Betty Boop - what a character!

Monty meets Betty Boop!

I’d always heard of this funny little character – but being a typical English chappy had not really got a clue about her.

So, when I received a phone call out of the blue asking “Do you buy pictures? I’ve got some old ones of Betty Boop” – I thought I had better do a quick bit of research. And I liked what I found.

America’s fascination with the brunette bombshell Betty Boop began in 1930. Inspired by the singer Helen Kane, the ‘Boop Oop a Doop Girl,’ animator Grim Natwick created her originally as a human-like dog. Over the next year, however, her canine features morphed into human ones and the world fell in love with Betty Boop.

But, with a possible deal in the offing, I thought I had better research the market for ‘BB’ merchandise. I’m glad I did.

Betty holds a special place in many collectors’ hearts to this day, whether they discovered her in the 1930s or the 1990s when she celebrated her 60th anniversary. As she remains a modern fascination, there are now two camps of Betty Boop collectors: vintage and modern. Vintage Betty Boop merchandise is of course tougher to find and more valuable. However, if you’re looking simply for Betty Boop collectibles and the era is immaterial, your choice is enormous.

Modern manufacturers have given Betty Boop fans everything from tin signs to umbrellas to rugs, watches, tote bags, and mouse pads. You’ll also find party plates, coffee mugs, sleepware, hats, chairs, wastebaskets, sandals, keyrings, bedding, ornaments, bobbleheads, aprons, and of course, figurines. The Betty Boop legend lives on in all its kitschy glory!

Do your homework and make sure that if an item is advertised as vintage, that it truly fits that description. On ebay – a massive source of Betty Boop stuff, vintage items, like a Betty Boop lunchbox, will be offered alongside more modern pieces, such as a Betty Boop handbag, for example. So really do have a good read of all descriptions. Collectors on a variety of sites can give you a sense of current market value for true vintage pieces.

So there you have it. Looking into young and delightful Miss Boop has been a pleasant distraction from abstract and cubist art that I normally glance at all day!

  

Gordes, Provence - heaven!

Gordes – every year is “A Good Year”.

Provence is one of my favourite places in the entire world. I love it. Breathe it. Dream about it. Live it.

The dappled light, those little red roofed towns perched on hill tops, the gentle pace of life…one can very easily let time amble past, all washed down with a deliciously fresh glass of Rose.

Those who have been will all have their own special places and I certainly have several and on each visit discover a new. One of them, is the little town of Gordes, in the Luberon and it is a very special place for lots of reasons.

It to me just typifies my imagination of a little French town, with its donging church bells, cobbled streets, dappled light and of course….art!

The other reason I simply adore it, is that it was used as a film location for one of my all time favourite films – A Good Year, starring Russell Crowe and the delightful Marion Cotillard. Directed by the fantastic Ridley Scott (who also has a home in the area), it tells the tale of a London banker who is ruthless and money hungry. After inheriting his uncles home in Provence, he heads there with the intention of selling it and never returning. After being there for 24 hours, Provence weaves its magic spell that intoxicates us all – and of course, you all know the rest of the story as he falls in love with the delicious waitress who works in….Gordes.

Old Monty is a lucky old chap and I am very blessed to visit Gordes and the equally lovely surrounding villages in the Luberon, on a regular basis  Every time I go, I do stand and stare at the gorgeous little cafe, where Mr. Crowe tried to woo the gorgeous Ms. Cotillard. This is it…without the film crew!

The place is a bit of a tourist trap and as I sat carefully making my espresso last as long as I could manage (it costs euros 3.80!), I managed to close my eyes and remember the scene. Was it the same being there? No, but I do love it all the same.

So, when you’re next in Provence, do try and call in at Gordes. Its only about 30 minutes from Avignon and very easy to get to. Parking is provided at the entrance of the village for just 3 euros a day and its a beautiful view. One of my favourite French artists, who is very much underrated by comparison to his contemporaries, once lived in Gordes and has a street named after thank fully. Andre Lhote 1885-1962.

His little road makes you simply want to whip out the old easel and get painting straight away – the views from his house simply take ones breath away!

This is the opposite view and shows a typical view in Gordes…

The surrounding area of the Luberon is positively dripping with similar little hill topped villages – each equally unique and captivating to the mind, body and soul. I adore them 

Starting an Art Collection

Art is like wine…and Marmite.

Buying art is simple. A bit like wine. If you like it – buy it.

Of course, there are a few other factors to consider…but dealers, auctioneers and galleries have spent centuries trying to mystify and over complicate the joy of collecting art…and you can right now smash all their theories in one go. If you like it – thats a jolly good start!

Do you like it? You should and its as simple as that. Let me give you an example… You wouldn’t walk down the street wearing a pair of shoes you don’t like, would you? Neither would you put a chair in your drawing room if you didn’t like it. So why should you hang a painting on your wall, if you don’t like it? You shouldn’t.

If you like it – then you’re on the first rung of the very simple ladder to climb…

I often liken art to wine. Mainly, because it is largely a personal thing. One chap might love it – another hate it… Only you can say with any truth if you like a certain wine and the same goes for art.

I recently stood in front of the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, in the Louvre Museum, Paris. It was very interesting to just stand and listen to what the hoards of other admirers had to say. Most people had just got it on their list of “sights to see in Paris”, but they all had an opinion. It was either “amazing” or, “Whats so special about it?”….I found it confirming of the views I have always had about art. One chap loves it – another hates it. A bit like Marmite, I guess.

Of course, there are other factors that motivate the purchase of art. Several of them. But for now, I shall leave you with that thought…bet you’ve never liked the worlds most famous painting to Marmite before!

The Wind in the Willows

The Wind in the Willows…

You might not be surprised to hear that the “Wind in the Willows” is my favourite book.

I know it should be the Bible and yes sometimes that does pip others to the post. But…since childhood, I have been completely captivated by tales of the riverbank and the adventures of four little creatures – Ratty, Moley, Badger and my ultimate role model…Mr. Toad….sigh!

I adore them. I really do. It’s a timeless classic that has grown on me through every year of my life.

I remember at prep school joining the ‘Book Club’.  We each paid the princely sum of 5 pence a week into a kitty and after a few weeks I had saved enough to buy a book. I was intrigued by one title, as my little  seven year old eyes scanned the list of available books within my 50p budget. It was a tale of four little animals who lived by the riverbank and I thought it sounded like fun. So I bought it. It seized me – mind, body and soul and still does today.

Over the weekend, I went for a lovely lunch at a friends house, deep in the Cotswolds. At the end of their garden ran a burbling, gurgling and quite delightful river.

It had willow trees dancing in the breeze and dappled light in it, on it and all around it and immediately I was transported back to my old riverbank and enjoying life with my dear friends: Ratty, Moley, Badger and Toad. Oh dear old Toad!

Since that first book I bought, back at prep-school for 50p, I have been an avid collector of Wind in the Willows books. I have 43 different editions, as of today (it could change by tomorow!). I’m still saving up for a 1st. edition but have a lovely second and third, fourth, fifth…sixth….and so on!

The Wind in the Willows was first published in 1908. Alternately slow moving and fast paced, the novel is notable for its mixture of mysticism, adventure, morality, and camaraderie. I adore every line.

The Wind in the Willows was in its thirty-first printing when then-famous playwright, A. A. Milne, who loved it, adapted a part of it for stage as Toad of Toad Hall in 1929.

In 1908 Grahame retired from his position as secretary of the Bank of England. He moved to the country, where he spent his time by the River Thames doing much as the animal characters in his book do; namely, as one of the most famous phrases from the book says, “simply messing about in boats”.

My favourite character, as you might imagine, was Mr. Toad  More on him soon….

If you haven’t picked it up from dusty old bookshelf, or relegated it to the childrens book section, then my friends, I urge you – nay implore you! to revisit it again. It will make you smile – I guarantee it!

There's Cash in the Attic!

What’s in Your Attic?!

We all dream of rooting around in our attics and stumbling upon a few lost old masters, left their by dear old Aunt Mildred. Well, I do anyway!

For some, this is not a dream but a reality as the Earl Spencer recently demonstrated with the “Althorp Attic Sale”. 750 exciting, dusty, forgotten and discarded ‘relics’ went under the hammer at Christies Auctioneers last week, in London. What an eclectic sale it was too!

500 of the lots were from the attics, stables and cellars at Althorp, the childhood home of Diana, Princess of Wales. Christies specialist Andy Waters and his colleague, Jeffrey Lassaline, senior specialist in the silver department, had the utter joy and pleasure of sifting through the treasure trove and were like two little boys in a sweet shop! They uncovered everything the inventive aristocrat required for a well-rounded existence, from horse-drawn carriages and coachmen’s livery to several centuries of textiles, fine furniture, old cricket bats, ice skates, snuffboxes and beechwood shovels. Imagine!

The highlight of the auction was a speculative lot that has been the cause of much controversy. “The Portrait of a Commander Being Dressed for Battle” attributed to Sir Peter Paul Rubens, the Flemish Old Master (1577-1640). It was acquired by the Spencer family back in 1802 – bought then with a possible attribution to Rubens. In the two hundred years since, experts have been divided as to its authenticity to this very day. Christies maintain the work is a hallmark Rubens – Sothebys are not quite so sure! But hey ho – the painting fetched the second highest price for a Rubens work ever and sold for £9m all the same. Excuse me for one sec, whilst I just gasp!

Andy Waters, at Christies, described the whole experience akin to discovering Tutankhamun. “I crept along by the light of my torch,” he says. “I could see some brass flashing in the darkness. I went back for a plug-in light so I could see what was in this dark corner. Wrapped in old newspapers was a complete Victorian batterie de cuisine – more than 100 pieces, including copper pans, fish kettles and jelly moulds, that had been put aside 60 or 70 years ago and not used since.”.

In all, the sale realised a staggering £21.1 million pounds. Not bad for a few old discarded things in ones attic, eh?! I am delighted to hear that the money raised will be going towards vital repairs to the restoration of Althorp House. Well done Earl Spencer.

It just goes to show, there’s certainly ‘cash in the attic!’. So, who’s first up the stairs to their attic then!?

Anyone can Do it – we all can.

Duncan Bannatyne is right, you know. Anyone can. Anyone can do it.

So, what stops us? There are a million answers to that. I am no wannabe head shrink who will add to the zillions of pages already on the internet, all of which will no doubt tell us.

What gets in my way? Well, I can answer that one – and I suspect only you can answer yours. For me, its usually fear. Fear of failure. I fear something might go wrong, I will look an idiot – sorry, more of an idiot than before. So, fear keeps me sitting still and not taking action. Occasionally, I see through that fear, conquer it and achieve something.

So how can reading a book help get rid of fear? Well, personally speaking, I am someone who needs encouragement. I feel boosted if I hear someone else tell me their story of how they did it. I love reading biographies of how people have achieved something, built something, created something. They encourage, motivate and inspire me. Testimonies are good news – for us all.

Duncan Bannatyne, one of Britains most well known entrepreneurs, has written a book on just that. How he did it. I first read it a couple of years ago and found it enormously encouraging. After getting half way through it, I did start to think – “well;, if he can, so can I…”.

It’s so easy to look at successful people and just see the end result. Its a bit like turning to the last page of the novel without reading the tears, pain, frustration, hard work and everything else that’s gone into making them who they are today… We see the lavish lifestyles, the cars, houses today – but its easy to overlook the graft that happened yesterday.

I think, for me, thats the good thing about Bannatyne’s book – Anyone Can Do It. He really takes time in it to go through those early years – years of struggle and hardwork, toil and labour. Yes, they paid off and we all know the end result. But, I find when I’m having a really tough day or week (or month!), that actually its quite encouraging to read these guys all did too. And most importantly, that they came through it – soldiered on – conquered fear and were successful.

Richard Branson was just the same and every entrepreneur before him.

So, if like me and its yet another Monday morning of feeling – “Euuggghh….back to work”, then start to believe that you can do it too. What “it” refers to will be completely different for each of us…”It” certainly is not just about money and business – its so many different things to each of us. But, reading how someone else has turned their life around and achieved their “it”, has really encouraged and motivated me and I hope it will you too. Buy it.

Advice to my son: Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head…Rudyard Kipling

Poems are funny old things, aren’t they. I mean, we spend hours at good old school having them rammed into us, sitting there bored stiff and thinking ‘why on earth am I learning this? I’ll never once use it on the trading floor or boardroom!’. But, of course, poems were not written for that reason, or use.

I was reminded today of one that I remember learning at school. Its first verse is one that is still very much used in every day language today but I for one can never remember past the first few lines. So, for that reason, I have put it here – very much for my benefit but I hope you too will have a little smile when you remember it…or if you are reading it for the first time, I hope it impacts you as much as it has me…and countless million of others too. And, should my darling son be reading this one day, then I hope my boy that its wisdom is of help and encouragement to you too

Rudyard Kipling, 1865-1936

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!