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Re-listen Liveblog: La Belle Sauvage
Doing a re-listen of books 1-2 in the Book of Dust trilogy, since book 3 just came out.
I just finished the first one, La Belle Sauvage, liveblogging it on Mastodon and on Bluesky, Here’s a roundup post.
(I haven’t read this book since it came out in 2017, and I deliberately didn’t reread my original 2017 reaction post to LBS until now. Feel free to look through both, see which things I had different reactions about, and how many times I just noticed the same thing twice.)
La Belle Sauvage, chapters 1-3:
This starts off so strong. Like Lyra opening TGC, Malcolm is an active, curious, fun kid! We get a ton of worldbuilding through the places he explores, and a ton more through “noticing what the adults pointedly aren’t telling him.”
Not sure how well a reader could follow the background mystery if you didn’t know all the names and references from HDM. But if you have, it’s really juicy. Malcolm obvs has no idea, and it’s great how he fills the gaps with wild speculation.
Our one glimpse of baby Lyra so far was super charming.
Chapter 4:
Detour into the POV of Farder Coram.
In retrospect, a lot of this is an excuse to recap things we know from HDM, but the writing is engaging enough that it’s hard to mind.
[Note after rereading my original reaction post: Huh, this annoyed me a lot more the first time around. Apparently it gets a lot more tolerable when you haven’t been deep in the original HDM recently.]
Chapters 5-6:
Hannah Relf, and the whole field of “alethiometry as a serious academic discipline” that she belongs to, is barely in HDM. Really cool to see it showcased with her younger self in action here.
The way Malcolm gets roped into her spycraft is a little contrived, but I’ll allow it. Hannah’s ongoing stress about the morality of it helps.
(Made more sense when adults were recruiting Lyra, she wasn’t just an unusually-sharp 11-year-old, they also knew she was part of an Important Prophecy.)
The first titles Hannah lends Malcolm turn out to be “The Body in the Library” and “A Brief History of Time.”
Anybody out there written “HDM AU of Agatha Christie”? It’s canon now.
Chapters 7-9:
Getting into the League of St. Alexander plot now, and, oof, still hits hard. An upsettingly realistic story of a group of kids being manipulated into turning on each other, and on the actually-supportive adults in their lives.
Reminds me of the school sections in Nona the Ninth. There’s high-stakes politics and espionage happening around them, people are getting killed, we have a small group of good teachers trying their best to get normal lessons to the kids in spite of it all, and the whole thing is from the POV of the kids, who aren’t officially being told much, but they know something is up. Lots of urgently passing rumors, on the level of “well, my dad says he heard such-and-such, so I reckon that means…”
Very different setups, but still, lots of parallels! And both good.
Oh, one more thing!
This St. Alexander appears to be an in-universe creation, but the Church official who tells his story also talks to the kids about Jesus – not in detail, just mentions of things like, their job is to spread The Love Of Jesus(TM).
I checked out the HDM ebooks just to text-search them. The name “Christ” never comes up. The name “Jesus” only comes up in TAS, and it’s from Mary Malone. (Talking to Lyra — no mention of whether Lyra recognizes the name.) Nobody ever mentions Christmas or Easter, either.
The Magisterium is explicitly Christian — TGC has Lyra mention someone being “baptized as a Christian.” (After that, the term disappears until, again, Mary in TAS uses it.) So this felt like a worldbuilding point, that their doctrine specifically de-emphasizes Jesus. No obligatory prayers, no lip service to “what would Jesus do,” no framing their actions in terms of “following the Word of Christ,” no references at all.
…And now we’re in LBS, and this random person is telling a group of elementary-school kids “of course this is a Proper Country where we follow the Good Word about Jesus,” like of course that’s a common thing they’ve all heard of.
Is this difference also a worldbuilding point? Or is it a Doylist thing where, in writing HDM, Pullman wasn’t ready to antagonize Jesus’ fans that directly, and now he is?
(So far, no idea! TBD if anything in future chapters will make it clearer.)
[Post-reread note: They did not make it clearer.]
Chapters 10-11:
Lors Asriel! HDM readers know in a few years he’ll murder a kid Malcolm’s age for a military advantage, but here, Malcolm doesn’t pick up anything sinister at all. Personal charisma on full blast. Don’t remember if Malcolm ever learns different, or not.
[Post-reread note: Well, not in this book, at least.]
Stray daemon details that caught my eye:
- The shop teacher’s woodpecker daemon drills holes in scrap wood as a nervous tic
- Malcolm’s unsettled Aster can take chimera forms, like an owl with duck feathers, but only experiments with that when nobody else is watching
- Hyena daemon urinates in the road, while looking at Malcolm. Makes him feel so dirty/violated that he’s too embarrassed to tell anyone until his next meeting with Hannah
Are we supposed to believe daemons have been doing that (just, you know, normally in private) all along? Not sure I buy it.
[Post-reread note: There’s an upcoming journey with baby Lyra in which Malcolm is constantly aware of how often she needs to be fed and changed. The idea of feeding/changing Pan is never even mentioned. So, yeah, I don’t think it’s a general daemon bodily function. I think it’s is a skill this specific daemon has cultivated to freak people out.]
Chapters 12-13:
Oh, huh. Argument at Malcolm’s family pub, the phrase “scientific management of resources” gets thrown around. A slip from Pullman, or was “experimental theology” supposed to be a term from Church-controlled circles, not common in the general public?
[Post-reread note: For now, I think it was just a slip from Pullman.]
Argument is about the upcoming plot-point flood.
Seems worth noting that the “modern, scientific” proponents are all characters who are going to be proven wrong. The Right Understanding comes from “the ancient wisdom of the gyptians who know how to read the signs” and “one guy’s granny.”
Hannah gets access to a contraband alethiometer! From the description, this is the one Lyra will eventually get.
Contrast to the Bodleian Library one she was using officially. Don’t think I realized there were different models before this. With only 6 ever made, I figured they were a matching set.
The Bodleian one has full-color symbols! The stolen one has plain black ink lineart.
Idle theorizing: all 6 were originally made with black lineart, but that faceplate was damaged and replaced at some point. The new artist either was told to paint the new symbols fancier, or just had fun with it.
End of this latest chapter refers to Bonneville (the guy with the hyena daemon) as “a physicist.”
So much for my half-baked theory that maybe “experimental theology” was a replacement term for “physics” specifically.
Chapters 14-15:
Higher-up spies encourage Hannah to keep talking with (from their POV) this random 11-year-old, but it gets in-universe justified in a way that works for me. (…I mean narratively, not ethically.)
Alice (teen kitchen worker) calls Lyra a “little flirt” for giggling at Malcolm. Not creepy on its own, that’s a joke people make about babies…but knowing that Pullman is planning future Lyra/Malcolm, with more explicitly-creepy stuff in the lead-up…yeah, this is a retroactive big oof.
Malcolm gets to meet Mrs. Coulter! Unlike with Asriel, he gets a bad vibe off her immediately. Well, she’s on track to murder a lot more children than Asriel will, so maybe it’s fair.
(Also, Asriel shows care for Lyra, which biases Malcolm toward him instantly.)
Part 1 ends (at the 54% mark) with the predicted Big Flood hitting. Alice, Malcolm, and Lyra get stranded together in a boat.
Everything I remember being “meh” about this book is on their river journey. Plunging apprehensively onward…
Chapter 16:
Worldbuilding detail: pharmacies are marked with a green cross. (Not sure from context if it’s just a palette-swapped ➕️, or an actual ✝️.)
The dynamic between Alice and Malcolm is really good here. Grudging teamwork.
Malcolm and Aster see a drowned body during the flooding, and wonder “what happens to daemons when you die?”
Surprised they wouldn’t know. Even with no deaths in their close family, surely it’s a thing children are taught about? (They’ve been reading murder mysteries! It never came up?)
Different chat a few chapters ago, they saw Pan turning into a mole, and wondered how a baby daemon knows how to turn into a creature they’ve never actually seen.
That I liked, because it doesn’t seem like there’s a clear, generally-known answer. One adult daemon offered “You just feel mole-y.”
Chapter 17:
Mention of a prophecy about “a boy” that might be Malcolm.
Feels like overkill? Like “he can’t just be a normal person caught up in Lyra’s cosmic destiny, he’s gotta be special too.” (Don’t remember if there’s payoff for this later. Might like it more if it’s good. TBD.)
[Post-reread note: There was not.]
Chapter 18:
Not much to say here except “go Alice.” Previously seen decking Bonneville with a chair, now she gets off a gun at him.
Bonneville mentions “experimental theology” to Malcolm. Guess he doesn’t use “science”…?
Malcolm has been seeing flecks/lights that Hannah thinks are migraine auras. He misheard it as “auroras”. Unsubtle hint that this is Dust’s way of guiding him? Hasn’t been plot-pivotal yet, so we’ll see.
[Post-reread note: It was not.]
Chapter 19:
Reappearance of a trusted ally I forgot was coming back at all! Surprised and delighted.
Kitten!Pan kneads Malcolm’s hand as he rocks Lyra. He thinks “she’s too young to know it’s taboo,” but I expect it’d hurt if she didn’t feel so comfy and cared-for with him.
Earlier hints of “things in the river” now expanded with examples: mermaids, Father Thames, “old gods.”
I know we meet some of these in later chapters. And, look, I’m good with Lyra’s world having more fantastical beings than we already saw. But it sure would be weird if, after all HDM, the message of LBS was “sure, the Magisterium is evil and their god sucks, but science also sucks and will lead you astray, the truth is in following the right religion and trusting the better gods.”
Don’t remember if that’s how it actually ends! Just noting, as of now, the vibes feel odd.
[Post-reread note: Good news, I don’t think that was the message. The possibly-god-ish creatures we meet are no more or less trustworthy than other people.]
Chapter 20:
Evil Magisterium group kidnapped Lyra, after a St. Alexander kid in the refugee group tipped them off. Malcolm hates him, which is fair, but his own family are also so awful to him that I get why he was won over in the first place. Praise and affirmation for a kid who isn’t getting any at home is one heck of a drug.
The daring rescue is quite good! The Alice-Malcolm teamwork is really flourishing by now.
Malcolm’s “aurora” pops up again, but only to highlight the place they were already going. Finding Lyra is all their own ingenuity.
Chapter 21:
Last quarter of the book, and now things get outright magical.
Washing up on the island of a mystery woman with a cloud of butterflies. Malcolm first assumes one of them is her daemon, then wonders if, somehow, all of them are. Hey, I’ve written that fic.
A bag they took off Bonneville has…an alethiometer inside. Malcolm figures it’s the famous missing one.
Explains how conveniently Bonneville always caught up to them! And maybe why he was so convinced that “kidnapping Lyra” was the key to fixing his life in the first place.
They leave the alethiometer with the probably-faerie woman. So I guess from now on it’ll be Missing For Real forever.
At least it’s a more poetic end than “the kids drop it in the water and it gets crushed in the flood.” Getting some One Ring vibes here. It won’t get lost when it doesn’t want to.
Chapter 22:
Oh, they didn’t trade the alethiometer to the faerie, just its nice box? Huh. That’s less poetic, but a savvier move from Malcolm, so good for him.
New batch of probably-faeries, in fancy dress, in the garden of a fancy-but-unreachable manor. They each have a bird, which might or might not be daemons.
Really like the setup of “desolate ruins, hidden just outside the beautiful tranquil sphere of the garden.” Classic Fairyland worldbuilding.
…And Bonneville isn’t dead, again. Ugh.
Unless this is a faerie-thing taking his shape? Others are taking shapes of people familiar to Alice+Malcolm, including at least one who’s dead. Although I don’t remember him being that…and it’s enough of a satisfying twist, I feel like I would?
[Post-reread note: No luck, this is just Bonneville.]
This might retroactively ruin my “oh, nice, the alethiometer justifies how conveniently he always caught up with them” satisfaction.
Will the narrative give him a new justification for this round? TBD.
[Post-reread note: It did not.]
Chapter 23:
Meeting a giant in the water, talking him into opening a set of gates. Fully fairy-tale logic here, with Little Nemo type imagery. This team could make it through the Phantom Tollbooth or survive the Labyrinth, easy.
They figure this guy is the minor god of some tributary, since he works for Father Thames, god of the Thames. Logical enough.
Also, part of their scheme is making him believe Lyra is a princess. Not clear if he’s just gullible, or she has supernatural Princess Vibes that he can sense.
Back in normal reality, a witch! Most human person they’ve met all day, but with her Arctic-tern daemon not in range at first, poor Malcolm assumes otherwise.
(Briefly wonders if her branch of cloud-pine is her daemon. …I’ve written that fic too.)
Okay, I know from HDM why the witches would have an interest in Lyra. What I’m not sure of is, why didn’t this one try to either (depending on clan) guide her to safety, or kill her?
She shields them with what H2G2 would call a Somebody Else’s Problem field, but then just flies off again. Hmm.
[Post-reread note: Yeah, this never gets resolved or comes up again. Why even put her in the book??]
Chapter 24:
Alice swiped a bunch of food from the faerie garden party, and the whole crew eats some now. I’m surprised it’s still food-shaped, outside that sphere of magic influence. They’re not hesitant to eat it, hm.
I didn’t mention before, but the faerie woman with the butterflies breastfed Lyra, and Malcolm+Alice were immediately suspicious. So they have some idea of the dangers of eating unseelie food…
[Post-reread note: Yeah, this goes nowhere.]
Getting foreshadowing now that Bonneville is a ghost, which would be fine by me!
…Nope, he’s alive, hyena daemon and all. Dammit.
Malcolm, almost in these words: “I need an adult”
Valid, buddy.
Anyway, we’re trying to murder him again, and this time the hyena vanishes, so I guess it finally took. About time.
Bonneville grabbed Alice’s daemon to force her to follow him, so Malcolm followed to help, while his own daemon stayed to guard Lyra. Forced to endure the distance pain because they had no one else to rely on. That was a good heroic sequence there!
Mixed feelings about the rest. Alice already beat this guy twice, and yet he gets to keep coming back, until the boy character takes him on? Malcolm succeeds with an oar when Alice couldn’t with An Actual Gun? Not my favorite twist.
There’s been an air of SA around Bonneville for a while. He got shunned from academia over an unspecified sex crime, which got mentioned so much that I figured it was setting up a dramatic reveal of the details, but now it seems like maybe not?
Point is, it’s not unexpected that he tries to assault Alice. (Vague about the extent of it, since Malcolm’s POV doesn’t fully process what he sees.)
But before now, all his creepiness was a means to the end of kidnapping Lyra. And here it seems like he forgets all about Lyra, his main goal is to assault Alice.
We know why Lyra was worth a massive multi-day boat chase: she’s Mrs. Coulter’s baby, and he wanted her influence on his side.
But why is Alice worth that?
There’s no nice way to put this, sorry in advance: why not go after any of the thousand closer teenage girls who would be easier targets? This is so much work to attack a specific girl! Predators are lazy!
I can sure imagine it being about “revenge for those two times she nearly killed him.”
But: He doesn’t show that. There’s no “haha, now you’ll be sorry for everything you did to me!” type gloating. Can’t think of anything that foreshadowed his priority-switch away from Lyra. This is just me retconning in a reason, not the book giving one.
One chapter left to go.
The list of “points I expect this book to leave unresolved” has gotten pretty long. On first read, I remember thinking they were left hanging for the sequel to pick up! They…were not.
Here goes nothing…
Chapter 25, thread 1:
I do like that they’ve washed up in a graveyard this time. Coffins in a stone mausoleum give them justifiably-still-dry wood to build fires with.
Malcolm apologizes a lot to the skeletons. Good kid.
…It’s just occurring to me that I would’ve loved a reveal that the hints about ghosts were foreshadowing “the ghosts of the graveyard, moved and affirmed by Malcolm’s respect, rise up to help him kill Bonneville.”
Doubly so if this was Ghost Bonneville, seeking revenge on Alice for killing him. That unfinished business could have guided him after Alice, and Malcolm would need the supernatural help of the graveyard ghosts to kill him double-plus-dead.
Feeling a little cheated we didn’t get this now, ngl :(
Back on the morning after the flood, Hannah deduced that Malcolm would try to take Lyra to Asriel’s address.
Good payoff: her allies have had boats looking for the canoe ever since. They even found Asriel first, got him in a boat, and so they found the canoe on the water! Probably would’ve fallen apart before the kids reached him, so instead, he reaches them. Moments before a Magisterium boat does, even! A good dramatic rescue scene.
Bad lack-of-payoff: Did Hannah’s cool secret alethiometer come to anything at all?
She didn’t use it to figure out where Malcolm was going, she just deduced that from the evidence + how well she knows Malcolm.
[Post-reread note: I didn’t comment at the time, but this was in chapter 17. Which is also Hannah’s last appearance in the book. She gets mentioned in chapters 18 and 22, but never shows up on-page again.]
To be clear, I like that bit! Their friendship is genuine and important. Giving it that kind of plot payoff was good!
But there was never a different plot point that she did need the alethiometer for.
There was also plenty of setup about how difficult it is. It takes a lot of study and cross-referencing. Hannah doesn’t have the magical intuition that Lyra does.
So you could’ve made the payoff out of that instead. It answered something for her, she’s poring over the books looking at the symbols…and we, the readers, can connect them all to the bizarre events of Malcolm and Alice’s Excellent Unseelie Adventure. But Hannah doesn’t have that context. At last, she despairs. “I can’t do it! This is out of my league! It’s so obscure and complicated, only a genius could figure it out.”
[Cue Lyra’s leitmotif from HDM playing in the background.]
Heck, drop the whole Special Bonus Witch Prophecy, let Hannah deduce “a boy is going on a journey carrying a treasure” from the symbols she reads. She just can’t interpret anything more helpful, like “pick him up at this date and time.”
Oh, and! About that prophecy! Why didn’t it say “a boy and a girl”?
Alice was integral to Lyra surviving this trip. She did half the carrying! What gives, prophets? Behind every man is an unacknowledged woman, even in a witch prophecy??
Chapter 25, thread 2:
Alice gets to yell at Lord Asriel about how great Malcolm is, so don’t you dare disrespect everything he’s done.
I like this! Well-earned!
Alice has never hesitated to tell off Malcolm when she has a problem with him. So this reversal, telling off someone else in his defense, is really fulfilling. And you know she means it.
From here they get to Jordan College, via Asriel flying a gyropter. (Helicopter.) I’m retroactively surprised Malcolm+Alice haven’t heard any before. Wouldn’t they be used for rescues? And to survey the flood damage?
They gyropters also have earmuff/microphone setups to communicate over the rotors. Which has me retroactively wondering why nobody else has used radio. Not to communicate, not for news reports, not to play music in the pub…
I was vaguely assuming the tech didn’t exist here! Now…huh.
Asriel basically dumps the kids at Jordan (literally, the last scene is Malcolm collapsing on their carpet) and immediately biffs off to the North. A+ parenting, right there.
Most of this journey has been “washing up at a sanctuary, feeling safe for a short time, then having to flee”, so it’s a little anticlimactic to end on “but THIS time it’ll be fine, no worries, roll credits.”
I’d feel better if Hannah was here to greet them! Which would also salve the lack of Hannah in the back half of the book. She got a few scenes, chapters ago, then totally disappeared. Unsatisfying.
(And just imagine if Hannah had brought Malcolm+Alice’s parents! We didn’t actually meet Alice’s before, but we met Malcolm’s, and surely all of them deserve that reunion!)
One more anticlimax: Asriel tells the kids “never talk about this, not with anyone but each other, then you’ll be safe.”
Not buying that at all.
Their school is full of junior Magisterium spies. Teachers were getting fired. A local guy stood up to Church agents at the pub once, then he and his family had to flee the district.
The town knows which kids went missing during the flood. And which one had a canoe.
What stops the Church from kidnapping these kids the minute they get home, and forcing the intel out of them?
…on a more upbeat note, why not give the kids clearance to talk about it with a whole circle of specific adults Asriel trusts? Farder Coram counts. Hannah deserves to.
It took support, intel, and prep from several sympathetic adults to get these kids through the flood. If we ended with Asriel setting up a group of supporters to get them through whatever danger the Church brings down next, I’d feel reassured!
But nope.
So that’s La Belle Sauvage. Really strong start! Faceplanted in a whole lot of ways by the end.
Might need a new thread for the “and ANOTHER thing that never got resolved–!” reactions that will undoubtedly hit me over the rest of the night.
(TSC is checked out. Will start that some time soon.)
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Re-listen Liveblog: La Belle Sauvage
Doing a re-listen of books 1-2 in the Book of Dust trilogy, since book 3 just came out.
I just finished the first one, La Belle Sauvage, liveblogging it on Mastodon and on Bluesky, Here’s a roundup post.
(I haven’t read this book since it came out in 2017, and I deliberately didn’t reread my original 2017 reaction post to LBS until now. Feel free to look through both, see which things I had different reactions about, and how many times I just noticed the same thing twice.)
La Belle Sauvage, chapters 1-3:
This starts off so strong. Like Lyra opening TGC, Malcolm is an active, curious, fun kid! We get a ton of worldbuilding through the places he explores, and a ton more through “noticing what the adults pointedly aren’t telling him.”
Not sure how well a reader could follow the background mystery if you didn’t know all the names and references from HDM. But if you have, it’s really juicy. Malcolm obvs has no idea, and it’s great how he fills the gaps with wild speculation.
Our one glimpse of baby Lyra so far was super charming.
Chapter 4:
Detour into the POV of Farder Coram.
In retrospect, a lot of this is an excuse to recap things we know from HDM, but the writing is engaging enough that it’s hard to mind.
[Note after rereading my original reaction post: Huh, this annoyed me a lot more the first time around. Apparently it gets a lot more tolerable when you haven’t been deep in the original HDM recently.]
Chapters 5-6:
Hannah Relf, and the whole field of “alethiometry as a serious academic discipline” that she belongs to, is barely in HDM. Really cool to see it showcased with her younger self in action here.
The way Malcolm gets roped into her spycraft is a little contrived, but I’ll allow it. Hannah’s ongoing stress about the morality of it helps.
(Made more sense when adults were recruiting Lyra, she wasn’t just an unusually-sharp 11-year-old, they also knew she was part of an Important Prophecy.)
The first titles Hannah lends Malcolm turn out to be “The Body in the Library” and “A Brief History of Time.”
Anybody out there written “HDM AU of Agatha Christie”? It’s canon now.
Chapters 7-9:
Getting into the League of St. Alexander plot now, and, oof, still hits hard. An upsettingly realistic story of a group of kids being manipulated into turning on each other, and on the actually-supportive adults in their lives.
Reminds me of the school sections in Nona the Ninth. There’s high-stakes politics and espionage happening around them, people are getting killed, we have a small group of good teachers trying their best to get normal lessons to the kids in spite of it all, and the whole thing is from the POV of the kids, who aren’t officially being told much, but they know something is up. Lots of urgently passing rumors, on the level of “well, my dad says he heard such-and-such, so I reckon that means…”
Very different setups, but still, lots of parallels! And both good.
Oh, one more thing!
This St. Alexander appears to be an in-universe creation, but the Church official who tells his story also talks to the kids about Jesus – not in detail, just mentions of things like, their job is to spread The Love Of Jesus(TM).
I checked out the HDM ebooks just to text-search them. The name “Christ” never comes up. The name “Jesus” only comes up in TAS, and it’s from Mary Malone. (Talking to Lyra — no mention of whether Lyra recognizes the name.) Nobody ever mentions Christmas or Easter, either.
The Magisterium is explicitly Christian — TGC has Lyra mention someone being “baptized as a Christian.” (After that, the term disappears until, again, Mary in TAS uses it.) So this felt like a worldbuilding point, that their doctrine specifically de-emphasizes Jesus. No obligatory prayers, no lip service to “what would Jesus do,” no framing their actions in terms of “following the Word of Christ,” no references at all.
…And now we’re in LBS, and this random person is telling a group of elementary-school kids “of course this is a Proper Country where we follow the Good Word about Jesus,” like of course that’s a common thing they’ve all heard of.
Is this difference also a worldbuilding point? Or is it a Doylist thing where, in writing HDM, Pullman wasn’t ready to antagonize Jesus’ fans that directly, and now he is?
(So far, no idea! TBD if anything in future chapters will make it clearer.)
[Post-reread note: They did not make it clearer.]
Chapters 10-11:
Lors Asriel! HDM readers know in a few years he’ll murder a kid Malcolm’s age for a military advantage, but here, Malcolm doesn’t pick up anything sinister at all. Personal charisma on full blast. Don’t remember if Malcolm ever learns different, or not.
[Post-reread note: Well, not in this book, at least.]
Stray daemon details that caught my eye:
- The shop teacher’s woodpecker daemon drills holes in scrap wood as a nervous tic
- Malcolm’s unsettled Aster can take chimera forms, like an owl with duck feathers, but only experiments with that when nobody else is watching
- Hyena daemon urinates in the road, while looking at Malcolm. Makes him feel so dirty/violated that he’s too embarrassed to tell anyone until his next meeting with Hannah
Are we supposed to believe daemons have been doing that (just, you know, normally in private) all along? Not sure I buy it.
[Post-reread note: There’s an upcoming journey with baby Lyra in which Malcolm is constantly aware of how often she needs to be fed and changed. The idea of feeding/changing Pan is never even mentioned. So, yeah, I don’t think it’s a general daemon bodily function. I think it’s is a skill this specific daemon has cultivated to freak people out.]
Chapters 12-13:
Oh, huh. Argument at Malcolm’s family pub, the phrase “scientific management of resources” gets thrown around. A slip from Pullman, or was “experimental theology” supposed to be a term from Church-controlled circles, not common in the general public?
[Post-reread note: For now, I think it was just a slip from Pullman.]
Argument is about the upcoming plot-point flood.
Seems worth noting that the “modern, scientific” proponents are all characters who are going to be proven wrong. The Right Understanding comes from “the ancient wisdom of the gyptians who know how to read the signs” and “one guy’s granny.”
Hannah gets access to a contraband alethiometer! From the description, this is the one Lyra will eventually get.
Contrast to the Bodleian Library one she was using officially. Don’t think I realized there were different models before this. With only 6 ever made, I figured they were a matching set.
The Bodleian one has full-color symbols! The stolen one has plain black ink lineart.
Idle theorizing: all 6 were originally made with black lineart, but that faceplate was damaged and replaced at some point. The new artist either was told to paint the new symbols fancier, or just had fun with it.
End of this latest chapter refers to Bonneville (the guy with the hyena daemon) as “a physicist.”
So much for my half-baked theory that maybe “experimental theology” was a replacement term for “physics” specifically.
Chapters 14-15:
Higher-up spies encourage Hannah to keep talking with (from their POV) this random 11-year-old, but it gets in-universe justified in a way that works for me. (…I mean narratively, not ethically.)
Alice (teen kitchen worker) calls Lyra a “little flirt” for giggling at Malcolm. Not creepy on its own, that’s a joke people make about babies…but knowing that Pullman is planning future Lyra/Malcolm, with more explicitly-creepy stuff in the lead-up…yeah, this is a retroactive big oof.
Malcolm gets to meet Mrs. Coulter! Unlike with Asriel, he gets a bad vibe off her immediately. Well, she’s on track to murder a lot more children than Asriel will, so maybe it’s fair.
(Also, Asriel shows care for Lyra, which biases Malcolm toward him instantly.)
Part 1 ends (at the 54% mark) with the predicted Big Flood hitting. Alice, Malcolm, and Lyra get stranded together in a boat.
Everything I remember being “meh” about this book is on their river journey. Plunging apprehensively onward…
Chapter 16:
Worldbuilding detail: pharmacies are marked with a green cross. (Not sure from context if it’s just a palette-swapped ➕️, or an actual ✝️.)
The dynamic between Alice and Malcolm is really good here. Grudging teamwork.
Malcolm and Aster see a drowned body during the flooding, and wonder “what happens to daemons when you die?”
Surprised they wouldn’t know. Even with no deaths in their close family, surely it’s a thing children are taught about? (They’ve been reading murder mysteries! It never came up?)
Different chat a few chapters ago, they saw Pan turning into a mole, and wondered how a baby daemon knows how to turn into a creature they’ve never actually seen.
That I liked, because it doesn’t seem like there’s a clear, generally-known answer. One adult daemon offered “You just feel mole-y.”
Chapter 17:
Mention of a prophecy about “a boy” that might be Malcolm.
Feels like overkill? Like “he can’t just be a normal person caught up in Lyra’s cosmic destiny, he’s gotta be special too.” (Don’t remember if there’s payoff for this later. Might like it more if it’s good. TBD.)
[Post-reread note: There was not.]
Chapter 18:
Not much to say here except “go Alice.” Previously seen decking Bonneville with a chair, now she gets off a gun at him.
Bonneville mentions “experimental theology” to Malcolm. Guess he doesn’t use “science”…?
Malcolm has been seeing flecks/lights that Hannah thinks are migraine auras. He misheard it as “auroras”. Unsubtle hint that this is Dust’s way of guiding him? Hasn’t been plot-pivotal yet, so we’ll see.
[Post-reread note: It was not.]
Chapter 19:
Reappearance of a trusted ally I forgot was coming back at all! Surprised and delighted.
Kitten!Pan kneads Malcolm’s hand as he rocks Lyra. He thinks “she’s too young to know it’s taboo,” but I expect it’d hurt if she didn’t feel so comfy and cared-for with him.
Earlier hints of “things in the river” now expanded with examples: mermaids, Father Thames, “old gods.”
I know we meet some of these in later chapters. And, look, I’m good with Lyra’s world having more fantastical beings than we already saw. But it sure would be weird if, after all HDM, the message of LBS was “sure, the Magisterium is evil and their god sucks, but science also sucks and will lead you astray, the truth is in following the right religion and trusting the better gods.”
Don’t remember if that’s how it actually ends! Just noting, as of now, the vibes feel odd.
[Post-reread note: Good news, I don’t think that was the message. The possibly-god-ish creatures we meet are no more or less trustworthy than other people.]
Chapter 20:
Evil Magisterium group kidnapped Lyra, after a St. Alexander kid in the refugee group tipped them off. Malcolm hates him, which is fair, but his own family are also so awful to him that I get why he was won over in the first place. Praise and affirmation for a kid who isn’t getting any at home is one heck of a drug.
The daring rescue is quite good! The Alice-Malcolm teamwork is really flourishing by now.
Malcolm’s “aurora” pops up again, but only to highlight the place they were already going. Finding Lyra is all their own ingenuity.
Chapter 21:
Last quarter of the book, and now things get outright magical.
Washing up on the island of a mystery woman with a cloud of butterflies. Malcolm first assumes one of them is her daemon, then wonders if, somehow, all of them are. Hey, I’ve written that fic.
A bag they took off Bonneville has…an alethiometer inside. Malcolm figures it’s the famous missing one.
Explains how conveniently Bonneville always caught up to them! And maybe why he was so convinced that “kidnapping Lyra” was the key to fixing his life in the first place.
They leave the alethiometer with the probably-faerie woman. So I guess from now on it’ll be Missing For Real forever.
At least it’s a more poetic end than “the kids drop it in the water and it gets crushed in the flood.” Getting some One Ring vibes here. It won’t get lost when it doesn’t want to.
Chapter 22:
Oh, they didn’t trade the alethiometer to the faerie, just its nice box? Huh. That’s less poetic, but a savvier move from Malcolm, so good for him.
New batch of probably-faeries, in fancy dress, in the garden of a fancy-but-unreachable manor. They each have a bird, which might or might not be daemons.
Really like the setup of “desolate ruins, hidden just outside the beautiful tranquil sphere of the garden.” Classic Fairyland worldbuilding.
…And Bonneville isn’t dead, again. Ugh.
Unless this is a faerie-thing taking his shape? Others are taking shapes of people familiar to Alice+Malcolm, including at least one who’s dead. Although I don’t remember him being that…and it’s enough of a satisfying twist, I feel like I would?
[Post-reread note: No luck, this is just Bonneville.]
This might retroactively ruin my “oh, nice, the alethiometer justifies how conveniently he always caught up with them” satisfaction.
Will the narrative give him a new justification for this round? TBD.
[Post-reread note: It did not.]
Chapter 23:
Meeting a giant in the water, talking him into opening a set of gates. Fully fairy-tale logic here, with Little Nemo type imagery. This team could make it through the Phantom Tollbooth or survive the Labyrinth, easy.
They figure this guy is the minor god of some tributary, since he works for Father Thames, god of the Thames. Logical enough.
Also, part of their scheme is making him believe Lyra is a princess. Not clear if he’s just gullible, or she has supernatural Princess Vibes that he can sense.
Back in normal reality, a witch! Most human person they’ve met all day, but with her Arctic-tern daemon not in range at first, poor Malcolm assumes otherwise.
(Briefly wonders if her branch of cloud-pine is her daemon. …I’ve written that fic too.)
Okay, I know from HDM why the witches would have an interest in Lyra. What I’m not sure of is, why didn’t this one try to either (depending on clan) guide her to safety, or kill her?
She shields them with what H2G2 would call a Somebody Else’s Problem field, but then just flies off again. Hmm.
[Post-reread note: Yeah, this never gets resolved or comes up again. Why even put her in the book??]
Chapter 24:
Alice swiped a bunch of food from the faerie garden party, and the whole crew eats some now. I’m surprised it’s still food-shaped, outside that sphere of magic influence. They’re not hesitant to eat it, hm.
I didn’t mention before, but the faerie woman with the butterflies breastfed Lyra, and Malcolm+Alice were immediately suspicious. So they have some idea of the dangers of eating unseelie food…
[Post-reread note: Yeah, this goes nowhere.]
Getting foreshadowing now that Bonneville is a ghost, which would be fine by me!
…Nope, he’s alive, hyena daemon and all. Dammit.
Malcolm, almost in these words: “I need an adult”
Valid, buddy.
Anyway, we’re trying to murder him again, and this time the hyena vanishes, so I guess it finally took. About time.
Bonneville grabbed Alice’s daemon to force her to follow him, so Malcolm followed to help, while his own daemon stayed to guard Lyra. Forced to endure the distance pain because they had no one else to rely on. That was a good heroic sequence there!
Mixed feelings about the rest. Alice already beat this guy twice, and yet he gets to keep coming back, until the boy character takes him on? Malcolm succeeds with an oar when Alice couldn’t with An Actual Gun? Not my favorite twist.
There’s been an air of SA around Bonneville for a while. He got shunned from academia over an unspecified sex crime, which got mentioned so much that I figured it was setting up a dramatic reveal of the details, but now it seems like maybe not?
Point is, it’s not unexpected that he tries to assault Alice. (Vague about the extent of it, since Malcolm’s POV doesn’t fully process what he sees.)
But before now, all his creepiness was a means to the end of kidnapping Lyra. And here it seems like he forgets all about Lyra, his main goal is to assault Alice.
We know why Lyra was worth a massive multi-day boat chase: she’s Mrs. Coulter’s baby, and he wanted her influence on his side.
But why is Alice worth that?
There’s no nice way to put this, sorry in advance: why not go after any of the thousand closer teenage girls who would be easier targets? This is so much work to attack a specific girl! Predators are lazy!
I can sure imagine it being about “revenge for those two times she nearly killed him.”
But: He doesn’t show that. There’s no “haha, now you’ll be sorry for everything you did to me!” type gloating. Can’t think of anything that foreshadowed his priority-switch away from Lyra. This is just me retconning in a reason, not the book giving one.
One chapter left to go.
The list of “points I expect this book to leave unresolved” has gotten pretty long. On first read, I remember thinking they were left hanging for the sequel to pick up! They…were not.
Here goes nothing…
Chapter 25, thread 1:
I do like that they’ve washed up in a graveyard this time. Coffins in a stone mausoleum give them justifiably-still-dry wood to build fires with.
Malcolm apologizes a lot to the skeletons. Good kid.
…It’s just occurring to me that I would’ve loved a reveal that the hints about ghosts were foreshadowing “the ghosts of the graveyard, moved and affirmed by Malcolm’s respect, rise up to help him kill Bonneville.”
Doubly so if this was Ghost Bonneville, seeking revenge on Alice for killing him. That unfinished business could have guided him after Alice, and Malcolm would need the supernatural help of the graveyard ghosts to kill him double-plus-dead.
Feeling a little cheated we didn’t get this now, ngl :(
Back on the morning after the flood, Hannah deduced that Malcolm would try to take Lyra to Asriel’s address.
Good payoff: her allies have had boats looking for the canoe ever since. They even found Asriel first, got him in a boat, and so they found the canoe on the water! Probably would’ve fallen apart before the kids reached him, so instead, he reaches them. Moments before a Magisterium boat does, even! A good dramatic rescue scene.
Bad lack-of-payoff: Did Hannah’s cool secret alethiometer come to anything at all?
She didn’t use it to figure out where Malcolm was going, she just deduced that from the evidence + how well she knows Malcolm.
[Post-reread note: I didn’t comment at the time, but this was in chapter 17. Which is also Hannah’s last appearance in the book. She gets mentioned in chapters 18 and 22, but never shows up on-page again.]
To be clear, I like that bit! Their friendship is genuine and important. Giving it that kind of plot payoff was good!
But there was never a different plot point that she did need the alethiometer for.
There was also plenty of setup about how difficult it is. It takes a lot of study and cross-referencing. Hannah doesn’t have the magical intuition that Lyra does.
So you could’ve made the payoff out of that instead. It answered something for her, she’s poring over the books looking at the symbols…and we, the readers, can connect them all to the bizarre events of Malcolm and Alice’s Excellent Unseelie Adventure. But Hannah doesn’t have that context. At last, she despairs. “I can’t do it! This is out of my league! It’s so obscure and complicated, only a genius could figure it out.”
[Cue Lyra’s leitmotif from HDM playing in the background.]
Heck, drop the whole Special Bonus Witch Prophecy, let Hannah deduce “a boy is going on a journey carrying a treasure” from the symbols she reads. She just can’t interpret anything more helpful, like “pick him up at this date and time.”
Oh, and! About that prophecy! Why didn’t it say “a boy and a girl”?
Alice was integral to Lyra surviving this trip. She did half the carrying! What gives, prophets? Behind every man is an unacknowledged woman, even in a witch prophecy??
Chapter 25, thread 2:
Alice gets to yell at Lord Asriel about how great Malcolm is, so don’t you dare disrespect everything he’s done.
I like this! Well-earned!
Alice has never hesitated to tell off Malcolm when she has a problem with him. So this reversal, telling off someone else in his defense, is really fulfilling. And you know she means it.
From here they get to Jordan College, via Asriel flying a gyropter. (Helicopter.) I’m retroactively surprised Malcolm+Alice haven’t heard any before. Wouldn’t they be used for rescues? And to survey the flood damage?
They gyropters also have earmuff/microphone setups to communicate over the rotors. Which has me retroactively wondering why nobody else has used radio. Not to communicate, not for news reports, not to play music in the pub…
I was vaguely assuming the tech didn’t exist here! Now…huh.
Asriel basically dumps the kids at Jordan (literally, the last scene is Malcolm collapsing on their carpet) and immediately biffs off to the North. A+ parenting, right there.
Most of this journey has been “washing up at a sanctuary, feeling safe for a short time, then having to flee”, so it’s a little anticlimactic to end on “but THIS time it’ll be fine, no worries, roll credits.”
I’d feel better if Hannah was here to greet them! Which would also salve the lack of Hannah in the back half of the book. She got a few scenes, chapters ago, then totally disappeared. Unsatisfying.
(And just imagine if Hannah had brought Malcolm+Alice’s parents! We didn’t actually meet Alice’s before, but we met Malcolm’s, and surely all of them deserve that reunion!)
One more anticlimax: Asriel tells the kids “never talk about this, not with anyone but each other, then you’ll be safe.”
Not buying that at all.
Their school is full of junior Magisterium spies. Teachers were getting fired. A local guy stood up to Church agents at the pub once, then he and his family had to flee the district.
The town knows which kids went missing during the flood. And which one had a canoe.
What stops the Church from kidnapping these kids the minute they get home, and forcing the intel out of them?
…on a more upbeat note, why not give the kids clearance to talk about it with a whole circle of specific adults Asriel trusts? Farder Coram counts. Hannah deserves to.
It took support, intel, and prep from several sympathetic adults to get these kids through the flood. If we ended with Asriel setting up a group of supporters to get them through whatever danger the Church brings down next, I’d feel reassured!
But nope.
So that’s La Belle Sauvage. Really strong start! Faceplanted in a whole lot of ways by the end.
Might need a new thread for the “and ANOTHER thing that never got resolved–!” reactions that will undoubtedly hit me over the rest of the night.
(TSC is checked out. Will start that some time soon.)
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Re-listen Liveblog: La Belle Sauvage
Doing a re-listen of books 1-2 in the Book of Dust trilogy, since book 3 just came out.
I just finished the first one, La Belle Sauvage, liveblogging it on Mastodon and on Bluesky, Here’s a roundup post.
(I haven’t read this book since it came out in 2017, and I deliberately didn’t reread my original 2017 reaction post to LBS until now. Feel free to look through both, see which things I had different reactions about, and how many times I just noticed the same thing twice.)
La Belle Sauvage, chapters 1-3:
This starts off so strong. Like Lyra opening TGC, Malcolm is an active, curious, fun kid! We get a ton of worldbuilding through the places he explores, and a ton more through “noticing what the adults pointedly aren’t telling him.”
Not sure how well a reader could follow the background mystery if you didn’t know all the names and references from HDM. But if you have, it’s really juicy. Malcolm obvs has no idea, and it’s great how he fills the gaps with wild speculation.
Our one glimpse of baby Lyra so far was super charming.
Chapter 4:
Detour into the POV of Farder Coram.
In retrospect, a lot of this is an excuse to recap things we know from HDM, but the writing is engaging enough that it’s hard to mind.
[Note after rereading my original reaction post: Huh, this annoyed me a lot more the first time around. Apparently it gets a lot more tolerable when you haven’t been deep in the original HDM recently.]
Chapters 5-6:
Hannah Relf, and the whole field of “alethiometry as a serious academic discipline” that she belongs to, is barely in HDM. Really cool to see it showcased with her younger self in action here.
The way Malcolm gets roped into her spycraft is a little contrived, but I’ll allow it. Hannah’s ongoing stress about the morality of it helps.
(Made more sense when adults were recruiting Lyra, she wasn’t just an unusually-sharp 11-year-old, they also knew she was part of an Important Prophecy.)
The first titles Hannah lends Malcolm turn out to be “The Body in the Library” and “A Brief History of Time.”
Anybody out there written “HDM AU of Agatha Christie”? It’s canon now.
Chapters 7-9:
Getting into the League of St. Alexander plot now, and, oof, still hits hard. An upsettingly realistic story of a group of kids being manipulated into turning on each other, and on the actually-supportive adults in their lives.
Reminds me of the school sections in Nona the Ninth. There’s high-stakes politics and espionage happening around them, people are getting killed, we have a small group of good teachers trying their best to get normal lessons to the kids in spite of it all, and the whole thing is from the POV of the kids, who aren’t officially being told much, but they know something is up. Lots of urgently passing rumors, on the level of “well, my dad says he heard such-and-such, so I reckon that means…”
Very different setups, but still, lots of parallels! And both good.
Oh, one more thing!
This St. Alexander appears to be an in-universe creation, but the Church official who tells his story also talks to the kids about Jesus – not in detail, just mentions of things like, their job is to spread The Love Of Jesus(TM).
I checked out the HDM ebooks just to text-search them. The name “Christ” never comes up. The name “Jesus” only comes up in TAS, and it’s from Mary Malone. (Talking to Lyra — no mention of whether Lyra recognizes the name.) Nobody ever mentions Christmas or Easter, either.
The Magisterium is explicitly Christian — TGC has Lyra mention someone being “baptized as a Christian.” (After that, the term disappears until, again, Mary in TAS uses it.) So this felt like a worldbuilding point, that their doctrine specifically de-emphasizes Jesus. No obligatory prayers, no lip service to “what would Jesus do,” no framing their actions in terms of “following the Word of Christ,” no references at all.
…And now we’re in LBS, and this random person is telling a group of elementary-school kids “of course this is a Proper Country where we follow the Good Word about Jesus,” like of course that’s a common thing they’ve all heard of.
Is this difference also a worldbuilding point? Or is it a Doylist thing where, in writing HDM, Pullman wasn’t ready to antagonize Jesus’ fans that directly, and now he is?
(So far, no idea! TBD if anything in future chapters will make it clearer.)
[Post-reread note: They did not make it clearer.]
Chapters 10-11:
Lors Asriel! HDM readers know in a few years he’ll murder a kid Malcolm’s age for a military advantage, but here, Malcolm doesn’t pick up anything sinister at all. Personal charisma on full blast. Don’t remember if Malcolm ever learns different, or not.
[Post-reread note: Well, not in this book, at least.]
Stray daemon details that caught my eye:
- The shop teacher’s woodpecker daemon drills holes in scrap wood as a nervous tic
- Malcolm’s unsettled Aster can take chimera forms, like an owl with duck feathers, but only experiments with that when nobody else is watching
- Hyena daemon urinates in the road, while looking at Malcolm. Makes him feel so dirty/violated that he’s too embarrassed to tell anyone until his next meeting with Hannah
Are we supposed to believe daemons have been doing that (just, you know, normally in private) all along? Not sure I buy it.
[Post-reread note: There’s an upcoming journey with baby Lyra in which Malcolm is constantly aware of how often she needs to be fed and changed. The idea of feeding/changing Pan is never even mentioned. So, yeah, I don’t think it’s a general daemon bodily function. I think it’s is a skill this specific daemon has cultivated to freak people out.]
Chapters 12-13:
Oh, huh. Argument at Malcolm’s family pub, the phrase “scientific management of resources” gets thrown around. A slip from Pullman, or was “experimental theology” supposed to be a term from Church-controlled circles, not common in the general public?
[Post-reread note: For now, I think it was just a slip from Pullman.]
Argument is about the upcoming plot-point flood.
Seems worth noting that the “modern, scientific” proponents are all characters who are going to be proven wrong. The Right Understanding comes from “the ancient wisdom of the gyptians who know how to read the signs” and “one guy’s granny.”
Hannah gets access to a contraband alethiometer! From the description, this is the one Lyra will eventually get.
Contrast to the Bodleian Library one she was using officially. Don’t think I realized there were different models before this. With only 6 ever made, I figured they were a matching set.
The Bodleian one has full-color symbols! The stolen one has plain black ink lineart.
Idle theorizing: all 6 were originally made with black lineart, but that faceplate was damaged and replaced at some point. The new artist either was told to paint the new symbols fancier, or just had fun with it.
End of this latest chapter refers to Bonneville (the guy with the hyena daemon) as “a physicist.”
So much for my half-baked theory that maybe “experimental theology” was a replacement term for “physics” specifically.
Chapters 14-15:
Higher-up spies encourage Hannah to keep talking with (from their POV) this random 11-year-old, but it gets in-universe justified in a way that works for me. (…I mean narratively, not ethically.)
Alice (teen kitchen worker) calls Lyra a “little flirt” for giggling at Malcolm. Not creepy on its own, that’s a joke people make about babies…but knowing that Pullman is planning future Lyra/Malcolm, with more explicitly-creepy stuff in the lead-up…yeah, this is a retroactive big oof.
Malcolm gets to meet Mrs. Coulter! Unlike with Asriel, he gets a bad vibe off her immediately. Well, she’s on track to murder a lot more children than Asriel will, so maybe it’s fair.
(Also, Asriel shows care for Lyra, which biases Malcolm toward him instantly.)
Part 1 ends (at the 54% mark) with the predicted Big Flood hitting. Alice, Malcolm, and Lyra get stranded together in a boat.
Everything I remember being “meh” about this book is on their river journey. Plunging apprehensively onward…
Chapter 16:
Worldbuilding detail: pharmacies are marked with a green cross. (Not sure from context if it’s just a palette-swapped ➕️, or an actual ✝️.)
The dynamic between Alice and Malcolm is really good here. Grudging teamwork.
Malcolm and Aster see a drowned body during the flooding, and wonder “what happens to daemons when you die?”
Surprised they wouldn’t know. Even with no deaths in their close family, surely it’s a thing children are taught about? (They’ve been reading murder mysteries! It never came up?)
Different chat a few chapters ago, they saw Pan turning into a mole, and wondered how a baby daemon knows how to turn into a creature they’ve never actually seen.
That I liked, because it doesn’t seem like there’s a clear, generally-known answer. One adult daemon offered “You just feel mole-y.”
Chapter 17:
Mention of a prophecy about “a boy” that might be Malcolm.
Feels like overkill? Like “he can’t just be a normal person caught up in Lyra’s cosmic destiny, he’s gotta be special too.” (Don’t remember if there’s payoff for this later. Might like it more if it’s good. TBD.)
[Post-reread note: There was not.]
Chapter 18:
Not much to say here except “go Alice.” Previously seen decking Bonneville with a chair, now she gets off a gun at him.
Bonneville mentions “experimental theology” to Malcolm. Guess he doesn’t use “science”…?
Malcolm has been seeing flecks/lights that Hannah thinks are migraine auras. He misheard it as “auroras”. Unsubtle hint that this is Dust’s way of guiding him? Hasn’t been plot-pivotal yet, so we’ll see.
[Post-reread note: It was not.]
Chapter 19:
Reappearance of a trusted ally I forgot was coming back at all! Surprised and delighted.
Kitten!Pan kneads Malcolm’s hand as he rocks Lyra. He thinks “she’s too young to know it’s taboo,” but I expect it’d hurt if she didn’t feel so comfy and cared-for with him.
Earlier hints of “things in the river” now expanded with examples: mermaids, Father Thames, “old gods.”
I know we meet some of these in later chapters. And, look, I’m good with Lyra’s world having more fantastical beings than we already saw. But it sure would be weird if, after all HDM, the message of LBS was “sure, the Magisterium is evil and their god sucks, but science also sucks and will lead you astray, the truth is in following the right religion and trusting the better gods.”
Don’t remember if that’s how it actually ends! Just noting, as of now, the vibes feel odd.
[Post-reread note: Good news, I don’t think that was the message. The possibly-god-ish creatures we meet are no more or less trustworthy than other people.]
Chapter 20:
Evil Magisterium group kidnapped Lyra, after a St. Alexander kid in the refugee group tipped them off. Malcolm hates him, which is fair, but his own family are also so awful to him that I get why he was won over in the first place. Praise and affirmation for a kid who isn’t getting any at home is one heck of a drug.
The daring rescue is quite good! The Alice-Malcolm teamwork is really flourishing by now.
Malcolm’s “aurora” pops up again, but only to highlight the place they were already going. Finding Lyra is all their own ingenuity.
Chapter 21:
Last quarter of the book, and now things get outright magical.
Washing up on the island of a mystery woman with a cloud of butterflies. Malcolm first assumes one of them is her daemon, then wonders if, somehow, all of them are. Hey, I’ve written that fic.
A bag they took off Bonneville has…an alethiometer inside. Malcolm figures it’s the famous missing one.
Explains how conveniently Bonneville always caught up to them! And maybe why he was so convinced that “kidnapping Lyra” was the key to fixing his life in the first place.
They leave the alethiometer with the probably-faerie woman. So I guess from now on it’ll be Missing For Real forever.
At least it’s a more poetic end than “the kids drop it in the water and it gets crushed in the flood.” Getting some One Ring vibes here. It won’t get lost when it doesn’t want to.
Chapter 22:
Oh, they didn’t trade the alethiometer to the faerie, just its nice box? Huh. That’s less poetic, but a savvier move from Malcolm, so good for him.
New batch of probably-faeries, in fancy dress, in the garden of a fancy-but-unreachable manor. They each have a bird, which might or might not be daemons.
Really like the setup of “desolate ruins, hidden just outside the beautiful tranquil sphere of the garden.” Classic Fairyland worldbuilding.
…And Bonneville isn’t dead, again. Ugh.
Unless this is a faerie-thing taking his shape? Others are taking shapes of people familiar to Alice+Malcolm, including at least one who’s dead. Although I don’t remember him being that…and it’s enough of a satisfying twist, I feel like I would?
[Post-reread note: No luck, this is just Bonneville.]
This might retroactively ruin my “oh, nice, the alethiometer justifies how conveniently he always caught up with them” satisfaction.
Will the narrative give him a new justification for this round? TBD.
[Post-reread note: It did not.]
Chapter 23:
Meeting a giant in the water, talking him into opening a set of gates. Fully fairy-tale logic here, with Little Nemo type imagery. This team could make it through the Phantom Tollbooth or survive the Labyrinth, easy.
They figure this guy is the minor god of some tributary, since he works for Father Thames, god of the Thames. Logical enough.
Also, part of their scheme is making him believe Lyra is a princess. Not clear if he’s just gullible, or she has supernatural Princess Vibes that he can sense.
Back in normal reality, a witch! Most human person they’ve met all day, but with her Arctic-tern daemon not in range at first, poor Malcolm assumes otherwise.
(Briefly wonders if her branch of cloud-pine is her daemon. …I’ve written that fic too.)
Okay, I know from HDM why the witches would have an interest in Lyra. What I’m not sure of is, why didn’t this one try to either (depending on clan) guide her to safety, or kill her?
She shields them with what H2G2 would call a Somebody Else’s Problem field, but then just flies off again. Hmm.
[Post-reread note: Yeah, this never gets resolved or comes up again. Why even put her in the book??]
Chapter 24:
Alice swiped a bunch of food from the faerie garden party, and the whole crew eats some now. I’m surprised it’s still food-shaped, outside that sphere of magic influence. They’re not hesitant to eat it, hm.
I didn’t mention before, but the faerie woman with the butterflies breastfed Lyra, and Malcolm+Alice were immediately suspicious. So they have some idea of the dangers of eating unseelie food…
[Post-reread note: Yeah, this goes nowhere.]
Getting foreshadowing now that Bonneville is a ghost, which would be fine by me!
…Nope, he’s alive, hyena daemon and all. Dammit.
Malcolm, almost in these words: “I need an adult”
Valid, buddy.
Anyway, we’re trying to murder him again, and this time the hyena vanishes, so I guess it finally took. About time.
Bonneville grabbed Alice’s daemon to force her to follow him, so Malcolm followed to help, while his own daemon stayed to guard Lyra. Forced to endure the distance pain because they had no one else to rely on. That was a good heroic sequence there!
Mixed feelings about the rest. Alice already beat this guy twice, and yet he gets to keep coming back, until the boy character takes him on? Malcolm succeeds with an oar when Alice couldn’t with An Actual Gun? Not my favorite twist.
There’s been an air of SA around Bonneville for a while. He got shunned from academia over an unspecified sex crime, which got mentioned so much that I figured it was setting up a dramatic reveal of the details, but now it seems like maybe not?
Point is, it’s not unexpected that he tries to assault Alice. (Vague about the extent of it, since Malcolm’s POV doesn’t fully process what he sees.)
But before now, all his creepiness was a means to the end of kidnapping Lyra. And here it seems like he forgets all about Lyra, his main goal is to assault Alice.
We know why Lyra was worth a massive multi-day boat chase: she’s Mrs. Coulter’s baby, and he wanted her influence on his side.
But why is Alice worth that?
There’s no nice way to put this, sorry in advance: why not go after any of the thousand closer teenage girls who would be easier targets? This is so much work to attack a specific girl! Predators are lazy!
I can sure imagine it being about “revenge for those two times she nearly killed him.”
But: He doesn’t show that. There’s no “haha, now you’ll be sorry for everything you did to me!” type gloating. Can’t think of anything that foreshadowed his priority-switch away from Lyra. This is just me retconning in a reason, not the book giving one.
One chapter left to go.
The list of “points I expect this book to leave unresolved” has gotten pretty long. On first read, I remember thinking they were left hanging for the sequel to pick up! They…were not.
Here goes nothing…
Chapter 25, thread 1:
I do like that they’ve washed up in a graveyard this time. Coffins in a stone mausoleum give them justifiably-still-dry wood to build fires with.
Malcolm apologizes a lot to the skeletons. Good kid.
…It’s just occurring to me that I would’ve loved a reveal that the hints about ghosts were foreshadowing “the ghosts of the graveyard, moved and affirmed by Malcolm’s respect, rise up to help him kill Bonneville.”
Doubly so if this was Ghost Bonneville, seeking revenge on Alice for killing him. That unfinished business could have guided him after Alice, and Malcolm would need the supernatural help of the graveyard ghosts to kill him double-plus-dead.
Feeling a little cheated we didn’t get this now, ngl :(
Back on the morning after the flood, Hannah deduced that Malcolm would try to take Lyra to Asriel’s address.
Good payoff: her allies have had boats looking for the canoe ever since. They even found Asriel first, got him in a boat, and so they found the canoe on the water! Probably would’ve fallen apart before the kids reached him, so instead, he reaches them. Moments before a Magisterium boat does, even! A good dramatic rescue scene.
Bad lack-of-payoff: Did Hannah’s cool secret alethiometer come to anything at all?
She didn’t use it to figure out where Malcolm was going, she just deduced that from the evidence + how well she knows Malcolm.
[Post-reread note: I didn’t comment at the time, but this was in chapter 17. Which is also Hannah’s last appearance in the book. She gets mentioned in chapters 18 and 22, but never shows up on-page again.]
To be clear, I like that bit! Their friendship is genuine and important. Giving it that kind of plot payoff was good!
But there was never a different plot point that she did need the alethiometer for.
There was also plenty of setup about how difficult it is. It takes a lot of study and cross-referencing. Hannah doesn’t have the magical intuition that Lyra does.
So you could’ve made the payoff out of that instead. It answered something for her, she’s poring over the books looking at the symbols…and we, the readers, can connect them all to the bizarre events of Malcolm and Alice’s Excellent Unseelie Adventure. But Hannah doesn’t have that context. At last, she despairs. “I can’t do it! This is out of my league! It’s so obscure and complicated, only a genius could figure it out.”
[Cue Lyra’s leitmotif from HDM playing in the background.]
Heck, drop the whole Special Bonus Witch Prophecy, let Hannah deduce “a boy is going on a journey carrying a treasure” from the symbols she reads. She just can’t interpret anything more helpful, like “pick him up at this date and time.”
Oh, and! About that prophecy! Why didn’t it say “a boy and a girl”?
Alice was integral to Lyra surviving this trip. She did half the carrying! What gives, prophets? Behind every man is an unacknowledged woman, even in a witch prophecy??
Chapter 25, thread 2:
Alice gets to yell at Lord Asriel about how great Malcolm is, so don’t you dare disrespect everything he’s done.
I like this! Well-earned!
Alice has never hesitated to tell off Malcolm when she has a problem with him. So this reversal, telling off someone else in his defense, is really fulfilling. And you know she means it.
From here they get to Jordan College, via Asriel flying a gyropter. (Helicopter.) I’m retroactively surprised Malcolm+Alice haven’t heard any before. Wouldn’t they be used for rescues? And to survey the flood damage?
They gyropters also have earmuff/microphone setups to communicate over the rotors. Which has me retroactively wondering why nobody else has used radio. Not to communicate, not for news reports, not to play music in the pub…
I was vaguely assuming the tech didn’t exist here! Now…huh.
Asriel basically dumps the kids at Jordan (literally, the last scene is Malcolm collapsing on their carpet) and immediately biffs off to the North. A+ parenting, right there.
Most of this journey has been “washing up at a sanctuary, feeling safe for a short time, then having to flee”, so it’s a little anticlimactic to end on “but THIS time it’ll be fine, no worries, roll credits.”
I’d feel better if Hannah was here to greet them! Which would also salve the lack of Hannah in the back half of the book. She got a few scenes, chapters ago, then totally disappeared. Unsatisfying.
(And just imagine if Hannah had brought Malcolm+Alice’s parents! We didn’t actually meet Alice’s before, but we met Malcolm’s, and surely all of them deserve that reunion!)
One more anticlimax: Asriel tells the kids “never talk about this, not with anyone but each other, then you’ll be safe.”
Not buying that at all.
Their school is full of junior Magisterium spies. Teachers were getting fired. A local guy stood up to Church agents at the pub once, then he and his family had to flee the district.
The town knows which kids went missing during the flood. And which one had a canoe.
What stops the Church from kidnapping these kids the minute they get home, and forcing the intel out of them?
…on a more upbeat note, why not give the kids clearance to talk about it with a whole circle of specific adults Asriel trusts? Farder Coram counts. Hannah deserves to.
It took support, intel, and prep from several sympathetic adults to get these kids through the flood. If we ended with Asriel setting up a group of supporters to get them through whatever danger the Church brings down next, I’d feel reassured!
But nope.
So that’s La Belle Sauvage. Really strong start! Faceplanted in a whole lot of ways by the end.
Might need a new thread for the “and ANOTHER thing that never got resolved–!” reactions that will undoubtedly hit me over the rest of the night.
(TSC is checked out. Will start that some time soon.)
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Tues. June 10, 2025: Art and The Perfect Cocktail
image courtesy of ArtandHome via pixabay.comTuesday, June 10, 2025
Day Before Full Moon
Pluto Retrograde
Rainy and cool
I hope you had a good weekend!
The Community Tarot Reading for the Week is here.
Friday morning, I wrote and submitted the review first thing, and requested my next assignment (which I received).
I did a polish on the ghostwriting and submitted it. Fingers crossed it’s what they want! Or at least close to it.
I expected to get the notes on the outline I submitted a couple of weeks ago, with either a rewrite on it or moving forward to the 20K version, but they won’t have it to me until tomorrow. Which takes pressure of me while company is here.
Headed to the library to drop off/pick up books. Did a big grocery shop at Big Y (because, you know, company – gotta have the meals planned and snacks and all the rest), and the liquor store. Hauled it all home and up the stairs.
Worked with my friend on the logistics, because we both have shows that were originally in the same town, but the venue of mine was moved to a different town and my start time is earlier than hers, and it’s her opening night, and it all became much more complicated that we hoped. We decided I’d pick her up Monday morning instead, which takes a lot of pressure off both of us.
Got my next book review assignment.
Turned around the two small coverages, did a bunch of admin. Tried not to feel the absolute exhaustion I feel every time I turn in a ghostwriting project. I have to figure out a better balance there.
The weather was awful, so I skipped First Friday. Cooked dinner, read, played with the cats. By Friday night, I’m usually too tired to go out.
Up early on Saturday. Did a bunch of housework. The bench that’s usually out on the back balcony, which was stored in Tessa’s room while the painters are here, is now in the living room, with the cushions on it. We were taking book to see who would be the first cat on it. Did housework, read. Read Agatha Christie’s CROOKED HOUSE (this month’s Read Christie pick). I’m sure I read it ages ago, but I didn’t remember the twist at the end. Finished Josephine Tey’s TO LOVE AND BE WISE, which was very good.
Bea spent most of the day out on the porch. She’s happy out there.
After dinner, I put on Real People clothes and makeup and headed to the Adams Theatre, to see the dance piece my advisor invited me to see. Absolutely fell in love with the space. I would love to do one of my own readings there, and it would be a great space for WAM, too.
The performance was the world premiere of LA PLAYA, by choreographer Olga Rabetskaya, with music composed by Maria Vasilevskaya. It was danced by Carl Ponce Cubero, Lavy, Elliana Lynch-Daniels, and Emma Weiss. The first half was fairly straight-forward, character-driven storytelling, and the second half was more abstract. Live music onstage was mixed with various sound cues, projections were used, it was a fascinating multi-disciplinary piece. It received an enthusiastic response, and there was a short Q & A after. The trust those four performers had to have with each other to execute the choreography was immense, and that was as beautiful to watch as the actual content.
It was a collaboration between the artists who were in residence at Floating Tower at Chase Hill (run by my advisor) and the Adams Theatre, as part of their Incubator Program. Yina Moore, the Artistic Director of the theatre, has really done a wonderful job since she took over.
I’m really glad I went. I want to support my advisor, and I want to support the creation of work like this whenever possible (and, in turn, have my work supported). The cohort program I was a part of in 2024 continues to make a huge, positive difference in my life.
Home, went through the mail, was happy to receive a check I wasn’t expecting until the end of the month. It was hard to settle down after the performance.
When I got home, Tessa had claimed the bench! She was lounging on it like the queen she is.
Sovereignty won the Belmont Stakes. Because he won the Derby and the Belmont, and Journalism the Preakness, both horses won’t get the acclaim they should. All because Mott wants to force restructuring of the Triple Crown. It’s supposed to be a challenge. If it’s “better for the horse” to skip one of the races, then that horse is not Triple Crown material. And, as I’ve said dozens of times, because of the way they’re being bred (not for stamina), even fewer horses are than ever were before. We’re not going to have another Secretariat. The problem isn’t the race schedule. It’s the breeding choices. They’re being bred for fragility (calling it speed) instead of stamina.
Finally got to sleep. Woke up early. It was nice and cool in the apartment.
Up early Sunday. Did the Community Tarot Reading for the Week, which was not as upbeat as I hoped, and the computer was an absolute pain the butt. Did some more housework.
Put on Real People clothes and makeup and headed out. First stop, Wild Soul River to make a contribution to their matching grant fund. It’s not as large as I wish, but it is something and little bits add up to big bits.
Drove down Rt. 7 toward Lenox. It was lovely until I hit Pittsfield, but it seems that every road in that city is torn up right now.
Once I got past Pittsfield, it was okay, although the tourist drivers were asshole nightmares. Once I got into Lenox, there was an art walk, which meant tents everywhere and lots of traffic, both by car and foot. I inched my way through there, took a wrong turn and ended up at Tanglewood instead of Ventfort Hall, and had to backtrack.
I finally got to Ventfort Hall. Last time I was there, for an Elsewhere Shakespeare performance, it was a gravel drive and I nearly missed it. Now it’s been paved and the signage is better.
Parked, chatted with some staff, checked in. In spite of all the kerfuffle, I was early enough to chat with fellow WAM members, and have a pastry and a drink on the lovely terrace.
The reading was ROOTED, by Deborah Zoe Laufer, directed by Tatyana-Marie Carlo. It was stage managed by my fellow literary committee member, Sara Recht, and the cast was Jayne Atkinson, Jennie M. Jardow, and Hero Marguerite.
It was a lovely, layered, beautiful play. Jayne, as usual, was radiant, and Jennie and Hero were wonderful, too. It was a lovely experience, that made me laugh and also get a little teary at times.
Eavesdropping in the audience ahead of the reading was a trip (and material I will use for my own work). The audience is mostly older, white, and affluent. So there were a lot of conversations about opening the cottage and being up for the summer, like something out of the Gilded Age. Since we were in a mansion from that era, I guess it was appropriate.
The talkback was good after, and included Jenny Hansell, of Berkshire National Resources Council, which was terrific (the play takes place in a treehouse, where the central character has lived for 20 years). It was also meaningful that Genée, the Artistic Director, thanked committee members (including me) for being there.
All in all, it was a lovely experience in a beautiful space.
The drive home was less fraught than the drive down, fortunately, once I’d inched through Lenox again, and scooted around the worst of the construction in Pittsfield.
Picked up groceries for dinner and dessert at Adams Fresh Market on the way home. Changed clothes, cooked, and after dinner, cleaned the bathroom. You know, the glamorous theatre life.
Started reading a biography of Moss Hart, which is an interesting contrast to his autobiography.
Caught up on news headlines. Needless to say, I am angry about how the feds are mishandling L.A. How about following the Constitution? Which would have avoided the situation in the first place? Oh, wait, those in charge use it for toilet paper.
The Tony Awards were unabashedly defiant this year, and good for them. It was also interesting that gowns were either huge swaths of fabric or very elegant outlines.
Charlotte woke me up at 4 on Monday and was such a pest, I gave up and got up at 5. Got some stuff done around the house. Headed down to Pittsfield to pick up my friend. We had hoped to stop at Red Shirt Farm for produce (and I had checked the website for hours), but it was closed. So we went to Wild Oats instead, and chose vegetables to go with the meals for last night and tonight.
Came home, got things unpacked and my friend settled, and headed to the library to pick up a pass for MASS MoCA. We spent a few hours there. I showed her the Boiler House, we went to the Anselm Kiefer exhibit, which is just beyond powerful and disturbing. The wedding dress with large shards of glass penetrating it has so much to say on so many levels. I have to go back and spend more time there. There is a temporary exhibit, called “The Archive of Lost Memories” by Randi Malkin Steinberger. She rescues lost/abandoned photos, slides, tintypes, photo albums, etc., and creates art with them, while honoring what they are. It was an amazing and moving exhibit. It’s only there until June 30, so I will return on Community Day and spend more time with it. She was there with the work, so we got a chance to chat with her about some of the specific pieces.
We spent time in the James Turrell exhibit, including Into the Light, which I’d seen with the cohort, but went into again with my friend. It was just as disorienting and fascinating the second time. We visited a bunch of the exhibits on other floors (Laurie Anderson, Louise Bourgeois , Amy Yoes, Amy Padmore, Spencer Finch), until our brains couldn’t process any more.
In the R & D store, I got a book on illusionists and the paranormal (which is relevant to multiple projects of mine and was on sale). We also discovered that Randi Malkin Steinberger had put together packets of some of the lost photographs and they were for sale in the store, which was very exciting.
We returned the museum pass to the library. The plan was to go to Bear & Bee Bookshop and browse. We’d checked online that it was open, but it was not. So we wandered Eagle Street. Gallery North was unexpectedly open, because the gallery member forgot it was Monday! So we got to go in and browse. One of the exhibits was by fiber artist Sarah George, who is a wool sculptor and animal portrait artist. The detail and precision of her work (and often, the sense of fun) was wonderful.
Then, it was off to Steeple City Social for cocktails and snacks. We had a drink called a Twinkle, which is vodka, elderflower, and lemon, served in a gorgeous vintage glass. It was the most perfect cocktail I’ve had in years. We also had some devilled eggs (very different recipe than mine, but oh so yummy) and sweet and salty nuts. We chatted, on one of the large vintage couches. Friends from tarot were there, and we had a nice catch-up. And then Randi Malkin Steinberger and her friend showed up! We told Randi that we’d bought some of the photo packets. I’d opened mine and even found a piece of original art in it, along with the slides, postcard, and photographs. Randi asked if I’d planned to let her know (she put her email with original art pieces), and I said yes, and we talked about me putting it on my Instagram and tagging her as well. So that’s on the agenda!
My friend got a taste of how you run into the same great people in cool places in this small city, which is one of the reasons I love it here.
Home, and we cooked dinner. My friend helped chop and prepare ingredients, which made things much easier to handle. It was a recipe from Patricia Wells’ FRENCH BISTRO cookbook, a chicken in tarragon vinegar and white wine, with shallots and tomatoes and fresh tarragon. We had mashed potatoes with it, and the Bok choy we bought at the market. And apple pie for dessert!
We did the dishes, and then sat in the living room for a good chat. Tessa hadn’t moved from the bench all day. Charlotte came shyly to join us. Bea kept a safe distance. Willa mostly stayed in my mother’s room, but had gotten a lot of extra attention during dinner and dishes, so she was happy.
Got a bizarre email from a potential client who wants some stuff he can use in a presentation packet by Thursday. I will figure it out.
Caught up on some news, including the ridiculous way That Thing is mishandling Los Angeles. Shame on any National Guard or Marine who “follows orders” against the people in this situation. They should outright refuse.
I never want to hear anyone defend the Second Amendment as necessary to fight tyranny. Instead of so doing, they all joined ICE to be a weapon of what they claimed to fight.
Slept well, although Charlotte fussed a lot. Up at the normal time.
I’m making us Eggs Benedict for breakfast. The plan today is to head for the Clark, and then maybe hit a bookshop (if we can find one that’s open). Yoga in the evening.
It’s raining today, but shouldn’t be too bad. Have a good one!
#adamsTheatre #art #cooking #dance #freelance #friends #ghostwriting #life #MassMOCA #steepleCitySocial #theatre #wamTheatre #writing
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Tues. June 10, 2025: Art and The Perfect Cocktail
image courtesy of ArtandHome via pixabay.comTuesday, June 10, 2025
Day Before Full Moon
Pluto Retrograde
Rainy and cool
I hope you had a good weekend!
The Community Tarot Reading for the Week is here.
Friday morning, I wrote and submitted the review first thing, and requested my next assignment (which I received).
I did a polish on the ghostwriting and submitted it. Fingers crossed it’s what they want! Or at least close to it.
I expected to get the notes on the outline I submitted a couple of weeks ago, with either a rewrite on it or moving forward to the 20K version, but they won’t have it to me until tomorrow. Which takes pressure of me while company is here.
Headed to the library to drop off/pick up books. Did a big grocery shop at Big Y (because, you know, company – gotta have the meals planned and snacks and all the rest), and the liquor store. Hauled it all home and up the stairs.
Worked with my friend on the logistics, because we both have shows that were originally in the same town, but the venue of mine was moved to a different town and my start time is earlier than hers, and it’s her opening night, and it all became much more complicated that we hoped. We decided I’d pick her up Monday morning instead, which takes a lot of pressure off both of us.
Got my next book review assignment.
Turned around the two small coverages, did a bunch of admin. Tried not to feel the absolute exhaustion I feel every time I turn in a ghostwriting project. I have to figure out a better balance there.
The weather was awful, so I skipped First Friday. Cooked dinner, read, played with the cats. By Friday night, I’m usually too tired to go out.
Up early on Saturday. Did a bunch of housework. The bench that’s usually out on the back balcony, which was stored in Tessa’s room while the painters are here, is now in the living room, with the cushions on it. We were taking book to see who would be the first cat on it. Did housework, read. Read Agatha Christie’s CROOKED HOUSE (this month’s Read Christie pick). I’m sure I read it ages ago, but I didn’t remember the twist at the end. Finished Josephine Tey’s TO LOVE AND BE WISE, which was very good.
Bea spent most of the day out on the porch. She’s happy out there.
After dinner, I put on Real People clothes and makeup and headed to the Adams Theatre, to see the dance piece my advisor invited me to see. Absolutely fell in love with the space. I would love to do one of my own readings there, and it would be a great space for WAM, too.
The performance was the world premiere of LA PLAYA, by choreographer Olga Rabetskaya, with music composed by Maria Vasilevskaya. It was danced by Carl Ponce Cubero, Lavy, Elliana Lynch-Daniels, and Emma Weiss. The first half was fairly straight-forward, character-driven storytelling, and the second half was more abstract. Live music onstage was mixed with various sound cues, projections were used, it was a fascinating multi-disciplinary piece. It received an enthusiastic response, and there was a short Q & A after. The trust those four performers had to have with each other to execute the choreography was immense, and that was as beautiful to watch as the actual content.
It was a collaboration between the artists who were in residence at Floating Tower at Chase Hill (run by my advisor) and the Adams Theatre, as part of their Incubator Program. Yina Moore, the Artistic Director of the theatre, has really done a wonderful job since she took over.
I’m really glad I went. I want to support my advisor, and I want to support the creation of work like this whenever possible (and, in turn, have my work supported). The cohort program I was a part of in 2024 continues to make a huge, positive difference in my life.
Home, went through the mail, was happy to receive a check I wasn’t expecting until the end of the month. It was hard to settle down after the performance.
When I got home, Tessa had claimed the bench! She was lounging on it like the queen she is.
Sovereignty won the Belmont Stakes. Because he won the Derby and the Belmont, and Journalism the Preakness, both horses won’t get the acclaim they should. All because Mott wants to force restructuring of the Triple Crown. It’s supposed to be a challenge. If it’s “better for the horse” to skip one of the races, then that horse is not Triple Crown material. And, as I’ve said dozens of times, because of the way they’re being bred (not for stamina), even fewer horses are than ever were before. We’re not going to have another Secretariat. The problem isn’t the race schedule. It’s the breeding choices. They’re being bred for fragility (calling it speed) instead of stamina.
Finally got to sleep. Woke up early. It was nice and cool in the apartment.
Up early Sunday. Did the Community Tarot Reading for the Week, which was not as upbeat as I hoped, and the computer was an absolute pain the butt. Did some more housework.
Put on Real People clothes and makeup and headed out. First stop, Wild Soul River to make a contribution to their matching grant fund. It’s not as large as I wish, but it is something and little bits add up to big bits.
Drove down Rt. 7 toward Lenox. It was lovely until I hit Pittsfield, but it seems that every road in that city is torn up right now.
Once I got past Pittsfield, it was okay, although the tourist drivers were asshole nightmares. Once I got into Lenox, there was an art walk, which meant tents everywhere and lots of traffic, both by car and foot. I inched my way through there, took a wrong turn and ended up at Tanglewood instead of Ventfort Hall, and had to backtrack.
I finally got to Ventfort Hall. Last time I was there, for an Elsewhere Shakespeare performance, it was a gravel drive and I nearly missed it. Now it’s been paved and the signage is better.
Parked, chatted with some staff, checked in. In spite of all the kerfuffle, I was early enough to chat with fellow WAM members, and have a pastry and a drink on the lovely terrace.
The reading was ROOTED, by Deborah Zoe Laufer, directed by Tatyana-Marie Carlo. It was stage managed by my fellow literary committee member, Sara Recht, and the cast was Jayne Atkinson, Jennie M. Jardow, and Hero Marguerite.
It was a lovely, layered, beautiful play. Jayne, as usual, was radiant, and Jennie and Hero were wonderful, too. It was a lovely experience, that made me laugh and also get a little teary at times.
Eavesdropping in the audience ahead of the reading was a trip (and material I will use for my own work). The audience is mostly older, white, and affluent. So there were a lot of conversations about opening the cottage and being up for the summer, like something out of the Gilded Age. Since we were in a mansion from that era, I guess it was appropriate.
The talkback was good after, and included Jenny Hansell, of Berkshire National Resources Council, which was terrific (the play takes place in a treehouse, where the central character has lived for 20 years). It was also meaningful that Genée, the Artistic Director, thanked committee members (including me) for being there.
All in all, it was a lovely experience in a beautiful space.
The drive home was less fraught than the drive down, fortunately, once I’d inched through Lenox again, and scooted around the worst of the construction in Pittsfield.
Picked up groceries for dinner and dessert at Adams Fresh Market on the way home. Changed clothes, cooked, and after dinner, cleaned the bathroom. You know, the glamorous theatre life.
Started reading a biography of Moss Hart, which is an interesting contrast to his autobiography.
Caught up on news headlines. Needless to say, I am angry about how the feds are mishandling L.A. How about following the Constitution? Which would have avoided the situation in the first place? Oh, wait, those in charge use it for toilet paper.
The Tony Awards were unabashedly defiant this year, and good for them. It was also interesting that gowns were either huge swaths of fabric or very elegant outlines.
Charlotte woke me up at 4 on Monday and was such a pest, I gave up and got up at 5. Got some stuff done around the house. Headed down to Pittsfield to pick up my friend. We had hoped to stop at Red Shirt Farm for produce (and I had checked the website for hours), but it was closed. So we went to Wild Oats instead, and chose vegetables to go with the meals for last night and tonight.
Came home, got things unpacked and my friend settled, and headed to the library to pick up a pass for MASS MoCA. We spent a few hours there. I showed her the Boiler House, we went to the Anselm Kiefer exhibit, which is just beyond powerful and disturbing. The wedding dress with large shards of glass penetrating it has so much to say on so many levels. I have to go back and spend more time there. There is a temporary exhibit, called “The Archive of Lost Memories” by Randi Malkin Steinberger. She rescues lost/abandoned photos, slides, tintypes, photo albums, etc., and creates art with them, while honoring what they are. It was an amazing and moving exhibit. It’s only there until June 30, so I will return on Community Day and spend more time with it. She was there with the work, so we got a chance to chat with her about some of the specific pieces.
We spent time in the James Turrell exhibit, including Into the Light, which I’d seen with the cohort, but went into again with my friend. It was just as disorienting and fascinating the second time. We visited a bunch of the exhibits on other floors (Laurie Anderson, Louise Bourgeois , Amy Yoes, Amy Padmore, Spencer Finch), until our brains couldn’t process any more.
In the R & D store, I got a book on illusionists and the paranormal (which is relevant to multiple projects of mine and was on sale). We also discovered that Randi Malkin Steinberger had put together packets of some of the lost photographs and they were for sale in the store, which was very exciting.
We returned the museum pass to the library. The plan was to go to Bear & Bee Bookshop and browse. We’d checked online that it was open, but it was not. So we wandered Eagle Street. Gallery North was unexpectedly open, because the gallery member forgot it was Monday! So we got to go in and browse. One of the exhibits was by fiber artist Sarah George, who is a wool sculptor and animal portrait artist. The detail and precision of her work (and often, the sense of fun) was wonderful.
Then, it was off to Steeple City Social for cocktails and snacks. We had a drink called a Twinkle, which is vodka, elderflower, and lemon, served in a gorgeous vintage glass. It was the most perfect cocktail I’ve had in years. We also had some devilled eggs (very different recipe than mine, but oh so yummy) and sweet and salty nuts. We chatted, on one of the large vintage couches. Friends from tarot were there, and we had a nice catch-up. And then Randi Malkin Steinberger and her friend showed up! We told Randi that we’d bought some of the photo packets. I’d opened mine and even found a piece of original art in it, along with the slides, postcard, and photographs. Randi asked if I’d planned to let her know (she put her email with original art pieces), and I said yes, and we talked about me putting it on my Instagram and tagging her as well. So that’s on the agenda!
My friend got a taste of how you run into the same great people in cool places in this small city, which is one of the reasons I love it here.
Home, and we cooked dinner. My friend helped chop and prepare ingredients, which made things much easier to handle. It was a recipe from Patricia Wells’ FRENCH BISTRO cookbook, a chicken in tarragon vinegar and white wine, with shallots and tomatoes and fresh tarragon. We had mashed potatoes with it, and the Bok choy we bought at the market. And apple pie for dessert!
We did the dishes, and then sat in the living room for a good chat. Tessa hadn’t moved from the bench all day. Charlotte came shyly to join us. Bea kept a safe distance. Willa mostly stayed in my mother’s room, but had gotten a lot of extra attention during dinner and dishes, so she was happy.
Got a bizarre email from a potential client who wants some stuff he can use in a presentation packet by Thursday. I will figure it out.
Caught up on some news, including the ridiculous way That Thing is mishandling Los Angeles. Shame on any National Guard or Marine who “follows orders” against the people in this situation. They should outright refuse.
I never want to hear anyone defend the Second Amendment as necessary to fight tyranny. Instead of so doing, they all joined ICE to be a weapon of what they claimed to fight.
Slept well, although Charlotte fussed a lot. Up at the normal time.
I’m making us Eggs Benedict for breakfast. The plan today is to head for the Clark, and then maybe hit a bookshop (if we can find one that’s open). Yoga in the evening.
It’s raining today, but shouldn’t be too bad. Have a good one!
#adamsTheatre #art #cooking #dance #freelance #friends #ghostwriting #life #MassMOCA #steepleCitySocial #theatre #wamTheatre #writing
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Parce que tout le monde parle de “thriller” mais est ce vous savez réellement ce qu’est un thriller ?
Je vais essayer d’apporter une définition, basée sur différents éléments glanés par ci par là, que j’ai essayé de synthétiser au mieux.
L’HISTOIRE DU THRILLER :
Et oui, car on ne peut pas parler d’un genre littéraire sans connaître un minimum son histoire !
Le thriller, ce genre littéraire, qui nous fait frissonner depuis des générations, a une histoire aussi fascinante que ses propres intrigues.
Remontant aux temps anciens où les conteurs relataient des récits d’aventures et de danger autour des feux de camp, le thriller a évolué au fil des siècles pour devenir un pilier de la culture populaire.
Son histoire littéraire s’étend loin dans le passé. Bien que le terme soit relativement récent, les origines du thriller se trouvent dans des œuvres littéraires anciennes. Par exemple, le poème épique “L’Odyssée” d’Homère est souvent considéré comme un précurseur du thriller (oui oui!), malgré sa création bien antérieure à l’émergence du genre tel que nous le connaissons aujourd’hui.
L’ascension du thriller vers son statut actuel a été marquée par des auteurs visionnaires tels qu’Edgar Allan Poe, dont les histoires macabres ont captivé les lecteurs du XIXe siècle, et Arthur Conan Doyle, le créateur du célèbre Sherlock Holmes. Au XXe siècle, des figures comme Agatha Christie ont élevé le thriller à de nouveaux sommets en introduisant des intrigues complexes et des retournements de situation inattendus qui ont maintenu les lecteurs en haleine.
L’avènement du cinéma a également joué un rôle majeur dans la popularisation du thriller, notamment grâce à des réalisateurs tels qu’Alfred Hitchcock, qui ont apporté une nouvelle dimension visuelle au genre. Aujourd’hui, le thriller continue de prospérer sous différentes formes, allant des romans aux films, en passant par les séries télévisées et les jeux vidéo, offrant aux amateurs de suspense une multitude d’options pour assouvir leur soif de mystère.
DEFINITION :
Après cette petite partie historique, nous arrivons à la fameuse question : Qu’est ce qu’un Thriller ?
Et bien, il s’agit d’un genre littéraire, souvent teinté de noirceur, qui arrive à captiver les lecteurs avec son suspense palpitant (j’aurais bien dit “haletant” mais je ne supporte plus ce mot à force de le voir dans toutes les chroniques…).
Le terme « thriller » trouve ses origines dans l’anglais « to thrill », signifiant “faire frissonner”. Cela donne déjà une bonne idée de ce à quoi un thriller doit aspirer. Cela ajoute une dimension cruciale : un thriller doit susciter des frissons et nous plonger dans un état de frénésie, d’excitation à l’idée des événements à venir. Ainsi, si vous êtes pris par l’émotion devant un bon thriller, c’est parfaitement normal !
Rarement ponctués d’éléments comiques, les thrillers visent principalement à susciter l’excitation, le suspense et l’intérêt chez leurs lecteurs. Les auteurs de thrillers développent ainsi une expertise pointue souvent basée sur un énorme travail de recherche, pour maintenir l’attention du public tout au long de leur récit.
Les techniques narratives utilisées dans le thriller sont souvent similaires, qu’il s’agisse de l’écriture littéraire ou de la mise en scène cinématographique. On retrouve notamment l’utilisation de fausses pistes et de rétention d’informations pour troubler le lecteur ou le spectateur, ainsi que l’utilisation du suspense entre les différents chapitres, scènes ou épisodes.
Dans le thriller, l’intrigue diffère de celle du polar qui repose sur l’investigation (mais on y reviendra plus tard!). Au lieu de cela, il présente une ou plusieurs intrigues où le meurtre n’est pas nécessairement la principale énigme. Les événements perturbent l’ordre établi, mais le véritable choc pour le personnage, et pour le lecteur, ne survient qu’ultérieurement. Initialement, la priorité est de survivre à la menace, puis de la contrer pour restaurer l’équilibre perturbé.
Les principaux coupables sont souvent révélés dès le début, et l’auteur se concentre sur la psychologie du criminel, mettant en lumière les aspects corrompus et sombres de l’humanité.
Ce genre est largement répandu dans divers domaines artistiques tels que la littérature bien sûr, mais aussi le cinéma ou la télévision, et se décline en de nombreux sous-genres, chacun ayant ses propres conventions et codes.
Les frontières entre les genres ne sont pas toujours étanches, et ils peuvent souvent se mélanger. De plus, les détails de l’intrigue peuvent créer des nuances et former une gamme de sous-genres.
Voici quelques exemples :
- Le thriller psychologique
- Le thriller d’action
- Le thriller domestique
- Le thriller ésotérique
- Le thriller fantastique
- Le thriller de science-fiction
- Le thriller écologique
- Le thriller médical
- Le thriller mystère
- Le thriller d’espionnage
- Le thriller juridique
- Le thriller politique
- Le thriller horrifique (mon préféré!)
- Le thriller érotique
- Liste non-exhaustive !
On ne va pas rentrer dans les détails de chaque sous-genre, il faut bien que je vous laisse un peu de travail ! Et surtout, vous l’aurez compris, il existe une multitude de sous-genre.
Quel que soit votre penchant pour l’adrénaline, il y a en aura forcément un qui saura satisfaire vos envies de suspense et de mystère.
LES ÉLÉMENTS ESSENTIELS D’UN BON THRILLER :
Sans plonger dans les détails qui distinguent un thriller réussi d’un moins réussi (pour ça, je vous laisse lire mes différentes chroniques et vous faire votre propre avis), certaines caractéristiques sont incontournables pour qu’une œuvre soit qualifiée de thriller.
Le suspense : Comme mentionné précédemment, le thriller est intrinsèquement lié au suspense. L’intrigue principale tourne souvent autour d’un crime imminent ou déjà commis, gardant ainsi le spectateur en haleine. L’auteur pourra utiliser des cliffhangers à la fin des chapitres, pour maintenir le suspense, ou encore introduire des retournements de situation qui vont venir surprendre le lecteur et raviver son intérêt.
Un ou plusieurs criminels : Ces personnages sont au cœur de l’histoire. Leur présence est établie dès le début, parfois leur identité est même révélée au lecteur. Qu’ils soient pleinement visibles ou simplement suggérés, ils laissent leur empreinte à travers les victimes ou l’angoisse qu’ils suscitent.
Une cible et/ou un enquêteur : Si le méchant est indispensable, le héros l’est tout autant. Il peut être un individu isolé ou un groupe. Parfois, il incarne l’autorité, comme le cliché du ou des agents du FBI dans les thrillers américains.
La relation coupable-innocent : C’est là que le thriller se distingue des autres genres. L’essence de l’intrigue réside dans la dynamique entre “le méchant et le gentil”. Même si les victimes ne sont pas toujours des personnages développés voire même secondaires, l’enquêteur se retrouve souvent en confrontation directe avec le criminel, mettant ainsi sa vie en danger.
Vous l’aurez compris, la caractéristique essentielle des œuvres relevant du genre du thriller est de susciter chez le spectateur ou le lecteur une tension psychologique, voire un sentiment de peur, tout en procurant un plaisir certain à anticiper ce qui pourrait arriver aux personnages par la suite. Cette tension est souvent créée à travers des techniques conventionnelles telles que les séquences filmées au ralenti, l’action soutenue et la présence d’un héros aux multiples ressources. Le suspense joue un rôle crucial dans ce genre, au point que le terme « thriller » est souvent utilisé comme synonyme de « livre/film à suspense ». Les intrigues secondaires viennent souvent contrarier le développement de l’intrigue principale, et les rebondissements de l’intrigue, en particulier dans les dernières scènes, sont fréquents pour susciter l’intérêt.
Les thrillers sont souvent associés aux histoires policières, mais se distinguent par la structure de leur intrigue. Alors que dans un thriller, le héros doit contrecarrer les plans d’un ennemi connu depuis le début, dans un film policier, il s’agit de découvrir le coupable d’un crime. Les thrillers impliquent souvent des enjeux à grande échelle, tels que des tueries en série, du terrorisme ou des assassinats politiques. Le climax d’un thriller survient lorsque le héros parvient à vaincre le méchant, sauvant ainsi sa propre vie et celle des autres. Certains thrillers peuvent également présenter des éléments du genre de l’horreur, avec une violence plus brutale et sadique (mes préférés !).
ATTENTION !
Un thriller n’est pas un polar !
Ce qui différencie le polar du thriller réside principalement dans l’intrigue. Alors que le polar se concentre sur l’enquête menée par la police ou un détective privé, le thriller captive les lecteurs en révélant progressivement la dangerosité de l’ennemi pour le monde.
Dans le polar, il n’y a généralement qu’une seule intrigue. L’histoire commence souvent par un événement dramatique et se poursuit par une enquête visant à identifier le ou les coupables et à les punir.
Le roman policier, ou polar, adopte une approche narrative qui exclut le point de vue de la victime et repose sur des faits concrets pour construire son intrigue. On pourrait le considérer comme une lecture participative, car le lecteur s’efforce de déterminer le coupable en même temps que l’enquêteur, voire même avant lui.
L’objectif du polar est alors de résoudre l’affaire, que le coupable soit encore actif ou non. La dynamique gentil-méchant est généralement absente contrairement au thriller où elle est un des éléments essentiels.
BONUS – MES AUTEURS PREFERES :
Petit bonus de cette « définition » de ce qu’est un thriller, voici quelque uns de mes auteurs préférés et pourquoi ils le sont.
Je ne peux pas parler de mes auteurs préférés sans citer celui qui est pour moi le maître incontesté du thriller, j’ai nommé Franck Thilliez. Entre autre grâce à sa sage Sharko/Hennebelle mais pas que. Je pense avoir lu la quasi-totalité de ces livres et si il y en as bien un qui arrive parfaitement à illustrer ce qu’est un thriller, c’est bien lui.
Ensuite, nous avons Maxime Chattam, qui est, pour moi, tout simplement un génie de l’écriture. Il s’est essayer dans différents styles et il a réussi à les assimiler parfaitement. Aussi bien dans le fantastique, que dans l’horrifique ou le pur thriller, ses livres sont toujours excellents. Je vous invite à lire « la trilogie du mal » si vous ne me croyez pas.
Le duo Jérome Camut et Nathalie Hug fait bien évidemment partie de cette liste. Comment ne pas parler de leur quadrilogie « les voies de l’ombre » ? Tout simplement mon livre préféré avec un personnage qui est juste dantesque. Je vous laisse donc aller découvrir « Kurtz » !
Karine Giebel est également une auteure incontournable qui excelle dans le thriller psychologique. Ces livres sont tous plus incroyables les uns que les autres.
Dans le style que j’apprécie tout particulièrement du thriller ésotérique, comment ne pas parler de Dan Brown? Connu pour sa saga Da Vinci Code mettant en avant le professeur Langdon, il pousse extrêmement loin les recherches sur les différents sujets qu’il aborde dans ses livres qui sont tous passionnants.
Je pourrais en citer bien d’autres, je pense entre autre à Lisa Jewell, Lisa Gardner, Jussi Adler-Olsen, Magalie Collet, M.J. Arlidge, Loana Hoarau, Claire Favan, Eric Quesnel, Gilles Caillot ou encore Sandrine Destombes.
Merci aux courageux qui ont lu cet article jusqu’à la fin et n’hésitez pas à donner votre avis !
https://thrilleraddict.com/qu-est-ce-qu-un-thriller/
#avislecture #avislivresque #bibliophile #bibliotheque #book #bookaddict #booklover #booknerd #bookphotography #bookreview #bookshelf #bookstagram #bookstagrambelgique #livre #livreaddict #livrestagram #reading #thriller #thrillerbooks
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Parce que tout le monde parle de “thriller” mais est ce vous savez réellement ce qu’est un thriller ?
Je vais essayer d’apporter une définition, basée sur différents éléments glanés par ci par là, que j’ai essayé de synthétiser au mieux.
L’HISTOIRE DU THRILLER :
Et oui, car on ne peut pas parler d’un genre littéraire sans connaître un minimum son histoire !
Le thriller, ce genre littéraire, qui nous fait frissonner depuis des générations, a une histoire aussi fascinante que ses propres intrigues.
Remontant aux temps anciens où les conteurs relataient des récits d’aventures et de danger autour des feux de camp, le thriller a évolué au fil des siècles pour devenir un pilier de la culture populaire.
Son histoire littéraire s’étend loin dans le passé. Bien que le terme soit relativement récent, les origines du thriller se trouvent dans des œuvres littéraires anciennes. Par exemple, le poème épique “L’Odyssée” d’Homère est souvent considéré comme un précurseur du thriller (oui oui!), malgré sa création bien antérieure à l’émergence du genre tel que nous le connaissons aujourd’hui.
L’ascension du thriller vers son statut actuel a été marquée par des auteurs visionnaires tels qu’Edgar Allan Poe, dont les histoires macabres ont captivé les lecteurs du XIXe siècle, et Arthur Conan Doyle, le créateur du célèbre Sherlock Holmes. Au XXe siècle, des figures comme Agatha Christie ont élevé le thriller à de nouveaux sommets en introduisant des intrigues complexes et des retournements de situation inattendus qui ont maintenu les lecteurs en haleine.
L’avènement du cinéma a également joué un rôle majeur dans la popularisation du thriller, notamment grâce à des réalisateurs tels qu’Alfred Hitchcock, qui ont apporté une nouvelle dimension visuelle au genre. Aujourd’hui, le thriller continue de prospérer sous différentes formes, allant des romans aux films, en passant par les séries télévisées et les jeux vidéo, offrant aux amateurs de suspense une multitude d’options pour assouvir leur soif de mystère.
DEFINITION :
Après cette petite partie historique, nous arrivons à la fameuse question : Qu’est ce qu’un Thriller ?
Et bien, il s’agit d’un genre littéraire, souvent teinté de noirceur, qui arrive à captiver les lecteurs avec son suspense palpitant (j’aurais bien dit “haletant” mais je ne supporte plus ce mot à force de le voir dans toutes les chroniques…).
Le terme « thriller » trouve ses origines dans l’anglais « to thrill », signifiant “faire frissonner”. Cela donne déjà une bonne idée de ce à quoi un thriller doit aspirer. Cela ajoute une dimension cruciale : un thriller doit susciter des frissons et nous plonger dans un état de frénésie, d’excitation à l’idée des événements à venir. Ainsi, si vous êtes pris par l’émotion devant un bon thriller, c’est parfaitement normal !
Rarement ponctués d’éléments comiques, les thrillers visent principalement à susciter l’excitation, le suspense et l’intérêt chez leurs lecteurs. Les auteurs de thrillers développent ainsi une expertise pointue souvent basée sur un énorme travail de recherche, pour maintenir l’attention du public tout au long de leur récit.
Les techniques narratives utilisées dans le thriller sont souvent similaires, qu’il s’agisse de l’écriture littéraire ou de la mise en scène cinématographique. On retrouve notamment l’utilisation de fausses pistes et de rétention d’informations pour troubler le lecteur ou le spectateur, ainsi que l’utilisation du suspense entre les différents chapitres, scènes ou épisodes.
Dans le thriller, l’intrigue diffère de celle du polar qui repose sur l’investigation (mais on y reviendra plus tard!). Au lieu de cela, il présente une ou plusieurs intrigues où le meurtre n’est pas nécessairement la principale énigme. Les événements perturbent l’ordre établi, mais le véritable choc pour le personnage, et pour le lecteur, ne survient qu’ultérieurement. Initialement, la priorité est de survivre à la menace, puis de la contrer pour restaurer l’équilibre perturbé.
Les principaux coupables sont souvent révélés dès le début, et l’auteur se concentre sur la psychologie du criminel, mettant en lumière les aspects corrompus et sombres de l’humanité.
Ce genre est largement répandu dans divers domaines artistiques tels que la littérature bien sûr, mais aussi le cinéma ou la télévision, et se décline en de nombreux sous-genres, chacun ayant ses propres conventions et codes.
Les frontières entre les genres ne sont pas toujours étanches, et ils peuvent souvent se mélanger. De plus, les détails de l’intrigue peuvent créer des nuances et former une gamme de sous-genres.
Voici quelques exemples :
- Le thriller psychologique
- Le thriller d’action
- Le thriller domestique
- Le thriller ésotérique
- Le thriller fantastique
- Le thriller de science-fiction
- Le thriller écologique
- Le thriller médical
- Le thriller mystère
- Le thriller d’espionnage
- Le thriller juridique
- Le thriller politique
- Le thriller horrifique (mon préféré!)
- Le thriller érotique
- Liste non-exhaustive !
On ne va pas rentrer dans les détails de chaque sous-genre, il faut bien que je vous laisse un peu de travail ! Et surtout, vous l’aurez compris, il existe une multitude de sous-genre.
Quel que soit votre penchant pour l’adrénaline, il y a en aura forcément un qui saura satisfaire vos envies de suspense et de mystère.
LES ÉLÉMENTS ESSENTIELS D’UN BON THRILLER :
Sans plonger dans les détails qui distinguent un thriller réussi d’un moins réussi (pour ça, je vous laisse lire mes différentes chroniques et vous faire votre propre avis), certaines caractéristiques sont incontournables pour qu’une œuvre soit qualifiée de thriller.
Le suspense : Comme mentionné précédemment, le thriller est intrinsèquement lié au suspense. L’intrigue principale tourne souvent autour d’un crime imminent ou déjà commis, gardant ainsi le spectateur en haleine. L’auteur pourra utiliser des cliffhangers à la fin des chapitres, pour maintenir le suspense, ou encore introduire des retournements de situation qui vont venir surprendre le lecteur et raviver son intérêt.
Un ou plusieurs criminels : Ces personnages sont au cœur de l’histoire. Leur présence est établie dès le début, parfois leur identité est même révélée au lecteur. Qu’ils soient pleinement visibles ou simplement suggérés, ils laissent leur empreinte à travers les victimes ou l’angoisse qu’ils suscitent.
Une cible et/ou un enquêteur : Si le méchant est indispensable, le héros l’est tout autant. Il peut être un individu isolé ou un groupe. Parfois, il incarne l’autorité, comme le cliché du ou des agents du FBI dans les thrillers américains.
La relation coupable-innocent : C’est là que le thriller se distingue des autres genres. L’essence de l’intrigue réside dans la dynamique entre “le méchant et le gentil”. Même si les victimes ne sont pas toujours des personnages développés voire même secondaires, l’enquêteur se retrouve souvent en confrontation directe avec le criminel, mettant ainsi sa vie en danger.
Vous l’aurez compris, la caractéristique essentielle des œuvres relevant du genre du thriller est de susciter chez le spectateur ou le lecteur une tension psychologique, voire un sentiment de peur, tout en procurant un plaisir certain à anticiper ce qui pourrait arriver aux personnages par la suite. Cette tension est souvent créée à travers des techniques conventionnelles telles que les séquences filmées au ralenti, l’action soutenue et la présence d’un héros aux multiples ressources. Le suspense joue un rôle crucial dans ce genre, au point que le terme « thriller » est souvent utilisé comme synonyme de « livre/film à suspense ». Les intrigues secondaires viennent souvent contrarier le développement de l’intrigue principale, et les rebondissements de l’intrigue, en particulier dans les dernières scènes, sont fréquents pour susciter l’intérêt.
Les thrillers sont souvent associés aux histoires policières, mais se distinguent par la structure de leur intrigue. Alors que dans un thriller, le héros doit contrecarrer les plans d’un ennemi connu depuis le début, dans un film policier, il s’agit de découvrir le coupable d’un crime. Les thrillers impliquent souvent des enjeux à grande échelle, tels que des tueries en série, du terrorisme ou des assassinats politiques. Le climax d’un thriller survient lorsque le héros parvient à vaincre le méchant, sauvant ainsi sa propre vie et celle des autres. Certains thrillers peuvent également présenter des éléments du genre de l’horreur, avec une violence plus brutale et sadique (mes préférés !).
ATTENTION !
Un thriller n’est pas un polar !
Ce qui différencie le polar du thriller réside principalement dans l’intrigue. Alors que le polar se concentre sur l’enquête menée par la police ou un détective privé, le thriller captive les lecteurs en révélant progressivement la dangerosité de l’ennemi pour le monde.
Dans le polar, il n’y a généralement qu’une seule intrigue. L’histoire commence souvent par un événement dramatique et se poursuit par une enquête visant à identifier le ou les coupables et à les punir.
Le roman policier, ou polar, adopte une approche narrative qui exclut le point de vue de la victime et repose sur des faits concrets pour construire son intrigue. On pourrait le considérer comme une lecture participative, car le lecteur s’efforce de déterminer le coupable en même temps que l’enquêteur, voire même avant lui.
L’objectif du polar est alors de résoudre l’affaire, que le coupable soit encore actif ou non. La dynamique gentil-méchant est généralement absente contrairement au thriller où elle est un des éléments essentiels.
BONUS – MES AUTEURS PREFERES :
Petit bonus de cette « définition » de ce qu’est un thriller, voici quelque uns de mes auteurs préférés et pourquoi ils le sont.
Je ne peux pas parler de mes auteurs préférés sans citer celui qui est pour moi le maître incontesté du thriller, j’ai nommé Franck Thilliez. Entre autre grâce à sa sage Sharko/Hennebelle mais pas que. Je pense avoir lu la quasi-totalité de ces livres et si il y en as bien un qui arrive parfaitement à illustrer ce qu’est un thriller, c’est bien lui.
Ensuite, nous avons Maxime Chattam, qui est, pour moi, tout simplement un génie de l’écriture. Il s’est essayer dans différents styles et il a réussi à les assimiler parfaitement. Aussi bien dans le fantastique, que dans l’horrifique ou le pur thriller, ses livres sont toujours excellents. Je vous invite à lire « la trilogie du mal » si vous ne me croyez pas.
Le duo Jérome Camut et Nathalie Hug fait bien évidemment partie de cette liste. Comment ne pas parler de leur quadrilogie « les voies de l’ombre » ? Tout simplement mon livre préféré avec un personnage qui est juste dantesque. Je vous laisse donc aller découvrir « Kurtz » !
Karine Giebel est également une auteure incontournable qui excelle dans le thriller psychologique. Ces livres sont tous plus incroyables les uns que les autres.
Dans le style que j’apprécie tout particulièrement du thriller ésotérique, comment ne pas parler de Dan Brown? Connu pour sa saga Da Vinci Code mettant en avant le professeur Langdon, il pousse extrêmement loin les recherches sur les différents sujets qu’il aborde dans ses livres qui sont tous passionnants.
Je pourrais en citer bien d’autres, je pense entre autre à Lisa Jewell, Lisa Gardner, Jussi Adler-Olsen, Magalie Collet, M.J. Arlidge, Loana Hoarau, Claire Favan, Eric Quesnel, Gilles Caillot ou encore Sandrine Destombes.
Merci aux courageux qui ont lu cet article jusqu’à la fin et n’hésitez pas à donner votre avis !
https://thrilleraddict.com/2024/04/01/qu-est-ce-qu-un-thriller/
#avislecture #avislivresque #bibliophile #bibliotheque #book #bookaddict #booklover #booknerd #bookphotography #bookreview #bookshelf #bookstagram #bookstagrambelgique #livre #livreaddict #livrestagram #reading #thriller #thrillerbooks
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Jimmy’s: the thread about the school on St Leonard’s Crag
Preamble. The schools of the “School Board” era of public education (those built 1872-1918) hold a particular fascination for me, one most profound where they have been “deconsecrated” and are either no longer in use as schools or have disappeared entirely. This thread began as a couple of lines for my own notes about the “Lost Board Schools of Edinburgh” but soon snowballed into an alphabetical deep-dive into each.
Part nine of the “Lost Board Schools of Edinburgh” series takes us to St Leonard’s Crag, the rather romantic sounding name for a quarried-out promontory where the western boundary of Holyrood Park meets the old district of St Leonard’s (a name harking back to a so-named 12th century chapel and hospital). Perched atop it is these days is a handsome old building, now converted to flats, whose striking feature is a grand corner tower in the style of a French château. For those with a keen eye, the letters ESB carved on its façade give the game away that this was once a school, the last that would be designed and built by the Edinburgh School Board and one that was strikingly different from what had come before it. This is the former James Clark School– universally known locally as Jimmy’s – the feature of chapter nine of the “Lost Board Schools of Edinburgh” series.
The former James Clark School, southern elevation.The Edinburgh School Board was formed as a result of the Education (Scotland) Act 1872 which made education compulsory (but not then free) between the ages of five and thirteen. It was largely constituted from the various parish schools of the main Presbyterian churches; the Kirk and the Free Kirk between them educating around 40% of pupils in the city at this time. In the first three decades of its existence it embarked upon a mass-building programme to furnish the city with enough purpose-built new “public schools” to house and teach the children of its burgeoning population. In the Southside, no fewer than seven were opened; Bristo (1877); Causewayside (1877); St Leonard’s (1880); South Bridge (1886); Davie Street (1887); Sciennes (1892) and Preston Street (1897).
Former South Bridge Public School, a typical early “barracks block” product of the Edinburgh School Board in its favoured Collegiate Gothic style, by its house architect Robert WilsonThese had replaced the hodge-podge of inadequate and antiquated facilities that the Board had inherited but were only just able to meet the demand as the school-age population continued to rise. This was the result of a number of factors including the abolition of fees in 1890, more stringent efforts to ensure attendance, making it harder to employ school-age children in the daytime workplace and the raising of the minimum leaving age to fourteen by the Education (Scotland) Act 1901. By 1911 school capacity in the Southside had been well and truly exceeded; Sciennes had fifteen classes over-capacity, South Bridge eleven, St Leonard’s three and Bristo two. The Board thus felt it had no option but to built yet another new facility in the district, but the area was by now heavily developed and prospective sites were hard to come by. Eventually the relatively small and topographically complex one acre plot of the Gibraltar Villas at St. Leonard’s Bank was acquired, as well as an adjoining house to be converted for the school janitor.
Comparison of 1893 and 1944 OS Town Plans showing the St Leonard’s district. Gibraltar Villas are on the bottom right, where the James Clark School will later be built. St Leonard’s Public School is the cruciform building in the bottom middle, on Forbes Street, later an annexe to “Jimmy’s”. To its left is Free St Paul’s where the old district school was held in the Sabbath School Hall – later a temporary annexe – and at the top left is Davie Street School also later an annexe of technical workshops. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandPlans were approved on March 25th 1913 to the designs of the Board’s long-serving architect, John Alexander Carfrae. But architectural thinking had moved on significantly with respect to school design since the looming “barracks” blocks of previous decades and Carfrae was rapidly adapting his style at this time in response. What he proposed was a two-storey, F-plan building with a capacity for 850 children in seventeen classrooms. It would be one which embodied the latest theories about maximising natural lighting and ventilation and an evolution of his preceding work at Tollcross School. Gone were the tall, mechanically-ventilated rooms lit by high-set windows on only one side in a sinister attempt to stamp out left-handedness. Instead, in came classrooms arranged “one deep” (i.e. with external walls on opposite sides of the room), naturally lit with as many windows as possible on both sides and naturally cross-ventilated by opening these windows. Gone too were the warren of internal corridors, rooms accessed off of rooms and monumental “parade” staircases and in came open verandahs, each classroom being directly accessed from its own door to the outside, protected from the worst of the elements by glazed canopies. The windows on the verandah side could be folded open so that classes could be “taught practically in the open air“.
Former James Clark School, from the upper playgrounds. Note there are windows on the rear (north) side of the closest classrooms, largely to provide natural cross-ventilation across from front to rear. The well considered arrangement of the buildings and use of topography means the two-storey range closest to the viewpoint casts relatively little shadow into the playground behind it. The squat, single-storey block contained toilets. The east range to the left of the photo has a first floor verandah giving access directly to each classroom from the open air. Picture via Ativa Property listingPrevious practice had been to simply plonk the school block directly alongside the street in a central and symmetrical manner that looked pleased on the drawings but which made for dark, oppressive and stale playgrounds and classrooms badly affected by road noise. Instead, the new school was pushed north by some seventy feet from the boundary to give an open, south-facing playground which maximised sunlight and circulation of air. A second, inner playground made use of the plot’s topography to also get the best of the daylight and drouth. Again following the lead of Tollcross, the styling was restrained; a mix of plain, rustic masonry and smooth ashlar at the ground floor giving way to glass and facing brick for the upper storey. One exception to this visual austerity was made though with advantage taken “of its commanding position to give it some bolder features rather than to employ elaborate architectural detail” – that enormous tower in the southeaster corner, which elegantly morphed from a square section to a conical spire and contained the headmaster’s office and a staffroom in its upper levels. The end product would be visually unique in the landscape of Edinburgh schools.
Former James Clark School, southern elevation showing the corner tower and Salisbury Crag’s beyond. Picture via Ativa Property listingThe new school was to be christened King’s Park School in acknowledgement of the formal name of Holyrood Park over which it had a commanding view and tenders were solicited in March 1913, with a total cost of £18,000 approved. However its shared boundary with that park caused “friction” in July that year when the Ministry of Works – the park’s custodians – demanded an annual 2 Guineas ground rent for a boundary wall which was be demolished and encroached upon by some eighteen inches.
The Scotsman, 15th March 1913A tender for furniture was invited on 24th October 1914 but by this time World War Once had commenced and opening would never come. Instead the nearly completed but empty building (the north range of the F-plan was not yet built) was requisitioned by the War Office for the billeting of troops. Here stalled and ended the brief story of King’s Park School: but it was not the end, indeed it was really only the beginning.
A monogrammed desk from the James Clark School that formerly stood outside the headmaster’s office, now located in the Southside Heritage Association’s museum in the Nelson Halls.When the school board took back possession of its building in 1918 it found itself now faced with a declining need for elementary-grade schools and an increasing need for supplementary grade capacity (i.e. for ages twelve to fourteen and potentially beyond). This was to provide the specialist training needed by the city’s industries for children destined to enter their workforces in a few years time. At this time these children were taught in their normal elementary schools in what were called the Supplementary Divisions; in 1905 the School Board had 3,494 such pupils on its books but by 1912 this had tripled to 10,391, but with an estimated deficit of 6,000 spaces. 1909 they had considered building three new Supplementary Schools to centralise this teaching in purpose-built facilities equipped with the necessary technical workshops and classrooms. Ground was aquired to the west at Tynecastle – where a Technical and Commercial School would be opened in 1911 – and at Bellevue to the north for this purpose. The third such school was to serve the Southside but had been delayed owing to the outbreak of the war. Finding a brand new, empty school in its hands and a declining elementary roll in the district, the solution presented itself.
It was decided to rename the new institution in honour of Lt. Col James Clark KC CB, late Chairman of the Edinburgh School Board and who had been killed in action at the Second Battle of Ypres. Fifty-six year old Clark – a long-serving Territorial Army officer – had volunteered to command the 9th (Dumbartonshire) Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders and was hit by a shell on the morning of May 1915 when leading his battalion forward near Zouave Wood to relieve the 2nd Cameron Highlanders. During this battle the unit was reduced in strength by three quarters, with just two officers and eighty five men surviving. Clark’s deputy, Major George J. Christie, would receive the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) medal for his part in the brutal fighting.
“A-Company of the 9th Argylls Advancing Under Heavy Fire to Reinforce the 2nd Camerons During the Second Battle of Ypres“, lithograph of a painting by Allan Stewart published in the picture book “Deeds that Thrill the Empire“. The officer leading the charge in this scene, Major George J. Christie, would receive the DSO for his part in this action which would claim the life of his superior, Lt. Col. James ClarkThe James Clark Technical School accepted its first 730 pupils in September 1918 and was formally opened on 21st March 1919 by the Right Hon. Robert Munro, Secretary of State for Scotland. Norah Kathleen Clark, widow of the late Colonel, was present on the occasion. It was the second such school of this type in Edinburgh and was the last to be built and opened by the Edinburgh School Board. The Education (Scotland) Act 1918 which came into force a few months later replaced it with a new Edinburgh Education Authority. To align with the language used by this act, the school was re-designated James Clark Intermediate, although both names would be used interchangeably throughout 1920s.
Memorial to James Clark within the school. Detail of the inscription can be read in the Alt Text.Clark was widely mourned and commemorated, leading memorials in the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh (of which he was a member); the Edinburgh Naval and Military Institute where he had been founding chairman (since removed to the Scottish Veterans Residences in the Canongate); on the battalion memorial at Dumbarton Castle and at his alma mater of Paisley Grammar School. His widow would later commission a vast, nine-light stained glass window in his memory from the artist Douglas Strachan for the eastern end for Paisley Abbey.
Part of the east window of Paisley Abbey dedicated to James Clark. Photo by Brian Madwsley, via IWM War Memorials RegisterThe press deemed the new school to be a “fitting memorial of Colonel Clark’s educational work“, but not everyone was happy. One local parent wrote to the Edinburgh Evening News to express their displeasure at it not being an elementary school:
It is not sufficient for Board members to sit in a board-room and come to decisions when the welfare of the children is at stake. Let them visit the district and get some practical experience of the conditions under which these children are suffering… Let the Board take up the question of technical education after they have dealt with the present conditions, and not start half way up the ladder.
Letter to the Editor of the Edinburgh Evening News from “A Parent in the District”, 16th May 1918As an Intermediate School, Jimmy’s offered two-to-three year courses for children which were a combination of general education and either a Technical or Commercial stream aimed at preparing them for the workplace. But having been built as an elementary school it was lacking in certain facilities. In 1918 the nearby Davie Street Public School was closed to become an annexe for it, first providing additional teaching space while rooms for art, home economics and science were added to the main building in a new north wing. After this work was completed in 1924 it was converted into specialist workshops for teaching the trades of brassfinishing, tinsmithing, upholstery, plumbing, tailoring and printing (to boys only, of course!)
Davie Street School, built by the Heriot Trust in 1875 in their house style and later taken over and extended by the Edinburgh School Board as a public schoolAfter 1927 depopulation in the Southside accelerated as a result of the city Corporation’s slum clearance schemes. This displaced much of the population to new housing estates to the south at Prestonfield and further east at Niddrie Mains. Families with children were relocated as a priority and so school rolls sharply declined, reaching a rate of 10% per annum at the dawn of the 1930s and resulting in some 1,200 vacant elementary school places in the district. When a brand new school at Prestonfield opened in 1931 to serve that estate the St Leonard’s Public School, just over the street from James Clark, was closed and the Education Committee approved its conversion into a second annexe for the latter.
James Clark School uniform in 1933, worn by Esther Reid of Parkside Street. Her hat sports a black and gold band – the school colours – and badge, and her gauntlet gloves have a golden band around the cuff. Copy of a photograph in the Southside Heritage Association’s museum in the Nelson Halls.St Leonard’s already had workshops for supplementary classes in tinsmithing, metal working, tailoring, upholstery and masonry (for boys) and cookery, sewing and “cutting out” (for girls). Nine of its classrooms were refurbished and two new art rooms were added alongside new workshops for benchwork, a laundry, sewing and cookery rooms and a new gymnasium with changing rooms and showers. These changes allowed the conversion of such rooms in the main school into science laboratories. Work was completed for the start of the 1932-33 term after the summer holidays. An additional benefit for boys was that they could now undertake their physical education classes in the anew annexe; the smaller gymnasium in the main school had been hitherto reserved for girls and boys had instead been marched to and from a nearby drill hall for their “physical jerks“.
St Leonard’s Public School in 1959. Adam H. Malcolm photograph, Edinburgh and Scottish Collection of Edinburgh City Libraries.The depopulation of the Southside didn’t have much immediate effect on the roll at Jimmy’s as it remained the only such school in the south and east of the city; all those children who had been displaced to the new housing areas had to come right back for their secondary education! Former pupil and Rangers footballing legend John Greig – a pupil in the mid-1950s – recalls in his autobiography “My Story”, how his footballing fitness was established by the daily two mile run from his home in the Prestonfield housing scheme to school, returning each way at lunch time and then the two miles home again at the end of the day. This situation would continue until 1938 when Niddrie Marischal Intermediate School opened to serve the Niddrie and Craigmillar housing areas. A third annexe was added to that year when workshops in the former Brown Square School, by then part of Heriot-Watt College, became available to train boys serving apprenticeships in the bookbinding trade on “day release” from the school. Use of this building had ceased by 1964 when it was converted into the students’ association for Heriot-Watt College.
Former Brown Square school in 1913. This was one of the Heriot Trust day schools that were merged into the School Board after 1872, immediately identifiable by all the Jacobean decorations modelled off of Heriot’s Hospital itself. Edinburgh Photographic Society collection, via National Galleries Scotland.For the boys of James Clark, the facilities of its annexes meant the school developed particularly close links with the printing trade – an especially prestigious blue collar career in the city – and successful completion of the courses could lead to bursaries for the print qualifications at Heriot Watt College. These opportunities of course remained strictly off limits to girls, who were limited to clerical classes or for training in the domestic arts of cookery, dressmaking and laundrywork. A house at 17 St Leonard’s Bank had been purchased for the school and was used to teach “housewifery“, its upstairs flat accommodating one of the school’s janitors.
A girl’s class of ’34 infront of an entrance to James Clark School.In 1940 the school was re-designated James Clark Junior Secondary, a Scotland-wide change to mark the shift to a broader curriculum at this level and in preparation for the school leaving age being raised to 15. At this time its roll was 861. Between 1942-48 and again between 1954-58, overspill accommodation was provided in the old Sunday School of the former St. Paul’s Free Church on St Leonards Street, where the first school in the district had been established way back in 1851. This was partly to provide a dining room, with many fathers absent and mothers out working during the day there was a huge wartime demand for school dinners. These were brought in from a central kitchen established nearby at the former Causewayside Public School and were of dubious quality. After the war the new National Health Service took responsibility for juvenile dental care off of the city and James Clark was one of a number of schools given a dental inspection and treatment room with a full-time staff.
On April 1st 1947, the minimum school leaving age in Scotland was raised from 14 to 15, significantly increasing the number of children in secondary education and helping keep the roll at Jimmy’s healthy. There was also a bump in the city’s urban population at this time due to an acute post-war housing crisis, again benefiting the school. On January 15th 1949 a memorial was dedicated in the school to the 121 former pupils and one member of staff (Sergeant Eric Webster RAFVR, who was killed on July 28th 1942 when his aircraft collided with another near Cambridge).
James Clark School WW2 memorial panel for former pupils who lost their lives in the conflict. Originally installed in the school, it was later relocated to the Southside Community Centre, although currently is not on display and awaiting restoration. Copy of a photograph in the Southside Heritage Association’s museum in the Nelson Halls.A further memorial was unveiled at the nearby Deaconess Hospital in 1956. This was provided by the School’s memorial fund to mark the service that the hospital provided to the community and of the £750 that had been raised the substantial remainder paid for comforts for the patients such as TV and radio sets, which could not be met from its own budget.
Photograph of the plaque, now in the care of the Lothian Health Services Archive, a copy in the Edinburgh and Scottish Collection, Edinburgh City Libraries.When the prevailing dire national economic conditions eased enough for new housing estates to start appearing in the south of the city in the early 1950s, again there was a lag in provision of secondary schooling to the benefit of the roll at James Clark; a temporary school was provided at The Inch in 1953 but permanent schools at Liberton and Gracemount had to wait until 1958. The Education Committee anticipated the roll increasing to over 1,000 by the end of the decade and so authorised a £36,000 extension in 1957 to provide four science classrooms, a new assembly hall, library as well as improvements to the existing facilities. This allowed the ancient overspill accommodation at the old St. Paul’s Free Kirk to be finally vacated. The new block conferred an additional benefit in that it bridged the height difference between the main school and the St Leonard’s annexe, significantly shortening the distance between the two.
The steel frame of the 1957 extension takes shape, seen between the annexe of the old St Leonard’s Public School on the left and the tenements of St Leonard’s Hill on the right. Photograph by Adam H. Malcolm c. 1957, G944A Edinburgh and Scottish Collection of Edinburgh City LibrariesAny optimism for the school’s future in the late 1950s had been severely misplaced however. Despite the forthcoming raising of the leaving age to sixteen (then planned for 1970), the scandalous condition of housing in much of the district – culminating in the infamous collapse of the “Penny Tenement” in 1959 – saw rapid and drastic action taken by the authorities. The Corporation designated whole swathes of the neighbourhood a Comprehensive Development Area, condemning the housing stock and acquiring it through compulsory purchase (CPO) before their wrecking ball moved in. Much of St Leonard’s and almost all of Dumbiedykes would be completely obliterated in short order and by 1964 some 1,500 houses had already been demolished in the area. The population inevitably collapsed, displaced to the outlying housing schemes and new tower blocks, and those left behind were generally the elderly or young people without children. School rolls thus fell disproportionately faster; by 1963 the roll at Jimmy’s was just 500 – half of what had been predicted – and by the end of the decade would be barely 300.
Evening News photo of the Carnegie Street CPO area, cleared after the collapse of the Penny Tenement, published 5th October 1961. The abandoned remains of Dalrymple Place can be seen on the left, running off towards the Deaconess Hospital.It would have been hard enough for the school to survive this seismic demographic force in isolation, but it also faced three further existential threats. Firstly, after 1966 the specialist technical education for printing and allied trades was removed from the school’s curriculum and onto those of the new Telford and Napier further education colleges. The entire Davie Street building was transferred to those institutions and quickly run-down and relocated. Secondly, the raising of the leaving age to sixteen was delayed and coincided with a move from the two tier system of Junior Secondary and selective, fee-charging High Schools to a fully comprehensive and co-educational system. The Education Committee took this juncture as an opportunity to “rid” itself of as many of its old Junior Secondaries as possible; most of which were housed in converted old elementary schools with a variety of extensions and annexes tacked on over time. Jimmy’s generally positive reputation compared to some of its peers could not protect it from this desire.
James Clark School scarf, blazer badge and prefect’s pin. Objects in the Southside Heritage Association’s museum in the Nelson Halls.Thirdly, the city had a long and deeply held aspiration to run an urban motorway – the Bridges Relief Road – directly through the neighbourhood and the school itself. As such it had been land-banking for this scheme in the district and was keen to clear any remaining occupied blocks as quickly as it could. James Clark Secondary School could not, and did not, survive these combined pressures and it closed at the end of the 1971-72 term, its remaining pupils relocated to a reconstituted James Gillespie’s High School.
Diagram of some of the central urban motorways recommended for Edinburgh in the “Buchanan Plan” in 1966 and further finessed in the 1970s. The Bridges Relief Road is marked in red on the right, running straight through the site of James Clark School.Thus ended the fifty-five year history of Jimmy’s. The headmaster at opening was Robert Dickson. He was replaced in 1927 by James Flett, who died just 6 months later. In turn afterwards came Michael Oldham (1927-37), Thomas Scott (1938-53); James M. L. Drummond (1953-56); Ronald. S. Gray (1956-67) and Ronald Paul (1967-closure). The noted rubber stamp artist, calligrapher and instructional author George Lawrie Thomson (1916-2001), was a Jimmy’s pupil from 1929-32. In his 1988 autobiography My Life as a Scribe he recalled scoring 92% in the Qualifying Exam (“Qually“) at age 11 thus winning entry to Boroughmuir High School, but his class friend got 94% thus won the only scholarship on offer. Unable to afford the fees at Boroughmuir, he instead went to James Clark where like most of his peers he left after three years to join the prevailing mass unemployment of the time. By sheer talent (and motherly determination) he fortunately able to win a scholarship to Edinburgh College of Art.
Cover of The Art of Caligraphy bv George L. Thomson, one of many beautiful covers he produced for his own books.Another notable former pupil was John Gollan (1911-72), general secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain, who was at the school until leaving in 1924 before his fourteenth birthday. In 1931 he made the local headlines when he received six months imprisonment for handing out socialist pamphlets (“The Soldier’s Voice” and “The Organ of Communist Soldiers“) outside Redford Barracks.
John Gollan addressing an anti-Vietnam War demonstration in Trafalgar Square, London, July 1966.Although there was the threat of the Bridges Relief Road hanging over it the unoccupied school was Category B listed in 1974, conferring some protection from immediate demolition. Thoughts given to relocating the Museum of Childhood to it, but instead it was brought back into educational use, briefly providing “decant” accommodation for pupils destined for the new comprehensive Castlebrae High School before becoming a junior annexe for St Thomas of Aquin’s R.C. High School. £100,000 was spent on refurbishments in 1977 but by 1983 the latter school was due to move out again at the end of the term. A potential lifeline came in the form of 1982 plans to close the remaining district primary schools at Milton House, Preston Street and South Bridge and to merge them into a new school in James Clark. These plans were vigorously resisted and instead Preston Street stayed as it was, with South Bridge closed in 1983 and merged into Milton House, which in turn was renamed Royal Mile Primary to mark the occasion. After this the sole remaining occupant was the South Side Youth Centre who used parts of the 1957 extension. The former St Leonard’s Public School annexe and (listed) St Paul’s Free Kirk were demolished the following year.
In 1985 Lothian Regional Council sold Jimmy’s to developer Jemscot Ltd for £270,000 (c. £847k in 2025) for conversion into flats. The transaction was anything but smooth however; £40,000 of the initial agreed deal of £310,000 had to be waived on account of the council allowing the building to be heavily vandalised, including all the lead stripped from the roof, while still under its control.
The abandoned James Clark School in 1986, still from a video image which showing the For Sale sign and internal vandalism. © South Side Youth Centre via Southside Heritage Group YoutubeTo make matters worse, early in 1986 the Historic Buildings and Monuments Directorate of the Scottish Office stepped in with a demand for £19,995 from the Council, having discovered a clause in the Royal Warrant granted in 1913 that allowed the school to encroach on the Holyrood Park boundary which meant that should the building cease to be used for its educational purpose then the original boundary and wall was to be be reinstated. This would require the demolition of the entire eastern range and so the Directorate’s financial demand had been arrived at in lieu of this. The Council’s outraged Finance Chairman, Councillor James Gilchrist, made a counter-offer of £5 from his own wallet! A direct appeal was also made to the Secretary of State, Malcolm Rifkind MP, but went unanswered. The authority found it had no legal option other than to pay the money that had otherwise been earmarked for its education budget.
View of the entrance to some of the flats from the 1st-floor southern walkway which once gave “fresh air” access to classrooms. Estate Agents photo from Deans PropertiesThe development now went ahead and was designated as a new street called St Leonard’s Crag. An initial attempt to make the marketing name of Salisbury Court stick quickly fell by the wayside. In October 1986 the 1957 extension was vacated when the Southside Youth Centre left for the new Southside Community Centre in the former Nicolson Street Church. The developer then took the building in hand for conversion into flats, resulting in a curious-looking block with third and fourth-floor balconies which try hard to reference the arched window of the old school tower but largely fail to fit in with the older building in any way.
The 1957 extension as converted to flats, being entirely re-faced in blockwork and with a metal-clad upper storey and balconies added.The first flats in the development were advertised for sale in late 1986 for between £23k and 55k (69k to £165k in January 2026 by straight consumer price inflation alone), but now selling for £200k, £300k or even more in the current Edinburgh property market. It is all a far cry from the smashed up, semi-ruinous state the building found itself in forty years ago.
You certainly get a lot of view for your money.
View from one of the flats in the former James Clark School, looking west towards the Salisbury Crags.The previous chapter of this series looked at St Leonard’s Public School. The next chapter examines Lothian Road Public School.
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Frantic Friday Reads: More Fresh Hells
“What is wrong with you people?” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I can’t decide which is worse. The distractions created to avoid the constant bad news or the events themselves. What I really can’t believe is the number of news outlets that can’t manage to stay on the real headlines. They’ve been bad this week. ICE continues to be the jackbooted thugs: omnipresent and well-funded, as with all fascist-loving monsters. Deportations continue to rock families and communities. The number of deaths from floods and tropical storms is rising while Homeland Security has managed to make Heckuva Job Brownie official. No one has seen the head of FEMA in days now. The only thing we see of Kristi Noem is more trashy outfits. Drunk Pete Hegseth has gone rogue. The attack on the Federal Reserve continues as Yam Tits puts illegal tariffs on Brazil. Evidently, tariff policy is based on the relationship between a country and our dotard FARTUS. Oh, and if your local groups of White Evangelical Christians weren’t annoying enough, they are now allowed by the IRS to fully promote candidates. I can assure that was something they’ve been doing since the 1980s with pulpit talk, egging folks to harass their neighbors. I can’t even imagine the grief local candidates will get with this move.
So, since I’ve been the victim of politicized White Christian Nationalists, I’ll just start with that story. Salon‘s Amanda Marcotte has this analysis. “Trump’s IRS payola for churches will backfire on evangelicals. Millions have already left right-wing Christianity because of politics.” It’s nice to know some are fleeing the alternative facts universe for churches that take all of Jesus’ teachings to heart. I see this battle daily in a lot of Christian friends on Facebook besieged by the ones that I could throw any number of gospel admonitions at that they never seem to hear or read about. They must never cover anything in Matthew or James. Jimmy Swaggert just died, but his dreadful influence lives on.
For liberals living outside the world of the Christian right, it may not seem like a major change. On Monday, the IRS revoked a long-standing rule that stripped tax-exempt status from churches that endorse political candidates. From a horse-race view of elections, this may not make a difference. While conservative pastors may have technically avoided the words “vote for Donald Trump” or “vote for Republicans” in the past, the expectation was transmitted to followers in ways that weren’t exactly subtle: Calling for the reinstatement of prayer in public schools, for “a time of national repentance” in America and even for Supreme Court vacancies to allow for the appointment of “righteous” judges.
Nor was it just that right-wing ministers were expressing Republican-shaped views about everything from LGBTQ rights to tax laws from the pulpit. Outside church walls, the massive ecosphere of Christian media hammered the message day in and day out: Democrats are demonic, and voting for them will send you to hell.
Predictably, many on the Christian right rejoiced over the decision. Robert Jeffress, a Texas megachurch pastor who claimed the IRS investigated him for supporting Donald Trump, told ABC News, “The IRS has no business dictating what can be said from the pulpit.” Craig DeRoche of the Christian Post argued, falsely, that the rule existed “not to protect democracy, but to silence opposition.”
It’s not a surprise that right-wing ministers are salivating at the chance to cater to powerful politicians while simultaneously keeping more money in their pockets. But this decision is shortsighted, particularly if they want to stymie the already significant losses in membership rolls that Christian churches have seen in the past couple of decades. They may come to rue the day they took what amounts to payola to champion Trump ahead of Jesus Christ.
Frankly, it’s hard to imagine that Trump will benefit from this politically, even if he, as he clearly hopes, gets the go-ahead from the Supreme Court for an illegal campaign for a third term. He has already captured the white evangelical vote to the tune of 80 percent in 2024, and although his approval numbers have slipped with most other demographics, these supporters have remained steadfast. Even if ministers had been allowed to endorse in the last presidential election cycle, it’s unlikely Trump would have done better among white evangelicals.
But Trump has an insatiable need for praise, and he has long been fixated on repealing the Johnson Amendment, which is the rule that prevented ministers from open endorsement. For Republicans in state and local races, this is a big deal. Campaign finance spending will go much further if directed to churches, where donors get a tax deduction, instead of to political parties and action groups, which cannot offer that benefit.
If they want the benefit of overt political action, then the IRS should drop their tax exemptions. As a long-time member of both Presbyterian and Methodist denominations at one time, I’ve participated eagerly in Social Justice Actions. These benefit a particular group of people and not one politician or party, and allow you to work for a principal. It’s a big difference. There’s no reason they can’t do their traditional callings without being servile to the likes of Yam Tits. But, then this has become a whole ‘nother country. The lessening of support for ICE Actions against legal immigrants and people in the process of becoming legal has turned the page on the popularity of Trump’s actions. I heard the Good Samaritan parable a lot, and when I was a Sunday School teacher, it was still central to Methodist theology. Perhaps, the lessons stuck with many.
Here’s how it’s going on the frontline. This is from NBC News. “ICE handcuffs 71-year-old grandmother, a U.S. citizen, at San Diego immigration court. Barbara Stone was handcuffed and held by federal agents for hours, according to her family; she was accused of pushing an ICE officer, which she denies.
A grandmother planning to document Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests at the San Diego courthouse instead became herself the story on Tuesday, after video of her arrest began circulating online.
The 71-year-old woman, U.S. citizen Barbara Stone, was accused of pushing an ICE agent and was placed in custody for several hours. Stone denied the allegation to NBC 7 on Wednesday.
Stone was handcuffed and held by federal agents for eight hours, according to her family.
“I have a large bruise there,” Stone said on Wednesday. “I feel mentally and physically traumatized.”
A video of the incident shared with NBC 7 shows the moment tensions started to boil over.
NBC 7 made several attempts to contact ICE about the incident but was referred to the Federal Protective Service, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security. FPS has not responded to a request for comment.
It takes some real men to be threated by a 71 year-old grandmother with a clipboard and pen. Gallup Poll reports that the “Surge in U.S. Concern About Immigration Has Abated.” This is reported by Lydia Saad.
Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today. At the same time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country.
These shifts reverse a four-year trend of rising concern about immigration that began in 2021 and reflect changes among all major party groups.
With illegal border crossings down sharply this year, fewer Americans than in June 2024 back hard-line border enforcement measures, while more favor offering pathways to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already in the U.S.
These findings are based on a June 2-26 Gallup poll of 1,402 U.S. adults, including oversamples of Hispanic and Black Americans, weighted to match national demographics.
The same poll finds many more Americans disapproving than approving of President Donald Trump’s handling of immigration. Trump’s 21% approval rating on the issue among Hispanic adults is below his 35% rating nationally, with the deficit likely reflecting that group’s low support for some of the administration’s signature immigration policies.
After climbing to 55% in 2024, the percentage of Americans who say immigration should be reduced has dropped by nearly half to 30%. Sentiment is thus back to the level measured in 2021, before the desire for less immigration started to mount. Meanwhile, 38% now want immigration kept at its current level, and 26% say it should be increased.
I guess they finally got the message that their food and many items will be hard to find and expensive to buy if this continues. Just a little of me wants to say it because their mamas taught them a few things about loving their neighbors. Fortunately, and with the help of Congressman Steve Scalise, hundreds of letters written by neighbors brought Mandonna Kashanian back to her home in the Lake Front area of New Orleans and to her American husband of 35 years and daughter. This is from local TV station WDSU. I can’t tell you the ugly, nasty letters filled with misinformation that accompanied news about Mrs. Kashanian. It seems people feel the need to be downright hateful these days.
The worst headline I’ve seen on how we treat folks trying to immigrate here is the ones about spiriting them off to hellholes from which they will not return. Many of them are abroad. “‘We find another country’: Homan says Trump administration looking to make deals with several countries to accept deportees.The border czar also said he was unsure of the status of the eight men recently sent to South Sudan — or whether they are detained there — saying that they are no longer in U.S. custody. The border czar also said he was unsure of the status of the eight men recently sent to South Sudan — or whether they are detained there — saying that they are no longer in U.S. custody.” The so-called border czar is the gatekeeper to hell. This headline is from Politico as reported by Myah Ward and Kyle Cheney.
Border czar Tom Homan said the Trump administration hopes to forge deals with “many countries” to accept deported migrants from the United States — when their home countries can’t, or won’t, take them back.
Homan spoke with POLITICO’s Dasha Burns for The Conversation in the wake of a recent Supreme Court ruling that cleared the way for eight men to be deported to South Sudan, a nation that the State Department has warned Americans is too dangerous for all but essential personnel.
Homan said he was unsure of the status of the eight men — or whether they are detained there — saying that they are no longer in U.S. custody.
“They’re living in Sudan. And will they stay in Sudan? I don’t know,” he said. “When we sign these agreements with all these countries, we make arrangements to make sure these countries are receiving these people and there’s opportunities for these people. But I can’t tell if we remove somebody to Sudan — they can stay there a week and leave. I don’t know.”
The deportations to places like South Sudan and El Salvador where migrants have no connections have raised concerns among lawyers and immigrant advocates who fear for the men’s safety in countries with a history of human rights violations.
Past administrations have also deported foreigners to countries where they have no previous ties, but Trump’s deals have drawn more scrutiny — both with South Sudan, one of the most dangerous and war-torn nations on earth, and El Salvador, where migrants were sent to the country’s notorious mega-prison.
We all know now that we too are home to a hellhole not suprisingly placed in Florida. There are cages for everyone there. So-called Alligator Alcatraz has not allowed detainees to see their lawyers, nor will it allow Florida Congress members to see the facility, calling it “unsafe.” Local ABC News affiiate, Channel 7, has this headline. “DHS disputes dire conditions at Alligator Alcatraz.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is denying reports of improper living conditions for detainees at Alligator Alcatraz after reports of a hospitalization surfaced.
Reports this week have claimed that the detainees at the detention facility in the Florida Everglades are surrounded by toilets that don’t flush, temperatures ranging from freezing to sweltering, little to no access to showers, less confidential calls with an attorney, and even a hospitalization, according to the Miami Herald.
However, DHS took to X to debunk those claims, stating that the detainees are properly cared for.
Furthermore, the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, said on X that no detainees at Alligator Alcatraz have been hospitalized. She continued to state that one was transported but was returned to the detention center in an hour and a half.
According to our news partners at CBS News Miami, one of the detainees living in poor conditions at the detention center is Cuban reggaeton artist Leamsy La Figura, who was arrested in Miami-Dade County for assault. He claims there’s no water to shower, the lights stay on all day, and the food is limited and sometimes spoiled.
In a phone call to CBS News Miami, La Figura described the conditions he and the other detainees are facing.
“I am Leamsy La Figura. We’ve been here at Alcatraz since Friday. There’s over 400 people here. There’s no water to take a bath, it’s been four days since I’ve taken a bath,” he said.
The facility is run by the state of Florida. CBS News Miami has reached out to the Florida Department of Emergency Management (FDEM) for comment on the alleged conditions.
Additionally, CBS News Miami said that Mayor Daniella Levine Cava of Miami-Dade is asking for access to the detention facility due to concerns over reported deaths and dangerous conditions at immigration centers across the state.
Mayor Levine Cava has said that a total of five people have died while in immigration custody in Florida so far.
As more information about Trump, Epstein, and underage girls comes to light. I’m sure we’re going to get more distractions as well as more bumbling of floods and their victims. Wired has this up today about Epstein’s death. Rumors are flying about like the flies and mosquitoes around Alligator Alcatraz. “Metadata Shows the FBI’s ‘Raw’ Jeffrey Epstein Prison Video Was Likely Modified. There is no evidence the footage was deceptively manipulated, but ambiguities around how the video was processed may further fuel conspiracy theories about Epstein’s death.” I’m sure MAGA will be excited about this.
The United States Department of Justice this week released nearly 11 hours of what it described as “full raw” surveillance footage from a camera positioned near Jeffrey Epstein’s prison cell the night before he was found dead. The release was intended to address conspiracy theories about Epstein’s apparent suicide in federal custody. But instead of putting those suspicions to rest, it may fuel them further.
Metadata embedded in the video and analyzed by WIRED and independent video forensics experts shows that rather than being a direct export from the prison’s surveillance system, the footage was modified, likely using the professional editing tool Adobe Premiere Pro. The file appears to have been assembled from at least two source clips, saved multiple times, exported, and then uploaded to the DOJ’s website, where it was presented as “raw” footage.
Experts caution that it’s unclear what exactly was changed, and that the metadata does not prove deceptive manipulation. The video may have simply been processed for public release using available software, with no modifications beyond stitching together two clips. But the absence of a clear explanation for the processing of the file using professional editing software complicates the Justice Department’s narrative. In a case already clouded by suspicion, the ambiguity surrounding how the file was processed is likely to provide fresh fodder for conspiracy theories.
Remember all this happened, under Trump’s first administration, albeit it was more competent than this one. There is a scoop at Axios that might light a fire under the entire Epstein affairs. This is reported by Marc Caputo. It feels like a mic drop. “Scoop: FBI’s Dan Bongino clashes with AG Bondi over handling of Epstein files.” We could have a new Agatha Christie adventure called Death by Rumor. Remind me, this is a Friday right? The traditional slow news day?
FBI deputy director Dan Bongino took a day off from work Friday after clashing at the White House with Attorney General Pam Bondi over their handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, four sources familiar with the conflict told Axios.
Why it matters: The dispute erupted Wednesday amid the fallout of the administration walking back its claims about Epstein by determining the convicted sex offender didn’t have a celebrity “client list,” and that he wasn’t murdered in his New York City prison cell in 2019.
- Bongino didn’t come to work Friday, leading some insiders to believe he had quit. But administration officials say he’s still on the job, even as the internal tension over the Epstein case continues.
- A source close to Bongino, though, said “he ain’t coming back.”
Zoom in: At the center of the argument: a surveillance video from outside Epstein’s cell that the administration released, saying it was proof no one had entered the room before he killed himself.
- The 10-hour video had what has widely been called a “missing minute,” fueling conspiracy theories in MAGA’s online world about a cover-up involving Epstein’s death.
- The “missing minute,” authorities say, stemmed from an old surveillance recording system that goes down each day at midnight to reset and record anew. It takes a minute for that process to occur, which effectively means that 60 seconds of every day aren’t recorded.
- Bongino — who had pushed Epstein conspiracy theories as a MAGA-friendly podcast host before President Trump appointed him to help lead the FBI — had found the video and touted it publicly and privately as proof that Epstein hadn’t been murdered.
That conclusion — shared by FBI Director Kash Patel, another conspiracy theorist-turned-insider — angered many in Trump’s MAGA base, criticism that increased after Axios first reported the release of the video and a related memo.
- After the video’s “missing minute” was discovered, Bongino was blamed internally for the oversight, according to three sources.
- Two sources familiar with Bongino’s position say he was increasingly displeased with Bondi’s handling of the Epstein case because she had publicly overpromised and underdelivered disclosures about an Epstein “client list” that apparently never existed.
The intrigue: MAGA influencer Laura Loomer, a Bondi critic, first reported Friday on X that Bongino left work and that he and Patel were “furious” with the way Bondi had handled the case.
- Some Trump advisers have criticized Bondi, but Trump “loves Pam and thinks she’s great,” a senior White House official said.
- Those witnessing the Wednesday clash between Bondi and Bongino in the White House were Patel, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich.
Inside the room: During the meeting, Bongino was confronted about a NewsNation article that said he and Patel wanted more information released about Epstein earlier, but were held back. Bongino denied leaking that idea.
- “Pam said her piece. Dan said his piece. It didn’t end on friendly terms,” said one person briefed on the heated discussion. Bongino left angry, the source said.
I’m only going to show the headline for this one from the WSJ. It just shows how much institutions are caving to presidential interference. “Harvard Explores New Center for Conservative Scholarship Amid Trump Attacks. The Ivy League school has discussed an effort to ‘support viewpoint diversity’ with potential donors, says it ‘will not be partisan’.” I suppose the devil is in the details here. Traditional American Conservatism is not what we generally see today.
Harvard leaders have discussed creating a program that people briefed on the talks described as a center for conservative scholarship, possibly modeled on Stanford’s Hoover Institution, as the school fights the Trump administration’s accusations that it is too liberal.
The idea has circulated at the university for several years but gained steam after pro-Palestinian protests began disrupting campus in late 2023. Harvard has discussed the effort with potential donors, people familiar with the matter said. The cost of creating such a center could run somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion, a person familiar with Harvard’s thinking estimated.
A spokesman for Harvard said an initiative under discussion “will ensure exposure to the broadest ranges of perspectives on issues, and will not be partisan, but rather will model the use of evidence-based, rigorous logic and a willingness to engage with opposing views.” He added that the school has been accelerating efforts to set up the initiative, which would “promote and support viewpoint diversity.”
A 2024 survey by Harvard found that only one-third of the college’s graduating class felt comfortable discussing controversial topics, and a 2023 survey by the student newspaper found that just 3% of faculty at Harvard College identified as politically conservative.
Harvard President Alan Garber helped promote an “intellectual vitality” program to reinvigorate debate on campus and ensure students engage in discussions free of self-censorship.
Okay, one last topic. It’s a big one. Trump is basically giving tariff exemptions to countries he likes. He’s throwing random tariffs at countries that do not please him. There’s a lot on this today, including some major analysis by Paul Krugman. Let me just list these reads so you my check them out. I’m glad to answer any questions regarding the application of tariffs in the comments. I’m not a lawyer, so I’ll leave the legal analysis to those who are.
Rebecca Ratcliffe / The Guardian: Shunned Myanmar leader thrilled at US contact after Trump tariff letter
Myanmar’s military leader has praised Donald Trump and asked him to lift sanctions, as the junta sought to capitalise on a tariff letter from the US president believed to be Washington’s first public recognition of its rule.
Min Aung Hlaing, who has been in power since a 2021 coup, expressed his “sincere appreciation” for Trump’s letter, which threatened a tariff of 40% on its goods, and commended the US president or his “strong leadership” and for guiding the US “toward national prosperity with the spirit of a true patriot”.
US diplomats do not officially engage with Min Aung Hlaing or the ruling junta, which seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. It was among a tranche of almost identical letters sent by Trump to world leaders on Monday.
Stephen Robinson / Public Notice: An embarrassing exercise in economic and diplomatic futility
Donald Trump just escalated his mindlessly self-destructive trade war against our (former) economic allies — again.
On Monday, Trump sent rambling letters informing 14 nations, including major trading partners Japan and South Korea, that the US government was slapping them with significantly higher tariffs as of August 1. These tariffs are separate from his previously announced sectoral tariffs on automobiles, steel, and aluminum. (This week, he also announced a 50 percent tariff on copper imports for August 1.) Trump sent more letters sporadically through the week, with an especially bonkers one to Brazil threatening a 50 percent tariff if the government proceeds with its prosecution of Trump’s partner in coups, Jair Bolsonaro.
Then, as this newsletter was being finalized yesterday, Trump announced a new 35 percent tariff on Canada, citing debunked claims about the country turning a blind eye to fentanyl flowing into the United States.
Trump’s new August 1 deadline is completely arbitrary, and his tariff numbers aren’t grounded in any rational economic policy. As everyone seems to understand but the president and his sycophants, these new tariffs will result in increased prices on goods Americans need and can’t magically produce ourselves. Other nations won’t shoulder the costs from tariffs. We will.
And hereis the link to Paul Krugman’s latest. “Trump’s Brazil Tariff Is Blatantly Illegal. Shouldn’t someone be suing?” And here I am still laughing over him writing to the Japanese PM Ishba as Mister Japan. Krugman writes at his SubStack.
I wrote the other day about Trump’s Brazil tariff, which is, as I said, evil and megalomaniacal. But I forgot to point out that it’s blatantly illegal. Maybe — probably — the Supreme Court is so corrupt at this point that it will ratify anything Trump does. But can’t we at least put them on the spot? Can’t we force Scott Bessent to explain why he supports such a grotesque abuse of presidential power?
Let’s be clear: U.S. law does give the executive branch a lot of discretion to impose tariffs without additional legislation. It does this for a reason: Temporary tariffs were intended to serve as a political pressure-release valve that would make low tariffs emerging from international agreements sustainable. This worked well as long as we had responsible presidents; it has been a disaster under Trump. Still, he does have a lot of legal authority to set tariffs.
But that authority is by no means open-ended. Tariffs can be imposed only for specific reasons:
Section 201: Market disruption Basically, if a sudden import surge puts a U.S. industry in danger, temporary tariffs can be imposed to give the industry time to adapt
Section 232: National security Tariffs can be used to sustain industries we might need during international confrontations
Section 301: Unfair practices Tariffs can be used to offset, say, foreign export subsidies
Anti-dumping duties Tariffs can be imposed when foreign companies are selling below cost
International Economic Emergency The president has broad tariff-setting powers during an economic crisis
Trump has hugely abused all these justifications, especially the last. There is no economic emergency. According to Trump himself, things are great …
And, remember it’s just a litttle rain and the average price of gas in New Orleans isn’t $2.76. It’s $1.98.
Okay, one more and I may hit a record of 5000 words in one post. The deal is that there is so much shit going on I’d need a magazine to publish just the excerpts. What Fresh Hell is this? This is from Sidney Blumenthal writing at The Guardian. “Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ is the ultimate betrayal of his base. The measure exposes the most elaborate charade in recent US political history. But betrayal is Trump’s operating principle.”
Donald Trump’s so-called “big, beautiful bill”, which will eviscerate the living standards, healthcare and aspirations of his white, working-class base, conclusively draws the curtain down on his Maga populist conceit, the most elaborate charade in recent American political history.
The price will be staggering: $1tn in cuts to Medicaid; throwing 17 million people off health coverage closing rural hospitals and women’s health clinics; battering food assistance for families, children and veterans; the virtual destruction of US solar and wind energy manufacturing; limiting access to financial aid for college; and, according to the Yale Budget Lab, adding $3tn to the national debt over the next decade, inexorably leading to raised interest rates, which will depress the housing market. These are the harsh, brutal and undeniable realities of Trumpism in the glare of day as opposed to his carnival act about how he will never touch such benefits.
The president’s Maga populism has been a collection of oddities reminiscent of PT Barnum’s museum on lower Broadway before the civil war that exhibited a 10ft tall fake petrified man, the original bearded lady and the Fiji mermaid, the tail of a large fish sewn on to a bewigged mannequin. Trump attached plutocracy to populism to construct the Maga beast. But after the passage of the bill, the Fiji mermaid that is Maga has come apart at the seams, the head separated from the tail.
“I just want you to know,” Trump said as he signed the bill, “if you see anything negative put out by Democrats, it’s all a con job.” He claimed the law was the “single most popular bill ever signed”. It is, in fact, the most unpopular piece of legislation since George W Bush proposed partial privatization of social security, which he abandoned without a single congressional vote. A Quinnipiac poll showed 53% opposing Trump’s bill, with only 27% support – 26 points underwater.
At a meeting where Trump lobbied Republican House members to vote for his bill, he told them it would not cut Medicaid because that would damage their electoral prospects. “But we’re touching Medicaid in this bill,” one Republican member complained to the publication Notus. In response to the obvious contradiction, a White House spokesperson issued a statement that the bill would “protect Medicaid”. Problem solved.
Even if Trump didn’t actually know what was in his bill, too bored to pay attention to minute details or even if he was pulling a con, he coerced the Republicans into walking the plank. If he didn’t know, they certainly knew what was in the bill and they hated it. But they feared his retribution if they did not vote for it, even though it would severely harm their base and trample their own principles. The Freedom Caucus of far-right House members who boldly declared that the debt was the hill they would die on simply folded.
Hopefully, it will soon be the Winter of Discontent because this is the summer of rebranding Fresh Hells.
Well, not quite 5000 words, but very close. 4866
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
I want an overkill button.
Here’s to Ozzy’s last concert. He made my first year of university in the land of Nebraska more meaningful. He’s struggling with Parkinson’s disease.
#TrumpCult #WeAreSoFucked #AlligatorAlcatraz #DanBongino #HarvardCaves #Hellraiser #IRSOksPulpitPolitics #KristiNoemSociopathAndCunt #LongLiveOzzy #lordOfTheLivingDead #PamBondiWeirdo #TariffsAreStillHigh #TomHomanDemonBringer #WhiteChristianNationalists
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Frantic Friday Reads: More Fresh Hells
“What is wrong with you people?” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I can’t decide which is worse. The distractions created to avoid the constant bad news or the events themselves. What I really can’t believe is the number of news outlets that can’t manage to stay on the real headlines. They’ve been bad this week. ICE continues to be the jackbooted thugs: omnipresent and well-funded, as with all fascist-loving monsters. Deportations continue to rock families and communities. The number of deaths from floods and tropical storms is rising while Homeland Security has managed to make Heckuva Job Brownie official. No one has seen the head of FEMA in days now. The only thing we see of Kristi Noem is more trashy outfits. Drunk Pete Hegseth has gone rogue. The attack on the Federal Reserve continues as Yam Tits puts illegal tariffs on Brazil. Evidently, tariff policy is based on the relationship between a country and our dotard FARTUS. Oh, and if your local groups of White Evangelical Christians weren’t annoying enough, they are now allowed by the IRS to fully promote candidates. I can assure that was something they’ve been doing since the 1980s with pulpit talk, egging folks to harass their neighbors. I can’t even imagine the grief local candidates will get with this move.
So, since I’ve been the victim of politicized White Christian Nationalists, I’ll just start with that story. Salon‘s Amanda Marcotte has this analysis. “Trump’s IRS payola for churches will backfire on evangelicals. Millions have already left right-wing Christianity because of politics.” It’s nice to know some are fleeing the alternative facts universe for churches that take all of Jesus’ teachings to heart. I see this battle daily in a lot of Christian friends on Facebook besieged by the ones that I could throw any number of gospel admonitions at that they never seem to hear or read about. They must never cover anything in Matthew or James. Jimmy Swaggert just died, but his dreadful influence lives on.
For liberals living outside the world of the Christian right, it may not seem like a major change. On Monday, the IRS revoked a long-standing rule that stripped tax-exempt status from churches that endorse political candidates. From a horse-race view of elections, this may not make a difference. While conservative pastors may have technically avoided the words “vote for Donald Trump” or “vote for Republicans” in the past, the expectation was transmitted to followers in ways that weren’t exactly subtle: Calling for the reinstatement of prayer in public schools, for “a time of national repentance” in America and even for Supreme Court vacancies to allow for the appointment of “righteous” judges.
Nor was it just that right-wing ministers were expressing Republican-shaped views about everything from LGBTQ rights to tax laws from the pulpit. Outside church walls, the massive ecosphere of Christian media hammered the message day in and day out: Democrats are demonic, and voting for them will send you to hell.
Predictably, many on the Christian right rejoiced over the decision. Robert Jeffress, a Texas megachurch pastor who claimed the IRS investigated him for supporting Donald Trump, told ABC News, “The IRS has no business dictating what can be said from the pulpit.” Craig DeRoche of the Christian Post argued, falsely, that the rule existed “not to protect democracy, but to silence opposition.”
It’s not a surprise that right-wing ministers are salivating at the chance to cater to powerful politicians while simultaneously keeping more money in their pockets. But this decision is shortsighted, particularly if they want to stymie the already significant losses in membership rolls that Christian churches have seen in the past couple of decades. They may come to rue the day they took what amounts to payola to champion Trump ahead of Jesus Christ.
Frankly, it’s hard to imagine that Trump will benefit from this politically, even if he, as he clearly hopes, gets the go-ahead from the Supreme Court for an illegal campaign for a third term. He has already captured the white evangelical vote to the tune of 80 percent in 2024, and although his approval numbers have slipped with most other demographics, these supporters have remained steadfast. Even if ministers had been allowed to endorse in the last presidential election cycle, it’s unlikely Trump would have done better among white evangelicals.
But Trump has an insatiable need for praise, and he has long been fixated on repealing the Johnson Amendment, which is the rule that prevented ministers from open endorsement. For Republicans in state and local races, this is a big deal. Campaign finance spending will go much further if directed to churches, where donors get a tax deduction, instead of to political parties and action groups, which cannot offer that benefit.
If they want the benefit of overt political action, then the IRS should drop their tax exemptions. As a long-time member of both Presbyterian and Methodist denominations at one time, I’ve participated eagerly in Social Justice Actions. These benefit a particular group of people and not one politician or party, and allow you to work for a principal. It’s a big difference. There’s no reason they can’t do their traditional callings without being servile to the likes of Yam Tits. But, then this has become a whole ‘nother country. The lessening of support for ICE Actions against legal immigrants and people in the process of becoming legal has turned the page on the popularity of Trump’s actions. I heard the Good Samaritan parable a lot, and when I was a Sunday School teacher, it was still central to Methodist theology. Perhaps, the lessons stuck with many.
Here’s how it’s going on the frontline. This is from NBC News. “ICE handcuffs 71-year-old grandmother, a U.S. citizen, at San Diego immigration court. Barbara Stone was handcuffed and held by federal agents for hours, according to her family; she was accused of pushing an ICE officer, which she denies.
A grandmother planning to document Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests at the San Diego courthouse instead became herself the story on Tuesday, after video of her arrest began circulating online.
The 71-year-old woman, U.S. citizen Barbara Stone, was accused of pushing an ICE agent and was placed in custody for several hours. Stone denied the allegation to NBC 7 on Wednesday.
Stone was handcuffed and held by federal agents for eight hours, according to her family.
“I have a large bruise there,” Stone said on Wednesday. “I feel mentally and physically traumatized.”
A video of the incident shared with NBC 7 shows the moment tensions started to boil over.
NBC 7 made several attempts to contact ICE about the incident but was referred to the Federal Protective Service, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security. FPS has not responded to a request for comment.
It takes some real men to be threated by a 71 year-old grandmother with a clipboard and pen. Gallup Poll reports that the “Surge in U.S. Concern About Immigration Has Abated.” This is reported by Lydia Saad.
Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today. At the same time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country.
These shifts reverse a four-year trend of rising concern about immigration that began in 2021 and reflect changes among all major party groups.
With illegal border crossings down sharply this year, fewer Americans than in June 2024 back hard-line border enforcement measures, while more favor offering pathways to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already in the U.S.
These findings are based on a June 2-26 Gallup poll of 1,402 U.S. adults, including oversamples of Hispanic and Black Americans, weighted to match national demographics.
The same poll finds many more Americans disapproving than approving of President Donald Trump’s handling of immigration. Trump’s 21% approval rating on the issue among Hispanic adults is below his 35% rating nationally, with the deficit likely reflecting that group’s low support for some of the administration’s signature immigration policies.
After climbing to 55% in 2024, the percentage of Americans who say immigration should be reduced has dropped by nearly half to 30%. Sentiment is thus back to the level measured in 2021, before the desire for less immigration started to mount. Meanwhile, 38% now want immigration kept at its current level, and 26% say it should be increased.
I guess they finally got the message that their food and many items will be hard to find and expensive to buy if this continues. Just a little of me wants to say it because their mamas taught them a few things about loving their neighbors. Fortunately, and with the help of Congressman Steve Scalise, hundreds of letters written by neighbors brought Mandonna Kashanian back to her home in the Lake Front area of New Orleans and to her American husband of 35 years and daughter. This is from local TV station WDSU. I can’t tell you the ugly, nasty letters filled with misinformation that accompanied news about Mrs. Kashanian. It seems people feel the need to be downright hateful these days.
The worst headline I’ve seen on how we treat folks trying to immigrate here is the ones about spiriting them off to hellholes from which they will not return. Many of them are abroad. “‘We find another country’: Homan says Trump administration looking to make deals with several countries to accept deportees.The border czar also said he was unsure of the status of the eight men recently sent to South Sudan — or whether they are detained there — saying that they are no longer in U.S. custody. The border czar also said he was unsure of the status of the eight men recently sent to South Sudan — or whether they are detained there — saying that they are no longer in U.S. custody.” The so-called border czar is the gatekeeper to hell. This headline is from Politico as reported by Myah Ward and Kyle Cheney.
Border czar Tom Homan said the Trump administration hopes to forge deals with “many countries” to accept deported migrants from the United States — when their home countries can’t, or won’t, take them back.
Homan spoke with POLITICO’s Dasha Burns for The Conversation in the wake of a recent Supreme Court ruling that cleared the way for eight men to be deported to South Sudan, a nation that the State Department has warned Americans is too dangerous for all but essential personnel.
Homan said he was unsure of the status of the eight men — or whether they are detained there — saying that they are no longer in U.S. custody.
“They’re living in Sudan. And will they stay in Sudan? I don’t know,” he said. “When we sign these agreements with all these countries, we make arrangements to make sure these countries are receiving these people and there’s opportunities for these people. But I can’t tell if we remove somebody to Sudan — they can stay there a week and leave. I don’t know.”
The deportations to places like South Sudan and El Salvador where migrants have no connections have raised concerns among lawyers and immigrant advocates who fear for the men’s safety in countries with a history of human rights violations.
Past administrations have also deported foreigners to countries where they have no previous ties, but Trump’s deals have drawn more scrutiny — both with South Sudan, one of the most dangerous and war-torn nations on earth, and El Salvador, where migrants were sent to the country’s notorious mega-prison.
We all know now that we too are home to a hellhole not suprisingly placed in Florida. There are cages for everyone there. So-called Alligator Alcatraz has not allowed detainees to see their lawyers, nor will it allow Florida Congress members to see the facility, calling it “unsafe.” Local ABC News affiiate, Channel 7, has this headline. “DHS disputes dire conditions at Alligator Alcatraz.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is denying reports of improper living conditions for detainees at Alligator Alcatraz after reports of a hospitalization surfaced.
Reports this week have claimed that the detainees at the detention facility in the Florida Everglades are surrounded by toilets that don’t flush, temperatures ranging from freezing to sweltering, little to no access to showers, less confidential calls with an attorney, and even a hospitalization, according to the Miami Herald.
However, DHS took to X to debunk those claims, stating that the detainees are properly cared for.
Furthermore, the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, said on X that no detainees at Alligator Alcatraz have been hospitalized. She continued to state that one was transported but was returned to the detention center in an hour and a half.
According to our news partners at CBS News Miami, one of the detainees living in poor conditions at the detention center is Cuban reggaeton artist Leamsy La Figura, who was arrested in Miami-Dade County for assault. He claims there’s no water to shower, the lights stay on all day, and the food is limited and sometimes spoiled.
In a phone call to CBS News Miami, La Figura described the conditions he and the other detainees are facing.
“I am Leamsy La Figura. We’ve been here at Alcatraz since Friday. There’s over 400 people here. There’s no water to take a bath, it’s been four days since I’ve taken a bath,” he said.
The facility is run by the state of Florida. CBS News Miami has reached out to the Florida Department of Emergency Management (FDEM) for comment on the alleged conditions.
Additionally, CBS News Miami said that Mayor Daniella Levine Cava of Miami-Dade is asking for access to the detention facility due to concerns over reported deaths and dangerous conditions at immigration centers across the state.
Mayor Levine Cava has said that a total of five people have died while in immigration custody in Florida so far.
As more information about Trump, Epstein, and underage girls comes to light. I’m sure we’re going to get more distractions as well as more bumbling of floods and their victims. Wired has this up today about Epstein’s death. Rumors are flying about like the flies and mosquitoes around Alligator Alcatraz. “Metadata Shows the FBI’s ‘Raw’ Jeffrey Epstein Prison Video Was Likely Modified. There is no evidence the footage was deceptively manipulated, but ambiguities around how the video was processed may further fuel conspiracy theories about Epstein’s death.” I’m sure MAGA will be excited about this.
The United States Department of Justice this week released nearly 11 hours of what it described as “full raw” surveillance footage from a camera positioned near Jeffrey Epstein’s prison cell the night before he was found dead. The release was intended to address conspiracy theories about Epstein’s apparent suicide in federal custody. But instead of putting those suspicions to rest, it may fuel them further.
Metadata embedded in the video and analyzed by WIRED and independent video forensics experts shows that rather than being a direct export from the prison’s surveillance system, the footage was modified, likely using the professional editing tool Adobe Premiere Pro. The file appears to have been assembled from at least two source clips, saved multiple times, exported, and then uploaded to the DOJ’s website, where it was presented as “raw” footage.
Experts caution that it’s unclear what exactly was changed, and that the metadata does not prove deceptive manipulation. The video may have simply been processed for public release using available software, with no modifications beyond stitching together two clips. But the absence of a clear explanation for the processing of the file using professional editing software complicates the Justice Department’s narrative. In a case already clouded by suspicion, the ambiguity surrounding how the file was processed is likely to provide fresh fodder for conspiracy theories.
Remember all this happened, under Trump’s first administration, albeit it was more competent than this one. There is a scoop at Axios that might light a fire under the entire Epstein affairs. This is reported by Marc Caputo. It feels like a mic drop. “Scoop: FBI’s Dan Bongino clashes with AG Bondi over handling of Epstein files.” We could have a new Agatha Christie adventure called Death by Rumor. Remind me, this is a Friday right? The traditional slow news day?
FBI deputy director Dan Bongino took a day off from work Friday after clashing at the White House with Attorney General Pam Bondi over their handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, four sources familiar with the conflict told Axios.
Why it matters: The dispute erupted Wednesday amid the fallout of the administration walking back its claims about Epstein by determining the convicted sex offender didn’t have a celebrity “client list,” and that he wasn’t murdered in his New York City prison cell in 2019.
- Bongino didn’t come to work Friday, leading some insiders to believe he had quit. But administration officials say he’s still on the job, even as the internal tension over the Epstein case continues.
- A source close to Bongino, though, said “he ain’t coming back.”
Zoom in: At the center of the argument: a surveillance video from outside Epstein’s cell that the administration released, saying it was proof no one had entered the room before he killed himself.
- The 10-hour video had what has widely been called a “missing minute,” fueling conspiracy theories in MAGA’s online world about a cover-up involving Epstein’s death.
- The “missing minute,” authorities say, stemmed from an old surveillance recording system that goes down each day at midnight to reset and record anew. It takes a minute for that process to occur, which effectively means that 60 seconds of every day aren’t recorded.
- Bongino — who had pushed Epstein conspiracy theories as a MAGA-friendly podcast host before President Trump appointed him to help lead the FBI — had found the video and touted it publicly and privately as proof that Epstein hadn’t been murdered.
That conclusion — shared by FBI Director Kash Patel, another conspiracy theorist-turned-insider — angered many in Trump’s MAGA base, criticism that increased after Axios first reported the release of the video and a related memo.
- After the video’s “missing minute” was discovered, Bongino was blamed internally for the oversight, according to three sources.
- Two sources familiar with Bongino’s position say he was increasingly displeased with Bondi’s handling of the Epstein case because she had publicly overpromised and underdelivered disclosures about an Epstein “client list” that apparently never existed.
The intrigue: MAGA influencer Laura Loomer, a Bondi critic, first reported Friday on X that Bongino left work and that he and Patel were “furious” with the way Bondi had handled the case.
- Some Trump advisers have criticized Bondi, but Trump “loves Pam and thinks she’s great,” a senior White House official said.
- Those witnessing the Wednesday clash between Bondi and Bongino in the White House were Patel, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich.
Inside the room: During the meeting, Bongino was confronted about a NewsNation article that said he and Patel wanted more information released about Epstein earlier, but were held back. Bongino denied leaking that idea.
- “Pam said her piece. Dan said his piece. It didn’t end on friendly terms,” said one person briefed on the heated discussion. Bongino left angry, the source said.
I’m only going to show the headline for this one from the WSJ. It just shows how much institutions are caving to presidential interference. “Harvard Explores New Center for Conservative Scholarship Amid Trump Attacks. The Ivy League school has discussed an effort to ‘support viewpoint diversity’ with potential donors, says it ‘will not be partisan’.” I suppose the devil is in the details here. Traditional American Conservatism is not what we generally see today.
Harvard leaders have discussed creating a program that people briefed on the talks described as a center for conservative scholarship, possibly modeled on Stanford’s Hoover Institution, as the school fights the Trump administration’s accusations that it is too liberal.
The idea has circulated at the university for several years but gained steam after pro-Palestinian protests began disrupting campus in late 2023. Harvard has discussed the effort with potential donors, people familiar with the matter said. The cost of creating such a center could run somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion, a person familiar with Harvard’s thinking estimated.
A spokesman for Harvard said an initiative under discussion “will ensure exposure to the broadest ranges of perspectives on issues, and will not be partisan, but rather will model the use of evidence-based, rigorous logic and a willingness to engage with opposing views.” He added that the school has been accelerating efforts to set up the initiative, which would “promote and support viewpoint diversity.”
A 2024 survey by Harvard found that only one-third of the college’s graduating class felt comfortable discussing controversial topics, and a 2023 survey by the student newspaper found that just 3% of faculty at Harvard College identified as politically conservative.
Harvard President Alan Garber helped promote an “intellectual vitality” program to reinvigorate debate on campus and ensure students engage in discussions free of self-censorship.
Okay, one last topic. It’s a big one. Trump is basically giving tariff exemptions to countries he likes. He’s throwing random tariffs at countries that do not please him. There’s a lot on this today, including some major analysis by Paul Krugman. Let me just list these reads so you my check them out. I’m glad to answer any questions regarding the application of tariffs in the comments. I’m not a lawyer, so I’ll leave the legal analysis to those who are.
Rebecca Ratcliffe / The Guardian: Shunned Myanmar leader thrilled at US contact after Trump tariff letter
Myanmar’s military leader has praised Donald Trump and asked him to lift sanctions, as the junta sought to capitalise on a tariff letter from the US president believed to be Washington’s first public recognition of its rule.
Min Aung Hlaing, who has been in power since a 2021 coup, expressed his “sincere appreciation” for Trump’s letter, which threatened a tariff of 40% on its goods, and commended the US president or his “strong leadership” and for guiding the US “toward national prosperity with the spirit of a true patriot”.
US diplomats do not officially engage with Min Aung Hlaing or the ruling junta, which seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. It was among a tranche of almost identical letters sent by Trump to world leaders on Monday.
Stephen Robinson / Public Notice: An embarrassing exercise in economic and diplomatic futility
Donald Trump just escalated his mindlessly self-destructive trade war against our (former) economic allies — again.
On Monday, Trump sent rambling letters informing 14 nations, including major trading partners Japan and South Korea, that the US government was slapping them with significantly higher tariffs as of August 1. These tariffs are separate from his previously announced sectoral tariffs on automobiles, steel, and aluminum. (This week, he also announced a 50 percent tariff on copper imports for August 1.) Trump sent more letters sporadically through the week, with an especially bonkers one to Brazil threatening a 50 percent tariff if the government proceeds with its prosecution of Trump’s partner in coups, Jair Bolsonaro.
Then, as this newsletter was being finalized yesterday, Trump announced a new 35 percent tariff on Canada, citing debunked claims about the country turning a blind eye to fentanyl flowing into the United States.
Trump’s new August 1 deadline is completely arbitrary, and his tariff numbers aren’t grounded in any rational economic policy. As everyone seems to understand but the president and his sycophants, these new tariffs will result in increased prices on goods Americans need and can’t magically produce ourselves. Other nations won’t shoulder the costs from tariffs. We will.
And hereis the link to Paul Krugman’s latest. “Trump’s Brazil Tariff Is Blatantly Illegal. Shouldn’t someone be suing?” And here I am still laughing over him writing to the Japanese PM Ishba as Mister Japan. Krugman writes at his SubStack.
I wrote the other day about Trump’s Brazil tariff, which is, as I said, evil and megalomaniacal. But I forgot to point out that it’s blatantly illegal. Maybe — probably — the Supreme Court is so corrupt at this point that it will ratify anything Trump does. But can’t we at least put them on the spot? Can’t we force Scott Bessent to explain why he supports such a grotesque abuse of presidential power?
Let’s be clear: U.S. law does give the executive branch a lot of discretion to impose tariffs without additional legislation. It does this for a reason: Temporary tariffs were intended to serve as a political pressure-release valve that would make low tariffs emerging from international agreements sustainable. This worked well as long as we had responsible presidents; it has been a disaster under Trump. Still, he does have a lot of legal authority to set tariffs.
But that authority is by no means open-ended. Tariffs can be imposed only for specific reasons:
Section 201: Market disruption Basically, if a sudden import surge puts a U.S. industry in danger, temporary tariffs can be imposed to give the industry time to adapt
Section 232: National security Tariffs can be used to sustain industries we might need during international confrontations
Section 301: Unfair practices Tariffs can be used to offset, say, foreign export subsidies
Anti-dumping duties Tariffs can be imposed when foreign companies are selling below cost
International Economic Emergency The president has broad tariff-setting powers during an economic crisis
Trump has hugely abused all these justifications, especially the last. There is no economic emergency. According to Trump himself, things are great …
And, remember it’s just a litttle rain and the average price of gas in New Orleans isn’t $2.76. It’s $1.98.
Okay, one more and I may hit a record of 5000 words in one post. The deal is that there is so much shit going on I’d need a magazine to publish just the excerpts. What Fresh Hell is this? This is from Sidney Blumenthal writing at The Guardian. “Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ is the ultimate betrayal of his base. The measure exposes the most elaborate charade in recent US political history. But betrayal is Trump’s operating principle.”
Donald Trump’s so-called “big, beautiful bill”, which will eviscerate the living standards, healthcare and aspirations of his white, working-class base, conclusively draws the curtain down on his Maga populist conceit, the most elaborate charade in recent American political history.
The price will be staggering: $1tn in cuts to Medicaid; throwing 17 million people off health coverage closing rural hospitals and women’s health clinics; battering food assistance for families, children and veterans; the virtual destruction of US solar and wind energy manufacturing; limiting access to financial aid for college; and, according to the Yale Budget Lab, adding $3tn to the national debt over the next decade, inexorably leading to raised interest rates, which will depress the housing market. These are the harsh, brutal and undeniable realities of Trumpism in the glare of day as opposed to his carnival act about how he will never touch such benefits.
The president’s Maga populism has been a collection of oddities reminiscent of PT Barnum’s museum on lower Broadway before the civil war that exhibited a 10ft tall fake petrified man, the original bearded lady and the Fiji mermaid, the tail of a large fish sewn on to a bewigged mannequin. Trump attached plutocracy to populism to construct the Maga beast. But after the passage of the bill, the Fiji mermaid that is Maga has come apart at the seams, the head separated from the tail.
“I just want you to know,” Trump said as he signed the bill, “if you see anything negative put out by Democrats, it’s all a con job.” He claimed the law was the “single most popular bill ever signed”. It is, in fact, the most unpopular piece of legislation since George W Bush proposed partial privatization of social security, which he abandoned without a single congressional vote. A Quinnipiac poll showed 53% opposing Trump’s bill, with only 27% support – 26 points underwater.
At a meeting where Trump lobbied Republican House members to vote for his bill, he told them it would not cut Medicaid because that would damage their electoral prospects. “But we’re touching Medicaid in this bill,” one Republican member complained to the publication Notus. In response to the obvious contradiction, a White House spokesperson issued a statement that the bill would “protect Medicaid”. Problem solved.
Even if Trump didn’t actually know what was in his bill, too bored to pay attention to minute details or even if he was pulling a con, he coerced the Republicans into walking the plank. If he didn’t know, they certainly knew what was in the bill and they hated it. But they feared his retribution if they did not vote for it, even though it would severely harm their base and trample their own principles. The Freedom Caucus of far-right House members who boldly declared that the debt was the hill they would die on simply folded.
Hopefully, it will soon be the Winter of Discontent because this is the summer of rebranding Fresh Hells.
Well, not quite 5000 words, but very close. 4866
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
I want an overkill button.
Here’s to Ozzy’s last concert. He made my first year of university in the land of Nebraska more meaningful. He’s struggling with Parkinson’s disease.
#TrumpCult #WeAreSoFucked #AlligatorAlcatraz #DanBongino #HarvardCaves #Hellraiser #IRSOksPulpitPolitics #KristiNoemSociopathAndCunt #LongLiveOzzy #lordOfTheLivingDead #PamBondiWeirdo #TariffsAreStillHigh #TomHomanDemonBringer #WhiteChristianNationalists
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Frantic Friday Reads: More Fresh Hells
“What is wrong with you people?” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I can’t decide which is worse. The distractions created to avoid the constant bad news or the events themselves. What I really can’t believe is the number of news outlets that can’t manage to stay on the real headlines. They’ve been bad this week. ICE continues to be the jackbooted thugs: omnipresent and well-funded, as with all fascist-loving monsters. Deportations continue to rock families and communities. The number of deaths from floods and tropical storms is rising while Homeland Security has managed to make Heckuva Job Brownie official. No one has seen the head of FEMA in days now. The only thing we see of Kristi Noem is more trashy outfits. Drunk Pete Hegseth has gone rogue. The attack on the Federal Reserve continues as Yam Tits puts illegal tariffs on Brazil. Evidently, tariff policy is based on the relationship between a country and our dotard FARTUS. Oh, and if your local groups of White Evangelical Christians weren’t annoying enough, they are now allowed by the IRS to fully promote candidates. I can assure that was something they’ve been doing since the 1980s with pulpit talk, egging folks to harass their neighbors. I can’t even imagine the grief local candidates will get with this move.
So, since I’ve been the victim of politicized White Christian Nationalists, I’ll just start with that story. Salon‘s Amanda Marcotte has this analysis. “Trump’s IRS payola for churches will backfire on evangelicals. Millions have already left right-wing Christianity because of politics.” It’s nice to know some are fleeing the alternative facts universe for churches that take all of Jesus’ teachings to heart. I see this battle daily in a lot of Christian friends on Facebook besieged by the ones that I could throw any number of gospel admonitions at that they never seem to hear or read about. They must never cover anything in Matthew or James. Jimmy Swaggert just died, but his dreadful influence lives on.
For liberals living outside the world of the Christian right, it may not seem like a major change. On Monday, the IRS revoked a long-standing rule that stripped tax-exempt status from churches that endorse political candidates. From a horse-race view of elections, this may not make a difference. While conservative pastors may have technically avoided the words “vote for Donald Trump” or “vote for Republicans” in the past, the expectation was transmitted to followers in ways that weren’t exactly subtle: Calling for the reinstatement of prayer in public schools, for “a time of national repentance” in America and even for Supreme Court vacancies to allow for the appointment of “righteous” judges.
Nor was it just that right-wing ministers were expressing Republican-shaped views about everything from LGBTQ rights to tax laws from the pulpit. Outside church walls, the massive ecosphere of Christian media hammered the message day in and day out: Democrats are demonic, and voting for them will send you to hell.
Predictably, many on the Christian right rejoiced over the decision. Robert Jeffress, a Texas megachurch pastor who claimed the IRS investigated him for supporting Donald Trump, told ABC News, “The IRS has no business dictating what can be said from the pulpit.” Craig DeRoche of the Christian Post argued, falsely, that the rule existed “not to protect democracy, but to silence opposition.”
It’s not a surprise that right-wing ministers are salivating at the chance to cater to powerful politicians while simultaneously keeping more money in their pockets. But this decision is shortsighted, particularly if they want to stymie the already significant losses in membership rolls that Christian churches have seen in the past couple of decades. They may come to rue the day they took what amounts to payola to champion Trump ahead of Jesus Christ.
Frankly, it’s hard to imagine that Trump will benefit from this politically, even if he, as he clearly hopes, gets the go-ahead from the Supreme Court for an illegal campaign for a third term. He has already captured the white evangelical vote to the tune of 80 percent in 2024, and although his approval numbers have slipped with most other demographics, these supporters have remained steadfast. Even if ministers had been allowed to endorse in the last presidential election cycle, it’s unlikely Trump would have done better among white evangelicals.
But Trump has an insatiable need for praise, and he has long been fixated on repealing the Johnson Amendment, which is the rule that prevented ministers from open endorsement. For Republicans in state and local races, this is a big deal. Campaign finance spending will go much further if directed to churches, where donors get a tax deduction, instead of to political parties and action groups, which cannot offer that benefit.
If they want the benefit of overt political action, then the IRS should drop their tax exemptions. As a long-time member of both Presbyterian and Methodist denominations at one time, I’ve participated eagerly in Social Justice Actions. These benefit a particular group of people and not one politician or party, and allow you to work for a principal. It’s a big difference. There’s no reason they can’t do their traditional callings without being servile to the likes of Yam Tits. But, then this has become a whole ‘nother country. The lessening of support for ICE Actions against legal immigrants and people in the process of becoming legal has turned the page on the popularity of Trump’s actions. I heard the Good Samaritan parable a lot, and when I was a Sunday School teacher, it was still central to Methodist theology. Perhaps, the lessons stuck with many.
Here’s how it’s going on the frontline. This is from NBC News. “ICE handcuffs 71-year-old grandmother, a U.S. citizen, at San Diego immigration court. Barbara Stone was handcuffed and held by federal agents for hours, according to her family; she was accused of pushing an ICE officer, which she denies.
A grandmother planning to document Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests at the San Diego courthouse instead became herself the story on Tuesday, after video of her arrest began circulating online.
The 71-year-old woman, U.S. citizen Barbara Stone, was accused of pushing an ICE agent and was placed in custody for several hours. Stone denied the allegation to NBC 7 on Wednesday.
Stone was handcuffed and held by federal agents for eight hours, according to her family.
“I have a large bruise there,” Stone said on Wednesday. “I feel mentally and physically traumatized.”
A video of the incident shared with NBC 7 shows the moment tensions started to boil over.
NBC 7 made several attempts to contact ICE about the incident but was referred to the Federal Protective Service, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security. FPS has not responded to a request for comment.
It takes some real men to be threated by a 71 year-old grandmother with a clipboard and pen. Gallup Poll reports that the “Surge in U.S. Concern About Immigration Has Abated.” This is reported by Lydia Saad.
Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today. At the same time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country.
These shifts reverse a four-year trend of rising concern about immigration that began in 2021 and reflect changes among all major party groups.
With illegal border crossings down sharply this year, fewer Americans than in June 2024 back hard-line border enforcement measures, while more favor offering pathways to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already in the U.S.
These findings are based on a June 2-26 Gallup poll of 1,402 U.S. adults, including oversamples of Hispanic and Black Americans, weighted to match national demographics.
The same poll finds many more Americans disapproving than approving of President Donald Trump’s handling of immigration. Trump’s 21% approval rating on the issue among Hispanic adults is below his 35% rating nationally, with the deficit likely reflecting that group’s low support for some of the administration’s signature immigration policies.
After climbing to 55% in 2024, the percentage of Americans who say immigration should be reduced has dropped by nearly half to 30%. Sentiment is thus back to the level measured in 2021, before the desire for less immigration started to mount. Meanwhile, 38% now want immigration kept at its current level, and 26% say it should be increased.
I guess they finally got the message that their food and many items will be hard to find and expensive to buy if this continues. Just a little of me wants to say it because their mamas taught them a few things about loving their neighbors. Fortunately, and with the help of Congressman Steve Scalise, hundreds of letters written by neighbors brought Mandonna Kashanian back to her home in the Lake Front area of New Orleans and to her American husband of 35 years and daughter. This is from local TV station WDSU. I can’t tell you the ugly, nasty letters filled with misinformation that accompanied news about Mrs. Kashanian. It seems people feel the need to be downright hateful these days.
The worst headline I’ve seen on how we treat folks trying to immigrate here is the ones about spiriting them off to hellholes from which they will not return. Many of them are abroad. “‘We find another country’: Homan says Trump administration looking to make deals with several countries to accept deportees.The border czar also said he was unsure of the status of the eight men recently sent to South Sudan — or whether they are detained there — saying that they are no longer in U.S. custody. The border czar also said he was unsure of the status of the eight men recently sent to South Sudan — or whether they are detained there — saying that they are no longer in U.S. custody.” The so-called border czar is the gatekeeper to hell. This headline is from Politico as reported by Myah Ward and Kyle Cheney.
Border czar Tom Homan said the Trump administration hopes to forge deals with “many countries” to accept deported migrants from the United States — when their home countries can’t, or won’t, take them back.
Homan spoke with POLITICO’s Dasha Burns for The Conversation in the wake of a recent Supreme Court ruling that cleared the way for eight men to be deported to South Sudan, a nation that the State Department has warned Americans is too dangerous for all but essential personnel.
Homan said he was unsure of the status of the eight men — or whether they are detained there — saying that they are no longer in U.S. custody.
“They’re living in Sudan. And will they stay in Sudan? I don’t know,” he said. “When we sign these agreements with all these countries, we make arrangements to make sure these countries are receiving these people and there’s opportunities for these people. But I can’t tell if we remove somebody to Sudan — they can stay there a week and leave. I don’t know.”
The deportations to places like South Sudan and El Salvador where migrants have no connections have raised concerns among lawyers and immigrant advocates who fear for the men’s safety in countries with a history of human rights violations.
Past administrations have also deported foreigners to countries where they have no previous ties, but Trump’s deals have drawn more scrutiny — both with South Sudan, one of the most dangerous and war-torn nations on earth, and El Salvador, where migrants were sent to the country’s notorious mega-prison.
We all know now that we too are home to a hellhole not suprisingly placed in Florida. There are cages for everyone there. So-called Alligator Alcatraz has not allowed detainees to see their lawyers, nor will it allow Florida Congress members to see the facility, calling it “unsafe.” Local ABC News affiiate, Channel 7, has this headline. “DHS disputes dire conditions at Alligator Alcatraz.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is denying reports of improper living conditions for detainees at Alligator Alcatraz after reports of a hospitalization surfaced.
Reports this week have claimed that the detainees at the detention facility in the Florida Everglades are surrounded by toilets that don’t flush, temperatures ranging from freezing to sweltering, little to no access to showers, less confidential calls with an attorney, and even a hospitalization, according to the Miami Herald.
However, DHS took to X to debunk those claims, stating that the detainees are properly cared for.
Furthermore, the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, said on X that no detainees at Alligator Alcatraz have been hospitalized. She continued to state that one was transported but was returned to the detention center in an hour and a half.
According to our news partners at CBS News Miami, one of the detainees living in poor conditions at the detention center is Cuban reggaeton artist Leamsy La Figura, who was arrested in Miami-Dade County for assault. He claims there’s no water to shower, the lights stay on all day, and the food is limited and sometimes spoiled.
In a phone call to CBS News Miami, La Figura described the conditions he and the other detainees are facing.
“I am Leamsy La Figura. We’ve been here at Alcatraz since Friday. There’s over 400 people here. There’s no water to take a bath, it’s been four days since I’ve taken a bath,” he said.
The facility is run by the state of Florida. CBS News Miami has reached out to the Florida Department of Emergency Management (FDEM) for comment on the alleged conditions.
Additionally, CBS News Miami said that Mayor Daniella Levine Cava of Miami-Dade is asking for access to the detention facility due to concerns over reported deaths and dangerous conditions at immigration centers across the state.
Mayor Levine Cava has said that a total of five people have died while in immigration custody in Florida so far.
As more information about Trump, Epstein, and underage girls comes to light. I’m sure we’re going to get more distractions as well as more bumbling of floods and their victims. Wired has this up today about Epstein’s death. Rumors are flying about like the flies and mosquitoes around Alligator Alcatraz. “Metadata Shows the FBI’s ‘Raw’ Jeffrey Epstein Prison Video Was Likely Modified. There is no evidence the footage was deceptively manipulated, but ambiguities around how the video was processed may further fuel conspiracy theories about Epstein’s death.” I’m sure MAGA will be excited about this.
The United States Department of Justice this week released nearly 11 hours of what it described as “full raw” surveillance footage from a camera positioned near Jeffrey Epstein’s prison cell the night before he was found dead. The release was intended to address conspiracy theories about Epstein’s apparent suicide in federal custody. But instead of putting those suspicions to rest, it may fuel them further.
Metadata embedded in the video and analyzed by WIRED and independent video forensics experts shows that rather than being a direct export from the prison’s surveillance system, the footage was modified, likely using the professional editing tool Adobe Premiere Pro. The file appears to have been assembled from at least two source clips, saved multiple times, exported, and then uploaded to the DOJ’s website, where it was presented as “raw” footage.
Experts caution that it’s unclear what exactly was changed, and that the metadata does not prove deceptive manipulation. The video may have simply been processed for public release using available software, with no modifications beyond stitching together two clips. But the absence of a clear explanation for the processing of the file using professional editing software complicates the Justice Department’s narrative. In a case already clouded by suspicion, the ambiguity surrounding how the file was processed is likely to provide fresh fodder for conspiracy theories.
Remember all this happened, under Trump’s first administration, albeit it was more competent than this one. There is a scoop at Axios that might light a fire under the entire Epstein affairs. This is reported by Marc Caputo. It feels like a mic drop. “Scoop: FBI’s Dan Bongino clashes with AG Bondi over handling of Epstein files.” We could have a new Agatha Christie adventure called Death by Rumor. Remind me, this is a Friday right? The traditional slow news day?
FBI deputy director Dan Bongino took a day off from work Friday after clashing at the White House with Attorney General Pam Bondi over their handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, four sources familiar with the conflict told Axios.
Why it matters: The dispute erupted Wednesday amid the fallout of the administration walking back its claims about Epstein by determining the convicted sex offender didn’t have a celebrity “client list,” and that he wasn’t murdered in his New York City prison cell in 2019.
- Bongino didn’t come to work Friday, leading some insiders to believe he had quit. But administration officials say he’s still on the job, even as the internal tension over the Epstein case continues.
- A source close to Bongino, though, said “he ain’t coming back.”
Zoom in: At the center of the argument: a surveillance video from outside Epstein’s cell that the administration released, saying it was proof no one had entered the room before he killed himself.
- The 10-hour video had what has widely been called a “missing minute,” fueling conspiracy theories in MAGA’s online world about a cover-up involving Epstein’s death.
- The “missing minute,” authorities say, stemmed from an old surveillance recording system that goes down each day at midnight to reset and record anew. It takes a minute for that process to occur, which effectively means that 60 seconds of every day aren’t recorded.
- Bongino — who had pushed Epstein conspiracy theories as a MAGA-friendly podcast host before President Trump appointed him to help lead the FBI — had found the video and touted it publicly and privately as proof that Epstein hadn’t been murdered.
That conclusion — shared by FBI Director Kash Patel, another conspiracy theorist-turned-insider — angered many in Trump’s MAGA base, criticism that increased after Axios first reported the release of the video and a related memo.
- After the video’s “missing minute” was discovered, Bongino was blamed internally for the oversight, according to three sources.
- Two sources familiar with Bongino’s position say he was increasingly displeased with Bondi’s handling of the Epstein case because she had publicly overpromised and underdelivered disclosures about an Epstein “client list” that apparently never existed.
The intrigue: MAGA influencer Laura Loomer, a Bondi critic, first reported Friday on X that Bongino left work and that he and Patel were “furious” with the way Bondi had handled the case.
- Some Trump advisers have criticized Bondi, but Trump “loves Pam and thinks she’s great,” a senior White House official said.
- Those witnessing the Wednesday clash between Bondi and Bongino in the White House were Patel, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich.
Inside the room: During the meeting, Bongino was confronted about a NewsNation article that said he and Patel wanted more information released about Epstein earlier, but were held back. Bongino denied leaking that idea.
- “Pam said her piece. Dan said his piece. It didn’t end on friendly terms,” said one person briefed on the heated discussion. Bongino left angry, the source said.
I’m only going to show the headline for this one from the WSJ. It just shows how much institutions are caving to presidential interference. “Harvard Explores New Center for Conservative Scholarship Amid Trump Attacks. The Ivy League school has discussed an effort to ‘support viewpoint diversity’ with potential donors, says it ‘will not be partisan’.” I suppose the devil is in the details here. Traditional American Conservatism is not what we generally see today.
Harvard leaders have discussed creating a program that people briefed on the talks described as a center for conservative scholarship, possibly modeled on Stanford’s Hoover Institution, as the school fights the Trump administration’s accusations that it is too liberal.
The idea has circulated at the university for several years but gained steam after pro-Palestinian protests began disrupting campus in late 2023. Harvard has discussed the effort with potential donors, people familiar with the matter said. The cost of creating such a center could run somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion, a person familiar with Harvard’s thinking estimated.
A spokesman for Harvard said an initiative under discussion “will ensure exposure to the broadest ranges of perspectives on issues, and will not be partisan, but rather will model the use of evidence-based, rigorous logic and a willingness to engage with opposing views.” He added that the school has been accelerating efforts to set up the initiative, which would “promote and support viewpoint diversity.”
A 2024 survey by Harvard found that only one-third of the college’s graduating class felt comfortable discussing controversial topics, and a 2023 survey by the student newspaper found that just 3% of faculty at Harvard College identified as politically conservative.
Harvard President Alan Garber helped promote an “intellectual vitality” program to reinvigorate debate on campus and ensure students engage in discussions free of self-censorship.
Okay, one last topic. It’s a big one. Trump is basically giving tariff exemptions to countries he likes. He’s throwing random tariffs at countries that do not please him. There’s a lot on this today, including some major analysis by Paul Krugman. Let me just list these reads so you my check them out. I’m glad to answer any questions regarding the application of tariffs in the comments. I’m not a lawyer, so I’ll leave the legal analysis to those who are.
Rebecca Ratcliffe / The Guardian: Shunned Myanmar leader thrilled at US contact after Trump tariff letter
Myanmar’s military leader has praised Donald Trump and asked him to lift sanctions, as the junta sought to capitalise on a tariff letter from the US president believed to be Washington’s first public recognition of its rule.
Min Aung Hlaing, who has been in power since a 2021 coup, expressed his “sincere appreciation” for Trump’s letter, which threatened a tariff of 40% on its goods, and commended the US president or his “strong leadership” and for guiding the US “toward national prosperity with the spirit of a true patriot”.
US diplomats do not officially engage with Min Aung Hlaing or the ruling junta, which seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. It was among a tranche of almost identical letters sent by Trump to world leaders on Monday.
Stephen Robinson / Public Notice: An embarrassing exercise in economic and diplomatic futility
Donald Trump just escalated his mindlessly self-destructive trade war against our (former) economic allies — again.
On Monday, Trump sent rambling letters informing 14 nations, including major trading partners Japan and South Korea, that the US government was slapping them with significantly higher tariffs as of August 1. These tariffs are separate from his previously announced sectoral tariffs on automobiles, steel, and aluminum. (This week, he also announced a 50 percent tariff on copper imports for August 1.) Trump sent more letters sporadically through the week, with an especially bonkers one to Brazil threatening a 50 percent tariff if the government proceeds with its prosecution of Trump’s partner in coups, Jair Bolsonaro.
Then, as this newsletter was being finalized yesterday, Trump announced a new 35 percent tariff on Canada, citing debunked claims about the country turning a blind eye to fentanyl flowing into the United States.
Trump’s new August 1 deadline is completely arbitrary, and his tariff numbers aren’t grounded in any rational economic policy. As everyone seems to understand but the president and his sycophants, these new tariffs will result in increased prices on goods Americans need and can’t magically produce ourselves. Other nations won’t shoulder the costs from tariffs. We will.
And hereis the link to Paul Krugman’s latest. “Trump’s Brazil Tariff Is Blatantly Illegal. Shouldn’t someone be suing?” And here I am still laughing over him writing to the Japanese PM Ishba as Mister Japan. Krugman writes at his SubStack.
I wrote the other day about Trump’s Brazil tariff, which is, as I said, evil and megalomaniacal. But I forgot to point out that it’s blatantly illegal. Maybe — probably — the Supreme Court is so corrupt at this point that it will ratify anything Trump does. But can’t we at least put them on the spot? Can’t we force Scott Bessent to explain why he supports such a grotesque abuse of presidential power?
Let’s be clear: U.S. law does give the executive branch a lot of discretion to impose tariffs without additional legislation. It does this for a reason: Temporary tariffs were intended to serve as a political pressure-release valve that would make low tariffs emerging from international agreements sustainable. This worked well as long as we had responsible presidents; it has been a disaster under Trump. Still, he does have a lot of legal authority to set tariffs.
But that authority is by no means open-ended. Tariffs can be imposed only for specific reasons:
Section 201: Market disruption Basically, if a sudden import surge puts a U.S. industry in danger, temporary tariffs can be imposed to give the industry time to adapt
Section 232: National security Tariffs can be used to sustain industries we might need during international confrontations
Section 301: Unfair practices Tariffs can be used to offset, say, foreign export subsidies
Anti-dumping duties Tariffs can be imposed when foreign companies are selling below cost
International Economic Emergency The president has broad tariff-setting powers during an economic crisis
Trump has hugely abused all these justifications, especially the last. There is no economic emergency. According to Trump himself, things are great …
And, remember it’s just a litttle rain and the average price of gas in New Orleans isn’t $2.76. It’s $1.98.
Okay, one more and I may hit a record of 5000 words in one post. The deal is that there is so much shit going on I’d need a magazine to publish just the excerpts. What Fresh Hell is this? This is from Sidney Blumenthal writing at The Guardian. “Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ is the ultimate betrayal of his base. The measure exposes the most elaborate charade in recent US political history. But betrayal is Trump’s operating principle.”
Donald Trump’s so-called “big, beautiful bill”, which will eviscerate the living standards, healthcare and aspirations of his white, working-class base, conclusively draws the curtain down on his Maga populist conceit, the most elaborate charade in recent American political history.
The price will be staggering: $1tn in cuts to Medicaid; throwing 17 million people off health coverage closing rural hospitals and women’s health clinics; battering food assistance for families, children and veterans; the virtual destruction of US solar and wind energy manufacturing; limiting access to financial aid for college; and, according to the Yale Budget Lab, adding $3tn to the national debt over the next decade, inexorably leading to raised interest rates, which will depress the housing market. These are the harsh, brutal and undeniable realities of Trumpism in the glare of day as opposed to his carnival act about how he will never touch such benefits.
The president’s Maga populism has been a collection of oddities reminiscent of PT Barnum’s museum on lower Broadway before the civil war that exhibited a 10ft tall fake petrified man, the original bearded lady and the Fiji mermaid, the tail of a large fish sewn on to a bewigged mannequin. Trump attached plutocracy to populism to construct the Maga beast. But after the passage of the bill, the Fiji mermaid that is Maga has come apart at the seams, the head separated from the tail.
“I just want you to know,” Trump said as he signed the bill, “if you see anything negative put out by Democrats, it’s all a con job.” He claimed the law was the “single most popular bill ever signed”. It is, in fact, the most unpopular piece of legislation since George W Bush proposed partial privatization of social security, which he abandoned without a single congressional vote. A Quinnipiac poll showed 53% opposing Trump’s bill, with only 27% support – 26 points underwater.
At a meeting where Trump lobbied Republican House members to vote for his bill, he told them it would not cut Medicaid because that would damage their electoral prospects. “But we’re touching Medicaid in this bill,” one Republican member complained to the publication Notus. In response to the obvious contradiction, a White House spokesperson issued a statement that the bill would “protect Medicaid”. Problem solved.
Even if Trump didn’t actually know what was in his bill, too bored to pay attention to minute details or even if he was pulling a con, he coerced the Republicans into walking the plank. If he didn’t know, they certainly knew what was in the bill and they hated it. But they feared his retribution if they did not vote for it, even though it would severely harm their base and trample their own principles. The Freedom Caucus of far-right House members who boldly declared that the debt was the hill they would die on simply folded.
Hopefully, it will soon be the Winter of Discontent because this is the summer of rebranding Fresh Hells.
Well, not quite 5000 words, but very close. 4866
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
I want an overkill button.
Here’s to Ozzy’s last concert. He made my first year of university in the land of Nebraska more meaningful. He’s struggling with Parkinson’s disease.
#TrumpCult #WeAreSoFucked #AlligatorAlcatraz #DanBongino #HarvardCaves #Hellraiser #IRSOksPulpitPolitics #KristiNoemSociopathAndCunt #LongLiveOzzy #lordOfTheLivingDead #PamBondiWeirdo #TariffsAreStillHigh #TomHomanDemonBringer #WhiteChristianNationalists
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Frantic Friday Reads: More Fresh Hells
“What is wrong with you people?” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I can’t decide which is worse. The distractions created to avoid the constant bad news or the events themselves. What I really can’t believe is the number of news outlets that can’t manage to stay on the real headlines. They’ve been bad this week. ICE continues to be the jackbooted thugs: omnipresent and well-funded, as with all fascist-loving monsters. Deportations continue to rock families and communities. The number of deaths from floods and tropical storms is rising while Homeland Security has managed to make Heckuva Job Brownie official. No one has seen the head of FEMA in days now. The only thing we see of Kristi Noem is more trashy outfits. Drunk Pete Hegseth has gone rogue. The attack on the Federal Reserve continues as Yam Tits puts illegal tariffs on Brazil. Evidently, tariff policy is based on the relationship between a country and our dotard FARTUS. Oh, and if your local groups of White Evangelical Christians weren’t annoying enough, they are now allowed by the IRS to fully promote candidates. I can assure that was something they’ve been doing since the 1980s with pulpit talk, egging folks to harass their neighbors. I can’t even imagine the grief local candidates will get with this move.
So, since I’ve been the victim of politicized White Christian Nationalists, I’ll just start with that story. Salon‘s Amanda Marcotte has this analysis. “Trump’s IRS payola for churches will backfire on evangelicals. Millions have already left right-wing Christianity because of politics.” It’s nice to know some are fleeing the alternative facts universe for churches that take all of Jesus’ teachings to heart. I see this battle daily in a lot of Christian friends on Facebook besieged by the ones that I could throw any number of gospel admonitions at that they never seem to hear or read about. They must never cover anything in Matthew or James. Jimmy Swaggert just died, but his dreadful influence lives on.
For liberals living outside the world of the Christian right, it may not seem like a major change. On Monday, the IRS revoked a long-standing rule that stripped tax-exempt status from churches that endorse political candidates. From a horse-race view of elections, this may not make a difference. While conservative pastors may have technically avoided the words “vote for Donald Trump” or “vote for Republicans” in the past, the expectation was transmitted to followers in ways that weren’t exactly subtle: Calling for the reinstatement of prayer in public schools, for “a time of national repentance” in America and even for Supreme Court vacancies to allow for the appointment of “righteous” judges.
Nor was it just that right-wing ministers were expressing Republican-shaped views about everything from LGBTQ rights to tax laws from the pulpit. Outside church walls, the massive ecosphere of Christian media hammered the message day in and day out: Democrats are demonic, and voting for them will send you to hell.
Predictably, many on the Christian right rejoiced over the decision. Robert Jeffress, a Texas megachurch pastor who claimed the IRS investigated him for supporting Donald Trump, told ABC News, “The IRS has no business dictating what can be said from the pulpit.” Craig DeRoche of the Christian Post argued, falsely, that the rule existed “not to protect democracy, but to silence opposition.”
It’s not a surprise that right-wing ministers are salivating at the chance to cater to powerful politicians while simultaneously keeping more money in their pockets. But this decision is shortsighted, particularly if they want to stymie the already significant losses in membership rolls that Christian churches have seen in the past couple of decades. They may come to rue the day they took what amounts to payola to champion Trump ahead of Jesus Christ.
Frankly, it’s hard to imagine that Trump will benefit from this politically, even if he, as he clearly hopes, gets the go-ahead from the Supreme Court for an illegal campaign for a third term. He has already captured the white evangelical vote to the tune of 80 percent in 2024, and although his approval numbers have slipped with most other demographics, these supporters have remained steadfast. Even if ministers had been allowed to endorse in the last presidential election cycle, it’s unlikely Trump would have done better among white evangelicals.
But Trump has an insatiable need for praise, and he has long been fixated on repealing the Johnson Amendment, which is the rule that prevented ministers from open endorsement. For Republicans in state and local races, this is a big deal. Campaign finance spending will go much further if directed to churches, where donors get a tax deduction, instead of to political parties and action groups, which cannot offer that benefit.
If they want the benefit of overt political action, then the IRS should drop their tax exemptions. As a long-time member of both Presbyterian and Methodist denominations at one time, I’ve participated eagerly in Social Justice Actions. These benefit a particular group of people and not one politician or party, and allow you to work for a principal. It’s a big difference. There’s no reason they can’t do their traditional callings without being servile to the likes of Yam Tits. But, then this has become a whole ‘nother country. The lessening of support for ICE Actions against legal immigrants and people in the process of becoming legal has turned the page on the popularity of Trump’s actions. I heard the Good Samaritan parable a lot, and when I was a Sunday School teacher, it was still central to Methodist theology. Perhaps, the lessons stuck with many.
Here’s how it’s going on the frontline. This is from NBC News. “ICE handcuffs 71-year-old grandmother, a U.S. citizen, at San Diego immigration court. Barbara Stone was handcuffed and held by federal agents for hours, according to her family; she was accused of pushing an ICE officer, which she denies.
A grandmother planning to document Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests at the San Diego courthouse instead became herself the story on Tuesday, after video of her arrest began circulating online.
The 71-year-old woman, U.S. citizen Barbara Stone, was accused of pushing an ICE agent and was placed in custody for several hours. Stone denied the allegation to NBC 7 on Wednesday.
Stone was handcuffed and held by federal agents for eight hours, according to her family.
“I have a large bruise there,” Stone said on Wednesday. “I feel mentally and physically traumatized.”
A video of the incident shared with NBC 7 shows the moment tensions started to boil over.
NBC 7 made several attempts to contact ICE about the incident but was referred to the Federal Protective Service, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security. FPS has not responded to a request for comment.
It takes some real men to be threated by a 71 year-old grandmother with a clipboard and pen. Gallup Poll reports that the “Surge in U.S. Concern About Immigration Has Abated.” This is reported by Lydia Saad.
Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today. At the same time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country.
These shifts reverse a four-year trend of rising concern about immigration that began in 2021 and reflect changes among all major party groups.
With illegal border crossings down sharply this year, fewer Americans than in June 2024 back hard-line border enforcement measures, while more favor offering pathways to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already in the U.S.
These findings are based on a June 2-26 Gallup poll of 1,402 U.S. adults, including oversamples of Hispanic and Black Americans, weighted to match national demographics.
The same poll finds many more Americans disapproving than approving of President Donald Trump’s handling of immigration. Trump’s 21% approval rating on the issue among Hispanic adults is below his 35% rating nationally, with the deficit likely reflecting that group’s low support for some of the administration’s signature immigration policies.
After climbing to 55% in 2024, the percentage of Americans who say immigration should be reduced has dropped by nearly half to 30%. Sentiment is thus back to the level measured in 2021, before the desire for less immigration started to mount. Meanwhile, 38% now want immigration kept at its current level, and 26% say it should be increased.
I guess they finally got the message that their food and many items will be hard to find and expensive to buy if this continues. Just a little of me wants to say it because their mamas taught them a few things about loving their neighbors. Fortunately, and with the help of Congressman Steve Scalise, hundreds of letters written by neighbors brought Mandonna Kashanian back to her home in the Lake Front area of New Orleans and to her American husband of 35 years and daughter. This is from local TV station WDSU. I can’t tell you the ugly, nasty letters filled with misinformation that accompanied news about Mrs. Kashanian. It seems people feel the need to be downright hateful these days.
The worst headline I’ve seen on how we treat folks trying to immigrate here is the ones about spiriting them off to hellholes from which they will not return. Many of them are abroad. “‘We find another country’: Homan says Trump administration looking to make deals with several countries to accept deportees.The border czar also said he was unsure of the status of the eight men recently sent to South Sudan — or whether they are detained there — saying that they are no longer in U.S. custody. The border czar also said he was unsure of the status of the eight men recently sent to South Sudan — or whether they are detained there — saying that they are no longer in U.S. custody.” The so-called border czar is the gatekeeper to hell. This headline is from Politico as reported by Myah Ward and Kyle Cheney.
Border czar Tom Homan said the Trump administration hopes to forge deals with “many countries” to accept deported migrants from the United States — when their home countries can’t, or won’t, take them back.
Homan spoke with POLITICO’s Dasha Burns for The Conversation in the wake of a recent Supreme Court ruling that cleared the way for eight men to be deported to South Sudan, a nation that the State Department has warned Americans is too dangerous for all but essential personnel.
Homan said he was unsure of the status of the eight men — or whether they are detained there — saying that they are no longer in U.S. custody.
“They’re living in Sudan. And will they stay in Sudan? I don’t know,” he said. “When we sign these agreements with all these countries, we make arrangements to make sure these countries are receiving these people and there’s opportunities for these people. But I can’t tell if we remove somebody to Sudan — they can stay there a week and leave. I don’t know.”
The deportations to places like South Sudan and El Salvador where migrants have no connections have raised concerns among lawyers and immigrant advocates who fear for the men’s safety in countries with a history of human rights violations.
Past administrations have also deported foreigners to countries where they have no previous ties, but Trump’s deals have drawn more scrutiny — both with South Sudan, one of the most dangerous and war-torn nations on earth, and El Salvador, where migrants were sent to the country’s notorious mega-prison.
We all know now that we too are home to a hellhole not suprisingly placed in Florida. There are cages for everyone there. So-called Alligator Alcatraz has not allowed detainees to see their lawyers, nor will it allow Florida Congress members to see the facility, calling it “unsafe.” Local ABC News affiiate, Channel 7, has this headline. “DHS disputes dire conditions at Alligator Alcatraz.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is denying reports of improper living conditions for detainees at Alligator Alcatraz after reports of a hospitalization surfaced.
Reports this week have claimed that the detainees at the detention facility in the Florida Everglades are surrounded by toilets that don’t flush, temperatures ranging from freezing to sweltering, little to no access to showers, less confidential calls with an attorney, and even a hospitalization, according to the Miami Herald.
However, DHS took to X to debunk those claims, stating that the detainees are properly cared for.
Furthermore, the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, said on X that no detainees at Alligator Alcatraz have been hospitalized. She continued to state that one was transported but was returned to the detention center in an hour and a half.
According to our news partners at CBS News Miami, one of the detainees living in poor conditions at the detention center is Cuban reggaeton artist Leamsy La Figura, who was arrested in Miami-Dade County for assault. He claims there’s no water to shower, the lights stay on all day, and the food is limited and sometimes spoiled.
In a phone call to CBS News Miami, La Figura described the conditions he and the other detainees are facing.
“I am Leamsy La Figura. We’ve been here at Alcatraz since Friday. There’s over 400 people here. There’s no water to take a bath, it’s been four days since I’ve taken a bath,” he said.
The facility is run by the state of Florida. CBS News Miami has reached out to the Florida Department of Emergency Management (FDEM) for comment on the alleged conditions.
Additionally, CBS News Miami said that Mayor Daniella Levine Cava of Miami-Dade is asking for access to the detention facility due to concerns over reported deaths and dangerous conditions at immigration centers across the state.
Mayor Levine Cava has said that a total of five people have died while in immigration custody in Florida so far.
As more information about Trump, Epstein, and underage girls comes to light. I’m sure we’re going to get more distractions as well as more bumbling of floods and their victims. Wired has this up today about Epstein’s death. Rumors are flying about like the flies and mosquitoes around Alligator Alcatraz. “Metadata Shows the FBI’s ‘Raw’ Jeffrey Epstein Prison Video Was Likely Modified. There is no evidence the footage was deceptively manipulated, but ambiguities around how the video was processed may further fuel conspiracy theories about Epstein’s death.” I’m sure MAGA will be excited about this.
The United States Department of Justice this week released nearly 11 hours of what it described as “full raw” surveillance footage from a camera positioned near Jeffrey Epstein’s prison cell the night before he was found dead. The release was intended to address conspiracy theories about Epstein’s apparent suicide in federal custody. But instead of putting those suspicions to rest, it may fuel them further.
Metadata embedded in the video and analyzed by WIRED and independent video forensics experts shows that rather than being a direct export from the prison’s surveillance system, the footage was modified, likely using the professional editing tool Adobe Premiere Pro. The file appears to have been assembled from at least two source clips, saved multiple times, exported, and then uploaded to the DOJ’s website, where it was presented as “raw” footage.
Experts caution that it’s unclear what exactly was changed, and that the metadata does not prove deceptive manipulation. The video may have simply been processed for public release using available software, with no modifications beyond stitching together two clips. But the absence of a clear explanation for the processing of the file using professional editing software complicates the Justice Department’s narrative. In a case already clouded by suspicion, the ambiguity surrounding how the file was processed is likely to provide fresh fodder for conspiracy theories.
Remember all this happened, under Trump’s first administration, albeit it was more competent than this one. There is a scoop at Axios that might light a fire under the entire Epstein affairs. This is reported by Marc Caputo. It feels like a mic drop. “Scoop: FBI’s Dan Bongino clashes with AG Bondi over handling of Epstein files.” We could have a new Agatha Christie adventure called Death by Rumor. Remind me, this is a Friday right? The traditional slow news day?
FBI deputy director Dan Bongino took a day off from work Friday after clashing at the White House with Attorney General Pam Bondi over their handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, four sources familiar with the conflict told Axios.
Why it matters: The dispute erupted Wednesday amid the fallout of the administration walking back its claims about Epstein by determining the convicted sex offender didn’t have a celebrity “client list,” and that he wasn’t murdered in his New York City prison cell in 2019.
- Bongino didn’t come to work Friday, leading some insiders to believe he had quit. But administration officials say he’s still on the job, even as the internal tension over the Epstein case continues.
- A source close to Bongino, though, said “he ain’t coming back.”
Zoom in: At the center of the argument: a surveillance video from outside Epstein’s cell that the administration released, saying it was proof no one had entered the room before he killed himself.
- The 10-hour video had what has widely been called a “missing minute,” fueling conspiracy theories in MAGA’s online world about a cover-up involving Epstein’s death.
- The “missing minute,” authorities say, stemmed from an old surveillance recording system that goes down each day at midnight to reset and record anew. It takes a minute for that process to occur, which effectively means that 60 seconds of every day aren’t recorded.
- Bongino — who had pushed Epstein conspiracy theories as a MAGA-friendly podcast host before President Trump appointed him to help lead the FBI — had found the video and touted it publicly and privately as proof that Epstein hadn’t been murdered.
That conclusion — shared by FBI Director Kash Patel, another conspiracy theorist-turned-insider — angered many in Trump’s MAGA base, criticism that increased after Axios first reported the release of the video and a related memo.
- After the video’s “missing minute” was discovered, Bongino was blamed internally for the oversight, according to three sources.
- Two sources familiar with Bongino’s position say he was increasingly displeased with Bondi’s handling of the Epstein case because she had publicly overpromised and underdelivered disclosures about an Epstein “client list” that apparently never existed.
The intrigue: MAGA influencer Laura Loomer, a Bondi critic, first reported Friday on X that Bongino left work and that he and Patel were “furious” with the way Bondi had handled the case.
- Some Trump advisers have criticized Bondi, but Trump “loves Pam and thinks she’s great,” a senior White House official said.
- Those witnessing the Wednesday clash between Bondi and Bongino in the White House were Patel, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich.
Inside the room: During the meeting, Bongino was confronted about a NewsNation article that said he and Patel wanted more information released about Epstein earlier, but were held back. Bongino denied leaking that idea.
- “Pam said her piece. Dan said his piece. It didn’t end on friendly terms,” said one person briefed on the heated discussion. Bongino left angry, the source said.
I’m only going to show the headline for this one from the WSJ. It just shows how much institutions are caving to presidential interference. “Harvard Explores New Center for Conservative Scholarship Amid Trump Attacks. The Ivy League school has discussed an effort to ‘support viewpoint diversity’ with potential donors, says it ‘will not be partisan’.” I suppose the devil is in the details here. Traditional American Conservatism is not what we generally see today.
Harvard leaders have discussed creating a program that people briefed on the talks described as a center for conservative scholarship, possibly modeled on Stanford’s Hoover Institution, as the school fights the Trump administration’s accusations that it is too liberal.
The idea has circulated at the university for several years but gained steam after pro-Palestinian protests began disrupting campus in late 2023. Harvard has discussed the effort with potential donors, people familiar with the matter said. The cost of creating such a center could run somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion, a person familiar with Harvard’s thinking estimated.
A spokesman for Harvard said an initiative under discussion “will ensure exposure to the broadest ranges of perspectives on issues, and will not be partisan, but rather will model the use of evidence-based, rigorous logic and a willingness to engage with opposing views.” He added that the school has been accelerating efforts to set up the initiative, which would “promote and support viewpoint diversity.”
A 2024 survey by Harvard found that only one-third of the college’s graduating class felt comfortable discussing controversial topics, and a 2023 survey by the student newspaper found that just 3% of faculty at Harvard College identified as politically conservative.
Harvard President Alan Garber helped promote an “intellectual vitality” program to reinvigorate debate on campus and ensure students engage in discussions free of self-censorship.
Okay, one last topic. It’s a big one. Trump is basically giving tariff exemptions to countries he likes. He’s throwing random tariffs at countries that do not please him. There’s a lot on this today, including some major analysis by Paul Krugman. Let me just list these reads so you my check them out. I’m glad to answer any questions regarding the application of tariffs in the comments. I’m not a lawyer, so I’ll leave the legal analysis to those who are.
Rebecca Ratcliffe / The Guardian: Shunned Myanmar leader thrilled at US contact after Trump tariff letter
Myanmar’s military leader has praised Donald Trump and asked him to lift sanctions, as the junta sought to capitalise on a tariff letter from the US president believed to be Washington’s first public recognition of its rule.
Min Aung Hlaing, who has been in power since a 2021 coup, expressed his “sincere appreciation” for Trump’s letter, which threatened a tariff of 40% on its goods, and commended the US president or his “strong leadership” and for guiding the US “toward national prosperity with the spirit of a true patriot”.
US diplomats do not officially engage with Min Aung Hlaing or the ruling junta, which seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. It was among a tranche of almost identical letters sent by Trump to world leaders on Monday.
Stephen Robinson / Public Notice: An embarrassing exercise in economic and diplomatic futility
Donald Trump just escalated his mindlessly self-destructive trade war against our (former) economic allies — again.
On Monday, Trump sent rambling letters informing 14 nations, including major trading partners Japan and South Korea, that the US government was slapping them with significantly higher tariffs as of August 1. These tariffs are separate from his previously announced sectoral tariffs on automobiles, steel, and aluminum. (This week, he also announced a 50 percent tariff on copper imports for August 1.) Trump sent more letters sporadically through the week, with an especially bonkers one to Brazil threatening a 50 percent tariff if the government proceeds with its prosecution of Trump’s partner in coups, Jair Bolsonaro.
Then, as this newsletter was being finalized yesterday, Trump announced a new 35 percent tariff on Canada, citing debunked claims about the country turning a blind eye to fentanyl flowing into the United States.
Trump’s new August 1 deadline is completely arbitrary, and his tariff numbers aren’t grounded in any rational economic policy. As everyone seems to understand but the president and his sycophants, these new tariffs will result in increased prices on goods Americans need and can’t magically produce ourselves. Other nations won’t shoulder the costs from tariffs. We will.
And hereis the link to Paul Krugman’s latest. “Trump’s Brazil Tariff Is Blatantly Illegal. Shouldn’t someone be suing?” And here I am still laughing over him writing to the Japanese PM Ishba as Mister Japan. Krugman writes at his SubStack.
I wrote the other day about Trump’s Brazil tariff, which is, as I said, evil and megalomaniacal. But I forgot to point out that it’s blatantly illegal. Maybe — probably — the Supreme Court is so corrupt at this point that it will ratify anything Trump does. But can’t we at least put them on the spot? Can’t we force Scott Bessent to explain why he supports such a grotesque abuse of presidential power?
Let’s be clear: U.S. law does give the executive branch a lot of discretion to impose tariffs without additional legislation. It does this for a reason: Temporary tariffs were intended to serve as a political pressure-release valve that would make low tariffs emerging from international agreements sustainable. This worked well as long as we had responsible presidents; it has been a disaster under Trump. Still, he does have a lot of legal authority to set tariffs.
But that authority is by no means open-ended. Tariffs can be imposed only for specific reasons:
Section 201: Market disruption Basically, if a sudden import surge puts a U.S. industry in danger, temporary tariffs can be imposed to give the industry time to adapt
Section 232: National security Tariffs can be used to sustain industries we might need during international confrontations
Section 301: Unfair practices Tariffs can be used to offset, say, foreign export subsidies
Anti-dumping duties Tariffs can be imposed when foreign companies are selling below cost
International Economic Emergency The president has broad tariff-setting powers during an economic crisis
Trump has hugely abused all these justifications, especially the last. There is no economic emergency. According to Trump himself, things are great …
And, remember it’s just a litttle rain and the average price of gas in New Orleans isn’t $2.76. It’s $1.98.
Okay, one more and I may hit a record of 5000 words in one post. The deal is that there is so much shit going on I’d need a magazine to publish just the excerpts. What Fresh Hell is this? This is from Sidney Blumenthal writing at The Guardian. “Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ is the ultimate betrayal of his base. The measure exposes the most elaborate charade in recent US political history. But betrayal is Trump’s operating principle.”
Donald Trump’s so-called “big, beautiful bill”, which will eviscerate the living standards, healthcare and aspirations of his white, working-class base, conclusively draws the curtain down on his Maga populist conceit, the most elaborate charade in recent American political history.
The price will be staggering: $1tn in cuts to Medicaid; throwing 17 million people off health coverage closing rural hospitals and women’s health clinics; battering food assistance for families, children and veterans; the virtual destruction of US solar and wind energy manufacturing; limiting access to financial aid for college; and, according to the Yale Budget Lab, adding $3tn to the national debt over the next decade, inexorably leading to raised interest rates, which will depress the housing market. These are the harsh, brutal and undeniable realities of Trumpism in the glare of day as opposed to his carnival act about how he will never touch such benefits.
The president’s Maga populism has been a collection of oddities reminiscent of PT Barnum’s museum on lower Broadway before the civil war that exhibited a 10ft tall fake petrified man, the original bearded lady and the Fiji mermaid, the tail of a large fish sewn on to a bewigged mannequin. Trump attached plutocracy to populism to construct the Maga beast. But after the passage of the bill, the Fiji mermaid that is Maga has come apart at the seams, the head separated from the tail.
“I just want you to know,” Trump said as he signed the bill, “if you see anything negative put out by Democrats, it’s all a con job.” He claimed the law was the “single most popular bill ever signed”. It is, in fact, the most unpopular piece of legislation since George W Bush proposed partial privatization of social security, which he abandoned without a single congressional vote. A Quinnipiac poll showed 53% opposing Trump’s bill, with only 27% support – 26 points underwater.
At a meeting where Trump lobbied Republican House members to vote for his bill, he told them it would not cut Medicaid because that would damage their electoral prospects. “But we’re touching Medicaid in this bill,” one Republican member complained to the publication Notus. In response to the obvious contradiction, a White House spokesperson issued a statement that the bill would “protect Medicaid”. Problem solved.
Even if Trump didn’t actually know what was in his bill, too bored to pay attention to minute details or even if he was pulling a con, he coerced the Republicans into walking the plank. If he didn’t know, they certainly knew what was in the bill and they hated it. But they feared his retribution if they did not vote for it, even though it would severely harm their base and trample their own principles. The Freedom Caucus of far-right House members who boldly declared that the debt was the hill they would die on simply folded.
Hopefully, it will soon be the Winter of Discontent because this is the summer of rebranding Fresh Hells.
Well, not quite 5000 words, but very close. 4866
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
I want an overkill button.
Here’s to Ozzy’s last concert. He made my first year of university in the land of Nebraska more meaningful. He’s struggling with Parkinson’s disease.
#TrumpCult #WeAreSoFucked #AlligatorAlcatraz #DanBongino #HarvardCaves #Hellraiser #IRSOksPulpitPolitics #KristiNoemSociopathAndCunt #LongLiveOzzy #lordOfTheLivingDead #PamBondiWeirdo #TariffsAreStillHigh #TomHomanDemonBringer #WhiteChristianNationalists
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Scattered across the streets lying south and west of Glasgow Cross, there are five steeples bearing distinctive blue-faced clocks: the Tolbooth, the Tron, the Briggait, St Andrew’s in the Square, and Hutchesons’ Hall. Occasionally a tour guide will point at one of them and explain that it’s painted blue because of an edict of Henry VIII. This is not, as far as I know, true. Nevertheless, the city’s blue clocks have a story to tell. It’s a story about Glasgow’s growth from the Reformation to the Industrial Revolution, from a market town in the shadow of the Church to a confident manufacturing giant.
The steeples of the Tolbooth (lower right) and St Andrew’s in the Square (left).In the late sixteenth century, Glasgow had just two public clocks. One occupied the old Tolbooth at the Cross, a building that probably dated to the early fifteenth century; the other was in one of the now-demolished west towers of the Cathedral.
The Tolbooth clock first enters the records in September 1573, when one Dauid Lioun was paid three shillings “for ane pece of trie to þe knok”. Three years later, the Council employed David Kaye, of Craill,
to ſett wp and repair or mend þe two knokks, þe ane maid be himſelf, and þe wþer auld knok mendit be him, how oft he beis requyrit þairto, be þame or ony in thayr name, and þat wpone þe tounes raonable expenſs fo be payit and done be him thairfor.
Kaye, who had already built a clock for St Mary’s Church in Dundee, was probably as close as Scotland had to a professional clockmaker. The Tolbooth clock was an elaborate piece of work, with not only an “orlage” (face) but a “moyne”, i.e. a display showing the phases of the moon. Unfortunately, like most clocks of the period it could not be trusted to keep good time if left to its own devices, and by 1578 the position of “rewler of the knok” had been established. The first incumbent was a chaplain, Archibald Dickie, who was paid a small salary
for rowlling and gyding of the knok and for lying nychtlie in the tolbuth to rewll and keip the samyne.
Dickie, lying every night alone in the Tolbooth with a watchful eye on the rickety machinery, must have felt the cold, and his remuneration included a separate allowance “for helping and support of him to his bed clais”.
It’s possible that the first clock in the High Kirk was in fact the old Tolbooth clock replaced by Kaye. It first appears in 1587, when a smith from Blantyre was called in to repair it. The records of the Kirk Session from 1591 suggest that this clock was under the supervision of the beadles, who were charged
to allow none to enter the Steeple to trouble the Knock and Bell there, but to keep the Knock going at all times.
By 1610, responsibility for the two clocks had been combined, and
George Smyth, rewler of the Tolbuith knok, hes bund him to the town to rewll the said knok for all the dayis of his lyfetyme for the sowme of tuentie pundis money yeirlie… and siklike, oblissis him to rewll the Hie Kirk knok and keip the same in gangand grath, and visie hir twa seuerall dayis in the wik, the sessioun payand him ten merkis yeirlie.
Although Smyth’s salary of twenty pounds a year was not colossal, this solemn contract suggests that the clocks were important to the town, and it’s worth asking why.
One reason was undoubtedly prestige. For a couple of centuries, increasingly complex astronomical clocks, such as the Pražský orloj of 1410, had been used to signal status and sophistication. Typically such clocks carried gilded numerals and astronomical symbols on a blue background. In 1540, Henry VIII of England had a particularly splendid example installed at Hampton Court, and it seems likely that this set the fashion across the British Isles. Though we have no information about the decoration of the Tolbooth or High Kirk clocks, it’s reasonable to guess they were in the same tradition.
The astronomical clock (1540) at Hampton Court. [Wikimedia Commons]A second reason the clocks mattered was more practical: a town clock set a definitive standard of time. This was important to a mercantile centre because trade, including trading hours, was strongly regulated. Glasgow’s Letter of Guildry in 1605 specified that
It shall not be leasome to any unfreeman to hold stands upon the Highstreet, to sell anything pertaining to the crafts or handy work, but betwixt eight of the morning and two of the clock in the afternoon, under the penalty of forty shilling; providing that tappers of linen and woollen cloth be suffered from morning to evening, at their pleasure, to sell. All kind of vivers to be sold from morning to evening; but unfreemen, who shall sell white bread, to keep the hours appointed.
This system which defended the rights of the established merchants and other burgesses against “unfreemen” could be enforced only if the “hours appointed” could be defined. (The legal importance of the town clock is echoed in a tale a century later, when the burghers of Banff put their clock forward a quarter of an hour to hang the outlaw James MacPherson before his pardon could arrive.)
In 1626 the increasingly prosperous burgh demolished the old Tolbooth and erected a new one on splendid lines. A combination of city hall, prison, and bell-tower topped with vanes and a gilded weathercock, it required a clock to match. One John Neill was paid six hundred merks “to mak ane new knok and haill furnitour of irne work, als sufficient, fyne, and worthie as the great knok in the laich stipill of the Metrapolitane Kirk”. It came with “horolog brodie, mones, bunkis and roweris”, i.e. a clock face, a moon, rollers, and mysterious accessories that appear nowhere else in Early Modern Scots.
The project ran somewhat over budget. Neill had to be paid a further three hundred merks in 1628, while a subcontractor received another fifty “becaus it was lang in working, and sindrie pairtis thairof wrocht over agane”. Finally “Vallentyn Ginking, paintour” was called in to make the whole ensemble glorious by “gilting of the horologe brodis, palmes, mones, the Kingis armes and all paintrie and cullouring thairof”. It was pure bling, and a powerful statement that Glasgow had arrived.
Glasgow showing off its gilded cock.Neill’s struggles with the mechanism reflected the fact that clockmaking locally was in its early days. It was in 1630 that the first clockmaker was recommended to the Incorporation of Hammermen, and only in 1649 that he was formally admitted, although the Hammermen had been asserting their right to regulate clockmaking since 1622.
The Tolbooth clock would not rule alone for long over the lower part of Glasgow. The next to join it was the clock in the steeple of Hutchesons’ Hospital, on the north side of the Trongate, which was installed in 1649 at a cost of £408 14s Scots. This clock must have had a rough time of it, as the lead that protected the steeple was stripped off in 1651 to save it from Cromwell’s troops; stashed under the floor of the Hospital, it was not restored until 1654.
Artist’s impression of the old Hutchesons’ Hospital on Trongate. [The Glasgow Story]In the late 1650s the University under Principal Patrick Gillespie also embarked on a building project, and a tower duly rose between the courts, containing a clock apparently made by a local blacksmith.
The University in the 1660s, from Slezer’s Theatrum Scotiae (1693), showing the bell/clock tower. [The Glasgow Story]Not to be left behind, in 1663 the Merchants’ House erected their new steeple in Briggait, with its own clock and peal of bells. This triggered one of the periodic rows between Council and contractors.
Artist’s impression of the Merchants’ Hall in Briggait, with its steeple. [The Glasgow Story]Andrew Purdoune had succeded John Neill in 1657 as “rewler of the knocks”, a task which increased in complexity with every new clock that had to be synchronised with the others. Meanwhile James Colquhoune, a general factotum to the Council, picked up a deal of work colouring and gilding the horologes. The job of making and rewling the new Briggait clock went to John Brodbridge, who briefly ousted Purdoune, but by 1665 the Council were accusing him of “not performing his ingadgment in relatioune to the perfecting the knock in Briggait”. Brodbridge was held to his contract to produce chimes for this clock, but they were instead to be installed in the Tolbooth. This took a couple more years to achieve, and finally in 1668,
The provest having relaited in counsell that there was ane generall complent throw the whoill toune anent the misgoverning of the knockis, in consideratioune quherof it was concludit, be pluraltie of votis, that the keyes should be takin from Johne Brodbridge and delyvered againe to Andrew Purdoune; and the said Johne, being sent for, come and did lay doune the said keyes wpon the counsell table.
Despite this discord the Tolbooth now had a musical clock, or at least a clock equipped to make loud noises at specified intervals. Musicality took longer. In 1673, fifty pounds sterling were “deburst to Mr. Kervie for tuning the bellis”, and in 1677, a further five pounds sterling were paid to “Walter Corbett, lait prenteis to Androw Purdoume, for chynging the note of the chyme of bellis in the tolbuith quhen his maister was at Holland”. By 1693, at least, John Slezer could remark on “the Tolbooth, magnificently built of hewn stone, with a very high tower, and bells which sound melodiously at every hour’s end”.
Competition continued for the role of clock-keeper, which suggests that it was either profitable in itself or a good opportunity to pick up lucrative jobs. In a small community with close links between the Trades and the Council, work was often awarded on the basis of estimates which were understood to be elastic. In 1720, the keeper William Telfer did find his “extravagant” bill of £136/11/6 sterling for work on the Tolbooth and Briggait clocks firmly reduced to 2000 Scots merks (roughly £100 sterling), but this didn’t stop him keeping the role until 1736, when he was cut out by John Dunlop, who’d been petitioning for it since 1729. The Telfer dynasty, in the person of John Telfer, recovered the contract in 1739 and retained it at least until 1758; from 1752 onward it was held by John’s widow (whose first name is sadly not recorded). Another widow, Katherine Hannington, would be keeper of the clocks from 1812 to 1813 in succession to her husband William.
By modern standards, the maintenance the keepers carried out was probably fairly crude. We know the mechanisms were lubricated, as one of Walter Corbet’s duties in 1688 was “to furnishe the haill clocks with oyll”. This oil was, in all probability, derived from tallow produced by the local fleshers, which would explain the occasional references to violent cleansing procedures: “putting [the Tolbooth clock] throw the fyre” in 1702 and “boyling” the clocks in 1738 and 1744. In turn, this handling probably explains why Glasgow’s clocks needed regular replacement or repair.
The eighteenth century brought a new technology: the pendulum. A mechanical clock needs two main elements: a drive to supply the force to keep the parts moving, and an escapement which measures out that motion in regular amounts. Glasgow’s early clocks were driven, like most steeple clocks, by slowly descending weights. We don’t have direct evidence about their escapements, but we can assume that they used the standard system of the day: a verge and foliot. This consisted of a toothed wheel which engaged a vertical rod, the verge, turning it alternately in one direction and the other; the verge in turn rotated a weighted horizontal rod, the foliot, and it was the foliot’s moment of inertia that controlled the rate of the rotation.
Early verge and foliot escapement [Wikimedia Commons].Verge and foliot escapements seem to have been about as fiddly as this description suggests: modern estimates suggest that if carefully tended — and presumably not boiled too often — they might be accurate to within fifteen minutes per day. Pendulum escapements, invented by Christiaan Huygens in 1756 and gradually improved, were a huge advance, reducing daily errors to as little as tens of seconds. Pendulums had reached eastern Scotland by the 1690s, and took a further decade to spread west. The Tolbooth clock was converted in 1702, with a minute hand added at the same time; an idea of the scale of the operation is given by the charge for “twelve stone and twelve pound of iron… for wheels to the said clock”. The Hutchesons clock was similarly upgraded in 1703, and the High Kirk in 1707.
The High Kirk clock was replaced entirely in 1724, and that decade saw various bling-enhancement works on the others: when the Briggait steeple was redded up in 1728, it used 119 books of gold leaf, exhausting the local book-binder’s supplies so that more had to be ordered from Edinburgh.
The next major upgrade came in 1736, when the Council revived their interest in music. A Stirling watchmaker, Andrew Dickie, was contracted to make a completely new chime of bells, along with “a new sett of wheels and pinions, a wooden barrell, a new sett of keys and comb barr, a sett of clappers with hammers and hammer springs and other tackling”. These chimes weren’t just a gigantic music box: they could also be played by hand. A local music teacher, Rodger Rodburn, was sent through to Edinburgh to learn the art, and equipped with a small set of practice bells at the town’s expense. He was then paid an annual salary of £15 sterling “for playing on the bells from half one to half two in the afternoon each day, Sabbath days excepted, and for extraordinary playing on Hallow days. These live performances were in addition to the mechanical sounding of the “curious set of chymes and tuneable bells, which plays every two hours”.
“Curious” was probably the right word. The original set of eighteen bells ordered to be cast in London turned out to be one short, and a B-flat bell was hurriedly added to the order — which came to £311 1s. 9d. sterling. Whether from deficiencies in casting or in installation, the chime was not in tune, and after two excruciating years the Council employed John Fife, “player on the musick bells at Edinburgh” to sort it out. The process took four months of chiselling and the casting of fourteen new bells, while one of the old bells sent to Edinburgh proved irredeemable and was melted down for scrap. (It weighed 620 pounds; transporting it in pre-canal days must have been a major operation.)
Even with approximately tuneful bells, the performances can’t have been subtle. “Senex” recalled watching the musician in action around 1790, and recorded that the keys were “sturdily beaten with the whole force of the clenched fists, and these fists carefully guarded from danger by being enclosed in well-stuffed coverings of stout leather”. Nevertheless, the performances became a treasured part of Glasgow life.
As the city expanded, new churches were required, and these naturally came with clocks. The first was the North-West Kirk (also known as the Ramshorn) in 1722. St Andrew’s followed in 1756, St Enoch’s in 1780, and St George’s in 1809. In 1757, the Tolbooth clock was replaced again, with “a new four-day clock, carricing eight hands, with a quarter piece”; this may also have been when this clock acquired “day o’ the month brodds” in addition to its other paraphernalia. After some repair work, the old Tolbooth clock was put up in the steeple of the Laigh Kirk on Trongate; the Tron steeple remains today after the rest of the kirk was lost to accidental arson by the City Guard.
The Trongate in 1770, from a drawing by Robert Paul. The old Tolbooth clock can be seen in the Tron Steeple to the left, and the new Tolbooth clock in the Tolbooth steeple to the right. [The Glasgow Story]We get occasional glimpses of the University clock and its tower. By 1730, one Henry Drew, hammerman, was being given an allowance for keeping this clock in order. (Drew also worked for Robert Dick, Professor of Natural Philosophy, becoming the first recorded lab assistant in the University’s history.) This clock was replaced in about 1750. In 1771 Dick’s successor John Anderson entertained a kite-flying crony from America, one Benjamin Franklin, on a visit to Scotland; the following year saw Glasgow’s first lightning conductor fitted to that tower.
The University clock tower, in a George Washington Wilson photo from the mid-C19th. [Aberdeen University]In 1802-5, as part of the city’s redevelopment and expansion westward, the old Hutchesons’ Hospital was demolished and Hutcheson Street opened through the site. A new building, Hutchesons’ Hall, was erected where Hutcheson Street met Ingram Street. The original plan may have been to recycle the old clock, now a century or more old, but in the end a replacement was supplied by William Hannington for £168 11s. Hannington, in fact, was only a middleman, and the clock itself was made by John Thwaites & Co, the leading clockmakers of London. Rising on manufacture and the Atlantic trade, Glasgow could finally afford the best that dubiously gained wealth could buy.
The arrival of the new Hutchesons clock, and the other Thwaites clock that graced the steeple of St George’s, set the Council fretting. By now there were nine public clocks: some were effectively worn out, and there was not much consensus on the time. A Committee on Clocks was formed, and as well as recommending a change of contractor it set out an expensive programme of repairs and replacements.
Public clocks marked on Fleming’s 1808 plan of Glasgow: from north to south, the High Kirk, the University, the North-West Kirk, St George’s, Hutchesons, the Tolbooth, the Tron Steeple, St Andrew’s, St Enoch’s and the Briggait. [National Library of Scotland]This work took place in fits and starts over the next twelve years. The Tron clock was the first to be replaced, with another Thwaites piece; the old Tron clock made its way to the High Kirk. The Tolbooth clock was recommended for replacement in 1809, but the Council baulked first at the price tag and then at the countersuggestion that “it should not in future be burdened with the additional machinery for playing tunes every two hours”. A solemn warning was recorded that “[t]he public would be sensible of the want and might complain”, and the Council bravely resolved to take no action.
Instead, the Tolbooth clock limped on with successive repairs until 1815, when the new contractors Mitchell & Russell reported that “on taking it to pieces we find it so completely worn out that to repair it… would be throwing away the sum voted for that purpose”. Mitchell & Russell provided a detailed proposal, which was accepted, and which constitutes the most detailed description of any of the Glasgow civic clocks:
… the machine to be what is termed an eight day clock, with the exception of the musical part which is to go 24 hours as at present, the quarters are to strike on two bells instead of one as is the case at present, copper hands gilt are to be placed on each of the four dials so as to show the hours and minutes, the great wheels are to be as follows, vizt., striking 16 inches, watch 15 inches, quarter 16 inches, and chime 24 inches diameter, all of which are to be fixed in strong iron frames; the barrel for the music is to be new, and fitted for the tunes at present in use, vizt., for Sunday—the Easter hymn, Monday—Gilderoy, Tuesday—Nancy’s to the greenwood gane, Wednesday—Tweedside, Thursday—Lass o’ Patie’s mill, Friday—The last time I came o’er the moor, and Saturday—Roslin Castle. Conformable to the above description we hereby offer to make and put up the whole machinery, &c., and to find the weights, pulleys, ropes, and carpenter work, and do every other necessary thing in a sufficient manner to your satisfaction, the work to be fitted into its place and clock going by the 1st of January next, for the sum of £325, at 6 months’ credit or 5 per cent. for cash.
(Apart from the Easter Hymn — probably Jesus Christ is Risen Today from Lyra Davidica — these tunes were traditional Scots airs, dating to early in the previous century. The chimes were still going forty years later, when the antiquarian Gilbert Neil noted that “Though said even yet not to be sufficiently perfect in the musical scale, the chime must be allowed as of a respectable order, and possessing such variety of tones as to render the harmony always cheering and agreeable.”)
The five remaining blue-faced clocks: Hutchesons’ Hall (centre); St Andrew’s in the Square (top left); the Tolbooth (top right); the Tron steeple (bottom right); the Briggait (bottom left). Note the close family resemblance, which may be the result of the rapid burst of replacement in the early nineteenth century.The High Kirk clock, which had started out a century earlier in the Tolbooth, was finally scrapped and replaced in 1817, as was the North-West Kirk clock. (It may be one of these that had recently nearly killed “a valuable and respectable clergyman” when one of its weights fell and ricocheted off the floor.) Haggling over the clock in the Briggait steeple ended only in 1821 with a deal to split the costs between the Council and the Merchants’ House. This seems to have been the last clock to be set up in the old blue-faced style: when the North-West Kirk was replaced entirely in 1825-6, it carried, like St George’s before it, a more modern design.
The clock on the Ramshorn Kirk (possibly a modern replica, but consistent with contemporary images).Maintenance costs were still a worry to the Council, with a perpetually lingering suspicion that clock-keepers were making work for themselves. The proposal to roll the costs of repairs into the keeper’s salary was first made in 1823, and finally agreed in 1829: after a round of maintenance the keeper, Mr Halbert, was contracted to wind and maintain the clocks, posting a £100 bond as surety that no extra expense would be laid on the town for fifteen years. After several centuries, the Council had finally learned to manage risk when awarding public contracts.
By this point the clock in the Tron steeple had acquired something genuinely new: gas light. The lighting was set up in October 1821, and consisted of an argand burner mounted above the dial and enclosed in a parabolic reflector. James Cleland boasted that “this is the only steeple in the kingdom where the hour can be seen after dark, at a distance of nearly a quarter of a mile”; being Cleland, it is almost certain that he had measured this.
Cleland made a point of naming the designers of the Tron’s lighting scheme: John and Robert Hart, a pair of pastry bakers from Bo’ness who had moved to Glasgow, taken classes at Anderson’s Institution, become pals with James Watt, and set themselves up as inventors. To Cleland and others, their career paths epitomised the rising industrial city, finally shaking off its provincial past and emerging as a centre of innovation.
After perhaps three centuries of chasing the technological curve, Glasgow had at last caught up. The brilliantly lit Tron clock, like all its predecessors, was more than a timepiece: it was quite consciously a sign of the times.
Main sources
Many of the details come from the Extracts from the Burgh Records of Glasgow published by the Scottish Burgh Records Society. (If anyone ever finds a copy of the 1760-1809 volume(s), please let me know.) Other key sources:
- James Cleland, Annals of Glasgow (1816) and Statistical Tables (1823)
- James Coutts, A history of the University of Glasgow, from its foundation in 1451 to 1909 (James Maclehose & Sons, 1909)
- William H. Hill, History of the Hospital and School Founded in Glasgow, A.D. 1639-41, by George and Thomas Hutcheson of Lambhill (Hutchesons, 1881)
- Harry Lumsden & P. Henderson Aitken, History of the Hammermen of Glasgow (Alexander Gardner, 1912)
- James D. Marwick, Early Glasgow (James Maclehose & Sons, 1911)
- John Muendel, “Friction and Lubrication in Medieval Europe: The Emergence of Olive Oil as a Superior Agent”, Isis, Vol. 86, No. 3 (Sep., 1995), pp. 373-393.
- David Murray, “The Preservation of the Tolbooth Steeple of Glasgow”, The Scottish Historical Review, Jul., 1915, Vol. 12, No. 48 (Jul., 1915), pp. 354-368.
- Gabriel Neil, “A few brief notices of the old Tolbooth at the Cross of Glasgow, removed in 1814, &c.”. Transactions of the Glasgow Archaeological Society, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1859), pp. 8-28.
- “Senex” and others, Glasgow Past and Present (David Robertson & Co., 1854)
- John Smith, Old Scottish Clockmakers from 1453 to 1850 (Oliver & Boyd, 1921)
I’m also grateful to Rebekah Higgitt and Thony Christie for responding to the hist-tech bat-signal when I had questions about astronomical clocks. Full details of everything available on request; corrections welcome, and all mistakes my own.
https://newcleckitdominie.wordpress.com/2023/10/09/blue-in-the-face/
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Scattered across the streets lying south and west of Glasgow Cross, there are five steeples bearing distinctive blue-faced clocks: the Tolbooth, the Tron, the Briggait, St Andrew’s in the Square, and Hutchesons’ Hall. Occasionally a tour guide will point at one of them and explain that it’s painted blue because of an edict of Henry VIII. This is not, as far as I know, true. Nevertheless, the city’s blue clocks have a story to tell. It’s a story about Glasgow’s growth from the Reformation to the Industrial Revolution, from a market town in the shadow of the Church to a confident manufacturing giant.
The steeples of the Tolbooth (lower right) and St Andrew’s in the Square (left).In the late sixteenth century, Glasgow had just two public clocks. One occupied the old Tolbooth at the Cross, a building that probably dated to the early fifteenth century; the other was in one of the now-demolished west towers of the Cathedral.
The Tolbooth clock first enters the records in September 1573, when one Dauid Lioun was paid three shillings “for ane pece of trie to þe knok”. Three years later, the Council employed David Kaye, of Craill,
to ſett wp and repair or mend þe two knokks, þe ane maid be himſelf, and þe wþer auld knok mendit be him, how oft he beis requyrit þairto, be þame or ony in thayr name, and þat wpone þe tounes raonable expenſs fo be payit and done be him thairfor.
Kaye, who had already built a clock for St Mary’s Church in Dundee, was probably as close as Scotland had to a professional clockmaker. The Tolbooth clock was an elaborate piece of work, with not only an “orlage” (face) but a “moyne”, i.e. a display showing the phases of the moon. Unfortunately, like most clocks of the period it could not be trusted to keep good time if left to its own devices, and by 1578 the position of “rewler of the knok” had been established. The first incumbent was a chaplain, Archibald Dickie, who was paid a small salary
for rowlling and gyding of the knok and for lying nychtlie in the tolbuth to rewll and keip the samyne.
Dickie, lying every night alone in the Tolbooth with a watchful eye on the rickety machinery, must have felt the cold, and his remuneration included a separate allowance “for helping and support of him to his bed clais”.
It’s possible that the first clock in the High Kirk was in fact the old Tolbooth clock replaced by Kaye. It first appears in 1587, when a smith from Blantyre was called in to repair it. The records of the Kirk Session from 1591 suggest that this clock was under the supervision of the beadles, who were charged
to allow none to enter the Steeple to trouble the Knock and Bell there, but to keep the Knock going at all times.
By 1610, responsibility for the two clocks had been combined, and
George Smyth, rewler of the Tolbuith knok, hes bund him to the town to rewll the said knok for all the dayis of his lyfetyme for the sowme of tuentie pundis money yeirlie… and siklike, oblissis him to rewll the Hie Kirk knok and keip the same in gangand grath, and visie hir twa seuerall dayis in the wik, the sessioun payand him ten merkis yeirlie.
Although Smyth’s salary of twenty pounds a year was not colossal, this solemn contract suggests that the clocks were important to the town, and it’s worth asking why.
One reason was undoubtedly prestige. For a couple of centuries, increasingly complex astronomical clocks, such as the Pražský orloj of 1410, had been used to signal status and sophistication. Typically such clocks carried gilded numerals and astronomical symbols on a blue background. In 1540, Henry VIII of England had a particularly splendid example installed at Hampton Court, and it seems likely that this set the fashion across the British Isles. Though we have no information about the decoration of the Tolbooth or High Kirk clocks, it’s reasonable to guess they were in the same tradition.
The astronomical clock (1540) at Hampton Court. [Wikimedia Commons]A second reason the clocks mattered was more practical: a town clock set a definitive standard of time. This was important to a mercantile centre because trade, including trading hours, was strongly regulated. Glasgow’s Letter of Guildry in 1605 specified that
It shall not be leasome to any unfreeman to hold stands upon the Highstreet, to sell anything pertaining to the crafts or handy work, but betwixt eight of the morning and two of the clock in the afternoon, under the penalty of forty shilling; providing that tappers of linen and woollen cloth be suffered from morning to evening, at their pleasure, to sell. All kind of vivers to be sold from morning to evening; but unfreemen, who shall sell white bread, to keep the hours appointed.
This system which defended the rights of the established merchants and other burgesses against “unfreemen” could be enforced only if the “hours appointed” could be defined. (The legal importance of the town clock is echoed in a tale a century later, when the burghers of Banff put their clock forward a quarter of an hour to hang the outlaw James MacPherson before his pardon could arrive.)
In 1626 the increasingly prosperous burgh demolished the old Tolbooth and erected a new one on splendid lines. A combination of city hall, prison, and bell-tower topped with vanes and a gilded weathercock, it required a clock to match. One John Neill was paid six hundred merks “to mak ane new knok and haill furnitour of irne work, als sufficient, fyne, and worthie as the great knok in the laich stipill of the Metrapolitane Kirk”. It came with “horolog brodie, mones, bunkis and roweris”, i.e. a clock face, a moon, rollers, and mysterious accessories that appear nowhere else in Early Modern Scots.
The project ran somewhat over budget. Neill had to be paid a further three hundred merks in 1628, while a subcontractor received another fifty “becaus it was lang in working, and sindrie pairtis thairof wrocht over agane”. Finally “Vallentyn Ginking, paintour” was called in to make the whole ensemble glorious by “gilting of the horologe brodis, palmes, mones, the Kingis armes and all paintrie and cullouring thairof”. It was pure bling, and a powerful statement that Glasgow had arrived.
Glasgow showing off its gilded cock.Neill’s struggles with the mechanism reflected the fact that clockmaking locally was in its early days. It was in 1630 that the first clockmaker was recommended to the Incorporation of Hammermen, and only in 1649 that he was formally admitted, although the Hammermen had been asserting their right to regulate clockmaking since 1622.
The Tolbooth clock would not rule alone for long over the lower part of Glasgow. The next to join it was the clock in the steeple of Hutchesons’ Hospital, on the north side of the Trongate, which was installed in 1649 at a cost of £408 14s Scots. This clock must have had a rough time of it, as the lead that protected the steeple was stripped off in 1651 to save it from Cromwell’s troops; stashed under the floor of the Hospital, it was not restored until 1654.
Artist’s impression of the old Hutchesons’ Hospital on Trongate. [The Glasgow Story]In the late 1650s the University under Principal Patrick Gillespie also embarked on a building project, and a tower duly rose between the courts, containing a clock apparently made by a local blacksmith.
The University in the 1660s, from Slezer’s Theatrum Scotiae (1693), showing the bell/clock tower. [The Glasgow Story]Not to be left behind, in 1663 the Merchants’ House erected their new steeple in Briggait, with its own clock and peal of bells. This triggered one of the periodic rows between Council and contractors.
Artist’s impression of the Merchants’ Hall in Briggait, with its steeple. [The Glasgow Story]Andrew Purdoune had succeded John Neill in 1657 as “rewler of the knocks”, a task which increased in complexity with every new clock that had to be synchronised with the others. Meanwhile James Colquhoune, a general factotum to the Council, picked up a deal of work colouring and gilding the horologes. The job of making and rewling the new Briggait clock went to John Brodbridge, who briefly ousted Purdoune, but by 1665 the Council were accusing him of “not performing his ingadgment in relatioune to the perfecting the knock in Briggait”. Brodbridge was held to his contract to produce chimes for this clock, but they were instead to be installed in the Tolbooth. This took a couple more years to achieve, and finally in 1668,
The provest having relaited in counsell that there was ane generall complent throw the whoill toune anent the misgoverning of the knockis, in consideratioune quherof it was concludit, be pluraltie of votis, that the keyes should be takin from Johne Brodbridge and delyvered againe to Andrew Purdoune; and the said Johne, being sent for, come and did lay doune the said keyes wpon the counsell table.
Despite this discord the Tolbooth now had a musical clock, or at least a clock equipped to make loud noises at specified intervals. Musicality took longer. In 1673, fifty pounds sterling were “deburst to Mr. Kervie for tuning the bellis”, and in 1677, a further five pounds sterling were paid to “Walter Corbett, lait prenteis to Androw Purdoume, for chynging the note of the chyme of bellis in the tolbuith quhen his maister was at Holland”. By 1693, at least, John Slezer could remark on “the Tolbooth, magnificently built of hewn stone, with a very high tower, and bells which sound melodiously at every hour’s end”.
Competition continued for the role of clock-keeper, which suggests that it was either profitable in itself or a good opportunity to pick up lucrative jobs. In a small community with close links between the Trades and the Council, work was often awarded on the basis of estimates which were understood to be elastic. In 1720, the keeper William Telfer did find his “extravagant” bill of £136/11/6 sterling for work on the Tolbooth and Briggait clocks firmly reduced to 2000 Scots merks (roughly £100 sterling), but this didn’t stop him keeping the role until 1736, when he was cut out by John Dunlop, who’d been petitioning for it since 1729. The Telfer dynasty, in the person of John Telfer, recovered the contract in 1739 and retained it at least until 1758; from 1752 onward it was held by John’s widow (whose first name is sadly not recorded). Another widow, Katherine Hannington, would be keeper of the clocks from 1812 to 1813 in succession to her husband William.
By modern standards, the maintenance the keepers carried out was probably fairly crude. We know the mechanisms were lubricated, as one of Walter Corbet’s duties in 1688 was “to furnishe the haill clocks with oyll”. This oil was, in all probability, derived from tallow produced by the local fleshers, which would explain the occasional references to violent cleansing procedures: “putting [the Tolbooth clock] throw the fyre” in 1702 and “boyling” the clocks in 1738 and 1744. In turn, this handling probably explains why Glasgow’s clocks needed regular replacement or repair.
The eighteenth century brought a new technology: the pendulum. A mechanical clock needs two main elements: a drive to supply the force to keep the parts moving, and an escapement which measures out that motion in regular amounts. Glasgow’s early clocks were driven, like most steeple clocks, by slowly descending weights. We don’t have direct evidence about their escapements, but we can assume that they used the standard system of the day: a verge and foliot. This consisted of a toothed wheel which engaged a vertical rod, the verge, turning it alternately in one direction and the other; the verge in turn rotated a weighted horizontal rod, the foliot, and it was the foliot’s moment of inertia that controlled the rate of the rotation.
Early verge and foliot escapement [Wikimedia Commons].Verge and foliot escapements seem to have been about as fiddly as this description suggests: modern estimates suggest that if carefully tended — and presumably not boiled too often — they might be accurate to within fifteen minutes per day. Pendulum escapements, invented by Christiaan Huygens in 1756 and gradually improved, were a huge advance, reducing daily errors to as little as tens of seconds. Pendulums had reached eastern Scotland by the 1690s, and took a further decade to spread west. The Tolbooth clock was converted in 1702, with a minute hand added at the same time; an idea of the scale of the operation is given by the charge for “twelve stone and twelve pound of iron… for wheels to the said clock”. The Hutchesons clock was similarly upgraded in 1703, and the High Kirk in 1707.
The High Kirk clock was replaced entirely in 1724, and that decade saw various bling-enhancement works on the others: when the Briggait steeple was redded up in 1728, it used 119 books of gold leaf, exhausting the local book-binder’s supplies so that more had to be ordered from Edinburgh.
The next major upgrade came in 1736, when the Council revived their interest in music. A Stirling watchmaker, Andrew Dickie, was contracted to make a completely new chime of bells, along with “a new sett of wheels and pinions, a wooden barrell, a new sett of keys and comb barr, a sett of clappers with hammers and hammer springs and other tackling”. These chimes weren’t just a gigantic music box: they could also be played by hand. A local music teacher, Rodger Rodburn, was sent through to Edinburgh to learn the art, and equipped with a small set of practice bells at the town’s expense. He was then paid an annual salary of £15 sterling “for playing on the bells from half one to half two in the afternoon each day, Sabbath days excepted, and for extraordinary playing on Hallow days. These live performances were in addition to the mechanical sounding of the “curious set of chymes and tuneable bells, which plays every two hours”.
“Curious” was probably the right word. The original set of eighteen bells ordered to be cast in London turned out to be one short, and a B-flat bell was hurriedly added to the order — which came to £311 1s. 9d. sterling. Whether from deficiencies in casting or in installation, the chime was not in tune, and after two excruciating years the Council employed John Fife, “player on the musick bells at Edinburgh” to sort it out. The process took four months of chiselling and the casting of fourteen new bells, while one of the old bells sent to Edinburgh proved irredeemable and was melted down for scrap. (It weighed 620 pounds; transporting it in pre-canal days must have been a major operation.)
Even with approximately tuneful bells, the performances can’t have been subtle. “Senex” recalled watching the musician in action around 1790, and recorded that the keys were “sturdily beaten with the whole force of the clenched fists, and these fists carefully guarded from danger by being enclosed in well-stuffed coverings of stout leather”. Nevertheless, the performances became a treasured part of Glasgow life.
As the city expanded, new churches were required, and these naturally came with clocks. The first was the North-West Kirk (also known as the Ramshorn) in 1722. St Andrew’s followed in 1756, St Enoch’s in 1780, and St George’s in 1809. In 1757, the Tolbooth clock was replaced again, with “a new four-day clock, carricing eight hands, with a quarter piece”; this may also have been when this clock acquired “day o’ the month brodds” in addition to its other paraphernalia. After some repair work, the old Tolbooth clock was put up in the steeple of the Laigh Kirk on Trongate; the Tron steeple remains today after the rest of the kirk was lost to accidental arson by the City Guard.
The Trongate in 1770, from a drawing by Robert Paul. The old Tolbooth clock can be seen in the Tron Steeple to the left, and the new Tolbooth clock in the Tolbooth steeple to the right. [The Glasgow Story]We get occasional glimpses of the University clock and its tower. By 1730, one Henry Drew, hammerman, was being given an allowance for keeping this clock in order. (Drew also worked for Robert Dick, Professor of Natural Philosophy, becoming the first recorded lab assistant in the University’s history.) This clock was replaced in about 1750. In 1771 Dick’s successor John Anderson entertained a kite-flying crony from America, one Benjamin Franklin, on a visit to Scotland; the following year saw Glasgow’s first lightning conductor fitted to that tower.
The University clock tower, in a George Washington Wilson photo from the mid-C19th. [Aberdeen University]In 1802-5, as part of the city’s redevelopment and expansion westward, the old Hutchesons’ Hospital was demolished and Hutcheson Street opened through the site. A new building, Hutchesons’ Hall, was erected where Hutcheson Street met Ingram Street. The original plan may have been to recycle the old clock, now a century or more old, but in the end a replacement was supplied by William Hannington for £168 11s. Hannington, in fact, was only a middleman, and the clock itself was made by John Thwaites & Co, the leading clockmakers of London. Rising on manufacture and the Atlantic trade, Glasgow could finally afford the best that dubiously gained wealth could buy.
The arrival of the new Hutchesons clock, and the other Thwaites clock that graced the steeple of St George’s, set the Council fretting. By now there were nine public clocks: some were effectively worn out, and there was not much consensus on the time. A Committee on Clocks was formed, and as well as recommending a change of contractor it set out an expensive programme of repairs and replacements.
Public clocks marked on Fleming’s 1808 plan of Glasgow: from north to south, the High Kirk, the University, the North-West Kirk, St George’s, Hutchesons, the Tolbooth, the Tron Steeple, St Andrew’s, St Enoch’s and the Briggait. [National Library of Scotland]This work took place in fits and starts over the next twelve years. The Tron clock was the first to be replaced, with another Thwaites piece; the old Tron clock made its way to the High Kirk. The Tolbooth clock was recommended for replacement in 1809, but the Council baulked first at the price tag and then at the countersuggestion that “it should not in future be burdened with the additional machinery for playing tunes every two hours”. A solemn warning was recorded that “[t]he public would be sensible of the want and might complain”, and the Council bravely resolved to take no action.
Instead, the Tolbooth clock limped on with successive repairs until 1815, when the new contractors Mitchell & Russell reported that “on taking it to pieces we find it so completely worn out that to repair it… would be throwing away the sum voted for that purpose”. Mitchell & Russell provided a detailed proposal, which was accepted, and which constitutes the most detailed description of any of the Glasgow civic clocks:
… the machine to be what is termed an eight day clock, with the exception of the musical part which is to go 24 hours as at present, the quarters are to strike on two bells instead of one as is the case at present, copper hands gilt are to be placed on each of the four dials so as to show the hours and minutes, the great wheels are to be as follows, vizt., striking 16 inches, watch 15 inches, quarter 16 inches, and chime 24 inches diameter, all of which are to be fixed in strong iron frames; the barrel for the music is to be new, and fitted for the tunes at present in use, vizt., for Sunday—the Easter hymn, Monday—Gilderoy, Tuesday—Nancy’s to the greenwood gane, Wednesday—Tweedside, Thursday—Lass o’ Patie’s mill, Friday—The last time I came o’er the moor, and Saturday—Roslin Castle. Conformable to the above description we hereby offer to make and put up the whole machinery, &c., and to find the weights, pulleys, ropes, and carpenter work, and do every other necessary thing in a sufficient manner to your satisfaction, the work to be fitted into its place and clock going by the 1st of January next, for the sum of £325, at 6 months’ credit or 5 per cent. for cash.
(Apart from the Easter Hymn — probably Jesus Christ is Risen Today from Lyra Davidica — these tunes were traditional Scots airs, dating to early in the previous century. The chimes were still going forty years later, when the antiquarian Gilbert Neil noted that “Though said even yet not to be sufficiently perfect in the musical scale, the chime must be allowed as of a respectable order, and possessing such variety of tones as to render the harmony always cheering and agreeable.”)
The five remaining blue-faced clocks: Hutchesons’ Hall (centre); St Andrew’s in the Square (top left); the Tolbooth (top right); the Tron steeple (bottom right); the Briggait (bottom left). Note the close family resemblance, which may be the result of the rapid burst of replacement in the early nineteenth century.The High Kirk clock, which had started out a century earlier in the Tolbooth, was finally scrapped and replaced in 1817, as was the North-West Kirk clock. (It may be one of these that had recently nearly killed “a valuable and respectable clergyman” when one of its weights fell and ricocheted off the floor.) Haggling over the clock in the Briggait steeple ended only in 1821 with a deal to split the costs between the Council and the Merchants’ House. This seems to have been the last clock to be set up in the old blue-faced style: when the North-West Kirk was replaced entirely in 1825-6, it carried, like St George’s before it, a more modern design.
The clock on the Ramshorn Kirk (possibly a modern replica, but consistent with contemporary images).Maintenance costs were still a worry to the Council, with a perpetually lingering suspicion that clock-keepers were making work for themselves. The proposal to roll the costs of repairs into the keeper’s salary was first made in 1823, and finally agreed in 1829: after a round of maintenance the keeper, Mr Halbert, was contracted to wind and maintain the clocks, posting a £100 bond as surety that no extra expense would be laid on the town for fifteen years. After several centuries, the Council had finally learned to manage risk when awarding public contracts.
By this point the clock in the Tron steeple had acquired something genuinely new: gas light. The lighting was set up in October 1821, and consisted of an argand burner mounted above the dial and enclosed in a parabolic reflector. James Cleland boasted that “this is the only steeple in the kingdom where the hour can be seen after dark, at a distance of nearly a quarter of a mile”; being Cleland, it is almost certain that he had measured this.
Cleland made a point of naming the designers of the Tron’s lighting scheme: John and Robert Hart, a pair of pastry bakers from Bo’ness who had moved to Glasgow, taken classes at Anderson’s Institution, become pals with James Watt, and set themselves up as inventors. To Cleland and others, their career paths epitomised the rising industrial city, finally shaking off its provincial past and emerging as a centre of innovation.
After perhaps three centuries of chasing the technological curve, Glasgow had at last caught up. The brilliantly lit Tron clock, like all its predecessors, was more than a timepiece: it was quite consciously a sign of the times.
Main sources
Many of the details come from the Extracts from the Burgh Records of Glasgow published by the Scottish Burgh Records Society. (If anyone ever finds a copy of the 1760-1809 volume(s), please let me know.) Other key sources:
- James Cleland, Annals of Glasgow (1816) and Statistical Tables (1823)
- James Coutts, A history of the University of Glasgow, from its foundation in 1451 to 1909 (James Maclehose & Sons, 1909)
- William H. Hill, History of the Hospital and School Founded in Glasgow, A.D. 1639-41, by George and Thomas Hutcheson of Lambhill (Hutchesons, 1881)
- Harry Lumsden & P. Henderson Aitken, History of the Hammermen of Glasgow (Alexander Gardner, 1912)
- James D. Marwick, Early Glasgow (James Maclehose & Sons, 1911)
- John Muendel, “Friction and Lubrication in Medieval Europe: The Emergence of Olive Oil as a Superior Agent”, Isis, Vol. 86, No. 3 (Sep., 1995), pp. 373-393.
- David Murray, “The Preservation of the Tolbooth Steeple of Glasgow”, The Scottish Historical Review, Jul., 1915, Vol. 12, No. 48 (Jul., 1915), pp. 354-368.
- Gabriel Neil, “A few brief notices of the old Tolbooth at the Cross of Glasgow, removed in 1814, &c.”. Transactions of the Glasgow Archaeological Society, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1859), pp. 8-28.
- “Senex” and others, Glasgow Past and Present (David Robertson & Co., 1854)
- John Smith, Old Scottish Clockmakers from 1453 to 1850 (Oliver & Boyd, 1921)
I’m also grateful to Rebekah Higgitt and Thony Christie for responding to the hist-tech bat-signal when I had questions about astronomical clocks. Full details of everything available on request; corrections welcome, and all mistakes my own.
https://newcleckitdominie.wordpress.com/2023/10/09/blue-in-the-face/
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Scattered across the streets lying south and west of Glasgow Cross, there are five steeples bearing distinctive blue-faced clocks: the Tolbooth, the Tron, the Briggait, St Andrew’s in the Square, and Hutchesons’ Hall. Occasionally a tour guide will point at one of them and explain that it’s painted blue because of an edict of Henry VIII. This is not, as far as I know, true. Nevertheless, the city’s blue clocks have a story to tell. It’s a story about Glasgow’s growth from the Reformation to the Industrial Revolution, from a market town in the shadow of the Church to a confident manufacturing giant.
The steeples of the Tolbooth (lower right) and St Andrew’s in the Square (left).In the late sixteenth century, Glasgow had just two public clocks. One occupied the old Tolbooth at the Cross, a building that probably dated to the early fifteenth century; the other was in one of the now-demolished west towers of the Cathedral.
The Tolbooth clock first enters the records in September 1573, when one Dauid Lioun was paid three shillings “for ane pece of trie to þe knok”. Three years later, the Council employed David Kaye, of Craill,
to ſett wp and repair or mend þe two knokks, þe ane maid be himſelf, and þe wþer auld knok mendit be him, how oft he beis requyrit þairto, be þame or ony in thayr name, and þat wpone þe tounes raonable expenſs fo be payit and done be him thairfor.
Kaye, who had already built a clock for St Mary’s Church in Dundee, was probably as close as Scotland had to a professional clockmaker. The Tolbooth clock was an elaborate piece of work, with not only an “orlage” (face) but a “moyne”, i.e. a display showing the phases of the moon. Unfortunately, like most clocks of the period it could not be trusted to keep good time if left to its own devices, and by 1578 the position of “rewler of the knok” had been established. The first incumbent was a chaplain, Archibald Dickie, who was paid a small salary
for rowlling and gyding of the knok and for lying nychtlie in the tolbuth to rewll and keip the samyne.
Dickie, lying every night alone in the Tolbooth with a watchful eye on the rickety machinery, must have felt the cold, and his remuneration included a separate allowance “for helping and support of him to his bed clais”.
It’s possible that the first clock in the High Kirk was in fact the old Tolbooth clock replaced by Kaye. It first appears in 1587, when a smith from Blantyre was called in to repair it. The records of the Kirk Session from 1591 suggest that this clock was under the supervision of the beadles, who were charged
to allow none to enter the Steeple to trouble the Knock and Bell there, but to keep the Knock going at all times.
By 1610, responsibility for the two clocks had been combined, and
George Smyth, rewler of the Tolbuith knok, hes bund him to the town to rewll the said knok for all the dayis of his lyfetyme for the sowme of tuentie pundis money yeirlie… and siklike, oblissis him to rewll the Hie Kirk knok and keip the same in gangand grath, and visie hir twa seuerall dayis in the wik, the sessioun payand him ten merkis yeirlie.
Although Smyth’s salary of twenty pounds a year was not colossal, this solemn contract suggests that the clocks were important to the town, and it’s worth asking why.
One reason was undoubtedly prestige. For a couple of centuries, increasingly complex astronomical clocks, such as the Pražský orloj of 1410, had been used to signal status and sophistication. Typically such clocks carried gilded numerals and astronomical symbols on a blue background. In 1540, Henry VIII of England had a particularly splendid example installed at Hampton Court, and it seems likely that this set the fashion across the British Isles. Though we have no information about the decoration of the Tolbooth or High Kirk clocks, it’s reasonable to guess they were in the same tradition.
The astronomical clock (1540) at Hampton Court. [Wikimedia Commons]A second reason the clocks mattered was more practical: a town clock set a definitive standard of time. This was important to a mercantile centre because trade, including trading hours, was strongly regulated. Glasgow’s Letter of Guildry in 1605 specified that
It shall not be leasome to any unfreeman to hold stands upon the Highstreet, to sell anything pertaining to the crafts or handy work, but betwixt eight of the morning and two of the clock in the afternoon, under the penalty of forty shilling; providing that tappers of linen and woollen cloth be suffered from morning to evening, at their pleasure, to sell. All kind of vivers to be sold from morning to evening; but unfreemen, who shall sell white bread, to keep the hours appointed.
This system which defended the rights of the established merchants and other burgesses against “unfreemen” could be enforced only if the “hours appointed” could be defined. (The legal importance of the town clock is echoed in a tale a century later, when the burghers of Banff put their clock forward a quarter of an hour to hang the outlaw James MacPherson before his pardon could arrive.)
In 1626 the increasingly prosperous burgh demolished the old Tolbooth and erected a new one on splendid lines. A combination of city hall, prison, and bell-tower topped with vanes and a gilded weathercock, it required a clock to match. One John Neill was paid six hundred merks “to mak ane new knok and haill furnitour of irne work, als sufficient, fyne, and worthie as the great knok in the laich stipill of the Metrapolitane Kirk”. It came with “horolog brodie, mones, bunkis and roweris”, i.e. a clock face, a moon, rollers, and mysterious accessories that appear nowhere else in Early Modern Scots.
The project ran somewhat over budget. Neill had to be paid a further three hundred merks in 1628, while a subcontractor received another fifty “becaus it was lang in working, and sindrie pairtis thairof wrocht over agane”. Finally “Vallentyn Ginking, paintour” was called in to make the whole ensemble glorious by “gilting of the horologe brodis, palmes, mones, the Kingis armes and all paintrie and cullouring thairof”. It was pure bling, and a powerful statement that Glasgow had arrived.
Glasgow showing off its gilded cock.Neill’s struggles with the mechanism reflected the fact that clockmaking locally was in its early days. It was in 1630 that the first clockmaker was recommended to the Incorporation of Hammermen, and only in 1649 that he was formally admitted, although the Hammermen had been asserting their right to regulate clockmaking since 1622.
The Tolbooth clock would not rule alone for long over the lower part of Glasgow. The next to join it was the clock in the steeple of Hutchesons’ Hospital, on the north side of the Trongate, which was installed in 1649 at a cost of £408 14s Scots. This clock must have had a rough time of it, as the lead that protected the steeple was stripped off in 1651 to save it from Cromwell’s troops; stashed under the floor of the Hospital, it was not restored until 1654.
Artist’s impression of the old Hutchesons’ Hospital on Trongate. [The Glasgow Story]In the late 1650s the University under Principal Patrick Gillespie also embarked on a building project, and a tower duly rose between the courts, containing a clock apparently made by a local blacksmith.
The University in the 1660s, from Slezer’s Theatrum Scotiae (1693), showing the bell/clock tower. [The Glasgow Story]Not to be left behind, in 1663 the Merchants’ House erected their new steeple in Briggait, with its own clock and peal of bells. This triggered one of the periodic rows between Council and contractors.
Artist’s impression of the Merchants’ Hall in Briggait, with its steeple. [The Glasgow Story]Andrew Purdoune had succeded John Neill in 1657 as “rewler of the knocks”, a task which increased in complexity with every new clock that had to be synchronised with the others. Meanwhile James Colquhoune, a general factotum to the Council, picked up a deal of work colouring and gilding the horologes. The job of making and rewling the new Briggait clock went to John Brodbridge, who briefly ousted Purdoune, but by 1665 the Council were accusing him of “not performing his ingadgment in relatioune to the perfecting the knock in Briggait”. Brodbridge was held to his contract to produce chimes for this clock, but they were instead to be installed in the Tolbooth. This took a couple more years to achieve, and finally in 1668,
The provest having relaited in counsell that there was ane generall complent throw the whoill toune anent the misgoverning of the knockis, in consideratioune quherof it was concludit, be pluraltie of votis, that the keyes should be takin from Johne Brodbridge and delyvered againe to Andrew Purdoune; and the said Johne, being sent for, come and did lay doune the said keyes wpon the counsell table.
Despite this discord the Tolbooth now had a musical clock, or at least a clock equipped to make loud noises at specified intervals. Musicality took longer. In 1673, fifty pounds sterling were “deburst to Mr. Kervie for tuning the bellis”, and in 1677, a further five pounds sterling were paid to “Walter Corbett, lait prenteis to Androw Purdoume, for chynging the note of the chyme of bellis in the tolbuith quhen his maister was at Holland”. By 1693, at least, John Slezer could remark on “the Tolbooth, magnificently built of hewn stone, with a very high tower, and bells which sound melodiously at every hour’s end”.
Competition continued for the role of clock-keeper, which suggests that it was either profitable in itself or a good opportunity to pick up lucrative jobs. In a small community with close links between the Trades and the Council, work was often awarded on the basis of estimates which were understood to be elastic. In 1720, the keeper William Telfer did find his “extravagant” bill of £136/11/6 sterling for work on the Tolbooth and Briggait clocks firmly reduced to 2000 Scots merks (roughly £100 sterling), but this didn’t stop him keeping the role until 1736, when he was cut out by John Dunlop, who’d been petitioning for it since 1729. The Telfer dynasty, in the person of John Telfer, recovered the contract in 1739 and retained it at least until 1758; from 1752 onward it was held by John’s widow (whose first name is sadly not recorded). Another widow, Katherine Hannington, would be keeper of the clocks from 1812 to 1813 in succession to her husband William.
By modern standards, the maintenance the keepers carried out was probably fairly crude. We know the mechanisms were lubricated, as one of Walter Corbet’s duties in 1688 was “to furnishe the haill clocks with oyll”. This oil was, in all probability, derived from tallow produced by the local fleshers, which would explain the occasional references to violent cleansing procedures: “putting [the Tolbooth clock] throw the fyre” in 1702 and “boyling” the clocks in 1738 and 1744. In turn, this handling probably explains why Glasgow’s clocks needed regular replacement or repair.
The eighteenth century brought a new technology: the pendulum. A mechanical clock needs two main elements: a drive to supply the force to keep the parts moving, and an escapement which measures out that motion in regular amounts. Glasgow’s early clocks were driven, like most steeple clocks, by slowly descending weights. We don’t have direct evidence about their escapements, but we can assume that they used the standard system of the day: a verge and foliot. This consisted of a toothed wheel which engaged a vertical rod, the verge, turning it alternately in one direction and the other; the verge in turn rotated a weighted horizontal rod, the foliot, and it was the foliot’s moment of inertia that controlled the rate of the rotation.
Early verge and foliot escapement [Wikimedia Commons].Verge and foliot escapements seem to have been about as fiddly as this description suggests: modern estimates suggest that if carefully tended — and presumably not boiled too often — they might be accurate to within fifteen minutes per day. Pendulum escapements, invented by Christiaan Huygens in 1756 and gradually improved, were a huge advance, reducing daily errors to as little as tens of seconds. Pendulums had reached eastern Scotland by the 1690s, and took a further decade to spread west. The Tolbooth clock was converted in 1702, with a minute hand added at the same time; an idea of the scale of the operation is given by the charge for “twelve stone and twelve pound of iron… for wheels to the said clock”. The Hutchesons clock was similarly upgraded in 1703, and the High Kirk in 1707.
The High Kirk clock was replaced entirely in 1724, and that decade saw various bling-enhancement works on the others: when the Briggait steeple was redded up in 1728, it used 119 books of gold leaf, exhausting the local book-binder’s supplies so that more had to be ordered from Edinburgh.
The next major upgrade came in 1736, when the Council revived their interest in music. A Stirling watchmaker, Andrew Dickie, was contracted to make a completely new chime of bells, along with “a new sett of wheels and pinions, a wooden barrell, a new sett of keys and comb barr, a sett of clappers with hammers and hammer springs and other tackling”. These chimes weren’t just a gigantic music box: they could also be played by hand. A local music teacher, Rodger Rodburn, was sent through to Edinburgh to learn the art, and equipped with a small set of practice bells at the town’s expense. He was then paid an annual salary of £15 sterling “for playing on the bells from half one to half two in the afternoon each day, Sabbath days excepted, and for extraordinary playing on Hallow days. These live performances were in addition to the mechanical sounding of the “curious set of chymes and tuneable bells, which plays every two hours”.
“Curious” was probably the right word. The original set of eighteen bells ordered to be cast in London turned out to be one short, and a B-flat bell was hurriedly added to the order — which came to £311 1s. 9d. sterling. Whether from deficiencies in casting or in installation, the chime was not in tune, and after two excruciating years the Council employed John Fife, “player on the musick bells at Edinburgh” to sort it out. The process took four months of chiselling and the casting of fourteen new bells, while one of the old bells sent to Edinburgh proved irredeemable and was melted down for scrap. (It weighed 620 pounds; transporting it in pre-canal days must have been a major operation.)
Even with approximately tuneful bells, the performances can’t have been subtle. “Senex” recalled watching the musician in action around 1790, and recorded that the keys were “sturdily beaten with the whole force of the clenched fists, and these fists carefully guarded from danger by being enclosed in well-stuffed coverings of stout leather”. Nevertheless, the performances became a treasured part of Glasgow life.
As the city expanded, new churches were required, and these naturally came with clocks. The first was the North-West Kirk (also known as the Ramshorn) in 1722. St Andrew’s followed in 1756, St Enoch’s in 1780, and St George’s in 1809. In 1757, the Tolbooth clock was replaced again, with “a new four-day clock, carricing eight hands, with a quarter piece”; this may also have been when this clock acquired “day o’ the month brodds” in addition to its other paraphernalia. After some repair work, the old Tolbooth clock was put up in the steeple of the Laigh Kirk on Trongate; the Tron steeple remains today after the rest of the kirk was lost to accidental arson by the City Guard.
The Trongate in 1770, from a drawing by Robert Paul. The old Tolbooth clock can be seen in the Tron Steeple to the left, and the new Tolbooth clock in the Tolbooth steeple to the right. [The Glasgow Story]We get occasional glimpses of the University clock and its tower. By 1730, one Henry Drew, hammerman, was being given an allowance for keeping this clock in order. (Drew also worked for Robert Dick, Professor of Natural Philosophy, becoming the first recorded lab assistant in the University’s history.) This clock was replaced in about 1750. In 1771 Dick’s successor John Anderson entertained a kite-flying crony from America, one Benjamin Franklin, on a visit to Scotland; the following year saw Glasgow’s first lightning conductor fitted to that tower.
The University clock tower, in a George Washington Wilson photo from the mid-C19th. [Aberdeen University]In 1802-5, as part of the city’s redevelopment and expansion westward, the old Hutchesons’ Hospital was demolished and Hutcheson Street opened through the site. A new building, Hutchesons’ Hall, was erected where Hutcheson Street met Ingram Street. The original plan may have been to recycle the old clock, now a century or more old, but in the end a replacement was supplied by William Hannington for £168 11s. Hannington, in fact, was only a middleman, and the clock itself was made by John Thwaites & Co, the leading clockmakers of London. Rising on manufacture and the Atlantic trade, Glasgow could finally afford the best that dubiously gained wealth could buy.
The arrival of the new Hutchesons clock, and the other Thwaites clock that graced the steeple of St George’s, set the Council fretting. By now there were nine public clocks: some were effectively worn out, and there was not much consensus on the time. A Committee on Clocks was formed, and as well as recommending a change of contractor it set out an expensive programme of repairs and replacements.
Public clocks marked on Fleming’s 1808 plan of Glasgow: from north to south, the High Kirk, the University, the North-West Kirk, St George’s, Hutchesons, the Tolbooth, the Tron Steeple, St Andrew’s, St Enoch’s and the Briggait. [National Library of Scotland]This work took place in fits and starts over the next twelve years. The Tron clock was the first to be replaced, with another Thwaites piece; the old Tron clock made its way to the High Kirk. The Tolbooth clock was recommended for replacement in 1809, but the Council baulked first at the price tag and then at the countersuggestion that “it should not in future be burdened with the additional machinery for playing tunes every two hours”. A solemn warning was recorded that “[t]he public would be sensible of the want and might complain”, and the Council bravely resolved to take no action.
Instead, the Tolbooth clock limped on with successive repairs until 1815, when the new contractors Mitchell & Russell reported that “on taking it to pieces we find it so completely worn out that to repair it… would be throwing away the sum voted for that purpose”. Mitchell & Russell provided a detailed proposal, which was accepted, and which constitutes the most detailed description of any of the Glasgow civic clocks:
… the machine to be what is termed an eight day clock, with the exception of the musical part which is to go 24 hours as at present, the quarters are to strike on two bells instead of one as is the case at present, copper hands gilt are to be placed on each of the four dials so as to show the hours and minutes, the great wheels are to be as follows, vizt., striking 16 inches, watch 15 inches, quarter 16 inches, and chime 24 inches diameter, all of which are to be fixed in strong iron frames; the barrel for the music is to be new, and fitted for the tunes at present in use, vizt., for Sunday—the Easter hymn, Monday—Gilderoy, Tuesday—Nancy’s to the greenwood gane, Wednesday—Tweedside, Thursday—Lass o’ Patie’s mill, Friday—The last time I came o’er the moor, and Saturday—Roslin Castle. Conformable to the above description we hereby offer to make and put up the whole machinery, &c., and to find the weights, pulleys, ropes, and carpenter work, and do every other necessary thing in a sufficient manner to your satisfaction, the work to be fitted into its place and clock going by the 1st of January next, for the sum of £325, at 6 months’ credit or 5 per cent. for cash.
(Apart from the Easter Hymn — probably Jesus Christ is Risen Today from Lyra Davidica — these tunes were traditional Scots airs, dating to early in the previous century. The chimes were still going forty years later, when the antiquarian Gilbert Neil noted that “Though said even yet not to be sufficiently perfect in the musical scale, the chime must be allowed as of a respectable order, and possessing such variety of tones as to render the harmony always cheering and agreeable.”)
The five remaining blue-faced clocks: Hutchesons’ Hall (centre); St Andrew’s in the Square (top left); the Tolbooth (top right); the Tron steeple (bottom right); the Briggait (bottom left). Note the close family resemblance, which may be the result of the rapid burst of replacement in the early nineteenth century.The High Kirk clock, which had started out a century earlier in the Tolbooth, was finally scrapped and replaced in 1817, as was the North-West Kirk clock. (It may be one of these that had recently nearly killed “a valuable and respectable clergyman” when one of its weights fell and ricocheted off the floor.) Haggling over the clock in the Briggait steeple ended only in 1821 with a deal to split the costs between the Council and the Merchants’ House. This seems to have been the last clock to be set up in the old blue-faced style: when the North-West Kirk was replaced entirely in 1825-6, it carried, like St George’s before it, a more modern design.
The clock on the Ramshorn Kirk (possibly a modern replica, but consistent with contemporary images).Maintenance costs were still a worry to the Council, with a perpetually lingering suspicion that clock-keepers were making work for themselves. The proposal to roll the costs of repairs into the keeper’s salary was first made in 1823, and finally agreed in 1829: after a round of maintenance the keeper, Mr Halbert, was contracted to wind and maintain the clocks, posting a £100 bond as surety that no extra expense would be laid on the town for fifteen years. After several centuries, the Council had finally learned to manage risk when awarding public contracts.
By this point the clock in the Tron steeple had acquired something genuinely new: gas light. The lighting was set up in October 1821, and consisted of an argand burner mounted above the dial and enclosed in a parabolic reflector. James Cleland boasted that “this is the only steeple in the kingdom where the hour can be seen after dark, at a distance of nearly a quarter of a mile”; being Cleland, it is almost certain that he had measured this.
Cleland made a point of naming the designers of the Tron’s lighting scheme: John and Robert Hart, a pair of pastry bakers from Bo’ness who had moved to Glasgow, taken classes at Anderson’s Institution, become pals with James Watt, and set themselves up as inventors. To Cleland and others, their career paths epitomised the rising industrial city, finally shaking off its provincial past and emerging as a centre of innovation.
After perhaps three centuries of chasing the technological curve, Glasgow had at last caught up. The brilliantly lit Tron clock, like all its predecessors, was more than a timepiece: it was quite consciously a sign of the times.
Main sources
Many of the details come from the Extracts from the Burgh Records of Glasgow published by the Scottish Burgh Records Society. (If anyone ever finds a copy of the 1760-1809 volume(s), please let me know.) Other key sources:
- James Cleland, Annals of Glasgow (1816) and Statistical Tables (1823)
- James Coutts, A history of the University of Glasgow, from its foundation in 1451 to 1909 (James Maclehose & Sons, 1909)
- William H. Hill, History of the Hospital and School Founded in Glasgow, A.D. 1639-41, by George and Thomas Hutcheson of Lambhill (Hutchesons, 1881)
- Harry Lumsden & P. Henderson Aitken, History of the Hammermen of Glasgow (Alexander Gardner, 1912)
- James D. Marwick, Early Glasgow (James Maclehose & Sons, 1911)
- John Muendel, “Friction and Lubrication in Medieval Europe: The Emergence of Olive Oil as a Superior Agent”, Isis, Vol. 86, No. 3 (Sep., 1995), pp. 373-393.
- David Murray, “The Preservation of the Tolbooth Steeple of Glasgow”, The Scottish Historical Review, Jul., 1915, Vol. 12, No. 48 (Jul., 1915), pp. 354-368.
- Gabriel Neil, “A few brief notices of the old Tolbooth at the Cross of Glasgow, removed in 1814, &c.”. Transactions of the Glasgow Archaeological Society, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1859), pp. 8-28.
- “Senex” and others, Glasgow Past and Present (David Robertson & Co., 1854)
- John Smith, Old Scottish Clockmakers from 1453 to 1850 (Oliver & Boyd, 1921)
I’m also grateful to Rebekah Higgitt and Thony Christie for responding to the hist-tech bat-signal when I had questions about astronomical clocks. Full details of everything available on request; corrections welcome, and all mistakes my own.
https://newcleckitdominie.wordpress.com/2023/10/09/blue-in-the-face/
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Scattered across the streets lying south and west of Glasgow Cross, there are five steeples bearing distinctive blue-faced clocks: the Tolbooth, the Tron, the Briggait, St Andrew’s in the Square, and Hutchesons’ Hall. Occasionally a tour guide will point at one of them and explain that it’s painted blue because of an edict of Henry VIII. This is not, as far as I know, true. Nevertheless, the city’s blue clocks have a story to tell. It’s a story about Glasgow’s growth from the Reformation to the Industrial Revolution, from a market town in the shadow of the Church to a confident manufacturing giant.
The steeples of the Tolbooth (lower right) and St Andrew’s in the Square (left).In the late sixteenth century, Glasgow had just two public clocks. One occupied the old Tolbooth at the Cross, a building that probably dated to the early fifteenth century; the other was in one of the now-demolished west towers of the Cathedral.
The Tolbooth clock first enters the records in September 1573, when one Dauid Lioun was paid three shillings “for ane pece of trie to þe knok”. Three years later, the Council employed David Kaye, of Craill,
to ſett wp and repair or mend þe two knokks, þe ane maid be himſelf, and þe wþer auld knok mendit be him, how oft he beis requyrit þairto, be þame or ony in thayr name, and þat wpone þe tounes raonable expenſs fo be payit and done be him thairfor.
Kaye, who had already built a clock for St Mary’s Church in Dundee, was probably as close as Scotland had to a professional clockmaker. The Tolbooth clock was an elaborate piece of work, with not only an “orlage” (face) but a “moyne”, i.e. a display showing the phases of the moon. Unfortunately, like most clocks of the period it could not be trusted to keep good time if left to its own devices, and by 1578 the position of “rewler of the knok” had been established. The first incumbent was a chaplain, Archibald Dickie, who was paid a small salary
for rowlling and gyding of the knok and for lying nychtlie in the tolbuth to rewll and keip the samyne.
Dickie, lying every night alone in the Tolbooth with a watchful eye on the rickety machinery, must have felt the cold, and his remuneration included a separate allowance “for helping and support of him to his bed clais”.
It’s possible that the first clock in the High Kirk was in fact the old Tolbooth clock replaced by Kaye. It first appears in 1587, when a smith from Blantyre was called in to repair it. The records of the Kirk Session from 1591 suggest that this clock was under the supervision of the beadles, who were charged
to allow none to enter the Steeple to trouble the Knock and Bell there, but to keep the Knock going at all times.
By 1610, responsibility for the two clocks had been combined, and
George Smyth, rewler of the Tolbuith knok, hes bund him to the town to rewll the said knok for all the dayis of his lyfetyme for the sowme of tuentie pundis money yeirlie… and siklike, oblissis him to rewll the Hie Kirk knok and keip the same in gangand grath, and visie hir twa seuerall dayis in the wik, the sessioun payand him ten merkis yeirlie.
Although Smyth’s salary of twenty pounds a year was not colossal, this solemn contract suggests that the clocks were important to the town, and it’s worth asking why.
One reason was undoubtedly prestige. For a couple of centuries, increasingly complex astronomical clocks, such as the Pražský orloj of 1410, had been used to signal status and sophistication. Typically such clocks carried gilded numerals and astronomical symbols on a blue background. In 1540, Henry VIII of England had a particularly splendid example installed at Hampton Court, and it seems likely that this set the fashion across the British Isles. Though we have no information about the decoration of the Tolbooth or High Kirk clocks, it’s reasonable to guess they were in the same tradition.
The astronomical clock (1540) at Hampton Court. [Wikimedia Commons]A second reason the clocks mattered was more practical: a town clock set a definitive standard of time. This was important to a mercantile centre because trade, including trading hours, was strongly regulated. Glasgow’s Letter of Guildry in 1605 specified that
It shall not be leasome to any unfreeman to hold stands upon the Highstreet, to sell anything pertaining to the crafts or handy work, but betwixt eight of the morning and two of the clock in the afternoon, under the penalty of forty shilling; providing that tappers of linen and woollen cloth be suffered from morning to evening, at their pleasure, to sell. All kind of vivers to be sold from morning to evening; but unfreemen, who shall sell white bread, to keep the hours appointed.
This system which defended the rights of the established merchants and other burgesses against “unfreemen” could be enforced only if the “hours appointed” could be defined. (The legal importance of the town clock is echoed in a tale a century later, when the burghers of Banff put their clock forward a quarter of an hour to hang the outlaw James MacPherson before his pardon could arrive.)
In 1626 the increasingly prosperous burgh demolished the old Tolbooth and erected a new one on splendid lines. A combination of city hall, prison, and bell-tower topped with vanes and a gilded weathercock, it required a clock to match. One John Neill was paid six hundred merks “to mak ane new knok and haill furnitour of irne work, als sufficient, fyne, and worthie as the great knok in the laich stipill of the Metrapolitane Kirk”. It came with “horolog brodie, mones, bunkis and roweris”, i.e. a clock face, a moon, rollers, and mysterious accessories that appear nowhere else in Early Modern Scots.
The project ran somewhat over budget. Neill had to be paid a further three hundred merks in 1628, while a subcontractor received another fifty “becaus it was lang in working, and sindrie pairtis thairof wrocht over agane”. Finally “Vallentyn Ginking, paintour” was called in to make the whole ensemble glorious by “gilting of the horologe brodis, palmes, mones, the Kingis armes and all paintrie and cullouring thairof”. It was pure bling, and a powerful statement that Glasgow had arrived.
Glasgow showing off its gilded cock.Neill’s struggles with the mechanism reflected the fact that clockmaking locally was in its early days. It was in 1630 that the first clockmaker was recommended to the Incorporation of Hammermen, and only in 1649 that he was formally admitted, although the Hammermen had been asserting their right to regulate clockmaking since 1622.
The Tolbooth clock would not rule alone for long over the lower part of Glasgow. The next to join it was the clock in the steeple of Hutchesons’ Hospital, on the north side of the Trongate, which was installed in 1649 at a cost of £408 14s Scots. This clock must have had a rough time of it, as the lead that protected the steeple was stripped off in 1651 to save it from Cromwell’s troops; stashed under the floor of the Hospital, it was not restored until 1654.
Artist’s impression of the old Hutchesons’ Hospital on Trongate. [The Glasgow Story]In the late 1650s the University under Principal Patrick Gillespie also embarked on a building project, and a tower duly rose between the courts, containing a clock apparently made by a local blacksmith.
The University in the 1660s, from Slezer’s Theatrum Scotiae (1693), showing the bell/clock tower. [The Glasgow Story]Not to be left behind, in 1663 the Merchants’ House erected their new steeple in Briggait, with its own clock and peal of bells. This triggered one of the periodic rows between Council and contractors.
Artist’s impression of the Merchants’ Hall in Briggait, with its steeple. [The Glasgow Story]Andrew Purdoune had succeded John Neill in 1657 as “rewler of the knocks”, a task which increased in complexity with every new clock that had to be synchronised with the others. Meanwhile James Colquhoune, a general factotum to the Council, picked up a deal of work colouring and gilding the horologes. The job of making and rewling the new Briggait clock went to John Brodbridge, who briefly ousted Purdoune, but by 1665 the Council were accusing him of “not performing his ingadgment in relatioune to the perfecting the knock in Briggait”. Brodbridge was held to his contract to produce chimes for this clock, but they were instead to be installed in the Tolbooth. This took a couple more years to achieve, and finally in 1668,
The provest having relaited in counsell that there was ane generall complent throw the whoill toune anent the misgoverning of the knockis, in consideratioune quherof it was concludit, be pluraltie of votis, that the keyes should be takin from Johne Brodbridge and delyvered againe to Andrew Purdoune; and the said Johne, being sent for, come and did lay doune the said keyes wpon the counsell table.
Despite this discord the Tolbooth now had a musical clock, or at least a clock equipped to make loud noises at specified intervals. Musicality took longer. In 1673, fifty pounds sterling were “deburst to Mr. Kervie for tuning the bellis”, and in 1677, a further five pounds sterling were paid to “Walter Corbett, lait prenteis to Androw Purdoume, for chynging the note of the chyme of bellis in the tolbuith quhen his maister was at Holland”. By 1693, at least, John Slezer could remark on “the Tolbooth, magnificently built of hewn stone, with a very high tower, and bells which sound melodiously at every hour’s end”.
Competition continued for the role of clock-keeper, which suggests that it was either profitable in itself or a good opportunity to pick up lucrative jobs. In a small community with close links between the Trades and the Council, work was often awarded on the basis of estimates which were understood to be elastic. In 1720, the keeper William Telfer did find his “extravagant” bill of £136/11/6 sterling for work on the Tolbooth and Briggait clocks firmly reduced to 2000 Scots merks (roughly £100 sterling), but this didn’t stop him keeping the role until 1736, when he was cut out by John Dunlop, who’d been petitioning for it since 1729. The Telfer dynasty, in the person of John Telfer, recovered the contract in 1739 and retained it at least until 1758; from 1752 onward it was held by John’s widow (whose first name is sadly not recorded). Another widow, Katherine Hannington, would be keeper of the clocks from 1812 to 1813 in succession to her husband William.
By modern standards, the maintenance the keepers carried out was probably fairly crude. We know the mechanisms were lubricated, as one of Walter Corbet’s duties in 1688 was “to furnishe the haill clocks with oyll”. This oil was, in all probability, derived from tallow produced by the local fleshers, which would explain the occasional references to violent cleansing procedures: “putting [the Tolbooth clock] throw the fyre” in 1702 and “boyling” the clocks in 1738 and 1744. In turn, this handling probably explains why Glasgow’s clocks needed regular replacement or repair.
The eighteenth century brought a new technology: the pendulum. A mechanical clock needs two main elements: a drive to supply the force to keep the parts moving, and an escapement which measures out that motion in regular amounts. Glasgow’s early clocks were driven, like most steeple clocks, by slowly descending weights. We don’t have direct evidence about their escapements, but we can assume that they used the standard system of the day: a verge and foliot. This consisted of a toothed wheel which engaged a vertical rod, the verge, turning it alternately in one direction and the other; the verge in turn rotated a weighted horizontal rod, the foliot, and it was the foliot’s moment of inertia that controlled the rate of the rotation.
Early verge and foliot escapement [Wikimedia Commons].Verge and foliot escapements seem to have been about as fiddly as this description suggests: modern estimates suggest that if carefully tended — and presumably not boiled too often — they might be accurate to within fifteen minutes per day. Pendulum escapements, invented by Christiaan Huygens in 1756 and gradually improved, were a huge advance, reducing daily errors to as little as tens of seconds. Pendulums had reached eastern Scotland by the 1690s, and took a further decade to spread west. The Tolbooth clock was converted in 1702, with a minute hand added at the same time; an idea of the scale of the operation is given by the charge for “twelve stone and twelve pound of iron… for wheels to the said clock”. The Hutchesons clock was similarly upgraded in 1703, and the High Kirk in 1707.
The High Kirk clock was replaced entirely in 1724, and that decade saw various bling-enhancement works on the others: when the Briggait steeple was redded up in 1728, it used 119 books of gold leaf, exhausting the local book-binder’s supplies so that more had to be ordered from Edinburgh.
The next major upgrade came in 1736, when the Council revived their interest in music. A Stirling watchmaker, Andrew Dickie, was contracted to make a completely new chime of bells, along with “a new sett of wheels and pinions, a wooden barrell, a new sett of keys and comb barr, a sett of clappers with hammers and hammer springs and other tackling”. These chimes weren’t just a gigantic music box: they could also be played by hand. A local music teacher, Rodger Rodburn, was sent through to Edinburgh to learn the art, and equipped with a small set of practice bells at the town’s expense. He was then paid an annual salary of £15 sterling “for playing on the bells from half one to half two in the afternoon each day, Sabbath days excepted, and for extraordinary playing on Hallow days. These live performances were in addition to the mechanical sounding of the “curious set of chymes and tuneable bells, which plays every two hours”.
“Curious” was probably the right word. The original set of eighteen bells ordered to be cast in London turned out to be one short, and a B-flat bell was hurriedly added to the order — which came to £311 1s. 9d. sterling. Whether from deficiencies in casting or in installation, the chime was not in tune, and after two excruciating years the Council employed John Fife, “player on the musick bells at Edinburgh” to sort it out. The process took four months of chiselling and the casting of fourteen new bells, while one of the old bells sent to Edinburgh proved irredeemable and was melted down for scrap. (It weighed 620 pounds; transporting it in pre-canal days must have been a major operation.)
Even with approximately tuneful bells, the performances can’t have been subtle. “Senex” recalled watching the musician in action around 1790, and recorded that the keys were “sturdily beaten with the whole force of the clenched fists, and these fists carefully guarded from danger by being enclosed in well-stuffed coverings of stout leather”. Nevertheless, the performances became a treasured part of Glasgow life.
As the city expanded, new churches were required, and these naturally came with clocks. The first was the North-West Kirk (also known as the Ramshorn) in 1722. St Andrew’s followed in 1756, St Enoch’s in 1780, and St George’s in 1809. In 1757, the Tolbooth clock was replaced again, with “a new four-day clock, carricing eight hands, with a quarter piece”; this may also have been when this clock acquired “day o’ the month brodds” in addition to its other paraphernalia. After some repair work, the old Tolbooth clock was put up in the steeple of the Laigh Kirk on Trongate; the Tron steeple remains today after the rest of the kirk was lost to accidental arson by the City Guard.
The Trongate in 1770, from a drawing by Robert Paul. The old Tolbooth clock can be seen in the Tron Steeple to the left, and the new Tolbooth clock in the Tolbooth steeple to the right. [The Glasgow Story]We get occasional glimpses of the University clock and its tower. By 1730, one Henry Drew, hammerman, was being given an allowance for keeping this clock in order. (Drew also worked for Robert Dick, Professor of Natural Philosophy, becoming the first recorded lab assistant in the University’s history.) This clock was replaced in about 1750. In 1771 Dick’s successor John Anderson entertained a kite-flying crony from America, one Benjamin Franklin, on a visit to Scotland; the following year saw Glasgow’s first lightning conductor fitted to that tower.
The University clock tower, in a George Washington Wilson photo from the mid-C19th. [Aberdeen University]In 1802-5, as part of the city’s redevelopment and expansion westward, the old Hutchesons’ Hospital was demolished and Hutcheson Street opened through the site. A new building, Hutchesons’ Hall, was erected where Hutcheson Street met Ingram Street. The original plan may have been to recycle the old clock, now a century or more old, but in the end a replacement was supplied by William Hannington for £168 11s. Hannington, in fact, was only a middleman, and the clock itself was made by John Thwaites & Co, the leading clockmakers of London. Rising on manufacture and the Atlantic trade, Glasgow could finally afford the best that dubiously gained wealth could buy.
The arrival of the new Hutchesons clock, and the other Thwaites clock that graced the steeple of St George’s, set the Council fretting. By now there were nine public clocks: some were effectively worn out, and there was not much consensus on the time. A Committee on Clocks was formed, and as well as recommending a change of contractor it set out an expensive programme of repairs and replacements.
Public clocks marked on Fleming’s 1808 plan of Glasgow: from north to south, the High Kirk, the University, the North-West Kirk, St George’s, Hutchesons, the Tolbooth, the Tron Steeple, St Andrew’s, St Enoch’s and the Briggait. [National Library of Scotland]This work took place in fits and starts over the next twelve years. The Tron clock was the first to be replaced, with another Thwaites piece; the old Tron clock made its way to the High Kirk. The Tolbooth clock was recommended for replacement in 1809, but the Council baulked first at the price tag and then at the countersuggestion that “it should not in future be burdened with the additional machinery for playing tunes every two hours”. A solemn warning was recorded that “[t]he public would be sensible of the want and might complain”, and the Council bravely resolved to take no action.
Instead, the Tolbooth clock limped on with successive repairs until 1815, when the new contractors Mitchell & Russell reported that “on taking it to pieces we find it so completely worn out that to repair it… would be throwing away the sum voted for that purpose”. Mitchell & Russell provided a detailed proposal, which was accepted, and which constitutes the most detailed description of any of the Glasgow civic clocks:
… the machine to be what is termed an eight day clock, with the exception of the musical part which is to go 24 hours as at present, the quarters are to strike on two bells instead of one as is the case at present, copper hands gilt are to be placed on each of the four dials so as to show the hours and minutes, the great wheels are to be as follows, vizt., striking 16 inches, watch 15 inches, quarter 16 inches, and chime 24 inches diameter, all of which are to be fixed in strong iron frames; the barrel for the music is to be new, and fitted for the tunes at present in use, vizt., for Sunday—the Easter hymn, Monday—Gilderoy, Tuesday—Nancy’s to the greenwood gane, Wednesday—Tweedside, Thursday—Lass o’ Patie’s mill, Friday—The last time I came o’er the moor, and Saturday—Roslin Castle. Conformable to the above description we hereby offer to make and put up the whole machinery, &c., and to find the weights, pulleys, ropes, and carpenter work, and do every other necessary thing in a sufficient manner to your satisfaction, the work to be fitted into its place and clock going by the 1st of January next, for the sum of £325, at 6 months’ credit or 5 per cent. for cash.
(Apart from the Easter Hymn — probably Jesus Christ is Risen Today from Lyra Davidica — these tunes were traditional Scots airs, dating to early in the previous century. The chimes were still going forty years later, when the antiquarian Gilbert Neil noted that “Though said even yet not to be sufficiently perfect in the musical scale, the chime must be allowed as of a respectable order, and possessing such variety of tones as to render the harmony always cheering and agreeable.”)
The five remaining blue-faced clocks: Hutchesons’ Hall (centre); St Andrew’s in the Square (top left); the Tolbooth (top right); the Tron steeple (bottom right); the Briggait (bottom left). Note the close family resemblance, which may be the result of the rapid burst of replacement in the early nineteenth century.The High Kirk clock, which had started out a century earlier in the Tolbooth, was finally scrapped and replaced in 1817, as was the North-West Kirk clock. (It may be one of these that had recently nearly killed “a valuable and respectable clergyman” when one of its weights fell and ricocheted off the floor.) Haggling over the clock in the Briggait steeple ended only in 1821 with a deal to split the costs between the Council and the Merchants’ House. This seems to have been the last clock to be set up in the old blue-faced style: when the North-West Kirk was replaced entirely in 1825-6, it carried, like St George’s before it, a more modern design.
The clock on the Ramshorn Kirk (possibly a modern replica, but consistent with contemporary images).Maintenance costs were still a worry to the Council, with a perpetually lingering suspicion that clock-keepers were making work for themselves. The proposal to roll the costs of repairs into the keeper’s salary was first made in 1823, and finally agreed in 1829: after a round of maintenance the keeper, Mr Halbert, was contracted to wind and maintain the clocks, posting a £100 bond as surety that no extra expense would be laid on the town for fifteen years. After several centuries, the Council had finally learned to manage risk when awarding public contracts.
By this point the clock in the Tron steeple had acquired something genuinely new: gas light. The lighting was set up in October 1821, and consisted of an argand burner mounted above the dial and enclosed in a parabolic reflector. James Cleland boasted that “this is the only steeple in the kingdom where the hour can be seen after dark, at a distance of nearly a quarter of a mile”; being Cleland, it is almost certain that he had measured this.
Cleland made a point of naming the designers of the Tron’s lighting scheme: John and Robert Hart, a pair of pastry bakers from Bo’ness who had moved to Glasgow, taken classes at Anderson’s Institution, become pals with James Watt, and set themselves up as inventors. To Cleland and others, their career paths epitomised the rising industrial city, finally shaking off its provincial past and emerging as a centre of innovation.
After perhaps three centuries of chasing the technological curve, Glasgow had at last caught up. The brilliantly lit Tron clock, like all its predecessors, was more than a timepiece: it was quite consciously a sign of the times.
Main sources
Many of the details come from the Extracts from the Burgh Records of Glasgow published by the Scottish Burgh Records Society. (If anyone ever finds a copy of the 1760-1809 volume(s), please let me know.) Other key sources:
- James Cleland, Annals of Glasgow (1816) and Statistical Tables (1823)
- James Coutts, A history of the University of Glasgow, from its foundation in 1451 to 1909 (James Maclehose & Sons, 1909)
- William H. Hill, History of the Hospital and School Founded in Glasgow, A.D. 1639-41, by George and Thomas Hutcheson of Lambhill (Hutchesons, 1881)
- Harry Lumsden & P. Henderson Aitken, History of the Hammermen of Glasgow (Alexander Gardner, 1912)
- James D. Marwick, Early Glasgow (James Maclehose & Sons, 1911)
- John Muendel, “Friction and Lubrication in Medieval Europe: The Emergence of Olive Oil as a Superior Agent”, Isis, Vol. 86, No. 3 (Sep., 1995), pp. 373-393.
- David Murray, “The Preservation of the Tolbooth Steeple of Glasgow”, The Scottish Historical Review, Jul., 1915, Vol. 12, No. 48 (Jul., 1915), pp. 354-368.
- Gabriel Neil, “A few brief notices of the old Tolbooth at the Cross of Glasgow, removed in 1814, &c.”. Transactions of the Glasgow Archaeological Society, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1859), pp. 8-28.
- “Senex” and others, Glasgow Past and Present (David Robertson & Co., 1854)
- John Smith, Old Scottish Clockmakers from 1453 to 1850 (Oliver & Boyd, 1921)
I’m also grateful to Rebekah Higgitt and Thony Christie for responding to the hist-tech bat-signal when I had questions about astronomical clocks. Full details of everything available on request; corrections welcome, and all mistakes my own.
https://newcleckitdominie.wordpress.com/2023/10/09/blue-in-the-face/
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Scattered across the streets lying south and west of Glasgow Cross, there are five steeples bearing distinctive blue-faced clocks: the Tolbooth, the Tron, the Briggait, St Andrew’s in the Square, and Hutchesons’ Hall. Occasionally a tour guide will point at one of them and explain that it’s painted blue because of an edict of Henry VIII. This is not, as far as I know, true. Nevertheless, the city’s blue clocks have a story to tell. It’s a story about Glasgow’s growth from the Reformation to the Industrial Revolution, from a market town in the shadow of the Church to a confident manufacturing giant.
The steeples of the Tolbooth (lower right) and St Andrew’s in the Square (left).In the late sixteenth century, Glasgow had just two public clocks. One occupied the old Tolbooth at the Cross, a building that probably dated to the early fifteenth century; the other was in one of the now-demolished west towers of the Cathedral.
The Tolbooth clock first enters the records in September 1573, when one Dauid Lioun was paid three shillings “for ane pece of trie to þe knok”. Three years later, the Council employed David Kaye, of Craill,
to ſett wp and repair or mend þe two knokks, þe ane maid be himſelf, and þe wþer auld knok mendit be him, how oft he beis requyrit þairto, be þame or ony in thayr name, and þat wpone þe tounes raonable expenſs fo be payit and done be him thairfor.
Kaye, who had already built a clock for St Mary’s Church in Dundee, was probably as close as Scotland had to a professional clockmaker. The Tolbooth clock was an elaborate piece of work, with not only an “orlage” (face) but a “moyne”, i.e. a display showing the phases of the moon. Unfortunately, like most clocks of the period it could not be trusted to keep good time if left to its own devices, and by 1578 the position of “rewler of the knok” had been established. The first incumbent was a chaplain, Archibald Dickie, who was paid a small salary
for rowlling and gyding of the knok and for lying nychtlie in the tolbuth to rewll and keip the samyne.
Dickie, lying every night alone in the Tolbooth with a watchful eye on the rickety machinery, must have felt the cold, and his remuneration included a separate allowance “for helping and support of him to his bed clais”.
It’s possible that the first clock in the High Kirk was in fact the old Tolbooth clock replaced by Kaye. It first appears in 1587, when a smith from Blantyre was called in to repair it. The records of the Kirk Session from 1591 suggest that this clock was under the supervision of the beadles, who were charged
to allow none to enter the Steeple to trouble the Knock and Bell there, but to keep the Knock going at all times.
By 1610, responsibility for the two clocks had been combined, and
George Smyth, rewler of the Tolbuith knok, hes bund him to the town to rewll the said knok for all the dayis of his lyfetyme for the sowme of tuentie pundis money yeirlie… and siklike, oblissis him to rewll the Hie Kirk knok and keip the same in gangand grath, and visie hir twa seuerall dayis in the wik, the sessioun payand him ten merkis yeirlie.
Although Smyth’s salary of twenty pounds a year was not colossal, this solemn contract suggests that the clocks were important to the town, and it’s worth asking why.
One reason was undoubtedly prestige. For a couple of centuries, increasingly complex astronomical clocks, such as the Pražský orloj of 1410, had been used to signal status and sophistication. Typically such clocks carried gilded numerals and astronomical symbols on a blue background. In 1540, Henry VIII of England had a particularly splendid example installed at Hampton Court, and it seems likely that this set the fashion across the British Isles. Though we have no information about the decoration of the Tolbooth or High Kirk clocks, it’s reasonable to guess they were in the same tradition.
The astronomical clock (1540) at Hampton Court. [Wikimedia Commons]A second reason the clocks mattered was more practical: a town clock set a definitive standard of time. This was important to a mercantile centre because trade, including trading hours, was strongly regulated. Glasgow’s Letter of Guildry in 1605 specified that
It shall not be leasome to any unfreeman to hold stands upon the Highstreet, to sell anything pertaining to the crafts or handy work, but betwixt eight of the morning and two of the clock in the afternoon, under the penalty of forty shilling; providing that tappers of linen and woollen cloth be suffered from morning to evening, at their pleasure, to sell. All kind of vivers to be sold from morning to evening; but unfreemen, who shall sell white bread, to keep the hours appointed.
This system which defended the rights of the established merchants and other burgesses against “unfreemen” could be enforced only if the “hours appointed” could be defined. (The legal importance of the town clock is echoed in a tale a century later, when the burghers of Banff put their clock forward a quarter of an hour to hang the outlaw James MacPherson before his pardon could arrive.)
In 1626 the increasingly prosperous burgh demolished the old Tolbooth and erected a new one on splendid lines. A combination of city hall, prison, and bell-tower topped with vanes and a gilded weathercock, it required a clock to match. One John Neill was paid six hundred merks “to mak ane new knok and haill furnitour of irne work, als sufficient, fyne, and worthie as the great knok in the laich stipill of the Metrapolitane Kirk”. It came with “horolog brodie, mones, bunkis and roweris”, i.e. a clock face, a moon, rollers, and mysterious accessories that appear nowhere else in Early Modern Scots.
The project ran somewhat over budget. Neill had to be paid a further three hundred merks in 1628, while a subcontractor received another fifty “becaus it was lang in working, and sindrie pairtis thairof wrocht over agane”. Finally “Vallentyn Ginking, paintour” was called in to make the whole ensemble glorious by “gilting of the horologe brodis, palmes, mones, the Kingis armes and all paintrie and cullouring thairof”. It was pure bling, and a powerful statement that Glasgow had arrived.
Glasgow showing off its gilded cock.Neill’s struggles with the mechanism reflected the fact that clockmaking locally was in its early days. It was in 1630 that the first clockmaker was recommended to the Incorporation of Hammermen, and only in 1649 that he was formally admitted, although the Hammermen had been asserting their right to regulate clockmaking since 1622.
The Tolbooth clock would not rule alone for long over the lower part of Glasgow. The next to join it was the clock in the steeple of Hutchesons’ Hospital, on the north side of the Trongate, which was installed in 1649 at a cost of £408 14s Scots. This clock must have had a rough time of it, as the lead that protected the steeple was stripped off in 1651 to save it from Cromwell’s troops; stashed under the floor of the Hospital, it was not restored until 1654.
Artist’s impression of the old Hutchesons’ Hospital on Trongate. [The Glasgow Story]In the late 1650s the University under Principal Patrick Gillespie also embarked on a building project, and a tower duly rose between the courts, containing a clock apparently made by a local blacksmith.
The University in the 1660s, from Slezer’s Theatrum Scotiae (1693), showing the bell/clock tower. [The Glasgow Story]Not to be left behind, in 1663 the Merchants’ House erected their new steeple in Briggait, with its own clock and peal of bells. This triggered one of the periodic rows between Council and contractors.
Artist’s impression of the Merchants’ Hall in Briggait, with its steeple. [The Glasgow Story]Andrew Purdoune had succeded John Neill in 1657 as “rewler of the knocks”, a task which increased in complexity with every new clock that had to be synchronised with the others. Meanwhile James Colquhoune, a general factotum to the Council, picked up a deal of work colouring and gilding the horologes. The job of making and rewling the new Briggait clock went to John Brodbridge, who briefly ousted Purdoune, but by 1665 the Council were accusing him of “not performing his ingadgment in relatioune to the perfecting the knock in Briggait”. Brodbridge was held to his contract to produce chimes for this clock, but they were instead to be installed in the Tolbooth. This took a couple more years to achieve, and finally in 1668,
The provest having relaited in counsell that there was ane generall complent throw the whoill toune anent the misgoverning of the knockis, in consideratioune quherof it was concludit, be pluraltie of votis, that the keyes should be takin from Johne Brodbridge and delyvered againe to Andrew Purdoune; and the said Johne, being sent for, come and did lay doune the said keyes wpon the counsell table.
Despite this discord the Tolbooth now had a musical clock, or at least a clock equipped to make loud noises at specified intervals. Musicality took longer. In 1673, fifty pounds sterling were “deburst to Mr. Kervie for tuning the bellis”, and in 1677, a further five pounds sterling were paid to “Walter Corbett, lait prenteis to Androw Purdoume, for chynging the note of the chyme of bellis in the tolbuith quhen his maister was at Holland”. By 1693, at least, John Slezer could remark on “the Tolbooth, magnificently built of hewn stone, with a very high tower, and bells which sound melodiously at every hour’s end”.
Competition continued for the role of clock-keeper, which suggests that it was either profitable in itself or a good opportunity to pick up lucrative jobs. In a small community with close links between the Trades and the Council, work was often awarded on the basis of estimates which were understood to be elastic. In 1720, the keeper William Telfer did find his “extravagant” bill of £136/11/6 sterling for work on the Tolbooth and Briggait clocks firmly reduced to 2000 Scots merks (roughly £100 sterling), but this didn’t stop him keeping the role until 1736, when he was cut out by John Dunlop, who’d been petitioning for it since 1729. The Telfer dynasty, in the person of John Telfer, recovered the contract in 1739 and retained it at least until 1758; from 1752 onward it was held by John’s widow (whose first name is sadly not recorded). Another widow, Katherine Hannington, would be keeper of the clocks from 1812 to 1813 in succession to her husband William.
By modern standards, the maintenance the keepers carried out was probably fairly crude. We know the mechanisms were lubricated, as one of Walter Corbet’s duties in 1688 was “to furnishe the haill clocks with oyll”. This oil was, in all probability, derived from tallow produced by the local fleshers, which would explain the occasional references to violent cleansing procedures: “putting [the Tolbooth clock] throw the fyre” in 1702 and “boyling” the clocks in 1738 and 1744. In turn, this handling probably explains why Glasgow’s clocks needed regular replacement or repair.
The eighteenth century brought a new technology: the pendulum. A mechanical clock needs two main elements: a drive to supply the force to keep the parts moving, and an escapement which measures out that motion in regular amounts. Glasgow’s early clocks were driven, like most steeple clocks, by slowly descending weights. We don’t have direct evidence about their escapements, but we can assume that they used the standard system of the day: a verge and foliot. This consisted of a toothed wheel which engaged a vertical rod, the verge, turning it alternately in one direction and the other; the verge in turn rotated a weighted horizontal rod, the foliot, and it was the foliot’s moment of inertia that controlled the rate of the rotation.
Early verge and foliot escapement [Wikimedia Commons].Verge and foliot escapements seem to have been about as fiddly as this description suggests: modern estimates suggest that if carefully tended — and presumably not boiled too often — they might be accurate to within fifteen minutes per day. Pendulum escapements, invented by Christiaan Huygens in 1756 and gradually improved, were a huge advance, reducing daily errors to as little as tens of seconds. Pendulums had reached eastern Scotland by the 1690s, and took a further decade to spread west. The Tolbooth clock was converted in 1702, with a minute hand added at the same time; an idea of the scale of the operation is given by the charge for “twelve stone and twelve pound of iron… for wheels to the said clock”. The Hutchesons clock was similarly upgraded in 1703, and the High Kirk in 1707.
The High Kirk clock was replaced entirely in 1724, and that decade saw various bling-enhancement works on the others: when the Briggait steeple was redded up in 1728, it used 119 books of gold leaf, exhausting the local book-binder’s supplies so that more had to be ordered from Edinburgh.
The next major upgrade came in 1736, when the Council revived their interest in music. A Stirling watchmaker, Andrew Dickie, was contracted to make a completely new chime of bells, along with “a new sett of wheels and pinions, a wooden barrell, a new sett of keys and comb barr, a sett of clappers with hammers and hammer springs and other tackling”. These chimes weren’t just a gigantic music box: they could also be played by hand. A local music teacher, Rodger Rodburn, was sent through to Edinburgh to learn the art, and equipped with a small set of practice bells at the town’s expense. He was then paid an annual salary of £15 sterling “for playing on the bells from half one to half two in the afternoon each day, Sabbath days excepted, and for extraordinary playing on Hallow days. These live performances were in addition to the mechanical sounding of the “curious set of chymes and tuneable bells, which plays every two hours”.
“Curious” was probably the right word. The original set of eighteen bells ordered to be cast in London turned out to be one short, and a B-flat bell was hurriedly added to the order — which came to £311 1s. 9d. sterling. Whether from deficiencies in casting or in installation, the chime was not in tune, and after two excruciating years the Council employed John Fife, “player on the musick bells at Edinburgh” to sort it out. The process took four months of chiselling and the casting of fourteen new bells, while one of the old bells sent to Edinburgh proved irredeemable and was melted down for scrap. (It weighed 620 pounds; transporting it in pre-canal days must have been a major operation.)
Even with approximately tuneful bells, the performances can’t have been subtle. “Senex” recalled watching the musician in action around 1790, and recorded that the keys were “sturdily beaten with the whole force of the clenched fists, and these fists carefully guarded from danger by being enclosed in well-stuffed coverings of stout leather”. Nevertheless, the performances became a treasured part of Glasgow life.
As the city expanded, new churches were required, and these naturally came with clocks. The first was the North-West Kirk (also known as the Ramshorn) in 1722. St Andrew’s followed in 1756, St Enoch’s in 1780, and St George’s in 1809. In 1757, the Tolbooth clock was replaced again, with “a new four-day clock, carricing eight hands, with a quarter piece”; this may also have been when this clock acquired “day o’ the month brodds” in addition to its other paraphernalia. After some repair work, the old Tolbooth clock was put up in the steeple of the Laigh Kirk on Trongate; the Tron steeple remains today after the rest of the kirk was lost to accidental arson by the City Guard.
The Trongate in 1770, from a drawing by Robert Paul. The old Tolbooth clock can be seen in the Tron Steeple to the left, and the new Tolbooth clock in the Tolbooth steeple to the right. [The Glasgow Story]We get occasional glimpses of the University clock and its tower. By 1730, one Henry Drew, hammerman, was being given an allowance for keeping this clock in order. (Drew also worked for Robert Dick, Professor of Natural Philosophy, becoming the first recorded lab assistant in the University’s history.) This clock was replaced in about 1750. In 1771 Dick’s successor John Anderson entertained a kite-flying crony from America, one Benjamin Franklin, on a visit to Scotland; the following year saw Glasgow’s first lightning conductor fitted to that tower.
The University clock tower, in a George Washington Wilson photo from the mid-C19th. [Aberdeen University]In 1802-5, as part of the city’s redevelopment and expansion westward, the old Hutchesons’ Hospital was demolished and Hutcheson Street opened through the site. A new building, Hutchesons’ Hall, was erected where Hutcheson Street met Ingram Street. The original plan may have been to recycle the old clock, now a century or more old, but in the end a replacement was supplied by William Hannington for £168 11s. Hannington, in fact, was only a middleman, and the clock itself was made by John Thwaites & Co, the leading clockmakers of London. Rising on manufacture and the Atlantic trade, Glasgow could finally afford the best that dubiously gained wealth could buy.
The arrival of the new Hutchesons clock, and the other Thwaites clock that graced the steeple of St George’s, set the Council fretting. By now there were nine public clocks: some were effectively worn out, and there was not much consensus on the time. A Committee on Clocks was formed, and as well as recommending a change of contractor it set out an expensive programme of repairs and replacements.
Public clocks marked on Fleming’s 1808 plan of Glasgow: from north to south, the High Kirk, the University, the North-West Kirk, St George’s, Hutchesons, the Tolbooth, the Tron Steeple, St Andrew’s, St Enoch’s and the Briggait. [National Library of Scotland]This work took place in fits and starts over the next twelve years. The Tron clock was the first to be replaced, with another Thwaites piece; the old Tron clock made its way to the High Kirk. The Tolbooth clock was recommended for replacement in 1809, but the Council baulked first at the price tag and then at the countersuggestion that “it should not in future be burdened with the additional machinery for playing tunes every two hours”. A solemn warning was recorded that “[t]he public would be sensible of the want and might complain”, and the Council bravely resolved to take no action.
Instead, the Tolbooth clock limped on with successive repairs until 1815, when the new contractors Mitchell & Russell reported that “on taking it to pieces we find it so completely worn out that to repair it… would be throwing away the sum voted for that purpose”. Mitchell & Russell provided a detailed proposal, which was accepted, and which constitutes the most detailed description of any of the Glasgow civic clocks:
… the machine to be what is termed an eight day clock, with the exception of the musical part which is to go 24 hours as at present, the quarters are to strike on two bells instead of one as is the case at present, copper hands gilt are to be placed on each of the four dials so as to show the hours and minutes, the great wheels are to be as follows, vizt., striking 16 inches, watch 15 inches, quarter 16 inches, and chime 24 inches diameter, all of which are to be fixed in strong iron frames; the barrel for the music is to be new, and fitted for the tunes at present in use, vizt., for Sunday—the Easter hymn, Monday—Gilderoy, Tuesday—Nancy’s to the greenwood gane, Wednesday—Tweedside, Thursday—Lass o’ Patie’s mill, Friday—The last time I came o’er the moor, and Saturday—Roslin Castle. Conformable to the above description we hereby offer to make and put up the whole machinery, &c., and to find the weights, pulleys, ropes, and carpenter work, and do every other necessary thing in a sufficient manner to your satisfaction, the work to be fitted into its place and clock going by the 1st of January next, for the sum of £325, at 6 months’ credit or 5 per cent. for cash.
(Apart from the Easter Hymn — probably Jesus Christ is Risen Today from Lyra Davidica — these tunes were traditional Scots airs, dating to early in the previous century. The chimes were still going forty years later, when the antiquarian Gilbert Neil noted that “Though said even yet not to be sufficiently perfect in the musical scale, the chime must be allowed as of a respectable order, and possessing such variety of tones as to render the harmony always cheering and agreeable.”)
The five remaining blue-faced clocks: Hutchesons’ Hall (centre); St Andrew’s in the Square (top left); the Tolbooth (top right); the Tron steeple (bottom right); the Briggait (bottom left). Note the close family resemblance, which may be the result of the rapid burst of replacement in the early nineteenth century.The High Kirk clock, which had started out a century earlier in the Tolbooth, was finally scrapped and replaced in 1817, as was the North-West Kirk clock. (It may be one of these that had recently nearly killed “a valuable and respectable clergyman” when one of its weights fell and ricocheted off the floor.) Haggling over the clock in the Briggait steeple ended only in 1821 with a deal to split the costs between the Council and the Merchants’ House. This seems to have been the last clock to be set up in the old blue-faced style: when the North-West Kirk was replaced entirely in 1825-6, it carried, like St George’s before it, a more modern design.
The clock on the Ramshorn Kirk (possibly a modern replica, but consistent with contemporary images).Maintenance costs were still a worry to the Council, with a perpetually lingering suspicion that clock-keepers were making work for themselves. The proposal to roll the costs of repairs into the keeper’s salary was first made in 1823, and finally agreed in 1829: after a round of maintenance the keeper, Mr Halbert, was contracted to wind and maintain the clocks, posting a £100 bond as surety that no extra expense would be laid on the town for fifteen years. After several centuries, the Council had finally learned to manage risk when awarding public contracts.
By this point the clock in the Tron steeple had acquired something genuinely new: gas light. The lighting was set up in October 1821, and consisted of an argand burner mounted above the dial and enclosed in a parabolic reflector. James Cleland boasted that “this is the only steeple in the kingdom where the hour can be seen after dark, at a distance of nearly a quarter of a mile”; being Cleland, it is almost certain that he had measured this.
Cleland made a point of naming the designers of the Tron’s lighting scheme: John and Robert Hart, a pair of pastry bakers from Bo’ness who had moved to Glasgow, taken classes at Anderson’s Institution, become pals with James Watt, and set themselves up as inventors. To Cleland and others, their career paths epitomised the rising industrial city, finally shaking off its provincial past and emerging as a centre of innovation.
After perhaps three centuries of chasing the technological curve, Glasgow had at last caught up. The brilliantly lit Tron clock, like all its predecessors, was more than a timepiece: it was quite consciously a sign of the times.
Main sources
Many of the details come from the Extracts from the Burgh Records of Glasgow published by the Scottish Burgh Records Society. (If anyone ever finds a copy of the 1760-1809 volume(s), please let me know.) Other key sources:
- James Cleland, Annals of Glasgow (1816) and Statistical Tables (1823)
- James Coutts, A history of the University of Glasgow, from its foundation in 1451 to 1909 (James Maclehose & Sons, 1909)
- William H. Hill, History of the Hospital and School Founded in Glasgow, A.D. 1639-41, by George and Thomas Hutcheson of Lambhill (Hutchesons, 1881)
- Harry Lumsden & P. Henderson Aitken, History of the Hammermen of Glasgow (Alexander Gardner, 1912)
- James D. Marwick, Early Glasgow (James Maclehose & Sons, 1911)
- John Muendel, “Friction and Lubrication in Medieval Europe: The Emergence of Olive Oil as a Superior Agent”, Isis, Vol. 86, No. 3 (Sep., 1995), pp. 373-393.
- David Murray, “The Preservation of the Tolbooth Steeple of Glasgow”, The Scottish Historical Review, Jul., 1915, Vol. 12, No. 48 (Jul., 1915), pp. 354-368.
- Gabriel Neil, “A few brief notices of the old Tolbooth at the Cross of Glasgow, removed in 1814, &c.”. Transactions of the Glasgow Archaeological Society, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1859), pp. 8-28.
- “Senex” and others, Glasgow Past and Present (David Robertson & Co., 1854)
- John Smith, Old Scottish Clockmakers from 1453 to 1850 (Oliver & Boyd, 1921)
I’m also grateful to Rebekah Higgitt and Thony Christie for responding to the hist-tech bat-signal when I had questions about astronomical clocks. Full details of everything available on request; corrections welcome, and all mistakes my own.
https://newcleckitdominie.wordpress.com/2023/10/09/blue-in-the-face/
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Chrissie Hynde: ‘I pierced Johnny Rotten’s ear in a toilet with an earring and a bar of soap’ https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/dec/11/chrissie-hynde-i-pierced-johnny-rottens-ear-in-a-toilet-with-an-earring-and-a-bar-of-soap #ChrissieHynde #Popandrock #SexPistols #JohnLydon #Morrissey #Culture #Friends #Music #Punk
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Chrissie Hynde & Pals - Duets Special
Covers albums sometimes feel like a cheat - "gotta put something out, and I haven't had enough time to write", but not here.
Chrissie teams up with a bunch of pals, including k.d. lang, Mark Lanegan, Lucinda Williams, Dave Gahan, Cat Power, Shirtley Manson, et al, and while not *every* track is a gem, enough are to recommend the result.
#nowplaying #vinyl #pop #rock #ChrissieHynde #kdlang #MarkLanegan #DaveGahan #ShirleyManson #DebbieHarry #JulianLennon
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Chrissie Hynde & Pals - Duets Special
Covers albums sometimes feel like a cheat - "gotta put something out, and I haven't had enough time to write", but not here.
Chrissie teams up with a bunch of pals, including k.d. lang, Mark Lanegan, Lucinda Williams, Dave Gahan, Cat Power, Shirtley Manson, et al, and while not *every* track is a gem, enough are to recommend the result.
#nowplaying #vinyl #pop #rock #ChrissieHynde #kdlang #MarkLanegan #DaveGahan #ShirleyManson #DebbieHarry #JulianLennon
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Chrissie Hynde & Pals - Duets Special
Covers albums sometimes feel like a cheat - "gotta put something out, and I haven't had enough time to write", but not here.
Chrissie teams up with a bunch of pals, including k.d. lang, Mark Lanegan, Lucinda Williams, Dave Gahan, Cat Power, Shirtley Manson, et al, and while not *every* track is a gem, enough are to recommend the result.
#nowplaying #vinyl #pop #rock #ChrissieHynde #kdlang #MarkLanegan #DaveGahan #ShirleyManson #DebbieHarry #JulianLennon
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Chrissie Hynde & Pals - Duets Special
Covers albums sometimes feel like a cheat - "gotta put something out, and I haven't had enough time to write", but not here.
Chrissie teams up with a bunch of pals, including k.d. lang, Mark Lanegan, Lucinda Williams, Dave Gahan, Cat Power, Shirtley Manson, et al, and while not *every* track is a gem, enough are to recommend the result.
#nowplaying #vinyl #pop #rock #ChrissieHynde #kdlang #MarkLanegan #DaveGahan #ShirleyManson #DebbieHarry #JulianLennon
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Chrissie Hynde & Pals - Duets Special
Covers albums sometimes feel like a cheat - "gotta put something out, and I haven't had enough time to write", but not here.
Chrissie teams up with a bunch of pals, including k.d. lang, Mark Lanegan, Lucinda Williams, Dave Gahan, Cat Power, Shirtley Manson, et al, and while not *every* track is a gem, enough are to recommend the result.
#nowplaying #vinyl #pop #rock #ChrissieHynde #kdlang #MarkLanegan #DaveGahan #ShirleyManson #DebbieHarry #JulianLennon
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Der #Chrissie rät zu mehr "Demut" gegenüber der Ami-Wanze Rede, weil ja hier bei uns evtl. doch die Redefreiheit eingeschränkt sein könnte, wie es der Verbrecher in München behauptete.
Ja herrjee, überall im Lande äußern sich Menschen jeder politischen Richtung mit deutlichen Worten und Handlungen, und dieses Fähnchen im Winde hat nix besseres zu tun als seinem Gott zu huldigen?
Meine Güte, sind die lost. #FDPrausAusDenParlamenten -
Chrissie brings us her thoughts on the new release from The Montagues. Check out the review of Verona Act l (EP) exclusively on Blazing Minds.
#TheMontagues #MusicReview #VeronaActl #BlazingMinds #MusicMastodon https://blazingminds.co.uk/verona-act-l-ep-by-the-montagues-review/
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Kaum jemand ist eitler und selbsverliebter als #Chrissie #Lindner, gerade kann man ihn im #heutejournal bewundern.
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@chrissie Randall Couch's 'Peal' and other literary bells
https://blogs.bl.uk/english-and-drama/2023/05/literary-bells.html
