Donkey’s years ago, or should that be hace años de burro, Ms Raccoon was hitchhiking along the Spanish coast, heading for Algeciras and the Tangier ferry. The coast road wasn’t a solid line of hotels in those days, it was barren scrub land, the setting for many a Western Cowboys and Indians film. The occasional cut out black bull could be sighted on a distant hillside, iconic trademark of a Spanish sherry company. Apart from that – zilch. Especially cars. So I was grateful when a filthy old spanish lorry slowed to a stop and offered me a lift. The mono-toothed driver grinned at me and babbled away in Spanish. ‘Melones woppa‘ seemed to crop up frequently in the conversation, I hadn’t a clue what he meant – apart from the hand gestures that accompanied this phrase, which looked alarmingly like the universal hand diagram of a woman’s breasts.

I wasn’t a complete idiot – I would never have hitchhiked in shorts, nor given any indication that I might be willing to engage in the ‘free love’ that was very much a part of every hopeful continental male’s vocabulary in those heady days of 60s sexual freedom. I didn’t like the turn this conversation was taking, so adopted a prim and proper deportment and stared resolutely out of the window, hoping to make plain that there was no hope of any hanky-panky with me.

Yet still, ’Melones woppa‘ seemed to be in every sentence, and he was growing more agitated by the minute, gesturing from me to himself and back again, nodding enthusiastically. I looked as stern and unwelcoming as I could. We hadn’t passed another car for half an hour or more, nor sight of a house. Tricky. Suddenly he swung onto a dusty lay-by. One of those ‘Oh shit’ moments in life. I swung my ruck-sack in front of me and contemplated my options. Non existent.

He swung himself down from his driver’s seat and walked to the back of the lorry. After an interminable few minutes, he reappeared beside the passenger door carrying a large piece of tarpaulin which he laid on the dusty verge and motioned to me to get out of the cab pointing at the tarpaulin. ‘Thoughtful Pal, but no dice’ I said to myself, and hugged the rucksack tighter. He shrugged and disappeared again, this time returning with a length of rope and waving a foot long knife that glinted in the sun. Still motioning me to step down onto the tarpaulin. The ‘Oh shit’ moment was turning into ‘Oh my Godfathers’.

‘Melones woppa‘ he said over and over again with a pleading gesture. He looked quite desperate. I was sure that any moment he would tug open the passenger door, and that would be it. The only thing I could think of was trying to hit him over the head with my rucksack. The minutes ticked away, with me hoping against hope that another car would appear on the road and I could make a run for it – when he tapped on the window yet again – with the knife…and gestured…

Toward the tarpaulin, where he had laid out a picnic of the biggest water melons I have ever seen. That was the load that had been secured under the tarpaulin, and the poor man had been trying to explain to me for an hour or more that I was welcome to join him for a refreshing lunch on our long journey. He was totally harmless!

I was reminded of this prime example of the dangers of making assumptions about intentions when I read of the tale of Jessica Davies. Jessica has been heavily featured in the Sky news for the past 24 hours, held up to all who only listen with half an ear as an example of the dangers facing young women from – men. Specifically Indian men, since that is a key word that the media are very fond of at the moment.

Jessica apparently ‘jumped’ from a ‘second floor balcony’ to escape certain ‘rape and murder’ at the hands of an Indian male, who everybody knows these days, is just a rapist waiting to offend. We are treated to the sight of Jessica being comprehensively assisted to hobble her way along the road, still suffering from the injuries she incurred in this heroic fashion.  She is walking with considerably more difficulty than the earlier footage of her being helped across a road by an Indian police officer. I guess the bruising got more painful as the days went by? Jessica tells her story to ‘save other young women’ from a similar fate.

Except there are some odd features about this story.

According to Sky, (and Jessica on Sky) she ‘jumped from a second floor window’ – around 25′ on average – no wonder the poor girl needs so much help to walk, she is lucky she didn’t break her back or worse.

“I knew there was no other choice at that point, apart from to jump from the balcony, which I did,” said Ms Davies, who injured her leg as she leapt from the second to the ground floor.

By the time this tale reached Australia, Jessica had jumped from a third floor balcony. Obviously Australians need a bit of extra oomph in their stories.

But according to the Agra police, that might be a slight leap of imagination.

“Supt Dubey said the woman climbed out on to her balcony on the second floor, climbed down a drain pipe to the first floor and then jumped to the ground.”

You might wonder why she jumped, since the substantial drain pipe had conveyed her so well from second to first floor, and obviously continues its journey to the ground….Still a remarkably agile feat, but not quite as dramatic. She did this because:

She then realised her balcony door was not secure and that the manager, who was later joined by a second man, could access her room that way.

So were her two potential rapists planning to jump the two floors to arrive at the balcony door?

The men did have some remarkable properties, for Jessica had already locked (and bolted and barricaded the door with furniture), yet:

“I held my key in the lock and I could feel them turning it from the other side,” she told BBC in an interview.

Now was this some sort of double ended key, or perhaps he was turning the other end of the key with mole grips? We should be told.

Jessica had earlier enlisted the assistance of the man concerned to book a taxi and a train journey to Jaipur for early the next morning. She was expecting to leave at 5am. The ‘attack’ (or rather the persistent knocking on the door offering a free Indian head massage) happened at 3.45. It lasted for 45 minutes according to Jessica’s account of her ‘dramatic escape’. Yet it was 5am, half an hour after the ‘attack’ ceased, that Jessica took her mad dash out of the window?

“He knocked on the door and said it was her wake up call and he had a free hair massage service,” Supt Dubey said.

“He consistently knocked and she took fright and bolted.”

“She told us he was molesting her by offering this free service,” Supt Dubey said.

No wonder Sky haven’t chosen to interview Supt. Dubey, you couldn’t make a world news item out of a man persistently offering an Indian head massage……

But a pretty English girl with a dramatic tale of jumping 25′ to escape certain death and desecration, now that is a different matter. Especially when we have the very real and gory tale of an Indian girl raped and disemboweled to remind us of what absolute animals Indian men are…cor, just look at the picture of him, enough to give any fair maiden nightmares for a week. Just when you have got old enough not to have to worry about paedophiles any longer, along comes another folk-devil to make you shiver in your stilettos. The bleary eyed Indian rapist!

Sachin Johan, the hotel manager, and Laxman, the hapless security guard who had come along to find out what all the shouting was about, will be held in prison for at least six months before trail. A trial at which they risk up to seven years in jail for ‘sexual harassment’. who knows, who cares, what will happen to their family whilst they wait to hear their fate. We do know that Jessica is ‘being supported’ after her terrible ordeal, now that she is safely back in a decent country that keeps its men in fear of their lives…..

In the present hysterical climate of violence against women, I don’t fancy their chances of a fair trial. Wot with half a days growth of beard and blood-shot eyes? Good God no. Especially not with Jessica rabbiting away.

He even ‘smelt of beer’. Well, that’s him done for. No ‘stale cigarettes’?

Jonathan Mason
March 25, 2013 at 23:17

…the biggest water melons I have ever seen.

Something off colour in this story. In Spanish “melones” means cantaloupes
and the word for watermelon is “sandia”.

Anna
Raccoon March 26, 2013 at 07:27

So Ms Raccoon can’t tell her cantaloupes from her water melons then? They
wuz melons.

Wendi March 26, 2013 at 12:27

And I suspect ‘Woppa’ would indicate ‘Guapa’ – beautiful water melons…
Good thing you didn’t whap him over the head as being bunged in the dungeons
back then would be no fun…

Moor Larkin March 26, 2013 at 12:33

Guapa melones certainly offers some striking Spanish googlies…….

Surely the point here is that Senor Onetooth offered the lone girlie
tourist some water-melon, whatever we might think he was blathering on
about as he drove? Judge people by what they do is my motto.

Stephen Davies
March 26, 2013 at 14:21

Never let detail spoil a good story –When I have lived or travelled
abroad I have always imputed the worst of motives when people can’t speak
the Queen’s English and start to gesticulate and I am male and built like
a brick outhouse.

Off topic but sentencing in the Andrade case took place today and the
debate on this forum about the Andrade case was one that elicited much
reponse. Sentencing in the Andrade case might be suitable topic I hope for
our landlady of the Raccoon Arms to raise if she is minded to

mewsical March 25, 2013 at 22:21

Here’s some info on the Black Bulls for Osborne Brandy. Great ad campaign
though! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_bull

plantman March 25, 2013 at 21:39

Hate to be pedantic, but my memory tells me the cut-out Black Bulls were
advertising Osborno Brandy (which if my taste buds memory serves me correctly
could have doubled up as a more effective paint stripper than anything
marketed by polyclens!)

I Love the BBC
March 25, 2013 at 21:02

I’m not so sure the story is hogwash. If he was really just trying to wake
her for her train, then he would surely have given up as soon as he knew she
was awake and functioning, enough to actually stop him from entering the door?
All he needed to do was tell her the time and F.O. Job done. That he still
tried to get access to her room for a prolonged period would have made ME
worried, and I don’t scare easily.
Why on earth would anyone want a head
massage at 4 in the morning?
I also find his lawyer’s defence curious.
Apparently, she is part of a plot to stop people visiting Agra.

However, being banged up for six months while they decide what to do is
over the top.

Moor
Larkin March 25, 2013 at 23:07

@ being banged up for six months while they decide what to do is over the
top. @

The hapless (or do I mean hopeless) Wifred Death has been metaphorically
banged up for pretty much that amount of time
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/wilfred-death-groping-charge-against-1785143

We seem to have taught the Indians all we knew………

mewsical
March 26, 2013 at 01:20

If India even begins to mirror British Common Law, then they must
recognize habeas corpus. My grandfather testified in favor of the
Untouchables in the Poona Pact Ghandi wasn’t all that when it came to
civil rights. https://www.google.com/search?q=poona+pact&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a.
My mother’s family lived there for about 35 years. My parents met on a
hospital ship out of India in 1946.

“Head massage” at 4 am? Yes, weird.

We had an unfortunate Japanese tourist – young – murdered at one of our
less-reputable downtown hotels in LA recently. Her body was ultimately
discovered in one of the water-tanks. It took them ten days to find her.
What her remains did to the water supply in the hotel you can imagine.
Now, the story has vanished.

Moral of the story – when traveling alone these days, make sure you
have someone tracking you, i.e. “If I don’t call you by 11 pm, contact my
hotel and have them call the police.” I did it when I was driving back
from Nashville in 1998. I was delayed on the road on the first leg from
Nashville to Fort Smith, Arkansas. I was relieved to check into my motel
in Fort Smith, to be told that they were on alert because my tracker had
called them. I was driving a 12′ fully-loaded truck, with my car on a
trailer – so we’re a pretty big rig. Let alone three cats in carriers on
the front seat.

India is not the Exotic Marigold Hotel.

rabbitaway
March 26, 2013 at 10:16

@Moor larkin
So De’ath case has been dropped – ‘insufficient
evidence to proceed’ – now where have I heard that line before ! It’ll be
interesting to see how many more cases are dropped – there’s gonna be some
law suits going on here – bring it on !

Moor Larkin March 26, 2013 at 12:04

Not exactly; the “elderly actress” who did the j’accuse doesn’t want
to testify because she’d be on her own in court apparently, and this
withdrawal is her right.

I wonder if Death even knows for sure who it is. He’s blaming the
police and Jimmy Savile it seems……..
Too
chickenshit to go for the real authors of his misfortune obviously.

rabbitaway March
26, 2013 at 13:21

Yep – and Jimmy’s ‘victims’ are getting younger according to
‘death’ the guy himself is the ‘author’ of his own ‘misfortune’ for
agreeing to go on that shitty program in the first place. As Jim said
to Louis – ‘Next’ ! (SMILEY FACE)

Moor
Larkin March 25, 2013 at 20:15

I’m guessing Anna had noticed the events of this story go back a whole
week.

http://fox4kc.com/2013/03/19/woman-jumps-from-hotel-balcony-to-escape-attempted-rape-in-india/
“A
hotel owner in the tourist city of Agra, India, was arrested Tuesday on
charges of attempted rape of a British female tourist, Agra District Police
Chief Subhash Dubey told CNN. Authorities say the woman, who was traveling
alone, jumped from the balcony of her hotel room to the next floor to escape
the hotel owner, who is accused of trying to enter her room repeatedly. The
woman has no injuries from her jump.”

I guess the local police might have naturally wanted to keep the story
quiet.

mewsical March 25, 2013 at 19:03

The only reason to be in Agra is to see the Taj, which is a tourist
nightmare these days anyway. This is all very peculiar indeed. And if she
tries to involve Duncroft, I throw my hands up. Enough already!

rabbitaway
March 25, 2013 at 19:40

Mewsical – stop worrying – that post was supposed to be a joke ! but hey,
anything’s possible in this story !

Frankie March 25, 2013 at 18:48

Guilty…

After all, he’s a bloke innit!

Wendi March 25, 2013 at 18:44

What a very odd story… Why was this obviously not very together girl doing
in Agra on her own (presumably) in the first place. From what I read here, I
feel very sorry for these two men.

An aside Anna: those were fun days in Spain, despite Franco being in the
background. The bulls remain, the (very British) name of the sherry company
removed from their torso (in accord with some strange advertising legislation
of latter years) and became even more iconic after the release of Bigas Luna’s
“Jamon, Jamon” starring a very young Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem in a
delightfully erotic film.

mewsical March 25, 2013 at 18:41

Well, if she says she went to Duncroft, guaranteed she’s lying.
Ridiculouser and ridiculouser.

JohnS March 25, 2013 at 18:15

It having become unsafe for any man to find himself, however innocently, in
the presence of an unchaperoned child it looks like we’d better not be
anywhere near a lone woman either.

binao March 25, 2013 at 19:57

Another case JohnS of where the older of us had it all and todays poor
wimps and harpies are not just disadvantaged, they’re paying our pensions
too?

rabbitaway March 25, 2013 at 18:13

@Mewsical – not so fast we have Jessica, rabbit and the media part 2 to
come ! Ms ….had come to India for rehabilitation purposes following her recent
discovery that she had attended a school somewhere in the South of England in
1972. She only became aware of this sojourn forty years later under hypnosis
by a therapist whose techniques have been questioned in this months edition of
the British Psychological Journal in an article entitled ‘False memory
syndrome – the dangers of knowing what you previously didn’t have a clue
about’. Whatever, Ms …. was determined to ‘find herself’ fixing on India as
the perfect destination……..
What other ‘memories’ had the ‘therapy’
unearthed ? Suggestions ??

rabbitaway March 25, 2013 at 17:24

Wow – did trip adviser get that one wrong !

mewsical March 25, 2013 at 17:23

Well, at least she didn’t go to Duncroft! What a whack-job this one is.

Brian March 25,
2013 at 16:57

What went on in the Marabar Caves?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Passage_to_India

Ed P March 25, 2013 at 14:03

It’s incredible that two men will be held in prison for 6 months for what
seems to be a genuine attempt to help the seemingly-neurotic woman catch her
train to Jaipur.

Moral: do not help solitary young women.

Illiterate Prat
March 25, 2013 at 11:27

Those Indian chaps better not come to Tasmania. They will find that their
chances of a quick and fair hearing are just as bad here as there. Here you
get banged up and do not even get to see the magistrate until you have signed
a document (no, you cannot see it: it is ‘confidential’) promising not to be
violent AGAIN.

Mind you, here the young lady would probably be given the keys to the hotel
and the owner, manager and security guard given an AVO keeping them away while
she continued to live there bill-free. And she would not have needed to jump
out of a window. Just a phone call would have done. We have very efficient
coppers here.

India has rather backward police force and ‘odd’ courts, but here we have
Feminists.

Edna Fletcher
March 25, 2013 at 14:58

You clearly have no idea of how ‘odd’ the courts, whose judiciary
dispense ‘justice’ in family or court of protection cases and even rape
cases, can be in this country. Didn’t India develop its system on the
British model under the RAJ?

Moor
Larkin March 25, 2013 at 11:20

Very strange story.

Googling around I thought for one moment she might be this Jessica
Davies…….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1242296/Jessica-Davies–I-monster-What-Defence-Ministers-niece-told-police-slashing-lovers-throat.html

Anna
Raccoon March 25, 2013 at 11:38

Yes, I came across that one too – I wondered what her background was – a
fully paid up member of the ‘Justice for Women’ campaign I reckon.

Moor Larkin March 25, 2013 at 11:58

“In a plea which compared her fragile mental state to the “atrocious
anguish” evoked by the poet Charles Baudelaire, Daniel Soulez-Larivière
said the murder should be interpreted as a manifestation of the violence
the young woman had previously turned against herself in two previous
suicide attempts.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jan/12/quentin-davies-niece-jailed-for-murder

The French gave her fifteen years. Half the possible tariff
apparently.

Chris
Barratt March 25, 2013 at 11:16

You’re tackling dual prejudice here – not only “men” (evil violent
creatures with horrid tallywhackers, chesthair and prehistoric expectations)
but “the past”.
Earlier this morning I unwisely scanned one of the UK
“news”paper forums story about the Dr Who hairy beasts with some idiot opining
“In the 70s paedo’s were everywhere. My mum said ice cream men like Jimmy
Savile would only sell an ice lolly to little girls if they could feel their
little boobs. Thank god things have changed and this doesn’t happen
anymore”