Martin Fone's Blog, page 285
August 26, 2017
Toilet Of The Week (12)
Ever wondered what happens to a toilet block when it is closed down by the local authority? Well, here in Surrey it is turned into a bijou des res, natch.
The carsey, which was a bog standard affair with a gents’ block on the left and the ladies on the right and backs on to Grade II listed Bourne Hall, was flogged off by Epsom and Ewell Borough Council in 2012 for £68,000. It was converted into two semi-detached houses, each boasting an open-plan kitchen, living area, double bedroom and a shower room, not golden I presume.
I discovered this week that the right-hand side property is now on the market for £330,000, according to Rightmove. The potential buyer, flush with cash, will have to leave a sizeable deposit. I wonder if there is a chain!
Filed under: Humour, News Tagged: Bourne Hall, Bourneview, Epsom and Ewell Borogh Council, redundant toilet blocks, Rightmove, toilet block converted into home on sale for £330k
August 25, 2017
What Is The Origin Of (142)?…
The Great Wen
Regular readers will be aware that I spend a little time exploring some of the highways and byways of our metropolis, London. I find its history fascinating and still miss, albeit fleetingly, my daily commute up to the Smoke. For some, though, the hustle and bustle, the noise and the dust is so off-putting that they would do anything to avoid it. They might be tempted to refer to the capital as the Great Wen, a rather uncomplimentary, if archaic, sobriquet that it has earned in certain quarters.
But what is a wen? Its origin is from the Old English noun, wenn, which was used to describe a tumour or a wart, coming into our language from the Proto-Germanic wanja. Specifically it was the best type of tumour to have, if you were unfortunate enough to have one as I do, one that is benign and was generally situated on the scalp. By the Middle Ages it was beginning to be used to describe any form of protrusion and in a figurative sense as a form of insult, a kind of medieval version of a big lump. Shakespeare used the word in this sense in Henry IV Part 2, first performed in 1600. Prince Hal uses it pejoratively to describe his free-booting companion, Falstaff, who was a little on the chunky size; “I do allow this Wen to be as familiar with me, as my dogge.”
By the 18th century, though, wen started to be used as a descriptor for a city. Cities were beginning to increase in size as more and more people fled the countryside in search of employment and those mythical streets paved with gold. Men of sensitive dispositions were appalled at the squalor and noise of these conurbations, full of ramshackle tenement buildings and streets, not to mention rivers, full of rubbish and excrement. One such soul was the Dean of Gloucester and economic theorist, Josiah Tucker, who wrote in his Four Letters of National Importance, published in 1783, of London “if therefore the increase of Building, begun at such an early period, was looked upon to be no better than a Wen, or Excrescence, upon the Body-Politic, what must we think of those numberless streets and squares that have been added since?” The gloss on Wen may lead us to conclude that even then its meaning was beginning to be lost in the mists of time.
It was William Cobbett in his Rural Rides, published in 1822, who specifically nailed London as the great wen when he wrote, “but what is to be the fate of the great wen of all? The monster, called by the silly coxcombs of the press, the metropolis of the empire?” For the next thirty years the custom was to use the phrase, the great wen of London, but by the 1850s the phrase that was sufficiently well known that the possessive was dropped and capital letters at the start of each word were used to denote that they were talking about London.
In a game of word association, I would probably respond to great wen with Big Yin, a phrase used by our Scottish friends to describe anyone of above average height, although these days most people associate the phrase with the comedian, Billy Connolly. Its antonym is a wee bauchle, which is used to describe a short-arse, often one who was shabby in appearance. A bauchle, after all, was a shabby, down-at-heel shoe.
Filed under: Culture, History Tagged: Josiah Tucker, meaning of bauchle, meaning of Big Yin, origin of the Great Wen, origin of wen, Rural Rides, Shakespeare's use of wen, William Cobbett
August 24, 2017
There Ain’t ‘Alf Some Clever Bastards – Part Seventy Five
Stephen Foster (1826 – 1864)
At primary school, for some unaccountable reason as it was situated in a county with a fine folk tradition, the songs we sang were mainly American. One particular favourite which we sang with gusto was Camptown Races which started off, “Camptown ladies, sing this song/ doo-da doo-da/ The Camptown racetrack’s five miles long/ Oh doo-da day.” It sounded better than it appears on paper. It was one of over two hundred songs written by the latest inductee into our illustrious Hall of Fame, Stephen Foster, not that I knew at the time nor, frankly, cared.
Foster has been called the father of American music and many of his songs are popular to this day. In his musical canon are ditties such as Old Folks at Home, My Old Kentucky Home, Jeanie with the light brown hair, Old Black Joe and Beautiful dreamer. As a youngster he joined a quasi-secret society known as the Knights of the Square Table who spent their evenings singing songs and was heavily influenced by a German musician, Henry Kleber, who ran a music store in Pittsburgh and Dan Rice, an itinerant entertainer. It was during this period that he wrote one of his most famous songs, Oh! Susanna, although the first song he published, at the age of eighteen, was Open Thy Lattice, Love.
When he was twenty-four and married, Foster decided to earn his living as a professional song-writer. The problem with being the first in your field, is that there are usually no rules of engagement. So whilst Foster would generally find someone who would pay him some money for the rights to publish his songs, there was no such thing as an established music royalty system. So Oh! Susanna, published in 1848 and the unofficial anthem of the Californian gold rush, earned him just $100 while his publisher raked in $10,000.
Returning to Pennsylvania in 1849 he signed a contract with the Christy Minstrels and over the next five years or so wrote many of his most well-known songs, including Camptown Races in 1850. They were often in the blackface minstrel stylee which was popular at the time but with subtle changes, as Foster wrote, “to build up taste…among refined people by making words suitable to their taste, instead of trashy and really offensive words which belong to some songs of that order”. But instead of the millions that his works would have earned him these days, he received little more than $15,000 in total for all the songs which are now the staple of the American songbook.
Inevitably, Foster hit hard times. 1855 might well have been his annus horribilis – he separated from his wife and both his parents died. He reacted to his troubles in the only way he knew how – by writing another hit, Hard Times Come Again No More. What certainly did not come no more was money and he was reduced to living a rootless existence, dossing in hotels in New York.
His demise is worthy of our Hall of Fame. In January 1864 Foster contracted a fever and was severely weakened by it. He was found, naked, lying in a pool of blood, by his then writing partner, George Cooper, having hit his head on a wash basin. He died in Bellevue Hospital three days later, on February 13, aged just thirty-seven. In his wallet was found a scrap of paper with the words, “Dear friends and gentle hearts” and just 38 cents. Perhaps his most famous song, Beautiful Dreamer, was published posthumously.
Stephen Foster, for enriching the American song tradition and not enjoying your just desserts, 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: Beautiful Dreamer, Camptown Races, Christy minstrels, Fifty Clever Bastards, Hard Times Come Again No More, Henry Kleber, Knights of the Square Table, Martin Fone, Oh! Susanna, Stephen Foster song composer
August 23, 2017
I Predict A Riot – Part Twenty Six
The London wrestling riot of 1221
Sporting events have raised tensions amongst participants and onlookers, particularly when there are underlying causes of discontent and it seems this was as true in medieval times as it is now. What we know as London these days was originally two distinct conurbations – the City of London to the east and Westminster to the west. Representatives from each of these areas together with denizens from other neighbouring villages took part in an annual wrestling competition, held on St James’ Day in St Giles in the Fields.
The team representing London prevailed in 1221 and this really pissed the steward of the Abbott of Westminster off. He swore revenge and set off a train of bloody events in what was one of the more curious riots to blot the capital’s history. The steward organised a rematch to be held on 1st August, offering a ram as the prize. A large crowd travelled from Westminster in support of their champions but to their consternation, they found that they had walked into a trap. Instead of enjoying a pleasant sporting contestant and a few flagons of ale, they were set upon by armed men, some of whom were wounded with the rest put to flight.
But the men of London were made of sterner stuff and were not going to let matters rest there, particularly as their pride had been hurt. They were out for revenge and prompted by Constantine Fitz-Arnulph, marched on Westminster and demolished the houses belonging to the steward and the Abbott. The Abbott, perhaps unwisely, returned to Westminster to voice his complaints to the authorities, only to find that he was pursued by the mob, had twelve of horses stolen and his servants set upon. Accounts suggest he would have been murdered had he not “escaped through the back door, through a shower of stones, to the water side.”
When the furore had died down, the authorities stepped in. The chief magistrate, Hubert de Bury, summoned the leading citizens to the Tower of London and asked them who the ringleaders were. Constantine stepped forward and said that “he was the one; that they had done no more than they ought; and that they were resolved to stand by what they had done, let the consequence be what it would.” His nephew and a third man, named in the records simply as Geoffery, also fessed up. Dismissing the rest of citizens, Hubert ordered the three to be strung up. Constantine offered 15,000 marks for his freedom but it was to no avail and the following day he and his colleagues danced the hemp jig.
Worse was to follow. De Bury rounded up some of the principal rioters and chopped off their feet and hands, rather ruining their wrestling prowess. Thirty men were then seized and held as hostages as security against the citizens’ future behaviour and fines of several thousand marks were levied.
This rather high-handed, if not to say, unconstitutional behaviour in the aftermath of the wrestling riot not unsurprisingly caused further tension and in 1224 parliament petitioned the king at the time, Henry III, to confirm the charter of liberties aka the Magna Carta which he and his officers were supposed to be abiding by. In 1225 at a meeting of parliament at Westminster the charter was ratified and the ancient right s and privileges were restored to London including the right to a common seal and exemption from taxes on burel, a type of fine wool which looks like felt.
It was a rather high price to pay but at least Londoners got a modicum of justice.
Filed under: Culture, History Tagged: Constantine Fitz-Arnulph, Hubert de Bury, King Henry III, Magna Carta, St Giles in the Fields, St James' Day, the London wrestling riot of 1221
August 22, 2017
You’re Having A Laugh
Joseph Mulhattan (c1853 – 1914)
We live in an era of fake news where it is hard to determine whether you are having your leg pulled or whether you are just being fed something to satisfy a prevailing political agenda. There is nothing new under the sun and fake news is no exception.
The pre-eminent American hoaxer in the 1970s and 1880s was Joseph Mulhattan – there are various variants of his surname but this seems to be the most commonly accepted. Mulhattan had no desire to profit from his pranks, just enjoying the thrill of the chase and seeing how long his hoax would run for and how many would fall for it. His internet was the press. As the Syracuse Sunday Herald reported in December 1900, “He never made a cent by his lies and in ordinary business affairs he spoke the truth, but he had a mania for giving misinformation to the newspaper and indulged himself in the mania to the injury of his other business.”
Joseph opened his hoaxing career by announcing to a startled world in 1877 that when George Washington’s sarcophagus was opened up for repairs, the workers were greeted with the sight of a petrified President. “The features [were] perfectly natural … the body is of a dark leathery colour, and may be said to be soft sandstone, which would likely break should an attempt be made to move it..” Pure bunkum, of course.
Moving to Kentucky in the late 1870s Mulhattan announced his arrival in the Bluegrass State by reporting the discovery of a giant cave near Glasgow Junction, at least twenty-three miles long and with three rivers, which contained mummified remains. One local entrepreneur, J R Pucket, was so taken in that he was going to set up a steamboat service to take sightseers to this marvel.
Joseph’s flight of fancy in 1880 concerned a young girl by the sea who had been given a bunch of balloons. The wind got up and carried her off and but for the presence of mind and steady aim of an old hunter, who shot the balloons one at a time and enabled her to return to terra firma unharmed, she would have been seen no more.
In 1883 Joseph reported that a giant meteor had landed in Brown County in Texas, killing several cattle, destroying the home of herdsman, Martinez Garin, and imbedding itself 200 feet into the ground. So large was the meteor that it stuck out 70 feet into the air and resembled the Fort Worth court-house in design. The poor telegraphist at Brown County received hundreds of telegrams from reporters seeking more details.
In February 1887 Joseph reported to the Kentucky Register that a local farmer, one J N Parkes, had trained a troupe of monkeys to pick hemp. The story spread like wildfire and the New York Times printed an angry editorial denouncing the scab monkeys, noting that if the practice spread, honest labourers would be out of a job. Poor Parkes, who neither had any monkeys nor grew hemp, started to receive hate mail and eventually persuaded the Register to print a retraction.
Mulhattan, despite being an ardent prohibitionist, was an alcoholic and his health declined, so much so that in 1901 it was feared he was on his last legs. The Cambrian printed an epitaph for him, “Here lies what’s left of liar Joe,/ A truly gifted liar,/ Who could outlie the liar below/ In realms of flame fire./ He lied in life, in death he lies,/ And if, his lies forgiven,/ He made a landing in the skies,/ He plays the lyre in heaven.” As with Joseph, not everything was as it seemed and he hung on until 1914.
Filed under: Culture, History Tagged: epitaph to James Mulhattan, giant meteor of Brown County, J N Parkes, J R Pucket, James Mulhattan, James Mulhattan hoaxer, Syracuse Sunday Herald, The Cambrian, the George Washington hoax, the girl with the balloons hoax, the monkey labourers hoax
August 21, 2017
A Better Life – Part Twelve
William Riker (1873 – 1969) and the Holy City
The fact that you may have found your own way to enlightenment doesn’t mean that you are a nice man. Take the curious case of William Riker who founded Holy City in the Santa Cruz Mountains, conveniently situated just off the Santa Cruz highway, in 1918.
Riker had a chequered history before he found his own particular road to enlightenment. He made his living reading palms, earning the sobriquet The Professor, and travelled the country performing a mind reading act before the long arm of the law caught up with him for being an alleged bigamist. He skipped the border to Canada where he developed the Perfect Christian Divine Way. In essence, it required abstention from alcohol, a commitment to celibacy and communal living and a belief in the supremacy of the white race.
Coming back to the States Riker bought 30 acres of land for $10 just south of Los Gatos and established his commune where living quarters were segregated strictly by sex. Holy City, which never had a church – the now-styled Father Riker gave his followers the benefit of his wisdom from an adjacent redwood grove – started with 30 adherents who were mainly elderly and who had pledged all their wealth to their prophet. At its peak the commune had some 300 followers, all of whom had agreed to renounce their worldly possessions and to live without money.
But all in the gardens of Elysium was not rosy. Despite the strict celibacy rule, Riker married again. This breach so incensed one follower that he sued the Father but wasn’t able to obtain legal redress. Poverty may have been what the followers had signed up for but sack cloth and ashes weren’t for Riker. If you drove down the Santa Cruz highway in the 1930s you would come across a bizarre sight – eight statues of Santa Claus. You would also have come across notices enticing you to stop at Holy City – it was now a sort of motorway services for curious travellers. Amongst some of the claims were “The only man who can save California from going plum to hell. I hold the solution” and “Holy City. Headquarters for the world’s perfect government. Stop and investigate”.
For the less idealistic, what they could find there were attractions such as alcoholic soda pop, peep shows, a restaurant, an ornately decorated petrol station, a ball room, a hairdresser’s, a radio station and a zoo. In its pomp, Riker was making around $100,000 a year. Not everyone was welcome. Signs warned Asians and negroes to stay away until they had learned their place. Riker was a man of many contradictions. Despite the vow of abstinence he encouraged the restaurateur to open a bar, although he later revoked permission because too many of his followers were sampling the amber nectar. Despite being a rabid adherent of Adolf Hitler, he was very pally with members of the Jewish faith.
Towards the end of the 1930s when the economic conditions began to improve, it dawned on many of Riker’s followers that he was a fraud and a manipulator. By 1938 the community was down to 75 men and 4 women – the female population was particularly affected by allegations, never substantiated, that the Father forced himself sexually on them. What did for the commune was the building of a new highway which bypassed Holy City, Riker’s indictment for sedition in 1942 and a whopping $15,000 fine and the loss of most of his land in 1959 in a property deal that went wrong. In the same year a series of mysterious fires destroyed most of the buildings on the site and he lost control of the commune in 1960. When Riker died in 1969 – he had converted to Catholicism in 1966 – there were just three followers hanging on.
He was a charlatan and a nasty piece of work preying on the vulnerable with odious political and racist views. Another side of utopia, for sure.
Filed under: Culture, History Tagged: attractions of Holy City, Holy City, Los Gatos, racist views of William Riker, Santa Cruz highway, the eight staues of Santa Claus, the Perfect Christian Divine Way, William Riker
August 20, 2017
It’s The Way I Tell ‘Em (29)
I feel we all need cheering up so here are the ten best jokes from the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival:
Insomnia is awful. But on the plus side – only three more sleeps till Christmas – Robert Garnham
Centaurs shop at Topman. And Bottomhorse – Dan Antopolski
Oregon leads America in both marital infidelity and clinical depression. What a sad state of affairs – Paul Savage
I’m very conflicted by eye tests. I want to get the answers right but I really want to win the glasses – Caroline Mabey
Relationships are like mobile phones. You’ll look at your iPhone 5 and think, it used to be a lot quicker to turn this thing on – Athena Kugblenu
My vagina is kind of like Wales. People only visit ironically – Evelyn Mok
In the bedroom, my girlfriend really likes it when I wear a suit, because she’s got this kinky fantasy where I have a proper job – Phil Wang
The Edinburgh fringe is such a bubble. I asked a comedian what they thought about the North Korea nuclear missile crisis and they asked what venue it was on in – Grainne Maguire
How did the Village People meet? They obviously led such different lives – John-Luke Roberts
If you’re being chased by a pack of taxidermists, do not play dead – Olaf Falafel
Cheers!
Filed under: Humour Tagged: best jokes from Edinburgh Fringe 2017, best one-liners, intellectual humour, intellectual jokes
Pub Of The Week
I shall be going to Scunthorpe next March – I know, it is an exciting life I lead – and I must really make an effort to find the Mallard in Scotter Road to see if the luck of the pub rubs off on me. Landlord, Ian Brooke, I learned this week, has won the Lotto million pound jackpot.
Nothing too unusual in that but, incredibly, he is the third person associated with the pub to have won a million quid in the last four years, regulars, David and Kathleen Long, winning the Euromillions raffle twice, in July 2013 and March 2015.
There is no truth in the rumour that scores of people have been struck by lightning whilst trying to get to the pub!
Filed under: Humour, News Tagged: David and Kathleen Long, Euromillion winner, Ian Brooke, Scotter Road, Scunthorpe, The Mallard, third person from pub to win £1m
August 19, 2017
Plastic Bag Tax Update (2)
So from August 28th if you pop into your local Tesco store, buy some goods and then realise that you have nothing to carry them home in, you will no longer have the option that 637 million of us took in their shops over the last twelve months and buy a 5p bag. No, your only option, other than to walk out, is to buy a bag for life which will set you back 10p. Of course a bag for life is only a bag for life if you remember to cart the thing around with you. It also uses three times the amount of plastic that goes into a single-use bag.
Still, you can console yourself with the thought that the money that you have paid for a bag will go to a good cause. But figures released by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) show that of the £105 million raised through the so-called plastic bag tax last year, only £25 million went to named charities. A further £42 million went to unnamed good causes whilst £17 million was paid in VAT and £4 million was taken by the stores to cover costs. That leaves a shortfall of £17 million unaccounted for.
HMV donated only 43.5% of the monies raised to charity, W H Smith 64.5% whereas Sainsbury donated 80.77%. Tesco donated 71.87 per cent. With supermarket profits under pressure, every little helps, I suppose.
Filed under: News Tagged: DEFRA, how much of plastic bag tax goes to charities, plastic bag tax, Tesco scraps single-use plastic bags
August 18, 2017
What Is The Origin Of (141)?…
Crocodile tears
When we weep crocodile tears we are said to be putting on an insincere show of grief. But why crocodiles? And do they really weep?
The idea that a crocodile weeps insincerely has a long pedigree. It was thought that crocodiles, while they were luring and devouring their prey, shed tears. As far back as classical times, a collection of proverbs attributed to Plutarch compares people who desire or cause the death of someone and then lament publicly afterwards with the behaviour of a crocodile. The concept was picked up by the mediaeval theologian, Photios, who gave it a Christian gloss and used it to exemplify the concept of repentance.
The mediaeval world was fascinated with stories of strange and exotic places and the fauna that went with them. One such account was written by Sir John Mandeville around 1400 in which he described the crocodile, comparing them to serpents. He goes on to write, “these serpents slay men, and they eat them weeping.” The reptile had become a symbol for hypocrisy. The naturalist Edward Topsell, writing in 1658, noted that “to get a man within his danger he [the crocodile] will sob, sigh and weep, as though he were in extremity, but suddenly he destroyeth him.” Topsell went on to remark that some authorities claim that the crocodile wept after noshing on a human, much as Judas did after betraying Christ.
For Topsell then, the crocodile used its tears both as a trick to lure its prey and as a sign of repentance. And this duality of motive for its lachrymose behaviour appears in the works of Shakespeare, some half a century earlier. In Othello the protagonist is convinced that his wife is cheating on him and declares “If that the earth could teem with woman’s tears,/ Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.” – a clear usage of it to indicate fake repentance. On the other hand, in Henty Vi Part Two we have an example of its usage to indicate trickery; “Gloucester’s show / Beguiles him, as the mournful crocodile / With sorrow, snares relenting passengers.”
In the Faerie Queene, Edmund Spenser consolidates both senses when describing the reptile as “in false grief, hiding his harmful guile/ Doth weep full sore, and sheddeth tender tears”. Purcells’ opera, Dido and Aeneas, performed in 1688, contains the heart-rending scene where Aeneas tells his paramour that he must leave. Dido responds by saying “thus on the fatal banks of the Nile/ weeps the deceitful crocodile.” And this sense continued into modern times. Rudyard Kipling in his Just So Stories, published in 1902, wrote, “come hither, little one, said the Crocodile, for I am the Crocodile and he wept crocodile-tears to show it was quite true.”
And so the big question is, do crocodiles really cry? I’ve not been close enough to one to find out but I’m told that although they do not have tear ducts, the glands that moisten their eyes are adjacent to their throat. When they open their mouths and start chomping on their prey, the effort involved forces moisture from the glands and give the impression of tears. So there we are.
And as a post script, Bogorad’s syndrome, known colloquially as crocodile tears syndrome, is an unfortunate side effect of recovery from Bell’s palsy, causing the sufferer to shed tears when they eat. This side effect was first described in 1926 by the Russian scientist, F A Bogorad who gave his name to it. I much prefer the colloquialism.
Filed under: Culture, History Tagged: Bogorad syndrome, crocodile as symbol of hypocrisy, crocodile tears syndrome, Edward Topsell, F A Bogorad, Just So Stories, origin of crocodile tears, Photios, Rudyard Kipling, Sir John Mandeville, William Shakespeare
