Martin Fone's Blog, page 165

Cantering Through Cant (23)

Gin was such a popular drink in early Georgian Britain that, inevitably, it spawned a number of synonyms. Sky blue, Francis Grose informs us in his A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785) was one such. Doubtless, it was ideal for sluicing your gob, taking a hearty drink.

Intriguingly, there is an entry for sky farmers whom he defines as “cheats who pretend they were farmers in the isle of Sky (sic) or some other remote place, and were ruined by some flood, hurricane or some such public calamity”, Fraudulent beggars were a problem even then.

A slap-bang shop was a petty cook’s shop where no credit was given. All goods had to be paid for “with the ready slap-bang” aka immediately. It was also a slang term used to describe a stagecoach, a caravan or a night cellar frequented by thieves.

If you are looking for a synonym for a fool’s errand, try a sleeveless errand, “a search for something which is impossible”, while sleepy was a term used to describe something much worn, as in “the cloth of your coat must be extremely sleepy, for it has not had a nap this long time”.

We tend to describe a misuse of words as a malapropism after Mrs Malaprop, a character in Sheridan’s 1775 comedy of manners, The Rivals. However, in Grose’s time, or earlier, one who misnamed or misapplied a hard word was slipslopping, a reference to Mrs Slipslop who appeared in Henry Fielding’s 1745 novel, Joseph Andrews. I think I prefer the earlier term.

The Lakes Gin

The Lake District is one of the more beautiful and scenic areas of England, situated in the north of England, just below the Scottish borders and famous for its (ahem) lakes and hills. Sadly, I have not been there for many a year but jumped at the opportunity to visit there in spirit. Opened in December 2014 on a farm in Bassenthwaite by Paul Currie, previously involved with Arran Distillers, the distillery produces a whisky and a vodka as well as gin, taking advantage of the fresh natural waters from Sprinkling Tarn.

The jostling for market positioning created by the ginaissance is such that it is a brave, and possibly foolhardy, move to completely reconfigure your signature brand but this is what Currie has decided to do. Not only has the design and shape of the bottle changed but also the recipe. Gone are some of the botanicals from the local area such as bilberry, heather, hawthorn, and mint that featured in the original incarnation and in have come a nonet of more traditional and, dare I say, conservative botanicals featuring juniper, coriander, angelica, orris root, cassia bark, liquorice, bitter orange, sweet orange, and lemon peel.

Purists will argue that the changes have severed an obvious link with the locale upon which the brand depends but from a pure taste perspective, which is really what should be the prime consideration, it places The Lakes Gin firmly in the classic London Dry Gin space, a tad overcrowded, for sure, but one in which quality will out.

The base spirit is made from wheat which is warmed and into which the botanicals are steeped overnight to allow the essential oils to be released. A traditional copper still named Chemmy is then used to distill the mix and then it is reduced using local natural spring water. The result is a spirit with an impressive fighting weight of 46% ABV, a stronger gin than the original which had an ABV of 43.7%.

The redesigned bottle is elegance personified. Round with a flat shoulder and a longish neck, it is made from a light blue glass which gives the sense of a lake, enhanced by the rippled effects embossed into the glass. The name of the distillery is embossed onto the shoulder and the cap is black with an artificial stopper, once you have removed the gold foil protection. The labelling, too, is elegant, using black and gold on a plain background and tells me that the gin is “gently distilled with the luxury of time for exceptional smoothness”. The only bit of marketese that sticks in the craw is that the flavours have been elevated.

On opening the bottle, the aroma was reassuringly that of a London Dry with pronounced notes of juniper and pepper and a faint hint of citrus. In the glass, the clear spirit was crisp with juniper to the fore and then more nuttier elements combining with the freshness of citrus before a hint of liquorice and more floral tones. The aftertaste lingered, a mix of pepper, juniper and citrus. All in all it was a well-balanced, well-defined gin with juniper unashamedly to the fore, just how I like my gins.

The Lakes Gin was a definite hit and the risk associated with changing its flavour profile was one well worth taking.

Until the next time, cheers!

The Case Of The Black Twenty-Two

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The Case of the Black Twenty-Two – Brian Flynn

My find of the last few months has been Brian Flynn, many of whose books have been reissued for a modern audience by Dean Street Press. This is Flynn’s second Anthony Bathurst novel, originally published in 1934, and it involves a locked room murder. Actually, you get two murders for the price of one because as well as the American millionaire art collector killed in his study (locked from the inside, of course) a poor security guard, Mason, is also murdered, at around the same time in the same way (a blow to the head) but miles away.

An avid collector Stewart has sent a lawyer, Peter Daventry, instructions to buy at auction three artefacts that belonged to Mary Queen of Scots. Daventry attends the viewing but on the night before the sale, the two murders are committed. Inspector Goodall from the Yard is in charge of the investigations but on the recommendation of Daventry’s brother, who saw him in action in The Billiard Room Mystery, the lawyers insist on Bathurst being involved to protect their client’s interests.     

In truth, although the plot is well-worked and has the usual mix of semi-convincing alibis, red herrings and twists and turns, the list of suspects is rather limited and the attentive reader has a good sense of whodunit, even if the motivation is not clear, from an early stage. It is only with the introduction of the Black Twenty-Two midway through the book that the disparate pieces start to fit together and the reader can get a sense of why the murders were committed and why the artefacts held such an attraction. I will not spoil the story by commenting any further.

What I found interesting is the way that Flynn chose to portray Bathurst. It is difficult not to think that who he has in mind is Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. Bathurst is a fine physical specimen with a high degree of mental acumen. Whereas the professional police are either out of their depth (the local force) or too intense and abrasive to make much headway (Inspector Goodall), Bathurst has the charm and social grace to ease himself into the company and ask questions without causing undue alarm. He even persuades the Sergeant to reveal some ultimately quite important information that he has not passed on to his own Inspector. Guilty of withholding vital information to make the reveal more dramatic at the end, Bathurst is free to paddle his own canoe. His methods, like Holmes’, are more deductive than investigative and his Watson is Daventry. Still, there is enough of a character in Bathurst that he doesn’t just turn into an ersatz Holmes.

A feature of the book that sits rather oddly with the modern reader is the treatment of Stewart’s ward in the tale. Her behaviour and her reluctance to be honest in her statements makes her a prime suspect, but because of her youth, sex and beauty she is assumed to be innocent and given a fairly easy ride by the detectives. The Sergeant, fighting a losing battle to act professionally in front of her, “became acutely aware of his constitutional duty, but sternly suppressed it”. Ah, innocent days!     

I thoroughly enjoyed the tale and look forward to my next encounter with the formidable Anthony Bathurst.

Dead Or Alive

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Dead or Alive – Patricia Wentworth

This is more of a thriller than detective fiction, reminiscent of Buchan’s Thirty Nine Steps, which is no bad thing, and is the first of two books in the Frank Garrett series that Camberley-based Patricia Wentworth wrote. Although labelled a Frank Garrett mystery, in truth Garrett plays a rather low-key part in this 1936 novel, more an eminence grise in Whitehall than someone who leads the resolution of a mystery. It is probably no surprise that Wentworth abandoned him after his second outing.

The character who does all the donkey work is Bill Coverdale who, after being ditched by his childhood sweetheart, Meg O’Hara, has been working abroad. On returning he finds that Meg has split from her husband, Robin, who worked for a shadowy covert government agency, and is in desperate straits. Robin has disappeared and a body that is unquestionably his has been discovered. Meg, though, does not believe he is dead, because she has experienced a number of disturbing occurrences and messages which indicate he is still alive. Bill, making enquiries on her behalf, is told categorically by Garrett that O’Hara is dead.

Meg cuts a rather pitiful figure at the start of the book. Scared by these odd occurrences and certain that her estranged husband is dead, she is financially on her uppers. Her obvious path to accessing money she desperately needs is her (conveniently) wealthy uncle. He, however, is too immersed in his all-important research work to worry about the welfare of his relative (conveniently) and access to him is blocked by an over-fussy and slightly sinister secretary. O’Hara has left a package of papers with his solicitors which can only be accessed by Meg upon his death. As she thinks he is still alive, she won’t get them, but Coverdale begins to wonder what they contain and whether their contents hold the key to explaining why sinister forces (identity unknown, of course) are trying to convince her that O’Hara is alive.

Naturally, as with many books of this ilk, there are mysterious and sinister international forces at work, the identity of whose main players and their aims O’Hara has rumbled and documented. Having bumped him off, the agents are desperate to make Meg believe he is still alive so the package, its contents and, by extension, their identities remain a secret.

As the book progresses, Meg becomes a little braver, plucking up courage to stay with her uncle. His place is rather sinister with a walled island, locked gates and his old staff have been dismissed to be replaced with thuggish retainers. Meg finds that her mail is tampered with, and a telegram, purportedly from her to Bill, tells him to back off.

Bill, though, is made of sterner stuff and after a variety of escapades, including Meg narrowly escaping death after being pushed in front of a tram (I have only read two Wentworth books and this form off assassination attempt appears in both) and a thrilling night-time chase, matters are resolved, although the gang members disappear into the night.

Much of the plotting does not bear too close a scrutiny, but Wentworth’s style is light, clear and engaging. It is a page-turner and if you are looking for a bit of excitement without taxing most of your brain cells, this could be a book for you. Personally, I prefer a little more meat in mine.

How Many Apple Pips Will It Take To Kill You?

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Regular readers of detective fiction will soon discover that many of the stories are laced with poison, cyanide, arsenic, and strychnine being especially favoured. It is a useful device because administering a poison, while requiring a certain degree of guile and some planning, does not require much in the way of brawn. Whereas a form of murder which requires the application of physical force may preclude many a fair damsel, the ability to pour surreptitiously a poison into the drink or meal of the intended victim presents no bar to gender. The poison can be administered in one go or drip fed, the latter method favoured if the victim has underlying health conditions, particularly gastric complaints.

It was a case of art imitating real life, as poisoning was a regular way of dispatching a victim from the mid-19th until the early 20th century. And it was not surprising as poisonous substances were relatively easy to get hold of. In a sensational trial in 1857, Madelaine Smith was accused of murdering her former lover turned blackmailer, Pierre Emile L’Angelier, with arsenic. An astonishing 88 grains of the poison were found in his stomach at the post-mortem. She admitted buying it but stated that she used it “in washing, as a cosmetic…[and] for the alleged purpose of killing rats”. The jury may have enjoyed the irony in her statement as they recorded a verdict of “Not Proven”.

Patent tonics openly available to give you that extra spring in your step contained strychnine, opiates in the form of laudanum could be bought over the counter, and potassium cyanide was to be found in many a gardener’s shed, useful for removing pests and weeds. Arsenic was mixed with vinegar and chalk and eaten by women desperate to lighten their skin or rubbed over their faces and arms to “improve their complexion”. It was also used as a dye for wallpapers, producing the type of bright green colour to die for, as some unfortunately did from inhaling the poisonous fumes that emanated from the material. Poisons only disappeared from the shelves when the authorities started to regulate products and introduce tighter legislative controls.

Poisons, though, can be found in many a common or garden foodstuff. Take the fruits in the Rosaceae family. I rarely eat an apple these days but when I do, I studiously eschew that thin fibrous band in the centre harbouring the pips. It is not the change in taste and texture that puts me off and I know that I am wasting part of the fruit and that if I eat it vertically, it is barely noticeable; I just do not want the pips stuck in my colon. Perhaps there is an innate self-preservation instinct at work too.

Apple pips contain molecules called cyanogenic glycosides, one of which is amygdalin. If you inadvertently chew or break the hard coating of the pip, the enzymes in your digestive system cut off the sugar part of the molecule, leaving the rest to decompose in your stomach and make the poisonous gas, hydrogen cyanide.

This discovery was made by a Swedish chemist, Carl Willhelm Scheele, in 1782 when he was dissolving pips and seeds. Hydrogen cyanide and its compounds went on to be used in industrial processes to harden metals, such as iron and steel, and to make ink for pens. Ironically, Scheele himself was a victim of toxins, dying at the age of 43 from mercury poisoning, almost certainly as a consequence of his scientific experiments.

Before you get too alarmed, though, it is worth putting the latent toxicity of apple pips into context. Humans experience some form of cyanide toxicity after consuming a dosage of at least 0.5 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. A fatal dose, it is reckoned, will need to be greater than 1.5 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. There are approximately 3 milligrams of amygdalin in a gram of apple pips, a recent study revealed, each pip weighing approximately 0.7 grams. Of course, because of the action of the digestive system’s enzymes, not all the amygdalin is converted into cyanide.

I weigh 78 kilograms and assuming a dosage of 1.5 milligrams per kilogram of body weight is required to finish me off, then 117 milligrams of cyanide would do the job. To achieve this, my putative poisoner would need 39 grams of apple pips or 557 individual pips. If we assume that there are eight to an apple, that means seventy apples would be needed.      

Other members of the Rosaceae family have higher concentrations of amygdalin. The greengage has almost six times as much in its seeds as an apple, 17.5 milligrams per gram, and the apricot, a fruit I have never got on with, almost five times the concentration, at 14.4 milligrams. A red cherry has almost a third as much as an apple, at 3.9 milligrams. My advice is to play safe and avoid biting into their stones.

If I ever decide to unleash my inner Richard Osman, it is safe to say that my murderer would not be using apple pips!

Photographer Of The Week

I’m not much of a photographer and I have often wondered whether having eight arms would help me get the perfect shot. This year’s Ocean Art Underwater Photo Competition may just prove that it is.

The Best of Show award went to an intriguing close-up of an octopus but the story behind it is even more fascinating.

Submitted by Gaetano Dario Gargiulo he recounts that he was pottering around a tidal pool as the tide was too low to go out any further and noticed an octopus in the shallowest part. He set his camera near its den and the octopus came out to investigate and to the amazement of Gaetano it got to grips with the camera and started to take selfies.

At least the result was more interesting than the usual run of the mill selfies.

Surgeon Of The Week

When you have a busy schedule, it is hard to find time for some of those annoying things that life sometimes throws up. Often the only answer is to multi-task.

Dr Scott Green, a plastic surgeon from California, was summoned to appear in court to answer a traffic charge. As is the way these days, the hearing was held by video conference. Dress standards for such events have gone out of the window but a court official was astonished to see Green appear reportedly from his operating theatre wearing surgical scrubs. More ominously, the beeping of medical machinery could be heard.

When asked whether he was available for the hearing as it seemed as though he was in an operating room, Green confirmed that he was in the middle of surgery but urged the court to proceed. The judge took a different view, concerned for the safety of the patient and although Green assured him that there was another surgeon in the room doing the surgery, he decided to postpone the trial.

To add to Green’s woes, the Medical Board of California are investigating on the grounds that Green did not exhibit the standard of care to his patients that was expected.

Sometimes, you just have to carve out some time from your schedule, it seems.

Cantering Through Cant (22)

Comparing someone to the results of a particular bodily function is a popular way of expressing disapproval of someone and was no less so in Francis Grose’s day, as we can see from his A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785). A shit sack means a “dastardly fellow”, as it does today, although we usually invert the term and insert a preposition. Intriguingly, it was also a term for a Non-Conformist.

Grose launches into a lengthy explanation as to why. After the Restoration of the monarchy, the laws against Non-Conformists were particularly severe and they had to meet in secret and in obscure locations. One group met in a barn and the preacher, lacking a ladder or a tub on which to stand, was suspended in a sack from a beam and addressed his congregation. To add a bit of dramatic impact to his sermon on the last judgment he detailed the terrors of the wicked at the sounding of the trumpet.

Unbeknownst to him, there was a trumpeter from a nearby puppet show hiding underneath the straw in the barn. At the appropriate moment, the trumpeter sounded the charge. “The congregation, struck with the utmost consternation, fled in an instant from the place, leaving their affrighted teacher to shrift for himself. The effects of his terror are said to have appeared at the bottom of the sack, and to have occasioned the opprobrious appellation by which the non-conformists were vulgarly distinguished”.

Now we know!     

Arrest The Bishop?

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Arrest the Bishop? – Winifred Peck

Should you ever have a direct interrogatory statement as the title of your novel? Anthony Trollope occasionally did and was roundly criticised for it, but such considerations do not seem to have worried Winifred Peck in this, her second of two, detective stories, first published in 1949 and now reissued by the wonderful Dean Street Press. The action is set in 1920 and in a bishop’s palace, a setting Peck would know well as she was a daughter of a bishop. Although the action occurs around Christmas, it is not remotely a Christmas tale, but the inevitable and obligatory heavy snowfall ensures that the speed with which investigations can proceed is severely hampered and that the culprit has little opportunity to effect their escape.

The victim is a nasty piece of work, the Reverend Ulder, who was involved in some scandal five years ago which the church hierarchy, as is their wont, hushed up, but he is now on his uppers and has the dirt on the Bishop, Dr Broome, his Chancellor, Chailly, the Canon, Wye, the bishop’s eldest daughter, Judith, and a young Irish priest about to be ordained. The Broomes are holding a weekend party to take in the ordination and the anticipated arrival of Ulder sets everybody’s nerves on edge.

Like Marley’s ghost, Ulder turns up the worse for drink and immediately collapses. The doctor who attends prescribes six morphia tablets with strict instructions as to their application and orders no strong drink. During the evening Ulder is visited by each of the main characters and the following morning is found dead – from morphia poisoning.

Helpfully, Ulder had a piece of paper close by him, naming each of his blackmail victims and how much he was trying to extort out of each to fund his emigration to a new life in America. Was one of these the murderer? His second piece of luggage has mysteriously disappeared. What did it contain and who stole it? Had it anything to do with the murder?

In charge of the investigations for the police is Chief Constable Mack who has it in for the bishopric for its cover up over past misdemeanours and he is convinced from the evidence before him that the Bishop is the murderer, a conclusion that leads him to the statement “I must arrest the Bishop”. It would cause quite a stir to arrest the bishop and he needs to pluck up courage and seek higher (mortal) authority before he can make his step.

Also involved in the investigations, sometimes in tandem with Mack and sometimes independently, is one of the priests to be ordained, Dick Marling, formerly a member of Military Intelligence. Because of his position in the church he is trusted and is able to find out more than the antagonistic Mack.

There are suspects galore, red herrings, close shaves with death. an invalid servant, a shifty butler with previous, a ditsy motor mouth of a fast-living girl in the form of Judith Broome, the Bishop’s wayward eldest daughter, and the obligatory love interest provided by Marlin’s inamorata, Sue Broome. Even Irish terrorism rears its ugly head. There are twists and turns galore in this fast-moving and compelling story and, rather like a game Cluedo, the careful investigation and elimination of the key suspects leads to a surprising and inevitable conclusion. Things are not always what they seem and even the most unlikely and seemingly innocent character can be the guilty party.

I enjoyed this book. It is a shame that Peck did not continue with her detective writing. It is our loss.       

The Conqueror Inn

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The Conqueror Inn – E R Punshon

This is the first of Ernest Punshon’s Bobby Owen books that I have read, although it is the eighteenth in the series, one of a tranche of books by this sadly neglected writer that have been reissued for a modern audience by the indefatigable Dean Street Press. First published in 1943 it is an atmospheric thriller that shines some light on the attitudes and prejudices that were alive and kicking during the Second World War.

The Conqueror Inn is supposedly one of the oldest pubs in the country and sits in splendid isolation on the top of a moor in a bleak and austere part of the country. The landlord and his daughter seem to go out of their way not to attract customers and but for an American serviceman rarely has guests. For a lonely spot on a minor road, though, there is a surprising amount of traffic, principally lorries, which use the road to circumnavigate the traffic on the main road. At least, that is the story.

The story opens with the laconic landlord making a phone call to the police reporting the discovery of a wooden box stuffed with £1 notes, around £2,000 in all which was a phenomenal sum at the time. Disinterested in the amount or the fate of the loot, he goes on to inform Owen that he things there is a shallow grave in a field a mile or so away from the pub. Owen and his team dig up the area and find the body of a youngish man whose face has been so badly caved in that identification is impossible.

Who was the young man? How did he meet his fate? And what, if anything, has he to do with the box of money that no one seems in a hurry to reclaim? Along the way we have a story of haulage firms, black marketeering, espionage, treachery, blackmail, jealousy, and love.

Owen is nothing if not thorough in his investigations. He even treats the reader by way of conversations with his fellow police officers and his wife, Olive, to his thought processes and his theories as to what precisely happened and whodunit. This too can add to the enormous number of red herrings in the story, but it is interesting to see how his mind is working. The resolution of the mystery is clever and comprehensive. There are no loose ends and what is a complex puzzle is resolved satisfactorily.

Punshon paints the gloomy, austere atmosphere of this remote part of England well. His style is elegantly straightforward and he moves the story on with just the right level of urgency without losing sight of the fact that all pieces of this sprawling puzzle need to join together. His female characters are characterised as strong women and play an important part in the story.

In addition to an intriguing story line with a gothic twist, Punshon lays bare some of the prejudices that were endemic at the time. There is an Irish connection, the IRA, and the belief that they are fifth columnists collecting sensitive industrial information to hand over to the Germans. Central to the storyline too is the attitudes towards and the treatment of members of the military suffering from shell shock or what we would now call post traumatic stress disorder. The fear was that in the hands of the military the condition would either not be recognised or certainly not treated with any degree of sympathy or understanding.

I enjoyed the book and will certainly read some more of Bobby Owen’s adventures. There are plenty of them to get through!