Martin Fone's Blog, page 259
June 7, 2018
Gin O’Clock – Part Thirty Nine
The ginaissance continues apace and in a crowded market place it takes something special to create a buzz and to set yourself apart from the rest of the field. So why not use bees?
That seems to be the idea of the brains behind the successful Warner Edwards gin range, founded in 2012 by Tom Warner and Sion Edwards and operating out of the delightful Northamptonshire village of Harrington. Sitting in the garden, doubtless with a glass of the nation’s favourite spirit in hand, they watched the bees going about their business, pollinating the flowers in their borders. The genesis of an idea developed; how about creating a gin using local honey and botanicals from, amongst other places, the garden?
The result – Warner Edwards Harrington Botanical Garden Honeybee Gin. A bit of a mouthful, for sure.
Astonishingly, along with the mandatory juniper and honey, the latter coming from the eleven hives that they now have on their farm, there are 26 other botanicals in the mix, including the obligatory secret ingredient. I could name them all but it would be a bit of a tiresome read. The ones I don’t believe I have come across in a gin before are fresh quince and blue cornflower petals.
Philosophically, I’m always a bit sceptical about gins which are overloaded with lots of botanicals. The risk is that there is too much going on as each flavour fights for dominance or that they all just cancel themselves out. But, hey ho, this seems to be the way with contemporary gins. The botanicals are not macerated ahead of the distillation process and the honey is added post-distillation.
The dumpy, bell-shaped bottle is yellow in colour with a wax seal and a synthetic cork. My bottle was marked “year 2018, bottle 2677”. Come in number 2677, your time is up, I said, as I spotted it on the Waitrose shelf. The label at the back tells me “we lovingly distil 28 carefully selected botanicals and infuse with locally sourced honey and a dollop of golden nectar from our very own hives ion Falls Farm.” At £40 a pop, I would have been pissed if love and care didn’t go into the process. It also bears the imprimatur of the Royal Horticultural Society.
The spirit is clear and at 43% ABV packs a punch. On opening the bottle, the aroma hits you instantly and seems to be a mix of floral, citrus and, perhaps, a touch of herb. To the taste it is a testament to the distiller’s skill. Yes, there are a lot of sensations going on, the honey in particular leaving a delicious hint of sweetness on the back of the throat but the floral notes, citrus and spices make an appearance in a way that complements rather than detracting from the overall sensation. It is also incredibly smooth and, dare I say it, moreish. Despite my reservations, it is definitely a hit.
Bees are tricky things and down tools when temperatures drop below 12C. Honey is only collected in May and September and a distillation run produces 840 bottles a time so there are some natural inhibitors to the amount of the gin that is available. Also the quality and taste of the honey, a key ingredient, will presumably vary.
Oh, and the bottle comes with a packet of wild cornflower seeds. I assume you are meant to plant them rather than sprinkle them in your gin as a sort of garnish.
All in all, a welcome and refreshing addition to my gin stock which is rapidly diminishing. All my Cornish gins have gone so another trip down there is in the offing.
Until the next time, cheers!
June 6, 2018
Coincidences Are Spiritual Puns – Part Five
The Erdington murders – 1817 and 2010
Here’s a rather macabre set of coincidences.
In a graveyard in Sutton Coldfield is to be a found a tombstone with the legend, now weather-worn and almost illegible, which reads, “As a warning to female virtue and a humble monument to female chastity this stone marks the grave of Mary Ashford who on the twentieth year of her age having incautiously repaired to a scene of amusement without proper protection was brutally murdered on 27th May 1817.”
Mary, who was considered the belle of the parish of Erdington in Birmingham, went with her friend, Hannah Cox, to the Whit Monday dance at the Tyburn House Inn. They left the dance around midnight, Mary accompanying her friend Hannah’s house and then making her way home. The following morning a factory worker, George Jackson, on his work noticed a track and the prints of two pairs of feet, one belonging to a man and the other to a female, leading to a gravel pit. Lying in the water was poor Mary, dead and showing signs of having been sexually assaulted before being thrown into the pit.
Mary had been seen with a chap, a 25-year-old farmer and builder called Abraham Thornton. A nail in the sole of Thornton’s boot matched an imprint in the mud near the gravel pit. This was enough for the police to finger him for the murder and Thornton was arrested and slung into Warwick prison pending trial. That August he faced judge and jury and it took the twelve men good and true just six minutes of deliberation to acquit him.
Mary’s family and supporters were aghast at the verdict and raised sufficient funds to launch a retrial at the Old Bailey. Such was the interest that the case had engendered a mob besieged the court house on the day of the retrial, 17th November 1817, and heard Thornton issue a rarely used legal challenge, the so-called Trial by Battel option, dating back to medieval times. Leaning from the dock, he announced “I am not guilty and I will defend myself with my body.” He was prepared to fight a duel and if he won, he would be acquitted but if he lost (and survived the encounter) he would be hung. Mary’s brother refused the challenge and so the judge had no option but to acquit Thornton. Sensibly, Thornton emigrated, settling in New York where he lived a comfortable life. Mary’s killer was never brought to justice.
Fast forward 157 years to 27th May 2010, again a Whit Monday. 20 year-old Barbara Forrest was out with her boyfriend visiting pubs and a dance in the Handsworth area and the Birmingham city centre. Barbara’s boyfriend saw her to her bus stop. On 4th June her body was found in a shallow ditch, hidden by bracken, about 500 yards from her home in Erdington. After extensive investigations, a witness came forward reporting seeing a blue car parked near where the body was found at the time the murder is likely to have been committed.
The car was traced to Michael Thornton, who worked at the same place as Barbara, and he was charged with her murder. During the trial the jury heard that Michael had blood on his trousers and that his mother had provided him with a false alibi. But seven days in the judge concluded that the evidence against Thornton was circumstantial and ordered his acquittal.
So, both victims, 157 years apart, were unmarried girls aged 20, returning from nights out, left for dead in Erdington and last seen on 27th May, a Whit Monday. The two people charged with their respective murders shared the same surname, Thornton, and the same fate – both were acquitted.
And in the weeks before their demise, both had a sense of their impending doom, Mary telling her friend’s mother that she had “bad feelings about the week to come” and Barbara commenting, “this is going to be my unlucky month. I just know it. Don’t ask me why.”
How weird is that?
June 5, 2018
An Eye For An Eye Will Only Make The Whole World Blind – Part Three
The stray dog war of 1925
Animals are no respecters of the borders of contiguous countries.
During the early 1920s tensions between Bulgaria and Greece were high. There had been periodic border incursions, the worst of which, the so-called Tarlis incident, resulted in seventeen Bulgarians killed, the Greeks in particular being suspicious of the Bulgarian and Macedonian independence movement’s designs on their territory.
On 18th October 1925 a black dog casually wandered over the border into Bulgarian territory, pursued by a guard from the border post at the Demir Kapou Pass. A Bulgarian sentry took aim at the human invader and shot him dead. What happened to the pooch is unclear.
The killing of the Greek guard immediately provoked an exchange of rifle fire. During a lull in the fighting, a Greek captain crossed into no man’s land, waving a white flag and appealing for calm. His protestations were to no avail as he was gunned down along with a private who was accompanying him.
Now Theodoros Pangalos, the recently installed dictator of Greece following a coup d’etat enters our story.
Pangalos saw what otherwise may have been just another episode in the uneasy relations between the two countries as a piece of Bulgarian treachery and decided to show his mettle by making a strong stand. As well as issuing a 48 hour ultimatum to the Bulgarians, demanding a full apology, prosecution of the guilty parties and monetary compensation for the dead of 6 million drachmas, he despatched a corps from the army to the area. Without waiting for a response, the impatient Pangalos ordered his troops to invade Bulgaria, which they duly did.
Initially, they met with success, principally because the Bulgarians retreated rather than risk a conflict, and so the Greeks were able to loot, pillage and burn down villages at will. They also sought out Macedonian enclaves in an attempt to eradicate the separatists. But after a few days the Greeks got bogged down, forcing Pangalos to look around for allies. He hit on the Serbians, offering them in return for their assistance in crushing the Bulgarians, a railway corridor to the Greek port of Thessaloniki as well as part of the conquered territory.
The Bulgarians also sought external support but from a less conventional source- the newly created League of Nations. As the Greek troops were on the verge of capturing the town of Petrich – they may have captured it but reports are confused – the League sprang into action demanding that an immediate ceasefire be called, that the Greeks withdraw from Bulgaria and that the Greeks pay £45,000 in reparations to Bulgaria. Surprisingly, both sides accepted this settlement and military attaches from France, Italy and Britain were sent to the area to ensure that the ceasefire was observed and that the Greeks withdrew. The Bulgarians, of whom 50 had been killed in the fighting, were not allowed to resettle the conflict area until the dust had settled.
For Pangalos this was a humiliation as he had built up his reputation as a no-nonsense strongman. It does seem surprising that he caved in so easily to the demands of the League of Nations but the Greek military were only just recovering from coming off second best against the Turks. The following year the same group of army officers who installed Pangalos as dictator toppled him in favour of the country’s former President.
It is amazing what a stray dog can do.
June 4, 2018
Double Your Money – Part Thirty
Mrs Nancy Clem (? – 1897) and the Cold Spring murder
For some the siren call of easy money is too difficult to resist. The laurel for the first to construct what we know as a Ponzi scheme – one thing is for sure, it wasn’t Charles Ponzi – is hotly contested but there are good reasons to think that the scam perpetrated by Nancy Clem, reportedly an attractive and personable woman, may just be the one.
Nancy and her two associates, Jacob Young and William Abrams, were operating as brokers upon the street in Indianapolis in the late 1860s, a quaint term for someone who loans money and trades notes without the inconvenience of a fixed office. They offered significant returns for those who invested with them and the early clients, drawn from the great and the good of the city, certainly saw some spectacular returns. Dr Charles Duzan, who dealt exclusively with Nancy, made a profit of $9,000 in just four months. This encouraged him to put more and more money Nancy’s way.
The trio insisted on complete secrecy and it seems that they kept the identity of their clientele secret from one another. The monies raised fuelled a lavish lifestyle and even when it all unravelled, as things inevitably do, no one was quite sure how they made their money. Indianapolis had been a centre for counterfeiting money before the Civil War but none of the trio had the requisite skills to print their own money.
It is more probable that they were meeting their interest obligations out of the capital paid in by their investors. Those, like Durzan, who were early birds, were paid out of the contributions of later investors like Nancy’s dressmaker, Ann Hottle, who paid in $935 on the promise of 20%, and received a flat refusal for the audacity of seeking the return of her capital.
Knowing when to cash in your chips or at least get away with as much of the loot as you can is vital if you buy into such schemes. With $20,000 invested on the promise of a return of 25% and interest payments overdue, Jacob Young thought the time was right. On 12th September 1868 with between $7,000 and $9,000 he left town with his wife. The following day, by the river near Cold Spring, two bodies were found, later identified as Jacob Young – he had been shot in the face – and his wife, Nancy Jane – she had been shot in the head and was severely burnt from the chest downwards. A shotgun was found in the vicinity but was too far away from the bodies to suggest suicide.
Murder was suspected, particularly as the footprints found near the site were of a woman other than Young’s wife and there were distinctive prints of a horse’s hooves. Police enquiries revealed that Abrams had bought the rifle on the day of the murder from a local pawnbroker, the tread on the woman’s shoes matched a pair owned by Nancy and that her brother, Silas Hartman, had rented a buggy with a horse with distinctive hooves that day. When the police realised that Nancy, Abrams and Young had been in business together, the penny dropped and Hartman and the remaining two business associates were arrested and charged with murder.
Between 1st December 1869 and 3rd June 1872 Nancy stood trial four times and although found guilty, her defence lawyers managed to overturn the verdicts and before a fifth trial was scheduled, charges were dropped. But this was not Nancy’s last brush with the law. She saw the inside of a prison for four years in 1878 following the theft a $1,500 note.
In 1892 John Martin died whilst under the care of a female physician called Dr Patterson who turned out to be Nancy (natch). Before the old bill could feel her collar, she fled the country. In 1897 news of her death was received in Indianapolis, reigniting curiosity in her Ponzi scheme and the murders at Cold Spring.
June 3, 2018
Sporting Event Of The Week (14)
Here’s a litany of bank holiday sporting carnage.
One of the many attractions at the Young Farmers’ Clubs Northern District Field Day in Irthington in Cumbria on Bank Holiday Saturday was the women’s arm wrestling event. This keenly fought competition proved too much for one competitor who during the course of her bout suffered what was described as a “bad break” to her fighting arm. Her opponent, when she realised what had happened, fainted on the spot.
“Other than that”, said a medical attendant, “the day was fantastic.” An event clearly not for the faint-hearted.
Some 200 miles further south, the annual Cheese Rolling championships were held at Cooper’s Hill in Gloucestershire. Competitors chase 8lb specially made double Gloucester cheeses, which reach speeds of up to 70 mph, down the 1:2 gradient.
For Chris Anderson it was business as usual. He won the first of this year’s men’s downhill races and in the process broke Stephen Glyde’s record of 21 successes. The irony, and we love irony, is that Chris can’t stand double Gloucester, preferring a nice bit of cheddar. Although Chris triumphed again in the third race, he tore his left calf muscle in the process.
The winner of the women’s downhill race was Flo Early from Stroud, repeating her successes of 2008 and 2016. But when she crossed the finishing line, she was quickly attended to by the medics for a suspected dislocated shoulder.
They will need to go more Caerphilly next time.
To lighten this unremitting gloom, I bring you glad tidings of 71-year-old Anne Bruinooge who did a headstand outside of the offices of the Ketchikan Daily News in Alaska. Slightly bizarre behaviour by anybody’s standards but for the game old codger it marked a watershed moment. She had just performed a headstand in each of the 50 US mainland states.
Not only has no one ever done that before (or so it is believed) but she didn’t even injure herself. There’s life in the old ‘uns yet.
June 2, 2018
Pizza Of The Week
June 1, 2018
What Is The Origin Of (182)?…
It’s not my pigeon
You can imagine the scene. You have a bone to pick with someone about something or the other. You give a detailed explanation of your complaint only to be met with a shrug of the shoulders and the comment, “sorry mate, it’s not my pigeon.” What they mean by this is that it is not their responsibility or has nothing to do with them; it is not their business.
Frustrating as this sort of encounter can be, it raises the question; Why a pigeon?
By repute, when a Brit meets a Johnny Foreigner and they can’t get them to understand what they want, the solution is to bellow the same sentence as loudly as they can. Of course, it is their inability to comprehend rather than any hearing deficit that is at the root of the problem. Communication is a tricky thing and the wonder is that when representatives from two nations met for the first time how they managed to make their views known to each other. Gesticulation and grimacing can only take you so far, although someone approaching you with a sword, gun or spear has made their general intentions fairly clear.
When the riches of the Chinese mainland were being unlocked – opium for fine silks and porcelain seemed a fair exchange – there was a need for both parties to converse with each other. Initially, the communication process was fairly rudimentary but a variant of English developed which became known as Pidgin, a word derived apparently from the Chinese’s vain attempt to get their teeth and tongue around the word business.
The first use of it in print dates to 1831. The use of pidgin to describe business is illustrated in this extract from William Tarrant’s Hongkong from 1862; “it only stopped the private Pidgin for a time; the wicked and corrupt government of a later day permitting the old thing over and over again.”
Pidgin began to be used figuratively to suggest concern or business in a more general sense. The North-China Herald of 1st August 1890 reported that “we agreed that if anything went wrong with the pony after, it was not to be my pidgin.” In Australia the Bulletin on 27th December 1902 noted “guarding a house is not their pidgin as the Chinese say” while in 1904 Rudyard Kipling wrote in a collection of short stories called Traffics and Discoveries, “what about the musketry average? I went on. Not my pidgin, said Bayley.”
We are asked to believe that over time the origin of the word pidgin was forgotten and replaced by the more familiar pigeon. But this seems to be a gross oversimplification, not least because the earliest use of a gloss for business in the Orient appears in an unpublished Journal by the missionary Robert Morrison as pigeon. “This Jos, pointing to the idol, said he take care of fire pigeon.” In 1834 he helpfully compiled a glossary of Chinese Pidgin English, defining “pigeon or pidginess as a corruption of the English word business.” In other words, the use of pigeon for business predates the 1831 usage.
Pigeon English appeared before pidgin English. One of the first usages dates to 1859, relating to a visit to Macao in 1857; “A-tye will row you out as she can speak pigeon English.” It was not until 1867 in the snappily entitled The Treaty Ports of China and Japan. A Complete Guide to the open ports of those countries, compiled by Messrs Dennys, Mayers and King that we encounter pidgin English, defined as “a queer compound of Anglicised Chinese and Chinese-rendered English, with a few words of Malay and Portuguese.”
What are we to make of all this?
The inevitable conclusion is that pidgin and pigeon were used contemporaneously with pigeon, perhaps, the word of choice amongst Anglophones. If anyone disagrees, it is not my pigeon.
