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Bookish: SOME WEEKEND NOTES (6#) -

# Boyd Tonkin visits the Cairo Book Fair.

# Suggested Readings about the mysterious
popularity of conspiracy theories by Max Holland.

# Comics Cult Fave: the final issue of Y: The Last Man,
a comic written by Lost writer Brian K. Vaughan.

# Stefan Zweig: an essay on
his life and times by Patrick White.

# Graham Hurley writes gritty
policiers based in Portsmouth, England.

# The Bookseller: this week, Joel Rickett tells us that lit agents Curtis Brown and ICM are merging! And Arab writers will be featured at the upcoming London Book Fair with a short list for fiction. [guard]

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PERUGIA BLOOD CASE (4#) -

Some Background and Context -

# The Beasts of Satan were a heavy metal band and malefic cult in northern Italy. Members of the group committed ritual murders over the course of several years.

a leaked notebook appeared to link the young suspects to devil worship. It contained grisly entries such as "blood and death, blood raining down, blood bathing all my body, blood thirsty for blood" and "crush those who are our friends, or who would like to be but aren't up to it, crush them then laugh."

# *Meanwhile, Italian police are investigating the possibility that the Beasts of Satan - all four of whom have been arrested on suspicion of murder - were "just following orders" given by an anonymous band of Satanists in their late 20s or early 30s... * [Seattle Stranger]

# "Priests are to work alongside Italian
police officers to tackle a rising tide of
crimes linked to devil worship." [Nick Pisa]

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PERUGIA BLOOD CASE update -

20/20's Meredith Kercher Murder Mystery -

the TV program raised further questions . . .

Having watched the ABC TV 20/20 program earlier this evening, I just want to jot down some of my thoughts and impressions while the program is still fresh in my mind...

First, let me preface this entry by remarking that this program was one of those rare occasions when I missed having a color TV set. I've been watching TV lately on a 5" black and white countertop portable which generally suffices for my current needs. Ah, but Perugia looked beautiful even in B&W; it must look fantastic in full color. And now, to the matter at hand.

While I was watching and listening to the female presenter, I thought I heard her say that there had been a Halloween party that evening, but this exact information does not appear on the presentation at their website. Thus, there seems to be a disparity between what was said on the program itself and the text which appears on the Net.

Perhaps this party is a piece of information which the Perugia Police Chief wanted to keep from the public. Sometimes the police hold back some information so that they can test for false confessions from loose screws or for some other legitimate purpose.

But if such a party happened . . .
I think I would want to know more about it:

= Who attended this party? Were they dressed in diverse costumes? Were some of them wearing dominos? Were they dressed up as specific characters?

= Do the attendees have credible alibis
for the broad time span of the criminal episode?

= How far away from the Crime Scene was the Party Scene? Did any witnesses observe the partygoers walk from the Party Scene to the Crime Scene?

The party, which I believe was
mentioned, seems like a fertile topic to explore.

:: ABC 20/20 program ::

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PERUGIA BLOOD CASE update -

*Detectives know that Meredith Kercher withdrew 200 Euro to pay her rent money just days before she was murdered but no trace of it has been found.*

"We know she withdraw 200 Euro from a cash dispenser to pay her rent but the landlord never received it and this money has not been traced."

:: Nick Pisa in Rome ::
-- UK Telegraph --

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THIRD CABLE CUT (5#) -

# Another undersea telecom cable has been cut, this one
is in the Arabian Gulf about 50 kilometers off Dubai.

"I own an internet cafe in Sharjah
and from the morning I have not made
a single penny." --Hisham, Sharjah, UAE.

# The extent of the damaging effects
is not yet clear in the Gulf states because
Friday is not a working day in the region.

# *Omar Sultan, chief executive of Dubai's IPS DU, said the incident was "very unusual." He said it wasn't known how the underwater FLAG FALCON cable, stretching between the United Arab Emirates and Oman, had been damaged.*

# Revenge of militant dolphins
blamed for underwater internet
cable sabotage. [TheSpoof]

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PERUGIA BLOOD CASE update -

It's still in process, but forensic pathologist Dr Luca Lalli's current tentative evaluation asserts the possibility that the appearance of sexual violation may have been faked to mislead those discovering Meredith Kercher's body, because he found no bruising internally which would be consistent with rape.

Further, the specific Cause of Death is in flux at the moment; it currently seems possible she choked on her own blood instead of death due to loss of blood.

Additional traces of DNA have been discovered which may be due to contamination or to the involvement of additional participants in whatever took place.

The exact Time of Death has not
been scientifically nailed down yet. [Nick Pisa]

+ A major American Media Organization, ABC TV Network, has hired Joe Tacopina, a hotshot youngish criminal defense lawyer, as a consultant/talking head for their presentation of the case. He maintains offices in NYC and in Milan. I am not familiar with his work, but it would be nice if he speaks Italian, wudnit?

++ Blogger is misbehaving!

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CABLE CUT SMACKS
CUSTOMER SERVICE CENTERS -

Two damaged undersea cables -

*The biggest impact to the rest of the world could come from the outages in India - where many US and European companies outsource back-office operations including customer service call centres.

"The companies that serve the US East coast and the UK are worst affected. The delay is very bad in some cases," Rajesh Chharia said.*

:: [Metro UK] ...and... [indiaenews]

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BOOKS & BLOGS (3#) -

Reading, Writing and Rambling -

# Sarah Boxer tours an armful of books about Blogs and gives a picaresque introduction to Blog Culture. Her book on the topic is Ultimate Blogs which is an anthology to be published this month.

"Writing like this might seem easy, but just try it... many journalists who get called upon by their editors to keep blogs are similarly stumped... They read like journalists, not bloggers."

# Thomas Jones scrutinizes Sarah Boxer through
his pair of opera glasses, then shares his views:

"Books and blogs, if they’re doing their jobs properly,
are as different as two kinds of published text can be."

# The new Feb/March '08 issue of
BookForum has been posted online.

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BLOGLINES CAUGHT
IN MOGULS' CONFLICT (2#) -

# "The struggle between media moguls John Malone and Barry Diller over IAC/InterActive Corp. took a significant turn Monday, when Malone's Liberty Media Corp. took steps to wrest the Internet company from Diller's control."

# "Liberty sued... accusing IAC of attempting to wrest control of the new companies and dilute Liberty's current 62 percent voting power."

[CNN MONEY] ...and... [BLOOMBERG]

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The Press: A MOVABLE FEAST (4#) -

Fleet Street to Wapping to
Broxbourne . . . and then Miami -

Stephen Brook describes the migration of one of England's biggest newspapers; there have been many changes along the way.

So, too, American newspapers must change with the times in order to stay contemporary - McClatchy's Miami Herald and the Tribune's SF Sun-Sentinel included. Expect changes ahead...

Knowledgeable insiders expect the price of newspaper pulp to rise sharply. This development would suggest a period of compression and consolidation. But will we recognize the product after all the expected changes or will tomorrow's newspaper be something we cannot now even imagine?

Rubberneckers: The UK Guardian's Ed Pilkington in Miami watching the political scene among the area's Cuban-American voters. Florida libre.

Dave Barry's Inside Guide to the Florida primary;
tongue-in-cheek at The Seattle Times.

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Bookish: SOME WEEKEND LIT NOTES (4#) -

# A book of short stories by James Lee Burke,
John Harvey's Nottingham cop returns, and
more Crime reviewed by Peter Guttridge.

# John Naughton says computers and
the internet are affecting how we read.

# A collection of Walter Benjamin
fragments reviewed by Peter Conrad.

# Sarah Birke describes some of the newer
"small" Literary Magazines based in the UK.

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PERUGIA DESANGUINATION update -

Raffaele Sollecito's computer has yielded a diary or blog on which he allegedly expressed his admiration for a notorious killer, according to a report by Kate Mansey.

It may have been posted in cyberspace or on the internet, but the reporter says that his lawyers "took the site down after his arrest."

Detectives are currently in the process of mining his hard drive for clues after he gave them his password last Monday to access its contents.

:: UK Sunday Mirror ::

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