The Land Of Counterpane

When I was sick and lay a-bed,
I had two pillows at my head,
And all my toys beside me lay
To keep me happy all the day.

And sometimes for an hour or so
I watched my leaden soldiers go,
With different uniforms and drills,
Among the bed-clothes, through the hills;

And sometimes sent my ships in fleets
All up and down among the sheets;
Or brought my trees and houses out,
And planted cities all about.

I was the giant great and still
That sits upon the pillow-hill,
And sees before him, dale and plain,
The pleasant land of counterpane.

     --R.L.S., A Child's Garden of Verses

but it was left to [Suzanne] Beauclerk to introduce him to the Sewer Police...

I was surprised at your interpolated [Suzanne], because I took the Beauclerk in question to be the Colonel. Although it is, I think, standard practice in US journalism to refer to people only by their last name after the first mention I don't think the Telegraph follows this, especially in relation to women.

Yes, of course you're right—sloppy on my part, and I've fixed it now. Thanks!

I read the obit (what a wonderful person she was) and I had the same reaction as Athel. It must have been the Colonel who knew the Sewer Police, because the obit writer would not have referred to the lady in question with just the last name, especially after calling her "the future duchess", a phrase which contrasts (after but) with "Beauclerk" which in the context has to refer to a man. Graham Greene knew both the lady and her husband, and had a different relationship with each of them: on the one hand, he amused "the future duchess", but on the other hand it was "Beauclerk" (who cannot be the same person) who introduced him to the Sewer Police. If the introducer had been the lady, the sentence would have been something like: "he amused the future duchess, and she in turn inroduced him to the Sewer Police ...", with no mention of "Beauclerk" in that context.

The first Duke of St Albans was the illegitimate son of Charles II and Nell Gwynn. So how did he get the name Charles Beauclerk?

He was handsome and literate?

That's how I read it the first time too, with her introducing Greene to the Sewer Police, but throughout she is referred to as "Sue St. Albans", and never with the name Beauclerk. Perhaps not all British women use their husbands' names (not all American women do). But the last sentence! "Suzanne St Albans, who died on February 12, is survived by her stepson, the present duke, and by her three sons and a daughter...." How many people is that? (Her husband is referred to as "the future duke"). I had to reread it several times. Thank heaven we Americans don't have royals, we'd never get it all straight.

The Third Man (wiki): "Before the production came to Vienna, Karas was an unknown wine bar performer. According to a November 1949 Time magazine article: 'The picture demanded music appropriate to post-World War II Vienna, but director Reed had made up his mind to avoid schmalzy, heavily orchestrated waltzes. In Vienna one night Reed listened to a wine-garden zitherist named Anton Karas, [and] was fascinated by the jangling melancholy of his music.'"

The Third Man Theme, played by Karas on zither.
Karas plays zither in a Viennese cafe.

Beauclerk is the family name of the Duke & Duchess of St. Albans (nowadays a northern suburb of London). On acceding to the title they acquired an additional name, they didn't trade-in the old one. At the same time as she became the duchess, in a buy-one-get-one-free deal she also became the Countess of Bruford.

St Albans is not a suburb of London, any more than Windsor or Watford are. It's a city in its own right.

The obit omitted to mention that Beauclerk is pronounced Arbuthnot.

All surnames should be pronounced Arbuthnot.

I'm never sure how to pronounce Arbuthnot.

Watch it, Taylor at so-called "Cheap serve".

I'm never sure how to pronounce Arbuthnot.

Me neither. I have never had the opportunity to hear it said, although I have seen it many times written.

There is, of course, an arbuthnot.org where people of that name gather. And, of course, it has a FAQ. And, of course, that deals with the pronunciation.

Well, except that it doesn't tell you how to pronounce the u, which is the part I'm personally unsure about. I think I tend to make it long. Which means I pronounce it mostly like this voice over, except rhotically (and she's posher and so puts a prominent /j/ before her long u's).

People can, of course, pronounce it however they like, but the traditional pronunciation is with short u (i.e., u as in but): /ar'bʌþnət/.

The Brits do obits better than anyone.

And epitaphs.

The picture demanded music appropriate to post-World War II Vienna, but director Reed had made up his mind to avoid schmalzy, heavily orchestrated waltzes.

Trivia: The logician Kurt Goedel, a Czech German who spent over a decade in Vienna, preferred American pop music to Viennese (much less Viennese classical).

Thanks, this is wonderful. But I think it's particularly the Telegraph that does this kind of obit. I have read quite a few of theirs on various soldiers - I particularly remember some 'Tennis Court War' in India.

"The logician Kurt Goedel, a Czech German who spent over a decade in Vienna, preferred American pop music to Viennese (much less Viennese classical)."

Didn't he starve himself to death, too?

He had some sort of mental illness, as many logicians did. When he was OK he seems to have been rather middlebrow except on mathematics type questions.

Conjecture: a lassie who can't pronounce Falkirk is likely to be an unreliable guide to Arbuthnot.

Didn't he starve himself to death, too?

Yes, out of fear of being poisoned.

Arbuthnot is pronounced like "Aunt".

Pronounced like aunt--is that ant-aunt or awnt-aunt?

Now you've put that song in my head, Duke.

They got Mozart, but they weren't going to get Kurt. No way.

Properly speaking, since the dukedom predates the charter of 1877 when the town of St Alban's became the City of St Albans, losing its apostrophe through what one historian of the city told me was an unfortunate clerical error on the part of the man who drew up the charter, it ought to be the Duke of St Alban's. Real pedants, of course, call the place Werlamchester. (Locals call it Snorbuns.)

And I suppose Werlamchester is pronounced "zbt". The Duke of St Alban's what?

I made that up about Arbuthnot, but if I hadn't it wouldn't be pronounced "ant", because in that case I would have written "ant" and not "aunt" (which in my dialect is, as I said, pronounced "Arbuthnot").

And I suppose Worcestershire is pronounced "uncle".