Conditie van muzak

by Michael Moorcock

  1926

  27 February

  Otto Klein shot on the steps of the Regensburg Opera House. After preliminary investigations, Regensburg police ordered the arrest of a tall, dark, slender man of about thirty going by the name of J. (possible Johannes) Cornelius, a known member of the NSDAP. (Mackleworth, The Return to Barbarism, Gollancz, 1938, p. 18.)

  18 April

  Ernst Auchinek tried for the murder of Klein; strongly denies that he has been known as Cornelius or that he has any connection with the NSDAP. He was hanged a month later. (Mackleworth, ibid., p. 22.)

  1927

  22 November

  Leon Trotsky records a meeting with “the man generally known as ‘Cornelius’” in Siberia, where they were both exiled. “I was curious to meet this mysterious fellow, of whom I had heard much from Stankovich, in particular. He was undernourished and poorly dressed for the winter, but his eyes were hot enough to melt snow and he seemed singularly self-contained. I met him only for those few short moments before he was led away, but I had the impression that he was almost enjoying his imprisonment.” (Letter to Manfred Schneider, 5 June, 1930.)

  1928

  April

  Mount Chingkangshan, between Hunan and Kianri. Mao Tse-tung has retired here after his recent defeat of September 1927. He is joined in the spring by Chu Teh, who brings with him an occidental sympathiser called Cornelius. Mao and Cornelius discuss tactics for several days and Mao is much impressed by the man’s knowledge of China, as well as his grasp of Communist theory and its application to the special problems of China. Mao offers Cornelius a position in the army he is planning to reform, but Cornelius disappears that night and there is some suspicion that he may, after all, have been a spy of the Kuomingtang. (H’ang Lean-li, Two Paths to Freedom, Routledge, Kegan Paul, London, 1940, p. 807.)

  January–December

  All Cornelius properties sold up in US and Britain.

  1929

  November

  Wall Street Crash. “Situation not improved by the sudden pulling out of Cornelius interests from many major companies.” (Wall Street Journal, 26 November.)

  1931

  December

  Japanese invasion of Manchuria. British minister in Tokyo telegraphs London: “Would suggest preparedness re rumours Japanese aided by English fascist associated with Russian émigrés here. Could prove embarrassing for us as basis for potential propaganda. The Englishman is said to be called Gerry Cornelius. Suggest you ascertain origins, etc., and speedily cable any information to here.” (6 December.) The telegram was acknowledged but its contents ignored. (Imperial Policy in the Far East, 1909–1939, C.W. Nolan, Samson and Hall, 1950, p. 506.)

  1932

  12 April

  Body of a young man about thirty found in Thames near Hammersmith Bridge. Several stab wounds in the throat. A gold and ormolu striking watch marked Thos. Tompion, London, 1685 on its inside case and on the inside of its outer case Jerry Cornelius from his dear friend Southey, Keswick 08, the only object discovered on the body. The engraving is of little help in identifying the body since it evidently cannot be addressed to so young a man. Records show that no such watch has been reported stolen. No further evidence comes to light and the case is closed for the moment. (‘London Keeps Her Mysteries’, Union Jack magazine, August 1934.)

  1934

  1 July

  Secret message from Himmler to Hitler on morning after extermination of Röhm and SA supporters: All cleansing operations successful. Only the Jew-lover Cornelius remains to be tidied away. (Night of Terror, Barry Hughes, Scion Books, 1951, p. 64.)

  1935

  March

  One of the ‘freelances’ used by Mussolini in the Abyssinian campaigns of March is listed as Cornelius, a Dane. (The Times, 29 March.)

  10 August

  Arab Nationalists meet in Cairo for the third Secret Congress at which Comintern representative is present. Representative used name ‘Cornelius’. (Adad, Arabia Reborn, Daker, 1962, p. 76.)

  1937

  18 December

  Palestine. Jews and Arabs clash outside Qasr-el-Azak. British special patrol discovers corpses morning of 18 December. Among the bodies are those of two Europeans. One carries a revolver of unusual design and with no maker’s name or registration marks. An inscription on the barrel reads “From Catherine to Jerry”. The other corpse is that of a woman, very like the man in features and colouring. She has a similar gun with the inscription “From Jerry to Cathy” on the barrel. “The odd thing was that they seemed to be fighting on opposite sides.” (Report of Lieutenant Robert Gavin, Special Police, Palestine, quoted in Fennel and Harvey’s British Political Policy in the Middle East 1900–1950, Benson and Bingley, 1958, p. 569.)

  1938

  14 September

  Madrid. “An offer was made through a Dutchman called Cornelius to supply us with 5,000 Mauser rifles and about a million rounds of ammunition. The Dutchman also offered tanks, planes and so on. We believed that he must be representing a foreign government but he insisted that he was an independent dealer. He demanded 50,000 dollars (US) for his ‘wares’ which, of course, at this stage we were unable to raise. We learned later that he had sold the guns to the Falangists and that they had proved to be in a dangerous state of disrepair and caused a number of casualties before being abandoned. We concluded that the Dutchman had unconsciously done us a favour in preferring to deal with our enemies and we drank his health!” (Palero, The Betrayal of Spain, Independent Publishing Association pamphlet, 1948, p. 12.)

  1939

  5 January

  Czech Ambassador in Copenhagen writes to his government in a dispatch: “I strongly recommend that you accept Herr Cornelius’s terms and ensure speedy delivery of the arms he mentions.” (A.P. Peters, The Day Before Doomsday, Viking, NY, 1960, p. 56.)

  3 March

  Ivan Jeczakowski, the Polish industrialist, acting as agent for his government, pays two million American dollars to the Brazilian arms dealer Geraldo Corneille on delivery of fifty British Mk 1 infantry tanks, in Warsaw. (A.P. Peters, ibid., p. 72.)

  6 July

  Passenger list for the SS Kao An, a Panamanian passenger steamer, leaving Southampton, includes a Mr and Mrs J. Cornelius, a Miss Christine Brunner, a Mr S.M. Collier and a Mr Gordon Ogg, all bound for Macao.

  22 September

  The British tanks sold by Corneille to Poland develop technical faults and are abandoned after one engagement with the German Army near Lodz. “We placed too much reliance on them. They seemed to fall apart around us,” reports the colonel in command of the regiment. (A.P. Peters, ibid., p. 106.)

  1940

  20 August

  Assassination of Trotsky, Mexico City, by a Russian using the name of Jacques van den Dreschd of whom Trotsky had written just before his death: “He claims to be a friend of Cornelius, whom I met briefly in Siberia. At certain times I felt they could almost have been brothers—particularly about the eyes.” (Letter to Maria Reine, August 1940.)

  1946

  Summer

  Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal. During their trials von Ribbentrop, Göring and Streicher speak repeatedly of a witness who will come forward in their defence. He is referred to sometimes as ‘Herr Mann’ and sometimes as ‘Cornelius’. After being sentenced to death, they claim that Cornelius has betrayed them. Unsuccessful attempts are made to trace ‘Cornelius’ but the only person of that name seems to be one of Himmler’s astrologers believed to have committed suicide soon after the Fall of Berlin. (The War Crimes Trials, Nuremberg and Tokyo by Walter P. Emshwiller, Reilly & Knap, NY, 1949, p. 1003.)

  1948

  11 February

  Assassination of Gandhi. Police seek “a one-armed man called Cornelius” in connection with the crime. Cornelius believed to be an Eurasian living in Delhi. There is some information suggesting that he was a collaborator with the Japanese in Burma and that he has an Indian wife. All investigations prove fruitless. (Mehda, What Killed Gandhi?, Indian
Publishing Company, Bombay, 1954, p. 40.)

  1949

  14 March

  Jerusalem. Israeli commanders interview a captured Egyptian spy Cornelius. He dies during questioning. (Uncorroborated report in Freedom, 12 October: The Needless Agony by Sandra McPhail.)

  1953

  May

  Kenya. “One of the captured Mau Mau who had almost certainly been involved in the massacre of the Gordon family claimed that they had been led by a white man who had dyed his skin and posed as one of them. This man, said our prisoner, had been directly responsible for the rape of the two younger girls and their subsequent dismemberment. Several stories of this kind were circulating at the time but no evidence ever came to light to confirm or, for that matter, deny the rumours, though one of the Mau Mau leaders came up with the name of Jerome Cornelius, a businessman of Afrikander extraction, who had been lost in an aircrash the year previously. If a white man was directing Mau Mau operations in the Muranga district—which seemed to us highly unlikely, to say the least!—he must have made himself scarce soon after our big operation of June and July when the Mau Mau were virtually wiped out for the time being.” (James B. Bayley, The Darkening Continent, Union Movement pamphlet, 1956, p. 7.)

  1954

  3 June

  Angkor Wat, Cambodia. The bodies of five French soldiers discovered in a temple. They had been tortured. The sixth soldier was still barely alive. The torture was evidently the work of Cambodian terrorists calling themselves the Cambodian Liberation Army. Before he died, the sixth man claimed that the terrorists had been led by a European whom they called Cornelius (Campaignes en Cambodie, Versins and Henneberg, Gallimard, Paris, 1963, p. 98.)

  1955

  18 July

  Algeria. French intelligence contacts FLN officer who uses the pseudonym ‘Cornelius’ and gives information which leads to the death and capture of nearly twenty important members of the FLN. (Peter B. Saxton, The Sun is Setting, Howard Baker, 1969, p. 103.)

  30 July

  Nicosia, Cyprus. Eight Cypriot terrorists are captured by British troops in the Hotel Athena. Before the captives can be transported to prison a counter-attack takes place and they are rescued. The only survivor of the raid is Corporal John Taylor who says that the raid was led by a masked man whom one of the captives addressed as Cornelius. (Daily Sketch, 1 August.)

  1956

  October

  Suez Crisis. “It was rumoured that Eden had received a report from a Foreign Office man in Cairo called Cornelius. The report advised immediate occupation of the Canal Zone. This report, so it was said, was what finally decided Eden to give the necessary orders.” (Sir Hugh Platt, The Defence of Suez, Collins, 1960, p. 17.)

  10 November

  Budapest. Russian and Hungarian secret police seek an Englishman believed to have taken an active part in the uprising of 23 October. He is sometimes called Cornelius. For a while the police place much importance on his capture and interrogate all imprisoned foreigners as to his whereabouts, but suddenly stop their investigations and no more is heard of him. (Richard Geiss, They Went to Hungary, Hodder and Stoughton, 1958, p. 400.)

  1958

  September

  China’s Great Leap Forward. European refugees cross from China to Hong Kong. Among them is a Jeremy Cornelius, half Chinese, half English, who disappears before he can be vetted by the authorities. (Hong Kong Times, 21 September.)

  1960

  Spring

  The Ladbroke Grove Murders in London. Within three months eight women disappear. All live in Ladbroke Grove. Two of them are found dismembered in the grounds of a disused monastery in Kensington Park Road, the others are found in Hyde Park. All corpses have the initials J.C. carved on their foreheads and the work is thought to be that of a religious maniac. The last corpse found has the slogan “J.C. loves C.B.” carved into its back. Moses Collier, a labourer, confesses to the murders but further investigations and questions prove that he is mentally unbalanced and could not have been responsible for any of the murders. The case remains unsolved. (R.W. Eagen, ‘The Killer’s Mark’, Weekend, 4 July, 1966.)

  1961

  Summer

  The war in the Congo. White mercenaries fighting for the Congolese are commanded for a while by a Major Jerry Cornelius, apparently a Belgian deserter. Later Cornelius disappears, believed killed by UN troops. (Alexander Charnock, Twilight of Africa, Hutchinson, 1965, p. 607.)

  1962

  20 November

  The Cornelius Realty Company of Key West buys large areas of land in Florida at a time when values are relatively low because of the Cuba Crisis. After the crisis is over, the company resells the land at 100 per cent profit and then dissolves. (Business Month, January 1963.)

  1963

  24 November

  Dallas, Texas. Police seek a Jerry Cornelius in connection with the assassination of President Kennedy. It is believed that he is an associate of Lee Harvey Oswald and a young man known only as ‘Shades’. The young man, it is rumoured, was heard boasting in a Houston bar that he was Kennedy’s killer, not Oswald. After a fruitless investigation police conclude that Cornelius and ‘Shades’ are inventions of Oswald. (Time, 11 December.)

  1964

  Spring

  Sudden takeover of various large department stores in London and London suburbs by the Torrent Group of Companies. The Torrent Group is described as a partially owned subsidiary of the Cornelius Development Corporation of Chicago. (Business Journal, 15 June.)

  1965

  Spring

  The Deep Fix, a pop group, go to No. 1 with ‘Felt for You, Velvet for Me’. “There’s few would argue that lead guitar Jerry Cornelius is the group’s real guv’nor and maybe the best white blues guitarist ever.” (Chris Marlen, Melody Maker, 19 April.)

  30 June

  Bomb explodes in Alford Street, Dover, Kent. Several bodies found but none identified. The house was owned by a Mr J. Cornelius, believed to be one of those killed. (Kentish Times, 5 July.)

  14 August

  Thailand. A meeting of Chinese trade representatives with Bangkok businessmen. The intermediary is a ‘Mr Cornelius’, a Belgian industrialist. (Eastern Trading News, 25 August.)

  22 September

  Death of a youth in Kilburn, stabbed in broad daylight in High Street. A gang of youths was seen running away from the scene of the crime. An identification bracelet on the young man’s body gave the name Jerry Cornelius. Police asked relatives or friends of the dead man to come forward but so far nobody has done so. (West London Times, 29 September.)

  1967

  12 December

  “Police raided a flat in Chepstow Villas, Notting Hill Gate, last night and seized what they described as the biggest ever drug cache to be found on private premises. The occupant of the flat, a Mr Jerrold Cornelius, escaped from custody and has not yet been found. The police wish to interview him in connection with their inquiries. The drug cache included marijuana, hemp, cocaine, heroin and purple hearts as well as methadrine and dexadrine.” (Guardian, 13 December.)

  15 December

  Conference of Black Panther leaders in Kingman, Ohio. Minister for Special Activities is given as Jerry Cornelius—“something of a mystery man even in Panther circles”. (Newsweek, 20 December.)

  1968

  13 January

  The highjacked TWA Boeing 707 which crashed in the sea off Trinidad had a J. Cornelius listed among its passengers. There were no survivors. (International Herald Tribune, 15 January.)

  17 December

  Multiple crash on the M1 motorway near Luton. One of those killed in the Phantom V he was driving (and which was in head-on collision with an articulated truck) is a Jerry Cornelius, described as “a young fashion designer”. (The Sun, 18 December.)

  (Note: Although the compilers have discovered other references to people who might be Cornelius since the last entry above, they have not yet been able to check the authenticity of these references and therefore prefer not to include them as yet.)


  APPENDIX II

  “What’s the hour?” The black-bearded man wrenched off his gilded helmet and flung it from him, careless of where it fell … “We need Elric—we know it, and he knows it. That’s the truth!”

  “Such confidence, gentlemen, is warming to the heart.”

  The Stealer of Souls, 1963

  “Without Jerry Cornelius, we’ll never get it. We need him. That’s the truth.”

  “I’m pleased to hear it.” Jerry’s voice was sardonic as he entered the room rather theatrically and closed the door behind him.

  The Final Programme, 1968

  APPENDIX III

  The captions to chapters in this novel are advertisements and headlines taken from the following sources, most of them published 1975/76: Jane’s Weapons Systems, Interavia, Official Detective, Crime Detective, True Detective, Official UFO, Guns & Ammo, Titbits, Weekend, Guardian, Daily Mirror, Horology Magazine.

  The first four chapter headings referring to Harlequin are taken from productions staged between 1716 and 1740 by John Rich at Lincoln’s Inn Fields and Covent Garden. The fifth is from Charles Dibdin’s Covent Garden production, Christmas 1779. These classic pantomimes consisted of a dramatic ‘opening’, in which the main characters all wore oversized masks, on a theme usually taken from folklore, Romance or Classical Mythology—and which lasted for the first quarter whereupon, at a moment of tension in the plot, the characters would be transformed magically into members of the Harlequinade, to act out their parts in a fantastic, musical, satirical and symbolic manner and bring the whole entertainment to a satisfactory resolution. There were some 400 pantomimes of this kind staged in the 170 years between Rich’s first production and the start of the modern pantomime which began to take its place from the 1870s and had almost completely superseded it by the 1890s.

  The Broadsheet quotes at the beginning of the Coda section are almost all taken from John Foreman’s excellent two-volume collection of facsimile broadsheets Curiosities of Street Literature (London, 1966).

  Muzak is a trade name for piped music used in restaurants, supermarkets, bars and other public places.