ladybranwen | Death calling! or, Lestat: Unbreak My Heart

You know, whenever I feel down and out, I turn to my journal and this obituary I cut out years ago.

"Angus Montagu, 12th Duke of Manchester, was scarcely the conventional holder of a ducal title. Nor could he be regarded as a particularly effective upholder of the family name- though he followed at least one noble family tradition by going to prison. In his case incarceration was in the Virginia State Penitentiary rather than the Tower of London, in which his distinguished forebear Sir Edward Montagu had languished briefly in 1553. Sir Edward's fault, as Chief Justice of the King's Bench, had been to draft the passages in the will of King Edward VI which settled the crown on Lady Jane Grey. When Mary came to the throne she made him pay for it, thoug he was able to buy his way out after a couple of months.

There was to be no such luck for the 12th Duke of Manchester, which under the rigours of the American penal system after he had been convicted of fraud. His sojourn as Prisoner No. 19127-018 in the Virginia State Pen, between 1996 to 1998, was a piece with a life that was a peculiarly unfocused saga of occasional and incompetent criminal acts. Most of these appeared to be the result of sheer bumbling idiocy rather than evil intent. From the word go, there was something essentially dysfunctional about the man and everything he attempted to set his hands to. In 1985, in acquitting him on charges of conspiracy to defraud, and Old Bailey judge had described his capacities thus: 'On a business scale of one to ten, he is one or less, and even that flatters him. He was absurdly stupid.'..."

And it goes on in a similar vein at lenght. I won't bore you. It always made me wonder who actually wrote it (like one of his four former wives? illegitimate children? legitimate children? random reporter?) and how they got away saying what they said in an obituary.

But, now for entertaining you all. It's Lestat: Unstake My Heart (in the best Il Divo translation of a story/song. So, when we last left them, Lestat and the Phantom had been arrested in SF at the last performance there for beating each other up. Louis was thrilled to see the back of him. Really. Ok, so you actually did see these ones a long time ago, but, who remembers that, right?

And, as I told

booey yesterday, expect more Lestat, the Phantom, Jim, Hugh, and a little bit of Louis and Claudia. So, I guess just like the first one! How predictable.