A few weeks back, Lloyd carried out some important and detailed research into the ‘Raven Mixture’ tobacco mentioned early on in the novel. He even went as far as to acquire a pipe and pouch of the good stuff for us to sample. It was highly enjoyable, and I experienced what I can only callContinue reading “Raven Mixture revisited”
Tag Archives: September 23
The last ship chandler in London
In the opening chapter of The Riddle of the Sands, Carruthers is shaken from his bored torpor by a letter and a sort-of shopping list. (See September 23): Bring your gun and a good lot of No. 4’s; and would you mind calling at Lancaster’s and asking for mine, and bringing it too? Bring someContinue reading “The last ship chandler in London”
Ahoy! – The Riddle of the Sands Pilot Podcast
What better way to celebrate the launch of the The Riddle of the Sands Adventure Club than with our first pilot podcast. In it you’ll hear us – Lloyd and Tim – discuss what we’re up to with this adventure, how you can join in and why The Riddle of the Sands is such aContinue reading “Ahoy! – The Riddle of the Sands Pilot Podcast”
‘I was missed at Morven Lodge party’
The fateful letter that Carruthers receives from Davies at the beginning of the book might have been missed entirely, had Carruthers had been off doing what a truly fashionable young man of the era would have doing in September – staying in for a posh country house to shoot game. The fashion for taking potContinue reading “‘I was missed at Morven Lodge party’”
‘A low music-hall in Ratcliffe Highway’
Carruthers has become so bored by London that, some time before September 23, he takes a nocturnal trip to an awful place: A passing thirst, which I dare say many have shared, for adventures of the fascinating kind described in the New Arabian Nights led me on a few evenings into some shady haunts inContinue reading “‘A low music-hall in Ratcliffe Highway’”
‘A pair of rigging screws from Carey and Neilson’s’
Carey and Neilson’s is, we think, an invention of Childers’s. There was until fairly recently a chandler in the Minories – the location Childers gives for Carey and Neilson’s. It was called Potter’s, and it stood there for a hundred years before being taken over, in the 1980s, by Kelvin Hughes. The shop was finally closedContinue reading “‘A pair of rigging screws from Carey and Neilson’s’”
‘The club was a strange one’
Carruthers talks of having chambers in Pall Mall and dining at a club nearby. His club, however, is closed for the summer. For the purposes of Adventure Club, we’ve decided that the club is probably the Travellers. According to its own website, the Club was founded, in 1819, ‘for gentlemen who had travelled out of theContinue reading “‘The club was a strange one’”
The Curiously Specific Book Club 