What has it all come to?

I have been sent the above images of a recent formal dinner in London; admittedly, it was a dinner principally for students but what on earth are they playing at? Surely, better by far a requirement for lounge suits and ties than suggesting that guests pitch up half-dressed and even in braces at the dinner table. It must have been intended and arranged; otherwise, how would so many people have appeared like this? I know that the Royal Navy devised Red Sea Rig long ago and dispensed with coats for evening wear but just because of the intolerable heat: not something that is ever likely to afflict Londoners.

The older generation (in the top picture), who encouraged this nonsense, need a jolly good talking to! If black tie is to go the way of all flesh, because people cannot be bothered with the time and expense involved and mastering its slight mysteries, that is just another part of our civilization that slides into the abyss, but dumbing it down like this is appalling:

"Sink me the ship, master-gunner,
Sink her, split her in twain:
Fall into the hands of God,
Not into the hands of Spain!"


(From Tennyson's The Revenge.)

As with everything: either do it properly or don't do it at all!

Razor Squares

I received an unexpected and very welcome Christmas gift from a friend on a forum. It is a 'Razor Square' in a 'three mountain' design. It is made from a starched, fine, white cotton 16" square (other colours are also available) and really is as sharp as a razor! There are many other shapes too.

I don't have direct links on this blog but the website is www.razorsquares.bigcartel.com and it doesn't stop there because William J Thompson has even produced an illustrated and comprehensive book on the subject, called Razor Squares, which is available to order through www.lulu.com

The above image is taken from the website.

Twenty One 'Followers'

I know that more people read this blog than expressly sign up to 'follow' it but every time that the number of 'followers' gets to twenty one, someone falls off the waggon and it remains at twenty. Let's see what happens this time!

A Plate From Book III

Above is a .416 calibre bolt action Big Game rifle by W J Jeffrey & Co (at J Roberts & Co). I give you the image here as it is so striking in the colour format and it will be reproduced as a monochrome plate in the book. The photograph is by courtesy of the makers.

Page View Averages

I have a statistics' counter on this site that has operated from the beginning. The average monthly views of individual pages, since July 10th 2010, is 4,630, which is not bad from a standing start. However, the site was meant to complement and promote my books and it has succeeded in only half of that objective, as sales remain steady but modest. This is a pity but there we are. We are constantly driven to market our own books but the reality is that, without a huge marketing machinery behind a book and a 'celebrity' name on the cover, most books either trundle along or just sink like stones.

I should just be grateful that Book I trundles.

Murder In The Sleepy Hollow

Last night, coming home late, all seemed quiet and so I went up to the bedroom but there I sensed that all was not well. There was someone lurking behind the net curtains infront of the French windows. This is Brazil and you know all the stories of violence. I had a flat throwing knife in my hand and decided where to aim and threw the knife. It pierced the curtain and sounded on wood. Immediately, a gun fired from behind the curtain but I wasn't standing infront of it anymore. Somehow, somebody else, a total stranger, was standing there now and, hit by the bullet, fell forwards, through the gunsmoke, and into the windows, which were now open and empty; leaving me with an unexplained corpse in my bedroom.

On the plus side, I am the only witness. On the other hand, my account sounds hollow. The choices are: to report the matter straight away and take the consequences(which might include a spell on remand in a Brazilian gaol where, I dare say, the conditions are less than wholesome and the manners shy of polite), or to dispose of the body: maybe, by dumping it in the lagoon. I could try to cremate it in the large brick BBQ but it might make a terrible smell and bring the neighbours around.

Before I could resolve this dilemma (and most fortunately),I awoke with a start.


That's what I call a proper nightmare.


Today's picture is Fuseli's 'Nightmare'.

The Ancient Cornish Game of Hurling

The principal annual game of hurling takes place on Shrove Tuesday which, of course, depends on when Easter falls. The event that I am most familiar with is the St Columb hurling in central Cornwall, which happens to be my mother’s home town, and I recall that my grandparents had in their possession a very old and pitted hurling ball. Long ago, the game (which has nearly no rules and no referee), used to be played all over Cornwall but now is confined to St Columb and St Ives and is probably as ancient as the Obby Oss at Padstow and the Furry Dance at Helston. It is a rough and tumble game that has been played since pre-Norman times, with a ball, about the size of a cricket ball, covered in beaten silver with a raised silver seam on which a motto traditionally appears. This used to be in the ancient Cornish language but one of the modern versions of this is ‘Town and Country Do Your Best’, which is a reference to the fact that the game is played between teams of townsmen and countrymen whose objective is to run with and pass the ball to get it into the correct goal, the goals being placed two miles apart. The only taboo is to hide the ball, except in jest. The game begins in the market place at 4-30 pm, when the ball is ‘called-up’ by last year’s winner, who holds it aloft and encourages his team to recapture it. In fact, the winner each year may keep the actual ball, provided that he replaces it, with one of local manufacture. He then ‘throws-up’ the ball from a stepladder, after calling out: ‘Town and Country do your best for in this parish I must rest’ and raising three cheers. All hell then breaks loose in a giant scrummage of St Columbians of all ages; to the extent that shopkeepers and householders even board up their windows. The game can take many hours. The race over, the winner of the ball is then carried back to the market place, to the Hurling Song, where he proclaims whether the ball is won for Town or Country. Later on, everyone returns to the market place and the ball is ‘called-up’ again and a pub crawl takes place. The ball is repeatedly immersed in gallon flasks of beer (making it into ‘silver beer’) and this is shared around. Fortunately, despite the loss of so much custom and tradition, across the board, this game appears so deeply embedded in the local consciousness that it is likely to continue and I have even seen a photograph of a cousin of mine at a recent hurling.