It could be a fine thing ... to be gently but firmly drunk

He had discovered, quite be accident, that it could be a fine thing, on a grey, dismal morning - a morning of limp, oyster coloured weather - to be gently but firmly drunk, making a pleasure of melancholy. But it had to be undertaken with a chemist's precision; bad things could happen in the event of a mistake.

W. Tevis, The man who fell to earth (1963), 25

Pupils spend 80% of their time in class pretending to listen

What do pupils spend 80% of their time doing in class? I'm sure you can guess. It's pretending to listen. Children are brilliant pretenders. In his 2007 book The Hidden Lives of Learners, Nuthall recounts the tactics played out in classrooms across the world. Pupils will act as if they are trying to read a book as a teacher approaches, only to idly look out of the window as the soon as the teacher moves on.

L.E. Major, The good parent educator (2021), 125

But Debo christened him after her favourite jockey. She's never heard of the Duke of Wellington.

James Lees-Milne recorded in his diary that the Duke of Wellington was furious when he heard that Debo had called his son 'Morny', which happened to be a diminutive of the Wellesley title Lord Mornington. 'How would you like it,' he complained to the Duke of Devonshire at a party, 'if I christened my grandson Harty of Burlington?' Nancy broke in, 'But Debo christened him after her favourite jockey. She's never heard of the Duke of Wellington.'

M.S. Lovell, The Mitford girls (2001), 385, note 1 (p.564) 

Citing J.Less-Milne, Prophesying peace (1999), 345 

But her parents were adamant: London was no place for a sheep

The younger girls always loved staying in London, though for Decca any time spent there was marred because she was not allowed to take Miranda. 'She'll be no trouble,' she said on this occasion, adding, 'The dear thing would so love it. She's never been to London.' But her parents were adamant: London was no place for a sheep.

M.S. Lovell, The Mitford girls (2001),99

But one had been brought up an Anglican, and the process of change would have been a great bother

In fact, Laura had often thought that she would have liked to be a Catholic; she had always felt an affinity with those big busy cool churches abroad, the smell of incense, obsequious priests, candles. Even the ghastly statues and pictures. But one had been brought up an Anglican, and the process of change would have been a great bother, and anyway one didn't feel all that strongly about it.

 P. Lively, Treasures of time (1979), 114

I don't ... and I bet you don't really either, only it doesn't do to say.

Take my own particular pond, James went on smoothly, now frankly one of the pleasures of impending retirement is to leave the [civil] Service with a sense of how very much its recruitment has changed since my own youth. We are broader based. I like it.

I don't, thought Laura, and I bet you don't really either, only it doesn't do to say.

P. Lively, Treasures of time (1979), 93

Only to discover, when it was too late, that they had practically destroyed the British Army

For years Pitt and Dundas continued to pour men and money into the West Indies against what they were pleased to call brigands. Helped by the climate, the black labourers so recently slaves, and the loyal Mulattoes, led by their own officers, inflicted on Britain the severest defeat that has befallen a British expeditionary force between the days of Elizabeth and the Great War. The full story remained hidden for over a century, until it was unearthed in 1906 by Fortescue, the historian of the British Army. He puts the blame on Pitt and Dundas "who had full warning that on this occasion they would have to fight not only poor, sickly Frenchmen, but the Negro population of the West Indies. Yet they poured their troops into these pestilent islands, in the expectation that thereby they would destroy the power of France, only to discover, when it was too late, that they had practically destroyed the British Army.

....

By the end of 1796, after three years of war, the British had lost in the West Indies 80,000 soldiers including 40,000 actually dead, the latter number exceeding the total losses of Wellington's army from death, discharges, desertion and all causes from the beginning to the end of the Peninsular War. The cost in San Domingo alone had been £300,000 in 1794, £800,000 in 1795, £2,600,000 in 1796, and in January 1797 alone it was more than £700,000. Early in 1797 the British Government decided to withdraw and maintain control only of Mole St Nicholas and the island of Tortuga

C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins (1938, 2001 edition), 118-9 and 164

To believe that change, and in particular the speed of change, is something peculiar to the twentieth century, is an error

In one generation, between roughly  1840 and 1870, Kentish Town was substantially altered from a suburban village, surrounded by fields, into the townscape we see today. To believe that change, and in particular the speed of change, is something peculiar to the twentieth century, is an error, at least where the physical environment is concerned.. Except in a few specific places, like New Town sites, the changes seen by many people today are as nothing compared with the paroxysms of alteration and despoliation weathered by their great-grandparents.

G. Tindall, The fields beneath (1977; 2010 edition), 143

Obviously date from an extinct era where there was no shortage of people to fetch, carry and sweep

As family homes today, these [London terraced] houses do not fulfil modern concepts of good design: four sets of stairs to service no more than eight or so rooms obviously date from an extinct era where there was no shortage of people to fetch, carry and sweep. But the design is otherwise less inconvenient than outsiders suppose. The numerous separate strata, initially reflecting the socially stratified nature of nineteenth-century life, adapt well to the disparate needs of the modern family, who do not necessarily wish to gather in one large circle round the parlour lamp of an evening, or even round the television set modern lighting and heading systems make such unity unnecessary

G. Tindall, The fields beneath (1977; 2010 edition), 121

Land use in London has traditionally been very wasteful, and still frequently is

Judged by continental standards, land use in London has traditionally been very wasteful, and still frequently is. Even today, more than 50 percent of all the land in inner London is actually open to the sky: some it is road space, some park or housing-estate space, but a great deal is individual garden.

G. Tindall, The fields beneath (1977; 2010 edition), 67-8 

It was said that Brie was the only king to Talleyrand always remained loyal

Talleyrand was a tireless promoter of Brie, which he called the king of cheeses, supposedly at a dinner at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, when Europe was slicing up post-Napoleonic Europe. It was said that Brie was the only king to whom he always remained loyal.

M. Kurlansky, Milk: a 10,000 year history (2018), 278-9

If the water is allowed to boil away to the point where part of the can is exposed to air, it will explode

Entirely new dishes were also created. In Argentina, dulce de leche, a thick dark caramel sauce made of sweetened condensed milk, became a national dish. There are numerous ways of cooking down condensed milk, but the popular technique is just to put the can in a pot of boiling water and leave it there for four to five hours. Simple, but there is a catch. If the water is allowed to boil away to the point where part of the can is exposed to air, it will explode. 

M. Kurlansky, Milk: a 10,000 year history (2018), 193

Between the mid-sixteenth and mid-seventeenth centuries, the value of a Dutch cow quadrupled

Between the mid-sixteenth and mid-seventeenth centuries, the value of a Dutch cow quadrupled. The Dutch were starting to understand what best to feed cattle, as well as how best to cultivate pastureland. This led to an enormous increase in milk production in Friesland, Flanders, and Holland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Dutch cows were producing more than twice the yield of cows in neighbouring countries, and milk was more plentiful in the Netherlands than in most of Europe.

M. Kurlansky, Milk: a 10,000 year history (2018), 96 

Observed that a state primary is as good as anything provided by the private sector and free into the bargain

Martin Bryan and the Coggans went to the primary school because that was where children went to school. The Palings went there because Clare and Peter, who had opinions about education, and knew a thing or two, had observed that a state primary is as good as anything provided by the private sector and free into the bargain.

P. Lively, Judgement day, (1980), 24

The princes stubbornly continued fighting on two fronts: against mythology on the one hand, and democracy on the other

A great deal of dotty folklore had accreted around these curious monarchs and their life-style. According to certain legends these people in their day wore priceless gems for breakfast and conducted their daily business of despotism from the back of elephants, in more-than-Oriental splendour. Another school of though, mainly their own, held that the Indian princes were far-sighted and benevolent rulers and their disappearance mournful. However that may have been (and it was both), one might have thought to have heard the last of the Maharajahs, but not so. Even in the tormented times that so threatened India today the princes stubbornly continued fighting on two fronts: against mythology on the one hand, and democracy on the other.

J. Cameron, An Indian summer (1974), 114

These Methodists preach Salvation through Faith in Christ without Repentance from Sin and I preach Repentance from Sin and then Salvation through Christ

These Methodists preach Salvation through Faith in Christ without Repentance from Sin and I preach Repentance from Sin and then Salvation through Christ. No wonder that the first takes with disorderly people more than the last for if they may be saved without forsaking their Sins tis an easy thing to say they have Faith, but it is not an easy thing to forsake their Sins. 

W. Holland, Paupers and pig killers: the diary of William Holland 1799-1818, ed. J. Ayres (1984), 270 [Sunday March 3, 1816]

What Forster had against colonialism was its corruption of individual relation, its destruction of personality

What Forster had against colonialism (since he was a novelist and not a pamphleteer) was its corruption of individual relation, its destruction of personality. What irked Forster about the Raj was that it turned a silly Indian like Aziz into a martyr and a silly Englishman like Heaslop into a tyrant, and neither of them were fitted for roles so important.

J. Cameron, An Indian summer (1974), 110

I expect that is what irked Forster about colonialism, but it's not what I'd put top.

This Man, an enemy to all Religion, an Assassin and Murderer and everything that is bad

The Ways of Providence are very Mysterious. That this Man [Napoleon], an enemy to all Religion, an Assassin and Murderer and everything that is bad should succeed in all his Enterprises in this extraordinary manner is beyond Conception. Besides his success must have so evidently a bad influence on the Moral World as to induce many to distrust the Providence of God and make them think that it will be to no purpose to cultivate Moral Goodness and Uprightness of Conduct. However I pray to God that this Year may yet unfold some matters which tend to forbode the downfall of this Wicked Usurper.

W. Holland, Paupers and pig killers: the diary of William Holland 1799-1818, ed. J. Ayres (1984), 127 [Wednesday January 1, 1806]

It is bribing the Pulpit to give a good character to persons who may not deserve it

They have in this county a funeral Sermon to every Corpse which I do not approve of much for it is bribing the Pulpit to give a good character to persons who may not deserve it. It is paying the Clergyman for supressing the notice of the bad qualities of the deceased and speaking only of the good. This is not properly holding him forth as an example to be followed, for his neighbours will  recall what he really was and imagine they may go as they please and still get a good name at their death.

W. Holland, Paupers and pig killers: the diary of William Holland 1799-1818, ed. J. Ayres (1984), 90-91 [Monday October 3 1803]

Zeal was once left to our socialist opponents; today it is hard to find a Tory who is not a zealot

In fact, the Tory party has, under Margaret, stopped being a party and become a movement, as dedicated to change as Labour itself once was. Manifestos have been written on tablets of stone. This sea change has put older Tories in some difficulty. We joined a party, not a movement, zeal was once left to our socialist opponents; today it is hard to find a Tory who is not a zealot.

J. Critchley, The Palace of Varieties (1989), 142

Do you think you would ever have heard of Christianity if the Apostles had gone out and said "I believe in consensus"?

Mrs Thatcher is a self-acknowledged 'conviction politician'. Indeed, when challenged she has drawn the parallel of the Apostles themselves; 'Do you think you would ever have heard of Christianity if the Apostles had gone out and said "I believe in consensus"?' she asked an American journalist. It is this sense of conviction which explains much of her success, and tells one more about the sort of public figure she is. Conviction politics is all very well, but it does tend to mean a lac of respect for the convictions of others, and its practice can lead one swiftly into the paths of self-righteousness. 

J. Critchley, The Palace of Varieties (1989), 121-2

The very fact that we made files labeled “Planning” suggests how little of it we did

When I was clearing out a file drawer recently I came across a thick file labeled “Planning.” The very fact that we made files labeled “Planning” suggests how little of it we did. We also had “planning meetings,” which consisted of sitting down with legal pads, stating the day’s problem out loud, and then, with no further attempt to solve it, going out to lunch. Such lunches were festive, as if to celebrate a job well done.

J. Didion, The year of magical thinking (2005), 209

Marriage is memory, marriage is time

This will not be a story in which the death of the husband or wife becomes what amounts to the credit sequence for a new life, a catalyst for the discovery that (a point typically introduced in such accounts by the precocious child of the bereaved) “you can love more than one person.” Of course you can, but marriage is something different. Marriage is memory, marriage is time. “She didn’t know the songs,” I recall being told that a friend of a friend had said after an attempt to repeat the experience. Marriage is not only time: it is also, paradoxically, the denial of time. For forty years I saw myself through John’s eyes. I did not age. This year for the first time since I was twenty-nine I saw myself through the eyes of others. This year for the first time since I was twenty-nine I realized that my image of myself was of someone significantly younger. 

J. Didion, The year of magical thinking (2005), 197

There is no one to hear this news, nowhere to go with the unmade plan, the uncompleted thought

Christmas, the end of the year. I am dropping my keys on the table inside the door before I fully remember. There is no one to hear this news, nowhere to go with the unmade plan, the uncompleted thought. There is no one to agree, disagree, talk back. “I think I am beginning to understand why grief feels like suspense,” C. S. Lewis wrote after the death of his wife. “It comes from the frustration of so many impulses that had become habitual. Thought after thought, feeling after feeling, action after action, had H. for their object. Now their target is gone. I keep on through habit fitting an arrow to the string, then I remember and have to lay the bow down. So many roads lead thought to H. I set out on one of them. But now there’s an impassable frontier post across it. So many roads once; now so many cul de sacs.”

J. Didion, The year of magical thinking (2005), 194

One way in which grief gets hidden is that death now occurs largely offstage

One way in which grief gets hidden is that death now occurs largely offstage. In the earlier tradition from which Mrs. Post wrote, the act of dying had not yet been professionalized. It did not typically involve hospitals. Women died in childbirth. Children died of fevers. Cancer was untreatable. At the time she undertook her book of etiquette, there would have been few American households untouched by the influenza pandemic of 1918. Death was up close, at home. The average adult was expected to deal competently, and also sensitively, with its aftermath. When someone dies, I was taught growing up in California, you bake a ham. You drop it by the house. You go to the funeral. If the family is Catholic you also go to the rosary but you do not wail or keen or in any other way demand the attention of the family.

J. Didion, The year of magical thinking (2005), 60

Today, he sits, his name truncated; his prospects nil

Tony Benn has risen in place. He now sits high on the Opposition backbench, In 1959, he was known as 'Anthony Wedgewood Benn', soon to become, as was the nature of things, Lord Stansgate. Today, he sits, his name truncated; his prospects nil. Were socialism a religion, Tony Benn would be a saint. In a previous incarnation a century back, he would have been an Anglican divine whose erratic progress to the gates of Rome and back would have been the cause of much comment.

J. Critchley, The Palace of Varieties (1989), 114

As much as a third of all the greenhouse gases that human activity has added to the atmosphere can be attributed to the saw and the plow

A diverse enough polyculture of grasses can withstand virtually any shock and in some places will produce in a year nearly as much total biomass as a forest receiving the same amount of rainfall. This productivity means Joel's pastures will, like his woodlots, remove thousands of pounds of carbon from the atmosphere each year; instead of sequestering all that carbon in trees, however, grasslands store most of it underground, in the form of soil humus.

In fact, grassing over that portion of the world's cropland now being used to grow grain to feed ruminants would offset fossil fuel emissions appreciably. For example, if the sixteen million acres now being used to grow corn to feed cows in the United States became well-managed pasture, that would remove fourteen billion pounds of carbon from the atmosphere each year, the equivalent of taking four million cars off the road. We seldom focus on farming's role in global warming, but as much as a third of all the greenhouse gases that human activity has added to the atmosphere can be attributed to the saw and the plow.

M. Pollan, The omnivore's dilemma (2006), 197-8

Small farms are actually more productive than big farms;

It's simply more cost-efficient to buy from one thousand-acre farm than ten hundred-acre farms. That's not because those big farms are necessarily any more productive, however. In fact, study after study has demonstrated that, measured in terms of the amount of food produced per acre, small farms are actually more productive than big farms; it is the higher transaction costs involved that makes dealing with them impractical for a company like Kahn's — that and the fact that they don't grow tremendous quantities of any one thing. As soon as your business involves stocking the frozen food case or produce section at a national chain, whether it be Wal-Mart or Whole Foods, the sheer quantities of organic produce you need makes it imperative to buy from farms operating on the same industrial scale you are.

M. Pollan, The omnivore's dilemma (2006), 161

All the usable nitrogen on earth had at one time been fixed by soil bacteria living on the roots of leguminous plants

Until a German chemist named Fritz Haber figured out how to turn this trick in 1909, all the usable nitrogen on earth had at one time been fixed [combined with other elements] by soil bacteria living on the roots of leguminous plants (such as peas or alfalfa or locust trees) or, less commonly, by the shock of electrical lightening, which can break nitrogen bonds in the air, releasing a light rain of fertility.

...

[Vaclav Smil calls this] the most important invention of the twentieth century. He estimates that two of every five humans on earth today would not be alive if not for Fritz Haber's invention.

M. Pollan, The omnivore's dilemma (2006), 42-43

There are forty-five thousand items in the average American supermarket and more than a quarter of them now contain corn

The great edifice of variety and choice that is an American supermarket turns out to rest on a remarkably narrow biological foundation comprised of a tiny group of plants that is dominated by a single species: Zea mays, the giant tropical grass most Americans know as corn.... There are forty-five thousand items in the average American supermarket and more than a quarter of them now contain corn.

M. Pollan, The omnivore's dilemma (2006), 18-19

Scholars customarily overvalue the influence of historical truth as against historical myth

Scholars customarily overvalue the influence of historical truth as against historical myth. Thomas Innes, by exact scholarship, revalued the sources of ancient Scottish and Irish history, providing a base in which all late scholars would build. Incidentally he removed centuries of false history, and thereby destroyed the historical foundations of whig theories and the historical justification of the Hanoverian succession to the throne of Scotland. But did the political cause of Jacobitism gain anything from his work? Probably not. We may doubt whether the Chevalier de St George [The Old Pretender] even read it. In fact very few people read it. Even the greatest historian of the eighteenth century [Gibbon] was not among them. 

H.R. Trevor Roper, The invention of Scotland (2014), 71

All the myths of England come not from the Anglo-Saxons but from the Celts

For what people believe is true is a force, even if it is not true. Myth may be a driving force: such as the myth of inevitability, encountered in Calvin, or of invincibility, as at Sparta. Myth may also be the soul of history, engendering imaginative literature in poetry or prose.

Some races, it seems, are more mythopoeic than others. The myths of ancient Greece are as inseparable from Greek history as they are from Greek literature. The Anglo-Saxons, on the other hand, have been the least mythopoeic of peoples. The English have created one of the great literatures of the world. Yet, have they a singe myth that they can call their own? Almost all peoples have a myth of their own origin: a heroic age; divine descent; the discovery and colonisation of their land. The Anglo-Saxons have no such thing: no halo of romance surrounds the misty figures of their alleged leaders , Hengist and Horsa. All the myths of England come not from the Anglo-Saxons but from the Celts.

H.R. Trevor Roper, The invention of Scotland (2014), xxi

He frightens the sun and eventually will catch her

There are two wolves, and the one who is chasing her [the sun] is called Skoll. He frightens her and eventually will catch her. The other is called Hati Hrodvitnisson. He runs in front of her trying to catch the moon. And, this will happen.

...

Next will come an event thought to be of much importance. The wolf will swallow the sun, and mankind will think it has suffered a terrible disaster. Then the other wolf will catch the moon, and he too will cause much ruin. The stars will disappear from the heavens.

S. Sturluson, The Prose Edda, tr. J Byock (2005), 20 and 71

Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor

One girl told him bluntly: “My mother says that violence never settles anything.” “So?” Mr. Dubois looked at her bleakly. “I’m sure the city fathers of Carthage would be glad to know that. Why doesn’t your mother tell them so? Or why don’t you?” They had tangled before—since you couldn’t flunk the course, it wasn’t necessary to keep Mr. Dubois buttered up. She said shrilly, “You’re making fun of me! Everybody knows that Carthage was destroyed!” “You seemed to be unaware of it,” he said grimly. “Since you do know it, wouldn’t you say that violence had settled their destinies rather thoroughly?

....

Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms.”

R. Heinlein, Starship troopers (1959), 26-27

'I’d trust them.’ And I knew that was the highest compliment Russell could give

Maybe it’s my old-fashioned fondness for an increasingly archaic notion of duty and commitment that make it so important to me. Perhaps I’ve a yen for the days when leaders inspired not through their ability to turn computer algorithms into billions of dollars of stock options, but because of their physical and mental courage in the face of danger and adversity. That’s why I love a sport that can make a virtue of mulishness, and find glory in a five-day draw. My encounter with Russell had shown me that the brand of loyalty I’ve always idolised doesn’t live on only in the pages of fiction, or Hollywood bromances. It’s not just something that a fan projects, hopefully, on to her sporting heroes – it can be as real as her imaginings. It endures, too. Russell told me how, even now, ‘If Athers asked for help to do something, you do it, because you’ve got a bond. Because even though we didn’t win a lot, we had some special moments, and we’ve been through something together.’ And then he paused. ‘Now I come to think about it . . . I ain’t got any friends, really. Not friend friends. I’m quite singular. Remote. But when you talk of Athers and Angus and Stewie and those guys . . . I’d trust them.’ And I knew that was the highest compliment Russell could give.

E. John Following on (2016), 122

Jack Russell's passion for painting was actually considered the least strange thing about him by his teammates

His [Jack Russell's] passion for painting was actually considered the least strange thing about him by his teammates, who witnessed his compulsive and fastidious behaviour towards his food, his clothes, his gear and much else. He once ate steak and chips every night for a month, and he wore the same batting shirt for eight years. ‘I’m not so bad now,’ Russell says. ‘It was just how I dealt with the pressure – I like repetition. I used to have underpants with dots on – one dot for the first session, two dots for the second session. I’d have them washed and dry to wear the next day.’ It must have been exhausting doing all that laundry on top of your regular job, I say. ‘That’s why rooming with me was a nightmare. In between games I was washing stuff in the bathroom sink, then I’d be hanging it over lightshades to dry it off.’ Although that was only the half of it – Russell would tape up his wet paintings, too. ‘I think Angus Fraser still gets headaches from the paint fumes. In Cape Town Neil Fairbrother was actually sick out of the window.’

E. John, Following on (2016), 105

In Tufnell’s case, it was a perfect opportunity to indulge in his favourite hobby, sleeping

In our nook in the pub, Tufnell is finding it hard to recall the West Indies tour, probably because he wasn’t picked in the first three Test matches. ‘That was a mistake,’ he says, ‘’cos that’d mean I’d just go on the piss for three weeks.’ In the third Test in Trinidad he was twelfth man, the substitute role that traditionally involves carrying drinks or equipment out to the players, and taking the field in the case of injury. In Tufnell’s case, it was a perfect opportunity to indulge in his favourite hobby, sleeping.

E. John, Following on (2016), 48

I have spent more time actively following my cricket team’s progress than it took for Francis Drake to circumnavigate the earth

People tend to consider football fans the most passionate and committed consumers of sport on the planet, because they make the most noise and are, at times, frankly scary. But no one stops to think how many hours of the day we cricket lovers have to devote to our sport. Our games are epic in scale. Test matches – the highest, noblest form of the game, played only between a handful of the best teams in the world – can last five days. Even the one-day international, invented in the 1970s to be a faster-paced format, takes seven hours. There have been 254 England Tests since I started following them. Assuming these managed an average of three days’ play – factoring in early finishes and time lost to rain, and erring on the mean side – that’s at least 762 days of cricket. Which is a little over two years. That’s not even counting England’s one-day games, of which there have been more than 400. I have spent more time actively following my cricket team’s progress than it took for Francis Drake to circumnavigate the earth.

E. John, Following on (2016), 8

It takes the same number of eggs and the same amount of butter but it shows less respect

Hélène had her opinions, she did not for instance like Matisse. She said a frenchman should not stay unexpectedly to a meal particularly if he asked the servant beforehand what there was for dinner. She said foreigners had a perfect right to do these things but not a frenchman and Matisse had once done it. So when Miss Stein said to her, Monsieur Matisse is staying for dinner this evening, she would say, in that case I will not make an omelette but fry the eggs. It takes the same number of eggs and the same amount of butter but it shows less respect, and he will understand.

G. Stein, The autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933), 11

A job at the Sudan Civil Service, for instance, required either a first-class degree, or a Blue plus a second

Wisden had been among the first to question the true merit of university cricket, removing its traditional list of Oxbridge blues in 1993. Matthew Engel, the editor, was widely condemned; one critic observed he was a "political scientist from Manchester University". But Engel, with some justification, felt the roll call had become the "biggest anachronism in the book". He added: "even the Oxford Mail and Cambridge Evening News stopped sending reporters."

A Blue had once denoted more than a first-class career: it opened doors. A job at the Sudan Civil Service, for instance, required either a first-class degree, or a Blue plus a second - which is how Guy Pawson, Oxford's captain in 1910, got in.

D. Pringle,' 'The end of first-class university cricket', L.Booth (ed.), Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (2021), 116

It is not possible he can believe that religion to be genuine whose ministers destroy his game

'I have laid down two rules for the country: first, not to smite the partridge; for if I feed the poor, and comforted the sick, and instructed the ignorant, yet I should be nothing worth if I smote the partridge. If anything ever endangers the church, it will be the strong propensity to shooting which the clergy are remarkable. Ten thousand good shots dispersed over the country do more harm to the cause of religion than the arguments of Voltaire and Rousseau. The squire never reads, but it is not possible he can believe that religion to be genuine whose ministers destroy his game.

H. Pearson, The Smith of Smiths (1934), 161

In Hindostan, what must be the astonishment of the natives to find that we are forbidden to rob, murder, and steal;

'Let us ask, too, if the Bible is universally diffused in Hindostan, what must be the astonishment of the natives to find that we are forbidden to rob, murder, and steal; we who, in fifty years, have extended our empire from a few acres about Madras, over the whole peninsula, and sixty millions of people, and exemplified in our public conduct every crime of which human nature is capable.' 

H. Pearson, The Smith of Smiths (1934), 76

He favoured the ideals (but scarcely one of the actions) of the French Revolution

The general tendency of his sermons was what would then have been called subversive. In other words, he was on the side of humanity against its oppressors. He loved truth better than he loved Dundas, the Tory tyrant of Scotland. He favoured the ideals (but scarcely one of the actions) of the French Revolution; he hated cruelty ad injustice; and he resolutely refused, now and hereafter, to flatter authority in order to secure preferment.

 H. Pearson, The Smith of Smiths (1934), 37

He hated the frenzies of sectarianism even more than the mummeries of Rome

Now nothing is more notable about the generous and joyful impatience of Sydney Smith, than the fact that he hated the frenzies of sectarianism even more than the mummeries of Rome. For him the Methodists were simply madmen; and he said so; which is the ringing note of reality in all his record. He would have said that he was a loyal Anglican parson; his opponents might say he was a Pagan; but he was not only not a Puritan, but he was not a subconscious or submerged or secret Puritan.

G.K. Chesterton, 'Introduction', H. Pearson, The Smith of Smiths (1934), 10 

We see the elite of the Thousand-Year Reich a set of flatulent clowns swayed by purely random influences

This scene, as it is described to us, is perhaps overdrawn; but not improbably. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and we have too many accounts of life in that exotic court to doubt the authenticity, in its main lines, even of this. When a staid German general compared Goering to Elagabalus, he. was not exaggerating. In the absolutism, the opulence, and the degeneracy of the middle Roman Empire we can perhaps find the best parallel to the high noonday of the Nazi Reich. There, in the severe pages of Gibbon, we read of characters apparently wielding gigantic authority who, on closer examination, are found to be the pliant creatures of concubines and catamites, of eunuchs and freedmen; and here too we see the elite of the Thousand-Year Reich a set of flatulent clowns swayed by purely random influences. Even Mussolini was embarrassed; but then Mussolini had after all, like Goebbels, a Latin mind; he could never be at home among these cavorting Nibelungs. Goebbels, incidentally, was not present at this Mad Hatter’s tea-party; he was in Berlin, giving orders for the suppression of the revolt.

H. Trevor-Roper, The last days of Hitler (1947, 7th edn. 1995), 29

One felt that somehow it would take more than totalitarian war to put an end to cricket

[H.S. Altham, in 1940] ends by describing a visit to Lord's, sandbags everywhere, the Long Room stripped bare. And yet: "The turf was a wondrous green, old Time on the Grand Stand was gazing serenely at the nearest balloon, and one felt that somehow it would take more than totalitarian war to put an end to cricket."

Since all Wisden  readers obviously enjoyed a classical education, he concluded with a line - in Latin only - from Horace, the poet who had also written the dulce et decorum est mantra that inspired the Great War generals. Altham's choice was more positive: Merses profundo, pulchrior evenit (You may drown in the depths, but it rises the more glorious). So it was for cricket in1940, so it will be 80 years later.

P. Kidd, 'When the cricket stops', L.Booth (ed.), Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (2021), 46-47

The offence of Russia was the existence of Russia

This Eastern policy was essential to Nazism; all other positive aims — the conquest of France or Britain — were subsidiary and incidental to it. The offence of France was its traditional policy of Eastern alliances, which had enabled it, for three centuries, to intervene in Germany. The offence of Britain was its refusal to be content with a maritime supremacy, its insistent tradition of preventing the domination of Europe by a single continental power. But the offence of Russia was the existence of Russia.

H. Trevor-Roper, The last days of Hitler (1947, 7th edn. 1995), 4-5

Every act played from the same repertoire, on the same instruments, in an attempt to capture exactly the same sound

Bluegrass festivals were a pretty weird proposition, all things considered. I tried to imagine a rock festival where everyone was expected to make at least half their set Lynyrd Skynyrd covers. Where every act played from the same repertoire, on the same instruments, in an attempt to capture exactly the same sound. But that’s what people came for. And when the bands weren’t singing old songs, or new songs crafted to sound like old songs, they were singing songs about how no one sang the old songs any more.

We got too far away from Carter and Ralph 

And the love of a sweet mountain girl 

We’re way down below that high lonesome sound 

And a far cry from Lester and Earl … 

I thought of Trevor: I knew that the bluegrass-on-bluegrass phenomenon caused him great irritation, because he regularly complained to me about it. ‘Whenever you turn on the radio there’s all these songs bragging on how great the music used to be,’ he would grumble, ‘and how it isn’t like it was in the old days. And all those bands are playing it like it was in the old days!’

E. John, Wayfaring stranger (2019), loc. 2,180

Why did it choose to confuse its instrumentalists with a ‘Foggy Mountain Special’ and a ‘Foggy Mountain Breakdown’?

There is one problem with songs that have limited chord structures and basic melodies, and that’s that they can start to sound quite similar. It might have been easier to tell the songs apart – and therefore play the notes in the right order – if they hadn’t, many of them, had such similar names, or covered such similar ground. For instance, there wasn’t just one song about someone ‘going down the road feeling bad’. There were dozens. Every other song seemed to be a hard-luck story about a man who’d worn out the soles of his shoes, and had no money to buy a new pair. Within a couple of hours, I had compassion fatigue. And why did a single musical genre require songs about a ‘Little Cabin Home on the Hill’, a ‘Blue Ridge Cabin Home’, and a ‘Cabin in Caroline’? Why did it need to pay tribute to both a John Hardy and a John Henry? Why did it choose to confuse its instrumentalists with a ‘Foggy Mountain Special’ and a ‘Foggy Mountain Breakdown’? There weren’t even lyrics to help you tell those last two apart. At one stage I mistook one for the other and caused the musical equivalent of a ten-car pile-up.

E. John, Wayfaring stranger (2019), loc. 343

Politicians and commentators pushed three lines of attack against the immigrant Jews in France

Politicians and commentators pushed three lines of attack against the immigrant Jews in France: that they were taking jobs from the French, that they were Bolshevik revolutionaries determined to destroy France, and that they were diseased criminals.

H. Freeman, House of Glass: The story and secrets of a twentieth-century Jewish family (2020), 80

But Emperor Franz Joseph I had a fondness for the Jewish religion

But Emperor Franz Joseph I had a fondness for the Jewish religion, and under his rule, Austro-Hungarian Jews emerged from the ghettos and became part of society as the emperor gave Jews equal rights, and financed Jewish institutions. This is why there seems to have been such a flourishing of Jewish productivity in the Austro-Hungarian Empire between 1848 and 1916, from such people as Theodor Herzl, Stefan Zweig and Sigmund Freud: it’s not that this generation of Jews was uniquely talented compared with previous ones, it’s that they were granted a then unique amount of freedom.

H. Freeman, House of Glass: The story and secrets of a twentieth-century Jewish family (2020), 21

Children don’t know the meaning of yesterday, of the day before yesterday, or even of tomorrow, everything is this, now

When you haven’t been in the world long, it’s hard to comprehend what disasters are at the origin of a sense of disaster: maybe you don’t even feel the need to. Adults, waiting for tomorrow, move in a present behind which is yesterday or the day before yesterday or at most last week: they don’t want to think about the rest. Children don’t know the meaning of yesterday, of the day before yesterday, or even of tomorrow, everything is this, now: the street is this, the doorway is this, the stairs are this, this is Mamma, this is Papa, this is the day, this the night.

E. Ferrante, tr. A. Golstein, My brilliant friend (2011), loc. 244

Two peoples living in a small country hating each other like hell

The British realised, however, that they had burdened themselves with an insoluble problem. ‘The problem of Palestine,’ wrote Britain’s most senior general, ‘[was] the same as the problem of Ireland, namely, two peoples living in a small country hating each other like hell.’ Nor were the Jews showing the gratitude the British expected of them. When the director of military intelligence visited Palestine soon after the riots, it dawned on him that there was no reason to suppose that the Zionists and British would ever be ‘really friendly’. The friendship would ‘only last as long as the Zionist State were dependent on Great Britain for military protection’, he realised. This was an insight that would prove acute.

J. Barr, A Line in the sand (2011), loc. 1,670

Since French was a foreign language for the Russian reader, it is arguable that every translation should keep those sentences in French. Yet none does.

To take a famous example, the opening lines of War and Peace in the original are: 'Eh bien, mon prince' followed by long passages in French spoken by Russians as if it were their normal everyday language. the characters in question are aristocrats who converse with one another in French for reasons of fashion and snobbery - something the linking text (in Russia) makes clear   Ironically the discussion is about the possible invasion of Russia by Napoleon and 'toutes les atrocites de cet Antichrist.'  Since French was a foreign language for the Russian reader, it is arguable that every translation  should keep those sentences in French. Yet none does.

 J. Erdal, Ghosting: a double life (2004), 85-6

Poor women, frequently Irish, known as Shabbos-goyas or fire-goyas, acted as stokers to the Ghetto at twopence a hearth

There have always been ways of getting around the problem of lighting fires. It was common in the Oriental world for Muslims to go around the houses kindling fires and doing little jobs for the Jews. Israel Zangwill gives us an insight into turn-of-the-century London in his 1892 novel, Children of the Ghetto, where he writes, ‘The Rabbis had modified the Biblical prohibition against lighting any fire whatever, and allowed it to be kindled by non-Jews. Poor women, frequently Irish, known as Shabbos-goyas or fire-goyas, acted as stokers to the Ghetto at twopence a hearth. No Jew ever touched a match or a candle, or burnt a piece of paper, or even opened a letter. The Goyah, which is literally “heathen female”, did everything required on the Sabbath.’ Zangwill tells that, when the reb’s fire sank and he could not give direct orders to the shiksa (non-Jewish woman) to replenish it, he would rub his hands and remark casually (in her hearing), ‘Ah, how cold it is!’

C. Roden, The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand and Vilna to the Present Day (1996), Kindle loc. 705

In the early 1950s the African-American sections of America’s inner cities were largely viable, stable communities

Despite the crowded conditions, in the early 1950s the African-American sections of America’s inner cities were largely viable, stable communities; however, the subsequent three decades were quite destabilizing. Federal urban renewal and highway programs required land in inner cities, and African-American neighborhoods were often razed. Low-income African Americans were then relocated into publicly funded housing projects, while middle- and upper-class African Americans were forced to relocate elsewhere. Using a set of policies that both explicitly and implicitly discriminated against African Americans, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) then began to offer subsidized mortgages that enabled millions of Caucasians to purchase homes in the suburbs and flee the cities. Ironically, advances in the civil rights movement later reduced suburban housing discrimination, allowing middle- and upper-class African Americans to relocate to the suburbs as well. As a result of this suburban flight, the remaining inner-city, African-American communities lost leaders, role models, working families, and a solid economic base.

S. Corbett & B. Fikkert, When helping hurts: How to alleviate poverty without hurting the Poor (2014), 85

Why should I do all the hard s**t for someone else, just to hand it over to them on a plate?

Cameron’s plan seemed so admirable; clearly he had been intending to leave on his own terms. Instead, just weeks later, he found that he had accidentally taken Britain out of the European Union in a referendum he had held merely to try to solve a problem with his own party. The Sun reported that the prime minister had told his inner circle, ‘Why should I do all the hard s**t for someone else, just to hand it over to them on a plate?’ It’s a sentiment that most people might share when faced with something as colossal as the Brexit negotiations when they had never intended for there to be a Brexit in the first place. The difference with Cameron was that he had seemed so committed to doing the ‘hard s**t’ until he realised what it might entail. Theresa May, on the other hand, fatally wounded after the snap election she had chosen to call, and which had deprived her of her Commons majority, told her MPs, ‘I got us into this mess and I’ll get us out of it.’ She promised the 1922 Committee, meeting on the first day the Commons returned after the election result, that ‘I will serve you as long as you want me.’ Quite a contrast to Cameron’s desire to serve for as long as he wanted.

I. Hardman, Why we get the wrong politicians (2018), 175

[intended family friendly] policies ultimately led to a 22% decline in women’s chances of gaining tenure at their first job. Meanwhile men’s chances increased by 19%.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, a number of US universities adopted what was intended as a family-friendly policy: parents would receive an extra year per child to earn tenure. But it isn’t gender-neutral ‘parents’ who need this extra year. It is specifically mothers. As the University of Michigan’s Alison Davis-Blake drily noted in the New York Times, ‘giving birth is not a gender-neutral event’. While women may be (variously) throwing up, going to the toilet every five minutes, changing nappies or plugged into their breast pump during this extra year, men get to dedicate more time to their research. So instead of giving a leg up to parents, this policy gave a leg up to men, and at women’s expense: an analysis of assistant professors hired at the top fifty US economics departments between 1985 and 2004 found that the policies ultimately led to a 22% decline in women’s chances of gaining tenure at their first job. Meanwhile men’s chances increased by 19%.

At close to 80% by 2016, Sweden has the highest female employment figures in the EU.94 It also has one of the highest levels of paternity-leave uptake in the world, with nine out of ten fathers taking an average of three to four months’ leave. This compares with a more typical OECD level of one in five fathers taking any parental leave at all – falling to one in fifty in Australia, the Czech Republic and Poland.96 This disparity is unsurprising: Sweden has one of the most generous (and, when it was introduced, innovative) paternity-leave policies in the world. Since 1995, Sweden has reserved a month of parental leave (paid at 90% of earnings) exclusively for fathers. This month cannot be transferred to the mother: the father must use this leave or the couple lose it from their overall leave allowance. In 2002, this increased to two months and in 2016 it was further increased to three months. Prior to the introduction of the ‘use it or lose it’ leave for fathers, only about 6% of men in Sweden took paternity leave, despite the fact that it had been available for them since 1974.

C. Criado-Perez, Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men (2019), kindle loc. 1,663 and 1,677

There is no universal conglomerate of the oppressed

‘The women are, of course, the biggest single group of oppressed people in the world and, if we are to believe the Book of Genesis, the very oldest. But they are not the only ones. There are others – rural peasants in every land, the urban poor in industrialized countries, Black people everywhere including their own continent, ethnic and religious minorities and castes in all countries. The most obvious practical difficulty is the magnitude and heterogeneity of the problem. There is no universal conglomerate of the oppressed. Free people may be alike everywhere in their freedom but the oppressed inhabit each their own peculiar hell.

C. Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah (1987), 90

The real danger today is from that fat, adolescent and delinquent millionaire, America

It does not seem to me that the English can do much harm to anybody today. After a long career of subduing savages in distant lands they discovered the most dangerous savage of all just across the English Channel and took him on and brought him to heel. But the effort proved too great and the cost too high, and although they acquitted themselves with honour they made sure that they would not be called upon to do it again. And so they anointed the hero of their dazzling feat the greatest Englishman who ever lived, dumped him at the polls and voted Clement Attlee in. Whatever fear the ghost of British imperial vocation may still hold over the world’s little people was finally removed when a renegade Englishman and his little band of thugs seized Her Majesty’s colony in Rhodesia and held it for thirteen years. No, the English have, for all practical purposes, ceased to menace the world. The real danger today is from that fat, adolescent and delinquent millionaire, America, and from all those virulent, misshapen freaks like Amin and Bokassa sired on Africa by Europe. Particularly those ones.

C. Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah (1987), 47

A cliché is not a cliché if you have never heard it before

And his column, ‘String Along with Reggie Okong’, soon became very popular indeed. No one pretended that he dispensed any spectacular insights, wisdom or originality but his ability to turn a phrase in a way to delight our ordinary readers was remarkable. He was full of cliché, but then a cliché is not a cliché if you have never heard it before; and our ordinary reader clearly had not and so was ready to greet each one with the same ecstasy it must have produced when it was first coined. For Cliché is but pauperized Ecstasy. Think of the very first time someone got up and said: ‘We must not be lulled into a false sense of security.’ He must have got his audience humming. It was like that with Okong; he was a smash hit!

C. Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah (1987), 10

I should like to assert flatly that detective fiction and science fiction are akin

Without attempting to rival the complexity of my comparative analysis of jazz and science fiction, I should like to assert flatly that detective fiction and science fiction are akin. There is a closely similar exaltation of idea or plot over characterisation, and some modern science fiction, like most detective fiction, but unlike the thriller, invites the reader to solve a puzzle. It is no coincidence—how could it be?—that from Poe through Conan Doyle to Fredric Brown (the Midas expert) the writer of the one will often have some sort of concern with the other.

K. Amis, new maps of  hell (1960), 16

Fortunately he had not understood, owing to the Berkshire accent they already affected, that what they were calling him was bugger-shit.

The house, Crux Easton, was exactly right and I bought it on the spot. We got our Wootton furniture from store and moved in at once. We bought a cow, Max named her Wellson; from then on we lived well and she gave us butter and milk and cream in abundance. In the yard there was a gardener’s cottage with a crowd of children; they became bosom friends with Alexander and Max and in a matter of days had taught them every swear word in the calendar. They quickly discovered the electric effect these words had upon Nanny and they used them freely. Our new detective, Mr. Buswell, a nice and helpful man, told us one day: ‘The boys always say here comes that battleship Buswell when they see me.’ Fortunately he had not understood, owing to the Berkshire accent they already affected, that what they were calling him was bugger-shit.

D. Mosley, A life of contrasts (1978), loc. 3,219

Reception, for example, which in the ordinary world means a rather dull and formal sort of party

The prison words never ceased to amuse. Reception, for example, which in the ordinary world means a rather dull and formal sort of party, was the broom cupboard already described. Court was a police court, not Buckingham Palace. Wing, such a beautiful word, meant a section of the vile prison. 

D. Mosley, A life of contrasts (1978), loc. 2,936

This is not how I think of any of these words.

How do people expect a church to keep going for 3 occasions in a lifetime?

It set me thinking how strange it is that a man who had never set foot in his village church should wish to have his funeral service there. Churches are used 3 times it seems, wedding, christening & funeral. At the first two, solemn vows are made which people have no intention of keeping-at the last trump I suppose there’s a glimmer of hope of everlasting life in a sort of heaven. Can you explain it? How do people expect a church to keep going for 3 occasions in a lifetime? A sort of superstition, a leftover from childhood? It soon won’t be that as few children are taken to church in the way that our generation was.

Deborah to Diana, 3 September 1999, ed. C. Mosley, The Mitfords: Letters between Six Sisters (2007), 876

She was mad of course

How strange it is, this adoration & beatification of the princess. If only they knew. It just shows how humans must have an icon and there she was, beautiful, elegant and charming & quite extraordinary with ill or old people – I’ve seen her at work & it was a case of touching the hem, almost unbelievable. BUT ‘they’ have no idea of the other side. She was mad of course.

Deborah to Diana, 2 September 1997, ed. C. Mosley, The Mitfords: Letters between Six Sisters (2007), 868

Not a real church like Swinbrook, more a hall with kitchen food

Dink/Terry are coming here from June 11 to 21, I’m so excited for their visit. She/Benj are planning a 50th wedding anniversary for Bob/me on 20 June – you’ll be getting an invite. It’s to be at what Benj calls the ‘FUCK’, i.e. First Unitarian Church, Kensington. No Hen not a real church like Swinbrook, more a hall with kitchen food. 

Jessica to Deborah, 14 May 1993, ed. C. Mosley, The Mitfords: Letters between Six Sisters (2007), 812

I suppose he did it to force me to buy a wig

My hair was cut in London by what I thought was a faithful hairdresser. I was writing to you & Honks & Woman & not watching him & lo & behold I am an active Lesbian, Irma Grese, a prison wardress, a Great Dane breeder, anything but an ordinary English woman. I suppose he did it to force me to buy a wig.

Deborah to Nancy, 14 October 1968, ed. C. Mosley, The Mitfords: Letters between Six Sisters (2007), 607

Two enormous countries where you can’t get servants & where everything in the shops is machine-made

Then there was talk about Russia & I said, ‘You must realize that to us in Europe, Russia & America seem exactly the same, two enormous countries where you can’t get servants & where everything in the shops is machine-made.’ She said I’d got it all wrong & her customers have gracious lives like anything.

Nancy to Jessica, 28 August 1957, ed. C. Mosley, The Mitfords: Letters between Six Sisters (2007), 319

Mon cher, très à gauche, il est Orléaniste

I heard the following blissful remark – one old count to another old count about a third: ‘Mon cher, très à gauche, il est Orléaniste’! And the same ones about the Dsse de Vendôme whose death has plunged the Faubourg into widows’ weeds, ‘Well she must be in heaven by now’ as if she had caught a tram. Oh how funny they are.

Nancy to Diana, 4 April 1948,  ed. C. Mosley, The Mitfords: Letters between Six Sisters (2007), 265

She always asks them (a) why they became clergymen (b) if they wish they had been made a bishop and (c) if they enjoy sleeping with their wives.

Andrew says he insists on having the [Christmas] Tree either before Birdie [Unity] comes or after she’s gone as she embarrasses him so much with the clergymen as she always asks them (a) why they became clergymen (b) if they wish they had been made a bishop and (c) if they enjoy sleeping with their wives. I must say I do see.

Deborah to Diana, 1 December 1946, ed. C. Mosley, The Mitfords: Letters between Six Sisters (2007), 255

I never attempt the Hoover or lighting the stove or any of the moderately tough things

Darling, housework. I make my bed & wash up a coffee cup & then I go to bed & sleep the sleep of utter exhaustion until dinner time. What does it mean & how can people manage? I never attempt the Hoover or lighting the stove or any of the moderately tough things.

Nancy to Diana, 7 January 1946, ed. C. Mosley, The Mitfords: Letters between Six Sisters (2007), 248

I naturally wouldn’t hesitate to shoot him if it was necessary for my cause, and I should expect him to do the same to me

I do think that family ties ought to make a difference. After all, violent differences of opinion didn’t prevent you & me from remaining good friends did they. My attitude to Esmond is as follows – and I rather expect his to me to be the same. I naturally wouldn’t hesitate to shoot him if it was necessary for my cause, and I should expect him to do the same to me. But in the meanwhile, as that isn’t necessary, I don’t see why we shouldn’t be quite good friends, do you. I wonder if he agrees.

Unity to Jessica, 11 April 1937, ed. C. Mosley, The Mitfords: Letters between Six Sisters (2007), 106

They think of literally nothing all day but bulls and the Virgin

You know we started off in Spain, and you’ll never believe this but they are two hours late for every meal – two hours, Fanny – (can we lunch at half-past twelve today?), so of course, by then, you’ve stopped feeling hungry and only feel sick, then when the food comes it is all cooked in rancid oil, I can smell it now, it’s on everybody’s hair too, and to make it more appetizing there are pictures all round you of some dear old bull being tortured to death. They think of literally nothing all day but bulls and the Virgin. Spain was the worst of all, I thought.

N. Mitford, Love in a cold climate (1949), collected edition. Kindle loc.16,932

All the fault of that damned padre

Uncle Matthew went with Aunt Sadie and Linda on one occasion to a Shakespeare play, Romeo and Juliet. It was not a success. He cried copiously, and went into a furious rage because it ended badly. ‘All the fault of that damned padre,’ he kept saying on the way home, still wiping his eyes. ‘That fella, what’s ’is name, Romeo, might have known a blasted papist would mess up the whole thing. Silly old fool of a nurse too, I bet she was an R.C., dismal old bitch.’

N. Mitford, The pursuit of love (1945), collection edition. Kindle loc.11,246

I was a Hon, since my father, like theirs, was a lord. There were also, however, many honorary Hons; it was not necessary to have been born a Hon in order to be one

On the afternoon of the child hunt Linda called a meeting of the Hons. The Hons was the Radlett secret society, anybody who was not a friend to the Hons was a Counter-Hon, and their battle-cry was ‘Death to the horrible Counter-Hons.’ I was a Hon, since my father, like theirs, was a lord. There were also, however, many honorary Hons; it was not necessary to have been born a Hon in order to be one. As Linda once remarked: ‘Kind hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith than Norman blood.’ I’m not sure how much we really believed this, we were wicked snobs in those days, but we subscribed to the general idea. Head of the hon. Hons was Josh, the groom, who was greatly beloved by us all and worth buckets of Norman blood; chief of the horrible Counter-Hons was Craven, the gamekeeper, against whom a perpetual war to the knife was waged.

N. Mitford, The pursuit of love (1945), collection edition. Kindle loc.10,627

A quarter of all the women who died in Paris were maids

Statisticians were foxed by their observation that the highest death rates in the French capital were recorded in the wealthiest neighbourhoods, until they realised who was dying there. The ones coughing behind the grand Haussmannian facades weren’t the owners on the étage noble, but the servants in the chambres de bonne. As Theresa McBride explained in her book, The Domestic Revolution, ‘Close enough to their employers’ apartments on the floors below, the servants were segregated into a society of their own where they need not be seen but could be easily summoned.’ They worked fifteen-to-eighteen-hour days and often had to share their sleeping spaces with other servants. ‘The servant’s room was generally small, with sloping ceilings, dark, poorly ventilated, unheated, dirty, lacking privacy or even safety,’ wrote McBride. The flu may have been democratic, as one French historian pointed out, but the society it struck was not: a quarter of all the women who died in Paris were maids.

L. Spinney, Pale Rider (2017), loc.2,892

But on every other continent – with the possible exception of Antarctica, which both disasters left pristine – more died of flu than war

War was undoubtedly the main event on that continent [Europe]: France lost six times more souls to the war than to the flu, while in Germany the multiple was four, in Britain three and in Italy two. But on every other continent – with the possible exception of Antarctica, which both disasters left pristine – more died of flu than war.

L. Spinney, Pale Rider (2017), loc.117

I should think a Communist would be much tidier, and not make so much extra work for the servants

Nanny and my mother had often pointed out to me that, if I was really a Communist, I should be more considerate of those members of the working class who happened to be at hand: 'Little D, I should think a Communist would be much tidier, and not make so much extra work for the servants,' Muv would say

J. Mitford, Hons and Rebels (1960), 96

Starting her list of expenditures with 'Flowers... £490'

Muv made sporadic efforts to interest us in the subject of household economy, and once offered a prize of half a crown to the child who could produce the best budget for a young couple living on £500 a year; but Nancy ruined the contest by starting her list of expenditures with 'Flowers... £490'.

J. Mitford, Hons and Rebels (1960), 45

The currents were sorting the fat, rich bodies from the poor, lean, ones

On the other side of the world, on the Ka'u coast of Hawaii, there was once a strange and macabre tradition for those who had lost loved ones at sea. The locals would search two different stretches of beach, depending on the social status of the person who had drowned. This was not part of some religious or superstitious practice, but because the rich and poor genuinely did wash up on different beaches ... The currents were sorting the fat, rich bodies from the poor, lean, ones.

T. Gooley, How to read water (2016), 248-9

Most insects die from dehydration

Flying insects live on the edge of death every second of their short lives, the very fact that they are flying at all is a precarious balance, dependent on how hydrated they are (most insects die from dehydration) and factors like how warm they are. When the sun slips bend a cloud, insects will cool slightly, and some lose the ability to fly and drop out of the air onto the river, where a trout will be expecting them.

T. Gooley, How to read water (2016), 87

Dem lawdy-lawdy blues, all about those cottonfields back home: the Dagenham Delta.

Like you'd expect, most of our home-grown bluesmen were lousy. They'd come out of Surbiton, their hair down in their eyes and their Mick Jagger maracas up by their ears, and they'd sing their blues, dem lawdy-lawdy blues, all about those cottonfields back home: the Dagenham Delta.

N. Cohn, Awopbopaloobop Awopbamboom (1969), 162

When all the Beatles went meditating in India with Maharishi, he said it reminded him of Butlins and came home early.

My own favourite was his [Ringo Starr's] summing-up of life as a Beatle: 'I go down to John;s place to play with his toys, and sometimes he comes down here to play with mine.'

He's solid. When he got married, he chose no model, no starlet, but a girl from Liverpool, a hairdresser's assistant. He'd known and gone steady with her for years. And when all the Beatles went meditating in India with Maharishi, he said it reminded him of Butlins and came home early.

Really, he summarises everything that's est in the English character - stability, tolerance, lack of pretension, humour, a certain built-in cool. He knows he's not a great drummer and it doesn't upset him. 

N. Cohn, Awopbopaloobop Awopbamboom (1969), 133

What about the fifty years before you die?

His [Phil Spector's] big stumbling block has been the problem that every major pop success faces and hardly anyone solves: when you've made your million, when you've cut your monsters. when your peak has just been passed, what happens next? What about the fifty years before you die? 

N. Cohn, Awopbopaloobop, Awopamboom (1969), 93

Reading about early pop this question keeps recurring. What were pop stars supposes to do next? It's why so many made TV shows. There was no other template. Of course, they didn't imagine what did happen to Phil Spector.

Nobody could sing and nobody could write and, in any case, nobody gave a damn

British pop in the fifties was pure farce.

Nobody could sing and nobody could write and, in any case, nobody gave a damn. The industry surivuved in a state of perpetual self-styled hysteria, screaming itself hoarse about nothing in particular.

N. Cohn, Awopbopaloobop, Awopamboom (1969), 54

On his first British tour, he used to study the evening paper nightly and check to see if there had been any fluctuation in rates of exchange

He [Chuck Berry] was arrogant, rude. When he liked to turn it on, he could be most charming, but often he couldn't be bothered. First and last, he was amazingly mean.

There's an authenticated story about him that, on his first British tour, he used to study the evening paper nightly and check to see if there had been any fluctuation in rates of exchange. If there was any deviation in his favour, no matter how small, he'd demand payment in cash before he went on. On one night, this supplement came to 2s. 3 1/2d.

Still, all of this is irrelevant when you hear his records again.   

N. Cohn, Awopbopaloobop, Awopamboom (1969), 36

If Elvis Presley was the great pop messiah, Ray played John the Baptist

As a prototype for pop though, Johnnie Ray was much closer [than Sinatra], the Nabob of Sob, the Million Dollar Teardrop himself. If Elvis Presley was the great pop messiah, Ray played John the Baptist.

...

Elvis is where pop begins and ends. Hes the great original and, even now, he's the image that makes others seem shoddy, the boss. For once the fan club spiel is justified: Elvis is King.

N. Cohn, Awopbopaloobop, Awopamboom (1969), 3 & 14

Reality they could do without

It's one of the cliched laws of showbiz that entertainment gets sloppy when times get tough and, what with the depression, the war and its aftermath, times had gotten very tough indeed. Hemmed in by their lives, people needed to cling tight in the dark of dancehalls, to be reassured, to feel safe again. Reality they could do without. 

N. Cohn, Awopbopaloobop, Awopamboom (1969), 1-2

Men who, if their primordial capitalist bosses had not given them rum, would have done something to get their wages raised

In that sudden roar the word you make out is "Daiquiri." Yes, yes, I know. I have alluded to rum before, we must not deny hat it exists and it is drunk, and as a historian I must give it its due. It gave us political freedom and negro slavery. It got ships built ans sailed, forests felled, iron smelted, and commercial freight carried from place to place by men who, if their primordial capitalist bosses had not given them rum, would have done something to get their wages raised. 

B. DeVoto, The Hour (1951), 55

There are only two cocktails

There are only two cocktails. The bar manuals and the women's pages of the daily press, I know, print scores of messes to which they give that honorable and glorious name. They are not cocktails, they are slops. They are fit to be drunk only in the barbarian marches and mostly are drunk there, by the barbarians. .... I have shown that our forefathers were a great people: they invented rye and bourbon. They were also a tough people: nothing so clearly proves it as they survived the fearful mixtures they also invented and then drank.

B. DeVoto, The Hour (1951), 50-51

This is the most famous line in this hard-edged gem of a book. It makes me want to engage with Martinis, and bourbon. 

Almost no birds today have vernacular names

Almost no birds today have vernacular names. Bird names have become standardized, homogenized, conscripted into what is considered proper by scientists for classification. A century ago a birder could have told what county, even what village, he was in by the folk name for a long-tailed tit. In his Treatise on the Birds of Gloucestershire, W. L. Mellersh collected no fewer than 10 local names for Aegithalos caudatus, the long-tailed tit, among them long Tom, oven-bird, poke-pudding, creak-mouse, barrel Tom, and in the south of the county, long farmer. For John Clare in Northamptonshire the long-tailed tit was, delightfully, the 'bumbarrel'.

J. Lewis-Stempel, Meadowland (2014), 97