Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Twitter Ye Not - The Loch Ness Monster


Twitter Ye Not - The Loch Ness Monster

A regular piece for the Daily Mail Weekend magazine about how figures in history might have twittered or tweeted or whatever, had they the chance, inclination and technology.

On November 12 1933, a British Aluminium Company worker named Hugh Gray was walking home from church when he saw an object rise from the waters of the lake beside him. The image he captured on his box camera was the first to purport to offer proof of the existence of the Loch Ness monster. Here, we imagine the reaction on Twitter to that iconic photograph.

As I was unable to track down any images of Hugh Gray (or at least, be certain I had the right Hugh Gray) I chose to show a more generic Scot, be-kilted with a tam o'shanter hat, hip-flask and crafty smile.

Opposite him stands British fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley, also mentioned in the article and on the ascendency at that time. All very scathing, and rightly so, but I did point out to the commissioner that, if memory serves me well, the Daily Mail were firm supporters of Mosley's movement before the War. No comment... ;-). Their version of the swastika was the Lightning Bolt badge, which Ossie wears on his ridiculously high belt.

He was married to Diana Mitford, and both spent years in gaol during WWII. Diana and her sister Unity were both dyed-in-the-wool fascists, but their younger sister Jessica (known as Decca) moved to America and became an ardent communist.
She was unbending about Diana's steely and unrepentant Fascist history. Visiting London with her son, Benjamin Treuhaft, who was half Jewish, she noted Diana's offer of a meeting: "I thought better not, as I didn't want Benj turned into a lampshade."

Between these men Nessie, the monster herself, rises from the murky depths of the vast loch.

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