Andrew Crowther

@andrewcrowther

Unprofessional writer, author of "Down to Earth" published by Stairwell Books and also "Stupid Stories for Tough Times" published by Renard Press, Secretary of the W S Gilbert Society, brunch liberal, and twit Bradford, Yorkshire

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Andrew Crowther @andrewcrowther· 26d

Some strategies may not land in the same way as in the eighties…

Socialist prime minister Harry Perkins holds up a scrawled headline: Perkins saved by Kremlin gold!”

Andrew Crowther @andrewcrowther· 27d

Bought my copy a couple of days ago from @trumanbooks.bsky.social in Farsley where, by actual coincidence, it sits right next to “Down to Earth“ by, er, me…

A shelf of alphabetically ordered books, “Everything Will Swallow You” by Tom Cox being next to “Down to Earth” by Andrew Crowther

Andrew Crowther @andrewcrowther· 27d

The BBC version of Zaphod Beeblebrox, whose second head sits there with a vacant expression and a mouth drooping open, exactly like the robot teacher in the quoted story.

Andrew Crowther @andrewcrowther· 29d

I'm pretty sure this, from the Library of America ed'n of Chandler's "The Lady in the Lake", is a bad copy-editing error which should read: "Who's running this show?" "Your asking me shows that I am - unless you want the Los Angeles police to run it." That's the only way I can make it make sense.

A passage from Chandler's "The Lady in the Lake", including the following:

"Who's running this show?"
"You're asking me shows that. I am - unless you want the Los Angeles police to run it."

Andrew Crowther @andrewcrowther· Jul 13

Did Raymond Chandler and P G Wodehouse have the same English teacher at Dulwich College, where both were educated? On the surface, very different writers, yet with similar approaches to the matter of writing. The phrase "What will the harvest be" often crops up in Wodehouse... and here, in Chandler:

A passage from Chandler's novel "The Lady in the Lake", including the sentence: "The question was whether a battered private detective could make it, and if so, what the harvest would be."

Andrew Crowther @andrewcrowther· Jul 12

We’ve been watching “The Lady Eve“ for the who knows how manyth time. Always a pure joy, and Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda are wonderful, of course. But also, if Eric Blore ever put in a better performance than as posh conman Sir Alfred, I would be very surprised.

Eric Blore and Barbara Stanwyck in “The Lady Eve”

Andrew Crowther @andrewcrowther· Jul 10

Got a package from an eBay seller today, adorned with this unusual selection of old stamps, some from the millennium and the University of Southampton ones dating, I find, from 1971!!! I'm slightly amazed to find the stamps are still usable, and am also reminded of "Charade"...

Cover of a package, with an eccentric array of old stamps

Andrew Crowther @andrewcrowther· Jul 7

So this is from Raymond Chandler's "The Long Goodbye", published in 1954, and it sounds to me as if Marlowe is reading an actual short story that Chandler may have liked. Does it ring bells with anyone, I wonder? Early Sheckley or Dick, maybe?

Ordinarily I was not a morning drinker. The Southern California climate is too soft for it. You don't metabolize fast enough. But I mixed a tall cold one this time and sat in an easy chair with my shirt open and pecked at a magazine, reading a crazy story about a guy that had two lives and two psychiatrists, one was human and one was some kind of insect in a hive. The guy kept going from one to the other and the whole thing was as crazy as a crumpet, but funny in an off beat sort of way. I was handling the drink carefully, a sip at a time, watching myself.

Andrew Crowther @andrewcrowther· Jul 2

Wordle's sarcasm is not appreciated

Wordle saying, "Go ahead, add another day to your 1 day streak"

Andrew Crowther @andrewcrowther· Jul 1

Sorry to be That Guy, but has the image been touched up by AI? Some of the lettering (eg the shell attacking the Zeppelin) has been redone as gibberish.... (untouched up version below) (I'm looking forward to listening to the episode --it's one of my favourite Goon Shows!)

Goon Show Classics Vol 8 with cover by Bill Tidy

Andrew Crowther @andrewcrowther· Jun 30

I admit I am never quite convinced by Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Sorcerer“ - the tone seems to lack a certain focus and coherence. But even from the early days the illustrators knew the defining image.

1884 poster showing George Grossmith as the tradesman sorcerer J W Wells, pointing a finger and holding a teapot.

A later (early 20th century?) poster, again with Wells and teapot, much more dramatic, the teapot exploding

A cigarette card from the 1920s or 1930s showing Henry Lytton as a more “vulgar” Wells, the teapot spilling over with fire

Album cover for the Sorcerer dating from the 1950s, a cartoon top-hatred Wells with teapot, like a very sinister magician, surrounded by fire

Andrew Crowther @andrewcrowther· Jun 28

I'm not sold on some of Mel Brooks's later films - I think he got distracted by the whole genre parody thing, which in my opinion was not what he was put on earth to do. I actually prefer his 1991 flop "Life Stinks" (decent film, lousy title), where he played a property tycoon not unlike Trump...

Mel Brooks as Goddard Bolt in "Life Stinks", seated in an executive swivel chair, in immaculate grey suit, small moustache, and discreet hairpiece

Andrew Crowther @andrewcrowther· Jun 27

Mel Brooks is 100 *tomorrow*. Drop a gif of your favorite of his films to celebrate.

Andrew Crowther @andrewcrowther· Jun 26

I believe the idea came from J B Priestley when he wrote in praise of fountains in his book "Delight": "let us also have fountains - more and more fountains - higher and higher fountains - fountains like wine, like blue and green fire, fountains like diamonds and rainbows in every square."

FOUNTAINS. I doubt if I ever saw one, even the smallest, without some tingling of delight. They enchant me in the daytime, when the sunlight ennobles their jets and sprays and turns their scattered drops into diamonds. They enchant me after dark when coloured lights are played on them, and the night rains emeralds, rubies, sapphires. And, best of all, when the last colour is whisked away, and there they are in a dazzling white glory! The richest memory I have of the Bradford Exhibition of my boyhood, better than even the waterchute or the Somali Village or the fireworks, is of the Fairy Fountain, which changed colour to the waltzes of the Blue Hungarian Band, and was straight out of the Arabian Nights. And I believe my delight in these magical jets of water, the invention of which does credit to our whole

species, is shared by ninety-nine persons out of every hundred. But where are they, these fountains we love? We hunger for them and are not fed. A definite issue could be made out of this, beginning with letters to the Times, continuing with meetings and unanimous resolutions anddeputations to Downing Street, and ending if necessary with processions and mass demonstrations and some rather ugly scenes. What is the use of our being told that we live in a democracy if we want fountains and have no fountains? Expensive? Their cost is trifling compared to that of so many idiotic things we are given and do not want. Our towns are crammed with all manner of rubbish that no people in their senses ever asked for, yet where are the fountains? By all means let us have a policy of full employment, increased production, no gap between exports and imports, social security, a balanced This and a planned That, but let us also have fountains - more and more fountains - higher and higher fountains - fountains like wine, like blue and green fire, fountains like diamonds and rainbows in every square. Crazy? Probably. But with hot wars and cold wars we

have already tried going drearily mad. Why not try going delightfully mad? Why not stop spouting ourselves and let it be done for us by graceful fountains, exquisite fountains, beautiful fountains?

Andrew Crowther @andrewcrowther· Jun 25

Much better

A poster for Gilbert and Sullivan's The Sorcerer, featuring a wild-eyed gentleman in a frock coat holding an exploding teapot.

Andrew Crowther @andrewcrowther· Jun 12

I was quite pleased with these cheap glasses I got from Specsavers last year as emergency spares, due to their retro Harry Palmer look. But now I'm just afraid people might think I'm wearing those dodgy Meta things. So, unless it really is an emergency, they're staying tucked away in their box.

Me in chunky black-framed glasses, looking not very much like Michael Caine

Andrew Crowther @andrewcrowther· Jun 8

A very ordinary coin in my change that was minted in 1971, when I was 2 years old. I like that we carry around pieces of history almost without noticing.

The reverse of the same coin. It states "New Pence" and "2".

Andrew Crowther @andrewcrowther· Jun 5

Rereading Wodehouse's "Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit", I noticed here a possibly unique example of Bertie making a genuinely poetic observation - not regurgitating a half-remembered quotation but crafting an original, serious description: "a brave breeze sang like a bugle." Nice one, Bertie!

Had circumstances been different from what they were - not, of course, that they ever are - I might have derived no little enjoyment from this after-dinner saunter, for the air was full of murmurous scents and a brave breeze sang like a bugle from a sky liberally studded with stars. But to appreciate a starlit garden one has to have a fairly tranquil mind, and mine was about as far from being tranquil as it could jolly well stick.

Andrew Crowther @andrewcrowther· Jun 4

Willie Rushton put together the funniest fully functioning indexes (indices?) I know of. Gentle hint to writers: if Rushton can do it, so can you....

First page of the index of Super Pig by William Rushton. It begins: Aerosols, see arseholes

Andrew Crowther @andrewcrowther· Jun 2

Well, my comments probably say more about me than it, but…

Andrew Crowther @andrewcrowther· Jun 2

Ah, stuff it, back to the tried and tested

I am reading “Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit” by P G Wodehouse and enjoying it

Andrew Crowther @andrewcrowther· Jun 1

The page is full of amazing photos and cartoons, so of course the link just shows us a black image. Anyway, here's a picture of the Amadeus Quartet rehearsing on vacuum cleaners for Malcolm Arnold’s A Grand, Grand Overture

Four besuited, bespectacled men standing in a rehearsal room, each bearing a sheet of paper and a vacuum cleaner.

Andrew Crowther @andrewcrowther· May 30

Andrew Crowther @andrewcrowther· May 30

"The boy raised his eyes to Spade's mouth spoke in the strained voice of one in physical pain: 'Keep riding me and you're going to be picking iron out of your navel.' "Spade chuckled. 'The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter,' he said cheerfully." - Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon

Cover of the Complete Novels of Dashiell Hammett, published by the Library of America

Andrew Crowther @andrewcrowther· May 29

Today is the 115th anniversary of the death of W S Gilbert on 29 May 1911. So, to mark the event, here's a reminder of the time when he made the front page of the Daily Mirror (13 April 1910) by helping to capture a very unfortunate burglar:

Front page of the Daily Mirror, 13 April 1910. Headline reads: Alleged burglar bound with ropes by Sir W S Gilbert and driven to the police station in the famous playwright's motor-car." There are four photos: to the left, Gilbert's butler John Warrilow stands in the street for the camera, in raincoat and bowler hat; in the middle, top, Gilbert is descending from his motor car, an elderly gentleman in his seventies with a big white moustache; in the middle, underneath, Alice Tee, a maid at Gilbert's residence, in glasses and a large hat; to the right, Frank Burgess, the alleged burglar, a young man with a short beard, walking along the pavement in a long coat and a flat cap, reading a newspaper.

Andrew Crowther @andrewcrowther· May 23

Spanners Across the Mersey (which is what Alan Plater wanted to call one of his stage works)

Andrew Crowther @andrewcrowther· May 23

Star Trek title:

WE ARE ON THE BRINK OF A NEW ERA IF ONLY...

Andrew Crowther @andrewcrowther· May 22

A very peculiar summary on the BBC website of today's "Classical Mixtape" on Radio 3.... I am especially startled by the description of Stanford's The Blue Bird as "juicy" www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Text of a blurb for BBC Radio 3's Classical Mixtape:

Classical music for your journey

Today's mixtape opens with an understated piano prelude by Rachmaninov, leading into a lyrical piece by Dvorak, arranged for violin and orchestra. The baton is passed to Stanford's juicy choral work The Blue Bird, which melts into the dulcet tones of Beethoven's Pathetique sonata. Philip Glass's haunting Paru River blends into the orchestral version of Debussy's lively Children's Corner, followed by an atmospheric and folk-inflected piece by the Danish String Quartet. Amy Beach's pastoral Berceuse, arranged for clarinet and orchestra, is the penultimate work; the mixtape concludes with a soothing passacaglia for guitar by Silvius Leopold Weiss.

Producer: Phoebe McFarlane

Andrew Crowther @andrewcrowther· May 21

It's "Yeomen" (plural)

Willie Rushton cartoon of a man sitting on the cistern of a toilet while another man says, "Oh, Jessop, will you never learn"

Andrew Crowther @andrewcrowther· May 16