Two Vital Questions

Now I’m not saying that BFF’s latest visit was ….. erm ….. lazy ….. more relaxing, chilling, easy going, ….. okay okay alright sheesh, we were both beautifully lazy.

We asked ourselves two vital questions each day – first, what are we eating and second, what are we watching.

And do you know what …… it has been abso-bloomin-lutely wonder-friggin-ful.

Food highlights has been the Jambalaya with the super special, hard to get, I got sent from New Orleans, mix …. and the rib eye steak with haggis and chips 🤤🤤🤤 droolerific.

Watch highlights – we did The Crown. But we really got into the Netflix series Yukon Vet and nightly the joy of I’m A Celebrity.

There was stitching done too. We were not complete slobs. BFF is knitting a blanket with a gorgeous mixed yarn called fruit salad, it doesn’t grow fast but she got through two balls of 200g, back and forth, back and forth. I finagled the ghost pattern to make some Father Christmas gear nob covers, and BFF’s middle child found a cute Santa sock pattern, about big enough to pop a fun size mars bar in. I didn’t want to tackle them without my guru (BFF) beside me but it worked out well (so long as I concentrate and count)

One of my carers asked what I intended to do with them and I said give them away. She helps at the local food bank and asked if she could take them there for them to pop some Christmas chops in for the kiddos. So that’s my project for the next couple of weeks.

Now it’s 3:10pm, BFF is on the road to the airport to fly home 😢. This is the worst day, saying good bud and being the furthest from when she’ll return,

 

The Journey

I was drawn to this film as it starred Timothy Spall and Colm Meaney, two incredible character actors whose work I’ve admired for many years.

The Journey is the fictional dramatisation of a true event, in 2006 the first initial talks of the Northern Ireland Peace Agreement were being held in St Andrew’s Scotland. An incredibly precarious intense meeting between the two highly charged staunch political figures and their associates. However Dr Ian Paisley needed to return to Northern Ireland to attend the celebration of his golden wedding anniversary, bad weather closed the local airport but when a proposal to use a different airport was put to Martin MaGuinness he cited the protocol that he and Paisley must travel together to prevent any attempted assassination plot, thus the two men were driven to the airport where a private jet awaited them both.

Unbeknown to these two figures MI5 had one of their operatives as the driver, and had bugged the car with microphones and mini camera to listen to what the two men might discusse in hope of getting useable intelligence to help the talks progress. Initially neither man can bear to look at the other, neither wanting to give in and look/speak first either. Both despising the history, the past actions, the beliefs and hopes for the future, it seems impossible to find any uncontroversial common ground.

Timothy Spall as The Reverend Ian Paisley, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, is astounding, his mastering of mannerisms and instantly recognisable voice and vocal manner is remarkable, along with the craft of make up and wardrobe completing an incredible transformation.

Colm Meaney as Martin MaGuinness the republican politician for Sinn Fein and leader of the Provisional IRA is captivating. There is a true sense of battle weary, concern that the movement and ‘the troubles’ are breeding another generation of soldiers without fully understanding the cause and reasoning. Fighting an unwinable civil war.

Even though I grew up during this era and vividly remember the news reports of street warfare, the terrorist bombings and numerous attacks, the core fight was not really understood or known, other than Catholic versus Protestant. Listening as these two enemies eloquently spoke of their experience through life, their earnest beliefs,

Without giving too much away, gradually through this journey there are cracks in their iron resolve, there are moments where the human comes out instead of the political representative, even moments of mirth, and a couple of plot twists which question what one thinks of the other.

As they are about to board the plane the two men speak alone, perhaps this is the moment when they can acknowledge that while they fervently disagree with each other they can at least respect each other’s passion and commitment.

It’s a film I feel I need to watch again, to enjoy what I know is coming and perhaps catch a few nuances I missed first time around.

 

Celebrating Persecution

In this time of woke-ness, is there room for the tradition of Bonfire Night?

Ask yourself this …. what is the fifth of November about?

Historically, its begins with the events of 5 November 1605 when Guy Fawkes, a member of the Gunpowder Plot was arrested while guarding explosives the plotters had placed beneath the Houses of Lords intending to kill the King and many Lords and politicians at the Grand State Opening.

Hmm, treasonable actions indeed.

Hmm, if you dive a little deeper it becomes a failed conspiracy, or terrorist endeavour, by a group of provincial English Catholics to assassinate the Protestant King James I of England (VI of Scotland) and replace him with a Catholic head of state. An act of religious war during a period of Great British history where there were factions arguing over whether the absolute monarch should return to the original faith of Roman Catholicism or remain as the newer revised Anglican Church of England, still in its relative infancy since Henry VIII separated from Rome.

Hmm, suddenly it’s starting to sound a little more sinister.

During the years after the foiled plot the tradition sprang up with locals gathering around bonfires had an effigy on the top. In some parts of the country (predominantly Protestant) they were more like scruffy scarecrows, but there were towns and cities where the effigy was made to depict Guy Fawkes, the local Catholic Bishop or The Pope. The idea being to send a strong political message that Catholicism would not be tolerated and sympathisers/followers could expect to be severely punished.

Definitely more sinister, a potential act of incitement and definitely religious intolerance.

In our modern times the strong messaging of Bonfire Night has been lost, generally now firmly placed in the ‘wrap up in hats and scarves, the owww and ahhhs as colourful sparks cascade from the skies while you munch another hot dog or potato baked in the roaring fire’. Yet there is still an event in Lewes near Eastbourne where they make an effigy to the likeness of the presiding Pope to burn atop the tree.

Mind boggling!

Still as we all gathering around the carbon emitting flames and marvel at the chemical incendiaries releasing gasses into the skies, celebrating the burning of those following a religious denomination, maybe the words of A D Wintle will ring in our ears…..

Guy Fawkes, the last man to enter Parliament with honest intentions.

 

David Helfgott

Back in October 2009 BFF and I went on one of our epic expeditions. This time we traveled to Vienna to attend the David Helfgott concert at the Mozart Hall of the Concert House – front row too!

Some of you may recognise his name, he was the subject of the Oscar winning film Shine in 1996. David, an Australian born concert pianist, son of Polish-Jewish immigrants, developed a schizoaffective disorder during his time in London at the Royal College of Music. He returned to Perth where, after numerous treatment methods, was a rehearsal pianist for the Australian Opera and part time pianist at a wine bar.

His performance style has often been criticised as “reducing music to a rubble of notes”, but he does have a completely innocent, child like rapture and charm that comes through the emotion of the pieces he plays. His disorder maybe unpredictable and mannerisms unusual but he truly just wants to bring joy to all. He brings back the ethos that classical music is for all, not just the black tie, exclusive, regimentally trained few.

David is incredibly tactile, and verbal with his little mantras. After the show he hugged us plentifully and uttered “Be happy today, we must be happy”. My endearing memory as he was part way down the stairs from the dressing room was to scurry back to me declaring “Just one more” as he hugged and kissed us both again.

Vienna itself is a stunningly beautiful city, we wandered around the grounds of Belvedere Palace, once home to the Austrian Royal Family, including Frank Ferdinand whose assassination sparked the outbreak of World War One. The Palace itself an art gallery where we saw art by Gustav Klimt, Claude Monet, Jacques Louis David, although the quiet was rather disturbed by my wheelchair’s slight squeak and the creak of the parquet flooring. The marble room with its six foot tall fire places and tromploy ceilings was something to be marvelled.

Wandering the streets through the stunning architecture, beautiful buildings with incredible tableaux, discovering alabaster white statues or fountains at every corner. The sound of horses hooves echoing through the narrow streets made everything so atmospheric. Seeing the famous Lipizzaner horses in their stables. The food of the coffee houses, all the wood panelling, mirrors and crystal chandeliers.

A completely enchanting experience.

 

Suddenly I’m popular!

In my role as international sex symbol and awesome influencer (I saw that smirk!) I am not immune from receiving numerous offers of untold riches and adulation from the social media masses – let’s get real here people, I barely get messages from people I actually honestly know.

I can go days and weeks without receiving a message via a social media message app, usually because my nearest and dearest message me via one medium. So to suddenly get a number of messages saying hi, let’s hook up, nice to meet you, let’s chat, you sound like someone like me – I really do roll my eyes so far back in my head I can see my butt crack.

These attempts do amuse me. Really, you like my profile, it’s bland, uninformative and unhuman. You think my pictures look hot, well I’m not ‘in’ any of the public pictures, my avatar was generated yonks ago, it’s a caricature. Others are either witty sarcastic memes or cats.

Today I received a message from a supposed cabinet minister of UAE, yet he is completely devoid of any punctuation skills. Hmmm, do other languages not have commas and full stops? He called me ‘Dear’, really am I a dear, that’s what a grey haired granny says to her grandchild. It’s a doddery word.

Then I received one from a USA Air Force base person, who thought we had lots in common after reading all my profile had to say about me. I’m no Lycra clad gym bunny with curve and muscles, like her photo, not to mention the twenty year age gap.

I have often wondered what my profile says, what do people (genuine people, not the phishing, bot, scammer kind) deduce about me from what is there? How can I see my public profile as if I were a stranger?

Maybe it is just my cynical superstitious nature that has me going “WotEva” as I hit the block button.

 

Brett “Cosmo” Thorngren

Yesterday I was stunned to receive a message that Brett had died a few days before. I came across his Sister on social media who had, with heart wrenching emotion, live streamed her appreciation at the messages, texts and calls she had received. It was palpable how raw the devastation is as she vented her sorrow, anger and tears about what had occurred and caused such a life affecting, changing set of circumstances.

Across the past couple of decades Cosmo was a character that had crossed my on-line path as he often worked with a mutual friend. Brett was an energetic, vivacious drummer, song writer and composer, music mixer and producer, who had learnt his craft from some incredible names, Tommy Lee and Alex Van Halen. He’d learnt so much from his epic music producer father Eric Thorngren, as well as his talented maternal grandfather and great uncles, the Cosimo Trio. He was a cornerstone of the electronic dance music in Miami in its early days and always had several music projects on the go.

We ‘met’ directly when I had contacted him for permission to host a music video of the group Lisbon, which had included our mutual friend Stephen Gibb. As conversation over time continued I helped him source links and info that was already around the internet in order to put together a more detailed biography as he was beginning to put his vast catalogue of work on streaming sites.

As part of this project, I did the same for the Cosimo Trio and he generously shared some lovely atmospheric photos, bill fliers and letters of their career through the 1940/50 big band era.

When I had told him of my Big Sis situ (at the time she had just been diagnosed with brain tumours) he wanted me to stop my researching for him but I said no, it gave me a few minutes of escape. After Big Sis died he sent me a number of unreleased music tracks as he thought they would comfort me or distract me in my grief – he was right.

Often he would record a message to send as he wasn’t an expert typist and in one of them he told me he was going to a school where he was teaching youngsters drumming. The uplifting pride in his voice as he recounted the joy in these tiny faces as they realised they created something themselves was tangible.

Together we had worked hard to create a Wikipedia page about his work in the music industry. He had shared a great deal of information with me and I had found numerous online links from papers, publications and websites confirming the stated facts – sadly the wiki-warriors kept rejecting the sources and deleting the technical effort in coding the page. But it can be found if you search hard enough. Brett had hoped to do a couple of interviews about upcoming music but the pandemic broke and everything stopped.

I will miss his “Hey how you doing?” emails.

I cannot imagine the pain his mother, partner and siblings are feeling. My heart breaks at how they are trying to help his two young boys (3 and 5 years old) understand about Daddy.

Brett has scattered his music and his talent across the internet, reaching a global audience. His generosity of soul and energetic spirit stay with all those who spent the briefest of moments with him.

---

I am determined to have the biography published somewhere, so here it is.

Brett “Cosmo” Thorngren is an American Music Producer, singer, drummer, CEO of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang Records (who have released over 300 tracks) and songwriter.

Early life

Born 25 December 1974 in Cortland New York, son of Eric “ET” Thorngren, maternal grandson of Salvatore Cosimo of the Cosmo Trio. Brett relocated to Miami Florida in the early 1990’s.

Music career

Along with Paul Isaac (vocals), Gerson (guitar), Ari Eisenstein (bass) and Brett (drums) formed Muse around 1992 in Miami, Florida. Their self-titled debut album was released in May 1995 by independent label Velocity Records. Tiring of the lack of quality live music venues in Miami the band decided to relocate, initially to Atlanta, Georgia. The follow up album “Arcana” was released 18 May 1997 by Atlantic Records.

In 1999, Brett left Muse to join (Astralwerks Records) recording artists, Metrodub, getting back to his Miami DJ roots, he was back out on the road touring with Chemical Brothers, Daft Punk, and FatBoy Slim. Performing under the name Cosmo, he became a resident DJ at Liquid, Bar Room, Chili Peppers and Level. 

In early 2000 Brett with Gil Bitton formed the side project Lisbon recording a number of tracks with a view to releasing. Contract obligations with record companies meant they were shelved. The tracks were remastered and made available to purchase and stream online from mid December 2019.

Brett wrote and produced a handful of dance records, some released internationally, on various labels (Universal, Filtered, Neo Records). At this point in his career Brett was able to work on his skills as a music producer and engineer, producing various indie rock bands. He worked as Barry Gibb’s (Bee Gees) personal engineer on several projects, including the 2004 Guilty Too, Barbra Streisand’s album which earned him a gold record.

In 2005 Brett mastered Kirk Windstein’s Crowbar studio album Lifesblood For The Downtrodden.

In July 2007 Arctic Tale documentary released an official soundtrack album, which included the track “Underworld”, written and recorded by Barry Gibb, Stephen Gibb and Ashley Gibb, which credited Brett as Engineer.

In 2010 Kiss Kiss Bang Bang Records was incorporated in Miami Florida providing an independent record label releasing in excess off 300 tracks for local artists via BeatPort, SoundCloud and other online music streaming services.

When Kendra Erika was buzzing around the club dance scene in Miami she went into Brett’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang studios and recorded a 5 track digital EP titled Hostage.

Never far from his DJ roots, performing under the stage name Cosmo, Brett often been part of the Ultra Music Festival line up, appearing at Oasis from Noon to 1pm Saturday 25 March 2017.

In 2019 Brett mixed and mastered Alpha Cat’s studio album “Thatched Roof Glass House”.

Former member of Metrodub (Astralwerks Records), Skreamerz and Thrillers.

#BrettThorngren #CosmoThorngren

 

The Curious Twenty Pence

A wee tale for you, dear reader, to enjoy and ponder over.

To set the scene :: my kitchen is a small galley style, fridge-sink-washing machine-cupboard-oven-two cupboards, so not exactly expansive nor easy to over look anything. The flooring is a dark charcoal colour, lovely but shows every crumb and dust spec like a flashing neon light. The window at the fridge end is where the furry bunch pop in and out as their little paws desire. Across a few days I have had the same carer diligently tending to my needs, so she knew what was where as only she had been in there and she’s a tidy observant person. I had asked her to strip my bed and the discarded sheet, duvet cover and two pillow cases were loaded into the machine to be washed and dried (same machine does both).

The next morning carer had fed both cats, made my munchables and coffee, wiped the counter tops and left everything clean and straight. she returned for the next visit and had taken my plate and mug to the kitchen sink and put the cat’s trays in to soak too. After getting me from the bathroom to the lounge she returned and emptied the machine to drape the dry but would benefit from a slight airing bedding over the airer. As always she comes into the kitchen and asks if there is anything else that needs doing, getting, checking etc, then after writing the care book goes back into the kitchen to dispose of gloves and apron. I heard her make an exclamation but thought she was talking to the cat.

She came through holding a bright shiny twenty pence piece! That had been lying in front of the washing machine.

How curious…. how had it got there and not been noticed before! Whose was it as neither of us handle coins!!

There are a couple of possibilities…..

• Fallen from another’s pocket and not been noticed
• Somehow I’d been sleeping with a coin in the bedding
• Was the tooth fairy leaving a deposit
• Did #NotMyCat leave a tip for breakfast service

 

Sunny holibobs

Back to normalcy with a winding thrump, after a smidge over two weeks with my BFF, where we enjoy snacks, cats, stitching and bitching (as in kvetch at the idiocy of some and how their get their knotted thong wedged up their butts being mean to others), foods we normally do not have like sausage, egg and chips! We wandered out and about, even got to the seafront esplanade and had an ice cream, with a flake too!!

We both went out for pedicures and I got my hair harvested (not saying it needed it but the vacuum had to be emptied midway as the bucket was full). Jobs and errands got taken care of. And I was spoilt rotten with attention. I love my BFF time, such fun, we even kareoke-d into the wee hours remembering lyrics to songs we hadn’t heard in decades. There were a couple of times we both laughed so hard, and kept setting each other off again, until we almost ‘oops-ed’ ourselves.

Of course Mickey (#NotMyCat) and Ginge (#NotMyCat2) were in hog heaven, practically getting food on demand, well Moocher does have a penetrating stare. Ginge is still a little timid but did settle on the sofa between us on the day of rain. With windows and doors left ajar from early morning until bed time they had free range to come and go at their whim, which they did. BFF bought a brush and Mickey really seemed to enjoy stretching out on the floor and being brushed, the implement soon choked with his white fur. As for the scratch mat, it’s a work in progress.

Avoiding the football we indulged in some serious binge viewing as well as a few films and documentaries

Live & Let Die
Moonraker
The Spy Who Loved Me 
Pilgrimage (bbc iPlayer)
Octopus Teacher (Netflix)
Life series
Blue Planet series
Penguin Town (Netflix)
The Wizard of Oz
Moulin Rouge
Singing In The Rain
Believe Me : Abduction of Lisa McVey
Steel Magnolias 
Titanic
Kedi (Cats of Istanbul)
One Chance (Paul Pott story)
The Man Who Knew Too Much
Thelma & Louise
Mona Lisa Smile
Rat Race
Frankie & Grace (Netflix series)
The Pharmacist (Netflix documentary)
FireFly Lane (Netflix series)

All too soon as always she’s packing the suitcase, putting the duvet back on the bed and we’re waiting for the taxi to whisk her away……we restart the clock for when she can return to play again.

 

Just Ignore Him – Alan Davies

It was with a degree of trepidation that I began this read, a curious reason to choose to read the book at all you may think. You see, I had read many glowing reviews and critics praise, so often I find them so over hyped and the opposite to my own conclusions, and also because I enjoy Alan’s skills and abilities as a comedian, panellist and actor across many years and I was intrigued and eager to hear about his history.

Thanks to his “As Yet Untitled” series on Dave and of course QI I had gleaned a few snippets of info, I know Australia featured strongly, that his Mum had died when he was very young, that he had a turbulent relationship with school and so forth, but not the core happenings, the fundamentals that form our foundations. His journey that took him from a child to adulthood, from innocent exploration to working family man.

This memoir is not a chronological diary of life, picking out those highlights or significant events that either helped or hindered his progress through life, interspersed with whimsical anecdotes. This is an honest, touching account from a survivor of life as a sexually abused child. It is phenomenally well written, at no time is Alan portrayed as the hapless, silent victim, but the confused child, struggling to comprehend weighty issues, in an environment of isolation, by which I mean alone within his own family as well as in a crowd.

Reading and understanding how his fathers behaviour towards him across many years affected his every moment through out life was incredibly enlightening. The conflicting emotions and signals, the ‘special secret’ versus being ignored or intentionally reprimanded. The feeling of displacement and disconnection around him. At the core there is this influential figure, a father, the person you have an instinctive affection towards, who is supposed to protect you and teach you about life. Realising the perversions of this authoritative presence and the extent of them and how they still prevailed in his dotage.

It has left scars, fractured the family somewhat, still rearing its ugliness on Alan to this day. Taking the brave step of reporting his father’s behaviour to the authorities must have been such an incredibly hard thing to balance in your own mind, the tugging to and fro with the pros and cons. He has my continued admiration.

It was powerful to read about his misbehaviour, the antics that some may say was attention seeking, maybe it was, maybe not having the nurturing, caring, maternal aspect at home he was seeking it from somewhere else, in some misguided fashion to fit in a place comfortably. All children have phases of tantrums and boundary pushing, it’s a process of learning and growing, but it can also be a red flag to something not being ‘right’ there is more to this behaviour than growing pains. As adults we are incredibly blind to spotting the subtle signals of difference.

I hope Alan has found calmness within himself as his adult life has progressed, getting the support and understanding from his wife, a fresh fun zest in life as his own children grow. That he knows he has value to other people.

 

The Cecil Hotel, LA

Recently I binged the Netflix documentary series Crime Scene The Vanishing At The Cecil Hotel, it was an interesting watch, if you’re into real life oddness.

It centres around the Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, a 700-room hotel opened in the mid-1920’s just before the Great Depression, along with several grand hotels in the area it enjoyed a period of opulent prosperity and was aimed at the middle class traveller and business men. After World War II the area, also known as Skid Row, fell further into transience as fortunes changed, the stark increase in sex workers, drug dealing and users, along with those unable to afford rents and the increasing protocol to herd the homeless into a manageable area of the ever expanding City, increased criminal activity.

Curiously ever since the Hotel first opened it has been linked to suicides, mysteries and murders. The first documented suicide was January 22, 1927, when Percy Ormond Cook shot himself in the head while inside his hotel room after failing to reconcile with his wife and child. In 1967 “Pigeon Goldie” Osgood long-term resident, a retired telemarketer was found dead in her room, she had been raped, stabbed, beaten and her room ransacked. Her murder remains unsolved. The Press often linked the hotel to numerous serial killers. Frequently residents had died from drug overdoses or long term substance and/or alcohol abuse. There is even a Wikipedia page detailing some of them.

The documentary beds itself around the disappearance in February 2013 of young Canadian student Elisa Lam. She was an avid blogger and frequently documented her travels, fashion, life thoughts online garnering many regular followers. When away from home she called home everyday, after her parents hadn’t heard from her they called the LAPD and news started circulating about a missing person. As the Police struggled to piece together Elisa’s movements they released the elevator CCTV footage, it went viral and set in motion an interesting series of events.

An army of ‘web-sleuths’ scrutinised in meticulous details, frame by frame, the cctv sparking the beginnings of numerous conspiracy theories, many still perpetuate. Things like, why’s the time stamp jumping, the door isn’t closing, whose that shadow. Suddenly people across the globe were gathering in FaceBook groups to discuss minute anomalies, some visiting the hotel to re-enact and trace where she had been. What I found very telling as the documentary continued was how this congregation of unqualified amateurs ardently believed they could succeed where the professionals could not and that they believed every morsel of conjecture and hypothesis from a straightforward mugging gone wrong to the CIA using vanishing vaporise lasers. But there was more to come.

SPOILER ALERT :: if you don’t want to know the outcome I’d suggest ceasing here …. thank you for reading ….

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….. Okay dear reader, I hope you’re not eating or drinking while you read on.

…….

About two to three weeks after Elisa’s vanishing a few hotel guests and residents started to complain that the water had an odd odour and taste and the water then started to change colour to a sludgy brown. A maintenance worker was sent to inspect the four roof top water tanks. Sadly one of them contained the floating bloating remains of a young girl, later identified as the missing traveller.

Now the merry band of web sleuths really had something to get overly involved with. From behind their screens and keyboards they pieced together bits of facts with leaps of notions, ignored some elements and fantasised others, to quite catastrophic levels.

Attention turned to how did Elisa get onto the roof. The access door was locked and alarmed, this meant that the hotel management had to be involved, a member of night staff had to have killed her. The design of the building meant that there was a metal fire escape on the outside, a series of stairs and platforms covering all fifteen floors, including the roof, accessed from a hallway window that was not alarmed, locked or monitored in anyway. Debris on the roof showed that it was frequently used by people to smoke, drink, take drugs, have parties etc.

The nature of her discovery caused a media frenzy as a police chief was leaving the hotel trying to get through the jostling crowd of reporters he was asked a question which he hastily replied “When Officers approached the water tank the hatch was closed”. The web brigade pounced on this to mean that she must have been dumped because no-one could close the hatch from the inside, so it must be murder. The officer was correct in his statement, because when the maintenance worker noticed the hatch was open and that’s when he discovered the grizzly contents and had closed the hatch from habit as he called for help.

Searches across the internet brought up ‘evidence’ of a Mexican death metal singer called Morbid, due to his chilling lyrics, which included a reference to a girl drowning and his dark videos addressing death (one was filmed at The Cecil), along with having stayed there, meant he must have lured her to the rooftop and killed her. He was hounded, trolled, and harassed over a period of months, received death threats and villanised as a murderer by the Court of Online Public Opinion. It caused him to suffer a breakdown and such depression that he attempted suicide. The ‘evidence’ grasped by the onliners was years old and at the time of Elisa vanishing Morbid was in Mexico but even still today eight years later he still get mail labelling him a murderer.

One aspect of Elisa’s life was, to some degree, suppressed until late on in the investigations and not readily available, she had been diagnosed as bi-polar and had a history of intentionally not taking the prescribed medication, which had caused her to experience strong psychotic episodes, along with hallucinations in the past. Armed with this knowledge, along with the Coroner’s report showing toxicology levels and there being no evidence of any assault or violence on her body, it was concluded that her death was accidental.

At the end, I felt sad that this young life had ended, that so many innocent people had been branded and abused because of tenuous links but mostly I was concerned, almost worried, about the mob mentality and power of online collectiveness. This ferocious hungry entity eagerly hurrying for instant information, affirmation and inconsequential action feels a little bit like Pandora’s box.