Elite club for big names
QUESTION Did the Bohemian Grove, a US secret society, actually exist?
THE Bohemian Club is a San Francisco-based elite, 2,500 strong, allmale members-only club that was established in the 19th Century. The club owns Bohemian Grove, a large Redwood estate in California where its members meet annually to drink and participate in various arcane rituals.
Notable members have included Clint Eastwood, Henry Kissinger, Walter Cronkite, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain and Jack London.
The Club was founded by a group of journalists and artists in 1872. They chose an owl as the club’s totem and gathered to socialise, drink, and put on and enjoy theatrical and musical performances — hence the term ‘bohemian’. It has a permanent HQ on Taylor Street in downtown San Francisco.
On June 29, 1878, the Bohemians gathered among the Redwoods in Marin County for a party in honour of the popular stage actor Henry ‘Harry’ Edwards who was relocating to New York.
The ‘encampment’ thus became an annual tradition. In 1889, the members purchased a permanent 2,700-acre campground at 20601 Bohemian Avenue, i n Monte Rio, California.
In the 20th Century the members’ retreat garnered a reputation for involving highly secretive and cultish rituals, such as the ‘Cremation of Care’ — an opening ceremony whose purpose was to make the club members ‘carefree’ from the outset of the retreat.
The performance takes place in front of the large concrete owl (built 1929) in the centre of the camp at Bohemian Grove.
The Club motto is ‘weaving spiders, come not here’, This is a line from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, reflecting the idea that members are not to talk business but to relax and enjoy themselves.
Alex Warren, Brighton, E. Sussex.
QUESTION Are there many successful Irish professional poker players?
IRISH poker players have been playing at a world-class level since the 1990s.
The country is punching well above its weight and is currently in the process of producing many outstanding players.
Ireland’s first great player was an amateur, Noel Furlong, a Dublin-born businessman who made his first fortune from a carpet-making business. His real initials are JJ, but he is known as Noel because he was born on Christmas Day.
Furlong began playing poker in 1984 but it took until 1999 for him to win his biggest prize, the World
Series of Poker main event, which netted him $1million. He also won the Irish Poker Open twice, in 1987 and 1989.
Undoubtedly, the most outstanding professional poker player from Ireland is Phil Laak, who was born in Dublin in 1972, but was brought up in the US, living in San Francisco. He started playing poker as a child, and by 2005 was playing in the World Series. He is one of the most recognisable players in poker, noted for the hooded t-shirt and sunglasses he wears at the table, an ensemble that earned him the nickname ‘The Unabomber’.
Laak is also noted for his eccentric behaviour and his odd table talk, all of which has helped enshrine him in poker’s hall of fame. He has made a lot of money from professional poker; his estimated total live tournament winnings top $3.8million. He is also the partner of film star turned poker player, Jennifer Tilly.
A female Irish player has also had an outstanding r ecord, Colette Doherty, whose nickname is ‘Collect’. She won the Irish Poker Open twice, firstly in its initial year, 1980, then in 1991. She went on to become the f i rst woman to play in the World Series of Poker.
Poker and its modern manifestation, online poker, have produced an amazing number of star players from Ireland, far out of proportion to the size of the country. It’s just the latest sport in which Irish players have been incredibly successful and well rewarded.
John Byrne, Co. Dublin.
QUESTION What were the first radio and TV sitcoms in Britain?
THAT Child, a six-part comedy written by Florence Kilpatrick and broadcast in 1926, is usually credited as being the first British radio sitcom.
It had a classic domestic setting with Mabel Constanduros as ‘The Mother’ and Michael Hogan as ‘The Father’ struggling to cope with raising their daughter, ‘That Child’, played by Lorna Hubbard.
Each week, a new ten-minute episode f eatured a different breach of discipline.
The talented Mabel Constanduros may have got there first. She created the first ‘radio family’ — The Buggins Family. First broadcast as a one- off called The Buggins Family Out For A Day in 1925, the set-up featured a hardpressed mother, indifferent father and three cantankerous children, with most of the comedy coming from a batty grandmother.
The show made regular broadcasts from 1928 and Constanduros wrote more than 250 scripts. In early episodes, she played all the speaking parts, but soon she was joined by Michael Hogan as father. Again, the set-ups were familiar, a family going to the zoo, having a picnic or catching the train are not always funny, but when the Bugginses are present hilarity ensues. Only short excerpts of The Buggins survive in the archives.
Pinwright’s Progress (1946-1947) was the world’s first TV sitcom. The star was James Hayter (Friar Tuck in The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men, 1952) the owner of Macgillygally’s Stores, ‘the smallest multiple store in the world’, and storylines revolved around his daughter (Jill Christie) and his rivalry with another store.
His difficulties are compounded by his staff, including; Ralph (Leonard Sharp), a deaf octogenarian messenger boy, and Mrs Sigsbee (Doris Palmer), a forerunner of the Are You Being Served? character Mrs Slocombe. Ten episodes were broadcast on the BBC, all wiped from the archive.
A typical set-up is as follows: Mr Pinwright prepares his Christmas Bazaar. There is trouble though, due to the appearance of not one, but three Father Christmases — one a fugitive from the law. Mrs Sigs bee attempts to help proceedings by appearing as the Fairy Queen ... What could possibly go wrong?
The series was written by Rodney Hobson and edited by Ted Kavanagh, the writer of the popular BBC radio show It’s That Man Again (ITMA).
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