Hey,
I said 8 because I’d read it somewhere but can’t remember where. Anyone any ideas?
This is the Regent’s canal in Camden (that goes to little venice and docklands).
Accidental or homicides?
This page about the London canal police suggests that accidental drowning of drunks were common enough during the good old days of the smogs for there to be a reward for finding a body. Goodness knows, plenty of drinking still goes on in the area of Regent’s Canal these days, but I’d expect such cases to be reported in the local press and don’t recall having seen any stories.
Murders throughout the entire borough of Camden have been in the 20-40 range over the last few years. When murder victims - or more often bits of them - are dumped in the vicinity of the canal then the cases do tend to receive a lot of publicity. But I can think of only a handful of such - one or two even being national news stories - in the last few years.
“Accidental or homicide?”
Both. I saw that there were several parts of one person found. Maybe I read that she was in 8 bits. ( 
)
Checking on The Camden New Journal’s archive archive only brings reports on two bodies actually found in the canal though there appear to be a fair few more dying a foound dead immediately next to it.
Unless there are a lot of accidental drownings going-on t seems your figures are much too high.
Just for comparision, Camden, New Jersey in the United States was recently labeled the most dangerous city in the America (cite–warning, PDF file). In 2003 there were 41 murders, 56 rapes, 856 robberies, and 972 aggravated assaults in a city with a population of around 80,000.
confessorknight, are you sure that the Camden where you live is really the “darkest”?
I had to chuckle at this because that was my first thought on reading the OP title, as well. I actually opened the thread to make a snide comment about not being surprised whatever the number…
Well I was using in the classic “Darkest Africa” sense conveying the least explored aspect. Hadn’t considered other meanings. Fair point though, Was thinking of changing it anyway.
jayjay: Oh, I chuckled too, and I think anyone who knows some Latin would have. I would think, regardless of the location, there should be one body per anum, although some unsettling situations might arise in which the number was different. ‘Each year’ is per annum; my copy of Cassell’s (an older dictionary) likes to use euphemisms in translating words such as this and gives “anus, -i m. the fundament”. Per takes the accusative, so per anum is correct for ‘for each anus’. Not the intended meaning, I know, but humorous nonetheless, even if the question itself is a dark one.
:smack:
“annum” is is then.
Wouldn’t “per anum” also mean “by the anus”, “via the anus” and “through the anus”, like in sex per anum / coitus per anum or with enemas, so you could say “the medication is to be administered per anum”?