- Men find dead dolphin in garden
- Mummified man found in home
- Father of two finds he is infertile
- Missing garden gnomes
- Woman overboard on honeymoon cruise
- Junk Mail Hazard
- In the footsteps of Hemingway
- Treasure Hunt
- Inverse Heist
- An event in childhood that still resonates
- Spot your next hero in the mall
- What if?
Men find dead dolphin in garden
Two men wake up and find a small dolphin in their garden. The house is half a mile from the sea, and the dolphin has two puncture wounds in it. The police can find no crime has been committed and uncover no information as to why the dolphin is there.
Dolphin Mystery
Friday July 18 2008
Mummified man found in home
Police force their way into a home to find a dead 70 year old man, He is wearing his clothes and lying on his bed, almost mummified. There is a pile of mail on the floor, with letters going back to June 2006, so it is assumed the man has been dead for two years. Bills were being paid by direct debit. The police had been called when suspicion was raised by a neighbour.
Searching on Google for “man found dead two years mummified” comes up with a number of other cases:
- a Russian found dead sitting upright presumed dead for six years,
-
a Long Island man dead for more than a year found with his television blaring out- officials cannot understand why the electricity was not turned off.
Original news item
Another original news item
August 2008
Father of two finds he is infertile
A man who goes for a vasectomy is told that he does not need one as he is infertile. However, he and his wife have two daughters. He asks his sister for advice and she writes to a newspaper agony aunt for advice
The woman describes her sister in law as someone you would least suspect of having an affair – a plain-looking do-gooder. The sister has her suspicions about the vicar.
DNA tests could provide some of the answers, but would the man be willing to live with the results? And how would the mother react?
Pillow Talk - The Daily Telegraph
16/08/2008
Missing garden gnomes
A treasured garden gnome disappears. Two weeks later the first of many different post cards arrive from around the world, ‘signed’ by the gnome.
Familiar from Amelie, maybe the story develops. After nine months the gnome comes home only for it to disappear again a month later. This time it sends messages saying it has been kidnapped, and is being held to ransom, by a drugs cartel in the tropics.
Gnome Threat
Woman overboard on honeymoon cruise
A honeymooning couple each with a volatile personality are on a cruise ship. They spend more and more time fighting until eventually one night, after drinking and arguing, the maitre d’ sees the couple on deck with the woman threatening to throw herself in.
The husband approaches and she falls backwards over the rails into the pitch-black sea. The husband follows her over the edge and into the sea or just stands there looking – you choose.
The maitre d’ raises the alarm and the ship lurches as the ‘emergency brakes’ are put on. The ship leans over at 45 degrees as it circles back on itself. The woman/couple are found 30 minutes later.
This is more or less the story related by a steward on board the QE2. He had witnessed this when working on another cruise ship. I’m not sure whether it was just the woman or the pair ended up in the sea. But they were rescued alive – and not too shaken up. The incident happened in the Caribbean, so the sea was warm enough.
Junk Mail Threat To Suburban Life
Junk mail for a toiletries and cosmetic company is delivered by the local agent. The leaflet is impregnated with the scent of its latest perfume. It sits on the doormat all day with the scent pervading the air in the home.
What if:
- Someone working at home doesn’t realise that the junk mail is there and reacts to the scent. They develop a headache/migraine/mood swing/allergic reaction with a resulting illness/anaphylactic reaction/death
- Someone at home is worried that someone has broken into the house/has a good or bad memory rekindled (eg an ex-lover / a person no longer in their life)
- The man comes home and finds the junk mail and throws it out. His wife/girlfriend comes home later and can smell the perfume which is still lingering in the air. She is suspicious that the man has had another woman round, which causes an argument / violence / divorce / murder / the man’s possessions to be thrown out.
Could this be developed as a form of terrorism? What about getting the postal service to deliver a biological weapon on an impregnated piece of junk mail?
In the footsteps of Hemingway
A latter-day Hemingway seeks to retread the novelist’s footsteps both real and literary: from volunteering for the medical corps in a war zone, to reporting for a national newspaper on a civil war, from spying to gun-running, from serving in the navy sinking U-boats to helping liberate a city, from running the bulls in Pamplona to becoming a matador, from going on safari to game fishing for marlin, from surviving two plane crashes and a bush fire, to drinking more than one bar dry.
How wrapped up in Hemingway will this person become? Will it end with depression and ECT, dipsomania and suicide?
Beware that a biopic of Hemingway has been mooted although seems to be in abeyance at present. And there have been TV mini-series in 1988 and 2000.
Are there any other adventurers/authors/fictional characters that could be emulated?
Treasure hunt
A game to collect as many treasures or artefacts as possible – on a global scale: a piece of the Turin Shroud, a crown jewel (points awarded for the ranking of the royal family), a shrunken head (points for freshness), a Rembrandt self-portrait, Shakespeare’s autograph, a lock of hair from Marie Antoinette, a feather from Sitting Bull’s head dress, a relic from a South American saint …
What does it take to win? To steal from museums, or make forgeries, or to charm their way, or
Turn the heist story round
To get the stolen property back, can the original owners do it on their own, or do they need to call in the police? Can the public foil the thieves, or does another gang do a heist on the hiding place of the original thieves?
An event in childhood that still resonates
Remember a particular incident from your childhood around the time you were aged 8 or 9 – why does it stand out from among your memories? What was going on? Who was there, what were your feelings and emotions? What senses were involved – warmth, cold, sounds, smells, colours?
What does it make you feel now when you think about it? Has the event had any impact on your life? What about the other people involved – what happened to them, where are they now?
Spot your next hero in the mall
Observe the people in the shopping mall. Who is there alone and who is with other people. Who is animated and walking briskly, who looks like they are hating every moment of it? Who knows where they are going, who is just meandering? Who is there simply as it’s a place to be and is ignoring the shops.
How are the people interacting – smiling, laughing, arguing, throwing a tantrum. Is there any other body language – the distance between people, someone trailing behind? And how are they dressed – smart to impress, casual, scruffy. And how fashionable are they – up to date, or getting more than their money’s worth out of their clothes. What do you think of these people? What do you know about them? What might their secret be?
What if …?
An event in history hadn’t happened?
- Arch Duke Ferdinand hadn’t been assassinated
- the central northern European tribes hadn’t defeated the Roman General Germanicus?
- there was no solar transit for Captain Cook to measure from the Pacific?
- King George III hadn’t suffered from porphyria or had ensured fair taxes and representation for the Colonies
- the British had not won the battle of Quebec
- the Russians hadn’t sold Alaska
- the Berlin Wall had not been built
- if Edward VIII had not abdicated or Wallace Simpson hadn’t been living in London?
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