Monthly Archives: December 2017

amusements

Ten Things

For this month’s Ten Things we have our annual “best of” round-up from our Auction Amusements posts.
Ten Odd Things I’ve seen Auctioned this Year

  1. A vintage hand held fire extinguisher
  2. Over 600 used golf balls
  3. A pair of vintage dog nut crackers
  4. A pair of musket shot recovered from the ‘Invincible’ (1744-1758), with certificate of authenticity
  5. A Christmas tree made from pipe cleaners

  6. A stuffed and mounted pike in glazed wooden case
  7. A WW2 USN portable bomb hoist MkVII
  8. A fuel gauge housing from a DH4 Liberty bi-plane, silver-plated as a photograph frame
  9. Ten vintage leather baseball gloves dating from the 1930’s onwards
  10. A large solid block of beeswax
arts

Advent 10

An Advent Calendar : Art I liked this Year


June Mendoza’s portrait of John Major

Note: this image is not mine and may be copyright the original photographer/artist;
please click on the image for further information and a larger view

arts

Advent 9

An Advent Calendar : Art I liked this Year


Koi, Pines and Waterfall Quilted Wall Hanging

Note: this image is not mine and may be copyright the original photographer/artist;
please click on the image for further information and a larger view

arts

Advent 8

An Advent Calendar : Art I liked this Year


Joan Miró; The Table: Still Life with Rabbit

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please click on the image for further information and a larger view

food+drink, pleasures

Gin

When I was recovering from my left knee replacement in September, my lovely friend Katy sent me a consolatory gin tasking selection. It contained miniatures of eight different artisan gins, none of which I’d heard of. Unfortunately I couldn’t sample them at the time as alcohol was contraindicated by the painkillers I was taking.


Now off the painkillers, I’ve sampled them all over the last couple of weeks, along with several other gins which I happened to have available. All together I tried 14 different gins.
First of all I tried each gin neat, pouring just a teaspoon or two into a shot glass and having a sip. This I spread over a couple of evenings. Then, over several further evenings, I sampled each miniature (or equivalent quantity) with ice and lemon in a 250ml glass topped up with my usual low calorie tonic – ie. as a fairly ordinary gin & tonic. (I’m sure neither method is what you’re supposed to do, but the latter seemed like a fair test of the gins as I would normally encounter them.)
Notes – both mental and scribed – were made. During the process I found that tasting the gin & tonic was much better than the neat gin; I found the neat gin too fiery to enable my unrefined palate to discern any subtlety.
Here, for what they’re worth, are my opinions of the 14 gin & tonics:

Gin Notes Stars
Tarquin Sea Dog Bland; slightly fragrant, almost barber’s shop aftershave ★★
Williams Grapefruit Great bouquet of grapefruit when poured.  Less in the mouth but lots of grapefruit follow-on. ★★★★
GB Old English Slightly sweet and very fruity, with lots of citrus/grapefruit ★★★★
Williams Elegant Very aniseed flavour. ★
Blooms Bland, only just faintly herbal ★★★
Darnley’s Spiced Quite flavourful and very slightly spicy rather than floral ★★
Nightingale’s Rhubarb Slight oxalic acid nose; rather pleasant and slightly fruity ★★★
Dr J’s Medicinal ★
Haymans’ Gin Liqueur Slightly sweet and slight juniper; quite pleasant ★★★★
Gordon’s Slight juniper but basically bland ★★★
Hammer Old English More fragrant and juniper; very slight sweetness; smooth and pleasant ★★★★★
Warner’s Rhubarb Fruity; slight sweetness; very pleasant ★★★★★
Hendrick’s Cucumber; nasty ★
Adnams Copper House Nicely balanced juniper; slightly fruity; smooth and very pleasant ★★★★★


In summary: It was a very interesting experiment. And it is a shame I wasn’t very taken by any of the eight gins in the tasting selection (the first eight on the list), although Wiliiams Grapefruit and GB Old English were indeed interestingly pleasant. Hayman’s Gin Liqeur doesn’t work for me as a liqueur, but it is pleasant if you like your gin on the sweet side. But, slightly to my surprise, it confirmed my preference for the three gins I drink most often: Adnams Copper House, Hammer Old English and the lately discovered Warner’s Rhubarb. I had actually expected these to be knocked off top spot by one of the eight.
So, big thanks to Katy for a very nice and thoughtful present, and for what turned out to be an interesting experiment.

arts

Advent 7

An Advent Calendar : Art I liked this Year


Mike Bernard; Summer Rain Showers; Trafalgar Square

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please click on the image for further information and a larger view

arts

Advent 6

An Advent Calendar : Art I liked this Year


Gustav Klimt; The Virgin; 1912

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arts

Advent 5

An Advent Calendar : Art I liked this Year


Tina Negus; Listening …; 2016

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please click on the image for further information and a larger view

amusements, ramblings

Auction Amusement

Out local auction house’s final sale of the year has come up with a few nice gems amongst the lots. Odd things, and strange combinations, but sadly no stuffed ferrets.
A charming early 19th century boot snuff box with pique decoration inlaid with bone and dated to the sole 1848 [below]


A charming 19th century treen nutmeg grater styled as a post box indicating the inland letter rate with a small picture panel behind
A collection of old lighters, a farriers pen knife, a propelling pencil, safety razors and a Chinese knife in a shagreen scabbard etc.
A plain silver photograph frame, London 1913, containing a period photograph of a young Royal Artillery officer, together with a late Victorian silver-topped glass jar and a match-holder made from the wood of HMS Victory
A collection of approximately 250 china and pottery thimbles
A collection of blue glass wares including a liqueur set, a hardwood temple bell, two horn purses, a turbo tiger vacuum cleaner, a metal shoe last, a large 19th century family bible, model soldiers, further glass ware including sugar bowls etc.
A 19th century Willcox and Gibbs sewing machine in original wooden case
Two 19th century irons, two vintage watering cans and two boxes containing vintage padlocks and keys and screws

Five model ships in glass bottles, a glass model sailing boat, lustre sugar bowl and silver plated figure of a swan [above]
An Amplon gramophone arm, a The Little Kracka fishing reel and a cased timepiece
A varied lot including a copper bed pan on turned wood handle, two brass fireside companion sets, a Burago model Porsche 356B, old planes and chisels, two Whitefriars glass vases, a small quantity of flat ware, a silver plated toast rack and dish, a vintage beaded bag, unused perfumes including Chanel No.5., vintage boxed dominoes, a small quantity of china etc.
Two shelves of interesting vintage wood and metal wares including hip flasks, binoculars, steins, dominoes, buttons, 19th century papier mache box, leather case containing old keys, ceramic and silver plated oval tray, wooden architectural fitments etc.

A vintage wooden cased NHS prescription dispenser [above]
No, I don’t know either!
A fine Japanese carved bone sword of impressive size, decorated overall with warriors and formal ornament, Meiji period
A vintage Tate & Lyle pine packing case for Afternoon Tea Cube Sugar
A stuffed leather figure of a rhinoceros
A large metal walking staff surmounted by a crow [right and below]

arts

Advent 4

An Advent Calendar : Art I liked this Year


Vincent van Gogh; Orchard in Bloom; 1888

Note: this image is not mine and may be copyright the original photographer/artist;
please click on the image for further information and a larger view