The gentleman inventor

Hello there,

After an extended hiatus – during which I solved a murder mystery on a train between Paris and Istanbul and uncovered the holy jade Xiuhcoatl in a previously unexplored Aztec temple – I return to your computing device’s screen. You may have inferred from the previous sentence that the gentleman is both resourceful and ingenious. How correct you are.

Michael Caine, the height of ingenuity, simultaneously gets his daily recommended intake of calcium while undertaking a gold heist.

Of course, at the epitome of resourcefulness and ingenuity is the gentleman inventor. Here we will look at some of the most successful gentleman inventors of recent years. First on the list is Horace Lawson Hunley.

Horace Hunley with his invention - an early type of submarine. This picture was taken years before Hunley came to realise that submarines operate optimally underwater.

Hunley invented a primitive form of the submarine in the USA during the 19th century. Hunley was killed in 1863 in a submarine accident.

Another pioneer of transportational inventation was Otto Lilienthal. Lilienthal was a pioneer of aviation and the first person to make sustained gliding flights. Lilienthal invented and exhibited his successful gliders in a time when human flight was thought of merely as a thing of witchcraft and the then-unreleased Snakes on a Plane.

Otto Lilienthal escapes a hoard of townspeople brandishing pitch forks and torches accusing him of using black magic.

Lilienthal has gone down in history as one of the forefathers of modern aviation. Otto Lilienthal was killed while flying one of his gliders in 1896.

Another inventor in the field of aviation was Franz Reichelt. This French tailor attempted to invent a suit that doubled as a parachute.

Franz Reichelt tried to make his invention both stylish and effective. He acheived neither.

Reichelt, ever the visionary, was convinced his parachute would be a revolution in aviator’s style and safety. Reichelt died in 1912 after testing the parachute by jumping off the Eiffel tower.

A man who could have used a working parachute was Aurel Vlaicu. Vlaicu was a Romanian inventory who invented a self-powered aeroplane in 1910. He was also a skilled pilot.

Vlaicu was also the first man to fly in a bowler hat.

Vlaicu was killed while flying his plane in 1913. But his legacy of bowler hats on inventors lives on…

...through this guy.

This man pictured above died in an alcohol-related traffic accident. At this point, it would be irresponsible of us not to warn you of the dangers of drinking while driving your gun-cars. Instead of making war, make yourself another Scotch. You may also like to reward yourself with a cigar.

Speaking of cars, Max Valier was an Austrian inventor who pioneered the rocket car. You and I now take rocket cars for granted, but it is all thanks to Valier’s pioneering work in the 1920s.

Valier bypassed the derivation of thermodynamics and the development of the internal combusion engine by simply putting two alcohol-fuelled rockets in place of the engine in this car.

I would at this point like to reassure you that no Scotch was wasted in the rocket car pictured above. Max Valier was killed when one of his rockets exploded in 1930.

So if you put your mind to it, you too could one day be killed by your own invention and go down in the The Gentleman’s Archives as a gentlemanly inventor.

But until then, it's time to get back to the place where you come up with your inventions.

Until next time,

HL Griffith

The spring gentleman

Hello there,

Please pardon the brief interval between articles but after discovering that I am a descendant of Mungo Park, the great Scottish explorer, I thought it only fitting to retrace his steps through Africa.  However history repeated itself and I was set upon by natives.  Luckily I had prepared for such an attack with a scuba diving set with which I might escape my forefather’s demise (and escape I did).

Mungo Park. Voted most dapper explorer three years running.

However all this fresh air has made me realise that spring is upon us once again (in fact it wasn’t the fresh air that made me realise, it was my calendar, Geeves, who told me).  Therefore it is that lovely time of the year when we gentlemen can concentrate on our golf handicap, frequent the beach and generally enjoy the outdoors to their fullest.

JFK enjoys the turning of the seasons with his wife and midget dentist.

Spring – or the latter part of it – is the prelude to summer, however the moderate temperature means that we may be more active during the fresh spring climate before it becomes too hot to even ask Geeves for a refreshing lager to be poured into your mouth.

Errol Flynn felt that the best way to experience spring was to dress up as 14th century minstrels.

If you live in the northern hemisphere you might think I’m some jabbering lunatic who has gone mad from the heat of the summer just past.  Well I’m not.  However if I was, there would be method to my madness by which you might be able to follow the seasons by catching the next flying machine south of the equator to where the fresh spring breeze wafts through the air (how a breeze wafts through air I’ll never know).

Teddy Roosevelt didn't have any time for flying machines, instead he would sail a moose downstream to South America for spring.

Of course spring is also the time when we mourn the loss of John F. Kennedy and Cary Grant.  Every gentleman has their own way of remembering these pioneers of the modern gentleman but we here at The Gentleman feel that you should play a round of golf on November 22nd to commemorate John and dress in your best grey suit for Cary later on the 29th.

William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy enjoy their spring by reanimating their favourite president and posing for an album cover.

The main thing to do during spring is to reintroduce yourself to the outdoors and put to rest the thick coats and scarves of the recently passed winter.

Harrison Ford likes to spend the fresh spring weather by playing tag with a tribe of angry natives.

The other thing to do during spring (and we have touched on briefly here) is to have a good spring clean.  Clean up your humidor and liquor cabinet by smoking and drinking their contents respectively (don’t get that mixed up).

Sean Connery kills two birds with one stone just by staring at them. Also he is smoking and drinking.

So get up, get outdoors, light up a cigar, pour yourself a Scotch, have a picnic while golfing and repeat this process until summer.

So there you have it.

G.O. Brixley