Withnail And I News Roundup - Back In Cinemas! Plus, Uncle Monty's Rolls and I Feel Like A Pig Shat In My Head

If you're reading this blog, there's a fair chance you've seen Withnail and I. In fact, you've probably seen it more times than you can remember, and tend to quote it on a daily basis. But if you've never seen it on the big screen, and you live anywhere near any of the cinemas showing Arrow Films' spanking new restored print, do make the effort. Withnail is a quotable cult comedy, yes, but you need a big screen to really appreciate that it's also a brilliantly shot, beautiful looking movie. Thanks to Arrow's work scanning the original negative, supervised by the film's original Director of Photography Peter Hannan, it's never looked better. You can see the new print at:

Curzon Victoria
IFI Dublin
Hackney Picturehouse
Olympic, Barnes
FACT Liverpool
Odeon Panton St
Odeon South Woodford
Odeon Bath
Odeon Colchester
Odeon Oxford Magdalene St
Odeon Guildford
Odeon Lincoln
Odeon Southampton
Odeon Kingston
Odeon Norwich
Odeon Manchester
Campus West Welwyn Garden City
Everyman Selfridges

If you can't make it to the cinema, and you haven't already bought one of the (very) limited edition personalised ones, you can pre-order Arrow's super-duper new Withnail Blu-ray set here.

The re-release has garnered a five star Guardian review here ("Every line is a quotable joy... I feel an intense envy for people who are about to see this for the first time." Amen to that!), and a fun look at the film's influence on fashion here. There's even an entertaining article in the Telegraph (and that's not a sentence I often have call to use) here.

This just in... Uncle Monty's Rolls is up for sale! The Steeple Times has the details here. Its original owner, one Nubar Gulbenkian, was quite a character, it would appear. A thrice married, flamboyantly bearded Armenian playboy, he was evidently also a fan of my favourite writer Saki, as he once paraphrased him by nicking his line about cooks, and applying it to his wives: “I’ve had good wives, as wives go, and as wives go, two of them went."

In other news, The Brunswick Yard in Penrith (Penrith!!), where Withnail Books' Little Shop is located, played host this weekend to its first Oktoberfest, joining forces with the funsters at the Moo Bar to present German beer, sausage (and pizza), and music (the amazing Jed on the Rädern der Stahls and a live performance by Beachmaster).

Rather more than just a few ales were consumed, and yes, the next morning I both had a bastard behind the eyes, and felt like a pig shat in my head. Mr Robinson, those descriptions are perfect.

Photos below thanks to the Moo Bar's Facebook page. The really ace ones which look like they were taken by a professional photographer look that way because they were taken by a professional photographer, John Burrows.

How To Open A Secondhand Bookshop By Mistake: ONE YEAR ON

So, the Little Shop 'officially' opened a year ago tomorrow. Last July I blogged about how it all came to be. One year on, Withnail Books is ticking away quite nicely, 'washing its face' as they say. It's true that selling secondhand books is a lifestyle choice rather than an empire-building exercise, but when that lifestyle means you live in the Lake District and surround yourself with old books all day, then it's a choice I'm very happy to have made. The shop already has its regulars, and now the summer season has started in earnest, I've started noticing holidaymakers coming back in again after finding us last year. A lot of this has to do with Other Adam's hard work developing The Brunswick Yard, where the Little Shop is, into the kind of place which causes visitors to tell him, quite unbidden, on a daily basis, how amazing it is.

I'm still a baby bookdealer of course, learning the trade. I must say that any and all of the other dealers I've met, either when they have dropped by the shop, or at the book fairs I've pitched out at, have been unfailingly friendly and happy to chat about the business. That makes sense though, as selling books is as much about who you know as what you know: you might not have a customer for a certain book, but with any luck you'll know a dealer who does...

Withnail Books has a few little specialist areas (a certain film of course, graphic novels, a bit of T. E. Lawrence and some Lakeland books) but it's mainly about being able to wander in and find something 'interesting', usually for under a tenner. That's the answer I always give to the question "What sort of books do you buy?" "Interesting ones." It's not a particularly useful answer, but it's the most honest one I can give.

One skill that I have honed quite a bit in the last year (and it's just as well) is being able to tell whether a book is one that will likely:

i) sell very quickly
ii) have to wait a while for the right person to come along, but will go eventually
iii) haunt the shelves forever and day.

There are some books that I just know when I put them out will not last the week, and they never do. Which books? Well, interesting ones...

Anyway, a hearty thank you to everyone who has visited the shop, or simply followed it via this blog, or on Facebook or Twitter. Chin chin!

Finally, I will leave you with the inaugural winner of the (drum roll...)

Withnail Books Bonkers But 100% True Customer Quote of the Year Award:

"I need a book with photographs of meat!"

(He went away happy.)

A first birthday present from friend of the shop Martyn Watson: T. E. Meerkat of Arabia.
So very, very wrong, it's right.
(As another friend pointed out, at least an Arabian meerkat is more believable than a Russian one!)