October 1st – Bugger me, Autumn's here already...! What price would you put onto a
person’s life or safe return? I guess it would depend on just what that person
meant to you, wouldn’t it? I mean, if it was payment of a ransom asked of me
for, let’s say, Margaret Thatcher or Tony Bliar then I would probably consider
the peelings from my next orange as extortionate. If, however, it was for, say,
my collection of Henry Williamson books then I’d trade off house and family in
an instant, before you could actually utter the words;
Pay up or else.
That’s how skewed we are when it comes to the value of
things, when objects become more valuable than people. That’s how we measure
richness, the sign that we’ve finally lost the plot and just how far into the
psyche has seeped the pursuit of becoming rich beyond the dreams of avarice;
remember the saying;
The price of everything
and the value of nothing?
It was coined especially for our generation so it was.
Right; memory-search time; and you have to be scrupulously honest with your answers, OK? OK.
1) What do you know about Renoir’s painting, Bal Du Moulon de La Gallette?
2) What do you know about Picasso’s painting, Garcon a La Pipe?
3) What do you know about the Kohinoor Diamond?
4) What do you know about the House of Mouawad ‘1001 Nights Diamond Purse’?
OK, now, at what point in your mental meanderings did the
cost of such items enter your head? For me?
1) Don’t know the painting but know the artist. Monetary
Value: Immediately.
2) Don’t know the painting but know the artist. Monetary
Value: Immediately.
3) Know some background and ownership details. Monetary
Value: Three/four seconds in?
4) Know nothing at all about handbags but know the word
‘diamond’ is synonymous with the word ‘expensive’. Monetary Value: Immediately.
1) £139m
2) £127m
3) $20b
4) $3.8m
…that last one, the handbag? Looks a snip at that price.
When Madeline Beth
McCann disappeared, back in 2007 (yup, it was that long ago) the
international press coverage reached an unprecedented frenzy of hyperbole,
accusation, counter accusation and supposition. Everyone and his dog was
accused then discarded as a suspect as the number of projected possibilities as
to her fate are running well into double figures. We all know that someone must
know but, like previous (and present)
disappearance sagas, the perpetrators will not or have not told. Possibly
because of some misguided fear of losing a bargaining chip for better treatment
later in their sentence, or in the knowledge that things have gone too far for
them to be retrievable so… Quite what her parents have gone through and are
still going through heaven only knows, but the reaction of concerned citizens
to offer money for her safe return was a cause worthy of supporting. How much
did we stump up? £2.5m
Moonwalk
Glove
Monkey
NeverLand
Children
Family squabbling over
his millions
Drugs
Billie Jean
Thriller
Mr. Jackson standing on
top of that cherry picker with a blast of smoke and air billowing his clothes
in all directions
That’s it. My top ten Michael Jackson memories. Now lets home
in on just one; the glove.
On this day in 1991, the crystal-studded glove (key word here
is crystal) belonging to Michael
Jackson and valued at $350,000, was stolen from the Detroit museum and there
was uproar across the US with a countrywide search set up, the result being
that this glove was found in just two days. A lot of this may have been due to
MC Hammer offering a reward for the safe return of said glove.
How much was the reward? $50,000.
Excellent result. All stops pulled in order to get the glove
back into its rightful place where it belongs, safe with its family of other
Mr. Jackson memorabilia. So glad the glove’s back, safe and sound…
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