Martin Fone's Blog, page 280
October 12, 2017
I Don’t Want To Belong To Any Club That Will Accept People Like Me As A Member – Part Forty One
The Oriental Club
This club is slightly away from London’s traditional club land, having moved to Stratford House, just off Oxford Street, in 1960. The name on the tin says it all – it was originally designed to draw its membership from those who had seen service or made their fortunes in the East, principally in India. The driving force behind the foundation of the club was Major General Sir John Malcolm.
A founding committee was established in 1824 and a series of adverts were posted in the right sort of papers and journals to attract the right sort of chaps – chapesses were not eligible for membership until 2010. The club was seeking to recruit “Noblemen and gentlemen associated with the administration of our Eastern empire, or who have travelled or resided in Asia, at St. Helena, in Egypt, at the Cape of Good Hope, the Mauritius, or at Constantinople.” The initial committee consisted of “forty individuals of rank and talent” including the Duke of Wellington.
According to the prospectus, “the club will be established at a house in a convenient situation” – the first premises occupied was at No 16 Lower Grosvenor Street but in 1827-8 a purpose-built club house was constructed in Hanover Square where the club remained until decamping to the present site in 1960. The prospectus went on to state that “The utmost economy shall be observed in the whole establishment, and the subscription for its foundation and support shall not exceed fifteen pounds entrance, and six pounds per annum.”
As the club increased in popularity, subscriptions had increased. An account of the club in The Great Metropolis, written by James Grant and published in 1837, noted that “The admission money to the Oriental Club is twenty pounds, the annual subscription is eight pounds. The number of members is 550.” A casual observer of proceedings at the club could play a sort of Oriental bingo. Grant commented, “I have often thought it would be worth the while of some curious person to count the number of times the words Calcutta, Bombay and Madras are pronounced by the members in the course of a day.” Members by that time were “persons who are living at home on fortunes they have amassed in India. India and Indian matters form the everlasting topics of their conversation.”
One of the conspicuous habits of nabobs, as men who had return from the East having made prodigious fortunes in double quick time were known as, was their taking of snuff. The legacy of this habit can be seen today at the club. In the Old Smoking Room is to be found an elaborate ram’s head snuff box together with snuff rake and spoons. But if Grant is to be believed, the members must have brought their own snuff as, according to Grant, the amount in the club’s accounts for snuff was a paltry 17 shillings and 10 pennies.
The club, known pejoratively amongst Hackney carriage drivers as the Horizontal, was not to everyone’s taste. It was known for its library-like atmosphere and The New Monthly Magazine wryly commented, “From the outside it looks like a prison;—enter it, it looks like an hospital, in which a smell of curry-powder pervades the ‘wards,’—wards filled with venerable patients, dressed in nankeen shorts, yellow stockings, and gaiters, and faces to match. There may still be seen pigtails in all their pristine perfection. It is the region of calico shirts, returned writers, and guinea-pigs grown into bores.” Perhaps we need to take this description with a pinch of curry powder!
Filed under: Culture, History Tagged: 16 Lower Grosvenor Street, Hanover Square, James Grant, Major General Sir John Malcolm, nabobs, Stratford House, the Duke of Wellington, The Great Metropolis, The New Monthly Magazine, The Oriental Club
October 11, 2017
Book Corner – October 2017 (2)
Malice Aforethought – Francis Iles
First published in 1931, Malice Aforethought is an early example of what is known as an inverted narrative crime novel. What this means is that the focus is not on solving the crime a la Sherlock Holmes and Maigret but on seeing how the murder was carried out and to understand the motivation and psychological make-up of the murderer. After all, Iles aka Anthony Berkeley aka Anthony Berkeley Cox baldly states in the opening sentence that Doctor Bickleigh, a hen-pecked man with a pronounced inferiority complex, is going to do away with his wife. For the reader the principal interest is how he did it and whether he got away with it.
In some ways Bickleigh is a stereotypical murderer. He is trapped in a loveless marriage – Julia, his wife, is portrayed as an awful, domineering woman. Her bullying and unsympathetic manner is given full rein in the opening scenes of the book during the preparations for a tennis party to which the great and the good of Wyvern’s Cross are invited. Mind you, Bickleigh is no saint. He is a philanderer and has a string of lady friends, including the faithful Ivy whom Bickleigh treats with disdain. At the tennis party, Bickleigh’s advances are rebuffed by Gwynyfryd Rattery. A new woman, Madelaine Cranmere arrives in the village and when Bickleigh falls for his charms and demands a divorce which Julia refuses, you know her fate is sealed.
The other sense in which Bickleigh is a stereotypical murderer is that he is a Doctor, a profession which gives him easy access to drugs and poisons. I will not spoil the story but, suffice to say, that his chosen profession proves very helpful.
Iles’ approach allows us insights into Bickleigh’s mind and thought processes. He is characterised as a rather pompous man, self-satisfied and convinced that he has planned the perfect murder. But as events go somewhat out of control, the reader begins to realise that Bickleigh is not as clever as he thinks he is and is increasingly deluded about the natures and motives of those around him. He is not a sympathetic character and although I was drawn into the book, fascinated by the modus operandi of the murderer and the tensions around whether the crime would be detected, I found it mattered not to me whether he got away with or swung.
Iles is particularly good at painting quick character sketches and gets the insular and bitchy world of English country life down to a tee. The unsettling thought is that many of us find ourselves trapped in some aspects of our lives, desperate to find a way out. How easily would we be tipped towards a path which results in murder?
Iles presumably got his inspiration for the book in part from Dr Crippins and Herbert Rowse Armstrong, the so-called Hay poisoner and the only solicitor to be hanged for murder in England. The book takes an unexpected twist right at the end. If you are tempted to read it and have a battered second-hand copy, make sure that it contains the Epilogue. I may be old-fashioned but I much prefer a whodunit!
Filed under: Books, Culture Tagged: Anthony Berkeley, Anthony Berkeley Cox, Doctor Bickleigh, Dr Crippins, Francis Iles, Gwynyfryd Rattery, Herbert Rowse Armstrong, inverted narrative crime novel, Madelaine Cranmere, Malice Aforethought, the Hay poisoner
October 10, 2017
Double Your Money – Part Twenty Four
The Grand Central Information Booth scam, 1929
Sometimes I stumble on stories that seem too good to be true and I bring this one to your attention with some trepidation as the jury is out as to whether it really happened or not. However, the New York Central Railroad attested it in their brochure about the architectural wonder that is the Grand Central station in the late 1960s and in the absence of anything to the contrary, that’s good enough for me.
The marks in this scam were two Italian entrepreneurs, Tony and Nick Fortunato (or not so, as it turned out) who ran the Fortunato Fruit Company. In early 1929 their premises were visited by a well-dressed man from the Grand Central Holding Corporation, called T Remington Grenfall. He had an astonishing proposition for them. The information booth that was in the central of the hall was going to be closed down and travellers would have to get travel information from the ticket desks. The reason, he cited, was that too many members of the public were asking stupid questions and the central position of the booth was disrupting the flow of people to the platforms.
What this meant was that there was an amazing piece of prime real estate available for rent to the first merchants who recognised the gold mine that the opportunity was. The Fortunatos fell for it, hook, line and sinker.
In order to secure the site which was directly underneath the Golden Clock, the Fortunatos had to come up with a year’s rent in advance, a cool $100,000. The next day the brothers visited the Grand Central Holding Corporation offices, next door to the station (natch), and handed over the money to the so-called President, one Wilson A Blodgett. In return they received a contract which stated that on 1st April 1929 (April Fools’ Day, note) they were entitled to take possession of the space.
When 1st April arrived, the Fortunatos, accompanied by a number of workers and a large amount of timber, walked into the hall of the station to take possession of their spot, as per the contract. Imagine their surprise, then, when they saw that not only was the information booth still in situ but that it was manned and operating as normal. The employees manning the booth refused to leave their posts and, worse still, the Fortunatos were requested to leave. Inevitably, the station denied all knowledge of any plan to rent out space in the hall and refused to honour the contract the increasingly frustrated Fortunato’s waved in their face.
Eventually, it dawned on the Italians that they had been had and their next recourse was to go to the police. Despite an exhaustive search, neither hide nor hair of Messrs Grenfall and Blodgett was ever seen and the Fortunatos were forced to write off their loss to experience. When something seems to good to be true, it generally is.
But Grand Central had not seen the last of the Fortunatos. Every now and again they would return to the station and intimidate the poor folk working in the information booths and shout at railway officials. So notorious was their behaviour that people would often go to the station on spec just to see whether the Italians would turn up and put on a show.
Filed under: Culture, History Tagged: Grand Central Station, T Remington Grenfall, the Fortunato Fruit Company, the Grand Central Holding Corporation offices, the Grand Central Station Information Booth scandal, Wilson A Blodgett
October 9, 2017
A Better Life – Part Fourteen
Elbert Hubbard and the Roycrofters
Sometimes you find yourself in a dead-end and know that there is something better you could be doing with your life. It matters not if you have made a small fortune as a partner in the Larkin Soap Company, if your dream is to be a writer and to promote high quality goods. So in 1894 Elbert Hubbard quit his lucrative position to set up a printing company in East Aurora, New York, taking as his inspiration William Morris and the English Arts and Crafts movement. His aim was to convince Americans that beauty was to be found in everyday objects.
The press was called Roycroft after two English printers, Samuel and Thomas Roycroft, who operated in London between 1650 and 1690. As important to Hubbard was the fact that roycroft was a title given to guildsmen who had achieved a high degree of skill and were thus qualified to make objects for the monarchy. The books produced by the Roycroft Press were noted for their elaborate book-binding and typography and used traditional skills and techniques. Hubbard’s espousal of high quality, traditional craftsmanship soon saw an influx of like-minded furniture makers, metalsmiths and leathersmiths. An arty community was born in East Aurora.
The Roycroft motto clearly spelt out their aims; “The Roycrofters are a small band of workers who make beautiful books and things—making them as good as they can.” They took a quote from John Ruskin as their modus operandi – “a belief in working with the head, hand and heart and mixing enough play with the work so that each task is pleasurable and makes for health and happiness.” Eschewing some of the mistakes other communes had made, Hubbard deliberately excluded those who just wanted to spend their time there pontificating rather than getting their hands dirty. Instead, as Hubbard recalled, his preferred recruits were “boys who have been expelled from school, blind people, deaf people, old people, jail-birds and mental defectives” who all managed to do good work.
Although Hubbard owned the property, Roycroft was similar to other American utopian communes in that meals were taken communally, there were meetings, sports events and communal studies. Wages were low but then there was little to spend money on. The commune managed to create an atmosphere of shared values where work was satisfying and everyone looked out for each other.
Throughout the first decade of the 20th century, the community thrived and developed what was known as the Campus. In 1909 a powerhouse was built to provide the workshops with heat and electricity and hundreds of craftsman-style bungalows were built to house the artisans. By the early 1910s the Roycrofters were producing everything from lighting and stained glass to pottery and jewellery as well as the staple products of books and furniture. Much is still sought after today.
Hubbard, by this time, had seen commercial success from his books, Little Journeys and A Message To Garcia, and toured the States on lecture tours. This, of course, provided ample opportunity to attract and recruit like-minded craftspeople. Alas, though, tragedy struck Hubbard and by extension the Roycrofters in 1915 when he and his wife, Alice Moore Hubbard, a prominent campaigner for women’s suffrage, were lost at sea when the HMS Lusitania went down.
Hubbard’s son, Bert, assumed his father’s role and tried to wholesale the Roycrofters’ furniture into retail outlets. Sears & Roebuck eventually stocked some of the goods but it was a short-lived success, the commune closing its doors eventually in 1938, after the depression forced Bert to file for bankruptcy. Fourteen of the original Roycroft buildings can still be seen today.
Filed under: Culture, History Tagged: Alice Moore Hubbard, East Aurora in New York, Elbert Hubbard, English Arts & Crafts movement, Larkin Soap Company, Roycroft press, Samuel and Thomas Roycroft, the Lusitania, the Roycrofters, utopian principles of Roycroft, William Blake
October 8, 2017
Plastic Bag Tax Update (3)
The introduction of the plastic bag tax has led to the adoption of what are laughingly called bags for life. Those of us who have been suckered into using them glow with pride that we are doing our bit for the environment but at what cost to our health?
If you use them to carry raw foods such as fish and meat, I learned from the Food Standards Authority this week, you run the risk of contracting food poisoning. Apparently, there can be cross-contamination between produce if carried in the same bag, even if there is no obvious sign of leakage. The reason – traces of harmful bacteria that upset our tummies can often be found on the outer packaging of the meat and fish products.
The solution – plastic bags for life should be replaced on a regular basis – the life of a mayfly, perhaps – and fabric ones should be washed or cleaned. Or how about just using a one-off disposable bag?
Filed under: News Tagged: bags for life, food poisoning risk in bags for life, Food Standards Authority, plastic bag tax
Pumpkin Of The Week (2)
Regular readers of this blog will realise that pumpkins are a bit of a sore subject with me but I couldn’t resist this story. Rather like me, Christian Ilsley from Revere in Massachusetts was inspired by seeing enormous gourds at a local agricultural show to see whether he could grow a big pumpkin. Unlike me he succeeded, his aptly named Atlantic Giant weighing in at a very respectable 520 pounds.
The next question was what to do with it. Well, obviously, hollow it out, attach an outboard motor to it and pilot it across Boston harbour from Jeffries Point to Fish Pier and back. The pumpkin was harvested and hollowed out, the engine was attached and last Sunday the voyage was attempted.
All went swimmingly. Now that is what I call style!
Filed under: Humour, News Tagged: Atlantic Giant pumpkin, Christian Ilsley, Fish Pier, growing pumpkins, Jeffries Point, man sails pumpkin across Boston Harbour
October 7, 2017
Crime Spree Of The Week
I came across some distressing news for oenophiles this week. An unusually mild March followed by harsh frosts in April ravaged the fragile shoots of French vines – the result will be probably the poorest wine harvest in France since 1945, with output down to a mere 37.2 million hectolitres, a whopping 18% less than was harvested in 2016.
Worse still, the shortage of grapes has sparked off an unusual crime spree, which has left a number of growers crushed, if not shaken. Six and a half tonnes of grapes were nicked from a vineyard in Génissac, around 600 to 700 kg from one in Pomerol and around 500 vines were uprooted near Montagne. A fourth grape robbery occurred in Lelande-de-Pomerol. The local gendarmerie thinks that the culprits are professional vintners but, as yet, no one’s collar has been felt.
Irrespective of the euro pound conversion rate, it looks as though the prices of French plonk are set to rise.
You have been warned!
Filed under: News Tagged: Génissac, grape robberies in France, Lelande-de-Pomerol, lowest wine output in France since 1945, oenophiles, Pomerol
October 6, 2017
What Is The Origin Of (148)?…
Cucumber time
Every now and again I come across a phrase which is now redundant, at least in English, but which is so evocative that it deserves to make a comeback. A case in point is this week’s phrase, cucumber time, which was used to denote that flat time of the year when nothing much happens. These days we call it the silly season when newspapers are full of stories like man bites dog or nothing much happened today or what the Americans call a slow news season. But why cucumbers?
It first made its appearance in print in the ever useful A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew, published in 1700. In its august pages cucumber time is defined as “taylers holiday when they have leave to play and cucumbers are in season.” We can deduce that it was already in use in the 17th century, at least among the lower sorts whose colourful language would make its way into a lexicon. A reference in Notes and Queries from 1853 shone some further light on the phrase; “this term…the working tailors of England use to denote that which their masters call the flat season.”
Further explanation of the term was provided by the Pall Mall Gazette of 1867 which noted that “Tailors could not be expected to earn much money in cucumber season.” The reason cited for the downturn in the tailors’ earning power was that “when the cucumbers are in, the gentry are out of town.” With the toffs out enjoying a summer retreat in the country, there was no one around to order a new set of togs. The tailors were idle.
What is particularly interesting is that the phrase cucumber time or season (and in some cases the pickled version of a cucumber, the gherkin) appears in a number of European languages, all meaning the flat part of the year. In Dutch we have komkommertijd, in German sauregurkenzeit ,in Norwegian agurktid in Czech Okurková sezóna and in Polish Sezon ogórkowy to name just a few. Perhaps, tellingly, there is a similar phrase in Hebrew, Onat Ha’melafefonim. Given the dominance that Jews had in the clothing trade and their diaspora, often enforced, throughout Europe, is it fanciful to suppose that the Hebrew phrase is the source of the phrase?
Tailors became known as cucumbers, giving further credence to the widespread adoption of our phrase and its association with the peaks and troughs of their workload. An illustration by Thomas Rowlandson, published in 1823, entitled Hot Goose, Cabbages and Cucumbers, makes the point. In the vernacular of tailoring, cabbage was a term used to describe the off cuts of cloth from an order. As they had already been paid for, the tailor could use them to make other garments – an added bonus. Cabbage also became a term for tailors and/or money and gave rise to a playful maxim that “tailors are Vegetarians, because they live on ‘cucumber’ when without work, and on ‘cabbage’ when in full employ.” In case you were wondering, the goose referred to in Rowlandson’s picture is an iron.
It was around the 1860s and down to an unnamed writer for the Saturday Review that the term silly season was born, to describe, ostensibly, that time of the year when Parliament and the courts were in recess and when newspapers had little or nothing with which to fill up their pages. It is a shame that that phrase stuck. It is high time we restored cucumber time to its rightful place in our language or am I just being silly?
Filed under: Culture, History Tagged: A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew, cabbage as a tailor's term, Hot Goose Cabbages and Cucumbers, komkommertijd, origin of cucumber time, Pall Mall Gazette, sauregurkenzeit, silly season, slow news period, tailors as cucumbers, Thomas Rowlandson
October 5, 2017
Gin o’Clock – Part Twenty Nine
When in Rome, do as the Romans do – a piece of advice that dates back to at least 390CE and St Augustine. So, naturally, when I was in Spain a little while back, in order to extend my exploration of the ginaissance, I drank Larios, a local hooch, but part of the Beam Suntory stable. I tried two – Larios London Dry Gin and Larios 12 Premium Gin.
Whether it is the Brexit effect, I know not, but the London Gin has been rebranded and now goes under the sobriquet of Larios Ginebra Mediterranea, a welcome indicator of its land of origin. The bottle boasts a rather splendid label which is a riot of yellow and orange colours, informing us that Larios was established in 1866 and that the hooch was double distilled. The label at the back of the stubby, rectangular bottle confirms that it is London Dry Gin. The cap is a rather incongruous purple screwcap. At 37.5% ABV it as the weaker end of the gin spectrum but as I picked up a bottle for a very acceptable €8 at the local Aldi in Benijofar, I couldn’t complain.
As you might suspect from the labelling, citrus plays a key part in the flavour, the six botanicals used being juniper, lemon, bitter oranges, coriander, cinnamon and almonds. To the smell it is rather disappointing with the aroma of alcohol overpowering what hints of juniper and citrus can be detected. The clear spirit is quite harsh and the juniper has to fight hard to establish its presence, dominated by the citrus. Adding a tonic to it just provokes the citrus to overwhelm the drink to such an extent that it is difficult to consider it a London Dry Gin where juniper should take the lead. Perhaps that is why it has been rebranded and the spices may as well not have been there as they made little impact on my palate.
It wasn’t an unpleasant drink and one of the better budget gins I have tasted. But I suppose you get what you pay for.
Larios 12 comes in a tall blue bottle with an orange screwcap. The labelling is more subdued, using a white script with orange highlights. At least at the back the botanicals are listed, twelve in all which go through five distillations – orange, mandarin, coriander, tangerine, lemon, angelica root, lime, orange blossom, grapefruit, nutmeg, clementine and, oh yes, juniper. This gin has no pretensions to being a London Dry Gin and is firmly in the contemporary gin camp, where the juniper takes a very definite back seat.
To the smell there is a very distinctive orange feel to it with, perhaps, a hint of spice. The clear spirit, which is 40% ABV, provides a refreshing taste of citrus to the mouth but as I played with it in my mouth I began to detect the juniper struggling to make its presence felt, only to be overwhelmed by the more tart grapefruit in the aftertaste. On the whole I was a tad disappointed because the taste was a bit one-dimensional – not unsurprising given the heady cocktail of citrus. It is a perfectly acceptable gin but I think if you are looking for a contemporary gin, there are much better, even if they are more than twice the price.
Often I find that booze that was acceptable to swill when on holiday tastes awful when you get it home. I have to say that was not the case with either of the Larios hooches. If you are interested, they also seem to do a Rose gin, although a drop has not passed my lips (yet!).
Filed under: Gin Tagged: Beam Suntory, Benijofar, ginaissance, Larios 12 Premium Gin, Larios Ginebra Mediterranea, Larios Rose Gin, Spanish gins, St Augustine
October 4, 2017
Book Corner – October 2017 (1)
The Moor’s Last Stand – Elizabeth Drayson
The year of 1492 was one of major significance for the western world. We all know that it was the year in which Christopher Columbus had trouble with his sat nav and landed on an island which he dubbed as San Salvador, thinking that he had reached the East Indies. What is less well-known is that it was the year in which the last foothold of Islamic power was eradicated from Western Europe, a tale that Drayson tells with some gusto.
On 2nd January of that fateful year, Boabdil, the last Sultan of Granada, handed over the keys of the capital, ,which had been in Moslem hands for seven centuries, to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella and went into exile. It is said when Boabdil reached the furthest point of his former land from which Granada could be seen, he sighed and burst into tears. His mother, Aixa, turned round and said, “you do well, my son, to cry like a woman for what you couldn’t defend like a man.” This is probably apocryphal but ever since Boabdil has had a bad rep and Drayson’s mission is to restore his credibility or at least explain why he gave up his kingdom without much of a fight.
Drayson traces the history of the Emirate of Granada from the conquest of large parts of the Iberian peninsula and the establishment of Al-Andalus from 711 CE by the Umayyads. The Nasrid dynasty, of whom Boabdil was the last, took control in 1238, although, in truth, their status was little more than vassals to the kingdom of Castille. What did for Boabdil was the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella, uniting the kingdoms of Castille and Aragon, and Ferdinand’s determination to eradicate the Moslem thorn in his side. Ferdinand successfully played on divisions amongst Boabdil’s relatives and by late 1491 the writing was on the wall for Boabdil. Rather than risk mass slaughter, he negotiated a treaty of surrender.
About 200,000 Muslims emigrated to North Africa after the surrender and those who remained were guaranteed their property, laws, customs and religion under the terms of the surrender. But the Christian rulers began to turn the screw and following an unsuccessful rebellion in 1500 the rights of Muslims and Jews, who were collateral damage in the whole affair, were withdrawn. At best, Boabdil was naïve in trusting that the Christians would be true to their word.
This is a strange book. It is never a good sign when half way through the ostensible subject, Boabdil in this case, is dead and, frankly, the evidence and facts about him are painfully thin. Drayson spends more time exploring the early days of the Muslim presence in Iberia and then reviewing how later history, literature, art, poetry and music viewed the last Sultan than on the Sultan himself. The sense is that what would have been an interesting monograph has been padded out to make a book and parts of the last two chapters dealing with his posthumous reputation are deadly dull. I struggled to summon the enthusiasm to see it through to the end.
History, as they say, is written by the victors. From an objective standpoint, it is hard to see that the expulsion of the Muslims, and the Jews, was a good thing. Granada with its wonderful Alhambra is a testament to the architectural skills of the Moors. Their territories allowed learning and research to flourish and were a model of religious tolerance, allowing people of all faiths to live in what they termed convivencia or harmony. The surrender of 1492 ushered in intolerance and the Inquisition. Boabdil was a victim of realpolitik, no more, no less. I am grateful for Drayson for shining a light on an area of history I was painfully ignorant of. I just think she could have made a better fist of it.
Filed under: Books, Culture Tagged: Boabdil, Christopher Columbus, convivencia, Elizabeth Drayson, Granada, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, San Salvador, the Alhambra, The Moor's Last Stand, the Nasrid dynasty, The Sultan's sigh, the surrender of Granada in 1492, the Umayyads
