The Mask of the Red Death

(Warning – this entry probably NSFW, we’ll see how it goes)

Having engaged in the usual Halloween activities of placing razor blades in apples, poisoning Haribo and breaking several dangerous psychopaths out of prison to roam the streets, I’m fully prepared for the trick-or-treaters the evening may bring. In the meantime, I probably ought to recap the events of Friday and the Last Tuesday Society’s Danse Macabre event.

The day did not go well. Two of our party cancelled, a cashpoint ate my card and it was raining when I set out for the evening. When I got to Borough, the intent was to meet with the Directrix and others at her new studio – unfortunately, I managed to balls up the communications there. On the way in, I bumped into someone who directed me in a play a few years back, which continued the tradition of weird coincidences around Last Tuesday Society events.

Nevertheless, I managed to meet up with Tiny Emma and some others who were new to all this. We went and queued up, where we were delighted to meet some of the security staff. I don’t know where the staff came from, but they seemed to be quite determined that however much fun we were having standing in the cold, we should be having less of it. The Society handed out bananas, which improved matters somewhat (and you know what? Banana skins really are slippery!).

Eventually we got in, and I tried to seek out the Directrix’ party in an effort to unite our two groups. Unfortunately, I was hampered by the fact that the event was extremely crowded, and my mask made it kinda difficult to see.

Overall, the costume – pictured left – was a bit of a hit. I lost count of the number of people who wanted to take a photo of or with me. I also managed to startle quite a few people, and had a couple of women who wanted to kiss the skull. Not bad for a customised £3.50 mask from Sainsbury’s.

As for the event itself, it seemed a little less OTT than previous balls. I think there were fewer freaks than usual – I certainly didn’t see as many, but as previously mentioned, I had trouble seeing anything at all. A lot of people seemed utterly bewildered by the whole thing (“There are naked people! In the buffet!“).

I wonder if this was perhaps because, with it not being strictly a masked ball this time, people were less willing to drop their inhibitions. There were a lot fewer people at the hot tub this time by the time we got there, for instance.

The bar service, credit where credit’s due, was a lot better this time around. Separate bars had been set up for those who just wanted water or beer, which helped, and the staff seemed a lot more competent. So kudos there.

These two delightful young ladies were very complimentary about the mask.

As previously mentioned, we weren’t too impressed by the security people, who seemed rather overzealous. One of our party bitterly noted that the plastic club (about the size of a truncheon) that formed part of his costume had been confiscated because it was considered to be an offensive weapon. Upon his pointing out that several people had canes and the like, which are far more offensive as weapons go, he was told “We’ll get around to them.” In fact, he seemed rather annoyed that I still had my cane. I’ll be honest, I got the impression that he didn’t like me much. He was Tiny Emma’s ex, and such people tend not to like me. I don’t know why, it’s not like I’m some Adonis who’s going to whisk their former girlfriend away. Seriously, I don’t even have a face.

Still, there was much to enjoy – the pop-up cinema was showing the classic of silent horror cinema, Nosferatu, and Tiny Emma was mildly horrified by a man who offered to put hoops through her spine and suspend her from the ceiling. I told her she should have gone for it, but she remained sceptical. So much for open-mindedness.

Oddly enough, I managed to remain pretty sober throughout. I don’t know if this is a by-product of the diet and exercise, but the alcohol just didn’t seem to have any effect. Given the amount of effort it took to drink anything with that mask, I thought this was jolly unfair.

Despite the general lack of freaks, this event lasted rather longer than the others. Usually things start to properly wind down around 2.00, or so it seemed to me. This time, things were still going pretty much full swing when the party came to a close at about half four.

Goodness me, I don’t have much space between these two pictures… Ah, that’s better.

With the party over, I made my way back through the mean streets of Southwark and Elephant and Castle to Kennington, where I got the night bus home. One of our party asked if it was entirely wise for me to be wandering through the rougher parts of South East London at this time of night. I pointed out that dressed like this, it was unlikely that I would even be approached, let alone mugged. And it was so.

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON'T TAKE YOUR MEDICINE, BILLY

I arrived back home just in time for my alarm to go off, indicating that I had now been awake for 24 hours. Not bad, really. Between that and the clocks going back, my body clock is royally screwed. Oh well.

Roll on New Year’s Eve Eve, I say.

The Beautiful and the Damned

Halloween is coming, hurrah! And that means the Last Tuesday Society (them again) will be holding another ball this Friday. Of course, Yr. Humble Chronicler will be in attendance.

This time, though, I have an extra motivation for going. This isn’t really a “personal” blog, so I don’t like to get too emotional on ya (though that doesn’t stop me from inserting my own opinions and crap jokes into every entry). But this is kind of important for me, so please forgive the general sappiness upcoming. You may want to skip a couple of paragraphs.

You see, for a very long time, I’ve been overweight. I mean, we’re talking twenty years here. We are talking at school. I’m not trying to paint myself as some kind of victim here, nobody forced the chocolate down my throat, but it isn’t exactly fun to be a fat guy. You get an awful lot of jokes made at your expense, and if you actually say “Hold on, guys, I have enough trouble getting trousers that fit without you prodding my belly and demanding that I chuckle like the Pillsbury Doughboy,” then you’re seen as a bit of a spoilsport. In my case, it became a sort of vicious circle. The only way I could feel good was to eat more, which of course made me feel worse in the long run. I’ve actually heard armchair psychiatrists suggest that it should be okay to ridicule fat people, because it might encourage us to do something about it – anybody who’s struggled with their weight knows what a lot of bollocks this is.

What got me to actually work on shifting the poundage was a number of factors. First of all, vanity. I was having real difficulty finding clothes that fitted. Nice ones, anyway. Secondly, health concerns. Hell of a lot of diabetes in my family, and I realised how much crap I was eating. And thirdly, bloody-mindedness. I read that only 2% of diets work, so the stubborn bastard within me thought, “Oh yeah? We’ll see about that!“

The method was simple – I don’t believe in miracles, and whatever method I chose had to be sustainable. Therefore, I started thinking long-term about food. In other words, “This cake is nice right now, but if I don’t eat it, I can be thinner in the future. I will enjoy the cake for a few minutes, but I can enjoy being thin forever.”  The food I did eat had to be nourishing and well-balanced, and in the last couple of months I began a strenuous twice-daily exercise regime.

The end result was that, upon measuring myself yesterday, I discovered that I am, in fact, now a healthy weight. Given that the exercise programme was designed to build up muscle as well as burn fat, simple weigh-ins weren’t going to be a reliable indicator of progress. So, as with so many things that are important to a man, I decided to measure my progress in inches. Men should be aiming for a waist-hip ratio of 0.95, I’m now 0.93. There’s still work to do, but I’m feeling better about my body than I have in years.

That is my additional reason for looking forward to this ball – at last, I can work it without looking ridiculous.

A lowered budget has forced me to be creative about my costume. The theme for the ball is “The Beautiful and the Damned.” I’m going with something inspired by the excellent Poe story, ‘The Masque of the Red Death,’ which features people who are both beautiful and damned. Fortunately, I had most of what I needed in my wardrobe already, and what I didn’t have I was able to obtain inexpensively. I don’t want to show you the whole thing just yet, but here’s part of it.

In accordance with the style of the Last Tuesday Society, I’m going for something Victorian-esque, but a bit more bohemian than the standard top hat and tails. The real bitch was finding a mask I could wear comfortably over my glasses and customise to my design. I suspect I’ll be making adjustments right up to zero-hour.

I’ll let you know how the night goes. If there’s time – I’m also going to a party on Saturday and another Sunday, so basically I’ll be dead by next week. Appropriately for the occasion.

Ghosts of the Northern Line

I love Halloween, probably because it allows me to combine my perverse fascination with the macabre with my love of high camp. It’s funny, I was never really bothered about it when I was small. Anyway, that in mind, there’s a certain theme to the blentries this week.

I thought it would be nice to talk about something spooky. Britain is apparently the most haunted country in the world, and London makes up a significant proportion of that. And if we’re talking about hauntings and London, the subject of the Underground is never far behind. With its long and complex history, its hundreds of miles of tunnels (not all of which are accounted for, so a former London Transport worker tells me) and the fact that it’s, you know, under the ground, it’s inevitable that spooky stories would arise around it.

I’m going to largely limit myself to the Northern Line for now, simply because there are so very many ghosts on the entire system that I’d be here all night if I attempted to catalogue them all, and I appreciate how busy you are.

The most southerly sighting was at Stockwell, and took the form of an elderly workman spotted by a trainee. This gent was apparently quite sociable, having a brief conversation with the trainee who saw him. Indeed, were it not for the fact that no maintenance was due on that stretch of tunnel, the man might never have been noticed. It was surmised that he was the ghost of someone killed in the 1950s.

You might think Kennington was troublesome enough without spooks, but drivers with empty trains waiting in the tunnel for clearance to come into the station proper have reported the sound of doors on the train opening and closing, as if there’s someone walking up the train – approaching the cab…

Elephant and Castle might be the most haunted station on the network. Maybe this is because one of the tunnels on the Bakerloo Line cuts through a plague pit. Whatever reason, there have been numerous eerie occurances here. The most common was the sound of running footsteps along the platforms and up the stairs when the station was supposedly deserted apart from staff. Doors would open and shut, and a porter named Mr Horton refused to go back there after one night shift when he was alone in the break room and heard someone approaching and knocking on the door. He opened up to find the corridor deserted. A familiar ghost consists of a woman who gets on the train, walks towards the front and then disappears. This ghost supposedly haunts the last train on the Bakerloo Line, but I include it for completeness’ sake. I should also mention one seen by commuters seated alone in the carriage who, upon looking in the opposite window, are startled to see a woman sitting next to them.

The Northern Line ticket hall at Bank was built in the crypt of the church of St Mary Woolnoth, which may go some way to explaining the oppressive feeling of terror experienced by commuters there, often accompanied by a foul stench. Down on the platforms, a figure known as the Black Nun has been sighted. This ghost has also been seen in and around the Bank of England, and is named Sarah Whitehead. Her brother was executed for forgery in 1811, following which Sarah went mad with grief.

Oppressive feelings have also been reported at Embankment, in a staff-only tunnel known as “Page’s Walk”. Unexplained gusts of wind and the sounds of doors opening and closing are heard.

At Moorgate, in the mid-1970s, workers in the Northern City Line tunnels (then part of the Northern Line, now National Rail) spoke of a man in blue overalls who would approach them. As he came closer, a look of unspeakable horror would appear on his face, and he would vanish into the tunnel wall. Some paranormal enthusiasts have suggested that seeing this ghost might have been the cause of the 1975 tube crash in that part of the station, the true cause of which is unknown to this day. Others have suggested that the haint may have been a premonition of the disaster.

At King’s Cross, in the entrance tunnel, a rather modern spectre has been seen – a woman in jeans, crying piteously. The most likely event to have caused such a spirit to become manifest would have been the fire in the Underground station in 1987, in which 31 people lost their lives.

Possibly one like this.

At East Finchley, on the sidings near the station, a ghostly steam train of the Great Northern Railway has been sighted, a relic of the days before the line was run by London Underground.

Highgate, in addition to the Northern Line station that is still very much in use, has an abandoned station  that was to form part of an extensive expansion project for the line, a project known as the Northern Heights. The plan was abandoned, as was the station, but the buildings remain. This ruined station is situated in a deep cutting, and is described by author W. B. Herbert as having “an emotive, eerie atmosphere.” Local residents have reported the sound of trains in the cutting, and visitors to the ruins describe a feeling of being watched.

Last train, anyone?

This bacon smells funny

Well, I finished reading that book, Black Swine in the Sewers of Hampstead. I was disappointed to discover that actually, it had almost no mention of said black swine. This cannot be allowed to stand, since it actually sounds like a hell of a good story.

The book does briefly mention said hogs in the form of an editorial from the Daily Telegraph. from 10 October 1859. I shall quote the relevant part of said editorial, because I rather like it.

This London is an amalgam of worlds within worlds, and the occurrences of every day convince us that there is not one of these worlds but has its special mysteries and its generic crimes. Exaggeration and ridicule often attach to the vastness of London, and the ignorance of its penetralia common to us who dwell therein. It has been said that beasts of chase still roam in the verdant fastnesses of Grosvenor Square, that there are undiscovered patches of primaeval forest in Hyde Park and that Hampstead sewers shelter a monstrous breed of black swine, which have propagated and run wild among the slimy feculence, and whose ferocious snouts will one day up-root Highgate archway, while they make Holloway intolerable with their grunting.

The pigs in question started out as an urban legend – Henry Mayhew discusses the story in London Labour and the London Poor.

The story runs that a sow in young by some accident got down the sewer through an opening and, wandering away from the spot, littered and reared her offspring in the drain, feeding on the offal and garbage washed into it continuously. Here, it is alleged, the breed multiplied exceedingly, and have become almost as ferocious as they are numerous.

This pig is not in a sewer, but you get the idea.

Spooky pigs are not unknown in British folklore – Yr. Humble Chronicler’s father, Shropshire-born, notes that there was a local legend in his village of a ghostly black pig haunting the churchyard, and a white one has supposedly been seen near Newbury in Berkshire. Perhaps the pigs of Hampstead are simply another version of this? Or perhaps, if we’re to be cynical, it has something to do with the fact that Mayhew’s flushermen would “generally take a drop of rum” before venturing into the sewers. Certainly there’s no evidence to back these pigs up other than hearsay. Sewer workers have reported frogs, ducks, terrapins and even snakes down there, but no pigs. The flushermen interviewed by Mayhew mention rats as big as “good-sized kittens.”

A sewer, London, yesterday.

The story seems to have been reasonably well-known in the mid-nineteenth century, but these cryptids have been largely forgotten in the present day. Leave it up to Neil Gaiman, then, to revive the legend in what might be the best-known work of London fantasy – Neverwhere. In this book, London possesses its own subterranean Labyrinth, and its own equivalent of the Minotaur. A character describes said beast thus:

“Now, they say that back before the fire and the plague there was a butcher lived down by the Fleet Ditch, had some poor creature he was going to fatten up for Christmas. (Some says it was a piglet, and some says it wusn’t, and there was some that wusn’t ever certain.) One night the beast runned away, ran into the Fleet Ditch, and vanished into the sewers. And it fed on sewage, and it grew, and it grew. And it got meaner, and nastier. They’d send in hunting parties after it, from time to time… Things like that, they’re too vicious to die. Too old and big and nasty.”

Given that the Fleet Ditch in question runs through Hampstead, and given that for much of its length it was bricked over and used as a sewer, I’d say we have a much-embellished version of the story of the black swine. The book, if you haven’t read it, is well worth grabbing – it’s basically a retelling of more-or-less every lost myth of London. The main character, significantly, is Richard Mayhew.

It’s a shame that, whatever else we may have in London’s vast network of sewers, storm drains and underground rivers, the black pigs of Hampstead are no longer believed in. Maybe the story was lowering property values in the area or something. No, if you want sewer monsters, I’m afraid you’ll have to take the alligators of New York and be done with it, Sunny Jim.

Oink.

The lowest depths

I’m a terrible one for putting things off. This is why I could never be a proper reviewer – by the time I get around to seeing something, it’s just about to close and the review would be of no use to anyone. Anyway, a consequence of this was that I left going to see the Directrix’ latest opus until the penultimate night. So enjoy this useless recap.

The opus in question was part of a night called Theatre Souk. This, I was told, was interactive theatre. I generally loathe interactive theatre, being as how it has a tendency to consist of a lot of drama students who aren’t half as interesting as they think they are having a jolly good laugh while providing entertainment to each other. But, well, the Directrix has yet to direct a play that I have not enjoyed.

The concept of the evening may require a little explanation. The venue was an abandoned office block on Picton Place in Mayfair, once the headquarters of Uzbekistan Airways (so sucks if you want to go to Uzbekistan). Stripped out and derelict, the rooms and corridors of the building were turned into performing spaces, with several shows going on at once and various types of cabaret going on on the ground floor.

I rather regret leaving it until the second-to-last night, actually. My original thoughts were along the lines of “Wow, this is weird. I’ll just see the Directrix’ show and make a hasty exit.” By the end of the night, I found I wished I could have seen more of what was going on. As it happened, I saw two of the shows and quite a lot of the cabaret.

The shows were tailored to the venue (for instance, the one on the top floor was actually called ‘Uzbekistan Airways’). The two I saw were ‘Matador’ and ‘Priceless’. ‘Matador’ was a one-man show in a small room, the audience huddled around a circle while Neil Connolly performed the piece. Essentially an attack on our attitude towards the credit crunch, Connolly played a city trader who starts out as the kind of smug bastard we like to think of as being the root of all our current economic troubles before breaking down and turning the tables on us – pointing out that we must all bear some responsibility for the crunch. Very funny, very thought-provoking and, in the intimacy of the venue, more than a little uncomfortable.

The cabaret was a mixed bunch – the Directrix informs me that I missed a naked Pavarotti impersonator, which did not upset me too much. What I did see was a little stand-up, a very moving monologue, some spoof fortune-telling and some surprisingly enjoyable performance poetry. The only criticism I would make is that some of the acts perhaps lacked a little polish. Still, at least they remained clothed throughout.

Now, the Directrix’ piece was a show called ‘Priceless’ in the basement. Even if we put aside my obvious bias, this really was right up my alley. You see, I’m a big fan of the bizarro. The strange, disturbing and cultish is definitely my bag. The concept behind Priceless was a little bit Big Brother, a little bit The Prisoner, a little bit Fight Club. But what it reminded me most of was those weird and disturbing things you come across on the Internet, following obscure links, when it’s late at night and you’re alone in the house. Look up Fantastic Hey Hey Hey, Suicide Mouse, the Swedish Rhapsody numbers station or – if you can find it – The Grifter.

‘Priceless’ was something straight out of the urban legendarium. The background is that, at one point, there was a reality gameshow called Priceless which was once huge. But in a desperate attempt to regain falling ratings, the games became more extreme, and the show was pulled following the death of a contestant. And so it went underground, free from censorship and commercial considerations, disseminated via the Internet and publicised via word-of-mouth. We, the audience, are participating in the latest episode.

In the basement, we’re given a number (I was 99) and, looking around, just enough clues to piece the story together – audition videos, application forms, press cuttings, crew passes and an intimidating disclaimer. We meet the crew and the presenter. Wait, wasn’t that crew member one of the contestants? No time for that, it’s the first game.

This was an appropriately gruesome challenge, taking place in a blackened, filthy room. It was a little bit gross, particularly if the sight of a lot of blood makes you nauseous (yeah, that’s me). One of the audience commented adversely on the challenge, and found herself called forward. At this point, things started to get confusing. Was Number 69 a plant? Was she genuinely as nonplussed by events as we were? Did they – did they just pull her tooth out with a pair of pliers? Oh shiiiiittt!!! Even though I’m chummy with the director and know it’s all a play, oh shiiiittt!!!

I hesitate to go through the whole show, because so much of it was based on not expecting what came next. But by the end I reckoned I’d figured out who was the real deal and who were plants. So when the contestants for the final challenge were called forward, I was back in my comfort zone. The contestant next up was 99.

Oh shiiiittttttt!!!!!

By the end, we were all thoroughly disorientated. I won a false moustache, which is a little redundant given that I have a real one, but you never know. Two of the other “contestants” were a little confused as to whether the backstory of ‘Priceless’ was genuine or not, and the other winner and I spent about five minutes trying to determine if either of us was a plant and if it had finished.

The evening as a whole was different, but not in that “I mean bad but I’m being polite” way. It was the first audience participation event where I genuinely felt part of the action – I found myself chatting to a number of total strangers over the course of the evening, sharing experiences and swapping recommendations and genuinely regretting the end of the night. In short, you can keep your glamorous musicals and giant theatres. Filthy abandoned office blocks are where it’s at.

Further Reading

http://www.theatredelicatessen.co.uk/ - The official website.

Definitely not made in Taiwan

One side-effect of globalisation is that it’s very hard to be exotic these days. There are few places in the world that can’t be reached within a few days’ travel, and Phileas Fogg’s wager to circumnavigate the globe in eighty days would, today, seem laughably slow. Check me out, I used the word “circumnavigate.”

The point I’m making is that now, it’s hard to appreciate just how ignorant people used to be about those who lived overseas. We laugh at Elizabethan engravings that confidently portrayed North America as being populated by headless monsters or one-legged men, but no one knew any different back then. Before the advent of the steamship and the long-distance railway, even travelling to another continent was a rare and exciting thing.

George Psalmanazar... or is it?

So it should come as no surprise that some folk took advantage of the general lack of worldliness for the sake of fame and fortune. Such a man was George Psalmanazar. Psalmanazar (not his original name) was born in France, most likely at some point in the early 1680s, and got into the fraud game in order to save money on travel and to beg coins from strangers. His original plan was to pose as an Irish pilgrim, using a talent for languages, a fake passport and a stolen cloak. This was far more ingenious than the method I used to save travel costs in my student days, which largely consisted of not travelling until the station staff had gone home and the ticket barriers were open. But I digress.

The trouble with posing as an Irishman was that even then, enough people were familiar with Ireland that the lie didn’t stand up to close scrutiny. The solution was to go for broke, and pretended to be Japanese. Unlike modern-day white people who pretend to be Japanese, his disguise was a bit more complicated than watching anime, eating Pocky and going “OMG super kawaii!!!! ^__^ desu desu” every so often. In fact, as hardly anyone knew anything about Japan, he decided to just act weird. Accordingly, he started using a fake language, sleeping upright and eating raw meat.

A triumph of Formosa over function?

By 1702, he had embellished his story further, adding a fake religion and a fake calendar. By this point, he was now claiming to be from the even more obscure nation of Formosa, or Taiwan as we now know it. To back his story up, he invented a whole Formosan culture, made up of a hotch-potch of reports from various exotic climes with some significant embellishment. For instance, although snake was the food of choice, ritual cannibalism was common. Everyone walked around naked and polygamy was practised. The religion – swiped seemingly from the Aztecs – was based around sun and moon worship and entailed an awful lot of human sacrifice.

He took the name George Psalmanazar as a result of having been “converted” to Christianity by a Scottish missionary in 1703, and moved to London. There, he became something of a sensation. He published a book entitled An Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa, an Island subject to the Emperor of Japan, which became a bestseller and managed to fool even serious scholars.

Nevertheless, his disguise was not entirely foolproof. One point made was that, for an Asian man, Psalmanazar was a little bit too, well, white. Psalmanazar worked this into his narrative – all Formosans were this white, due to the fact that they lived in round houses underground.

A Formosan in his natural habitat

The more exposure Psalmanazar got, of course, the more likely it became that his claim would be challenged by someone actually familiar with Formosa. As it happened, there were a number of missionaries previously active there who pointed out that, in fact, the claims were a load of BS. But here’s the thing – they were Jesuit missionaries. Due to strong anti-Catholic feeling in Britain at the time, people were more inclined to believe Psalmanazar’s version of what Formosa was like than the story told by the Jesuits, and there was no one to corroborate either version. Indeed, Psalmanazar’s backstory included a kidnapping by French Jesuit missionaries, and he had become something of a cause célèbre among the Anglican clergy – one of his biggest fans was the Bishop of London.

There was no single event that caused Psalmanazar’s downfall. The Formosan fad grown old and, like everyone else, I think he grew tired of it. He found it increasingly hard to keep his story straight, and came clean in 1706. By this time, no one really cared – possibly those that did had already worked out that he wasn’t the real deal.

Thereafter, he led a humble life as a writer and editor until his death in 1663. Perhaps ironically for a man whose fame had been built on pretending to be a Formosan convert, he found religion and actually wrote an article on what Formosa was really like – openly damning his own account as he went. He became a respected figure in London, practically a saint. The only black mark against his name over the next half century was that he attempted to write a sequel to Samuel Richardson’s Pamela. As we now know, the correct response to that novel was to spit in Richardson’s face.

Even to this day, the full truth about Psalmanazar is unknown – his posthumous confession didn’t include his real identity or anything by which his supposedly true story could be checked. Ultimately, all we really know about Psalmanazar is that he wasn’t Psalmanazar.

Straight Outta Croydon

I was just reading a book on Victorian sensational journalism (Black Swine in the Sewers of Hampstead by Thomas Boyle, if you’re interested). Basically, it’s a book analysing the way shocking events were reported in 19th century newspapers, and seeing if we can work anything out about the Victorian mindset from these reports.

"Think not-sexy thoughts, think not-sexy thoughts..."

Well, the Victorian mindset, as I believe I have mentioned before in these pages, was definitely not as straight-laced as you might think. It was a golden age of pious hypocrisy. Whether the straight-lacedness arose to hide the tawdriness of the minds beneath or the tawdriness arose in response to the straight-lacedness is not entirely clear to me.

Whichever it is, it’s clear that the Victorians loved a bit of sex-and-violence as much as anyone else. I do wonder if the reason Jack the Ripper is by far the best known serial killer in British history was because of the press coverage as much as the murders themselves. And as for their real attitude to sex, I think my favourite indicator is Henry Spencer Ashbee’s Index Librorum Prohibitorum and Catena Librorum Tadendorum, two comprehensive list of pornographic novels available in 1877 and 1885 respectively. In the latter of these, he noted,

Better were it that such literature did not exist. I consider it pernicious and hurtful to the immature, but at the same time I hold that, in certain circumstances, its study is necessary, if not beneficial.

So there. It’s for emergency use only. I shall elaborate no further.

Who would have thought it?

Anyway, this book largely confirms that. One story in particular rather leapt out as being worthy of further examination, a tale from the wilds of Croydon. Somewhat frustratingly, Mr Boyle doesn’t always give the sources of the extracts in the book – this, he says, is due to receiving the stories in the form of several volumes of clippings.

Anyway, this story took place in August 1857. This was the year when the Matrimonial Causes Act came into being. This Act, put simply, made getting a divorce easier by running it through the courts rather than Parliament. The Act was a long way from perfect. Significantly, it was very biased in favour of men. Men only needed to prove that their wives had committed adultery. Women, however, needed to prove that hubby was also guilty of cruelty, desertion, bigamy or incest.

Tales concerning divorce (or Criminal Conversation, to use the euphemism of the day) became the in thing with the papers, as they provided plenty of juicy gossip while also allowing the Moral Guardians of the Nation to shake their heads and tut. The Merry Tale from Croydon, as this story was headed, is a perfect example.

The participants were a Mr Lyle, Mrs Lyle and Mr Lyle’s business partner, Mr Herbert. It seems that Mr Herbert had been lodging with the Lyles, and Mr Lyle became suspicious. Now, these days you’d probably hire a private detective, but Mr Lyle decided instead to hire an unemployed cabinet-maker named Mr Taylor to spy on them.

Lyle and Taylor hired a room in the next house which, luckily, was right next to Mrs Lyle’s bedroom. Taylor’s original plan was to bore a spyhole, which proved ineffective. And so Taylor used his ingenuity to come up with an entirely new device. The judge would later refer to this as a “crimconometer” The device was a kind of scale attached to Mrs Lyle’s bed which could tell by weight whether one person or two were in there. Perhaps slightly letting his imagination run away with him, Taylor also included settings for three or four people.

And so it was that one night, Taylor was keeping watch (and drinking gin) when the levers on the crimconometer fell, showing two people in the bed. Daringly, Taylor climbed out of the window, across the roof and in through the window next door, catching Mrs Lyle and Mr Herbert in flagrante delicto.

In the face of such evidence, the judge had little choice but to find in Mr Lyle’s favour. It was just a shame that more-or-less everyone, including the jury, the judge and the reporter, seemed to find the whole story hilarious. In the light of the sheer bat’s-arseness of the business, the judge decided to award Mr Lyle one farthing in damages. That is, for those of you unfamiliar with pre-decimalisation currency, a quarter of a penny and, as the judge was keen to emphasise, “the lowest coin of the realm.”

Like many judges, our man was something of a cynic, and inclined to the popular view that many of the divorce cases brought were more about receiving damages than righting wrongs. Mr Lyle was unfortunate enough to be made an example of.

Still, if they’d thought a bit more about it, maybe they could have made a bit of money off the crimconometer. Think of the amount they could make off celebrities alone!

Snuff and nonsense

I see Terry Pratchett is working on a book by the title of Snuff. He says this title will play on the fact that the word “snuff” has more than one meaning (I can think of three). I’m guessing the scenario will be something along the lines of “snuff becomes popular in Ankh-Morpork and there’s a murder, also some candles need putting out fast.”

Snuff, perhaps sadly (perhaps not, depending who you are) is a habit that’s virtually dead in this country. Despite the fact that smoking is becoming less and less legal, there’s no sign of any major resurgence, either. Snuff, if you aren’t familiar with it, is powdered tobacco taken nasally. It’s normally taken either in the form of a pinch between the forefinger and thumb, sniffed from there, or snorted off the back of the hand. Particularly enthusiastic snuffers may choose to snort a line of the length of their forearm. It commonly induces sneezing, but I’m informed this is more common among beginners.

Enthusiasts of the brown stuff point out that it’s probably safer than smoking, and the British Medical Journal notes that it doesn’t involve taking carbon monoxide and tar into your lungs – they note that there may possibly be a risk of nasopharyngeal cancer. I’m going to put in the fact that nicotine – the most addictive substance on the market – is still a thing with snuff. However, one thing both its enthusiasts and detractors have to admit is that the habit is so uncommon these days that it’s impossible to come to any definite conclusions about it. Still, speaking as a non-smoker, it’s a lot less annoying to the rest of us than smoking. Just don’t sneeze on me, yeah?

Snuff first appeared in the sixteenth century, but reached the height of its popularity in the eighteenth. The reason for this was largely availability. During the 1702 Battle of Cadiz, Sir George Rooke seized fifty tons of fine Cuban snuff, which was distributed among the sailors and sold on dirt-cheap at the English ports. With the habit firmly established, a kind of snuff culture began to grow up. Accessories such as the rather exciting snuff box above began to appear (and now fetch a pretty penny at antiques markets). Rules and etiquette were established for the offering of snuff – depending on the person, you could offer them the Pinch Careless, the Pinch Surly, the Pinch Politick, the Pinch Scornful, and presumably some nice ones as well. There were those who condemned the habit on health grounds, but also those who believed it could be beneficial (for instance, the Gentlewoman’s Magazine advised that it could cure sight problems).

There were many varieties of tobacco available, and more could be created by careful blending. Later in the century, artificially scented varieties became available. Ingredients used included prunes, port wine, ale and even strong cheese. Why you’d want prune-flavoured tobacco, I don’t know. Mind you, I also don’t know why you’d want to wear a periwig, but people still did it.

I think I can safely say that the most devoted snuff-taker in England is one described by H. W. Morton, one Mrs Margaret Thompson of Burlington Gardens. Such was her enthusiasm for the powder that when she died in 1776, she stipulated in her will:

I desire that all my handkerchiefs that I may have unwashed at the time of my decease, after they have been got together by my old and trusty servant, Sarah Stuart, be put by her, and by her alone, at the bottom of my coffin, which I desire may be made large enough for that purpose, together with a quantity of the best Scotch snuff (in which she knoweth I had the greatest delight) as will cover my deceased body; and this I desire more especially as it is usual to put flowers into the coffins of departed friends, and nothing can be so precious and fragrant to me than that precious powder.

She also requested that the aforementioned Ms Stuart should walk in front of her bearers, scattering snuff in their path and on to the crowd. The said bearers should the six greatest snuff takers in St James, each of whom should carry a box of snuff from which they should feel free to take as much as they fancy. Instead of black, they were to wear brown.

I think if I were a smoker, I should demand similar arrangements as an up-yours to the healthcare profession.

What really killed snuff as a habit for all but a handful of devotees was the appearance of cigarettes in the middle of the nineteenth century, again as a result of war – British soldiers in the Crimea picked up the habit from their Turkish allies. Another contributing factor may have been a fashion for white handkerchiefs – without getting too detailed, it’s a little difficult to keep a clean handkerchief when you spend your day shoving brown powder up your hooter.

Will snuff ever make a return? I rather doubt it, unless cigarettes were banned outright. Still, it is worth noting that it’s not covered by the smoking ban, so you can get a snozzfull in the pub and no one can stop you. Try it some day.

London Lit: The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein

Early nineteenth century literature revisited and reinterpreted is a popular theme with authors these days. Well, revisiting and reinterpreting Pride and Prejudice is a popular theme with authors these days. I heard Waterstones was considering introducing a new shelving category headed “Books In Which Modern Women Fantasise About Mr Darcy (N.B. You Know He Doesn’t Take His Shirt Off In The Book, Don’t You).” In a shocking display of defiance against convention, Peter Ackroyd’s reimagining focuses on an obscure 19th century work known as Frankenstein, written by Mary something.

The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein is a bit of an oddity. I suppose you could call it a parody of the original, in which Victor Frankenstein and his experiments are dropped into the real world of Percy Bysshe Shelley and his social circle. Frankenstein himself is a contemporary of Shelley, and conducts his experiments in darkest Limehouse (shades of Fu Manchu and The Picture of Dorian Gray). Fact and fiction intermingle as Victor’s attempts to defy death are overlaid on top of Shelley’s life and work. Indeed, there are several points at which things get dangerously metafictional – most notably, Frankenstein accompanies the Shelleys, Byron and Polidori on the trip to Geneva that would inspire Mary Shelley to write the original novel. The death of Bysshe’s first wife is here given a distinctly more gruesome motive. And, bizarrely, the body of a consumptive young man named “Jack Keat” is donated to Frankenstein’s experiments – though it’s not clear how far we’re meant to take this allusion, as few of the character’s biographical details match those of the real John Keats.

"I hope I didn't do anything stupid last night. Oh no, I've created a blasphemous parody of life. The wife's gonna kill me."

The novel as a whole appears to be a tribute of sorts to the Gothic genre – I’ve mentioned that there are echoes of The Picture of Dorian Gray, but Ackroyd also alludes to Dracula and The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde at various points. The ending and the final explanation of just what the hell has been going on all this time leaves a lot of questions unanswered, not to mention the fact that it doesn’t really stand up to close scrutiny. To be honest, I found it something of a disappointment as twist endings go, but perhaps Ackroyd is playing with the tendency of the Gothic novel to be ambiguous on supernatural matters.

A major theme, and one that particularly grabbed my interest, was Ackroyd’s exploration of early nineteenth century science. The classic image of Frankenstein is the wild-haired scientist surrounded by electrical coils, lightning flashing all around as he brings his monster to life. Although this owes more to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis than anything in the original novel (although at one point in the book, Frankenstein is inspired by the power of a lightning strike), Ackroyd runs with the idea that electricity is how things are done.

Screen cap from Metropolis in which C3PO is turned into a woman using electricity or something.

Indeed, in those days, electricity did have all sorts of strange supernatural abilities ascribed to it. One early electrocution victim reported a distinct whiff of brimstone. Luigi Galvani (from whom we get the word “galvanise”) had conducted experiments in 1786 in which, when touching the nerves of a dissected frog’s leg with metal during a thunderstorm, the muscles would contract. From this, he concluded that electricity was the source of all life. We now know this to be a lot of hooey, but it was taken very seriously at the time, and Ackroyd goes with the idea that Galvani’s assumption was correct. The Shelleys were themselves rather interested in the possibilities of this hypothesis, and had discussed the possibility that it might function as a means of resurrection.

The morality or lack thereof of science is, as per many adaptations of Frankenstein, discussed. Although Mary Shelley never really made it clear how Victor creates his monster, Ackroyd uses the time-honoured “bits of dead people” explanation. This allows him to bring in the Resurrection Men, one of the grottier trades of the era. Long story short, surgeons and doctors needed bodies to carry out their experiments, and the Resurrection Men supplied them. Although hanging victims were the most legit source (apparently it was not unknown for friends of the condemned to have to fight the Resurrection Men off following the execution), bodies might also be sourced from mortuaries, graveyards or even – as per the case of Burke and Hare in Edinburgh - by cutting out the middleman and killing people yourself. Older cemeteries often have a watch house as a reminder of the scale of the problem. But the sad reality was, bodies were needed – were it not for the horrible trade in corpses, many of the medical discoveries of the nineteenth century might never have been made. Frankenstein’s use of such men, and the dodginess of their methods, crops up repeatedly and comes to have an important bearing on the story.

The juxtaposition of the scientist Frankenstein and the poet Shelley raises another factor concerning science of the era. Namely, the fact that science, politics and art were closely intertwined. This was perhaps best illustrated by the friendship of political writer Thomas Paine and steam engine pioneer James Watt, or Benjamin Franklin’s dual role as scientist and politician. The new inventions and discoveries of the era seemed fantastical, and raised certain questions concerning society. What did it mean for the class system if we could have engines to do our work? Meanwhile, the Romantics saw their own restlessness and discontent mirrored in the march of technology, which seemed Faustian or even Promethean. Indeed, the sub-title of Frankenstein was The Modern Prometheus. In short, this was an age when everything seemed to be pushing forward, and all fields of endeavour seemed to mirror each other.

Overall, it seems that Ackroyd’s aim here is to use the basic structure of Shelley’s original novel to offer a commentary on the world of the Romantics, both in fact and fiction. If I’m going to be quite frank (har har), I don’t think it’s his best novel, but it’s fairly enjoyable if you have an interest in that world. Otherwise, you may prefer the Mel Brooks version, which has Marty Feldman in it.