Love in a mist

Love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena). Frome, 11 June 2024.

Love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena). A seed mix (maybe 'Persian Jewels') introduced in Laura's garden twenty years ago and constantly generating new variants. I don't know why the population never settles down. I don't understand genetics, so am prone to the unworthy thought that no-one else does either. 

My favourite this year is the spectacular one shown above, growing (rather appropriately) beside the grass called Yorkshire Fog.

Love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena). Frome, 11 June 2024.

The coloured parts are actually the sepals. On a very doubled individual like this the tiny petals seem to be completely absent. 

One thing I hadn't appreciated before is how much the sepal-colours change. The pic below shows the same flower four days later.

Love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena). Frome, 15 June 2024.

Love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena). Frome, 11 June 2024.

In Sweden it's called Jungfrun i det gröna (the maiden in the green). 

Love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena). Frome, 11 June 2024.

The spice known as nigella or black cumin comes from the related species Nigella sativa. 

Love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena). Frome, 11 June 2024.

Here's one that resembles the wild plant of southern Europe.  It has just five pale blue sepals. The petals are the ring of small hooked structures surrounding the stamens.

Love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena). Frome, 15 June 2024.

John Welcome: On The Stretch (1969)

John Welcome, On The Stretch: A Richard Graham Adventure (Faber and Faber, 1969)

The County Corway Foxhounds hunted one of the most sporting countries in Ireland. So Bailey's Hunting Directory had told me before I left. It also said that every sort of obstacle was to be met, from tall, narrow single banks to broad doubles and the occasional stone wall. From the observations I had made when driving through it, I thought that the description of the country was probably accurate. Bailey's had also noted an almost complete absence of wire. I remembered,  too, a friend of mine who had hunted here some years back telling me that it was not an easy country to cross and that you were well-advised to have a horse that knew his job if you were to avoid being involved in some moving accidents by flood and field. (Ch 6)

On the stretch: obliged to use one's utmost powers.

Country: area of land that a hunt is allowed to ride over.

Moving accidents by flood and field: Othello Act I Scene 3. The Shakespearean tag was well-known in foxhunting circles.

Moving accidents by flood and field

[Image source: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/162207502637 .]

Richard Graham, former amateur jockey and British secret service operative, has been sent on a job to Ireland. His supposed employer (actually object of surveillance) has given him the day off to go fox-hunting. Arriving at the meet:

The weather still held and the mountains stood out against the sky, brooding over us, blue, remote and mysterious. Behind and below the village the country rolled away, a sea of grass fenced by those formidable banks. It was a foxhunter's paradise. It was also, I had the sense to see, a survival, something out of the last century. No jets disturbed the air, no lorries thundered here, no screaming youths with beards bore down on us with banners. Here was the blood and bones of a sport made for men. As I pulled the Land Rover to a halt behind a large green horse box, I speculated idly on how long it would last.

For Graham, hunt saboteurs are a noisy manifestation of modern life, like lorries and jets. We're getting into a debate about power that Graham never gets close to resolving. 

The country is superb but this smart hunt, Graham realizes, is fuelled by new money and is not altogether the authentic heart of Anglo-Irishness...

A few yards away from me two pretty boys were sharing a magnum of champagne on the bonnet of an Aston-Martin with one of the blue-coated girls. Another young man put his racing whip underneath his arm and remarked that yesterday he'd had a fall at the third at Wincanton. It was more like Kirby Gate than the South of Ireland and sat a little oddly, I thought, on the heirs of Flurry Knox and Dr. Hickey. (Ch 6)

Kirby Gate: the meet of the Quorn Hunt in Leicestershire, formerly a haunt of the rich and powerful, as shown below in its heyday, c. 1900.

A meet at Kirby Gate

[Image source: https://hallandadams.co.uk/products/kirby-gate .]

Flurry Knox and Dr. Hickey: characters in Somerville and Ross' Irish RM stories. 

When the chase begins Graham finds that "this fashionable field, like most fashionable fields, were not too great to go". He finds himself up front with "the top-sawyers". In particular a business-like girl on a "blood weed" who rides superbly. She turns out to be the daughter of the impoverished Anglo-Irish aristocrat Arthur Ravidge, and is thus Graham's adversary, supposedly. 

After a thrilling chase the hunt ends with the fox going to ground in a "shore" (Irish dialect for a drain, from the same Anglo-Norman origin as "sewer"). 

Top-sawyer: originally the worker who stands above the timber in a sawpit. Hence a person in a position of advantage or eminence.

Blood weed: The only definition I've seen is "a horse lacking substance". But this four-year-old is evidently as exceptional as its rider.

Graham and the girl have time for a drink. She asks for a port and brandy. Drinks and fast cars are notable features of the story. In the second half it expertly moves up through the gears and there's less time for drinks. At one point Graham, like the fox, saves his own life by slithering through a coastal drain.

Port and brandy: formerly a popular British pub combination.

Reluctantly missing out the race at "Tigerstown" and the ensuing stewards' enquiry, here's a longer extract from when the action starts to ramp up. 

Graham has gone to a Dublin address to follow a lead, but it turns out to be in a square of derelict Georgian houses scheduled for demolition. And then he's shot at from cover, so he flees into the house, but finds the back door barred. They're coming in after him.

Climbing on to the bath I reached up. I could just get my hands on the lid of the trap-door. Pushing upwards I managed to slide it to one side. Then I gripped the edges of the trap and pulled myself upwards.

Fear gave me both strength and impulsion. One agonized kick and I had got myself half through the opening; another and my weight was on my biceps. A desperate heave and I was up and inside. Then I quietly slid back the door.

It was only just in time. As I lay panting, the door of the bathroom opened. There were footsteps below me and a noise as if a door of a cupboard was being pulled at. It came free and then there was a grunt of disgust and the footsteps went away. 

I looked around in the gloom. Beside me was a huge galvanized tank with a sort of laocoön of lead pipes entwined about it. Leading to the tank from the roof was a lead-lined catchment channel. This was broken and leaking which explained the drip I had heard. The place was festooned with spiders' webs. But, praise be, just above my head, there was a sky-light.

The searchers, so far as I could ascertain from the noises off, were now in the upper part of the house. I didn't deceive myself that I was safe or anything like it. Sooner or later they were going to discover that there was no way out except the front door and after that it was only a question of time until they found me.

The sky-light was one of those affairs which are operated by a long iron handle and open outwards. The handle was rusted and the whole thing jammed with the dirt and deposit of ages. I squirmed myself into a position where I could get hold of it. Then I pulled it back and pushed it up. The window creaked and groaned, opened a few inches and stuck. I thought I heard footsteps coming down from above. Putting my shoulder under the window frame I heaved. The thing moved a bit more with a rasp of old and angry hinges. I heaved again. By this time I was making a hell of a noise, what with the protests of the window and my own struggles. I was past caring. I wanted out and that was all. With a bang the window came right away from its hinge and went clattering across the slates. The cool breeze of evening blew in on to my face. I clambered out on to the roof.

By now it was almost dark. Some distance away I could see lights on in houses and the evening glow of the city was reflected in the sky.

The slates were wet and slippery. Moreover the securing nails had rusted away so that the whole roof seemed to be shifting and moving underneath my hands. About six feet below me guttering ran along the roof edge. Putting my feet into this I tried to steady myself as best I could and to look around. The guttering didn't seem too secure, either. I felt it move as my weight came on to it.

Then I heard sounds of movement in the bathroom beneath me . . . (Ch 8)

Laocoön: referring to the celebrated classical sculpture of Laocoön and his two sons being overwhelmed by sea serpents. 

Laocoön and his sons

[Image source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laoco%C3%B6n_and_His_Sons .]

Perhaps Dickens was the more direct source:

“I don’t know what to do!” cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoön of himself with his stockings.

(A Christmas Carol, Stave 5.)

One book that I don't suppose John Welcome had read is Richard Wright's Native Son (1940). Bigger Thomas likewise tries to escape his pursuers by getting out on the roof, but he isn't as lucky as Richard Graham.

In Dublin, swathes of Georgian houses whose owners had moved out tended to become dilapidated tenements. The government was not sympathetic to preserving these emblems of the colonial era, and there were economic factors favouring redevelopment. Consequently there was a good deal of demolition of Georgian Dublin in the 1950s and 1960s. 

Richard Graham is oblivious to the political resonance, but Irish readers could not be. On The Stretch is a lament, part nostalgic and part caustic, over the remains of Ascendancy Ireland. 

*

John Welcome (pseudonym of John Brennan, 1914 - 2010) was an Anglo-Irish solicitor in Co Wexford, educated at Sedbergh and Oxford, a keen huntsman and horse-racing enthusiast. 

https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/analysis/lawyer-who-took-up-literary-reins/58779.article

Schumann's violin concerto

 

A clip from the third movement polonaise (which is in D major), showing the five note leitmotiv which occurs in all three movements. I mean it's the general shape that recurs, not the exact intervals. (It also occurs near the start of the Op 131 Fantasy in C for Violin and Orchestra.) In the first movement it's the basis of the second subject, so we hear a lot of it. In the second movement it's less central but nonetheless occurs in several passages. Here in the third movement it's the main rondo theme (but now preceded by a couple of other ascending semiquavers, not shown in the image above).

Both those works were written in 1853. Schumann's mental breakdown came not long afterwards. In my opinion there's no sign of it in the utterly lovely violin concerto, but maybe Clara and Joachim thought differently; at any rate it was effectively suppressed and its first performance wasn't until 83 years later.

There's maybe something melancholy about compositions that were basically lost until long after the time they would affect the main course of musical history. I feel it listening to Berwald's powerfully unusual symphonies, and again with Schumann's powerfully unusual violin concerto. They take us off to new places, but no-one else knew, so what does it matter?

Not that I feel the same about Haydn's trumpet concerto, now one of the most familiar and beloved cornerstones of trumpet repertoire. If 19th century listeners didn't hear it (basically because the keyed trumpet never took off), that was just their loss. 

It takes a while to feel certain the violin concerto doesn't have something wrong with it. That first movement, simply alternating its two themes (ABABABABA) -- is that a permissible way to build a first movement? Of course they are not just repetitions, there's magical transformation, but it isn't of the usual sonata kind. The word development doesn't seem right when some of the most striking ideas are more about stripping down the music than elaborating it. 

We worry. Schumann's orchestral music has a long history of being viewed patronizingly. Was the madness affecting him? And then the absence of virtuoso writing or high register passages, and what about the tempi? 

But I have an idea that Schumann's violin concerto did have one pretty significant influence: on Brahms' second piano concerto. (Another very unusual concerto.) There's the general subsuming of solo instrument to an equal partnership in the music, and the cello duet with the solo instrument in the slow movement, but where I really see the influence is in those elegantly relaxed finales. There's even a moment (the music pauses and rustling strings signal a key change), when it feels like Brahms is quoting. 

Sitting around at Mum n Dad's

 

Dad got his penknife and fixed the top of the water bottle I'd brought from Somerset and couldn't unscrew.

We were discussing school meals. My mum had bought this tart at Blackbrooks for us to share, but my dad didn't fancy the custard. I used to loathe custard at school too, but now I've dealt with the issue by simply calling it vaniljsås, and then I like it.

My mum went to högskolan in Sundsvall. She was a shy eater and didn't have school dinners. She went home in the lunch hour instead (though she didn't necessarily eat much at home either).

Once when she was going home she was followed by Tok-Bertil ("Mad Bertil") and had to take refuge in a shop. The shopkeeper had to call for her mum to come and get her. 

Tok-Bertil was the well-known local idiot. He may easily have been harmless, or he may not. No-one knew, but you didn't want to be followed by him.

My mum has been friends with Berit since they were 11. (She has an even older friend, Bo.)  

Dad said that when he was at school in Penrith they used to bait the village idiot. Shocking, but it was just what schoolboys did, in those days. (c. 1945).

Once, in the 1970s, my Dad was in the Penrith area and decided to visit his old school. He sauntered in to what was now a police HQ and began taking photos. 

Security descended. It was at the height of IRA activity on what was then called "the mainland". My dad was questioned at length by an unsmiling intelligence officer. When he tells this story he makes himself sound like a slightly hysterical Bertie Wooster, prattling away fondly about his schooldays. 

Eventually the intelligence officer decided my dad actually was as oblivious as he sounded. He ordered him to walk to his car without looking to left or right, get in, drive away, and never come back. 

My mum did national service. She was a "Lotta". She did it with some other girls from her school. Her best friend Anna-Greta, Birgitta Pettersson and Margareta Alvar. 

She learned how to spot planes and to radio in the details. She had a muster point with instructions to assemble if the sirens went, meaning Sweden was at war. They also sold hot drinks at ski events, wearing their smart uniforms. 

Portrait of Ptolemy I (on a coin by a later Ptolemy).  

From my dad's collection of ancient coins. I spent an hour chatting with him about them, and took numerous photos, most of which were total failures. 

Portrait of Alexander the Great bearing the horns of Ammon, on a Thracian coin from the reign of Lysimachus. 

Lysimachus, like Ptolemy I, had been one of Alexander's generals.

Ptolemy wrote a history of Alexander's campaigns. It's lost, but it was one of Arrian's main sources. 

The books you live with. My mum is reading Lilla Marilla for the hundredth time. 

This is one of the Anne of Green Gables books by the Canadian author L. M. Montgomery; the final one, in terms of the narrative sequence, though not the last to be written. In English it's called Rilla of Ingleside. It was written soon after WW1, which plays a big part in the story. 

Annika shares mum's passion for the Anne of Green Gables books. My dad considers them too sentimental; the only L.M. Montgomery book he has any time for is The Blue Castle.

The beginning of June

Armenian Blackberry (Rubus armeniacus). Frome, 3 June 2024.

A vast bramble thicket in Frome beside the river, and the bees were going absolutely crazy.

Blackberries (Rubus fructicosus agg.) nearly always reproduce by apomixis: the gene-bearing part of the seed is produced asexually and the offspring are clones of the parent plant. Nearly always, pollen is not used to fertilize the ovule.

Nevertheless insect pollination is required to set viable seed, in particular to stimulate the formation of the endosperm (the seed's food bank). This is called "pseudogamous apomixis", because pollination is required. 

Some other habitual apomicts, such as dandelions and hawkweeds, apparently don't need insect visitors. (Nevertheless bees often visit dandelion flowers.)

The effect of apomixis is to throttle down genetic variation. New DNA combinations occur, but only rarely. 

Instead clonally identical family lines can be discerned and each can be treated as a species ("microspecies"),  e.g. from the point of view of ecology, habit, habitat, distribution etc.

Yet they are unlike species in two huge respects. 1. All individuals within a microspecies are clones with identical DNA. In a normal species there is DNA variation. 2. A species normally delimits a population which is preferential for sexual reproduction. But in this case sexual reproduction, when it occurs, is presumably just as likely to occur between different microspecies as between members of the same microspecies. 

[All this is what I've laboriously worked out from asking the experts and reading stuff online. I could easily have got something wrong, or stated something with more confidence than it really merits.]

This particular bramble microspecies is Rubus armeniacus, native to Armenia and N Iran. It ought to be called Armenian Blackberry but is more commonly (and inaccurately) called Himalayan Blackberry. It's invasive in the British Isles, especially in urban environments, where it's easy to recognize because of its vigour and size. 

It has spread widely in Sweden too (Sw: Armeniskt Björnbär), competing with native blackberries in those parts of the country where brambles can grow at all (the south and west coast, basically).

Armenian Blackberry (Rubus armeniacus). Frome, 3 June 2024.

Nipplewort (Lapsana communis). Frome, 3 June 2024.

Nipplewort (Lapsana communis) by the river. The English name refers to the shape of the buds. In accordance with the "doctrine of signatures" the plant was once used to treat cracked and bruised nipples.

The Swedish name is "Harkål" ("Hare-cabbage").

The young leaves are certainly edible by humans. I have no idea if they appeal to hares.

Wall Lettuce (Lactuca muralis). Frome, 3 June 2024.

Wall Lettuce (Lactuca muralis), appropriately growing on a wall. 

I always associate it with the preceding species, I suppose because both have small dandelion-like flowers, are similar-size plants and flower at the same time. 

But only a rank beginner could confuse them, even for a moment.... well, that was me in 1982.

The upper stem and buds of Wall Lettuce are usually a rich dark purple-red but I've seen photos where they're green (like Nipplewort). So also check the dissimilar leaf-shapes and the flowers of Wall Lettuce having only five straps, whereas Nipplewort flowers have about a dozen.

Wall Lettuce is edible (young leaves and shoots). Like all lettuces, it becomes much less palatable when it flowers.

Swedish name: Skogssallat (Wood Lettuce).... common as far north as Gästrikland, present though rare further north.

Leaves of Nipplewort (left) and Wall Lettuce (right)

Greater Celandine (Chelidonium majus). Frome, 3 June 2024.

Greater Celandine (Chelidonium majus). Lots of pods, and a couple of final flowers.

In the British Isles it's an archaeophyte (ancient introduction). It's toxic, but was valued for medicinal use. Originally for eye impairment; Dioscorides reports the legend that swallows used it to cure their young of blindness. As often happens with already available medicines it was then co-opted for numerous unrelated uses. Fans of the doctrine of signatures decided that the yellow latex made it a good treatment for jaundice.

A useful history:

Sylwia Zielińska et al., "Greater Celandine's Ups and Downs−21 Centuries of Medicinal Uses of Chelidonium majus From the Viewpoint of Today's Pharmacology", Frontiers in Pharmacology 9 299 (2018).

Swedish name: Skelört ("Swallow-wort"), also sometimes Svalört.

[To be pedantically comprehensive, the plant known in English as White Swallow-wort (Vincetoxicum hirundinaria) is called Tulkört in Swedish. "Tulk" is thought to mean a wading bird such as turnstone or redshank (SAOB Tolk).]

Common Spotted Orchid (Dactylorhiza fuchsii). Frome, 5 June 2024.

A single Common Spotted Orchid that's turned up on a Frome trading estate.

The Swedish name is Skogsnycklar ("Wood keys"). In Sweden it's considered a subspecies of Heath Spotted Orchid (Dactylorhiza maculata, Sw: Jungfru Marie nycklar ("Virgin Mary keys")).

Common Spotted Orchid (Dactylorhiza fuchsii). Frome, 5 June 2024.