Webside Gleanings

The speedy spinster

2009-04-05T12:33:00.000+01:00

Two weeks ago, Dulcibella King-Hall heralded her 107th birthday by whizzing round Brands Hatch at 108 mph (90 seconds):

During the last war Miss King-Hall was a military test driver, assessing vehicles commandeered from civilian use.

Asked why she loved the thrill of speed, she reportedly replied: "Why shouldn't I? Don't you like it?

"I have a driving licence. I can drive any vehicle."

She must surely be a relation (perhaps a younger sister?) of the author, dramatist and independent MP Commander Stephen King-Hall, later Lord King-Hall of Headley (1893-1966).

Many thanks

2009-04-04T18:34:00.001+01:00

…to whoever it was who linked to this blog, or otherwise drew attention to it, last Saturday, causing a dramatic spike in traffic.

You rang, my curmudgeon?

2009-04-04T18:33:00.002+01:00

The late Lord Kilmarnock was Kingsley Amis's butler.

Art Colony Perverts

2009-04-04T18:33:00.001+01:00

Another of those great titles.

Salty old sea blog

2009-04-04T18:32:00.001+01:00

Launched this week, Voyage of the Vampire is the never-before-published diary of 20-year-old Captain Sir George Scott Douglas, Bt, as he sails through the Greek islands and on to Istanbul in 1846-47.

There's only one Mary Moriarty

2009-03-31T23:05:00.002+01:00

…and she only retires once (see "Leith's heroine" below), so let's take a stroll down Memory-obliterated-by-hangover Lane…

Here's a brief but heartfelt tribute to her - slightly premature, as it turned out - from South Leith Kirk, with a really nice photo.

Peter of Naked Blog, her longest- (or longest-equal-?) serving regular, responds to her seventieth birthday last year.

The Evening News had an amusing Dinner with Mary Moriarty in 2002…

…while Liam Rudden did a splendid interview with her in the same year.

And I very much liked this review of the Port in 2003.

Mary - thank you for so much, and every blessing.

Queen of the Nightmare

2009-03-30T11:23:00.005+01:00

The agonisingly useless Florence Foster Jenkins (1868-1944) massacres Mozart's "Der Hölle Rache", while dozens of cats suffer (4 minutes):

Attaboy

2009-03-30T11:23:00.003+01:00

He's now the all-time oldest British man.

Making music with old computers

2009-03-30T11:23:00.001+01:00

Take a bow, Pixelh8.

Enter if curious

2009-03-30T11:22:00.003+01:00

"Urban explorer" Simon Cornwell goes where he shouldn't (derelict lunatic asylums, &c) and takes us with him.

London's best pubs

2009-03-30T11:22:00.001+01:00

You mean there are still ten?

Man after my own heart

2009-03-30T11:21:00.000+01:00

Paul Clark earned his hilarious Guardian obituary just by being Paul Clark.

On the Ganges, 1899

2009-03-25T00:34:00.003Z

Massive stonework, crowded intricate life: a boat-mounted camera glides past the holy city of Benares (not Calcutta as stated - 90 seconds):

Lammy doesn't know

2009-03-24T19:24:00.008Z

The Higher Education Minister showed dismaying ignorance on Celebrity Mastermind. Matthew Norman gives him both barrels.

Pushkin: The Sequel

2009-03-24T19:24:00.001Z

He died after a duel in 1837. Is it time to clone him?

Hat tip: William Bennett

Smile at us, pay us, pass us

2009-03-24T19:23:00.002Z

Lucy Mangan on Jade Goody:

Despite the supposed democratisation of television, the truly uneducated, those marked by true poverty and deprivation, rarely appear in our light entertainment schedules. And suddenly, there was Jade, an unapologetic and unadorned symbol of all sorts of uncomfortable truths… Because they are so rarely seen in public life it is easy to forget that the people in this country for whom Jade was a peer, not an affront, are in the vast majority.

Suitably Gleanings-esque good cause

2009-03-24T19:22:00.000Z

Most of the four million people on the shores of Lake Malawi have no access to healthcare by road.

But they do have the oldest ship in Africa, the Chauncy Maples, built in 1898 to the designs of Henry (son of Isambard Kingdom) Brunel.

Solution: turn her into a floating clinic. Simples! (kissing noise)

Thrown out

2009-03-24T19:21:00.000Z

Three years ago the writers Jonathan and Julie Myerson banned their teenage son Jake from the family home. Now, controversially, Julie's written a book about it.

Ian Jack sets the scene; Julie gives her account of events; Jake responds; and Jonathan adds his version.

LATE EXTRA: Jake changes his surname.

Free screen cleaner

2009-03-18T13:54:00.002Z

Handy little gadget, though you do have to walk it every day (20 seconds):

Four screensavers in the same vein here.

Not their best side

2009-03-18T13:53:00.001Z

Sexy People - a twilight home for the less fortunate portrait photos of bygone decades.

What past?

2009-03-18T13:52:00.000Z

The fiendish plot to close the Museum of Oxford.

Keep it simple

2009-03-18T13:51:00.000Z

Leith's heroine

2009-03-17T23:29:00.005Z

Mary Moriarty, the unchallenged Queen of Leith, steps down next month after 25 years as landlady of that endlessly nourishing alternative universe, the Port O'Leith Bar.

Peter Ross in Scotland on Sunday beautifully captures them both.

Photo credit: Kaya Kanda

Wasnae me

2009-03-17T23:29:00.003Z

What evildoer gift-wrapped this postbox, just ten minutes' walk from my home?

Not a silly hat in sight

2009-03-17T23:28:00.002Z

Trad jazz doesn't have to be wacky, slovenly, or smirkingly arch - a warm welcome please for my eighteen Slovakian new best friends, the Bratislava Hot Serenaders (3 minutes):

Astonishing physical resemblance

2009-03-17T23:27:00.002Z

Have any of your readers noticed…?

Great telephone conversations of the 20th century, #1

2009-03-17T23:27:00.001Z

New York, early spring, 1971…

Unknown voice: "We are going to castrate you and then kill you."

W H Auden (for it is he) : "I think you have the wrong number."

Quoted in W H Auden: The Life of a Poet by Charles Osborne

Thunder from New Zealand

2009-02-24T11:20:00.003Z

John Smith's opponent in the 1992 Labour leadership election denounces the Blair-Brown Government.

Bride of the Nearly Man

2009-02-20T09:43:00.000Z

Times and Telegraph offer contrasting obituaries of Mollie Butler, widow of Rab, dead at 101:

"I have never met anyone with whom it was so consistently amusing to be. His company was like a fire on a bitter night which both glowed and sparkled. No wonder I was happy."

Obama's Elf

2009-02-17T20:21:00.003Z

He wants out (18 seconds):

Dahl's den

2009-02-17T20:20:00.002Z

An interactive tour of Roald Dahl's writing hut.

Do something useful

2009-02-17T20:18:00.002Z

Help classify a quarter of a million galaxies.

Cocktail horror

2009-02-17T20:17:00.003Z

Fear the McNuggetini.

Heil Sailor

2009-02-16T10:53:00.000Z

Hitler (Harry Enfield) gets in touch with his stereotype-homosexual side (4 minutes):

Cult ruin

2009-02-16T09:13:00.002Z

Uncle Monty's cottage from Withnail and I is up for sale.

Oldest British author ever

2009-02-15T22:55:00.001Z

Edward Upward, last voice of the Thirties, dies at 105.

(This profile from 2003 is good stuff.)

"War without its glory"

2009-02-15T20:58:00.001Z

Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth is to be filmed.

Distilled to her essence

2009-02-14T10:00:00.001Z

Approaching eighty, Eartha Kitt (who died last Christmas) performs Cole Porter's "Love for Sale" like no one else in the history of the world (5 minutes):

Johann Hari causes riots

2009-02-13T09:52:00.002Z

In Calcutta, no less.

Tesco called me an animal, wails man with doctorate

2009-02-12T12:05:00.001Z

Wait till he sees what the commenters are calling him.

What does Hazel Blears stand for?

2009-02-11T22:38:00.001Z

To reach the wastepaper basket!
Shut up, growls George Monbiot, it's a serious question.

Compare The Meerkat

2009-02-10T18:01:00.002Z

An inspired idea for an ad (30 seconds):

And the website really exists…

One hell of a life

2009-02-10T18:00:00.004Z

Don't think I'd heard of the Broadway star Libby Holman before today - but blimey.

Roadkill carpet

2009-02-10T18:00:00.001Z

Turns your living room into a dying room.

Dogs in early cinema

2009-02-10T17:59:00.000Z

Ruddy scene-stealers.

What's French for Asbo?

2009-02-09T10:04:00.001Z

Over-exposure to Rocky leads Rémi Gaillard into all kinds of mischief (3 minutes):

There's Probably No Point

2009-02-09T10:02:00.002Z

Now relax and enjoy the Bus Slogan Generator.

Don't fire this Canon

2009-02-09T10:00:00.001Z

To know John Fenton even a little was to like him a lot, and, somehow, to revere him.

Bar bans bad language

2009-02-09T09:58:00.003Z

Everyone's swearing about it.

Final glimpse

2009-02-06T21:49:00.004Z

Laurel and Hardy together on camera for the last time, in a 1956 home movie (4 minutes, but Hardy vanishes after the first 80 seconds):

Thank President Bush

2009-02-06T21:48:00.003Z

You know you want to.

Pets In Uniform

2009-02-06T21:48:00.001Z

Draft your dog, conscript your cat, pressgang your parakeet here.

If they'd had Facebook in 1813

2009-02-06T21:47:00.001Z

What Pride and Prejudice might have looked like.

Hat tip: Donkin Life

Losing it bigtime

2009-02-05T21:14:00.003Z

When Christian Bale unleashed a foul-mouthed rant on the set of Terminator: Salvation, Lucian Piane deftly turned it into a dance track, with Barbra Streisand spliced in (3 minutes):

Not so innocent

2009-02-05T21:13:00.001Z

George Davis's disillusioned ex-wife dies.

Bibliomania

2009-02-05T21:12:00.000Z

In today's balmy economic climate, and with Christmas coming up, don't we all want to buy millions of cheap books for ourselves, our friends, our relations, our enemies?

And where better to find them than at README BOOKS, otherwise known as my mate Glen?

To whet your appetite, Webside Gleanings is privileged to publish this authentic portrait of Glen by stained glass artist Andy Johnston:

Kill the myth

2009-02-05T21:11:00.003Z

(Still prefer my own version: "There's probably no bus. Now relax and get run over.")

Enoch Soames: The Critical Heritage

2009-01-22T13:44:00.001Z

The useless fin-de-siècle poet invented by Max Beerbohm is still making waves, 112 years after selling his soul to the Devil in exchange for an hour in the British Museum Reading Room in 1997. He hoped to find a century's worth of admiring criticism of his poems, but mysteriously there was none. Now, however…

Britain tortured Obama's grandfather

2009-01-20T06:08:00.004Z

Will there be consequences?

Penultimate ripple of The Goon Show

2009-01-20T06:08:00.003Z

Farewell to conductor, composer and arranger Angela Morley - formerly Wally Stott.

Rioting by numbers

2009-01-20T06:07:00.001Z

Sounds of my childhood, #2

2009-01-17T21:35:00.003Z

Petula Clark heads "Downtown" - assisted by dancers who seem to be channelling Peter Cook (2 minutes):

Unlikely convict

2009-01-17T21:35:00.001Z

The painful tale of a naïve, eccentric children's author and illustrator who was tried for murder - and jailed.

Lost to us

2009-01-17T21:34:00.000Z

Always been in two minds about Sir John Mortimer, but rather liked this two-minute BBC video and page of quotes.

Cage for plump, slow birds

2009-01-17T21:33:00.002Z

Predating the First World War, this portable airship hangar has just been Grade-II listed.

Down with Thought For The Day

2009-01-17T21:32:00.001Z

Damian Thompson declares war on a great national affliction.

The Bovril Heresy

2009-01-17T21:31:00.004Z

Prepare for Holy War:

Cripple Creek Bar-Room, 1899

2009-01-17T21:30:00.001Z

The very first Western saloon in the movies (1 minute):

Knit your own brain

2009-01-16T23:42:00.003Z

We've all met them. (More here.)

Is Starbucks funding the attack on Gaza?

2009-01-14T20:25:00.002Z

Or, as it were, not?

Wrist-slitting time

2009-01-10T19:55:00.003Z

Dundee's apostrophe shortage starts to bite.

Bakgrownd hear.

?what doesn't he mean by iT

2009-01-09T01:53:00.001Z

Latter-day surrealist George Brecht is dead.

?why would this be his manifestO

The last guest gone

2009-01-06T21:50:00.005Z

An eight-minute clandestine tour of Edinburgh's rotting Barnton Hotel:

Pleasure in small things

2009-01-06T21:50:00.004Z

Extremely short, but it appealed to me: a Minnesota mother and daughter spend a few hours as tourists in their own city.

Bleak indeed

2009-01-06T21:49:00.001Z

Jenni Russell on modern bereavement.

Shaggy dog story

2009-01-06T20:07:00.001Z

Apologies for yet more Boris, but his Wall Street Journal interview made me chuckle.

So true

2009-01-06T20:06:00.001Z

Image shamelessly filched from Froogville, like several more to come...

A year in forty seconds

2009-01-06T18:39:00.004Z

When you reach my age, this isn't trick photography, this is what it's actually like:

Never called me mother

2009-01-06T18:39:00.001Z

Recently, for the first time, I read East Lynne, the 1861 bestseller by Mrs Henry Wood, who's now widely restyled "Ellen Wood". Enjoyed it enormously - yet it has hordes of detractors.

"Stock characters!" they cry, with a depressing lack of perception. "Implausible!" Scarcely more so than life. As for the ingenious view that the earnestly Christian Ellen Wood was "subverting Christianity" merely by describing truthfully the emotions of a (tormented) adulterer - come on, get a grip!

On the web and in my own small library I can find nothing about the book with which I agree, except some of the original reviews on the Ellen Wood website.

All I can say is, it's a rattling good read if taken seriously on its own terms, i.e. on the assumption that traditional Christian morality is valid absolutely and all human beings have immortal souls, accountable to God.

The stakes are high - far higher than critics who focus on class and gender can allow - and, partly as a result, East Lynne seems to me a bigger book than its reputation suggests.

Dewey-eyed doll

2009-01-06T18:38:00.001Z

How can you resist the Librarian Action Figure?

Chomp, chomp

2009-01-04T02:20:00.001Z

An escaped six-stone beaver is ravaging Cornwall.

(Scotland's next for the chomp, warns Magnus Linklater.)

Punk politics

2008-12-20T20:18:00.001Z

Brown vs Cameron - the Sex Pistols remix (2 minutes):

Bankrupt the Ministry of Truth

2008-12-20T20:07:00.003Z

How and why not to pay the TV licence fee. (Far be it from me, &c.)

Sand wit

2008-12-20T19:08:00.003Z

Hat tip: My salad dressing days

Unforgettable

2008-12-20T18:55:00.000Z

Neuroscience loses its
best-known amnesiac.

Pre-decimal transport

2008-12-19T21:13:00.001Z

A spontaneous, through-the-car-window interview with a man riding a penny-farthing round the world (90 seconds):

The minimalist version (16 seconds):

Background here: PennyFarthingWorldTour.com

End of the world as we know it

2008-12-19T20:24:00.001Z

An exuberant musical montage of the Bush Presidency. Don't miss the special guest in the closing moments (3 minutes):

Admiral who fathered a rock god

2008-12-19T20:23:00.001Z

Bronze Star winner George Morrison wasn't too happy about young Jim.

Bad taste

2008-12-19T20:17:00.003Z

Click to enlarge:

Who do you think you are - Stirling Moss's granddad?

2008-12-19T20:16:00.000Z

Five minutes of photos of the first ever car trial, in 1900:

Life skills in Bangladesh

2008-12-11T21:17:00.001Z

Number One: stacking 22 bricks on your head and walking down a gangplank (45 seconds):

He worked for 93 years

2008-12-11T20:14:00.000Z

No holidays, either: Dorset landmark Jim Webber dies at 105.

Is your cat a preening narcissist?

2008-12-11T14:53:00.010Z

Then appease
him/her with
Kitty Wigs.

Carry the wounded

2008-12-11T14:53:00.009Z

A scorcher from Matthew Norman on the benefit reforms favoured by James Purnell and David "Become-an-expert-in-three-weeks" Freud.

Nietzschevision

2008-12-08T11:16:00.000Z

In 1899, a year before his death and after many years of illness, Friedrich Nietzsche sits in front of a movie camera (1 minute):

Innocent OK

2008-12-08T10:37:00.002Z

A friend stands up for
Claus von Bülow.

What, like genocide?

2008-12-07T15:55:00.000Z

Karen Matthews is "pure evil", scream the tabloids. Dave Osler disagrees.

Consider Phlebas

2008-12-04T20:27:00.006Z

…or "Let him gel an inch thick, to this favour he must come…"

Yup, last week's mystery foetus grew up to be Toby Young of How to Lose Friends and Alienate People infamy.

His serious thoughts on meritocracy and celebrity culture are here.

Same streets, different planet

2008-12-01T00:44:00.001Z

A tram ride through Belfast in 1901; the same route retraced in 2006 (4½ minutes):

Homeless at 89

2008-12-01T00:42:00.005Z

It's the price you pay if you live on the QE2.