[lit-ideas] Titchy and Woad

From: David Ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2015 16:53:16 -0700

I've just read that the fellow in charge of the Tattoo Club of Great Britain 
(you knew there was one, right?), who is also founder of the British Tattoo 
History Museum in Oxford (which apparently is in his back room) is named Lionel 
Titchener.  That's possibly funny if you grew up referring to small stuff as, 
"titchy."  "Look at the measly portion of chips they gave me; it's titchy."  
Nowadays, of course, no one is anyone without a titchy tattoo or two.

There's this, from the same source, "The first part of the woad-making process 
involves taking the fresh leaves, grinding them to a pulp, rolling them into 
balls the size of large apples and then leaving them to dry in the sun.  The 
French call them cocagne, and even today 'pays de cocagne' (which can rather 
prosaically be translated as 'woad balls country') is a popular metaphor for a 
land of riches."  (Finlay, V., "Color" p. 326)  "May you all soon find 
yourselves in Woad Balls Country," should be a fervent wish...when you think 
about what "fervent" means and how much heat obtaining woad's blue requires.

I imagine Titchy and Woad to be a small enterprise in a back street of London, 
manufacturing hand-made somethingorothers.  They sell them for astronomical 
prices.  
Aristocrat number one, "Where do you buy your Sniglets?  They're rather fine."  
Aristocrat number two, "Family's been going to Titchy and Woad for donkey's 
years."
Aristocrat number one, "Rahlly?  'strawdinry."

Woad has astringent properties.  Apparently those who covered themselves in it 
before battle weren't mere artists; they were thinking of sepsis.  "Wearing 
[Woad] into battle is rather like rubbing on Savlon *before* walking through a 
cactus plantation, and having it available after battle is like preparing a 
primitive field hospital in advance." (p.323)

Finally, here for your reading pleasure is what you get when you type, 
"Wodehouse on Woad" into a search engine: 
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/jul/20/classics.pgwodehouse

The chapter I'm quoting from is all about competition in the world's dye 
markets between indigo and woad.  Indigo is, she says, "derived from the Greek 
term meaning 'from India.'"  Confusing folk those Greeks, particularly when it 
comes to prepositions.

Do carry on,

David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon  
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[lit-ideas] Titchy and Woad

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