MARY'S BIT or EVEN ROYALTY S0METIMES DO THEIR OWN LAUNDRY
Since we last showed up, we've managed to finally tame our front-loader washer, an advanced appliance which weighs the contents of its drum and then supplies the amount of water it reckons should be used for the load . One disgruntled owner declared online his opinion was that front-loaders just dampened clothes and chucked them around a bit and at times we were tempted to agree with him.
Laundering has certainly trundled many miles down the pike since a time.when the traditional Monday wash day involved wash tubs and poss sticks, stiff-bristled scrubbing brushes, yellow laundry soap, and a mangle aka known as the poor man's piano. Drawing a bow at a venture, I suggest this is because fingers of necessity get close to the rollers -- and hopefully no further.
Mr Maywrite remembers how as a child he watched his elderly aunt assist his grandmother to make laundry soap. Its ingredients included lye and fat and the process involved boiling them together. When the witchy mixture cooled into solid form, it was cut into chunks and stored in a bucket in his grandparents' cellar until wash day rolled around again. Buying a jug of detergent these days is so much easier. .
We have yet to see The Odyssey but I for one am interested to see how it handles the sequence where, following a dream, the soon to be wed princess Nausicaa of Phæacia and her attendants hie themselves off to washing cisterns near the mouth of a river. It transpires the royal personage has brought along not only her own clothing but also that of her family members. Well, after placing their laundry in the cisterns the assembled company -- including Nausicaa herself commence trampling on the wet garments to cleanse them, a homely touch in a narrative devoted to high adventure, extensive travel, a touch of magic, and an absence from home for twenty years.
As we all know, moggies may look at monarchs but this scene clearly demonstrates, despite assumptions to the contrary, even royalty sometimes do their own laundry. Sadly, when we recently viewed the mid-fifties cinematic presentation of Ulysses starring Kirk Douglas and Anthony Quinn the laundering sequence was not included. Instead, it depicts the immediately following scene where Nausicaa meets shipwrecked Ulysses nearby.
It is therefore only right that the princess stands on one side of the coat of arms of the Worshipful Company of Launderers.* To my delight, the heraldic device depicts a mangle as well as three flat irons and a laundress with a dolly, an advanced form of our old poss stick**. I particularly enjoyed the inclusion of a cat, that well-known cleaner of self.
Subscribers may recall an essay relating how we toiled mightily to remove an old top-loading washer from Maywrite Towers. While it was an epic struggle between us and the Harvest Gold appliance, we were sorry to see its departure For one thing it was happy to employ any old detergent you cared to put into it whereas the instructions for our current appliance, a front-loader controlled by mini-computer, sniffily declares the machine was specifically designed to use High Efficiency detergent and only that type. Using the wrong sort might, among other horrors, lead to malfunctioning components, cycles taking longer, and over-sudsing. Home-made detergents are included in the warning and we have to wonder what Grandmama Mayer would have to say about that.
Mind you, our opinionated appliance provides an unexpected bonus. Watching clothing circling and twirling in a fantastic fandango past the washer door's window allows thoughts to wander hither and yon, occasionally leading to inspiration for newsletter essays.
As you see.
* Figure 15 depicts the coat of arms of the Worshipful Company of Launderers
https://www.theheraldrysociety.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Goddard-Coat-of-Arms-2018-1.pdf
** Dolly on the left, poss stick on the far right. Our long since retired poss stick had a shorter handle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posser#/media/File:PuckMuseum24.JPG
NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER
The ongoing heatwave has slowed everything to a crawl, including the ticker which sadly has only one item to offer this issue. However, if you enjoy Golden Age of Detection novels you may care to point your clicker at Mary's latest review. It deals with Molly Thynne's The Crime at the Noah's Ark, which relates criminous doings after a number of travellers are forced to take shelter at the titular hostelry when a blizzard closes down all roads..
https://ericreedmysteries.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-crime-at-noahs-ark-1931-by-molly.html
ERIC'S BIT or REMEMBRANCE OF FINNEGAN'S PAST
Amateur sleuths are a staple of mystery fiction. From little old ladies with a talent for sleuthing, to bored aristocrats looking for recreation, to today's entrepreneurial types who somehow make a living selling chocolate muffins and still have time for investigations. Quite a few authors have decided that if fictional amateurs are good, amateur detectives who are historical figures are better. Machiavelli, Groucho Marx, Jane Austen, Teddy Roosevelt for instance. it might be easier to think of someone who hasn't been conscripted into the fictional gumshoe brigade. I admit this trend irritates me even more than the proliferation of cats in mysteries. The occasional feline or famous person is fine, but isn't enough enough?
The trend might have gotten out of hand in my opinion, but it isn't new. In the 1938 The Gracie Allen Murder Case S.S. Van Dine had George Burns' wacky sidekick help out detective Philo Vance. The very first mystery to feature a real historical person is arguably Mademoiselle de Scuderi: A Tale from the Times of Louis XIV by E.T.A. Hoffmann, published in 1820. The German author imagined the titular 17th century French poet trying to uncover a band of murderous thieves plaguing Paris.
As with Gracie Allen, Mademoiselle de Scuderi merely assisted the actual detectives. More recently we've seen a spate of mysteries in which usually highly unlikely personages team up to solve murders. I mean, the Bronte sisters? Really? Arthur Conan Doyle, perhaps, but with Oscar Wilde? It seems authors are currently competing to come up with the most freakish, outlandish, and implausible teams of historical figures as detectives.
With that in mind, I offer the following suggestions:
Murder on the Pequod
(A Captain Ahab Mystery)
Queequeg is found pinned to the main mast with his own harpoon. Is the culprit the quarrelsome young chief mate Starbuck, fellow harpooner Tashtego, or the sailor who wants to be called Ishmael (but may be someone else entirely)? It could be anyone on the ship. It's up to Captain Ahab (and the ship's cat) to find the murderer before he can strike again. Before time runs out, Ahab is forced to team up with his adversary the Great White Whale himself, Moby Dick.
Tricky Dick and the Pelvis Investigate
(A White House Mystery)
Elvis visits the White House to receive an honorary FBI badge but soon becomes a real investigator as he and President Richard Nixon (and the White House cat) race against time to find out who did in the First Lady, in the Oval Office, with the tape recorder. Their efforts put the sleuths in perilous situations. Will Elvis-the-Pelvis be able to avert a nuclear holocaust when the red telephone in the Oval Office rings? Can Tricky Dick cover for the KIng's absence from a D.C. stadium concert by performing Hound Dog? The fate of world may depend on it!
A Rat to Remember
(A Titanic Mystery)
Is the Titanic's collision with an iceberg a clever pretext to disguise the killing of someone aboard? Famous mystery writer Jaques Futrelle teams up with two rats -- a roguish ship's rat and an aristocratic little girl's demure pet -- to bring the murderer to justice. Rather than fleeing the sinking ship, the trio race against time to bring the murderer to justice. A thrilling tale told from the point of view of Mollie Brown's cat.
Remembrance of Finnegan's Past
{A Famous Authors Mystery)
Who killed Finnegan? And how was it done? Faced with a case no one can understand, The Royal Irish Constabulary call in those bloodhounds of bafflement, James Joyce and Marcel Proust. Could it have been something as simple as a poisoned madeleine? Probably not. Assisted by several of T.S. Elliot's Jellicle cats, the perplexing private eyes wander through an incomprehensible wasteland of clues and suspects, taking their time in twelve thrilling volumes.
And that's not even mentioning Mickey Spillane and Bennett Cerf (My Pun is Quick) or Arthur Conan Doyle, assisted by a band of fairies, the supernatural equivalent of the Baker Street Irregulars. Which I can't believe hasn't already been done but I don't have the heart to look it up.
AND FINALLY
The year having passed its midpoint, subtle hints of impending autumn are starting to appear. The dark hours are noisy with insects singing their farewells, here and there a yellow or scarlet leaf drifts to the ground, and dusk arrives a little earlier each evening. Fall is on the way and with it the next issue of Orphan Scrivener, which will creep into subscribers' in-boxes on October 15th, in keeping with that month's mists and melancholy air.
See you then!
Mary R and Eric
who invite you to visit their home page, to be found hanging out on the virtual washing line that is the Web at https://reed-mayer-mysteries.blogspot.com/ There you'll discover the usual suspects, including more personal essays on a wide variety of topics, a bibliography of our novels and short stories, and libraries of links to free e-texts of classic mysteries and tales of the supernatural, not to mention a couple of our short stories of the latter persuasion. There's also the Orphan Scrivener archive, so don't say you weren't warned! Meantime, just for the heck of it, we'll also mention our names on the social site formerly known as Twitter are @marymaywrite and @groggytales. Drop in any time! To unsubscribe from this newsletter jot a line to maywrite@earthlink.net and we'll take care of it.
