The almost impious pace of twelve miles an hour

All western coaches had been quickened lately by tidings of steam in the North, which would take a man nearly a score of miles in one hour; and though nobody really believed in this, the mere talk of it made the horses go. There was one coach already, known by the rather profane name of Quicksilver, which was said to travel at the almost impious pace of twelve miles an hour.

R. D. Blackmore - Perlycross: A Tale of the Western Hills (1894)


The novel was published in 1894 but set in 1835 to 1836 when Blackmore would have been ten or eleven years old living in the rural Doone country of Exmoor. Imagine his excitement as a boy in an age of horses, carriages and carts when he first heard tales of a magical machine from the North which could carry passengers almost twenty mile in one hour.

Come to think of it, I only averaged about 18 miles per hour for my daily Nottingham commute. Progress I suppose.

Pecks, Bushels and Baskets

R. D. Blackmore's novel Kit and Kitty published in 1890 is set in and around a market garden business near Sunbury-on-Thames. In the quote below, Blackmore gives us an interesting angle on the 'good old days' where being cheated by short measure was a feature of daily life.

Blackmore had an 11-acre market garden of his own where he specialised in fruit-growing, so he knew all about games regularly played by both buyer and seller.

THERE are ever so many kinds of baskets used in Covent Garden Market, some of good measure, and some of guess, and some of luck altogether, like a Railway’s charges. They come from every quarter of the globe; and the pensive public may be well pleased if it gets a quarter of its bargain. A bushel may hold a peck more or less, according to the last jump made upon it.

The basket-makers are by no means rogues, because the contents can make no difference to them. They turn out strong ware, at a very high price, so many inches in width, and so many in depth, according to tradition. Then they pat it, and pitch it down, and paint the name upon it; and their business ends, except to get their money. And of this they never fail; for the grower, as a rule, grows honesty as his chief, and often only crop. But after that basket’s virgin fill, how many meretricious uses does it undergo!

The poor grower, who has paid half a crown for it, never uses it again perhaps, until it is worn out, and comes back to him, with a shilling demanded for his name; when it has spent all its prime in half the shops and trucks of London. Here it has passed through a varied course of fundamental changes, alternately holding three pecks and five according to its use for sale or purchase.

At first it was gifted with a slightly incurved bottom, not such a deep “kick” as a Champagne-bottle has—which Napoleon III. vainly strove to abolish—but a moderate and decent inward tendency. Here the rogue spies his vantage ground. Before filling it for sale, he lays it flat upon its rim, mounts upon the concave eternal, and with a few heavy jumps of both heels produces a bold and lofty internal dome. Then he stuffs up the cavity round the side with a tidy lot of hay, or leaves, or paper, and lo you have three pecks as brave as any four! But is he going to buy by that measure? He lays it firmly upon its base, gets inside, and jumps with equal vigour. The accommodating bottom becomes concave, and he brings home five pecks running over into his bosom.

R. D. Blackmore - Kit and Kitty (1890) 

In the opinion of the crazy one

Has there ever been a craze, that was not a great success, in the opinion of the crazy one?

R. D. Blackmore – Christowell (1882)

SNP will have most left-wing manifesto of general election, leader John Swinney says

John Swinney has insisted he is not alienating parts of the electorate but claimed the other parties will not deliver for Scotland.

John Swinney accused Labour of moving to the right which has left the SNP as the only party to the left of centre.

Clodbergs

They showed some little acumen, but their fundamental error is this — they pride themselves on their intelligence. No man of any real depth ever does such a thing as this. He knows very well that whatever he is, there are half a million more so; that the age of exceptional intellects expired, at least in this country, with Mr. Edmund Burke, and is not likely to rise from the dead. Now we are all pretty much good useful clods on a level: education, like all good husbandry, tends to pulverisation; and if the collective produce is greater, let us be at once thankful and humble.

R. D. Blackmore - Clara Vaughan (1864)


It’s an interesting quote, this one. It suggests that education has a tendency to create a standardised product and does not foster individual intelligence.

Well we knew that but don't do much about it. Even as a casual idea with the inevitable exceptions, it does explain the vast number of educated clods we churn out. They mostly seem to end up in the media or politics which has the advantage of keeping them visible.

Or does it keep them visible? Maybe there is an iceberg effect too. Many more educated clods do seem to lurk beneath the more visible clods of public life. Maybe a clod of them was responsible for the dramatic sinking of the previously unsinkable HS2. 

Clodbergs we could call them.

The sphere of her usefulness

What does the prime minister actually do?

Liz Truss has been announced as the UK's next prime minister.

Boris Johnson will step down on Tuesday and Ms Truss will become the third British female PM.

“Physician, heal thyself,” is the hardest, and most unanswerable of all taunts — in the present condition of medicine — and when it is proved against the parson of a parish, that he cannot keep the Prince of evil out of his own house, the sphere of his usefulness — to put it in the mildest form possible — becomes restricted.

R.D. Blackmore - Christowell. A Dartmoor Tale (1882)

Forgive the antique language, but it does the job well enough. It remains to be seen if Liz Truss can keep the Prince of evil out of the House, because it has come to that. If she cannot keep malign totalitarian forces out of our democracy, then the sphere of her usefulness — to put it in the mildest form possible — becomes restricted.

Net Zero for otters

"It is not at all an easy thing to shoot an otter," said the parson, a dear lover of the rod and gun; "but if you have an otter here, he will harry your trout dreadfully. The only way to get a shot is to lie hid for hours. Nous would do more harm than good, freely as he takes the water. But, Arthur, you understand all that. I am sure that you are an old sportsman."

R.D. Blackmore - Christowell. A Dartmoor Tale (1882)

Different world, different imperatives. Otters competing with humans for food as well as spoiling the sport. Yet many people today seem to think their 'values' are immutable.

Who needs turkey at Christmas?

One night I lay broad awake, perhaps from having shot a curlew, and eaten him, without an onion sewn inside while roasting, but he had been so hard to shoot that I was full of zeal to dine upon him, and had no onion handy.

R. D. Blackmore - The Maid of Sker (1872)

A Stark Contrast

They passed a very pleasant day at Sker (as I was told that evening), pushing about among rocks and stones, and routing out this, that, and the other, of shells and sea-weed and starfish, and all the rest of the rubbish, such as amuses great gentry, because they have nothing to do for their living.

R. D. Blackmore - The Maid of Sker (1872)

Imagine David Attenborough pottering along a seashore telling us about shells and sea-weed and starfish, and all the rest of the rubbish. 

It's a reminder of how sentimental we have become. In Blackmore's day, those who had to make a hard living from the sea were not sentimental about it as we are. In my view it is one of the changes which is killing us off – our diminished ability to be unsentimental.

The joy of all things dies in the enjoying

For he, whatever pleasure rises at the beauty of the scene, loses it by thinking of it; even as the joy of all things dies in the enjoying.

R. D. Blackmore - Alice Lorraine (1875)

An idea derived from Kant perhaps, but to my mind Blackmore expresses it more succinctly. That first soft glow of sunrise early on a summer’s morning. Even an ordinary suburban garden can seem beautiful until the sun rises a little further, the heat of the day builds and human life begins to stir. Whatever it was is soon disturbed, soon gone.

Childhood Christmas was perhaps equally ephemeral. Weeks of delicious promise, Christmas morning arrives, unwrap the presents and soon enough the excitement fades - even as the joy of all things dies in the enjoying. Too soon Boxing day arrives and who cares about Boxing day?

A new job, new house, new car are much the same. A new piece of music, a long anticipated holiday, a special restaurant meal. Ephemeral enjoyment for most. As if we have lost not so much the art of contentment, but more a case of never having had it. As if ephemeral is the natural state of affairs and extracting more than that usually requires more than we are able to give.

In a far wider sense it is surely possible to wonder if we have lost the ability to enjoy what we have so arduously gained in the modern world – gained in terms of health, prosperity and freedom. As if we cannot even value what our ancestors achieved and built even as the joy of all things dies in the enjoying. As if we cannot value it because we cannot enjoy it.

In that wider sense, there seems to be a major political problem too. We are lumbered with a political class and an establishment which apparently cannot value what we have and therefore cannot even preserve it for future generations. The establishment looks on what we have, what we have achieved and loses it by thinking of it. Loses it for us anyhow.

Which may seem odd, but the quality and direction of political thought seems strangely incompetent, strangely irrelevant, strangely susceptible to borderline madness. As if major political actors are unaware of what we are, how we arrived here and how to value what has been achieved. And so we allow it to slip through greasy, incompetent fingers.