(1) A fortified, amber-colored wine, originally from the Jerez region of southern Spain or any of various similar wines made elsewhere; usually drunk as an apéritif.Technically, a white wine.
(2) A female given name, a form of Charlotte.
(3) A reddish color in the amber-brown spectrum.
1590-1600: A (mistaken singular) back formation from the earlier sherris (1530s), from the Spanish (vino de) Xeres ((wine from) Xeres).Xeres is now modern-day Jerez (Roman (urbs) Caesaris) in Spain, near the port of Cadiz, where the wine was made.The official name is Jerez-Xérès-Sherry, one of Spain's wine regions, a Denominación de Origen Protegida (DOP). The word sherry is an anglicisation of Xérès (Jerez) and the drink was previously known as sack, from the Spanish saca (extraction) from the solera.In EU law, sherry has protected designation of origin status, and under Spanish law, to be so labelled, the product must be produced in the "Sherry Triangle", an area in the province of Cádiz between Jerez de la Frontera, Sanlúcar de Barrameda, and El Puerto de Santa María.In 1933 the Jerez denominación de origen was the first Spanish denominación officially thus recognized, named D.O. Jerez-Xeres-Sherry and sharing the same governing council as D.O. Manzanilla Sanlúcar de Barrameda.The name "sherry" continues to be used by US producers where, to conform to domestic legislation, it must be labeled with a region of origin such as Oregon Sherry but can’t be sold in the EU (European Union) because of the protected status laws.Both Canadian and Australian winemakers now use the term Apera instead of Sherry, although customers seem still to favor the original. Sherry is a noun; the noun plural is sherries.
Sherry Girl (in bold two-copa ‘Sherry Stance’) and the
ultimate sherry party.
Held annually since 2014 (pandemics permitting), Sherry Week is a week-long celebration of “gastronomical and cultural events” enjoyed by
the “vibrant
global Sherry community” which gathers to “showcase the wine’s incredible diversity,
from the dry crispness of Fino to the velvety sweetness of Cream.”Although the multi-venue Sherry Week is now
the best known meeting on the Sherry calendar, worldwide, since 2014 some 20,000
events have taken place with the approval of the Consejo Regulador for Jerez-Xérès-Sherry and Manzanilla; to
date there have been more than half a million attendees and in 2024 alone there
were over 3,000 registered events in 29 countries in cities including London,
Madrid, São Paulo, Tokyo, Buenos Aires, Auckland and Shanghai.Daringly, the publicity for the 2025
gatherings introduced “Sherry Girl” whose “bold two-copa ‘Sherry Stance’” is
now an icon for the drink.Sherry Girl
is new but dedicated sherryphiles will be pleased to learn the traditional “Sherry Ruta” (Sherry route) remains on the schedule, again in “multi-venue routes offering exclusive pairing experiences”,
described as “not
a typical wine crawl but a triumphant strut with tipples, tastings, and tapas.”For the adventurous, participants are able to
use the interactive venue map to curate their own Sherry Ruta in their city of
choice. The 2025 event will be held between 3-9 November.
Dry Sack, a sherry preferred by many because of its balance; straddling sweet and dry. Purists tend to the dry finos while sweeter cream sherries are recommended for neophytes.
The
name "sherry" continues to be used by US producers where, to conform
to domestic legislation, it must be labeled with a region of origin such as Oregon Sherry but can’t be sold in the
EU because of their protected status laws.Both Canadian and Australian winemakers now use the term Apera instead of Sherry, although
customers seem still to favor the original. For the
upper-middle class and beyond, sherry parties were a fixture of late-Victorian
and Edwardian social life but the dislocations of the World War I (1914-1918) seemed to
render them extinct. It turned out however to be a postponement and sherry
parties were revived, the height of their popularity being enjoyed during the 1930s
until the post-war austerity the UK endured after World War II (1939-1945) saw them a relic restricted moistly to Oxbridge dons, the genuinely still rich, Church of England bishops and such although they never quite vanished and those who subscribe to magazines like Country Life or Tatler probably still exchange invitations to each other's sherry parties.
For Sherry and Cocktail Parties, trade literature by Fortnum and Mason, Regent Street, Piccadilly, London, circa 1936. The luxury department store, Fortnum & Mason, used the services of the Stuart Advertising Agency, which employed designers to produce witty and informative catalogues and the decorative art is illustrative of British commercial art in this period.
For the
women who tended to be hostess and organizer, there were advantages compared
with the tamer tea party.Sherry glasses
took less space than cups of tea, with all the associated paraphernalia of
spoons, milk and sugar and, it being almost impossible to eat and drink while balancing
a cup and saucer and conveying cake to the mouth, the tea party demanded tables
and chairs.The sherry glass and
finger-food was easier for while one must sit for tea, one can stand for sherry
so twice the number of guests could be asked.Sherry parties indeed needed to be tightly packed affairs, the mix of
social intimacy and alcohol encouraging mingling and they also attracted more men for whom the offer of held little attraction.The traditional timing between six and eight
suited the male lifestyle of the time and they were doubtless more attracted to
women drinking sherry than women drinking tea for while the raffish types knew it wasn't quite the "leg-opener" as gin was renowned to be, every little bit helps.
In hair color and related fields, "sherry red" (not to be confused with the brighter "cherry red") is a rich hue on the spectrum from amber to dark brown: Lindsay Lohan (who would be the ideal "Cherry Girl" model) demonstrates on the red carpet at the Liz & Dick premiere, Los Angeles, 2012.
Sherry party planner.
Novelist Laura Troubridge (Lady Troubridge, (née Gurney; 1867-1946)), who in 1935 published what became the standard English
work on the topic, Etiquette and Entertaining:
to help you on your social way, devoted an entire chapter to the sherry party.She espoused an informal approach as both
cheap and chic, suggesting guests be invited by telephone or with “Sherry, six
to eight” written on a visiting card and popped in an envelope.She recommended no more than two-dozen guests, a half-dozen bottles of sherry, a couple of heavy cut-glass decanters and some
plates of “dry and biscuity” eats: cheese straws, oat biscuits, cubes of
cheddar.This, she said, was enough to
supply the makings of a “…jolly kind of
party, with plenty of cigarettes and talk that will probably last until half
past seven or eight.”
Cocktail Party by Laurence Fellows (1885-1964), Esquire magazine, September 1937.
The Sherry party should not be confused with the cocktail party. Cocktail parties in drawing rooms at which Martinis were served often were much more louche
affairs.Note the elegantly sceptical expressions on
the faces of the women, all of whom have become immured to the tricks of “charming men in suits”.For women, sherry parties were more welcoming places.
(1) A large
bin or receptacle; a fixed chest or box.
(2) In
military use, historically a fortification set mostly below the surface of the
ground with overhead protection provided by logs and earth or by concrete and
fitted with above-ground embrasures through which guns may be fired.
(3) A
fortification set mostly below the surface of the ground and used for a variety
of purposes.
(4) In golf,
an obstacle, classically a sand trap but sometimes a mound of dirt,
constituting a hazard.
(5) In
nautical use, to provide fuel for a vessel.
(6) In
nautical use, to convey bulk cargo (except grain) from a vessel to an adjacent
storehouse.
(7) In
golf, to hit a ball into a bunker.
(8) To
equip with or as if with bunkers.
(9) In
military use, to place personnel or materiel in a bunker or bunkers (sometimes
as “bunker down”).
1755–1760:
From the Scottish bonkar (box, chest
(also “seat” (in the sense of “bench”) of obscure origin but etymologists
conclude the use related to furniture hints at a relationship with banker (bench).Alternatively, it may be from a Scandinavian
source such as the Old Swedish bunke (boards
used to protect the cargo of a ship). The
meaning “receptacle for coal aboard a ship” was in use by at least 1839
(coal-burning steamships coming into general use in the 1820s).The use to describe the obstacles on golf
courses is documented from 1824 (probably from the extended sense “earthen seat”
which dates from 1805) but perhaps surprisingly, the familiar sense from
military use (dug-out fortification) seems not to have appeared before World
War I (1914-1918) although the structures so described had for millennia existed.“Bunkermate” was army slang for the
individual with whom one shares a bunker while the now obsolete “bunkerman”
(“bunkermen” the plural”) referred to someone (often the man in charge) who
worked at an industrial coal storage bunker.Bunker & bunkerage is a noun, bunkering is a noun & verb,
bunkered is a verb and bunkerish, bunkeresque, bunkerless & bunkerlike are adjectives;
the noun plural is bunkers.
Just as
ships called “coalers” were used to transport coal to and from shore-based
“coal stations”, it was “oilers” which took oil to storage tanks or out to sea
to refuel ships (a common naval procedure) and these STS (ship-to-ship)
transfers were called “bunkering” as the black stuff was pumped,
bunker-to-bunker.That the coal used by
steamships was stored on-board in compartments called “coal bunkers” led
ultimately to another derived term: “bunker oil”.When in the late nineteenth century ships
began the transition from being fuelled by coal to burning oil, the receptacles
of course became “oil bunkers” (among sailors nearly always clipped to
“bunker”) and as refining processes evolved, the fuel specifically produced for
oceangoing ships came to be called “bunker oil”.
Bunker oil is
“dirty stuff”, a highly viscous, heavy fuel oil which is essentially the
residue of crude oil refining; it’s that which remains after the more
refined and volatile products (gasoline (petrol), kerosene, diesel etc) have
been extracted.Until late in the
twentieth century, the orthodox view of economists was its use in big ships was
a good thing because it was a product for which industry had little other use
and, as essentially a by-product, it was relatively cheap.It came in three flavours: (1) Bunker A: Light
fuel oil (similar to a heavy diesel), (2) Bunker B: An oil of intermediate
viscosity used in engines larger than marine diesels but smaller than those
used in the big ships and (3) Bunker C: Heavy fuel oil used in container
ships and such which use VLD (very large displacement), slow running engines with a huge reciprocating
mass.Because of its composition, Bucker
C especially produced much pollution and although much of this happened at sea
(unseen by most but with obvious implications), when ships reached harbor to dock,
all the smoke and soot became obvious.Over the years, the worst of the pollution from the burning of bunker
oil greatly has been reduced (the work underway even before the Greta Thunberg
(b 2003) era), sometimes by the simple expedient of spraying a mist of water
through the smoke.
Floor-plans
of the upper (Vorbunker) and lower (Führerbunker) levels of the structure
now commonly referred to collectively as the Führerbunker.
History’s most
infamous bunker remains the Berlin Führerbunker
in which Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer
(leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945)
spent much of the last few months of his life.In the architectural sense there were a number of Führerbunkers built, one at each of the semi-permanent Führerhauptquartiere (Führer Headquarters) created for the German
military campaigns and several others built where required but it’s the one in Berlin
which is remembered as “theFührerbunker”. Before 1944 when the intensification of the air
raids by the RAF (Royal Air Force) and USAAF (US Army Air Force) the term Führerbunker seems rarely to have been
used other than by the architects and others involved in their construction and
it wasn’t a designation like Führerhauptquartiere
which the military and other institutions of state shifted between locations
(rather as “Air Force One” is attached not to a specific airframe but whatever
aircraft in which the US president is travelling).In subsequent historical writing, the term Führerbunker tends often to be applied
to the whole, two-level complex in Berlin and although it was only the lower
layer which officially was designated as that, for most purposes the
distinction is not significant.In military
documents, after January, 1945 the Führerbunker
was referred to as Führerhauptquartiere.
Führerbunker tourist information board, Berlin, Germany.
Only an
information board at the intersection of den
Ministergärten and Gertrud-Kolmar-Straße, erected by the German Goverment
in 2006 prior to that year's FIFA (Fédération
Internationale de Football Association (International Federation of
Association Football)) World Cup now marks the place on Berlin's Wilhelmstrasse
77 where once the Führerbunker was located.The Soviet occupation forces razed the new Reich Chancellery and
demolished all the bunker's above-ground structures but the subsequent GDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German
Democratic Republic; the old East Germany) 1949-1990) abandoned attempts
completely to destroy what lay beneath.Until after the fall of the Berlin Wall (1961-1989) the site remained
unused and neglected, “re-discovered” only during excavations by
property developers, the government insisting on the destruction on whatever
was uncovered and, sensitive still to the spectre of “Neo-Nazi shrines”, for years the bunker’s location was never divulged, even as unremarkable buildings
(an unfortunate aspect of post-unification Berlin) began to appear on the
site.Most of what would have covered
the Führerbunker’s footprint is now a
supermarket car park.
The first
part of the complex to be built was the Vorbunker
(upper bunker or forward bunker), an underground facility of reinforced concrete
intended only as a temporary air-raid shelter for Hitler and his entourage in
the old Reich Chancellery.Substantially
completed during 1936-1937, it was until 1943 listed in documents as the Luftschutzbunker der Reichskanzlei (Reich
Chancellery Air-Raid Shelter), the Vorbunker
label applied only in 1944 when the lower level (the Führerbunker proper) was appended.In mid January, 1945, Hitler moved into the Führerbunker and, as the military
situation deteriorated, his appearances above ground became less frequent until
by late March he rarely saw the sky,Finally, on 30 April, he committed suicide.
Bunker
Busters
Northrop Grumman publicity shot of B2-Spirit from below, showing the twin bomb-bay doors through which the GBU-57 are released.
Awful as they are, there's an undeniable beauty in the engineering of some weapons and it's unfortunate humankind never collectively has resolved exclusively to devote such ingenuity to stuff other than us blowing up each other. That’s not
a new sentiment, being one philosophers and others have for millennia expressed
in various ways although since the advent of nuclear weapons, concerns understandably
become heightened.Like every form of
military technology ever deployed, once the “genie is out of the bottle” the
problem is there to be managed and at the dawn of the atomic age, delivering a
lecture in 1936, the British chemist and physicist Francis Aston (1877–1945) (who
created the mass spectrograph, winning the 1922 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for
his use of it to discover and identify the isotopes in many non-radioactive
elements and for his enunciation of the whole number rule) observed:
“There are those about us who say that such
research should be stopped by law, alleging that man's destructive powers are
already large enough. So, no doubt, the
more elderly and ape-like of our ancestors objected to the innovation of cooked
food and pointed out the great dangers attending the use of the newly
discovered agency, fire. Personally, I
think there is no doubt that sub-atomic energy is available all around us and
that one day man will release and control its almost infinite power. We cannot prevent him from doing so and can
only hope that he will not use it exclusively in blowing up his next door
neighbor.”
The use in
June 2025 by the USAF (US Air Force) of fourteen of its Boeing GBU-57 (Guided Bomb
Unit-57) Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOP) bombs against underground targets in
Iran (twelve on the Fordow Uranium Enrichment Plant and two on the Natanz nuclear
facility) meant “Bunker Buster” hit the headlines.Carried by the Northrop B-2 Spirit heavy
bomber (built between 1989-2000), the GBU-57 is a 14,000 kg (30,000 lb) bomb with
a casing designed to withstand the stress of penetrating through layers of
reinforced concrete or thick rock.“Bunker buster” bombs have been around for a while, the ancestors of
today’s devices first built for the German military early in World War II (1939-1945)
and the principle remains unchanged to this day: up-scaled armor-piercing
shells.The initial purpose was to
produce a weapon with a casing strong enough to withstand the forces imposed
when impacting reinforced concrete structures, the idea simple in that what was
needed was a delivery system which could “bust through” whatever protective
layers surrounded a target, allowing the explosive charge to do damage where
needed rtaher than wastefully being expended on an outer skin.The German weapons proved effective but inevitably triggered an “arms
race” in that as the war progressed, the concrete layers became thicker, walls over
2 metres (6.6 feet) and ceilings of 5 (16) being constructed by 1943.Technological development continued and the
idea extended to rocket propelled bombs optimized both for armor-piercing and
aerodynamic efficiency, velocity a significant “mass multiplier” which made the
weapons still more effective.
USAF test-flight footage of Northrop B2-Spirit dropping two GBU-57 "Bunker Buster" bombs.
Concurrent
with this, the British developed the first true “bunker busters”, building on
the idea of the naval torpedo, one aspect of which was in exploding a short distance
from its target, it was highly damaging because it was able to take advantage
of one of the properties of water (quite strange stuff according to those who
study it) which is it doesn’t compress.
What that meant was it was often the “shock wave” of the water rather
than the blast itself which could breach a hull, the same principle used for
the famous “bouncing bombs” used for the RAF’s “Dambuster” (Operation Chastise, 17 May 1943) raids on German
dams. Because of the way water behaved,
it wasn’t necessary to score the “direct hit” which had been the ideal in the
early days of aerial warfare.
RAF Bomber
Command archive photograph of Avro Lancaster (built between 1941-1946) in
flight with Grand Slam mounted (left) and a comparison of the Tallboy &
Grand Slam (right), illustrating how the latter was in most respects a
scaled-up version of the former. To
carry the big Grand Slams, 32 “B1 Special” Lancasters were in 1945 built with up-rated
Rolls-Royce Merlin V12 engines, the removal of the bomb doors (the Grand Slam
carried externally, its dimensions exceeding internal capacity), deleted front
and mid-upper gun turrets, no radar equipment and a strengthened undercarriage.Such was the concern with weight (especially
for take-off) that just about anything non-essential was removed from the B1
Specials, even three of the four fire axes and its crew door ladder.In the US, Boeing went through a similar exercise
to produce the run of “Silverplate” B-29 Superfortresses able to carry the first
A-bombs used in August, 1945.
Best known
of the British devices were the so called “earthquake bombs”, the Tallboy (12,000
lb; 5.4 ton) & Grand Slam (22,000 lb, 10 ton) which, despite the impressive
bulk, were classified by the War Office as “medium capacity”. The terms “Medium Capacity” (MC) & “High
Capacity” referenced not the gross weight or physical dimensions but ratio of
explosive filler to the total weight of the construction (ie how much was explosive
compared to the casing and ancillary components). Because both had thick casings to ensure penetration
deep into hardened targets (bunkers and other structures encased in rock or reinforced
concrete) before exploding, the internal dimensions accordingly were reduced
compared with the ratio typical of contemporary ordinance.A High Capacity (HC) bomb (a typical “general-purpose” bomb) had a thinner casing and a much higher proportion of explosive (sometimes
over 70% of total weight). These were
intended for area bombing (known also as “carpet bombing”) and caused wide
blast damage whereas the Tallboy & Grand Slam were penetrative with casings
optimized for aerodynamic efficiency, their supersonic travel working as a mass-multiplier. The Tallboy’s
5,200 lb (2.3 ton) explosive load was some 43% of its gross weight while the
Grand Slam’s 9,100 lb (4 ton) absorbed 41%; this may be compared with the “big”
4000 lb (1.8 ton) HC “Blockbuster” which allocated 75% of the gross weight to
its 3000 LB (1.4 ton) charge.Like many
things in engineering (not just in military matters) the ratio represented a
trade-off, the MC design prioritizing penetrative power and structural
destruction over blast radius.The
novelty of the Tallboy & Grand Slam was that as earthquake bombs, their destructive potential was able to be unleashed not necessarily by achieving a
direct hit on a target but by entering the ground nearby, the explosion (1)
creating an underground cavity (a camouflet) and (2) transmitting a shock-wave
through the target’s foundations, leading to the structure collapsing into the
newly created lacuna.
The
etymology of camouflet has an interesting history in both French and military
mining.Originally it meant “a whiff of
smoke in the face (from a fire or pipe) and in figurative use it was a
reference to a snub or slight insult (something unpleasant delivered directly
to someone) and although the origin is murky and it may have been related to
the earlier French verb camoufler (to
disguise; to mask) which evolved also into “camouflage”.In the specialized military jargon of siege
warfare or mining (sapping), over the seventeen and nineteenth centuries “camouflet”
referred to “an underground explosion that does not break the surface, but
collapses enemy tunnels or fortifications by creating a subterranean void or
shockwave”.The use of this tactic is
best remembered from the Western Front in World War I,
some of the huge craters now tourist attractions.
Under
watchful eyes: Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (b 1939; Supreme Leader, Islamic Republic of Iran since 1989) delivering a speech, sitting in
front of the official portrait of the republic’s ever-unsmiling founder, Grand
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1900-1989; Supreme Leader, Islamic Republic of
Iran, 1979-1989).Ayatollah Khamenei
seemed in 1989 an improbable choice as Supreme Leader because others were
better credentialed but though cautious and uncharismatic, he has proved a great
survivor in a troubled region.
Since aerial
bombing began to be used as a strategic weapon, of great interest has been the
debate over the BDA (battle damage assessment) and this issue emerged almost as
soon as the bunker buster attack on Iran was announced, focused on the extent
to which the MOPs had damaged the targets, the deepest of which were concealed deep
inside a mountain.BDA is a constantly
evolving science and while satellites have made analysis of surface damage
highly refined, it’s more difficult to understand what has happened deep
underground.Indeed, it wasn’t until the
USSBS (United States Strategic Bombing Survey) teams toured Germany and Japan
in 1945-1946, conducting interviews, economic analysis and site surveys that a
useful (and substantially accurate) understanding emerged of the effectiveness of
bombing although what technological advances have allowed for those with the
resources is the so-called “panacea targets” (ie critical infrastructure
and such once dismissed by planners because the required precision was for many
reasons rarely attainable) can now accurately be targeted, the USAF able to
drop a bomb within a few feet of the aiming point.As the phrase is used by the military, the Fordow
Uranium Enrichment Plant is as classic “panacea target” but whether even a technically
successful strike will achieve the desired political outcome remains to be
seen.
Mr Trump,
in a moment of exasperation, posted on Truth Social of Iran & Israel: “We basically have
two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know
what the fuck they're doing."Actually, both know exactly WTF they're doing; it's just Mr Trump (and
many others) would prefer they didn't do it.
Donald Trump (b 1946; US president
2017-2021 and since 2025) claimed “total obliteration” of the targets while Grand
Ayatollah Khamenei admitted only there had been “some damage” and which is closer to the truth
should one day be revealed.Even modelling
of the effects has probably been inconclusive because the deeper one goes
underground, the greater the number of variables in the natural structure and
the nature of the internal built environment will also influence blast
behaviour.All experts seem to agree much
damage will have been done but what can’t yet be determined is what has been
suffered by the facilities which sit as deep as 80 m (260 feet) inside the
mountain although, as the name implies, “bunker busters” are designed for buried
targets and it’s not always required for blast directly to reach target.Because the shock-wave can travel through earth
& rock, the effect is something like that of an earthquake and if the structure
sufficiently is affected, it may be the area can be rendered geologically too
unstable again to be used for its original purpose.
Within minutes of the bombing having been announced, legal academics were being interviewed (though not by Fox News) to explain why the attacks were unlawful under international law and in a sign of the times, the White House didn't bother to discuss fine legal points like the distinction between "preventive & pre-emptive strikes", preferring (like Fox News) to focus on the damage done. However, whatever
the murkiness surrounding the BDA, many analysts have concluded that even if
before the attacks the Iranian authorities had not approved the creation of a
nuclear weapon, this attack will have persuaded them one is essential for “regime
survival”, thus the interest in both Tel Aviv and (despite denials) Washington
DC in “regime change”.The consensus
seems to be Grand Ayatollah Khamenei had, prior to the strike, not ordered the creation
of a nuclear weapon but that all energies were directed towards completing the preliminary steps, thus the enriching of uranium to ten times the level
required for use in power generation; the ayatollah liked to keep his options
open.So, the fear of some is the attacks,
even if they have (by weeks, months or years) delayed the Islamic Republic’s
work on nuclear development, may prove counter-productive in that they convince
the ayatollah to concur with the reasoning of every state which since 1945 has
adopted an independent nuclear deterrent (IND).That reasoning was not complex and hasn’t changed since first a prehistoric
man picked up a stout stick to wave as a pre-lingual message to potential adversaries,
warning them there would be consequences for aggression.Although a theocracy, those who command power
in the Islamic Republic are part of an opaque political institution and in the
struggle which has for sometime been conducted in anticipation of the death of
the aged (and reportedly ailing) Supreme Leader, the matter of “an Iranian IND” is one of the central
dynamics. Many will be following what unfolds in Tehran and the observers will not be only in Tel Aviv and Washington DC because in the region and beyond, few things focus the mind like the thought of ayatollahs with A-Bombs.
Of the word "bust"
The Great Bust: The Depression of
the Thirties (1962)
by Jack Lang (left), highly qualified content provider Busty Buffy (b 1996, who has
never been accused of misleading advertising, centre) and The people's champion, Mr Lang, bust of Jack Lang, painted cast
plaster by an unknown artist, circa 1927, National Portrait Gallery, Canberra,
Australia (right).Remembered for a few things, Jack
Lang (1876–1975; premier of the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW)
1925-1927 & 1930-1932) remains best known for having in 1932 been the first
head of government in the British Empire to have been sacked by the Crown
since William IV (1765–1837; King of the UK 1830-1837) in 1834 dismissed Lord
Melbourne (1779–1848; prime minister of the UK 1834 & 1835-1841).
Those
learning English must think it at least careless things can both be (1) “razed
to the ground” (totally to destroy something (typically a structure), usually
by demolition or incineration) and (2) “raised to the sky” (physically lifted upwards).The etymologies of “raze” and “raise” differ
but they’re pronounced the same so it’s fortunate the spellings vary but in
other troublesome examples of unrelated meanings, spelling and pronunciation
can align, as in “bust”.When used in
ways most directly related to human anatomy: (1) “a sculptural portrayal of a
person's head and shoulders” & (2) “the circumference of a woman's chest
around her breasts” there is an etymological link but these uses wholly are unconnected
with bust’s other senses.
Bust of
Lindsay Lohan in white marble by Stable Diffusion.Sculptures of just the neck and head came also to be called “busts”, the
emphasis on the technique rather than the original definition.
Bust in the sense
of “a sculpture of upper torso and head” dates from the 1690s and was from the
sixteenth century French buste, from
the Italian busto (upper body;
torso), from the Latin bustum (funeral
monument, tomb (although the original sense was “funeral pyre, place where
corpses are burned”)) and it may have emerged (as a shortened form) from ambustum, neuter of ambustus (burned around), past participle of amburere (burn around, scorch), the construct being ambi- (around) + urere (to burn),The
alternative etymology traces a link to the Old Latin boro, the early form of the Classical Latin uro (to burn) and it’s though the development in Italian was
influenced by the Etruscan custom of keeping the ashes of the dead in an urn
shaped like the person when alive.Thus
the use, common by the 1720s of bust (a clipping from the French buste) being “a carving of the “trunk of
the human body from the chest up”.From
this came the meaning “dimension of the bosom; the measurement around a woman's
body at the level of her breasts” and that evolved on the basis of a comparison
with the sculptures, the base of which was described as the “bust-line”, the
term still used in dress-making (and for other comparative purposes as one of
the three “vital statistics” by which women are judged (bust, waist, hips),
each circumference having an “ideal range”).It’s not known when “bust” and “bust-line” came into oral use among
dress-makers and related professions but it’s documented since the 1880s.Derived forms (sometimes hyphenated) include
busty (tending to bustiness, thus Busty Buffy's choice of stage-name), overbust
& underbust (technical terms in women's fashion referencing specific
measurements) and bustier (a tight-fitting women's top which covers (most or
all of) the bust.
Benito
Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & Prime-Minister of Italy 1922-1943) standing
beside his “portrait bust” (1926).
The
bust was carved by Swiss sculptor Ernest Durig (1894–1962) who gained posthumous
notoriety when his career as a forger was revealed with the publication of his
drawings which he’d represented as being from the hand of the French sculptor Auguste
Rodin (1840-1917) under whom he claimed to have studied.Mussolini appears here in one of the
subsequently much caricatured poses which were a part of his personality cult. More than one of the Duce's counterparts in other nations was known to have made fun of some of the more outré poses and affectations, the outstretched chin, right hand braced against the hip and straddle-legged stance among the popular motifs.
“Portrait bust” in marble (circa 1895) of (1815-1989; chancellor of the German Empire (the "Second Reich") 1871-1890) by the German Sculptor Reinhold Begas (1831-1911).
In
sculpture, what had been known as the “portrait statue” came after the 1690s to
be known as the “portrait bust” although both terms meant “sculpture of upper
torso and head” and these proved a popular choice for military figures because
the aspect enabled the inclusion of bling such as epaulettes, medals and other
decorations and being depictions of the human figure, busts came to be vested
with special significance by the superstitious.In early 1939, during construction of the new Reich Chancellery in
Berlin, workmen dropped one of the busts of Otto von Bismarck by Reinhold Begas, breaking it at the neck.For decades, the bust had sat in the old
Chancellery and the building’s project manager, Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi
court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production
1942-1945), knowing Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of
government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) believed the Reich Eagle
toppling from the post-office building right at the beginning of World War I had been a harbinger of doom for the nation, kept the accident
secret, hurriedly issuing a commission to the German sculptor Arno Breker
(1900–1991) who carved an exact copy.To
give the fake the necessary patina, it was soaked for a time in strong, black
tea, the porous quality of marble enabling the fluid to induce some accelerated
aging.Interestingly, in his (sometimes
reliable) memoir (Erinnerungen
(Memories or Reminiscences) and published in English as Inside the Third Reich (1969)), even the technocratic Speer
admitted of the accident: “I felt this as an evil omen”.
The other
senses of bust (as a noun, verb & adjective) are diverse (and sometimes
diametric opposites and include: “to break or fail”; “to be caught doing
something unlawful / illicit / disgusting etc”; “to debunk”; “dramatically or
unexpectedly to succeed”; “to go broke”; “to break in” (horses, girlfriends etc):
“to assault”; the downward portion of an economic cycle (ie “boom & bust”);
“the act of effecting an arrest” and “someone (especially in professional sport)
who failed to perform to expectation”.That’s quite a range and that has meant the creation of dozens of
idiomatic forms, the best known of which include: “boom & bust”, “busted
flush”, “dambuster”, “bunker buster”,“busted arse country”, “drug bust”, “cloud bust”, belly-busting, bust
one's ass (or butt), bust a gut, bust a move, bust a nut, bust-down, bust
loose, bust off, bust one's balls, bust-out, sod buster, bust the dust,
myth-busting and trend-busting. In the
sense of “breaking through”, bust was from the Middle English busten, a variant of bursten & bresten (to burst) and may be compared with the Low German basten & barsten (to burst). Bust in
the sense of “break”, “smash”, “fail”, “arrest” etc was a creation of
mid-nineteenth century US English and is of uncertain inspiration but most
etymologists seem to concur it was likely a modification of “burst” effected
with a phonetic alteration but it’s not impossible it came directly as an
imperfect echoic of Germanic speech.The
apparent contradiction of bust meaning both “fail” and “dramatically succeed”
happened because the former was an allusion to “being busted” (ie broken) while
the latter meaning used the notion of “busting through”.
(3) In geology,
a sandy depression in a sand dune ecosystem caused by the removal of sediments
by wind.
(4) An
extreme and unexpected increase in costs, such as in government estimates for a
project (a popular Australian use although the budgetary outcomes are familiar
just about everywhere).
(5) In
medical slang, an act of defecation in which an incontinent person (usually an
infant or toddler) produces a large amount of excrement that causes their
diaper to overflow and leak (the companion slang the “poonami”).
(6) In
engineering, the cleaning of the flues of a boiler from scale etc by blasting
the surfaces with steam.
(7) In
body-piercing, an unsightly flap of skin caused by an ear piercing that is too
large.
(8) An
instance of having one's hair blow-dried and styled.
(9) In
tattooing, the blurring of a tattoo due to ink penetrating too far into the
skin and dispersing.
(10) In woodworking,
the damage done to the exit side of a drilled hole or sawn edge when no
sacrificial backer-board is used during the drilling or sawing: the drill bit's
or saw blade's exit on the far side causes chips of wood to be broken from the
edge (sometimes called a “tearout”).
(11) In slang,
a social function, especially one with extravagant catering.
(12) In slang,
a large or extravagant meal.
(13) In slang,
a sporting contest in which one side wins by an untypically wide margin; an overwhelming
victory.
(14) In slang,
an argument; an altercation.
(15) In
Filipino slang, a party or social gathering.
1825: A
creation of US colloquial English (the construct being blow + out) in the sense
of “outburst, brouhaha” (and in a subtle linguistic shift such events would
now, inter alia, be called a “blow-up”), from the verbal phrase, the reference
being to pressure in a steam engine.The
elements “blow” and “out” both have many senses and the compound blowout is
formed from the verb “blow” in the sense of “burst” or “explosion” plus the
verb “out” in the sense of “eject or expel; discharge; oust”.The verb blow was a pre-1000 form from the Middle
English verb blowen, from the Old
English blāwan (to blow, breathe,
make a current of air, inflate, sound), from the Proto-West Germanic blāan, from the Proto-Germanic blēaną (to blow), from primitive Indo-European
bhleh- (to swell, blow up) and may be compared with
the Old High German blāen, the Latin flō (to blow) and the Old Armenian բեղուն (bełun) (fertile).The verb
out was from the pre-900 Middle English adverb out, from the Old English ūt (out,
without, outside).It was cognate with the
Dutch uit, the German aus, the Old Norse & Gothic ūt and
was akin to the Sanskrit ud-.The Middle
English verb was outen, from the Old English ūtian (to put out) and cognate
with the Old Frisian ūtia.Blowout is a noun; the noun plural is blowouts
and the use as a verb non-standard.
The blowout
as a source of irony.
Blowout is used as a modifier.In retail commerce, a “blowout sale” is an
event advertised as offering greater than usual discounts, with a real or
notional intent to deplete the inventory.Unlike the various uses in hairdressing, blowouts can be undesirable
events and devices have been devised which prevent their unwanted occurrence:
In electrical engineering a blowout coil (carrying an electric current) serves
to deflect and thus extinguish an arc formed when the contacts of a switch part
to turn off the current and in the messy business of drilling for oil, a “blowout preventer” is placed at the surface interface of an oil well to prevent blowouts
by closing the orifice, allowing material to flow from the oil reservoir out
through the shaft.By contrast, in
hairdressing, variants of the blowout deliberately are part of the process and
in one use blowout is a generic descriptor of the taper fade (of which there
are several variants.There’s also the Brazilian
blowout, a method temporarily to achieve straightening the hair by sealing a
liquid keratin and preservative solution into the hair with a styling wand (hair iron).
1969 Ford Falcon
GTHO #60 (Fred Gibson (b 1941) & Barry “Bo” Seton (b 1936)) on its roof
after a blowout of the right-rear tyre, Mount Panorama, Bathurst,
Australia.
In motorsport
there have been some famous tyre blowouts and in Australia, in 1969, it was
exactly that which doomed the first appearance at Bathurst of the Falcon
GTHO, a car purpose-built for the event with “a relief map of the Mount Panorama
circuit in one hand and a bucket of Ford’s money in the other”.As it would prove in subsequent years, the
GTHO was ideal for the purpose but in 1969 the choice of some then exotic
US-made Goodyear racing tyres proved an innovation too far, one of several blowouts resulting in a Ford works car ending on its roof.Being an anti-clockwise circuit, it was the
right-had tyres which were subject to the highest loads and, built for racing,
the Phase I GTHOs were set-up to oversteer, further increasing the wear.For next year, Ford doubled down, the Phase
II GTHOs famous for their prodigious oversteer but this time the suspension was
tuned to suit the tyres.
As a
routine procedure, a “steam blowout” is carried out to remove the debris from superheaters
and re-heaters that accumulate during manufacturing and installation, the
purpose being to prevent damage to turbine blades and valves.In the usual course of operation, a “blowout”
is the release of excessive steam (ie pressure) via a “blow-off valve”.The meaning “abundant feast” dates from 1824
while that of “the bursting of an automobile tire” was in use by at least 1908.The alternative forms blow-out & blow out
are also in use, especially when applied to tyres and the un-hyphenated from
was chosen for the title of Blow Out (1981), a movie by US director Brian De
Palma (b 1940)in which the plot hinged on whether it was a gunshot which caused
a tyre to blow out.
Manfred von
Brauchitsch in Mercedes-Benz W25B (#7) in front of the pits at the end of 1935 German
Grand Prix, Nürbugring, 28 July 1935.
The left-rear tyre which suffered a last-lap blowout has disintegrated,
the car driven to fourth place on the rim for the final 7 km (4.4 miles).
The most
famous blowout however was that which happened on the last lap of the 1935 German
Grand Prix, run before 220,000 spectators in treacherously wet conditions on
the Nürbugring circuit in the Eifel mountains, then in its classic and
challenging pre-war configuration of 22.7 km (14.1 miles).The pre-race favourites were the then
dominant straight-8 Mercedes-Benz W25s and V16 Auto Union Type Bs (both generously
subsidized by the Nazi state) but, powerful, heavy and difficult to handle in
wet conditions, their advantages substantially were negated, allowing what
should have been the delicate but out-classed straight-8 Alfa Romeo P3s to be competitive and in the
gifted hands of the Italian Tazio Nuvolari (1892–1953), one won the race.The last lap was among the most dramatic in
grand prix history, the Mercedes-Benz W25B of Manfred von Brauchitsch
(1905–2003) holding a winning lead until a rear-tyre blowout, the car limping
to the finish-line on a bare rim to secure fourth place.Von Brauchitsch was the nephew of Generalfeldmarschall Walther von
Brauchitsch (1881–1948), the imposing but ineffectual Oberbefehlshaber (Commander-in-Chief) of OKH (Oberkommando des Heeres (the German army's high command)) between
1938-1941.
That there
should be a Vogue Czechoslovakia despite the state of Czechoslovakia ceasing to
be after 31 December 1992 may seem strange but the publication does exist and is
sold in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia.Launched in 2018, it was the first edition of Vogue published in either
country and the title was an obvious choice for Condé Nast because in addition
to the shared cultural heritage, there were no negative associations with the
name “Czechoslovakia”; so amicable was the 1992 separation of the two states it
was styled the “Velvet Divorce”.Other
attractions included branding & recognition (“Czechoslovakia” still enjoying
strong international recognition because the component elements of the name
have been retained by the new states so it has not passed into history like
“Yugoslavia” when it broke up amidst war and slaughter) and the economies of scale gained by producing a
single edition for two markets.That
reflects a general industry trend, the Czech Republic & Slovakia often
treated as a single media market because of their (1) linguistic similarity,
(2) cultural overlap and shared (though often troubled) history.It worked out well for Conde Nast because
they got a retro-modern identity evocative of a culturally rich past with a
contemporary twist.
Czechoslovakia
was created in 1918 when the Austro-Hungarian Empire of the Hapsburgs was
dissolved and in this form it existed until dismembered progressively,
beginning with the well-intentioned but shameful Munich Agreement in 1938.After World War II (1939-1945), Czechoslovakia
was re-established under its pre-1938 borders (with the exception of Carpathian
Ruthenia, which became part of Soviet Union) but its fate was sealed when in
1948 the Communist Party (approved by comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader
1924-1953) staged a coup and seized power, integrating the country behind the Iron Curtain into the
Moscow-centric Eastern Bloc joining Comecon (Council for Mutual Economic
Assistance, a kind of “Marshall Plan by rubles”) in 1955 and the Warsaw Pact (the
Soviet’s counterpoint to NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) in 1955.An uprising in 1968 (the so called “Prague Spring”)
seeking political & economic liberalization ruthlessly was crushed
by Russian tank formations sent by Leonid Brezhnev (1906–1982; Soviet leader
1964-1982) and it wasn’t until 1989, following the fall of the Berlin Wall,
the people peacefully overthrew Communist Party rule in what was
labelled the “Velvet Revolution”, thus the adoption of “Velvet Divorce” to
describe the unusually quiet (and not at all bloody) constitutional separation of
the two sovereign states.
Lindsay
Lohan in halter neck black dress with white bodice and stylized bow, her Upper
East Blowout under an outrageously extravagant tulle hat, Vogue Czechoslovakia,
May, 2025.
The Hairstyle
used for Lindsay Lohan’s Vogue cover shoot is known as the “Upper East Blowout”,
designed deliberately to evoke the glamour of the stars from the golden age of
Hollywood (essentially the 1930s-1950s) and the particular one worn by Ms Lohan
specifically was called an “Almond Milk Upper East Blowout”, a construct which seems an intriguing piece of subliminal marketing.“Almond Milk” was a obviously an allusion to
the color but the fluid is also a pleasingly expensive (an important
association in product-positioning) and trendy alternative to the mainstream
dairy offerings with obvious appeal to vegetarians, vegans and animal rights
activists.For some it can be a wise choice, nutritionists noting (unsweetened) almond milk is a good source of
vitamin-E and is lower in calories, protein, sugar and saturated fat while cow’s
milk is more nutrient-dense and higher in protein, naturally containing lactose
and saturated fats.Because of that, fortification
is essential for almond milk to match dairy milk’s micro-nutrient content but
for those choosing on the basis of their dietary regime (vegans, the lactose
intolerant etc), unsweetened, fortified almond can be a healthy option. The “Upper East Side” element is a reference
to the neighborhood in the borough of New York City’s (NYC) Manhattan.Because of the vagueness in NYC’s neighborhood
boundaries (they’re not officially gazetted), opinions vary as to where the
place begins and ends but in the popular (and certainly the international)
imagination, “Upper East Side” is most associated with places such as Fifth Avenue
and Central Park which lie to the west. While New Yorkers may not always know exactly what the Upper East Side is, they have no doubts about which parts definitely are NOT UES. Long regarded as the richest and thus most prestigious of the New York boroughs,
by the late nineteenth century informally it was known as the “silk stocking district”,
the idea reflected still in the desirable real estate, expensive shops along
Madison Avenue and its cluster of cultural institutions including the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Frick Collection and the Guggenheim Museum.
Jessica
Rabbit in characteristic pose (left) and Lindsay Lohan with "almond milk Upper
East Blowout" hairstyle in black leather corset with silk laces and stainless
steel eyelets.
Technically,
the hairstyle is a “blowout” because historically the look was achieved with a combination of product & blow dryer; that’s still how
most are done.Because the really dramatic
blowouts demand significant volume (ideally of “thick” hair), it can’t be
achieved by everyone in their natural state and for Ms Lohan’s cover shot celebrity
hairstylist Dimitris Giannetos (b 1983, Instagram: @dimitrishair) engineered
things using a wig by Noah Scott (b 1998, Instagram: @whatwigs) of What Wigs, the industry’s go-to source for extravagant hair-pieces.The use of “almond milk” to describe a shade
of blonde was a bit opportunistic and would seem very similar to hues known
variously as “light cool”, “light golden”, “champagne”, “golden honey” & “light
ombre” but product differentiation is there to be grabbed and it seems to have
caught on so it’ll be interesting to see if it gains industry support and
endures to become one of the “standard blondes”.So the linguistic effect is intended to be
accumulative, Mr Giannetos calling his “Upper East blowout” “an homage” to the New
York of the popular imagination and some of the hairstyles which appeared in
the publicity shots of golden age Hollywood stars, memorably captured by the
depiction of Jessica Rabbit in Robert Zemeckis’s (b 1952) live/animated toon hybrid
movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988).Think luxuriant waves meet old money.
However, a Vogue
cover shot in a well-lit studio and created using a custom-made wig, styled by an expert
hairdresser is one thing but to replicate the look IRL (in real life) is
another because, despite what shampoo advertisements would have us believe, “high-gloss”
rarely just happens and even with a wig, to achieve the required fullness and
visual volume usually demands what needs to be understood as structural engineering. Usually, this will necessitate “…extensions
set in pin curls, then brushed out meticulously…” before being shaped with the appropriate
product as a device. Expectations need
to be realistic because with each change in camera angle, it can be necessary
to “re-blow and re-style”; while it’s not quite that each strand needs to be massages into place for each shot, that can be true of each wave and just because the hair
looks soft and bouncy in the images on a magazine’s glossy pages, the use of
fudge or moose to achieve the look can render locks IRL remarkable rigid.