Home to Roost.

After launching the crowdfunding for his new book “Welcome to Earth - an imaginary encyclopaedia’ the Author is accused of plagiarism by Cyril Sprout whose own book ‘Welcome to Earth - the Complete Guide to Garden Spadework ’ was first published in 1957. After a heated argument Cyril agrees to settle out of court if the Author buys him a new caravan. 

https://unbound.com/books/welcome-to-earth

Milk and Biscuits with the Rich and Famous

As part of the campaign to crowdfund his new book, ‘Welcome to Earth’ the Author is invited to meet five-year-old celebrity author, singer, songwriter, tap dancer, UN goodwill ambassador, fund-raiser and award-winning interior designer, Britney Woggle. Her Booker Prize nominated first novel "Woggle World" has been the biggest sensation since the twelve-year-old giant of English fiction Martin Adenoid had his own best-selling autobiography turned into a BBC mini-series.  Over malted milk and biscuits Britney told the Author she thought  he was "wonderful for his age!”  https://unbound.com/books/welcome-to-earth

He barely made an impression

The Author’s first attempt to raise readers’ support for his new book ‘Welcome to Earth - an Imaginary Encyclopaedia’ gets a mixed reception at the Scrotum & Foresters Working Mens Club. “Not your fault, pal. They usually get a stripper on a Tuesdays” the management explains. https://unbound.com/books/welcome-to-earth

She should have tried the Eggs Benedict

As part of her Sunday Times series on ‘Living with the Homeless’ in 1979 Tanya Tilbury-Whiffle spent the weekend in a traveller’s caravan.  ‘It was absolutely shocking!’ revealed the celebrated romantic novelist, children's writer, biographer, historian, poet, painter, potter, sculptor, columnist, wit, wine expert, TV celebrity, gardener, composer, librettist, agony aunt, goodwill ambassador, peace envoy, vegetarian, animal campaigner and award-winning interior designer, ‘the coffee was cold and there wasn’t even a decent croissant. I just don’t know how these poor people manage!’

Please wait to be seated

Fanny and Dudley Hovis pose for pictures to promote Dudley’s book ‘Errol Flynn’s Ghost Invaded my Wife’  Fanny says that the ghost - pictured here sitting on the footstool - arrived shortly after she fell and cracked her head in the kitchen and now follows her everywhere. They eat, sleep and bathe together. ‘Since he arrived in the house he’s turned our lives upside down,’ said Dudley, who now has to sleep in the spare bedroom.  They are currently seeking a publisher.

He simply lost his appetite

After the phenomenal success of his BBC TV shows ‘Finger Food 

for the Over Forties’ and ‘Simple Snacks for Seniors’  ten-year-old 

wunderkind Macaulay Minge wrote a series of best-selling cookery

 books, a blockbuster novel, two volumes of poetry and a food column

 for the Guardian, before announcing his early retirement. 

“Writing is a young man’s game. If you haven’t made it by the time

you’re fifteen you should probably find a different career,”

 he told the Author, before asking him what he did for a living.  

A spin down Memory Lane

A rare photograph of ‘The Freewheelers’ aka Gladys Snorter, Bunty Pilchard, Elsie Potter and Alice Peak Freen, relaxing in the saddle after winning the Lucy Taffeta Cup - that most coveted Poetry Marathon Prize - for writing 500 stanzas of romantic light verse in under two hours at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1953.  

another five hundred . . .

The Author's invitation to read from his own collected poems

at the Truculent Polecat gastro-pub during the Edinburgh Festival 

is abruptly withdrawn again this year when fantastically funny TV

 celebrity, comic and star of the smash hit game show"You Gotta Laff'

Travis Smelter (above) is persuaded by the pub's landlord to read 

from his best-selling sequel to 'Five Hundred Favourite Fart Jokes"

and he spent weeks making that costume . . .

The police were called to a 'suspected hostage situation'

when veteran performance poet Derwent Fiddler caused

panic at the Edinburgh Festival by attempting to involve

young members of the audience in his 'Monty the Cannibal Mouse'

event.  "If it's not Harry bloody Potter they're not interested!" 

he grumbled as he was separated from the screaming infant. 

He plans to retire before his next birthday . . .

The Author is introduced to Eric Duncan-Macaroon the latest

twelve-year-old enfant terrible of modern English fiction

 and author of the best-selling autobiography 'The Early Years -

Confessions of a Troubled Twelve-Year-Old' soon to be made into

an award-winning BBC mini-series about a troubled twelve-year-old

and his struggle to write his own life story.

He don't sweat the small stuff . . .

Milton Carnaby, the Sixties fashion guru who introduced

the idea of wearing your shirt back-to-front with the collar 

turned up, appeared on the BBC Book Programme to promote

his autobiography 'Rag Trade to Riches' and was accused of using

a ghost-writer to compile his memoirs.  Carnaby merely shrugged 

and said "What am I, bleedin' Einstein?  I never learned to read

nor write - I was too busy making money!"

George was in the laundry basket . . .

Inspired by popular psychic biographer Agatha Blunt who wrote 

her intimate story of Michael Jackson while sitting at home in a trance

Lucy Pickles (pictured left with her best friend Maude) claims that
while she was sick in bed with the measles, John Lennon haunted her 

wardrobe "He asked me to write his true life story.  It was awesome.  

He said we had to love one another and stuff!" she said. "He said 

I should give peace a chance and stuff.  It's all in my book!" 

 She is currently seeking a publisher.

the critics were divided . . .

The first mixed-gender bigamist Charlie Potts (front row left)

failed in his attempt to persuade the Author to ghost-write his life story

when Charlie, seen here in happier times with wives Sandra, Gertie, 

Pauline and Frank, was taken into custody shortly before the Author 

could talk to him.  Immediately after the arrest Frank ran away with

Gertie and Pauline tried to sell her kiss-and-tell confession about an 

affair with Sandra to the Daily Mail.  Charlie later announced he would

tackle his own life story in the prison creative writing class. 

words finally failed him

Notorious literary bad boy Julian Sphincter, celebrated for his
dystopian novels attacking everything, fails to find a publisher
for his latest book and contents himself with standing
in the street near the Grouchers Club in London's Soho
shouting abuse and spitting at people. When the police arrest
 him for disturbing the peace, The Times Literary Supplement
quickly rush to his defence, describing his action as
"an extraordinary triumph of virtual fiction writing"
and "a modern masterpiece of minimalist conceptualism"

can also be used as an anaesthetic . . .

Janice Bedwitter (right) author of the best-selling 'Teen Nurse Nancy' 

series of romantic novelettes receives the Red Rose Award from 

Literature Lite for her contribution to the arts.  Her sixty-third Teen 

Nurse Nancy novelette 'Emergency Nurse Nancy'  is published next

 month, described by her editor Literature Lite's Wendy Scott-Bunion

 (left) as 'a perfectly lovely little book - they're the sort of stories you 

can just read and you don't have to think about"

if that doesn't work she takes off the housecoat . . .

In a desperate attempt to halt dwindling sales of the ill-fated

'Collected Sermons of Eminent Victorian Bishops' in ten volumes

her editors suggest that noted historian Astoria Wainscot add a little

glamour to her book jacket photographs.

and she lodged a complaint with the Jockey Club

Famous travel writer Pansy Dunlop is forced to retire injured

abandoning her attempt to retrace the footsteps of her great hero

Robert Louis Stevenson's 'Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes'

for the Sunday Times when - shortly after this picture is taken -

the brute throws her and gives her a good kicking at the start 

of her journey on Margate Sands.

and the Hallmark Medal for Poetry goes to . . .

The girls from the Paddington Poetry Speed Writing Team (seen here

 with their coach Fanny Forester) raise a glass of sweet sherry 

in celebration of winning the regional heats to qualify for the finals

of the Strict Tempo Light Verse Olympic Sprint at this year's exciting

Isle of Wight Literary Festival.  "We're confident of taking the medal

- these girls can rhyme in double-quick time," declared Fanny,
a legend in the greetings card industry.

and he does his own hair and make-up

Charlie Chisel the celebrated thriller writer, athlete, adventurer,

mercenary, explorer, mountaineer, bush pilot, sharp shooter, deep sea

diver, big game hunter, columnist, wit, historian, wine expert, wrestler

TV celebrity, gourmet, cigar enthusiast and award-winning fashion

designer  (seen here at another literary luncheon) announces that he

plans in future to get "some little scribbler" to bang out his blockbusters

 since he's just too busy 'being Charlie'

he looks better in costume

A rare photograph of the world's best-selling romantic novelist

Lettice Silk-Gussett, seen here at home with her devoted companion

Cyril.  Ms Silk-Gussett has used Cyril as the inspiration for her most

hot-blooded heroes, including dashing Hector Haunch, Highwayman,

Captain Challenger and Diablo the Pirate from her Buccaneer series.