It is a truth universally acknowledged that a second hand book dealer in possession of a good-sized pile of Philip K. Dick books will not be in want of customers.
Sure enough, the selection of PKD titles which arrived in the Little Shop last week has all but disappeared already, but not before hours of fun were had with such quips and badinage as:
"Check out the size of my Dick!"
"My Dick has just grown a lot bigger."
"I love a bit of Dick."
"I'm going to put my Dick in the window."
Et cetera, et cetera... Alas, my Dick has now shrunk back to normal.
Most of the books that came and went were recent UK paperback printings, from the last ten years or so. While they were perfectly nice to look at, I think the 1970s UK paperbacks, published under the Panther Science Fiction imprint, have the edge. Reason enough to see how many of their covers I can find lurking online... (I'm sure this is far from complete though).
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.
As the inevitable shelf-load of ghosted celebrity autobiographies start to materialise in the run up to Christmas, here's a reminder that it's nothing new — famous names have been brands used to sell stuff for decades. There's arguably still never been a name bigger than Charlie Chaplin. That he was once the most famous man in the world is not open to debate, surely, and one small offshoot of that status was the decision of the British company Amalgamated Press to create, in 1915, a Chaplin comic strip.
It appeared in their comic The Funny Wonder all the way through to 1944, drawn mostly by Bertie Brown, with Freddie Adkinssometimes filling in. There are a handful of issues in the Little Shop, and below is a story from 1930, by Brown I think, which expertly captures the Little Tramp doing what he does best, mooning after girls and getting involved in pretty violent slapstick.
There are more examples of the strip on Lew Stringer's excellent blog here, and don't forget you can join Brian J. Robb's epic journey through all of Chaplin's output, exactly a century after each film's initial release, here.
Anno's Africa is "is a UK based charity that offers an alternative, arts education to orphans and vulnerable children in some of Africa’s most desperately deprived city slums." You can visit their website and donate to this most worthy cause here.
I'm mentioning them because last week they auctioned off a bunch of 'celebrity' items on eBay. A whopping £42,000 was raised in total, thanks in no small part to Jane Birkin's signed Hermes bag (£19,900) and BenCum's Spencer Hart suit from Sherlock (£7,100). But the item that caught my eye was this:
"A genuine Haut Brion '53 wine bottle with original label, but filled with 'prop' wine (Ribena or equivalent) as used as a prop in cult movie WITHNAIL AND I – as part of Uncle Monty's wine cellar – and not uncorked by Uncle Monty!
The label is signed on the left hand side by the movie's writer and director Bruce Robinson, and on the right hand side he has written 'Withnail & I 1986'."
I'll admit I would have dearly loved to have won this (what a centrepiece for the Withnail shrine in the Little Shop!); alas the winning bid of £481.89 was somewhat out of my price range. Still, at that price I'm sure it's gone to a good home, where it will be treated with the respect and love it deserves, and carefully handed down to generation upon generation in the future...
Incidentally, you can buy a bottle of Haut-Brion '53 that still has the actual wine in it for slightly less than £481.89 here, but only if you buy a whole case of it. For five and a half grand.
Anyway, here are some more photos of this wonderful piece of Withnail history, as modelled by Mr Robinson himself... Chin chin!
I imagine someone somewhere has glibly called photographs 'windows into the past', but in the case of these recent arrivals, the description is totally justified. There are two of them, both the size of an LP record, and even though they're somewhat faded, get close enough and the detail really comes alive.
July 20th, 1887 was Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee. She wrote in her diary:
"Had a large family dinner. All the Royalties assembled in the Bow Room, and we dined in the Supper-room, which looked splendid with the buffet covered with the gold plate. The table was a large horseshoe one, with many lights on it.
"The King of Denmark took me in, and Willy of Greece sat on my other side. The Princes were all in uniform, and the Princesses were all beautifully dressed. Afterwards we went into the Ballroom, where my band played."
Sounds like a great night. A couple of days later, it was Penrith's turn to celebrate. According to this reportin the Cumberland and Westmorland Herald the events kicked off with a rousing speech from the local M.P. J.W. Lowther, who called for three cheers, “Cheers which will make this old market place of Penrith ring and ring again, cheers which shall be remembered by all of us here present to our dying day." The report continues:
A church service at St. Andrew’s was followed by a great procession. Supt. Fowler, of the local constabulary, on horseback, headed six carriages, containing the MP and other leading lights, and hundreds on foot, including Oddfellows, Druids, Forresters and Sons of Temperance.
A short stop was made while the chairman of the local board of health, Mr. James, re-named Scot Lane as Brunswick Road, as the thoroughfare had just been widened and improved.
It was the turn of the children to parade in the afternoon, this time with Mr. Fairer, the chairman of the jubilee committee, leading on his horse. While youngsters were presented with special mugs, old folk were entertained to a “knife and fork” feast in the Exchange Hall (later to become J. H. Howe’s dress shop in Angel Lane and, ultimately, demolished to make way for the Angel Square development).
The highlight was a sports meeting on the Foundry Field, with the cavalry band playing while athletes ran, jumped and wrestled. Everybody must have been exhausted by the end of the day, for the program also included a fireworks display on the Beacon and a dinner for 100 leading personalities at the Crown Hotel.
The photos below, taken by local portrait and landscape photographer James Huff, show the gathering in the centre of town to watch the procession. In the second shot though, a lot of the crowd spotted Huff, and are looking straight at us, through the years...
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