Here they come again

Just a reminder that if you happen to be passing this week through Southern Orange County, CA, you should note that although the Hirundos (Hirundae?) are due to arrive there as usual on 19th March this year, the parade in celebration of the event will take place with typical Californian perversity on the following Saturday, the 25th.
And what do the French call this species? And why does a Sussex town feature it on its crest? Well, you see…. Oh well, forget it, it’s not very interesting anyway. Don't know why I mentioned it really; I don't like birds much, silly sort of way they peck about.

How to get really really comfortable, Italian style

This idiotic picture was used on the front page of a travel supplement to illustrate an article on how Italians take their holidays.

On a personal note

Earlier this month a gang broke into my house. They had slipped through the unlocked front door and then suddenly burst violently into the room where I was quietly surfing. Though profoundly shaken, I had the presence of mind to grab the camera that happened to be on my desk and got them bang to rights just as they finished bawling Happy Birthday to You.

Daughter-in-law, son, daughter, grand-daughter, daughter, grand-daughter

I was then presented with a comic book containing a story about a mission carried out by a special agent bearing a strong physical resemblance to me. Though largely fictitious, it is to some extent realistic, for in a very high proportion of the 174 photos it contains, taken over a period of fifty years, the only action involved is either eating or drinking.

Grimm with Axel and Lutz

My grand-daughter stood us up because she wasn’t well, and it seemed a pity to waste the tickets even if they were comps. So we were among the few adults-only groups at a matinée of Snow White featuring The Russian Ice Stars.
Anyway, I enjoyed it. (Their production company, which is based in Wales, has a rather good website.)
Watching them leaping about with great élan, I was struck with the thought that here is a really dangerous occupation: on a crowded stage with skaters carrying others, long legs with skates at the end of them whizzing round high in the air, it needs only a tiny error of judgement on someone’s part and you could easily have your face sliced off.
It all looks more dangerous than Formula One; it is certainly more exciting and prettier. In that dull sport, the most—some would say the only—interesting element is the possibility of something nasty happening, with plumes of black smoke and torn-off wheels bouncing down the track. But Russian ice dancers are much more engaging characters than racing drivers and one would be sorry if any of them came to grief. At the matinée, one girl did drop a plate but at the time she was twirling two of them on long poles and going backwards on one leg so one could hardly blame her; no harm was done, and nobody minded.

Diamond in the dross

I watch quite a lot of TV, and some of it I actually enjoy. By chance, I have recently seen the same drama three times and would be happy to see it again. It is in black and white, has no dialogue and a very confused plot, with a small and engaging cast behaving in a good-natured but rather odd way. This didn't put me off because nowadays I find most dramas confusing and the actions of the characters often seem to me to be totally inexplicable.
It is amusing to watch and a pleasure to listen to, for the sound track consists of nothing but one of those gracious Victorian piano pieces, Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words. I went on the internet to find out which one it was (who could identify all 48?): it is No. 32 in F# minor, Op.67 No. 2, allegro leggiero. Only snippets, unfortunately—bars 1-13, 51-52 and 54-56, but enough to provide a very happy interlude.
It doesn't bother me at all that the whole thing was created at enormous expense in a doomed attempt to persuade me to go out and buy a Volkswagen Jetta.

Introduction (2)

"Say 'How d'you do?'"









[Here is another one of Nicolas Bentley's affectionate drawings of nuns]

Ode to a Moose

Among the more laudable achievements of Laurens van der Post, the much admired writer, farmer, war hero, conservationist, liar, fraud, paedophile and alleged guru to Margaret Thatcher and Prince Charles, was the creation in 1974 of the excellent Wilderness Foundation.
The foundation is currently proposing the replacement of 800,000 hectares of traditional farmland in the UK with reserves, possibly inhabited by vanished species such as moose, beaver, wild horse…..
This sounds like a jolly idea, though we shall need to accept that these reserves may not be places where we shall go for relaxing days out in the country. I mean, we are used to wasps getting in the jam, but having a grumpy Alces Alces turn up and start walking all over the sandwiches will be enough to ruin any picnic. They stand six feet tall, can weigh three-quarters of a ton and have antlers up to five feet across: sleekit, possibly, but neither wee nor cowrin’, and not in the least tim’rous, especially during rut. Also, it looks as if they tend to dribble a bit.

More women

As promised in an earlier post, I have dredged the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography for figures illustrating the gender (they call it “sex”) comparison for the number of entries over the centuries: HERE they are.
I don’t know that there are any tremendously interesting conclusions to be drawn from this, except perhaps that in earlier times you had to be a very extraordinary woman indeed to get yourself written up by posterity, and even now you have to be a lot more extraordinary than a man. It was probably rather a pointless exercise but it did give me a happy hour playing with this fascinating website.
I did notice that men who died in the second half of the nineteenth century qualified for inclusion at a rate (an average of 177 each year) which has never been exceeded or even equalled. This is surprising, since “famous” people of today include many (I mention no names) who wouldn’t have had a chance of having their biographies written if they had lived in earlier times. I suppose that in the nineteenth century there were huge numbers of chaps energetically building railways, writing novels, inventing things, making money and growing spectacular whiskers, thus providing something for biographers to write about. The number of women with biographies didn’t start to increase appreciably until the early twentieth century, perhaps because they seldom made money or had whiskers
In the spirit of generosity which has made Other Men's Flowers a by-word among literati everywhere, I shall be happy to look up things on behalf of sad people who have no access to the ODNB and to answer such questions as Who were the eleven women who died before the fifth century and whose biographies were included? Of course, if this turns out to involve a great deal of work I shall have to charge a small fee, possibly to be passed on to some charity.
The Oxford University Press also publishes the American National Biography. This has 24 volumes, is also on line (though most people have to pay for access), and includes 17,400 people. This is rather less than it should be, I would have thought; although it only goes up to 1999 and they couldn’t have found many to include before the Pilgrim Fathers, apart from the odd Aztec. Hollywood alone must have produced a few thousand people whose fame, if not their lives, makes them eligible for inclusion.

Tony Coeur de Lion

Blair confessed on a chat show last night that his decision to go to war with Iraq was underpinned by his Christian faith. So it was a crusade!
But asked whether he prays to God when making such decisions, he replied "Well, I don't want to get into something like that".
Ah, that's all right, then.

Famous people

I have just discovered to my delight that by using my library membership card I can access at home the mighty Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, a collection of the biographies of “55,000 men and women from all walks of life who shaped British history worldwide, from the 4th century BC to the year 2002. It includes not just the great and the good but people who have left a mark for any reason, good, bad, or unusual”. (The printed version has 60,000 pages and costs $7500.)
The women range from Boudicca (d. 60/61AD) to Barbara Castle (d. 2002) and include saints, monarchs and Fanny Adams, (1859–1867), murder victim and source of a colloquial expression. Men in the latest update include four Nobel prize winners and John Entwhistle, bass guitarist of The Who. Really, the only rule applied rigorously in selecting those for inclusion is that they have to be absolutely dead. And, I suppose, famous or infamous in one way or another.

What proportion of all the entries are for women and how does this proportion vary over the entries for the last two millennia? I shall answer these questions in a couple of days time; in the meantime those who are interested in such matters might like to guess at the answer to the first one and then see how close they got. There are 25,600,000 websites on the net which have some reference to feminism (roughly the same as for communism) as well as 47,000 feminist blogs, so it may be that there are other analyses of this kind out there somewhere, but mine will be based on the January update of the online DNB so will at least be more up-to-date than most.

Oxymoron

Adrian Leppard, assistant chief constable of Kent, has said that the £50 million raid on the cash depot in Tonbridge "had been planned and executed with military precision". Clearly, he has never been in the army.
Or perhaps he has, and is being sarcastic. He has also said "I've got no doubt in my mind we will catch these people", so he may believe that the apparent success of the robbery was only temporary, and that the operation was actually an FCMBU.
But note that at midday today, 28th February, there are only just over three days left to try for a bargain.
[Later note: This was a link to an item offered on eBay: 50 million pounds in used banknotes, complete with an illustration of the pile, with a note to the effect that it would interest someone who wouldn't ask too many questions. Last time I looked there were around twenty bids, with the highest £100,000 or so and then, after leaving it there for four days, dozy eBay woke up and killed it. All good clean fun.]

Private journal

So how many copies of Prince Charles' personal, highly confidential, journal did he send round?
According to the Observer, "only 14 people read it". On the other hand, according to today's edition of the ever-consistent Sunday Times, "Charles circulated about 100 of these journals to close acquaintances" (page 7), they were "passed round the office before being distributed to up to 70 friends, associates and even transient acquaintances" (page 15), or they were "widely and chaotically distributed to as many as 40" (page 16).

Well, never mind about all that. On the subject of the prince's desire to have his views widely known (or not, as the case may be), it is a matter of some concern in government circles that there has been no response whatsoever from either Clarence House or Downing Street to the serious question I raised publicly as long ago as May 2004:

Eligibility regulations for the "gov.uk" web domain state that "Registration is limited to UK government departments and agencies, local government bodies... and other associated and non-departmental public sector organisations. It is not for use by individuals".
So why was"www.princeofwales.gov.uk" accepted for registration, eh? Did the Clarence House Webmaster Royal nip in quickly before the regulations were laid down, or did Mummy send Black Rod on his behalf to knock on ICANN’s door?
Or perhaps this is just Charles saying: if that Blair person carries on like a royal, then I’m jolly well going to be a government department, so there.

No need for thermals

Can anyone doubt that the Punjab Rural Olympics are much more fun than all that chilly sliding around in Turin?

Nora Batty and the poets

…A dream of love to warm the winter nights
A draught of wine to end the summer days…


When my sister telephoned me to ask me if I knew the origin of the title of the world’s longest-running TV comedy, now in its 26th series, I didn’t hesitate to name a poet. Clearly, Last of the Summer Wine must have been inspired by some lines like the above, which might have been written by Shakespeare if I hadn’t just made them up. On the other hand, there is something a bit Donne-ish or even Herricky about the words, so I was prepared to be proved wrong.
I certainly was: it seems that the title of the series was invented by its creator, Roy Clarke.

Bonking in Turin

It has been reported that bonking has a new meaning: hitting an object really hard with your snowboard.
Rubbish! This meaning is exactly as old as me, that is to say quite old: the Oxford English Dictionary has it (not specifically referring to snowboards) as the primary meaning of the word, dating it from 1931.
Its secondary meaning, the one which came to your mind when you saw the title of this post, did not develop until much later: its first printed use is recorded by the OED in a quotation from 1975.

Introduction

"Mother, I want you to meet Father"




[Nicolas Bentley did the drawing]

Not Very Interesting Facts No. 275

• Here’s a picture by the distinguished American photo-journalist Ed KASHI.

• The town of KASHI in Xinjiang, SW China (pop.174,570) was once an important trading post on the Old Silk Road.

• At the KASHI Ashram in Florida they teach an eclectic mix of the deep spiritual wisdom of all times and places.

• The astronomer and mathematician al-KASHI (known popularly as Ghiyath al-Din Jamshid Mas'ud al-Kashi) died in Samarkand in 1429.

• Finally, and least interesting of all, KASHI was invented in La Jolla near San Diego in 1983. It became popular after being served at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles and is now marketed by Kelloggs. Made from seven different grains, it combines all the characteristics of puffed wheat and grape-nuts, that is to say it tastes like a mixture of polystyrene, birdseed and gravel, and is absolutely disgusting.

Be my love

Editing of Wikipedia’s page on St Valentine's Day has been temporarily disabled as a result of recent vandalism, but the page is still there and has these two jolly pictures which illustrate respectively the sacred and the profane aspects of 14th March.Actually the sacred aspect doesn't really amount to much since practically nothing is known about any of the three third-century martyrs called Valentine, and it was not until a thousand years later that one of them became associated with romantic love after the troubadours had invented it.
Around a billion Valentines are sent every year; 85% of them are sent by women, though I don't see how anyone knows this.
In Korea, there is a Black Day, held on April 14, when males who did not receive anything for Valentine's Day gather together to eat Jajangmyun (Chinese-style noodles in black sauce). This does not sound tremendous fun but is presumably some kind of consolation and better than moping around at home eating the glutinous rice called (no kidding, ask a Korean) yuksik.
Modern chefs apparently do not think highly of Valentine's day meals: "Every conceivable pseudo-romantic cliché... pink menus... dragging the rusting heart-shaped cutters and moulds from the smelly plastic tub under the sink where they sit neglected for the other 364 days of the year... couples so engrossed in each others' radiance that they forget to leave a tip... the staff laying bets on which customers will be the first to have an argument..."
The head chef of a two Michelin-starred restaurant agreed that "the evening can leave a nasty taste in the mouth", which is certainly not something you hope to get from a meal which has cost you as much as two flights to Paris. But perhaps he was thinking of himself and his staff and not the customers: people in the catering trade are clearly not strong on romance.
Rather than helping to line the pockets of these curmudgeons it would be better to stay at home and prepare an appropriate dinner for your inamorata(o). Don't bother with oysters—the idea that they are an aphrodisiac was later found to be a misunderstanding: it is the brown bread, butter and lemon juice that has the effect. The dinner described in my previous post would be a good choice.

Posh Nosh

In the years before they liked to be called actors, successful actresses led the kind of life in which flowers and champagne played a major part. This is reflected in the following recipes, which were among those contributed by four hundred actresses to The Stage Favourites’ Cook Book, published in 1923:

Truffes au vin de champagne
Brown one or two slices of veal and of ham in melted bacon fat in a casserole; cover them with peeled truffles and add a bouquet garni, salt, pepper and a layer of peeled and roughly chopped mushrooms. Then cover with thin slices of bacon, moisten nicely with champagne, put on lid and allow contents to cook very slowly till tender, when serve with its own sauce strained and skimmed.

Salade des Roses
Gather half a pint of fresh pink scented rose-petals, pick them over carefully to see they are perfectly fresh, then add them to half a pint of thick cream and bruise them with a wooden spoon. When cream is delicately flavoured and fragrantly scented, pile up some large sound hulled strawberries in a crystal dish, sprinkle them with castor sugar, strain over the juice of a lemon and pour over two glasses of sherry or chablis. Whip the cream and pile up rockily on top.

[I should think these would go well together in the same meal, as a main course and dessert, perhaps adding as a starter my own Herring with Gin and Dandelion Sauce.
Both the recipes also contain hints about how to handle your guests: on arrival, moisten nicely with champagne, but if it flows too freely then to restore order at a later stage you may have to bruise them with a wooden spoon.]

In Scotland they can say Not Proven

So, after nine years, one trial, two appeals, two retrials and five million pounds for our learned friends, Sion Jenkins has been acquitted of murdering his foster daughter Billie-Jo by beating her to death with an iron tent spike. There are some who still believe him to be guilty, but these are simple-minded people who cannot put out of their minds the facts that he is has been shown to be a violent and abusive liar and that there is no other suspect: shame on them.

We live less than a mile from where the murder took place, and in 2003 a TV company hired our house for a week to shoot some of the scenes for a play about the case. I was warned that this can be an unpleasant experience, but we did not find it so: the cast and crew were agreeable people (the actor who played Jenkins was a well-known heart-throb) and it was fun to watch it all happening; the money wasn’t bad, either.

Sadly, the play hasn’t been shown and now it probably won’t be. This means that, like my operatic career, my life in television is over before it could begin. During the shooting of a scene in the road outside the house I inadvertently wandered into shot when returning home, and was shouted at by the director. Now I shall never get the plaudits I would have earned for my subtly underplayed performance in the role of Man With Sainsbury’s Bag Crouching Behind Pillar.