Martin Fone's Blog, page 262
May 10, 2018
Everything Is Possible For An Eccentric, Especially When He Is English – Part Twenty
Mary Boyle, Countess of Cork and Orrery (1746 –1840)
Mary Monckton – she became Mary Boyle when she married the seventh Earl of Cork in 1786 – was one of, if not the, pre-eminent society hostesses of the 18th century. She had a phenomenal memory and an outstanding wit and invitations to her soirees were the hottest tickets in town. She even charmed the curmudgeon that was Doctor Johnson; Boswell records “her vivacity enchanted the Sage, and they used to talk together with all imaginable ease.”
Mary was not a society beauty, although she became an oil painting, Sir Joshua Reynolds committing her image to paint in 1778-9. Fanny Burney described her as being “very short, very fat but handsome, splendidly and fantastically dressed, rouged not unbecomingly yet evidently and palpably desirous of gaining notice and admiration.” Among those who came to her dinners and receptions were the likes of Lord Byron, Sir Walter Scott, Richard Sheridan, and the Prince Regent. So famous did Mary become that in Georgette Heyer’s Venetia, a character is described as seeing herself as a “second Lady Cork, to whose salons it is an honour to be invited.” The context, though, shows that the remark is not intended to be flattering.
Mary’s drawing rooms were rather Spartan affairs, without anything in the way of ornaments or decorations. Around the walls of the room were dozens of large, comfortable armchairs, fixed in a way that they could not be moved. The reason for this may be connected with the fact that no matter how splendid her soirees were, she rarely received invitations to dine elsewhere.
The reason was simple – she was an incorrigible kleptomaniac.
So notorious was Mary that if she was to be entertained, the hosts would remove all their best silver and make do with ordinary pewter cutlery. This did not put Mary off. She would simply scoop the lot up, put them in her muff which she carried for the purpose and take them home. One of her maid’s duties after one of Mary’s excursions was to make out an inventory of what did not belong to her mistress and return them to their rightful owners with a note of apology.
In those days, it was the custom for tradesmen to take their goods out of their shops to the waiting carriages of the great and good so that they could peruse their wares without having to rub shoulders with the hoi polloi. This courtesy was not extended to Mary. When her carriage pulled up, the unfortunate tradesman had to insist that she descended and enter their humble shop, doubtless making sure that everything moveable was securely fastened or nailed down.
On one occasion Mary drove off in a carriage belonging to a fellow guest. When the rather irate chap called to remonstrate and recover his property, Mary was unabashed, refusing to apologise and even having the audacity to complain that the steps were rather high for her short legs.
A hotel that she stayed in had a pet hedgehog which ran about the entrance hall. This was too much of a temptation for Mary to resist. She scooped it up into her muff, later exchanging at a baker’s for a sponge cake. It seems that the creature had been too prickly a character for her to endure. One wag noted that heaven would be too boring for Mary – there would be nothing to pinch.
She lived to the ripe old age of ninety-four, still entertaining well into her nineties. She had no conscience and her approach to life was summed up rather well by her niece in this little ditty; “Look at me/ I’m ninety three/ and all my faculties I keep/ Eat, drink and laugh and soundly sleep.”
But in a time when stealing property could get you hung or, worse still, transported to Australia, there was clearly another law for the rich and well connected.
May 9, 2018
Coincidences Are Spiritual Puns – Part Four
The Mignonette Affair, 1884
What’s in a name? Well, quite a lot it would seem if you are called Richard Parker and you are out to sea.
An Australian bought an English yacht, the Mignonette, in early 1884. He wanted it delivered back to his homeland and so engaged a chap called Dudley to undertake the long journey. Dudley recruited a crew of three others, comprising of Stephens, Brooks and Richard Parker.
The foursome set off from Southampton on 19th May but tragedy struck on 3rd July somewhere off the coast of Africa when a powerful storm capsized the yacht, leaving the crew only enough time to scramble on to a dinghy. In their hurry they didn’t take any food or water. Inevitably, after a few days they were in desperate straits.
It was at this point that an old naval tradition known as the Custom of the Sea came into play. For the good of the many, one would have to be sacrificed. Under the rules of engagement, all members of should have an equal chance of surviving the selection process and the drawing of straws, or similar, was the accepted way of determining their fate.
But Dudley had other ideas. Parker was the weakest of the four, having made himself ill by drinking contaminated water. Poor Richard’s case wasn’t helped by the fact that he had no family and so Dudley with the help of Stephens killed the unfortunate Parker. The gruesome threesome feasted on Parker’s body until four days later a German barque, the Montezuma, appeared on the horizon and rescued them. The crew insisted on taking Parker’s body back to Blighty to give what was left of him a Christian burial.
The Montezuma landed at Falmouth on 6th September 1884 and Dudley and his cohort gave an explanation of their predicament and the grisly choices they had to make to ensure the survival of the majority. Instead of finding a sympathetic hearing from the maritime authorities, a policeman employed by the Harbour Commissioners, Sgt Laverty, overheard the account, took legal opinion and arrested Dudley and Stephens on a charge of murder. While they were held in Falmouth, they were the talk of the town – after all, it was a saucy tale of murder and cannibalism.
Dudley and Stephens were tried In mid-November in Exeter and found guilty, although sentence was deferred until further legal advice obtained and they were released on bail. The case then moved to London and the duo was found guilty again and sentenced to death. However, because of the interest that the case generated Dudley and Stephens were spared from dancing the hemp jig, receiving a six month prison sentence instead.
Edgar Allan Poe only wrote one full-length novel, the Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, published in 1837. During the course of the story a Richard Parker leads a mutiny on a ship called the Grampus which is subsequently wrecked and only four members of the crew, including Parker, manage to scramble on to a dinghy. They soon find themselves in straitened circumstances and Parker suggests that they follow the Custom of the Sea.
This time lots were drawn.
Parker drew the short straw, was killed and eaten by his fellow crew members, foreshadowing the events on the Mignonette. And Poe drew his inspiration for the Parker character form another real-life Richard Parker,who was one of the ringleaders of a naval mutiny at the Nore in 1797 and was subsequently hung from the yardarm of the HMS Sandwich.
May 8, 2018
An Eye For An Eye Will Only Make The Whole World Blind
The Amboyna massacre of 1623
Relations between the English and the Dutch have not always been rosy, despite William of Orange’s intervention in 1688 to secure the Protestant ascendancy. Three Anglo-Dutch wars were fought between 1652 and 1674.
As both countries sought to establish dominance over the spice trade in what is now Indonesia in the early 17th century through their commercial manifestations, the Dutch VOC and the English East India Company (EIC), relationships were increasingly fractious. A period of co-operation was supposed to have been brokered with the signing of the Treaty of Defence in London in 1619 but the drafting left for some ambiguities. Both companies were allowed to conduct trade in the area, sharing trading posts but keeping control of those they had previously occupied. The Dutch, however, interpreted the treaty to give them jurisdiction over traders from both countries in posts that they administered whereas the English took a contrary view.
In late 1622 the Dutch were experiencing some local difficulties with the natives and the Dutch governor of Amboyn, now the Indonesian island of Maluku, Herman van Speult, suspected that the English were behind it. His suspicions seemed to be well-founded when in February 1623 a Japanese samurai mercenary of ronin was caught sniffing around the defences of the Dutch fort of Victoria. Under torture the mercenary admitted his involvement in a plot, masterminded by the head of the English trading post, Gabriel Towerson, to seize the fort and murder the governor.
Van Speult immediately raised a raiding party and Towerson and some of his colleagues, including some ronins and a Portuguese employ of the VOC were arrested. They were subjected to a form of torture akin to what we now know as waterboarding and, probably unsurprisingly, confessed to their part in the conspiracy. Although, four of the English and two of the ronins were pardoned, the rest were beheaded on 9th March 1623 for treason, Towerson having the further indignity of having his head stuck on a pike and displayed for all to see.
Perhaps van Speult’s mistake was to pardon some of the English. The survivors went to Batavia and demanded that the Dutch authorities make amends for the outrage perpetrated on the English. Gaining no satisfaction there, they made the long journey to Blighty where their story caused an immediate uproar. The EIC demanded that the VOC pay exemplary damages and that the judges involved in executing Towerson and his colleagues be summarily executed.
The Dutch dragged their clogs but eventually recalled the judges from Amboyn and placed them under house arrest. It was not until 1630 that the case was heard and, perhaps unsurprisingly, the judges were acquitted. Charles I refused to ratify the decision but the prisoners were released anyway.
The EIC were hopping mad.
In 1632 they published a sensationalist pamphlet which revealed in gory detail (with illustrations) the tortures and indignities to which Towerson and his pals were subjected by the barbaric Dutch. It proved to be a best-seller and made a reappearance twenty years later as A Memento for Holland when Oliver Cromwell was whipping up anti-Dutch feelings ahead of the first Anglo-Dutch war.
In this conflict the Dutch came off second best and under the Treaty of Westminster in 1654 were forced to agree to execute any of the Amboyna culprits still alive. However, the passage of time was such that none were alive and the only satisfaction the EIC got was a payment of £85,000 from the VOC while the descendants of Towerson and his colleagues were paid £3,615.
The Dutch eventually gained supremacy in the area but the Amboyna massacre remained a cause celebre. It can be no coincidence that Jonathan Swift named the Dutch ship upon which Gulliver leaves Japan the Amboyna. The memory of the massacre was still vibrant a century later.
May 7, 2018
There Ain’t ‘Alf Some Clever Bastards – Part Eighty
Lise Meitner (1878 – 1968)
Being Jewish, a woman in academia and living in Austria in the 1930s weren’t the best cards to be dealt with in life and so it proved for the latest inductee into our illustrious Hall of Fame, nuclear scientist, Lise Meitner.
Born in Vienna, Lise was only the second woman to be awarded a degree in Austria. To further her studies she moved to Berlin where she met Otto Hahn and found a position – a cupboard next to a lab and working as a guest without remuneration – at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry. It was only when she was offered a paid position elsewhere that her position at the Institute was regularised. In 1917 she and Hahn discovered a new element, protactinium.
In the 1920s and 30s the race was on to find an element heavier than uranium and it was to this problem that Meitner and Hahn applied their not inconsiderable grey cells. They noticed that whenever they put a neutron on to a heavy Uranium neutron, as you do, they ended up with something lighter. Whilst Hahn carried out the experiments it was Lise who came up with the explanation for this phenomenon and realised the import of what they had discovered. The answer was what we now term nuclear fission. What was happening was the neutron was splitting into two parts, unleashing a phenomenal amount of energy in the process. It was this energy which was harnessed to produce nuclear bombs.
By this time, 1938, the Anschluss had occurred and, sensibly, Lise had made good her escape to Sweden. Now that he had the rational explanation to the phenomenon that they had observed, Hahn wrote up the findings and published a paper, ignoring the contributions that Lise had made and, in fact omitting her altogether. Some kindly souls argue that the omission was due to political pressure exerted because of the race and gender of Hahn’s accomplice. Whether this was the case or whether Hahn just grabbed the glory for himself, we will never know. To add salt to the wound, in 1944 the Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded to Hahn alone for the discovery of nuclear fission.
Not unsurprisingly, Lise was royally pissed off. She wrote, “I have no self confidence… Hahn has just published absolutely wonderful things based on our work together … much as these results make me happy for Hahn, both personally and scientifically, many people here must think I contributed absolutely nothing to it — and now I am so discouraged.” Worse still, she was horrified to find that the first use of nuclear fission was to make an atomic bomb and was devastated when the Enola Gay dropped its load on to Hiroshima.
To complete her air-brushing from history, the apparatus that was used to carry out the experiments that led to the discovery of nuclear fission was displayed in Germany’s leading science museum for 35 years without mentioning Lise’s name and role in the experiment.
Lise continued with her researches after the war and helped produce one of the first peacetime nuclear reactors and during the course of her career published some 128 articles. It was only in the mid-1960s that the enormity of her contribution to the discovery of nuclear fission was recognised. Posthumously, in 1992, she had an extremely radioactive synthetic element named after her, Meitnerium (atomic number 109) named after her and at least the Periodic Table bears testament to her brilliance.
Lise, for your contribution to the discovery of nuclear fission being air-brushed out of history, you are a worthy inductee.
If you enjoyed this, why not try Fifty Clever Bastards by Martin Fone which is now available on Amazon in Kindle format and paperback. For details follow the link https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=fifty+clever+bastards
For more enquiring minds, try Fifty Curious Questions by Martin Fone
May 6, 2018
Note Of The Week
Is the Euro really worthless?
Pictures have been doing the rounds of a woman proudly holding a purple Euro note bearing the face of the darling of anti-capitalism, Karl Marx. The value of the note? Precisely nothing.
It’s all part of the celebrations being held in the German city of Trier to mark May 5th which would have been the two hundredth birthday of their most famous son, Karl Marx.
They have been selling like hot cakes, a further 20,000 have had to be printed to keep up with demand.
Selling at €3 a time, they are, according to the Trier Tourismus and Marketing GmbH, a perfect representation of Marx’s critique of the capitalist system.
I’m not sure about that but they are a damn sight more tasteful than the bearded Karl Marx rubber duck complete with a copy of Das Kapital tucked under one wing – yours for just €5.90. And if this wasn’t bad enough, the Chinese have donated a grotesque three-tonne bronze statue of Marx to the city.
Watch out for reports of whirring noises from Highgate Cemetery this weekend!
May 5, 2018
Sporting Event Of The Week (13)
The thought of running any distance is anathema to me but here’s an event – sold out I’m afraid – which might even have appealed to me in a moment of madness, the Inaugural Boerne 0.5k, which takes place in the Texan town today (5th May).
Yes, that’s right – the course stretches just 546 yards, starting off opposite the Dodging Duck bar which, sportingly, will provide each participant with a free pint before the event, and ending at the Cibolo Creek Brewery where further alcoholic refreshments will be available. Halfway along the course is a coffee and doughnut station and that is where the designated smoking area is.
The monetary cost of entering – there is a physical cost too I’m sure – is $25 and proceeds go to a charity, Blessings in a Backpack, which provides meals at the weekend to poor and needy American children.
If, like me, the thought of running, even fuelled by a couple of pints, a doughnut, coffee and a few gaspers, is too much to bear, for an extra $25 you could become a VIP, entitling you to be shuttled, in a 1963 VW bus no less, along the course.
Whether you are a runner or a VIP you get a medal and a car sticker. The only downer on what is a truly worthwhile event is that a bagpipe player will drone their way through Amazing Grace at the starting line. If that doesn’t get you moving, nothing will.
May 4, 2018
What Is The Origin Of (178)?…
Seven-year itch
It was the Bard of Stratford, William Shakespeare, who wrote in A Midsummer Night’s Dream that the course of true love never did run smooth. In the days when life expectancy was considerably shorter than it is now and when the perils of childbirth were mortal, a long marriage was a rarity. There was often little time for either party to get bored with each other. Now that childbirth is less perilous, the wandering eye of a partner is often the reason why marriages end in failure with a trip to the divorce courts.
This week’s phrase, seven-year itch, is now almost exclusively used to refer to the wandering eye of a married man, who is tempted by what seem to be greener pastures sometime after he got hitched. There seems to be something in the view that the moment of maximum danger is the seven year mark. Studies seem to suggest that couples experience a gradual decline in the quality of their marriage after around four years and by the seventh have either divorced or decided to divorce or have adapted to their partner’s ways.
Be that as it may, our phrase originally had nothing to do with the matrimonial state and the potential errant husband; rather it dealt with another form of irritation, a very infectious one at that – scabies. The source of this painful condition is a mite or, more likely, a number of mites which burrow into the skin and lay their eggs. The condition was highly infectious, spread by skin-to-skin contact or, on occasions, from exposure to infested items like bedding, clothing and furniture. So hard was the condition to get rid of that it was said that you were stuck with it for seven years.
Of course, this did not stop quacks from peddling panaceas offering a remedy. One such was Dr John Mason’s Indian Vegetable Panacea, which was advertised in the Ohio Statesman of 26th March 1839 (the first recorded instance) in which the elixir was described as being capable of being “taken with perfect safety, by all ages, for the cure of the following diseases….also, that corruption so commonly known to the western country as the scab or seven year itch.” So scabrous was life in certain parts of the States that a whole raft of variants cropped up, including prairie itch, Indiana itch, army itch, jail itch, swamp itch and winter itch to name just a few.
So how and when did it gain its modern usage?
The phrase began to be used figuratively, by way of describing the itch caused by poisoned ivy, to describe an irritant or a continual nuisance. But its direct reference to matrimonial infidelity is attributable to George Axelrod who used it as the title for his comedy in 1952 and Billy Wilder’s film in 1955 starring Marilyn Monroe ensured that it had a world-wide audience.
Axelrod claimed that the phrase popped into his head courtesy of what would now be termed a sexist, deeply chauvinist comedian, Rod Brassfield. One of his favourite jokes (ahem) was “I know she’s over 21 because she had the seven-year itch four times.” In Axelrod’s play for which he was desperately trying to find a title, the hero had been married for ten years but so appropriate seemed the phrase to the play that he changed the length of the protagonist’s marriage to suit.
The rest is history, as they say.
May 3, 2018
Some People Are So Poor All They Have Is Money – Part Six
Cinnamon girl
Getting an alcoholic drink is still a bit of a trial in Kerala. To clamp down on the social problems caused by alcohol abuse in the state the government have imposed a prohibitively expensive alcohol licensing system which has effectively driven most bars and roadside drinking establishments out of business. If you really need a drink, you can queue up at a state-owned liquor shop where locals are restricted to one bottle at a time.
Hotels catering for Westerners generally oblige with an alcoholic drink, although it’s advisable not to be too exotic in your demands. They can generally rustle up a beer, wine, whisky, brandy and that’s about it. You also need to be careful in your terminology. It is no good asking whether a hotel has a bar. Most don’t but they are able to serve alcohol so that should be the focus of your enquiry.
Our hotel in Munnar, the Devonshire Green, turned out to be dry. Disaster was averted as we had a couple of bottles of gin, shaken but not stirred, in our suitcases and so we were able to drink in the wonderful scenery of verdant hills and tea plantations from our balcony with a glass in hand.
Fortunately, in neighbouring states Tamil Nadu and Karnataka procuring alcohol is less of a problem and in Bangalore we came across a wonderful bar in Bangalore called the Biere Club. It is the retail outlet for Bangalore’s first craft brewery and for 200 rupees you could have a taster of each of the beers on offer. When we visited there were four marked up on the board, each with a brief description, ABV and price, ranging across the complete beer spectrum from lager, wheat beer, ragi made from an organic grain native to the area, and a stout. After due deliberation we settled for the stout and an excellent drop it was too. I could have stayed there all day.
If you really feel that you need to get your chakras in good shape – you have seven running from the base of your spine to the crown of your head – then a visit to a spice plantation is de rigueur. I have been to a number of them over the years but my ability to recognise spices and herbs in their raw state by sight and smell is as lacking today as it was when I made my first visit. Still it is interesting, although the end objective is to get you to the plantation shop where for a relatively small sum you can buy any oil or liniment, guaranteed to assuage any ailment known to man.
South India is the home of Ayurveda medicine and there is evidence that a form of natural healing was practised there in a formal way from at least 4000 BCE. It makes sense as there was no alternative but to explore and harness the pharmaceutical power of nature then. Nowadays, at least in the West, homeopathy and natural healing is viewed as somewhat cranky and it is true that the efficacy of many of the potions has yet to receive the imprimatur of the medical fraternity, but around 80% of Indians take Ayurveda medicine and there are hospitals around that only provide that form of treatment. Who knows who’s right?
Before I leave India behind, it wold be remiss of me not to comment on the wonderful food. It is slightly bewildering to see some restaurants adopt a form of culinary apartheid with vegetarians accommodated in room and us carnivores in another. Meat is generally mutton or chicken so on the principle that if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em I went vegetarian and was astonished by the wonderful array of tastes and smells that assaulted my senses. You can get them to tone down the spices – a request that elicits a sardonic smile from the waiter – and nothing I ate required me to reach for a fire extinguisher.
A masala dosa – a sort of pancake made from rice and the ubiquitous black gram – set me up nicely at breakfast. I’m already salivating just thinking about it.
May 2, 2018
Book Corner – May 2018 (1)
Victorious Century: The United Kingdom 1800 – 1906 – David Cannadine
Most historians, charting Britain’s (temporary) rise to the top of the world pile in the 19th Century, tend to start after the Battle of Waterloo and end at the outbreak of World War One. As is increasingly fashionable amongst historiographers, Cannadine takes a different slice of the temporal pie, preferring to start with the Act of Union with Ireland in 1800 and finishing with the Liberal electoral landslide of 1906. Mathematically unsettling as this may be, it puts Ireland in the centre stage and the mainland’s relations with the Emerald Isle were a troublesome sideshow throughout the 19th century (as it was in the 20th and still is today).
The Act of Union which created what was known as the United Kingdom for the rest of the century was a rather botched affair and was passed for primarily defensive purposes. Corresponding legislation to deal with the internal governance of Ireland was dropped and this proved the blight that made relations with the predominantly Catholic population problematic. Anti-Catholic sentiments and the eugenic feeling that the Irish were an inferior race (although not as inferior as those races whose countries we would take over with gay abandon during the course of the century) proved too hard to dislodge.
Cannadine’s account is a tour-de-force and a rattling good read. His mastery of the subject matter is breath-taking and many an interesting insight. (Unusually for a history book) there are no footnotes, heightening the sense that he knows all there is to know and there is no sense in thinking otherwise. For the non-historian this is satisfying but one can’t help thinking that there are many other interpretations which may have some validity. The only concession to doubt Cannadine allows is provided by a prodigious usage of parantheses. I don’t think I have read a book with so many brackets sprinkled about, as if someone is whispering into your ear (sotto voce, no doubt) that there may (or may not be) other things to consider.
Aside from the Irish question, the take-aways (for me) from the book is how the empire grew through the actions of individuals in situ rather than through central fiat – indeed, for most of the century the government’s view was to constrain, if not reduce, expenditure and commitments in relation to overseas territories – and the dependence, even then, on the ability to trade with our European neighbours for economic prosperity rather than with the lands brought under the British yoke – an insight we might do well to heed.
The political colossi such as Gladstone, Disraeli, Pitt the Younger, the under-appreciated Earl of Derby (at least today) and Palmerston bestride the stage – what we would give for one or two of them now – but my admiration for Robert Peel grew as I turned the pages. It was a century when the extent of suffrage widened but still swathes of the population, including all women, were deprived of the vote and when parliamentary reorganisation finally rooted out the democratic abuse that were rotten boroughs.
On a macro-level it was a century of enormous progress – industrial, economic, cultural – but at a micro-level the lives of ordinary folk were a continual struggle in insanitary and disease-ridden conditions of squalour. Cannadine’s choice of epigrams to describe the period covered by his thoroughly enjoyable book are apt – Dickens’ opening line of A Tale of Two Cities – “it was the best of times, the worst of times” and Karl Marx’s observation that men and women “make their own history, but they do not do so … under conditions of their own choosing.” The 19th century in a nutshell, methinks.
May 1, 2018
Film Of The Week
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
It’s that time of year again. With one of her bank accounts TOWT gets half a dozen cinema tickets. They lie in the drawer until about six weeks before they are due to expire and then there is a mad dash to try to use them up. This was about the only current film that both of us could agree to waste a couple of hours of our lives on.
Rather like the eponymous pie the title is indigestible and the film lacks substance. I’ve not read the 2008 novel of the same name by Mary Ann Shaffer, completed and published posthumously by her niece, Annie Barrows, but my sense is that it is a pretty faithful adaptation. Perhaps therein lies many of the film’s problems.
The story is fairly simple. Correspondence between a Guernsey pig farmer and founding member of the curiously titled book club, Dawsey Adams, played by Michiel Huismann, and a London-based authoress, Juliet Ashton (Lily James) leads the latter to abandon, temporarily at least, her life in the metropolis to write a profile of the club for the Times of London. When she gets to the island, Juliet realises that there is another story behind the literary circle and using her charms and rather inept powers of detection and with the help of her American beau, whom she rather predictably ditches when he has served his purpose, unravels a darker secret.
The film is full of clichés. The book club is full of the sort of rustic eccentrics that populate central casting. There is some love interest and at the end Juliet pledges her troth to the right man and lives happily ever after. The political correct check list is pretty much ticked – yes, there is a gay – he’s a publisher (natch) – a bumptious, arrogant American, a quite nice Nazi and so on. The only one missing was a person of colour but that might have been difficult to have worked in in 1940s Guernsey. The two protagonists nearly miss each other as one embarks and the other gets off the channel ferry. And, Casablanca style, an aircraft takes Juliet away from her true love.
The plot line is clunky and telegraphs what twists and turns there are in the plot so that it wrings out any element of surprise. And the brutality of the German occupation of the Channel Islands and the ill-treatment of the todt slaves is there in the background but not made too much of. After all, it would destroy the twee rustic idyll that director, Mike Newell, creates.
It is so damn cosy and trite, the sort of thing that you might find on the telly in the dog days of summer or as a filler in the post-Christmas schedules. It’s not a truly awful film. There is enough to keep you vaguely amused and you can play cliché bingo. It just feels that it could have been so much better.
The scenery is nice – if it was really shot in Guernsey they were really lucky. Every time I have been there it has rained and my departure has been disrupted by fog – and the actors do a fine job given the limitations of the storyline.
Oh, and in case you were wondering about the title. When challenged by a German patrol while returning from an illicit feast of roast pig, the group, fuelled by Isola Pribby’s homemade gin, came up with the ludicrously named club as their cover. You find that out in the first fifteen minutes. After that, you may as well go home.
