h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just to say thanks for an interesting article which taught me a thing or two.

Very sincerely
John D. Miller

You're welcome. Cheers

I'm not certain about the derivation of the term 'Mothers Ruin' for gin - I've always understood that it referred to the alledged abortifant properties of gin when drunk while sitting in a hot bath. Any sources for the other definition?

Tony

I'm not certain about the derivation of the term 'Mothers Ruin' for gin - I've always understood that it referred to the alledged abortifant properties of gin when drunk while sitting in a hot bath. Any sources for the other definition?

Tony

Mother's ruin
...She lived and died in a 'white trash heaven'. Her son was not that moved. Until he became a man
My Dark Places, by James Ellroy
Century, £16.99, pp351

GIN LANE: William Hogarth's depressing print from 1751 depicted the addiction of the working class to cheap gin

When Mick Jagger belted-out Honky Tonk Women, who did the Rolling Stone meet but a "gin-soaked bar-room queen from Memphis". Well, the lyric may have sounded catchy, but it unjustly associated such a sophisticated spirit as gin with the seedy side of life. The tawdry-reputation evolved in mid-18th century England when gin was a veritable "opiate of the people". "Mother's Ruin" was its derogatory nickname; along with the equally insalubrious "Cuckald's Delight". Its spiritual home was Gin Lane in Dickensian London, a notoriously ribald and raucous den of iniquity -- and one of those legendary, long-gone places you wish you could have visited, just once. Back in those days, it was a Dutch drink. They invented the idea of flavouring young grain with juniper berries and called it "essence de genievre' which was shortened to gin. When the Dutchman, King William III, ascended the throne of England in 1689 he imported caseloads to London and it caught on fast.