The Anti-Flirt Club

The Anti-Flirt Club was an American club active in Washington, D.C., during the early 1920s. The club was composed of women who had been embarrassed by men in automobiles on street corners with the aim of protecting them from unwelcome attention in the future. The Anti-Flirt Club launched an “Anti-Flirt” week, which began on March 4, 1923.

The club had a series of rules, which were intended as sound and serious advice. These were:

1. Don’t flirt: those who flirt in haste oft repent in leisure.
2. Don’t accept rides from flirting motorists—they don’t invite you in to save you a walk.
3. Don’t use your eyes for ogling—they were made for worthier purposes.
4. Don’t go out with men you don’t know—they may be married, and you may be in for a hair-pulling match.
5. Don’t wink—a flutter of one eye may cause a tear in the other.
6. Don’t smile at flirtatious strangers—save them for people you know.
7. Don’t annex all the men you can get—by flirting with many, you may lose out on the one.
8. Don’t fall for the slick, dandified cake eater—the unpolished gold of a real man is worth more than the gloss of a lounge lizard.
9. Don’t let elderly men with an eye to a flirtation pat you on the shoulder and take a fatherly interest in you. Those are usually the kind who want to forget they are fathers.
10. Don’t ignore the man you are sure of while you flirt with another. When you return to the first one you may find him gone.

[Image Source: 1]

(Source: Wikipedia)

Virginia House: The House that Moved Homes

The house which would become Virginia House was originally built in the 12th century and served as a priory until Henry VIII split from the Catholic church and closed the hundreds of monasteries and nunneries around Britain. Over the next four hundred years the house would change hands numerous times, with each owner adding a personal touch; such as knocking down the surrounding monastic buildings and adding curvilinear Dutch gables to the front façade around 1620. The fortunes of the house rose a fell throughout the centuries with one owner entertaining Queen Elizabeth I there and another, in the early 20th century, being forced to sell it.

In 1925, Alexander and Virginia Weddell bought it at a demolition sale. They had it dismantled and rebuilt part of it in Richmond, Virginia, where they hoped the west wing would serve as a museum for the Virginia Historical Society. 

The company that was to demolish the Priory felt the stones would crumble in the process, so they decided to make a small explosion in the middle of the building and send only those stones that survived the blast to America. To their amazement, most of the stones fell intact. The more fragile ornaments were packed in boxes with sand to cushion them. The ship bringing the stones to America had to turn back to port as it was taking on water. Consequently, when the stones arrived in Richmond they were soaked in seawater and had to be washed and dried. The first group of stones arrived in Richmond in the spring of 1926. 

(Source: vahistorical.org)

The Death-Defying Stunts of the Barnstormers

“Up! Down! Flying around
Looping the loop and defying the ground
They’re all, frightfully keen
Those magnificent men in their flying machines
They can fly upside down with their feet in the air
They don’t think of danger
They really don’t care”

So go the lyrics to the song “Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines,” from the movie of the same name. The words aptly describe the aerial exploits of a group of stuntmen and stuntwomen who, during the 1920s, repeatedly risked their lives in a quest for thrills and entertainment; and, at the end of the day, to earn a living.

Airplane acrobats, known as aerialists, seemed to have no fear of gravity. They leapt from plane to plane while up in the air, danced or played tennis on the wings, and burst through walls of fire. The stuntmen used the word “barnstorming” to describe their practice of touring around the country, because their shows often used farms as makeshift airfields.

[Many more photographs/information at the source]

(Source: environmentalgraffiti.com)

Agatha Christie’s Greatest Mystery

Agatha Christie was a British crime writer best remembered for her detective novels. Her greatest mystery, however, is a personal one…

On 3rd Dec., around 9.45pm, without warning, she drove away from her Berkshire home, having first gone upstairs to kiss her sleeping daughter. Her abandoned car was later found down a slope near Guildford. There was no sign of her.

For 11 days the country buzzed with conjecture about the disappearance. All the elements of a classic Christie story were there. The Silent Pool, a natural spring near the accident scene, for instance, was said to be the site of the death of a young girl and her brother and many thought the novelist had drowned herself there. Others suggested the incident was a publicity stunt, while, more chillingly, some clues seemed to point in the direction of murder at the hands of her unfaithful husband.

Even the celebrated crime writers Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Dorothy L Sayers were drawn into the puzzle. Conan Doyle, who was interested in the occult, took a discarded glove of Christie’s to a medium, while Sayers visited the scene of the disappearance.

Christie was eventually discovered safe, but in circumstances that raised more questions than they answered. Alone, and using an assumed name, she had been living in a hotel in Harrogate since the day after her disappearance, even though news of her case had reached as far as the front page of the New York Times.

The two most popular theories offered for these strange events have been that either Christie was suffering from memory loss after a car crash, or that she had planned the whole thing to thwart her husband’s plans to spend a weekend with his mistress at a house close to where she abandoned her car. [Source]

Bright Young Things

The Bright Young Things, or Bright Young People, was a nickname given by the tabloid press to a group of bohemian young aristocrats and socialites in 1920s London. They threw elaborate fancy dress parties, went on elaborate treasure hunts through nighttime London, and drank heavily and experimented with drugs—all of which was enthusiastically covered by the journalists such as Tom Driberg. They inspired a number of writers, including Nancy Mitford, Anthony Powell, Henry Green and the poet John Betjeman. Evelyn Waugh’s 1930 novel Vile Bodies, adapted as the 2003 film Bright Young Things, is a satirical look at this scene. Cecil Beaton began his career in photography by documenting this set, of which he was a member.

[Sources: Image 1: Image 2 (Stephen Tennant as Prince Charming) : Image 3 : Image 4 (Nancy Beaton) : Image 5]

This is absolutely one of my favourite things! Just look at them! So FABULOUS!

(Source: Wikipedia)