pumpkinstrokemarrow

I have just finished another story called 'The Belton Estate' by Trollope. Not a bad read at all, fair bit of womens' lib. worked in (given the date of 1866), perhaps reflecting the intended readership. But one bit caught my eye at the beginning, which I thought told me the answer: the story will roll forward for 400 pages to this appointed end, the hero will marry the heroine and live happily ever after. And so, after various vicissitudes it turned out, my sometimes being right about such things. Coincidentally, at about the same time, I was also reading about smooth functions in Penrose. He told me that by carefully inspecting a smooth function at one point, you can know all about it at every other point. The catch being that such a function, while perhaps pretty, is also rather boring. Want you really want is a function with a few surprises. And so, I thought, it should be with stories. You want to have a sense of a drama unfolding along regular and familiar lines, but you also need a bit of variety thrown in.

Trollope himself was rather modest about this particular effort, more so than he need have been to my mind, although he did say that he was paid £1,757 for it. I then start to wonder how much this would be in present money. Two or three minutes with Mr G. then the ONS yields a helpful article by O'Donoghue, Goulding & Allen (take one third of a research point each), telling me about retail prices since 1750. So, prices were very steady for the 150 years 1750-1900, perhaps doubling in that time, but with a ferocious spike in the middle of the Napoleonic wars. They then started to drift up, reaching 10 times 1750 prices by 1960, and then shot up thereafter, reaching 140 times 1750 prices by 2000. Spikes for the two world wars and the inflation of the mid 70's. Very roughly speaking I make what Trollope got then worth about £150,000 now. Not in the Rowling league perhaps but not a bad sum at all if one was able, as he was at his peak, to knock out a couple of such books each year.

Having polished of Belton, finished the day by a further dipping into Conrad reminiscences - 'The Mirror of the Sea'. Lots of good stuff, but I was very surprised to learn last night that he served some time gun running to the third Carlist war in Spain in something called a balancelle - a lateen rigged two master of modest size and which ended its days on a hidden rock, rather than fall into the clutches of the coast guard. To the accompaniment of a rather nasty murder, Corsican uncle on treacherous nephew. Perhaps I should not have been surprised as his father was a minor Polish aristo., no doubt implicated in revolutionary goings on there. But I had thought he had just gone to sea and served his time in the ordinary way in proper sailing ships sailing to and around our eastern empire. Not messing around with swarthy types with mustachios.

I close with a nautical factlet. Conrad tells us that are three very important capes in the world, Cape Horn, the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Leeuwin. Which were known to sailing sailors as the Horn, the Cape and Cape Leeuwin respectively. I had to look the last of these up and it turns out to be a place in Western Australia, but neither the western nor southern tip. Presumably some trick of wind, tide or current makes the place a big deal for someone in a sailing boat.

The government of Western Australia makes the point that while it is neither the western nor the southern tip, it is the south western tip. Perhaps that makes all the difference. It is also the site of a very tall lighthouse and was the venue for the very first International Day of the Lighthouse. See http://www.westernaustralia.com.