The illustrated story of Eric and Ernie's early years as variety entertainers, and the first ever biography to reveal how they became Britain's best loved comedy double act. Eric Morecambe & Ernie Wise were Britain's greatest ever double act, but there's never been a book which really revealed the era that made them such a special part of our national culture. Until now. Although they ended up on TV, they started out in variety, and their record-breaking Christmas shows were a secret homage to that forgotten world. For a quarter of a century, from the early Forties until the late Sixties, they were a live act first and foremost, playing pantomime and summer season, variety theatres and seaside piers. 'You're making us look like a cheap music hall act,' Ernie used to complain, in mock protest. 'Well, we are a cheap music hall act,' Eric would reply. Morecambe and Wise Untold is a book about Eric and Ernie's live years. What was it really like, that lost world which they came from? How did it shape them? What were the other acts like? And the theatres? And the shows? Why did they survive, while so many other variety acts vanished? This is the story of the spit and sawdust places where they served their showbiz apprenticeship, told through the reminiscences of the people they met along the way. Morecambe and Wise Untold contains brand new interviews with Ken Dodd and Bruce Forsyth (who worked with Eric and Ernie in Variety) plus Michael Grade, Ernest Maxin and John Ammonds, who got to know them as a live act, and went on to mastermind their phenomenally successful TV shows. There are interviews with Gail and Gary Morecambe (Eric's children), Joan Morecambe (Eric's widow) and a rare and revealing interview with Doreen Wise - the first time that Ernie's widow has ever been interviewed for a book about Morecambe & Wise. The text is accompanied by a wealth of rare and previously unseen photos by Gary Morecambe from his father's family archive and from the collections of friends, fellow performers and fans who captured the emerging story of a legendary showbiz partnership in the making.

The Enthusiast tells the story of a character type that was developed in early modern Britain to discredit radical prophets during an era that witnessed the dismantling of the Church of England's traditional means for punishing heresy. As William Cook Miller shows, the caricature of fanaticism here called the Enthusiast began as propaganda against religious dissenters, especially working-class upstarts, but was adopted by a range of writers as a literary vehicle for exploring profound problems of spirit, soul, and body and as a persona for the ironic expression of their own prophetic illuminations. Taking shape through the public and private writings of some of the most insightful authors of seventeenth-century Britain—Henry More, John Locke, the Third Earl of Shaftesbury, Mary Astell, and Jonathan Swift, among others—the Enthusiast appeared in various guises and literary modes. By attending to this literary being and its animators, The Enthusiast establishes the figure of the fanatic as a bridge between the Reformation and the Enlightenment, showing how an incipient secular modernity was informed by not the rejection of religion but the transformation of the prophet into something sparkling, witty, ironic, and new.

This title offers professional techniques to bring your furniture back to life. It features clear step-by-step instructions for everyday restoration tasks, such as polishing, staining, waxing, graining, gilding, veneering, and marquetry and parquetry repairs. It contains expert advice on essential tools, equipment and materials, from saws, hammers, screwdrivers, clamps and chisels to veneers, polishes, gilts, leather and locks. Projects include removing a blister, raising a dent, disguising a scratch, cleaning marble, reviving leather, laying veneer sheets, and restoring a damaged edge. This book is an essential guide to basic and advanced restoration techniques for antique surfaces. A section on tools and equipment includes directories of all the materials you need for successful home furniture repair. Projects include removing a watermark, releathering a top, reviving a polished surface, cleaning metal, French polishing, waxing a carved surface, replacing bandings, and repairing rosewood pole screens. With its detailed overview and professional guidance illustrated by more than 400 photographs, this book will enable any budding restorer to develop a true understanding of a range of furniture surfaces and how to repair them.

How to repair loose joints, broken chair legs and damaged finishes: this comprehensive book is an essential guide to repairing and conserving your furniture. There is expert information on specialist skills such as turning, carving, upholstery, graining, gilding, marquetry and parquetry, as well as a directory of tools, materials and equipment. Clear step-by-step techniques show how to deal with common problems such as scratches, dents, warps, splits and watermarks, and the main types of furniture are considered in turn, such as tables, chests, cabinets and chairs. Seven in-depth projects put the individual techniques into context, including repairing an 18th-century carved chair and restoring a badly fire-damaged Regency table.

This is a completely original and beautifully designed book on Eric Morecambe, one of the UK's best-loved entertainers. Containing diary entries, unseen photographs and personal letters, this is the most revealing book yet on Morecambe. Posthumously voted 'Comedian of the Century' in 1999 and reaching number 4 in the recent 'Comedian's Comedian Top 50' on Channel 4, Eric Morecambe remains one of Britain's greatest and best-loved comedians. But even at the height of his success, Eric Morecambe feared his days were numbered as one half of Britain's best-loved comedy duo. It was a dread that had afflicted his whole career, according to his taped diaries, which emerged for the first time at the end of 2004 on the Channel 4 documentary, 'The Unseen Eric Morecambe'. The programme was praised both by critics and the general public and it served to renew interest in Morecambe's career and in the man himself. Containing 15,000 words of unseen diary entries, 200 unseen pictures, jokes and sketches, and letters to both Ernie and Eric himself, everything in this book is 100% personal and original, offering an exclusive insight into a comedic genius who was plagued with self-doubt. Even through his fear and uncertainty, Eric's inimitable humour shines through his diaries, joke books and personal archives. 'The Unseen Eric Morecambe' radiates with the gentle comedy genius that permeates his on-screen appearances, allowing an insight into Eric Morecambe that is both comfortingly familiar and revelatory. For the many fans of Eric Morecambe this book offers new insights while the stylish, integrated design makes this handsome book an ideal gift purchase.

This title presents professional techniques to bring your furniture back to life. It offers complete instructions for dismantling and rebuilding chests, polishing, waxing and staining, how to repair tops and feet, and how to rebuild drawers and doors. It includes a fascinating history describing how chests and cabinets have evolved over time, as well as advice on buying and using tools, equipment and materials. Projects include repairing a split top, replacing a bracket foot, repairing a glazed door, correcting a minor twist, restoring desk drawers, and repairing a grandfather clock. Chests and cabinets often endure a hard life, and over the years the working parts can be damaged through wear and tear. This book provides complete instructions for repairing chests, drawers, doors and desks, all photographed at a leading antique restoration workshop. Projects include replacing drawer runners, cutting a dovetail joint, repairing a sliding tambour, refitting a door, and polishing a 19th-century desk. Detailed information is given on how each piece of furniture is constructed, and how it can be dismantled and reassembled. Illustrated with over 400 beautiful photographs, the book will enable any restorer to learn how to mend antique furniture.

This book includes professional techniques to bring your furniture back to life. It is an essential guide to basic and advanced restoration techniques for antique tables. It features step-by-step instructions for everyday restoration tasks, including repairing a damaged table leg, mending the base and frame, and dismantling and reassembling tables. It explains how tables from different periods are made, and how to take them apart and put them back together. It includes expert advice on buying, using and caring for tools, equipment and materials. It covers projects that include correcting a warped card table, restoring a drop-leaf table, repairing a badly fire-damaged sofa table, and mending a split pedestal table. It contains more than 400 photographs, with close-ups of techniques and tools, and before-and-after shots. Tables come in a variety of styles, and although they are usually fairly robust, they will eventually need repairing. This book is a practical guide to restoration techniques for antique tables. It describes how tables from different periods were made, and includes a comprehensive section on the tools and equipment needed for home repair jobs. Projects include waxing a table, carving a damaged bracket, and repairing fretwork. With its historical overview and professional guidance, and illustrated by more than 400 photographs, the book will enable novice restorers to develop a better understanding of antique tables, and how to repair and restore them.

Soon after Daniel O'Connell's death, Taylor published (as 'A Munster Farmer') this short account of the Liberator's life, drawing on his personal memories and on articles he had written for the Athenaeum in the 1840s. It includes eyewitness accounts of O'Connell's appearance as he walked through the streets of Dublin. Taylor shows personal sympathy for O'Connell as the leader of oppressed people, but he also sees his talents as distorted by the experience of oppression and by a conservative upbringing, and claims that his abusive and truculent oratory did as much to retard Catholic Emancipation as his tactical leadership did to advance it. This edition also includes a review article by Taylor in the Athenaeum of books including Carleton's Famine novel, The Black Prophet, and a long article on 'Repeal Songs of Munster', considering O'Connellite street-ballads as a study in human folly.