly refers to Ana as ‘his’ which, in Twilight world makes sense. Bella is Edward’s because Edward is a vampire and they have companions that ‘belong’ to them. In FSOG, it just sounds like Ana can’t have anyone else in her life apart from Christian.

When Ana first meets Christian, he insists on calling her ‘Anastasia’ or ‘Miss Steele’ even though she keeps asking him to call her ‘Ana’. This is another way in which he controls her, isolating her from her ‘self’ and molding her into what he wants her to be.

Honourable Mention:

 Poor housekeeper Mrs Jones- she has to clean the playroom and the sex toys. CHRISTIAN GETS HIS HOUSEKEEPER TO CLEAN HIS USED SEX TOYS. Who does that? You don’t leave them out for the cleaner with a note, do you?

‘Linda – please clean the following today:

·         Bath

·         Kitchen floor

·         Inside of windows

·         Sex toys that have been up my girlfriend’s arse – these are on the bedroom floor along with the used condoms and spunky tissues.’

Thanks!’

I have to go and lie down in a dark room for a bit so here’s some links to very funny recap blogs. They have made reading this book bearable:

Jenny Trout Jealous Hater Book Club

Fifty Shades of Tedious Fuckery

Bizzybiz Blog 50 Shades Reviews