The Dark Knight rises in a London library

On Tuesday, I was in the Gotham City Library, today I’m sitting in a vaulted Tudor room in Hadleigh trying to write a book. But it’s so distracting … there’s a cupboard door in the wall that I can open and admire the wattle & daub (one of those great terms that sticks to you like glue from history lessons). Hadleigh is where 5 of the men who translated the King James Bible came from, so an exhibition in the church of St Mary tells me, and I’m hoping for inspiration. Yesterday, the town beat off an attempted invasion by Tesco (been trying to destroy this ancient Suffolk wool town for 16 years apparently). In terms of seeing people off, the town has form - Guthrum, King of the Danes, is said to be buried in the grounds of St Mary’s, since being defeated  by King Alfred in the C9th.

And if Gotham City sounds far fetched, just look at these covers from 1904 and 1927 – don’t they put the much later Batman artwork  to shame:

Spring-Heeled Jack – could there be a film on the way? See http://www.springheeledjackmovie.com/

Tatler cover from summer 1927 (Advertising Archives)

The reason I was in Gotham City was for a meeting of contributors to the Cambridge History of the Book in Britain (vol 7) at the University of London. It turned out the place was being used as a location for the next Batman film – The Dark Knight Rises – due out in 2012. Take a look the libraries page and you’ll see why. Apparently, an ‘evil ball’ had been seen in the building, some very strange plants, as well as Christian Bale.

Journalists: writing their own obituaries

‘One of the troublesome things about being a journalist – as I have been all my working life – is that a considerable part of our time, these, days, is devoted to writing our own obituaries. This is not exhilarating work … We are, in the nicest way, dinosaurs. Just as the old iron-founders were superseded by technology, and the flint-knappers and the ploughboys, so we are superseded by new methods – better ones, quite often; new media, like the one I am using now.’

No, this is not from a blog, but from a talk by Picture Post legend James Cameron, ‘Letter from London’ broadcast on the BBC World Service in January 1979 (the ‘new media’ he refers to was short wave radio). It was reported in the Listener, a BBC magazine that closed a few years later.

Wasafiri founder awarded MBE

Wasafiri magazine's founding editor Susheila Nasta seen on BBC's website

Susheila Nasta, founder and editor of Wasafiri magazine, has been awarded an MBE in the New Year Honours. Wasafiri was one of the first magazines to promote African, Caribbean and South Asian writing. It celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2009, when Nasta was interviewed on BBC Radio 4′s Woman’s Hour.