Martin Fone's Blog, page 214
October 9, 2019
Book Corner – October 2019 (2)
Mr Finchley Discovers His England – Victor Canning
I have been musing why the interwar years saw such a prolific outburst of what might be termed escapist literature, particularly detective fiction and comic writing. It may well have been something to do with the absence of alternative popular entertainment, radio was in its infancy and television a distant spot in a cathode ray tube. It might have been a conscious attempt to blot out the horrors of the recent world war, the grim economic realities that were prevailing and the rise of fascism. Who knows? What is for sure is that there is a glut of literature, popular in its time, waiting to be rediscovered.
Victor Canning is best known as a prolific writer of novels and thrillers, he was a wartime friend of Eric Ambler, in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. However, his first book, published in 1934 in the UK and two years later as Mr Finchley’s Holiday, was this rather charming and funny journey of self-discovery. The protagonist, Mr Finchley, in early drafts his name was Mr Pitcheley, is an unmarried, chubby, dyspeptic solicitor’s clerk who had never taken a holiday. The death of his boss and Mr Sprake’s assumption of the reins of power changes all that. Finchley’s dutiful service is rewarded with a three-week holiday.
And where better in the 1930s to spend three weeks than in Margate? Having booked his accommodation at the Kent resort, Mr Finchley sets off for his holiday. But he never gets there. Whiling away some time before catching his train, he is prevailed upon to look after a Bentley. Feeling a little tired, Finchley stretches out in the back of the car and, surprise, surprise, finds that it has been stolen and that he has now been kidnapped by a gang of criminals. And so begins a series of improbable escapades.
To modern eyes there may be too much easy stereotyping, people are labelled lunatics and gypsies, and an underlying moralistic tone in the book, but it is an easy and engaging read. Finchley manages to escape from the clutches of the criminal gang, and realising that his plans to enjoy his holiday in Margate, sets out west, reaching Land’s End before returning home. Along the way, he has adventure after adventure. He encounters many people who in one way or another have fallen on hard times and are living an itinerant lifestyle, including gentlemen of the road aka tramps, artists, travellers and gypsies. To make ends meet he takes a job at a fair and then sells petrol. He takes part in the obligatory game of cricket and towards the end of the book, becomes the innocent party to a smuggling expedition.
What is surprising is the dark undercurrent to life on the road. Finchley is forever being threatened with violence, on occasions threats turn to blows, and is nearly strangled to death. There is a dark side to the bucolic idyll that Canning paints. The humour is gentle and the book, effectively a comedic travelogue, reminded me of Jerome K Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat but, in truth, it is not as funny.
Journeys which transform people’s lives are a modern-day trope, I usually blanche when I hear someone say they have been on a journey, but this is a fair summary of Finchley’s experiences. As Canning wrote, “he still suffered from indigestion. He was still bald. He still loved his pipe. Yet he was different…” There are two more books in the Mr Finchley series which I will probably read at some point. Farrago Books are to be commended for bringing this thirties’ gem back into print.
October 8, 2019
Sign Of The Week (9)
Asda car park, Farnborough, Sunday October 6, 2019
Always disappointed to be deprived of the opportunity to pay for my parking!
October 7, 2019
There Ain’t ‘Alf Some Clever Bastards – Part Ninety Eight
Thomas L Jennings (1791 – 1859)
Is there anything more annoying than spilling something down your clothes?
On reflection, plenty but perhaps because my manual dexterity isn’t quite what it used to be, it seems to happen to me with increasing regularity. I’m forever dabbing and rubbing items of clothing, trying to get a food stain out. Depending on the combination of foodstuff and fabric, some stains seem immoveable and the only thing for it is a trip to the dry cleaners.
On such a trip, I pondered; someone must have invented dry cleaning. Who was it?
Step forward, Thomas Jennings.
Born in 1791, a free African American, this was to be an important distinction as his story unfolds, Thomas became an accomplished tailor. So good were his skills that people came from miles around either to have their clothes altered or bespoke apparel made by him. Soon he had amassed sufficient funds to open his own store on New York’s Chapel Street.
People were no less clumsy with their drinks and food then than they are today, but they didn’t have the option of popping down to the dry cleaners.
Their choice was either to get the stain out as best they could and continue wearing the garment or to consign it to the bin, an expensive option. Whilst replacing soiled clothing with new was grist to the mill of Thomas’ tailoring business, he didn’t like to see garments that he had worked on for hours on end discarded before they had reached the end of their natural life.
So, Thomas began to experiment on ways to clean clothing, deploying a range of different solutions and cleaning agents on a wide array of fabrics. Eventually, he hit on a winning combination. After extensive testing, in 1820, he applied for a patent for a process he called “dry scouring”, the forerunner of dry cleaning.
Thomas was awarded a patent (US Patent 3306x) on March 3, 1821, making him the first African American to hold one.
The law at the time did not perceive slaves as citizens of the United States and so they were unable to swear the oath necessary to stake their claim to their invention. This legal impediment did not impact Thomas. He was a free man, after all, and he was able to benefit from his ingenuity.
And benefit he did.
Dry scouring became an extremely popular way to clean badly soiled clothing and Thomas made his fortune. But, alas, we know very little about the particulars of the method Thomas had developed because the US Patent office was destroyed by fire in 1836 and its records went with it. In 1825, Jolly Belin opened what is thought to have been the first commercial dry-cleaning laundry, in Paris, using turpentine.
Perhaps this was Thomas’ process.
The problem with turpentine was that it made the clothes smell but it was not until the 1850s that petroleum-based substances were used to dry clean clothes. These substances were highly inflammable and there were often by-laws in place prohibiting dry cleaning premises to operate in densely populated areas. Clothes were often brought into a shop in the town and then sent to a laundry out in the sticks to be cleaned.
Less dangerous chlorinated solvents were only used after the First World War.
Thomas used his wealth to purchase the freedom of those relatives of his who were still enslaved and then fund the abolitionist movement in the North-Eastern states, becoming, in 1831, assistant secretary for the First Annual Convention of the People of Colour, held in Philadelphia.
His daughter, Elizabeth, was a chip of the old block.
She was an activist on behalf of the abolitionist movement, like her father, and one day whilst on a New York City streetcar on her way to church she was ordered off. She sued the operators, Third Avenue Railroad Company, on the grounds of discrimination and in 1855 the Brooklyn City Circuit found in her favour.
The very next day, the company desegregated their buses. Her attorney, Charles Arthur, went on to become US President in 1881.
October 6, 2019
Eco-Friendly Idea Of The Week
We all like to think we are doing our bit for the
environment and here’s an idea I came across this week that is beginning to
grow on me.
Instead of cutting down a mature tree and wastefully chopping it up into smaller pieces to get the size of wood you need to make a stick of furniture, how about training a tree to grow into the furniture shape you want? This is the brainwave of Gavin and Alice Munro who run a furniture farm in Wirksworth in Derbyshire.
At the moment, they are growing 250 chairs, 100 lamps and 50
tables, carefully guiding shoots to grow in the direction and into the shape
they require. They liken the process to a “kind of zen 3D printing”.
If you are intrigued, don’t expect to get your furniture in
a hurry. A chair can take between six to nine years to grow and then you have
to wait a year for the wood to dry out before you can get your hands on it. And
the mainstream furniture companies will not have to worry on price, either. A
chair goes for £10,000, lamps from between £900 and £2,300 and tables fetch
around £2,500 to £12,500.
However, it hasn’t all been plain sailing. An early attempt at growing trees came to naught when those methane producing, ozone layer destroying, eco-terrorists aka a herd of cows trampled over them and the remnants were nibbled by rabbits. These teething problems, I’m assured, have now been overcome and the Munros are in full swing.
As a money-making idea, though, I can’t help thinking that they are barking up the wrong tree.
October 5, 2019
Niggle Of The Week
Perhaps this was the first sign of an anti-Brexit revolt and
we all missed it. According to the Office for National Statistics in 2016, the
year of the referendum, no babies were named Nigel in the UK.
Shocked by this revelation, the landlord of the Fleece Inn
in the Worcestershire village of Bretforton, Nigel Smith, decided that the only
response was to raise the nation’s consciousness to all that was good about the
name by celebrating Nigelness. After a couple of years of planning he was able
to hold his Nigel Night party, proceeds from which went to charity.
Some 433 Nigels attended, the largest gathering of Nigels in
one pub at one time in recorded history. It is a good job the catering wasn’t
done by Starbuck’s. Around a thousand non-Nigels also attended but in a defiant
show of Nigelness, they had to wear badges with the motif, “I’m not Nigel”.
Inevitably, Nigels, a singer, a busker, and a comedian, provided the entertainment and Nigel awards were presented to the youngest (a seven-month old baby) and oldest Nigels and the Nigel who had travelled the furthest to attend (a man from Denver, Colorado).
And if you are wondering about the title of this post, a niggle is the collective noun the party goers came up with for a group of Nigels.
October 4, 2019
What Is The Origin Of (251)?…
See a man about a dog
As a nation we are a little bit coy about matters lavatorial. To go and see a man about a dog is a well-established euphemism for excusing yourself to go and visit the toilet but where did the phrase come from and why a dog?
It is tempting to think that the canine in the phrase is there simply as a rhyming synonym for a slang word for a toilet, bog. However, it is unlikely to be the case because the first recorded instances of the phrase, in print at least, have nothing directly to do with going to the toilet.
The first example appeared in the wonderfully titled periodical, the Anti-Teapot Review: A Magazine of Politics, Literature, and Art, which appeared in London in the 1860s. Quite what they had against teapots is anybody’s guess. The edition of November 15, 1865 carried an article called On Falling In and Out of Love. The husband with a wandering eye, evades his wife’s enquiries as to what is wrong with her. “The husband will meekly excuse himself from offering an explanation; feel himself henpecked; and twice a week, at least, will find that he has to absent himself by going to London, to see a man about a dog or on some other important business”.
A year later the phrase cropped up again in a play entitled The Flying Scud; or, a Four-legged Fortune by Dionysius Boucicault. In Act 4, scene 1 the lawyer, Quail by name, informs Mo Davis, a follower of the turf, that his deception has been rumbled thus; “I have just heard that the bill I discounted for you bearing Lord Woodbie’s name is a forgery. I give you twelve hours to find the money and provide for it”. Realising he is in a ticklish situation the wily Mo looks at his pocket watch and remarks, “Excuse me, Mr Quail, I can’t stop; I’ve got to see a man about a dog. I forgot all about it till just now”.
So, in its earliest incarnation the phrase was used as a means of getting out of a tricky situation by claiming a pressing prior appointment of an unspecified nature. Indeed, the alternative engagement may very well be an imaginary one. There were a number of variants, the most popular being to see a man about a horse. Others include go and feed the goldfish, go and mail a letter, and go to one’s private office. You get the drift.
In its early incarnation the phrase was used specifically to reference slipping away for an alcoholic refreshment. A report on the important process of counting electoral votes carried by the Indianapolis News on February 2, 1877 noted that at 3pm, “it has been a long time between drinks, and members quietly slip out in mobs of two to six, to see a man about a dog at Sanderson’s”. Over in Glasgow the delights of an exhibition at the Fine Art Institute in Sauchiehall Street were insufficient, at least according to the Glasgow Evening News of February 2, 1889, to hold the attention of a good proportion of the male attendees who “went out occasionally to see a man about a dog, for there was not a glass of claret nor a cracknel on the premises”.
It was only later, well into the 20th century, that the phrase was used specifically to reference going to the toilet. I don’t think we need to read anything specific in the quest for a dog. It was just an excuse, as good as any other, to leave without letting on why or where you were going. After all, there are just too many Paul Prys and nosey parkers around.
October 3, 2019
Gin O’Clock – Part Seventy Seven
[image error]If you are paying well in excess of £30 for a bottle of so-called premium gin, as you can easily do, then you need to feel that you are getting a quality product. There are so many gins available, thanks to the ginaissance, and many that are labelled in a way which is particularly unhelpful if you want a sense of what is in it and what it might taste like, that it is often a punt and an expensive one at that to go off the tried and tested. Of course, there are apps out there that are designed to help us and reviews but there is nothing like a verbal recommendation.
A couple of months ago I made my regular pilgrimage to the Constantine Stores, the physical manifestation of the drinkfinder.co.uk operation, in the eponymous Cornish village on the Helford estuary close to Falmouth. I was talking to one of the directors, Mark Rowe, and thanked him for his recommendation of Hernő gin, which is one of my all-time favourites. He asked me if I had tried Hernő Old Tom Gin. No, I replied. His recommendation was enough for me and I put a bottle in my basket.
I have written about the history of Old Tom Gin in the past (https://wp.me/p2EWYd-227) so I will not repeat myself. I think it is fair to say it is not everyone’s cup of tea, being rather on the sweet side but not in the sickly, cloying way that some of the flavoured gins produced these days are. If you want to sample what gins tasted at the turn of the nineteenth century, then you should try an Old Tom. There are a number around, even Tanqueray do one, but, without a doubt, the bee’s knees is the one produced by Hernő, which has been on the market since September 2014.
It hales from the small Swedish village of Dala, just outside Hrnsand, by Jon Hillgren in what is Sweden’s first dedicated distillery. Alcohol is phenomenally expensive in Sweden and what makes Hernő seem even more eye-wateringly pricey to a Brit is that it comes in a 50cl bottle rather than the usual 70cl. But if you are going to take out a mortgage to buy a bottle of gin, you really must go for the best of breed.
There is something reassuringly cool and, dare I say it, Scandinavian about the bottle with its snow white foil and white label with the silhouette of a cat with yellow eyes, black nose and whiskers, and a red tongue with which it licks its lips. The rear of the label just lists the eight botanicals that go into the mix and tells me that it is from batch eight and is bottle number 1176. There is something confident and bold about this gin. It doesn’t rely on marketeers’ spin to get its message across. It is just here, take it or leave it.
The same botanicals used to make their London Dry – juniper, coriander, black pepper, cassia, vanilla, lingon berries, meadowsweet, and lemon peel – but the twist that makes it into an Old Tom stylee is to increase the ratio of meadowsweet and to add honey after the distillation process. It is probable, given the phenomenal price of sugar, that honey was used to sweeten the original Old Toms.
On removing the synthetic stopper, the aroma is an intoxicating mix of citrus from the lemon and piney, spicy elements. In the mouth it is a remarkably clean, fresh spirit, not as sweet as you might anticipate but providing a perfect blend of citrus, pine and peppers. It has not finished yet because the aftertaste is long and delightful, maintaining that mix of citrus, spices, and pine. At 43% ABV it packs a kick. A wonderful gin and if you are looking to explore a style of gin which is steeped in the history of the spirit, then this may just be the one for you. Just close your eyes tight when you are paying for it.
Until the next time, cheers!
October 2, 2019
Book Corner – October 2019 (1)
One by one they disappeared – Moray Dalton
Moray Dalton was the pen name of Katherine Dalton Renoir, the English born daughter of Anglo-Canadian parents. She wrote twenty-nine crime novels, fifteen of which, including this, featuring her principal detective, Inspector Collier of the Yard. It is fair to say that, although relatively successful in her time, Dalton has fallen out of favour. In an attempt to resuscitate her reputation, the enterprising Dean Street Press earlier this year reissued five of her works, of which this, published in 1929, is the earliest.
In truth, it has not aged well and is rather dated but if you are willing to look beyond that, you will find an engaging tale, stylishly written with a healthy dash of humour and the obligatory pinch of love interest. Her characters are well drawn and believable and Collier, whilst a pro to his finger bones, is likeable and has a heart. The plot is sufficiently interesting to keep the reader engaged and compared with other novels from the so-called Golden Age of detective fiction, this book tries not to bedazzle the reader with the brilliance of the detective in unravelling the mystery from a motley collection of clues. That said, I had worked out who had done it midway through the book, even though Collier steadfastly chose to follow the wrong route.
In essence, it is a tale of what happens when a kindly man is taken to the cleaners by those with baser instincts. A rich and rather pampered American from New York, Elbert J Packenham, together with his black cat, Jehosaphat, who plays a prominent part in the story’s denouement, is one of nine survivors of the sinking of a liner, the Coptic. Packenham, in a bad way, is put into a lifeboat and cared for by the other eight survivors. As a mark of his eternal gratitude for his escape, Packenham hosts annually a dinner for all those who survived the Coptic.
But he does more. He marks the occasion of the annual dinner by buying an expensive gift for each of the attendees. Packenham, having no one to leave his fortune to as his nephew has recently died, announces that he has left his fortune to the eight survivors. The will, though, is effectively a tontine (https://wp.me/p2EWYd-2Pf) in that only those who are alive upon Packenham’s death will get a share of the money. The problem with tontines is that they give ample opportunity for those of a greedy disposition to eliminate those who would otherwise profit from the arrangement and, thus, increase their share of the money.
And one by one, in seemingly random accidents, the beneficiaries of the tontine will die. Collier suspects darker forces at work. When Packenham himself disappears and the culprits set a trap for the inspector which leads to a colleague being seriously injured, he knows he is on to something. Deploying his expertise and Jehosaphat playing the role of deus ex machina, he gets to the bottom of the dastardly scheme.
As often is the way with these stories, you have to suspend belief. If you can do that you will meet some wonderful characters including an Italian nobleman, Count Olivieri, down on his luck and a bohemian English artist, Edgar Mallory. A great read.
September 30, 2019
The Streets Of London – Part Ninety Five
Harp Alley, EC4
Appearances can be deceptive, I find, particularly when you are researching the history of London’s streets. Take Harp Alley, for example. These days it is a small alley on the left hand side of Farringdon Street as you walk northwards, just south of Stonecutter Street and leading on to St Bride Street.
In the seventeenth century and, presumably before, it was a lane which ran alongside some fields down to the river Fleet. A map dating from 1658 and representing, as its grandiloquent title states, “A Delineation of the Cities of London and Westminster and the suburbs thereof” as it was in 1657, produced by Faithorn and Newhart, shows a bridge over the river at the end of the street. This suggests that it was a well-travelled thoroughfare and may account for the reason why, by the standards of London’s alleys, it is rather wide.
John Rocque’s map of London from 1746 gives the street a name, Harp Alley, although other maps designate it as Harp Street and in 1677 reference was made to a Harp Court. It was Rocque’s name, though, that has prevailed, the Harp almost certainly coming from the pub of that name which stood on the corner with Farringdon Street. The alley was cut down to its current length, about half of its former glory, in 1868 when the new St Bride Street was built.
Excavations conducted in 1990 revealed the area’s more gruesome past. Burial pits were uncovered, used specifically for plague victims from around 1610 until the Great Plague, a form of bubonic plague, had petered out in 1666. It also appears to have been used as an overflow burial ground for St Bride’s Church for the period from 1770 to 1849. Some of the bodies were removed to the British Museum.
As well as a graveyard the Alley had its own coinage mint, these springing up when there was a shortage of legal coins, particularly of low value denominations. Cities took it upon themselves to produce their own coins which were accepted as legal tender by local tradespeople. One such tradesman’s token has been unearthed, dating from between 1649 and 1672, bearing the legend “Harpe Alley end at Ditch side”.
At the corner with Farringdon Street can be found the Hoop and Grapes and its beer garden runs alongside the Alley. Built in 1721 it gained notoriety for being the venue for what were known as Fleet weddings. The Marriage Duty Act of 1695 was supposed to have clamped down on what were known as irregular marriages, where the wedding took place away from the couple’s home parish but where banns had been read and/or a licence had been obtained, and clandestine marriages, where banns and a licence had not been obtained, imposing legal penalties on any clergymen who performed such weddings. But there was a loophole.
As Fleet prison and the area around it, including Harp Alley, was within the Liberties of the Fleet, the law did not apply there. A flourishing wedding trade developed, so much so that in the 1740s over half of the marriages in London were held in the Liberties. Whilst most of the weddings were genuine, there were a number conducted for dishonest purposes or where one or both of the couples were already married to someone else. Impecunious vicars, especially those imprisoned for debt, replenished their fortunes by officiating such ceremonies. They even employed touts who scoured the streets looking for couples desperate to tie the knot.
It was not until the Marriage Act of 1753 was passed and came into force on March 25, 1754 that this unusual form of civil ceremony came to an end. The association of the Hoop and Grapes with Fleet Marriages, though, saved it from demolition in the 1990s as the only surviving venue of the practice and it is now a Grade II listed building.
Scratch below London’s surface and it is amazing what you find.
September 29, 2019
Cheese Of The Week
Chefs, or cooks as I prefer to describe them, seem to be a
sensitive lot. Whilst I like a good meal like the rest of us, I think estimates
of their skill in the kitchen is a bit overdone. I like to think that if I had
spent years knocking up meals, I would be a dab hand at it.
But it is the way of the world that the best need to be
recognised as such and in the world of culinary arts, getting three Michelin
stars is the highest accolade. But as we used to say in the financial services
world, what goes up can also go down.
There has been a bit of a stushie, following the Michelin
Guide’s decision last January to downgrade Marc Veryat’s La Maison des Bois,
near Grenoble, if you are thinking of going, from three stars to a paltry two.
This decision has got Monsieur Veryat stewing.
It is alleged that what got up the Michelin inspector’s nose
was the suspicion that Veryat had used Cheddar in a cheese souffle rather than
the French stalwarts of Reblochon, Beaufort and Tomme. The combative Veyat
accuses the inspector of talking through his serviette and that he had used
saffron which gave the French fromage its yellowish hue.
Veryat. claiming that the downgrade was “profoundly offensive” and gave him “a depression”, has put matters in the hands of his lawyer and the case is expected to go before the courts in November. If nothing else, the redoubtable Monsieur Veryat can certainly cook up a storm.
