Peter Sutcliffe Loves His Algebra

Bloody hell! The Open University residential was amazing. I went there expecting to learn about mathematical modelling and instead I befriended the cohorts of the sickest minds in Britain. And it wasn't even a LibDem residential.

It started off in the pub on the first day. The subject came around to sport. I can't really talk football but I like watching Blackburn (which many would argue isn't football at all) because it embraces the eternal optimist in me. If you support Manchester United or Chelsea then anything but a massive victory is a huge disappointment. As a Rovers fans, I'll happily take a 1-0 defeat because it should probably have been a lot worse. When I mentioned my fondness for the Blue and Whites, Jamie on my left said that he didn't think I'd find many football fans in a roomful of mathematicians. I didn't believe him. So I did a straw poll of my other tablemates. And - buggering hell - he was completely right. Apart from Don, who couldn't decide whether he supported Charlton or Chelsea and ended up saying "I just support football", which really doesn't count, no one else was a fan. Out of six, it was just me. But then, totally unconnected to this - or 'apropos of nothing' in wankspeak - Jamie let it slip that he was from Gloucester.

Before I continue, let me explain that I actually have no fascination at all with the perverts and serial killers that have recently featured on this blog but there's a reason for my interest in one of 'em. I used to run a comedy sketch group. I'd never performed on stage before I started it, and my acting skills were (and still are) zero. But I discovered that the more remote a character I played was from my personality, the more comfortable I felt on stage. It's like hiding. And, for this reason, or so I constantly told myself, I always felt happiest playing the part of a certain recurring comedy character we had called Fred West.

Back to the story. Gloucester is Fred West's home town. I thought I'd try a punt. "Did you know Fred West then?" I asked. "No," he replied. Obviously. "But I used to walk past his house every day." Wow! OK, Gloucester isn't massive. Perhaps everybody walked past his house. Maybe he lived near a Greggs. Surely, this was entirely normal.

So, for reasons of statistical analysis - we'd tried the football poll after all - I turned to David on my right. I knew he hailed from Holmfirth, the location of The Last of the Summer Wine, and not too far from Sheffield. So I casually asked him, more sarcastically than anything, if he had any connection to Peter Sutcliffe. At this stage I'd known him for about three hours and was expecting a solid no or maybe a smack in the face, but he replied, "How close a connection?" It turned out he had two. He'd lived in Sheffield's red light district back in the 70s and was on nodding terms with the prostitute who was in the car with Sutcliffe when he was arrested. As a doctor, he also knew a bloke who'd analysed samples of Sutcliffe's victims. Now c'mon. Two out of two. That's spooky.

Chas decided he'd had enough and retired, and while Don was at the bar, I explained the backstory to Londoner Chris and asked, just to amuse myself really, whether he had a connection to anything as sinister as the other two. "No," he replied. Of course. See, entirely normal. "Ah, maybe. My grandma used to have regular phone conversations with Ronnie Kray." Jesus freakin' Christ!

So there you have it. I haven't done much statistics with the OU yet and so this all may be a bit flawed, but from my data, only 16.667% of mathematicians like football, but 50% of 'em have established connections to famous murderers and perverts. Mmm, I bet Carol Voderman is Josef Fritzl's daughter.

A Marmot for Gary Glitter

You're a dodgy lot. I'm slowly developing a profile of my typical blog reader. My last entry, the one that mentioned Josef Fritzl in its title, was my second most read post since I began. The only thing to beat it was the one a few months back entitled "My Life As Fred West". You see a pattern emerging here? Yes, me too. I haven't worked out yet whether you're darkly fascinated by murder and sexual abuse or whether you're actually looking for tips on how to construct a soundproof cellar or lay a decent patio. Anyway, the mention of Gary Glitter in this post's title was bait. And it lured you in, didn't it? You sick, little puppy.

I'm in a strange place right now. I don't mean emotionally. I'm not that complex. I mean my location. I'm staying in a typically Austrian Gasthof - y'know, all timber and pretty, little flowers spilling from the balconies, dispensing schnitzels and leberknödelsuppes to the locals - except that this Gasthof is run by a Chinese family. It makes a nice change. It's like Heidi meets Bladerunner. And, not surprisingly, they do Chinese food too. For lunch I've just had their Eat-All-You-Want buffet. All I would say is that you should read the labels of the things you put on your plate carefully. Garlic sauce and battered bananas isn't a winning combination. Incidentally, Eat-All-You-Want is not the same as the more American concept of Eat-All-You-Can.

Anyway, I've reached the end of the road. I'm in Zams, Tirol. There's only one sensible way out of this place and that's the way I came in. If you want to continue west you have to go over a 1800 metre pass or burrow through a thirteen kilometre tunnel. As a cyclist I'm not allowed in the tunnel and so your deductive powers have already told you my way out is going to involve pain. At least though there's something to look forward to on the other side of the agony. Well, several things. In five days' time, I meet The Lovely Nina in Zürich for a few days of intense joy before she heads back to Spain and I fly to the UK for a week-long Open University maths residential in Nottingham. I'm particularly looking forward to the exercises involving curves. And the residential should be good too.

But before then I get to meet Elli, OU graduate - definitely graduate and no longer a student, she insists - in Switzerland. Just as my cousin Sarah removed all the pain from the French round of my Eat Something Stupid challenge by getting her hubby to lovingly cook up that poo sausage, Elli's made my life easier too. She's only gone and 'acquired' a bloody marmot, hasn't she? I don't know whether this means she's been secretly out in the hills with a rifle or just that she's a particularly clumsy driver. Not only will this be the first marmot I've eaten, but also my first ever rodent. This is big! About 28 inches long, but I didn't mean that. It's one thing to eat a new species, but Rodentia is a brand new order! Rumour has it that marmot doesn't taste that great. Even better. This was never supposed to be easy.

But why am I telling you all this? You're not interested. All you want is stuff about Peter Sutcliffe or that German cannibal who cooked and ate the other bloke's penis, isn't it? And you'd probably prefer it in the form of a poem, wouldn't you? OK then, just to try and appease you I'll give you a limerick about Gary Glitter and marmots:

I don't know whether it's clear,
But Glitter likes games with his rear,
Even he lost the plot,
When he bought a marmot,
And sex advice from Richard Gere.

Happy now?

An Ode To Josef Fritzl (And Others)

Austria is starting to annoy me. It's too pretty for sarky comments. How the hell are you supposed to take the piss out of somewhere so perfect? So instead, let's talk people. And I think Austria provides some serious mileage here.

The Lovely Nina's challenge for this beautiful land was an interesting one. I had to write a poem that contained some of Austria's most notable characters. So in the absence of anything to say about the country, here I present my pitiful effort. You probably don't want to read this if you're easily offended, and especially if you're my Mum.

FOUR FAMOUS AUSTRIANS
by Steven Primrose-Smith

Arnie was a hero once, but left for pastures new,
From Conan to the Governor, his reputation grew,
The Austrians were most surprised, his brains so full of cack,
And no one here in Graz is chuffed, when he says, "I'll be back!"

Hitler is a warning call to all those Mums and Dads,
Whose kids are over-influenced by violent X-box fads,
Buy them something boring like a sponge or, say, a whisk,
Adolf's folks regretted most ever buying Risk.

Fritzl was a family man, and such a loving fella,
He liked to keep his children safe, so locked 'em in the cellar.
No one doubts he cared for them, in his own special way,
They say he loved his daughter most...at least three times a day.

Not so many years ago, a bloke called Mister Freud,
Obsessed on genitalia, so much that it annoyed.
Oedipus, Freud announced, had fallen for his Mum,
But if she's fit, what's wrong with it? (But safer in the bum.)

So here we have four pillars, supporting this small land,
It seems that freaks and Austria are always hand in hand,
There's Adolf, Freud and Arnie and of course there's Mr Fritzl,
What's the secret formula? I blame it on the schnitzel.

...

Yes, OK, sorry about that but a challenge is a challenge. Box ticked. Anyone care to add a verse?