Martin Fone's Blog, page 180
October 12, 2020
The Streets Of London (117)
Finsbury Circus, EC2
One of several Circuses in London, Finsbury is linked to Moorgate at its western point, Bloomfield Street at its eastern and London Wall at its southern point. The name Circus is a nod of the head to the shape of the Roman Circuses, although, in truth, it is a rather squashed oval, elongated at its western and eastern points, rather than a circle. At 2.2 hectares, it is the largest public space within the boundaries of the City of London and probably the oldest, dating from 1606.
The area was originally a moor, forming part of the grounds of Finsbury Manor. When it was drained in 1527, gravelled paths were laid down across the open fields. This southern part of the moor, known as Moor Fields, was gradually transformed, with the introduction of gravel pathways at the turn of the 18th century, with benches installed and elm trees planted for the enjoyment of the public. A few decades later more formal lawns had been laid down, edged by lines of trees and fencing, and quartered by formal walkways.
The southern part of Moor Field, leading on to London Wall and pretty much the spot now forming Finsbury Circus was where the notorious Bethlehem Royal Hospital, founded in 1247 and nicknamed Bedlam, moved to between 1675 and 1676. There it remained until the building was demolished in 1815, allowing George Dance the Younger to fulfil his dream of building an oval “amphitheatre”, an ambition he had harboured since 1802.
Between 1815 and 1817, under the direction of the City Surveyor, William Montague but to the designs produced by Dance, the area was transformed by the creation of gardens, surrounded by terraced housing and the premises into which the London Institution, founded in 1806 and famous for its teaching of chemistry, moved into in 1815. There the Institution remained until it closed in 1912, when the building was then taken over by the University of London until it was demolished in 1936.
Beautiful as a garden is, particularly in an urban setting, it needs to be maintained and the financial burden for this fell upon a committee of leaseholders in return for their exclusive use of the facility. The gardens came under threat in 1860 when plans were mooted to demolish them and to build a railway station there to service the proposed new underground railway. Happily, public protests kaiboshed the plan. As a compromise the Metropolitan Railway were allowed to run a tunnel underneath the garden, for the privilege of which they paid the leaseholders an annual fee of £100.
The complexion of the area changed as the 19th century wore on, surrounding properties being used more for commercial rather than residential purposes and a campaign was led by Alpheus Morton to take them back into public ownership. Owners of the properties resisted, fearing that the arrival of the hoi polloi would lower the tone of the area and depress property prices. However, Morton’s objective achieved when the City of London (Various Powers) Act was passed in 1900 and by 1909 the garden was re-planned and new facilities added. It was known locally as Morton’s Gardens.
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You do not associate the gentle game of lawn bowls with the hustle and bustle of the City of London but since 1925 the circus has been the site of its only bowling green. A bandstand, another popular landmark of municipal parks, was erected in 1955. During the Second World War a barrage balloon was anchored in the gardens.
History turns full circle because since 2012 the garden had been blighted by construction work for the Liverpool Street Crossrail station, with the excavation of a 16 metre diameter, 42 metre depth shaft to allow the construction of the platform tunnels, taking up two-thirds of the area. When I last saw it, it was still a building site. A competition has been launched to revamp the Gardens once Crossrail leaves.
October 11, 2020
Scoop Of The Week
It must have come as a bit of a relief to Italian Dimitri Panciera to have reclaimed his Guinness World Record for the most scoops of ice cream to be balanced on one cone.
Having set the record back in 2013 with 85 scoops, his hopes and dreams melted when he learned that an American, Ashrita Furman, had blitzed his record with an incredible 123 scoops. Not to be outdone, Dimitri fought back, balancing 125 scoops on a cone, a feat televised on La Notte Dei Record.
The baton has been very firmly passed back to Furman.
It all seems a waste of ice cream to me. I am quite content with three scoops in my cone, thank you very much.
October 10, 2020
Ride Of The Week
Enterprising Ruben Lopez has just completed a momentous cycle ride of around 2,500 miles from Poo Poo Point in Washington to Pee Pee Creek in Ohio. A drummer from Chicago – aren’t they all? – he made his momentous ride to raise awareness about what is happening out in Yemen. To date, he has raised over $7,000.
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To prevent becoming saddle sore he used gel padding and gel shorts and for sustenance carried a loaf and a jar of peanut butter. The journey was not without its moments; he suffered eight flat tyres in the space of 300 miles and was stranded for hours in South Dakota. Despite these visits up Shit’s Creek, the indefatigable Ruben is now making his way to the Maine-Canada border.
You can follow his exploits via his Twitter feed @rubydrummer
October 9, 2020
Cantering Through Cant (3)
Dipping into Francis Grose’s A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785), here are some more idioms which have fallen into obscurity.
For aspiring writers searching for a synonym for a synonym for a gun, why not try barking irons. An Irish idiom, according to Grose, it means pistols “from their explosion resembling the bow-wow or barking of a dog”.
Looking for an alternative description of being dead? Put to bed with a mattock, and tucked up with a spade, Grose notes, “is said of one who is dead and buried”.
Although are pavements are in better order than they were in the 18th century, dangers still lurk for the unwary, loose paving stones, puddles, and the risk of being splashed by vehicles passing by. A beau trap, according to Grose, was “a loose stone in a pavement, under which water lodges, and, being trod upon, squirts it up, to the great damage of white stockings”. It is also used to describe a well-dressed fiend who preys on “raw country squires or ignorant sops”.
October 8, 2020
Gin Nirvana
It is always a pleasure to visit the Constantine Stores, the home of Drinkfinders, and gaze at the huge variety of gins spawned by the ginaissance. This is the quartet I chose on my latest trip to Cornwall. I look forward to sampling them and reviewing them.
Until the next time, cheers!
October 7, 2020
Book Corner – October 2020 (1)
The Night-Comers – Eric Ambler
Eric Ambler is one of my finds over the last year or so but, in truth, by his standards, The Night-Comers, which goes by an alternative title of State of Siege in the United States, is not a patch on the other books of his that I have read. In this book, published in 1956, the year in which the Soviets crushed the Hungarian uprising, a point of no return for many of a left-wing disposition, Ambler chose to move away for the first time from his usual stamping ground of the Balkans to the febrile state of Sundra, a newly independent state in what was the Dutch East Indies.
The story is narrated by Steve Fraser, an engineer, who has just finished a three-year contract to build a dam and is looking forward to returning to Blighty. Unfortunately, his return to the regional capital of Selampang coincides with a military uprising and where Fraser has been offered accommodation turns out to be the rebels’ headquarters. He is drawn into the life and death struggle between the pro- and anti-government forces by a set of coincidences. Will he get out alive? Will his love interest, Rosalie, hamper his escape?
The problem with first-party narratives, as I have commented before, is that you know as soon as the book begins that the narrator, unless he has left papers behind, has extricated himself somehow and in some shape or form from his predicament. The device reduces the dramatic tension, I find, even in the hands of a master storyteller. There are also the tell-tale hallmarks of an Ambler story – an innocent who steps unwittingly into a nightmare world and someone who is an engineer by trade, Ambler started off as an engineer. Rather like Judgment on Deltchev the book starts off with a potted history of the fictional country. It is necessary to give the reader a flavour for the place and an understanding why a coup may have erupted but it slows the pace down.
The love interest created by Rosalie, a good time girl to whom Fraser is introduced by his Aussie pilot friend, Bebb, is a departure for Ambler and in its raciness and explicitness is a sharp reminder of what was permissible in 1956 compared with the more censorious and straight-laced 1930s. Their fling adds some tension to the story but is not strong enough to hold Fraser back.
Perhaps of even more interest to the modern reader is that the insurgents are Moslem. The best parts of the book for me are where Ambler takes time to portray the Islamic culture that was suppressed by the Dutch colonists and the corruption and incompetence of the officials. It is not surprising that there is an uprising. It is also interesting to observe the strains and tensions that emerge when a seemingly well-planned coup starts to unravel. At its heart the book is about deception and treachery and the ability of the human spirit to survive and overcome adversity.
My main problems with the book, though, relate to the plot. Most of the action is confined to the block in which Fraser is holed up. It is a siege, after all, and so the story has to make up in atmosphere and tension what it loses in some of the more obvious tropes in thrillers, chases, breakouts, escape. More troubling though is that the plotline relies on an awful lot of coincidences. Fraser knows one of the principals of the rebellion, Major Suparto. The flat which the pilot, Bebb, offers him on the air flight just happens to be the very building that the rebels are going to use as their base. Major Suparto just happens to be not all he seems and is a double agent and then, extraordinarily, tells Fraser the origins of the coup and what is to happen. It is astonishing when things go wrong, that the rebels open up to Fraser.
This is all necessary to move the story along, but you get the sense that even Ambler starts to realise that he is trying to make a silk purse out of a pig’s ear.
October 4, 2020
There Ain’t ‘Alf Some Clever Bastards – Part 106
Robert FitzRoy (1805 – 1865)
We take weather forecasts very much for granted, but they are a relatively recent development. In the mid 19th century many believed that the weather was so unpredictable that forecasting it would be the height of futility. When one MP in 1854 suggested in Parliament that recent advances in scientific theory might allow them to know the weather in London “twenty-four hours beforehand”, he was greeted with hoots of derision. Admiral Robert FitzRoy, the erstwhile captain of the HMS Beagle when Charles Darwin made his voyage of evolutionary discovery, had other ideas.
In 1854 FitzRoy was appointed to establish the Meteorological Department of the Board of Trade, later to become the Met Office, charged with enhancing the quality of wind charts with the aim of improving sailing times. He grew increasingly alarmed at the loss of life around the coastal waters of Britain; between 1855 and 1860 some 7,402 ships were wrecked at the cost of 7,201 lives, many of which, he believed, could have been prevented by a timely warning.
The tipping point was the night of 25th and 26th October 1859 when a storm, the worst to hit the Irish Sea in the 19th century, destroyed 133 ships, killing over 800 souls. One of the casualties was the Royal Charter, a steam clipper reaching the end of its two-month journey from Australia, which came to grief off the coast of Anglesey with the loss of all but 41 of its complement of 500 crew and passengers.
FitzRoy was detailed to issue storm warnings. Analysing data gathered from coastal stations and telegraphed to him, when FitzRoy thought a storm was imminent, in what he called “a race to warn the outpost before the gale reaches them”, he deployed the new technology, which the Daily News described “far outstrips the swiftest tempest in celerity”.
The storm warnings began to appear in September 1860. It was a logical step, having analysed all the data, for FitzRoy to use his findings to predict the weather, irrespective of whether a storm was imminent. On August 1, 1861 hidden away on page 10 of The Times was an unprepossessing item headed “general weather probable in the next two days”. The piece stated that the temperature in London was to be 62F, 61F in Liverpool and a pleasant 70F in Dover, the same as Lisbon. For good measure, it also covered Copenhagen, Helder, Brest and Bayonne.
The weather forecast had arrived, and not only did it prove to be extremely popular, it was surprisingly accurate. FitzRoy’s forecasts were soon syndicated across other newspapers and organisers of outdoor events and students of the turf took especial heed of his prognostications. Punch, the satirical magazine, christened him “The First Admiral of the Blew”.
FitzRoy was keen to manage down expectations, writing “prophecies and predictions they are not…the term forecast is strictly applicable to such an opinion as is the result of scientific combination and calculation”, but cynics were quick to point out their shortcomings. The Age, in its build up to the Epsom Derby in May 1862,noted that with “what satisfaction did the experienced interpreters of the prediction see that he had set down for the south of England – ‘Wind SSW to WNW moderate to fresh, some showers’, which of course indicated that it would be a remarkably fine day, and that the umbrellas might be left behind.” Proactively, FitzRoy took to the correspondence pages of the papers to apologise to “those whose hats had been spoilt from umbrellas being omitted”, when he was wrong, he had a bad run in April 1862, and to defend his methods.
Storm clouds were gathering, though. Politicians complained about the excessive costs of telegraphing back and forth, politics and public safety rarely mix, the scientific community were sceptical of his methods and his more egregious errors were seized upon by his critics. His last forecast, published on April 29, 1865, predicted thunderstorms over London. The following day, after preparing to go to church and kissing his daughter, FitzRoy went back to his dressing room, locked the door, and killed himself.
It had all proved too much, but the idea of forecasting the next day’s weather was one that would not die.
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If you enjoyed this, check out The Fickle Finger by Martin Fone
https://www.troubador.co.uk/bookshop/computing-science-education/the-fickle-finger/
Picture Of The Week (2)
I’ve never quite made my mind up about Banksy and generally roll my eyes when another of his meisterwerks appears on someone’s wall and is immediately proclaimed a work of genius and worth oodles of money. Is it a case of the Emperor’s new clothes or is his work ground-breaking with a message for all of us?
As I have never taken much interest in him save to check the exterior walls of my house, it seems that he did some what are termed as “Crude Oils” in the early part of the century, pastiches of classic pieces of art.
Take “Show Me The Monet” which is his take on Monet’s Japanese Footbridge from Giverny which Banksy has given a modern twist by filling the pond with old shopping trolleys and traffic cones. Apparently, according to an expert, Banksy in this piece is shining “a light on society’s disregard for the environment in favour of the wasteful excesses of consumerism”. Perhaps.
Anyway, consumerism has the upper hand because the piece is up for sale at a virtual auction Sotheby’s are holding this month. The piece is expected to fetch $6m. Quite what the artist will thank of that is anybody’s guess.
The irony!
October 3, 2020
Erection Of The Week (2)
Art comes in all forms and shapes and sizes and one of its primary goals is to make you stop and think and possibly even to shock. Jamie Gagne certainly achieved all that when he erected a 2.1-metre tall “anatomically correct” statue of a penis in his front garden in Wilton, New York state in June.
It was an act of protest, Gagne claims, resulting from the Council’s unwillingness to grant him a permit to build a shed outside his home. Art representing nature it may be, but that did not prevent him having his collar felt by the law and appearing before the magistrates charged with displaying offensive sexual material.
Pleading not guilty, Gagne realises he has a fight on his hands to keep it up and has moved it to the rear of his property for the time being.
If he wins his fight and gets to build his shed, Gagne plans to auction his penis off or rent it out to other disgruntled neighbours who have shown an interest in borrowing it.
October 2, 2020
Cantering Through Cant (2)
Dipping into Francis Grose’s A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785), here are a couple of variants of popular idioms that have, sadly, fallen out of favour.
One of the benefits of the Covid-19 pandemic is that it has encouraged many more of us to explore the benefits and delights of travelling by Shanks’s pony. To ride bayard on ten toes, according to Grose, is to walk on foot. Bayard, he suggests, was a horse famous in old romances.
Someone who has an unlimited fund of stories, shaggy dog or otherwise, or who talks ten to the dozen might be described as beating Banaghan. It is an Irish saying, Grose notes, of one who tells wonderful stories. Perhaps Banaghan was a minstrel famous for dealing in the marvellous, he surmises.
