Week 6

Donald signed a copy of his book for me. what a swell guy!

The Ten Bells. . .haunted by Jack the Ripper's ghost. . .and a very popular local watering hole.

Explaining the Old Spitalfield Markets part in the Jack the Ripper saga. Spitalfield meaning hospital this was an old hospital area and surrounded by fields. The building behind Donald is actually the same place where the apartment stood of Ripper's final victim. . .creeps!

Prostitutes logging with an entryway blessed by the Virgin Mary.

This is Ripper's corner. Down the side road to the right is believed to be the street Jack the Ripper lived on.

Where another clue once lay.....this was a week of irony, like in the way that the Happy Days restaurant has been built over the former doorway to this apartment building where Ripper wrote his chalk contact to the police. It was wiped away thanks to the great police power battle between the east end police and the city of London police and then built over later thanks to modern "progress".

Walking the line between the original city of London line and the East End line.....invisible line that separated the police forces and where Jack the Ripper hopped back and forth across when committing his killings thus eluding his seekers. Allegedly on the night of his double murder as the police hunted for him he walked right past both police search parties and slipped back over the line to go home.

Mire Street built around Mire Square......scene of another murder!!!!! Muahahahaha.

Donald made this poor girl stand in front of the whole group then informed her she was standing on the exact spot where one of the murdered bodies was found.

Prostitutes Church. This street was popular for prostitutes in Ripper's time but police also heavily patrolled this area to catch them....so they used the church as a hiding ground where if they saw police coming they would move walk around behind the church and come back out when the coast was clear to look for more customers.....this is where Ripper found another of his victims.

Just a really cool shot of original Tower of London wall next to a posh hotel at the start of the tour.

Donald Rumbelow is the leading expert on Jack the Ripper and our guide for the night. He has written two books on the subject (see my copy of the latest one above) and was personally sought out by Johnny Depp for a personal tour when he was making the Ripper inspired movie From Hell. Bad ass Tuesday night if I do say so.

Went to the opening (FREE) night of the Royal Albert Hall Load art exhibit. They gave the loading dock at Royal Albert Hall to various graffiti artists and asked them to create murals featuring the greatest performers of RAH history and other famous people who spoke or performed there. Here is Clapton who also recently performed (not for free) part of his farewell tour back at RAH.

The Beatles, Albert Einstein, Clapton.

The Killers. Women's Suffrage. Sumo Wrestling.

The definition of irony right here.

Ali, Jay-Z, Hendrix, Franklin, Bocelli, Sinatra and I can't remember the rest off hand...

BOB!!!! Europe loves Bob Dylan...he is here...in the National Portrait Gallery....

This week has been a busy one as always. Work has really picked up since we have quite a few big projects moving closer to production stage. Not only that by my evenings have been packed as well. Monday night featured an excellent sampling of London-life going to an underground, free opening of one of the most anticipated art shows of the summer followed by cocktails and Indian food (national dish Chicken Tikka Marsala is fantastic!). Tuesday went out to do the highly praised Jack the Ripper tour. Lucked out with one of the best possible tour guides for the trip which made it worth every since pence! Tonight I went to the BFI Southbank after work and enjoyed a delightful little indie Wendy & Lucy and wandered around the magic that is a movie institute. I'm going to miss having all of this culture at my fingertips when I come home in 3 weeks!!!!

Now off to bed I have to be into work early in the morning tomorrow to help film an interview for a proposed presenter for a reality show I'm collaborating on!