Slang glossary 1962

From a cult novel by old Etonian Robin Cook who later changed his name to Derek Raymond to avoid being confused with schlock novelist Robin 'Coma' Cook. As Raymond his books became very dark and gory but persisted with varieties of slang for which his first book The Crust on Its Uppers (1962) was known. A rich source book of slang, some unique, some well worn and some highly ephemeral. Here is a small selection:

Angst = trouble

Archbishop = Archbishop Laud = fraud

Baize, the = Bayswater Road

Binns= spectacles (dark binns- dark glasses)

Blag= a bluff, a tall story (Fr. 'blague?) Also as verb

Bubble=bubble-and-squeek= Greek (thus Archbubble= ArchGreek or Greek-in-chief)

Cat's-meat gaff= hospital

Charver= to have sex with

Deviator= a crook (devious= crooked; deviation= a crime)

Drum= a room or flat

Duke= duke of Kent= rent

Exes= expenses

44X= extreme, i. e. '44X angst' = big trouble

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British Surrealism – Arson – an Ardent Review (1942)

Toni del Renzio. ARSON. AN ARDENT REVIEW. Part One of a Surrealist Manifestation. London, 1942.

Although billed as 'Part One' this was the only issue of this surrealist magazine of 'incendiary innocence' ever to appear. Several other magazines, mostly smaller in format and associated with E.L.T. Mesens appeared and all have become quite hard to find and consequently expensive. Del Renzio was a key figure in British Surrealism, never a burgeoning movement but oddly attractive and now quite collectable. Under the headline 'SUPERDAD' the art journal 'Studio' published this obituary for him in Febuary 2007:-

Toni del Renzio has died aged 91. Truer than life always, he was born to a landed Italian family outside St Petersburg, where his father was a diplomat to the Tsarist court. He had a legendary and varied life, not least in contributing to Studio International, with whose editor, Peter Townsend, he established a natural rapport. Fluent in several languages, he had fought in the Spanish Civil War but ended up in the lap of the Surrealist movement in Paris. On eventual arrival in London, he founded the Surrealist magazine Arson.

In 1951 he joined the Institute of Contemporary Arts and was involved on exhibition panels and juries. For a time back in Italy, he became the Fashion Editor for Harpers Bazaar, and then reorganised the Milanese magazine Novita as Vogue Italia. He staggered his friends and acquaintances much later on by becoming, at the age of 70, the father of quadruplets, two sons and two daughters: and then wrote about it as if it was the most natural thing in the world, which for del Renzio, it was. His métier was the surrealist collage. He became distinguished as a teacher, both at Bath and subsequently at Canterbury, where he was Head of Art and Design History. Vale, ti saluto, Toni del Renzio, maestro.

Antonio Romanov del Renzio dei Rossi di Castelleone e Venosa (to give him his full name) was a mercurial character and as a surrealist spent a lot of time engaged in aesthetic and political arguments, being at one time being considered a monster by the Mesens crowd. His key work 'Arson' was partially financed by Ithell Colquhoun whom he married in 1943 and divorced in 1948. He was also, briefly, the lover of the surrealist painter Emmy Bridgwater.

In 1942 de Renzio also mounted a London exhibition entitled Surrealism resulting in more general recognition for the movement. Arson was printed on turquoise stock and decorated on the front cover with surrealistic appropriations of steel engravings, printed in purple. Collage was a favourite medium for del Renzio. Contributors included Robert Melville, Giorgio de Chirico, Conroy Maddox, Nicolas Calas, Pierre Mabille + an interview with André Breton. Books by TDR are quite collectable--his 1968/ 1969 paperback on hippies 'The Flower Children' is very uncommon and his 1971 book After a Fashion is highly elusive.

Herbert Horne (1855 – 1916)

An article from the long defunct Anglo - Italian Review, October 1918. Edited by Edward Hutton, an English  Italophile who wrote several Italian travel books and featuring articles by Nobel Prize winner Grazia Deledda, Norman Douglas & Benedetto Croce. This piece is by the novelist Reginal Turner and is an affectionate tribute to his friend Herbert Horne - art historian, art dealer, architect, typographer and Arts and Craft movement designer. The photo below is of him with his friend and colleague the architect  A.H. Mackmurdo (standing) and an older woman, possibly AHM's mother at a house ('Brooklyn') in Enfield. The story of Horne finding  two Michelangelo drawings for a penny each in the Fulham Road is hard to top...

HERBERT PERCY HORNE, who died in Florence

in May, 1916, belonged to the numerous band of interesting Englishmen who made Italy their home, and the memory of whose sojourns there does not pass with their death. He did not found a family there as did Walter Savage Landor. He took no part in public life as did Waddington, who went casually to Perugia and remained there to become Syndic. It may even be said that to the majority of Italians as to Englishmen his name was unknown. He had an almost morbid love of retirement ; those who knew him well could not but be amazed at his slight suspicion--there is no other word--of hospitality. Yet Herbert Horne was known to a large circle which included some of the best-known and ‘many of the most talked about of his contemporaries: most of them loved him, all of them respected him, and he was recognised by them as one of the most learned, one of the wisest, and one of the most reliable men of his time.   Continue reading →

Le Matelot (London restaurant run by a psychiatrist) 1955

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A review of the Le Matelot restaurant found in Bon Viveur's London & the British Isles (Dakers, London 1955). Bon Viveur was a pseudonym for Fanny Cradock and her husband the fly-whiskered Johnny. They later became celebrity TV chefs. The use of the word gay at the time tended to indicate merry, jolly, insouciant, zany etc., although the restaurant went on into the 1960s (possibly later) and is referenced at The Lost Gay Restaurants site. The girl in the coral jeans and exposed midriff sounds distinctly modern and the whole scene described might be something out of the 1961 Tony Hancock movie The Rebel. The owner roaming the restaurant in horns is not something you see in current London eateries.

LE MATELOT

You will either be enchanted by this small restaurant or embarrassed. It is unique. The proprietor, Dr. Hillary James, is a psychiatrist by day and a restaurateur by night.

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Facts on the Fab Four from ‘Fabulous’ 1965

Trivial info on the Beatles from their 'fab' days. Found in 'Fabulous' 1965.  Surely they were the first 'boy band' and the template for all boy bands since?

John flew to Hong Kong wearing pyjamas.

John is a cat lover.

Ringo spent much of his childhood in a Cheshire hospital.

John used to envy his cousin Stanley's Meccano set.

Brian Epstein hesitated a long time before taking Ringo as a replacement for Pete Best.

Patti Boyd didn't like the Beatles before she met them on the set of A Hard Day's Night.

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