About: the world this week, 26 September to 2 October 2021, discovery of new ancient human footprints, solving a murder in London, no drivers no fuel, a King of R&B music is found guilty, and a secret service agent just cannot find time to die.

Everywhere

The more foot steps mankind takes, trying to move ahead, the more he finds his lost footprints, left behind – fossilised too- on the sands of time. And discovers more leg on how he evolved to getting his feet of the day.

North America and South America are said to be about the last continents that were inhabited by humans, but exactly when is unclear. The commonly held view is that people arrived in North America from Asia through Beringia, a land bridge that once connected the two continents around 13,000 to 16,000 years ago. But many recent discoveries have suggested humans might have been in North America earlier than previously thought.

Researchers studying fossilised human footprints in the Tularosa Basin, White Sands National Park, New Mexico, US, say that they have the first unequivocal evidence that humans lived in North America at least 23,000 years ago. They were able to accurately date sixty-one footprints by radiocarbon dating layers of aquatic plant seeds that had been preserved above and below the prints. The footprints were most likely made on soft ground, at the edge of a wetland. Wind probably blew dust over the surface, silting in the prints. The hunter-gatherer man of ancient times would have done about 10,000 steps a day, meaning at least a few footprints would survive in the fossil record.

The analysis of the the footprints reveal they were could have been made by teenagers and children between 9 and 14 years old: a pattern that’s seen at other fossilised footprint sites. Tracks of mammoths, giant sloths, wolves, and birds are also present at the site. One hypothesis for the presence of ‘teenage prints’ is division of labor, in which adults are involved in skilled tasks whereas fetching and carrying was delegated to teenagers, who literally ran around. Children generally accompany the teenagers, and collectively they leave a higher number of footprints.

Times have changed, and we now leave footprints on the internet. And before it becomes fossilised, Google just licks it up and takes it to the clouds!

Brexit effects spilling out? Over the weekend thousands of fuel stations in the United Kingdom (UK) closed down amid fears of a nationwide shortage, putting up, ‘sorry out of use’, sign boards. There are many reasons and one of them is, when the UK said goodbye to the European Union, Long-Haul Truck Drivers in turn decided to exit the UK. And adding the COVID-19 pandemic situation, an ageing workforce, and delays in licensing of new drivers, the UK was left with a shortage of about 100,000 drivers. Now the fuel is not reaching the stations and the UK is reaching out to overseas truck drivers with promises of providing temporary visas, to drive them out of the crisis. Some say the writing was always on the wall and the present situation has only highlighted an existing fact – sorry, the footprints were discovered awfully late!

In World Inthavaaram 2021-12 https://kumargovindan.wordpress.com/2021/03/20/world-inthavaaram-2021-12/

I talked about the murder of Sarah Everard, a Marketing Executive, in London, and made a case for a return of the Sherlock Holmes detective kind. Looks like he wasn’t needed, after all.

Everard disappeared on 3 March as she walked home after visiting a friend. She was reported missing by her partner the next day when she failed to meet him as arranged. Her body was recovered seven days later from a woodland near Ashford in Kent, London, UK.

Police solved the case with the arrest of Wayne Couzens, a serving Metropolitan Police officer at the time of the murder. He pleaded guilty to the kidnap, rape and murder of Everard. The sentencing is awaited.

Wayne Couzens used police equipment, including his warrant card and training about COVID-19 rules, to deceive Sarah Everard into getting into a car with him before he raped and murdered her. He had also handcuffed her during the arrest. He then burned the body and moved it to green bags that he had specifically purchased for the purpose.

The Met Police said: “We are sickened, angered and devastated by this man’s crimes, which betray everything we stand for”. Scotland Yard said people stopped by a lone plainclothes officer should challenge their legitimacy and could try ‘waving a bus down’ to escape a person they believe is pretending to be police. But then, its extraordinary to wave down a bus at the sight of a policeman or call 999 to check whether a policeman is indeed a policeman. And rather, is it not time to curb the powers of the police?

What made a seemingly responsible man do this? On the surface, Wayne Couzens was a dedicated police officer and a devoted family man who was never happier than when playing with his children or tinkering with his motorcycle. But underneath the veneer of respectability was a sexual deviant who, fuelled by extreme pornography, was driven to depraved actions to fire his weird desires – a dark behaviour he hid very well from his colleagues. Despite being an armed officer tasked with protecting politicians, dignitaries and VIPs, Couzens admitted regularly using prostitutes and was also suspected of taking dangerous body-building steroids. What about the Met Police’s vetting and monitoring procedures that failed to spot his descent into crime? To begin with, the Police ought to be policed from within – crime detection begins at home.

American Singer and Songwriter R Kelly (Robert Sylvester Kelly), aged 54, is credited with redefining Rhythm & Blues (R&B), and Hip-Hop Music, and in the process earned nicknames such as the King of R&B, The King of Pop-Soul, etc. He is know for songs such as, ‘I Believe I Can Fly – which won a Grammy Award in 1998, ‘Bump N’ Grind’, Ignition Remix, and ‘Gotham City’. He had a Grammy nomination for writing Michael Jackson’s song, ‘You Are Not Alone’.

Now coming to real life music, it’s been almost ’30 years of drumming’ since allegations of sexual harassment were made on R Kelly, and finally, this week a US Court found him guilty of charges levelled against him. The sentencing is scheduled for May 2022 and he faces up to 20 years in prison.

Kelly has been accused of sexual abuse, manipulations, and inappropriate relationships, sex trafficking, racketeering – including kidnapping & bribery. Previously, he escaped the long arm of the law and was acquitted of child pornography charges in 2008.

This is the highest-profile case of the Me Too era. Prosecutors called him one of the worst and dangerous sexual predators, who used fame and superstar status to groom and exploit women and girls, over decades.

Please Yourself

There is definitely, ‘No Time To Die’, with the latest – the 25th, over 60 years – James Bond movie finally premiering this 28th September at the Royal Albert Hall, London. And this is the last, which will be having Daniel Craig playing British Secret Service Agent 007… Bond… James Bond. The release was postponed at least three times from its originally planned April 2020 as the coronavirus outbreak forced cinemas around the world to close.

‘No Time to Die’ is Daniel Craig’s fifth Bond movie after first stirring & shaking it up with ‘Casino Royale’, finding tons of solace in ‘Quantum of Solace’, falling and rising again in ‘Skyfall’, and holding-on in ‘Spectre’.

‘No Time To Die’ opens with a haunting piano motif, with Singer Billie Eilish’s voice weary as she sings, “I should have known I’d leave alone”. A familiar tremolo guitar ushers in the chorus, where the singer builds-up her theme: “I’ve fallen for a lie… Are you death or paradise? Now you’ll never see me cry,” she concludes in a crescendo, “There’s just no time to die.”

Billie Eilish, at 18 years, is the youngest singer to record the theme song for a James Bond Film. It is a dramatic, unsettling ballad that hints the plot will centre around Bond’s betrayal. The lyrics of the song refer to lies and deceit, as Eilish sings, “You were never on my side”.

The theme song is considered as one of the best in a long time. The flourish of violins, electronic guitar, and faint brass all pay tribute to the classic Bond signature tune, but Eilish’s subtle synth motif makes this song her own. After winning the Grammy this year, for ‘Everything I Wanted’, I reckon this is more than Billie Eilish ever wanted.

After the world premiere the movie’s theatrical release happened on 30 September 2021 in the United Kingdom and will be 8 October 2021 in the United States,

’No Time To Die’ is a traditional Bond Film. Watch it for the Bond Pleasure.

More investigative action-packed stories, which leave footprints, coming up in the weeks ahead. Walk with World Inthavaaram.