NEVER MIND THE FORELOCKS

Whose life may be counted properly complete without the existence in it somewhere of an early 19th-century Venetian brass ‘hippocamp’ gondola oarlock? 

Hard as it is to believe, this Spurtle correspondent was considering just such a lack in the bath last night when he stumbled across two flattened figures on waisted bases and rectangular marble plinths here in Lyon & Turnbull’s ever changing and always fascinating website.

The items are to be offered at an auction of fine furniture and works of art on 14 January 2015. They are estimated to fetch between £300 and £500 the pair.

An oarlock is pretty much the same thing as a rowlock, but – as a less familiar variant UK term – is preferable in some circles for not obviously rhyming. Unless, of course, you’re a very expensively educated and very drunk young man we once had reason to reprove under a poker table at the Wally Dug.

A hippocamp, on the other hoof, as everybody knows, is a half-horse and half-fish, and crops up in ancient Greek, Etruscan and Roman mythology. Beloved of Poseidon, it partly explains the persistence in contemporary culture of ‘white horses’ and Weston-super-Mare.

Hippocamps also appear in a few Pictish stone carvings, although nobody understands why. They may reflect Classical influences introduced from the South. Or they may simply allude to early examples of Entente Cordiale haddock-suppers gone horribly wrong.

Whatever the case, this individual means to acquire the Lyon & Turnbull beauties at any price and attach them pronto to Spurtle’s ceremonial barge in time for the great Stockbridge Duck Race next year.