Ginger Geezer

Author: Lucian Randall
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 392

Book Description
Vivian Stanshall started the Bonzo Dog Do-Dah Band in the early 1960s while at art school in London. Rehearsals were in the canteen and gigs held in pubs. The anarchic shows, with comedy, singing and 1920s dress took off, and after leaving college albums were made I'm the Urban Spaceman reached number 5 in 1968, and one track appeared in the Beatles' film Magical Mystery Tour. The group - major players were Neil Innes, Vivian, Rodney Slater and Roger Ruskin-Speare - appeared often on TV's Do Not Adjust Your Set, toured the US, and appeared at the Isle of Wight concert in 1969. But the following year the band broke up. What followed for Stanshall was not the successful solo career (that Neil Innes managed) but binges with Keith Moon and drinking and drug problems. Vivian continued to work: in film and radio, in adverts and albums; but two marriages failed, a houseboat sank, and Vivian died in a house fire in 1995.

Ginger Geezer: The Life of Vivian Stanshall

Author: Lucian Randall
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
ISBN: 0007387245
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 43

Book Description
The extraordinary story of Vivian Stanshall, lead singer of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, true British eccentric.

The Widow Ginger

Author: Pip Granger
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1446437965
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 211

Book Description
Perfect for fans of Donna Douglas and Nancy Revell, a feel-good, colourful and comic saga set in post war London from Sunday Times bestseller Pip Granger. "Packed with sharp authentic detail, this tale told through a child's eyes brings to life a colourful world of great characters from a bygone age." -- HOME & COUNTRY "Loved this book. Could not put it down, read it in two sittings..." -- ***** Reader review "I enjoyed every minute of it and was sad when I finished it..." -- ***** Reader review *********************************** ALL WAS CALM AND NORMAL...UNTIL A STRANGER CAME INTO TOWN... 1954, Soho, London. Rosie, and her beloved Auntie Maggie are opening up their café in Old Compton Street for Uncle Bert's breakfast special when the Widow Ginger comes to call. The Widow Ginger, an ex-GI with ice-cold blue eyes, is especially scary. He has unfinished business with Uncle Bert- business that includes being cheated on his share of a 'liberated' lorry-load of guns and explosives during the War - and he intends to make sure he now gets paid in full. And this isn't all: the lovely Luigi appears to be suffering from a severe case of unrequited lust; Bert and the local Mafioso Maltese Joe have had an acrimonious falling-out; and, most worrying of all, Rosie's best friend Jenny has begun to keel over mysteriously in the school playground.... The Widow Ginger continues Rosie's story (started in Not All Tarts Are Apples) and paints a picture of 1950s Soho so authentic you feel as though you are there...

The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English

Author: Tom Dalzell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317372514
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 15065

Book Description
Booklist Top of the List Reference Source The heir and successor to Eric Partridge's brilliant magnum opus, The Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, this two-volume New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English is the definitive record of post WWII slang. Containing over 60,000 entries, this new edition of the authoritative work on slang details the slang and unconventional English of the English-speaking world since 1945, and through the first decade of the new millennium, with the same thorough, intense, and lively scholarship that characterized Partridge's own work. Unique, exciting and, at times, hilariously shocking, key features include: unprecedented coverage of World English, with equal prominence given to American and British English slang, and entries included from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, South Africa, Ireland, and the Caribbean emphasis on post-World War II slang and unconventional English published sources given for each entry, often including an early or significant example of the term’s use in print. hundreds of thousands of citations from popular literature, newspapers, magazines, movies, and songs illustrating usage of the headwords dating information for each headword in the tradition of Partridge, commentary on the term’s origins and meaning New to this edition: A new preface noting slang trends of the last five years Over 1,000 new entries from the US, UK and Australia New terms from the language of social networking Many entries now revised to include new dating, new citations from written sources and new glosses The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English is a spectacular resource infused with humour and learning – it’s rude, it’s delightful, and it’s a prize for anyone with a love of language.

The Ultimate Cockney Geezer's Guide to Rhyming Slang

Author: Geoff Tibballs
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1407028316
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Book Description
Would you Adam and Eve it? Over a hundred years after it was first heard on the streets of Ye Olde London Towne, Cockney rhyming slang is still going strong, and this book contains the most comprehensive and entertaining guide yet. Presented in an easy-to-read A to Z format, it explains the meaning of hundreds of terms, from old favourites such as apples and pears (stairs) and plates of meat (feet) to the more obscure band of hope (soap) and cuts and scratches (matches) through to modern classics such as Anthea Turner (earner) and Ashley Cole (own goal), as well as providing fascinating background info and curious Cockney facts throughout. Also included are a series of language tests so that readers can brush up on their newfound knowledge on their way to becoming a true Cockney Geezer. All in all, The Ultimate Cockney Geezer's Guide to Rhyming Slang is well worth your bread and honey to have a butcher's.

In the City

Author: Paul Du Noyer
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0753520958
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Book Description
'A dense and colourful account of one of the most vibrant musical centres in the world, In the City almost puts you on that train to London' Guardian In this fascinating history of London's music, which was the 2009 Sunday Times 'Music Book of the Year', Paul Du Noyer, critically-acclaimed music writer and founding editor of MOJO, celebrates the people and places that have made London the most exciting and diverse musical city on earth. The West End musicals, Ronnie Scott's jazz club, Abbey Road, mod culture, the Kinks, the Who and the Rolling Stones are just as much a part of London as the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben and the Routemaster. Du Noyer's captivating book charts the city's music history and landmarks and will appeal to residents, visitors and exiles alike.

Directors in British and Irish Cinema

Author: Robert Murphy
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1838715320
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 1560

Book Description
A guide to directors who have worked in the British and Irish film industries between 1895 and 2005. Each of its 980 entries on individuals directors gives a resume of the director's career, evaluates their achievements and provides a complete filmography. It is useful for those interested in film-making in Britain and Ireland.

Disgusting Bliss

Author: Lucian Randall
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0857200909
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 282

Book Description
The Sunnewspaper asked if Chris Morris's July 2001 Brass Eye Special on paedophilia was 'the sickest TV ever?' It was certainly the most controversial, though his uncompromising style of comedy meant he was rarely far from trouble. Morris first came to national prominence at the heart of a group of virtually unknown comedians brought together by Armando Iannucci. This book follows them from their 1991 news satire On the Hour, which transferred from radio to television where it was reinvented as the equally successful The Day Today. It became impossible to watch bulletins without thinking of Morris's Paxmanesque anchor character chastising a reporter -- 'Peter! You've lost the news!' -- or authoritatively delivering nonsense headlines: 'Sacked chimney worker pumps boss full of mayonnaise.' Meanwhile co-star Steve Coogan created a lasting anti-hero in Alan Partridge, imbued with a horrible life all of his own. But Morris himself was always the most compelling character of all. Drawing on exclusive new interviews and original research, this book creates a compelling portrait of Morris from his earliest radio days and of the comedians and writers who frequently took on the industry they worked in, polarising opinion to such a degree that government ministers threatened to ban them entirely. THIS IS THE NEEEWWWWS!

While You See A Chance

Author: John Van der Kiste
Publisher: Fonthill Media
ISBN:
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 259

Book Description

The Magic Box

Author: Rob Young
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 0571284612
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 389

Book Description
A LOUDER THAN WAR BOOK OF THE YEAR A riveting journey into the psyche of Britain through its golden age of television and film; a cross-genre feast of moving pictures, from classics to occult hidden gems, The Magic Box is the nation's visual self-portrait in technicolour detail. 'The definition of gripping. Truly, a trove of wyrd treasures.' BENJAMIN MYERS 'A lovingly researched history of British TV [that] recalls the brilliant, the bizarre and the unworldly.' GUARDIAN 'A reclamation, not just of a visual 'golden age', but of Britain as a darkly magical place.' THE SPECTATOR 'A feat of argument, description and affection.' FINANCIAL TIMES 'Young unearths the ghosts of TV past - and Britain's dark psyche.' HERALD 'Highly entertaining . . . [A] fabulous treasure trove.' SCOTSMAN 'Young is a phenomonal scholar.' OBSERVER 'Impassioned.' THE CRITIC Growing up in the 1970s, Rob Young's main storyteller was the wooden box with the glass window in the corner of the family living room, otherwise known as the TV set. Before the age of DVDs and Blu-ray discs, YouTube and commercial streaming services, watching television was a vastly different experience. You switched on, you sat back and you watched. There was no pause or fast-forward button. The cross-genre feast of moving pictures produced in Britain between the late 1950s and late 1980s - from Quatermass and Tom Jones to The Wicker Man and Brideshead Revisited, from A Canterbury Tale and The Go-Between to Bagpuss and Children of the Stones, and from John Betjeman's travelogues to ghost stories at Christmas - contributed to a national conversation and collective memory. British-made sci-fi, folk horror, period drama and televisual grand tours played out tensions between the past and the present, dramatised the fractures and injustices in society and acted as a portal for magical and ghostly visions. In The Magic Box, Rob Young takes us on a fascinating journey into this influential golden age of screen and discovers what it reveals about the nature and character of Britain, its uncategorisable people and buried histories - and how its presence can still be felt on screen in the twenty-first century. '[A] forensic dissection . . . this tightly packed treatise takes pains to illustrate how what we view affects how we view ourselves.' TOTAL FILM