Package Tour

In many ways it was the high spot of the day. After all, it could only go down hill after this lot. We have this annual beano in London that actually takes place in everything but every year, and after being summarily ejected from the Walmer Castle in Ledbury Road because it didn't open until midday (well keep the door locked then) we ended up in Colville Mews at this museum. I'd seen it before, many years ago when it graced an old canal warehouse in Gloucester Docks, but was still totally unprepared for just how utterly brilliant it is. As the Daily Telegraph quite rightly said, this is 'a place of worship'. I had to be restrained from continually dropping to my knees in front of the most superb examples of commercial art to be seen anywhere. If you call yourself a graphic designer (or whatever) and haven't been in, or made a promise to visit the mews as soon as you can, I shall send the Violent Brothers round to your studios in their big black Maybach limo. If you're as old as I am, you may simply enjoy it just for the nostalgia kick, (my pal said he remembered standing on two Watney's Party Seven cans to watch a stripper in a pub), but if you care about the craft of illustration, hand drawn lettering and classic typography, come down here and see just how good it got. All credit to Robert Opie for starting it off with a Munchies wrapper, and credit to the Gold pub in Portobello Road for being there for us at 11.15 with a warm welcome and excellent pints of Harvey's Bitter.  

Getting It Right

"Close your eyes and hold out your hand" the Youngest Boy said. Usually I recoil at the thought, knowing that I could so easily be the recipient of a slug dragged out from under the shed. But as he was still in his pyjamas I allowed myself the treat of having this tin presented to me. "It was going to be part of a new space rocket, but as you like old-fashioned things I thought you'd better have it". "Thankyou very much", I said, and really meant it. The thing is, of course, is that it's not a 1950's grocery item, or particularly nostalgic for the good old days of cocoa drinking in slippers by open fires. No, this is the result of Waitrose's designers knowing a thing or two about, well, good design. And you just know that it won't be replaced in a couple of weeks' time by yet another tweeking presented at the Monday morning strategy focus outreach meeting, a fate that regularly befalls it's better known competitors on the adjoining shelves. Good design like this is timeless. The right colours, the right type and a classic wood engraving that tells us what cocoa actually is. (Is this one is by Christopher Wormell?) So yes, it will be up there on the kitchen high shelf with Ovaltine and Milo and the Quaker Oats tin from a Greek holiday many years ago. Just because I really, really like it.

I Should Cocoa

Where does that rejoinder "I should cocoa" (meaning "I should jolly well think so") come from? Anyway, after all the snow-capped topiary and frozen brussel sprout stalks I thought we could all do with a heart warming mug of hot cocoa. And what better than a big spoonful out of this splendid tin. Except of course we can't buy it like this now, mores the pity. I must admit I am tempted to buy some Bournville and decant it, (there's still some Rowntree's lurking at the bottom), but there are enough raised eyebrows surrounding me at the moment as it is. But just look at this 1950's design. The repeat patterns in cream and brown on a burnt orange, backing-up the characterful hand-drawn script. And the two exquisite line drawings of the cup and saucer and the very pretty girl glancing at us as she takes the cocoa pot (looking like one of those you once got in Boots' cafes) on its tray to a waiting table. How did I come by it? Well, a little boy of our aquaintance in the mid 1970's was always gazing up at the shelves of our cottage, and when he realised we weren't a grocer's shop he scooted off down the village street to his grandma's and lifted this from the back of her pantry shelf. "I thought you'd like this" he said. Oh yes.