thanks to John Wilson

Seen in the window of a Citizen’s Advice Bureau:

BookBrunch today posts the following story:

Remember When, the Pen & Sword imprint, publishes this month The Private Diaries of Alison Uttley 1932 to 1971. The diaries reveal a waspish character, who described Enid Blyton as a “vulgar, curled woman”, and Margaret Tempest, who illustrated Uttley’s Little Grey Rabbit, as “a humourless bore . . . absolutely awful”.

The book is edited by Professor Denis Judd, author of Uttley’s biography and a trustee of the author’s literary estate. He said: “Uttley’s competitive and passionate nature often clouded her judgement and drastically affected her private and professional life. Though she ended her life as a grande dame of literature, she was acclaimed but never entirely content.”

When I worked for Collins (the predecessor of HarperCollins) I was detailed to accompany Alison Uttley to the Children’s Book Fair at the Royal Horticultural Halls in Westminster. She was a sour little old woman, with no small talk, and I was clearly merely a minion.

But I was quite good at publicity, and I’d arranged for everyone attending the fair to be invited to COME AND MEET ALISON UTTLEY. At half hourly intervals the PA system hollered out ‘ALISON UTTLEY!! LITTLE GREY RABBIT AUTHOR!! HERE AT 12!!’

Teachers were whipping their charges into a state of frenzy. Me, I just wanted to sell some books.

We’d placed Uttley on a curtained daïs, and on the dot of 12 the curtain rose. A howling crowd of excited children stormed the stage.

As Uttley hadn’t bothered to listen to a word I’d told her, she was completely unprepared for this. Dimly she perceived an overwhelming mob running at her and with British pluck she unhesitatingly grabbed her duck-handled umbrella and waded into the attack, felling infants right and left.

The kiddies paused, briefly regrouped, then broke up and ran off, screaming in terror. Uttley strode among them, lashing out freely.

The Meet The Author session was abandoned, and I was asked to escort Miss Uttley out of the fair.

She was perplexed and indignant, and ready to ask some questions. But I had told her the answers before we arrived at the venue. She simply hadn’t cared to listen.

Could it happen nowadays? I doubt it. Mummy might complain if little Tarquin returned home with multiple scalp wounds.

It was a grand, grand sight though.

19 years ago Norman Tebbit proposed the “Tebbit Test”, to see if British people from ethnic minorities supported the England cricket team or the team from their country of origin. He proposed this as a test of whether they were truly British.

Well, from the vociferous and partisan support being meted out to the Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan cricket teams during the current World Twenty20 series, the teams either have fantastically rich fans who can afford to travel the world and go to every match, or they’re Brits who spectacularly fail the Tebbit Test.

Being Welsh, I support Wales unconditionally. But there isn’t a national Welsh cricket team; it is incorporated in the England cricket team under the auspices of the England AND WALES Cricket Board. So I support England, but perhaps not as unconditionally as I would support a full Wales team. Also being Welsh, I have a strong bias in favour of the underdog, so for example if Wales were to play Germany at rugby I would cheer a German try, while expecting Wales to win by 100 points.

Would I fail the Tebbit Test? No, not really. But out of interest, I thought I would ask myself honestly who I’d support during this series. Here. exclusively, are the results of my cricketing prejudices and bigotry.

England versus Holland. I would support England. Oh, all right, I was thrilled when Holland won. So NETHERLANDS, this once. (Winners: NED)
New Zealand v Scotland. SCOTLAND. (NZL)
India v Bangladesh. INDIA (IND)
West Indies v Australia. WEST INDIES (WIN)
South Africa v Scotland. SCOTLAND (SAF)
England v Pakistan. ENGLAND (ENG)
Ireland v Bangladesh. IRELAND (IRL)
Sri Lanka v Australia. SRI LANKA (SRL)
South Africa v New Zealand. SOUTH AFRICA (SAF)
Pakistan v Holland. HOLLAND (PAK)
Sri Lanka v West Indies. WEST INDIES (WIN)
India v Ireland. IRELAND (IND)
New Zealand v Ireland. IRELAND (NZL)
South Africa v England. ENGLAND (SAF)
Sri Lanka v Pakistan. SRI LANKA (SRL)
West Indies v India. WEST INDIES (WIN)
South Africa v West Indies. WEST INDIES (SAF)
Pakistan v New Zealand. NEW ZEALAND (PAK)
Sri Lanka v Ireland. IRELAND (playing as I write this)
England v India, ENGLAND
West Indies v England. ENGLAND
Ireland v Pakistan. IRELAND
India v South Africa. SOUTH AFRICA
New Zealand v Sri Lanka. SRI LANKA
And we don’t know the lineups after that.

But matches which didn’t take place? Here are a few:
Pakistan v Bangladesh. BANGLADESH
Australia v Pakistan. PAKISTAN
New Zealand v Australia. NEW ZEALAND

Supporting either England or the Underdog, or helplessly giving way to discrimination, “my team” has won nine matches and lost eight.

It’s a shame that Australia have been knocked out of the competition. Beacause I would support ANY team against Australia!

The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition opens today.

I love it. It’s the fotoLibra of the art world, a chance for anyone to flaunt their wares and their talent alongside their more renowned colleagues.

A student had a postcard for sale at £1.99, just across the wall from a (dreadful) Tracy Emin at £90,000.

Somehow I preferred last year’s show, which was more — what can I say — painterly? The big set pieces last year impressed; not so this year, led by a very low rent Cy Twombly. I took some snaps on the iPhone, which only partly explains the low quality, and on flicking through them I realised how graphically driven I am, rather than abstract or illustration. That says a lot.

Here are a few of the pieces that caught my eye:

Wittgenstein’s Dilemma II by Tom Phillips.  After much neck craning I made out “The limits of my language are the limits of my world.” That about sums it up.

This I loved, but it was spoilt for me by its pathetic caption.

UNTITLED.

Grrrr!

This is a tremendous piece of work by Elizabeth Collini, and I want it very much. It’s intelligent, mocking, funny, provocative and utterly pointless, and it made me think of squaddies whitewashing coal. Such care, such detail, such craftsmanship, to relay such a banal message. It sums up the futility of most of our working lives. We spend so much time detailing it with meticulous care. And it really, really doesn’t matter at all.

This was just as pleasing, but less understandable. Steve Rosenthal’s A to Zed was a London street atlas with all the buildings cut out, leaving only the streets. It was eerily beautiful. But why? What was the message, if any? And I couldn’t escape thinking — how long did it take? I would charge more than £2,000 for doing this.

All graphics. There were also some paintings. I’ll pick out one, by a young (26) Cardiff artist, Michael de Bono. His Second Sight pressed my buttons: dazzling, Daliesque hyper-realistic technique, baffling, mystical subject matter, plunging cleavage. Got it all. Except for the £48,000 price tag.

And if you make a special trip to see The Back Steps by David Royale, you won’t see this:

You’ll see it in reverse. Go and see what I mean.

And finally, two grumbles. I went around the exhibition, snapping at will with my very lo-res iPhone. No problems. Then I came across Damien Hirst’s Saint Bartholomew, Exquisite Pain, pictured here, and raised the iPhone. A trusty stepped forward. “No photographs, thank you sir.” “But it’s just a mobile?” “No photographs sir.”

I shrugged and turned away. Then a bloke walks up with a fuck you Nikon and a massive tripod and snaps away to his heart’s content, with the trusty looking benevolently on.

One law for them and one for us, eh? Well it’s not going to be like that for much longer. There’s an election coming up and … oh, we’ve done that.

And nothing’s changed. Nor will it.

The second grumble? There were 1,266 exhibits. 18 of them had the same title. I thought artists were supposed to be the creative ones among us.

UNTITLED.

Untitled? Give us a break. Use a little imagination.

Isn’t that what you’re paid to do?