According to an NPR report in 2010, “The Tea Thieves: How A Drink Shaped An Empire,” the author Sarah Rose describes the “greatest single act of corporate espionage in history.” By 1800, tea was easily the most popular drink in England, except that all the tea in the world came from China. England couldn’t control the quality or the price. So around 1850, a group of British businessmen set out to create a tea industry in a place they did control: India. British botanist Robert Fortune became the agent sent to sneak out of China the plants and secrets of tea production. Rose reported that, “The task required a plant hunter, a gardener, a thief, a spy,” and Fortune became all of that.
About 1845 when Fortune was in his 30s he took a 2-year trip to China. He managed to get seeds from China to India, and the impact on the tea trade was immense. Within his lifetime, India surpassed China as the world’s largest tea grower.
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, one of the most recognized spy novels, was loosely based on the Cambridge Spy Ring that was exposed in England in the 50s and 60s.
Four men, and possibly a fifth, were recruited by the Soviets in the 1930s during or just after their college education at Cambridge. All were active moles during WWII and the Cold War.
Although original called the Cambridge Four, then Cambridge Five, it is speculated that the ring was much larger.
John Le Carré’s 1986 novel, A Perfect Spy, was partly based upon the life and career of Cambridge Spy Ring member Kim Philby. The book is le Carré’s most autobiographical book. le Carré has admitted that a large part of the novel is a thinly disguised account of his own early life. Before he became a novelist, le Carré was an intelligence officer for MI6, the British intelligence service, although there are no allegations that he ever betrayed his country and spied for another country like the book’s main character.
Northern Spy is a cultivar of apples developed in New York state about 1800. It is rarely fouind as an eating apple anymore, sadly, as Its characteristic flavor is more tart than most popular varieties, and its flesh is harder/crunchier than most, with a thin skin,and it tends to last longer due to late maturation.
It is now commonly used for desserts and pies, but is also used for juices and cider.
(When I was a kid growing up in Upstate New York we went apple picking every fall. Fun memories.)
As of 2013 the top ten states for apples grown are:
• Washington
• New York
• Michigan
• Pennsylvania
• California
• Virginia
• North Carolina
• Oregon
• Ohio
• Idaho
The United States grows nearly 100 varieties of apples in commercial production. There are also numerous “heirloom” varieties grown in backyards and also commercially for “niche” markets. The top ten apple varieties grown in the United States are:
• Red Delicious
• Gala
• Golden Delicious
• Fuji
• Granny Smith
• McIntosh
• Honeycrisp
• Rome
• Empire
• Cripps Pink
The Cripps Pink apple is a cultivar originating in Australia, released in 1973 and introduced to the US in the late 1990s. Cripps Pink apples meeting quality control standards are sold under the trade name “Pink Lady”. The apple’s parentage is Golden Delicious x Lady Williams, an Australian variety. It has a distinctively aromatic flavor.
The Crips are a primarily African-American gang. They were founded in Los Angeles, California in 1969 mainly by Raymond Washington and Stanley Williams. What was once a single alliance between two autonomous gangs is now a loosely connected network of individual sets, often engaged in open warfare with one another. Its members traditionally wear blue clothing, a practice that has waned somewhat due to police crackdowns on gang members. The Crips have a long and bitter rivalry with the Bloods, who wear red.
The Cripps Pink apple originated in Australia in 1973 when John Cripps cross-bred the Australian apple ‘Lady Williams’ with a Golden Delicious apple. Western Australia’s Department of Agriculture and Food owns the trademark and has breeding rights in several countries.
A small (250 gram/8 oz) basket of berries is sometimes called a punnet, especially in the UK and Commonwealth countries. It may be named for Reginald Crundall Punnett (1875–1967), a geneticist and grower of strawberries who, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, used to sell them in the London market in small chip baskets.
Reginald Crundall Punnett attended the University of Cambridge which, founded in 1209, is the second oldest university in the English-speaking world. The oldest is Oxford, which has evidence of teaching as far back as 1096.
The town of Cambridge was located on the Granta River. But eventually the river became known by its current name, the Cam River, through association with the bridge located in the town of Cambridge.
Cambridge University grew out of an association of scholars who left the University of Oxford. Apparently, the townsfolk of Oxford had hanged two clerks from the University in town for a murder of which they were apparently innocent; the king backed the townsmen, and the scholars dispersed for five years, some going to Cambridge.
*On a private note, I have visited (as a tourist) both Cambridge and Oxford, both are worth a look, but I like Cambridge better. IMHO.
The post of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, now held by Stephen Hawking, has also been held by Isaac Newton, Joseph Larmor, Charles Babbage, George Stokes, and Paul Dirac. The post was founded in 1663 by Henry Lucas, who was Cambridge University’s Member of Parliament from 1639–1640; and it was officially established by King Charles II on 18 January 1664.
Good to note. Will put that on my To See list for next time I’m there.
Gotta be.
In play: the two universities are about 80 miles apart, to the north and northwest of London; each is almost exactly 60 miles from Big Ben. If London is a clock face on the map and Big Ben is the center, then Cambridge is at 1 o’clock and Oxford is at 10 o’clock.
In the USA, in Massachusetts, Cambridge MA is about 50 miles from Oxford MA. Cambridge MA is close to central Boston, and Oxford MA is to the west, near Worcester MA.
Cambridge UK is on the River Cam in Cambridgeshire. Undergrads of Cambridge University have won 61 Nobel Prizes, 13 more than any other institution.
Cambridge MA is on the Charles River in Massachusetts. 27 alumni of MIT have won the Nobel Prize.
Oxford UK is on the rivers Cherwell and Thames. 58 Nobel Prize winners have studied or taught at Oxford.
Oxford MA is in Worcester County. Clara Barton was born in Oxford MA.
For many years Morris automobiles in Britain had a line called the Oxford. When Morris and Austin merged into the BMC group in 1952, Austin quickly followed with the Cambridge line. Morris was an important British automaker. MG stands for “Morris Garage”, and it was Morris that introduced what is now known as the Mini, originally called the Mini-Minor, a styling update on the famous Morris Minor.
The two universities, Oxbridge (to use the portmanteau), are the oldest in England. This, we have recently played on. But there is an English village called Oxbridge, and there is an Oxford Academy of the Palm Beaches, a private high school in Florida.
More to the MG story above. In the 1920s, Morris owned a chain of auro repair garages and dealerships. Cecil Kimber was the manager at the garage in Oxford, and took it upon himself to produce a special car in his own shop – known as the MG (Morris Garages), which became an iconic spots car in the mid-century, born in Oxford.
MG Motor produced their first SUV, the MG GS, in 2015. (MG makes an SUV, yes!) MG Motor also produces the MG 3, the MG 5, and the MG 6 which was the first all-new MG in 16 years when it was released in 2011. MG Motor bought MG Cars in 2009. MG Cars have been around since 1924 as various companies including William R. Morris, Morris Motors, Rover Group, BMW, and British Aerospace.