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