Martin Fone's Blog, page 204
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.
February 2, 2020
Exercise Of The Week
It is rare to get the opportunity to report on an insurance company doing some good, so here goes.
Thanks to Bajaj Allianz Life, 2,471 people trooped into Mumbai’s MMRDA Grounds last Sunday to flex their core muscles and held the abdominal plank position for 60 seconds. I understand this is impressive but as I shun all forms of exercise, this is only hearsay.
What I do know is that it smashed the existing Guinness World Record of 2,353 holding the plank position simultaneously, set in Pune in 2018.
More power to their elbow.
February 1, 2020
Barrel Of The Week
Theodoret, the bishop of Cyrrhus from 423 to 457 CE, claimed that he had seen a hermit who had spent ten years in a tub suspended in mid-air from some poles. In 423 CE Simeon Stylites the Elder, who clambered atop a pillar, set a rather eccentric standard for others wishing to practice a form of religious asceticism and had many imitators.
Compared with that lot, though, South African Vernon Kruger is a mere amateur. He was last heard of 80 feet in the air in a barrel, his home for two months now. He has already broken his own record of 67 days, set twenty-two years ago, and is aiming to stay there for at least 80 days.
Kruger is not there for the sake of his immortal soul. In fact, he can’t remember quite why he is up there. He said in an interview, “I had some good reasons, but I’ve forgotten them since I’ve been up here”. Naturally, he is using social media to keep in touch with the outside world, something which would have made the original Stylites hopping mad.
Standards have slipped, methinks.
January 31, 2020
What Is The Origin Of (267)?…
Blurb
I am in the process of getting my fourth book, this one is
called The Fickle Finger, ready for its forthcoming publication in April
and one of the (many) tasks this entails is producing some blurb. By this we
mean a short piece, usually no more than a paragraph or so, designed to extol
the merits of the book and entice potential purchasers to part with their
hard-earned cash. But, why blurb and where did it come from?
An American scholar by the name of Brander Matthews, to whom some authorities have erroneously attributed the term, spilled the beans in an article on the subject, published by the New York Times on September 24, 1922. “Now and again”, he wrote, “in these columns I have had the occasion to employ the word “blurb”, a colourful and illuminating neologism which we owe to the verbal inventiveness of Mr Gelett Burgess”.
So, how and why?
Prior to the annual dinner of the American Booksellers’
Association in 1907, Burgess had published a book entitled Are You a Bromide? which
was selling reasonably well. In conjunction with his publishers, B.W Huebsch, they
hatched a plan to give each of the diners at the shindig a special edition of
the tome, complete with a specially designed cover. For this Burgess took a
picture of a young lady from a dental advert who was in the act of shouting. It
was the custom at the time for covers of books to feature young women in an
attempt to lure male readers. Burgess called his woman Miss Belinda Blurb and
claimed that she had been photographed “in the act of blurbing”.
The jacket proclaimed, ”Yes, this is a “Blurb”! All the Other
Publishers commit them. Why Shouldn’t We?” The copy then went on to extol the
virtues of the book in terms that would make a modern-day publisher blanche. “We
consider”, it went on, “that this man Burgess has got Henry James locked
int o the coal-bin, telephoning for “Information”…it has gush and go to it, it
has that Certain Something which makes you want to crawl through thirty miles
of dense tropical jungle and bite somebody in the neck”. Readers exposed to
other blurbs will recognise the superiority of this one, it boasts. After all, “this
book is the Proud Purple Penultimate!”
Whilst Miss Belinda Blurb sank into obscurity, publishers,
who were puffing the wonders of their latest offerings, gratefully took up
Burgess’ word and it has never looked back since. Not content to let a good
thing go, Burgess cemented its place in the jargon of the book publicist and
with a wider audience by defining it in his Burgess Unabridged: A New
Dictionary of Words You Have Always Needed, published in 1914. Blurb as a noun
was defined as “a flamboyant advertisement; an inspired testimonial”
with a secondary definition of “fulsome praise; a sound of a publisher”,
while blurb as a verb was described as “to flatter from interested motives;
to compliment oneself”.
Burgess wasn’t just content with introducing blurb to the
unsuspecting world. Bromine was used at the time as a sedative but the noun a
bromide, used in the title of his book, was an invention of his. Burgess defined
it as someone “who does his thinking by syndicate and goes with the crowd”,
ensuring that he is trite, banal, and arbitrary. The antonym to a bromine, he
posited, was a Sulphite.
Bromides and Sulphites as descriptors for human traits didn’t make the same impression as blurb and have all but vanished. When I put the finishing touches to my book’s blurb, I will give thanks to Gelett Burgess.
January 29, 2020
Book Corner – January 2020 (5)
Sir Humphrey of Batch Magna – Peter Maughan
This is the second of a series of five books, all reissued
last year by Farrago, chronicling the life and times of Sir Humphrey Strange,
call me Humph, and the motley collection of eccentrics who populate the village
of Batch Magna, supposedly on the border of Shropshire and Wales and nestling
on the banks of the River Cluny. I found this one even more enjoyable than the
first, perhaps because I had got to know the main characters.
There is not much in the way of a plot, rather it is a
collection of episodic events which sort of fit into a satisfying whole. What
it lacks in overall structure is made up for by Maughan’s gentle, occasionally
ribald, humour and his understanding and lyrical descriptions of the
countryside in this wonderful part of the world. He portrays a sleepy village,
where not much generally happens but where, occasionally, the ugly realities of
the modern world intrude, only to be batted back by the resourceful residents,
keen to preserve their idyllic way of life.
The book opens on the day of Humph’s wedding, to the
Honourable Clementine Wroxley, or Clem to her friends. They settle down to life
at the Manor but their finances, and that of the estate, are on a knife-edge. The
village’s spinster and amateur sleuth, Miss Wyndham, in her search for a rare
flower which will make her reputation at the local nature society, discovers
some badger baiters in the act of digging up a set. She summons assistance and
Humph and local heavy, Sion Owen, have a set to with the miscreants. We will
meet them later in the book.
Clem discovers to her horror that she has lost a jewel that
has been in the Strange family for over 400 years and according to family lore
if it was ever lost, that would be curtains for the family and the estate. As
if on cue, the estate’s finances take a dip as the pheasants contract a disease
and the river becomes so polluted that the fish begin to die. It seems that the
only way out of the Strange’s predicament is to sell the estate putting an end
to the rural idyll. Naturally, there is a willing buyer.
I won’t spoil the resolution of the book but, suffice it to
say, it involves the badger baiters and the plucky spirit and investigative
nous of Miss Wyndham. Her appetite for detective fiction gives her clues as to
how to act when she finds herself in a dangerous situation.
One of the funniest parts of the book features the
disastrous attempts of local ne’er do well and crime writer, Phineas Cook, to
launch a punt business offering romantic, moonlit trips along the Cluny to
gullible outsiders. I particularly like the Commander with his collection of
glass eyes for all occasions and one who is always up for a jolly. Much alcohol
is consumed during the course of the book, lots of wine and, of course, pints of
the local firewater, Sheepsnout.
A glorious romp and well-paced. I would encourage you to
discover the charms of the rural backwater that is Batch Magna.
January 28, 2020
Fish And Chip Ship Of The Week
It’s one of the awards I eagerly look out for every year, the Fish and Chip Shop of the Year. This year the judges decided that as fish and chip shops go, based on the quality of food served, sustainability, menu innovation, catering for special dietary requirements, customer service and marketing activity, the Cod’s Scallops in Wollaton, near Nottingham, was the dog’s bollocks.
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Congratulations to John and Helen Molnar, their hard work has been duly recognised. If I’m ever in the area, I will seek them out.
January 27, 2020
You’re Having A Laugh – Part Thirty Four
The Mount Edgecumbe eruption hoax, 1974
If you are going to pull off a hoax, you need to plan
meticulously and to bide your time to make the maximum impact. This is what
serial prankster, Oliver “Porky” Bickar managed to do with considerable aplomb
in 1974.
Mount Edgecumbe is a 3,202-feet-tall volcano which overlooks
the Alaskan town of Sitka across the sound. As far as anyone knew it had been
dormant for some 400 years or so it was a bit of a shock to the residents to
see on Monday April 1, 1974 a pall of black smoke coming from its apex. Was an
eruption imminent, they wondered? Denizens of Sitka crowded on to the streets
to see what was going on and the local authorities were inundated with calls.
Bickar had first conceived of his jape some three years
earlier and had spent the time waiting for the right weather conditions profitably,
stockpiling old tyres, a gallon of a fuel made from denatured and jellied
alcohol which burns in its can, trademarked as Sterno, diesel oil, rags, and
smoke bombs. Miraculously, on April Fool’s Day the weather conditions were
perfect for Bickar to pull off his stunt. But how was he going to get his
stockpiled equipment to the summit?
He called his friend, Earl Walker, who owned a helicopter
but was fog-bound in Petersburg. When Bickar told him what he planned to do,
Walker was enthusiastic and promised to get to Sitka just as soon as weather conditions permitted. Whilst
waiting, Bickar made two rope slings about 150-feet long, each capable of
holding around fifty tyres. He also enlisted the help of two accomplices, Larry
Nelson and Ken Stedman, and when Walker finally arrived, they loaded the
chopper with their equipment and flew off to the crater.
When they got there, they dropped seventy tyres and some smoke
bombs into the crater, set them alight and spray-painted in letters 50-feet
high “April Fool” in the surrounding snow. Not wanting to create a major
panic, Bickar had forewarned the local Police authorities and the Federal
Aviation Authority of his intended jape. When Walker contacted the FAA for
permission to return to Sitka, the controller is reported to have said, “I’ll
bring you in as low and inconspicuously as possible…and, by the way, the son of
a gun looks fantastic”.
But Bickar had neglected to contact the Coast Guard, who
seeing the plumes of smoke coming from the top of the supposedly dormant
volcano, contacted the Admiral stationed at Juneau, who thought they had better
send a helicopter to investigate. As the pilot neared the volcano who could see
the source of the smoke, not volcanic ash but a heap of burning tyres and then,
of course, the message confirming that it was all a hoax.
When news reached Sitka that the plume was a hoax, the
locals, initially relieved, saw the funny side and admired Bickar’s chutzpah.
Even the Coast Guard saw the funny side and when he met the Admiral at the
Fourth of July parade later that year, Bickar was told that he thought it was a
classic. And news of the prank spread like wildfire, picked up initially by the
Associated Press and accounts appearing in newspapers around the world. Alaskan
Airlines ran an advertising campaign highlighting the spirit of the locals and
their sense of fun. Bickar’s hoax was featured and the brief account ended with
him saying, “I dare you to top that April Fool’s joke”.
The volcano is still dormant.
There was one amusing postscript. When, in 1980, Alaska’s Mt. St Helens erupted, Bickar received a clipping from the Denver Post of the volcano and a letter from a lawyer which read, “This time, you little bastard, you’ve gone too far”.
[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/
January 26, 2020
Whoopee Cushion Of The Week
Snooker came into its own as a televised sport with the advent of colour transmission. The changeover was gradual and not without its difficulties, prompting Ted Lowe’s infamous gaffe, “for those of you are watching in black and white, the pink is next to the green”. For some reason, it’s not my cup of tea, its premier events still hog the broadcasting schedules.
Proceedings were brightened up during the fifth frame of the Masters Snooker Final at Alexandra Palace last Sunday when both Ali Carter and Stuart Bingham were distracted by a noise when they were addressing the ball. The referee, Brendan Moore, stopped play and ordered a search of the arena.
While the search went on, the farting noise continued. Eventually the source of the noise was uncovered, an electronic whoopee cushion under a seat but activated remotely. It was removed, to the amusement of the crowd. According to tournament director Mike Ganley, they had had a similar incident earlier in the week and were on the look out for similar devices. Not hard enough, by the sound of it.
Oblivious to the irony of his statement, he went on to say, “It has been a magnificent week at Alexandra Palace and players and spectators alike have enjoyed the atmosphere and great new facilities, so we want to avoid any repeat”.
Surely that is what whoopee cushions do?
January 25, 2020
Cake Of The Week
News has reached me that members of the wittily named Bakers Association of Kerala (BAKE) have just smashed the world record for the longest cake in the Keralan city of Thrissur. The previous record holder was a cake made in China in 2018 which was a measly 1.98 miles long.
Hundreds of bakers from the state descended on the city and baked away. The result of their endeavours, a vanilla cake, four inches wide and thick, weighing around 27,000 kilograms and topped off with a chocolate ganache, was stretched out on thousands of tables and desks.
The icing on the cake when a representative from Guinness World Records measured it at 5,300 metres, or 3.29 miles in old money, comfortably claiming the record.
I assume it was then eaten. There would have been plenty to go around.
January 24, 2020
What Is The Origin Of (266)?…
To turn
up one’s toes
There are
very few certainties in life. Christopher Bullock nailed it down in the Cobbler
of Preston, published in 1716, when he noted, “’tis impossible to be sure of
any thing but Death and Taxes”, predating Benjamin Franklin’s more famous
coining of the phrase by some seventy-three years. Some of us, though, are able
to evade even taxes and so we are left with one absolute certainty, death
itself. It is no wonder, therefore, that our wonderful language has myriad
phrases to describe this one absolute certainty of our mortal state. Wikipedia
lists 142 synonyms and I’m sure there must be more.
One such is
to turn up one’s toes which is an abbreviated form of the longer to turn up one’s
toes to the roots of the daisies, a reference to the dead person’s lying in a
grave and mingling with the soil and the flora of the cemetery. Other variants
around this rather picturesque theme include under the daisies and to push up
the daisies.
One of the
themes that comes through from these etymological searches is how often words
and phrases that appear to have their origin in Ireland migrate to the United
States. The Irish migrants may have brought with them little in the way of
worldly possessions but they did not forget their often charming turn of phrase
and inventive vocabulary.
English
newspapers in the 1830s, for some unaccountable reason, had a thing about printing
epitaphs from Irish graves. I suppose it filled up space on a slow news day.
The Courier, in its edition of August 28, 1830 under the heading of From a
Tombstone in Ballyporeen Churchyard, published the following lines of verse; “here
at length I repose-/ And my spirit at aise is-/ with the tips of my toes,/ and
the point of my nose,/ turn’d up to the roots of the daisies”. The same
verse, with variations in spelling and title, appeared in a number of other
journals over the following year or so. We can only conclude that its homely
platitudes gave some comfort, and perhaps amusement, to the papers’ readership.
The
Chartist movement later that decade gave the political stage to the working
class and it is no surprise that their idioms peppered their oratory. The
Manchester Guardian on May 4, 1839 included the following from an address given
by a Chartist in Bolton; “..whether they must go to the Abbey side, where
their ancestors lay, as the Irish say, with their toes turned up to the roots
of the daisies”. It would be dangerous to take this as proof-positive of
the phrase’s Irish origin but, at least, that seems to be what contemporaries
thought.
It was also
used adjectivally in a racy and slang-filled account of a lion hunt penned by
one Captain G. Grenville Malet in the New Sporting Magazine on August 18, 1841.
“We at length, by severe peppering, made him cut his lucky, and found him
toes up within a few yards”. Poor lion but at least it found some sort of
immortality.
When it had
crossed the pond to America it had been abbreviated to to turn one’s toes up,
appearing in this form in print in The Sun from Baltimore on August 12, 1852 in
an account of the massacre by so-called coolies of the crew of the American
ship, the Robert Browne. One coolie helped himself to the ship’s medicine chest
with disastrous consequences as the paper reported; “about three hours
afterwards he turned his toes up!”
Neither my
toes, nor more nose for that matter, will push up the daisies, other than in
granular form, as I have elected to be cremated, but if my body was laid to
rest, I would find some solace in knowing I would be enriching the soil.
