A startling exposé of crime and corruption, in which private eye Marlowe - alias Les Dawson, fresh from his conquests in Come Back With the Wind - takes the lid off the underworld.
The wife gave me breakfast in bed this morning... it flew off the plate when she threw it. I didn't mind - there's something vaguely sensuous about a poached egg on quilt. I know why she was angry... I'd spilt cocoa all down her nightdress. Serves me right for wearing it.' The voice of the great Les Dawson, it has to be. Dawson, the comedian's comedian, is a man with a massive following in his lifetime and now a real cult hero. Who can forget the out-of tune piano playing, the mother-in-law jokes, the fast-fire gags and routines that shot from his mouth with apparent ease? Here now, selected and introduced by his widow Tracy, is a treasure-trove of unseen and unpublished Les Dawson material, culled from his notebooks and diaries. Clearly, for Les it was never easy or effortless, and just how hard he worked on, and honed, his material is clear from the boxes of hand-written gags and routines he left behind, each page funnier and more outrageous than the next.
Les Dawson's autobiography reveals the personal dramas in his life which were to have a profound effect on his life both on and off stage, and recalls the funnier moments that helped him through.
One of Britain's best-loved comics, Les Dawson had his own column in the Blackpool Gazette. Every week, The Dawson Slant showed Les's weird and wonderful take on the world of Blackpool and beyond. This text brings these hilarious columns together in one collection.
Originally called Weeghman Park, Wrigley Field hosted its first game in 1914, and the 2014 season marks the 100th anniversary of baseball’s second oldest ballpark. In Wrigley Field: The Centennial, Les Krantz tells the story of Wrigley’s first 100 years—from the origins of the ivy on the outfield walls and ballpark traditions such as throwing back home run balls to Ruth’s called shot in the 1933 World Series and unforgettable moments featuring stars Ernie Banks, Ron Santo, Billy Williams, Ryne Sandberg, Greg Maddux, and more. Featuring numerous photographs, Wrigley’s first century is beautifully documented and an originally produced DVD narrated by Lou Boudreau Jr. and Ron Santo Jr. features footage from throughout the stadium’s history and interviews with Jack Brickhouse, Ron Santo, Ernie Banks, and others.
Reading the animal text in the landscape of the damned looks at the diverse texts of our everyday world relating to nonhuman animals and examines the meanings we imbibe from them. It describes ways in which we can explore such artefacts, especially from the perspective of groups and individuals with little or no power. This work understands the oppression of nonhuman animals as being part of a spectrum incorporating sexism, racism, xenophobia, economic exploitation and other forms of oppression. The enquiry includes, physical landscapes, the law, womens rights, history, slavery, language use, economic coercion, farming, animal experimentation and much more. Reading the animal text in the landscape of the damned is an academic work but is accessible, theoretically based but robustly practical and it encourages the reader to take this enquiry further for both themselves and for others.
A dedicated diarist, White compiled a detailed account of colonial life in the Hunter Valley away from its hub in Sydney. In the privacy of his diary, where ‘an opinion could be given without incurring censure’, commentaries on other colonials could be harsh, while casting himself as imposed upon by family and friends. A nervous public speaker he could, when aroused, write an abrasive letter or stir public controversy. He was fond of reading the classics, filled notebooks with quotations and quoted them in his diaries. Feeling isolated in the antipodes he followed closely news of world events. Perhaps he can best be thought of as a thwarted intellectual living in a colonial backwater. Elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1858, he chaired an inquiry with significant outcomes for land settlement. He was, said a contemporary, not only a historian, and an eyewitness, but “a prominent actor in the parts he recorded”.
From the Indian Mutiny to the London Blitz, offering a ‘nice cup of tea’ has been a stock British response to a crisis. But tea itself has a dramatic, and often violent, history. That history is inextricably interwoven with the story of Scotland. Scots were overwhelmingly responsible for the introduction and development of the UK’s national drink, and were the foremost pioneers in the development of tea as an international commodity. This book reveals how Darjeeling, Assam, Ceylon and Africa all owe their thriving tea industries to pioneering work by Scottish adventurers and entrepreneurs. It’s a dramatic tale. Many of these men jeopardised their lives to lay the foundation of the tea industry. Many Scots made fortunes – but it is a story with a dark side in which racism, the exploitation of native peoples and environmental devastation was the price paid for ‘a nice cup of tea’. Les Wilson brings the story right up to date, with a look at the recent development of tea plantations in Scottish hills and glens.
A fresh selection of the finest poems—some previously uncollected—by one of our finest English-language poets Why write poetry? For the weird unemployment. For the painless headaches, that must be tapped to strike down along your writing arm at the accumulated moment. For the adjustments after, aligning facets in a verb before the trance leaves you. For working always beyond your own intelligence. —from "The Instrument" New Selected Poems contains Les Murray's own gathering from the full range of his poetry—from the 1960s through Taller When Prone (2004) and including previously uncollected work. One of the finest poets writing today, Murray reinvents himself with each new collection. Whether writing about the indignities of childhood or the depths of depression, or evoking the rhythms of the natural world; whether writing in a sharply rendered Australian vernacular or a perfectly pitched King's English, his versatility and vitality are a constant. New Selected Poems is the poet's choice of his essential works: an indispensable collection for readers who already love his poetry, and an ideal introduction for those who are new to it.
This is Les Murray's first new volume of poems since Poems the Size of Photographs in 2002. In it we find Murray at his nearmiraculous best. The collection-named for a kind of house distinctive to Murray's native Australia-exhibits both his unfailing grace as a writer and his ability to write in any voice, style, or genre: there are story poems, puns extended to poem length, history-and myths in miniature, aphoristic fragments, and domestic portraits. As ever, Murray's evocation of the natural world is unparalleled in its inventiveness and virtuosity. The Biplane Houses is ardent, eloquent, enchanting poetry.
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