England Fan?

Other than its notorious rallies (I believe the forest stages of the Lombard RAC were held here until they moved to Wales) Nuremburg is best known in Germany for the mystery of Kaspar Hauser.

A mystery so mysterious you’ll probably never have heard of it. I hadn’t until my taxi driver Dieter Haupt (one time tour manager of 70’s’ songster Donovan apparently) told me about him this morning. Kaspar was a bewildered looking youth who turned up on the streets of the town in 1828 carrying two letters addressed to the authorities, One was from a labourer who claimed to have looked after him for 16 years and another from his natural mother saying his deceased father was a cavalry officer.

Poor old Kaspar didn’t know if it was New York or New Year but he grew into a well-educated young man after the good burghers of the city took him under their wing. One theory doing the rounds, which wasn’t disproved until DNA tests were carried out in 1997, was that he was the illegitimate son of Grand Duke Carl Ludwig of Baden (yep new one on me too). Kaspar became clerk to the president of the court of appeal in nearby Ansbach. Just as he was slipping from the limelight he was brutally murdered. Little is known of his violent death – until now.

I can exclusively reveal that he was murdered above the German equivalent of Snappy Snaps in the market place.

I’m still working on this theory and I’d be the first to admit it won’t stand up in a court of law yet, let alone Kaspar’s court of appeal, but I’m convinced. You see I had the misfortune of being interviewed there by BBC Radio Five Live’s very own Victoria Derbyshire yesterday morning. To say she was in a foul mood would be to underplay it. I’d go so far as to say she was in a murderous one. You see her plane was delayed and she didn’t get to bed until late.

Not only that, she was now being forced to work above a photographic agency among the potions and fluids they used to use to develop holiday snaps with before they had computers. (BBC budgets not what they used to be shocker) The place looked like it had not been dusted for decades. Or since at least the 1830’s if I was asked to guess. As the room was so ill lit it is difficult to say conclusively, but I can’t be 100 per cent sure that the stains on the cracked tile floor were not human blood. It’s also difficult to gauge people's ages, as some women look remarkably well on it - particularly when they’re on the radio.

Lets just say it wasn’t Colonel Mustard in the Library…