Programming note: As part of the Mark Steyn Club seventh birthday observances, I'll be launching a new weekly show on Serenade Radio this Saturday at 5pm UK time/12 noon North American Eastern. I hope you'll join us.
We continue to receive very generous comments on my rare post-cardiac stage appearance at Hillsdale. Glen Flint, a First Fortnight Founding Member of The Mark Steyn Club from Nebraska, says:
Hi Mark,
Sonya and I really enjoyed the video of your talk during the Hillsdale College CCA. It was great to see you perambulate across the stage under your own power ...but when you rose from your chair to belt out a Cole Porter tune with Marla Schaffel I nearly fell out of my chair.
We're praying for success in your legal battles and your health!
Glen Flint
Thanks, Glen. If a little light Cole Porter impresses you, wait'll you see my new trapeze act.
In tonight's episode of The Secret Adversary, Agatha Christie's tale of globalist coup-plotters on the streets of London, one of the gang takes a sudden turn for the worse:
Sir James brushed past Julius and hurriedly bent over the fallen woman.
"Heart," he said sharply. "Seeing us so suddenly must have given her a shock. Brandy—and quickly, or she'll slip through our fingers."
Julius hurried to the washstand.
"Not there," said Tuppence over her shoulder. "In the tantalus in the dining-room. Second door down the passage."
In the whatulus in the dining-room?
In the tantalus. I'm not sure if they have those at Walmart or even Bed, Bath & Beyond, but they were a familiar item in the grander houses a century back: a small wooden contraption (see above) that held three decanters and could be locked with a key - thereby preventing both larcenous servants and dissolute progeny from getting at the good stuff. It was named after Tantalus, either an actual Anatolian or a mythological figure, who was condemned to unquenchable thirst: he had to stand in a pool of water which receded every time he reached down to scoop some up.
The household tantalus was invented in the 1870s by George Betjemann, a Dutch cabinet-maker who had opened a workshop in the Pentonville Road near the Angel, Islington. George's grandson was the Poet Laureate John Betjeman - one "n": the grandpa had added the Germanic double-n because of anti-Dutch sentiment arising from the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War; his son had dropped it because of anti-German sentiment arising from the First World War.
A long, long time ago I called on the Poet Laureate's somewhat estranged wife Penelope, and Sir John showed up halfway through. Both were impressed that I was familiar with a tantalus (on which the Betjeman family fortune, such as it was, had been founded). My dad, who had an antipathy to decanters, nevertheless had somehow acquired an antique tantalus. By the way, if you have an original Betjemann tantalus in the attic, they fetch thousands at auction. Penny Betj. died on horseback in the Himalayas - a long way from any tantalus, I should imagine.
What am I rambling on about..? Bibulous domestics... mythological Anatolian... Pentonville Road... Fourth Anglo-Dutch War... Himalayan horses... oh, yeah: If you're a member of The Mark Steyn Club you can hear my reading of Part Fourteen of our serialisation of The Secret Adversary simply by clicking here and logging-in. All previous episodes can be found here - so you can choose whether to follow along each night twenty minutes before you lower your lamp, or save them up for a weekend binge-listen.
~As we approach our seventh birthday, membership in The Mark Steyn Club is not for everyone, but it helps support all our content - whether in print, audio or video - and keeps it available for everyone, around the world. And, aside from Tales for Our Time, being a Steyn Club member does come with a few other benefits:
~Exclusive member pricing on over 40 books, CDs and our Steynamite specials in the Steyn store;
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~and the opportunity to support our print, audio and video ventures as they wing their way around the world.
To become a member of The Mark Steyn Club, please click here - and don't forget our special Gift Membership. Please join me tomorrow for Part Fifteen of The Secret Adversary.