Ernest x KEEN footwear

Introducing an intrepid competition with KEEN footwear: win a pair of UNEEK sandals plus a two-year subscription to Ernest Journal by sharing photos of your unique adventures on Instagram and Twitter over the next four weeks.

We're thrilled to partner up with KEEN footwear on a rather adventurous competition to support the launch of UNEEK, a hybrid sandal made with just two cords and a sole and designed to mould perfectly to your feet.

You have two chances to win!

1) Just for fun, we sent three Ernest writers into the wilds with a pair of UNEEK sandals but can you guess where they are? This week, The Girl Outdoors took her sandals to a popular Welsh beauty spot, often quoted as one of Britain’s favourite views, but can you tell us where? There’s a free copy of Ernest up for grabs for the first correct answer written as a comment on our Instagram feed.

2) And now for the big one: to win a pair of UNEEK sandals and a two-year subscription to Ernest Journal, share a photo of your feet exploring the world with the hashtag #UNEEKAdventure on Instagram or Twitter. We will share our favourites on the Ernest feed and choose a winner at random each week for the next month. Deadline: midnight 25 August.

For more about KEEN and their new UNEEK sandals, read our interview in the Ernest directory.

See our terms and conditions.

Diableries: stereoscopic adventures in hell

When Pierre Adolphe Hennetier created 3-D photographs of clay model demons in 1860, little did he realise they would continue to enthrall and beguile audiences over a century later. In this short extract from print issue three, Dr Brian May explores the story behind The Infernal Library, in which Satan stores his collection of human souls.

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What kind of library is it that opens at midnight and in which skulls sorted by sins are standing in rows where books should be?  There are a few books indeed (the spine of one of them bears the word ‘Mort’ – Death) but the artist has made it obvious that what ‘readers’ come to consult here is not bound volumes, but skulls.  

Shelves for only four of the Seven Deadly Sins (Sloth, Greed, Pride and Gluttony) appear here. Presumably the rest are on the walls behind us. Satan is holding one of these heads in his hands, and rather like Hamlet, is weighing it, and perhaps wondering what went on in that skull before it was divested of its contents. It’s an “Alas, poor Yorick” moment but Satan has a different slant – because, of course, he has a whole collection of these skulls, and this is where he keeps them all neatly categorised. We have to remember that in these diableries, skeletons represent souls, so Satan is revelling in his collection of stolen essences of humans. Habert may have had the ‘science’ of phrenology in mind, too – supposedly a way of determining human traits by feeling the bumps on people’s heads.  

Two pages welcome visitors while an assistant fetches the skulls they have called for by climbing up a stepladder. There are two ‘readers’, both wearing the robe and pointed hat adorned with cabalistic patterns one usually associates with wizards or astrologers. The female scholar is looking up at some interesting specimen on a shelf, while her male counterpart is being shown in. He is wearing a mask, as though it were important not to be recognised when walking into this very unusual library.  

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This is an extract from Diableries: Stereoscopic Adventures in Hell by Brian May, Denis Pellerin and Paula Fleming, published by the London Stereoscopic Company. The book comes with an OWL stereoscopic viewer, designed by Brian May, for the reader to view the 180 diablerie scenes in 3-D. londonstereo.com

Read the full feature in Ernest Journal print issue three, which also features the science of terrariums, wild men mythology, the psychology of board games, prehistoric cooking techniques and a man who cooks on hotel room appliances.

Scrambled egg in a hotel kettle

Having toured as a comic for two decades, George Egg has grown tired of mediocre and overpriced hotel food. In an act of inventiveness, George has taught himself how to cook an array of meals using hotel room appliances. Here is his unique take on a classic breakfast dish, for which you will require a travel kettle and an iron

Photo: Jean-Luc Brouard

Once you’ve cooked eggs this way you won’t go back to using a saucepan, even if you’re not in a hotel. I promise you.

Ingredients

1 ciabatta roll
2 eggs
2 portions of butter
Salt and pepper
Parmesan
A stout freezer bag

1. Put the kettle on. Set the iron to ‘linens’.
    
2. Crack your eggs into the freezer bag, add some salt and pepper and one of the portions of butter and then massage the mixture from the outside through the bag until it’s well combined.
    
3. Cut the ciabatta roll into three or four slices (about 1.5cm thick), butter them on both sides and arrange them in a row before resting the hot iron on top and leaving them to toast. Check every now and then and when they’re browned enough, turn them over and toast the other side.
    
4. Meanwhile lower the bottom of the bag into the kettle and re-boil it, periodically removing the bag and massaging the contents. Check it frequently and as soon as it’s cooked as you like it take it out of the heat. Finally, add another ½ portion of butter for extra creaminess. The beauty of this method is the gentle heat –  the chances of overcooked rubbery eggs is greatly reduced.
    
5. Place the toasted ciabatta slices onto a plate and spoon over the creamy egg before sprinkling with a little more black pepper. You’ll find most hotels provide on request a disposable razor free of charge, so use that to shave a little parmesan over the top.

George Egg is a stand-up comedian who has cooked in hotel rooms all over the world and documented his exploits on YouTube viral Hotel Survival, a video that spawned his one-man show George Egg: Anarchist Cook

anarchistcook.info

 

You can discover more of George's hotel room recipes (including sea bass cooked in a bathroom sink and pancakes griddled on a hot iron) in the third print edition of Ernest Journal.

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Meet the maker: Stay Gold Mary Rose

Dean Hearne, creator and curator of The Future Kept talks to jewellery maker Abigail MaryRose Clarke about upcycling beautiful objects that have outlived their intended use

SGMR's tools of the jeweller trade

What first got you interested in making jewellery?

As a teenager I wasn’t impressed with the mass-produced accessories that were available on the high street. My school friends and I would venture to an old junk shop in the Brighton laines that had vintage jewellery from all over the world. In school I started to make my own jewellery from whatever I had lying around and I continued my experiments through college and university. 

Tell us about your design style – what makes your collections unique?

I love to work with patterns, glazes and texture so I tend to find a ceramic piece and try to incorporate the existing image or design. I like to preserve the original qualities and history of the piece rather than just smashing up a plate to use the shards. 

Where do you draw your inspiration from?

I am obsessed with ceramics in general, from contemporary designs to chintzy antiques; Scandinavian, West German and Postmodern ceramics always catch my eye. Most recently, 1960s and 70s British ceramic designers have played a huge part in my work, especially the work of Susan Williams Ellis of Portmeirion and Honor Curtis of Troika, St Ives. I love their techniques of the way they combine embossed symbols, scratched patterns and organic rough glazes. There are some incredible modern ceramic artists I follow on social media, such as Martina Thornhill, B-Zippy and Young In The Mountains. 

What did you do before you made the leap into being a full-time jewellery maker?

As a student in Manchester I'd work part time in bars and music venues in the evenings and at weekends. I eventually ended up moving back to the south east where I ran an old bookshop and crafted in my spare time. I then started to apply for craft events and created an online Etsy shop. The big change came when my work was spotted by the accessory buyer at Anthopologie and everything started to take off.

Can you tell us about a favourite piece that you have created?

I love giving my jewellery to friends and family – this was originally who I started making for. I particularly enjoyed designing the groomsmens' button holes for my friend's wedding as well as the bridesmaids' head pieces for my brother’s wedding. It’s always an honour to be asked to make a piece for such a special occasion.

What are your favourite places for sourcing materials?

Oh there are so many! When sourcing for larger wholesale orders I go to the larger porcelain manufacturers in Stoke-on-Trent to buy in bulk. It’s always so amazing to look around the old pottery mills and factories – some still have the old kilns and equipment lying on benches, and old plaster moulds and bisque-ware stacked on drying racks. For smaller-scale orders and commissions I look around charity shops and markets. I adore Lewes flea market and the old fishing hut antique shops in Rye, but I absolutely love it when the customer brings their own heirloom crockery to be transformed. I've recently finished an order for a bride-to-be, using her grandmother’s wedding china. That really makes the transformation all the more special. 

Stay Gold Mary Rose's Spearhead Pendants (£25, pictured), upcycled from vintage willow china, are available to buy through The Future Kept.

This is a sponsored blog post, created in collaboration with The Future Kept. For more information on partnerships and joining our directory, please email advertise@ernestjournal.co.uk

Rockford Socks

In Midway Museum, Rockford, Illinois, you will find a permanent exhibition of red-mouthed sock monkeys. Guy Lochhead explores the origins of this toy, ingeniously upcycled from red-heeled socks

In 1852 a Swedish machinist named John Nelson emigrated to Rockford, Illinois to start a woodworking factory, but became distracted by the idea of a new sock-making process that didn’t leave an uncomfortable seam along the heel. In fact, he became so obsessed with the idea that, for a time, his friends worried he was mad. Fortunately, with the help of a local inventor, he finalised a design for his sock-knitting machine.

The socks proved popular with farmers and factory workers and spawned many imitations, also known as Rockfords. To set the original Rockfords apart, Nelson Knitting Co patented the iconic red heel in 1915.

During the Great Depression, impoverished American mothers would turn old Rockford socks into toy monkeys, using the red heel as the doll’s mouth. The craze grew, and in 1955, Nelson Knitting Co was awarded the patent of the monkey pattern, and began including monkey-making instructions with every pair of socks sold.

The company was bought out by Fox River Mills in 1992, who continue to produce the socks, largely unchanged but for getting rid of the toe seam that was previously turned into the monkeys’ eyebrows.

Rockfords have been worn by Albert Einstein, Ansel Adams and JFK – and New York gallery director Ron Warren is credited with having the largest collection of homemade sock monkeys, which was the subject of a book called Sock Monkeys (200 Out Of 1,863) by Arne Svenson.

Words by contributing editor Guy Lochhead