Martin Fone's Blog, page 12

More Beauty Spots

As beauty spots became established as a fashion accessory, the number and their placement became a fine art. Too few had little effect while too many cried of desperation. One anonymous French commentator observed that “women who wanted to create the impression of impishness stuck them near the corner of the mouth; those who wanted to flirt chose the cheek; those in love put a beauty spot beside the eye; a spot on the chin indicated roguishness or playfulness, a patch on the nose cheekiness; the lip was preferred by the coquettish lady, and the forehead was reserved for the proud.”

As fashions became more outrageous and extravagant, the size of mouches also increased. This trend led another anonymous French commentator to observe that “though I have seen with patience the cap diminishing to the size of patch, I have not with the same unconcern observed the patch enlarging itself to the size of a cap. It is with great sorrow that I already see it in the possession of that beautiful mass of blue which borders upon the eye. Should it increase on the side of that exquisite feature, what an eclipse have we to dread! but surely it is to be hoped the ladies will not give up that place to a plaster, which the brightest jewel in the universe would want lustre to supply … All young ladies, who find it difficult to wean themselves from patches all at once, shall be allowed to wear them in whatever number, size, or figure they please, on such parts of the body as are, or should be, most covered from sight.”

Worse still, the number of spots worn increased and the practice of wearing them was not confined to the young and fashionable, as Henri Mission observed with some despair in 1719: “The Use of Patches is not unknown to the French ladies; but she that wears them must be young and handsome. In England, young, old, handsome, ugly all are bepatch’d until Bed-rid. I have often counted fifteen Patches, or more upon the swarthy wrinkled face of an old Hag threescore and ten, and upwards”.

Curiously though, mouches were not deemed appropriate adornments for the grand portraits of the time and are rarely spotted, something which makes the Compton Verney picture even more unusual. After a couple of centuries in the sun, beauty spots, like most ephemera of fashion, became passé, although did not entirely disappear. They returned briefly as a fashion accessory in the 1920s after Clara Bow had been photographed with a star adorning her cheek.

There was another brief renaissance in the 1940s and 50s prompted by Marilyn Monroe’s natural beauty spot and again in the 1990s with Cindy Crawford’s beauty spot. In the 2020s they are making another comeback, albeit for medicinal rather than aesthetic purposes. Pimple patches, taking the form of emoji-style shapes and treated with Salicylic acid, are worn to hide skin blemishes and to break up congestion in the pores, taking the mouche back almost to their original purpose. There is nothing new under the sun.     

Death Of Anton

A review of Death of Anton by Alan Melville – 250525

If you like your crime fiction written with humour and a satirical touch, then Melville’s Death of Anton, originally published in 1936 and reissued as part of the British Library Crime Classics, is one for you. Melville had a short career as a novelist, writing five books including Weekend at Thrackley and Quick Curtain, before putting away foolish and childish things to become a playwright and then a TV personality.

Set in a travelling circus, a venue that allows for a collection of motley characters and an itinerant lifestyle ideal for spreading illicit substances around the country, the book is both highly entertaining and contains a satisfying mystery.It contains another variation on Conan Doyle’s famous clue in The Adventure of Silver Blaze. The eponymous Anton is a tiger tamer with seven charges who is found dead in their cage, mildly mauled but, crucially, having been shot three times, in the aftermath of a party held by the clown Dodo in the grounds of the circus. Four people present had absented themselves during the likely time that Anton, who was not invited to the party, was killed.

As is the way with these things, there was always a likelihood that Anton would be killed. Of the four who had left the party Miller, who resented the fact that Anton had dispensed with his services, had denounced his former partner during the evening, and Lorimer, the trapeze artist, resented the fact that he was paying court to his wife, Loretta. The owner, Carey,  had been trying to sell the circus to Anton but the two had a bitter falling out and a fragment from Dodo’s costume is found by the cage and the clown has some telling scratches about his face and body. It was Dodo who announced the discovery.

Add to the mix there are mysterious visitors to Carey’s caravan who announce their presence with a coded whistle, which when replicated by Lorimer earned him a punch in the face, a pawn shop in the town which Carey visits, and a travelling vacuum salesman by the name of Briggs who is seen acting suspiciously around the pawn shop. Indeed, it is Briggs who draws Inspector Minto of the Yard to the scene of the crime on what turns out to be a busman’s holiday because Minto’s younger sister, Claire, has rashly agreed to marry him and his other brother, Robert, the town’s Catholic priest, has implored him to come down and make her see sense.

Minto, on the spot as a guest at the beer and banger party, is drawn into the resolution of the mystery and his methods are somewhat unconventional, agreeing to act on an unofficial capacity until the wedding. He also has a light-hearted, almost whimsical, approach to detecting and is convinced that the behaviour of the tigers, who barely mauled Anton but seem to take exception to others of the circus’ personnel, hold the key to unmasking of the culprit.

His case is not helped by the fact that the killer had confessed to his brother under the secrecy of the confessional and that a confession is found in Miller’s pocket. Miller is another victim, mauled by the tigers, a seemingly telling indictment, and Lorimer, induced to be a target by Minto to lure the culprit out, suffers an accident when the lengths of the trapeze ropes are adjusted.

Nevertheless, Minto works his way through his list of four principal suspects, by which time two have been eliminated, and unearths what are two different but linked crimes, murder and an illicit drugs trade, puts a stop to the unsuitable marriage, and hands the case over to the rather blase local superintendent, Padgeham, not before surviving a close encounter with six tigers intent to dispense their own form of justice for the murder of their trainer.

Despite the dearth of credible suspects, this is an entertaining romp and leaves the reader with the distinct impression that the tigers were much more intelligent than their human counterparts. Highly recommended.

Website Of The Week (8)

I am a fan of pigs in blankets, the perfect accompaniment to a Christmas turkey, but I have never really given owls in towels much thought before. When one of the 254 species of owls is rescued, they rather uncharitably but, perhaps, understandably put up a bit of a fight.

As they are armed with sharp beaks and talons handlers protect themselves and the birds by wrapping them in towels. This keeps the owl motionless and allows the handler to complete a variety of tasks like giving them food, fluids, medication, x-rays, and weighing them.

In this world of photo opportunities, an owlet peeping out of a towel makes a great picture and if you want to gorge yourself on these images, take a look at Owls in Towels, a pleasant way to spend a few minutes and safe in the knowledge that someone somewhere was trying to help them.     

Condom Of The Week

Dating back to 1830 and said to be in “mint condition” a condom made from a sheep’s appendix has recently gone on display at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum as part of an exhibition on 19th Century prostitution and sexuality which runs until the end of November. The condom came up for sale, so to speak, at auction and museum staff were somewhat surprised to be the only ones to bid for it.

No ordinary condom, it is thought to have been a “luxury souvenir” from a fancy brothel in France and only two such examples have survived. It is illustrated with a picture of a nun sitting in front of three men with her dress up and her legs apart, pointing her finger at the clergymen, all of whom are standing in front of her holding up their habits. It also bears the inscription “Voilà mon choix”, and is thought to be a parody of both celibacy and the Judgement of Paris in which the Trojan prince is required to choose between the goddesses Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena as to who is the fairest.

Unlike most condoms, it will stay up for six months!

The Seven Dials Mystery

A review of The Seven Dials Mystery by Agatha Christie – 250524

What happens when P G Wodehouse meets the genre of the thriller? Agatha Christie’s The Seven Dials Mystery, the second in her Superintendent Battle series originally published in 1929, might provide the answer. It is a delightful romp of a story with, in true Christie style, an enormous twist at the end, a surprise certainly but one which I feel she does not quite carry off. The enterprising and fearless Bundle aka Lady Eileen Brent has surely been set up too far to be the all-conquering sleuth to finish being the patsy with a large amount of egg on her face.

We are back at Chimneys, the scene of The Secret of Chimneys,but with a new cast of characters as the place has been rented out to the wealthy industrialist, Sir Oswald Coote, who, as they do, organises a house party. Some of the youngsters decide to play a practical joke on one of their number, Gerry Wade, who is notorious for rising late, by placing eight primed alarum clocks in his room. The group, perturbed at the non-appearance of their victim the following day and discover that not only has he been murdered overnight but that seven of the clocks had been placed on the mantlepiece and the eighth thrown out of the window.

Sometime later another guest, Ronny Devereux, appears to stumble out in front of Bundle’s speeding car. Fearing that she had knocked him over, Bundle is in time to hear his final words, “Seven Dials…Tell…Jimmy Thesiger”. He then expires. It later transpires that he had been shot rather than knocked down and the ambiguity contained within his message provides the driver for the rest of the plot.

All the elements of a thriller from the era are contained within the plot. A German inventor, Herr Eberhard, has something which is likely to transform the balance of power and the secrets are to be handed over to the British government, represented by our old friend, George Lomax, and Sir Stanley Digby, the Air Minister, at Chimneys, having been validated by Coote. Of course there is a gang of international spies who are determined to get their hands on the formula and it is anticipated that their latest attempt to seize them will take place at Chimneys. In anticipation, Lomax has the imperturbable and omniscient Battle on hand.

Bundle, though, is determined to track down the killers of her two friends and conducts her own investigations into the Seven Dials, which is a seedy London club and gambling den with a secret room in which a group of seven, each with their faces masked with the dial of a clock, each showing a different hour, meet to plot and plan. Bundle, voluntarily locking herself in a cupboard to observe proceedings, spots a Russian with a luxurious black beard and a Hungarian countess with a distinctive mole on her shoulder. Thinking that she has made a marvellous breakthrough she is anxious to tell her friends, Bill Eversleigh, and, dangerously, Jimmy Thesiger, of her discovery. Of course, she has got hold of the wrong end of the stick and not only does she imperil the operation to save the formula but puts her own life and those of others in her circle in danger.

Battle, though, has matters in hand and unmasks the murderer and their accomplice, having a different take on Deveruex’s words, and explains the secret behind the Seven Dials and who its eminence grey is, adding a further heavy layer of implausibility to a plot that was already badly creaking at the seams. Not even Christie can pull it off.

Despite the disappointment of the ending, there are some glorious moments, not least Lomax’s interview with Lord Caterham when asking permission for Bundle’s hand and the pastiches of Wodehouse are good. It is a book to be read and enjoyed and not one to spend too much time pondering over the structure and the plotting.

More Bezoar Stones

Phenomenally expensive and sought after as they were, were bezoar stones effective antidotes against poison? Well, up to a point, Lord Copper. Scientific analysis conducted by Gustaf Arrhenius and Andrew Benson of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, published in 2012/13, showed that when a bezoar is immersed in a solution laced with arsenic, they could remove the poison, arsenate being exchanged for phosphate in brushite found in the stone and arsenite becoming bound to the sulphur compounds in the protein of degraded hair, a key component in bezoars. That is why it was deemed necessary to place the stone in the drinking vessel for it to work.

However, they were not a universal antidote to all poisons, as the French barber-surgeon, Ambrose Paré, demonstrated convincingly in the mid-16th century. He gave a prisoner who had been condemned to death a poison, thought to be mercuric chloride, along with a bezoar. The bezoar failed to protect him from an unpleasant death.

The Jesuits accompanying the conquistadors in South America sought to stamp out the use of bezoars for religious reasons, decrying the idolatrous value put on them by the indigenous people of the region. The medical use of bezoars had all but fallen out of favour , partly because of continuing doubts about their efficacy and because of the emergence of counterfeit stones comprising toxic metals such as mercury. In a famous court case in 1603, Chandelor v Lopus, in which the purchaser sued for the return of his money having bought an allegedly fake bezoar, the unsympathetic judge introduced the maxim Caveat emptor into English common law.

By 1817 their use was described by Robert Hooper in his A New Medical Dictionary as “irrational and obsolete”. Nevertheless, porcupine bezoars are still used by some Chinese people to treat dengue fever.

Curiously, though, it was not until the mid-19th century that it was realized that bezoars could be found in humans, the most common being trichobezoars made mostly of hair. A rare form of trichobezoar is known as Rapunzel syndrome that extends from the stomach into the small intestine, like Rapunzel’s long tresses trailing down the wall of the tower she was imprisoned in. Bezoars obstruct the flow of food, damaging the walls of the digestive tract and causing ulcers, bleeding and, occasionally, perforating the intestinal wall and leading to infection of the abdominal cavity. It is a nasty condition, potentially fatal, and requires surgical intervention.

As Gardiner put it, a tad melodramatically perhaps in his letter in 1943 to the British Medical Journal, “consider that what was once a magical stone endowed with life-giving properties is now a cause for surgical intervention and a portent of evil”.      

The “Contagious Distemper” of Hirta – 1727

As we saw last time, a “contagious distemper”, thought to have been smallpox, wiped out all but four adults of the population on the island of Hirta on the St Kilda archipelago and left three men and eight boys marooned on Stac an Armin for nine months. But was it smallpox?

In 1727 smallpox was not well understood. It was not until 1767 that the Cambridge physician, William Heberden, successfully differentiated chickenpox from smallpox. “These pocks”, he wrote, “break out on many without any illness or previous sign: in others they are preceded by a little degree of chillness, lassitude, cough, broken sleep, wandering pains, loss of appetite and feverishness for three days. Most of them are of the common size of the smallpox. I never saw them confluent nor very numerous. The principal marks, by which the chicken pox may be distinguished from the smallpox are,

 1. The appearance on the second or third day from the eruption of that vesicle full of serum from the top of the pock.

 2. The crust, which covers the pocks on the fifth day; at which time those of the smallpox are not at the height of their suppuration”.

While there are no precise contemporaneous clinical records of the precise symptoms of the 1727 outbreak on Hirta, chickenpox has a high mortality rate in adults who have no immunity to the disease, some twenty-five times higher than in children, a ratio remarkably similar to that experienced in Hirta. Smallpox generally has a much lower death rate amongst adults.   

The epidemic spread widely and rapidly around Hirta, a characteristic more attributable to chickenpox than smallpox. Smallpox sufferers usually only infect up to five others, usually members of their family or close circle and hardly ever other members of a community or even every member of their own family. On the other hand, chickenpox infects 90% of household contacts and spreads far more rapidly and in an unhealthy population can lead to other fatal complications such as pneumonia and hepatitis.

Chickenpox is transmitted rapidly whereas smallpox has a much slower rate of transmission and needs especially helpful conditions to flourish. The fate of those marooned on Stac an Armin is testament to the speed with which the virus was transmitted throughout Hirta. They left a healthy community in mid-August and yet between ten and fourteen days later there were not four adult males healthy enough out of a population of around 30 to 50 to row the four miles to pick them up, a transmission rate more in line with that of chickenpox than smallpox. No infection was recorded amongst those marooned.  

Smallpox outbreaks were not uncommon in the Scottish islands, the Shetlands recording ten between 1700 and 1830. During the 1740 outbreak Thomas Gifford in Busta recorded what happened to his daughters in his diary, two of whom became unwell and were bed-bound. Five days later they had developed a rash, dying a further eight and nine days later respectively. Eleven of Gifford’s other children developed rashes but all survived. Unwittingly, Gifford had produced one of the first detailed written accounts of smallpox.

What is interesting is that the rate of transmission, the victims and the mortality rate and the mortality rate are radically different from the virus that ravaged Hirta in 1727. Although we cannot be certain, it looks very much like chickenpox rather than smallpox.

Those that survived and those rescued from Stac an Armin slowly reconstituted the island’s population.

Beauty Spots

Recently rediscovered and acquired in June 2023 by Compton Verney in Warwickshire Allegorical Painting of Two Ladies, painted around 1650, is a remarkable piece of social commentary. While to modern eyes the point of interest is that two women of completely different ethnicity sitting side by side in apparent equality with similar dress, jewellery, and hairstyle, but to the puritanical eye of the unknown painter what was of interest and to be deplored were the curious beauty patches on their faces.

Just to ensure that the viewer did not miss the point of the painting, the woman of colour wags her finger at her counterpart in a gesture both warning and playful. Above her head reads an inscription: ‘I black with white bespott y white with blacke this evil proceeds from thy proud hart then take her: Devill.’ It is a painting that speaks of sin, of vanity, of wantonness, criticising the use of cosmetics to alter one’s appearance.

What particularly irked the painter and to which they wished to draw attention were the curious beauty patches which were worn on their faces, a fashionable accessory in some quarters but something sure to rouse the ire of a true puritan. In late mediaeval times any distinctive facial blemish such as a mole or a birth mark would have been considered “the work of the devil” and potentially subject the unfortunate to a charge of witchcraft.

By the early 17th century, though, there had been a complete volte face with cosmetics worn to enhance appearance and small, distinctly shaped fabric patches fashioned from silk, velvet, or Spanish leather, and often heavily perfumed, known as beauty spots or mouches, were applied to the face or exposed upper body. They were worn by both women and men.

Pale, marble-white skin colouring was he hallmark of a true aristocrat in the 18th century, a sign that they had never sullied their hands with outdoor labour. To create the illusion, they plastered thick layers of whitening cream on to their faces. Having produced their perfect blank canvas, they could then draw attention to themselves discreetly, an essential for the serious business of netting a husband, by the use of beauty spots to offset their enormous wigs and sparkling jewellery.

It is thought that beauty spots originated from France and one theory is that they were originally used to mask the ravages of smallpox or syphilis. Ultimately, they became a means of sending clandestine messages, the placement and design being imbued with meaning. Shapes included moons, stars, hearts, squares, dots, flowers, ships, and even a horse-drawn carriage.

However, their placement was all important, and they could be swapped and shuffled around the face as the occasion demanded. Beauty spots were kept in elaborate boîtes à mouche made from gold and ivory and for a time the manufacture of the patches and the boxes became a boom industry.

Found Floating

A review of Found Floating by Freeman Wills Crofts – 250523

If you are a writer and have been on what by the standards of the mid-1930s was a rather exotic holiday, then it is a shame to waste any of the material that you have gathered. So in 1937 just as Agatha Christie gave us Death on the Nile, the inestimable Freeman Wills published Found Floating, the sixteenth adventure involving his series detective, Inspector Joseph French. Being a man with an eye for detail and never one to spare his reader the benefit of every iota of information that he has gathered, we are treated to almost a chapter on the finer points of the cruise ship that French finds himself on, all in the line of duty of course, and a very detailed description of the detective’s peregrinations through Europe.

Although there is more than a little of what suspiciously like padding to this book, at its heart is a rather ingenious murder, although the basics of the plot are fairly familiar to seasoned readers of the genre. A family business, a bitter split between two brothers leaving one, William Carrington, in charge but in a quandary as to who to leave the firm to, Jim Musgrave, who is working there but seems to lack the drive to make a go of it, or his brother’s son, Mant Carrington, who is out in Australia. To the surprise of the family, William plumps for Mant, seemingly recalling him from Australia. Mant and Jim do not get on and Katherine Shirley, William’s niece and housekeeper, sees the look of murder on Jim’s face when he leaves the house after a stormy encounter with Mant.

Unsurprisingly, there is a murder and the victim is Mant but the circumstances are unusual. Acting upon the advice of the family doctor and Katherine’s beau, the wonderfully named Runciman Jellicoe, William takes the whole group on a Mediterranean cruise. At Ceuta, across the straits from Gibraltar, Mant seemingly leaves the ship for a late night stroll and is never seen again. His body is later fished out of the Med with severe lacerations to his limbs, signs that he had been bound and a gash to the head. Jim had also left the ship and was the only one of the group in evening dress when the captain broke the news of Mant’s disappearance.

The culprit seems to be too obvious and the stalwart French, who is assigned the case, is facing a dilemma as to how to spin out his investigations so that he can enjoy the unexpected luxury of a Mediterranean cruise. However, as he gets stuck into the case he realises that it is a little more complex and while it takes him an inordinate amount of time to recognise how Mant received his injuries switching the focus of his enquiries from shore to ship, it slowly dawns on him that roots of the case are buried in family history. An overlooked pool of sea water in a cabin gives the game away.        

There are a couple of the intriguing aspects to this edition of the book. By the time the book was published Spain was in the grips of its Civil War, forcing the author to make it clear that the cruise took place before Spain and its environs became out of bounds. Events, dear boy, events. The second is that this edition, published by Collins Crime Club, features a running commentary in four parts interspersed throughout the text by a retired Big Bug from Scotland Yard, ex-Superintendent Walter Hambrook, who read the book as it was serialised in the Daily Mail and marks French’s card. While insufferably pompous Hambrook tends to agree with French’s approach and that the detective rather than feel miffed that he let the culprit avoid their day before the judge, he should compliment himself on a job well done.

Not French’s greatest case by a long chalk, but there is enough to keep the reader interested and even entertained.

Crisps Of The Week

Is it farewell to a packet of cheese and onion crisps?

According to the supermarket chain Waitrose, the demand for premium and unusual crisps is soaring, as they launch a fried egg flavour from the Spanish specialist Torres, costing a cool £4.95 for a 125g bag, which follows other flavour sensations such as black truffle, caviar, and sparkling wine flavours. Over in the Marks & Spencer camp they offer a black truffle version for just £.75 for 125g.

Meanwhile, Kettle’s latest range includes a sriracha mayo version and dill pickle and jalapeño (£2.40 for 125g), while at Tyrells, you can pick from Wensleydale and cranberry to roasted chicken and sage (from £2.75 for 150g). There are also specialist snack sites that stock smaller British brands, such as Taste of Game, which does a smoked pheasant and wild mushroom crisp.

At dinner parties blinis are being replaced by crisp canapés such as Pringles with dollops of sour cream and caviar, while guests are bringing their hosts £26 tins of Bonilla sea salted crips instead of a bottle of champers. For a speedy take on a tortilla Española, Spanish chef Ferran Adrià suggests folding plain crisps into whisked eggs.

The Greek-inspired restaurants, Oma and Agora, in London’s Borough market offer homemade hot crisps on their menu, but they are not any old crisps. They are made from agria potatoes fried in rapeseed oil and flavoured with everything from garlic to kombu dashi. At Toklas restaurant on the Strand, its take on mussels escabeche features crisps instead of bread.

Premium water, premium ice, and now premium crisps. What next?