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Monthly Archives: November 2013

Did everybody bookmark Diane’s list of fantastic books? Good.

I was going to bring you more of nutty Ephraim, but instead I bring you an epic whine. Possibly a rant.

1830


Early Victorian Geezer:
In my day we read by candlelight and it was FINE! ::looks at the ashes of his son-in-law’s house and thinks how they’re all going to fit in his house.:: We didn’t have this fancy gas. Houses didn’t explode unless you shot a cannon at them.

There. That should set the scene.

2013

1. I bought LED lights for the house that can be connected to the wireless network and turned on and off remotely, put on a schedule, alarm, or timer and turned on or off etc even when you’re not home. You can also change the colors to pretty much anything. You can take a photo, or use one on your camera or tablet. I had a photo of macaroons I used so the lights in my room could be pink, yellow and cream when I was in bed, and then they would slowly turn off. I bought a strip for the hallway where the lighting was designed by an idiot so it’s always too damn dark and the switch that’s supposed to turn on/off the lights is either non-functional or at the other end of the hallway. Now we have a purple strip that comes on at 5:45PM and turns off at 7:00 AM. I love this. I will be replacing bulbs as money permits.

2. Where we live, we don’t have real internet. For some time, the best we could do is 3G connected to a router that works with a wireless dongle. The router also has ports for wired connections, which, it turns out, the fancy lights require. The “starter pack” comes with a physical bridge that you connect to your router via an ethernet cable, and then it’s just like magic! Wireless lights! One bridge can control up to 50 lights, and you can put the lights in groups and assign any variations of light, color, and intensity you like. This turns out to be fun, entertaining, a fantastic prank engine, and useful. Also, since this will be relevant in a bit, if your bridge isn’t working, you can still physically turn the lights on and off. Except the strips.

2.5 I had lights set up like this: On the days I work from home, the lights in my room fade on beginning at 5:20AM and turn off at 5:50 AM, after experimentation revealed I always need something I forgot in my room until about 5:50AM. The lights in the living room turn on at 5:25AM. I can also remotely annoy people in other rooms my playing with their lights.

3. Then our carrier for our 3G dongle had some kind of kerfluffle with Sprint and I came home to discover we had no internet. I happen to know AT&T 4G exists where we live since we get 4G on the iThings. So I went to the AT&T store and bought two wireless MyFi devices that were supposed to connect to our router. The wireless devices indeed gave us 4G speeds (YAY!!!) but they did not work with the router. So I got a 3rd device that was a dongle and … [imagine Carolyn’s life is hell] three days and two defective AT&T devices later, the Virgin Wireless dongle arrives. [Imagine some more hellishness] I get it activated over the phone. It works, but only 3G, which is OK since I really only want it for the lights at this point.

3.5 Because I was in light withdrawal. What do you mean I have turn the switch to get the lights on? Why can’t I have pretty colors? I want my macaroon lights!! Why can’t the lights come on when I’m still in bed? Where’s the pretty purple strip of lights for the hallway?

4. I connected the 3G dongle to the wireless router [imagine yet another level of hell, but shorter lasting than all the rest] but the router tech support people gave me the info I needed and 10 minutes later I turned my sister’s room purple.

The moral

Things are way more complicated now.

The future

Our grandkids will roll their eyes when we shake a finger at them and tell them, why in our day, we had to turn on the lights. And then turn them off. And if the internet went out, you went out for pizza.

From that nut, Ephraim Hardcastle of Walnuts and Wine

It is yet a maxim with some remnants of the old school of curmudgeon ledger-men, that to buy a picture is to “hang your money on the wall.” The same narrow notions applied to books — “What, lock your money up in calfskins!”

Editorial note: 1820: Calfskin. 2013: my iPad. I wonder what Mr. Hardcastle would say about that?

The stock of literature, with those who accumulated stock, besides the Holy Bible, usually consisted of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, the same lively writer’s Holy War, Fox’s Book of Martyrs, the Old Whole Duty of Man, a mutilated Baker’s Chronicle, some odd volumes of Jacob Tonson’s duodecimo Spectator, and Herman Moll’s Geography, commonly with torn maps, the Tale of a Tub, Milton’s Paradise Lost (never read), Culpepper’s Herbal, or Every Man his own Physician (the good lady’s book, under lock and key), the Complete Letter Writer, belonging to Miss, with Robinson Crusoe, Robin Hood’s Garland, and the Seven Champions of Christendom, the property of Jem and Jack.

Yes, gentle reader, reading has made a wonderful revolution in manners: every pretty miss can name the stars; and Newton, Descartes, and Tycho Brahe, are known to have been neither Egyptian, Roman, nor Greek; and the boys and girls may account for an eclipse, without being checked by papa with, “Such things are presumptuous, child.” In short, your magazinists and reviewists, your essayists and journalists, have brought your book-makers into vogue, until, such are the fruits of this scribbling era, “we philosophers, poets, and wits,” as a learned friend of mine has said, “no longer make a stir as heretofore in a party, like unto a stone, that, thrown into quiet water, maketh a disturbed circle from bank to bank:”—-no, “we make our entrance and our exit much like other harmless folks:” and this! in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and twenty! —” So runs the world away.”

All-righty! Reading is GOOD for you. Even if it does mean pretty girls can name the stars.

He says that almost like it’s a bad thing. Or so ironically cute. Look at the pretty girl, naming the stars like she’s not going to be popping ’em out like kittens pretty soon.

I have my curmudgeonly moments, and this is one of them.

Watch this Segue

I feel it’s only appropriate to follow that with this, taken from the front matter of an 1825 book on boxing, since, it turns out The Next Historical requires that I know something about Regency era boxing:

THE KNIGHT, THE DAEMON, AND THE ROBBER CHIEF.
A Romance. Price 6s.

THE ACTOR’S BUDGET.
In Two elegant Volumes, 12mo. Price 12s. Boards
By W. OXBERRY,
Of the Drury-Lane Company of Comedians.

In a few Days will be Published.

THE EVE OF SAN MARCO.
A Romance. In Three Volumes, Price 18s. Boards.

THE SPRITE AND THE LADY; OR, REMEMBER TWELVE!!
In Four Volumes, Price 1L. 1s. Boards.
By W. G. Thomas, Esq.

And so, we see that Romance is cheap. Alas, THE KNIGHT, THE DAEMON, AND THE ROBBER CHIEF, while listed in several Circulating Library catalogs, does not seem to be in Google Books. I found The Actor’s Budget. My God. That’s all I’ll say. The Eve of San Marco isn’t in Google books and neither is The Sprite and the Lady and the 12 whatever’s we ought not to forget. It’s MUCH more expensive that the daemon book. Interesting that it doesn’t say it’s in boards. Wonder why not? It’s their LEAD title!

I’m finishing up The Next Historical and as it turns out there’s boxing in this story. Which, to be honest, I should have known all along. First off, Bracebridge (the man who loved and lost Anne in Lord Ruin) was a man with a history of brawling as a young man. Thale, who also appeared in Lord Ruin, boxes and was often bruised as a result. [Insert author waffling about stuff] and so! There is boxing in this book.

Here’s the sum total of my boxing knowledge:

  1. Mohammed Ali was The Greatest
  2. Dolph Lundgren in Rocky was SMOKING hot.
  3. Rope-A-Dope
  4. Float like a Butterfly
  5. Mike Tyson bit off someone’s ear
  6. THE boxing establishment in the Regency was Gentleman Jack’s and men went there and did … boxing.
  7. My first Georgette Heyer ever was Regency Rake, which has the hero at some kind of boxing thingee.
  8. Sugar Ray Leonard: also SMOKING hot. And best nickname ever.

Even I know that’s not enough to inform a book.

To Google Books Advanced Search, Robin!

Yes, I am batman in this analogy. But awesomer.

Here’s a few things I’ve learned so far, subject to confirmation.

The actual fighting in boxing matches were referred to as battles. The men who boxed professionally were strong and fit. Some of them tremendously so. There were several Jewish boxers, referred to in terms we now find offensive. Many of the men weren’t particularly tall. Not so surprising since they came from the laboring class and, one presumes, were probably less likely to have the kind of nutrition and health that would put calories toward growing tall.

Not everyone agreed that pugilism was The Best Thing Ever. Witness these comments:

Arguments Upon Boxing Or Pugilism: Which Will Always be Proper for Perusal, So Long as the Brutal Practice of Boxing Shall Continue; But More Especially Applicable Now, as the Subject Has Just Been Discussed at the British Forum, No. 22, Piccadilly

William P. Russel

Yet in contempt of all law the brutal custom of pugilism is daily practised amongst us Even the magistracy itself is openly insulted by the previous notice of these murderous combats which is given in the public newspapers the editors of which by disgracing their columns with a disgusting minuteness of detail after the battle is over give a lamentable proof of their own vitiated taste and feelings and thus prostitute the liberty of the press to the great injury of the public morals Pugilism is a science which might have been very suitably displayed in a Roman amphitheatre before an assemblage of Heathen spectators but is surely a disgraceful practice in a christian country. The laws no doubt are sufficient to restrain these daring offenders against public order were there not a culpable remissness in enforcing them.
Footnote: The magistrates of the county of Cambridge very laudably passed certain resolutions at the last Christmas quarter sessions to prevent the disgraceful practice of prize fighting. Mr justice Grose in his charge to the grand jury at the last Lent assizes highly commended their conduct and called upon the public in general to assist them in their endeavours and observed that if after such notice any persons should abet such practices they would on conviction be liable to twelve months imprisonment.
Cambridge Chronicle March 19th 1808

A Concise View of the Constitution of England
By George Custance

Let no one however imagine that Pugilism has no influence upon courage. It is my firm belief that true courage is destroyed and a bastard feeling substituted by the Science of Defence. I do not mean to say that Pugilists are not daring and fearless, that they are not reckless of all personal danger but I assert that in them unsophisticated manhood is despoiled. True courage will always show itself in its exercise while it will invariably fly to the aid of the innocent and the injured it will never wantonly attack the defenceless. It is and must be otherwise with Boxers. Like that of a butcher it is the trade of a Pugilist to become ferocious.

Remarks on The Influence of Pugilism on Morals, Being the Substance of a Speech Delivered at the NEWCASTLE DEBATING SOCIETY on the Fourth of November 1824 BY WILLIAM VASEY

Keeping that in mind, here’s this:

This last method, much to our disgrace, is but too generally resorted to by the inhabitants of some of the counties in England, but boxing is there an art neither known nor understood; and, it is a singular and striking fact, that in every part of this kingdom where the manly system of pugilism is not practised, all personal disputes are decided by the exertion of a savage ferocity; and a fondness for barbarous sports is found predominantly to prevail.
Having then shewn, beyond the power of refutation, the superiority of Pugilism, and how strongly it stands entitled to advancement, in order to foster manly fortitude and vigour, can it possibly be doubted but that by the introduction of such a system, and the laws of honour by which it is regulated, the life of man would be more respected, barbarous propensities subdued, and our character rescued from the stigma of savage rudeness.

Pancratia, or, A history of pugilism

It is from such open and manly contests in England, my Lord, that the desperate and fatal effects of human passion are in a great measure, if not totally, prevented; the use of the poisonous draught shuddered at; secret revenge found to have no lurking place in the breast of a Briton; and the application of the dagger abhorred.

Boxiana: During the championship of Cribb, to Spring’s challenge to all England, by Pierce Egan

Suffice it to say, every period book (so far) on the subject goes to great pains to explain why boxing was wonderful despite the fact that it’s fighting. Which suggests to me several things; there were VERY strong opinions on the subject. The fact that there were laws against the practice suggests that the Boxing camp felt defensive– over and above the usual prose you see of the time. Because back then, you didn’t just say porridge was good for you. You had to write a treatise on the benefits porridge!

Yet, the laws were loosely enforced, and surely the sport’s popularity with the upper class is a reason. One account mentions how one of the combatants in a match disrupted by the authorities was taken up and heavily implied it was a disgrace that he wasn’t bailed out sooner than he was. From that, I deduce there was a code of honor; one did not let a boxer cool his heels in the hoosegow. If you had money, you bailed him out. That, too, stands to reason. You’re not going to get men to box professionally with that sort of risk.

Boxing was heavily class-ist. The great boxers weren’t noblemen, after all, they were men who labored. There are hints of gentlemen (“amateurs”) who fought at matches, but I’ve not (yet) found an account in which such as match is described blow-by-blow (literally, sometimes). There was also big money: From 10 pounds to over 1,000. The matches I’ve seen described, which were no doubt the ones worth recording, commonly had quite large stakes. The winner usually took 2/3’s, the loser the rest.

Very interesting reading.

Jane from Dear Author tweeted about a tin of 22 temporary Jane Austen tattoos, so I went to take a look. They looked pretty darn awesome to me! I’m told the tattoos have sold out, so they’re currently in short supply. Bummer, huh?

Here’s a picture of the tattoos that come in the tin:

The back of a tin of 22 Jane Austen temporary tattoos

Jane Austen Tattoos

“Imprudent” is my favorite. I am tempted to get that word as a real tattoo.

Perhaps you’re wondering why that’s such an amateurish photo. Well, because I took it with my phone and I’m only willing to work so hard on this sort of thing. Perhaps you are also wondering, if the tattoos sold out, HOW did Carolyn get a picture of the back of one of the tins?

Both good questions.

Answer: I bought 5 of them. So I guess it’s at least partly my fault they’re in short supply.

About now you may be asking, What’s she gonna do with 5 tins of Jane Austen temporary tattoos! (Besides put “imprudent” in 5 risky places and then dance around gloating.)

ANOTHER good question.

I’m giving one of them away here. Yes, that’s right. One lucky Risky reader will get a tin of 22 Jane Austen temporary tattoos. Because I am awesome that way. I’m giving another away at my blog, and one at my facebook page. I’ll do another giveaway on twitter, too.

Rules and other Stuff You Should Know

Void where prohibited. No purchase necessary. You must be 18 to enter. Winner selected at random from among qualified entrants. You have to enter before or at the deadline. No one related to me or employed by me is eligible to win. The deadline is 11:59:59 PM EST Monday December 2, 2013. (EST because that’s the time zone of this blog.) All prizes will be awarded.

How to Enter

In the comments to this post, complete the following question:

Jane Austen would approve of:

Like this: Jane Austen would approve of: grilled cheese sandwiches.

There you go.

Enter! Winner announced next Wednesday.

stickytoffeeHere’s my follow-up to a mighty sweet Thanksgiving.  I’ll start right here by admitting that I love food (I know – who doesn’t?).  My extreme love of dessert is thwarted by the fact that certain factors make it impossible for me to indulge on a regular basis. Thursday was one of the exceptions. I also misbehave (culinarily) on Christmas and the occasional birthday.

In between bouts of gustatory vice, I manage this sorry state of affairs by vicariously indulging  in food web sites. One of my favorites is Great British Puddings. There are some great recipes although, if you’re in the US, you’ll have to do some conversions to get the ingredients right. Happily, the site includes a conversion table.

The picture I’ve included is, Sticky  Toffee Pudding, one of my favorites. I believe this is considered a rather low-class choice in England. But who cares?  I make this every Christmas and it could only be improved if I could get my hands on some honest-to-goodness clotted cream. But, even without it’s yummy. So, whether you want to bake or, like me,  indulge vicariously, this might be right up your alley.

Do you have favorite food sites?  Please share.  One can never have too much vice.

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