Martin Fone's Blog, page 203
February 12, 2020
Book Corner – February 2020 (2)
Cause for Alarm – Eric Ambler
This is another of Ambler’s early pre-war thrillers, published in 1938, and one in which he makes no bones about his left-wing views. The Russians are the good guys and the Germans the baddies. This world view took a bit of a knock shortly after the book came out when Stalin and Hitler signed a non-aggression pact. As we now know, that soon fell to pieces when the Nazis invaded Russia in 1941 but for the reader with that historic perspective, it is interesting to note how perceptive Ambler was.
Structurally, the book, for a thriller, is a little odd. Its opening lines, in the prologue the protagonist, Nicholas Marlow, sets the scene for the story; “One thing is certain. I would not even have considered the job if I had not been desperate”. The game is given away before we even get going. Marlow clearly has survived what adventures and misfortunes befell him.
Marlow’s desperation is the result of a combination of ill-luck, the economic downturn has hit his line of work, engineering, badly and he is out of work, and personal choice, he has just got himself engaged. Persuaded by his fiancée he answers a small ad in a newspaper and goes up to Wolverhampton for an interview to become the Italian representative in Milan of the Spartacus Machine Tool Company, the previous incumbent having been run down in a motor accident.
The firm’s business is producing machinery which makes the production of military armaments, specifically shells, more efficient. Unwittingly, as most of Ambler’s protagonists do, Marlow steps into the murky world of espionage and counter-espionage. He is befriended by a Yugoslav, General Vagas, who wears make-up and carries a sword stick. Naturally, he is the German spy. He is also befriended by an American from the Ukraine, Zaleshoff. He represents the Russians.
Zaleshoff persuades the reluctant Marlow to go along with Vagas’ request to provide information on who his firm is supplying and other data. However, the Italian Fascist authorities take an unhealthy interest in Marlow’s business, making life difficult for him and confiscating his passport. Moreover, they rumble his deals with an Italian armaments’ manufacturer and with Zaleshoff’s help, he just about escapes arrest. But how is he going to get out of the country? Will he share the same fate as his predecessor whom, he learns, was the victim of an assassination plot rather than the victim of an unfortunate accident?
The first two-thirds of the book is a bit of a slow-burner as Ambler sets the wheels in motion for a page-turning denouement. The last section of the book is thrilling, although the pace is somewhat disrupted by a lengthy and odd meeting up in the mountains with a professor who was hounded out of office by the Fascist authorities. It does allow Ambler to air his politics but, in my view, disrupts the pace of the book.
Communist solidarity helps to get Marlow and Zaleshoff out of a particularly difficult scrape as they are found hiding in a railway carriage, ironically stiffed with the type of armaments Marlow’s firm helped manufacture and, as we know, from the prologue, it all works out well in the end. Ambler’s mastery is in developing and sustaining an atmosphere of suspense and excitement, not knowing quite how it will all end and whether Marlow is really backing the right horse.
I enjoyed the book, although I don’t think it is as good as some of the others I have read. If you want to read an early master of the thriller genre, Ambler is your man.
February 11, 2020
Toilet Of The Week (25)
I went to Liverpool last week, not somewhere I have been for a long while, but it was a pleasure to reacquaint myself with the Victorian splendour of the Gents’ urinals in the Philaharmonic Dining Rooms.
Resplendent in rose-coloured marble, they are a work of art and are the icing on the cake of the cathedral of pubs, built between 1898 and 1900 by Walter W Thomas. Bill Bryson was in awe of them, writing that “there is no place in the world finer for a pee than the ornate gents’ room of the Philharmonic”.
I quite agree as do Historic England, who have just awarded the boozer Grade I listed status. The women’s toilets are nothing to write home about, I understand, a later addition. After all, pubs at the time were firmly men only.
February 10, 2020
You’re Having A Laugh – Part Thirty Five
The Great Balloon Hoax of 1844
Edgar Allan Poe is one of my heroes, not just a great and
innovative writer but also a bit of a prankster. This is one of my favourite
hoaxes of his.
Being able to fly long distances was just a pipe dream in
the 1840s. The concept of powered flight in an aeroplane was still half a
century away and what experimentation in the field of aeronautics was confined
to the hot air balloon. Imagine, therefore, the sensation that was caused when
news broke, courtesy of The New York Sun in its midday edition of April 13,
1844, of an astonishing feat. The famous European balloonist, Monck Mason, had not
only flown across the Atlantic Ocean but had achieved the feat in just 75
hours.
Not that Monck had intended to get to America, the piece
reported. He was just trying to fly from England to Paris in his balloon named
Victoria but, thanks to a problem with the craft’s propeller mechanism, he had
veered off course rather dramatically and finally landed on terra firm on
Sullivan’s Island close to Charleston in South Carolina. This was the first
time that the Atlantic had been crossed by balloon. The article included a
diagram and specifications of the craft.
Thomas Monck Mason was a real person, an Irish flute player,
impresario and a pioneer of long-distance ballooning. In 1836 he flew from
London to just outside the German town of Weilburg. It took him eighteen hours and
he published a book about his exploits two years later, entitled Account of the
Late Aeronautical Expedition from London to Weilburg. Monck was name-checked by
the poet, Thomas Hood, in his Ode to Messrs Green, Hollond and Monk; “write
then Messrs Monck Mason Hollond Green/ and tell us all you have or haven’t
seen/ twaa kind when the balloon went out of town/ to take Monck Mason up and
set him down”.
A sense of the sensation that the supposed derring-do of
this accomplished balloonist’s derring-do can be gained from Poe’s later
account of events in The Columbia Spy. When the news broke, he wrote, “the whole
square surrounding the ‘Sun’ building was literally besieged, blocked
up—ingress and egress being alike impossible, from a period soon after sunrise
until about two o’clock P.M…. I never witnessed more intense excitement to
get possession of a newspaper. As soon as the few first copies made their way
into the streets, they were bought up, at almost any price, from the newsboys,
who made a profitable speculation beyond doubt. I saw a half-dollar given, in
one instance, for a single paper, and a shilling was a frequent price. I tried,
in vain, during the whole day, to get possession of a copy.”
As well as trying to secure a copy of the paper at face value, Poe
is said to have tried to tell anyone and everyone that the story was fake news.
No one would listen to him but soon the truth came out. The New York Sun
published a retraction in its edition of April 15, 1844, stating “we are inclined to believe that the intelligence is
erroneous. The description of the Balloon and the voyage was written with a
minuteness and scientific ability calculated to obtain credit everywhere and
was read with great pleasure and satisfaction. We by no means think such a
project impossible”.
The question is: what motivated Poe to perpetrate
this hoax?
Well, he had a long-standing beef with the newspaper. They
had been taken in by the Great Lunar Hoax of 1835 (see https://windowthroughtime.wordpress.com/2018/03/26/youre-having-a-laugh-part-ten/)
which, although it had nothing to do with Poe, he claimed that it ripped off
the plot of one of his less successful stories, The Unparalleled Adventure of
One Hans Pfall, published in 1835 and intended to be an elaborate lunar hoax
itself, running over several episodes. Poe reckoned that The Sun had made a lot
of money from the hoax, but he hadn’t seen a cent. He waited nine years for his
revenge but got it in spades.
[image error]
If you enjoyed this, check out Fifty Scams and Hoaxes by
Martin Fone
https://www.troubador.co.uk/bookshop/business/fifty-scams-and-hoaxes/
February 9, 2020
Onesie Of The Week
I’ve not been to the wilds of Hebden Bridge for quite a few years but even with the current craze for re-wilding, I would imagine that leopards are still pretty scarce on the grounds.
Ben Lilly was driving along the A646 when he spotted what he thought was a leopard lying on the road. Stopping the car, he plucked up his courage and strode manfully towards the beast, expecting at any moment that it would pounce on him.
To his relief, it stayed quite still. What he saw was a discarded leopard skin onesie complete with tail. It must have been some night out. It was West Yorkshire, after all.
February 8, 2020
Challenge Of The Week
For three long years a thirteen-foot-long crocodile has had a tyre stuck around its neck. As it grows, so does the prospect of it suffocating.
How to get the tyre off has baffled Indonesian officials at Central Sulawesi’s Natural Resources Conservation Office. They have tried to lure the animal over to them, but it has evaded all their attempts to capture it. Even calling in Panji the Adventurer, a famed animal whisperer, proved a failure and has left them rather deflated.
Obviously, the next step is to throw open the challenge to anyone who fancies tracking down and capturing the elusive beast. It can’t be that difficult to spot. There is a reward available to anyone who succeeds, although they are keeping mum as to precisely what it will be.
The croc seems to be as tough as old boots, crocodile skin, naturally, as it has survived the earthquakes and tsunamis that have hit the nearby city of Palu. Time, though, is running out unless it can shed its unusual necklace.
February 7, 2020
What Is The Origin Of (268)?…
Like snuff at a wake
If burning a strip of tobacco in a paper casing seems a daft
idea, then taking a pinch of tobacco between your thumb and index finger and
snorting it up one nostril, ensuring the other is closed, and then repeating
the exercise with the other is even more ludicrous. Snuff taking is very much
out of fashion these days, but you can always tell when a pinch has been taken
because a loud, stentorian sneeze resounds around the room. But taking snuff
was once a fashionable way of getting your nicotine fix and has spawned several
phrases with which we pepper up our language. One such is like snuff at a wake which
is a simile for describing liberality or generosity.
It originates from Ireland, like many a colourful phrase,
and specifically relates to a custom at a wake. A bowl of snuff was placed on
the chest of the deceased. This custom served three purposes, one, as snuff was
a rare and desirable commodity, it brought mourners closer to the coffin, and,
once there would encourage them to say a prayer for the deceased’s immortal soul, two, to prevent the mourners
from falling asleep during the night vigil and , three, if it rose and fell, it
gave a pretty good clue that the incumbent in the box wasn’t dead. There is no
recorded instance of anyone being saved from an early internment because of a
moving snuff bowl but it was often the case that the bowl of snuff had to be
replaced. In parts of England this custom was observed, although the snuff was
replaced with bread and a bowl of salt.
Perhaps the first case of the phrase being used in a
figurative sense, with a meaning akin to from pillar to post, was in a humorous
piece, ostensibly a report of a court case, appearing in the Freeman’s Journal,
a Dublin magazine, on June 19, 1844, in which the unfortunate prisoner is
reported as saying, “is that any reason why I am to be robbed of my liberty,
strapped on a stretcher, and thrown about from policeman to policeman like
snuff at a wake”. This rather negative connotation with the phrase was echoed
by James Joyce in his account of O’Callaghan on his last legs in Chapter six of
Ulysses; “Terrible comedown, poor wretch! Kicked about like snuff at a wake”.
However, by the time Bloom uses the phrase again, in Chapter
13 during the Nausicaa section, it has a more positive connotation; “others
in vessels, bit of handkerchief sail, pitched about like snuff at a wake when
the stormy winds do blow”. It is with a more positive connotation that it
is used in earlier sources, this one, from the Emigrant Soldier’s Gazette of
February 19, 1859 almost exactly echoed by Joyce’s second usage; “the masts
bindin’ like switches an’ the sails in smithereens, an’ the life bouys flyin’
about like snuff at a wake”.
The sense of liberality or generosity appears in the phrase’s
usage in the Illustrated Dublin Journal of December 28. 1862; “new
buckskins, as my grandfather was a gentleman; new brogues, new coat, new
everything – the signs of money flying about him like snuff at a wake”. The
phrase crossed the Atlantic, presumably with the Irish migrants, appearing in
the United States Investor of May 14, 1898; “advice to take up Americans, pay
for them, and hold them, is “flung about like snuff at a wake”.
Whether used in a positive or negative sense, it is a wonderfully
evocative phrase and one that deserves to be used like snuff at a wake.
February 6, 2020
Gin O’Clock – Part Ninety Two
Italy is considered to be the birthplace of gin, courtesy of some monks on the Salerno coast who came up with the idea in the 11th century. It is probably to my eternal shame since I started my exploration of the ginaissance that I had not, at least as far as my alcohol-sozzled brain will allow me to recollect, sampled the Italian twist of my favourite spirit. The opportunity to redress this glaring omission came this Christmas with a gift of a bottle of Malfy Gin Rosa.
Malfy Gin is made by Torino Distillati which, as its name suggests, is based on the outskirts of Turin in an area better known for its production of quality liqueurs such as vermouth. Founded in 1906 the distillery was acquired by Seagrams in the 1960s but regained its independence after a management buy-out organised by the current owner and brains behind the operation, Carlo Vergnano.
This offering is their take on the current craze for flavoured and coloured gins. Regular readers of these posts will realise by now that I’m not the world’s greatest fan of flavoured gins, preferring my gins to be distinctly juniper-led. However, I am always willing for my prejudices to be challenged and, perhaps, overturned. So, I was keen to see what I would make of it.
First things first, the bottle. It is distinctive with frosted glass, a stubby base, leading to a short nose and a cork stopper. The distinctive blue colouration of the Malfy labelling is bordered with a pinky-orange, denoting the Sicilian pink grapefruit which is a primary constituent of the gin. The front label is round containing the brand’s name and the initials G.Q.D.I which the circular logo informs me stands for “Gin Qualita Distillato Italia”. Nice to know as well as the fact that its ABV is a pleasing 41% and that it is gluten free, according to the square label at the back.
As for the botanicals, there is juniper, Sicilian Pink Grapefruit, a variety that has a deep pink colour and is ripened in the low temperatures of an Italian winter, Italian rhubarb, angelica root, lemon peel, coriander and orris root. The grapefruit and rhubarb are infused in the spirit for 36 hours, time enough to give the drink a distinctive rosy pink hue.
Removing the cork stopper, despite appearances the internal stopper is synthetic but with a nice twist, bearing the trademark Malfy blue colour, the immediate impression is a hit of grapefruit followed by citrus and, eventually, a hint of juniper. I began to fear that the juniper was going to be a distinct also-ran in this concoction. In the mouth I was in for a bit of a surprise. The immediate hit was that of grapefruit, but the taste was not as astringent as I had anticipated, toned down by the sweetness of the rhubarb, I imagine. Then the more traditional elements of a gin began to make a fight-back, with the end result, by way of the aftertaste, that there was a slightly bitter, crisp, lingering, not in an unpleasant sense, finish.
What surprised me was the transformation that came about with the introduction of a tonic, Fever-Tree Mediterranean, since you ask, which seemed rather appropriate. The overall impression was that the spirit became a tad sweeter and that the juniper and more traditional elements in the mix were given that extra boost to make their presence felt.
I found it a crisp, summery drink, one that was complemented by a premium tonic and one that would probably make a good base for a cocktail. It has not changed my overall opinion on pink and flavoured gins but in its particular sector of the gin market, this was a class act.
Until the next time, cheers!
February 5, 2020
Book Corner – February 2020 (1)
Summer Lightning – P G Wodehouse
This is the third novel in the Blanding series, published in
July 1929, initially in the United States under the title of Fish Preferred and
then nineteen days later in England under its more commonly recognised title.
It was serialised in the Pall Mall Magazine either side of the book’s
publication, between March and August 1929, and in the US in Collier’s ahead of
its being released in book form.
Since the initial Blandings’ story, Something Fresh, the
castle seems to have been teleported to rural Shropshire, Lord Emsworth has
taken up breeding prize pigs, The Empress of Blandings is his pride and joy and
wins prizes at the County Agricultural Show, and the Efficient Baxter has been
sacked from his role as secretary for allegedly throwing flower pots at his
lordship and has been replaced by the love-lorn, hapless, Hugo Carmody.
The plots are rather formulaic involving broken engagements,
imposters and attempts on the security of the pig. Hugo and Lord Emsworth’s nephew,
Ronnie Fish, find themselves engaged to the wrong girls and se what limited
ingenuity they possess to remedy their predicaments. Lady Constance plots to
get the Efficient Baxter back in post. Sir Galahad is determined to embarrass the
local aristocracy with saucy tales of their youthful improprieties in the
Reminiscences he is beavering away. The obvious way to get his Lordship’s
undying gratitude is to steal his pig and recover it. But what is a seemingly
simple plan is complicated by the hiring of a detective, Percy Pilbeam, who,
although he thinks finding a pig to be below his professional dignity, takes up
the challenge because he has also been engaged to steal Sir Galahad’s
manuscript.
All clear? There are more complexities than that but,
suffice it to say, matters get more or less resolved satisfactorily with the
Efficient Baxter humiliated once more and Pilbeam thwarted.
It is tempting to compare and contrast these stories with
the Jeeves and Wooster stories. The Blandings stories with their third person
narrative lose a little of the immediacy of the Wooster stories with their first
person narrative and the butler, Beach, is a shadowier, less pivotal character
than his more famous counterpart, more an accomplice than a resolver of tricky
situations.
But you don’t pick up a Wodehouse book to engage in
formalised literary criticism. You should just pinch your nose and dive
headlong into a wonderful world as far as detached from reality as you can get.
The characters are stereotypes, for sure, but part of Wodehouse’s genius is to
be able to wring the last drop of humour from their behaviour and luxuriate in
his glorious dialogue and descriptive phrases that stay long in the memory. The
opening sets the scene, “Blandings Castle slept in the
sunshine. Dancing little ripples of heat-mist played across its smooth lawns
and stone-flagged terraces. The air was full of the lulling drone of insects.
It was that gracious hour of a summer afternoon, midway between luncheon and
tea, when Nature seems to unbutton its waistcoat and put its feet up.” and once he’s off, Wodehouse never lets go.
It is a satire of sorts of the aristocrats and a world long since gone, if it ever existed. More importantly, it is the purest form of escapism and while you read it, the world and our place in it doesn’t seem too bad, after all.
February 4, 2020
APM Of The Week
For those who were participating in Dry January in London, this was a temptation that may have tested the strongest resolve.
To celebrate the opening of a new wine bar, Vagabond Monument, on Fenchurch Street in the former branch of the Santander bank, what was the ATM had been converted into a prosecco-dispensing machine. Topers could get a glass of the fizzy wine for free for a couple of days until closing time last Thursday.
The Automated Prosecco Machine is now out of service and you will have to go inside and part with some cash to het your fix. Great idea, though.
February 3, 2020
The Streets Of London – Part One Hundred And Two
Chichester Rents, WC2
I am rarely impressed by modern architecture, but I was
walking northwards up Chancery Lane, on the left-hand side just beyond Carey
Street, I came across a glass and steel structure which I can only describe as
an overbridge, linking two buildings across an alleyway. Each storey of this
steel and glass construction is angled but at a different angle from the storey
below or above, making for an interesting and striking feature, as well as
providing additional space. There is a thoroughfare below, presumably less
airier than it once was, with an intriguing name, Chichester Rents. What was
that all about?
In mediaeval times Bishops were in the habit of acquiring
land in the City of London for their headquarters when they, and their
considerable retinue, were up in the metropolis on official business. In around
1226 the then Bishop of Chichester, Ralph de Neville, acquired some land in the
Chancery Lane area for his London residence. What was unusual about the plot
was that it was dissected by Chancery Lane, the mansion being built on the west
side and a garden planted on the eastern side, the area now occupied in part by
Chichester Rents.
By 1422, though, the Bishops of Chichester had got fed up
with their gaff and rented it out to apprentices of Common Law at nearby
Lincoln’s Inn. The name of this alley is presumed to derive from the fact that
it was rented out by the Bishopric of Chichester. Their lordships occupied a
number of residences in the City of London and Westminster, including a house
in Tothill Street (1508) and one at what is now known as the parish od St
Andrew by the Wardrobe, near St Paul’s (1533).
Save for the name, nothing remains of the mansion or the
gardens and we can only speculate as to their fate. The 16th century
saw the area around Chancery Lane transformed with many more buildings being
constructed and, perhaps, the land was redeveloped. When the alley that bears
the name of Chichester Rents was developed is also shrouded in mystery. It does
appear, though, in outline, but not named, in John Ogilby and William Morgan’s
invaluable large-scale map (100 feet per inch) of the City as Rebuilt by 1676,
produced that year.
The Chancery Lane underwent three major redevelopments, in
the 18th century, towards the latter part of the 19th
century and in the 1980s. At least the last redevelopment had the good sense to
retain a few of the facades of the Victorian building phase and with a bit of
imagination we can get a sense of what it may have looked like at the time.
At either side of the entrance to Chichester Rents stood two
pubs. On the southern end stood The Old Ship Tavern and Chop House, which
Charles Dickens took as his model for the Sol’s Arms in his novel, Bleak House.
Sadly, it is now a Pret a Manger sandwich bar and coffee shop. The building at
the northern end looks more like a pub, it once was The Three Tuns, shouting
its final last orders in 1987, and is now, too, a coffee shop.
These days the alley is rather anonymous but its name
reveals a fascinating facet of London’s history and its crown a fine of modern
architecture at its best.
