Pan Books
Pan Books is a publishing imprint that first became active in the 1940s and is now part of the British-based Macmillan Publishers, owned by the Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group of Germany. Pan Books began as an independent publisher, established in 1944 by Alan Bott known for his memoirs of his experiences as a flying ace in the First World War; the Pan Books logo, showing the ancient Greek god Pan playing pan-pipes, was designed by Mervyn Peake. A few years after it was founded, Pan Books was bought out by a consortium of several publishing houses, including Macmillan, Collins and Hodder & Stoughton, it became wholly owned by Macmillan in 1987. Pan specialised in publishing paperback fiction and, along with Penguin Books, was one of the first popular publishers of this format in the UK. A large number of popular authors saw their works given paperback publication through Pan, including Ian Fleming, whose James Bond series first appeared in paperback in the UK as Pan titles. So too did Leslie Charteris's books about The Saint, Peter O'Donnell's Modesty Blaise, novels by Georgette Heyer, Neville Shute, John Steinbeck, Josephine Tey and Arthur Upfield.
Pan published paperback editions of works by classic authors such as Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. Another notable title was The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. During the 1950s and 1960s Pan Books editions were noted for their colourful covers, which have made many of them collectables the Fleming and Charteris novels; the Pan imprint continues to publish a broad list of popular non-fiction. Among its current authors are Ken Follett, Kate Morton, Jeffrey Archer, Peter James, David Baldacci, Joanna Trollope, C. J. Sansom, Scott Turow and Danielle Steel
Douglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams was an English author, essayist, humorist and dramatist. Adams was author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which originated in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold more than 15 million copies in his lifetime and generated a television series, several stage plays, comics, a computer game, in 2005 a feature film. Adams's contribution to UK radio is commemorated in The Radio Academy's Hall of Fame. Adams wrote Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, co-wrote The Meaning of Liff, The Deeper Meaning of Liff, Last Chance to See, three stories for the television series Doctor Who. A posthumous collection of his works, including an unfinished novel, was published as The Salmon of Doubt in 2002. Adams was an advocate for environmentalism and conservation, a lover of fast cars, technological innovation and the Apple Macintosh, a self-proclaimed radical atheist. Adams was born on 11 March 1952 to Christopher Douglas Adams in Cambridge.
The family moved to the East End of London a few months after his birth, where his sister, was born three years later. His parents divorced in 1957. Adams attended Primrose Hill Primary School in Brentwood. At nine, he passed the entrance exam for Brentwood School, he attended the prep school from 1959 to 1964 the main school until December 1970. Adams was stopped growing at 6 feet 5 inches, his form master, Frank Halford, said Adams's height had made him stand out and that he had been self-conscious about it. His ability to write stories made, he became the only student to be awarded a ten out of ten by Halford for creative writing, something he remembered for the rest of his life when facing writer's block. Some of his earliest writing was published at the school, such as a report on its photography club in The Brentwoodian in 1962, or spoof reviews in the school magazine Broadsheet, edited by Paul Neil Milne Johnstone, who became a character in The Hitchhiker's Guide, he designed the cover of one issue of the Broadsheet, had a letter and short story published in The Eagle, the boys' comic, in 1965.
A poem entitled "A Dissertation on the task of writing a poem on a candle and an account of some of the difficulties thereto pertaining" written by Adams in January 1970, at the age of 17, was discovered in a cupboard at the school in early 2014. On the strength of an essay on religious poetry that discussed the Beatles and William Blake, he was awarded an Exhibition in English at St John's College, going up in 1971, he wanted to join the Footlights, an invitation-only student comedy club that has acted as a hothouse for comic talent. He was not elected as he had hoped, started to write and perform in revues with Will Adams and Martin Smith, forming a group called "Adams-Smith-Adams", became a member of the Footlights by 1973. Despite doing little work—he recalled having completed three essays in three years—he graduated in 1974 with a B. A. in English literature. After leaving university Adams moved back to London, determined to break into TV and radio as a writer. An edited version of the Footlights Revue appeared on BBC2 television in 1974.
A version of the Revue performed live in London's West End led to Adams being discovered by Monty Python's Graham Chapman. The two formed a brief writing partnership, earning Adams a writing credit in episode 45 of Monty Python for a sketch called "Patient Abuse"; the pair co-wrote the "Marilyn Monroe" sketch which appeared on the soundtrack album of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Adams is one of only two people. Adams had two brief appearances in the fourth series of Monty Python's Flying Circus. At the beginning of episode 42, "The Light Entertainment War", Adams is in a surgeon's mask, pulling on gloves, while Michael Palin narrates a sketch that introduces one person after another but never gets started. At the beginning of episode 44, "Mr. Neutron", Adams is dressed in a pepper-pot outfit and loads a missile onto a cart driven by Terry Jones, calling for scrap metal; the two episodes were broadcast in November 1974. Adams and Chapman attempted non-Python projects, including Out of the Trees.
At this point Adams's career stalled. To make ends meet he took a series of odd jobs, including as a hospital porter, barn builder, chicken shed cleaner, he was employed as a bodyguard by a Qatari family. During this time Adams continued to submit sketches, though few were accepted. In 1976 his career had a brief improvement when he wrote and performed Unpleasantness at Brodie's Close at the Edinburgh Fringe festival. By Christmas, work had dried up again, a depressed Adams moved to live with his mother; the lack of writing work hit him hard and low confidence became a feature of Adams's life. You can't fix the weather – you just have to get on with it"; some of Adams's early radio work included sketches for The Burkiss Way in 1977 and The News Huddlines. He
The Devil's Dictionary
The Devil's Dictionary is a satirical dictionary written by American Civil War soldier and writer Ambrose Bierce consisting of common words followed by humorous and satirical definitions. The lexicon was written over three decades as a series of installments for newspapers. Bierce's witty definitions were imitated and plagiarized for years before he gathered them into books, first as The Cynic's Word Book in 1906 and in a more complete version as The Devil's Dictionary in 1911. Initial reception of the book versions was mixed. In the decades following, the stature of The Devil's Dictionary grew, it has been quoted translated, imitated, earning a global reputation. In the 1970s, The Devil's Dictionary was named as one of "The 100 Greatest Masterpieces of American Literature" by the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration, it has been called "howlingly funny", Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Zweig wrote that The Devil's Dictionary is "probably the most brilliant work of satire written in America.
And maybe one of the greatest in all of world literature." Ambrose Bierce was not the first writer to use amusing definitions as a format for satire. Four writers are known to have written witty definitions of words before him. Bierce's earliest known predecessor was the Persian poet and satirist Nizam al-Din Ubaydullah Zakani, who wrote his satirical Ta'rifat in the thirteenth century. Prior to Bierce, the best-known writer of amusing definitions was Samuel Johnson, his A Dictionary of the English Language was published 15 April 1755. Johnson's Dictionary defined 42,733 words all seriously. A small handful have witty definitions and became quoted, but they were infrequent exceptions to Johnson's learned and serious explanations of word meanings. Noah Webster earned fame for his 1806 A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language and his 1828 An American Dictionary of the English Language. Most people assume that Webster's text is unrelieved by humor, Webster made witty comments in a tiny number of definitions.
Gustave Flaubert wrote notes for the Dictionary of Received Ideas between 1850 and 1855 but never completed it. Decades after his death, researchers combed through Flaubert's papers and published the Dictionary under his name in 1913, "But the alphabetful of definitions we have here is compiled from a mass of notes and variants that were never sorted, much less proportioned and polished by the author." Bierce took decades to write his lexicon of satirical definitions. He warmed up by including definitions infrequently in satirical essays, most in his weekly columns "The Town Crier" or "Prattle", his earliest known definition was published in 1867. His first try at a multiple-definition essay was titled "Webster Revised", it included definitions of four terms and was published in early 1869. Bierce wrote definitions in his personal letters. For example, in one letter he defined "missionaries" as those "who, in their zeal to lay about them, do not scruple to seize any weapon that they can lay their hands on.
Bierce did not make his first start at writing a satirical glossary until six years later. He called it "The Demon's Dictionary", it appeared in the San Francisco News Letter and California Advertiser of 11 December 1875, his glossary provided 48 short witty definitions, from "A" through "accoucheur". But "The Demon's Dictionary" appeared only once, Bierce wrote no more satirical lexicons for another six years. So, Bierce's short glossary spawned imitators. One of the most substantial was written by Harry Ellington Brook, the editor of a humor magazine called The Illustrated San Francisco Wasp. Brook's continuing column of serialized satirical definitions was called "Wasp's Improved Webster in Ten-Cent Doses"; the column started with the 7 August 1880 issue and appeared weekly in 28 issues, working its way step-by-step alphabetically to define 758 words, ending with "shoddy" in the 26 February 1881 issue. In the next issue of The Wasp Brook's column appeared no more, because The Wasp hired Bierce and he stopped it, replacing "Wasp's Improved Webster" with his own column of satirical definitions.
Bierce named his column “The Devil's Dictionary.” It first appeared in the March 1881 issue. Bierce wrote 79 “The Devil's Dictionary” columns, working his way alphabetically to the word “lickspittle” in the 14 Aug. 1886 issue. After Bierce left The Wasp, he was hired by William Randolph Hearst to write for his newspaper The San Francisco Examiner in 1887. Bierce's first "Prattle" column appeared in the Examiner on March 5 of that year, the next installment of his satirical lexicon appeared in the 4 September 1887 issue on page 4, under the title "The Cynic's Dictionary". Bierce wrote one more “The Cynic's Dictionary” column, no more appeared for sixteen years. In the meantime, Bierce's idea of a "comic dictionary" was imitated by others, his witty definitions were plagiarized without crediting him. One imitator copied the name of Bierce's column. In September 1903, Bierce wrote letters to his friend Herman George Scheffauer mentioning he was thinking about a book of his satirical definitions "regularly arranged as in a real dictionary."Bierce restarted his “The Cynic's Dictionary” columns w
Adhesive label
An adhesive label or sticky label is a small piece of paper designed to be affixed to another larger piece of paper or other object by the action of a layer of adhesive on the back of the label. The most familiar type of label is the postage stamp, developed in the mid-19th century. In 1935 R. Stanton Avery invented a machine to make self-adhesive labels; the concept has since been extended into a variety of areas: On mail: airmail etiquettes charity labels address labels return address labels postal meter labels certain types of postal labels On other kinds of paper objects: revenue stamps savings stamps general markers, notices, or warningsAlmost every imaginable type of paper and adhesive has been used at some point. Label may be produced individually, or in sheets, which case they are separated by perforations or rouletting, see postage stamp separation. Gutter Label The history of self adhesive labels, WorldLabel.com THE HISTORY OF SELF ADHESIVE LABELS, Etiquette.co.uk
John Lloyd (producer)
John Hardress Wilfred Lloyd is an English television producer and writer best known for his work on comedy television programmes, including Not the Nine O'Clock News, Spitting Image, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Blackadder and QI. He is the presenter of BBC Radio 4's The Museum of Curiosity, a spin-off of QI. Lloyd was born in England, his father, H. L.'Harpy' Lloyd, was an Anglo-Irish captain with the Royal Navy. As a child Lloyd lived in several different places; this led him to attend school properly only at the age of 9½. He was educated at West Hill Park School in Titchfield, Hampshire, a place where he claims bullying was "endemic", at The King's School, Canterbury, he read Law at Trinity College and was a member of the Footlights. There he befriended Douglas Adams, with whom he shared a flat. Lloyd is the great nephew of John Hardress Lloyd. Lloyd worked as a radio producer at the BBC between 1974 and 1978 and created The News Quiz, The News Huddlines, To The Manor Born and Quote...
Unquote. He wrote Hordes of the Things with Andrew Marshall, co-authored two episodes of Doctor Snuggles with Douglas Adams, went on to co-write the fifth and sixth episodes of the first radio series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy with Adams, he produced The Burkiss Way. Lloyd worked as a TV producer at both the BBC and ITV 1979–1989, where he created Not the Nine O'Clock News and Spitting Image, he produced all four Blackadder series. Lloyd was to have been the host of BBC topical news quiz Have I Got News For You, with the programme intended to be called John Lloyd's Newsround. A pilot episode of the show was recorded under this name in mid-1990, with Lloyd hosting alongside team captains Ian Hislop and Paul Merton. Lloyd subsequently decided to pull out of hosting the programme full-time and the pilot episode was never broadcast. Lloyd was replaced by Angus Deayton as host and the show was renamed Have I Got News for You in time for its debut on BBC2 that year. Lloyd married Sarah Wallace in 1989 with.
He has worked as a TV commercials director on and off since 1987. His first new TV series for 14 years, QI starring Stephen Fry and Alan Davies, began on 11 September 2003 at 10pm on BBC Two for a run of 12 episodes. In its eighth series, which started on BBC One in September 2010, Lloyd appeared as a panellist in one of the episodes. All episodes of QI have been directed by Ian Lorimer. Lloyd presents the radio series The Museum of Curiosity, which he co-created with producers Richard Turner and Dan Schreiber and former co-host Bill Bailey. In December 2011, Lloyd appeared as captain of the winning Trinity College, team on the Christmas University Challenge. Lloyd was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2011 New Year Honours for services to broadcasting. Lloyd was awarded an honorary degree from Southampton Solent University. In August 2014, Lloyd was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue.
His most recent work, 1,411 Quite Interesting Facts to Knock You Sideways, a collaboration with John Mitchinson and James Harkin, was published in 2014 by Faber and Faber. In a 2016 interview with the spiritual Beshara Magazine, Lloyd talked about the process of self-knowledge, explained his interest in the Indian guru, Nisargadatta Maharaj's book I Am That, in Sufi mysticism the works of the writer and Sufi teacher, Idries Shah. Not! The Nine O'Clock News Not 1982 Not 1983 Not the Royal Wedding Not the General Election The Meaning of Liff The Deeper Meaning of Liff The Appallingly Disrespectful Spitting Image Book Spitting Image Blackadder: The Whole Damn Dynasty 1485–1917 The Book of General Ignorance The Book of Animal Ignorance The QI Annual E Advanced Banter The QI Annual F The QI Annual G The QI Book of the Dead The Second Book of General Ignorance 1,227 QI Facts To Blow Your Socks Off Afterliff John Lloyd on IMDb John Lloyd at TED BBC Guide to Comedy entry at the Wayback Machine The People Behind QI The Idler Archives — Conversations: John Lloyd John Lloyd discussing The Book of General Ignorance John Lloyd, Desert Island Discs Meet The Writers, Monocle 24 talking to Georgina Godwin
Paul Jennings (British author)
Paul Francis Jennings was an English humourist. For many years he wrote a column, Oddly Enough, in The Observer. Many collections were published, including The Jenguin Pennings by Penguin Books in 1963, he wrote popular children's books including The Great Jelly of London, The Hopping Basket, The Train to Yesterday. Paul Francis Jennings was born on 20 June 1918 in Leamington Spa, his parents were Gertrude Mary Jennings. He was educated at King Henry VIII school in Coventry and at the Douai Catholic school in Woolhampton, Berkshire. Jennings served in the Royal Signals during the Second World War. In 1943 his piece "Moses was a Sanitary Officer" was published in Lilliput magazine. Freelance work for Punch and The Spectator soon followed. Leaving the army with the rank of Lieutenant, he worked as a scriptwriter for the Central Office of Information and spent two years as an advertising copywriter. In 1949 he joined The Observer, contributing a fortnightly column entitled "Oddly Enough" until 1966, when he was succeeded by Michael Frayn, an admirer of his work.
After leaving The Observer, he continued to write until his death seeing print in Punch, The Times and the Telegraph magazine. His columns constitute several hundred 700-word essays. In general his pieces take the form of whimsical ponderings. For instance, one of his pieces, "How to Spiel Halma", concerns their attempts to establish the rules of halma from the instructions in a German set using their limited knowledge of the language, his pieces are sometimes poems, sometimes written in novel forms of language, such as the Romance-eschewing Anglish, or that of a toy 19-letter pipewipen. Other articles were extended flights of fancy, such as "The Unthinkable Carrier" based on the idea of cutting Britain free of the Earth's crust so that it could float around the oceans and guarantee world peace, with the Isle of Wight kept in place by a tow chain. In a late 1950s piece, "Sleep for Sale", he prefigured the concept of the capsule hotel. Several of his pieces touched on the invented philosophical movement of Resistentialism, a concept that owes some of its force to the contempt that Jennings—a devout Catholic—felt for the intellectual fashion he was parodying.
Jennings was an admirer of James Thurber, who attended a dinner party at Jennings' house and subsequently wrote of the conversation in a 1955 New Yorker piece. Oddly Enough Even Oddlier Oddly Bodlikins Next to Oddliness Model Oddlies Gladly Oddly Idly Oddly I said Oddly, Diddle I? Oodles of Oddlies Oddly Ad Lib I Was Joking, Of Course It's an Odd Thing, But... The Jenguin Pennings A Precsription for Foreing Travel Just a Few Lines I Must Have Imagined It Pun Fun Golden Oddlies The Paul Jennings Reader The Living Village Britain as she is Visit Companion to Britain East Anglia The Hopping Basket The Great Jelly of London The Train to Yesterday Dunlopera: The Works and Workings of the Dunlop Rubber Company. Dunlop Rubber Co, 1961. About Dunlop. OCLC 59014464, and Now for Something Exactly the Same. A novel; the English Difference The Book of Nonsense A Feast of Days My Favourite Railway Stories Jennings married Celia Blom, daughter of music critic and lexicographer Eric Blom, in 1951. The couple lived in East Bergholt, Suffolk and had six children.
A keen chorister, Jennings sang with the London Philharmonia Chorus. Jennings died on 26 December 1989
Monty Python
Monty Python were a British surreal comedy group who created their sketch comedy show Monty Python's Flying Circus, which first aired on the BBC in 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series; the Python phenomenon developed from the television series into something larger in scope and impact, including touring stage shows, numerous albums, several books, musicals. The Pythons' influence on comedy has been compared to the Beatles' influence on music, their sketch show has been referred to as "not only one of the more enduring icons of 1970s British popular culture, but an important moment in the evolution of television comedy". Broadcast by the BBC between 1969 and 1974, Monty Python's Flying Circus was conceived and performed by its members Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin. Loosely structured as a sketch show, but with an innovative stream-of-consciousness approach, aided by Gilliam's animation, it pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable in style and content.
A self-contained comedy team responsible for both writing and performing their work, the Pythons had creative control which allowed them to experiment with form and content, discarding rules of television comedy. Following their television work, they began making films, which include Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life, their influence on British comedy has been apparent for years, while in North America, it has coloured the work of cult performers from the early editions of Saturday Night Live through to more recent absurdist trends in television comedy. "Pythonesque" has entered the English lexicon as a result. In a 2005 poll of over 300 comics, comedy writers and directors throughout the English-speaking world to find "The Comedian's Comedian", three of the six Pythons members were voted to be among the top 50 greatest comedians ever: Cleese at No. 2, Idle at No. 21, Palin at No. 30. Jones and Palin met at Oxford University. Chapman and Cleese met at Cambridge University.
Idle was at Cambridge, but started a year after Chapman and Cleese. Cleese met Gilliam in New York City while on tour with the Cambridge University Footlights revue Cambridge Circus. Chapman and Idle were members of the Footlights, which at that time included the future Goodies, Jonathan Lynn. During Idle's presidency of the club, feminist writer Germaine Greer and broadcaster Clive James were members. Recordings of Footlights' revues at Pembroke College include sketches and performances by Cleese and Idle, along with tapes of Idle's performances in some of the drama society's theatrical productions, are kept in the archives of the Pembroke Players; the six Python members appeared in or wrote these shows before Flying Circus: I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again – The Frost Report – – At Last the 1948 Show – Twice a Fortnight Do Not Adjust Your Set – + Bonzo Dog Band: musical interludes We Have Ways of Making You Laugh – How to Irritate People – The Complete and Utter History of Britain Doctor in the House The BBC’s satirical television show, The Frost Report, broadcast from March 1966 to December 1967, is credited as first uniting the British Pythons and providing an environment in which they could develop their particular styles.
Following the success of Do Not Adjust Your Set, broadcast on ITV in the UK from December 1967 to May 1969, ITV offered Gilliam, Idle and Palin their own late-night adult comedy series together. At the same time and Cleese were offered a show by the BBC, impressed by their work on The Frost Report and At Last the 1948 Show. Cleese was reluctant to do a two-man show for various reasons, including Chapman's difficult and erratic personality. Cleese had fond memories of working with Palin on How to Irritate People and invited him to join the team. With no studio available at ITV until summer 1970 for the late-night show, Palin agreed to join Cleese and Chapman, suggested the involvement of his writing partner Jones and colleague Idle—who in turn wanted Gilliam to provide animations for the projected series. Much has been made of the fact that the Monty Python troupe is the result of Cleese's desire to work with Palin and the chance circumstances that brought the other four members into the fold.
By contrast, according to John Cleese's autobiography, the origins of Monty Python lay in the admiration that writing partners Cleese and Chapman had for the new type of comedy being done on Do Not Adjust Your Set. According to their official website, the group was born from a Kashmir tandoori restaurant in Hampstead in 1969; the Pythons had a definite idea about. They were admirers of the work of Pete
