With The Little Round Button At Top
Concerning imprudent marriages of she-bears, cart-wheels covered in rockets, irrelevant bongos and what s'mores are.
Little ( r ) and often (er)
Let’s try a slightly shorter one this time, partly because it’s getting a bit dead-liney over here; but also because I think these things have been getting a bit over-long in any case. Your mileage may vary, but my instinct is that shorter-but-reliably-every-Friday will be more satisfying than the current system of longer-but-unpredictably-every-9-to-12-days-or-so.
Also, last time, I had to leave out a picture of a bongo just so that I could keep it under the limit that can be delivered by email. And any time we find ourselves gratuitously leaving out pictures of bongos, we need to take a long hard look at ourselves.
News and Ads
The Italian language sister book to The Researcher’s First Murder is available to buy from Monday! I say sister book (while fully acknowledging it’s a weird phrase) because Researcher’s itself is pretty much untranslatable, so I have written another, similar-but-crucially-different-in-places version called The Judgement of Solomon, which is translatable, and indeed has been translated; into Italian and German so far, with others to come. This one is pure text, by the way, with no pesky pictures to worry about.
Also, another opportunity to hear me bang on about Researcher’s and Jawbone is available to you, you lucky people, this time in Greenwich.
“What! No soap?”
The word ‘panjandrum’, or the phrase “the great panjandrum” is used by a certain sort of commentator to refer to a certain sort of authority figure - typically either a faceless, unaccountable one and/or a self-important, possibly bogus one. You know, this sort of thing:
Now then, if you don’t already know, what would you guess the etymology of ‘panjandrum’ to be? Maybe Latin, because of the pan- and the -um? Evidently someone at The Washington Post once thought so too:
But I think I would guess that it’s an English corruption of an Asian title of some sort, like tycoon and moghul.
It’s not, though. It was invented, apparently on the spur of the moment, by the eighteenth century playwright Samuel Foote, because the equally eighteenth century actor Charles Macklin boasted that he could repeat any text having heard it once, and Foote improvised the following to test him:
So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage-leaf to make an apple-pie; and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street, pops its head into the shop. "What! No soap?" So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber; and there were present the Picninnies, and the Joblillies, and the Garyulies, and the grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top, and they all fell to playing the game of catch-as-catch-can till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots.
I really hope the story’s true. Because while Foote’s plays are rarely, if ever, performed any more, his impromptu panjandrum lives on. Among other things, it was also adopted as the name for an absolutely insane prototype siege weapon tested by the British during World War Two. Essentially two (or three) massive cart-wheels lashed together and covered with rockets, it was intended to break up concrete defences, but only ever succeeded in falling over, falling to pieces, and very nearly taking out an excited dog. Do look up the video, it’s easy to find. (The dog is fine in the end.)
Commentary Box, on
As more people are commenting these days - which is of course lovely, and I am all for it - Commentary Box was getting a bit unwieldy. So, new policy: starting last week, I’m replying directly to the comments (if I have anything worth saying, I mean) in the comments section itself, and then I’ll just put one or two up here. This week, for instance, Jeanette Hall on the berry of the bears:
Bears also have a berry by the way. And the scientific name really wants to make the point that this is the bear's very own berry. Arctostaphylos uva-ursi is named so twice, in Greek and then (in case you went to a modern school that didn't do Greek) Latin. I went to a comprehensive and didn't do either but it's amazing what you can learn from botany.
This is a scientific name which is doing all it can to shout “seriously, if you’re picking these berries off a bush right now, look behind you!”
Beyond the veil, what I imagine the creatures in the title image are saying to one another; and I speculate about whether or not only Americans can get mono. Plus another bongo. But otherwise:
Love,
The Airport.