Is that a chisel in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?

I’m definitely going to this. I’ve long been a fan of Gaudier-Brzeska, initially coming to him through Pound and Wyndham Lewis. Likewise Epstein.

But most of all I’m looking forward to seeing Eric Gill’s designs and sculptures. There’s an article on him here. Whenever I walk past Broadcasting House, with Gill’s sculpture of Prospero and Ariel (see the photo accompanying the article) I’m reminded of the story, related by Simon Loxley in his Type: The Secret History of Letters:

The governors of the BBC, viewing the work from behind the tarpaulin, were startled by what they considered the extravagant dimensions of Ariel’s penis, and Gill was ordered to make a reduction.

I hadn’t realised, until I read the book, that Gill had been a pupil of Edward Johnston, the man who designed the London Underground typeface. Perhaps I should have done, the famous Gill Sans typeface closely resembles Johnston’s iconic creation.

Hey, it’s not all sans serif round here though – we are nothing if not bookish after all. David Kindersley was an apprentice to Eric Gill (to continue the genealogy) and in 1959, infuriated by the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation’s decision to go for a mixed case sans serif face for the signs on Britain’s expanding road system, produced his own MoT typeface.

[won't let me link to the example of his road sign, sadly - you can see it on the link below]

The one on the right will be the familiar one, as it is the one that the Ministry of Transport eventually went with. There’s an article on the kerfuffle here, part of an excellent general history of road signs.

No, come back, seriously, I’m a wow at parties.

I would question the statement in that piece that it was Kindersley’s evidence that was found to be suspect though. According to Loxley it was the Ministry that had cited the (apparently non-existant) German evidence, and the dubious Californian evidence (the dodgy dossier of the late ’50s – Suez had nothing on it).  Kindersley’s typeface was more legible on smaller signs, and to my eye anyway, much more attractive. Difficult to see from the picture above, but it had been carefully designed for maximum utility -

Few of the letters are consistent with each other in the places where you would expect them to be. The top crossbar on the F ends with an upper serif and a slightly flared lower edge, whereas the corresponding section of the E has a double serif; on the E it is flared. the crossbar of the T is slightly flared, but has no serifs. The angled strokes of the Y are fatter, then taper, whereas the strokes of the V are of consistent width. The top of angle of the N has a small serif; those of the M have none. The bottom of the vertical stroke of the R has one small serif on the left edge, nothing on the right, whereas on the P there is a small serif on the left edge and a large on the on the right.

Kindersley had designed the alphabet this way to create maximum distinctiveness between the characters; he wanted there to be no confusion between them when view from a distance.

Few of the letters are consistent with each other in the places where you would expect them to be. The top crossbar on the F ends with an upper serif and a slightly flared lower edge, whereas the corresponding section of the E has a double serif; on the E it is flared. the crossbar of the T is slightly flared, but has no serifs. The angled strokes of the Y are fatter, then taper, whereas the strokes of the V are of consistent width. The top of angle of the N has a small serif; those of the M have none. The bottom of the vertical stroke of the R has one small serif on the left edge, nothing on the right, whereas on the P there is a small serif on the left edge and a large on the on the right.

Kindersley had designed the alphabet this way to create maximum distinctiveness between the characters; he wanted there to be no confusion between them when view from a distance.

It has a strongly British feel to it, weighty like old money, idiosyncratic and effective both in appearance and design, and would have reduced the size of the vast hoardings of directions that punctuate our roads. I wish they’d taken it up.

Kindersley married a very young wife late in his life, who survives him and carries on his work at the Cardozo-Kindersley workshop. They designed and executed the distinctive main gates at the British Library. Which, I think, brings us safely back to books, thankfully cocooned again from the world of fast cars and big willies.

Dear Person Who Found His or Her Way Here Using the Search Terms ‘Guicciardini’ and ‘Cheese’

I assume you were looking for a suitable cheese to have with a wine from the Guicciardini-Strozzi estate. If so, might I suggest a table pecorino? (NB: Not the hard, grating version, pecorino romano, which in its packaged supermarket form is disgusting.)

If, however, you were looking for mentions of cheese in the works of Lodovico Guicciardini, as I initially thought, then might I direct you to page 37 of the English translation (1593) of his Descrittione di [...] Paese Bassi?

England

Thence come Cloathes and carsayes [kerseys] of all sorts, and of them great aboundance, both fine and course [sic], Frises, fine wooll, excellent Saffron, but no great quantitie, Tinne, Lead, Sheep skins, Cony skins, and divers sorts of fine furres, lether, Beere, Cheese and other victuals, and Malmesie (malmsey) brought out of Candia into England.

Fancy a pint?

I was going through unposted posts the other day – detritus from my phase incommunicado. Most of them were gravely disappointing, but I did find this (I’ll get back to Stevenson-proper soon, onist injun) -

A hiatus in the Idiot and the Dog’s affairs has meant the ongoing peripatetic and trivial analysis of Stevenson has fallen by the wayside for the moment. However, offering something half-baked or jejune is better than offering nothing at all, just as if a job’s worth doing it’s worth doing as quickly as possible so we can all get down the pub. So:

In one of Stevenson’s letters (Vol 1 of the Mehew edition, Letter [can't now remember which letter - more evidence of my terrible notetaking - I'll find out, promise]) Stevenson finds himself in a railway carriage with an eccentric old man;

I addressed to him some remarks on the subject of the weather; but he appeared completely shut up by the novelty of my views on the subject, as he said no more till the end of our journey. By dwelling upon this subject, it seems that his mind, too weak to grapple with such subjects, became entirely deranged; for he suddenly began to talk aloud to himself and to snap his fingers, and to nod his head in an encouraging manner. At first I expected to be Mullered; but the journey ended too soon and I was rescued.

There is a footnote -

Franz Muller murdered Thomas Briggs in a London railways carriage in July 1864. He attempted to escape to America but was arrested on arrival in New York. The case excited great public interest.

This gave me to contemplate the word ‘mullered’ (pronounced as in the German - mʊllered, or müllered if you will).

In our contemporary English society, where we uphold the fine tradition of celebrating Liberty by going out and getting gut-bustingly drunk, getting mullered means to get very very pissed and is one of those words used to designate a debilitating self-imposed attack upon the senses and nervous system through excessive consumption of alcohol.

‘I was well mullered last night,’ for instance. (See also – brace yourselves ladies –  arseholed, twatted, fucked, smashed, mashed, lashed, the aforementioned pissed, blitzed, cunted, wrecked, slaughtered, and the memorable occasion when my brother, in answer to a question from my mother as to where he was going, said, ‘I’m going out to get damaged.’ And people wonder why our town centres are in a state.)

Anyway – whence, I wondered, this word. Could it have continued from Stevenson’s time? Or was it a coincidental modern version?

The Internet asserted vaguely that it was possibly adapted from Gerd Müller, the prolific German striker of the ’70s, known for his strikes of prodigious power into the back of the net – thus, ‘Cor, did you see ‘im hoof that ball? He well müllered it‘ (actual usage), or from the popular tabloid cliche of the Mad Mullah, used conveniently to label any Middle Eastern religious leader who happened to enter the public consciousness. In fact interestingly, since I thought it was a ’70s/80s thing, Wikipedia suggests that this term was first used about Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, who was around at the turn of the 19th century.

To get back to the point in hand; neither of those explanations seemed to carry any sort of weight of authority behind them. Not that you can necessarily expect such certainty in this sort of area, but still, I felt the quarry had not yet been run to ground. That latter derivation from the Mad Mullah seemed most unlikely.

The idea that it originated from the verb ‘to muller’, to beat or pound (as in a muller – the vessel in which mulled wine was made) was tempting but foundered on the rocks of pronunciation – sounds like ‘to mull over’ don’t you know. Müller might go to muller, (and indeed did, see below) but surely not the other way round.

A dictionary of modern slang was not much use, telling me only that Mullah was a Dublin slang term for any Irishman not from Dublin. A new one on me.

Time to pull out the OED -

müller – also muller [f. the name of Franz Müller, a murderer, who was convicted in 1864 on circumstantial evidence in which a hat was of considerable significance]. To alter (a hat) in the manner alleged to have been done by Franz Müller. Also as sb., a type of flat-topped felt hat similar to that associated with Müller.

1864 in Farmer & Henly Slang (1896) IV .384/1 In a small shop not from from Sloane-square, Chelsea, may be seen the following tasteful announcement: Hats muller’d here.

1909 Daily Chron. 22 Nov. 4/7 Müller’s hat … formed the connectcing link in a remarkable chain of circumstantial evidence. Henceforth ‘mullers’, as they were called, were tabooed.

Note that they don’t actually have the definition as used by Stevenson – that is to be attacked in such a way. Well, and what of it? On the whole I’m inclined to go with the Gerd Müller version, mainly because I find it slightly unlikely that the pronounciation would have been preserved over all these years, and also, well the source feels more likely for your lager swilling hoolie such as wot I is. That’s no guarantee though, I mean  ’quid’s been in continuous use for centuries innit.

Maybe these chaps will know. After all, they know about hats. And language. Should be a cinch. I don’t know about these things, do I.

Oh, Wikipedia has a nice couple of bits of trivia, if you choose to believe such things (place well above ‘man in pub’ but slightly below ’scholarly book’, I’d say) -

The murder of Briggs resulted in the establishment of compulsory communication between train passengers and members of the crew. If Briggs had been able to contact the train driver or guard, the murder could have been prevented.

The oddest feature of this first railway murder case in England was its effect on fashion. Muller’s redesign of the hat he took from Briggs became a popular style into the 20th Century, called “the Muller Cut-Down” hat. It was especially popularized by future Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

Well, I’m no closer to actually knowing where this word comes from. But the things you learn, eh? The things you learn.

Right, I’m orf down the rub-a-dub-dub for a sniff of the barmaid’s apron. So to speak.

Wait, don’t tell me… Who are the linesmen?

I first read ST Bindoff’s Tudor England as a teenager. I’d picked it up in a second-hand bookshop, which was hardly surprising as it is in my experience outdone only by the orange-jacketed Penguin edition of The Way of All Flesh for second-hand bookshop ubiquity.

The book is chiefly memorable for containing the following statement in its Prologue -

A Crown which had become a football was ceasing to be a referee, and a game which begins by doing without a referee runs a risk of finishing without a ball.

A statement in which my heart never ceases to rejoice.