Now that was a sad story about the millionaire owner of the Segway company, who died after falling from cliffs while riding a Segway motorised scooter. Jimi Heselden (62 ) crashed into the River Wharfe while riding the vehicle round his estate in West Yorkshire last week and was pronounced dead at the scene.
I’ve never been on one and I’m not sure what makes them stay upright, I presume it’s something similar to riding a bike.
Mr Heselden seems to have been one of the good guys and said recently: “I honestly believe people have a moral obligation to use their wealth to help others.” He has contributed £23 million towards projects in his home town of Leeds to help disadvantaged youngsters, vulnerable elderly people, and other health improvement projects
The only well known person I’ve seen in Ireland using one of the machines is George Lee, but there have been very few sightings of him, with or without his Segway, in recent months.
There’s no shortage of people I’d like to send for a spin on a Segway along the edge of the Cliffs of Moher. Bertie Ahern is the obvious first choice, but we’d need a fleet of them to accommodate all the chancers who have ruined the country over the last few years. It shouldn’t be too difficult to persuade Ahern and Co to take a hike on the bike. Just tell them there’s land to be rezoned and they’ll all be down to take a look.
Some other inventors have also died while trying to demonstrate their great ideas. One of the oldest examples of this was a Turk called Ismail ibn Hammad al-Jawhari who died back in 1010 trying to fly using two wooden wings and a rope. He leapt from the roof of a mosque in Nijabur and, surprise, surprise, fell to his death.
You’d think people would learn a lesson from exploits like this and at least position a trampoline or something soft to land on, but no. There’s a rather sad black and white clip on YouTube of Franz Reichelt taken back in 1912. A tailor by trade he, fell to his death off the first deck of the Eiffel Tower while testing his invention, the coat parachute. It was his first attempt with the parachute and he had told the authorities in advance he would test it first with a dummy, but didn’t tell them that the dummy was himself.
If you are going to invent an extreme form of capital punishment you should make sure you don’t end up experiencing it yourself. Not so with a chap called Li Si in China back in 200 BC. He invented the ‘Five pains’ method. First the victim's nose was cut off, followed by a hand and then a foot. The victim was then castrated and finally, just to be sure, cut in half at the waist. Li Si, who was chief advisor to the Chinese emperor, invented this form of punishment and was eventually executed this way himself. That’ll teach him to keep quiet with his big ideas .
We’re supposed to learn from history, but not so James Douglas, the fourth Earl of Morton. He introduced the Scottish Maiden, a sort of guillotine, to Scotland, and was himself beheaded with it in 1581, when he was implicated in the murder of Mary Queen of Scots' second husband, Lord Darnley. There’s a surprising little historical nugget for Mrs Cleere, an eager history student since starting working in Kilkenny Castle. It could have been worse for poor old James Douglas, I suppose. At least they didn’t use the ‘Five pains’ method.
I’ve an idea
There’s obviously money to be made in this invention business. Every time I see something new, I think to myself, “now why didn’t I think of that?”
Times are tough so how about something to cheer you up first thing in the morning? Imagine opening your cupboard to get the cornflakes and a dummy of Bertie Ahern popped up like a jack-in-the-box to wish you a good morning, or lift up the toilet seat and Mary Harney is smiling up at you? That would give you a great start to the day or at least a bit of laugh. It’s probably a bit farfetched though. I doubt if an ex-taoiseach would allow his image to be used showing him in a cupboard in among the vegetables, unless the price was right.
