Martin Fone's Blog, page 166

The Lyttleton Case

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The Lyttleton Case – R A V Morris

For once I can excuse myself for not having come across Ronald Morris before. Published in 1922 this is his one and only mystery novel and sadly he disappeared into obscurity, only to be dug up, rather like James Lyttleton, from the vaults of publisher, Harper Collins, and reissued as part of their Detective Club series. Abandonment of a genre might lead you to suppose that Morris’s one and only attempt wasn’t very good, but it was entertaining enough, even if the pace of the book lagged as it neared its conclusion.

We also get two mysteries for the price of one. Financier James Lyttleton sends his spoilt daughter a curt telegram announcing that he has been called away urgently on business, initially to Liverpool, and then on to New York, a journey involving a minimum of five days at sea. He subsequently vanishes. Inspector Candlish, on holiday involving “an exploration of the flora and fauna of the Southshire Downs”, finds a body of a young man floating in the water. He had died from natural causes, according to the coroner, and had been in the water for four to five days.

Although the two cases seem to be unrelated, as Candlish’s investigations proceed, he is put in charge of both, there are too many coincidences linking the cases to mean anything other than that they are linked. Candlish, aided by yet another journalist, Basil Dawson, a stock pairing for this genre, who also, conveniently, happens to be the fiancé of Doris Lyttleton, doggedly navigates his way through a bewildering array, clues, red herrings and motives before unmasking the identity of the ruthless and ingenious culprit.

Roberts lulls the reader into a false sense of security. I was pretty convinced fairly early on that I knew where the book was going, always a bit of danger signal with the benefit of hindsight, until the plot lurched completely in another direction to provide, ultimate, a tidy and satisfying conclusion. The book is readable and reasonably paced, although Roberts allows himself the luxury at times of a purple passage or two. There are a number of anachronisms in the text, which would have been perfectly understandable to the contemporary reader, but which could flummox the modern reader. The one that stumped me and had me launching a quick foray on to the internet was his interjection out of nowhere of the abbreviation, PSA. Apparently, it refers to a broadly educational non-conformist society for men, the Pleasant Sunday afternoon movement.

Roberts allows himself some fun with his characterisation of PC Hutchinson who is “a diligent reader of detective fiction”, apes Sherlock Holmes by smoking shag tobacco, displaying a syringe (for display purposes only) and a violin together with a dressing gown. A fan of Dupin he is reading Freeman Willis Crofts’s 1920 novel, The Cask, as this mystery progresses. Roberts knows his detective fiction. Alas, Hutchinson’s enthusiasm for the literary ‘tec does not give him an edge when it comes to solving this knotty puzzle.

For a novel set in an era where men rule the roost, Doris, despite initially seeming to be the sort of ditsy spoilt brat straight out of central casting, does emerge as a strong character and almost a heroine. Perhaps an early sign of the recognition of female equality.

I wouldn’t say the book was great but was entertaining enough and a pleasant way to pass a couple of winter’s evenings. You wonder what he would have gone on to achieve if Morris had continued to write detective fiction.

A Journey Through Europe

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Carrington Bowles, who operated from 69, St Paul’s Churchyard in London, had a steady business publishing maps which were cloth-backed and hand-tinted. One day he was approached by a teacher of geography and mathematics by the name of John Jeffreys, with a proposition. How about reconfiguring one of Bowles’ maps in such a way that it became a game with some educational content rather than a reference guide. With luck, it might just appeal to a different audience and boost sales. Smitten by Jeffreys’ idea, Carrington Bowles published in 1759 A Journey Through Europe or The Play of Geography, thought to have been the first board game in the English-speaking world that can be ascribed to an individual named designer.

As a game, it was simple enough. A map of Europe was printed on to a board and a route with numbered spaces took a player on a journey from London through the principal cities of Europe and back again to London. We have to remember, though, that when the game was first released, there was no such thing as mass colour printing and so each map would be hand-tinted, making them quite expensive and beyond the reach of the ordinary person. The players would be furnished with information and historical points of interest about the places they landed on.

Taking turns, each player would spin a wooden teetotum, a kind of spinning top, and move the number of spaces designated by the side on which the teetotum had come to rest displayed. To add to the thrills and spills of the game, it was designed rather like Snakes and Ladders with spaces representing hazards or benefits. The winner was the first to get back to London.

The spaces show a very distinctive Protestant and Hanoverian world view. To land on space 28, which represented Hanover, the reigning king at the time, George III, was from the house of Hanover, was a game changer. The player would be entitled “by order of Ye King of Great Britain who is Elector, be conducted to No 54 at Gibraltar to visit his countrymen who keep garrison there.”  A visit to that hotbed of Papistry, Rome, was something to be avoided. If a player landed on that space, number 48, they were sent back packing in disgrace: “for kissing ye Pope’s Toe shall be banished for his folly to No 4 in the cold island of Iceland and miss three turns.”           

The game was a success and spawned a number of other rivals and competitors. The idea of a geographical game was firmly rooted in the public consciousness. It is worth noting that the first jigsaw puzzle, created by John Spilsbury in 1762, featured a map of Europe too.

Jeffreys’ game is also still with us, albeit in a more extended fashion. Created in 1954 by Ravensburger, Explore Europe, it also goes under the names of Europareise and Journey Through Europe, follows a similar principle. Each player selects a home city and the draws eight cards which feature European cities that they have to visit, using a combination of land, sea and air travel. They are restricted to using only one mode of travel per turn and the mode they choose has an impact on their budget. A roll of the die determines how many spaces a player moves, and their objective is to visit all of their designated cities and return to the home city as quickly as possible. The winner is the first to do so.

Of the 180 cities on the board, sixty-three are designated as “special” and here the player can encounter some unanticipated bonuses and perils. Some grant a player an extra turn or free movement while others require them to miss a turn or embark on a form of mandatory travel. The game requires an element of strategic thinking as players plot the optimal route.

It is still available today.

Covid-19 Tales (17)

Fed up with the lockdown? Tired of seeing the same four walls? Anxious to see some different people?

Sadly, most of us have no option but to grin and bear it. One man, though, had a route out of lockdown depression and grabbed it with both hands. The unnamed individual rang Burgess Hill police station in Sussex to inform the duty officer that he was wanted to hand himself in as he was wanted for recall to prison and had broken his electronic tag off.

According to Inspector Taylor of Sussex Police, the man said he would rather go back to prison than have to spend more time with the people he was living with.

Peace and quiet is a valuable commodity, it would seem.

Toilet Of The Week (29)

Here’s an intriguing question. If you were part of the liberating army which entered the Berghof, Hitler’s retreat in the Bavarian Alps, at the end of the Second World War and were told you could take anything you found there, what would you take?

Ragnvald C Borch, an American soldier, relieved the lair of a white wooden toilet seat, Adolf’s throne you might say, and had it shipped back to his New Jersey home where it was proudly displayed in his basement.

Borch sadly died and his son decided that the seat should be auctioned off. An unnamed bidder paid $18.750, according to Alexander Auctions, for it, securing for themselves an unusual memento of the Second World War.

Cantering Through Cant (21)

When we use the word rum these days, other than in the context of an alcoholic drink, it implies that something is odd, strange, or unusual. According to Francis Grose in his A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785) it meant “fine, good, valuable”. Those who peppered their language with cant and slang were enamoured with it as an adjective and his lexicon is full of examples of its usage.

A rum beck was a justice of the peace while a rum bite was a clever cheat who, presumably, rarely stood before him. A rum blower was a handsome wench and a rum bluffer was a jolly host who could be relied upon to supply rum booze, “wine, or any form of good liquor”, often made from rum boozing welts, bunches of grapes. A rum hopper would be a particularly welcome sight as they were the ones who drew the drinks. A command of “rum hopper, tip us presently a a boozing cheat of rum guttlers” would result in the guests receiving a bottle of the best canary wine. The rum buffer and hopper would hope that amongst their clientele there wasn’t a rum bubber, “a dexterous fellow at stealing silver tankards from inns and taverns”.

Butchers were on the look out for a rum chub, “a customer easily imposed upon, as to the quality and price of meat”, and thieves and shopkeepers would keep a weather eye open for a rum bung, “a full purse”, and, even better, a rum cod, “a full purse of gold”.

Rum padders, “highwaymen”, roamed the rum pad, “highway”, on rum prancers, “fine horses”, on the look-out for rum quids, “great booty”. A successful one might even have ridden to Rumford. This phrase, Grose tells us, is to “have a new pair of leather breeches”, as Rumford was renowned for the quality of its garments. Denizens of Norfolk and Suffolk, though, would substitute Rumford with Bungay, equally famed for the quality of its trousers in East Anglia.

Wessex Alfred The Great Gin

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Alfred, as his moniker suggests, is one of the great figures of early English history, leading the fightback against the marauding Vikings and burning a few cakes along the way. Of course, he lived a few centuries before the first recorded mention of gin and so his association with Wessex Alfred The Great Gin is more down to the kingdom he ruled than the spirit. Still, the ginaissance thrives on a good marketing story and the distillery is based in Wormley in the county of Surrey which was incorporated into Wessex.

More germane to the gin is the Anglo-Saxons’ deep interest in and thirst for knowledge for the culinary and medicinal properties of herbs, compiling a detailed catalogue of the herbs and the concoctions that were associated with them in a book known as an Herbarium. It was dipping into one of these that inspired the husband-and-wife duo, Jonathan and Gill Clark, to add a Wessex herbal twist to their gin.

The name of Jonathan Clark may sound familiar to gin aficionados and with good reason as he was the driving force behind the City of London distillery. After what might be described as a steep learning curve, he retired from the business in 2017. The lure of gin distilling was hard to resist and he decided to have another go. The result – Wessex Distillery.

The City of London gins had two very distinctive characteristics, intensely juniper and citrus led spirits and stunning bottle design. It is not surprising then that Clark’s latest venture follows this well-worn path. The bottle is stunning, dumpy in shape with a wide, short neck and made from turquoise indented glass with Wessex embossed twice on the shoulder. It was a pleasure to see a natural cork stopper. The label and the top of the cork feature a dragon, the symbol of Wessex, although it looks to the right whilst normally it looks to the left.

The label on the rear of the bottle tells me that it is a “traditional dry gin, juniper-led, a subtle combination of coriander and spice to create a long honey and citrus finish”. It sounds like my kind of gin and for me the particular point of interest was the use of medicinal chervil, which as well as adding an aniseed-like tone to the flavour profile was used by herbalists to assist with stomach problems, lower blood pressure and improve circulation. We could all do with some of that.   

The acid test though is what it tastes like and this gin does not fail to deliver. On removing the stopper, the gin makes a very clear statement of intent with an aroma that is redolent of juniper, spice and citrus. It does not disappoint, a clear spirit with juniper to the fore, closely followed by softer, spicier notes and citrus before a more floral tone emerges and then a sweet honey finish. The aftertaste is clean and long-lasting, rounding off a wonderfully well-balanced gin.

Distillers who are introducing unusual botanicals into their mix cannot resist the temptation to turn up the volume to eleven to ensure that its presence is felt. The distillers here have sensibly resisted the temptation. The aniseed elements of the chervil are detectable but not at the risk of upsetting the balance of the drink.

It is a highly impressive gin. Seek it out.

Until the next time, cheers!

Mystery On Southampton Water

Mystery on Southampton Water – Freeman Wills Crofts

Published in 1934 with the alternative title of Crime on the Solent in the States, this is the 12th in the Joseph French series and was reissued last year (2020) to celebrate Crofts’ centenary as a published author. This is another inverted mystery, in which Crofts excels, where the reader is first introduced to the crime and the culprit(s) before following the work of the police in unravelling the mystery and unmasking the criminal.

The book starts from what seems, superficially at least, unpromising beginnings, concerning itself with the manufacture of concrete. Dull as this may seem, Crofts has managed to construct a compelling and fascinating story, involving industrial espionage which goes wrong. The Joymount Cement Company is in financial difficulties, an eventually that could spell ruin to its senior management team, as we would know the, now. Their local rivals, Chayle’s, on the other side of the Solent, have stolen a march on the competition by developing a new form of concrete which is cheaper to make.  

King, Brand, and Tasker, from Joymount, decide to try and replicate the formula as a last throw of the dice before the company is wound up. The scientist, King, struggles to come up with the formula and suggests to Brand that they should take a more direct route by breaking into Chayle’s and steal the formula. This they do, although Chayle’s unfortunate security guard dies during the initial attempt. Through a rather elaborate, and probably unnecessary, plan King and Brand try to make the guard’s demise look like suicide. Once he has his hands on the formula, King is able to replicate the cement and the day appears to have been saved.

Through their market intelligence, the big wigs at Chayle’s realise that Joymount have their hands on the formula and attempt to blackmail them into agreeing a substantial royalty fee. After the final meeting at which an agreement is concluded, the Chayle’s senior management team board a boat to sail to the other side of the Solent, making an unscheduled stop en route. An explosion rips through the boat, killing two of the three, Mairs and de Havilland, but crucially not the third. Have Joymount escaped the consequences of the onerous penalty clause in their agreement?

They quickly realise it is a false dawn as Inspector French doggedly disproves the suicide theory and works out how the explosion on the boat was carried out and by whom. Critics of Crofts will point out that he is exhaustive in his attempts to explain the rationale behind his detective’s deductions. It can be wearisome, not as much as in a second-rate Thorndyke tale, but, if you are prepared to roll with it can provide some intellectual rigour to the solving of a knotty problem, even if at the expense of some entertainment.

That said, it is a well-crafted tale and more entertaining than a brief synopsis may suggest. Murder at the time carried with it the death penalty and Crofts plays on the psychological impact that that prospect has on Brand, in particular, and to a lesser extent on King and Tasker. The other thing that might strike the modern reader as a tad odd is the leisurely pace at which the incident is investigated. No screeching of tyres and Sweeney-like acts of derring-do. French and his team are content to travel by train, ferry and even bus. Innocent days.  

I enjoyed the book and will read more of Crofts.

Can You Help Your Pet Beat The Blues?

“Oh, Mama, can this really be the end/ to be stuck inside of my house with the Covid blues again?”, a 21st century Bob Dylan might have sung. If you have found lockdown a challenge, spare a thought for your pet. It has had to get used to you being around the house more, to reduced contact with its fellow creatures and to other significant changes in its routine. No wonder some pet owners are concerned about the impact of a prolonged lockdown on the mental wellbeing of their pooches and moggies.

For a non-pet owner this may seem to be, at worst, anthropomorphism gone mad or, at best, the epitome of a 21st century problem. Pet lovers, though, will stop at nothing to help their anxious furry friends through lockdown. One innovative Manchester-based company, MusicForPets, has since 2012 being making music and TV content aimed at pets, principally cats and dogs, and claim in 2020 alone to have attracted some 42 million cat and dog subscribers, who between them “consumed” 13.5 years’ worth of content. Their mission, according to CEO Amman Ahmed, is to double their subscription base as well as striving to improve the mental health of our burgeoning pet population.

Likening themselves to a Netflix for Pets, Petflix you might say, they have two brands Relaxmydog and Relaxmycat and create their own content. Apparently cats like fast images while dogs go for differential colour gradients, virtual walks and watching other animals.

Does it really work? They claim so and point to their growing stock of testimonials from happy (human) customers. And that is the rub. Do pets really like it or is it wishful thinking on the part of their owners?

If you want to see what it is all about, follow the links below     

https://www.youtube.com/relaxmydog

https://www.youtube.com/relaxmycat

Pinky Lee And The Runaway Frankfurters

One way that games manufacturers have sought to enhance their product’s chances of penetrating their chosen market is to have it endorsed by a celebrity. This was the thought process behind Lisbeth Whiting’s decision to tie their 1954 offering, The Runaway Frankfurters, with Pinky Lee.

To the uninitiated, which includes me, Pinky Lee, the stage name of Pincus Leff, was a Vaudeville comedian who found fame by hosting a children’s show, The Pinky Lee Show, on American television. As the game was aimed at a young audience, it made sense to have the hottest star in children’s TV to endorse it, although I have yet to find that he was particularly associated with frankfurters. That it was a favourite meal of American youngsters at the time was perhaps good enough.

Pinky even had his own theme tune, entitled Yoo hoo, It’s me, whose opening four lines went, painfully; “Yoo hoo, it’s me/ My name is Pinky Lee./ I skip and run, bring lots of fun/ to every he and she”. At the end of the song he would shout “And it’s whoooo?” to which the audience responded in unison “Pinky Lee”.   

His act was highly energetic, but all that running and skipping eventually almost proved his undoing. In 1955 in front of a live audience of pre-adolescent children, known as the Peanut Gallery and rolling cameras he collapsed from an infection. Despite the fact that their hero was writhing in agony, the cameras kept focussed on him and the audience cheered enthusiastically, thinking that this was another of his ad-libbed jinks, After ten seconds the show’s director realised that something was up and the cameras focused on the audience. Pinky was missing from the show the following day and, bizarrely, continued without him until it was taken off the air on June 9, 1956.

The game was relatively simple, as most board games are, consisting of fifteen frankfurter buns, 15 plastic frankfurters, four frankfurter carts, and four wooden players’ counters. The game came with a cardboard board with fifteen spaces marked on to each of which a frankfurter and bun was to be placed. The concept behind the game was that the frankfurters had escaped and that the players were to round them up. To do that each player would line up at the starting point with their frankfurter cart and move along the board the number of spaces that their throw of a die indicated.

If they landed on a space with a frankfurter on it, they placed the snack in their cart. If they landed on a space occupied by their opponent, they forced them to place all the frankfurters they had accumulated into the frankfurter hiding place positioned at the finishing line. The first to arrive at the finishing line adds the frankfurters in the hiding place to their haul. Once the last player has reached the finishing line, the winner is the one with the most frankfurters. Simple, really.

In these more health-conscious times, it seems strange to see a game which actively encouraged children to stock up on frankfurters. What did for the game, though, was that it was not really very exciting and any novelty value it may have had would quickly pall. It was one of those games that a desperate aunt would buy and which their nephews and nieces played once, possibly twice, before consigning it to the stygian dark of a cupboard. Let’s hope they hung on to them because a set in pristine condition is sought after by collectors.

The tie up with Pinky Lee cannot have helped its long-term chances of remaining popular, either. And the box’s artwork, to the modern more knowing eye, looks a bit suspect. But those were more innocent times, perhaps.

Cactus Of The Week

The clue should have been in the name of the cactus, Selenicereus wittii, aka the moonflower. Excitement was mounting at Cambridge University Botanic Garden as their specimen was showing signs that it was about to open its first flower. A webcam was trained on the plant for eleven days.

In the Amazonian jungle it throws out a large white flower after dusk which emits a beautiful sweet-smelling fragrance, designed to attract its pollinators, two species of hawkmoth. After a couple of hours the aroma emanating from the flower turns to a more rancid odour before the flower dies just before dawn.

The Cambridge moonflower, though, decided to open up during the day, causing the botanists to hurriedly rearrange all their carefully prepared PR plans. Still, looking on the bright side it is thought that this was the first time the cactus had flowered in the UK.

An epiphyte, one that relies on another plant to provide its anchor point, the moonflower differs from common or garden cacti by being smooth and leaf-like. Probably though, the Cambridge one should have been called a sunflower. Its unscheduled behaviour did at least allow on-line viewers to watch it unfurl without losing a night’s sleep.

To see the momentous event, follow the link below:

We have been overwhelmed by the interest in, & love for, the Moonflower, thank you!

After yesterday's excitement, you can find out what was going on behind the scenes during the flowering, watch the full flowering timelapse and more on our website:https://t.co/nI0XuxzS17 pic.twitter.com/FTjLs4v1Ss

— Cam Botanic Garden (@CUBotanicGarden) February 21, 2021