Sunday 18 September 2016

Ever Heard Of Hans Erni?

I'd never heard of Hans Erni, but his art for the book Man in Society: Patterns of Human Orginization (MacDonald, 1964) really caught my eye when a copy came across my desk the other week. Shades of Picasso, Dali, and (to use a latter-day example) Dave McKean, but still very much his own.

You can learn more about the prolific Erni on his Wikipedia page. He died in 2015, at the rather impressive age of 106!

Here's his contribution to Man in Society.





















Sunday 11 September 2016

How To Make A Good Cup of Tea, 1878 Style

Here's a recent addition to the shelves of the Little Shop: Vol. 1 No. 1 of the marvellously titled The Caterer and Refreshment Contractors Gazette from 1878.  

It features some wonderful old advertisements (I want a Beer Engine!), and an article that deserves to be reprinted in full: 'How to Make a Good Cup of Tea.'

Its second sentence is a basic statement of fact that, even 138 years later, is still far from being grasped by our American cousins...

"Tea cannot be made properly with water not heated up to boiling point."

The last paragraph also has some stern words for people who sweeten their tea "too freely"...