Going to the Zoo

Firstly, apologies for lack of blog action lately, no excuses really - various family stuff going on then my computer died so that had to be replaced . But every cloud has a silver lining ...Have been playing with a few bits and pieces including the letterpress app that I mentioned several posts ago. I will try and post a few results of my experiments with that at some point. Anyway enough ramblings... I am sure you would much rather feast your eyes upon this. Its a guide to London Zoo from days gone by and I thought the illustrations were great.

The Cat Thief

I can't quite remember if I found this book at a jumble sale, or car boot. Its called "The Cat Thief" and its illustrated by William Stobbs. (Written by Joan Cass.) To be honest, I'd never heard of William Stobbs, but if you do a quick bit of research you'll discover that in the 1950s, 60s and 70s he was a prolific and well respected illustrator who even won the prestigious Kate Greenaway medal back in 1959 for another title, "Kashtanka and a Bundle of Ballads". He also taught at Maidstone and the London College of Printing. Its seems to be harder and harder these days to find quality items at boot sales and the like, but I'll definitely keep my eyes peeled for more William Stobbs. I'd particularly like to find "The Little White Hen" or  "The Adventures of The Wuffle".

Bubble Houses

One of my favourite TV programmes when I was a child was Barbapapa. And one of the best things about Barbapapa was the self-build Barbapapa house that they built after the squat they were living in got demolished. Anyone else remember that? I would have loved one of those houses then and still would, truth be told, but it wouldn't go down well with the planners,or so I'm led to believe.

Whist looking on t'internet the other day for cheapo accommodation in France I stumbled across this place - not particularly cheapo, mind you. Its called museumotel and its near Strasbourg.

Surely the Barbas must have had a hand in the design of this place! I'd love to go and stay here. Since finding this one, I've researched a few other bubble houses , the most famous is probably Palais Bulles. Think Barbapapa meets James Bond!

What a Racket!

Well , Happy New Year everyone! Hope you all had a good time over the festive period. So its 2012, the year that London hosts the Olympics which is just about a good enough excuse in my book to post these rather attractive sporty stamps from yesteryear ( 1977, to be precise). Can you spot the odd one out?.... well I'm going to tell you - its squash which isn't in fact an Olympic sport, for reasons I can never really fathom. I wouldn't describe myself as someone who is all that sporty but at this time of the year the common theme is health and fitness. I do play a bit of racketball regularly which is a kind of squash lite and try and do a bit of running and swimming. I'm probably the odd one out round here as I haven't completed a marathon or done a mega swim. Anyway, I liked these stamps at the time and still do. I think they've stood the test of time pretty well - they look almost contemporary. Maybe one day they will put squash in the Olympics - in the meantime we can all look forward to next summer and settling down to watch the Greco-Roman wrestling!