Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into History

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  DRILLING FOR AMBER

  Another clue is a Nazi document ordering the Amber Room sent to Saxony, Germany. In December 2000, German and Czech search teams were separately tunneling into opposite ends of the old, caved-in Nicolai Stollen silver mine that lies under Saxony and crosses the border under the Czech Republic. Each competing team followed different advice given by SS informants as well as local witnesses who recalled seeing the SS at the mine in 1945. The two teams are still at it.

  When Dickens visited the U.S. Senate, he was appalled to see the senators spitting tobacco.

  DUMMKOPFS!

  Some art historians think the raiders of the Amber Room are wasting their time. They say no one will find the treasure because it’s destroyed, kaput! Amber burns at 300° F, so when the Allied bombs devastated Königsberg, they set fire to the amber panels.

  A KNICK HERE, A KNACK THERE

  Remember those four Florentine mosaics that were made for the Catherine Palace and then hidden in Siberia in 1941? German police confiscated one of them in Bremen, Germany, in the mid-1990s. A pensioner was selling it for over $2 million; he’d inherited the panel from his father who’d served in Hitler’s Wehrmacht. Experts believe the mosaic was stolen before 1944, but the fuss led a housewife to wonder if an amber chest she bought in East Germany also belonged to the Amber Room. Old photos revealed that it did. Around the same time, Christie’s auction house sold off a soldier’s head made of amber and believed to be from the Amber Room. So Fred and Elizabeth’s stuff is back on the market.

  LET’S CALL IT “CATHY’S PALACE”

  Meanwhile, back at the Catherine Palace, craftsmen are re-creating the Amber Room. Nearly 300 years after Frederick Wilhelm I’s gesture of goodwill and good riddance, Germany and Russia are together again, this time to create another masterpiece. The new Amber Room is set to open in 2003, and if they handle the publicity right, the joint may soon be jumpin’ with Bermuda-shorted tourists from all over the world.

  “The bee enclosed and through the amber shown, Seems buried in the juice which was his own.”

  Martial

  “I saw a flie within a beade

  Of amber cleanly buried.”

  Robert Herrick

  “Pretty! in amber to observe the forms Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms.” Alexander Pope

  Before it realized he was a Marxist, Wall Street gave Fidel Castro a ticker tape parade.

  81/2 NOT-SO-VICTORIAN THINGS ABOUT QUEEN VICTORIA

  * * *

  Since she’s become the symbol of stuffy propriety, people have forgotten that Queen Vicky was kicky.

  1. SHE HAD A THING FOR AN OLDER MAN

  Victoria’s father died soon after she was born, leaving her in search of father figures. In 1837, when she became Queen, Victoria developed a crush on the prime minister, handsome, 58-year-old Lord Melbourne. She decided that to get up to speed as queen, she’d need him to advise her at least 6 hours a day. One contemporary observed that Victoria’s attraction was “sexual, though she does not know it.” The young Queen was devastated when Melbourne’s government fell, forcing her to deal with a new (and presumably less debonair) prime minister.

  2. SHE FOUND “FUN IN BED”

  So much fun that portions of Vicky’s diary concerning beddy-byes with her hubby, Prince Albert, had to be destroyed after her death. She described her wedding night as “most gratifying and bewildering” (to Lord Melbourne, of all people). When her doctor mentioned birth control after her ninth child was born, she responded, “Oh, Sir James, am I to have no more fun in bed?”

  3. SHE WAS A LOUSY PARENT

  The one thing Victoria disliked about sex was that it led to babies, whom she once called “nasty objects.” The busy Queen and her husband farmed the kids out to wet-nurses and nursemaids. The children continued to be bothersome even when they were grown up; they had to be married off and supported with money begged from Parliament. Albert thought that a few should be dumped on the unsuspecting colonies.

  To ensure an heir, Henry VIII had six wives. But he still ended up with no grandkids.

  4. HER SUBJECTS WANTED TO KILL HER

  Well, quite a few of them, anyway. A few months after her marriage, Victoria became target practice while out in her carriage with Albert. Fortunately the assailant missed, but he wasn’t the last to try. Among Vicky’s more colorful assassins was a crazed midget who took a shot with a gun that was loaded with tobacco. A would-be assassin shot at Vicky in the train at Windsor station and was pummeled by schoolboys from Eton. And a former soldier varied the routine by hitting Victoria over the head with a brass-knobbed cane.

  5. SHE WAS A STALKING VICTIM

  Victoria had a royally obsessed stalker, “The Boy Jones,” as he was known in the tabloids. Young Edward Jones first broke into Buckingham Palace when he was 15, spending three days skulking about, pilfering from the Royal Kitchen and reading Victoria’s letters. A skillful lawyer got him off with a promise never to do it again. But after two years of good behavior, he was caught lurking under Victoria’s couch. Altogether, Jones broke into the royal quarters five times. Increasingly harsh sentences didn’t stop him until they finally sent him off to sea. Except for one brief desertion, Jones wasn’t heard of again.

  6. VICKY WAS KICKY

  True, she got a bit stuffy after her beloved Albert died in 1861. But in her earlier years, Queen Victoria gambled, drank and once got so excited at a horse race that she broke a window in the Royal Box. As a single Queen, she stayed up later and later until dinner was being served at one in the morning.

  7. HER STIFF UPPER LIP QUIVERED

  When poor, devoted Albert pushed off at only 42, Victoria went a bit odd. A certain amount of hysterical grief was natural, but the Queen wore black for the rest of her life, made a cult of his memory, and kept his rooms exactly as they had been when he died. She even had the bed linen changed regularly and his night-shirt put out every evening. What bothered her subjects most was her avoidance of public appearances. Even when her oldest son, Bertie, was married she arrived late, watched from behind a screen in a private stall and cleared, out once the ceremony was over.

  Until 1399, the first language of English kings was French.

  8. SHE CARRIED ON WITH HER SERVANT AND ALMOST LOST THE THRONE

  While Victoria hid out, her more cynical subjects assumed she was doing the fling with her Scottish servant, John Brown. The Queen loved her Scottish retreat of Balmoral where she and the kilted Brown tramped through the heather. (But was she a tramp?) Brown did sleep in the chamber next to Victoria, and she ran her household as Brown saw fit. He told her family and advisers to buzz off. Some began referring to the Queen as “Mrs. Brown.” Anti-monarchy feelings grew, and the public soon saw Brown as Rasputin with a brogue. When the Queen traveled to Switzerland in 1868, rumors spread that she had secretly given birth to Brown’s child—a pretty amazing feat, since she was 50. The public turned sympathetic again when the Queen and Bertie each became ill, and Brown became a hero when he foiled assassination attempts on his queen. After Brown died, suspicious historians noticed that she had his diary destroyed.

  8 1/2. HER NAME IS A BYWORD FOR EROTICISM

  By the time she died in 1901, she’d been around so long that everyone thought Victoria was wonderful, and wonderfully proper. So why is it that the most common name in the history of Playboy Playmates is Victoria—more popular than Cindy, Jenny, or Kim?

  VICTORIAN WEDDING SUPERSTITIONS

  A Victorian rhyme said that a bride must wear, “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and a silver sixpence in your shoe.” “Something blue” went back to Biblical times, when Israeli brides wore blue ribbons to show their fidelity. The purpose of “something old” and “something borrowed” was to get good luck from articles belonging to a happily married woman. “Something new” referred to the belief that a new gown was lucky. A “silver sixpence” in her shoe brought the bride a wealth of love and happiness. Th
e Victorian bride had one choice for her dress: “Marry in white, choose right.” Once dressed, she had to avoid looking in a mirror as she went out the front door (never the back!) starting with her right foot. On her way to the ceremony, the bride tried to meet a chimney sweep (which meant happiness) and not a funeral procession (which meant doom).

  In the 1920s, Canada’s Director of Military Operations had a plan to invade the U.S.

  CAROUSING CHARISMA

  * * *

  The Intoxicating Life and Times of Sir John Eh?

  While other countries have heroic founders such as George Washington, King Arthur, or Simon Bolivar, Canadians have the brilliant but all-too-human Sir John A. Macdonald who enjoyed much of life through an alcoholic haze—then wound up supporting the temperance movement.

  THE TEEN-AGED LAWYER

  Born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1820, John Macdonald arrived in Kingston, Ontario (then known as Upper Canada) with his family when he was five. The future Sir John practiced law at only 17, supporting his mother and sisters when his father died. The young lawyer had wit, a good grasp of psychology, and an encyclopedic memory.

  FROM COLONIES TO CANADA

  John went into politics, and soon had the goal of uniting the British North American colonies into a new country. The fact that the inhabitants of Upper Canada were soured on Lower Canada, and Lower Canada returned the favor, didn’t faze him. On Canada’s official start date, July 1, 1867, Macdonald became Canada’s first prime minister and, with a few interruptions, stayed in charge until his death in 1891.

  THE FLAWED FOUNDER

  Sir John was no saint. His regime was often marked by scandal and he spent a good part of his career in the pocket of big railway interests. Despite his flaws, Sir John Eh? (pronounced long a), as he’s affectionately known, is still beloved.

  SLOSHED IN THE SENATE

  The best known stories about Macdonald concern his heavy drinking. Even in the days when both the House of Commons and the Senate had a bar directly beneath, and fully half the Members of Parliament (or MPs) were drunk by the late evening, Sir John stood out (though not necessarily up).

  It took Britain just 38 minutes to defeat Zanzibar in an 1896 war.

  A NAUSEATING SPEECH

  On the way to an election event, Sir John imbibed a great deal. As a consequence, Sir John actually vomited on stage while his opponent was speaking. When his turn came to address the audience, Macdonald apologized: “I don’t know how it is, but every time I hear my opponent speak it turns my stomach.” The crowd loved it.

  DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO

  When party members complained about the heavy drinking of another MP, Macdonald chewed him out: “Look here, McGee, this Government can’t afford two drunkards, and you’ve got to stop.”

  IT’S THE ECONOMY STUPOR

  Sir John gave a speech late at night after a liquid dinner. The speech made little sense, so the reporter covering it visited Macdonald the next day asking for help in reconstructing his words. As the reporter read his notes, Sir John jumped up and gave the entire speech, correctly. The reporter thanked him and as he left, Sir John handed out a kind warning: “Never report on a public speaker when you are drunk.”

  WE WANT BOOZE NOT BIGOTS

  Sir John knew his failings made him more popular with some voters. Referring to a bigoted political rival, Macdonald told a group of cheering workmen, “I know. . .that you would rather have John Eh? drunk than George Brown sober.”

  A SCANDALOUS MEMORY

  When a government commission looking into a complex real estate scandal called Macdonald to testify, he was on one of his binges. Macdonald had shaking hands and bleary eyes, and commission members sighed, giving up hope of anything useful. Sir John then proceeded, without any hesitation or reference to notes, to give all the details of the transaction, going back 20 years, including exact dates.

  A SOBERING EXPERIENCE

  In later life, during his happy second marriage, Macdonald curtailed his drinking and even gave support to the temperance movement.

  In 1667, the Dutch traded Manhattan to get the swampy South American nation of Surinam.

  THEM’S FIGHTIN’ WORDS: AT SEA

  * * *

  The days of sailing warships and the defeat of the Spanish Armada resulted in some important contributions to the English language.

  One hundred and thirty Spanish ships sailed from Lisbon, Portugal, but only 76 of them returned after the English navy overpowered them in the Battle of the Armada. It had been the first gun duel between ships propelled only by sails, and it became the model for all future naval actions up to and including the Battle of Trafalgar more than 200 years later.

  armada

  The term armada, Spanish for a “fleet equipped with arms,” came into English from that famous encounter of 1588 and eventually came to stand for a fleet of virtually any vehicles (ships, planes, trucks) that move with a common purpose.

  taken down a peg

  In the aftermath of this great victory, England’s pride in its navy rose considerably, and flags and pennants to indicate the rank and status of a ship’s commander came into greater use. Flags were hoisted and secured to a series of pegs on the mast; the higher the flag, the more important the ship’s commander. When a command was handed over to a subordinate, the flag was taken down a peg or two so as to fly lower on the mast. Today this expression still means deflating or humbling someone.

  the cut of the jib

  Another indication of a ship’s status that dates from the same period was the cut of the jib, the “jib” being a triangular sail that flew from the foremast. Its particular shape indicated the type of vessel and sometimes its nationality. From this we get the phrase “the cut of his/her jib,” meaning a person’s outward appearance or demeanor; “I don’t like the cut of his jib” thus judges someone on that basis.

  For nine years, Idi Amin was Uganda’s heavyweight boxing champion.

  first-rate

  In the seventeenth century Royal Navy warships began to be rated on a scale from one to six, based on their size and the weight of ordnance (weapons, etc.) they carried. Horatio Nelson’s flagship Victory, which weighed 2,163 tons and mounted 100 heavy guns, was ranked as a first-rate ship. Later this term simply came to mean “excellent,” and it is still used in this way.

  turn a blind eye

  Lord Nelson himself contributed another very familiar idiom to our language. During the siege of Copenhagen in 1801, Nelson was second-in-command of the English fleet and was ordered to withdraw. Eager to continue his attack, he pretended not to see the flagship’s signals to retreat by putting his glass to the eye that had been blinded in the Battle of Calvi. His attack forced the French to surrender, a naval victory second only to Trafalgar. Ever since, the term to turn a blind eye has meant to deliberately ignore or overlook something.

  clearing the decks

  When a battle was anticipated, the crew prepared by clearing the decks, that is, removing or fastening down all loose objects on deck that might get in the way of the guns or injure a sailor. Today, of course, we use this term loosely, simply meaning to get things out of the way so as to prepare for some other activity.

  battening down the hatches

  One of the preparations for either military action or bad weather was battening down the hatches. It consisted of fastening down canvas over hatches with strips of wood called battens. Later the phrase came to mean preparing for chaos or violent confrontation.

  at close quarters

  If the enemy boarded a ship, the combat that ensued was called in or at close quarters, that is, the crew were in close contact with the enemy. Later the term came to be used for any crowded or confined space.

  cut and run

  Sometimes, of course, a ship faced overwhelming odds and had to retreat quickly. Occasionally this need could be anticipated. In square-rigged ships, sails were secured with light ropes that could be easily cut to let them fall quickly, enabling the ship to sail
at once. From this practice we have the term cut and run, for making a hasty exit.

  Four of Mary Todd’s brothers fought for the Confederacy. Her husband was Abraham Lincoln.

  by the board

  Retreat could also be hastened by jettisoning some of the supplies or cargo. These materials were said to have gone by the board—that is, fallen overboard and carried away. Today we still speak of something that has fallen out of use or been discarded as having gone by the board.

  scuttlebutt

  One thing not readily discarded was drinking water, which was kept in a lidded cask called a scuttlebutt. The name combined scuttle, for a hole in a vessel, with butt, for a large cask. The hole in the cask allowed access to the contents. Probably because crew members gathered around the scuttlebutt to drink and chat (like the office water cooler of today), the name eventually came to mean gossip, as in “What’s the scuttlebutt about setting up a new department?”