ThinkingShift

Last week, I read that an extraordinarily large, green-hued diamond had been discovered in South Africa. What really gets my attention is any information about the perfect lipgloss that won’t get stuck in a girl’s hair:)- or anything to do with sparkling, flashing diamonds. I have books that I periodically drool over, showing the jewellery collections of royalty or Elizabeth Taylor (husband Richard Burton gave her the Cartier diamond, weighing in at 240.80 carats rough and 69.42 carats cut - Burton gets serious brownie points IMHO). And that other heavyweight sparkler, the 3,106-carat Cullinan, was found in Gauteng Province, South Africa in 1905 and later became part of the Crown Jewels.

But both gems could be eclipsed by a diamond dubbed the Green Giant and said to weigh in at over 7,000 carats or twice the size of the Cullinan and around the size of a soccer ball. What I found intriguing was a couple of things: the only photo I’ve seen so far seems to be some grainy image snapped by a mobile phone and the owner is said to be a Mr Jolly - I sniffed a practical joke given the surname. The next intriguing thing was that the so-called discovery hit the news and then rapidly slid off the “hot news” item list. Diamond experts appear to have been taken by surprise by this monster diamond and the term “Fool’s Gold” was thrown around. And stories about the size of the diamond seemed to grow - from 7,000 carats to 8,120 carats or 1.64kg.

I wanted more information: who was this Mr Jolly? How much might this sparkler be worth - £50 million, £100 million? How did such a large diamond survive the mining process? Is it really a lower quality industrial diamond or just a huge, fancy coloured crystal? But information I found simply deepened the mystery about the Green Giant.

Nothing I like better than a good mystery, so I decided to go to the source: South Africa. Well, not personally although I’ve been there many times, but to my sister-in-law who lives in Johannesburg. What’s the goss I asked her? She told me that South African news and national radio was buzzing with talk about the diamond and how it was currently stashed away in some secret vault somewhere in Johannesburg. Kicking myself that I chose not to go to South Africa on my break (I’m on holidays now), she told me some more intriguing news, which sounds like it’s straight out of the novel, King Solomon’s Mines.

Apparently, the diamond could be the legendary skaapkop or sheep’s head shaped diamond, that an Afrikaner prophet, Siener van Rensburg, predicted would be found in the area where Jolly made his discovery. The prophecy said that two brothers would find the Skaapkop diamond. Breathlessly I asked whether there was a Jolly brother (no doubt equally as happy as his brother Brett!). But so far no-one seems to know if Jolly has a brother.

The Johannesburg-based president of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses, Ernest Blom, will be examining the stone. It’s not uncommon for gem discoverers to keep their find under wraps and shrouded in secrecy. But if the Green Giant is authentic, can you just imagine the bidding frenzy! Let’s just hope it’s not a blood diamond or perhaps cursed like the glorious blue-hued Hope diamond pinched from an idol in India (way bad karma!). Can’t wait to hear the verdict.

Although breaking news coming in today from South Africa is saying that the verification process has been carried out and that the sparkler is in fact one heck of a monster diamond. I’ll keep my eye on this story because if it is genuine, then this diamond will be one of the rarest ever found due to its pale green colour and size. Mmmm…..a trip to South Africa for Christmas is sure sounding good to me.

UPDATE: Sept 27 - it continues to be a curious case. A report coming in from South Africa Sept 27 says that the giant diamond has still not be verified. The President of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses, Ernest Blom, says he has not sighted the sparkler and he is the only person who is permitted to check it out. Odd: you would think the dude who claims he discovered it would want it verified pronto. But apparently there are concerns over security and taking the diamond to the place where it would be examined in Johannesburg.

UPDATE: October 10 - oooh, this is getting so exciting! I wish I’d written this whole bizarre episode as a novel! This is the latest - Ernest Blom, has thrown his hands up in horror and says he will have nothing further to do with the whole diamond affair. He has still yet to catch a glimpse of the rock and has only seen a photo of the stone and says it looks like a disgusting lump of resin. Meanwhile, the dude who claims to have discovered the sparkler (although I think he really just made the initial announcement of the discovery), UK business man, Brett Jolly, is busy suing his former associates for fraud and theft.

Apparently, Jolly took a reporter to check the diamond. Drama ensued: the reporter was blindfolded and when the reporter and Jolly met up with Jolly’s associate, Andre Harding, the fur flew. Harding is one of the two miners said to have discovered the diamond. Jolly and Harding became involved in a shouting match, presumably because Harding said he was being followed by “Government agents”. He supposedly had the diamond in a safe welded to his car (mmmm….maybe not the smartest way to conceal a mega diamond. Car gets stolen…..).

Harding stopped by the side of the road and whipped out a diamond testing device. But somehow forgot to take the cap off the tester and had the device preset to flash “diamond”. Jolly rushed to a local police station to press charges of fraud and theft against Harding.

Another report says that the two miners actually showed Jolly the rock and he says it’s just a lump of plastic, hence the fraud allegations.  At least I think this is the latest in this wonderful saga!

Bummer….there are no diamonds to be found on the remote planets of Uranus or Neptune. Not that I’ve been there over the weekend to check - I have to rely on the expertise of the co-authors of a new study, Luca Ghiringhelli of the University of Amsterdam and Daan Frenkel of the FOM Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

After seeing Blood Diamond with Leo and his spiffy South African accent, I swore not to buy anymore diamonds (please don’t think I make a habit of doing that anyway) as they might be conflict diamonds. So I was hoping that when humans finally set foot on Mars (NASA is planning a sample-return trip to the Red Planet by 201 the words uttered would not be “This is one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind” but more like “This is one small step for a man, one giant leap for womankind, cos there’s a whole lotta glittering diamonds in this red dust we’ve just stepped on”.

Alas, according to New Scientist, Ghiringhelli and Frenkel’s study shows that Neptune and Uranus simply don’t have enough carbon to make diamonds. Both planets only contain 1 to 2% carbon and, for diamonds to form, about 15% carbon is needed. Guess that means Mars too. A girl’s only hope apparently is white dwarf stars.

White dwarfs are burnt out suns and the dense core left behind after a sun has its melt down could contain as much as 50% carbon. If the white dwarf is young and hot, the carbon would exist in liquid form and is almost like a liquid diamond. As the dwarf cools down, the liquid starts to crystallise into a diamond. It’s possible that the white dwarf called BPM 37093 could have a moon sized crystal at is core. Now, this is encouraging: perhaps there are lots of white dwarfs out there with glittering diamond cores. I can just imagine this inspiring space-themed engagement rings - instead of the traditional diamond solitaire, perhaps a ring in the shape of a comet; or a large round diamond with gold wire encasing the diamond, like a dwarf core spitting dust and material as it dies.

But the diamond industry and bling buffs like me shouldn’t get too excited about all this - after all, setting up a diamond mine on a distant dwarf would be some feat and the dense gravity would probably crush you. Stating the obvious Frenkel says: “Don’t send a rocket out to these stars.. the diamond is too expensive to get, apart from the fact that it’s very hard to get something off a white dwarf.”

I came across this fascinating story from BBC News. It’s a real mystery. The sort of spicy plot you’d love to dream up for a debut novel that would be turned into blockbuster movies! There’s intrigue, theft, sexual indiscretion, shadowy figures, even a relative of a famous person.

I have to start off by saying I was unaware that there are Irish “Crown Jewels”. You normally associate the Crown Jewels with Queen Elizabeth II and the UK. The Irish Crown Jewels are not quite the glittering diamond tiaras and baubles of Her Majesty, but rather were the insignia of the Order of St Patrick (a chivalric order founded in 1783). The regalia had been created in the 1830s from jewels once belonging to Queen Charlotte and Queen Victoria used the Crown Jewels. They consisted of a star and a badge made from rubies, emeralds and Brazilian diamonds.

Our story begins in 1903 at Dublin Castle. A vault was built in the castle’s Bedford Hall to house a safe in which the crown jewels would be safely tucked away. But the safe turned out to be too wide to fit through the doorway to the vault and…this is the first part of the mystery….the safe was stored in the castle’s library. The Ulster King of Arms and guardian of the Crown Jewels, Sir Arthur Vicars, was in charge of the keys to the library.

All remained quiet until July 6, 1907, four days before the visit of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. The Irish prepared to dust off the jewels but discovered they had vanished from the safe, along with jewellry belonging to Vicar’s mother. There was no evidence of a break-in as the safe had been opened with keys.

At this point, it sounds like a great Miss Marple mystery or a Sherlock Holmes thriller! Who dunnit? Sir Arthur Vicars? Another castle official who borrowed Vicar’s keys (he had two sets)? Irish nationalists (this was pre-independence Ireland)? Was it an inside job? Did the butler do it? The King was furious - presumably he wanted to deck himself out in the insignia.

The finger of blame was pointed at Vicars who came under great pressure to resign his office. After all, he had the two sets of keys in his possession. But he refused to buckle under the pressure. Rumours were spread about his ’sexual orientation” as he was said to associate with a man of undesirable character (who was never named in the official report into the theft). Wild parties and orgies were said to occur at the castle. Were these rumours spread by the real culprit in an effort to force Vicars from office and pin the theft on him?

But Vicars was a feisty chap. He demanded a public royal inquiry and accused his second in command, Francis Shackleton. And this is where it gets REALLY interesting. The astute amongst us might recognise the surname - Shackleton. Francis was the brother of Antarctic explorer, Sir Ernest Shackleton. But he seemed to be the opposite of his famous brother - a somewhat shady character and a known homosexual (homosexuality being a criminal offence at the time). Was Shackleton the culprit? Was he the man of undesirable character Vicars was said to associate with?

The inquiry exonerated Shackleton but left Vicars in disgrace, accused of negligence and failing to exercise due care. Sadly, Vicars was later murdered at the hands of the IRA in 1921. And what of Shackleton? Well, if we believe that a leopard never changes its spots - then perhaps he was the real culprit for he was found guilty of fraud six years later in 1913. He later changed his name to Frank Mellor, ran an antique shop and died in 1941.

Was the King himself involved? In early 1907, Ernest Shackleton was preparing for his expedition and the King and Queen had visited him before his departure. If Francis was the culprit, there’s a suggestion that Vicars became the scapegoat in order to protect a national hero.

Vicars’ will was closed to researchers until 1976 when the explosive allegations against Shackleton became known as Vicars accused both the Irish Government and King Edward VII for making him a scapegoat and specifically named Shackleton as the thief. Could be some truth to this - all the official papers relating to the scandal have been destroyed. Was an innocent man’s career destroyed?

A bit like the so-called Curse of Tutankhamen, others involved in the jewel scandal met a sinister fate. Captain Richard H Gorges, a disreputable friend of Shackleton’s, was said to be linked to the theft. He killed a policeman in 1915 and was convicted of manslaughter. Francis Bennett Goldney, an honorary office holder under Vicars, and said to dabble in theft, snuffed it in France in 1918 the victim of a motoring accident. Pierce Gun Mahony, another honorary office holder and Vicars’ nephew, was shot through the heart in 1914 in a hunting accident, although rumours of murder swirled. You can read a full account of this fascinating mystery at Irish Historical Mysteries.

For the ‘bling buffs” like me: what became of the Crown Jewels? Rumour has it that the jewels were broken up and sold to private collectors. Another rumour suggests that in 1927, the jewels were offered for sale to the Irish Free State for £5,000 and purchased on Prime Minister W.T Cosgrave’s orders. But then someone on their death bed in 1983 fessed up to the jewels being buried and this caused the Irish police to dig around the foothills of the Dublin Mountains.

One thing is clear: 100 years later, this is a still a great who dunnit mystery. Now I’m off to try and pen a similar tale of jewels, intrigue, drama and accusation. Actually….I’ll just write about many of the organisations I’ve worked in as they have all the elements of a ripping yarn, sans the jewels of course :)-