Shiver and Shake

A cover of Shiver & Shake comic from 1974. Shiver was a ghost, Shake was an elephant. Some more below..

The Shiver part of the Shiver & Shake comic was full of strips revolving around ghosts, ghoulies, etc. The poster on Scream Inn reads "Ye Scream Inn - One Million Pounds to anyone who can stay all ye night in ye Haunted Bedroom". A different character was suggested each week by a reader to see if they could meet the challenge - I think you can guess the inevitable regular outcome...

Britains Models

Some downright nostalgia here - Britains catalogues from the late 60s, or in other words my childhood. Britains made model soldiers from about 1893, and diversified later on, especially into farm animals & machinery, and zoo animals. If interested, a bit more detail on James Opie. I think they were recently taken over by another company, but I can't find the info on the Web. Britains as we knew them no longer appears to exist.

Britains models - farm range from 1968.

Britains zoo models 1968. The chimps tea party was particularly fun!

Autumn Kebab

More Autumn photographs and scanner scans over at Flickr/Johnnynorms.
The colour ones are digital photos, and all the black and whites are done with a scanner (essentially it's still photography).

Puffin Post from the Puffin Club

This should take a few people back - Vol 1, no 1 of the Puffin Post from 1967. If you joined the Puffin Club you would get a Puffin Post once a quarter - something very special to receive through the letter box. On the back cover - some of the latest puffin books published, inside - articles, stories, reviews, competitions, cartoons and illustrations, & general food for the imagination.

The Puffin Club was founded by the late Kaye Webb, editor of Puffin Books from 1961 to 1979, who did a wonderful job of making good quality, affordable childrens books accessible to the post-war generations. (Info found on SevenStories - the centre for children's books, now a missing link! The official Puffin site is about the only source of info I can find)

Here are the next three from 1967. All the drawings are by Jill McDonald, who drew many of the covers.

Different (Different) Kettle of Fish

(Different) Kettle of Fish is dead.
Long live (Different) Kettle of Fish!

"Why the upheaval then, Johnnynorms?"
I hear a voice in my head in asking myself.


Because...I am curious about this BetaBlogger beast, which includes the ability to sort by tags, and Kettle seemed the ideal blog to try it out with. And because I want to give Kettle of Fish a fresh start and try to make it more of a mix and less of just a dumpground for the paintings I like.

Whatever trail it follows, my intention is to have Kettle of Fish part-scrapbook, part-journal, part-reviews. As before, SERENDIPITY is a key approach, but this time the tagging can give ORDER to the randomness!

I have some jampacked files of cuttings, and a large artbook to paste it all in to, and these are the various topics that I have collected stuff about, and pictures of:

EPoets and poetry/All about books and reading/Childrens books/Puffin Club/Literature/Sherlock Holmes/Classic & adult illustration/Picture books & childrens book illustration/Alice

ETV – general/TV comedy/Dad’s Army/TV – scifi/Dr Who/Animation/Cartoons/Childrens TV/Wombles/Thunderbirds/Magic Roundabout/Radio/The Goons

EClassical Music/Musical instruments/Rock/pop/jazz/blues/folk/world

EBygones/nostalgia/eccentric/whimsical/Gardens & gardening/Nature/rural/seasons/weather/Christmas/Easter/Birthday cards, etc/Miscellaneous pictures

EDesign – posters/adverts/packaging/Design – general/Design – magazines, record sleeves, book covers/Cookery/food – inc ads and packaging

EArt – painting,sculpture,etc/Art – crafts/Art – art gets around – art in popular culture, cartoons about, doing art, etc/Art – articles inc. art & commerce, state of modern art

EComics, cartoons, graphic novels/Tintin/Asterix

EToys & kids pastimes/Kinder egg/Games & puzzles (esp chess, monopoly)/Sport & pentaque/Computer games

EMe/nostalgia/Many Few/doodles – my creative gubbins/Family/Friends

EPlaces I’ve been to/Brighton & East Sussex/Britain/Other countries

EArchitecture & architects/Events (eg festivals)/Museums & artefacts

EAnimals - general/Fish – mainly surreal/Badgers/Surreal giraffes

EPhotography & photographers/Miscellaneous photos

EFilm/Theatre/Puppetry/Automata

EHistory & archaeology/Modern history/Now and future/Politics, satire & cynicism/Miscellaneous people/Science/Astronomy/Sociology/Myths, legends, magic

Hmmm - have I missed anything out?! Whether any of this will make it to the blog, who knows.