Bruce and the Fascists

     I cannot escape adventure. If I touch a bath-heater, it blows up. If I go swimming, I am carried away by the tide. If I go to a restaurant which has had a blameless reputation for 100 years, someone chooses that day to shoot himself at the tables. If I go on a yacht, it sinks. If there is a street fight, it is timed to suit my convenience. If there is a fire, I am never more than a hundred yards away. I am a sensational newspaper reporter who has missed his vocation.

Alimentary Quirks in Old South America

     Fritz Up de Graff was a New Yorker who went to South America in late 1894, and ended up spending seven adventurous years there. The result was a book, Head-Hunters of the Amazon, seven years of exploration and adventure, originally published in 1921, but now reprinted in paperback form. As one of the all time great travel books, it contains so many quirky vignettes that I shall have to reread it at some later date in order to allow them all to sink into my consciousness. But here are just a few.

The Hobo Racket in Michigan

     It's amazing what you can find in a church jumble sale! My mother came back with an ancient publication entitled, The Autobiography of a Super Tramp by W. H. Davies, the first paperback reprint of what was claimed to be a classic. It certainly possessed a foreword by George Bernard Shaw in the original 1907 edition, and had been reprinted in both1920 and 1923 at least, so it had some claim to fame.
    The author was a Welshman who sailed to America and almost at once fell in with a crowd who introduced him to life on the bum. I regret to report that Mr Davies and his comrades were social parasites: work-shy loafers sponging off the misplaced kindness and generosity of Americans. They had all the soft touches down pat: first a free breakfast from Mrs Jones, then a free lunch from Mrs Brown, followed by a relaxing afternoon before hiking to Mrs White's for a free dinner. The genuine down-and-outers - the involuntary homeless and unemployed - didn't appear on his horizon. No doubt they were busy scrounging for work between meals.

The Room That Makes Men Mad

     Society's memory is short, I am sure, unless it is constantly refreshed. Etched in my personal memory, for instance, is the incredible suddenness with which the Soviet Union, with hardly a shot being fired, was swept into the dustbin of history. But that was a quarter of a century ago. I have to accept that an entire generation has grown up, finished their education, and started both a family and a career without ever being aware of such momentous events. So one would hardly expect them to remember those landmarks along the way which loomed so large to those of us who lived through them. Like the short-lived Hungarian Revolution of 1956. It was quickly put down by Soviet tanks, but not before hundreds of political prisoners were released. The most famous was Cardinal Mindszenty, who sought refuge in the United States' embassy until 1971. A much more minor character was Lajos Ruff, who managed to join 200,000 other refugees in the free West, where he described his experiences in a book first published in Paris in 1958, and then in English under the title, The Brain-Washing Machine. It is hard to believe I had it in my possession for 44 years before reading it.

Napoleon, His Girlfriend, and the Little Red Man

     Now that the bicentenary of the Battle of Waterloo is coming up, it might be time to ask: how much do we know about the real Napoleon? The French right now are ambivalent about him. The fact that he was a national hero who gave them a string of glorious victories does not hide the fact that he trampled underfoot what liberty they had and drove them into ultimately disastrous wars, which cost them at least a million dead, possibly two million - as well as an equal number from other nations. Yet a glamour surrounds him which eludes other despots and warmongers.
     I have already told the story of how he was forced to retreat from a horde of hungry rabbits. Now I am pleased to expose a serious of personal quirks which I found in Frank McLynn's excellent 1998 tome, Napoleon, a biography.

Never Have Sex With a Steamroller

     Don't worry, folks. This is not some prurient tale of perversion, of which - heaven only knows! - there is more than enough on the internet. It is an account of a man who did a very silly thing, and found himself in a very embarrassing situation, which he was probably never allowed to live down.
     It happened in New Guinea in 1955, and the story was related by Tom Cole, who had arrived in the territory a few years before and started up a thriving crocodile shooting business. Mr Cole used to keep a diary, and he has recorded the names, occupations, and actions of all the white people involved in the farce, so I am prepared to accept as true his account of "the man who [had sex with] a steamroller."

Out of the Jaws of a Lion

     What would you do if you were a teenager, and your baby brother was taken by a lion? It happened to fourteen-year-old Tristram Kay just five days before Christmas, 1961. He had been living just outside of Bulawayo during the last golden years of Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, with his parents, his younger brother, and two lions. Older sister Leslie had left home. As far as I can establish, his brother must have been about eight years old. Despite not being specific about when he was born, his mother she did record the circumstances of his conception.

Single Combat: Man vs Leopard

     In the novels, Tarzan was forever fighting lions, his modus operandi being to jump onto the back of the animal, hold on like grim death, and stab it with his father's hunting knife, all the time uttering snarls not easily distinguishable from that of the cat. Killing a leopard in a similar manner was much rarer, but there were at least two men who killed leopards in single combat - one in a manner not unlike Tarzan's, the other in an even more amazing fashion. Both characters were prominent enough to warrant a Wikipedia biography, but these particular exploits are worthy of being related in detail.

The Adventures of Prince Philip

     A battered paperback version of a book published in 1960 once turned up in my parents' house. It was entitled, Prince Philip and what made it more interesting was that the author was his admiring cousin, H.M. Queen Alexandra of Yugoslavia. Thus, we find that everyone we know by a royal title appears under a family name. One has to remember that Uncle Georgie was the King of Greece, Uncle Bertie the King of England, Uncle Dickie Lord Louis Mountbatten and, of course, Lilibet was our future Queen Elizabeth.

The Strange Story of Antechinus

 Or Why It Doesn't Always Pay to be Too Macho

    A few decades ago, when my mother was still alive, we both happened to take a short stroll through the rainforest at Mount Glorious, west of Brisbane, when suddenly we noticed an animal like a big mouse come scurrying up the trunk of a tree. Gazing at its pointed, foxy, most un-mouselike face, I suddenly exclaimed, "Good heavens! It's an antechinus! We are lucky to see such a thing during the daytime." A short time later, the penny dropped. We had been incredibly lucky, for we had arrived during the only two weeks of the year when it would have been active by day: the mating season. It had only been while I was at university that the remarkable life cycle of these mysterious creatures had begun to be unraveled - in fact, not far from where we had seen it.

Yes, Virginia, a Bible Really Did Stop a Bullet.

     I seem to be writing a lot about war these days. Of course, we have all heard the story about the soldier whose life was saved when the Bible in his breast pocket stopped a bullet. But it's just an urban legend, isn't it? Besides, it has been effectively debunked by the Mythbusters, hasn't it?
     Well, not quite. Yes, it is an urban legend, in that nobody can tell you when, where, or to whom it happened. But folklorists do recognize such a thing as "ostension", when real life accidentally mimics an urban legend. As for the Mythbusters, all they proved was that no book is strong enough to stop a bullet fired directly at it from the distance of a normal rifle range. It ignores what really happens on the battlefield, with bullets and shrapnel spraying and ricocheting left, right, and centre, losing momentum with each ricochet. In fact, military rounds are designed to ricochet. So you should not be surprised that the Australian Bible Society does possess a Bible - or, to be more precise, a New Testament with Psalms - which did stop a bullet.

Itching Powder for the U-Boats

     When American forces were busy liberating the south of France, imagine their surprise when, along a road, instead of German reinforcements, up marched a British officer in full Highland dress, including kilt. Major Havard Gunn had been parachuted in some weeks before dressed in his Seaforth uniform, with his kilt coming down with a subsidiary parachute. From there he joined the French Maquis, or irregular resistance fighters, and no hint of a British officer wearing a kilt behind enemy lines ever reached the ears of the Germans.

Love in the Ruins of Warsaw

     "Most of us had some sort of psychological problem at the time. I used to suffer blackouts. Both of my brothers were in the Resistance. I remember walking along a street in Warsaw when a van drove up with blood leaking from it. Some stranger hustled me away into a side street. I was only fifteen."
     That story was told to me just over forty years ago by a Polish lady whose daughter I was dating. You don't know how lucky you are. By the end of the war, 85% of the city had been destroyed. Bloody were those days, and unholy their secrets.

The God Who Talks to Earthworms

     The Aetas [eye-tas] of the Philippine island of Luzon are negritos: one of those strange group of black pygmies, pockets of whose populations dot the fringes of southern Asia, remnants of a very early human migration from Africa, hunter-gatherers pushed into the rainforest by later, agricultural peoples. Psychologist Kilton Stewart visited them in the 1930s, accompanied by a half-Aeta interpreter. He discovered that, although not strictly speaking monotheists, they did worship a Supreme God, in this case with the name of Tolandian.

Fresh Fish in the Desert

     These days, of course, you can probably get anything in Alice Springs although, since it is almost exactly in the centre of Australia, you are likely to pay a lot more than on the coast. Sixty years ago, however, things were a little different. If, for example, you wanted to eat fresh fish, you would need to have it flown in from Adelaide protected by ice packs. It would also mean exchanging one load of protein for another, for it would cost you an arm and a leg. But one man found a way around it. His name was Charles H. Chapman, who started the Granites gold rush in the Tanami Desert in 1932, eventually controlled the entire Goldfield until he retired in 1954. Prior to that, he set up his retirement headquarters not far from Alice Springs. I shall now quote from a contemporary article.

The Lost Soldiers of Stalingrad

     The greatest battle in history was certainly the Battle of Stalingrad, fought at the city of that name on the Volga between August 1942 and February 1943, and which became the turning point on the Eastern Front. The fundamental details can be summarised briefly. The German 6th Army under Field Marshall Paulus forced its way across the river into the city, fighting street by exhausting street and house by exhausting house. Eventually, the Soviet forces counterattacked, hemmed in the Germans and their allies and, when the river froze, surrounded them. The Germans now found themselves ground between a relentless enemy and a relentless winter, while their Commander-in-Chief, Hitler refused any permission to withdraw, for all his life he had triumphed by the principle that anything can be achieved if you set your mind to it. Finally, Field Marshall Paulus surrendered in order to save what remained of his troops. It was a vain hope, for most of them perished in captivity.
     According to Heinz Schröter, the official German historian, 220,000 German and allied troops perished, and 123,000, including 24 generals, capitulated, of which only 5,000 came home alive. The Soviet casualties were similarly horrendous, and the civilian deaths numbered in the five figures. There were four million stories in the Battle of Stalingrad. This is just one of them.

Git Them Bastards Out of the Daffodils!

    When Norman Workman collapsed at home, his doctor told him his blood has been poisoned by the chemicals in the dye factory where he worked. Of course, these days this would be the beginning of a massive lawsuit, but as far as I can establish this was just after the end of World War II, and nobody thought like that in those days. Instead, he and his wife, Gladys decided to move from California to the Umpqua Valley of Oregon which, like most out-of-the-way places, was just crawling with "characters", and newcomers lived on sufferance.
     What to do for a living? Norman was over 50, his wife aged 46. On impulse he went out and spent $3,000 - which was a terrible lot of money in those days, and practically everything they owned - on three tons of daffodils. Then, because he knew absolutely nothing about farming, he put an ad in the paper for a manager. Obviously, he didn't deserve to succeed, but we don't always get what we deserve, and the business thrived. All of this is a background to the following anecdote, as told by Gladys:

The Burning Ground of Siberia

     On Sledge and Horseback to Outcast Siberian Lepers. Who could resist buying a book with that title? No even my wife, who is a slow and perfunctory reader. It turns out the original edition was published in 1892, the year after the events described, and the year the author, Kate Marsden became the first woman elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Geographical Society. She presents as an upper crust English spinster with a strong Christian vocation to help the needy. As a girl of 19 she served as a nurse in 1878 in the Russo-Turkish War, where she first witnessed the ravages of leprosy. When she heard of a mythical herb used to treat leprosy which grew only in the Yakutia, she was determined to find it, and in late 1890, armed with referrals from Queen Victoria and the Empress of Russia, she set out on a 3,000 km journey into the heart of Siberia in order to locate the plant, to report on the condition of the lepers, and to otherwise lend assistance to them.

The Bride of Salik

     Once upon a time in the land of Serbia there lived a man named Salik, who had a very jealous nature. And because of this, he had remained a bachelor until the age of 43, although he was both attractive and prosperous. Now, as some of you may know, in these countries marriage is not the individualistic thing it is with us. You are supposed to get married for the sake of the family and the property. Salik knew this, but whenever the subject was raised by his friends, he would reply, "Oh no! It would never work. I have a very jealous nature. Any woman attractive to me would be attractive to other men. It would only cause dissension in the family and contention is the community."
     However, after about twenty years of nagging, he eventually gave it. He went out, and after a few months, found the ideal wife: a hunchbacked dwarf with warts all over her face - and a limp.

Damned Bats and the River of Blood

     Every now and then we come across some rather curious beliefs from what we would regard as "backward" parts of the world. Because they involve what would normally be regarded as the supernatural, they are often lumped into the category of religion. However, since they don't involve any sort of worship, it is best to treat them as quaint stories created to explain unusual circumstances by people who don't follow our un-supernatural outlook on the world.
     Take, for example, this account by the adventurer, F.A. Mitchell-Hedges, who spent the years 1919 to 1921 in Central America, especially Honduras.

The Old Man of the Blackfeet

     The religion of the American Indians was/is a mosaic of gods, nature spirits, and visions, but in the background is the figure, sometimes remote, sometimes overarching, of the High God, the Creator. Contrary to what you may have read, the Great Spirit was not a creation of Christian missionaries, although their teachings may have had an influence on modern Indian spirituality. Among the Blackfeet, as among the Crees, Arapahos, and Gros Ventres, he was Napi, the Old Man.
     But unlike the distant Great Spirit of the eastern tribes, and the complex, multi-faceted Great Mystery of the Sioux, the Old Man was a familiar, grandfatherly figure, even given to practical jokes, who departed after his work was completed.
     After creating the earth and the animals, the Old Man constructed his wife, the Old Woman out of mud, and together they designed the human race. Of course, said the Old Man, he intended to have the first say in everything. That was all right, agreed his wife, provided she have second say.

     Old Man said, "Let the people have eyes and mouths in their faces, and let them be straight up and down." But the Old Woman added. "Yes, let them have eyes and mouths; but they shall be set crosswise in their faces."
     Old Man said, "Let the people have ten fingers on each hand." "No," declared Old Woman, "ten fingers will be in the way. Let them have four fingers and a thumb on each." So the people were made.

     I like this story, for it reminds us that the relationship between men and women is much the same all over the world. I might also add that, as the man of the house, I always have the last word in everything. And usually that last word is, "Yes, dear."

Reference: John C. Ewers (1958), The Blackfeet: Raiders on the Northwestern Plains, University of Oklahoma Press, pp 3-4, quoting Alexander Henry and David Thompson (1897), New Light of the Early History of the Greater Northwest, II, 528.

Love on the Run from the Japanese

     In early 1942 fourteen British and Australian servicemen made a break from Japanese-held Singapore. Only four of them survived to cross the strait to Sumatra. Then began a long and hazardous flight down the length of the island in order to link up with other Allied forces. By the time they reached the very south end of Sumatra, only three were left. They were Charles McCormac, R.G. Donaldson, and Chris Skinner, the last one of which was described as:

small, dark, profane and possessed of boundless energy and humour. An inveterate grumbler, he had a one-track mind and only one topic of conversation: women.

     In short, he was the last person you would expect to react as he did in the native village which sheltered them. It completely and utterly sidetracked the whole adventure. It was something no writer would think to introduce into any of those old wartime escape movies which were once so popular. He and the chief's daughter, Li-Tong fell for each other straight away, despite the fact that their stay was very short, and that neither of them spoke more than a few words of the other's language.

Napoleon's Rabbit Retreat and Other Trivia

What's more likely: being killed by lightning or by an asteroid? Absurd as it may seem, death by asteroid is almost twice as likely.

     That's a quote from The Noticeably Stouter QI Book of General Ignorance by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson (Faber & Faber, 2009). For those not in the know, QI is a British television comedy panel game, from which this book is a spin-off. It is a vast compendium of fascinating, but useless information - and thus grist to my mill, and this blog.

Not Fit To Be a High-Class Train Robber

     As everybody knows, the American west in the nineteenth century was by no means a peaceful place. The Colt .45 was its defining symbol. Many people lived - and all too often died - by it. But they did accept a certain Code. One rule was that you didn't shoot women. Another was that you didn't shoot unarmed men, and for that reason, many men really did go unarmed. And that brings us to a  nasty character called  Red Buck Waightman.

Rounding Them Up R.A.F. Style

     Here's an interesting story from the First World War, when air warfare was in its infancy. It is actually the first reference to strafing I have come across:

. . . . .

     All manner of adventures fell to the lot of our flying men, but on one occasion two officers, while on a counter attack, had an experience rare for the ubiquitous R.A.F.
     The airmen were flying fairly low. Soon they became aware that they were being fired upon from a near-by trench and sunken wood. Down dived the pilot, to promptly discover a party of Germans there, nicely sheltered. At once he returned their fire with his fixed gun, killing one and wounding three. By subsequent counting, it was ascertained that the Huns totalled sixty-five in number. Seemingly panic-stricken by this aeroplane attack, they ceased firing. And immediately a white handkerchief popped up in token of surrender.
     No British infantry were near, so what were the captors to do?
     The pilot came down to within fifty feet of the ground, and he ordered the Germans to come out of the trench. Up they tumbled quite joyously, so long as he stopped firing. Rounding up the good-sized party, the British pilot headed them off in the direction of our own lines. Flying not very far above their heads, and circling round and round to make sure that none escaped, the pilot and observer carefully conducted the batch across No Man's Land, and handed them over to the nearest party of British troops. Then those airmen flew back again, in order to "get on with it!"

Reference: Raymond Raife (1919). 'More Heroes of the Air Service' Boy's Own Annual, vol. 42, pp 179 - 183 at page 181

10,000 Cups for the Indians

       As you are probably aware, the largest producers of commercial rubber are Malaysia and Indonesia, and they accounted for an even greater proportion during the Second World War. But the natural home of rubber is South America. So when the Japanese swept down and gobbled up southeast Asia into their empire, it wasn't long before the U.S. sent a team of experts to Ecuador to set up rubber production in the trans-Andean jungles of that country. But what most people don't know is that, although most commercial rubber comes from Hevea brasiliensis, which is generally known as "the" rubber tree, what they now had to investigate was a secondary source, the castila or Panamá rubber tree, Castila elastica. And thereby hangs a tale.

His Hair Stood on End

     We've all heard the expression, "his hair stood on end", but has it ever happened to you? Has it ever happened to anyone you know? In our safe, civilized environment few of us ever get scared enough to put it to the test. However, we may have been scared enough to get "goosebumps", which is a minor version of the phenomenon, for every one of our hairs possesses a little muscle which allows it to be erected. Let me quote a story by Michael Andrews, from his 1976 book, The Life That Lives on Man, p 15 of the 1978 Arrow edition.

A Very Modest Hero

     Anzac Day is on the way, so now might be the time to tell the story of a man who combined extreme bravery with modesty. War may be hell, but at least it can be said about large-scale conflicts such as the World Wars, they allowed average Joes to channel their inner hero. As one commentator put it: when you hear about lone volunteers sneaking onto the Normandy beaches at night to make reconnaissance, or the members of Z Force sabotaging Japanese warships in Singapore Harbour, the question arises: what would these people have been doing if the war had never broken out? Probably catching the bus every day to a boring workplace, the same as everybody else.

Edison Executes an Elephant

     Did you know that Coney Island, in New York, once featured a hotel in the shape of an elephant? The Elephant Hotel stood 122 feet [37 metres] high and, to quote P. V. Bradford,

it had circular stairs in hind legs 60 feet in diameter each, glittering glass eyes four feet wide, telescopes on top and rooms scattered throughout its body, thighs, and trunk.

     It burnt down in the 1890s, but Coney Island also had a herd of real elephants, one of which was executed in a spectacular manner.

Solomon Wouldn't Have Cut It In Nigeria

     It's obvious, of course, that government was simple in the early days of civilisation. They didn't have to worry about fiscal policy, for example, or social welfare, health, or education. Let's face it: the only reason people agreed to follow a king is because they needed someone to do two things: lead them in battle, and administer justice. Thus, we find that the King of Israel spent a lot of time at the city gates settling his subjects' quarrels. Fast forward twenty-nine centuries, and in the British Empire we find the King's representative, the District Commissioner spending a lot of time at the bench settling his subjects' quarrels. And that is how a certain Frank Hives almost came a cropper in a situation made famous by the most famous of Israel's kings.

Hunting Aborigines for Fun and Dinner

     As every schoolboy knows, during the last four decades of the 19th century Queensland imported large numbers of Melanesians - kanakas - as indentured labourers on the cane fields. And no, "kanaka" is not a derogatory term in Australia. It is a technical term for  those indentured labourers and the descendants of those who were allowed to settle here. Melanesians who arrived in the 20th century are not called kanakas. And no, they were not slaves nor, except in the earliest few years, were they kidnapped. The government very quickly regulated the system and cracked down on abuses. At the expiry of their term, they would go home, bringing the consumer goods they had accumulated, and encourage their friends and relatives to do the same. Even so, in the last couple of decades Queensland had to compete with Germany and France for their services.
      In other words, the system worked to the mutual advantage to both sides. However, there were hiccups. For a start, the Melanesians were cannibals.

Beware of the Man-Eating Apes

     A grieving female ape, having carried around her dead baby for several days, sees a human infant lying in a makeshift crib. Overjoyed, she drops the carcass of her own baby into the crib, and adopts the human one. This, of course, is the premise at the heart of Edgar Rice Burroughs' classic novel, Tarzan of the Apes. And it is also just about the most plausible aspect of the story. Bereft animal mothers have been known to adopt all sorts of unusual substitutes. Nevertheless, chimpanzees are carnivorous; their propensity for hunting monkeys in groups is legendary. Indeed, it has been pointed out on more than one occasion that, barring the unusual circumstances of Burroughs' novel, a chimpanzee would be more likely to eat a human baby than to adopt it. But I wasn't aware until now that such things had actually happened.

Some Elephants Don't Like Being Teased

"Chiwit [a Thai elephant] can make his meaning very clear, very quickly. A year or so back, he was teased by two boys when his mahout was out gathering fodder; he disliked it very much. He took the boys in his trunk, one by one, and dropped them down an empty well. It was not very deep, but they could not get out. They remained there, crying, until they were released. Meantime, Chiwit had relieved himself over the well. The boys never teased Chiwit again."

Reference: Gerald Sparrow, Opium Venture, quoted in The Wide World, Jan. 1958 (Dec. 1957 in the UK), page 128

A Penny to See a Corpse

     You will note my profile describes me as an "amateur polymath". I thought that would be the simplest and shortest alternative to "widely read collector of useless information". (Some people, knowing my reputation, have sought my assistance in obtaining useful information. It doesn't usually take them long to be disabused.) However, as an amateur polymath, I feel I must bow to the Rev. Lionel Fanthorpe, author, radio personality, member of Mensa, and leading light in several Fortean organisations. And it was thus that I found the following story - totally irrelevant to the essay in which it was included, I might add. And since the good Rev. Fanthorpe is a much better wordsmith than me (he once wrote 180+ books in a period of nine years), and since he is unlikely to sue me for plagiarism, or even read this site, I shall quote it in his own words.

"Our Son Hasn't Started Menstruating Yet."

When I asked what she had come for I got the rather injured and indignant reply, "Are you not the man who makes women pregnant?"

     No, it's not what you think. The white doctor immediately understood that she required treatment for infertility. Werner Junge had come to Liberia in 1930, and pretty soon discovered that, what with infertile women, dying children, and adults suffering from all the horrible diseases the tropical jungle could throw at them, he had his hands full. But he was flummoxed when a boy of about twelve was brought to him with the complaint that his periods had not yet started.

The Mill That Made Melbourne

See you that little mill that clacks,
So busy by the brook?
She has ground her corn and paid her tax
Ever since Domesday Book.
        Rudyard Kipling, Puck of Pook's Hill

     Well, here is a mill that should warm the heart of Puck, for it was also mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086. Or, at least, it is on the site of the original, for no building is going to remain completely intact for nearly 1,000 years.
     It stands in Derbyshire, in the north of England, and was originally so important to the local economy that the stream, or "burn" which serviced it was known simply as the "mill-burn". Then the settlement which grew up around it took on the same name. In the Domesday Book it is recorded as "Mileburne", but the modern spelling is "Melbourne".
      Despite a population of just over 5,000, it was once the centre of a castle, Melbourne Castle, and still boasts a stately home, Melbourne Hall. This latter property had been inherited by Sir Peniston Lamb, so when he was raised from the baronetage to the peerage, he took the title, Viscount Melbourne.
      Then, when his son, the second Lord Melbourne, became Prime Minister, it seemed appropriate to name after him the new settlement at Port Phillip, which would later become the capital of Victoria.
     In the generations of cities, sometimes the daughter becomes greater than the mother. Most Americans, for example, are probably unaware that there is an older Boston back in England. Likewise, when most people think of Melbourne, it will be almost always the big city in the Southern Hemisphere. If the Australian Melbournians ever consider the name of their home town, they have probably heard that it was named after a British Prime Minister. But common sense should have told them that a nobleman always takes his title from his manor, and so there must be an original Melbourne somewhere.
     And it all started with a not-so-humble mill.

Reference: 'A Mill With a History', The Wide World, October 1945, p 311. (In the United Kingdom this issue would be September 1945.)

How Not to Organize a Funeral

     Marble Bar, in the Pilbara of Western Australia, has a reputation for being the hottest place in the nation. Just the same, there is supposed to be a hotter place, but it is not considered tasteful to raise the matter at a funeral.

     The "BARS" reputation though was upheld at a recent burial for the coffin was plainly labelled "HELL." "No need to have labelled it," observed a mourner meaningfully.
     "Course not," replied his mate, "all th' world knows where Tim's goin'!"
      The explanation was simple. There hadn't been enough timber for the coffin so the end was knocked off a Shell petrol case - so was the "S".

Reference: Ion L. Idriess (1932), Flynn of the Inland, Angus & Robertson (pp 192-3) of the 25th [1946] edition.

Tarantula Schnapps

Don't Try This at Home!
     Uzbekistan, 1920, and the Red Army was advancing on the great city of Bukhara. And some of the fiercest resistance was encountered at a certain caravanserai. Finally, it was bombarded into surrender, and the caretaker dragged off to a Revolutionary Tribunal. Well, he thought, this is the end of the line. My life is forfeit in any case, so I might as well go out in style and tell them everything. Have you heard about the missing caravans? he asked. Laden with gold, turquoise, carpets, silks, wool, corn, and weapons, they would be observed setting out, but never reach their destination. The Russian governor in Tashkent and the Diwan Begi of Bukhara made enquiries, but they appeared to have simply vanished into thin air. Well, he announced, I was responsible.

Tornadoes in His Genes

     I've just been reading this month's (November 2013) edition of the National Geographic. As usual, it continues its quirk of not duplicating the article title. Thus, Robert Draper's article is called, "The Monster Storm" on the front page, "The Last Storm" on the index page, and "The Last Chase" on the first page of the article itself. In any case, it is a minute by minute account of the death of three storm chasers: Tim Samaras, his son, Paul Samaras, and their colleague, Carl Young. For years - nay, decades - their life had consisted on chasing storms in America's "tornado alley" in order to gain scientific knowledge on the causes and development of these destructive storms. It was a dangerous occupation, and this time their number came up.

How to Cook a Rotten Whale

     I would really love to see the scientific results of the Japanese whale kill ostensibly performed for "scientific research". Just the same, the continuation of whaling by Japan and Norway (everyone forgets them) does not fill me with outrage as it does many others. It is well established that minke whale populations have rebounded and that the kill is sustainable. That does not, of course, mean that I am enthusiastic about it. To put it bluntly, there ain't no humane way to kill a whale. I would turn vegetarian if I thought the bullocks, pigs, and lambs I eat had been killed by someone on an all terrain vehicle shooting them with an explosive harpoon, then allowing the frantic animal to charge headlong over the terrain, dragging the vehicle with it, until it succumbed.
     Be that as it may, the demise of big time whaling has meant that the world has lost some of the interesting bytes of information it once produced. Like, why a whale left standing - or rather, floating - too long was referred to as "burnt", rather than "rotten".

What a Place to Land a Plane!

     Of course, we have all heard about the adventures of the courageous Allied agents who parachuted into occupied Europe during World War II, but how many think about the airmen who delivered them? The first drop was performed by 1419 Flight, 138 (Special Duties) Squadron on the night of 4 September 1940, under the command of Flight-Lieutenant "Whippy" Nesbitt-Dufort. And how did he acquire the nickname of "Whippy"? Let me quote the words of his friend, Jerrard Tickell.

The Girls With the Golden Bras

     Most of you will be aware that the Indians of Central America are not what they used to be. Rapid and massive depopulation was the immediate effect of contact with the white man's germs, even more than from the cruelties of the Spanish conquistadores. Where nothing but impenetrable jungle now stands in Panama's Darién Gap, there were once found vast native settlements with palaces of mahogany, and the casual use of gold the like of which the world will never see again.

Amazing What You See in the Outback!

     Prof. Tim Flannery is probably best known to Australians as the head of the now defunct Climate Commission, which caused some controversy. However, his real forte is as a very brilliant mammalogist and paleontologist. His book, Country (Text, 2004) is worth reading, not only for its scientific information, but for some of his personal reminiscences. Take, for example, the account on page 29 of his youthful venture with a mate called Bill into Rottnest Island, off Fremantle, WA.

Bill's parents had honeymooned there and apart from an unfortunate incident involving Bill's dad snoring open-mouthed on the beach, and a defecating seagull with a crackshot aim, they had come away with wonderful memories.

     But his most amusing anecdote was the one about the American paleontologist, Tom Rich.

When It Doesn't Pay to Have the Courage of Your Convictions

     As I pointed out in my last post, it doesn't always pay to have the courage of your convictions. Of course, we all say we admire the person who does. We also say it takes a big man to admit he was wrong.
     William Miller was one of those people who believe the Bible was written in code, and he had found the key. He was actually able to predict the second coming of Jesus to the day and the hour - apparently oblivious to the fact that the hour differs according to one's position on the earth. To quote the inimitable words of C. S. Lewis: "Thousands waited for the Lord at midnight on 21 March [1844], and went home to a late breakfast on 22nd followed by the jeers of a drunkard." Afterwards, one of his disciples, Samuel Snow persuaded him that the correct date would be 22 October 1844. But when the earth still turned after that day, Miller at least had the sense to call it quits, and admit he had been wrong. But for a New Guinea prophet, having the courage of his convictions came with a high price.

A Couple of Cargo Cults

     Cargo cults! They spring up like weeds in Melanesia, and mutate like flu viruses. They would be amusing, except that they all lead to futility, and many of them to tragedy. Not that they are really unique to Melanesia. They represent one aspect of the sort of movements which eventuate when primitive societies come into contact with sophisticated ones. The American Indian Ghost Dance had cargo cult features. So did the terrible cattle-killing movement in South Africa, which left thousands of people dead. It has also been pointed out that Westerners beset by the same ignorance of economics tend to go in for socialist utopias. But the particular mindset of Melanesia makes it the centre of the full cargo cult phenomenon.

Indian Picture Writing

     I had completely forgotten about this until I recently started digitalising my old slides. I took this photo in January 1983 in the Casa de la Libertad ("Freedom House") in Sucre, the old capital of Bolivia. A sheet of paper covered with local Indian picture writing has been pinned to the wall, and it is intended to be read in an unusual style, called in Greek, boustrephon, or "ox-turning". Essentially, the human characters are pointing in the direction of reading. It starts at the lower right, and moves left then, like an ox ploughing a furrow, turns right, then left again, and finally right again, ending with the two vertical lines at the top right. Can you work out what it depicts?
     It is the Lord's Prayer.

 If you want to see some more humourous signs taken during my travel, click here.

At Least He Wasn't Prejudiced!

     I don't know why Australian schoolchildren are never taught about the sterling work their country did in governing Papua New Guinea. Nothing in my schoolboy history mentioned it, and the same was the case with my wife, Esther, who was actually born and educated there. And no-one performed greater service in the field than Sir Hubert Murray, Lieutenant-Governor of Papua from 1908 to 1940, and now largely forgotten by his ungrateful country.
    But it is not the purpose of this post to sing his praise, but rather to recall a somewhat humorous occurrence during his reign. Needless to say, part of his job was to ensure that native workers were properly treated, and not to allow anyone of bad character to recruit them. I shall quote from his biographer, Lewis Lett, in this case, largely dependent on Murray's own unpublished autobiography.

A Submarine Mail Service

     First there was mail carried by horse, then surface sea mail, then air mail, but would you believe, submarine mail? And why, you may ask, would they use a submarine to carry the mail through the Panama Canal, which is full of locks? Well, basically, it was a gimmick. But it did happen. I shall quote the philatelic section of a once popular magazine published in December 1919.

Burying the Rhinoceros Head

     In 1974 I moved to Sydney and joined the School of Biological Sciences at Macquarie University as a postgraduate. And the first organization I met was a group of very earnest undergraduates called (I think) the Biological Sciences Club. I never joined in any of their projects, but I remember that the first one for the year was "Burying the Rhinoceros Head".
     To understand this, you must know that the school contained a small museum, which the curator was determined to make into a comprehensive museum. Indeed, at one point my studies took me to the rear (non-public) areas of the Taronga Park Zoo, and upon my return, I informed the curator that I had just seen a newly deceased pygmy hippopotamus there. Almost overcome with joy, the curator immediately got on the phone and asked the zoo if he could have the body. The zoo wondered how on earth the news had got out so quickly.
     Anyway, the museum had earlier obtained the head of a rhinoceros, which the Club immediately adopted as their project, carrying it to a remote beach somewhere in the vicinity of Sydney, and burying it in the intertidal zone. This is not such a bizarre activity as you might think. When you visit a museum, and view the whitened bones of the specimens on display, you probably never thought to ask how the flesh was removed. Do you imagine some hapless museum worker painstakingly scrapped and picked it clean? The most common method is to feed it to a special colony of flesh-eating beetles, who will get into every narrow nook and cranny, and do their job. In the absence of such minuscule servants, an alternative is to turn it over to the worms and crustacea which inhabit the sand between high and low water mark.
     So, a few months later, a new project arose: "Digging Up the Rhinoceros Head". Would you believe, they couldn't find it!
    Who knows? One day, perhaps after a heavy storm, you will read a news report of a mysterious rhinoceros skull turning up on a beach near Sydney, and everyone will wonder where it came from. When that happens, remember: you read it here first.