“Sexually, I’m More of a Switzerland”

by David Rose

  122 Guardian Soulmates—personal ads column appearing daily in the UK national newspaper the Guardian. Evening Standard—evening newspaper distributed in the London area.

  123 Role playing games. The advertiser is possibly referring to World of Warcraft, the fourth game set in American computer game developers Blizzard Entertainment’s Warcraft multi-player online gaming universe. The game was designed by Rob Pardo, Jeff Kaplan and Tom Chilton and released in November 2004 in celebration of the tenth anniversary of the first Warcraft game. Players can choose to be one of nine class of player: Druid, Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock or Warrior. The game has frequently been criticised for being addictive: in August 2005, the Chinese government proposed new rules to limit the time its estimated 20 million gamers spend daily playing online games in general, following a number of incidents including one where a gamer killed a fellow player who had stolen his virtual sword. Wired.com published an article in 2006 by digital entrepreneur and journalist Joichi Ito called ‘World of Warcrack’, in which he states, ‘I have never been this addicted to anything before. My other hobbies are gone... my social life revolves more and more around friends in the game’.

  124 All former world record holders. Leslie Cole set the record for the fastest consumption of eels (1 pound of elvers in 43 seconds) at Frampton-on-Severn, Gloucestershire, on April 13, 1971. Bill ‘Dink’ Hewit set the record for fastest consumption of soft-boiled eggs (25 in three minutes, 1.8 seconds) in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on October 2, 1971. Roger Martinez ate 225 live goldfish (setting the record for most live goldfish consumed) at St. Mary’s University, San Antonio, Texas, on February 6, 1970. Councillor Peter Jaconelli, Mayor of Scarborough, Yorkshire, ate the most oysters in 60 minutes (500) at the Castle Hotel on April 27, 1972. Dave Man ate the most prunes in the fastest time (130, without pits, in 105 seconds) at Eastbourne, England, on June 16, 1971. William Corfield ate 81 unshelled whelks in 15 minutes at Helyar Arms, East Coker, Somerset, on September 6, 1969, though it isn’t clear whether the record in this instance was for quantity, speed or gastric resilience.

  125 Brand name of a range of cleaning products.

  126 Ross McKibbin (b. 1942)—essayist.

  127 See p. 48, n. 41.

  128 Translation: ‘Though she was a successful investment banker, she was dissatisfied with her life. Something was missing. She attempted to confront the many thoughts, moods and long-held myths that act as barriers to happiness in personal lives and relationships. Success was defined as making money, finding the perfect husband, getting to the top in business. And yet, she pondered, who is genuinely happy? All the people who have achieved these things—are they really happy? Very probably, she concluded, yet still sought a partner (M to 50) through the LRB personal ads. Talk about being a glutton for punishment. Not to mention abject failure and life-long misery. Go on, take your best shot. Box no. 0942’.

  129 The victim is believed to be 26-year old Michael Scaglione.

  130 Das Rheingold— the first of four operas that comprise Der Ring des Nibelungen by Richard Wagner. Its first performance was at the National Theatre in Munich on 22 September 1869.

  131 3 June, 1844—Great Auk (Pinguinus impennis); 12 December, 1878—Labrador Duck (Camptorhynchus labradorius); 1 December, 1900—Guadalupe Caracara (Polyborus lutosus); 28 December, 1907—Huia (Heteralocha acutirostris); 1 September, 1914—Passenger Pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius); 21 February, 1918—Carolina Parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis); 26 September, 1955—Grenadan Euler’s Flycatcher (Lathrotriccus euleri flaviventris); 18 June, 1987—Kaua’i ‘Ō‘ō (Moho braccatus).

  132 ‘Five-ton Mary’, as she was known, had stepped on an inexperienced keeper’s head while chasing after a watermelon.

  133 Kettering—a town in Northamptonshire, England, situated on the River Ise. It is twinned with Lahnstein in Germany and with Kettering, Ohio.

  134 Phil Fondacaro (b. 1958)—American actor. Measuring three feet, six inches tall, Fondacaro played the only ewok to have a death scene in Star Wars: Episode VI—Return of the Jedi (1983, dir. Richard Marquand) and the shortest ever on-screen Dracula in Charles Band’s The Creeps (1997).

  135 The Avengers—British television series about secret agent operatives, broadcast on the ITV network and running from 1961 to 1969. Diana Rigg (b. 1938) played Emma Peel in the series from 1965 to 1967.

  136 St Albans also has a cathedral and a 15th-century clock tower.

  137 Member of the monotypic Nepenthaceae family. Endemic to Mount Kinabalu and neighbouring Mount Tambuyukon in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo.

  138 The Prince of Hell, according to demonologists.

  139 See p. 25, n. 15, and p. 53, n. 43.

  140 Artex—a surface coating trademarked and manufactured by Artex, Ltd. Artex is used on ceilings where it can be textured to carry pattens (such as herring-bone, which was popular in the UK in the early eighties).

  141 Dagenham & Redbridge Football Club—English Association Football club, founded in 1992 after a merger between Dagenham and Redbridge Forest.

  142 Revels—spherical chocolate confection with assorted fillings. Because the fillings are mostly indistinguishable from each other (apart from the Galaxy Counters, which are flat), it is difficult to correctly guess the flavour of each candy pulled from the pack—the single most disappointing Revel being coffee, whilst the Malteser (a malt honeycomb centre) is the prized possession. Because Maltesers are available as a confection in their own right, with their own branding, it is assumed that one of the principal pleasures of Revels is the ‘Russian Roulette’ element of risk at drawing unpopular flavours.

  143 Telegraph—British broadsheet newspaper founded in 1855. Its readership is largely politically conservative.

  144 A reference to Dante’s Divine Comedy. The poem, written in first person, tells of Dante’s journey through the three realms of the dead: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. The Eighth Circle of Hell is described in Inferno and is reserved for those committing sins or fraud or treachery. It is divided into ten concentric circular ditches or bolgie (the Eighth Circle is called the Malebolge, literally ‘evil ditches’). The Third Bolgia, mentioned in the advert, houses those guilty of the sin of simony (the ecclesiastical crime of paying for offices or positions within a church hierarchy, named after Simon Magus, who appears in the Acts of the Apostles 8:18–24).

  145 Taken from ‘Jump Around’—written by Everlast and performed by House of Pain. Taken from the album House of Pain (1992, XL Recordings). The song reached number three in the US charts, with a remixed version getting to number eight in the UK charts.

  146 Lars Ulrich (b. 1963)—drummer with heavy metal band Metallica. Born to a middle-class family in Gentofte, Denmark, Ulrich was a tennis prodigy and moved to Los Angeles, California, when he was seventeen to pursue his tennis training. Ulrich’s father, Torben Ulrich, was an acclaimed tennis professional during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In 1976 he was the world’s top-ranked tennis player. Lars Ulrich became a vocal opponent of internet-based file-sharing programmes such as Napster, and, with the rest of Metallica, sued the company in April 2000 for copyright infringement.

  147 Chicken Soup for the Soul—series of motivational books written by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen and published by Health Communications, Inc.

  148 See p.70, n. 65.

  149 Lysergic acid diethylamide, LSD, or acid—a semi-synthetic psychedelic drug.

  150 A constant temperature is thought to be crucial to making tempura. As such, ice is often added to the batter mixture to prevent fried tempura soaking up too much oil during the frying process. Also, tempura should be fried in small batches to ensure an even distribution of heat throughout each. After each batch has been fried, pieces of loose batter should be removed from the frying oil, otherwise they will alter the heat distribution. Over-mixing tempura batter results in the production of gluten, which makes the fried batter too chewy.

  151 Little Britain—character-based sketch sho
w serialised first on BBC radio and then television. Written by and starring Matt Lucas (b. 1974) and David Walliams (b. 1971). Findus Crispy Pancakes—crepes coated with breadcrumbs. Sold in the UK and Sweden. They are available frozen in packs of four with one of three fillings: cheese, minced beef and chicken, bacon and sweet corn. The Da Vinci Code—Columbia Pictures adaptation of the Dan Brown novel of the same name. The book was published in 2003, and the film (dir. Ron Howard) released in 2006.

  152 Nicknames given to infamous gangsters: ‘Scarface’—Al Capone (1899–1947); ‘Mad Dog’—Vincent Coll (born Uinseann Ó Colla, 1908–32); ‘Pretty Boy’—Charles Floyd (1904–34); ‘Baby Face’—Lester Joseph Gillis (1908–34).

  153 See p. 78, n. 72.

  154 Virgo—August 23 to September 22 in the tropical zodiac, or September 16 to October 15 (approximately) in the sidereal zodiac. Rooster—in the Chinese zodiac, 22 January 1909–9 February 1910, 8 February 1921–27 January 1922, 26 January 1933–13 February 1934, 13 February 1945–1 February 1946, 31 January 1957–17 February 1958, 17 February 1969–5 February 1970, 5 February 1981–24 January 1982, 23 January 1993–9 February 1994, 9 February 2005–28 January 2006.

  155 In the UK, Child Support Agency. Responsible for the calculation, collection and distribution of child-maintenance payments from non-resident to resident parents.

  156 Possibly the Virgin Trains West Coast Main Line between Liverpool Lime Street and London Euston, which is shit.

  157 ‘Du bist eine Maultasche’ translates as ‘You are my ravioli’. The advertiser is referring to the Frankfurt Book Fair, or Frankfurter Buchmesse, the world’s largest trade fair for the publishing industry.

  158 Red Devils—the British Parachute Regiment’s display team. Formed on 1 January 1964 by Major-General Glyn Gilbert, then Regimental Colonel of the Parachute Regiment, it was officially declared the British Army’s parachute display team in 1979. A popular attraction at provincial fetes and summer fairs where they often display their skills.

  159 ‘Scarborough Fair/Canticle’—traditional English ballad, recorded by Simon and Garfunkel on their album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme (1966, Columbia Records).

  160 Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (b. 1965)—British celebrity chef and presenter of the River Cottage series of cookery programmes, along with A Cook on the Wild Side, in which he ate roadkill animals, and TV Dinners, in which he cooked and ate a human placenta served as a pâté. The A 405 (UK) is the North Orbital Trunk Road (M25 Junction 21A to M10/A414 Park Street Roundabout) and is located in St Albans (see p. 126, n. 136).

  161 Population 14,292 (Census 2001). The population density at the time of the 2001 census was 5,276/square mile (2,037/km2), which is significantly lower than the Manchester area, 9,880.8/square mile (3,815/km2), of which Didsbury is a suburb. However, the area is intersected by Wilmslow Road, which, according to analysts, is the busiest bus corridor in Europe.

  162 Statistically, the most commonly used companion adjective for male advertisers in the LRB personals column is ‘divorced’.

  163 Enya (born Eithne Patricia Ní Bhraonáin, 1961)—Irish singer, songwriter and former member of Clannad (she left the band in 1982).

  164 Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (1854–91). French poet.

  165 Raymond Frederick Harryhausen (b. 1920)—American film producer and special effects creator. Known for his brand of stop-motion model animation. The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958, dir. Nathan H. Juran) is the first of the Harryhausen-conceptualised and animated Sinbad trilogy (the others being The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, released in 1974, and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, 1977).

  166 Victor of Aveyron, aka the Wild Boy of Aveyron, was found wandering the woods near Saint-Sernin-sur-Rance, France (near Toulouse) in 1797. After being captured and escaping several times, he finally emerged from the forests voluntarily on January 8, 1800. Victor was taken under the wing of French physician Jean Marc Gaspard Itard (1774–1838). Itard believed that the two crucial differences between humans and animals were empathy and language and attempted to teach Victor to speak and show human emotion. However, the only words that Victor learned to speak were ‘lait’ (milk) and ‘Oh Dieu’ (oh God). It is now thought, partly by studying such feral children, that language acquisition takes place in a critical period of early childhood.

  167 Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck (1815–98)—Prussian and German statesman of the 19th century. As Minister-President of Prussia from 1862 to 1890, he oversaw the unification of Germany. Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg (1856–1921)—Chancellor of the German Empire from 1909 to 1917. Prince Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, Chlodwig Carl Viktor, Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, Fürst von Ratibor und Corvey (1819–1901)—Chancellor of Germany from 1894 to 1900. It was, in fact, the Prince of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst’s advanced years during his tenure as Chancellor and subsequently increasingly rare appearances at Prussian and German parliaments (he was 75 when he accepted the office at the request of Emperor William II) that led to increased independence being granted to the German secretaries of state.