Top o’ the Morning, Mr President

A topical one today: President Obama is Irish. Sort of. Obviously he’s more American (and Kenyan) now that numerous generations have passed, but nonetheless he joins a long list of US presidents – about half of them, in fact – with Irish ancestry. They include Washington, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, the Bushes, and of course JFK.

Obama’s great-great-great-great-grandfather, Joseph Kearney, was a shoemaker from the village of Moneygall (‘Grove of the Foreigners’) in Co. Offaly. As far as I can tell, Moneygall has 300 residents and one pub, about which Obama recently declared ‘I'm looking forward to going there and having a pint.’ Irish leader Brian Cowen, also from Co. Offaly, has apparently invited him to jet on over and make himself at home – although I suspect Obama may be holding out for a less unsavoury drinking partner.

Joseph Kearney emigrated to Ohio in 1850 with his wife and four children, one of whom – Falmouth Kearney – was Obama’s grandfather’s grandmother’s father. The family had been lured over by the promise of land left to them by Joseph’s brother, Francis, whose will stated: ‘My tract of land lying in Ross County shall be given to my brother Joseph Kearney (now in Ireland) during his life time, if he comes to this country.’ Very generous considering that ‘I bequeath to my wife my bay mare and the choice cow.’

It would seem the Kearney-Obamas left a handful of relatives behind in Moneygall, however, judging by this entry on the village’s Wikipedia site: ‘Andrew Sullivan, 2nd cousin of president elect also resides in moneygall since his retirement from international rugby.Sullivan captained the all blacks to the world cup in 1987.'

I wonder who inserted that into the otherwise grammatically correct Moneygall entry.

The Electric Chair: Not very comfy

So, having lulled you into a false sense of security with that Marmite malarkey, now seems as good a time as any to launch into my veritable deluge of facts about the electric chair. If you’re sitting comfortably, I’ll begin.

In the olden days – 1887 – a ‘War of Currents’ erupted between two big cheeses in the revolutionary new world of electricity. One was George Westinghouse, a Victorian-looking man with a pocket watch and a walrus-like moustache, and the other was Thomas Edison, of ill-gotten light bulb fame*. In an unfortunate coincidence, people got it into their heads that they might like to harness electricity within their very homes around the same time that New York State was looking for a more exciting way to kill criminals. When an upstate dentist came up with the idea of an electrified chair, neither Westinghouse – who was promoting AC (alternating current) power – nor Edison – peddling the inferior DC (direct current) system – wanted anything to do with it**.

Edison – who, frankly, sounds a bit of a shit – decided that the only way to keep his good name unsullied was to promote Westinghouse’s AC as life-terminatingly strong. The press duly assembled for a series of demonstrations in which Edison used AC to electrocute a number of unsuspecting animals, including Topsy the Elephant, late of Coney Island, who was immortalised (for want of a better word) in the short film Electrocuting an Elephant, directed and filmed by one Thomas Edison***.

Far from locking the lunatic Edison away for good, the capital punishment people looked on in awe at his marvellous new creation, and authorised electrical execution (‘electrocution’) for humans in 1888. Edison, the smug git, suggested they call the new process ‘Westinghousing’.

The first ever electrocution took place in New York in 1890 and was a total cock-up. The prisoner was still breathing after being declared dead and it took a few minutes to recharge the generator, during which time a number of vomiting day-trippers tried unsuccessfully to flee the viewing gallery. After an eight-minute frenzy of panic and horror, he finally died. An appalled Westinghouse said ‘They would have done better using an axe.’

***

* Edison didn’t invent the light bulb: he tweaked the electric lighting systems of more than twenty earlier inventors and came up with the first commercial bulb – fact.
** DC flows in one direction while AC jiggles about. I’m not a scientist, go away.
*** I am so not joking. Topsy was a bit wild on account of being horribly abused – prior to electrocution, you understand – and had to be put down.

Marmite: You either love it or you tap it

I was going to start my blog with a fascinating fact or five about the invention of the electric chair, but to avoid being labelled a morbid psychopath, I’ll leave that for my second instalment. So: Marmite.

Marmite, beloved of Paddington Bear, be-hated of the French – or at least the ones I know – is a fascinating creature. You either love it or yada yada yada. I’ve just this moment learnt that a 2004 advertising campaign that featured Steve McQueen and half the human race fleeing a huge space-blob made of Marmite had to be pulled because children were getting nightmares. About Marmite. That’s quite some hating.

But I dither. The exciting fact about Marmite – and it really is exciting – is that, when tapped persistently for a few minutes using the side of a knife, it turns white. (Don’t ask awkward questions – I have no idea what possessed someone to discover this.) White Marmite! Try it at once.

This artistic snap shows the result of ten minutes’ tapping. I had to stop before achieving full whiteness as I’d lost the will to live, and the feeling in my arm.

It's interesting science but it looks fucking disgusting. Should you begin to tire, dollop the Marmite into the bin - which is considerably harder than it sounds and renders the entire experiment thoroughly tedious.

(Thanks to Mary for voicing this crucial – not to mention timely – information at a publishers’ networking thing.)