THE DARKER SIDE OF THE NORDIC PSYCHE

News that the perpetrator of yesterday's atrocities in Norway, Anders Behring Breivik, is a native Scandinavian unfortunately comes as no great surprise to anyone who has followed the career of the late Stieg Larsson, regarded as a world authority on far-right and neo-Nazi groups.

Breivik, who has identified himself as a "Christian fundamentalist" seems to have fascist sympathies, although it is unclear whether he acted alone or with the support of others. What is clear is Breivik's extreme hate of those in government and politics embodying the Norwegian centre-left, whom people outside this region of Northern Europe associate with Scandinavian progressive liberalism.

Here is yet another "clash of civilisations", but not this time between foreign religious fanaticism and western secularism. Sadly, political assassinations, of which yesterday's mass killing is an extreme example, have been a feature of recent Scandinavian history and reflect the darker side of the Nordic psyche.

However, this particular crime also undoubtedly has a Messianic dimension, Breivik has described himself as a Freemason as well Christian fundamentalist. His actions are those of the archetypal avenger, singling out a particular group for extermination in a manner which for many will recall the actions of Hitler's Nazi regime. Let's all hope that Anders Behring Breivik has no followers.

HORSES OF THE POST-APOCALYSE

The Apocalyptic symbolism of the Bible is closely allied to the arrival of four horsemen. It was therefore fascinating to learn on BBC Radio 4's "Saving Species" programme yesterday that Przewalski horses - brought back from the brink of extinction in the last century - have been introduced into the Chernobyl exclusion zone, a place resonant with apocalyptic symbolism, to graze areas that present fire threats.

On The Edge Of A Nuclear Catastrophe

Today's announcement that Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster is to be upgraded to category 7, the same as Chernobyl, comes almost exactly 25 years after the catastrophic explosion at the Ukrainian power station which led to abandonment of the nearby city of Pripyat (shown here).

This abandoned urban area has always reminded me of Andrei Tarkovsky's evocative film "Stalker", in which a journey in to "The Zone", a place cordoned off by the authorities which appears to have undergone some kind of industrial disaster, and more particularly in to "The Room", can grant the seeker's innermost wishes: perhaps a metaphor for the endless power promised by nuclear energy.

Guided tours of the zone around Chernobyl are, of course, now available, although I suspect that a visit to the room which housed its nuclear reactor remains off bounds to the twenty first century seeker after apocalyptic experience.

MORE SOUTH MIDLANDS NOIR

RURBAN* NOIR DOUBLE MURDER

Between December 2009 and February 2010, two similar murders took place within a couple of miles of each other in rural South Worcestershire. The second incident occurred at Besford Court** (shown here), a luxury housing estate near Pershore. Here, an older American businessman stabbed his much younger wife, who came from Wales. The couple had met via the Internet.

An update on the earlier crime, which started a court hearing last week, is provided in the following extract from the "Worcester News" of 20 August 2010:

CHEATING HUSBAND BEAT WIFE TO DEATH

A CHEATING husband bludgeoned his wife to death at their home near Pershore - then went Christmas shopping with his mistress, a jury was told.

Jonathan Palmer used a heavy object to cause multiple fractures of the victim's skull, it was alleged.

He staged a burglary to make police believe that 57-year-old Melinda Palmer was killed by an intruder, Worcester Crown Court heard.

Palmer then drove to his lover's home in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, where he went shopping with Jackie Marshall, a single mother....***

Later he drove back to Pershore and dialled 999 at 8.27pm, telling police he had found hi wife dead in the front hall.

Prosecutor Stephen Linehan QC said: " He was cheating on her, conducting an affair with another woman. He is a skilled, determined and prolific liar and he put those skills to work after the killing"....

The trial continues.

*Rurban: Rural-Urban

** Prior to re-development as a housing estate, Besford Court was a residential school, whose pupils included John Thomas Straffen, later a convicted serial killer, and, until his death in 2007, this country's longest serving prisoner.

*** Palmer had reportedly told Miss Marshall that he was a single man.

Resumption of Search for Suzy Lamplugh

The resumption last week of the search for missing estate agent Suzy Lamplugh, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances whilst working in London in 1986, is a reminder of another police case which has caught the national imagination. The continuing media attention owes much to the work of Lamplugh's parents and the creation of the Suzy Lamplugh Trust which campaigns on personal safety issues.

A suspect who apparently confessed to the murder claimed to have buried Suzy Lamplugh's body at the site of the former Norton Barracks, now a housing estate on the edge of Worcester, and this area was thoroughly searched some 10 years ago.

The latest search by the Metropolitan Police focussed on a field between Drakes Broughton and Pershore, several miles from Norton Barracks, as someone had re-called seeing a mound of earth there around the time of Lamplugh's disappearance.

Her suspected murderer seems to have connections with the construction industry and had suggested that a building site was the best place to bury a body. The choice of Worcester's environs would, therefore, seem to have been a logical one for there has indeed been much construction around these parts in the period since Suzy Lamplugh's disappearance, giving rise to that certain "edge of town" quality so often linked to the "noir" and the darker side of life.

RAOUL MOAT'S JERUSALEM

I'm struck by some of the similarities between Jez Butterworth's play "Jerusalem", whose "edge of town" character is played by Mark Rylance, and "the legend of Raoul Moat" as played out in the national media recently.

Admittedly, Moat's character - as played by himself - is rather more morally culpable than the hero of Jerusalem. Yet the central ambiguity remains. For Moat, although murderer, woman and child beater, and increasing threat to police and public, is also regarded as good neighbour, much loved family member, brotherly comrade and cult hero.

What is most striking about the story of Raoul Moat, however, is the manner in which the national media - usually so reluctant to move beyond London and the Home Counties - headed North in their droves.

Recent memories of homicidal Cumbrian taxi driver Derek Bird no doubt contributed to the media exodus from its home turf, but the hunting of Raoul Moat to the Nortumbrian town of Rothbury created its own unique social and police drama.

My feeling is that Moat is another character to whose story Rylance's acting skills could ultimately bring justice, as he did to the very different tragedy of David Kelly, who, nevertheless, was also hounded by the media to his own death.

As to the real lessons to be learnt from this extraordinary episode, many may feel that the socio-economic millieu of modern Britain's Jerusalem has increasingly excluded post-industrial man to "The Edge of Town". Against this background, Moat does not deserve to be simply pathologised.

Ultimately, however, "the legend of Raoul Moat" is testimony to the powerful dramatic adage that "character is fate".

ARRIVAL OF THE RED BOOK !

After 3 months of waiting my Inter-Library Loan copy of The Red Book finally arrived at the end of January. I was not disappointed ! No wonder this tome is in demand.

The illustrations - Jung's visual account of his "soul journey" - are fabulous.

Given current controversy about climate change, it is also very interesting that "Liber Novus" opens with Jung's own visions of catastrophe, in which Europe is riven by flood and ice.

However, these presaged World War 1 rather than natural disasters.

On a more positive note, some years later Jung has his important "Liverpool Dream", which acts as sort of salvation and enables him to move forward with his life and work.

Must pay a visit to "The City of Culture" myself !