Odds and Sods, Cabbages and Kings

Thanks to our wonderful "traffic calming" methods in London, I regularly have to abuse my car by going over ridiculously large road humps (unaffectionately known as "sleeping policemen"), and recently the clunking has been worrying me. A call yesterday to the RAC and I found myself being towed to the Nissan dealership to have a broken coil spring replaced.

But not on the same day. Nissan dealerships apparently don't carry Nissan parts, and when they order them, they take some days to arrive. Eventually we agreed on a clone piece (and then a new battery, you know how it goes) but I would get it back this morning.

No. No call. No apology. No more me for a customer. And a bill for over £280.

But one of the more surreal and interesting news items of the week is the fate of good old Dick The Shit (Richard The Turd, geddit?) who died in 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth Field. He was buried at Greyfriars church in Leicestershire, central England, but the church is long gone. So some of his fans - those particularly who think he was maligned by Shakespeare and did not murder the two little princes in the Tower before usurping their throne - have been hunting down the whereabouts of his remains. Old maps proved that the site of the church was now under the car park of a council building.

One parking space bizarrely had a letter R painted on it (for reserved, presumably) and Dick's top fan stood there and got a funny feeling. When the archaeological dig began, bones were found under that parking space. The woman was disappointed to find that the body had severe scoliosis, and like other Richardists she did not believe the slander of the hunchback. But they dug him up. They scanned him. They radio-carbon dated him. They did a facial reconstruction. And they found a 17th generation descendant of his sister for a DNA test. Guess what? It's him! Unbelievable!

 

Richard's portrait

 

Reconstruction

 

 

 

 

 

 

                      

Reconstruction.