Update 17th September. The comments trail on this article has veered off into a discussion about anonymous posters - click here to read scrolling down to end of article.
© Jude Calvert-Toulmin
The cover for Mother-in-Law, Son-in-Law.
Original photographer David Winge. Model Nora Saenz.
I hoped to be able to announce the details of my new publishing company at the end of last week, but I'm still waiting for Companies House to get back to me with the green light. So in the meantime at least you can now see the cover to the first publication, the sexually explicit but in parts amusing Mother-in-Law, Son-in-Law.
Meanwhile, although the book is still on track for publication this Autumn, the editing goes on...and on...and on...see this article for more about my editor's "Stubby Ratings" - some adult content.
So today instead of talking about the new company, I'll talk about Dragons Den. For those of you living abroad, Dragons Den is a BBC programme where entrepreneurs pitch for investment to a panel of successful multi-millionaire investors. I've been watching it since the first series and I love it.
Above: Sculptor Guy Portelli in front of his stunning Eagle Gates - a private commission.
Another shot of the Eagle Gates.
I instinctively loved everything about Guy Portelli, his work and his pitch, without realising at the time that he was also a fellow mosaicist who is also quite obviously a passionate Gaudi fan like me.
Guy Portelli "Red Hot Pokers"
Bronze and mosaic
© Guy Portelli
"House Number Looking Up Into Sunlit Horse Chestnut Tree"
Italian Glass Tessarae and Mirror Glass
© Jude Calvert-Toulmin
"A Beautiful Exit"
Italian Glass Tessarae
© Jude Calvert-Toulmin
Guy's Dragons Den pitch is below at time code 5:44
...and is continued below:
His work is truly inspired - a fascinating artist. His book, Modern British Sculpture, looks great too. You can buy it from Bushwood Books, here.
Blimey, check this out for a coincidence all you Sade fans who regularly read my blog. One of Guy's Pop Icon statues is of Sade herself!
Sade © Guy Portelli
Sade © Jude Calvert-Toulmin
Regular readers of my blog will know that I used to hang round with Sade's band in London just before Sade was signed up with a major. Some of my original shots of Sade from the early 80s are in this article - Turn of the 80s - The Hull Connection: Sade.
Anyway, back to Dragons Den, and now you've seen the real Dragons at work, here is a spoof of them on Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse's comedy series Harry and Paul, currently airing on BBC1.
I've blogged about Harry and Paul before, of course, being a huge fan of both their work.
My article about the work of Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse, including YouTubes from the first Harry and Paul series, "Ruddy Hell It's Harry and Paul", and YouTubes of my favourite characters from The Fast Show and Harry Enfield's Television Programme.
And a separate article about Harry Enfield's Yorkshireman sketch. This is one of my most popular ever blog articles and is still constantly read!
Harry Enfield's Yorkshireman, George Whitebread. Egg bank nicked the idea for Egg from this sketch. Allegedly.
Ricky Gervais, another comedy hero of mine, was the first to do a comedy spoof of Dragons Den. Ricky Gervais and co-writer Stephen Merchant followed the success of The Office with another comedy series, Extras.
When this was first aired it attracted a lot of criticism, including much sneering on the boards of Digital Spy. I used to go on there under the name moonsparkle and fiercely defend the series as I knew it was quality, right from the word go. I even got asked by the London Evening Standard if they could reproduce one of my passionate posts on their letters page. In fact, here I am three years ago defending the very first episode of Extras from a load of narrow minded bigots on Digital Spy. Yup I am a huge fan of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant.
Anyway, if you want to see Ricky Gervais asking for a million pounds on Dragons Den, here's the YouTube link. Embedding is disabled by the BBC which is fair enough, so you'll actually have to move your lazy fingers 2 inches across the keyboard and make a clicking motion to view it.
My favourite Dragons are Deborah Meaden, Theo Paphitis and Duncan Bannatyne. But my most favourite Dragon of all is Richard Farleigh.
There is something about Richard, and I'm not the only one who thinks so. There is a whole website devoted to his admirers, called Bring Back Richard Farleigh dot com. I would sign the petition but amongst the hundreds of genuine signatures is a good deal of spam and a lady is known by the company she keeps.
Richard is no longer on Dragons Den after being allegedly dropped after Series 5. Big mistake. He is a legend; a wealthy man with humility and grace is a rare treasure. Naturally after first seeing Richard on Dragons Den I emailed him a brief one line email saying how much I admired his work on the programme. I didn't expect a reply, nor did I get one, I fully expected Richard's PA to put my email straight into the "Yet another dizzy housewife" bucket, but that's not the point. The point is, if I see good work I always want to praise it.
Before I leave you with some other stars of Dragons Den, here's a question.
Q: What do Ricky Gervais, Richard Farleigh, Stephen Merchant, Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse have in common apart from their involvment with Dragons Den?
A: They're all mentioned by name in conversations between various characters in my hot new novel, Mother-in-Law, Son-in-Law.
So, more Dragons Den stars. Probably the most lovely, and certainly the most popular, of all the entrepreneurs is Levi Roots. His pitch made Dragons Den history, he accepted Richard Farleigh and Peter Jones's offer of investment, and his Reggae Reggae Sauce which I remember from Notting Hill Carnival last century, is now stocked in supermarkets and never off our cupboard shelf because it's a a great sauce. He also has a great website packed full of entertaining info, here.
A shelf in my pantry. Reggae Reggae Sauce, centre stage, alongside some of my beloved Chinese ingredients and the great Sheffield sauces Hendersons Relish and Sheff's Special Mojo (coriander, chilli and lime.) Note the Morrisons value mushy peas stacked up in background. Class.
Levi's original Dragons Den pitch in full is not on YouTube at the moment, but here's the intro where he sings his Reggae Reggae sauce song. He's a professional musician anyway, so this is good...
And here's his 1998 album:
And now for the entrepreneurs who turned the Dragons down but survived. An aquaintance of mine, Jay Cousins, who built my first ever website, a late nineties flashtastic jobby, turned down the dragons for his Flatworld UK Orikaso flatpack picnic sets; he now has a production centre in China and I've seen his Flatpack products in the sports superstore Decathlon. Here's his site at flatworld.co.uk
Above, Jay Cousins, guest speaker at The Biz Awards 2007
And here is her website (screenshot of the top part of her hompage below.) The Lings Cars site is like the hundreds and thousands on a cake, but where every hundred or thousand does something brilliant.
Like me she's a kind-hearted shameless self-publicist with a right gob on her who can't sit still for two minutes. I think she's fabulous. And in her early thirties, she's made Viz Ambassador, and it's taken me till my late forties to be the cover girl on a Lego figure T-shirt!
My piece of artwork "Rubber Stamp 1" on lego artist Chris Doyle's lego figure T-shirt. Chris is the inventor of the now world famous Mini-Mizer, where you make yourself in Lego online.
Finally, here is a behind-the-scenes look at the filming of Dragons Den, a video diary blog by dragon James Caan. This is really GREAT, an unmissable treat for all Dragons Den fans.
My favourite bit is where Stephen Merchant measures up to the famously tall dragon Peter Jones. Stephen is not only a lot better looking, but also taller!
Duncan Bannatyne: "You're brothers!"
Peter Jones "But I've got quite a body, haven't I."
Left, Stephen Merchant, right Peter Jones.
(Sorry Peter, had to be done love ;)
Home page to my first website, designed by me, coding and flash work by Jay Cousins. Late 90s. (the globes move down the screen and when you click on each one it makes a choral "ahhh" sound, each one a different note on a Chinese pentatonic scale. I loved that site.)
...and is continued below:
His work is truly inspired - a fascinating artist. His book, Modern British Sculpture, looks great too. You can buy it from Bushwood Books, here.
Blimey, check this out for a coincidence all you Sade fans who regularly read my blog. One of Guy's Pop Icon statues is of Sade herself!
Sade © Guy Portelli
Sade © Jude Calvert-Toulmin
Regular readers of my blog will know that I used to hang round with Sade's band in London just before Sade was signed up with a major. Some of my original shots of Sade from the early 80s are in this article - Turn of the 80s - The Hull Connection: Sade.
Anyway, back to Dragons Den, and now you've seen the real Dragons at work, here is a spoof of them on Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse's comedy series Harry and Paul, currently airing on BBC1.
I've blogged about Harry and Paul before, of course, being a huge fan of both their work.
My article about the work of Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse, including YouTubes from the first Harry and Paul series, "Ruddy Hell It's Harry and Paul", and YouTubes of my favourite characters from The Fast Show and Harry Enfield's Television Programme.
And a separate article about Harry Enfield's Yorkshireman sketch. This is one of my most popular ever blog articles and is still constantly read!
Harry Enfield's Yorkshireman, George Whitebread. Egg bank nicked the idea for Egg from this sketch. Allegedly.
Ricky Gervais, another comedy hero of mine, was the first to do a comedy spoof of Dragons Den. Ricky Gervais and co-writer Stephen Merchant followed the success of The Office with another comedy series, Extras.
When this was first aired it attracted a lot of criticism, including much sneering on the boards of Digital Spy. I used to go on there under the name moonsparkle and fiercely defend the series as I knew it was quality, right from the word go. I even got asked by the London Evening Standard if they could reproduce one of my passionate posts on their letters page. In fact, here I am three years ago defending the very first episode of Extras from a load of narrow minded bigots on Digital Spy. Yup I am a huge fan of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant.
Anyway, if you want to see Ricky Gervais asking for a million pounds on Dragons Den, here's the YouTube link. Embedding is disabled by the BBC which is fair enough, so you'll actually have to move your lazy fingers 2 inches across the keyboard and make a clicking motion to view it.
My favourite Dragons are Deborah Meaden, Theo Paphitis and Duncan Bannatyne. But my most favourite Dragon of all is Richard Farleigh.
There is something about Richard, and I'm not the only one who thinks so. There is a whole website devoted to his admirers, called Bring Back Richard Farleigh dot com. I would sign the petition but amongst the hundreds of genuine signatures is a good deal of spam and a lady is known by the company she keeps.
Richard is no longer on Dragons Den after being allegedly dropped after Series 5. Big mistake. He is a legend; a wealthy man with humility and grace is a rare treasure. Naturally after first seeing Richard on Dragons Den I emailed him a brief one line email saying how much I admired his work on the programme. I didn't expect a reply, nor did I get one, I fully expected Richard's PA to put my email straight into the "Yet another dizzy housewife" bucket, but that's not the point. The point is, if I see good work I always want to praise it.
Before I leave you with some other stars of Dragons Den, here's a question.
Q: What do Ricky Gervais, Richard Farleigh, Stephen Merchant, Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse have in common apart from their involvment with Dragons Den?
A: They're all mentioned by name in conversations between various characters in my hot new novel, Mother-in-Law, Son-in-Law.
Once the company bumpf is online I'll be approaching all of them offering them a free signed (signature and lipstick) copy of the book as thanks for the inspiration.
Above: Levi Roots and his wonderful Reggae Reggae Sauce
Above: Levi Roots and his wonderful Reggae Reggae Sauce
So, more Dragons Den stars. Probably the most lovely, and certainly the most popular, of all the entrepreneurs is Levi Roots. His pitch made Dragons Den history, he accepted Richard Farleigh and Peter Jones's offer of investment, and his Reggae Reggae Sauce which I remember from Notting Hill Carnival last century, is now stocked in supermarkets and never off our cupboard shelf because it's a a great sauce. He also has a great website packed full of entertaining info, here.
A shelf in my pantry. Reggae Reggae Sauce, centre stage, alongside some of my beloved Chinese ingredients and the great Sheffield sauces Hendersons Relish and Sheff's Special Mojo (coriander, chilli and lime.) Note the Morrisons value mushy peas stacked up in background. Class.
Levi's original Dragons Den pitch in full is not on YouTube at the moment, but here's the intro where he sings his Reggae Reggae sauce song. He's a professional musician anyway, so this is good...
And here's his 1998 album:
And his new cookbook which you can buy on Amazon here. It looks lovely so I've just added it to my "Save for Later" basket (Got to buy David Milch's "Deadwood: Stories of the Black Hills" book before I buy any more books! )
Above, Jay Cousins, guest speaker at The Biz Awards 2007
And last but not least, Ling Valentine, who stunned Duncan Bannatyne by turning the dragons down. If you haven't seen her pitch on Dragons Den and Duncan's incredulous reaction, then watch it at either of these links, it is priceless.
Ling turns down the dragons - low res
Ling turns down the dragons - high res
I've been yakking to Ling in cyberspace, and she freely admits she only went on Dragons Den for the publicity. She runs a very successful car leasing site, Ling's Cars. She is a truly fabulous, idiosyncratic genius.
Viz editor and creator Chris Donald (also mentioned in conversation in Mother-in-Law, Son-in-Law) must think highly of her too, because she is now the official ambassador for Viz, and she features in a Billy The Fish episode!
Ling turns down the dragons - low res
Ling turns down the dragons - high res
I've been yakking to Ling in cyberspace, and she freely admits she only went on Dragons Den for the publicity. She runs a very successful car leasing site, Ling's Cars. She is a truly fabulous, idiosyncratic genius.
Viz editor and creator Chris Donald (also mentioned in conversation in Mother-in-Law, Son-in-Law) must think highly of her too, because she is now the official ambassador for Viz, and she features in a Billy The Fish episode!
Like me she's a kind-hearted shameless self-publicist with a right gob on her who can't sit still for two minutes. I think she's fabulous. And in her early thirties, she's made Viz Ambassador, and it's taken me till my late forties to be the cover girl on a Lego figure T-shirt!
My piece of artwork "Rubber Stamp 1" on lego artist Chris Doyle's lego figure T-shirt. Chris is the inventor of the now world famous Mini-Mizer, where you make yourself in Lego online.
Finally, here is a behind-the-scenes look at the filming of Dragons Den, a video diary blog by dragon James Caan. This is really GREAT, an unmissable treat for all Dragons Den fans.
My favourite bit is where Stephen Merchant measures up to the famously tall dragon Peter Jones. Stephen is not only a lot better looking, but also taller!
Duncan Bannatyne: "You're brothers!"
Peter Jones "But I've got quite a body, haven't I."
Left, Stephen Merchant, right Peter Jones.
(Sorry Peter, had to be done love ;)
Home page to my first website, designed by me, coding and flash work by Jay Cousins. Late 90s. (the globes move down the screen and when you click on each one it makes a choral "ahhh" sound, each one a different note on a Chinese pentatonic scale. I loved that site.)
Posts
6 comments:
Feel it is only right and proper to admit that I do post on the incendiary digital spy although I wouldn't say I'm narrow minded but agree that it can be an impermeable membrane of narrow minded bigots at times. I may have been guilty of posting whilst pissed and annoyed a few people along the way myself.
Nevertheless it was via DS that I was directed to your ace blog so it isn't all bad!
Good luck with the book launch and thoroughly enjoyed today's blog, Dragon's den isn't the same without him.
Checkout Amazon on BBC2 Tuesdays though, It filled my televisual void.
So it goes!
> Nevertheless it was via DS that I was directed to your ace blog so it isn't all bad!
ha ha ha! you post on DS! fancy that!
oh the book launch wont be for a while yet chimney red, we're still slogging through the editing, it's like wading through treacle. really hoping it will all be done very soon though!
yes DD is not the same without richard farleigh. what a guy.
and yes, watched the first amazon last night, amazing :) i was nearly in tears when that lady was praying for bruce and saying "bye! bye bruce!" and there were tears in her eyes! totally heart wrenching!
Well I'm not so much a fan of anonymous postings hence i leave mine to a picture as this is the ultimate way to pin someone down to their real persona.
Loved the woman wishing Bruce upon his way. The best bit of telly I've seen in a long while.
anonymous postings are a wasted opportunity for me to promote my work as far as im concerned!
there are situations where i think anonymous posting is ok, for example for people living in repressed cultures/countries/societies who are forced into anonymity to seek help in a situation where they would be punished for their posting or for people seeking advice where revealing their identity would hurt others, but generally i don't like anonymous posting.
i especially abhor it when it's used to attack other people or in an attempt to disarm or make other people feel insecure, or question their own judgement. that is mean, spiteful and cowardly, all marks of a true loser, and happens all too frequently on the net. however it's made good material for my novel MY ADVENTURES IN CYBERSPACE, chuckle.
i've had dealings with some right wankers posting on the net under pseudonyms you know, people i know pretending they're strangers then sneering at me, men pretending they're women and pretending to ask for help (the most pathetic of all) - people forget how small the world is and how fickle people are, people's precious "anonymity" is easily revealed when a confidante's tongue is loosened with a few pints (rolls eyes at the dull stupidity of the supposed machiavellian.)
> Loved the woman wishing Bruce upon his way. The best bit of telly I've seen in a long while.
it was one of those golden documentary moments, when a subject is genuinely emotional and forgets there's a camera there. mind you in this situation i doubt she was intimidated by a camera anyway! a camera isn't going to be a very threatening proposition when she's got nature and weather to contend with...
What about that water filter for the third world? Anyone know what happened to that?
There's constant discussions over on ukbusinessforums if you want to keep up to date with Dragons Den. Some of the former pitchers are on there as fms as well.
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