Martin Fone's Blog, page 183
September 11, 2020
What Is The Origin Of (299)?…
To cock a snook
As a gesture, much beloved by schoolchildren, you press the tip of your nose with your thumb and spread your fingers. For extra effect, you can waggle your fingers. The Americans, prosaic to the last, call it a five-fingered salute. It is intended to show contempt by aiming a mildly insulting gesture at your victim. Its figurative meaning echoes the gesture. It is not certain how deeply ingrained cocking a snook is in English culture but on the continent it can be traced back until at least the 16th century, meriting a mention in the writings of Francois Rabelais from 1532 and depicted in Pieter Brueghel’s drawing, La Fête des fous, from 1560. The equivalent phrase in French is faire un pied de nez.
If we were to dissect the English phrase we would find that the verb to cock meant to turn up or stick up, rather as a cockerel does with its crest. Samuel Johnson defined the verb, in his A Dictionary of the English Language from 1755, as “to set erect; to hold bolt upright, as a cock holds his head”. Snook, is a kind of North American fish and it is also a term used to describe a promontory of land which juts out. The latter definition fits the description of the gesture, but it is fair to say that it is not a common word and there is no direct attribution of this word it. Some argue that it is a derivative of snout, but snout is such a common word you would think that it rather than an obscure variant would be used in the phrase.
One of the earliest examples of the phrase appeared in Wynne’s Diary, compiled by Elizabeth Wynne Fremantle. In her entry for December 7, 1791 she reports of the behaviour of some peasant children, as she calls them, towards a local worthy, Mr Cimador; “they cock snooks at one on every occasion”. Almost a century later, Augustus Hare in his The story of my life, published in 1879, reports on a demonstration given by a bishop; “if I put my hands so (folding them together) no one can reproach me, but if I put them so (cutting a snooks), they might reproach me very much”.
What is clear from Hare’s example, emphasised by his use of snook in the plural, is that the bishop was using both hands, presumably with the thumb of the first hand pressed to his nose and the thumb of the other to the finger of the first. This was also called taking a double sight. Theodore Hook, in his Gilbert Gurney of 1850, described it thus; “she proceeded to place her two hands extended in a right line from the tip of her nose, in the direction of his lordship’s seat, after the fashion of what is called “taking a double sight””.
Another name for the gesture was taking a sight at a person. John Hotten helpfully defined it in his A Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant and Vulgar Words from 1860 as “a vulgar action employed by street boys to denote incredulity, or contempt for authority, by placing the thumb against the nose and closing all the fingers except the little one, which is agitated in token of derision”. The gesture even made the pages of the Thunderer, the Times reporting in 1904 that “the young monkey puts his tongue in his cheek and cocks a snook at you”. Curiously, there is no specific reference to a hand gesture and it may be by this time cocking a snook was a portmanteau phrase to describe a gesture of derision or contempt.
Nowadays, though, in its literal sense it is restricted to a specific hand gesture, but in a metaphorical sense, it is used to express general contempt. But what a snook is is anybody’s guess.
September 9, 2020
Book Corner – September 2020 (2)
Resorting to Murder – edited by Martin Edwards
I am a sucker for these themed anthologies of crime tales in short story form from the so-called Golden Age of Detective fiction, drawing on the encyclopaedic knowledge of Martin Edwards and published under the imprint of British Library Crime Classics. As the title suggests, this is a collection of 14 stories with a common theme of holidaymaking and resorts, whether seaside or mountain. Even when we take a well-deserved break, the spectre of murder most foul and dastardly crime is never far away.
With a book like this, it is always a good idea to start proceedings off with a classic. Edwards does this in (buckets and) spades with one of my favourite Sherlock Holmes stories, The Adventures of the Devil’s Foot. A woman is found dead and her two brothers are completely deranged. Holmes unravels the mystery with his usual aplomb.
Having opened the innings up on a sure footing, Conan Doyle’s brother-in-law, E.W Hornung keeps the pace moving with a wonderful story, A Schoolmaster Abroad, not involving Raffles but featuring John Dollar, his crime doctor whose interest is preventing crimes rather than solving them. A bit of a spoil sport, really. The story concerns a dissolute, wastrel of a youth and his teacher-guardian.
I have always thought Arnold Bennett an underrated writer, I blame the Bloomsbury set for dissing his rep, as they say, and I was slightly surprised to find that he wrote some detective fiction. His contribution, Murder!, is a well-crafted tale which inverts your natural sympathies. It is hard not to like the murderer and dislike their victim. By the same score, I have always found G K Chesterton a tad over-rated, probably because he rarely missed an opportunity to proselytise his new-found Catholicism. His Finger of Stone is the weakest of the stories.
One of the joys of these collections is encountering writers whom you would not otherwise have read. I can be excused for not coming across Gerald Findler before as he wrote so little and even less is now available. The House of Screams, though, is an excellent crossover between mystery and ghostly happenings and makes for a haunting and entertaining tale. One of my favourite stories of the lot, Michael Gilbert’s Cousin Once Removed, uses a delightful twist at the end and is not without a sense of irony. The perfect murder doesn’t quite seem as perfect after all.
Another story with a twist in its tail is Phyllis Bentley’s Where is Mr Manetot? The disappearance of the main character is quite a crime trope, Basil Thomson’s The Vanishing of Mrs Fraser also explores this theme less successfully, but Bentley pulls it from cliché with a well-written story. Another cliched plotline is a woman being forced to marry someone she despises, she has a beau on the side, and when he is murdered the young boyfriend is suspected. Fortunately, in McDonnell Bodkins’ The Murder on the Golf Links, Paul Beck is on hand to see that justice is done.
Edwards’ excellent anthology also has some stalwarts who, although never reaching the heights of a Conan Doyle, never fail to provide a dollop of solid entertainment. In A Mystery of the Sand-Hills by R Austin Freeman, Dr Thorndyke applies his scientific acumen to solve the cause of death and the identity of a victim, seemingly cause by drowning. H C Bailey’s The Hazel Ice is a delightfully tongue-in-cheek Reggie Fortune tale. Anthony Berkeley’s Razor Edge, though, lacks the writer’s usual sparkle.
The other stories, including Leo Bruce’s Holiday Task and Helen Simpson’s A Posteriori, are so-so but I found them unexceptional. That said, they did not spoil my enjoyment of what is overall a fine and interesting collection.
September 8, 2020
Fly Of The Week (2)
It is irritating when you sit down for a meal and a fly keeps buzzing around you, so I sympathise with an octogenarian from Parcoul-Chernaud in the Dordogne who suffered this fate.
Instead of just waving his arms around ineffectively, he decided to use an electric swat to zap the pesky insect. Unfortunately, he was unaware that he had a leaking gas cylinder in his house. There was a chemical reaction between the gas and the fly swat which resulted in an almighty explosion, which destroyed part of his kitchen and knocked a big hole in the roof, rendering his home uninhabitable.
He is now living on a local campsite while his house is repaired. What happened to the fly is anybody’s guess.
September 7, 2020
The Streets Of London (115)
Fye Foot Lane, EC4
The increase in traffic trundling through the City of London by the middle of the 19th century forced the planners to drive a literal and metaphorical coach and horses through the rabbit warren of streets to develop broader thoroughfares. One such created under powers granted by the Metropolitan Improvement Act, 1863 was Queen Victoria Street which runs from Mansion House in the east to Blackfriars in the west. We will take a stroll down that street anon.
Inevitably, as that was part of its purpose, there was collateral damage. As Henry Harben noted in his A Dictionary of London, published in 1918, “numerous courts and alleys, as well as streets of a larger extent, were swept away for its formation”. One of the casualties he named was Five Foot Lane. As was often the case with London’s streets this lane had a variety of names over the years, including Finimore Lane, Fyve Foote Lane, Fyford Lane, and its modern incarnation, a corruption of Five Foot, Fye Foot Lane. Or should that be Fyefoot Lane? Unusually the street sign at one end has it as a three-word name whilst the one at the other end has it as a two-word name. Confusion abounds.
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The lane, which dates from at least the 14th century and runs from what is now Queen Victoria Street to and beyond Upper Thames Street, presumably originally ending at the docks by the riverbank, was initially known as Fynamoureslane, Finamour being some City worthy. It got its nickname of Five Feet, later adopted as its official name, from its width. John Stow, in his Survey of London, records both names.
The principal building of note on the lane was the Great Hall of the Worshipful Company of Glaziers who leased the gaff from the Fishmongers from 1601. As with most of the buildings in the area, it was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666.
That may have gone but the lane in its current form is rather curious. It starts off conventionally off at the Queen Victoria Street end, running between two office blocks. As it heads towards the river, the gradient slopes fairly steeply and then emerging on the northern side of Upper Thames Street, just to the east of the tunnel, it forces the pedestrian to negotiate a double bend before leading on to a footbridge which crosses the road. The bridge is supported by thin concrete wedges and the coat of arms of the Corporation of London are displayed on the railings on either side. You then descend a flight of steps to the river side of Upper Thames Street. Anyone who has tried to cross Upper Thames Street will welcome a relatively safe form of passage.
Delightful is to have a safe passage across a phenomenally busy street whilst having a bird’s-eye view of the traffic, this footbridge forms part of the Corporation’s ill-fated pedway scheme. In 1947 as planners were plotting the renaissance of bomb-damaged London, Charles Holden and William Holford developed a plan for a network of first-floor walkways which would interconnect some of the City’s buildings. It took until the mid-1960s for the City to embrace the idea but from that point many new developments in the Square Mile had to incorporate first-floor access to the Pedway network.
That is why the entrance to the Museum of London in the Barbican Estate is on the first floor. Other stretches were built along Lower Thames Street, Cannon Street and the former Stock Exchange building. The requirement was quietly dropped in the 1980s, although it is now seeing something of a revival with a section of walkway being added in 2017 to the redevelopment of London Wall.
Perhaps because the Fye Foot Lane pedway does not actually go into a building has meant that it has been allowed to exist undisturbed. With the greening of our highways, the time for an extensive pedway network may have come.
September 6, 2020
Sheep Of The Week (2)
In what I hope is not a case of mutton dressed up as lamb, a sheep has just been sold at auction for a staggering £367,500 at auction. The Pedigree Texel ram lamb, called Double Diamond, was the subject of a fiercely contested auction at Scottish National Texel Sale in Lanark, with bidding starting at an insulting £10,000 but soon rocketing to set a record for the most expensive sheep.
So, what are the buyers getting for their money? According to one of the buyers, and you would hope he knows, “he’s a massive lamb with great confirmation and character, some of which is what breeding is all about. But with the pedigree you start looking at the smaller details of the lamb – you look at his head, the hair colour, the colour around his eyes, legs, he was just perfect in every way”.
It seems a complicated business. What I want to know is; what’s the sell by date and what does it taste like?
September 5, 2020
Prescription Of The Week
In this strange world of ours we all feel a bit stressed at times so it should come as no surprise to learn that three elephants at Warsaw’s zoo in Poland have been getting a bit down recently.
Their vet, Agnieszka Czujkowska, has come up with a novel remedy, liquid doses of a high concentration of the relaxing cannabinoid CBD which they will receive up their trunks. They will be getting a vial of around a dozen drops two or three times a day. The trial is expected to have to fun for two years before any firm conclusions can be drawn as to its success.
I have a better idea; why don’t they just release the animals back into the wild?
September 4, 2020
What Is The Origin Of (298)?…
Cock-a-hoop
It is a state I have to admit I am rarely in but being cock-a-hoop is being in a state of jubilation, of extreme happiness. The origins of this phrase, though, are shrouded in mystery and anyone who can provide a definitive and incontrovertible history of it would rightly be entitled to pat themselves on the back and, yes, be cock-a-hoop.
Being cock-a-hoop may be as a result of imbibing more alcoholic beverages than are good for you. Thomas Blount in his Glossographia, a dictionary of what he deemed to be difficult words which he compiled in 1670, helpfully offered this explanation. “our Ancestors call’d that the Cock which we call a Spigget, or perhaps they used such Cocks in their vessels, as are still retained in water-pipes; the Cock being taken out, and laid on the hoop of the vessel, they used to drink up the ale as it ran out without intermission, (in Staffordshire now call’d Stunning a barrel of Ale) and then they were Cock-on-hoop, i.e at the height of mirth and jollity; a saying still retained”.
This explanation seems to fit the earliest examples of the phrase where it had the sense of turning on the taps and letting the drink flow. John Palsgrave translated a Latin play written by the Dutch humanist, Guilelmus Gnapheus, into English in 1540, entitled The comedye of Acolastus. There he wrote “I haue good cause to set the cocke on the hope, and make gaudye chere”. Thomas More in his A dialoge of comfort against tribulation, published posthumously in 1553, takes a pot shot at those who avoid penance but “syt them downe and drynke well for our sauiors sake, set cocke a hop and fyll in al the cuppes at once”. And for the physician, Andrew Borde, it meant to abandon yourself to carefree enjoyment, as this passage from his The first boke of the introduction of knowledge from 1549 shows; “What should I do, butset cocke on the hoope?”
Serious etymologists are somewhat sceptical of Blount’s explanation, it is asserted rather than illustrated with evidence, but the survey above suggests that there is something in what he says, at least as far as its use in the 16th century goes. The suspicion, though, is that this explanation may be too clever by half. What is wrong with a cock being, well, a cockerel, it had this sense from the 17th century, and hoop being an anglicisation of the French word huppe, meaning a tufted crest. Edward Philips, a contemporary of Blount’s, had a foot in both camps when he out forward this explanation in his A General English Dictionary from 1678; from “French coc-a-huppe, a Cock with a Crest, or from the Staffordshire custom of laying the Cock or Spigot upon the Barrel, for the company to drink without intermission”.
Hensleigh Wedgwood, in his A Dictionary of English Etymology from 1865, gave a more picaresque explanation; “a metaphor taken from the sport of cock-throwing used on festive occasions, when a cock was set on an eminence to be thrown at by the guests”. Leopold Warner, in his Manners, Customs and Observances, published in 1895, described the “sport” of cock-throwing, a feature of Shrovetide, as involving the incarceration of a cock in a pot with its head and tail exposed and the object of the exercise was to break the pot with a well-aimed blow from a cudgel from a few yards’ distance.
More prosaically, it could owe its origin to a pub sign. As literacy was low and pubs needed to advertise their whereabouts, they used colourful signs. Many pubs featured signs with names involving foul and hoops. The hoop may have been the hoop of a barrel or, more likely, feed, hoop being an old term for a heap of grain. The Clause Roll of Edward III from around 1335 features pubs with names such as the Hen on the Hoop and The Cock on the Hoop”. This explanation may be as good as any.
However you look at it, there is drink involved.
September 3, 2020
Gin O’Clock (107)
We live in strange times. In a world where the spirit of the times seems to be to want to reinterpret history from the point of view of the oppressed, and no bad thing too, it seems strange to come across people who want to celebrate, or at least acknowledge, the role of the oppressors in the history of their area. That is at least what Karen and Mick Skerratt seem to be doing with their Exeter Gin, a bottle of which I purchased through the excellent on-line service offered by Drinkfinder.co.uk.
Isca Dumnoniorum, modern day Exeter, was the principal stronghold of the Romans in the southwest and home, initially, to the 5,000 strong Second Augustan Legion from around 55CE. Isca became an important trading centre but seems to have suffered a rapid decline from around 380CE, when Roman influence waned and the garrisons withdrew. The Skerratt’s idea was to incorporate some of the botanicals that tickled the palates of the Romans into their gin.
There are nineteen botanicals that go into the mix, including tarragon, cardamom, basil, cinnamon, and marigold, but having made such a big thing about the Roman influence in their marketing puff, it is a tad frustrating to find that there is no definitive listing of the botanicals on their website. Citrus elements, in part, are provided by the peels of oranges and grapefruit which have been dried in an oven. More traditional (in a gin rather than Roman sense) botanicals such as all spice, angelica root and cubeb seem to be used and for a touch of the exotic, Goji berries. It is quite a list and it is not difficult to sense that the initial concept of a Roman-influenced gin has been overtaken by an enthusiastic determination to throw the botanical kitchen sink into the mix and see what comes out.
Developing the gin did not come without its moments of drama. An early batch was so lively that the corks popped out. Such is the rich oily content of the botanicals in the neutral base spirit that the gin louches when a mixer is added. Initially, the Skerratts thought that this was a problem and tried to engineer it out, until they realised that it was a natural phenomenon.
The bottle is made from clear glass, rounded and domed with a black top and artificial stopper. The labelling is in black and features a spear and shield with the words Exeter Gin in that ever so trendy and incredibly naff three letter per row arrangement. Assorted Roman legionaires, some standing to attention and two driving chariots, circle the bottom of the bottle, looking like classical Attic figurines. The design and feel of the bottle exude a sense of class, although the choice of light black lettering on a clear background makes it difficult to read. My bottle was number 178 from batch number 49.
The proof of the gin, though, is in the tasting. On the nose it was remarkably complex with a lot going on, juniper, citrus and spices. In the mouth, the immediate hit I got from the smooth spirit was of orange and grapefruit, and then the spices and peppers got to work before allowing the juniper and some of the more floral and herbal botanicals, lavender perhaps and blueberry, a seat at the table. The aftertaste was long, deep, slightly spicy and enticing.
With an ABV of 44% this is a robust, smooth gin and provides an interesting, delicious addition to the premium gin scene that the ginaissance has generated. I enjoyed it.
Until the next time, cheers!
September 2, 2020
Book Corner – September 2020 (1)
The Lost Mr Linthwaite – J S Fletcher
To my embarrassment, I’m not sure I had even heard of Joseph Smith Fletcher, never mind read any of his stuff, before I picked up this book. It would not be an understatement to say that this once relatively popular and, certainly, prolific author has now somewhat faded into obscurity. Thanks to the efforts of the Black Heath Classic Crime series, you can now find some of his detective fiction in e-book form. This is one of them.
Fletcher (1863 – 1935) was a prolific writer, publishing in a range of styles including poetry, historical and detective fiction. His first published novel was When Charles The First Was King, which saw the light of day in 1892 and which many consider to be his finest work. If his writing career went downhill it was a long slope as he published some 230 books in total. His first crime collection was a series of short stories which came out in 1909 under the rather racy (and dated) title of The Adventures of Archer Dawe, Sleuth-hound.
The Mr Linthwaite book appeared in 1920, right at the start of Fletcher’s most productive period, publishing over 50 books over the next ten years. Fletcher’s main interest was crimes involving fraud, his interest piqued by a case which was heard in the Quarter Sessions of the town in which he went to school. “Its circumstances were unusual”, he wrote, “and mysterious and the truth hard to get at”. It would be no surprise then to learn that this book is about fraud and deception.
Conan Doyle is reputed to have written his Sherlock Holmes stories because he thought he could do better than Fletcher, although the chronology seems to me to make that unlikely, and whilst this story may come a long way short of the best of Holmes, it is still a good honest adventure story with enough twists and turns to keep the reader interested and the denouement was satisfying without too many ludicrous plot turns or coincidences to bring the action to a conclusion.
You can’t help noticing that it is a tad old-fashioned and rather more gently paced than some Golden Age fiction I have read. There are still horse-drawn omnibuses, a well-connected railway system which, provided you have the time, allows you to get pretty much anywhere from anywhere and communications are sent by a reliable, efficient and speedy postal system. There are telegrams, but these are reserved for real emergencies, and the mention of a telephone towards the end of the book comes as a real shock. This is a very different time.
The detective work is done by an enthusiastic amateur, Linthwaite’s nephew, and the text hints that he has had prior experience on matters of this nature. The police, on the other hand, are depicted as blundering assess, Inspector Crabbe all too quick to jump to the conclusion that a group of gypsy travellers must have been the culprits. Their brawn is needed at the end but, to all intents and purposes, they play a marginal role in proceedings.
Mr Linthwaite has gone to visit the ancient town of Selchester for a few days, he is a keen antiquarian, and his nephew is to join him after a few days. But Mr Linthwaite, a very particular man who would always advise of any change in plans, is missing. What has happened to him? It is revealed that he encountered a respectable woman in the town by chance, someone he knew from his past life as a solicitor. The case turns on an inheritance and which of the woman’s two marriages was legitimate. I won’t spoil it for you.
I enjoyed the book as a piece of undemanding entertainment and will probably read another of Fletcher’s many books.
September 1, 2020
Hair Of The Week (2)
Hats off to Joseph Grisamore, a social worker from Park Rapids in Minnesota, who has just secured the Guinness World Record for the tallest full Mohican mohawk. His barnet measures 42.5 inches.
Having such an enormous hairstyle doesn’t come without its cost. As doors are rarely over 7 feet tall and ceilings seldom over nine feet tall, he is pretty limited to where he can go. Getting into a car is a no-no, but, Grisamore confides, “the crowd usually comes to him” when he steps out.
When he is resting his hair, he keeps it in his braid. One fan of his eccentric hair do is his wife, Laura, who finds it “sexy”.
Perhaps news of Grisamore’s record will give Vietnamese man, Nguyen Van Chien, some ideas. He has five-metre long dreadlocks, the result of eschewing the local barber for eighty years. 92-year-old Nguyen believes that if he cuts his hair, he will die. “I dare not to change anything, not even combing it”, he despairs. Defy gravity and wear it up, I say.
