What's new?

Is there a name for a blog post which shamelessly re-hashes other people's stuff? Anyway, when I saw this Royal advert posted (can someone remind me who?), it triggered an instant recall of...

...Todd McLellan's image of the disassembled Smith Corona which, in turn, reminded me of ...

....a Keith Haring painting...

...who's style was ripped-off rather poorly for Her Majesty's Government's Change 4 Life campaign to combat obsesity. Pity the imagery relates less to health-giving vegetables and more to...

...Jelly Babies! The only food you'll ever see Time Lords eating. There's been a bag in the Doctor's pocket for, well, millennia. Which brings us nicely back to typewriters. 

This season's redecorated TARDIS must have picked up its new typewriter in the Typosphere :-)

Orwell's long shadow

A neighbour of mine was helping out at The Orwell Prize awards evening in London on Tuesday this week (17 May 2011). Here's an author who was not featured in the LIFE gallery a month or so ago: George Orwell (Eric Blair) at work on an unspecified typewriter. He's reported to have owned a Remington Portable...any ideas?

His work lives on through The Prize, and in his still-popular political novels, for example The Road to Wigan Pier. His books were certainly part of my political education. Although he died in 1950, you can subscribe to his 70 year-old blog (which he wrote longhand) of world events during WW2. And as you do, take note of how his reporting resonates to this day.

He's buried just upstream in All Saint's churchyard in the village of Sutton Courtenay.

© Unknown. Possibly The Manchester Guardian

Picture post

Gratuitous sculling photo from this evening's stroll by the river.

Finally got around to posting the SM4's mug-shot to the "Etc..." gallery. 

Daylight and tinfoil instead of the usual pair of Anglepoises.

Type bar? Cheers!

Spot the typewriter? No, I couldn't see one either. But you just know there's an old Underwood lurking out of shot. 

Half a dozen bar type jokes: 

1. Munk walks into a bar with Kennedy. Barman says, "Why the long face?"
2. Big typewriter fighting his way through a crowded bar. Bumps into a little typewriter. Big typewriter yells, "SHIFT".
3. Homeless typewriter walks into a bar. It was a Bar-Let.
4. Where does an Alien Typospherian drink? In a space bar.
5. A keychopper walks into a bar with a Corona under his arm and orders a screwdriver. Barman says, "Sorry, we don't sever your type in here."
6. A Mexican typo walks into a bar and orders a Corona. Barman says, "Sorry, hombre, we don't sever your type in here."

Over to you...

Post script: Turns out this type bar post was proividential. 
Happy Birthday type bars around the world. Thank you Jennifer.

Emoticons

My 12 year-old son wanted to share these with the typosphere which he's done, appropriately I think, via our Antares Parva.

Hot metal ornaments

A little off-topic. A flickr member, Jennifer Kennard, favourited a photo of my Bruce Green Corona 4. These were lurking in one of her sets:

Reminded me a little of my less impressive efforts on a typewriter.

Contre-jour crackelure

So, now it works can I fetishise the SM4? The crackelure finish really chews up the light and scatters it around in way a gloss enamel finish never could – and chrome trim gives twice the shine.