Mister Rhys Mystery, Case #11: Disappearing Woman

There is a tendency, amongst some, to make grand, sweeping statements about women, in order to get a cheap laugh. 'They can't drive!', for example, or 'they have no sense of direction!', or 'menstruation really happens!', and so on and so forth. Some of us, however, are far too classy for such things, so please do not expect that level of misogyny in this post. Women make excellent drivers, have senses of direction at, or only slightly under, the level of men, and I'm not touching periods with a ten-foot pole. Literally.

The story here begins, as do so many others, with Amelia Earhart. She was so many things to so many people: a role model, a hero, and an idol to millions. Thinking about it, those are more or less the same thing... She had a lot of jobs though! One of her best known jobs was to try and break aviation records for women. She was quite good at breaking records, in that she succeeded at breaking them, and she became not bad at flying (unfortunately in that order).

One day, in 1937, she decided to break a flying-around-the-world record. It wasn't the First Person To Do It record, nor the Fastest Person To Do It record but it was The One Who Went the Longest Way Round record. It is, in these modern times, difficult to see why anyone would want to break an inefficiency record, but this was the Olden Days and that was just how things got done.

Anyway, all went well until it really did not. On her way to Howland Island (an island set right in the middle of the sea), Amelia's plane disappeared, and she was never heard from again, and nor was her plane. There are a million crackpot theories on what happened to her afterwards, and they are all nuts, apart from the one about her being a super-spy, which sounds fairly reasonable.

Now, here's where tings get spooky. Some other famous woman also went missing! For a bit.

That lady's name is Agatha Christie and for ten days in 1926 she disappeared from the face of the earth, returning with absolutely no memory of what happened. Now, I know what you're thinking:

a) Aliens
b) Unconnected

And my answer to you would be:

a) Probably
b) Wrong!

It's not just the famous old women that disappeared, I'd venture to guess that maybe hundred of other women have disappeared mysteriously in the last century, all apparently unrelated and for no discernible reason. That sounds like a pattern to me!

So, yes, it's almost certainly something to do with aliens, isn't everything? But what if this isn't anything to do with aliens? What if this is something altogether more... historical? Ever hear of a little group called the Amazons?

Now, did they really die out with the Greeks, like everyone says, or did they really go underground? And to what purpose are they abducting these brilliant women? Army-building? That sounds a bit far-fetched. Or does it? Think about it, they'd need to learn how all this modern technology works, so they took a brilliant aviational mind like Earhart's. They need to know about modern killing techniques, so they take the master of murder, Christie (just for a bit). They need numbers, so they take... all of the other women who have disappeared throughout history.

They're biding their time, clearly. It's been nearly a hundred years since they took Christie, and murder has moved beyond Poirot. It mostly happens in Scandinavia now. And aeronautical engineering has progressed leaps and bounds since Earhart went missing. It's clear, that when the invasion happens, it's going to feel a little bit steam punk, very old-fashioned and exquisitely uni-breasted.

CASE CLOSED

Working From Home Forever (Not Working & Not At Home)

I am on holiday and it is nice! We're in a village outside of Salcombe in Devon, and it has rained for a large part of the day, and for an equally large part of the week so far. Given that we're at the seaside and this is supposedly Summer, one could get depressed about this kind of thing, but I am not and this is why:

1) I quite like the rain. It's cool and means you aren't a sweaty mess when you get to the top of great big hills like this:

2) It makes the sea look WAY more impressive than boring old blue skies.

3) You get to stay in pubs all day instead of having to all that afore-mentioned walking. I do like walking, obviously, and it is an infinitely more enjoyable means of getting to place on two legs than, say, jogging or... walking sideways. It's just that I like even more being in pubs. (I don't have a photo of this but look at my companions atop a hill!)

4) Waves! (Depth perception is not my camera's strong point but if you spin around a bit before looking at the next photo, and then turn on some kind of industrial wind machine, you will appreciate the lengths I went to take it.)

5) It's Burgh Island, of course. If it were sunny, it would be all wrong. Going there with a dark storm approaching/a little bit underway, I really got the sense that a murder could happen at any moment. It nearly did happen when the pub ran out of crab baguettes, to be honest.

And this is my grey holiday, or today's portion at least. I wonder if I should start championing the 'holi-grey' or if I should keep it to myself, lest other tourists start appearing in the supposed off-season. Yes, this will be our little secret. Do not tell anyone!