Adventures in Manga

Have I ever told you how much I hate manga? Because it’s a lot. Same goes for its more active cousin, anime.

No, that’s unfair. Actually, there’s some superb anime out there. Grave of the Fireflies is one of the most affecting anti-war statements ever committed to film. Akira remains a classic of animation. Many of Studio Ghibli’s fine products should be viewed by Disney with a notepad in hand because that’s how you do family-friendly fantasy.

No, what I hate is all these annoying Western teenagers who think that it’s the greatest, nay the only style of cartoon out there. I once heard one, in all seriousness, suggest that the illustrations in an English children’s book written in the 1950s were “anime-style.” They get most upset if you point out that anime and manga were heavily influenced by American cartoons (hence the fact that all the characters look surprisingly Western for Japanese folk).

And don’t even get me started on all these wannabe-artists who claim to draw in the “anime style.” Pictures drawn by such people tend to have a forced look about them. I’m talking dead-looking eyes and stilted, lifeless “action” poses. Word to the wise: if you can’t draw full stop, you can’t draw manga. If I’m asked to admire one more weeaboo’s crappy drawing with its eyes on two different levels and Photoshop filters like they wuz going out of style, I’m going to kill the nearest person to me. These artists either can’t take criticism or remain oblivious to it. Spend a few minutes around Deviantart to see the sort of artwork I’m talking about or, better still, slam your hand in a desk drawer for a more fun experience.

So when I saw that the British Museum was doing a manga-themed exhibition, my initial reaction was, “Et tu, The British Museum?”

HOWEVER, the British Museum had not let me down. The Museum has a rotating exhibition by its front entrance called “Objects in Focus.” This is an agreeable way to spend part of a lunch hour if you’re in Bloomsbury. Objects in Focus is a room in which an unusual object will be placed on display. Past examples have included a Sami magic drum and a shrine to Iranian wrestler Takhti. The display will explain what the object is, its history and its cultural context. It’s a bite-size display that won’t ruin your appetite.

This was one of those. Admittedly they did feel the need to put posters advertising it outside, unlike most of their Objects in Context, but still.

The manga in question is called Professor Munakata’s British Museum Adventure by Yukinobu Hoshino, and the display consisted of a number of pages from this work, which I understand is soon to be published. Professor Munakata is my kinda hero. He’s an intellectual sort, rather withdrawn and a little bit sad, who goes around solving mysteries in ancient history. This, so says the exhibition, is a rare instance of his leaving Japan.

If you take a look at the panels above, though, you’ll see that manga itself, done properly, is superb. Contrary to the beliefs of Deviantart’s residents, manga is not simply “comics for people who can’t draw.” The panels of Professor Munakata himself there express a massive amount about the character. The detail that Hoshino puts into the artefacts he draws is impressive, and never looks out of place next to the manga-styled characters.

The exhibition gives you a little background to the comic, its creator and manga as a whole, and I feel that I learnt a little something about the symbolism of an artform that, if I’m honest, I often tend to dismiss. I blame Deviantart.

Caturday

While a-wandering aimlessly through Primrose Hill yesterday, I came across the Museum of Everything. This is a pretty lofty claim for any museum to make, particularly one that small. The Museum is, in fact, an exhibition of Outsider Art.

Outsider Art is another of those very broad terms. It theoretically means art produced by someone outside of the mainstream art world. However, a few of the artists on display at the Museum (notably Alfred Wallis) are fairly respectable these days, so I suppose an easier definition would be “art by weirdoes.” No doubt someone will tell me off for that definition, but it’s the simplest one I can think of. Outsider artists are often untrained, naive and primitivist in style. The Outsider Art movement started in the 1920s when the psychiatrist Dr Walter Morgenthaler began studying the art produced by mental patients in his care. The concept was enthusiastically embraced by world of anti-establishment art and, over the years, has broadened in scope to the point where I have trouble summing it up in less than a hundred words.

The artworks on display, as you might imagine, were fascinating. Some were childlike, some obsessive, some bizarro and disturbing. Each artist’s work was displayed with a plaque giving some critical perspective, often serving primarily to show how very much cleverer the critic is than you, the plebeian viewer.

One exhibit they had was easy to overlook – a single painting, only about the size of a postcard, hung on the corridor wall. It depicted what appeared to be a cat in abstract pattern form. This was a work by Louis Wain. The critical perspective was by Nick Cave and simply said, “Louis Wain. My all-time favourite artist.” Thanks, Nick.

Louis Wain is a favourite artist of mine. I’ve never really thought of him as an outsider artist, as he enjoyed a great deal of commercial success in the Edwardian era. However, he’s now probably as famous for his mental illness as he is for his actual work, so I suppose it’s a justifiable label.

I first became aware of Wain’s work when I played him on stage a few years back (see Further Reading for a review, below). His thing, as an artist, was cats.

His most successful works depicted anthropomorphised cats, such as the ones on the left. In the Edwardian era, these were hugely popular, and there was even a series of Louis Wain annuals. It’s even commonly suggested (not least by Wain himself) that the popularity of cats as a household pet is in part due to these cartoons.

He was born in Clerkenwell in 1860 and was a sickly child with a cleft lip. He wasn’t sent to school until the age of ten, and was never what you’d call a good pupil, preferring to play truant and go off exploring nature. He trained as an artist and became a teacher and commercial illustrator. In 1883 he caused something of a scandal by marrying Emily Richardson, his former governess. The concept of a younger man marrying an older woman being considered bizarre and perverted at the time (whereas the other way round is, of course, absolutely in line with the natural order of things). Sadly, Emily died three years later from cancer. To entertain her during her long illness, Louis bought a black and white cat named Peter whom he taught to perform tricks. His pictures of Peter gave him his first major commercial success, and things took off from there.

His cartoon cats were, as he saw it, a means of getting closer to human nature. He would satirise current human trends by depicting its practitioners in feline form and even produced cat-caricatures of prominent figures of the day. He also produced semi-realistic portraits of cats (although they almost always had cartoonishly large eyes) and, famously, abstract “pattern cats.”

Unfortunately, as is so often the case, the popularity of his cats proved to be a fad, and by the end of the First World War his work had ceased to be popular. What made things worse was the fact that while he was stylistically versatile, he only really had the one subject. He never quite got the hang of art that didn’t involve cats. An inability to adapt, coupled with his appalling business sense, resulted in his being reduced to poverty. Many of his sketches from this period were actually done in lieu of payment for goods and services.

And at this point I suppose we should get on to the reason he’s classed as an Outsider. From an early age, Wain was seen as something of an oddball. His speech tended to be disjointed and often zipping off on strange tangents. A drink he rather enjoyed was Bovril and soda. He developed strange beliefs about the properties of electricity and its effects on people. Worse, as time went on, he became increasingly delusional and violent towards his sisters (with whom he lived following Emily’s death) and in 1924 was institutionalised at the Springfield Hospital in Tooting.

The initial diagnosis was that he was a “neuropath,”  although he was later rediagnosed as having schizophrenia. A theory gaining increasing popularity is that he actually had Asberger’s Syndrome, which at the time wasn’t understood. This would certainly fit with his erratic behaviour, as well as his obsessive cat-painting. A popular but stupid theory has it that the progression of Wain’s mental illness can be traced in the abstraction of his work. That is to say, the abstract cats illustrate the way he actually saw the world at that point. As theories go, this is up there with “Hey, The Magic Roundabout is a bit weird, they must have been on drugs, amirite?” Detractors of the theory, including Yr. Humble Chronicler, make the following points.

1. Much of his work is undated, so we have no way of knowing how ill he was when he produced his unpublished work.
2. His father was a textile salesman. Wain’s “pattern cats” are more likely to have been influenced by fabric patterns than a disjointed mind.
3. He produced a number of pictures during his time in hospital which aren’t abstract.
4. If he was so nutty that he saw cats as colourful geometric patterns, how come he could still sign his name, smartarse?
5. Schizophrenics don’t see the world like that, you fail psychology forever.

Fortunately for Wain, while he may no longer have been popular commercially, the public retained a great deal of affection for him. In 1925, when he was found on the pauper ward at Springfield, an appeal was launched to assist him with such names attached as H. G. Wells and Stanley Baldwin, the then Prime Minister. He was moved to the rather more pleasant Bethlem Royal Hospital in Lambeth (now the Imperial War Museum) and then to the more countrified Napsbury Hospital in Hertfordshire. He died in 1939.

He is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, and his grave is, it must be said, in a somewhat dilapidated condition.

Further Reading

http://www.museumofeverything.com/ - The Museum of Everything

http://www.yat.org.uk/productions/index.php3?sid=93 - This is what happened when I played Louis Wain.

http://www.lilitu.com/catland/gallery.shtml - A Wain gallery.

http://www.chrisbeetles.com/gallery/artist.php?art=3077 - Another Wain gallery

http://www.cerebromente.org.br/gallery/gall_leonardo/fig1-a.htm - The theory about Wain’s progressive abstraction.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=8212267 - Wain’s grave

Boxiana

I’m not a huge fan of the sporting world, I have to say. It’s ironic – as a child I lived in Twickenham and I went to school in Wimbledon. But even though I couldn’t give a damn about most sports today, I am quite interested in the history of a lot of them. Weird.

The history of boxing is particularly interesting (to me, anyway). It was in 18th and 19th Century London that it really started to take shape in its modern form. Indeed, so far has the sport evolved that it’s impossible to name an all-time great. Witnesseth the picture to your left, an impression of a major fight which took place between the American ex-slave Tom Molineaux and the popular British champion Tom Cribb. The most obvious difference to our eyes is the lack of gloves, which at the time were strictly for amateurs and fighters in training. That ain’t the half of it, though.

I’m getting ahead of myself. Boxing started to become popular as a sport at the beginning of the eighteenth century, but in many ways it was closer to wrestling, or even brawling, than the sport we know. Pretty well anything went, and fatalities were not unknown. It was around 1741 that Jack Broughton did something about this with his Rules.

Broughton was, by the standards of his day, a giant of a man at an inch short of six feet, and massy with it. His day job was working in the Pool of London as a waterman. He was, until the 1850s, entirely undefeated (or so it is claimed). He came  up with his Rules after causing the death of George “The Coachman” Stevenson in an effort to prevent similar fatalities from occurring again. The rules were:

1. That a square of a yard be chalked in the middle of the stage, and on every fresh set-to after a fall, or being parted form the rails, each second is to bring his man to the side of the square, and place him opposite to the other, and till they are fairly set-to at the lines, it shall not be lawful for one to strike at the other.

2. That, in order to prevent any disputes, the time a man lies after a fall, if the second does not bring his man to the side of the square, within the space of half a minute, he shall be deemed a beaten man.

3. That in every main battle, no person whatever shall be upon the stage, except the principals and their seconds, the same rule to be observed in bye-battles, except that in the latter, Mr. Broughton is allowed to be upon the stage to keep decorum, and to assist gentlemen in getting to their places, provided always he does not interfere in the battle; and whoever pretends to infringe these rules to be turned immediately out of the house. Every body is to quit the stage as soon as the principals are stripped, before the set-to.

4. That no man be deemed beaten, unless he fails coming up to the line in the limited time, or that his own second declares him beaten. No second is to be allowed to ask his man’s adversary any questions, or advise him to give out.

5. That in bye-battles, the winning man to have two-thirds of the money given, which shall be publicly divided upon the stage, notwithstanding any private agreements to the contrary.
6. That to prevent disputes, in every main battle the principals shall, on coming on the stage, choose from among the gentlemen present two umpires, who shall absolutely decide all disputes that may arise about the battle; and if the two umpires cannot agree, the said umpires to choose a third, who is to determine it.

7. That no person is to hit his adversary when he is down, or seize him by the ham, the breeches, or any part below the waist: a man on his knees to be reckoned down.

He was also the first to really treat boxing as a science, giving as much to defence as attack, and was regarded by commentators of the day as being virtually untouchable. While doing so, he also invented a device known as the “muffler,” now better known as the ”boxing glove.”

Broughton’s work was built upon by Whitechapel boy Daniel Mendoza, who you may see on your right. Dan Mendoza again put much emphasis on the scientific side of things, believing that really it’s a good idea to avoid being hit where possible. To this end he advocated the use of fancy footwork, ducking and blocking as much as possible. In so doing he was able to become Heavyweight Champion, despite only being a middleweight himself. He published his advice in a 1789 book, The Art of Boxing, whose influence may be seen to this day.

Mendoza died in 1836, two years before the London Prize Ring Rules came in. These rules were, broadly, much the same as Broughton’s, but specifically declared headbutting, biting and hitting below the belt to be simply not on. Holds and throws were still part of the game, as – slightly worryingly – were spiked shoes.

The rules would be amended in 1853 and superseded in 1867 by the famous Marquess of Queensbury Rules. Contrary to popular belief, the Marquess of Queensbury, pictured left, did not actually invent these, merely endorsed them. Queensbury was an immensely unpopular man due to his outspoken atheism and, indeed, his support of the still-only-semi-respectable sport of boxing. Still, his detractors could take comfort in the fact that Oscar Wilde was shagging his son. ANYWAY.

The actual Rules were drafted by John Chambers at the Lillie Bridge Grounds in West London (now the site of a London Underground depot). They are:

1. To be a fair stand-up boxing match in a 24-foot (7.3 m) ring, or as near that size as practicable.
2. No wrestling or hugging allowed.
3. The rounds to be of three minutes duration, and one minute’s time between rounds.
4. If either man falls through weakness or otherwise, he must get up unassisted, 10 seconds to be allowed him to do so, the other man meanwhile to return to his corner, and when the fallen man is on his legs the round is to be resumed and continued until the three minutes have expired. If one man fails to come to the scratch in the 10 seconds allowed, it shall be in the power of the referee to give his award in favour of the other man.
5. A man hanging on the ropes in a helpless state, with his toes off the ground, shall be considered down.
6. No seconds or any other person to be allowed in the ring during the rounds.
7. Should the contest be stopped by any unavoidable interference, the referee to name the time and place as soon as possible for finishing the contest; so that the match must be won and lost, unless the backers of both men agree to draw the stakes.
8. The gloves to be fair-sized boxing gloves of the best quality and new.
9. Should a glove burst, or come off, it must be replaced to the referee’s satisfaction.
10. A man on one knee is considered down and if struck is entitled to the stakes.
11. No shoes or boots with springs allowed.
12. The contest in all other respects to be governed by revised London Prize Ring Rules.

As you can see, we’re really getting the modern sport now. I’m intrigued by the mention of “shoes or boots with springs,” and wondering if maybe they were too hasty in eliminating them. I just think a couple of dudes bouncing around on springs would be an excellent addition to the Art. ANYWAY. These rules, in particular the mandatory use of boxing gloves, changed the way the sport was fought. Note Cribb and Molineaux’ defensive stances above. Now look at a modern boxer, Mr Muhammad Ali.

You’ll notice that he’s now leaning forward. The emphasis is on the fists rather than the forearms for defence.

Bare-knuckle fighting continued until 1882 (officially at least) when it was declared to be “assault occasioning actual bodily harm” in the case of Regina v Coney.

I can't work out whether this man is wearing tights or he has nothing to fear from blows below the belt.

Since then, the sport of boxing is as respectable as any other. This can largely be seen as a result of the old Marquess of Queensbury Rules, which completed the transition from something little better than a pub fight into a sport that was as much about strategy as brute force. The twentieth century saw the emergence of professional boxing. As the sport became more acceptable, so it became less concentrated in the fair city of London. And here endeth the lesson.

Paedageddon, Facebook-style

I found something today so very worthy of attention that I can’t even be bothered to work out how it could be made to be on-topic. Because, you know, this blog is the epitome of journalistic integrity. So here, unashamedly, is an off-topic entry.

I have a friend who goes by many names, and the one on his birth certificate is probably the least believable. He drew my attention to a group on Facebook called – I kid you not – “STOP MEDICAL RESEARCH ON ANIMALS USE PAEDOPHILES.”

Having written an entry a couple of days ago dissing Pudsey Bear and noting that I work for a children’s charity, this entry will probably be enough to get me put on some sort of register, or at least get me torn apart like a dummy full of guts (Chris Morris REPRESENT!). But really, groups like this are alternately funny and disturbing. You read the things people write on them and it’s hilarious, but then you realise that no, this person genuinely believes the things they are saying. Here are some fine examples of what people have to say in the group.

Paedophiles never get punished enough they take something from children that can never be returned they break them wreck there lives at a young age so yes they should be used for medical research if there is no medical research use them as crash dummies either way as long as there dead at the end the world will be a better place.

Yep. Yeah. That’s a pretty well-informed opinion right there. I suppose I should just get this out of the way – I don’t think I’m a grammar Nazi per se, but I always think a mad, foaming rant loses its impact when the author doesn’t know the difference between “their,” “there” and “they’re.” Along those lines…

The Branding Is A Cert!!!
A Nice Bold Tattoo On The Forehead ” I’M A PEADO”
This Should Be Their Punishment! All The Goverment Would Have To Do Is Throw Them Back Into The Population…… Then Sit back And Watch The Fireworks.

“Excuse me, what’s a ‘peado?’” Also, I Know You’re Not Sure Where The Capital Letter Is Supposed To Go, But Here’s A Clue. It’s Not Everywhere.

They deserve slow painful torture, being humuliated in front of everyone. A very slow harsh death!!!!!!they knock me sick, the filthy bastards!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To quote Terry Pratchett, “Multiple exclamation marks. The sure sign of a diseased mind.” As is this:

They should be castrated, then fucked in the ass with a molton iron rod.

I’m sorry, who did you say was a sicko pervert again? I mean, are you volunteering to do this? Is this what you want to see happening?

Perhaps I should explain myself here. I’m as anti-child-molestation as the next guy. But these rants come across as, frankly, way psycho. I mean, some of these people have really thought about what they’d like to do. Possibly late at night, trousers down if you know what I mean. Take this, for instance.

They should be put into the General Population in Prison. And Let the Men there deal with the Baby rapers. Or a shot to the head a Bullet is only a few cents. As a Matter of fact I volunteer to supply the Bullets. So the cost is now $ 0.00 to the Taxpayers. Problem solved. Or they should stuff there penises with Red Hot Peppers and sew it into there ass cracks. Or they should butter up a flag pole and stick there ass at the top and let gravity do the rest. Or they should cut a glory hole into the door on a microwave oven. And make them stick there sex organs in it. Far a few hours.
Or they should cut down a tree waste high, and nail there peckers to it with a wide head nail . Then put a rusty metal spork there and leave them.So they can die of thirst and starvation. Or they can saw there peckers off with a rusty spork. He he. Or …I could go on and on.

No, you already have gone on and on. Incidentally, the chap who wrote this rant is, judging by his profile pic, a father himself. So hey, kid, that’s what your dad thinks about on the quiet. Pretty cool, huh? Witness also:

the only way to stop these dirty vermins is to cut off their peckers so they cant use it on children rip out their eyes so they can never perve on any kids again and then cut off their hands so they cant use them physically on a child.

wot about victims human rights its always pedophiles/molesters that get special treatment who the hell made them king/queen they are PURE EVIL they all should rot and burn in hell where they belong the dirty stinking rotters.

victims should have more human rights then these dirty fuckers.

a dog that attacks a human it faces instant death sentence well i say same should apply to these feral freaks. (sick and tired of the dumb judges and do-gooders)

Jesus, the only way this could be more brimming with rage is if the woman typing it started headbutting the keyboard. If you started talking like that about, say, burglars, you’d be regarded as a Talibanesque fascist. Except for the slightly incongruous “dirty stinking rotters.” I didn’t know the Famous Five had Internet access, but now I do. Also, that “sick and tired of all the dumb judges and do-gooders” comment is making me wonder if this might be the birth of a new superhero. Like Rorschach, only functionally illiterate.

this citty is afrade of me. i hav seen it’s true face. teh streets r xtended guttrs and the guttrs r full of blud & wen the dranes finlally skab over all teh vermin will dronw.

teh acumilated filth of all there sex & mudrer will fome up abotu there wastes & all the hores and politish pollytic politisians will look up & shout save us

& ill look down & wisper

no

God damn I’m going to get funding for this thing if it kills me.

Anyway. Sidetracks aside, I think what annoys me most about this group is the sheer pious hypocrisy of it. Groups like this, whether on Facebook or elsewhere, exist primarily so that respectable, decent, hardworking folk can find some “valid” outlet for their own desires which, as you can see, are as bloodthirsty and perverted as any paedophile could dream up.

I’m not a believer of capital punishment as too many innocent people were wrongly sent to the gallows but for people who abuse children and wreck there lives it should be brought back, especially in an age where DNA and forensics removes all possible doubt.

This contribution says it all. Translated: “I’m a good, caring, thoughtful sort of fellow, but secretly violence gives me a boner.”

In conclusion, yes, convicted paedophiles don’t deserve an easy sentence. There’s no denying that child molestation is a repulsive crime, and I can see why people get emotional about it. But how about you wipe the foam from your chin, take a few steps back and start thinking like an adult, twenty-first century, non-psycho human for a little while? Chill out, have a drink. And enjoy this double-page spread from the Daily Mail.

 

Here’s an idea

If I didn’t work for a children’s charity, I’d love to start a Facebook group called “Support Your Local Paedophile.” I wonder how many fury-induced heart attacks would ensue? Maybe we could get the tabloids in on this.

Further Reading

If you’ve read those quotes (or got someone to read them to you) and you still think, “Yes, I want to go on about ripping into another human being like a wolf on a chicken when in reality I wouldn’t even pipe up if someone pushed in front of me in the queue at Tesco,” then the actual group is http://www.facebook.com/board.php?uid=99926085654#/group.php?gid=99926085654. Enjoy, and remember to close your mouth in the shower.

The Monopoly movie is definitely not a terrible idea

So I hear there’s a Monopoly movie in the works. The fact that I heard it from Cracked.com does not make the idea any less problematic.

Now, I enjoy Monopoly a lot. It’s probably my favourite board game (Cluedo can fuck right off). I know the secret little strategies, I know which squares you shouldn’t buy, I’ve even got out of jail free (with thanks to my lawyer, Quincy Rafter).

These days, there are so many versions of Monopoly that it’s getting ridiculous (some I’ve come across are King’s College and a knock-off set in Dartmouth). There’s even one based on post-war toy trains made by the Lionel company, which even I, a notorious train nut, think is a bit much. There’s a Belfast version, which primarily differs from the other versions in that the car is upside down and someone has shot the dog.

 But for me, Monopoly is the classic London version. You know, the one that features loads of places that you’ve only heard of because they’re on the Monopoly board. Old Kent Road is brown, Mayfair is purple. This version was for a long time also the one used in Europe and much of the Commonwealth. So well-known is this version that it’s often erroneously assumed to be the first one – that’s actually Atlantic City. Me, I don’t like the updated versions. I like my Monopoly to be a little bit retro, with steam trains in the station and some ugly old lag in the jail (I call him Cyril).

Anyway, that’s my credentials as a Monopoly-enjoyer established. And I think the idea of a movie is just awful. The scenario is this. Our main character is a lovable loser who works as an estate agent (because everyone loves estate agents, amirite?) and is an enthusiastic Monopoly player who one day…

[PAUSE INSERTED HERE. SEE IF YOU CAN GUESS THE NEXT PLOT POINT]

… finds himself inside the Monopoly game! It’s krazy!

Kirk Douglas in the unsuccessful Pictionary movie.

Here’s the thing. Board games don’t make for great movies. This is because they are board games. They are designed to work as board games. They are not designed to be watched. Frustration is a good board game, a two-hour film about frustrated people would not be a good movie. Snakes and Ladders – actually, that would be a pretty awesome movie. But in general, my point stands. The only board game movie that really worked was Cluedo (or Clue, if you’re one of those Yankee types), and that’s because the basic plot of the game is a standard Agatha Christie-style detective story, complete with country vicar and retired colonel.

Monopoly’s premise, on the other hand, is that it’s about buying and selling property. If you’ve ever dealt with estate agents, you’ll know what incredible fun that is. Now, the director is Ridley Scott, so maybe he’ll pull something out of the hat and produce a completely amazing film and I’ll wind up looking stupid. But I maintain that it’s almost impossible to make an interesting film about land sales. Unless…

Success!

Further reading

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2009/11/a-monopoly-movie-the-story-behind-the-roll-of-the-dice-.html - For a fuller account of this mooncalf of a movie.

Pudsey Bear – what’s that all about?

Why, it’s Children In Need time again! The annual event when lots of celebrities go around making arses of themselves for a good cause. Of course, the event has its critics – there are those who say it’s financially inefficient and there are those who like to point out that it’s not bad publicity for the celebs taking part. Personally, I couldn’t give a damn either way.  I prefer to spend my Friday night in a haze of opium smoke, knocking back laudanum and absinthe and consorting with prostitutes of both sexes.

Sorry, my blackened and ulcerous heart is showing through again. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t believe we should be helping children who are, in fact, in need. It’s just that I technically work for a children’s charity myself, and I get a little bit sick of this whole saccharine “for the kiddies” attitude. There, I said it.

One thing really bothers me, though, and that’s the chap you see above you. His name, if you don’t already know, is Pudsey Bear. Something I’ve always wondered is how the hell did he lose his eye? The Children in Need website is no help. Wikipedia’s got nothing. I’ve done a bit of research and come up with the following possibilities.

1. One of the children in need was in need of an eye, and Pudsey’s was an exact tissue match. Pudsey did not want to appear a hypocrite and so had no choice but to donate.
2. Pudsey has no eyes at all, but could only afford a single glass one.
3. He accidentally wandered into Natasha Kaplinsky’s changing room and saw her terrible secret. He put his eye out with a spoon in horror, and would have done the other, but was restrained by the Sugababes.
4. Terry Wogan slashed it open with a broken bottle in a fit of drunken rage.

There may be possibilities I haven’t covered, but these would seem to be the most likely.

Further reading

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pudsey/ - Here’s the charity website.

Smile, darn ya, smile!

If there’s one thing the Internet has revolutionised, it’s the urban legend. Time was when you’d have to work for your insane rumours. These days a good story can be invented, spread round the world and debunked by Snopes by lunchtime. How did we ever manage without it?

I was recently reminded of a London urban legend that predates the Internet – or at least, widespread use of it. It seems to have originated in the 1980s. I heard it as a schoolchild in the mid-’90s. I am speaking of the Chelsea Smilers.

The Smilers, so the story goes, were a gang of football hooligans. Depending which version of the story you hear, they would either roam the streets of South London, travel around in a blue Transit Van or – if you looked particularly easy to scare – would go door-to-door.

Details varied, but the basic essence of the story was this. The Smilers would confront you and ask you if you supported Chelsea Football Club (soccer team, for the benefit of any United Stateseans who may be reading). Possibly they would ask you a series of trivia questions to prove it. In the version I was told, they would then slice the corners of your mouth – upwards if you said yes, downwards if you said no. Then they would punch you hard, so you’d scream, thus ripping your mouth into a permanent smile or frown. Some versions would add that they would then pour something on the wound, usually vinegar, so the scars wouldn’t heal properly. I’m surprised no one suggested ink.

The Joker supports Chelsea.

There are a million variants on the story. Some say that they only cut you if you don’t support Chelsea, and then only in the form of the smile. Some say this was only practised by criminal gangs in Chelsea (presumably they march around in tailored suits, terrifying onlookers with their white-collar fraud and cold-blooded acts of insider trading). To be honest, while I don’t deny that such crimes may have happened – such scarring is known as the “Glasgow smile” and, so says the Daily Express, a case is treated every day by Scotland’s hospitals. But I’ve yet to see any real evidence that the Chelsea Smilers exist.

Still, I went to school in South-West London and it was a damn fine scary story. And that’s what’s important.

Let’s get some things straight

You know me – I’m a crusader for the truth. I aim in this blog for absolute accuracy 54% of the time – that’s more than half. So when I discover that I have inadvertantly made a mistake it upsets me. Not a huge amount, admittedly, but a bit. Enough to write this entry, put it that way.

See, I was questioned on my sources for the entry ‘Joseph Manton’s Huge Bottom’ (http://londonparticulars.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/joseph-mantons-huge-bottom/) in which I recounted the tale of how the gunsmith Joseph Manton encountered a highwayman while crossing Hounslow Heath. To briefly recount, Manton damned the highwayman for his insolence, as Manton’s own firm of gunsmiths had manufactured the highwayman’s gun. The highwayman, slick as you like, complimented Manton for his craftsmanship but complained that the gun was a rip-off. Therefore, he robbed Manton of precisely the price of the pistol and no more. A couple of days ago, I found this comment on the entry:

Tom, just out of curiosity – where did you get this story from? I haven’t seen it in any of my books where Joe Manton is mentioned.

“No problem,” I thought, “I’ll just have a look in my own library and… well, God be damned.” I couldn’t for the life of me remember where I’d read that tale. I eventually tracked it down to one of those “Did You Know?” kind of books. You know, the ones that don’t have a bibliography. Anyway, they must have got it from somewhere, but damned if I can find it. So, for now, let’s say this one is apocryphal. Unless anyone knows any better.

Actually, I should have been more careful – I’ve dismissed other “facts” with less evidence. For instance, there’s a tale that gets forwarded to me in my capacity as a chap known to be a fan of London and steam-powered things. This tale goes that the people of East London were appalled by the sight of the first steam locomotive of the London and Greenwich Railway. The solution devised by the Board of Directors was to build a new locomotive that was shaped like a ship, because there are lots of those in East London anyway. I have not, however, found any mention of this in books about the London and Greenwich Railway. Even the ones with a full stocklist. It seems rather unlikely, and in any case, this would do nothing to disguise the train’s load, nor would it reduce the greater nuisances of noise and sparks. The closest I’ve been able to find was mention of a ship used by Arctic explorer John Franklin called the Erebus, which was converted to steam power using parts from a locomotive of the London and Greenwich Railway. So you see, I do have some integrity.

EDIT: A previous version of this entry was even worse.

Chiswicked

Chiswick Park Tube Station by night

I think I might have experienced one of the most disagreeable sensations of my life that didn’t actually involve pieces of metal being inserted into me. More on that later.

Last night I made a visit to Chiswick, out in West London. I used to know a chap at school who claimed that Chiswick was the ghetto, but given that his dad owned an aeroplane, it’s possible that his definition of “ghetto” differs somewhat from that of most other people. I’d say Chiswick is one of the least ghetto-ey places in London. It’s notable, among other things, for being the residence of satirical artist William Hogarth and for being where the Chelsea Flower Show got started (although it probably wasn’t called that back then, now I come to think of it). Oh, and On the Buses was filmed there, although I’m sure we’d all like to forget that shameful period in our history.

I was there for a pub crawl organised by a chum of mine whom I shall call The Directrix, because she’s some miles away and can’t get me har har. Much fun was had. I recall explaining the origins of the word “Chiswick,” i.e. that it was founded by investors from Chelsea in 1865 and was originally to be called “Chelsea Is Wicked,” which had to be shortened due to the limitations of road sign technology in those days. I may not have been entirely believed in this claim.

I was introduced to an exciting concoction. I’m not sure how best to classify it. It consists of half a pint of Guinness with a double shot of Tia Maria, and basically tastes like a sort of fizzy chocolate beer. It shouldn’t work but somehow it does. I enjoyed various other substances, but somehow managed to avoid the champagne-and-absinthe, although I did wax lyrical with the Directrix about moving to the 1890s and drinking heinous amounts of laudanum in a loft apartment in Montmartre. I forget whether we came to any sort of conclusion on this.

The evening ended – for me at least – at approximately half past three on Sunday morning. I figured it would be a fairly simple journey back to Colliers Wood. A fifteen minute walk from the Directrix’s place in Chiswick, through Gunnersbury to Brentford. I failed to take into account two factors. The first was the sobering-up process. I don’t know if you’ve ever trodden the borderland between inebriation and the hangover, but it’s not fun. All the fun of not being able to walk straight or coordinate your movements with the additional hilarity that is rising headache and nausea. I tend to view the hangover, overall, as a form of instant karma. But I’d rather it waited until I’d had a bit of a rest before smacking me in the face.

The second factor was the rain. It was, as you may already know, wet last night. Really wet. So wet that my feet have been dyed a semi-permanent black from my shoe polish. So wet that when I took my coat off, I actually got a little dryer.

The two-factor combo resulted in utter misery and the walk being stretched to an hour. Raging thirst and a need for some sort of respite prompted me to enter a petrol station for a drink or possibly combustion-related suicide. Being too wet for the fire to take, I just bought a bottle of Pepsi. The chap behind the counter wittily asked if I’d been out in the rain. I forget whether I laughed or cried, probably both.

Kew Bridge Station, 4.32 AM, from the momentary shelter of the footbridge.

Eventually I reached Kew Bridge in Brentford and took refuge at the bus stop, although frankly by that stage the concept of “shelter” had become a little theoretical. Did anyone see Doctor Who today with those water-alien-zombies? Yeah, I didn’t realise there was anything wrong with them, that’s how wet I was. Anyway, there I stood at the bus shelter in the shadow of the tower of the Kew Bridge Pumping Station, now the Kew Bridge Steam Museum.

The tower by day. Last week, in fact.

Surprisingly, and mercifully, the journey back was pretty fast. The route was to be the Number 65 bus from Brentford to Kingston, then the 57 to Colliers Wood. Fortunately, a combination of the lateness of the hour, the crappiness of the weather and a couple of strokes of luck ensured that the rest of the journey took a total of one hour. Given my hatred of night buses, this was a Good Thing.

I had plans to go to Brentford today, but frankly couldn’t face it after all that. So I found business in Tolworth instead. Which is so much better.

Top this.

It is fair to say that the top hat is the greatest item of headgear in the known world. It is possible that there are better forms of headgear at, say, the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, but it seems unlikely. It’s formal and yet flamboyant. Distinctive and yet instantly recognisable. It’s a symbol is what it is. Why, I myself am wearing one even as I type this.

It’s unknown precisely who invented the top hat – like most articles of clothing, it most likely evolved from earlier fashions. In the case of the top hat, its obvious ancestor was the sugar loaf hat, which you’d probably know from Welsh national dress, although they were fashionable across Europe from the middle ages onwards.

The mighty topper is believed to be of French or possibly German origin. However, one version of history actually has it as a British invention, originating on the Strand (down which we may all go and, if there is time, have a banana). According to the story, the hat was premiered on 15th January 1797 by a hatter named John Hetherington. It caused a sensation. Well, more accurately, it caused a riot. An actual riot – women fainted, dogs barked and in the mob a young lad had his arm broken. Hetherington was arrested and brought before the Lord Mayor. He was charged with a breach of the peace, despite claiming to be “merely exercising the right to appear in a headdress of his own design – a right not denied to any Englishman.”

His Worship was not impressed, and Hetherington was fined £500 for his trouble.

If I’m honest, I have trouble believing certain aspects of the story. While it is possible that a gent in a top hat would be an astonishing sight, I couldn’t see it causing an actual riot. And £500 seems remarkably steep, given that £1 was a pretty good weekly wage in those days. Perhaps, given the more likely French origin of the hat, he was taken to be impersonating a Frenchman and inflamed the blood of the patriotic folk about that day, resulting in a fracas. Furthermore, 1797 is a little late – the first English top hat is recorded in 1793, made by one George Dunnage.

Despite this alleged turbulent start, the top hat found favour with the early Metropolitan Police, for two reasons. First of all, its added height enabled them to be easily seen on the crowded streets of London (vital for traffic control). Secondly, police hats were made with a reinforced frame that allowed their wearers to stand on them when they needed to see over people’s heads.

Despite its upper class reputation, in its first few decades the top hat was actually a fairly universal form of dress. No gentleman would be seen in public without it, no matter how battered it became. It would be made of rabbit fur or, if you were more wealthy, of beaver fur from Canada. This was gradually replaced with silk, which impacted rather sharply on the Canadian economy at the time.

As the 19th century went on, the type of person who would be seen in a topper changed. Initially, it was the sort of thing any chap might wear. However, for the working or lower-middle-class man, by the middle of the nineteenth century the cheaper and more portable bowler or fedora became the hat of choice. At the same time, Prince Albert’s adoption of the top hat had the upper class scrambling for one of their own. As they became less popular with the masses, so they became more popular with figures of authority as distinctive forms of identification - policemen, postmen, bus conductors, steamer captains.

By the 1890s, they were firmly out of favour as day-to-day wear. If you wanted to depict an old duffer out of touch with the modern world, you’d depict him in a top hat. Left-wingers came to view it as a symbol of capitalism.

Strangely enough, though, they never quite went out of fashion as an item of ultra-formal wear. Politicians and diplomats were still wearing them into the 1960s. On British Railways, the Stationmasters at the grand termini were expected to meet the top-link express trains wearing one into the 1950s. And of course, they’re still worn at weddings.

These days, a proper fur felt top hat will set you back a small fortune (at least, by the standard of impecunious oiks such as Yr. Humble Chronicler). James Lock & Co of London charges £550 for a high-crowned topper and £350 for an ordinary man-about-town job. Silk hats are, alas, no longer manufactured although – bonus for the impoverished gentleman on the street – wool felt hats can be mass-produced at a fraction of the cost of a fur hat, with the added advantage that you don’t have to feel guilty about it. My own hat, for instance, was £20 in a sale. I feel quite the foppish macaroni.