Campaign Furniture

Over the weekend I picked up this catalog from Katonah (NY) Museum of Art's July 2001 exhibit "Britain's Portable Empire Campaign furniture of the Georgian,Victorian and Edwardian periods"

The opening quote "Do not make yourself uncomfortable for want of things to which you are accustomed. That is the secret of camp life" from The Complete Indian Housekeeper and Cook, 1898 pretty well sums up the attitude of the intrepid Brit on Safari, heading to Canada or managing the Empire where ever it may order you.

Until 1871 gentlemen purchased their military commissions, and as young, well to do, rakes on the make, they chose not to do without. Fashionable cabinet makers specialized in travel furniture. Many of their designs were ingenious.



Civilians needed their own furniture as well. Managers of the East India company had to equip, at their own expense, cabins for themselves and family while at sea. Later, the furniture had to do double duty in their new homes abroad.





As fashions changed at home, travel furniture changed as well. Choices of wood, leather, colour reflected the tastes at home.










By the time of the Boer War, British Military men began to see the light. Extravagant travel furniture was no longer practical for then modern military requirements. Furniture needed to become light, and quickly portable. Military men on the move put paid to the mahogany excesses of prior wars.



If you have camped lately, you can blame the Boers. Much of our modern camping gear is directly attributed to British needs in this war.

If campaign furniture is of any interest, you may want to look around for a copy of "British Campaign Furniture" by Nicholas Brawer. Beware it's expensive. If you find it cheap, get in touch.

Toad

Looking for....

My lifelong obsession with hats continues. Can anyone help me locate this hat's identical twin?




Toad

PS: To kindred spirit Rechelle: I'd be honored to go back onto the blog roll.

What are the odds?

Your tax dollars at work.

Play the percentages with me a moment.

So Friday evening I'm watching "The Dog Whisperer", and about half way through a commercial for the local Veterans hospital comes on. Fair enough.

The ad closes with this announcement:



Within the viewing area of this commercial, every qualified candidate is known. How many can there be, after all?

Is a TV ad likely to drive more out of the woodwork?

Toad

Louis Auchincloss- A Tribute

I'd been too self absorbed the past several days, wrapped up on my couch with blankey, TV remote and puppy to observe, until an attentive reader brought to my attention, the passing of Louis Auchincloss.

I often felt I was born too late to really understand Mr. A's novels of the life and mores of upper crust New York, but whenever I need a good escapist read I turn to him first. Somewhat in the same manner as some guys pine for those heady New York days of "Breakfast at Tiffany's" or the early Playboy fantasy life, I naturally turned towards the gilded Patrician age of post war America.

Frankly, I wonder if Mr. Auchincloss's writing wasn't mostly misunderstood. I'm not certain he was praising the rich, for the sake of being rich. It more felt like he was an anthropologist, discovering a new tribe of beings. He always seemed to me to be questioning the why's or how's rather than the novelist natural inclination towards justification. He seemed more the Puritan.

Few of his novels are great literature, but all are enjoyable reads.

Two of my favorite LA quotes:
“The tragedy of American civilization is that it has swept away WASP morality and put nothing in its place,”

"How can you live in the times we live in and not feel, 'Doesn't there have to be some evening up?'

To his family and friends, My condolences. He will be greatly missed.

Toad

You choose.

At the gym today my IPOD continually shuffled between Jeremy Irons and Sting. I took that as a sign.

Near contemporaries, successful, talented, respected, political, philanthropic, and long married. They may also have the distinction of being the two most beautiful men of their generation.




The life of a screen actor must be terribly neurotic. You go to work, and a year later, the director shows you a film, and tells you to go out and sell it. In the mean time you've done 4 other things, have forgotten the work you're hyping and then have to wait for critics and the audience to give you feedback. For a ham like me, I'd need instant gratification. I'll take the stage, or a rock and roll career any day.

Remember the opening of the Masterpiece Brideshead? Has anyone ever looked like the young Jeremy Irons?



Except perhaps the young Sting?



To my eye they have aged fairly well too.






Part of the Faustian bargain of being married to one of the world's beautiful and accomplished people is knowing how and where to compete, and when to be yourself.

Both men are married to women who were accomplished actresses before marriage.

While Mrs. Sting may appear more the rock star glam wife, Mrs. Irons, an attractive woman in her own right, seems more settled in her own skin.







To each I wish much continued success, although if they each never did another thing, we would have memories for a lifetime.
Toad

The Good Life

Back Tomorrow

Toad

Robby Burns Day

Like sands through an hour glass, once again it's Robby Burns' birthday. The second of the two Scottish holidays this month.

My sole Scottish connection is through my daughter. Her father in law has accepted my unworthy self into their clan, McIntyre, just my luck them using an Irish spelling for a Scottish name. I am deeply proud none the less, and shall celebrate the day festooned in my most festive Blackwatch jacket.

Fortunately for me too. Burn's poetry has always left me cold, I have long preferred my new kinsman, Duncan ban MacIntyre's poetry, at least in translation. It's hard enough to be a poet, especially difficult if you are unable to read or write as Duncan was. He wrote primarily about the beautiful rugged highlands, its flora and fauna,and had the particular Celtic gift of poetically sticking it to the man.






But the good Scots deserve a day of feasting, any country which celebrates their second greatest export, which has loosened many a tongue of their greatest poets, on their currency, is one I am glad to be any part of.



I'm not a Scotch drinker, but I do believe in taking nourishment with the Gin that made Scotland famous, washed down with a bit of Drambuie.



Brother Scots we celebrate you on this day. Go forth and celebrate in peace. Remember, you have no idea where that haggis has been.

Toad


photo: aroundlochawe

Not last night, but the night before

We had friends for dinner, and deep into our third bottle of wine, we had covered most to the usual subjects. I'll not bore you with the specifics. Through the haze, I reflected on something I saw on PBS earlier in the week. See if it catches you as off guard as it did me.

Sometime in the not so distant past the joy of jumping rope went away.

Age appropriately (in public at least) until maybe 6th grade rope jumping was practiced in the mid 60's. Fifteen years later gone, and along with it all the jumping rhymes, and terms like double dutch. Gone, went the way of hop scotch, and 4 square.

Granddaughter Paige will be 10 next month, just about the right age for jumping. If I asked her to jump rope with me she'd think I'd had 3 heads.

Since I was in my cups, I posited that the last jump roper in America could likely be located, boxers and exercise fanatics excepted. Probably a woman in her mid 40's.

Know her?

Toad

Photo from Iceland Eyes

Wanna share? There's room.

So as to not dishonor the men and women in uniform, I have worked mightily to forget my time in service. From start to finish it was a six year waste of time and resources. Periodically, I wake in the middle of the night with some mindless memory, but overall the less thought about the better.

My new shorts arrived yesterday, and sense memories of basic training came rushing back. I could see, smell and feel the day uniforms were handed out, as if they were current. The ordeal is pretty much as you would expect. A bunch of scared kids on one side of the counter, a bunch of uncaring drones on the other.




Once you got your uniforms the next stop was the tailor. At Lackland AFB in 19XX the tailor was a euphemism for a long row of Mexican women with sewing machines. The women knew their job, they took one look at you, and hemmed pants to fit with nary a ruler, or wasted second asking needless questions.

Five minutes later, your 5 pair of uniform trousers were returned, and mostly fit pretty well. Cost was $5.



I mentioned this because new military uniforms the world wide smell the same, and by definition fit no one. Rushing to open my package I pulled the largest pair of shorts I have ever encountered. The "cuff" is 16 inches wide.



The length is not much shorter than Capri's.



For illustration I overlaid my every day Bill's Khaki shorts with the new ones.




Toad

PS: For those who read Mrs. Blandings blog, Friday was her day, she wanted no comments. Well, Mrs. B. I'm a ways farther down the parent road than you, and I cried along with you. I still regularly mosey to the basement to look at the bears, dolls, and comic books. My children will wonder too why I kept them. Someday they'll find out on their own.

An Unfortunate Coincidence

I received a distressing phone call from Number 1 son recently.

While he and his wife were at work, and the kids at school, someone broke into their home and stole anything that plugged in. Television, computer, games, pods, and players.

The local gendarmes says yah that happens around here sometimes. It won't be quick but we might get some of it back.

While most of it is stuff, and can be replaced, the sense of being violated takes much longer to heal. Mercifully, no one was home, or hurt.

Oddly, the day they lost theirs, I received an XBox. Obviously, I am not a gamer. In fact I made my boys play with the sound off. Continuous Mario driveling noise can quickly throw the unawares over the edge. I was close most of the time.

No my X box is somewhat different.

Mrs. T gave it to me on her anniversary. I was shocked since come anniversary time she gets not gives. Here it is.



It's a small jewelry box. Ten years, X, get it?

Toad

The door project

When you are living right, lots of your favorite things merge together, and if you're really doing it right it makes you look like you knew what you were doing all along.

This past week I have been playing with our Bentley, Camila Parker Rolls and thinking about the next house project. Both have issues which had me stumped.

It may not be your cuppa, but often my bed time reading is an ancient Rolls Royce parts catalog. Parts catalogs often show lots of pieces together, so you get some idea how the parts are supposed to go on. Lately my favorite sections have had to do with interior parts. Not fun necessarily, but important in the larger scheme.

My favorite part of the interior catalog is "Door Jewelry". The phrase is a holdover from the days of coachbuilt automobile bodies and describes the knobs, locks, pulls, trim and finishing details (escutcheons) used to piece the doors together. It's fairly extensive. I love the term. Later I came to understand its significance in home decor.

Armed with a cool term I decided that our front door needed dressing. The Park is a bowdlerized 4 over 4 Georgianish colonial. I began Binging and Google imaging to get a feel for what the true 21st century ideal Georgian door looked like.

One thing led to another, which eventually led to a small pamphlet on our bookshelves, Georgian Dublin. Remember the poster Doors of Dublin? Same thing only different.

Armed with my new visuals, I headed to the door.

The top picture was taken in the fall, a year or so ago. The picture above was taken this holiday season. A close examination, of the bottom right, will prove we have a new puppy, as well as a furry old beast.

After comparing picts, I have decided to leave well enough alone, with perhaps one exception

My original inspiration for the red door was obviously Talbots. Since we spent a lot of time at the "Red Door" I believed it might keep us home more. Now Talbots is out, and Chico's is in.

What color are their doors?

Toad

Adam

I received this email from #1 son this morning. I think you will find this interesting.

"Adam used to work with me. He left here about a year ago to get married and finish school. He's a photographer, he speaks fluent Haitian Creole, and has spent time in the past doing missionary work in Haiti.

For their first wedding anniversary he and his bride decided that 2 weeks in Haiti sounded like a pretty good idea.

They arrived in Port Au Prince on January 5th.



This is the blog of their travels. It's pretty interesting to see just how drastically a vacation can be ruined in 42 seconds time."


Toad

Groupon

Once again I am probably the last to know, but are you familiar with GROUPON?

Groupon is a nationwide (big cities)coupon service provided by business owners to get the word out about their wares. Click on the web site, locate your city, sign up and every day an Email arrives with the deal of the day.

In Mayberry on Monday, $15 bought a $35 coupon at a local grocery chain. Over the weekend $15 bought $35 at a local restaurant.

I bought and used the grocery coupon, and am happy so far.

Have any of you had other experiences with them?

Toad

Says who?

I was at the dentist last week. The concierge asked that I come in early to fill out the all important 3 page paper work. Page 1: How do I get paid? Page 2: What have other medical types told, so you don't sue me? Page 3: What brings you here today?

I'd cracked a tooth, and was tired of spitting fragments. Pretty straight forward, and I was taken care of quickly, professionally, and painlessly. Then the dentist read my entrance exam.

"Looks like you're about due for a cleaning", the good Dr. suggested.

Why? says me.

"Says here you haven't been to the dentist in a while."

What the form said, was that I hadn't been since early in the first Reagan administration. I know because I wrote that.

"Do they need cleaning or do you want to clean them?" I inquired.

Seeing that he wasn't getting a new boat out of me, I was turned loose, without a follow up appointment.

That experience got me to thinking.

How much of what is spewed at us as gospel, is created out of whole cloth, by folks with a vested interest in our fleecing?

Did people need to go to the dentist twice a year, before the American Dental Association was created?

Please, I am not for a minute advocating that you ignore your health, but really, do you really need that appointment?

Toad

The Worst Journey in the World

“Polar exploration is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised.” Apsley Cherry Garrard

Most males come equipped with the Explorer gene. Men who wouldn't walk to the grocery store for a 6 pack of beer seriously consider hiking the Appalachian Trail. Climb Mt. Everest? There are 4 television shows a week which describe it as a walk in the park. Single handed sailing across the ocean? Child's play.

Not many actively contemplate spending several years in Antarctica.

Apsley Cherry-Garrard's book "The Worst Journey in the World", may be the reason.

One hundred years ago British explorer Captain Robert Scott, set off from Cardiff to the Antarctic. His goal, for God and King, was two fold. First, to be the first man to set foot at the South Pole. Second, it was to be a mission of scientific exploration. Therefore they would bring back whatever specimens Scott's party decided the scientific community couldn't do without.

Cherry was the youngest of the party, brought along mostly to be a laborer. Toiled he did, and as one of the few survivors he cobbled this journal together from his notes, and the notes and letters home from the rest of the crew.

To begin, think of the weight restrictions imposed by airlines. Each of Scott's crew were allowed 12 pounds for their personal gear. The expedition was 2 years. Two years of hard tack, penguin, seal meat and pemmican.

Man hauling 700 pound sleds across hundreds of miles of ice, the texture of sand. It's a wonder anyone survived, sane.

The book tells two stories. Part one, details Scott's journey along with 3 others to the Pole. Norwegian explorer Raold Amundsen beat him by a month, and Scott's party died 11 miles from safety on the return journey.

The second part tells of the worst journey in the world. While Scott was heading to the Pole, 3 men, including Cherry were sent to haul food to various way stations for Scott. This involved dragging 2 sleds, in arctic winter (24 hour darkness) during furious storms, camping in tents if they were lucky, in unimaginable cold.

The sled hauling would take one sled a mile, leave it, go back, get the other. For days on end. On good days they would go a mile. After completing that task, they had a scientific mission.

The three men then had to hike, several hundred miles to an Emperor penguin rookery, collect and pickle Emperor eggs to deliver to the British Museum. Scientists were seeking a link between penguins and reptiles. Remember it dead winter, candle light only. Storms so fierce the men couldn't stand, couldn't see their hands. Teeth shattered in the extreme cold. Sleeping outside in minus 60F weather. All 3 survived.

Due to the extreme weather, Scott's base camp is still intact. The photos, taken from The Telegraph, show how the campsite looks today. There is a fund raising drive taking place to rehab the building, as a testament to luck, pluck and the spirit of exploration.

With Scott dead, it was left to Cherry to deliver the eggs to the British Museum. With great solemnity he prepared his presentation, and a nice speech concerning how the eggs were gathered and the great personal cost to retrieve them.

Museum officials blew him off, and sent a janitor to collect the eggs. They still have them.


The Worst Journey in the World" may be the greatest travel books ever written. It's they only thing Cherry ever wrote, and describes a world unimaginable today.

Toad

Follow Up, Calvin Trillin and the Underpants Bomber

Liberated from the current New Yorker, Talk of the Town

Crystal Ball
by Calvin Trillin


So far, despite all the attention given to the wannabe terrorist from Nigeria widely known as the Underwear Bomber, nobody has mentioned that I predicted this turn of events. How many dead-on predictions does a person have to make to get a little credit around here? Am I implying that I’ve been similarly prescient in the past? Well, now that you mention it, yes. In a 1978 column about what was then being called the New Right, I said that I’d had some experience in the early sixties with the previous New Right, a movement most memorable for speeches that reached a level of boredom not witnessed in this country since members of the Communist Party droned their way through the thirties. Given the number of years between the two New Rights, I wrote, another New Right should be coming along around 1994. Sure enough, in 1994 a number of readers (three, if memory serves) wrote to remind me that my prediction had been uncannily correct: Newt Gingrich had led the Republicans in a historic takeover of Congress, and the press was full of stories about the power and vibrancy of the New Right.

A coincidence, you say? A lucky guess that I couldn’t repeat? Wrong. In a book I published in 2006 called “A Heckuva Job: More of the Bush Administration in Rhyme,” here is what I said, in one of the non-rhyming passages, about the so-called Shoe Bomber of 2001: “I’m convinced that the whole shoe-bomber business was a prank. What got me onto this theory was reading that the shoe bomber, a Muslim convert named Richard Reid, had been described by someone who knew him well in England as ‘very, very impressionable.’ I had already decided that the man was a complete bozo. He made such a goofy production of trying to light the fuses hanging off his shoe that he practically asked the flight attendant if she had a match. The way I figure it, the one terrorist in England with a sense of humor, a man known as Khalid the Droll, had said to the cell, ‘I bet I can get them all to take off their shoes in airports.’ So this prankster set up poor impressionable Reid and won his bet. Now Khalid is back there cackling at the thought of all those Americans exposing the holes in their socks on cold airport floors. If someone is arrested one of these days and is immediately, because of his M.O., referred to in the press as the underwear bomber, you’ll know I was onto something.”

That’s right: I predicted the Underwear Bomber in 2006. You could look it up. Around the same time, I repeated the prediction in public appearances and, as I remember, a couple of times on television. (I firmly believe that, in this world of ever-diminishing irreplaceable resources, using a line only once represents the sort of wastefulness our society can ill afford.) And what transpired on Christmas Day three years later? Another bozo tries to blow a hole in an airplane and succeeds only in setting his underpants aflame in a manner that might have rendered him ill equipped for the seventy-two heavenly virgins who were to be his reward if he succeeded. And how is this bozo described by friends and family? Naïve. And where was this bozo educated? University College London, within commuting distance of that diabolical trickster Khalid the Droll.

Has that name—Khalid the Droll— been mentioned even once in the endless press and television interviews with so-called security experts who prattle on about “connecting the dots” and “fostering interagency coöperation” and “eliminating stovepiping”? No, not once. Not once has anybody said, “Somebody should have followed up on Trillin’s underwear tip.” Not once has anybody considered the possibility that, after the shoe-bombing scheme worked to perfection, Khalid the Droll announced to his cell, “When they’ve had a few years of taking off their shoes, I bet I can make them expose their private parts to full-body scanners.” Not once has one of these after-the-fact analyzers considered the possibility that, just as the thirties Communists and the early-sixties New Right tried to bore us into submission, Khalid the Droll is engaged in an elaborate scheme to embarrass us to death.

And what will be the next step in this scheme? I’m working on my prediction now. I just hope somebody is paying attention this time. ♦



Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2010/01/18/100118ta_talk_trillin#ixzz0ctV3EnXy

The Maharajas

Natch, I'm a day late and a dollar short, although I expect the web site will stand for a while, but the Victoria and Albert Museum in London has had a special exhibit on the Maharajas (ending today). The site is wonderful and can be found here.

Toad

Favorite authors

Would it matter, to learn your favorite author was a despicable human being?

Let's forget the writers curse for a moment.

Standards change, we forgive great authors who have come before, blaming their sins on, "that's how it was in those days", whether they be anti-Semites, racists, homophobes or wife beaters.

What about the the really heinous?

Can you separate the work from the writer? Does Faulkner offend your modern sensibilities? Do you enjoy Lewis Carroll any less for his child pornography? Does Barrie's fondness for young boys put you off Peter Pan?

What would it take?

I suspect that a good story overcomes any and all. Any thoughts?

Toad

Today is Mrs. T's anniversary

There is magic in this world. I see it every day.

Once upon a time I asked the love of my life to marry me. She said yes.

Today is the 10th anniversary of our wedding, and I am happier than I have ever been in my life. Just wait for tomorrow, I'll be happier still.

In our family its Mrs. T's anniversary. It's her world, I'm just along for the ride.

To quote Winston Churchill:




To my adored bride, Happy Anniversary, I love you madly.

Toad

Do kids play baseball anymore?

My question is not rhetorical. I'm curious.

In the dark ages, unless there was snow on the ground, we were playing baseball. At school, during recess and lunch, the 5th grade played the 6th, the 7th played the 8th.

Saturday afternoons were back at the school yard, playing pick up games. No parents, no coaches.

Does anyone do that any more?

I don't suspect so.

Makes you wonder about the near future of pro baseball, if kids don't play.

Toad