Lights, action, music!

The July skies may be grey but we got a little glow on from the flash of spotlights this month and the shimmer of showbiz glamour. Stephanie Theobald, who conducted the Punk Cancer campaign in memory of her friend Tutu, fulfilled a long time ambition of mine, and paid me a great compliment in the process, when she interviewed me for Ireland's biggest selling glossy mag for gals, "Image"(http://www.image.ie/).
I have long wanted to be Daphne Guinness when I grow up, and to rub inky shoulders with her in an article on changing direction in life felt like a good alternative. Another of the featured subjects was Victoria Beckham, someone for whom I have long had time and sympathy. Stop your mean minded hissing and give the woman credit - first fortune spinning career, trophy crumpet love-match, FOUR kids, now second career as fashion designer that delivers both commercial and critical success. So I was immensely satisfied with that company. Stephanie retold the story of how Mr Wesley and I came to meet, as foretold by my dear friend Dezia, one time resident psychic to John & Yoko. Our bit's on the third page and apologies but you will just have to read it through a magnifying glass (or crystal ball).

Next up, Nile Rodgers was back to play a series of "summer" dates in the UK, and on June 17th we accompanied him to Lovebox, a festival in East London. It actually didn't rain that day! We still had a few t-shirts left from the ones we made for him before Christmas, and I thought maybe we could hand them out backstage to other performers, such as his friend Grace Jones. But then it occurred to me that the coolest thing we could do would be to share the love and lob them into the fans. My throwing is famously feeble and indeed the first couple I tried barely limped across the security barrier. At that point, the boyfriend of one of Nile's slinky singers only revealed he was a former football quarterback. T-shirts now flew to the furthest reaches of the throng whose appreciation surged to near frenzy. Watch us at 54/55 seconds of this clip - look, we can see us, get that magnifying glass out again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlCd_AsWwj0&feature=player_embedded#!

We got back to the hotel a little before midnight when Mark did the fitting on Nile's suit, the 3-piece made from the most dazzling white wool on earth, bleached any more the fibres will weaken. I chose Japanese goldfish shell buttons for it to protect him with their lucky charm and to symbolise the godlike status he holds in that country (indeed, in any country that honours musical talent).

Mark and Nile after the Lovebox festival

A few weeks later, the day after Independence Day when Nile played at Kew Gardens, he came to our shop for a photo shoot for Jocks & Nerds magazine http://jocksandnerdsmagazine.com/, in the suit. Sam Christmas took the photographs and you should check out the portraits on his website, A1 class - http://www.samchristmas.co.uk/
Mr Mark Webster conducted the interview. As it happens, he interviewed me back in 1897 for a TV show (it was an early TV) on the hot happenings in London nightlife called "01 for London". Jocks & Nerds is a supremely cool publication. It is sponsored by Levis but you wouldn't know that unless you knew that if you know what I mean. There's no naff branding. It is given away free in the coolest shops in the world and we're hoping soon to be amongst their distributors.

Just visible are the hands of Sam Christmas who did the shoot. Mark Webster was the journalist for the interview.

Fifty Shades of Grey between them phwoar!

Also playing at Kew Gardens with Nile was M People, and so there Mark was reunited with his old school friend Shovell who plays percussion in the band. At the same time I was reunited with the wonderful Tony Rémy who now plays guitar for them - he used to honour my jam sessions (such as Mark Webster covered all those years ago) with his talent http://www.tonyremy.com/ :

Tony Rémy, Mr Wesley and Shovell in his Bedlam Motorcycle club t-shirt

After all that excitement, it was back to the more prosaic tasks of daily routine. I was in the queue at the bank when my mobile rang and someone asked if the shop was open that day. I explained I'd be back as soon as I could and with the utmost patience, and a dedication to scopin' out the sitch with the stitch that greatly impressed me, the voice said no stress, he'd wait at the Oval Lounge and have a coffee. Soon as I returned a handsome young buck presented himself. He revealed that his friend was often extolling our store so he had come along from Notting Hill for a visit. He was always on the look out for clothes to wear on stage. This naturally beggared the question, "Will the sun ever be back?"
No, rather, but of course, "And what manner of stagecraft do you practise?"
He teased the game out further, "I'm in a band."
So I had to ask next how does this month's precipitation fall compare with other years? Alright, alright "Which band would that be?"
"Razorlight."
Jolly good! Gus is their new guitarist and Bedlam is looking forward to kitting him out. Here's a musical interlude courtesy of the 'Light then for Independence Day - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9NhncU5_CE

From a different musical era, a different vintage, is Sir Michael Wilmot (above) for whom we completed the commission of a joyful pink jacket. Back in the 60s he used to "own" The Kinks and The Who. Rub your eyes and read that again.

Stephanie Theobald's other half Jake Arnott then kindly invited us to the party at the Ivy to launch his new book. Mark was kicking himself to realise he missed talking to a Great Train Robber - Bruce Reynolds. But we did have a most entertaining exchange with playwright Simon Blow. Jake is wearing our Signor Zoot suit in his publicity shots and on the dust jacket - you can see it here illustrating a piece he's written himself - http://bookoxygen.com/?p=1915
It was also used in the hard copy of this fulsome review in The Independent:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-house-of-rumour-by-jake-arnott-7922392.html

The sun may have put his hat AND coat on and gone wandering off but light and warmth were not absent form Bedlam's world this month as two separate parties, unrelated to us or to each other, on whom we have no dirt or other hold, have expressed interest and more in investing in our label. Beyond that I shall remain sensibly circumspect for the moment but be reassured that every black cloud has indeed a silver lining. When it starts to thunder, don't run under a tree. You'll find your fortune falling all over town, best make sure that your umbrella is upside down. Sing it for us Louis!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-2ke4UzZ38

Diamond Geezer Jubilations

From out of the attic, Pa Butler produced his original Coronation Coach containing the miniature Queen-to-be (or post anointing, depending on which way you imagine it to be travelling) and her consort with full accompaniment of lead soldiers. Ma Butler assembled them carefully so that they duly processed across our Jubilee window display. The arms of the horn players are even articulated to raise their bugles for a blast - working parts, it's the way forward.

Pa Butler then inspected the parade to make sure it passed muster. Meanwhile, down in the basement, Mr Wesley and the Boy Wonder Donny Slack were screen printing their ultra limited edition t-shirts to commemorate the national event as if their ennoblement depended on it.

Ma and Pa Butler in front of Bedlam's Jubilee window

First screen prepared

Lock eyes

Baste generously with scarlet ink

Pop under the grill for browning

Sprinkle liberally with diamonds

Next our client Robert Peel, of whom we are fast becoming fond, popped in and bought #1 of the 30 "Last Punk Standing" that Donny himself designed. Also on display was Pa Butler's souvenir edition of the Coronation Day "Daily Mail". Robert clocked it and exclaimed, "That's my father!" And indeed it was for Peel Pere acted as page to the Queen Mother during the ceremony. There he is, peering across the shoulder of his new monarch directly at the viewer, a self-assured ephebe. It reminded me of Renaissance master Raphael's guest-spot self-portrait in his painting "The School of Athens" (you can look that up).

Robert models #1 "Last Punk Standing" while Donny points out Peel pere on the balcony of Buckingham Palace. Mr Wesley is wearing Bedlam cashmere in sunshine yellow with choccie brown suede elbow patches

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on the day of her coronation with Robert's father at her shoulder. Bedlam's nifty new straw boater with red and blue grosgrain ribbon (£45) is visible top right

All this flag waving gave us the nudge we needed to expand upon our core staples of white, black and taupe t-shirts. We got a little crazy and added midnight blue:

Elizabeth, by the Grace of God, Queen of England, France (it can happen again) and Scotland (£45 in midnight blue viscose or white, see below)

We donated a bunch of those to the raffle at the Offley Road Street Party, across the road from the shop, where we erected our stall on the Monday of the long weekend. Some people objected to the national celebrations, found it all distasteful or anachronistic, but anything that creates a reason for communities to come together and raise a little cheer is surely a Good Thing, whatever the cypher used as the projection for that. We have maintained our business largely on the support of the locals and it felt good to be a part of the events in the streets around us. Three hips and a "HURRAH!" to all those who put in the time and effort and dough (our favourite landlord, Noel at the Brown Derby, was a hefty sponsor of the Offley Road do; as was our neighbour the Oval Lounge; and my old friend Daniel Letts was the firm shoulder behind the lovely Big Lunch on Claylands Green, plus many more who made it all happen).

Bedlam's stall at the Offley Road street party on Monday June 4th, 2012. Our new "Drunken Disorderly" tee is on the left,  which only half described the way the day developed - it became gently tipsy and tottered into a comedy cricket match that vaguely maintained the rules

Wesley von Evans (I kid you not), one of the team behind the Offley Road Jubilee Jamboree draws the winning ticket for the Bedlam tee. Lucky lady on the right raises her arm to claim her prize

Ellie Letts wearing #1 of 1 children's versions of Donny's tee at the Claylands Green Big Lunch

The Big Lunch on Claylands Green, Saturday June 2nd 2012

The patriotic bake-off at the Offley Road Street Party including David Colton's certificate winning "Elizabeth Sponge"

These were so tasty I had TWO (the lady of the van was so kind she gave me one free)

Jake & Clive of the Brown Derby rocked the Offley Road crowd

Being residents of the Oval, a cricket match was the only way to end the day

Variety Pack with Gifts including, but not limited to, Golden Fleeces

I love writing the blog, notwithstanding the gaps in publication that induce sweats of guilty panic. It's genuinely thrilling, and not a little addictive, to see it now read around the world - this week the stats reveal visitors from the UK (as you might expect), the USA, Japan, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Italy, the Netherlands, the Ukraine, Hong Kong, Germany, Spain, France and Russia. [BREAKING NEWS!!! BRAZIL x 2 JUST LOGGED IN!!] [told you it was addictive - step away from the Stats].

Our client list is as wonderfully varied - we currently have suits on the go for a director at the BBC; a local plasterer; a globally adored American music star; and the great great grandson of a British Prime Minister (whose name our client bears).

It's still the case that our goal is to design collections but this is where the road has wiggled for now and were it not for the one-off commissions we would have missed the delight of getting to know a fascinating array of individuals. 

Today the writer Jake Arnott (http://www.jakearnott.com/) came to collect his Plus Fours. He is, we now discover, one of David Bowie's favourites. And on the fly cover of his next about-to-be published novel he is wearing Bedlam's "Signor Zoot" suit! He mentioned his promotional schedule today and I added to it by asking if he might like to do a talk at Kennington's Durning Library, saved from closure by my ma and her brolly-waving mates. We like him even more now now as he didn't hesitate for a second in saying he would love to.

Writer of "The Long Firm" and other corkers, Jake Arnott in his herringbone Plus Fours

Not only our clients but the people who provide our materials and help us to create the clothes are as intriguing as they are indispensable. Having succeeded in sourcing the green kersey for the Thin Red Line jacket, our next challenge was to find a red pinstripe - harder than you might think. A gentleman came up from Southampton to the shop and said he had searched high and low for years, YEARS, but that is in what he wanted a suit created.

The mill ring around duly commenced and in the post arrived swatches of red on brown but what we wanted was red on black. And then tucked on a shelf holding hordes of dusty leather bound samples I found a scrap of the Golden Fleece a.k.a. the red pinstripe. On the end of the phone in Yorkshire, Steve told me I must be part of his good luck as earlier in the day all the electrics in his car had gone on the way t' post office and had he been on't motorway, well, who only knows how that story might have ended. I assured him the luck was all mine in finding him hale and hearty and in possession of what I needed.

He sent down a bigger sample of the cloth and our client came up from Southampton again to confirm that was indeed the stuff of his dreams. I called Steve to say luck was multiplying and that he could cut the length. "It'll have to be Monday now," he replied. "Me and Angela are at Blackpool Tower tonight defending our title at the European Ballroom Dancing Championships!"

You will be as ecstatic as I was to learn, come Monday, that they won. And, what is more, due to their inside positioning on the Ballroom scene, all the tail coats on "Strictly Come Dancing" are made from Steve and Angela's cloth.

Golden Fleeces were then flinging themselves at us after that - we went to visit funny old misanthropic Malcolm ("I drive past your shop every day at 7am and you're never open!") at the hide warehouse to get the leather to trim the red pinstripe and only turned a corner to come face to fleece with Mr Wesley's own elusive medium of lifetime's longing: electric blue sheepskin. There was not a blotch or variation in the dying, just uniform perfection.

Look at his little face, a picture of joy

And then I found mine! Shocking pink Mongolian shearling.

I already have a hat in this and you'd be amazed, no you would, how often people ask "Is that your real hair?"

Clothes fit for Heroes

Our "Thin Red Line" jacket has proven to be something of a hit with the ladies, despite having been designed with boys in mind. I have my own eye on the sample, and when my friend from New York and her daughter paid their debut visit to the store they chose it as the Bedlam piece the young lady would most like to own.

The charming debutante from New York City, Miss Anais, the embodiment of youthful daring-do

Before we got to the fitting however, we had something of a mystery challenge on our hands. When we went back to our cloth merchants for more of the fabric they shook their heads and announced we'd had the last bit of that.
"So how fast can you get some more?"
With just a hint of doom, they pronounced, "You'll never get more of that, it was a one-off bit, you'll never see its like again."

My shoulders slumped for a second before I straightened up and took on the challenge. The only clue I had was that Martin described it as "Kersey". My research revealed that Kersey is the fabric traditionally used to make clerical and military outerwear since Medieval times, named for the little village in Suffolk from whence it originated. Now Anne Barclay, who knows a thing or two about fabric and whose lovely women's tailoring we stock, (http://annebarclay.com/) lives just up the road from Kersey and confessed that was news to her. It was woven, so I learnt, to give protection against cold and damp thus if, while on the march for God or country or some other cause, you had perforce to sleep in a ditch you had at least a little comfort round your aching bones.

So I set to Googling and my first call was to a mill in Shropshire where an engaging gentleman told me that in thirty years of weaving cloth he had never heard of Kersey. Crap. Still, we agreed that I would send him a swatch and he would see what he had by any other name that might be a match. Undaunted I dialled on and got to speak to another splendid chap, the top man, Mr James Walker of J. W. Textiles in Mirfield, West Yorkshire (http://www.jwalker.co.uk/). He too asked to see a cutting and pledged to do his best. He told me that he knew of the supremely utilitarian fabric, and that round their way it was used to stand the wet clay on in the pottery mills. Generously he divulged that the Lady Most Likely to have the answer to my quest was Gill Rushton at A.W. Hainsworth, also in Yorkshire, who have been weaving there since 1783 and been the mainstay of the uniforms for the British Army (http://www.hainsworth.co.uk/about-hainsworth/history/).

Within a couple of days I had the samples from the three mills and it was indeed Hainsworth who hit the target. One of our friends who had been following the Great Kersey Hunt, printmaker Squire Trafford Parsons (http://www.traffordparsons.com/), lives but a few miles over hill and dale from Hainsworth and happened to be coming to the big smoke that week. Ever the soul of helpfulness he offered to collect it thus saving us the carriage and this he duly did. It also afforded the occasion for him to present to us this comely consort Mistress Binky Buxotica, of the marvellously feminine creative emporium http://www.pearlsandswine.bigcartel.com/
Here they are, she in my flamenco dress bought from the gypsies in the mountains behind Malaga, with Trafford in Bedlam's Beater's outfit of finest Yorkshire cloth:

Ey Up and Olé!

Now it was all perfectly fitting that we found our quarry in Yorkshire of course, having done the pieces recently for exhibition at the Mansion House for the current Lord Mayor, Yorkshireman David Wootton. As it transpired, we had arranged to rendez-vous with his good Lady, Liz Wootton, in order to introduce her to the incomparable fabric merchants Philip and Martin, and we gathered there last week to do just that. Shining like a beacon in the cold warehouse was a vivid bolt of scarlet cloth resonant with elegant authority. It was, no less, the very fabric woven by Hainsworth from which they make the uniforms of the guards at Buckingham Palace:

Philip Pittack of Crescent Trading with Mr Wesley and Liz Wootton, Lady Mayoress of the City of London

We took a couple of meters of that so I might reproduce one of my favourite pieces - the National Anthem skirt, in time for Her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee Celebrations. It is shameful how often people say to us "Isn't that Boris??" when we mention the Lord Mayor, confusing the honorary position of Lord Mayor of the City of London with the political office of Mayor of London. The latest election for that latter post is now imminent and a couple of weeks back I accompanied my beloved godmother Elisabeth Ratiu to St. James' Church on Piccadilly to see the main four candidates - Blue Boris, Red Ken, Green Jenny and in pink shirt and tie, the Lib Dem candidate Brian Paddick (http://www.brianpaddick.com/asaferlondon) - be grilled by the god squad.

The panel was as good tempered and generous of spirit as any such I have seen but the congregation became decidedly rowdy and on occasion quite rude. When they passed the mic amongst the pews I risked my nerves to ask - as "small business person from the Oval" - how it can be possible that the FOURTH Tesco within quarter of a mile of our shop is about to open. When the panel had to respond Brian Paddick said he wished to address “the lovely lady from Stockwell.”  Recently, in an interview in ES magazine, Mr Paddick revealed how he wanted to make a t-shirt so that when he was in the gym changing room wearing one sock and little else people wouldn’t keep coming up and start talking about bin collection (or whatever) - http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/lifestyle/esmagazine/10-minutes-withbrian-paddick-7603840.html
So bowled over was I by his compliment that Mr Wesley made it for him (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ocean-Colour-Screen/278506662215575) and here is the delectable and eminently electable Mr Paddick at the shop to collect it:

Mr Wesley with Lib Dem candidate for Mayor of London Brian Paddick

But back to the Thin Red Line to close. In a blog last month I explained the origin of that phrase and if you clicked through to the Hainsworth website link above you will have read, "The scarlet cloth for the War Office had long been an important product for Hainsworth, but at the end of the 19th century demand for bright, distinctive combat wear plummeted when the increasing use of rifles and artillery in the Boer War led to a demand for a more protective colouring for army cloth."
Now, in the oddly holistic (?) way that brings about the thematic structure (?!) of these postings, I happened to be typing up the epilogue for the third and final volume of my father's memoirs, written in reverse order. And this consisted of the letters of his great uncle Alfred to his adored sister Alice Bond, my great grandmother, from the front at the Boer War. Known as "the last of the Gentlemen’s Wars" it was sandwiched between the Crimean and the First World Wars, and, my pa concurred with Hainsworth, was the conflict "in which the famous scarlet tunic and white cross belts of the British infantry gave place to the camouflage of khaki, making it more difficult for the expert Boer marksmen, armed with Mauser rifles, to hit their target."
There follows some extracts from his letters, written in pencil on now nicotine coloured paper. Mr Wesley felt a cigarette smoker's bond across the years with Alfred and declared he will design a t-shirt in his honour. And so we have travelled with the fabric through the centuries, via Alfred and his comrades to the young lady of New York City who, we hope, will find the jacket offers her some protection as she finds her way on the field of modern life.

8 Dec 1899

Dear Alice,

I expect you read in the papers about the battle. Our regiment had no joke.  It was a bit tight to see the wounded. I had the job to carry some as the stretcher-bearers could not get up in the firing line. One chap had a wound in his leg and he died through loss of blood. Of course, we had several killed beside him but we did not half make the Boers run. We captured horses and a lot of meat and treacle and several other things. But we had to retire as the day went on as we were fairly outnumbered – 7000 Boers against 2000 of us. But we killed such a lot of them I got the cramp looking at them. Well Alice, they are a dirty looking lot, dressed like a lot of tramps.
When we charged up the hill at them at daybreak one of them shouted “Halt, who goes there” (he was an Englishman – they have a lot of English fighting for them) and before he had time to get an answer he had about ten of our bayonets sticking through his ribs. He gave a couple of groans, handed over his dinner and fell back dead. I went down his pockets to see if he had any money but he did not have any. Well Alice, we were firing at each other all day and I found myself behind a big rock – about the size of the Latchmere [a famous public house in Battersea] – with bullets and shells flying around us. Well Alice, it is a fact, while they were firing we were advancing up to them, singing for old times sake.
I am on outpost duty with my company. Things are a bit rough here. If you could get a box of Woodbine fags and send them to me I would be very pleased.

***

1 January 1900

My dear Alice,

Very pleased to receive your kind and welcome letter… We have had another couple of fights and you would laugh to see us ducking our heads when the Boers start shelling us. It is a bit tight to see all our killed and wounded being carried away. We don’t know how many of the Boers we kill as they take them away.
The grub we get is a bit thick, so if you have got a couple of spare bones to give away you might think of me.
Did you see in the papers about one of our officers being shot? Well, he had just taken myself and another chap around a hill and was taking two more around when he and one of the others got killed. So you see, I had a very narrow escape.
We are getting a lot of our wounded back. If they get shot through the arm or the leg without the bullet touching the bone it takes only about three weeks or a month to get better again…
We have only just been back in camp a couple of days after having a good day’s fighting, with no tents and soaking wet through, and it is terribly cold at nights…
Don’t forget the fags.

***

11 February, 1900

Dear Alice,

Many thanks for your letter and box of fags which I received yesterday. We were on the march from Spearmans Hill back to Colenso when I got it. All my chums gathered round to see what was in the parcel and when we saw fags every hair in my head stood up with excitement.
Well Alice old girl, we are having it a bit thick again… especially in our last eight days fighting. On one day we had the most shelling I have seen and it is a wonder I am left to tell the tale. One shell burst right among our post, killing one chap. It broke our Captain’s arm and two ribs and busted his head. I was sitting on the top of a hill we had taken when a shell came over very close. I could hear it coming and it burst just over our heads, the back part falling right through a waterproof sheet that was keeping the sun off me. It fell just between my feet – so you see my day had not yet come.
But it is a treat to see some of the cowards tremble. They say English soldiers have no fear – but if they were out here they would see a few proper big cowards frightened to move. They do make one wild when one is trying to do his best.
Well Alice, we have shifted back to Colenso, the place where we had so many killed and wounded and we believe we are going to try another attack in a day or so. I am looking forward to coming out alright. I am rather lucky. I have seen as much fighting out here as most and I have not been hit yet. But I must not brag about it as there is a lot more to go through…

***

Tutu - Riot in Punk

Back last summer a lady came into the shop and said she had an idea for a t-shirt she'd like us to do. Screen printing tees and sweats is our bread and butter money, through Bedlam's commercial division "Ocean Colour Screen" http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ocean-Colour-Screen/278506662215575. Tutu, as she introduced herself, had been undergoing treatment for breast cancer and had engaged her friend photographer Ashley Savage to document the changes wrought upon her body. Ashley is famous for portraying bodies with scars, tattoos, piercings or in some other way not conforming to conventional notions of "beauty" www.savageskin.co.uk

Tutu wanted to unfluffify breast cancer with a punk terrorist campaign, undo the saccharine pink ribbon that had been hijacked by corporate interests at odds with its creator's true intention.

So using one of Ashley's images of Tutu, Amazonian Valykrie-stylee, defiantly displaying her scar, Mr Wesley started to work on the graphic. It was going to be all about swinging C by the tail. But then Tutu got sick again as the enemy snuck around, attacking her bones next, necessitating a hip replacement. Mr Wesley and I visited her in Guy's Hospital, sat on her bed and larked around. The project stalled while Tutu went into another round of treatment. Eager to see it progress, her friend, writer Stephanie Theobald, took the reins and wrestled the text out of Tutu:
Cancer Sucks
Fight it
Love it
Live it
Survive it

We had the image and the screens were prepared. Stephanie took a prototype for approval to Tutu and production rolled.

Normally we make the shirts, the customer picks them up, off they go and that's that, thank you very much. But this was different. We offered our e-shop as a platform to sell them and Stephanie did some highly effective email-marketing. She and her boyfriend Jake Arnott came to the store and we got to got to know and like them very much - http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/apr/16/bisexual-lesbian-gay-love-jake-arnott-stephanie-theobald We are making Jake some Plus Fours indeed.

Stephanie got an article placed in The Guardian this week -http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/mar/25/cancers-not-pink-women-rebelling?INTCMP=SRCH and another one will follow in Time Out soon, as well as a Radio 4 "Woman's Hour" piece.

Ashley Savage came to visit us, and brought an old club kid cohort of Tutu's, the arrestingly stunning Loz, to model the shirt:

The last few days in London have been flawlessly lovely and sunny as June. Stephanie sent a text at lunch time today (March 28th) to say "She flew". Tutu had taken to the skies. Even though we only knew her a little while, a brief fling, a crazy whirl, it felt like we had lost an old friend. Mr Wesley and I sat outside on our terrace, shared a bottle of wine and treated ourselves to a good lunch, a sensory indulgence, al fresco in her honour. Through her we have met a fabulous array of characters, people we hope to know a good while yet.

Tutu grew up in California. One of my favourite places in the world is the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. I do not know about the etymology of the word “solace” but I notice “Sol”, the sun, within it, so maybe I might propose “the comfort such as warmth and light bestows” and offer this for Tutu and her devoted friends:

Some years back I had a US agent and she told me I should read the book which was the best selling smash of the year - "Eat Pray Love" http://www.elizabethgilbert.com/eatpraylove.htm The title turned me off and I imagined if it sold millions it must perforce be rubbish. It sounded like beach reading. But to show willing I walked into a bookstore on Ventura Boulevard and bought it. And when they saw what I had chosen both the shop assistant and another customer together exclaimed “Well done hurrah!” and announced that it was a truly terrific book. I smiled and thought "Bunch of dippy self-help lemmings".

But their enthusiasm was sincere and not entirely misplaced. The first 200 pages were an absolute joy, even if it went a bit sappy at the end. And for this following insight I shall always thank Ms. Gilbert -

The lost lady protagonist goes to Italy to learn Italian simply because it is the most beautiful language in the world. Unlike other national tongues, Italian was not created by the richest city imposing its dialect on the other regions but rather was chosen to unite the new country, and enable the Florentines to understand the Neapolitans, the Romans to roll with the Lombards, on the merit of its musical poetry: “No other European language has such an artistic pedigree. And perhaps no language was ever more perfectly ordained to express human emotions than this 14th century Florentine Italian, as embellished by one of Western civilisation’s greatest poets.”

For modern Italian is essentially the language of the poet Dante, whose most famous work is “The Divine Comedy”.  And Ms. Gilbert reminds us that, in the last line, when Dante is faced with the vision of God himself, he discovers not an old guy with a beard but rather that: “God is not merely a blinding vision of glorious light but that He is, most of all, ‘L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle...’ The love that moves the sun and the other stars”.

And as the Griffith Observatory illustrates with the most marvellous exhibit, we are formed from the stars. Every element, every  single component in our make up came from a distant star. And so maybe that’s where we go back.
From love we came, to love we return. And now you can buy the t-shirt:

http://earlofbedlam.bigcartel.com/product/punk-cancer-t-shirt
Proceeds will go to touring Ashley's exhibition of photographs of Tutu, which may help people understand the processes of and reactions to cancer.

Down in the engine room Mr Wesley is printing as fast as he can - there has been, understandably, a surge in orders so please be patient if it takes us a few days to fulfil them.

Milepebbles on the Long Haul

Regular readers will know that we have now reached the First Anniversary of opening our little store. "Happy Birthday to us, Happy Birthday to us, Happy Birthday dear Bedlam, Happy Birthday or bust!"

It is a rare occurrence that someone comes in for the first time and doesn't say "How marvellous / wonderful / amazing! It's like an art installation / museum / Sex a.k.a. Seditionaries [Vivienne Westwood & Malcolm McClaren's first shop - we don't necessarily see that, but it's now been said too many times to count. I guess they mean the spirit of it rather than literally? - http://www.viviennewestwood.co.uk/w/the-story/kings-road
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEX_(boutique) ]

Anyway, we're not complaining, it's a subversively fine reference to have. And pleasingly at odds with our courtship by the Establishment, what with the Lord Mayor inviting us to exhibit alongside well-established luminaries and legends. We took two more outfits to the Mansion House to install this week. One of the staff asked if we could please redesign their uniforms (they like ours the best but it would be indiscreet of me to say that). The LM held a banquet last week for three hundred heads of trade, state and government. He exhorted them to admire our work then cited EoB as "a wonderful example of British manufacturing". That made us v v proud. It would be no lie to say that my eyes glistened. We told our respective parents. See all our cloth is British and all our clobber is Made in London - it says so on our new business cards now.

Austin Reed once again generously supplied the lovely shirts and silk ties -
our thanks to Tony Dobbs, manager at the #1 Poultry store

Our new "Thin Red Line" jacket (see history lesson at the bottom of this posting), next to our best seller the tweed "Poacher's Jacket" and matching waistcoat teamed with the Piccalilli Pants

And then, the glitter pink frosting on our birthday cake, that magazine read down all the corridors of power, Beige (http://www.beigeuk.com/  ), ran their feature on us. The model was Bedlam's regular poster boy, Ollie - barman from the Oval Lounge restaurant next door to the shop http://www.ovallounge.co.uk/ He is not only but ALSO drummer in Peggy Sue http://peggywho.com/ , currently on tour in the USA so y'all go check 'em! Here's our double page spread with a lovely piece by the editor, Dean Bright and photos by Claire Lawrie:

Referred to in the article is Mark's old school friend Steve Green, and you can spot his spray-painted canvas of Malcolm McDowell (in Clockwork Orange) over Ollie's shoulder. We have now taken delivery of his new work, Michael Caine, as dressed in another version of the "Thin Red Line", from the film Zulu:

Michael Caine - available to buy in store at £300

The origin of the phrase "Thin Red Line" was the Crimean War - specifically a military action by the red-coated Sutherland Highlanders 93rd Regiment at the Battle of Balaclava on 25 October 1854. Aided by a small force of Royal Marines and some Turkish infantrymen, and led by Sir Colin Campbell, the regiment routed a Russian cavalry charge against all odds. The 93rd's survival was due to the caution of the Russian commander, who believed that such a small infantry force could not hope to withstand a full cavalry charge and so figured it had to be a decoy / trap. Accordingly he ordered his men to disengage. The British press, of course, spun the story to raise morale amongst the public who regarded the war as an unpopular shambles. The Times correspondent, William H. Russell, wrote that he could see nothing between the charging Russians and the British regiment's base of operations but the "thin red streak tipped with a line of steel". The phrase has since come to represent calm British courage... as immortalised in Carry On... Up the Khyber, (directed by my late godfather Gerald Thomas) when Private Jimmy Widdle paints a thin red line across the ground, declaring "They'll never get past this!"

So remember bold Bedlamites, being small and outnumbered is no hindrance to victory!