Martin Fone's Blog, page 43

It’s The Way I Tell ‘Em (36)

More of the best one liners (allegedly) from the Edinburgh Fringe 2024:

I was going to sail around the globe in the world’s smallest ship but I bottled it. – Mark Simmons

I’ve been taking salsa lessons for months, but I just don’t feel like I’m progressing. It’s just one step forward… two steps back. – Alec Snook

Ate horse at a restaurant once – wasn’t great. Starter was all right but the mane was dreadful. – Alex Kitson

I sailed through my driving test. That’s why I failed it. – Arthur Smith

I love the Olympics. My friend and I invented a new type of relay baton: well, he came up with the idea, I ran with it.- Mark Simmons

My dad used to say to me “Pints, gallons, litres” – which, I think, speaks volumes – Olaf Falafel

British etiquette is confusing. Why is it highbrow to look at boobs in an art gallery but lowbrow when I get them out in Spoons? – Chelsea Birkby

I wanted to know which came first the chicken or the egg so I bought a chicken and then I bought an egg and I think I’ve cracked it. – Masai Graham

Is A Ferret A Pet?

In the crazy world of VAT flapjacks have also been under the judicial microscope, the bone of contention, as with Jaffa Cakes, being whether they are zero-rated cakes or a confectionery item attracting VAT at the standard rate. The court ruled that the flapjacks under consideration were not cakes as they were not baked and contained significant amounts of protein. HMRC were moved to issue detailed guidance on the treatment of flapjacks for VAT, arguing that there is a difference between flapjacks and cereal bars, principally because at the inception of VAT flapjacks were widely accepted as cakes whereas cereal bars were not.

Size matters, in this fiscal theme park. While standard marshmallows attract VAT at the standard rate, in 2022 the First-Tier Tribunal found in favour of Innovative Bites Ltd who produced and marketed large marshmallows intended for roasting. Their size and the need to roast was sufficient to make them zero-rated. As do numbers. A gingerbread man with two chocolate eyes is exempt from VAT but if the decoration extends to chocolate buttons on their body, that is enough to attract VAT.

Even the world of crime gets sucked into Sedley’s fiscal theme park, although a subject that is hardly high up on a malefactor’s list of priorities. Neither goods stolen from a shop nor sales of counterfeit items are subject to VAT but stolen or counterfeit cash is.

Anyone planning a VAT-free Christmas needs something akin to the ten step flowchart HMRC helpfully prepared for furriers to establish the VAT status of their goods to achieve their objective. Caviar is deemed to be an essential foodstuff but orange juice, an essential component of the pre-prandial Buck’s Fizz, is classed as a luxury item and attracts the standard rate. Champagne is taxed at 20% like all alcoholic drinks except when it is a component of a foodstuff such as the brandy topping on a Christmas pudding.

Nuts which have to be cracked are sold in their natural state and so are exempt but the more convenient shelled ones attract the standard rate of VAT. Tax considerations even impact upon the choice of Christmas tree, real ones being exempt but artificial ones are not, and how a turkey is bought. If it is live, it is standard rated but if bought already slaughtered, it is exempt.

Indeed, the treatment of animals and their foodstuffs is another fiscal minefield. Generally speaking, the feed for either working animals or those used for human food production are zero-rated whereas food for domestic pets such as dog and cat food and biscuits attract the standard rate. Unless, of course, the food is formulated with working dogs in mind, such as gun dogs, sheep dogs, and assistance dogs, in which case, as was found in R & C Commrs v Roger Skinner Ltd (2014), it is zero-rated.   

Another contentious point is what is a pet. While an estimated 800,000 rabbits are kept as pets in the UK, the tax authorities have taken the stance that as rabbits can be and are eaten by humans, they fail the pet test. The good news for rabbit owners is that, even if they would blanche at the thought of putting their furry friend in a pot, their feed is zero-rated.

Ferrets, though, are another kettle of fish. The popular conception of this small, domesticated relative of the European polecat, is that they are bred and used as working animals, primarily to hunt vermin. Supreme Pet Foods Ltd developed and sold a special feed for ferrets which they assumed to be zero-rated. HMRC disagreed and at the subsequent hearing in 2011, the First-tier tribunal that as 80% of ferrets in the UK were kept for companionship and, therefore, pets, their food was VATable at the standard rate.

Make of all that what you will!

Sipsmith Lemon Drizzle Gin

Flavoured gins are not normally high up on my shopping list but my recent raid on Waitrose’s “bargain basement” bin unearthed a couple of interesting ones from Sipsmith. Founded in 2009 in a tiny workshop in Hammersmith as London’s first traditional copper distillery since 1820, their London Dry Gin has always been one of my go-to gins and was one of the first that I tried as I dipped my toe into the world of the ginaissance.

Taking their London Dry Gin as the starting point the distillers at Sipsmith turn the lemon up to eleven and beyond with their Lemon Drizzle Gin. It is everything you would expect and more, inspired by the citrus-fuelled gins of the early 1900s. It started out as part of the inaugural Sipsmith Sipping Society box but proved so popular that it became an established line in its own right.

Lemon in all its forms from hand-peeled, sundried lemon peels to vapour-infused lemons and lemon verbena go into the mix along with juniper, coriander, vanilla, and ground almond. As you would expect, both on the nose and on the palate the lemon is zesty, fresh, tart, and warming but, cleverly, is not allowed to take over completely, tempered well by the savouriness of the juniper, an underlying hint of vanilla, and a warming, liquorice dominated aftertaste.

It is slightly sweet and unmistakeably lemon-centric, reminiscent of a lemon drizzle cake in liquid form, making for a distinctive and refreshing summer drink. With an ABV of 40.4%, lower than the Original Dry Gin’s 41.6%, it is tempting enough to have a second glass.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, having found a winning formula, have repeated the process, albeit with oranges, to produce their Zesty Orange Gin. Fresh and dried orange peel is combined with bergamot zest and added to the staple botanicals of their London Dry Gin to produce a spirit which, at an ABV of 40.4%, has a bright floral and slightly warming spicy aroma and sharp and tangy in the mouth, reminiscent of marmalade. It finishes on a sweet and tangy note with cinnamon to the fore. The spirit is clear but a pale orange colour.

I found it less successful than the lemon version but then I do prefer lemons to orange. If you are looking to add some flavoured gins to your cabinet, these two are well worth considering.

Until the next time, cheers!

Dance To Your Daddy

A review of Dance to your Daddy by Gladys Mitchell – 240731

The forty-second novel in Mitchell’s long-running Mrs Bradley series, originally published in 1969, is for an author who is often someone who can be described as challenging one of her more accessible and successful pieces of work. While there are some distinctly contemporary references such as a namecheck for Sandie Shaw’s Puppet on a String and minis, the plot is very much one that would be at home in a Victorian melodrama.

Mrs Bradley or Dame Beatrice as she is in her later incarnations is called upon to investigate an obscure branch of the Lestrange clan, the family of her first husband. She is commissioned by Romilly Lestrange to ascertain the sanity of his niece, Rosamund, who goes by the family nickname of Trilby. Ostensibly, Rosamund is betraying some oddly disturbing character traits including throwing objects into the sea and dressing in baroque costumes. Perhaps more germane to the case, she is about to turn twenty-five and under the terms of her grandfather Felix’s will she stands to inherit a sizeable estate unless she is proven to be mentally unstable in which case the money goes to Romilly. In an unlikely but possible set of circumstances, Dame Beatrice could even inherit the estate.

When she gets to grips with the case, Dame Beatrice is suspicious of both Romilly’s and Rosamund’s accounts of what is going on and to add to her perplexity a body is found on the nearby Dancing Ledge. Romilly had invited his relatives to the house and was exercised when the two brothers, Hubert and Willoughby, do not arrive. He identifies the murder victim as Willoughby.

This is a tale of identities, some of the characters leading double lives in an attempt to gain some financial advantage and others plainly mistaken. With her customary persistence and tenacity and aided by her secretary, Laura Gavin, gets her teeth into the case which takes her to Italy, Cumberland, and the wilds of Scotland and reveals a backstory with uncomfortable consequences and the problems that can arise in a family that does not keep in touch when a sizeable pot of money is up for grabs. Of course, Dame Beatrice puts all the pieces in the jigsaw and sees that some form of justice prevails, even if the evidence is too slight for the purposes of Inspector Kirkby and the culprits elope to South America.

Perhaps more interesting than the tale itself, at least for someone who has followed Mitchells’ series doggedly and chronologically, is the development of Mitchell’s style and characterization. The vast majority of this book is in the form of dialogue and Dame Beatrice features in most of the scenes. Gone, mostly, are the florid and opaque patches of prose and some of the irksome features of her amateur sleuth, her penchant for poking people in the ribs, her incessant cackling, and the constant references to her saurian appearance. Eccentric she might still be, but Dame Beatrice, chameleon-like, blends more easily into the background and the transition in style makes it an easier read.

I still have not made up my mind about Laura Gavin. For all her positive qualities, and she does add the muscular heft to Dame Beatrice’s psychological insight, she comes across as a selfish individual. She now has a second child, the book opens with her christening, but Laura regards her children as nothing but an encumbrance. Perhaps she is an expression of late-1960s feminism but that would be out of kilter with the determinedly dated feel of the plot and the rest of the novel.

This is one of Mitchell’s best.

The Longest Scientific Name

Meet the southeast Asian soldier fly, perhaps an unremarkable creature in the general scheme of things except for one crucial feature. Its scientific name is Parastratiosphecomyia stratiosphecomyioides which makes it the creature with the longest valid scientific name. Its genus comes from ancient Greek meaning “near soldier wasp-fly” and the species translates to “wasp-fly like”. Its club-shaped abdomen, long antennae, and darkened wings make it look like a wasp, even though it has no stinger. Hence its name.

However, in 1926 Benedykt Dybowski named an amphipod Gammaracanthuskytodermogammarus loricatobaicalensis which is longer but it was suppressed under the rules of the International Code of Zoological Notation. There is a predatory bacterium found near and named after the village in Anglesey where I first went to school, Myxococcus llanfair­pwll­gwyn­gyll­go­gery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch­ensis, which is longer but while it is an organism it is not an animal.

The southeast Asian soldier fly can rest easy for a while.

The Blind Barber

A review of The Blind Barber by John Dickson Carter – 240729

Well, this is not quite what I expected. John Dickson Carr is known as the master of the impossible murder with more than a little of the Gothic thrown in but the fourth in his Dr Gideon Fell series, originally published in 1934, is a sprawling farcical comedy with a bit of murder thrown in. It has split his fans, some claiming it to be his masterpiece and others his nadir and I can see why.

On the plus side it is very, very funny. I am always suspicious of books that are claimed to be comedic gold but this certainly deserves the tag. The episode with the Mermaid Automatic Electric Bug-Powder Gun had me in stitches, one of the finest sustained piece of comic writing I have read for a long time and one that will stay long in the memory. The book is reminiscent of a stage farce with lots of spills and falls along the way.

Structurally, the book is interesting. Dr Gideon Fell is cast in the role of a fairly passive armchair detective who listens to a tale told by Henry Morgan, a novelist who also appeared in an earlier Carr novel, The Eight of Swords, about his experiences on board the Queen Victoria, travelling from New York. Halfway through the narrative, Fell gives his thoughts so far and enumerates eight clues which he believes will resolve the mystery. Once Morgan concludes the narrative, Fell provides another eight clues and then having pre-arranged with the Captain of the ship, Captain Whistler, for the guilty person to be escorted to his home in the company of a couple of policemen, Fell then proceeds to unravel the mystery. It does work and makes sense of the mish-mash of Morgan’s narrative.

What happened aboard the ship is the result of a fevered imagination. Essentially, there are three strands to the story. Curtis Warren, whose uncle is a big wig in the United States, has a film with very incriminating footage stolen from his cabin, a woman who calls out his name and whose blood spattered body is seen disappears without trace, and a valuable emerald elephant is stolen, found, stolen again, recovered and tossed into the ocean.

The main protagonists are Warren, his girlfriend, Peggy Glenn, a retired Swedish captain, Thomassen Valvick, and Morgan who all in their ham-fisted way set out to sort out the odd goings-on on board the ship. They have difficulties in convincing Whistler that there has been a murder, especially as no body is found and, despite extensive searches, no one is reported missing. Why was a blood-soaked bed fitted with clean sheets and why was a barber’s razor found near the scene?

There are some wonderful minor characters including the puppeteer, Uncle Jules, the eccentric Perrigords, Mr Woodford, the anarchic bug-killer salesman, a pugilist known as the Bermondsey Terror, the mysterious Dr Kyle and the even more elusive Lord Sturton. There are bouts of fisticuffs with the poor ship’s captain bearing the brunt and precocious amounts of drinking with a warning about the evils of gin.

In the comfort of his armchair Fell is able to unravel the strands and prove that there was a murder and that the misinterpreted radiogram received from the American authorities warning that an imposter was on board had been sparing in its use of punctuation. Once all the confusion is stripped away, and Carr is masterful in the way that he obfuscates what is a fairly simple plot, it all becomes clear and the culprit obvious. The motive for the murder, I felt, was a little lame, but the book as a whole was a fascinating take on the genre of crime fiction.

In a book full of farce Carr cannot let go of his intellectual pretensions, a leitmotif running through Morgan’s narrative are the Parcae, introduced, of course, with a Latin epigram, who were the female personifications of destiny in Roman mythology.

I have not read enough Carr to rank this book amongst his corpus but it has not put me off exploring more.

It’s The Way I Tell ‘Em (35)

It’s the Edinburgh Fringe once more and time to air some of the (allegedly) best one-liners of 2024.

My girlfriend told me she had never seen the film Gaslight. I told her: Yeah you have…we watched it together – Zoë Coombs Marr

I recently read 10% of sheep are gay – turns out there’s nowt so queer as flock – Amy Mason

My desire to spontaneously sing The Lion Sleeps Tonight is always just a whim away – Olaf Falafel

The Romans invented Vaseline. Or was it Ancient Grease? – Chris Turner

I failed RE. Couldn’t believe it when I found out. I was like: “Oh Jason Christ!” – Jack Skipper   

Boom, boom!

A Fiscal Theme Park

It is now the largest indirect taxation source for the UK Government, boosting the Treasury coffers by £169.25 billion in fiscal year 2023/24. Introduced appropriately enough on April Fool’s Day 1973 to replace Purchase Tax, Value Added Tax (VAT) was intended to be a simple tax. Essential goods such as food, fuel, and housing were exempt but a rate of 10% was levied on all other goods and services.

Once a tax is on the statute books, however, the temptation for successive chancellors to tinker with it seems irresistible. While the standard rate was reduced to 8% in 1974, a higher rate of 25% was imposed on petrol in an attempt to reduce fuel consumption in response to the oil crisis. This higher rate was then extended to include non-essential items such as electrical appliances, boats, aircraft, furs and jewellery, but then halved in 1976 because of fears of the impact of such a high rate on manufacturing industries and employment.

Since 2011 the rates of VAT have remained the same, although there are four levels. The standard rate is 20%, there is a reduced rate of 5% while some goods and services are zero-rated, which means that they could be liable for VAT but at present none is levied, while those deemed to be essential are exempt.

The problem, though, was what was one person’s luxury was another’s essential. From a pricing and competitive standpoint, there was a powerful incentive for manufacturers to try to exploit the anomalies that began to emerge in the treatment of what was VAT-able. Within thirty years Sir Anthony Barber’s “simple tax on the supply of goods and services” had become what Lord Justice Sedley called in Royal and Sun Alliance Insurance Group Plc v Customs and Excise (October 9, 2001) “a kind of fiscal theme park in which factual and legal realities are suspended or inverted”.    

Sedley’s fiscal theme park was particularly evident in the treatment of certain foodstuffs. Take for example Jaffa cakes. Cakes and biscuits are zero-rated but a biscuit partly or wholly covered in chocolate attracts the standard rate of VAT. Despite its name, Customs and Excise argued that McVities were packaging and promoting their best-selling product as if it were a biscuit and that the standard rate should apply. McVities begged to differ and took the matter to court, In his judgment, delivered on August 21, 1991, Mr D C Potter QC, ruled that Jaffa cakes looked and behaved like cakes and used the ingredients of a traditional sponge cake for their sponge case. In his view they should be treated as cakes for VAT purposes and be zero-rated as they are to this day.

Proctor & Gamble were less successful when they took on the Customs and Excise over the VAT status of their popular Regular Pringles. Potato crisps are subject to VAT at the standard rate of 20% but maize- and corn-based snacks are zero-rated. The manufacturers argued that the potato flour content was less than 50% and other flours were used, but the Court of Appeal ruled that because the potato flour content was over 40%, was the largest ingredient by about nine percentage points, and nearly three times larger than the other flours used taken together, Regular Pringles were indisputably made from potato, potato flour or potato starch and subject to VAT.

Curiously, they were more successful with their Pringles Dipper which, while looking similar to a Regular Pringle, was designed for dipping into accompanying dips and had a scoop shape. Although its principal components were vegetable oil (39%), potato flour (38%), and wheat and corn (16%) the tribunal found that as it was designed for dipping, it was not packaged for human consumption without further preparation and that the potato flour was not at a level to prevent it from being zero-rated.

Monkey 47 Schwarzwald Dry Gin

It had been a battle of wills. For several years I had been eyeing up a bottle of Monkey 47 Schwarzwald Dry Gin sitting on the shelves of the local Waitrose store but my sensible head balked at shelling out £49 for a 50cl bottle. So did many of the denizens of the neighbourhood it would seem as recently I spotted it sitting forlornly with a yellow “Too good to waste” sticker and 33.3% discount. I got out my credit card with its “too good to miss” sticker on and bought the bottle, keen to see what all the fuss was about over a gin that is consistently rated one of the world’s best.

Made in Lossberg in Germany by Black Forest Distillers, it has an intriguing backstory. Wing Commander Montgomery Collins of the RAF was so taken by the Black Forest area that when his time with the air force ended in 1951 he settled there, opening a guesthouse called Zum Wilden Affen (The Wild Monkey), named after a monkey, Max, whom he had sponsored during the rebuild of the Berlin zoo.

A lover of gin, he set out to create one that used the best of the natural resources of the Black Forest and years later a bottle accompanied by a letter with a detailed description of the ingredients was found in his home. Fast forward several decades and former Nokia executive, Alexander Stein, became obsessed by the idea of bringing Collins’ recipe back to life and with the assistance of distiller, Christoph Keller, the resulting spirit made its debut in 2010.

So that’s the Monkey element, what about the 47? That is easier to explain as its ABV is 47% and it uses a bewildering forty-seven botanicals in the mix. It would take too long and be immensely boring to list them all but for completeness sake you can find them here. One that I had not come across before is lingonberry which is a small red berry, not unlike a cranberry but not as tart. The other unusual feature of the spirit is that the base is made from molasses and it is created using vapour distillation with a Carter-Head column still.

I am normally of the less is best school of thought, some of my favourite gins use just three botanicals, and I find that the more that are thrown in, the more difficult it is to identify the component parts. Monkey 47 is like a well-oiled symphony orchestra in full flow, each individual component playing its part in creating a wall of flavour. On the nose it is woody and herbaceous with more than a little sweetness. In the glass the clear spirit louches upon the addition of a premium tonic and there are four overriding flavour profiles – spice, citrus, fruit, and herb. It is impressively robust and powerful, signing off with a heavy woodiness.

It certainly is an impressive gin and quite unlike anything I had come across before and that is meant in a good way. Very much a contemporary gin, there is much skill deployed in making a spirit that is a harmonious as this with some many moving parts.

As for the bottle itself, it is dumpy, circular, made of dark brown glass with rounded shoulders, a short neck and a real cork stopper. The label is serrated, at least on the top and bottom, giving it a postage stamp look, and uses a rather insipid purple background. On the rear, I am told that this is bottle number 7304 from batch number L75/2023 and hand bottled in April 2023.

I am pleased I was eventually able to sample this gin and it is now under lock and key to be brought out on high days and holidays. After all, it is too good to waste.

Until the next time, cheers!

Cross Marks The Spot

A review of Cross Marks the Spot by James Ronald – 240726

The sixth volume of James Ronald’s work reissued by Moonstone Press features Cross Marks the Spot, originally published in 1933. It bears all the hallmarks of being written quickly, the plot has as many holes as a colander, but the saving grace is that Ronald can write and is a compelling story teller. He has the ability to draw his reader in, no matter how ludicrous or cliched his story may be. It is a little verbose and I was not surprised to learn in the excellent introduction from Chris Verner that it was rewritten and abridged, appearing as The Frightened Girl under Ronald’s nom de plume of Michael Crombie in 1941.      

Ronald takes into the world of the film industry, populated by megalomaniac film directors, in this case Gustav von Blon, the desperate owners of the Colossal Film Company in the shape of Jacob and Hyman Singerman, and naïve actresses who are desperate to make their mark in the industry. Cicely Foster is invited back to Jacob’s flat to discuss a potential role, is subjected to unwelcome advance, fights back and Singerman falls striking his head. She flees the scene but is observed by a small man lurking in the shadows and, more importantly, by a reporter, “The bloodhound of Fleet Street”, Julian Mendoza, who uses his position to investigate the case because, unfortunately for Cicely, Singerman is found dead shortly afterwards, having been shot between the eyes.

The portrayal of Cicely is surprisingly nuanced. I feared the worst when I came across this passage: “And then, having swooned like any twittering miss of the period before women put behind the all that is unmanly, Cicely completed her ignominious descent from the proud heights of twentieth century independence by melting into tears” (page 91). But she is made of sterner stuff and goes out of her way to help the drunken actor, Philip Dressler, irrespective of the cost to her reputation and sardonically thanks her fiancé, Kenneth Archer, for attempting to settle her future without any mental input from herself.

Mendoza is also an intriguing character. He has a gammy leg, mauled by a tiger, naturally, and, as in They Can’t Hang Me, for the time Ronald handles those with disabilities with surprising sympathy. He is still mobile enough to follow his suspects and to overpower an exponent of ju-jitsu, a Japanese, of course. He is blunt and forthright, disliked but tolerated by the equally blunt Inspector Howells of the Yard, and prefers to interrogate his suspects rather than use any great deductive prowess. Perhaps his most telling piece of deduction is when he discounts the possibility that Cicely had a gun on her when she visited Singerman with the generalisation that women do not have pockets.

There is another murder, when von Blon, to get greater verisimilitude into his film, arranges a scene where the real life husband and wife and her ex quarrel and act out their love triangle. The blank bullets in the gun have been switched to live, but the wrong man is killed. To the dismay of Cicely and Hyman Singerman, for different reasons, Kenneth Archer takes on the suicidal mission of driving a luxury car, worth £2,000, at a wall at speed but swerves and knocks down Simon Slee, sent down by Singerman to stop the madness.

The method by which Jacob Singerman is killed is ingenious, enabling the culprit to be miles away from the scene when the murder took place, and is the highlight of the novel. For all its twists and turns, this is a story about defalcation and desperate attempts to cover one’s tracks.

The accompanying novella, The Sundial Drug Mystery, is another fast-moving piece of writing which adopts a highly moralistic anti-drug tone. It has one oddity in that the German involved in the gang of drug smugglers is called von Blon. He appears to be different from the movie director. I wonder why Ronald recycled the name.