In those last minutes, the Great Leaders returned to their deep bunkers, and the missiles soared and dropped. In every part of the world, every person that there is felt one searing moment of pain, as flesh stripped away. In the silence that then fell, each person looked down at a bony arm or leg, […]
Author Archives: andrewcrowther
In Praise of the Novella
What is a novella? It’s a novel, that’s all: a novel that happens to have not as many words as some other novels do. Wikipedia, the fount of all knowledge, states that “Publishers and literary award societies typically consider a novella’s word count to be between 17,000 and 40,000 words.” That is, taking as a […]
Wodehouse in Captivity
As you may know, P.G. Wodehouse is one of my literary obsessions. I do a separate blog about those Wodehouse books for which the illustrator Ionicus did covers in the 1970s and 1980s. However, I’m going to write something here which is quite separate from the subject of that blog, concerning a matter which Ionicus […]
Uncommon Assault: the Statesman and the Scribbler
I’m going to tell you the story of a case of technical assault which took place in the lobby of the House of Commons in the year 1893. What makes the incident especially unusual is that the assailant was a Member of Parliament and the victim was a Punch cartoonist. This little tale intrigued me […]
The Fall and Rise of Colonel Blimp
David Low is still known as one of the great masters of the political cartoon. His glory years were probably the 1930s and 1940s. In 1934, he invented Colonel Blimp for his page in the London Evening Standard: a elderly, absurd retired officer always spouting the latest reactionary nonsense, in the process managing to muddle […]
A Little Miracle
If you had asked me in the early to mid 1990s what my favourite film was, I would have puzzled and confused you by saying, “The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek.” Hardly anyone seems to have heard of it, even though it was written and directed by Preston Sturges, a master of the screwball comedy, whose […]
Wasps in the Beehive
This is going to be about Terry Pratchett. But it will also be about the much more trivial matter of who rules us and what we can do about it. Due to the things I want to say, there will certainly be spoilers, particularly about the Terry Pratchett novels “Guards! Guards!”, “Witches Abroad” and “Lords […]
How Gilbert Became Bab (Part Two)
This post follows directly on from Part One: https://topseyturveydom.wordpress.com/2019/10/04/how-gilbert-became-bab-part-one/ We left our hero first using the artist’s pseudonym “Bab” in order to conceal from his employers, the Education Office, that he had drawn a cartoon criticising their policy. In March the following year a column appeared in Fun entitled “The Education Office, Again” which laid […]
How Gilbert Became Bab (Part One)
Recently, I’ve been tweeting cartoons by W.S. Gilbert under the not wholly accurate hashtag #DailyBab. Why Bab? Because that was the artist signature that Gilbert used for his cartoons for the majority of his career. Thusly: The confusion begins, however, when I start to post images that use a different signature, such as this one: […]
Dog’s Breakfast
Let’s talk about Brexit. We all recall how it started. David Cameron, way back when he was Prime Minister (remember that?), agreed to hold a referendum on membership of the European Union, in order to unite his party and lay that whole silly business to rest. Well, as we know, it didn’t turn out quite […]
