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David Simpkin @simplerdave.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Apologies for butting in, but if you don't already know this one, I highly recommend it: The Long Memory (1953)

Poster for the 1953 film The Long Memory, a moody British post-war noir, showing a drawing of a man and woman embracing, hiding his face, along with the names of the leading players. I absolutely recommend it.

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David Simpkin @simplerdave.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Joe's chat with Barry Cryer concludes with this glorious insight which I've held close ever since.

The interviewer asks the great comedy writer Barry Cryer "Do you know what's funny?" Barry replies "... Nobody knows. I've never ever said... 'This is funny'. I've said 'We like this'."

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David Simpkin @simplerdave.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Whatever else he was doing, in 1998 he co-wrote/edited this magnificent work, which I've found invaluable over the years...

The vover of the 1998 publication Now That's Funny!: Writers on Writing Comedy - edited by David Bradbury and Joe McGrath and which interviews *everyone* who was anything to do with British comedy since the Second World War.

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David Simpkin @simplerdave.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

Apologies for butting in, but the BBC 60s Maigrets are also available on DVD (from the late lamented Network, but I'm sure there are copies out there...)

A box set of BBC Maigret DVDs in my hand, with a couple of model buses in the background.

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David Simpkin @simplerdave.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

Also, if I remember rightly, the direct inspiration for Oliver Postgate's delightful Noggin the Nog...

The cover of the book version of Postgate and Firmin's Sagas of Noggin the Nog, beautifully done.

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David Simpkin @simplerdave.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

Not sure you can separate the hat from the wearer...

The great Humphrey Bogart wearing a snap-brimmed fedora in 1940

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David Simpkin @simplerdave.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

Joseph Losey's The Criminal (1960), starring Stanley Baker

Poster for the 1960 film The Criminal directed by Joseph Losey and starring Stanley Baker. The poster is an illustration (not a photo, very 1960) of Baker standing tall, and in the background, illustrations of several scenes from the film.

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David Simpkin @simplerdave.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

A car nerd writes: Ah, well, in the 1960s the Austin Princess was a luxury limousine for rural mayors and funeral parlours that couldn't afford a Rolls Royce (picture below). The car you're thinking of was a revival of the name for some reason...

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David Simpkin @simplerdave.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

Share your favourite black & white film (apart from all the others...)

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David Simpkin @simplerdave.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

Charity shop bargain: four novels and two books of short stories in a single (massive) volume for the princely sum of £1.50. Drinks coaster for scale.

The Complete Four Just Men by Edgar Wallace, a fat paperback book containing four novels and two books of short stories written between 1905 and 1928. Drinks coaster showing Winchester's Round Table included for scale.

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David Simpkin @simplerdave.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

Still one of the greatest album titles by one of the greatest TV and film music composers. The soundtrack to Bullitt, amongst many, many others, is the absolute business. Farewell, Lalo. You were magnificent.

An album of film and other music by the late great Lalo Schifrin, brilliantly titled There's a Whole Lalo Schifrin Goin' On.

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David Simpkin @simplerdave.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

Nice twist, retitling Thunderbolts as the New Avengers, but for those of us of a certain vintage, there can still only be one... (well, three...)

Hawkeye, Yelena and - sorry, this is your actual New Avengers from 70s TV, Gambit, Purdey and the peerless John Steed.

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David Simpkin @simplerdave.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

Movies produced abroad are a threat to national security #FilmSky

A colourised version of a still from the cinematic masterpiece Jour de Fete (1949). In the still, Jacques Tati, playing a postman, seems to be talking into a telephone mounted on the front of his bike, while two American Military Policemen stare at him with suspicion.

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David Simpkin @simplerdave.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

#Ghostsign on the side of a house near the Trent Lock, Sawley, Nottinghamshire, UK

Ghostsign on a house near a lock on the Trent in Nottinghamshire. Mostly illegible, but the bottom line clearly says 'Mineral Water'

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David Simpkin @simplerdave.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

One of my all time favourites of his: Venus Prise a la Gorge, 1964

A photograph by the French photographer Robert Doisneau in which some men are moving a statue of the goddess Venus. Appropriately enough, the men, while looking down at her feet, are braced against her breasts.

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David Simpkin @simplerdave.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

It is still a magnificent sticky floor music venue, though. I went to a lovely gig there just a few days ago...

Live at the Angel Microbrewery, Nottingham, the band Danny and the Champions of the World, with their support act Annie Dressner on backing vocals and tambourine.

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David Simpkin @simplerdave.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

I enjoyed the fun @pussellrarker.bsky.social & friends had yesterday, with the old Target paperbacks seen in a Ken Dodd documentary. As a (then) academic bookseller, I had a similar rush from this moment in 'The End of Time', with a prominent guest role for the Routledge Classics spinner...

Screengrab from the Doctor Who episode The End of Time (2010). Jessica Hynes is doing a book signing in a large modern bookshop. The Routledge Classics spinner is very much seen front right.

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David Simpkin @simplerdave.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

Some lovely books I own for #WorldBookDay - please reply or quote with books of your own...

The top shelf of my nearest bookcase with several scale model cars in front of a variety of books about film, television, drama, pantomime, and some absolutely gorgeous graphic novels...

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David Simpkin @simplerdave.bsky.social · 02/03/2025

If you're delving into the far corners of Gene Hackman's backlist, don't sleep on this one: Twilight (no, not that one, 1998). A lovely piece of California neo-noir, it's Newman's film really, but Hackman is great - as is James Garner, who nearly steals the film without getting on to the poster...