Good news for UK books

Book sales in the UK are reported to have soared by more than £2m last week as Thursday 13th September was one of the biggest dates of the year for new releases.  More than 200 hardback books were officially published on that day including Terry Pratchett's (big favourite of mine) Dodger and Martina Cole's The Life.

Also happening this weekend The London Art Book Fair is being held at Whitechapel Gallery and to celebrate The Hobbit's 75th anniversary HarperCollins is throwing a Second Breakfast in the gardens of Fulham Palace.  I have to declare a special interest in The Hobbit as I discovered that J.R.R. Tolkein based his idea of The Shire on the Cole Valley near his home in Sarehole.  It is now well into Birmingham but when I was young we used to play in The Dingles, as the park is now known, and catch minnows and sticklebacks in the clear water of the River Cole in dappled sunshine - absolutely magical and I can well see how it inspired Tolkein with his fairy version of an ideal rural England.

London Film Festival preview

The British Film Institute has published its preview of the upcoming London film festival and lists 30 recommendations at http://www.bfi.org.uk/news/london-film-festival-2012-30-recommendations.

Among the films recommended are Beyond the Hills which is the Sight and Sound Gala screenings taking place on Friday 21st and Sunday 23rd October.  Director Cristian Mungui's superstition and myth-haunted film focuses on two young nuns in a dilemma over the authority of the Romanian Orthodox Church and by implication with God. 

Among the British films to look forward to is Sightseers screening on Saturday 20th and Sunday 21st October.  This is a black comedy directed by Ben Wheatley and starring Alice Lowe and Steve Oram about nerdish couple Tina (Lowe) and Chris (Oram) from the Midlands, two characters created and developed by Lowe and Oram in their stand-up act over many years.  Chris wants to rescue Tina from her fake-bedridden mother and take her on a romantic caravan holiday.

Britfilm driver of economic growth

The UK film industry contributed more than £4.6bn to the British economy in 2011 according to research published by Oxford Economics.  A thriving industry supports 117,400 jobs, up from 100,000 in 2009 with 8,000 jobs being created in the last three years, a period with an unusually gloomy economic outlook.  The number of films being made in Britain has grown from 43 in the 1980s to 136 from the year 2000.  Box office receipts last year reached a record high of £410 million.

Oxford Economics conclude that film is an industry driving growth in the UKs economy.  Minister for Creative Industries Ed Vaizey is quoted as saying the report 'highlights the huge contribution that the film industry makes to long-term growth.'

Recent and ongoing investment at nearby Pinewood and even nearer Leavesden Studios is laying the foundation for future success.  Saturday Morning Pictures has since November 2005 been making a small contribution to development.  Two principal film projects Master Merryman and The Lady in Grey are now available in paperback via Amazon. Master Merryman is now ready to go forward to production. The Lady in Grey is still in script development.  Details are to be found on the company websiteat www.saturdaymorningpictures.eu

Which is your favourite Pre-Raphaelite?

Admit it.  Everyone's got one.  I have two.  My favourite Pre-Raphaelite painting is 'The Boyhood of Raleigh' by John Everett Millais because my grandmother had a big print of it on her living room wall and I always loved it as a child.  Not surprisingly I suppose, the image of the storyteller had great appeal for me and I have always loved anything to do with the sea.  Indeed, the picture had such a profound influence on me it even makes a cameo appearance in my comedy 'Mrs Potter's Portrait'. 

 

The other painting I am very fond of is by Irish society painter Daniel McAlise, who was a great friend of Charles Dickens.  It's his illustration of the poem by John Keats 'The Eve of St Agnes'.  The colours are simply stunning. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, as they styled themselves, rebelled against the art establishment of the mid 19th century and took their inspiration from early Renaissance painting creating the first consciously-formed art 'school'.

If you can't make up your mind there is a new exhibition on at Tate Britain, Millbank, London called ' 'Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant Garde'.  The exhibition opened on 12th September 2012 and will run until 13 January 2013.  Works exhibited include Dante Gabriel Rosetti's The Beloved ('The Bride') of 1865-6 recently acquired for the gallery by the Art Fund as one of over 150 works in different media including painting, sculpture, photography and applied arts. 

 

I have visited Tate Britain many times to view their fine collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings but I am looking forward to seeing a couple of rarely seen masterpieces included in the exhibition - Ford Madox Ford's famous painting Work (1852-65) (the father of  Ford Madox Brown author of Parade's End) and a couple of paintings by John Everett Millais I haven't seen before - Ferdinand lured by Ariel (1849-50), a scene from Shakespeare's play 'The Tempest' and A Huguenot, on St Bartholomew's Day, refusing to shield himself from danger by wearing the Roman Catholic Badge 1851-2.  I am also looking forward to seeing the 1858 wardrobe designed by Philip Webb and painted by Edward Burne-Jones on the theme of The Prioress's Tale (from Chaucer).

Tickets are £14 but concessions are available and if I hold on until November I will be eligible! Details can be found on the gallery's website at http://www.tate.org.uk/what's-on/tate-britain/exhibition/pre-raphaelites-victorian-avant-garde

London Fashion Week

We are now in the middle of London Fashion Week which is actually spread over 5 days between 14th and 18th September featuring 62 catwalk shows and 20 presentations involving 110 UK and international emerging and established ready-to-wear and accessory designers at The Exhibition, details of which can be found at http://www.londonfashionweek.co.uk/news.

Bearing in mind the lessons of Vespasian (see earlier blog) this seems like an opportunity to make a bid to support the British textile industry.  100 years ago it employed a million workers, now there are only around 190,000 employed in the industry and most of those are at the luxury end of the market.  As eastern imports are becoming more expensive isn't this a good time to make a push to revive manufacture in the UK.  Marks and Spencer used to resource 90% of their products from UK manufacturers.  Some years ago they switched to sourcing their fashion from China to reduce costs but it also seriously impaired the quality of their goods.  The last couple of things I bought from M&S, bearing in mind I used to be a regular customer, were disastrous.  The top was a lovely colour but ill-fitting and uncomfortable, the belt fell apart within hours.  Consequently I have not bought any fashion items from M&S for at least the last four years. As a result - not all down to me I hasten to add - their profits have steadily fallen.  Here is a great moment for them to stem the tide and pledge their support for British manufacturing. 

 

In the 60s the fashion industry played a big part in boosting a troubled economy with young people designing and making their own clothes, selling them on market stalls and in small boutiques.  It was a great burst of creativity that made life a lot of fun and it spilled out into other areas of design and manufacturing.  So young people out there looking for work get creative.  Get stylish.  Get sewing. Get busy.  Making stuff is very satisfying.  And old gals like me (M&S please note) do not want clothes that are frumpy and drab but we do need good tailoring.

Strictly Come Dancing Premiere

There we were, all feeling a bit flat after all the glitz and glamour of the Olympics and Paralympics, when along comes Strictly Come Dancing in a flurry of sequins, spangles, frocks and jocks to perk us all up again.  Yes, it's that time of the year when there's a chill in the air, the leaves are tinged with gold and the nights are drawing in - time to snuggle down on the sofa, order in the pizzas and settle down with Brucie and Tess and all the gang for our weekly  dose of Saturday Night Fever.  Last night we were treated to a taste of what's to come in the Premiere - the ultimate in shiny floor entertainment - all teeth and lights and swingy skirts with plenty of flesh on view.  The couples have been chosen and we were treated to a young singer Mika (is that how you spell it?) singing 'Let's celebrate', a catchy number which will undoubtedly be our accompaniment to the up-coming party season. Darcy Bussell demonstrated why she is well-qualified to be a judge by sticking her foot behind her ear and doing the splits.  Well done girl!  I bet Arlene is furious and Alesha, eat your heart out!  Brucie repeated all his favourite gags - in anyone else his age this would look like the symptoms of dementia - but we loved it.  The competition proper doesn't start for another three weeks on October 5th.  Can't wait!

Looking forward to...

Next Thursday 20th September 2012: In Our Time presented by Melvyn Bragg discussion the truth about druids on  BBC Radio 4 9:00 am and 9:30 p.m.  For my interest in the subject see previous posts on The Wonderful History of the Sword in the Stone and post-Roman archaeology.

A Classical Approach to Deficit Reduction

Last night I was reading Suetonius' history The Twelve Caesers and was intrigued by the story of the Emperor Vespasian. When Vespasian came to the throne he declared that at his accession he needed 400 million gold pieces to put the country on its feet again.  The emptiness of the Treasury and the Privy Purse, Suetonius tells us, forced him into heavy taxation and unethical business dealings.  (He cornered the market in certain commodities and then sold them on at inflated prices - an early example of trading in derivatives and insider dealing which, it is interesting to note, was regarded as unethical even in ancient Rome which was used to eye-watering levels of corruption).  He exacted fees from candidates for public office (sold honours!) and sold pardons to guilty and innocent alike. 

None of these solutions to the deficit problem would wash today apart from the heavy taxation which we are all braced to expect. However, when we look at the argument against cuts in public spending Vespasian provides us with some useful ammunition and, instead of voicing a visceral objection to cuts per se, perhaps allows those who advise against cuts and heavy taxation alone as the solution with some sound economic examples.

 

Vespasian initiated a building programme on a grand scale and invested heavily in the arts and sciences and education.  He paid teachers of Latin and Greek rhetoric (who supplied a good general education) an annual salary of 1,000 gold pieces from the Privy Purse.  He encouraged musical theatre (which is very labour intensive) by investing in the theatre and offering high rewards to its principal stars and attempted to revive the vitualling trade through giving lavish informal dinners.  Despite his encouragement of innovation he was practical enough to discourage it where it clashed with his programme of job creation.  When an engineer offered to employ a mechanical device to haul huge columns up to the Capitol as part of the rebuilding programme Vespasian declined his services insisting "I must always ensure that the working classes earn enough money to buy themselves food." To compensate him for his disappointment but reward his initiative he paid the engineer a handsome fee.

 

Over the past two decades we have concentrated on investing in technology that, as a downside, has made many jobs redundant.  Perhaps we should start taking a leaf out of Vespasian's book and initiate a new 'Arts and Crafts' movement, putting on hold technological developments which reduce the labour force, and concentrate on making fashionable labour intensive industries.  Film and theatre are a good example relying heavily on a wide range of subsidiary crafts which explains Vespasian's sudden interest in producing musicals.  There is not much sense in handing production over to robots if the end result is that people go hungry. We can at least say that Vespasian's policies worked.  There is a lot to be learned from old books.

Richard III - No hunchback

The archaeologists of Leicester University have now revealed some more details about their finds beneath the Leicester car park.  The remains they have uncovered are of a man who has clearly died in battle. He has an arrow in his back and a severe head wound.  Given the position of the burial in prime position in front of the altar of the friary church and the documentary evidence suggesting this is the burial site of Richard III, they are pretty confident that they have found the grave of the king who died in battle at Bosworth Field, a short distance from Leicester, although they are awaiting the result of confirmation via tests on DNA of one of his maternal ancestors. 

From my point of view an interesting detail is that the skeleton indicates that the man suffered from advanced scoliosis, a severe curvature of the spine which would have made one shoulder appear higher than the other, which contemporary accounts indicate was a feature of Richard III, but he does not have a hunchback.  My identification of Richard with the portrait of St Ivo must therefore be wrong - one cannot argue with archaeology - and my portrait of the King in Master Merryman is therefore out on this one detail (not significant for the plot it must be said). However I am not too downcast because I think I am right in other respects.

 

Some people now think it's a bit infradig for an English King, the last of the Plantagenets, to be buried underneath a car park, although it wasn't a car park at the time.  It is interesting to note that his body was not flung in a ditch, or the river, as previously claimed, but decently if quietly interred in a nearby friary, a respectful and prudent move on the part of Henry VII since he wished to marry his niece who might have taken umbrage at the desecration of her uncle's body.  The plan is to re-inter the remains in Leicester Cathedral although since Richard was a passionate Yorkshireman hailing from Middleham perhaps he would prefer one of the beautiful Yorkshire cathedrals like York or Ripon but I dare say Leicester, which does not have a great many claims to fame, would like to hang on to him as a tourist attraction.

Richard III - Portrait of a King

Archaeologists have announced that they believe they may have found the remains of the 15th century King, Richard III, beneath a car-park in Leicester which was once the site of a mediaeval friary.  Documentary evidence suggested that the King's remains were laid to rest within the friary church and they identified the foundations of the church beneath the modern car-park. 

This is of great interest to me because I portrayed the King as a character in Master Merryman so I am looking forward to hearing what identifying characteristics they have found.  I used two portraits for my characterisation of the king, the well-known portrait of him as King, but also a portrait I came across in the National Gallery which purports to be of St Ivo but which I thought might be really of Richard when Duke of Gloucester as a young man in his late twenties. 

The portrait, which is an extremely good one and would therefore have been very expensive, shows a dark-haired man of about that age with similar features to those in the portrait of the older King.  He is very well but plainly dressed in a high status tunic edged with fur.  It was illegal in the Low Countries for anyone but an aristocrat to wear fur.  Shakespeare tells us - gleaning his information from older people of his day who might have seen the King in his lifetime - that Richard dressed well but plainly. He was not given to the extravagant fashions of the day. 

Most significant however is the fact that the man in the picture has clearly got a hunched back.  It is very pronounced and although the sitter makes an attempt to lessen its impact somewhat by throwing his hat over his shoulder to cover it, he makes no attempt to disguise it - indeed he is leaning forward so that the painter has to include it in the portrait.  Yet if he were sitting up - as Richard is in the King portrait - you would not notice it at all.  The painting of 'St Ivo' is dated around 1475 two years after Richard had spent some time in exile in Flanders with his sister, the Duchess of Burgundy, who might well have commissioned such a portrait of her youngest brother.  The quality of the painting is such that it must have been a very high status purchaser.  The sketches for the painting could easily have been done in 1473 and the portrait finished later. 

The million dollar question is did Richard really have a hunchback - a question that a study of his remains will surely answer.  If he didn't, of course I'm wrong, so I'm waiting with bated breath for the results of the dig.