Trailer for Paul Willetts' book 'Rendezvous at the Russian Tea Rooms'

Here's a trailer for Paul Willetts' new book, 'Rendezvous at the Russian Tea Rooms'. He's also written several other excellent books, including 'Fear and Loathing in Fitzrovia', 'North Soho 999', and 'Members Only' (the biography of Paul Raymond).
http://www.paulwilletts.uk/2613837-watch-movie-trailer#0

From My Commonplace Book

"The man who cannot visualise a horse galloping on a tomato is an idiot." - André Breton

Things I Miss #9

Until the 1980s I often used to see French people riding motorised bicycles - not mopeds but rather a normal bicycle fitted with a small engine. In every French film made between 1930 and 1970 the village priest is always shown riding one of these contraptions. Jacques Tati's Monsieur Hulot also rode one.

 

Overheard Conversation #9

In the street outside, someone talking loudly on their mobile phone:

"Yes, let's do that, you are a lovely man and he is in Russia now. Hello, nutter."

Random Memory #11

I once spent 3 months on the North Frisian island of Föhr (Erskine Childers' The Riddle of the Sands takes place thereabouts). Lying on the beach watching German people fall off windsurfers while (through some fluke of the atmosphere) getting the BBC World Service on my Walkman and listening to an interview with Sunil Gavaskar. Hearing sonic booms from Danish F-16s. Talking to two rastas in Föhr's only nightclub, Erdbeerparadis. Realising the only three books in English on the hotel's bookshelves were 1984, a Pan anthology of tedious ghost stories, and a sumptuously bound copy of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. Germans asking me, sternly, what I did all day and when I replied, "I'm writing poetry/a novel/a history of the Kwakiutl" suggesting I should walk around the perimeter of the island as it was only 82 km sq in size. Discussing bottle-screws with a Hobie Cat sailor. Days spent on very cold beaches, even in summer, reading Dashiell Hammett and Jim Thompson and David Goodis.

From the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue - H

HABERDASHER OF PRONOUNS. A schoolmaster.
To HANG AN ARSE. To hang back, to hesitate.
HANGMAN'S WAGES. Thirteen pence halfpenny; which, according to the vulgar tradition, was thus allotted: one shilling for the executioner, and three halfpence for the rope,—N. B. This refers to former times; the hangmen of the present day having, like other artificers, raised their prices. The true state of this matter is, that a Scottish mark was the fee allowed for an execution, and the value of that piece was settled by a proclamation of James I. at thirteen pence halfpenny.
HEARTY CHOAK. He will have a hearty choak and caper sauce for breakfast; i.e. he will be hanged.
HELL-BORN BABE. A lewd graceless youth, one naturally of a wicked disposition.
HERE AND THEREIAN. One who has no settled place of residence.
HIGH EATING. To eat skylarks in a garret.
HODMANDODS. Snails in their shells.
HOOK AND SNIVEY, WITH NIX THE BUFFER. This rig consists in feeding a man and a dog for nothing, and is carried on thus: Three men, one of who pretends to be sick and unable to eat, go to a public house: the two well men make a bargain with the landlord for their dinner, and when he is out of sight, feed their pretended sick companion and dog gratis.
HOP MERCHANT. A dancing master.
HOT STOMACH. He has so hot a stomach, that he burns all the clothes off his back; said of one who pawns his clothes to purchase liquor.
HUCKLE MY BUFF. Beer, egg, and brandy, made hot.
HUGOTONTHEONBIQUIFFINARIANS. A society existing in 1748.
HUM BOX. A pulpit.
HYP, or HIP. A mode of calling to one passing by. Hip, Michael, your head's on fire; a piece of vulgar wit to a red haired man.

Book Review - 'Operation Kronstadt' by Harry Ferguson

Operation Kronstadt by Harry Ferguson

As the recent unpleasantness in South Ossetia and the Ukraine shows, the Russian bear is never happier than when waving its claws and causing trouble. This excellent book recounts a little-known but similar period in Anglo-Russian relations.
 
By May 1919 the First World War was over and the “Red Terror” of the Bolsheviks had taken over as Britain’s biggest fear. The head of MI6, the wooden-legged Sir Mansfield Cumming, had a predicament: all his secret agents in Russia, save one, had been captured. The sole remaining agent, Paul Dukes, was cut off in Petrograd and needed to escape. Dukes was a 30-year-old concert pianist who had studied in St Petersburg, spoke fluent Russian, and was a master of disguise. Seldom more than a few steps (literally) from being captured by the Bolshevik secret service, the Cheka, Dukes managed not only to join the Red Army, the Communist Party, and the Petrograd Soviet, but even to penetrate the Cheka itself. The bloodthirsty Cheka, forerunner of the KGB and FSB, would often “interrogate” prisoners by scalping them alive, or feeding them feet-first into furnaces.
 
MI6 decided that the Royal Navy would help Dukes escape from Petrograd via the Gulf of Finland by using high-speed Coastal Motor Boats (CMBs or “skimmers”), as they were the only vessels fast enough to evade the Bolshevik gunners and “skim” over the minefields. Accordingly, Lieutenant Augustus “Gus” Agar and some like-minded chaps were smuggled into Finland with two CMBs, where they set up a secret base in a disused yacht club just across the Gulf from Kronstadt harbour. Kronstadt was, at the time, the most heavily defended harbour in the world, with fifteen coastal forts, and guns and minefields galore.
 
Although Dukes tried several times to rendezvous with Lieutenant Agar in the freezing waters of the Gulf, he was unsuccessful. He eventually escaped using a variety of disguises, via train and leaking rowing-boat through Latvia. On his return to Britain he was knighted for his spying, the only man in the annals of MI6 to achieve this distinction.
 
In the meantime the anti-Bolshevik White Russian garrison was trapped in one of the Gulf fortresses, Krasnaya Gorka, which was being shelled mercilessly by the Russian cruiser Oleg. The CMBs carried torpedoes and Lieutenant Agar asked for permission from London to attack the Oleg. Permission was refused but Lieutenant Agar decided to biff ahead anyway. On the night of 17^th June 1919, despite mechanical problems, his crew managed to fire one torpedo at the Oleg and sunk her. Lieutenant Agar was awarded an immediate Victoria Cross for his actions, though because the Russians put a price of £5,000 on his head he could not be publicly named and was always known as “the mystery VC”.
 
London then did a volte-face and decided a raid by seven CMBs into Kronstadt harbour itself would be a good idea. Against enormous odds, on 18^th August the attack was launched. Despite eight British sailors killed and nine captured, the CMBs managed to sink and damage three Russian cruisers. Two more VCs were awarded, and Lieutenant Agar received a DSO.
 
Harry Ferguson (apparently an ex-MI6 man himself) has researched the subject assiduously and has written a ripping yarn about these little-known exploits. Let us hope this book brings them to a wider audience.

(A version of this article first appeared in The Chap magazine.)