The Preceding Post

I apologise to my readers for having, initially, made rather a hash of my last post. I have corrected it now (including a note on the image). My only excuse is that it was late and I was trying to do too much in one day.

First Among Equals

NB TO SEE QUILLER-COUCH IN THE CENTRE OF THE GROUP - CLICK THE ABOVE PICTURE (by courtesy of the Commodore of the Royal Fowey Yacht Club).

I find this to be a charming picture of a very well-dressed man enjoying himself, with his friends, in ordinary activity, on the river. Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch ('Q') (centre) 1864-1944; (second) Professor of English Literature at Cambridge University; educationalist, writer, critic, and one of the few vehemently to oppose the emerging bogus 'science' of eugenics (his Three Open Letters To The Bishop of Exeter rank amongst the most elegant and cogent and moving pieces of prose of the twentieth century; all composed, as he says in one of them, while he fumigated the air with pipes of tobacco to keep his temper). Notice the little boy milling about unconcernedly. If only our leaders now behaved like 'Q'! The inscription on the great granite monolith that stands on Penleath Point,Fowey overlooking his 'dearest of small cities', and the harbour, ends with the words:

"Courteous in manner, charitable in judgement, chivalrous in action, he manifested in life, as in literature, the dignity of manhood, the sanctity of home and the Sovereignty of God." - and then some lines from the end of his book, 'Sir John Constantine':

"O, Thou, who payest not by time,
Take the thanks of Thy servant.
O, Lord receive my sword,
O, hands, O wounded hands,
Reach and resume my soul:
In manas tuas, Domine,
In manas...in manas tuas."

Much is written, and will be written, of excellence and of elegance - but he evidenced these qualities to a remarkable degree and, at a stroke, lays to rest de Balzac's nonsensical assertion that, amongst others, the teachers of the humanities are incapable of living an elegant life.

Link to Book I History of Men's Fashion What The Well Dressed Man Is Wearing

A link to the publisher's site, where Book I is described and available and where excerpts from reviews may be read is now in the righthand sidebar under "Links to my books". Further links for Books II and III will appear in due course. Google are not Tin-Hitlers, after all! www.bookdepository.com offers the best worldwide deal, with free shipping.

Excerpt from Book II (History of Men's Accessories) - A Short Guide For Men About Town

An aphrodisiac menu
There are a great many myths about aphrodisiac foods; the term deriving from the name Aphrodite, the ancient Greek goddess of love, born out of the sea on the island of Cyprus. They range from freshly shucked oysters in their shells and conch chowder to the ground beetle powder of Roald Dahl's fictional Uncle Oswald and, of course, rhino horn. Maybe, some of them have been known to work but on the placebo basis; one genuinely thinks that the foods are aphrodisiac and therefore they become it! Honey has been reputed to be aphrodisiac since ancient times and, as already noted, the old alcoholic drink mead is made from honey. So, mead shall be the drink to precede this menu as a unusual apéritif.

Plain fresh oysters, retaining the juices and doused in Tabasco (or other hot pepper sauce), lime juice and black pepper and eaten with wholemeal bread and butter shall be one hors d'oeuvre and steamed asparagus with Cornish butter (sticky on the fingers) and pepper shall be the other choice. Both shall then share, with the same spoon, a bowl of clam chowder.

We shall choose a bottle of Diebolt-Vallois Fleur de Passion 1996 to take us from the hors d'oeuvre through the main course.

The main course itself might comprise a peppery, rocket salad, dressed in extra virgin olive oil, lime juice, Balsamic vinegar and black pepper and thin slices of hot ginger. Instead of bread rolls we shall have saffron buns (saffron from the innocent-looking little crocus is allegedly aphrodisiac and costlier, by weight, than gold) and, whether we choose a cold lobster or steamed langoustines in garlic and butter, we must find room for strong black truffles and tomatoes. If, however, we have more oysters, this time they shall be cooked in ginger and spring onions. In Brazil, boiled quail eggs are considered highly aphrodisiac, so we shall have a side-plate of these too.

For pudding we shall have a choice of passion fruit mousse (made of beaten condensed milk, fresh cream and passion fruit seeds) eaten with a great Sauternes and Death by Chocolate or a chocolate bombe, eaten with a couple of glasses of Taylor's 1970 Vintage Port. To finish we shall abandon even the great British cheeses, in favour of peaches and apricots, which contain anhydrotoxins, also supposedly, aphrodisiac. But if you have the time and the patience for a cheese, choose Gruyère or a Comte because that way you can send her eyes crashing through the ceiling with the dissolute sounding Bouzy Rouge.

If we need to take something to the bedroom, maybe it should be banana fritters in Cornish clotted cream and two crystal brandy balloons of pre-1914 Armagnac, a dish of Belgian cherry liqueur chocolates and a spoonful of Ginseng. Let's just hope that the headboard is soundly secured - and not too close to the wall…

For the morning there must be a chilled bottle of Veuve Clicquot Grande Dame Rosé Champagne, Vintage 1990, and two deep goblets; and my idea of 'the ideal breakfast', that I describe in Chapter 4, wheeled in … not a moment before 10 am.

A Thought For Sunday and a Warning

In a couple of hours many millions of people will settle down to watch the World Cup Final this Sunday afternoon. In the picture, to the left, is a row of nine standing stones, in my mother's native parish of St Columb Major, Cornwall. A little further off is The Fiddler (another stone). The nine stones were once maidens and the Fiddler was well... a fiddler ... and my grandmother told me that they were all turned to stone for dancing and fiddling on a Sunday...and there's another group of petrified revellers in a nearby parish (in the top picture), - frozen (by St Cleer) for playing the ancient Cornish game of hurling on a Sunday and for refusing to attend Church instead. I am sure that the English football team suffered a similar fate during the tournament. This is why they were all rooted to the spot throughout.

Excerpt from Book III

Here is an excerpt from Book III, which is still being written. I ought just to mention that the blog's heading and the first post in it talk of dressing but, I hope that, by now, it might be realized that the scope is much wider than just clothes!! Naked Apes smoke, eat, drink, socialize, travel, collect things, indulge in travel and sport and so on. As Jeffrey Archer once famously mentioned: they do not just sit on the beach drinking pina coladas.

"A side-note on duelling pistols
Any wound sufficient to agitate the nerves and make the hand shake must end the business for that day.

Commandment Twenty One of the Twenty Six Commandments of the (Irish) Code Duello of 1777.

As a matter of interest, the first recorded pistol duel was fought on Tothill Fields in 1711 and, as swordsmanship declined, gradually, pistols became the weapon of choice and, although even taking proper aim was frowned upon as not being insouçiant enough, some makers introduced unsportsmanlike hair triggers and rifled barrels. Manton produced heavier pistols, weighted at the muzzle, to counteract the recoil. Duelling had been tolerated as the recognized manner of settling points of honour between gentlemen and even Prime Ministers in office, had fought duels. In 1798 William Pitt The Younger, annoyed by an Irish MP over Naval quotas, challenged his loyalty to the Crown and, at 3 pm on 27th May 1798, they met at twelve paces on Putney Heath and both fired and both missed. The 1st Duke of Wellington, as Tory Prime Minister, forced the issue of Roman Catholic ‘Emancipation’, pushing through legislation to enable Roman Catholics to hold certain public offices (from which they had previously been barred); probably to quell Irish unrest. The Earl of Winchilsea criticized him heavily and they faced each other on Battersea Fields on 21st March 1829. Winchilsea fired into the air and Wellington shot wide, accepting a written apology, instead of blood. Meanwhile a more widely criticized affair had been the duel between Lord Castlereagh (then Secretary of State for War) and George Canning (then Foreign Secretary). Castlereagh accused Canning of extreme political intrigue and they both resigned office and met on Putney Heath on 21st September 1809. Canning missed and Castlereagh wounded Canning in the leg. Canning went on to become, briefly, Prime Minister in 1827, while the extremely unpopular Castlereagh killed himself in 1822.

Duelling between civilians (as well as trial by battle) was specifically banned in Britain in 1819 and duelling between officers in the army was banned in 1844. Despite this, the reported last duel in England took place, in 1852, at Priest Hill, Surrey, between two Frenchmen, called Cournet and Bartlemey. Cournet took his shot and missed; Bartlemey's pistol misfired twice and Cournet lent him his own weapon (maybe expecting the gallantry to be repaid by delopement: discharge of the gun in the air) but, instead, Bartlemey mortally wounded Courney with it! In the event, they both died, as Bartlemey was later hanged for murder.

Boxed pairs of fine duelling pieces are eminently collectable and they are sometimes offered at auction by houses such as Christie’s and Holt’s. A pair by Durs Egg, sold by Christie’s is shown in the illustration."

Rosa Lewis 'Duchess Of Duke Street'

Leader of the Teddy Bares' Picnic, Rosa Lewis, converted a whole generation of the conservative British to alcohol in sauces, as well as yelling at a young Winston Churchill (sneaking into the kitchen to pinch cakes); '"Op it, coppernob!!". Her life was dramatised in the 1970s as the television series The Duchess of Duke Street and I always felt, in walking up and down Jermyn and Duke Streets, that there was insufficient commemoration of her there. The old hotel is long gone and a tower block has taken its place - but still called the Cavendish Hotel. So I stirred up Westminster City Council in 2005-2006 and persuaded them to erect this plaque, which I am very proud to say I composed and persuaded the actress Gemma Jones (who had appeared in the TV series), to unveil in November 2006. It is situated near the entrance to the old hotel in Jermyn Street, where Rosa had used to stand, goblet of champagne in hand, 'watching the trot'.

Sadly, I was not able to be at the unveiling and I cannot locate the photographs of the ceremony but it turned out that the Deputy Mayor of Westminster (who was also present), had been at school with Miss Jones and one of the Councillors who attended the unveiling could actually remember having stayed at the old Cavendish with her parents and having been taken by Rosa on shopping trips to Fortnum & Mason, where Rosa's dog, Kippy, used to cock his leg against the stacked biscuit tins. When the staff "Ahemed!" and mentioned this to Rosa, apparently, she replied: "I know, he's my dog!" Next time that you pass the plaque, going up or down Jermyn Street, please stop and raise your hat to the memory of this tremendous, incorrigible and irrestible English character.