Martin Fone's Blog, page 196
April 27, 2020
The Streets Of London – Part One Hundred And Six
Cecil Court, WC2N
One of the famous people to lay their head down in Cecil Court was an eight-year-old music prodigy by the name of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The Mozart family rented three rooms between April 24th and August 27th 1764 from a barber, John Couzin, in the Court, although, according to Leopold, the rooms were not as commodious as they would have liked and had no cooking facilities. It is almost certain that Wolfgang composed his first symphony. The composer and music historian, Charles Burney, visited the Mozarts there and after the boy had wowed him with his musical abilities, “he played at marbles in the true childish way of one who knows nothing”. The insouciance of youth!
A pub, The Angel, in Cecil Court gained some notoriety as a hotbed of radicalism, hosting a public debating society in the 1790s where anyone who had paid the weekly entrance fee could get on their hind legs and spout forth, often views that were considered dangerous if not subversive. The government, fearing an imminent French invasion, cracked down hard on dissidents, passing several Gagging Acts. In February 1798 the authorities raided the Angel and, according to The Gentleman’s Magazine, “the landlord was obliged to find extraordinary sureties, and informed that the licence of the house should certainly be withheld in the future”.
The pub, nevertheless, soldiered on only to find itself implicated, in 1803, in the treason trial of Colonel Despard, the last man to be sentenced to be hung, drawn, and quartered, a fate later commuted to just hanging and beheading. Despard was supposed to have headed a desperate plot to capture the Tower of London and the Bank of England and to assassinate George III. The Angel was to be the rebellion’s command centre, but, as the plot was foiled, it became just a footnote in London’s radical history.
Cecil Court is now known as Booksellers’ Row. Although the first bookselling transaction that can be definitively dated and traced to the Court was made in 1704, the street really became a centre for books at the beginning of the 20th century. One of the employees of Unicorn Press around 1901 was Arthur Ransome, he of Swallows and Amazons fame, who recorded in his autobiography that the Cecil Court firm was always on “very thin financial ice” and “lived under an almost continual threat of disaster”. Also to be found there was Greening Ltd, publishers and stockists of novels of a sensational kind, and at No. 21, Watkins, the oldest bookshop in London devoted to theosophy, spiritualism and the like.
In 1904, the brothers, William and Gilbert Foyle, opened a shop at No. 16 and were so successful that the premises were raided by the police on the suspicion that they were operating an illegal bookmaking operation. They grew to employ their first member of staff, who promptly ran off with the week’s takings, and in 1906 moved to Charing Cross Road.
The Court also became the centre of Britain’s nascent film industry, the newly built office space following redevelopment of the area in 1894, hosting the likes of Gaumont, Hepworth, Nordisk, Globe, Tyler and Vitagraph. The Court brought new industries to London, new skills and the proximity of so many pioneering firms meant that knowledge and expertise was spread around. From around 1907 what were originally one-stop establishments became specialised as the film industry grew in sophistication and popularity. Flicker Alley, as the Court was nicknamed, hosted over 40 film-related companies in the period up until the First World War.
As the centre of power in the film industry moved during the course of the 20th century, Cecil Court was more often the backdrop to a film or advert. That said, it has a unique place in the development of the British film industry, and the book trade, for that. More importantly, to echo Graham Greene, “thank God, Cecil Court remains Cecil Court”.
April 26, 2020
App Of The Week (3)
I have written before about one of the strange panics prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic; the need to find and stockpile toilet paper. No one has yet convinced me that, for all the terrible things this dread disease can do to your body and organs, it makes you go to the toilet more often than you ordinarily would.
Still, if you are worried that you may run out of toilet paper anytime soon, a German website, Blitzrechner.de, has produced an app that will help you. All you do is enter how many toilet rolls you have, how often you go to the toilet a day, how many wipes per trip, how many squares of tissue per wipe, and how many people are in the house and press a button.
The app will work out how many day’s supply you have.
I suppose it serves a purpose. but the thought strikes me; can’t people solve simple mathematical problems these days without having to resort to an app?
April 25, 2020
Sporting Event Of The Week (26)
With the Covid-19 pandemic eating massive chunks into this year’s mainstream sporting calendar, even some of England’s more charming and eccentric events are biting the dust. News reached me this week that the World Worm Charming Championships, held annually in the grounds of Willaston Primary school near Nantwich in Cheshire, have had to be cancelled.
The competition started in 1980 when on July 5th a local farmer’s son, Tom Shufflebotham, charmed 511 worms from the ground in just 30 minutes. Known also as fiddling, charming or grunting, the basic idea is for that the contestants, who are each given a plot of ground 3 metres by 3 metres, encourage as many worms to the earth’s surface as they can in the given time period. The methods deployed vary but boil down to creating vibrations in the ground by sticking a stob, a bit like a pitchfork, into the ground and hitting it with a rod known as a rooping iron.
It’s a serious business with a regulatory body in place who supervise the sport’s 18 rules. The world record is currently held by Miss S Smith and Mr M Smith who, in 2009, charmed 567 worms to the surface.
As this year’s competition is off, at least the worms will get a rest.
April 24, 2020
What Is The Origin Of (279)?…
Given away with a pound of tea
We all like a bit of a bargain, something given away for nothing. The plight of the British High streets is such that prices seem perpetually at bargain basement level, interspersed with the almost irresistible BOGOF (buy one, get one free) offer. Fortunately, my heart is made of sterner stuff and I can usually resist the temptation. Our phrase, dating back to the late 19th century, is used to denote something considered to be tawdry or worthless.
What I do remember being given away with a packet of tea, when I was a child, Brooke Bond and PG Tips, I seem to recall, were coloured cards. Rather like cigarette cards, there was a set around a common theme and the idea was to hook the purchaser, or, more likely their offspring, into trying to complete the set and, therefore, buy more product. There were even albums available in which you could stick the cards, making it even more apparent that there were more to get.
The first set of PG Tips cards, a series of 20 entitled British Birds, were issued in 1954. I can distinctly remember collecting a couple of series entitled British Butterflies and then Wild Birds in Britain, both sets of 50, issued in 1963 and 1965 respectively. By the time the fad for tea cards had run out of stem, in 1999, International Soccer Stars and Oracle cards, the series were down to 20 and 19 cards respectively, and the latter came without an album. I enjoyed collecting them, providing some diversion and the opportunity, had I chosen to, to learn a bit about the fauna of these sceptr’d isles.
Back in the 1880s, though, grocers, anxious to shift their stock, would offer some cheap or gaudy gift with a pound of tea. The Globe and Traveller in its edition of September 11, 1885 rather sniffily reported on the north south divide. Retailers in Yorkshire and Lancashire, it advised, organise excursions as a means of advertising their wares, “the chance of a cheap ticket is given away with a pound of tea just as glasses, and jugs, and monstrosities in ornament are in more southern latitudes”. It returned to the subject on January 22, 1886 noting that the more recent fashion adopted “by pushing grocers of announcing that certain gaudy but not particularly useful articles are Given away with a pound of tea has not struck deep root”. You can’t win them all, it would seem.
However, one of the earliest examples to appear in print is to be found in a review of a pantomime, Aladdin, in the Glaswegian newspaper, The Evening News and Star, of December 12, 1881. The widow, probably Widow Twankey, is described as bearing a sign on her back “announcing that she is to be given away with a pound of tea”. It clearly took the South a few years to catch up with northern trends and vernacular.
By the early 20th century, the amount of tea had dropped down to half a pound. A music hall song did the rounds, gaining some popularity in the 1920s, part of whose lyrics went, “This is the day we give babies away/ with half a pound of tea/ You just open the lid, and out pops the kid/ with a twelve month guarantee”.By the time it had got into the hands of soldiers in the Second World War, it had a slightly bawdier feel to it; “Today is the day they give babies away/ with a half a pound of tea./ If you know any ladies who want any babies/ just send them round to me”.
Nowadays the cost of tea is so cheap that it is unlikely that this phrase will see a resurgence in popularity, but you never know.
April 22, 2020
Book Corner – April 2020 (4)
She Faded into Air – Ethel Lina White
You may have gathered by now that I am on a bit of a roll reading my way through Ethel Lina White’s novels. She Faded into Air is one of her later works, published in 1941, and probably one of her least satisfactory. I have had some trouble working out why I have come to this conclusion. After all, it is quite cleverly plotted and there is some tension and a bit of inevitable excitement as the book draws to its conclusion. It is by no means the most disappointing book I have ever read but there are some things that jar with me.
First of all, I got what was going on and who the criminal mastermind was likely to be. I wasn’t absolutely certain, but my suspicions proved correct. This alters the dynamics of the book for me, it is less a voyage into the unknown, rather a confirmation of what I thought, a less satisfactory reading experience.
Secondly, it is a rather convoluted plot for what, ultimately, boils down to a jewellery hesit with some collateral human damage along the way. There are too many characters, all essential cogs in a rather overwrought wheel, but there is less space for White to develop them in.
Thirdly, the ‘tec, private investigator Alan Foam, flits in and out of the narrative. He is initially employed by Raphael Cross, an American multi-millionaire, whose daughter disappears into thin air in a mansion in Mayfair. When that part of the story resolves itself, or at least so it seems, that is the end of his official involvement. He only comes back in from the sidelines because of his developing love interest with one of the characters, Viola Green.
Fourthly, the ending is somewhat flat, the case resolving off stage, away from the drama that Viola finds enveloping her.
In one sense the story is a classic closed room mystery. Evelyn Cross vanishes into thin air in a property owned by a Major Pomeroy, which has been converted into flats. Evelyn has gone there to visit the rather wonderful Madame Goya, ostensibly a maker of rather fine gloves but, in reality, a fortune teller. Raphael Cross, the Major and a typist wait outside the flat. Wondering why she is taking so long, Raphael goes into the flat only to be told by Madame Goya that his daughter has already left. How could that be? No one has seen her leave.
Cross is distraught, his hair seems to whiten overnight, and he calls Foam into investigate. A pair of discarded shoes are found in a clock in the entrance way, the only clue to the woman’s seeming disappearance. Foam is convinced that all is not what it seems but when the murdered body of Evelyn turns up, the seemingly headstrong Cross having ignored the kidnappers demand not to call in the police, Foam is off the case.
Viola Green, by now the companion to Beatrice Sterling, another American multimillionaire’s daughter, becomes his eyes and ears. Beatrice too disappears whilst visiting the redoubtable Madame Goya’s flat. What is to happen to her and how did she disappear?
The case involves visual tricks, deception and impersonation. It also reveals that there is no honour amongst thieves as several accomplices meet untimely ends. The case eventually resolves itself, but I couldn’t help thinking of G K Chesterton’s brilliant opening to The Arrow of Heaven, “It is to be feared that about a hundred detective stories have begun with the discovery that an American millionaire has been murdered; an event which is, for some reason, treated as a sort of calamity.“
April 21, 2020
Cake Of The Week (2)
This rather delicious looking cake made from oat batter, passion fruit mousse, and white chocolate fondant, is the brainchild of Ronttosrouva Bakery in Malmi in Finland.
Like many businesses they felt the cold winds of a looming financial disaster when, as a result of social distancing policies, orders for events stopped and footfall to their premises reduced. They had the idea that they would use their cake-making skills to produce something which encapsulates the zeitgeist, a toilet roll.
Their initiative has worked. They have been inundated with orders from customers old and new, so much so that instead of releasing staff they are taking on new workers.
Be advised though, the cake is only to be used for display and eating purposes.
April 20, 2020
There Ain’t ‘Alf Some Clever Bastards – Part One Hundred And Four
Samuel Clemens (1835 – 1910)
Better known by his nom de plume of Mark Twain, Samuel Clemens is rightly acclaimed as one of America’s finest writers. Rather like many a great man or woman, though, he had another side to his character, one lost in the mists of time, an inventive streak. His desire to improve the lot of mankind both made and lost him a fortune, ultimately forcing him to shut up his large estate in Hartford and move his family to Europe in 1891.
Twain’s first invention, for which he received a patent in 1871 (no. 121,992), is still in use today, although not necessarily in the way he had originally envisaged it. The fashion for trousers in the 19th century was for them to be high cut, making the wearing of a belt an impractical way to define the waist and stop the garments from falling down. In 1882 a London haberdasher, Albert Thurston, made and sold the first commercially available braces. So successful were they that his business has held up to this very day.
Twain, though, found braces uncomfortable and set about developing what he described as an “Improvement in Adjustable and Detachable Straps for Garments”, something which turned out to be an elastic hook clasp. In his patent application, Twain envisaged that it would be used on “the vest, pantaloon or other garment”, any piece of clothing which required a close or snug fit. Its use never really caught on as vests, what we know as waistcoats, developed a buckle and strap to give that trimmer fit and pantaloons dropped out of fashion. The fashion for men’s trousers saw the advent of a lower cut, allowing the garment to sit on the waist and making the belt a more viable option.
In the 19th century, the corset gave the figure of a woman more shape, but they were uncomfortable and restrictive to wear. In 1889 the French designer, Herminie Cadolle, set in motion the movement to free women from the tyranny of the corset by cutting it in two, allowing the top section to support the breasts. It was not until 1914 that Mary Phelps Jacob invented and patented the bra as we would know it, deploying two silk handkerchiefs and a pink ribbon. Something was needed to ensure that the bra strap at the back remained in place and what better than Twain’s strap? It has been used ever since, but by the time the bra had established itself as an everyday piece of underwear, Twain’s patent had long since expired.
More successful in financial terms for Twain was a self-adhesive scrapbook, which he patented in 1873. As a compiler of scrapbooks, he considered the process of gluing the newspaper clipping on to a page both laborious and messy. His scrapbook consisted of leaves coated with an adhesive substance. All the user had to do was moisten the page and affix their clipping. Simple. According to the St Louis Post-Dispatch, sales earned him $50,000, a quarter of what his writings generated.
Less successful was his “Memory Builder”, a game aimed at children, which he patented in 1885. Its intention was, according to Twain, “to fill the children’s heads with dates without study”, consisting of a cribbage board adapted into a historical timeline. Although he sent prototypes to several toyshops, it never went into production.
What did for Twain’s finances, though, was his obsession with trying to perfect the Paige typesetting machine into shape. He bought exclusive rights to the machine and sank several thousand dollars into getting it to work. The infernal machine, though, constantly broke down and in a stroke of bad luck that besets many an inventor, the linotype machine, a more efficient and reliable machine, cornered the market.
I wonder, if he had not been a wonderful writer, whether Twain would have been remembered today for his role in liberating women from the corset.
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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/
April 19, 2020
Covid-19 Tales (3)
Like many of us, John Brayshaw from Heckmondwike has resorted to doing up his garden during the lockdown.
Having moved into his property some six months ago, he thought some decking would make a nice feature. Whilst in the process of digging post panels he struck a metallic object. Continuing his excavations, John uncovered a car, complete with engine, doors and registration number but minus its wheels, buried in a plot that measured 7 feet by 10.
From the remains he thinks it was a Ford Popular 103e dating from around 1955 or 56 and was painted a RAF Grey colour. I’m sure if it is yours, John will let you have it.
April 18, 2020
Toilet Of The Week (26)
Courtesy of the indispensable journal, Nature Biomedical Engineering, I learned the other day of a smart toilet designed by scientists at Stanford University which offers a “long-term analysis of the user’s excreta through data collection and models of human health”.
A scanner looks at your backside to identify you – apparently everybody’s sphincter is different, a fact I am prepared to take on trust – and then a pressure sensor times how long you sit on the throne and the time it takes you to do your business. Another sensor then measures the breadth and force of your urine flow and a colour detector checks the shape, colour and nature of any solids. Unfortunately, it doesn’t wipe your bottom.
Sanjiv Ghambir, the lead scientist, claims that as everyone has to go to the toilet, this carsey has a vital role to play as a disease-detecting device.
I can’t see it being a best seller but the concept is now well and truly out of the can.
April 17, 2020
What Is The Origin Of (278)?…
Great minds think alike
It is always a delight when you find someone who agrees with you. This momentous occasion is sometimes greeted with the observation that great minds think alike. Whilst the phrase could be regarded as one denoting mutual self-congratulation, there is often a hint of mockery in its use. After all, few of us can claim to have great minds and the unspoken irony of the phrase is that whilst great minds may often concur, it is more unusual when two unexceptional minds agree. Sometimes, to make the point crystal clear, the rider, and fools seldom differ, is added.
The earliest use of the phrase, or at least a variant, appeared in a play dating to 1618, Hans Beer Pot, written by the wonderfully named Dadridgecourt Capability Belchier, although he may have translated it from a Dutch original. Sergeant Goodfellow is challenged to come up with a new piece of verse and when he does so, he is informed that Sir Philip Sidney had come up with the same formulation. The sergeant, unabashed, comments, “good wits doe jumpe”.
At the time, the verb to jump had a meaning akin to agree with, a usage that has passed into obscurity in modern times. But it was still in use and, presumably understood, in the mid 18th century, the Irish writer, Laurence Sterne, using it in his novel, Tristram Shandy, in 1761. There he wrote, “great wits jump: for the moment Dr Slop cast his eyes upon his bag the very same thought occurred”.
Its days were number and a replacement, think alike, more recognisable to modern eyes, had already emerged. The English historian and pamphleteer, John Oldmixon, produced the Arts of Logick and Rhetorick in 1728, a translation of the work of a French Jesuit priest, Dominique Bouhours. Oldmixon wrote without trace of the phrase’s later irony, “Great Minds often think alike on the same Occasions, and we are not always to suppose, that such Thoughts are borrow’d from one another when exprest by Persons of the same heroic Sentiments”.
A biographer’s dread is that they are retreading old ground, a concern that Carl Theodor von Unlaski assuaged in the Woful History of the unfortunate Eudoxia, published in 1816, by commenting that “it may occur that an editor has already printed something on the identical subject – great minds think alike, you know”. Thomas Paine had used the phrase with a hint of irony in the introduction to the second edition of his The Rights of Man from 1792; “I do not believe that any two men, on what are called doctrinal points, think alike who think at all. It is only those who have not thought that appear to agree”.
The addition of the rider, fools seldom differ, seems to have been a later accretion. The Leader Post from Saskatchewan announced on February 1, 1932 that they were running a competition for the best illustrations to well-known proverbs. One such listed was “great minds think alike; fools seldom differ”, possibly the first time it appeared in print but, clearly, one that was already in use in speech. The germ of the idea that the phrase had humorous connotations may have come from the French, the French playwright, Michel Baron, putting into the mouth of a servant the words, “les beaux esprits se rencontrent”, in his Les Enlevemens of 1686.
The French also had a similar phrase, les grands esprits se encontrent, which appeared in a translation of Sterne’s Tristram Shandy. There is a great circularity emerging here but, obviously, great minds do think alike.
