Migraine

Migraine (pronounced mahy-greyn or mee-greyn)

(1) An extremely severe paroxysmal headache, usually confined to one side of the head and often associated with nausea; hemicrania.

(2) A neurological condition characterised by such headaches

1325–1375: From the Middle English, from the Old French migraigne, from (as an imperfect echoic) the Medieval Latin hēmicrānia (pain in one side of the head, headache) and the Greek hemikrania, the construct being hemi (half) + kranion (skull).  The earliest form in English was megrim or mygrame with the spelling revised in 1777 to adopt the French form.  It’s never been clear if any of the European forms are a calque of the Egyptian gs-tp (headache), a construct of gs (half) + tp (head); the link between the Egyptian magical papyri and the Greek hēmikranía (ἡμικρανία) is undocumented and could be coincidental.  The corrupt form megrim was in common use between the fifteenth & early twentieth centuries is now obsolete although it did for a while endure in its secondary senses of "depression; low spirits" (and curiously, "a whim or fancy").  The pronunciation mee-greyn is said to be most prevalent in Scotland.  Migraine is a noun and migrainoid & migrainous are adjectives; the noun plural is migraines.

Technically, a migraine is a severe, often recurring, headache, usually affecting only one side of the head, characterized by sharp pain and often accompanied by nausea, vomiting, sensitivity to light, and visual disturbances.  Vasodilation in the brain causes inflammation which results in pain, but the exact cause of migraine remains unknown.  In casual use there’s a tendency, not restricted to hypochondriacs, to use word to describe even mild headaches.

Donald Trump, Crooked Hillary Clinton & Boris Johnson demonstrate the single-handed reaction to a migraine.

Despite advances, the exact causes of migraines are yet fully to be understood and although there's a consensus migraines are complex neurological conditions triggered by various factors, it may be they are inherent to the nature of being human and while treatments may improve, many neurologists have cautioned there may never be a “cure” although it’s noted a susceptibility to migraines seems to run in families, suggesting there may be a genetic predisposition.  At the physical level, abnormalities in the brain's nerve pathways and chemical signaling are believed to be involved, changes in the levels of neurotransmitters such as serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine suggested as causative agents.  The triggers appear to vary between individuals although the most commonly mentioned include foods such as aged cheeses, chocolate, caffeine, and artificial sweeteners, alcohol, stress, hormonal changes (seemingly only in women), changes in sleep patterns, sensory stimuli (bright lights, loud noises, strong odors), weather changes, and certain medications.  Critical too appear to be (1) abnormalities in the brainstem and its interactions with the trigeminal nerve (a major pain pathway) and (2) fluctuations in blood flow to the brain, including constriction and dilation of blood vessels.  Interestingly, as varied as the causes may be, so too is the effectiveness of the treatments and doctors frequently report a regimen some patients finds most efficacious might achieve nothing on others reporting the same symptoms, and possible triggers.

Lindsay Lohan demonstrates the two-handed reaction to a migraine although, given the migraine typically afflicts only one side of the head, this may be a more common response to the (usually) less severe but more widespread headache.

The Migraine Pose

A staple of portrait photography for decades, the migraine pose isn’t new but Instagram is a big-machine database and it’s now easy to identify trends and spikes in techniques.  The migraine look seems to have peaked in late 2018 and although still often posted, the historic moment of the trend seems to have passed.  The pose is achieved by using one hand to pulling the face up by the temples, a look reminiscent of someone suffering a migraine.  Classically done with one hand because the headache from which it borrows the name usually is localised to one side of the head, models adopt the look because it tightens the face, renders cheekbones more prominent and lifts the brows, a kind of instant facelift.  The hand may be placed on the temples, forehead or crown but should be done with a light touch, not a gripping of the head or hair.  Models also caution neophytes not to neglect the hands and nails because nothing spoils even a perfectly composed photograph like a poor manicure.

Gigi Hadad: The perfect migraine pose by a professional model.  With that bone structure and flawless skin, she doesn't need the artifice the technique can lend those falling short of her structural ideal but the pose adds variety to a photo shoot and photographers still like it.

Barnaby Joyce (b 1967; thrice (between local difficulties) deputy prime minister of Australia 2016-2022):  Although Mr Joyce seems frequently to adopt the migraine pose, the consensus is it's not an attempt to make himself more attractive in photographs and it's likely he actually suffers headaches.  These could be caused by many things.

Of course, Mr Joyce may also have been the cause of migraines in a few of his colleagues.  He's pictured here in 2018 with Malcolm Turnbull (b 1954; Australian prime-minister 2015-2018).

Martyr

Martyr (pronounced mahr-ter)

(1) A person who willingly suffers death rather than renounce their religious faith, most notably those saints canonized after martyrdom.

(2) A person who is put to death or endures great suffering on behalf of any belief, principle, or cause.

(3) A person who undergoes severe or constant suffering (often applied informally to those subject to chronic conditions such as rheumatism or migraine headaches).

(4) A person who seeks sympathy or attention by feigning or exaggerating pain, deprivation (fake martyrdom) or who willingly assumes some sort of easily avoidable (self-imposed martyrdom), both usually applied in a facetious or derogatory manner.

(5) To make a martyr of someone (especially by putting to death); to persecute, to torment or torture.

Pre 900: From the Middle English noun marter, from the Old English martir & martyr, from the Ecclesiastical Latin martyr, from the Doric Greek μάρτυρ (mártur (martus & mártyr)) (witness), a later form of the Ancient Greek μάρτυς (mártus (mártys & mártyros)) (witness).  The verb was from the Middle English martiren, from the Old English martyrian, from the noun.  The noun martyr referred to one who bears testimony to faith, especially one who willingly suffers death rather than deny their religious faith and specifically one of the Christians who put to death because they would not renounce their beliefs.  The verb developed in the sense of "put to death as punishment for adherence to some religious belief (especially Christianity) and was from the Middle English martiren, from Old French martiriier (and influenced by the Old English gemartyrian, from the noun martyr) and Middle English also had the mid-fifteenth century verb martyrize.  The general sense of "constant sufferer, a victim of misfortune, calamity, disease, etc" was in common use by the late sixteenth century while the Martyr complex (an exaggerated desire for self-sacrifice or assuming burdens) dates from 1916.  The noun martyrdom ("torture and execution for the sake of one's faith) emulated the use in the Old English and in the more abstract sense of "a state of suffering for the maintaining of any obnoxious cause", came to be used in the late fourteenth century.  The word has proved productive in its proliferation.  Martyr is a noun, martyrization, martyrdom, martyrology, martyry, martyrer, martyrship, martyrion, martyrium, martyrologe, martyrologue, protomartyr are nouns, martyring, martyrize & martyrizate are verbs, martyrish & martyresque are adjectives, martyred is a verb & adjective and martyrly is an adverb & adjective; the noun plural is martyrs.

Self-help for one's self.

The word was adopted directly into most Germanic languages (Old Saxon, Old Frisian Old High German et al), but fourteenth century Norse used the native formation pislarvattr (literally "torture-witness" meaning "one who suffers death or grievous loss in defense or on behalf of any belief or cause" (which could be personal, devotional or political).  Danish, French, Norwegian & Swedish all used the modern English spelling (some language groups in the old British Empire modified the spelling (notably under the Raj) while others picked it up unaltered).  Among other languages there was the Proto-Brythonic merθɨr, the Dutch martelaar, the Estonian märter, the Finnish marttyyri, the Old French martire, the Scots mairtyr, the Maori matira, the German Märtyrer, the Hungarian mártír, the Old Irish martar, the Old Italian martore, the Italian martire, the Lombard màrtul, the Neapolitan marture, the Catalan màrtir, the Occitan martir, the Galician, Spanish & Portuguese mártir, the Romanian martor, the Sardinian màrturu, the Sicilian màrtiri, the Scottish Gaelic martai and the Tagalog martir.  The origin of the Greek word is uncertain but may have been connected to mermera (care, trouble), from mermairein (be anxious or thoughtful), from the primitive Indo-European smrtu & mrtu-, source also of the Sanskrit smarati (remember) and the Latin memor (mindful).  Not all etymologists support the theory, usually because the phonetic relationships are dubious, suggesting a more likely origin lies in Archaic or Pre-Greek, perhaps even as a loan-word.  The Arabic شهيد (shaheed or shahid) (witness) in Islam refers to a martyr and appears often in the Quran (in the sense of "witness") but in only one instance can it be understood as  "martyr", the sense it acquired in the Ḥadīth, the vast body of work produced by authors which documented the words and thoughts attributed to the prophet.  The variations in the translations of these texts are legion and there has been cynical exploitation of this by the recruiters to jihadist causes who tend to seek out and merge the most punitive of the translations and the rewards to martyrs of 72 (the number varies) dark-eyed virgins appears with frequency.

Self-help for those with a difficult mother.

Martyrdom was of great interest to the Church, illustrated by the frequency with which martyrs to their faith were canonized (made into saints).  As a branch of theological academia, martyrology (history of the lives, sufferings, and deaths of Christian martyrs) became a district thing in the 1590s, either as a native formation from the noun martyr + -ology, or from the Ecclesiastical Latin martyrologium, from Ecclesiastical Greek martyrologicon.  The suffix -ology was formed from -o- (as an interconsonantal vowel) +‎ -logy.  The origin in English of the -logy suffix lies with loanwords from the Ancient Greek, usually via Latin and French, where the suffix (-λογία) is an integral part of the word loaned (eg astrology from astrologia) since the sixteenth century.  French picked up -logie from the Latin -logia, from the Ancient Greek -λογία (-logía).  Within Greek, the suffix is an -ία (-ía) abstract from λόγος (lógos) (account, explanation, narrative), and that a verbal noun from λέγω (légō) (I say, speak, converse, tell a story).  In English the suffix became extraordinarily productive, used notably to form names of sciences or disciplines of study, analogous to the names traditionally borrowed from the Latin (eg astrology from astrologia; geology from geologia) and by the late eighteenth century, the practice (despite the disapproval of the pedants) extended to terms with no connection to Greek or Latin such as those building on French or German bases (eg insectology (1766) after the French insectologie; terminology (1801) after the German Terminologie).  Within a few decades of the intrusion of modern languages, combinations emerged using English terms (eg undergroundology (1820); hatology (1837)).  In this evolution, the development may be though similar to the latter-day proliferation of “-isms” (fascism; feminism et al).  In the Roman Catholic Church (an institution long given to making lists of stuff), an important part of martyrology was the index (or calendar) of martyrs, arranged according to their anniversaries (ie of their martyrdom).  In Middle English there was the late fourteenth century martiloge (the register of martyred saints), from the Medieval Latin martilogium; the related coining was martyrological.

Self-help for those with a difficult boyfriend.

Except where it’s unavoidable, the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) which publishes the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), tends not to use popular forms like “martyr complex”, bundling the condition in the category of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), a cluster B personality disorder considered to be one of the least identified of the class, noting NPD frequently coexists with other psychiatric disorders.  A relatively recent diagnostic category, its development reflected not a distinct set of diagnostic criteria but rather the recognition by clinicians (psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists) that to classify certain difficult (though typically not neurotic) patients as psychotic was counter-productive.  The most often noted characteristics of NPD include grandiosity, the excessive quest admiration and a lack of empathy, coupled with underlying feelings of low self esteem issues and inadequacy.  In the DSM-5-TR (2022), the symptoms of NPD are listed as:

(1) A grandiose logic of self-importance.

(2) A fixation with fantasies of infinite success, control, brilliance, beauty, or idyllic love.

(3) A credence that he or she is extraordinary and exceptional and can only be understood by, or should connect with, other extraordinary or important people or institutions.

(4) A desire for unwarranted admiration.

(5) A sense of entitlement.

(6) Interpersonally oppressive behavior.

(7) No form of empathy.

(8) Resentment of others or a conviction that others are resentful of him or her.

(9) A display of egotistical and conceited behaviors or attitudes.

Foxe's Book of Martyrs (1653, the full title Actes and Monuments of these Latter and Perillous Days, Touching Matters of the Church) by John Foxe (1517-1587) was a review of the history of martyrdom in European Christianity with a particular focus on the suffering of the early English Protestants.

The early Church celebrated particularly the example of Justin Martyr (circa 100-circa 165, who appears in some texts as Justin the Philosopher).  His name wasn’t actually Martyr but it was adopted because his conduct in the face of suffering was thought exemplary.  He was in all probability a pagan and had sought education from schools in the Peripatetic, Pythagorean and Platonic traditions but was still unsatisfied unit falling into conversation with an elderly man he met on a beach who “…convinced him of the truth as it is in Jesus”.  His conversion to Christianity led to a lifetime of teaching, writing his apologia which culminated with his martyrdom, beheaded with six others under the reign of Marcus Aurelius (121–180; Roman emperor 161-180) although there’s nothing to suggest the emperor was involved in the sentencing.  For his faith he was of course rewarded with eternal life in Heaven but Justin too achieved a kind of earthly immortality, venerated as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern & Oriental Orthodox Churches and in the Anglican community.  Later, the legend arose that Marcus Aurelius became disposed to relax the persecution of Christians after a group of them prayed for rain and the subsequent storm was of such intensity it enabled him to avoid military defeat although, off and on, persecution continued and it wasn’t until the reign of Constantine the Great (circa 272-337; Roman emperor 306–337) began to emerge as the dominant religion of the empire.

The persecution of Christians will seem familiar to minorities living under many authoritarian regimes including the Falun Gong in China and the Baháʼí in Iran and many historians have concluded the reasons tend to be political rather than theological, structuralists summarizing things thus:

(1) Emperors in Rome were much opposed to gods their regime did not recognize, the Bible noting (1 Corinthians 8:5) “there be gods many, and lords many” but the imperial authorities did not own the God of the Christians.

(2) The Christian faith preached One who was God over all the earth, who knew no political frontiers and that pagan gods were mere idols.

(3) Christians could not join in pagan worship or the idolatrous acts which were part of the social or civic occasions of which the state approved. 

(4) Christians met as a secret society and were unsociable in their behavior, the assumption being they might be plotting against the state.

(5) Christians were seen to be threatening the financial and political interests of various powerful classes, priests, the makers & sellers of idols and those who bred and sole sacrificial animals.

(6) Christians and their ways were accused to be arousing the anger of Roman gods who proved vengeful in visiting upon the empire famines, earthquakes, military defeats and other punishments.

The persecution continued until the year 311 when the Emperor Galerius (circa 258–311; Roman emperor 305-311) expired, meeting his death in a manner similar to that recorded in Acts (12:3) as that suffered by Herod Agrippa: “He was eaten of worms and gave up the ghost”.  Baffled yet convinced by grace with which Christians accepted their martyrdom, on his deathbed Galerius issued the Edict of Toleration and entreated Christians to pray on his behalf.

Flamingo

Flamingo (pronounced fluh-ming-goh)

(1) Any of several aquatic wading birds of the family Phoenicopteridae (the only extant family in the order Phoenicopteriformes), having very long legs and neck, webbed feet, a bill bent downward at the tip and pinkish to scarlet plumage; they tend to inhabit brackish lakes.

(2) In the color spectrum, a shade of reddish-orange but in commercial use, often various hues of pink.

1555–1565: From the Portuguese flamengo (flamingo) and Spanish flamenco (flamingo), from the Catalan & Old Occitan (Old Provençal) flamenc, (flame colored), the construct being the Latin flamma (flame) + the Germanic suffix -enc (-ing), denoting “descent from or membership of”.  Both the Portuguese flamengo and the Spanish flamengo translate literally as “flame-colored” (the Greek phoinikopteros (flamingo) literally was “red feathered").  The Portuguese, Spanish & Catalan forms were used adjectivally as an ethnonym meaning “Flemish”; Fleming (the Belgium region), seems originally to have been a jocular name, coined because the conventional Romance image of the inhabitants was of “those with a ruddy-complexion”.  Although the term is now uncommon (and rarely heard in commentary), in cricket, “flamingo shot” describes a ball "flicked" from outside off stump through midwicket.  The more serious types among the ornithologists say the collective noun for flamingos is “a stand” but most favor the more evocative “flamboyance” and one suspects the birds would prefer it too.  Flamingo is a noun & adjective and flamingoish is an adjective; the noun plural is flamingos or flamingoes.

In Spanish, flamenco can be used colloquially as an adjective meaning “robust, healthy-looking” and is a type of dance.  In an example of cultural cross-fertilization, flamenca (feminine singular of flamenco) seems to have been the original name for a form of Spanish poetry which came to be called seguidilla (the construct being seguida (sequence) + -illa (the diminutive suffix).  Seguidilla meant “series, sequence, list (a set of related things in an order)” and also described a “lively, triple-time, Spanish tune and dance”, the rhythm of which was the source of the metrical form of the verse.  Although the musical source is uncontested, because of the origins in folk culture (and thus there exists scant documentation), the exact structure of the early verse is uncertain but speculative reconstructions suggest flamenca began as a four-line strophe with alternating long and short lines (seven or eight syllables in the long lines; five or six in the short).  Literary historians are however certain that later (likely in the seventeenth century) three lines were added and the form became codified as a seven-line form, alternating seven and five syllables in the first part, and five, seven, five in the second.  Critics list it as the most elegant of the popular Spanish metrical forms and it’s unique in being the only generalized form of the seven-line verse.

Lindsay Lohan in Dubai in flamingo pink Aeire velour tracksuit with yoga mat, January, 2023.

The term “flamingo pink” has much commercial appeal because of the charismatic birds so use often is a bit opportunistic given the coloring of flamingos varies widely depending on their diet, many often more of an orange hue than red or pink.  There’s thus much variation on the color charts while garment manufacturers appear mostly to slot in “Flamingo pink” as a shade somewhat toned-down from “hot pink” or “fuchsia”.  Legislation in the UAE (United Arab Emirates, including Dubai) affords individuals significant protection from being photographed without their consent so there the paparazzi are noticeably less active than in most Western jurisdictions.  Thus an image of celebrity in a public place in Dubai can usually be assumed to have been staged or in some way authorized.  As a general principle, those in Dubai are (mostly) free to photograph the built environment, landscapes, tourist attractions and even street scenes but deliberately (or even inadvertently) photographing an identifiable person without their consent can potentially create legal liability.  This is the case especially if the image is deemed to constitute an invasion of privacy or is published or shared electronically.  The mere inclusion of people in photographs may not constitute an offence even if one or more is identifiable, a typical example being a shot of a tourist attraction in which one or more tourist appears; as in the West, this is an aspect of law in which intent is a factor.  Ms Lohan more than once has mentioned one of the attractions of Dubai is the level of protection from paparazzi afforded to public figures.

The revolution: Flamingos doing their bit.

In 2026, the flamingo made a rare appearance in political discourse, the charismatic bird adopted as the symbol of the Albanian protest movement focused on their government’s approval of a luxury tourism development backed by US investor Jared Kushner (b 1981) son-in-law of Donald Trump (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) by virtue of his marriage to Ivana “Ivanka” Trump (b 1981).  The connection between bird & protest lies in flamingos being among the many species inhabiting the Vjosa–Narta wetland ecosystem surrounding Sazan Island and the Zvërnec project site, the concern being the environmental damage that will be a consequence of both the construction and ongoing operation of the proposed resort.  Reflecting a wider discontent, the protests quickly morphed from something about the environment to a general expression of discontent with corruption in government, unlawful conduct by a variety of regulatory authorities and state-based manipulation of the media intended to conceal the impact of the development.

Now a political symbol: A pair of inflatable flamingos.

A localized protest close to the site was met with violence by the security forces, the reaction to that the spread of demonstrations to major cities, supported by the extensive and far-flung Albanian diaspora; props used by the protesters included flamingo cut-outs and inflatable flamingos, mostly in a “hotter” pink to the bird’s usual plumage.  Predictably, the government’s response came from the playbook of comrade Enver Hoxha (1908-1985; dictator of Albanian 1944-1985) with the protesters being accused of being the “tools of foreign interests” and elements in a “misinformation campaign” in a “hybrid war” being waged by “Albania’s enemies”.  Already dubbed the “Flamingo Revolution” (time will tell whether that is premature or prescient), the protests are an example of a general discontent with “the political class” and in Europe, politicians will be paying more than the usual (ie none) attention to Albania, remembering Otto von Bismarck’s (1815-1898; chancellor of the German Empire (the “Second Reich”) 1871-1890) warning that bad things can spread from “some damned fool thing in the Balkans”.

Flamingos in the Air

Safety in numbers: Wildlife photographer Ron Magill's (b 1960) image of flamingos in the Miami Zoo Public Bathroom, sitting (standing) out Hurricane Andrew, a Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that struck Florida in August 1992.  It remains the most destructive weather event recorded in Florida but all in the flamboyance of flamingos sheltering in the bathroom survived.  Flamingos are omnivores, filter-feeding on brine shrimp and blue-green algae as well as larva, small insects, mollusks and crustaceans, their vivid pink or reddish feathers a product of the beta-carotenoids rich in this diet.  The birds usually stand on one leg with the other tucked beneath and why they do this is not understood.  One theory is that standing on one leg allows them to conserve more body heat, given they spend a significant amount of time wading in cold water, but the behavior is also observed in warm water and among birds ashore.  The alternative theory is that standing on one leg reduces the energy required for the muscular effort to stand and balance and flamingos demonstrate substantially less body sway in a one-legged posture.  The answer thus is “don't know” but it may reasonably be assumed they prefer it because it's easier.

Perhaps the world's only black flamingo.

In 2015, during a routine “flamingo count”, a black flamingo was observed on the salt lake at the Akrotiri Environmental Centre on the southern coast of Cyprus, zoologists noting it may be not merely rare but perhaps the only one in existence; it's assumed to be the same bird seen in Israel in 2014 (large flamingo flocks are known regularly to fly long distances).  The black plumage is a result of melanism, a genetic condition in which the pigment melanin is over-produced, turning the feathers black during development.  The opposite of melanism is albinism, when no melanin is made and the animal is colorless except for a faint hue (from red blood vessels) in the eyes.  There are many intermediate stages between melanism & albinism where various pigments partially are missing, resulting the patchy coloration known as leucism but albino and leucistic (partial albino) birds are not uncommon, unlike the genuine rarity of the melanistic flamingo.  Why flamingos are so rarely affected while black owls, woodpeckers, herons and many others often are observed isn't known but the condition appears to be most common in a some hawk species, jaegers and a few seabirds.  Pedants noted the much-travelled black flamingo actually had a few white tail feathers so suggested it should not be classified as a true instance of melanism but specialist ornithologists, while acknowledging there were aberrant white feathers, dismissed their presence with an observation something like “...a few, but then again, too few to mention”.

RAF (Royal Air Force) de Havilland DH.95 Flamingo Mark I.

First flown in 1938 before entering service in 1939, the de Havilland DH.95 Flamingo was a twin-engined, high-wing monoplane airliner, the design reflecting the then current thinking about short-haul civil aviation, the emphasis on passenger comfort and economy of operation, the latter still a consuming interest of carriers.  De Havilland’s designers used the US Douglas DC-3 (the Dakota, then the dominant airframe in civil use), as a model, the Flamingo a little scaled-down better to suit the economics of European operations.  Although never envisaged as a military platform, the Air Ministry placed an order for a small run to be used as transport and communications aircraft but production plans were interrupted by the outbreak of World War II (1939-1945) and the ministry directed de Havilland’s capacity should be re-allocated to manufacturing more urgently-needed machines.  So, only 14 Flamingos were built and those used by the Army and RAF all were struck from the active list before the war was over, some returned to civil use, the last remaining in service until the early 1950s.  The Flamingo is however over-represented in the wartime photographic record because it was a RAF Flamingo that was Winston Churchill’s (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) preferred short-haul transport and in one he made his famous flights to France in May 1940 as he attempted to stiffen the resolve of the French cabinet to remain in the war.

The Flamingo Pose

The flamingo pose, perfected by Gigi Hadid (b 1995).  Note hand braced against wall with fingers spread (both techniques borrowed from structural engineering), a way of “distributing the load”, lowering the centre of gravity, thus enhancing stability.

Among humans, the reason for the flamingo pose is well understood: Instagram.  It’s in the tradition of earlier “duck face”, “fish gape pose”, “T. rex selfie hand”, “Bambi pose”, “resting bitch face”, “ear scratch” and “migraine pose” etc, all of which (at least before becoming clichéd) had visual appeal while some offered functional advantages.  Humans don’t however enjoy the evolutionary heritage of flamingos and the pose can be a technical challenge if attempted while standing; models suggest using a wall or handrail for balance if the photo session is at all protracted.  A better alternative can be to pose while sitting, one leg extended with the other bent or tucked away in some fetching manner.

Flamingos on wheels

1961 Buick Flamingo.

Attendances had been declining at GM’s (General Motors) Motorama so 1961 would prove the final season for the traveling road show that, known originally as Autorama, had since 1949 been an annual event (except in the troubled years 1957-1958) in major cities (Boston, New York, Miami, San Francisco etc).  In those years more than ten million had visited the exhibits but the public’s taste in entertainment had shifted and by the 1960s the cars being displayed were no longer as entertaining, the wild, extravagant exercises which blended automobiles with styling cues from missiles and jet aircraft replaced by what were mostly blinged-up variants of vehicles already in production.  Rather than being a forum to excite the imagination, Motorama had descended into a kind of large-scale focus-group to “test the water”, gauging reaction to innovations or gimmicks that might later appear in showrooms.

Testing the water: 19 members of the Brighton Swimming Club, in their top hats and swim trunks, East Sussex, Brighton, England, 1863, photograph by Benjamin William Botham (1824-1877).  Note chap (fourth from left) adopting flamingo pose: there’s one in every crowd.

Buick’s 1961 Flamingo was very much in the vein of a “test the water” exercise.  It was based on a standard-production Electra 225 convertible but finished in a pearlescent pink, the paint mixed using the same techniques as the West Coast hot rod community: exotic pigments & toners with metal-flakes, challenging enough to perfect for a one-off and years away from being viable for large-scale production.  While an extensive use of pink paint and accessories had not much increased the appeal of the Dodge La Femme (1955-1956) among the female demographic in which US commerce was taking an increasing interest, Buick's product planners must have decided there was life in the “women like pink” approach.  Cynical that may have been but the sparkling color must have been eye-catching under the lights and the Flamingo was one of the most photographed exhibits when the 1961 Motorama opened its swansong season at New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel, then the final home of General Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964).  The Flamingo’s interior certainly complimented the paint, the two-tone upholstery in pink leather and cranberry brocade while the front bucket seats were separated by a wide console trimmed in bright metal, a feature Detroit widely would adopt although in 1961 Buick kept the transmission’s shift level on the column; “T-bar” shifts and such soon would come.

1961 Buick Flamingo.

Structurally, the Flamingo's most obvious novelty was the pivoting passenger seat, able to turned 180^o and thus more easily permit a conversation with those in the rear compartment, an design aspect to ponder given it was before seatbelts were universal but well after the publication of Sir Isaac Newton's (1642–1727) First Law of Motion (known also as the Law of Inertia: “An object at rest will remain at rest, and an object in motion will continue in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced external force”).  It was also a time before Ralph Nader’s (b 1934) book Unsafe at Any Speed (1965) prompted politicians to take their legislative axe to such ventures.  Swivelling front seats had actually been around for a while but their extent of rotation had been only the few degrees required to afford easier ingress and egress although Chrysler did later include a passenger seat able to rotate the full 180^o.  Offered as part of the “Mobile Director Package” and available exclusively on the 1967-1968 Imperial Crown Coupe, demand was subdued and even had it not been obvious the new safety rules would outlaw such things, the option would not have been carried over to the new generation of “Fuselage” cars in 1969.  What became of the Buick Flamingo isn’t known.  It was mechanically identically to any other Electra 225 convertible so it may have been used by Buick’s engineers for other purposes and the consensus is it was likely scrapped and sent to the crusher, the fate of many such machines.

Chevrolet Firenza Can-Am advertisement, 1973.

Internationally, the South African automotive industry of the 1960s and early 1970s remains best known for improving cars from Europe by installing larger capacity V8 engines sourced from the US, the most noted including the Perana (the Mark I Ford Capri (1969-1974) but fitted with a 302 cubic inch (4.9 litre) V8) some 500 of which were built until the first oil shock (1973) put a stop to the fun and the Chevrolet Firenza Can-Am (a coupé variant of the HC Vauxhall Viva (1970-1979) which used the Chevrolet Z/28 302 V8 that had in the US become surplus when the rules of the Trans-Am competition were relaxed to permit racing teams to de-stroke larger displacement units to meet the 5.0 litre (305 cubic inch) class limit), 100 produced in 1973 as a homologation exercise for use in local competition.  Fondly those brutish machines still are recalled by those who remember how things used to be done but, years before, there had also been the rather more delicate GSM Flamingo.

1963 GSM Flamingo, note the elevated stance and disproportionate windscreen height.

Capetown-based GSM (Glassport Motor Company) was formed in 1958 with a business model following the approach of many small-scale “cottage industry” producers in the UK: Diminutive sports cars with small-displacement engines that achieved competitive performance through the light weight of their bodies constructed with the then still novel fibreglass in shapes which, although often not wind-tunnel tested, certainly looked aerodynamic.  GSM had enjoyed some success with their Dart sports car (1958-1964) but when in 1962 the company expanded the range to include the Flamingo, it followed the approach which doomed more than one concern: A larger coupé, fitted with some of the creature comforts better to appeal to a wider market than their uncompromising little roadsters, the native environment of the latter a race track.  Had it been possible to fit the Flamingo with Ford’s Cologne V6 engine the car might have enjoyed greater commercial success but for various reasons it appeared instead with the corporation’s 1.5 & 1.7 litre (92 & 102 cubic inch) four cylinder units.  Although the low mass and clearly slippery aerodynamics made it possible for some Flamingos to achieve a then exceptional 110 mph (175 km/h), in getting there it lacked the refinement buyers of coupés in its price range had come to expect and production ended in 1964.

1963 GSM Flamingo.

Entertaining though it was acknowledged to be, the target market wanted also to be pampered and there were too many aspects of the Flamingo that betrayed its “backyard” origins.  The cars sat higher on the chassis than was intended because of a measurement error when the molds were created (shades of the later Hubble Space Telescope) which meant a somewhat “jacked-up” look and, more seriously, a higher centre of gravity which had to be compensated for by adjustments to the suspension settings, exactly what MG was in 1974 compelled to do to make its Midget (1963-1979) and MGB (1962-1980) comply with US headlight height rules.  Had resources been available, the flawed molds would have been scrapped and re-cast using correct dimensions but by then cash-flow was more of a priority than perfection.  Additionally, the windscreen, while offering commanding visibility, was aesthetically too big for the shape, economic realities dictating the “best fit available” being bought “off the shelf”, in this case the glass from BMC’s (British Motor Corporation) Austin A40 Farina (1958-1967, the Countryman version of which was one of the earliest “hatchbacks”).  Coincidentally, Nissan in 1968 created a similar look when adding a taller windscreen to their Fairlady roadster (1963-1970 and in some markets sold as the “Sports”, “1500”, “1600” or “2000” (the latter three designations denoting engine displacement)), preferring that to fitting a third windscreen wiper as the UK industry did to render the Austin Healey Sprite (1958-1971) & MG Midget compliant with US regulations.  The A40's re-purposed windscreen made things a little ungainly but the “split rear screen” was, visually, more satisfying and the car’s most memorable feature.

1963 GSM Flamingo.  As well as providing structural integrity, at speed, the central fin would have contributed to straight-line stability.

Common in the inter-war years, most split rear screens were gone by the mid-1950s although there was a quixotic revival by GM which included the look on the C2 Chevrolet Corvette (1963-1967).  The cause at the time of internecine squabbles within the division, the “anti-splitty” faction prevailed and the 1964 models appeared with a single piece of glass but, in a sense, the “splitty” faction had the last laugh because, apart from limited production exotics like the GS Sport (5) and L88 (20), it’s the 1963 coupes that are the most sought-after C2 Corvettes.  At the time, the GSM Flamingo probably was thought to be a final fling for the split-screen but the feature appeared (mounted in a pair of hood covers which opened a la gullwing doors) on the achingly lovely De Tomaso Mangusta (1967-1971) and behind the Iron Curtain, as late as 1975, in Czechoslovakia (the Warsaw Pact’s improbable source of the avant-garde) Tatra still was producing the 603 (1956-1975), the last car in volume production with a split rear screen.

Road test of GSM Flamingo V8, Car Magazine, February 1967.

It’s the treatment of the rear glass that tends to dominate the design; the distinctive swept point, splitting the window, created a dramatic, “double-scalloped” rear deck and what was, in effect, a fin.  That was not a whimsical stylistic flourish but a structural necessity to achieve the desired strength without increasing weight by adding reinforcing steel to support the fibreglass skin and was GSM's second attempt to style the rear, the original “breadvan” look having been considered and discarded.  That was indicative of the high development costs and, in an attempt to amortize the investment, production was increased but demand never reached to level necessary to sustain the business and GSM in 1965 ceased trading after building 128 Flamingos and 116 of the earlier Dart roadsters.  That meant the planned version of the Flamingo with a 260 cubic inch (4.2 litre) Ford V8 never came to fruition but one prototype was built using a 221 cubic inch (3.6 litre) version.  It had been a 221 AC in England had been given to install in an Ace; that became the first Shelby American Cobra prototype which, after being shipped to Shelby's Los Angeles operation received a 260, becoming “the first Cobra”.  A V8 Flamingo of course sounds an enticing prospect but when it’s remembered Shelby’s Cobra was financially viable to the extent it was only because of Ford’s corporate support, its prospects of success would likely have been limited to racetracks.

2008 Morgan Aeromax.  It's likely designers will again be tempted by the lure of the split screen so it may again be seen.

For decades the split screens on the 1963 Corvette and GSM Flamingo had been remembered as quirky outliers but, thirty years after the last Tatra 603 left the line, Morgan brought back the look.  It was unexpected because the split rear screen was last part mainstream design language around 1936 when Morgan added a fourth wheel to the roadsters the company had been manufacturing since 1910.  However, almost every Morgan made since a fourth wheel sprouted has maintained a strong visual link with the roadsters of 1936 so there was really no machine better suited to being adorned with the feature.  In the narrow technical sense it really wasn’t a “retro touch” because even in 1936 Morgans were beginning to look an anachronism and by 1955 when MG's MGA (1955-1962) replaced the TF (1953-1955 and the last of the old “square riggers”), it was a living relic.  The split rear screen appeared in 2005 on what had been intended as a one-off for a private collector but so positive was the reception when the car was shown at that year’s Geneva Motor Show a run of 100 units was arranged.  Released as the Aeromax (2008-2009), the distinctive split rear windows opened, clamshell-like (a la the De Tomaso Mangusta) and the offer of 100 was over-subscribed although a reputed additional four were manufactured to replace those damaged in accidents and written off.  Under the art deco aluminum body, the Aeromax was powered by a 4.8-litre (292 cubic inch) BMW V8 rated at 367 HP, making the lightweight machine genuinely fast (although better behaved than the swing-axled Tatras).