[meteorite-list] Professor Colin Pillinger lecture - Stones from the sky: A heaven-sent opportunity to talk about science

From: Graham Ensor <graham.ensor_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2012 11:50:15 +0000
Message-ID: <CAJkn+kabSnHnVGuQDxxa_pLgPDnbnrngrH1Ht4MEPtkxq99vWw_at_mail.gmail.com>

And of course these days there are no scoundrels about in the
meteorite world at all ;-)

Graham

On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 11:32 AM, Martin Goff <msgmeteorites at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Doug,
>
> He was certainly not all starchy white in reputation and was
> definitely a bit of scoundrel at times, in a very British way of
> course.
>
> You wrote
>
> "Anyways, he was definitely one of the most colorful characters of
> early meteorite enlightenment, and as a publicist actuallydeserves in
> my opinion even more credit than he gets"
>
> You also wrote
>
> "Wonder what Prof. Pillinger thinks of this?"
>
> Well, i know that Professor Pillinger is currently researching a book
> all about Edward Topham so we will have to wait and see what his
> conclusions are! :-)
>
>
> Cheers
>
> Martin
>
> On 10 February 2012 11:22, MexicoDoug <mexicodoug at aim.com> wrote:
>> "Edward Topham was not a Sir"
>>
>> Hi Martin,
>>
>> Thanks for the kind reply; Someone else also said he was a Sir, I'm trying
>> to remember. ?Maybe there really is more to the story. ?But, even if he were
>> to have been knighted, wasn't George a bit too mad by that time, or are
>> there others who have that power I wonder...
>>
>> Topham didn't even earn his title of "Major", he was just a captain, and
>> upon retirement I think the policy was just to bump Captains up to Majors so
>> they got bigger pensions. ?The newspaper he founded, as far as I can tell,
>> was the very first widely circulated tabloid newspaper in the world
>> (coincidently named 'The Globe'). ?However, he got into all kinds of legal
>> troubles just before the meteorite fell and had to close it down, since he
>> apparently has offended a well-respected recently dead man. ?If I recall, he
>> pulled through the episode by the skin of his teeth and set some common law
>> presicents in England saying a dead man's estate can't sue for libel.
>>
>> While he may have been respected in certain circles, I think he just sponged
>> off Mrs. Wells during fair weather, made a business out of her with benefits
>> (after this blew over she became a nun) and then as her superstar status
>> began to wane, let her rot in jail and took her children away from her for
>> himself. ?I'm sure it was a bit more complicated than that (she had a
>> brother or brother in law who was a scoundrel), but still, IMO he was just a
>> fancy-pants socialite. ?I really don't mean to offend since we like to give
>> as much respect as we can to those great men and women in the history of
>> meteorites, but the respect he got was probably more like a straight Perez
>> Hilton of today (and many people live for that stuff in the USA!). ?So I
>> think it is worthwhile mentioning.
>>
>> When you think about the circumstances of the exhibition of the meteorite,
>> it sort of fits together in my opinion, but I'm sure there are alternate
>> interpretations out there that make him a hero instead of one of the King's
>> yes-men ;-)
>>
>> Anyways, he was definitely one of the most colorful characters of early
>> meteorite enlightenment, and as a publicist actuallydeserves in my opinion
>> even more credit than he gets. ?Wonder what Prof. Pillinger thinks of this?
>>
>> Kindest wsihes
>> Doug
>
>
>
> --
> Martin Goff
> www.msg-meteorites.co.uk
> IMCA #3387
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Received on Fri 10 Feb 2012 06:50:15 AM PST