Fun With Research #1

 More fun with research.

In the betting book at Brooks' Club in London, in 1785: "Lord Cholmondeley has given two guineas to Lord Derby, to receive 500 guineas whenever his lordship f***ks a woman in a balloon one thousand yards from the earth." (The original did not use asterisks).
Origin of the Mile-High Club?
In 1774, Brooks had to outlaw betting on other peoples' premature deaths.
From the book, Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know, by Karl Shaw. And I'm only in to Chapter 2.
As my friend Laurie says, "You can't make this shit up."

Comments

  1. Eric Charles BaldwinSeptember 18, 2021 at 3:21 PM

    Cholmondeley pronounced "Chumley" of course...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mike HallSeptember 21, 2021 at 11:14 AM

    Maybe the half-mile-high-club? I wonder what proof of performance had to be provided or was a gentleman's word good enough?

    1774 was when the UK Life Assurance Act basically banned taking out policies on people where you did not have an "insurable interest". Maybe Brooks had a rush of people who had previously used Equitable Like for their premature death wagers?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Barbara HamblySeptember 27, 2021 at 11:57 AM

      I think it was just a case of, that these guys would bet on ANYTHING, and some of them bet on, "I bet so-and-so will die before he's thirty," or, "I bet so-and-so will be dead by Christmas..." And somebody at the club twigged to the fact that they were tempting fate.
      I don't think the half-mile-high club bet was ever collected on.

      Delete
  3. Patty McInnesNovember 20, 2021 at 4:25 PM

    Dear Ms. Hambly, I was just reading Edmond Dede's entry on Wikipedia. He seems to have been Ben's contemporary. I rushed here to your website to ask if you've considered making him a guest star in your next Benjamin January book. And I was delighted to find you've produced 2 new ones! Thank you!
    I'm pretty sure I'm not putting this in the right place. And I don't know how to change the "Comment as" field from "Google Account" to "Patty McInnes".

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Barbara HamblyNovember 21, 2021 at 10:08 AM

      Patty, your name is given in your reply, not as "Google Account". Thank you for coming by!

      I'm not sure how I could have used Dede as a guest star in the January series up to this point - since he was pretty much a little kid for most of the series - but I do have my eye on him. Part of the problem is that the current publisher of the series has a word-count limit - which is good, in many ways, since it reminds me to keep my stories tight. But there's a lot about New Orleans that I'd like to explore, and haven't been able to... yet.

      Many thanks for your post!

      Delete
  4. Robert PiepenbrinkSeptember 8, 2022 at 5:27 PM

    Research. It is my regrettable duty as a Nitpicker to point out that Will Rogers was right: it's not the things you don't know which trip you up, but the things you think you know that aren't so. In Pale Guardian, someone's running around like Bulldog Drummond five years before the first Bulldog Drummond story was published. (Unless the Asher/Ysidro books take place in the same universe as Sapper's stories, and Drummond had already made a name for himself in the first year of the war. Opens up some possibilities. )
    And Alec is a good 15 years too early to line his room with paperbacks--at least pocket books. I've never gotten a good feel for the binding of "railway editions," which irks me no end.
    Allow me to say you are a great credit to your historical training. I've read nearly everything of you you've ever written, and those are the only two nits I've ever managed to pick. Bless you for all the stories.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sample Post

Image
     A girl once went to the fair to hire herself for servant. At last a funny-looking old gentleman engaged her, and took her home to his house. When she got there, he told her that he had something to teach her, for that in his house he had his own names for things.      He said to her, "What will you call me?"    " Master or mister, or whatever you please, sir," says she.      He said, "You must call me master of all masters . And what would you call this?" he said pointing to his bed.      "Bed or couch, or whatever you please, sir."     " No, that's my barnacle . And what do you call these?" said he, pointing to his pantaloons.     "Breeches or trousers, or whatever you please, sir."     "You must call them squibs and crackers . And what would you call her?" he said pointing to the cat.     "Cat or kit, or whatever you please, sir."     "You must call her white-faced simminy . "     &quo
Read more

The Iron Princess

Image
  The Iron Princess - my first fantasy novel in 16 years - will be available February 28: pre-order on Amazon is available now. It's a story I've worked on, on and off, for almost ten years, and I'm delighted that it's finally going to see print. As I think I've said before, it involves Princess Clyaris - Clea, known to her friends and followers as the Iron Princess (in contrast to her older sister, the Golden Princess) - and her complicated battle against not only otherworld monstrosities, but her own family. Like Queen Elizabeth I, she has to pick her way around the debris of her father's matrimonial chaos while trying to figure out who is responsible for the appearance of these deadly - and rapidly multiplying - creatures, when it may in fact be Dear Old Dad... or somebody who's using him as a pawn. The fact that she has to blackmail the most evil wizard in the world into working for her doesn't help matters. Fingers crossed!
Read more

An Evening in the Park

Image
My apologies, yet again, for the long delay between posts. On top of it being a very stressful semester (since February) the past two weeks have been - not good. Once the final mopping-up is done all will be well. A welcome high spot was a twilight picnic with friends at the Old Zoo Meadow in Griffith Park, to see the Independent Shakespeare Company do "Julius Caesar." It's not my favorite of Shakespeare's plays, but I always enjoy the ISC (who are in a different union than the Screen Actors Guild, and they came out and announced their solidarity with SAG and the Writers before the show). The production was wonderful - in many ways very Shakespearean, because it was all done on a single stage with nothing but four or five cubes for props; all done with words, and sound effects, and lighting, and sheer excellent, creative direction. (The costumes had a vaguely Klingon vibe that was very effective). I had a couple of minor quibbles with some of the choices made in the p
Read more