Phooka

Characters for a story for a projected/pretend stop-frame animation, #1; The Pooka (/Phooka,Pwca, Puca, Phouka)

A twee poster

For a new twee/indiepop club night in Leeds.

Sketches

Of faces from a book on Newcastle's Victorian criminals.

Men Only

I bought three issues of the 1950's incarnation of Men Only magazine from a second hand bookshop today (Books for Amnesty on Westgate Road, Newcastle);

"Men Only is a British soft-core pornographic magazine published by Paul Raymond since 1971. However, the title goes back to 1935 when it was founded by C. Arthur Pearson Ltd as a pocket magazine (115x165mm)."

Torelli Brothers

I recently bought a book 'The History of The Beano' and the very first Beano, shown on the books' cover, has the Torelli Brothers' 'Tin Can Tommy: The Clockwork Boy' on the back cover. There are are a few more cartoons from the Torelli Brothers inside, including this 'Brave Captain Kipper' (the scan is awful, sorry) but there's not much information on them, either in the book or, curiously, on the internet. As the book says, their work looks very different from the rest of The Beano.

The Torelli Brothers art agency's relationship with The Beano was interrupted by the war and I don't think anything was heard from them after that. But any further information on them would be gratefully received.

Eça de Queiroz

"José Maria de Eça de Queiroz is generally considered to be the greatest Portuguese writer in the realist style. Zola considered him to be far greater than Flaubert. Others rank him with Dickens, Balzac and Tolstoy.

... Eça worked in the Portuguese consular service and after two years' service at Havana was stationed at 53 Grey Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, from late 1874 until April 1879.

Eça, a cosmopolitan widely read in English literature, was not enamoured of English society, but he was fascinated by its oddity. He wrote: "Everything about this society is disagreeable to me - from its limited way of thinking to its indecent manner of cooking vegetables." As often happens when a writer is unhappy, the weather is endlessly bad. Nevertheless, he was rarely bored and was content to stay in England for some fifteen years. "I detest England, but this does not stop me from declaring that as a thinking nation, she is probably the foremost."

The Newcastle years were among the most productive of his literary career. He published the second version of O Crime de Padre Amaro in 1876 and another celebrated novel, O Primo Basilio ("Cousin Basílio") in 1878, as well as working on a number of other projects. These included the first of his "Cartas de Londres" ("Letters from London").

[a plaque to Eça] was unveiled in Grey Street, Newcastle, in 2001 by the Portuguese ambassador."

(Wikipedia)

His books are published in English by Dedalus.

Newcastle then, and now, mainly.

I think that all of these pictures are of buildings in Newcastle that existed pre-1914, maybe pre-1900, and still exist now, bar maybe the last one, as I'm not sure where that is. The others are Stephenson Monument near Central Station, The Side, Eldon Square, Dog Leap Stairs, Central Station (from the west) and the Central pub in Gateshead.

I'm reading a bit about Victorian Newcastle at the moment but these are images I've taken from the internet. I haven't noted where I found them. Sorry about that. Newcastle Libararies on Flickris good though, as is Amber photography's website (even if you don;t give two shits about the Victorians or Newcastle).