Martin Fone's Blog, page 19

The World’s Deadliest Fungus

In considering the world’s deadliest foodstuffs, it is as well to be clear on definitions. Are we looking for a food that kills most people, in which case foodstuffs that trigger allergic reactions or chronic conditions would be top of the pile or potentially poisonous foods which are unsafe but can be made safe with proper preparation or harmful things that are mistaken for more innocuous sources of nourishment?

If we take the latter definition, then we need look no further than the Death cap mushroom (Amanita phalloides), which is responsible for about 90% of mushroom deaths. They are rather unassuming mushrooms whose flowers are the size of a door-knob and have a pale green, white or bronze cap, white gills, and a silky skirt-like membrane. They look a lot like common field mushrooms (Agaricus campestris) and inexperienced foragers often mistake the two.

Native to Europe and said to be pleasant to the taste, they certainly pack a punch if ingested. The mushroom’s amatoxin poison enters the liver through the intestinal tract, where, within six to 12 hours, it starts to affect and nullify the enzymes used to make new proteins. With its source of new proteins effectively stopped, the liver begins to die, causing the victim to experience nausea and diarrhoea, which is then quickly followed by rapid organ failure, coma, and death.

What makes the death cap even more deadly is that it is heat stable which means that even cooking one does not destroy all its toxins. It only takes the consumption of half a mushroom to trigger the symptoms. Experts believe that as many as a hundred people die a year from death cap poisoning, while thousands more get sick but eventually recover.       

A report in Nature Communications in 2023 suggests that scientists might have found an antidote in indocyanine green, a dye commonly used in medical imaging to help assess the functionality of the heart and liver. Apparently, it stops alpha-amanitin (AMA), the death cap’s primary toxin, dead in its tracks. While it has not been tested on humans, there may be hope on the horizon. In the meantime, if you have any doubts about what you have foraged, do not eat it.

The key to the death cap’s ability to colonise around the world is its ability to reproduce both asexually and sexually. In new environments they switch on asexual reproduction as a way to gain a foothold and then return to sexual reproduction after successful colonisation.

Murder At The Pageant

A review of Murder at the Pageant by Victor Whitechurch – 250314

What with William Fone in Ianthe Jerrold’s Let Him Lie and now Victor Whitechurch’s 1930 novel set in Frimley, detective fiction seems to be getting personal. Whitechurch’s Frimley, though, seems to have little resemblance to the village where I live. The Manor, home to Sir Henry Lynwood, is hosting a pageant, the centrepiece of which is the parading for the first time in over a century of a sedan chair once used by Queen Anne, which is conveying Mrs Cresswell, resplendent in the costume of the queen and wearing her magnificent pearl necklace. All the guests wear period costume, a fact that will be telling in the denouement.

The director of the pageant is a former member of the Secret Service, Captain Roger Bristow. Late at night, after a post-pageant meal, he looks out of the window and sees two figures, he believes they are male, carrying off the sedan chair which had been stored in a marquee. He rushes down to see what is going on but they make good their escape in a car, although Bristow is alert to take the registration number. The ne’er-do-wells appear to stop temporarily at the estate gates before driving off.

Inside the sedan chair Bristow finds one of his fellow guests, Jasper Hurst, who has recently moved into a nearby house as Lynwood’s tenant, close to death and before he dies he mutters something that sounds like “the…line”. The getaway car bears the same registration number as the vicar’s and one of the house guests had just been to the marquee to recover his cigarettes but claims not to have seen anything. And just for good measure Mrs Cresswell’s jewels are discovered to have been stolen.

Having set the plot up Whitechurch has good fun in confounding his readers with red herring after red herring and misdirection after misdirection. We have a Chief Constable who claims he is nothing of a police officer but whose observations and conclusions are shrewd and to the point and the inevitable battle for the truth between the professional officer of the law, in this case Superintendent Kinch, and the gifted amateur, Bristow. They are not exactly rivals but Bristow is more astute and prefers to play his cards close to his chest while being perfectly open in divulging information when asked a direct question. Inevitably, it is Bristow who gets on to the truth of what happened at Frimley Manor.

One criticism of the denouement is that Whitechurch seems to pull three rabbits out of a hat by introducing characters late on that who had an enormous bearing on the outcome. That is true, although in fairness to Whitechurch he does sprinkle enough clues in the earlier chapters. We are told that Hurst was a private detective who specialized in the recovery of jewelry, that he had suspicions that his estranged wife had not given up her previous criminal associations, that Miss Fullinger’s maid has only recently been hired, that the car stopping at the gates is suggestive of someone from the house being involved, that someone at the pageant had recognized someone but the recognition had not been reciprocated, and that the putting away of costumes was germane to the case.

As for the motive for the final dramatic scene that did seem to me to come out of leftfield. I enjoyed the twist at the end in which the Chief Constable cracked the meaning of Hurst’s dying words and the fact that Mrs Cresswell’s jewels were not all they were cracked up to be. Clever Mr Cresswell.

Not a classic by any means but great fun.

Penguin Of The Week

Reports of air crashes, lamentable as they are, do not normally capture my attention for more than a nano second but I was captivated by this report from the South African Civil Aviation Authority.

On January 19th a helicopter with its pilot and three passengers landed on Bird Island. For the return journey one of the passengers, described as a “specialist” placed a penguin from the island in a cardboard box and brought it on to the aircraft.

The passenger riding in the front seat of the helicopter held the box containing the penguin on his lap, securing it with his hands, but he lost his grip just after take-off and the box slid into the pilot’s cyclic pitch control lever.

The lever was pushed to the far-right position, causing the helicopter to roll to the right and strike the ground with its rotors.

The report said the helicopter, which landed on its side, “sustained serious damage, but no human or penguin passengers were harmed”.

“The lack of secure containment for the penguin created a dangerous situation. The absence of a proper, secured crate meant that the penguin’s containment was not suitable for the flight conditions,” the report said.

Moral of the story: never pick up a penguin!

Theft Of The Week (13)

Britain is fast turning into a nation of shoplifters but even those that try to stay the right side of the law seem to think nothing of trousering a souvenir from a restaurant or a hotel as a sort of souvenir of a night out or a stay at a swanky gaff. This habit also seems to be getting out of control.

Recently, the TV celebrity chef and restaurateur, Gordon Ramsay, revealed that in one week nearly 500 maneki-neko cat figurines were stolen in one week from his new restaurant, Lucky Cat, in just one week. At £4.50 a pop that amounts to a whopping £2,000 off his bottom line.

Marking its tenth anniversary Quaglino’s in St James offered a free glass of champagne to anyone returning one of the 25,000 Q-shaped ashtrays that had “disappeared” over the previous decade. Since they took the step to sell the distinctive ashtrays as merchandise, the problem has stopped.

Bibendum in Brompton Cross loses fifteen of its Michelin Man butter dishes a week while Flat Iron reported that since their first restaurant opened more than a decade ago, 20,000 of their distinctive mini cleavers it uses upon which to place steak knives have been “accidentally removed” by diners.

Some have made a virtue out of the practice. Wahaca, the Mexican street food chain, held spoon amnesties at which their brightly coloured cutlery could be traded in for tacos while the Ivy restaurant print “Stolen from The Ivy” on the bottom of their chopstick holders.

For the struggling hospitality sector, this trend is an unwelcome cost and thinking outside of the box might just help to put a stop to it. We will see.

Citadelle Gin

Just as Sipsmith opened the door for British artisanal distillers so Citadelle Gin was a pioneer for their French equivalents. Alexandre Gabriel, having taken over the distinguished Cognac producing house Maison Ferrand, wanted to revive age old gin production techniques to produce a special gin. However, he found that he was stymied by legal constraints which prevented him from distilling gin in his Cognac pots during the French AOC enforced periods of inactivity for Cognac production between April and October.

After five years of frustrating battles with officialdom Alexandre finally won through and France’s first artisanal gin was born. Distilled at the Château de Bonbonnet, in Cognac, the name of Citadelle is steeped in gin history. Gins bearing that illustrious name were original produced in the Citadelle of Dunkirk, commissioned as the royal distillery by Louis XVI in 1775. It was was smuggled into England from France, supposedly by Royal order, in wooden casks, starting the trend for barrel-aged gin.

Gabriele began planting the first juniper trees at the Château in 2017 with plans to extend the plantation over five hectares. The plans are to work exclusively with local producers to ensure that all the botanicals used in the distillation process are sourced as close to, if not directly at, the château. And there are a lot of botanicals.

As well as Juniper, eighteen other botanicals go into the mix: Iris, Almond, Fennel, Star Anise, Lemon zest, Orange zest, Cardamom, Violet, Grains of paradise, Coriander, Cubeb pepper, Liquorice, Savory, Nutmeg, Angelica, Cumin, Cinnamon, and Sichuan pepper. The distillation process takes place in a copper pot still with each botanical infused just long enough to bring out their personality.

The labelling on the bottle helpfully provides a list of all the botanicals, something that all distillers should do, in my opinion. And the bottle is a piece of work in its own right, a marvellous statement of French elegance, using shimmering blue glass with fortified ridges to good effect. The labelling is, well, French in style, busy, informative, using copper plate handwriting to give a sense of age and history. The bottle is circular with narrow shoulders and a short neck, leading to the only surprise of the package, a greyish screwcap.

On the nose there is a wonderful hit of juniper with earthy notes and a slightly floral, herbal presence making its presence felt. In the glass the clear spirit is a wonderful mix of juniper and citrus with an overlayer of herbal elements and some spicy hints to give contrast. Surprisingly, the aftertaste is not overlong, but provides a tangy finish to the drink, which has an ABV of 44%.

I would be wrong if I said that my palate could distinguish each of the nineteen elements that go into the drink but together they make an impressively complex tipple. A definite hit.

Until the next time, cheers!

Dimpled Golf Balls

In the early 1900s a better understanding of aerodynamics led to another golf ball innovation which remains with us to this day, the inversion of dimples to create concave depressions on the surface. These create a thin layer of air that clings to the ball’s surface, decreasing drag, and allowing it to travel more smoothly through the air more quickly and for longer distances. Dimples also create lift, like the wings of an aeroplane.

More dimples can create a softer flight path, ideal for those seeking control and precision, while fewer dimples reduce spin and allow for longer drives. More intricate dimple patterns allow balls to climb higher, increasing lift and accuracy while simpler dimple patterns create a lower trajectory and maximise distance. Dimples also control the way the ball responds in windy conditions, the air around them being more stable and offering greater control.

While there are standards in the rules of golf regarding size, no more than 1.680 inches in diameter, and weight, 1.620 ounces or under, there are no regulations as to how many dimples a golf ball can have, although the size restrictions have an impact. Most golf balls have between three hundred and 500, the average being 336, a number which seems to optimize lift and control. Different manufacturers, though, have varying numbers and patterns of dimples, depending upon the performance objective of the particular type of ball.

The rubber Haskell golf ball remains the standard for the modern golf ball but there have been some developments since their introduction. The balata sap had a tendency to get indents, a problem partially resolved in the mid-1960s with the use of a synthetic resin called Surlyn to create a more durable cover and then, in 1967, with the solid golf ball, first produced and patented by Jim Bartsch and Spalding.

Trusted Like The Fox

A review of Trusted Like the Fox by Sara Woods – 250312

Antony Maitland, Sara Woods’ series barrister and sleuth, has now become a Queen’s Counsel and Trusted Like the Fox, originally published in 1964 and reissued by Dean Street Press, sees him embroiled in a tricky case. Perhaps echoing Oscar Wilde’s famous comment about fox hunting, the pursuit of the uneatable by the indefensible, his case appears to be the defence of the indefensible by those all at sea. The book’s title, more appositely, is taken from Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part 1, “for treason is but trusted like the fox”.

Maitland’s client and the defendant is a man who claims to be Michael Godson, a man who for many years had lived a blameless life as a photographer. The case against him, though, that he really is Guy Harland, who brutally assaulted his boss, Doctor Fraser, stole some vital papers, although the experiments were not complete, escaped from arrest by assaulting a police constable, and then went over to Germany, where the experiments were completed and the resultant chemical which induced a form of cholera was used to massacre 4,000 people in the Polish town of Dubenoz.

Maitland’s initially line of attack is that the defendant really is Michael Godson and that the case is reminiscent of the experiences of one Adolf Beck, a man who was convicted twice for crimes he did not commit on the unreliable evidence of mistaken witnesses, a reference that the foreman of the jury, more of him anon, preens himself over picking up. Midway through the trial Godson pulls the rug from under his brief’s feet by admitting that he really is Guy Harland.

The sensible thing would have been for Maitland to give up the case at this point but something tells him that Harland is innocent and that he was set up at Burnham Towers by one or more of his colleagues on a night in October 1942. His focus is now to prove that this was the case and give a credible explanation of what really happened.

It is a case that involves the whistling of Schubert’s Serenade, a misplaced cigarette case, a woman who is besotted by her lover, and a crucial change of evidence given off stage by a witness in Maitland’s chambers, fortunately also in front of Maitland’s opposing brief, Paul Garfield. The witness, though, is unable to present their revised testimony before Justice Conroy as they are inconveniently murdered, their body found strangled. However, their signed testimony is accepted by Garfield and the case against Harland collapses as a new traitor is identified.

Throughout the case Maitland appears to be fighting against an irresistible tide of evidence and supposition but, strangely, is somewhat bored by the whole process, perhaps a reflection of the monumental and forlorn task in front of him. As the position becomes clearer he is more enthused and brings the case to a satisfactory conclusion with his customary insight and vigour.

I am not a great fan of courtroom dramas, they have a tendency to be a tad dull in the wrong hands, but there is enough in this case, one that marries a natural dislike of treason with an abhorrence of war atrocities, to keep the reader interested. One stylistic flourish Woods uses to good effect is at various points of the trial is to give some insight of the thoughts of some of those present, not least the foreman of the jury who is relishing the opportunity to play his part and demonstrate his superiority over his fellow jurors. Strangely, as the tide turns and the pace picks up, she abandons this ploy. I would have loved to have known what the foreman thought about the way things turned out.

Maitland, although very much on his own, has his formidable uncle, Sir Nicholas, to use as a somewhat querulous sounding board, and the ever faithful Jenny, his wife, is their to give him support and to soothe his fevered brow. With this formidable support team there was never any doubt that Maitland, as usual, would see that justice is done.

Let’s hope some more of his adventures see the light of day again sometime soon.

The World’s Deadliest Cheese

Perhaps the ultimate test for a dedicated turophile is to sit down with a chunk of Casu Marzu, dubbed by Guinness World Records in 2009 as the world’s deadliest cheese and also known as the forbidden cheese or the maggot cheese. Even the translation of Its name, rotting cheese, suggests that this Sardinian delicacy is not for the faint-hearted.

What makes it so distinctive is the use of the live larvae of the cheese fly, Pilophila casei, in its production. It starts out life like Pecorino Sardo, a cheese made from sheep’s milk. However, at a certain point in its maturation, the top of the wheel is removed and the eggs of the cheese fly are dropped into the developing curds and the rind is replaced.

When the white larvae hatch, they begin munching on the interior of the cheese wheel, their digestive juices causing another form of fermentation, which gives it a soft, creamy texture. Oozing beads of fatty liquid known as lagrima, which means tears in the local dialect, slide down the exterior of the cheese as it matures, a sign that all is well.

When it is fully matured, it is served, including maggots, with freshly-baked bread and the local red wine, Cannonau, whose spicy, bold flavours match the cheese’s aromatic strength. It is said to have an odd texture, not unlike cottage cheese but with hard bits, and the aftertaste lingers for hours.

When the cheese is presented, diners have the choice of either eating it complete with the fully-grown larvae or not. Those who decide to go the whole hog are advised to wear glasses or to place their flattened hand just below their nose so as to prevent escapees launching themselves into nasal cavities or eye sockets. For those who prefer not to run this particular gauntlet, a chunk of Casu Marzu is placed in a paper bag which is then tightly closed. The lack of oxygen causes the larvae to suffocate, although they will bounce around a bit making a “pitter-patter” noise until they expire.

Gross as this all might sound, it is essential that the larvae are alive when the cheese is served. Dead larvae signify that the cheese has turned toxic and should not be eaten. Even if the larvae are alive, there are some potential side effects, some could survive the stomach acid and remain in the intestine, causing pseudomyiasis, or they could carry harmful microorganisms that could cause infections.

Unsurprisingly, Casu Martzu falls foul of the European Union’s food hygiene regulations, although it has been banned in Italy since 1962 under legislation prohibiting the sale of infected food. Nevertheless, it is still made, estimates in 2019 suggesting that as much as 100 tonnes were being produced clandestinely with a value of around €2 to 3 million. There have been attempts to legalise it as a traditional Sardinian food with aphrodisiac qualities, one that has been made for centuries and follows the island’s tradition, as remarked upon by Pliny the Elder and Aristotle, for consuming bugs and worms.

Ten other Italian regions have their variant of maggot-infected cheese but Casu Marzu is the bee’s knees.

Poison In The Pen

A review of Poison in the Pen by Patricia Wentworth – 250308

Did Patricia Wentworth, Camberley’s finest, miss a trick by not calling the twenty-ninth novel in her Miss Silver series, originally published in 1955, The Cat That Growled? It is the antithesis of Conan Doyle’s The Adventure of Silver Blaze (1892), the culprit’s identity being confirmed by the reaction of an animal.

The sending of poison letters is ideally suited to a cosy mystery set in a rural community and there are marked similarities to Agatha Christie’s earlier The Moving Finger (1942), although Miss Silver takes a more central role than did Jane Marple in Christie’s take. It is also a rather egalitarian crime, rather like poisoning, one that is as equally suited to being committed by a woman, perhaps more so, as a man and is one that eliminates the need to get one’s hands dirty in the mechanics of death. Poison letters are a form of revenge best served cold, their contents imbuing a sense of dread, shame, and guilt in their recipients, sometimes leading to their public shaming and occasionally to their deaths.

There has been an outbreak of poison letters in Tilling Green, rather similar to the one five years earlier in nearby Little Poynton. One of the recipients, Doris Pell, is found dead in the river, and another, Connie Brooke, found dead after taking some sleeping tablets. Both are assumed to have been cases of suicide prompted by the shame of the disclosures in the letters. Brooke’s death piques the suspicions of Frank Abbot, who suggests that Miss Silver ensconces herself in the village and use her remarkable powers of observation and her acute hearing to see what she can find. Her choice of accommodation is very pertinent.

It is only when there is a third death, that of Colonel Repton, who had discovered that his unsuitable wife, Scilla, was cheating on him and had imprudently announced that he was changing his will, found slumped in his study with the unmistakable whiff of almonds emanating from his whisky glass, that the suspicion of there being a murderer on the loose dawns on the villagers. Scilla is an obvious suspect, but Miss Silver believes that, aside from the poison letters, there is another connection between the three deaths and that they had all been murdered by the same hand.

Despite the shoal of red herrings, there are really only four viable suspects, a conclusion that Miss Silver comes to because they are the four houses that Doris visited on the afternoon of her death and where she could have found the torn corner of the letter she had received showing up against the pattern of the carpet. Two of the suspects are quickly eliminated because of the shades of their carpets, leaving two others, one rather close to home.

A rather rapid mental implosion and a confession rather makes Miss Silver’s task easier, although she does run some physical risk, being trapped in a cottage rapidly filling up with gas with what is feared to have been a young child but turns out to be a cat using up several of its nine lives. She is rescued by Jason Leigh who not only is the hero of the hour but has the good fortune to win a bride, wrestling her away from a potential unsuitable match with Scilla’s bit on the side.

Miss Silver is her usual mix of seemingly innocent naivety and razor-sharp observational qualities, coughing and knitting away with the happy knack of asking the right question at the right time and creating an atmosphere in which her fellow conversationalist is very much at ease, a style that produces more results than a confrontational manner.

For my taste the book is padded with too many descriptions of clothing and furnishings and the contents of conversations previously recorded and repeated almost verbatim, but Wentworth redeems herself with a clever twist on the trope of the poison letter. It is not the contents of the letters themselves that cause the deaths but the knowledge of who wrote them. And, of course, there is the cat who growled, Abimelech.

Statue Of The Week (9)

One of the most (ahem) prominent and popular statues in Dublin is that of Molly Malone, which is situated in Suffolk Street outside the Tourist Information Office, although it started life out when it was commissioned for the city’s millennium celebrations in 1988 in Grafton Street. Designed by local artist Jeanne Rynhart, sweet Molly Malone is unmistakable not for her cart of cockles and mussels but for her rather large breasts.

So large are they that tourists cannot resist the temptation to fondle them, a trait which city officials reveal has causes a bit of a problem. Her anatomical features are getting so worn away that the council is having to re-cover the sculpture and hire some stewards to guard it. A more permanent solution under consideration is to put the statue on a higher plinth so that the defaced décolletage will be out of reach.   

The moral of the story is hands off Molly Malone’s breasts.