Tales of the Unconnected

Behind The Galleries:

Blog Archive Posts #8 down to #5:

The strange case of The Durian; John McCain's 5½ year stay at The Hanoi Hilton; The Dark History of Plaza d'es Born;

Lunch Atop A Skyscraper

23 October 2020

#8 The strange case of

The Durian

There are so many delicious fruits to enjoy in Vietnam...

...mangosteen...

...dragon fruit...

...longan...

...rambutan, banana...

...coconut...

...star fruit...

....even this one, whose name escapes me...

...and then...there's

The Durian 😱😱😱

Click on the image above to discover just why people fear it so...

So why is the Durian so stinky?

Researchers at the Leibniz-Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich have confirmed the presence of the rare amino acid ethionine in a plant—or more precisely, in the fruit of the durian tree. As the team of scientists has shown, the amino acid plays a key role in the formation of the characteristic durian odour.

Its stench is also due to the fruit's sulphur-containing compounds, which we associate with rotten eggs, onions and farts, hence the durian's bad reputation.

Food writer Richard Sterling has written that “its odour is best described as… turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock.”

Anthony Bourdain once said that eating the fruit will leave your breath smelling “as if you'd been French-kissing your dead grandmother.”

In 2019, newspapers around the globe reported that students had been forced to evacuate the University of Canberra when the fruit’s foul odours were mistaken for a gas leak. It emerged that someone had unwisely left the "popular but putrid' tropical fruit in a rubbish bin in the university library.

While it is quite a popular snack, durian fruit is banned from many types of public transport across Thailand, Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore due to its overpowering smell.

However, this fruit has its devoted fans.

Durianphiles say it has a sweet, custardy taste, with the texture of creamy cheesecake. They become addicted to its flavours of caramel and vanilla.

It is widely known as 'The King of Fruits' across South East Asia. Thailand is its biggest exporter.

Health benefits include the following:

It is rich in Vitamin B6 and acts as a natural anti-depressant.

It’s good for your bones and teeth due to rich amounts of calcium, potassium, and B vitamins.

Eating durians can help with easing bowel movement thanks to dietary fibre.

Just 100 grams contain about 21% of the recommended daily intake of carbohydrates and 33% of daily recommended Vitamin C.

For those who welcome a challenge or for those who are already aficionados, here are Five Durian Recipes to try out in your own kitchen. Click on the image of pre-packed durian to see them. Although still hard to find, durian can now be sourced in the UK.

Good luck - and don't forget your nose peg!

For more photographs taken of this fascinating country, visit the new 'Vietnam' gallery.

9 October 2020

#7 John McCain's 5½ year stay at The Hanoi Hilton

Hanoi, 1967.

It is three years since US forces entered the Vietnam War and three months before the North Vietnamese launch the shockingly effective Tet Offensive, catching the Americans completely off guard.

31 year-old Captain John McCain (standing, right) is flying the Navy's A4 Skyhawk in a bombing raid over Hanoi. His mission: to destroy a major power plant in the capital city. But anti-aircraft fire is very heavy that day and his aircraft takes a hit. The right wing of his plane is shot off and he plummets to earth in a vicious spiral. He has no choice but to eject, breaking a knee and both arms in the process.

He suffers an excruciatingly painful descent and eventually plunges into Trúc Bạch Lake, in the centre of the city.

McCain is pulled ashore by an angry mob of North Vietnamese citizens. They punch, kick and bayonet him and crush his shoulder with a rifle butt.

"Then they threw me into the back of a truck," said McCain, "and took me to the prison that we know of as the Hanoi Hilton."

McCain is manhandled into the prison and examined by a doctor.

"He took my pulse and shook his head and the Interrogator, in English, said, “It's too late” ...then I thought perhaps I was going to die."

But the North Vietnamese discover McCain's father is a highly decorated United States Navy Admiral and they decide to save his life, as they realise they now have a valuable bargaining chip for propaganda purposes.

At this point, the North Vietnamese invite a French film crew into the Hanoi Hilton. They offer McCain medical attention in exchange for a recorded interview. McCain agrees. The North Vietnamese want to portray him as the recipient of humane treatment, but also hope the French interviewer will convince McCain to say, "I want the war to stop".

After McCain utters the following words, his voice breaking, choking back the tears, the interviewer tells the captors that their prisoner has said enough.

McCain says: "I would just like to tell...my wife... I'll get well. And I love her and hope to see her soon. And I'd appreciate it if you’d tell her.”

Eight months after his capture the Vietcong make a self-serving offer to send McCain home. It is one the Navy captain cannot accept.

"What bothered me me most about it," said McCain, "was that I knew that if I had accepted the release, then they would go to other prisoners and say, 'See? Your country doesn't care about you. They only care about the Admiral's son.' I knew I couldn't do that to my fellow prisoners."

His decision comes with severe consequences. The North Vietnamese move him into solitary confinement where he stays for two years.

The brutality of the North Vietnamese is unrelenting. They beat him with sticks, hang him from his arms and yank his arms out of their sockets. After his release, he is never again able to lift his arms over his shoulders.

What John McCain feared most was the idea of dishonouring his country by reading a confession scripted by the Vietcong. He withstood the worst beatings his captors were able to deliver (one of which caused the refracturing of his arm) and when all hope of resistance began to slip away from him, he attempted to commit suicide by hanging himself with his shirt, looped through the shutters in his cell. Even this was thwarted by the cruellest of all his guards, whom he christened 'The Prick'.

Finally, after four days of intense beatings, McCain agrees to read the scripted confession.

"I had learned what we all learned over there," McCain said. "Every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine."

Nevertheless, he is subsequently tormented by his perceived failure to uphold the military's honour code.

”I couldn't rationalize away my confession. I was ashamed. I felt faithless, and couldn’t control my despair. I shook as if my disgrace were a fever."

In the end, he relies upon the patience and decency of his fellow prisoners to nurse him back to reasonable health, both physically and mentally. They assure him he had resisted his enemies' demands for as long as he was able.

U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. John McCain is greeted by President Richard Nixon in Washington on May 25, 1973.

John McCain was eventually released on March 14, 1973, along with 108 other prisoners of war, two months after the signing of the Vietnam peace agreement. He had been a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for five and a half years.

Following his return from Vietnam, John McCain entered into politics as the Navy's liaison to the US Senate, retiring from the Navy in 1981. He was a member of the US Congress from 1983 until his death in office in 2018, a two-time U.S. presidential candidate, and the nominee of the Republican Party in the 2008 Presidential Election, which he lost to Barack Obama.

He died of brain cancer on August 25th, 2018, four days before his 82nd birthday. 2,500 guests were invited to his funeral. John McCain gave explicit instructions that Donald Trump should not be one of them.

In her eulogy to her father, Meghan McCain said: “We gather to mourn the passing of American greatness, the real thing, not cheap rhetoric from men who’ll never come near the sacrifice he gave so willingly."

For more photographs taken of this fascinating country, check out the new 'Vietnam' gallery.

2 October 2020

#6 The Dark History of Plaza d'es Born

Running counter to my natural inclination to ignore rash early morning plans made the night before, I rose from the warmth of my bed at what I considered to be an ungodly hour and was greeted by a chill in the air and a starlit sky. The mid-August temperature at our friends’ villa in Alcaufar, Menorca had reached 32°C the previous afternoon, so this came as a shock. By the time I'd struggled into some clothes and located my face mask, car keys and camera, daylight was beginning to break. I set off for Ciutadella, the island's former capital city, hoping to capture some images of the golden morning sunlight there.

Following a seemingly endless ring road, I eventually fought my way out of the present-day capital Mahón into the countryside.

I passed a pale farmhouse etched against a hill and admired both the modest, unassuming landscape flashing by and myself for being there to witness it at the beginning of a new day.

I reached the outskirts of Ciutadella about 7.15am and parked in front of this threatening, garbled message. I wasn't able to shed any light on it and nor was the sun.

But when I entered the old town itself soon afterwards, I suddenly stepped back in time, away from a modern world I often don't understand. A gargoyle, startled by the honeyed light, cackled at me as I passed the 14th century cathedral he still guards.

He seemed to be warning me that I was approaching the scene of the very worst days in this city's long history, still remembered at this place of worship every year.

Threading myself through one of the labyrinthine streets, I walked out onto a beautiful sunlit square, past the Esglesia de St Francesc (above) towards the moorish Town Hall. This was the former palace of the Arab governor and later served as a royal palace under the Crown of Aragon (following three photographs.)

I sat down on a bench and removed my oppressive Covid mask, now mandatory in all outdoor spaces here, and finished my Coke. I read a tourist guide to find out more about the centrepiece of this glorious square, a 72 feet high obelisk set up by Josep Quadrado in the 19th century.

And I learnt that its inscription recalls the cruellest, most harrowing chapter in the story of this city's people.

In 1557 (I discovered), Henry II of France was at war with the Spanish Habsburgs, the major political and military power in Europe and the World for much of the sixteenth century. The Balearic Islands (which include Menorca) fell under their vast dominion. Suleiman the Magnificent (above) was a formidable French ally; he was the ruler of the gigantic Ottoman Empire of 25 million people, stretching from Kiev in the north to Mecca in the south, Algiers in the west to Baghdad in the east, an area of approximately 878,000 square miles. Henry appealed to Suleiman for support in his conflict against the Habsburgs. The Caliph agreed to assist his ally by sending a force of 15.000 soldiers to the Balearics in 150 warships.

On June 30, 1558, the massive Ottoman fleet encircled Ciutadella (some via today's busy harbour above) and lay siege to the city, which was garrisoned with a mere 40 soldiers. Resistance was heroic, but ultimately futile.

Turgut Reis

Piyale Pasha

On 9 July. the Ottoman force, under the command of Turgut Reis and Payale Pasha (see above) used their 24 guns to break through the fortified walls erected by Governor Arguimbau. Over the course of the following three days, the Turkish invaders killed more than 1,000 citizens, looted archives, desecrated churches, destroyed houses and stole all valuables. All of Ciutadella's 3,099 inhabitants who survived the siege were taken as slaves to Turkey together with other inhabitants of surrounding villages. In total, 3,452 residents were sold into servitude in the slave markets of Istanbul. The abbess of Santa Clara was hanged and the city and its people were so ravaged that when a few days later the interim governor arrived from Mallorca, he had to sleep in a cave, as there was not one house left in Ciutadella that was even vaguely habitable.

In the 19th century, this obelisk was set up by Josep Quadrado, lest the suffering of those lost to the sword and the slave markets should ever be forgotten. Its inscription translates as: "Here we fought until death for our religion and our country in the year 1558". Every year on July 9, a commemoration takes place in Ciutadella to remember "l’Any de sa Desgràcia", or "the Year of the Disaster”.

Afterwards, with the kind assistance of this mural, I found my way out of the old town...

...back into the present, where, to this day, the echo of those savage midsummer days over four hundred and fifty years ago can still be heard in the city every 9th July.

For more photographs taken on this beautiful island, head to the 'Menorca' gallery.

25 September 2020

#5 Lunch Atop A Skyscraper

Most people find their palms start sweating when they look at this photograph. They imagine themselves up on the girder with these eleven ironworkers casually eating their lunch, their feet dangling over a canyon of empty air, 800 feet above Manhattan.

The image was taken on September 20, 1932. The men are part of the quarter of a million strong labour force John D. Rockefeller Jr. put to work during the crippling Depression era. They are recorded here during a break from their treacherous work on what became the RCA Building, now known as 30 Rock.

Yet, until recently, no-one knew the identities of any of these workers.

And no-one could say for sure who took the photograph either, one of the most instantly recognisable ever.

1930's Nerves of Steel

The photograph was printed in the Sunday supplement of the New York Herald Tribune on October 2nd, 1932. Despite its being portrayed as an everyday scene for the workers, it was in effect a publicity shoot for the Rockefeller empire, one also designed to inspire a city suffering the nightmare of the Depression, with unemployment running at a harrowing 24%.

In 2003, 'Lunch Atop a Skyscraper', often misattributed to Lewis Hine, was credited to this man, Charles. C Ebbets (above.) Documentary evidence still held by his family certainly points to his authorship.

But the date on the back of an original print kept in the extensive Rockefeller Centre library - 20 September 1932 - also includes the unhelpful acknowledgement: 'photographer unknown.'

Other photographs taken on the very same day at these vertiginous heights are attributed to the flamboyant and dapper Thomas Kelley (above)...

...and another intrepid daredevil William Leftwich (above), equally determined to show that his brain-scrambling nonchalance matched that of the ironworkers whose everyday working conditions he was documenting.

All these fearless photographers were up on the girders that day. We cannot rule any of them out as being the man responsible for the iconic image. We seem to be no closer to unravelling its mystery.

However, four of the workers' identities have been unmasked. The original print of these men purporting to sleep on the girder, kept in the Rockefeller Centre Library, names the man on the far left as Joseph Eckner (elsewhere as William) and the figure third from left in the white vest as Joe Curtis.

Compare the two photographs and see if you spot the similarities.

And read on to find out about the men at either end...

Another breakthrough was made through the meticulous detective work for Sean O'Cualain's moving documentary 'Men at Lunch'. When he was researching for another film, O'Cualain spotted a print of 'Lunch Atop a Skyscraper' proudly hanging on the wall in Whelan's Pub in Shanaglish, Co. Galway . The publican said that the two men below hailed from Shanaglish and told him their story.

Pat Glynn, from Boston, USA, did a double take on his daily walk through his local town of Quincy when he spotted a print of 'Lunch Atop a Skyscraper' in a photo shop. "Jesus - that's the old man!" he said. Sonny Glynn (above) was the only man looking directly at the camera and Paddy instantly recognised his father's glaring eyes. "He wasn't a man you'd wanna cross," he said, as an old fear crept over him.

Pat also recognised his uncle, Matty O’Shaughnessy (above). He showed the photograph to his cousin Paddy, who immediately recognised his father due to his misshapen nose, broken in his youth during a fierce hurling match.

They visited New York some time later and took the elevator to the 69th floor of 30 Rock, to stand where they were convinced their fathers had once stood.

The news cameras were there to record their visit.

A less celebrated photograph taken of the ironworkers on the same day, known as 'Hats Off!'.

Some detractors insisted the photograph was a fake, an accusation that has resurfaced regularly ever since.

A few years ago, this theory was finally debunked. If the original negative could be examined forensically, all claims that this is a trick photograph could be dismissed. And this negative, captured on glass plate, can be found 360 miles west of New York in an underground complex beneath the hills of Pennsylvania in a six square mile storage facility called Iron Mountain. The plate was accidentally shattered in 1996, but the pieces that remain (see above) are still securely preserved in an archive, named the Corbis collection, which numbers over 20 million images.

The photograph was scrutinised once again. There was no doubt. This was the original negative and the image was clearly genuine.

We may never know the names of the remaining seven workers, despite countless claims from families who are convinced they recognise them.

They may have to remain anonymous and simply pay homage, through the power of that compelling image, to those who took part in one of the most breathtaking periods of immigration in the history of humankind, like Sonny and Paddy, who left their native Ireland in the early 1920's to help build a brave new skyline for New York.

And we are fortunate enough in our times to wonder at this most majestic Art Deco masterpiece and at those everyday superheroes who risked their lives to raise it.