Ask Uncle Dan

Dear Uncle Dan

I read in an old encyclopaedia that Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810), author of Arthur Mervyn: or Memoirs of the Year 1793, Alcuin: A Dialogue, Wieland: or The Transformation, Edgar Huntly: or Memoirs of a Sleep-Walker, Ormond: Or, The Secret Witness, Clara Howard, Somnambulism and other stories, Carwin: The Biloquist And Other American Tales And Pieces, An Address To The Government Of The United States On The Cession Of Louisiana, An Address To The Congress Of The United States On The British Treaty, and A Prospectus of a System of General Geography, was a frail, studious child, reputed a prodigy, and encouraged by his parents in that frantic feeding upon books which was expected, in those days, of every American boy of parts. What I want to know is, how can I become a “boy of parts”?

Yours sincerely,

Horst

PS—I am not American. I was born in Sumatra and now live in Belgium.

Uncle Dan says:

What you need, my boy, is vim. Vim is the trade name of a range of household cleaning products. Indeed, a scouring powder called Vim was one of the first products created by William Lever, the soapmaking tycoon whose family firm merged with a Dutch margarine manufacturer in 1930 to create that modern titan Unilever. As I am sure you know, Horst, Unilever owns Dove, Lipton, Ragu, Calve, Hellmans, Knorr, Domestos, Cif, Axe, Rexona, Calvin Klein, Cerrutti, Valentino perfumes, Bird's Eye, Domestos, Impulse, Vaseline, Ponds—that's right, Horst, Ponds!—Signal, Comfort, Slimfast, Magnum, Solero, Findus, and Ben & Jerry's. But I digress. We are talking about soap. Perhaps, young man, you are not of a technical bent? There are enticing opportunities in the soapmaking world for artistic temperaments too! You could, for example, design soap labels such as the one shown below.

Ask Uncle Dan: Soaplabel

Before modern soap, of course, people often used lye, which is still used today when preparing the Swedish delicacy known as Lutefisk, which is basically codfish jellied in lye. So, my lad, I'll wager that if you eat a big bowl of that every day you will indeed become a boy of parts.

Uncle Dan recommends wikipedia.