Trefusis Episode 4

I haven't checked the official site in a while but the lack of an Episode 4 is annoying (perhaps not as annoying as this blog entry title which might lead people to believe it was out already).

It makes me wonder what Mr Fry was thinking when he agreed to the 2 week schedule in the first place. I, like many others, presumed that, given the concrete release dates, the entire series had been pre-recorded and was awaiting dissemination into the hivemind. In a way this kind of annoyed me though because I felt that there was no way for the series to adapt to how difficult or easy the previous episodes were considered.

The fact that they are delayed seems to indicate that at least some portion of each episode is recorded relatively close to the release date, which is of course good news. However, given that Mr Fry has on numerous occasions mentioned that he leads a life so full as to render an 'evening in front of the television' into something special, and also given that I'm sure he has at least one person whose job it is to make sure he gets where he's going and does what's planned on a daily basis. It becomes all the more surprising that he didn't, at the outset, realise that perhaps every two weeks was a little ambitious.

That's just how it appears to me, on the outside, looking in.

Episode 3 of the Solution to Donald's Trefusis - Cinema Cinema Cinema

Quickly a breakdown of the info available.

Film A - Trefusis saw this aged 17, he was born three years after the war ended. So, born 1921 (not 1920 as I originally postulated), film is out 1937 (although this still fits with a 1920 date, odd, must be the fact that while the IMDB lists the film as being released in 1937, it probably didn't come out in the UK until a year later). Leonard the 'chicken chaser' was in the film, his nickname for which he was world famous derived from a chicken.

Perhaps his best scene, involved ice-cream and the selling of a code book. Julius and Arthur were also on top form.

So who are we talking about? Let's ask Sir Googleton Smyth:

Apparently it's the Marx brothers, as Leonard, a.k.a Chico was so called as he originally chased a lot of women, and not in fact Chickens as one would presume if told someone was a chicken chaser.

And the film is?

A Day at the races


Featuring the famous ice cream scene.

Trefusis says 'what larks' but insists he's a 'letter out'....That letter being 'M'? Marx? As in Marx Brothers? As in the EXACT PEOPLE I WAS JUST TALKING ABOUT?

Amazing.

So, the dance?

Apparently it's a dance called the Lindy Hop which is based on the Charleston, named after the Lindbergh baby - Charles Lindbergh who I think was the first pilot to fly directly at Hitler in broad daylight....but more of that later. Lindbergh was the man who first flew solo across the Atlantic, in 1927. He was also known as The Lone Eagle.

This video shows the Lindy Hop which as a dance might explain why people were so thin back then.


There was a dancer, uncredited in the famous dance scene and it looks like it's Dorothy Dandridge.

So, 30 years later and Stephen Fry is born, we are now transported to 1957 when a film about Charles Lindbergh is released. This is FILM B....and what, Duke Googleeton is it?

The Spirit of St Louis

Film star in it? James Stewart he played Lindbergh in the film.

Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill and Paul Hindemith wrote a musical play about Lindbergh, called?

The Flight Across the Ocean


All falling into place a lot easier than the last episode's clues.

So, the producer of Film A is mentioned, in this case the IMDB tells us this is:

Irving Thalberg (Not Sam Wood as the imdb says initially)


Apparently F Scott Fitzgerald based the character of Monroe Stahr in The Last Tycoon upon Thalberg.


So back on track with the mentioning of the dancer lady from Film A again. And we're pretty sure it's


Dorothy Dandridge. And it was Halle Berry who dedicated her oscar to Dandridge when accepting it.

Then Trefusis/ Fry goes on about the 'first first' which is a phrase I've not heard before.

The first first's name leads us to the answer of our puzzle apparently. But what the hell is a first first?

Maybe it's a deliberate play on Ferst? So who was the first Ferst?

Gah!....more clues please.

Slaves were common in the Roman empire, who was the Statesman who turned his back on the power in rome? He has a city named after him and in it there was a death in 1911- whoever died then had the same name as the first first..

The statesman has got to be Cicero right?

But what city? How's about Cicero Illinois / New York / Wisconsin or Indiana, take your pick?

And in 1911?

Nothing yet....but it's late and I need sleep...

-UPDATE-

Awake again and I realise it's not Cicero. It has to be:

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus

He famously turned his back on Rome and obviously the city named after him is Cincinnati.

Where, and this is early Googley so forgive the mistakes:

Catherina Hattler died in 1911.

Or perhaps it's Mary Broockbank who also died that year.


More updates later...


-UPDATE -

Just realised that the first first has got to refer to the first 'first lady' of American politics. Martha Washington. Perhaps not though but it fits too well not to be the case.

I was having a moment of doubt and then i found this:

MARTHA DANDRIDGE CUSTIS WASHINGTON

So, the first connection is Dandridge.

More later as I figure it out....


-UPDATE-


So according to Donald Trefusis' twitter feed it's not 1911, but 1914. So, the answer appears to be a carrier pidgeon named Martha Washington, named after the first first. It was the last known example of a passenger pidgeon.

Passenger Pidgeons.

She was frozen and transported to the Smithsonian musuem.


Incidentally if you do a search for Boswell and Smithsonian you get this:

James Boswell in the Smithsonian Magazine.

Might be nothing....but might be something. Or it might be nothing.



Or maybe, it might be something.


--UPDATE--

Reading Trefusis' Twitter feed gives us this:

My feeling is that when you have the answers, you should make a note of them and await the final instalment, when all will be clear. DT

So it seems that looking for links between this part and episode 2 might be a waste of time.

Very Interesting Update

I decided to take a chance and harness the power of the internet, bowing to those with far greater knowledge in this area I emailed Patricia Brady, an historian who has written a book about Martha Washington. I didn’t think she’d have time to reply but she did and answered my questions fully which was very kind of her, I suggest you check out her website here.

Anyway, here’s the essence of her reply to my question about there being a possible link from Martha Washington to Dorothy Dendridge via a slave connection.

There is one known (for sure) line of descent from MW's grandson, GW Custis,
and a slave. They are a well-known family in DC. There is another
less-verified but quite possible descent from her son Jacky Custis. Some
people have argued, incorrectly, I think, that MW's had a secret half-sister
by her father and a black/Indian woman.

Well this is very interesting and it was very good of Patricia to reply to me. She also provided me a possible other lead which I will follow up before posting details of it here.

The Dongle of Donald Trefusis - The Start of the Solution

Like many of you I am listening to Stephen Fry's "The Dongle of Donald Trefusis". After spending a while trawling the murky depths of Google I've decided to write this blog which will hopefully help others who, using the various clues Fry sprinkles through the episode, are trying to solve the damn thing.

Firstly, you should probably stop reading here if you prefer to figure this stuff out for yourself. If, however, you're happy to skip a few steps then you can simply continue moving your eyes across the remainder of the words that I type.

So, a very quick dissection of the salient points in episode 2, what's mentioned and why it might be important.

1. Trefusis mentions that Alexander the great died in a house called BALMUTO
2. Two paintings are mentioned as being connected somehow.
3. A place in Scotland apparently might play a part in this connection.

So, starting at painting one the clues given are that it is admired by Sir Walter Scott in 1829. Google to the rescue here, we do a search for Walter Scott and it turns out that somehow, over a hundred and fifty years ago, he kept an online journal which is accessible to this day. 1829 is a pretty long year though, there are about 12 months in it and each month has multiple diary entries so to save you having to read it all I can narrow the relevant passage down to an entry in February.

At twelve I went to Stuart of Dunearn's sale of pictures. This poor man fell, like myself, a victim to speculation. And though I had no knowledge of him personally, and disliked him as the cause of poor Sir Alexander Boswell's death, yet "had he been slaughterman to all my kin,"[250] I could but pity the miserable sight of his splendid establishment broken up, and his treasures of art exposed to public and unsparing sale. I wanted a picture of the Earl of Rothes for the Duke of Buccleuch, a fine Sir Joshua, but Balfour of Balbirnie fancied it also, and followed it to 160 guineas.

That bolding is mine, Walter Scott hadn't figured out how to emphasize anything until 1830 when he wrote an entire diary in bold. So now, what have we?

Who was Stuart of Dunearn? - He was a man who was very gravely linked to the second man mentioned - Alexander Boswell. Dunearn killed Boswell in a duel, apparently one of the last ones ever to happen in Scotland.

Who was Sir Joshua and did he paint the picture? Sir Joshua was short for Sir Joshua Reynolds who was indeed a painter and a friend of Samuel Johnson, more of which anon.

But who painted the picture and is there a clue in the Walter Scott diary? Short answer is that no, there doesn't appear to be any clue in the diary entry and if you, like me, hit Google with descriptive phrases outlining the look of the picture you'll probably get nowhere.

However, try the National Gallery site and you will eventually find this little beauty:


It's called The Avenue at Middelharnis and it was painted in 1689 by Meindert Hobbema.
Middelharnis is located in the western Netherlands which in turn would correspond to the country that Tefusis mentioned as having visited during the war, the one where he comments on how similar the scene was.

Excellent we're making progress. So Trefusis asks us - "To whom had the painting belonged?"

Well we know the answer was most likely Stuart of Dunearn, as Walter Scott mentioned him as being the unfortunate owner. Maybe there are other owners, maybe Dunearn is the wrong owner. We can come back to this one...

Next painting - This one looked a lot more familiar and doing a search for "fat white guy in a wig sitting by the window holding a quill" looked like it might work. It didn't though and I was forced into another deep search until I encountered the National Portrait Gallery, where I found this:



It's by Josh Reynolds, remember that name? It's from the Walter Scott entry earlier and is short for Joshua Reynolds. Now I'm starting to think I was looking in the wrong place to begin with when I first searched through Scott's diary. Why? Because the diary entry for February 1829 seems to refer to THIS painting and not the landscape. But then, is that the connection? That Walter Scott physically saw both paintings? Maybe, although I've drunk quite a bit of wine so it's probably not.

So anyway, Joshua Reynolds paints this picture of Dr Samuel Johnson and Trefusis asks us:

"How is the life of this man (Johnson) connected to the provenance of that landscape? "

So, does he mean literally the landscape as in Middelharnis or does he mean landscape in the painterly sense in which case the painting itself. Is Samuel Johnson connected to Middleharnis or is he connected to the Meindert Hobbema or in fact to some owner of the painting at some stage? And why is Blogger so shit? Why can I not stop typing in bold?

So where now? Well if you remember the earliest clue Trefusis gave us was the death of Alexander in a house called Balmuto, let's Google that and see what comes up...

Apparently Balmuto is a barony in Scotland which the family Boswell aquired during the Scottish war of independence. Boswell turns up a bunch of times in connection with Balmuto.

This is important, why?

Well because the name Boswell is also linked to Dr Samuel Johnson through the simple fact that he (Boswell) was his (Johnson's) biographer! This has got to be the link, my certainty is compounded by the fact that I'm too tired to look any further into it.

It all becomes even more obvious when we continue listening to the episode and Trefusis mentions that the connection between man and painting is an antiquary (someone who deals in or collects antiques) and who was a famous antiquary? Alexander Boswell!

So there we have it, Balmuto gave us Boswell which in turn echoed Alexander and the pieces begin to fall into place.

Next up..

"The heights above the torrent.." apparently these are located some miles west of Kircaldy. Back to the internet and Google hits a home run this time, a search for "heights above the torrent kirkcaldy" gives us this wikipedia page:

Auchtertool

Trefusis tells us that a tragic scene was acted out here. Perhaps the death of Alexander Boswell qualifies for a tragic scene? Again it fits perfectly and I think it pretty much ends how far we can get with this episode, unless someone wants to point out something I've missed...

One final point worth making is that the Boswell ancestral home is...Castle Balmuto

And so the circle of life is complete and all the children came back to the garden and fell asleep in the arms of the lion cubs.

Until the next episode...