Every now and then I find two or three items from my collection of juvenile ephemera (otherwise known as toys and games) that demand to be put together in the same narrative. Here is the latest, for which the legend reads THE GIANT DUCK OF TOPEKA HAD CLAIMED YET ANOTHER VICTIM PS IF THIS AMUSES YOU, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO SHARE IT WITH PEOPLE YOU THINK MIGHT LIKE IT TOO!...
Another installment of the enthralling form by H.F. Ellis from 1946. Coming soon: the answer to a question which might be troubling some of you. PS IF THIS AMUSES YOU, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO SHARE IT WITH PEOPLE YOU THINK MIGHT LIKE IT TOO! THE SHARE BUTTON IS AT THE TOP ...
I was a fan of George Martin long before I was a fan of the Beatles – though I didn’t know it until just now, when I read Mark Lewinsohn’s extraordinary Tune In, the first of his projected three volume biography of the band. What I learnt there was that in his role as head of the EMI record label Parlophone, George had produced some of the records I’d adored as a child in the 1950’s – including Nellie the Elephant (Off she went with a trumpety trump, trump, trump...
Britain in 1946 was awash with official forms, many a hangover from wartime regulations, others brought in by the new Labour government. H.F. Ellis,who wrote for Punch, felt there needed to be yet another one, about Aunts. Coming soon:Part Two: How Many Aunts Must I have in order to make a claim? PS IF THIS AMUSES YOU, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO SHARE IT WITH PEOPLE YOU THINK MIGHT LIKE IT TOO! ...
When I'm not writing I make sculptures using old toys and games as my medium, and I've just finished restoring and adding LEDs to a sculpture I call Uptown Saturday Night. Here it is by day and by night. PS IF THIS AMUSES YOU, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO SHARE IT WITH PEOPLE YOU THINK MIGHT LIKE IT TOO! THE SHARE BUTTON IS AT THE TOP ...
When I was growing up Penguin books were ubiquitous, elegantly presented and cheap. But also a little bit austere and even - for the under ten set -forbidding. For sheer excitement, on the other hand, Penguin's rival Pan went all out to make their books irresistable on the bookstand, and I still take great delight in their cover art to this day. Even if - perhaps even because - some of the draughtsmanship is rather gloriously bad. Here are three from my collection of Pan books dealing with World War Two adventures, of which there were...
My second video diary about the battle to turn Santa Monica Airport into a park. http://airport2park.org/video-diary-park-progress-episode-2/ ...
Great Replies of Our Time Volume One: My very talented Production Designer daughter Rebecca Facebooked a picture of the eerie shrine she has just made for a murder show she's working on, and one of her fans asked "Is this something you're building for the TV show?" "No," replied Rebecca within seconds, "I was just looking for a quiet place to work." ...
Among the cultural event of 1946 we must not forget the appearance of a small blue railway engine. Duncan Forrester did not buy the first in the series, a book called Three Railway Engines by the Reverend Wilbert Vere Awdry, when it was published in 1945: at that moment he was driving a stolen German motor cycle along a mountain road in Bavaria. But he was back in England for the publication of the Rev. Awdry’s second book, Thomas the Tank Engine, in 1946, and saw it in Brown’s Book Shop,...
