David Collard
@davidcollard
Autheur. Unfluencer. 'The Beckett List' (2027) 'A Crumpled Swan' (2025) 'Multiple Joyce' (2022) All published by www.saggingmeniscus.com (No DMs)
On Thursday 23rd July at 7pm (BST) author David Henningham will join us live online to launch his long-awaited debut novel FOULNESS. If you'd like to be part of the audience email me via my website. davidjcollard.wixsite.com/my-site Free, and all welcome
On 11th July 2020 I hosted the pandemic lockdown online gathering 'A Leap in the Dark' which featured live contributions from creative folk in London, Huddersfield, Bethesda, Belfast, Dublin, Southampton, Brighton and Paris. This was supposed to produce a heart shape on the map, and almost did.
Is there a more hilariously offensive character in the history of comedy than the drooling lecherous Australian diplomat Sir Les Patterson? His one-man show 'Live and Rampant' remains the funniest live performance I've ever seen. www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLK1...
Thanks to @tonywhite.bsky.social for joining us to celebrate the publication of his latest, wildly original novel 'Phantom at the Feast.' Audience members - email me your postal address if you'd like the one of the covetable giveaways Tony mentioned at the end
Guardian editors? How about commissioning me to write a piece on why so may of us don't give a fiddler's toss about Taylor Swift's fucking wedding?
Tonight's live online gathering to celebrate the launch of Tony White's 'Phantom at the Feast' starts at 7pm BST. Free to join and all welcome. If you're not already invited and would like to join us, please email your details to me via my website: davidjcollard.wixsite.com/my-site
Perhaps it's also Hitchcock's shrewdness in casting, not necessarily a great actor, but the RIGHT actor? It's a distinction originally made by Jean Renoir when describing Simon Simon as Séverine Roubaud in 'La Bête Humaine.'
Nova Pilbeam! Two films for Hitch: 'The Man Who Knew Too Much' (1934) and 'Young and Innocent' (1937).
The original designs for the new decimal coins was by Robin Ironside - never bettered.
The selfsame edition, available to read here: archive.org/details/wire...
Struck by a particular volume on display in the Argosy Bookstore. Never noticed before (as I'm gazing throughout the scene at Dorothy Malone).'The Wire Cutters' by Mollie Evelyn Moore Davies, originally published in 1899. More on this in Alt Text.
'Would you happen to have a Ben Hur 1860?' Marking this day with my favourite American movie.
To my American friends: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”
This marvellous book (RRP £40) is now available for just £7.99 here: www.psbooks.co.uk/british-rail... Recommended!
Ghost World is a great comic book and a great film. My favourite moment is Steve Buscemi's crestfallen expression when his new girlfriend tells him that she doesn't like Laurel and Hardy films: "why does the fat one have to be so mean to the skinny one?" From 1:09:47 www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ERK...
An illuminating evening. Excellent exchanges between Sara Baume and Emily LaBarge, and a large, engaged and receptive audience. Do read 'Opening Night,' a book that enriches all our lives.
Off to the LRB bookshop this evening to see Sara Baume in conversation with Emily LaBarge. Sara's new book 'Opening Night' is an account of her friendship with the American artist (and West Cork neighbour) Mollie Douthit. Flawless prose, and a profound meditation on what compels us to make things.
'Artemis 81' also features a marvellous cameo by a young Daniel Day-Lewis (24) seen here with Hywel Bennett.
Hywel Bennett says he is cold. 'I am not of this earth. I do not know this "cold" of which you speak,' replies the angel played by Sting (who has just confidently used the word "dormobile"). David Rudkin's silly, pretentious, baffling WONDERFUL tv drama 'Artemis 81' www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Rn7...
My favourite books of 2026 (so far), alphabetically by author. The last on the list is Tony White's 'Phantom at the Feast' which will feature at our next online gathering on Thursday 9th June at 7pm (BST). All welcome!
My thanks to Colin Sackett @uniformbooks.bsky.social for kindly sending me a copy of this booklet of profanities.
So the UK currently has vacancies for a Prim e Minsiter, James Bond and Dr Who. Only one person could take on all of these roles.