“Olympian uses pig’s blood for revenge on lover”

…and other Sky News stories.

For many people, that headline would be enough. Not for me.

I want to delve deeper. I want to know more.

Fortunately, Sky News has obliged with further bizarre details.

Lizzie Purbrick, who competed as a showjumper in the 1980 Games, said she had used a key to get into the south London home of former lover David Prior.
The two, both separated from their married partners, had been in a relationship for several years that she had thought “had longevity”, according to her lawyer Simon Nicholls.

Look, I’m not that sort of guy, but I do understand that some relationships do break down, people find other people, people move on.

To a point, anyway.

But when the 63-year-old saw Lord Prior in the arms of another woman… she sought revenge, Camberwell Magistrates’ Court heard.

Uh-oh.

On 9 May, she used a key to get into the home and used a garden sprayer and several litres of pig’s blood to cover the walls with phrases, including “whore”, “lady s***” and “big d*** lord”.

Right. Several (or more) questions are raised here. Practicality is foremost amongst them. A garden sprayer has a very fine nozzle and pig’s blood is not the most watery of liquids. There is viscosity there. Even more so when one considers the coagulation of any mammalian blood when exposed to air. To be able to spray pig’s blood all around Lord Prior’s South London home with a garden sprayer would surely have demanded some quality organisational skills. Some sort of anticoagulant, or just a pig readily available on site to ensure an extremely fresh supply of porcine claret, regularly topped up.

Am I alone in thinking that the pig might not be wholly onside with this?

And then, as for writing in it… Wow, that must take some skill.

Have you ever tried writing with a garden sprayer? Even allowing for a huge font (the size traditionally favoured by jilted lovers to scrawl insults across walls), you’re looking at needing a Volume Median Diameter for the blood droplets of perhaps 400 microns. Otherwise you’re going to get drift – even indoors. Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to ensure that their weird slogans were legible.

And then, what of those slogans? “Whore” is straightforward, but is that second one “slag”, “slut” or “shit”? Or something far less inflammatory, like “spud, “sofa” or “sigh”?

We’re all left wondering.

And then “big d*** lord”? Presumably, she is channeling Darth Vader here, because I can’t think of any other Dark Lords off the top of my head.

He has failed her for the last time.

The court heard that she had chosen pig’s blood because Lord Prior “liked pigs”.

Oh. Right. Yes. Obviously.

Purbrick, of King’s Lynn in Norfolk, also drew a penis on the floor and left a cheque for £1000 before leaving.

And therein lies the most confusing aspect of this whole sorry situation. Why the £1000, and moreover, where the hell did she get a cheque from? Do people still have chequebooks? Lizzie Purbrick clearly does. How very historic. Quaint, even.

Her handiwork was discovered when a neighbour noticed blood seeping through from underneath the door.

To be fair, when you see blood seeping under a door, a madwoman spraying filthy graffiti around her ex-lover’s apartment with basic horticultural equipment is probably the best outcome you could wish for.

When she appeared at court on Tuesday, she admitted one charge of criminal damage.
Mr Nicholls said his client had described the incident as “cathartic” and had since “moved on”.

I wonder what the pig is thinking?

District judge Susan Green sentenced Purbrick to 120 hours community service and imposed a restraining order, describing the slogans in the home as “highly abusive” and “quite appalling”.

Yes. I can see that being sanguigraphically accused of being a Sith Lord would be troubling for anyone. And that Lady Spud thing suggests that his new lover might be a bit… lumpy.

But still… a chequebook?
Really?