Martin Fone's Blog, page 281
October 3, 2017
A Measure Of Things – Part Ten
The invention and rapid adoption of printing technology was a revolutionary step forward for what we call Western civilisation. Of course, the Chinese and Arabs were light years ahead of us in that respect. And in order to print you needed paper. John Tate established the first paper mill in England near Stevenage in Hertfordshire in 1480, although it was not until the 1580s that the first successful commercial paper mill was established in Dartford in Kent by a German émigré, John Spilman.
Paper comes in a bewildering array of shapes and sized and it was not until 1959 that some order was established when Britain adopted the International Standards Organisation’s system of sizing paper, but we will save that for another time. Before that we had the British Imperial system of paper sizes. Some of the nomenclature that you may be familiar with includes Imperial which was a sheet sized thirty inches by twenty-two, the Emperor – a whopping 72 inches by 48 – and foolscap, which got its name from the watermark, a fool’s cap and bells, that was ingrained into the paper. Its dimensions were 13.25 inches by 16.25 in its cut form and 13.5 by 17 in its uncut form.
Many of the paper sizes were too big for practical purposes and so they were folded, to make it easier to print on and to bind into a book. Naturally, this developed a vocabulary of its own. A folio was used to describe a piece of paper that had been folded in half, to produce two sheets of paper and, assuming double-sided printing, four pages upon which to write. A quarto described a sheet of paper that had been folded twice to produce four sheets and eight pages. A paper that had been folded three times to produce six sheets and twelve pages was known as a sexton while an octavo had three folds but making eight sheets and sixteen pages. To complete the set, duodecimo had four folds producing 12 sheets and 24 pages whereas the four folds of the sextodecimo produced 16 sheets and 32 pages.
Turning back to the foolscap paper that we commonly used before the introduction of A4 paper, it was technically foolscap folio – something to throw in at the watercooler when you are reminiscing about the old days with your colleagues.
Paper in single sheets is rarely much use to anyone – it is normally sold in multiples and, as you might expect, a set of terms were developed to describe quantities of paper. As Brits, we cheerfully eschewed the convenience of that foreign abomination that was the decimal system and based our Imperial system of paper quantities on dozens. I suppose as that was the basis of our currency, it made pricing easier.
The basic unit of quantity was the quire which consisted of two dozen sheets. Twenty quires made up a ream and so if you ordered a ream of paper you would get 480 sheets. Two reams made up a bundle and five bundles – a total of 4,800 sheets – equalled a bale. Just to complicate matters further, a printer’s ream was made up of 512 sheets to allow for wastage so that the finished product was more likely to equate to the ream of 480 sheets that the customer was expecting.
All this was to change, as we shall see next time.
Filed under: Culture, History Tagged: British Imperial paper quantities, British Imperial paper sizes, first commercially successful paper mill in England, Imperial and Emperor paper sizes, John Stilman, origin of foolscap, paper measurements, printer's ream, quire and reams, what is a folio, what is a quarto
October 2, 2017
The Object Is An Actor
Matisse in the Studio – Royal Academy
Well, would you believe it? Henri Matisse owned a pewter jug, an Andalusian glass vase, a chocolate pot and a replica of a beautiful Venetian rococo chair – treasured possessions all. They made unusual and interesting shapes and, well, he included them in many of his still lives. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the point of a still life is to take some everyday objects and make an interesting composition out of them. Matisse was just following convention. Some of the objects were unusual – there were some interesting African masks, Chinese calligraphy and Islamic embroidery – but the premise of the Royal Academy exhibition in the Sackler Wing is that the 35 objects on display give us an insight into how they informed and influenced the 65 works on display.
The problem with this was that it turned the viewing experience into a bit of a game of I-Spy. I was more interested in spotting the various artefacts and shapes in the assembled collection that I almost forgot to appreciate the art as art.
Similarly, we are told that Matisse used to cut out his strange and colourful shapes and position them on the walls of his studio, moving them around until he found a pattern that met his approval. Interesting for sure but it poses the question as to whether knowing about the mechanics of how a piece of art was produced enhances our appreciation or whether it is unnecessary and distracting noise. Do we appreciate a book more because we know the author drank a bottle of whisky a day before putting pen to paper or used green ink on pastel blue notepaper? I think not.
Don’t get me wrong, there is some wonderful art on display and once I had got beyond the game of spotting the objects in the pictures, I began to get a better appreciation of an artist I had always previously thought of as a bit overrated. Rocaille Chair is a powerful minimalisation of the chair, down to its essence of shape and colour whilst Odalisque in a Turkish Chair seemed to set the convention of portraiture on its head, paying more attention to the objects around her than to the model herself. I wonder what she thought when she saw it?
I almost missed a small but lovely exhibition tucked away in the Tennant Gallery, featuring the works of Charles Tunnicliffe who through his etchings, wood engravings and watercolours captured the essence of British wildlife and the countryside in the first half of the 20th century. I was particularly struck by the Spotted Sow and the more restful and symmetrical Geese and Mallow. What I hadn’t appreciated is that Tunnicliffe illustrated a number of Ladybird books I adored as a child, including the wonderful What to Look At In Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, four books representing a time when we had four distinct seasons. Tunnicliffe also illustrated Henry Williamson’s Tarka The Otter, another childhood favourite, and a couple of series of cards that were contained in Brooke Bond tea packets and which I probably collected.
It must be an age thing but nostalgia gave me a spring in my step as I picked my way out of the RA which is beginning to resemble a building site as work continues on modifications to be completed in time to celebrate its 250th anniversary. The Tunnicliffe exhibition runs until 8th October and the Matisse until 12th November.
Filed under: Art, Culture Tagged: Charles Tunnicliffe, Geese and mallow, Henri Matisse, Matisse in the Studio, Odalisque in a Turkish Chair, Rocaille Chair, Royal Academy, Sackler Wing, Tarka the Otter, Tennant Gallery, the Spotted Sow, What To Look At Ladybird series
October 1, 2017
Social Media Victim Of The Week
Once upon a time one of the holiday rituals was to seek out a shop on the seafront which sold postcards, select a few and write some inane platitudes to friends and family. Invariably the scenes depicted on the cards bore no relation to reality – brilliant sunlit views as opposed to dank, damp, misty vistas – or were testaments to your questionable sense of humour. Often the wretched things would be received long after you had returned.
Nowadays the development of social media has made it so much easier to share the highs and lows of our holiday experiences with those who either couldn’t give a toss or are quietly seething with envy about another holiday. The consequence is that the postcard industry is dying on its feet.
Britain’s oldest postcard manufacturers, J Salmon, based in Kent, have announced, I learned this week, that they are shutting their presses at the end of the year, having been in business since in 1880. They cite social media and the change in holidaying habits – shorter breaks rather than a two-week stay – as the cause of their demise.
Perhaps in a year or so we will be sending them rectangular pieces of card with wish you were here dutifully inscribed. It will never catch on!
Filed under: Humour, News Tagged: Britain's oldest postcard manufacturer, J Salmon, postcard manufacturer closes, social media kills postcard industry
September 30, 2017
Device Of The Week (2)
It’s term time again at our universities. In my day, indolence and ingenuity were attributes associated with the student population. Here is a story I stumbled across this week which shows that this spirit is still alive and kicking.
Four students, Jamie Stewart, Josh Still, Josh White and Ewen MacKenzie, from the University of the West of Scotland (me, neither) lived opposite each other in Townhead Terrace in Paisley. The problem was that they lived in upstairs flats and it was a bit of a fag to go up and down the stairs to share the essentials of life with each other. The answer was a stroke of genius – erect a pulley system across the road between the windows of their bijou accommodation.
The system they designed deployed a bucket and a pair of strings, a white one along which the bucket travelled and a red one which they pulled. To erect the contraption a student stood in the middle of the road one night and threw one end of the string into an open window where it was caught and secured by another member of the brains trust. The same procedure was followed at the other property and the bucket was attached to the white string. It worked a treat.
Alas, one of their neighbours spotted and photographed the contraption in operation, alerting the Old Bill on the grounds of ‘Elf and Safety, fearing that objects could fall from the bucket and cause injury or damage. The police duly called round and ordered the students to dismantle the contraption. So it is back to trudging up and down stairs for them.
Filed under: Humour, News Tagged: health and safety concerns, ingenuity of students, police order dismantling of pulley system, pulley system erected across road, students from University of the West of Scotland, Townhead Terrace in Paisley
September 29, 2017
What Is The Origin Of (147)?…
Like it or lump it
As an alternative to a fait accompli or Hobson’s choice, we use like it or lump it to indicate that you can either take what is offered or leave empty handed. The implication of the phrase is that you won’t be too happy either way.
The interesting aspect of the phrase is the use of lump as a verb. We are more familiar with it as a noun meaning a compact, often irregular, mass of something like coal. Indeed, it has had this meaning since at least the start of the 14th century. We have carried this sense into its use as a verb as in lump things together, collect, classify or put them together, a usage it has had since the 17th century. However, this cannot be the sense in our phrase because what we are looking for is an antonym to like.
Help comes in the not inconsiderable form of Richard Stanyhurst, the Irish alchemist and historian, who wrote in 1577 his Treatise Describing Irelande. There he described the Irish thus; “they stand lumping and lowring, fretting and fuming.” It is quite clear from the usage and context that Stanyhurst meant it to give the sense of being disagreeable or sulky. That this is the case was corroborated four years later in a passage from Barnaby Rich’s Farewell Military Profession where he wrote, “she beganne to froun, lumpe and lowre at her housbande” – a not unfamiliar state of affairs in many a household throughout time.
So by the turn of the 17th century one sense of lumping it was to pull a long face and to give some visible sign of disgust or disagreement. However, it wasn’t until the late into the 18th century that lump it appeared in a phrase in opposition to like. An article appeared in the Universal Asylum and Colombian Magazine, published in Philadelphia in August 1790, entitled Thoughts on Proverbs. The columnist was discussing another proverb but made reference to a variant of our phrase by way of an obiter; “throw your lump where your love lies plainly argues that every lover ought to make a beneficial settlement on his beloved. But I will not be positive as to this solution, since another proverb as you like it, you may lump it contradicts it.”
Quite why the writer thought the two phrases contradictory is not clear as lump is used as a noun in the first and a verb in the second. Whatever the cause of the confusion is, what we can take away from this reference is that lump and like were associated in some form of saying in the 18th century and that, probably, it was reasonably well known. It certainly was by 1807 because The Monthly Mirror, a London journal, was able to make a, for the time, mildly amusing pun in its September issue. “Mrs_ purposely sends a dish of tea to a lady, without sugar, of which she complains. Mr_ (handing her the sugar basin) [says] well, ma’am, if you don’t like it, you may lump it.”
I can imagine that had ‘em rolling in the salons and sitting rooms of London. To work as a pun, feeble as it may be, it would require an acquaintance with the phrase. But although it is close to our phrase, it is not quite there. We get there in 1841 with Josiah Sheppey’s Specimens which was a collection of inspirational essays in verse form. “..forces, or like it or lump it,/ Himself, honest fellow, to blow his own trumpet.”
If you don’t like this explanation, you can lump it!
Filed under: Culture, History Tagged: Barnaby Rich, Farewell Military Profession, Josiah Sheppey, lump as sulky, origin of like it or lump it, Richard Stanyhurst, The Monthly Mirror, Treatise Describing Irelande
September 28, 2017
Everything Is Possible For An Eccentric, Especially When He Is English – Part Thirteen
Caroline Giacometti Prodgers
Should we feel sorry for cabbies? The ready availability of the sat nav has rendered otiose their encyclopaedic knowledge of the highways and byways of London – the longest and slowest when a fare is in the cab, in my experience, and the shortest and quickest when touting for custom – and now that their stranglehold over the taxi business has been challenged, their livelihoods are under threat from nimbler operators. Taking a taxi is often seen as a necessary evil rather than an enjoyable experience and there is always the suspicion that the driver is ripping you off.
It seems that this feeling is not new. What is particularly interesting about Caroline Prodgers is that she was uber-zealous in her pursuit of cabbies, turning their ability to memorise routes and fares against them. The tipping point in Prodgers’ journey to eccentricity appears to have been her divorce in 1871 from an Austrian naval captain, Giovanni Battista Giacometti. Prior to her marriage Caroline had inherited a large sum of money and so was considerably better off than her hubby. This counted against her in the spectacular divorce proceedings during which she seemed to question the legitimacy of her children and the court ordered her to pay maintenance to Mr Giacometti for the rest of his mortal, creating a legal precedent along the way. Caroline failed to make the payments and was back in court.
Suitably pissed off, Caroline became an enthusiastic litigator. She sued her cook whom she had sacked for refusing to leave the house and continuing to sing around the place. She sued a newspaper publisher for ripping her dress in an altercation over a newspaper she refused to pay for because she thought she was mentioned in it. A poor watchmaker was dragged through the courts for returning the wrong watch to her.
Caroline’s major contribution to clogging up the legal system was to wage a ferocious campaign against London cabbies who, she was convinced were ripping their customers off. Outside stations would be posted bills showing fares from the railway terminus to principal areas of London. She memorised them and calculated the exact point at which the fare would increase from one amount to another. Taking a cab she would order the cabbie to stop immediately before the fare would increase. If he sought to charge the higher fare, Caroline would protest, throw a fit and provoke the cabbie into an altercation. The result was that the cabbie would then be up before the beak who usually would find in favour of the passenger. In a twenty year campaign, Prodgers sued more than fifty cabbies, winning most of the cases.
This rather unorthodox campaign brought Prodgers further notoriety. On Bonfire night in 1875 cabbies paraded an effigy of Caroline around in a cab. The cab driver was arrested but the case was dismissed, the judge commenting that the cabbie was “acting as a showman for the amusement of the public”. Cabbies also developed a warning system if they saw Caroline approaching, looking for a cab. The cry of “Mother Prodgers” would ring through the streets and cabs would rush away as quickly as they could.
Today we might view Caroline as a slightly dotty campaigner for the consumer. Her actions bore fruit because in 1890, the year of her death, a controversial plan was announced to fit hackney cabs with machines which would measure distances and calculate fares. A victory of sorts but contemporaries remembered her as a right nuisance. As comedian, Herbert Campbell, wrote, “ I’d like to send,/
A bust of Mrs Prodgers the Cabman’s friend./ Of all the strong-minded females she’s the worst I ever saw,/ Oh, wouldn’t she be lovely as a mother-in-law?/ At the corner of every cab-rank her flag should be unfurled/ As a horrible example to this wicked world.”
Filed under: Culture, History Tagged: Caroline Giocametti Prodgers, comedian Herbert Campbell, great English eccentrics, introduction of fare meters in hackney carriages, Mother Prodgers, Mrs Prodgers the cabman's friend, vexatious litigation of Caroline Prodgers
September 27, 2017
Book Corner – September 2017 (4)
It Can’t Happen Here – Sinclair Lewis
The events of 2016, culminating in the British vote in favour of Brexit and the election of Donald Trump as President of the US, has caused many of a liberal persuasion to question whether universal suffrage is all that it is cracked up to be. Even the so-called cradle of democracy, classical Athens, showed the limitations of allowing all and sundry to vote with the rise of the likes of Alcibiades and Cleon who offered the demos jam tomorrow rather than the reality of having to face up to their problems today.
This is an astonishing, amazingly prescient book, written in 1935 by one of America’s most prominent authors of the time who won a Nobel Prize in 1930. It charts the rise of Senator Berzelius Windrip, nick-named Buzz, who storms to the presidency by promising Americans $5,000 dollars each and vowing to make America great again. Sound familiar? Once in the White House, although he spends much of his time in a nearby hotel suite, he appeals to his core constituency of poor and resentful white males to repress dissent and set up a fascist state. As Lewis presciently wrote, “the fault of the Jeffersonian Party… was that it represented integrity and reason, in a year when the electorate hungered for frisky emotions”
The book’s protagonist is the rather unworldly, Vermont newspaper editor Doremus Jessup, who tries to resist the fascist forces that have taken over his country and for his trouble spends time in a concentration camp where he is tortured and beaten. He is a beacon of hope in Lewis’ rather grim dystopia. Although Windrip is overthrown, he is replaced by dictators who are even worse than he and whilst parts of the country rebel, the book ends without the sense that sanity would be restored.
What I found particularly interesting was Lewis’ characterisation of Windrip’s style. “The Senator was vulgar, almost illiterate, a public liar almost detected, and in his “ideas” almost idiotic, while his celebrated piety was that of a traveling salesman for church furniture, and yet his more celebrated humor the shy cynicism of a country store”. In speech “in between tricks[he] would coldly and almost contemptuously jab his crowds with figures and facts – figures and facts that were inescapable even when, as often happened, they were entirely wrong”. Windrip threatens neighbouring countries, particularly Mexico, with absorption into the great American empire whilst nicking the best ideas around from the Japanese or, in the words of Windrip, “don’t let that keep us from grabbing off any smart ideas that those cute little beggars have worked out”.
The take-away for me was Jessup’s analysis of why what was inconceivable had happened here. It was down to the laissez-faire attitude of liberals and Jessup’s self-styled Respectables who had made such a hash of convincing their fellow citizens of the legitimacy of their cause. This is the risk we run with a democracy.
For all its prescience and penetrating insight, is it great literature? Probably not, if the truth be told. It is too polemic to be so and the switch from the generality of the situation in the first part of the book to the specifics of Jessup’s ordeals and resistance in the second is a bit too clunky to work satisfactorily. But as a lesson as to what can happen and an astonishing insight into what might be in store in Trumpland, it can’t be beaten.
Filed under: Books, Culture Tagged: Buzz Windrip, comparison of Windrip with Trump, Doremus Jessup, It Can't Happen here, limitations of democracy, Sinclair Lewis
September 26, 2017
The Streets Of London – Part Sixty Four
Clink Street, SE1
South of the river and running parallel to is to be found the wonderfully onomatopoeic Clink Street between Park Street at its western end and the Golden Hinde and Cathedral Street to the east. The street which still has an atmospheric feel to it has seen considerable gentrification over the last couple of decades or so but in earlier times it was a place to avoid. The reason – it was the site of one London’s oldest and most notorious prisons.
In 1129 the newly appointed Bishop of Winchester, Henry of Blois, grandson of William the Conqueror, built an impressive palace, Winchester, for himself on the south bank of the Thames. Sadly, following an extensive fire in August 1814, all that remains today is the west wall and the impressive Rose Window but you still get a sense of how impressive and imposing it would have been. More germane to our story is the fact that when the palace was completed in 1144, it contained two prisons, one for men and the other for women.
We have come across Liberties before and the area around the Palace was part of the Liberty of the Palace of Winchester and under the jurisdiction of the Bishop. He was able to decide his own laws and mete his own punishment on miscreants. The Liberty was later known as the Liberty of the Clink, a name which seems to have been given to the prison. Quite why, no one is too sure but it is tempting to think that it reflects the clanking of the chains which hobbled the prisoners’ movement or the sound of the iron gates closing. Whatever the origin, it gave its name to the euphemism for any prison – clink.
Life was hard inside the Clink. Those who could afford it could pay the gaolers money in return for small creature comforts such as food, fuel, bedding and candles. Prices were astronomic – after all, the gaolers had a captive market – and the poorer prisoners would beg at the grates facing the street and offer for sale whatever pitiful possession they may have had. As well as the usual collection of vagrants and ne’er-do-wells, the Clink housed the likes of John Rogers, who translated the Bible from Latin into English, various Royalists during the Civil War and some of the Puritans before they set out to settle in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
The prison had a chequered history and was destroyed twice, once during the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 and then again during Jack Cade’s rebellion in 1450. Following the latter incident, a new two-storey building was erected on what is now the site of The Clink Prison Museum. The fortunes of the prison went into a steep decline in the 18th century, mainly because of the cost of maintaining it. In 1732 there were just two registered prisoners but in the mid 1770s it hosted a number of debtors. During the Gordon Riots of 1780, the prison was broken into, the prisoners released – none were recaptured – and the building burnt down. It was never rebuilt.
Perhaps ironically, as well as the Museum, the street today boasts a number of food outlets and a pub, The Old Thameside Inn. Perhaps it is as well that the punters are oblivious to the street’s history.
Filed under: Culture, History Tagged: Clink Street prison, Clink Street SE1, Golden Hinde,
September 25, 2017
There Ain’t ‘Alf Some Clever Bastards – Part Seventy Six
Peter M Roberts (1945 – present)
Here’s a cautionary tale about employee suggestion schemes and involves socket wrenches and the latest inductee into our illustrious Hall of Fame, Peter M Roberts. Socket wrenches have been around since medieval times and were used, for example, to wind up clocks. The first ratcheting socket wrench with interchangeable sockets was invented by an American, J.J Richardson, who filed a patent for his tool on 16th June 1863. Although immensely useful, interchangeable socket wrenches were cumbersome as the operative had to stop what they were doing and use both hands to change the socket.
Roberts’ light bulb moment was to make the operation much slicker by developing a simple, quick-release device which allowed the user to change sockets quickly and easily with one hand. He even developed a prototype. At this time the 18 year-old Roberts worked for the retail chain store, Sears, in Gardner, Massachusetts but all the development was done in his own time, not his employers’. So pleased was Roberts with what he had produced that he was about to hire a lawyer and file a patent when he made a fatal mistake. He mentioned what he had done to his boss.
The boss, in what was possibly the worst piece of mentoring advice in modern history, suggested that Roberts enter his invention into the employee suggestion scheme. After all, Sears were selling around a million wrenches a year and would be bound to be interested. This Roberts did on 7th May 1964 with a note stating that a patent application was pending. He made the even more calamitous mistake of surrendering the only prototype in existence.
Having received this gift horse, Sears proceeded to put the device through a number of tests and received the thumbs up from wrench operatives. By this time Sears had closed the store Roberts was working at in Gardner and as he was out of work he went back to Tennessee to live with his parents. They gave him $10,000 for the patent, claiming that there was no commercial value in the device. Market research, however, had convinced Sears that they were on to a winner and the product was launched in October 1964. Within a year Sears had sold 26 million of the wrenches, trousering a profit of some $44 million. By 1982 they had sold some 37 million. The only contact Roberts had from Sears during this time was a phone call asking for the identity of his patent lawyer, whom they promptly hired to protect their interests!
Realising the enormity of his mistake, Roberts started to bombard Sears with law suits claiming that they had defrauded him. The path to justice is long, tortuous and expensive and it was not until 1976 that Roberts succeeded in getting a US Federal jury to agree with him and award him $1 million in damages – a paltry amount considering the success of the product but for someone on their uppers welcome indeed.
Sears were not finished with Roberts just yet and decided to appeal the decision, taking the case all the way up to the Supreme Court, although they eventually lost. But the litigation continued and Roberts was able to up the damages awarded to him to $5 million. But even then the dispute dragged on and it was not until 1989, some twenty-five years after the wrench had been invented, that the case was settled and Roberts walked away with $8.9m. This was enough for him to establish Link Tools which, surprise, surprise, manufactured quick-release ratchets, sockets and accessories.
Peter Roberts, for almost giving away all the fruits of your genius, you are a worthy inductee into our Hall of Fame.
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
Filed under: Culture, History Tagged: employee suggestion schemes, Fifty Clever Bastards, first ratcheting socket wrench, Gardner in Massachusetts, J J Richardson, Martin Fone, Peter M Roberts, quick release for socket wrenches, Roberts v Sears litigation, Sears
September 24, 2017
Pumpkin Update (9)
Diligent readers will have noticed that updates on my pumpkin growing exploits this year have been rather thin on the ground, rather like my pumpkins, if the truth be told. It has been an unmitigated disaster.
In April I sowed eight Snowman pumpkin seeds, of which only two germinated. The two survivors struggled for a while but rewarded me with some vines and a profusion of bright yellow flowers. The problem was that all the flowers were male. In order to pollinate and start a fruit, I needed a female flower.
As the weather in August was wet and miserable, even if a female flower had miraculously appeared, there would not have been time nor would the conditions have been conducive enough to develop a pumpkin worthy of its name. And so, dear readers, the vines, along with my hopes, were consigned to the compost heap.
There is always next year, I suppose.
Filed under: Humour, News Tagged: growing pumpkins, pumpkin growing disaster, pumpkin pollination, Snowman pumpkin
