Compassionate Curmudgeon

A Whore for All Seasons

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Fallen Woman of good family must, soon or late, descend to whoredom."

That's the opening sentence of the new Madeleine E. Robins "hard-boiled Regency" novel, Point of Honour. The action takes place in an alternate reality London in 1810, one where George III never recovered from his madness and Queen Charlotte has been ruling as Regent since 1788. Now the Queen is dying and the politicians are engaged in a monumental struggle for power.

The protagonist, one Miss Sarah Tolerance, is herself a Fallen Woman, who has built a career as an "investigative agent." She takes on a case to find a missing fan and is soon drawn into the political intrigues of the day.

Miss Tolerance is an extremely resourceful woman, and Robins is an engaging writer. Part murder mystery, part thriller, part Dashiell Hammett detective story, and very much a Jane Austin-inspired look at the rigid roles that Regency society placed on its inhabitants and the limited options allowed to those who did not conform, Point of Honour is a constantly surprising and deeply satisfying read.

Not the least of its pleasures is the examination of the whore houses of London. Notice, in fact, the subtle and not so subtle uses of the word "whore" itself; sometimes used as a term of derision, other times in a simple descriptive sense.

Highly recommended.

Which is which?

One of these men is a public servant. The other is an impostor. Can you tell which is which?

Hack

The primary reason I watch Hack is that it's filmed entirely in Philadelphia, and I enjoy trying to identify the locations. The secondary reason is that it features three of the best actors to be found on television: David Morse, Donna Murphy, and Andre Braugher.

David Morse plays a dirty cop who has been kicked off the force and is now trying to redeem himself by playing guardian angel while driving a taxi cab. Andre Braugher plays an even dirtier cop, who was Morse's partner but managed to avoid taking a fall and is still on the force.

Last season some of the best scenes involved Morse and Donna Murphy, who played his ex-wife. This year Murphy seems to have been written out. Pity.

Also out this season but not missed is George Dzundza. He played a priest whose chief function seemed to be to remind viewers that gluttony is also one of the deadly sins.

Alas, one thing that hasn't changed is the quality of the scripts. They are extraordinarily unrealistic. For example, although Morse spends a good chunk of each episode driving around town in his taxi, he practically never encounters any of Philadelphia's ubiquitous red lights or stop signs. More seriously, the plots tend to rely too heavily on coincidence and the willing suspension of the viewer's disbelief, a suspension that this viewer is usually reluctant to give.

Saturday night's episode (Oct 4) began well enough with an apparent terrorist attack on the Criminal Justice Center and the police hauling in an innocent man for questioning. Of course, since the man was arrested in front of the his wife and child while getting out of Morse's cab, Morse couldn't help but get involved. The story picked up steam as the FBI jumped in and and threw Mr. Innocent Man behind bars as a material witness without the right to bail. Alas, the anti-Patriot Act propaganda was much too heavy-handed, with the FBI agents painted as one-dimensional villains. More telling, in the end Morse and Braugher were only able to vindicate Mr. Innocent Man by violating the rights of the real bomber with an illegal search, an all-too-frequent ploy adopted by lazy writers.

Still, I'll probably keep watching the show. It is nice to see Philadelphia locations in HDTV.

Imitation is the sincerest form of Vanilla

The current issue (Nov/Dec 2003) of Cook's Illustrated contains an object lesson on why it's often good to question conventional wisdom, in this case the belief that pure vanilla extract is necessarily better than imitation vanilla.

They conducted a series of taste tests and found that CVS Premium Imitation Vanilla (selling for about 12.4 cents per ounce) beat five of the six pure vanilla extracts (selling for between $1.50 and $4.00 per ounce) that were tested. McCormick Imitation Vannilla Extract was right behind CVS in the rankings, but at $1.25 per ounce, it's not nearly such a bargain.

Needless to say, I ran right out and bought an eight ounce bottle of CVS Premium Imitation Vanilla and conducted my own unscientific taste test. My results echoed theirs.

Of course, there are a few caveats. A real vanilla bean is still the hands down winner, especially when making custards, but when baking, there seems to be essentially no difference among the various choices. Also, these were "premium" imitation vanilla products, which contain some natural ingredients. Regular old imitation vanillas (the kind we used when I was growing up) might not fare so well.

In any case, I know which vanilla I'll be using from now on.