When Is A Murder Not A Murder?

 Here's a Thorny Legal Question For You

You'll see what I mean shortly.  For the answer to this question, we have to enter the Harry Potterverse, for which I apologise, and promise it won't happen again.  Or at least not for ages.  Okay, it is a while since I read these books, so the old memory is a bit rusty and you'll have to forgive me any omissions or errors in detail.  Art?  A click-bait Harry Potter picture, please!

     

     Conrad, being of a logical turn of mind, thinks this would be a singularly rubbish goblet.  I mean to say, any liquid you put into it would immediately evapourate, wouldn't it?

     Anyway, in case you were worried, YES THERE ARE SPOILERS.  

     First, we have to introduce the "Animagus", which is a species of witch or wizard able to transform themselves into any kind of animal life.  Learning to become one such is apparently a horribly involved, protracted process, meaning most of the wizarding community cannot be bothered. For those who do bother, there is the additional requirement of Registering with the Ministry of Magic.  The MoM, like most bureaucracies, is extremely hot on people sticking to it's rules, and takes a forbiddingly dim view of those who can Animagus themselves but who do not register.  Art?

CAUTION!  You are not welcome.

     Okay, that's the background information.  Now we move on to Rita Skeeter, whom it would be a kindly understatement to call "Muck-raking" as a journalist.  The MoM doesn't appear to have the equivalent of a Press Council, nor are there libel laws in the Potterverse, or Skeeter wouldn't have lasted a week as a journalist.  Art?

     Skeeter's mysterious ability to discover the dirt on anyone she pursues happens to be due to her ability to Animagus herself into beetle form, in which shape she is able to eavesdrop without suspicion.  Take note that this transformation is the deliberate end result of a long, painstaking process and most definitely not done on a whim.  She intended this all along.

     And now we get to the meat of the matter.  Say Hermione had been vengeful and vicious and violent when she realised what Skeeter was up to in beetle form, and simply smashed her to a sticky smear under her heel?  Or, for that matter, that Witless Ron Weasley had stamped on her simply for fun, not having a clue that said beetle was really an Animagus?  As an unregistered, there would be no information out there in the wizarding world to think twice before squashing an insect.
     

     Conrad, ever curious, wonders what would have happened once Ron did his happy dance on the beetle carcass.  Would it just lie there, a mass of mulch under his foot?  Or, would the ghastly, mangled, shattered carcass of Rita re-appear?  (That would give him some nightmare fuel!).  Or would she just re-appear, clothes askew, hair wild, looking very angry? (these are novels for kids, after all, and the films don't have an "R" rating).
     Then, what would subsequently happen to Ron (for we assume Hermione will have had a cunning plan and at least three alibis)?  His actions have undoubtedly caused the death of Skeeter, except he had no way of knowing what the result of his stamping would be, and she had deliberately avoided registration with the MoM.  Conrad suspects that a half-way decent solicitor or barrister would have gotten him off with a suspended sentence for manslaughter -

"Magic!"

     Of course, I may be overthinking this ...

Future Islands

No!  I do not mean the band <checks to see if they're still alive and hale - phew! they are, the Curse of Conrad has not struck them*>, and if the title might be a little inexact, "Past Islands" doesn't really resonate.

     I refer, of course - obviously! - to "Graham Island", a volcanic outcrop which emerged above the waves off Sicily in 1831.  Art?

No they did not have cameras back then!

     Fortunately the Royal Navy was around to lay a claim to it, and named it after the First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir James Graham.  The laggardly Italians then made a fuss, feeling upstaged, and the French also stuck an oar in as they also landed there to conduct research (and possibly also to annoy the Italians).
     There was quite a bit of political infighting over the island, with all three nations casting covetous eyes upon it.  Graham Island appeared to be embarrassed about being such a source of discord; once volcanic activity ceased, wave action rapidly eroded it away to nothing.  Art?

     That's where it was, and it now resides 20 feet below the waves.  The Italians, fretful that the Royal Navy might happen past at the right moment again, have already sent divers down to plant the Italian flag, in case Isola Ferdinandea makes an appearance above the waves again and is thus a - future island.

"HAUTBOYS"

Honestly, I ask you!  This was one of the solutions to a Codeword earlier in the week, and of course Conrad got it, for am I not sublimly talented in solving Codewords?  Your Humble Scribe had an idea it was a piece of furniture, which proved well wide of the mark.  My Collins Concise determined it to be a variety of large strawberry.

Bah!

Speaking Of Lighthouses ...

Conrad has been bitten by the Coincidence Hydra AGAIN.  We have recently gone into the history of the Bishop's Rock lighthouse, and the St John's Point light before that, and what did I encounter on Youtube?

     The Stannard Rock lighthouse.  Art?

     The video was shot by "Jon B." a couple of years ago.  The SRL is way out in the middle of Lake Superior, so far out that you cannot see shore from it.  The lighthouse stands atop Stannard Rock, an underwater mountain dangerous to cross-lake shipping, of which there is a lot.  It was automated in 1962, and is, supposedly, absolutely off-limits to visitors.  Art?

     Off-limits.  Ho ho.  There's nothing to stop anyone landing and climbing the rusty yet hale ladder to the lighthouse.  That picture above shows Jon examining at least 5 padlocks that have been cut off the door -

     -  and here you can see graffiti on the walls that goes back to the mid-Sixties.  "Off-limits and only visible from boats or the air" indeed, hmmm?

Ignore the reflections!  Ignore the reflections!

     Here Jon provides a nice cross-diagram of STL.  They ventured briefly into the noisome basement levels and didn't stay long, as the air was foul.
     The South Canadian Coast Guard visit the STL once a year to carry out maintenance, as the light is still functional, and probably to add yet another doomed padlock to the lighthouse door.

One of the only two ways to view the STL
(Yeah, right!)

Finally -

Well, I had about three times as much material as I've written today, which will just have to wait until tomorrow.  I hope you can manage until then.

Chin chin!

*  Yet.