Monday 18 March 2024

"THAT'S THE WAY TO DO IT!"

There are days when I totally despair of the rank bonkerness with which our media is now infested!

A display currently on show at the V&A (Victoria and Albert Museum) 'mentions' (as a historical fact, please note) that the popular seaside entertainment, the Punch & Judy Show, has – over the years – opted to substitute the play's original 'Devil' puppet with one modelled on the features of hated public figures including Adolf Hitler, Margaret Thatcher and Osama bin Laden.

So?

Well, that story has now been re-presented as the V&A promulgating the monstrous proposition that Thatcher was as evil as Hitler and bin Laden and, as a result, that the museum ought to have its funding taken away and that those responsible for exhibition-label-writing should be flogged, naked, through the streets of London!

What utter whiffle and piffle! You can't possibly learn from history if you hide or deny it!

Anyway, here's Mrs Thatcher (or, rather, her 'Spitting Image' alter ego) as I accounted her at the Tate Gallery at their 2010 exhibition, 'Rude Britannia'.

 

 
 
[Photo: Brian Sibley]

Sunday 10 March 2024

MOTHERING SUNDAY 2024

 

Even when they're no longer with us, our Mothers are ever-present in our memories...

 




[Photo: David Weeks]

Sunday 18 February 2024

ARF! ARF!

 

18 February: HAPPY PLUTO DAY! 


MEET THE PLUTOS...
 
 
PLUTO 1: GOD 
 
In ancient Greek mythology, Pluto (Greek: Πλούτων, Ploutōn) was the ruler of the underworld. In Greek cosmogony, Pluto was given charge of the underworld in a three-way split of sovereignty over the world with his brothers Zeus and Poseidon: Zeus ruling the sky and Poseidon being sovereign over the sea. Pluto's central narrative in myth is of his abducting Persephone (daughter of Zeus and Demeter) to be his wife and queen of his realm; a scenario that would inspire Walt Disney's 1934 'Silly Symphony', The Goddess of Spring.

 
PLUTO 2: PLANET 
 
On 18 February 1930, (94 years ago today) Clyde Tombaugh of the Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona discovered a ninth planet in our Solar System and named it ‘Pluto’.
 
 
PLUTO 3: DOG 
 
In May 1931, Mickey Mouse’s pet dog (previously known as ‘Rover’) was renamed ‘Pluto’ when he appeared in Walt Disney’s short cartoon, The Moose Hunt, likely inspired by the huge publicity surrounding the then recent discovery of the planet.
 
 
PLUTO 4: DWARF PLANET 
 
In 2006, the International Astronomical Union reclassified Pluto as a ‘Dwarf Planet’. Pluto’s ‘demotion’ caused considerable outrage. Pluto the Pup, however, was unconcerned! In 2023, NASA shared images captured by its spacecraft including a photograph of a glacier on Pluto’s surface, which was shaped like a heart. Others have seen the shape as a silhouette of the head of Mickey’s doggy pal seen in profile!
 
 

Wednesday 14 February 2024

LENTEN DAYS

It's Lent!  So, here's a little Easter book for the kids...

 
 
 
(Not quite a follow up to The Fall of Númenor – but, occasionally, I can still be unpredictable!)

VALENTINE'S DAY

A Short Note on the ART of LOVE

The brilliant American artist, J. C. Leyendecker (1874-1951), celebrated for his memorable poster and advertising illustrations, spent his career depicting idealized images of the sexes that were redolent of the spirit of the 1920s. That imagery, for his generation, served as archetypes of heterosexual masculinity and femininity. But while a nation adored his work – and sought to emulate the style and glamour of the Leyendecker men and women – the creator lived a closeted life common to so many gay men and women of that era.

Today, his work has undergone a process of homoerotic decoding and, on this Valentine's Day, I'm sharing three of his classic paintings: 'The Butterfly Couple' (1923) and its romantic usage as a magazine advertisement for Kuppheimer Good Clothes, and two covers for The Saturday Evening Post (March 1913 and 1934)...

 

 

 

Alongside these ladies and gents, I give you a re-imagined amalgamation of Leyendecker's craft (together with appropriate Evening Post lettering) made in 2010 by James Blah as a Valentine’s Day card for his boyfriend.

 


 As the Bard neatly observed:

"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind." 

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 1, scene 1 

Let's remember J. C. Leyendecker for his astonishing art while celebrating the fact that we live in a time when, for the benefit of all humanity, Cupid is increasingly – and thankfully – being "painted blind". 

Friday 2 February 2024

CHRISTMAS ISN'T JUST FOR CHRISTMAS

Today, the feast Candlemas, traditionally marks the 40th day of – and conclusion to – the Christmas-Epiphany season; but, maybe, it doesn't need to be... Charles Dickens certainly thought that was an option, as evidenced by Ebenezer Scrooge's declaration towards the end of in A Christmas Carol (1843):
 

“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year."

 


[Illustration: Roberto Innocenti, A Christmas Carol (1990)]

Thursday 1 February 2024

PINNED TO RIGHTS

 


Yes, I admit it: I am a Disney-geek. And, yes, I love Disney's 1959 animation masterwork, Sleeping Beauty, now celebrating its 65th Anniversary – Blimey! Was I really 10-years-old when I first saw it? – but I am more than a tad appalled by this particular merchandising money-spinner...

The marketing pitch runs thus (my bold italics for emphasis): 

"True love of pin-collecting conquers all with this series of mystery pins celebrating the 65th anniversary of Walt Disney's 'Seeping Beauty'. Each box contains two randomly selected pins from a possibility of ten different designs featuring the classic cast. Collect them all to assemble a Maleficent dragon silhouette."

Now, the price for two "mystery pins" is £14, or £7 each, meaning that the cost for a complete set of ten would be £70 – except that, since you have to buy the badges sight-unseen, there's a strong likelihood that you'll end up with at least a few (and possibly quite a lot) of duplicates before being able to assemble your 'Maleficent dragon silhouette.'

 



Maybe all pin-badgers are in swapping-circles or (perhaps more likely) will sell them on eBay for in excess of £7 apiece; but to my mind, "Once Upon a Dream" could very easily turn out to be an expensive nightmare!

So, yes, the set is a clever design and, indeed, looks pretty cool, but I really hope those crazy Disney pin-punters will, in this instance, consider choosing abstinence over collector's obsession!

But, hang on... I've just remembered: when Sleeping Beauty was first released, it proved an expensive box-office failure, so maybe Disney are still trying to recoup those 65-year-old losses!  

Friday 26 January 2024

THE TRAITORS FINAL (UK, Season 2)

 
"Our doubts are traitors, 
And make us lose the good we oft might win, 
By fearing to attempt."
 
– William Shakespeare 
Measure for Measure 
(Lucio to Isabella, Act I, Scene IV)
 
 
The Final of The Traitors (UK, Season 2): I'm not sure whether I was more depressed by the Traitor's ruthless brutality or the Faithful's sadly misplaced trust. 
 
Brilliant TV, no question... but, ultimately, painful for its savage uncloaking of the worst aspects of human nature.

Wednesday 24 January 2024


Today, my American friends are celebrating National Peanut Butter Day!

 

I became hooked on this sticky, nutty, product when I was, maybe, six or seven years old and I pestered my mother into letting me try it solely because the jars from Sun-Pat then being sold in the UK came with a picture of this Walt Disney icon on the lid and a label carrying the sing-song mantra: SUN-PAT DONALD DUCK CRUNCHY PEANUT BUTTER.

 

Surprisingly, I succeeded in getting it added to the regular grocery shopping-list – remembering my Mother, I'm not sure how I did that! – and it became a much-loved breakfast spread long before I discovered the additional pleasure derived from a second topping of jelly – or, as we say, jam.

 

Mind you, if I'm honest, I'm no longer certain whether, back then, I actually really LIKED peanut butter that much, or whether it was totally down to the compelling marketing powers of the Disney Duck! I suspect the latter and, of course, I was – then and now – a 'Walt-nut'!

Anyway, I really wish I'd kept the empty jars: those selling on eBay (all of them with bashed, battered and rusty old lids) change hands for surprisingly toothsome prices.

 

 


 

Wednesday 17 January 2024

LETERS FROM THE MARTIAN CHRONICLER


 
I am very honoured to be among recipients of letters included in Remembrance: Selected Correspondence of Ray Bradbury, edited by Jonathan R. Eller; recipients such as Grahame Greene, Arthur C. Clark, Federico Fellini, Gore Vidal, Carl Sandburg, Francois Truffaut and Bertrand Russell.
 
I first exchanged letters with Ray in 1974 and we continued to write to one another and, later meet up in London and L.A., until his death 38 years later. That first letter of Ray's, in response to an enquiry from a supremely confident 25-year-old admirer, was a small but exquisite masterpiece: a fireworks display of words, thoughts and images: an explosion of stimulating ideas, questions and challenges. Over twice my age and an international literary superstar, he replied as if to an equal with such vigorous engagement and indulgent charm that, however unlikely it seems to me now, could only ever be read as an invitation to begin a friendship...
 
What I couldn't have known was that it would be a friendship would bring me, across nearly four decades, letters, notes, postcards and doodles, an annual Christmas poem (and, no surprise, zany Halloween greetings); articles, cuttings and clippings; play-scripts and hand-bills; signed books and an endorsement for the cover one of my books – and an opportunity to dramatise The Illustrated Man and more than half-a-dozen of his short stories for radio.
 
The letter itself and two of my mine to Ray (which I hadn't seen since I wrote them!) are chiefly concerned with a conversation about Walt Disney's use in his theme-parks of 'Audio-Animatronic' technology – or, to put it in non-Disney speak, 'robots'! It seems that, half-a-century ago, we were already debating the pros and cons of what we would now refer to as 'AI': Ray, obviously and unashamedly 'pro'; me anxiously, 'con'. 
 
In a few months time it will be fifty years since that wonderful letter arrived and almost twelve years since Ray's death and yet I remain as moved and eternally grateful to have received it, not just for the content, but for all the memories of which it was but the first...