Sterling

Sterling (pronounced stur-ling)

(1) Of, relating to, or noting British currency.

(2) Someone or something thoroughly excellent in quality; genuine and reliable.

(3) The standard of fineness for gold and silver coin in the United Kingdom, 0.91666 for gold and 0.500 for silver (also called sterling silver: silver having a fineness of 0.925, now used especially in the manufacture of table utensils, jewelry etc).

(4) A former English silver penny (about 240 of which weighed 1lb (0.453kg), thus setting the value of the British pound sterling, a measure which lasted until decimal conversion in 1971).

1250–1300: From the Middle English, possibly under the influence of the Old English steorra (star), from the Proto-West Germanic sterrō, variant of sternō, from the Proto-Germanic sternǭ, from primitive Indo-European hzstḗr.  The Middle English sterling, sterlinge, sterlynge & starling remain however of uncertain origin.  It may well be from sterling (starling (the bird)) which at one time was engraved on one quarter of the coin or perhaps from the Middle English sterre ((star) + -ling) (as in shilling), as some early Norman silver pennies featured stars.  Sterling is a noun & adjective, sterlingly is an adverb and sterlingness is a noun; the noun plural is sterlings. 

Disputes

Lindsay Lohan wearing sterling silver Evil Eye necklace, Los Angeles, April 2011.

Not all etymologists accept the orthodox view, noting the starred coins were not especially common among Anglo-Saxon currency and the stars on them tended to be small.  The alternative theory is that sterling was from the Old French estedre (stater) and the meaning broadened by the 1560s to "money having the quality of the sterling," and by circa 1600 to "English money in general", operating as an adjective from the early fifteenth century.  From the 1640s came the general sense of "capable of standing a test" (as a sound currency would).  The small silver coin (the sterling) was instrumental also in the origin of “pound” as a measure of money, a pound sterling being originally "a pound weight of sterlings" equal to about 240 coins.  Still more imaginative is the theory that the Hanseatic League was the origin for both the definition and manufacture for in its name is the German name for the Baltic (Ostsee (East Sea)) and from this the Baltic merchants were called Osterlings, or Easterlings.  In 1260, Henry III (1207–1272; King of England 1216-1272) granted them a charter of protection and land for their Kontor, the Steelyard of London, which by the 1340s was also called Easterlings Hall, or Esterlingeshalle and because the value of League's money tended to be more stable than that of England, English traders often stipulated their debts should be in pounds of the Easterlings which commercial practice contracted to "'sterling".  Support for this etymology is limited.

Tea Tray

Tea Tray (pronounced tee-trey)

(1) A tray used to carry a tea service.

(2) A tray of this type used for related purposes.

(3) The accepted descriptor of certain rear spoilers on some Porsches.

Mid-late 1600s: Trays in one form or another are probably one of mankind’s earliest inventions and the creation of the “tea tray” reflected the popularity of the brewed leaf and the place it assumed in polite society as the rich were able to purchase elaborate “tea services” (cups, saucers, milk jugs, tea pots, strainers et al).  In England and Europe, the “taking of tea” in such circles was sometimes formalized    

The noun tea entered English in the late sixteenth century, from the Dutch thee, from the Amoy (Xiamen) dialect of Hokkien 茶 (written both as “tê” & “t’e”), akin to the Chinese chá, from Old Chinese, thought ultimately from the primitive Sino-Tibetan s-la (leaf, tea).  It was the merchants of the Dutch East India Company (based in what is modern-day Indonesia) who after 1610 brought the leaf (and thus the word “tea”) to England and other parts of Western Europe.  The traders obtained the leaf in Amoy (the Malay teh was shipped along the same trade routes). The doublets chai and cha are from the same root.  Served in Paris by at least 1635, tea was introduced in England by 1644.  The spelling “tea” wasn’t at first the default, the variations including tay, thea, tey & tee and the popular early pronunciation seem to have been to rhyme with obey, the familiar modern tee not predominate until the late eighteenth century.  The Russian chai, the Persian cha, the Greek tsai, the Arabic shay and the Turkish çay all came overland from the Mandarin form.  The meaning “afternoon meal at which tea is served” dates from 1738 and is still used in certain regions to mean “evening meal” in the sense other use “dinner” (historically, for these folk “dinner was served around midday).  In US use, tea was slang for “marijuana” during the 1930s (apparently an allusion to it being often brewed in boiling water) but an onrush of newer slang rendered it obsolete as early as the early 1950s.

Lindsay Lohan in The Parent Trap (1998) with silver tea tray.

Tray (a small, typically rectangular or round, flat, and rigid object upon which things are carried) predates the eleventh century and was from the Middle English treye, from the Old English trēġ & trīġ (flat wooden board with a low rim), from the Proto-West Germanic trauwi, from the Proto-Germanic trawją or traujam (wooden vessel), from the primitive Indo-European dóru, a variant of the root drewo- (be firm, solid, steadfast (with also the specialized senses  “tree; wood” and derivatives referring to objects made of wood. The primary sense may have been “wooden vessel”).  It was cognate with the Old Norse treyja (carrier), the Old Swedish trø (wooden measure for grain & corn), the Low German Treechel (dough trough), the Ancient Greek δρουίτη (drouítē) (tub, vat) and the Sanskrit द्रोण (droṇa) (trough); trough and tree were influenced by the same sources.  The alternatives teatray and tea-tray are both accepted as standard forms but both are usually listed as “rare”, the former especially so.  Tea tray is a noun; the noun plural is tea trees.

George IV sterling silver tea set, hallmark from the silver workshop of Rebecca Emes (widow of silversmith John Emes (circa 1765-1810)) & Edward Bernard who were in partnership between 1808-1829.

The pieces are rendered in a melon shaped form with a textured leaf inspired frieze at the top register, rising from embellished shell form feet.  Originally a four piece set (teapot, coffee pot, cream jug and open sugar bowl) more than a century later a Canadian owner commissioned (through Birks (Canada)) a matching muffin dish.  The trademark on the muffin dish is that of Ellis & Co, Empire Works, Great Hampton Street & Hall Street, Birmingham (hallmarked 1937).  The tea tray is a sterling silver “George III” tea tray by Solomon Hougham,

High tea at the Savoy, London: High teas are events where ladies meet to talk about their feelings.

Although there are some striking modernist creations, the most sought after teas sets are those of porcelain or sterling silver, antique versions of the latter more common simply because they are less fragile, lasting centuries with only minimal care.  The first tea sets seem to have been the simple porcelain containers made in China during the Han Dynasty (206–220 BC).  From these humble, functional beginnings came eventually the intricately designed services of the eighteenth & nineteenth centuries which included not only the teapot and tea tray but also cups, sugar bowls with tongs, milk jugs, small plates for lemon slices and a remarkable variety of strainers and sieves to filter out pieces of the leaves.  In the sixteenth century porcelain tea sets arrived with the leaf and like many innovations from the East, consumption was originally limited to the rich who soon began to object to scalding their fingers on the handle-less cups; cups with handles (surely a marker of civilization) soon became essential in any drawing room.  Less pleasingly, adding milk and sugar also became fashionable so sugar bowls and milk jug (creamers) were added to sets along with the necessary teaspoons.  The tea craze thus influenced furniture, the “tea table” the item on which tea was served, sometime a place for the tea tray to sit but used also for more elaborate events which included cakes and such; this was the origin of the modern “high tea” which became such a profitable side-line for hotels.  Sterling silver tea sets began to appear in the late eighteenth century although it would be some decades before they attained great popularity, aided by Queen Victoria’s (1819–1901; Queen of the UK 1837-1901) fondness for tea and although the influence of the British royalty on the fashions of society was often negligible, in this she seems to have led the way.

Forks in evolution: The ducktail, the whale tail and the tea tray

There was much thoughtful engineering which made the 1973 Porsche 911 Carrera RS 2.7 such a formidable car in competition both in terms of what was taken out (most creature comforts) and what was put in (horsepower, light weight components and a braking system said to cost about as much as a new Volkswagen Beetle) but what caught the eye of most were the lurid graphics along the sides (Yellow, Blue, Green, Red and Blood Orange among the choices) and the spoiler which sprouted from the rear; it came to be called the “Ducktail” (bürzel in German) and was the subject of Patent 2238704: “The invention relates to a passenger car with a rear spoiler – one preferably mounted between side panels - and an aerodynamic device in the rear to increase the dynamic rear wheel pressure.”

1973 Porsche 911 Carrera RS 2.7 during wind tunnel testing of the Ducktail spoiler (left) and a production version with blue graphics (right).

The 911 Carrera RS 2.7 was a homologation special and Porsche planned to build only the 500 identical road-legal versions examples demanded to qualify the thing to be eligible competition under the Group 4 (Gran Turismo) regulations.  Although its 210 hp (156 kW) doesn’t sound impressive fifty years on (and even in the era there were many more powerful machines), weighing a svelte 960 KG (3086 lb), it could reach 100km/h (60 mph) in 5.8 seconds and touch 245 km/h (152 mph).  Given the performance, the Ducktail was a necessity to ensure there was at speed no dangerous lift at the rear but the factory was soon compelled to issue a bulletin warning that anyone fitting a ducktail to any other 911 would also have to fit the factory's front spoiler because, without the front unit, the rear down-force would become “excessive”, lifting the nose, the result: instant instability.  As it turned out, demand was greater than expected and eventually 1580 cars were built, many with a few of the creature comforts restored and today the 1973 Carrera is among the most collectable of the 911s; sales over US$2 million have been recorded.

1974 Porsche 911 Carrera RS 3.0 with whale tail.

The delicate lines of the 911 were spoiled when the 1974 models were released, the “impact” bumpers grafted on to satisfy US regulations an unhappy addition but in fairness to Porsche, their implementation was aesthetically more successful than many, notably their Stuttgart neighbors Mercedes-Benz which appeared to have taken for inspiration the naval rams once fitted beneath the waterlines of battleships and there to sink smaller vessels by ramming; at least on warships they couldn’t be seen.  The Ducktail however survived the legislative onslaught and became available on the new Carrera coupe (fitted as standard in North American markets) which was a pure road car without any of the compromises which made its raw-boned predecessor so engaging.

Later in the year however, a variant of the rear spoiler evolved for the 911 Carrera RS 3.0, this time rendered as a larger, flatter piece with rubber edges, the trailing edge rakishly upturned; it came to be called the “Whale Tail.”  Actually to speak of the Whale Tail as an item is a little misleading because the evolution continued and it was only the early examples which used the simple construction with a recessed grille which tracked the line of the engine cover, blending into the uninterrupted flat expanse of the spoiler itself.  By 1976 the (pre-intercooler) Turbo Carrera (the 930, the so-called “widow-maker”) was fitted with a Whale Tail with a second grille inset into the spoiler itself and to complicate the parts catalogue further, the secondary grille on the RoW (rest of the world) cars was smaller than that fitted to vehicles destined for North America; again the increasingly rigid US regulations the cause.  As the years went by, the Whale Tail continued to change.

The Whale Tail (left) and the Tea Tray (right)

By 1978, there was another evolutionary fork, the 911 Turbo’s spoiler becoming the “Tea Tray”, distinguished by a continuous raised rubber lip around the sides and rear edge.  The recessed grilles were replaced by a large, inset louvered plastic grille, needed to accommodate the additional height of the intercooler while the base of the assembly became a wide pedestal mounted through the engine cover and although there were detail changes, the Tea Tray was fitted to 930s (and atmospheric cars with the M491 option) until the retirement of the long-serving (the 1974-1989 911s often called “G Series” although technically that should apply only to the 1974 model year production but such is the visual similarity the use persists) platform in 1989.

Herr Professor Ferdinand Porsche (1875–1951) explaining the Volkswagen (which as the range proliferated would come to be called the "Type 1") Beetle to Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) during the ceremony marking the laying of the foundation stone at the site of the Volkswagen factory, Fallersleben, Wolfsburg in Germany's Lower Saxony region, 26 May 1938 (which Christians mark as the Solemnity of the Ascension of Jesus Christ, commemorating the bodily Ascension of Christ to Heaven) (left).  The visit would have been a pleasant diversion for Hitler who was at the time immersed in planning for the Nazi's takeover of Czechoslovakia and later the same day, during a secret meeting, the professor would display a scale-model of an upcoming high-performance version (right). 

Tea Tray on 930 Turbo Cabriolet (left) and Taco on 996.1 GT3 (right)

The Ducktail, Whale Tail and Tea Tray remain the best known of the Porsche spoilers but there were others including the “Swan Neck” but the most photogenic was the “Taco”.  It was introduced on the 911 GT3 (RoW 996.1) and was so admired the factory later made it available as part of an optional aero-kit.  The nickname is of course an allusion to the Mexican culinary staple, the resemblance quite obvious when viewed in profile although it has also been dubbed the “Pacman”.  The 996.1 GT3, production of which was limited to 1868 units, was first displayed at the 1999 Frankfurt Motor Show and was one of the dual-purpose 911s (for road and track, the GT3 badge appearing several times since) and like all the spoilers, the Taco was functional and it needed to be, the 300 lbs (136 KG) downforce generated at the top speed of 304 km/h (189 mph) required to ensure the thing remained in contact with planet Earth.

Spoilers and other aerodynamic aids can be re-purposed.  A young lady with a tea tray (with coffee pot) (left) and laundry hanging on a the wing of a 1969 Dodge Daytona (right).  In period, between stints on the tracks, drivers would hang their sweat-laden racing suits on the wings of Daytonas and Plymouth Superbirds.

Sovereign

Sovereign (pronounced sov-rin (U), sov-er-in (non U) or suhv-rin)

(1) A monarch; a king, queen, or other supreme ruler.

(2) A person who has supreme power or authority.

(3) A group or body of persons or a state having sovereign authority.

(4) A gold coin of the United Kingdom, the value set at 22s 6d in the fifteenth century and re-valued to £1 sterling; it was removed from circulation after 1914.  In UK slang, “sov” (“sovs” the more commonly used plural) endures among certain classes to describe £1 sterling.   

(5) Belonging to or characteristic of a sovereign or sovereign authority; royal.

(6) Supreme; preeminent; indisputable.

(7) In clinical pharmacology, of a medicine or remedy, extremely potent or effective (archaic).

(8) A former Australian gold coin, minted 1855–1931, with a face value of £1 Australian.

(9) A large champagne bottle with the capacity of about 25 liters, equivalent to 33⅓ standard bottles.

(10) Any butterfly of the tribe Nymphalini, or genus Basilarchia, as the ursula and the viceroy.

(11) In regional UK, slang, a large, garish ring.

1250-1300: From the Middle English soverain (alteration by influence of reign) & sovereyn, from the Old French soverain (sovereign, lord, ruler (noun use of the adjective meaning "highest, supreme, chief")) (which exists in modern French as souverain), from the Vulgar Latin superānus (chief, principal (and source also of the Italian soprano & sovrano and the Spanish soberano)) from the classical Latin super (over; above) from the primitive Indo-European uper (over).  The spelling was influenced by folk-etymology association with reign and Milton spelled it sovran, perhaps a nod to the Italian sovrano and scholars caution that though widely accepted, the link to the Vulgar Latin superānus is unattested.  The now obsolete medical sense of “remedies or medicines potent in a high degree" was from the fourteenth century.

In law, there are strands of meaning:  In a constitutional monarchy, a king or queen can be known as the sovereign while the state itself is sovereign and sovereignty is said often to reside in some elected assembly which, being representative of the people, can be said to derive it from them.  The noun sovereignty emerged in the late fourteenth century to designate "pre-eminence".  It was from the Anglo-French sovereynete, from the Old French souverainete, from soverain and referenced "authority, rule, supremacy of power or rank".  The modern meaning as “sovereign state” which is defined literally as "existence as an independent state" is from 1715 and remains an exact meaning, the state of statehood a binary in that a state is either independent (and thus sovereign) or not.  Attempts therefore by sub-state entities like defined regions of federal states to asset sovereignty under the guise of state’s rights are usually doomed to fail either because, like the Australian states, they were non-sovereign colonies prior to federation or have always been part of a larger whole.  That is not to say that powers and authority cannot be shared and some heads of it may exclusively be vested in a sub-national construct but that is a constitutional arrangement within a sovereign state; sovereignty is indivisible.  The concept of “personal sovereignty” invoked by those resisting such thing as COVID-19 related face-mask or vaccine mandates is drawn from the theories of natural law but has no basis in positive law.

Lindsay Lohan, Vanity Fair photo shoot, Marina del Rey, California, October 2010.  The location was the Sovereign, a motor yacht built in 1961 for the film star Judy Garland (1922-1969).

The noun suzerain (sovereign, ruler) dating from 1807, was from French suzerain, from the fourteenth century Old French suzerain (noun use of the adjective meaning "sovereign but not supreme") from the adverb sus (up, above) on analogy of soverain.  The Old French sus is from the Vulgar Latin susum, from the Classical Latin sursum (upward, above), a contraction of subversum, from subvertere.  It was the French suzerain which vested the English sovereign it’s meaning in the political sense.  In international it came to mean a “dominant nation or state that has control over the international affairs of a subservient state which otherwise has domestic autonomy”, a sense similar but different from “client state” or relationships such as those of Moscow to the states of the former Warsaw Pact.  Historically the suzerain was the feudal landowner to whom vassals were forced to pledge allegiance.

In May 1910, European royalty gathered in London for the funeral of Edward VII and among the mourners were nine reigning kings.  This is believed the only photograph ever taken of nine sovereign kings and would be the last gathering of the old European order before the Great War.  The photograph circulated widely in both monochrome and sepia tones and recently has been colorized.  Notable absentees include Tsar Nicholas II of Russia (overthrown in 1917), Victor Emmanuel III of Italy and Emperor Franz Joseph (died in 1916, the dual monarchy abolished and the empire dissolved in 1918) of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Standing, left to right: King Haakon VII of Norway, Tsar Ferdinand of the Bulgarians, King Manuel II of Portugal and the Algarve, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and Prussia, King George I of the Hellenes and King Albert I of the Belgians.

Seated, left to right: King Alfonso XIII of Spain, King George V of the United Kingdom and King Frederick VIII of Denmark.

Norway – Monarchy still going.

Bulgaria – Monarchy overthrown in 1946.

Portugal – Monarchy overthrown in 1910.

Germany – Monarchy extinct since the act of abdication in 1918.

Greece – Monarchy overthrown in 1924, restored in 1935, overthrown in 1973.

Belgium – Monarchy still going and notably more predictable than the local parliamentary politics in that while it’s often not possible for the politicians to agree on who should be prime-minister, the line of succession to the throne is not disputed.

Spain – Monarchy overthrown in 1931, re-established in 1975 and still going (with the odd scandal).  One quirk of Spanish constitutional history and one about which not all lawyers agree (political scientists and historians finding the arguments either tiresome or amusing) is that despite the proclamation of a republic in 1931, between then and 1975 when the monarchy was said to have been restored, Spain may anyway have continued to be a monarchy because, whatever the outcome on the streets or later Franco's battlefields, there may never have been executed the necessary legal mechanism of dissolution.

When the king (Alfonso XIII 1886–1941; King of Spain 1886-1931) went (with a fair chunk of his nation's exchequer) into exile in 1931, he departed the soil but did not abdicate which most regard of no constitutional significance, the subsequent declaration of the Second Spanish Republic thought sufficient and most agree this abolished both monarchy and kingdom, sovereignty residing with the republican state which General Franco (1892-1975; Caudillo of Spain 1939-1975) took over in 1939.  In curious twist however, in 1947 Franco re-established Spain as a Kingdom which he ruled as head of state of the Kingdom of Spain through the Law of Succession.  A sovereign kingdom thus but without a king on the throne on which, figuratively at least, Franco sat until peacefully he died in 1975.  A king then returned to the kingdom because, again amending the Law of Succession, Franco appointed Alfonso XIII's grandson, Juan Carlos I de Borbón (b 1938; King of Spain 1975-2014, styled Rey Emérito (King Emeritus) since) as his successor and he assumed the throne in 1975, the nature of the new, constitutional monarchy, promulgated in 1978 after a referendum.  Despite the fine technical points raised, most agree Spain was a republic 1931-1947, the kingdom was restored in 1947 and monarchical rule has existed since 1975, its constitutional form assumed in 1978.  Sovereignty was probably vested successively in the republic (1931-1939), Franco personally (1939-1975), Juan Carlos personally 1975-1978 and the Spanish state since.    

United Kingdom – Monarchy still going though not without the odd squabble at the margins.  Although having undergone the occasional change in dynastic management, it has since the ninth century existed continuously except for the uncharacteristic republican interregnum (1649-1660).  Territorially, it has been a shifting jigsaw, comprised of various permutations of all or part of England, Ireland, Scotland & Wales, the odd temporary European augmentation and of course the colonies, territories and Dominions linked to the old British Empire and the still extant Commonwealth.  The relationship between the monarchy and the Commonwealth varies from state to state and even in those independent states where the UK monarch remains the head of state, sovereignty in almost all cases resides wholly somewhere in the local political construct.

Dating from 21 April 1926, a two-part prediction was made by Henry "Chips" Channon (1897-1958), a US born resident of the UK who became a member of parliament (1935-1958) and in his last years, a knight of the realm (although the peerage he coveted eluded him.  In the way of such things, in many ways he became more English than many Englishmen.  On the day of the birth of the future Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022; Queen of the UK 1952-2022) he noted in his diary that he expected the child to become "Queen of England and perhaps the last sovereign".  Channon thought the Prince of Wales (Prince Edward 1894–1972; briefly (in 1936) King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom & Emperor of India), whom he knew, to be so temperamentally unsuitable for the role of king he would either renounce his claim to the throne or abandon it once crowned.  His first part of the prediction proved accurate although he was diffident about the second and the monarchy has thus fare endured.  Channon's diaries, published in the 1960s (in heavily redacted form) were amusing enough but the (mostly) unexpurgated editions (in three volumes 2021-2022) are as juicy as any published in the past century.

Denmark – Monarchy still going.

That early in the twenty-first century a dozen European nations (Andorra, Belgium, Denmark, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom & Vatican City (the pope the only absolute sovereign and the city-state a theocracy)) remain monarchies would have surprised some.  In 1948, the already embattled (and soon to be overthrown) King Farouk (1920–1965; King of Egypt 1936-1952) gloomily predicted that soon only five kings would remain: "The King of England and the kings of hearts, clubs, diamonds and spades".  While prescient about his own fate, he was wrong in that but while there are certainly fewer than there were, the institution, while on paper a pretty silly basis on which to depend for a head of state, has proved durable in those cases where royal families have been sufficiently adaptable to evolve into reliable ciphers and become frequent, if sometimes unscripted, content providers for pop culture platforms.

End of the Jaguar 3.8 era.  Jim Clark and Jack Sears in the Ford Galaxie 427s ahead of Graham Hill and Roy Salvadori in Jaguar 3.8s, Guards Trophy Race, Brands Hatch, 1963.

A blend of the ancient and modern which characterized much of what Jaguar produced until well into the twenty-first century, the Daimler Sovereign was the final evolution of the Jaguar 2.4, introduced in 1955 as the “small” car of the range and known retrospectively as the Mark 1 after 1959 when a revised model was released as the Mark 2.  The bigger-engined versions of the Mark 2 were the outstanding sports saloons of their day and dominated production car racing until the new generation of fast Fords, the Lotus Cortina, the Mustang and, somewhat improbably, the big Galaxies began to prevail but, as road cars, the power delivered by the 3.8 litre XK-Six was probably close to the limit of the platform’s capability.  This was addressed in 1963 when a version of the more capable independent rear suspension introduced in 1961 on the Mark X and E-Type (XK-E) was grafted to a slightly enlarged structure and released as the S-Type.  The new sophistication was appreciated but the unusual combination of styling techniques was less admired, the front and rear generally felt discordant and tellingly, the Mark 2 was not discontinued and continued to sell well.

1963 Jaguar S-Type 3.8.

The aesthetic objections were noted and in 1966, a new nose, reminiscent of that on the Mark X, was grafted on to the S-Type and the result, while clearly not modernist in the manner of a contemporary like the NSU Ro80, was generally acknowledged to be more harmonious.  The new model, acknowledging the fitment for the first time in the platform of the 4.2 litre XK-Six, was called the 420 and, in a (brief) attempt to create a naming convention with some familial relationship, the big Mark X was re-named 420G and the Mark 2 became the 240 or 340 depending on engine capacity, the 3.8 litre version discontinued although a few were built to special order (albeit still badged as 340s).  Strange as it seems, for a number of reasons, the 240, 340, S-Type and 420 all remained available until all were replaced by the XJ6, introduced in 1968.  Only the 420G received a stay of execution, the flagship lingering until 1970 by which time production had slowed to a trickle.

1968 Daimler Sovereign.

Launched simultaneously in 1966 with the 420 and around 7% more expensive was the Daimler Sovereign.  The Sovereign was essentially the 420 with all the Jaguar’s optional extras fitted as standard, a higher grade of timber and leather for the interior fittings and the traditional details distinguishing the marquee, most notably the elegant fluting atop the grill and the rear number plate valance.  Unfortunately, unlike the earlier Daimler version of the Mark 2 (later named 250 to align with the 240 & 340) which was powered by Daimler’s fine 2.5 litre V8, the Sovereign was mechanically identical to the 420, the opportunity to create something special by using the 4.6 litre version of the V8 not taken, the same mistake which may have doomed the Mark X and 420G to their indifferent sales performance; although excessively large for many markets, a V8 Mark X would have been ideal in the US.  Nonetheless, although nothing more than a fancy Jaguar, it was a success and despite the higher price, Sovereign sales totaled more than six-thousand, the 420 managing only four-thousand odd more.

1967 Daimler Sovereign.

The 420-based Sovereign continued to be offered well into 1969 because the high demand for the XJ6 meant there was not immediately the capacity to produce a Daimler version of the new car.  It was finally retired in 1969 (the last survivor of the platform introduced in 1955) when an XJ6-based Sovereign was released in 2.8 and 4.2 litre versions, notionally replacing the Mark 2-based 250 and the previous Sovereign respectively.  Jaguar continued to use the Sovereign name on the six-cylinder Daimlers until 1983 when they were re-badged simply as “Daimler” although the name would for years be applied to various up-market XJs, especially in overseas markets where others held the trademark to the Daimler name.  When equipped with the Jaguar's 5.3-litre V12, the Sovereign was named Double Six, a revival of a name Daimler used between 1926-1938 for an earlier twelve cylinder model.  The Sovereign name was the choice of the Jaguar board; although the chairman had suggested “Royal” it seemed he was persuaded Sovereign was a better fit.

1976 Daimler Sovereign two door.

Most memorable of the Sovereigns were the elegant coupés offered between 1975-1977; the factory insisting they were a “two door” and not a coupé.  The vinyl-roof, one of the many unfortunate aspects of style which so afflicted the 1970s, attracted criticism even at the time of release, the suspicion being it might have been glued on to hide some rather obviously hasty welding used to create the lovely roofline, a expedient Plymouth adopted in 1970 for the Superbird and Ford Australia repeated on the Landau three years later.  However, it transpired the necessity was not the finish of the sheet metal but the inability of the paints of the era to accommodate the slight flexing of the roof caused by using the same gauge of steel on the pillar-less coupé as the saloon which was a little more rigid.  With the availability of modern paints, many have since taken the opportunity to ditch the vinyl and allow the lovely lines to appear unspoiled.  Being produced under the ownership of British Leyland, predictability, roof-flex wasn’t the only flaw.  The sealing of the frameless windows was never perfected so wind noise is more intrusive than the saloon and, over time, the heavy doors will sag, Jaguar using the same hinges as those which supported the saloon’s smaller, lighter pressings.  

Picture of the sovereign on a 1963 mock-up of the proposed Australian Royal.

Royal as a name seemed not to be popular in other places (although Chrysler did use it for a while and it's applied to a few alcoholic beverages), earlier rejected in the antipodes as the name for a new legal tender.  In early 1963, Robert Menzies (1894–1978; Prime-Minister of Australia 1939-1941 & 1949-1966) had said Australia would adopt a decimal currency and later in the year it was announced its name would be “the royal”.  Said to be the preferred choice of the prime-minister himself, cabinet had been persuaded, presumably because the other suggestions including "kwid", "champ", "deci-mate", "austral" and "emu", were thought worse.  Proving that social media isn’t necessary for public opinion to become quickly known, within days the derision expressed was enough to convince the government to change.  The cabinet documents (released in 1993 under the (then) thirty-year rule) recorded the treasurer telling the cabinet “…royal had been a terrible mistake” and in September, it was announced the pound would be replaced by the Australian dollar; it was introduced on Valentine’s Day 1966.

Currency matters had troubled Menzies before.  He’d been much criticized in 1952 when, upon Elizabeth II’s accession, the inscription FD abruptly was omitted from Australian coins.  FD (Defender of the Faith (the Latin Fidei Defensor (feminine Fidei Defensatrix)), had been in use since 1507 when the title "Protector and Defender of the Christian Faith" was granted by Pope Julius II (1443–1513; pope 1503-1513) to James IV of Scotland (James VI and I (1566–1625) King of Scotland as James VI (1567-1625) & King of England and Ireland as James I (1603-1625)) and had been inscribed on all English (and subsequently UK) coins minted since the Medici Pope Leo X (1475–1521; pope 1513-1521) in 1521 conferred it on Henry VIII (1491–1547; King of England (and Ireland after 1541) 1509-1547).  A grateful Leo had been most impressed by Henry’s book Assertio Septem Sacramentorum (Defense of the Seven Sacraments), a powerful assertion of both the sacramental nature of marriage and the supremacy of the pope, his words at the time celebrated in Rome as the "Henrician Affirmation".  Although Henry would go on to interpret the marriage ritual, papal authority and the defense of the faith in his own way, FD nevertheless remains on the UK's to this day.  There, it is not without constitutional significance, the sovereign, Queen Elizabeth, being supreme governor (ie the titular head) of the Church of England, the nation's established (ie the official state) church.  

A year is a long time in politics: the 1953 & 1954 Australian florins.

In the Australia of 1952, then a country still marked by the sectarian divide between Catholic and Protestant, there was much outrage, Anglicans calling it an affront to Her Majesty and their church and nothing but a cynical ploy by a (Presbyterian) prime-minister to curry favor with Roman Catholics in search of their votes.  Surprisingly to some, prominent among the affronted was the former high court judge, Dr HV Evatt (1894–1965; leader of the opposition 1951-1960) who, although condemned by the right-wing fanatics of the day as the “arch defender of the godless atheistic communists” was a staunch Anglican who proved a doughty opponent of the change.  It at the time was quite a furore with questions in parliament, strident editorials, letters (of outrage) to the editor (the social media of the era) and ecclesiastical denouncements from a number of reverend and very reverend gentlemen.  Menzies relented and intervened personally to ensure the mint secured Fidei Defensor dies in time for a commemorative florin (the modern 20c coin, then often referred to as "two bob") to be struck for the 1954 royal visit.

Vegan

Vegan (pronounced vee-guhn or vey-guhn)

(1) A vegetarian who omits all animal products from their diet and does not use animal-based or sourced products such as leather or wool.

(2) Someone from Vega, towns in Scandinavia, the US or (mostly in fiction) other places so named.

(3) A collective name adopted in the 1980s by fans of the singer-songwriter, Suzanne Vega (b 1959).

1944: A modern English construct, veg (contraction of vegetable) + an, coined by Donald Watson (1910-2005) to distinguish those who abstain from all animal products (eggs, cheese, etc) from those who merely refuse to eat the animals.  The -an suffix occurred originally in adjectives borrowed from Latin, formed from nouns denoting places (Roman; urban) or persons (Augustan) but now productively forms English adjectives by extension of the Latin pattern.  The suffix an, and its variant ian also occurs in a set of personal nouns, mainly loanwords from French, denoting one who engages in, practices, or works with the referent of the base noun (historian; theologian); this usage especially productive with nouns ending in ic (electrician; logician; technician ).  Vegan is a noun & adjective, vegansexual is a noun and veganism, vegansexualism & veganist are nouns; the noun plural is vegans.

Donald Watson was an English animal rights advocate who founded The Vegan Society in 1944.  Although the actual establishment of the society was either 5 or 12 November (the records are contradictory), World Vegan Day is each year celebrated on 1 November.  In 1984, a dissident faction broke from the group and formed The Movement for Compassionate Living and ever since, veganism has been a contested space, the factions including (1) radicals who pursue direct action against the slaughter industry and its customers, (2) purists who exclude to whatever extent possible the presence of animal products in their lives while variously tolerating, ignoring or disapproving of those who don't and (3), vegetarians who can't resist nice handbags and shoes.  Latest vegan news here. 

The Sexual Politics of Meat

While still an undergraduate at the University of Rochester, Carol J Adams (b 1951) was instrumental in having women's studies courses added to the syllabus.  A long-time vegan, she later gained a masters from Yale Divinity School but her core interest remained feminism and in 1990, building on earlier essays, she published The Sexual Politics of Meat, an exploration of her vegetarian-feminist, pacifist, intersectional critical theory.

Her most novel concept was the "absent referent", used to explain the consumption of meat and the objectification of women in pornography, the referent literally absent in the case of the life of the dismembered beast being consumed; metaphorically in the oppression of the life of the subjects of pornography.  Adams constructed parallels within the patriarchal system, men’s sense of entitlement over animals similar to their varying expectations of the right to abuse, exploit, or degrade women in the use of their bodies.  Structurally she noted, language is replete with terms and phrases which interchangeably can be used to describe either women or animals with a hierarchy of use based on speciesism depending on men’s perceptions of degrees of female attractiveness.  All such use she claimed, regardless of how else it could be classified, is hate speech.

Most graphic was the notion of the pornography of meat which drew a visual comparison between meat advertised for sale on shelves and the portrayal of women in various media; two different forms of consumption which use the same techniques of production and distribution.  Within the western consumer model, Adams found a construct of white male supremacy which relegated all others, different races, non-human animals and women, to inferior roles or places.

Linder Sterling in meat dress (1982).

Linder Sterling (b 1954) is a radical feminist artist.  In November 1982, as part of a punk performance in Manchester’s Haçienda club, she appeared in a dress made from meat, while packages of leftover raw meat wrapped in pornography were distributed to the audience.  The performance culminated with a quite aggressive critique of the exploitation of women which, at the time, seems genuinely to have been confronting.

Lady Gaga in meat dress (2010).

By 2010, the "waves" had made feminism diffuse, the inherently post-modern platform of social media had imposed on pop-culture an inevitable equivalency of value and there was perhaps no longer a capacity to shock, just to be photographed.  Lady Gaga’s (b 1986) meat dress (asymmetrical, with cowl–neck), worn at the MTV Video Music Awards is now remembered as just another outfit, named by many as the fashion statement of 2010.  While there was cultural comment, the piece's place in history is as a frock, not for any meaning, implied or inferred.  Lady Gaga though remained phlegmatic, quoted later as saying, "... it has many interpretations.”  She later clarified things by saying the meat dress wasn't significant as a piece of clothing but was intended as a comment on the state of the fashion industry and the importance of focusing on individuality and inner beauty rather than superficial appearances.  One implication may have related to impermanence; because the garment was made wholly from raw meat, it had to be preserved with chemicals before and after the event but there are limits to what's chemically possible and the parts of the garment which had decomposed were discarded before the remains were dried and a permanent coating applied.  The preserved dress has since been displayed.  Lady Gaga no longer wears "meat-based" clothing.  

Tash Peterson letting people know how sausages are made.

Something of a local legend in the world of vegan activism, Tash Peterson (b circa 1995) is an animal rights activist based in Perth, Australia.  Not actually in the militant extreme of the movement which engages in actual physical attacks on the personnel, plant & equipment of the industries associated with animal slaughter, Ms Peterson's form of direct action is the set-piece event, staged to produce images and video with cross-platform appeal, the footage she posts on social media freely available for re-distribution by the legacy media, her Instagram feed providing a sample of her work in various contexts. Ms Peterson is a vegansexual (a vegan who chooses to have sex or pursue sexual relationships only with other vegans).

Her events have included approaching people in the meat section of supermarkets, wearing a blood-soaked butcher's apron while carrying the simulated carcass of a chicken, donning a rather fetching cow-skin (presumably synthetic) bodysuit in front of a milk and yoghurt display while carrying a sign surmising the processes of industrial dairy farming in anthropomorphic terms, wearing bloodied clothing to fast food outlets while using a megaphone to address queues of customers, explaining the details of what's done to animals so they can enjoy their burgers and, eschewing even the sensible shoes she usually wears, adorned in nothing but a pair of knickers and liberally smeared with (what she claimed to be her own menstrual) blood, staging a protest in Perth's Louis Vuitton shop, shouting at the customers and calling them "animal abusers".

Tash Petersen on OnlyFans.

Ms Peterson was banned from all licensed venues in Western Australia after storming pubs and restaurants, her critique of course the content of the meals rather than their sometimes dubious quality; after that, she travelled briefly to the eastern states but has since returned to Perth.  She has an active and apparently lucrative account on OnlyFans with all that that implies but there is an element of animal rights activism even there so whether her two interests should be thought vertical or horizontal integration might be an interesting question for economic theorists.

Fellow club member Lindsay Lohan who remained a carnivore.

Veganism can be merely a personal choice and there are many who have adopted at least the dietary aspects simply because they believe there are benefits for their health but it can also be a political statement and political statements need publicity, the preferred modern form being the celebrity endorsement and if need be, one paid for.  In 2010, the animal rights organisation PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) offered to subsidize Lindsay Lohan's stint in rehab, on the condition she became a vegan.  For PETA, it was the chance to make the point that while undergoing treatment for substance addiction, Ms Lohan would be able also to rid herself "... of one more toxic substance: meat.", adding "As you know, a crucial part of any recovery is showing charity to others. One way to do this is to be kind to animals, the Earth, and your own body. You'll never regret it." 

Ms Lohan had previously attracted the attention of the organization, in 2008 making their "worst dressed list" after being photographed wearing fur.  According to E! Online, PETA offered to contribute US$20,000 towards the US50,000 cost of the court-ordered stay, half to be paid for adopting the vegan diet while in rehab, the remainder if the diet was followed for one year following her release.  The encourage acceptance of the offer, it was accompanied with a vegan-care pack including a DVD about the slaughter industry called Glass Walls (narrated by Paul McCartney (b 1942)) and a vegetarian/vegan starter kit.  While rehab went well, the offer apparently wasn't taken up and although she seems to now eschew fur, her Instagram feed continues to feature much leather (handbags & shoes) and meat (the odd recipe provided including a chicken pie and machboos, a favorite in the Middle East).