Martin Fone's Blog, page 31

Cracker Jokes – 2024

Some cracker jokes on an archaeological theme for your delectation:

What do you get in a 5 star pyramid?
A tomb with a view

How do you ring an Egyptian doorbell?
Toot-an’-come-in

What do you call a very, very, very, very, very old joke?
Pre-hysterical

Who invented pens?
The Incas

Why was the pottery specialist upset?
She got fired

Why are archaeologists greedy?
Because we’ll have archaic, and eat it too

Why is it always good to marry an archaeologist?
Because the older you get the more interested they will be in you

How do you entertain a bored pharaoh?
You sail a boatload of young women dressed only in fishing nets down the Nile and urge the pharaoh to go catch a fish – from the Westcar papyrus dating to 1,600 BC)

What did the king say when the court barber asked how he wanted his hair cut?
‘In silence.’ – from Philogelos, the oldest known joke book, dating to the 4th or 5th century AD

What did the woman who was blind in one eye say to her husband of 20 years when he found another woman and said to her, ‘I shall divorce you because you are said to be blind in one eye.’?
‘Have you just discovered that after 20 years of marriage?’ – Egyptian, circa 1100BC

Bashed Bridge Of The Week

Britain’s most bashed bridge has been named by Network Rail as being located in Stuntney Road, adjacent to Ely station in Cambridgeshire. With a clearance of just 2.7 metres it was hit eighteen times in 2023/24. It only just won the title, beating off competition from bridges in Stonea Road in Stonea in March and Lower Downs Road in Wimbledon, both of which recorded seventeen strikes.

Residents in Stonea, though, think that Network Rail’s are understated, some claiming, conservatively, that it has been struck at least fifty times over the period and that only serious incidents where a vehicle becomes wedged under the arch are officially reported.

In all, Network Rail report that there were 1,532 bridge strike in the year up to April, costing an estimated £20m in delays, cancellations and repairs.

Completing the top ten are

4. Watling Street A5, Hinckley – 15 strikes5. Harlaxton Road, Grantham – 14 strikes6. Doncaster Road (A638), Ackworth, Ferrybridge – 13 strikes7. Warminster Road Bridge, Wilton – 11 strikes8. Abbey Farm, Thetford – 11 strikes9. Kenworthy Road Bridge, Homerton – 11 strikes10. Jews Lane, Twerton – 10 strikes

On the plus side, strikes are down from 2021/22 when 1,864 were recorded.

Scambuster Of The Week

At least once a week I get a phone call telling me that someone is trying to commandeer my internet connection or that there are suspicious transactions on a card or that a package has been held up in customs. All I have to do is press 1 and give the operator some details and sit back as my accounts are emptied and my on-line identity is hijacked. Sometimes they take a more direct approach with a human voice at the other end, although they seem particularly irritated when they are asked questions or are required to engage in a meandering conversation, usually just putting the phone down. How rude!

It appears that people of a certain age, we old codgers, who are especially targeted but help seems to be at hand. Virgin Media O2 has just unveiled its custom-made, human like chatbot called DAIsy that answers calls in real time, keeping fraudsters on the phone as long as possible in a bid to annoy and frustrate them, just as they do to consumers worldwide. It automates the practice of “scambaiting,” which involves people posing as potential victims to squander scammers’ time and resources, publicly expose their wily ways, gather information useful to the police and anti-fraud agencies, and even confuse the con artists’ devices.    

 At least it seems a positive use of AI and is certainly one to watch.

Clutch Of Constables

A review of Clutch of Constables by Ngaio Marsh – 241118

It is a while since I have read a book by Ngaio Marsh, an author I have often struggled to get on with, but the twenty-fifth in her Roderick Alleyn series, originally published in 1968, is one of her better ones.

Structurally, the book is interesting with Alleyn giving a lecture, a case study of the mystery of the MV Zodiac on to which his wife, Agatha Troy, had booked on to as a last minute whim for a five day trip through Constable country. Each chapter opens with an extract of the lecture as he presages what is going to happen in that chapter, the rest of the chapter then, in the first part, recounting Troy’s experience and then the second part concentrating on the investigations of Alleyn and Br’er Fox as the try to solve the mystery of who murdered Hazel Rickerby-Carrick, a passenger on board, and reveal the identity of a master international criminal, known as “the Jampot”.

A river trip enables Marsh to assemble a motley crew of passengers, an American brother and sister who are antique hunting, an Australian clergyman, a London slum landlord who has a taste for fine art and is a calligraphist, a lepidopterist who is smitten by Troy, and a handsome man of Afro-European origin, Dr Francis Natouche, whose features and bone structure Troy in her artist’s mantle much admires.

The victim, a fellow passenger is a tiresome woman who bores and irritates everyone. She keeps a journal, is indiscreet and wears a Fabergé necklace, all factors that lead to her demise. By Marsh’s previous standards her method of death is not too outré but nonetheless her body is transported as a pillion passenger, her suitcase weighted down, and her body is thrown into a weir some miles downstream. The blow that killed her is the trademark of the Jampot. Fearing for Troy’s safety Alleyn rushes back from America to join her, whisks her off to a hotel, and joins the investigation. That is the last we hear of her until the very end.

Clearly one of the passengers is both the murderer and Jampot. Another passenger, Sally-Lou Hewson, is murdered with the same trademark blow, narrowing the field of suspects down further. In Poirot style, Alleyn calls the suspects together for the grand reveal, provoking an astonishing outburst from one of the party. However, Marsh is playing a trick on her readers as the real culprit is only revealed with the arrival of someone whose identity had been stolen.

The book owes its title to a remark Troy made as they were sailing through Constable country, a reference to a clutch of constables, one which caused some alarm amongst at least one of the passengers until she explained that she was referring to the painter and not members of the police. It is a tale of conspiracy, art forgery and shady dealings, in which most the passengers in some shape or form are involved. The air of menace provided by a couple of motorcyclists who seem to follow the progress of the vessel is well done.

A major subplot of the book is the character of Natouche whose presence and aloofness seems to discomfort some of the passengers. They break down into two camps, some who are overtly hostile and racist towards him and others who are welcoming. For the time, Marsh handles the matter sensitively and there is no doubt that she through Troy and Alleyn, while recognizing cultural differences, is very much on his side.

Pacy, with a plot that was interesting enough and some suitably intriguing suspects, it as an enjoyable read.

Philosophy Greek Artisanal Gin

EVA Distillery was founded in 1995 in Mytilene, the capital of the Greek island of Lesbos, by the Patrikopoulos brothers and is now in the hands of the family’s third generation. It claims to marry the traditions of the region with modern technology in the shape of state-of-the-art copper stills and bottling machines. There is also a laboratory on the site as well as an Ouzo Museum which is open to the public.

The distillers claim to be the only company in the Aegean area that produces a London Dry Style gin from a 100% distillate, using a blend of sixteen, hand-selected, naturally, botanicals, although curiously only thirteen are identified on the bottle. They are juniper, coriander, calendula, orange peel, chamomile, ginger, java pepper, lemon verbena, angelica root, rose, cinnamon, lemon peel, and cardamon, promising an intriguing blend of peppers, spice, citrus, and herbal notes.

After the distillation process the distillate is laid to rest in a stainless steel tank for at least a couple of months which allows the aromatic and flavour profiles of the spirit to develop further. It is then diluted to its fighting weight of 40% ABV with fresh water and bottled.

The bottle itself is impressively elegant, tall, circular, upright, and made of clear glass making it look not unlike a smooth Greek pillar, Doric of course, rather than Ionic or Corinthian. The shoulder is steeply rounded and leads to a short neck and a glass stopper. Aside from its narrow shape, what makes it particularly distinctive is its elegantly minimalist use of colour and mix of typography against a white background, a mix of the new with the use of a Latin-script alphabet and the old with Greek lettering.

On the rear, as well as listing (most of) the botanicals complete with their botanical names, there is a quote from the philosopher most closely associated with Lesbos, Theophrastus. It reads “time is the most valuable thing people can spend, flowing endlessly, with no turning back” aka “everything flows”.

And what better way of spending time than with a glass of Philosophy Greek Artisanal Gin?  On the nose it is an inviting and intriguing melange of earthy and peppery scents mixed with more herbaceous and floral notes. In the mouth it is sweet and warm, but the distillation allows the juniper to flex its muscles while allowing room for the earthier botanicals to play. It is remarkably complex, achieving that holy grail of producing a clean finish while balancing dryness and a gentle sweetness in an alluring mix. Impressive stuff which I really enjoyed.

Until the next time, cheers!

Tin Tabernacles (3)

Many corrugated iron churches were intended to be temporary solutions meeting an immediate need and buying time for the parishioners to raise the funds needed to meet the costs of a permanent structure. This was the case in the Surrey village of Frimley Green where in 1896 a tin church was built on the site now occupied by St Andrew’s.

Contemporary reports indicated some of the disadvantages of its building material. When it rained, the sound of the raindrops drowned out the sermon and in the summer it could become uncomfortably. By 1906 it struggled to accommodate the congregation which had grown to around 250 members and so the following year a fundraising effort was launched to pay for a permanent church. The parishioners hit some bumps along the way, their spring fete having to be postponed because of the death of King Edward VII in May 1910, but by July 1911 funds, boosted by a loan from the Diocese of Winchester, were sufficient for work to begin.

The extant St Andrew’s church was completed, at a cost of £3,036, in time for the Easter celebrations in 1912, but the diocesan loan proved to be a mixed blessing. It was not until 1928 that the church was consecrated, once the loan had been paid off.

A little further down the road is a tin church, which, doubtless to the chagrin of William Marris, still stands proud and erect. Built in 1901 and hosting its first recorded service on Palm Sunday that year, it was designed to serve the spiritual needs of the garrison at Deepcut. It cut an impressive figure with its white walls, dark green roof, and dark green trim and even made its cinematic debut, albeit relocated to Kentucky, in Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014).

Originally dedicated to St Michael and All Angels, it was renamed on October 1, 1967 St Barbara’s Garrison Church after the Royal Army Ordnance Corps’ Patron Saint and listed as a Grade II building, one of fewer than twenty to receive the accolade, in 1984. Its listing has probably saved it, as following the sale of the former barracks at Deepcut to developers who are constructing the massive Mindenhurst housing estate, the church has been completely renovated. Work on the exterior finished in December 2023 and it is anticipated that the church will host services once more sometime in 2025.  

How many tin churches have actually survived to this day seems, curiously, a matter of some dispute. Historic England claim that there are eighty-six remaining in England, some still used for worship, like St Barbara’s, some now used for other purposes, such as Christ Church in Blackgang on the Isle of Wight which is now a holiday home, or moved to museums such as St Chad’s Mission Church which can now be found at Blists Hill Museum near Telford in Shropshire. Harriet Suter, though, while researching for her Master’s dissertation on the conservation challenges of tin tabernacles claims to have found 157.  

Whatever the exact number is the tin tabernacle is a fascinating example of new technology  meeting a pressing spiritual need.  

The Fall Of The Society For The Diffusion Of Useful Knowledge

Laudable as the aims of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (SDUK) may seem to us today, the prospect of an educated working class struck terror in the hearts of certain sectors of the upper classes. They envisaged the prospect of them getting ideas above their station and even challenging the social and political status quo.

Winthrop  Mackworth Praed typified this attitude when he penned a piece for the verse the Morning Chronicle, published on July 19, 1825, lambasting the recently opened Birkbeck College and Mechanics’ Institutes for welcoming the lower classes. He wrote “but let them not babble of Greek to the rabble/ nor teach the mechanics their letters;/ The labouring classes were born to be asses,/ and not to be aping their betters”.

The SDUK became an easy target for the critics, not least because its principal movers, all Whigs, were already controversial public figures, none more so than Henry Brougham. He had earned the enmity of the King, George IV, when in 1820 in the House of Lords he successfully defended Queen Charlotte’s right to attend the coronation of her estranged husband.

Thomas Love Peacock took satirical aim at the impact of the SDUK’s educational campaign to better the servant class in Crotchet Castle (1831). In chapter two the Reverend Doctor Follett declares that he is “out of patience with this march of mind” because his cook “taking it into her head to study hydrostatics, in a sixpenny tract, published by the Steam Intellect Society”, falling asleep over it and knocking over a candle, setting the curtains light.

Brougham did indeed pen a pamphlet on hydrostatics, published as part of the Society’s Library of Useful Knowledge in 1827 and Peacock’s nickname for the SDUK, the Steam Intellect Society, associated the aim to spread knowledge amongst the population with the new technological advances such as the steam engine. This was a theme picked up by the caricaturists. Both George Cruikshank and William Heath produced several “March of Intellect” cartoons in which flying machines and other contraptions were displayed alongside a working man in rags reading a book.

The SDUK ploughed on but by the mid-1830s found itself in financial difficulties, having overstretched itself in establishing new publications and its subscribers reducing from 500 in 1828 to less than forty in 1843. It folded in 1846 but within the twenty years of its existence the country had seen significant social and political reforms which went some way towards improving the lot of the ordinary people.

The Society’s archives contain many letters from grateful readers and sales figures suggesting that its pamphlets and journal were widely read. It certainly had played a part in 19th century Britain’s educational history and made an indelible mark on many.

The Progress Of A Crime

A review of The Progress of a Crime by Julian Symons – 241114

Originally published in 1960 and reissued as part of the British Library Crime Classics series, The Progress of a Crime was well received in its time, winning Symons the Edgar award for best novel in 1961. It is not a story that the armchair detective can get their teeth stuck into trying to unmask the identity of a murderer before the sleuth. Instead, as its title suggests, it follows the route of a crime from its origins and commission through to the process of investigation and gathering evidence to the dispensing of justice.

However, it is saved from being purely a police procedural novel by Symons choosing to see the case not only through the eyes of the police but also those of a couple of journalist, a local journalist, Hugh Bennett, eager to cut his teeth and escape from the drudgery of reporting minor civic events, and Frank Fairfield, a bibulous Fleet Street hack, who takes Bennett under his wing as the pair, dissatisfied with the official version of events, carry out their own investigations.

As the excellent introduction outlines, the story is based on a real case, the 1953 murder of John Beckley who, along with a friend, was dragged off a bus and murdered by a group of Teddy Boys, the case resting on the veracity and reliability of eye witnesses. The origin of the crime in Symons’ story is a fund-raising dance for the Far Wether Cricket Club which is disrupted by a group of youths on motor bikes, who are summarily thrown out by a local worthy, James Corby. On the village’s Bonfire Night celebrations, the gang return, throw fireworks at Corby and then in the ensuing altercation, Corby is fatally knifed.

Bennett is at the scene of the crime, sent to report on the fireworks celebration, had grappled with one of the assailants, whom he thinks he can recognize again. A gang led by Garney, known to his associates as King, is quickly identified as the culprits and Garney and his deputy, Leslie Gardner, are charged with the murder. Although certain at the time that he could identify Gardner as the man he grappled with, later reflection leads Bennett to question the reliability of his recollections and leads him to wonder whether it was a case of auto-suggestion, influenced by his developing relationship with Gardner’s sister, Jill.

Gardner’s culpability in the case hangs on a pair of trousers with the second half of the book alternating between the court case and the behind the scenes investigations of the police and the journalists. Symons spent time observing the workings of a newspaper office and one of the highlights of the book is the authenticity, albeit stylized, of the attitudes of newspapers to a big story which they exploit for their commercial advantage whilst seeming to be altruistic. It also shows the breakdown of relationships between generations and the emergence of what might be termed as youth culture.

The resolution of the case also has profound implications for not only the Gardner family but also Bennett who has a career choice to make and the lead police investigators, Twicker and Norman, neither of whom cover themselves in glory. As in Gil North’s Sergeant Cluff Stands Firm, the police are not the urbane, gentlemanly sleuths who populate Golden Age detective fiction but characters who are not averse to using a bit of physical persuasion and underhand tactics to get results.     

It was an enjoyable read, thought-provoking in parts and certainly some way removed from the normal crime fiction fare.

Pâté Of The Week

There is an art to making the meaty and fruity pâtés known as pâtés en croûte, which have graced dining tables since the Middle Ages. The pastry must retain a crunch, the meat should be moist, almost wet, and the jelly neither too prominent nor too subtle. Making them takes over twenty hours and requires the mastery of three techniques, that of pork butchery for the filling, pastry-making for making the crust, and cookery for the stock and the jus.

The fortunes of this form of pâté hit rock bottom in the 1980s but a few enthusiasts in the Lyon region, where it is known as pâté croûte, kept the flame alive to the extent that it is now enjoying a renaissance. There is even a world championship, which was started in 2009.

Symptomatic of the fall of France from grace, French chefs are not having it all their own way. The first and second places in the 2024 World Pâté en Croûte Championships held in Lyon last month were won by Japanese chefs, the fourth time in the last five years that they beaten their French rivals. As one disappointed French chef commented, “it’s my fourth final and each time it’s a Japanese who has won. They are very good”.

C’est vrai, mon ami!    

Philistine as I am, I much prefer a Pork pie.

Red Faces Of The Week (11)

Spare a thought for the staff at Birdland Park and Gardens in Bourton-on-the-Water who have waited four years for their King Penguin, Maggie, to produce an egg. Despite growing close to a male called Frank and even flirting, nothing has happened.

It is not surprising because after DNA tests were done, they revealed that Maggie was in fact a male and now rejoices under the name of Magnus. How embarrassing!