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A manual for showbiz survival from am-dram to Hollywood and all that lies between Michael Simkins tells all about life under the spotlights. Providing practical encouragement to the budding thesp, laced with hilarious and often scurrilous cautionary tales, he pulls back the curtain on the world of acting on stage and screen.
This report from the Committee for Privileges looks at the conduct of Lord Moonie, Lord Snape, Lord Truscott and Lord Taylor of Blackburn. The background to this report was a set of allegations, made in the The Sunday Times on 25 January 2009, stating that the peers had been willing to engage in paid advocacy. The Sub-Committee on Lords' Interests has reported on the conduct of the peers, reaching the conclusion that three of the four members - Lords Snape, Truscott and Taylor - had breached the Code of Conduct. The main Committee, in this report, has examined the Sub-Committee's findings for each of the peers, along with three appeals from Lords Snape, Truscott and Taylor and a personal statement by one of the peers to the Committee. The Committee followed procedures as laid out by an earlier report (The Code of Conduct: Procedure for Considering Complaints Against Members (HL 205), ISBN 9780104014042). The Committee sets out a summary of co
As a boy, Michael Simkins always wanted to be someone. While his friends were out getting laid and stoned, he was tucked up at home dreaming of his name in lights, of holding an audience rapt, of perhaps becoming a TV heart-throb, or having someone, anyone, ask for his autograph in the supermarket. This is the true story of an obsessive pursuit of acting fame. It is a life marked by occasional hard-fought successes and routine helpings of ritual humiliation: scout hut Gilbert and Sullivan, dodgy rock operas, sewage farm theatre workshop, Christmas panto hell, straight-to-video film flops, leading roles in Crimewatch reconstructions and dressing up as a chicken to advertise TV dinners. It is a hilarious tale of turgid theatre, tights, trusses and tonsil tennis with Timothy Spall.
Published to coincide with the anniversary of the First World War, this edition, superbly illustrated with contemporary photographs and colour maps, gives readers an insight into all aspects of the First World War, from the trenches to the Eastern Front, as well as the Mediterranean conflict. Raging for over four years across the tortured landscapes of Europe, Africa and the Middle East, the First World War changed the face of warfare forever. Characterised by slow, costly advances and fierce attrition, the great battles of the Somme, Verdun and Ypres incurred human loss on a scale never previously imagined. This book, with a foreword by Professor Hew Strachan, covers the fighting on all fronts, from Flanders to Tannenberg and from Italy to Palestine. A series of moving extracts from personal letters, diaries and journals bring to life the experiences of soldiers and civilians caught up in the war.
The authors explore teaching and learning issues central to successful technology projects, such as assessment, subject-area learning, and connecting to the real world.
"Among the funniest [letters] ever dispatched in the vain hope of steering a black sheep onto something like the straight and narrow." —The Wall Street Journal Nostalgic, witty, and original, Dear Lupin by Roger Mortimer and Charlie Mortimer tracks the entire correspondence between a father and his only son. When the book begins, Charlie, the son, is studying at Eton, although the studying itself is not a priority, much to his father's chagrin. After Charlie graduates and moves from South America to Africa and eventually back to London, Roger continues to write regularly, offering advice (which is rarely heeded) as well as humorous updates from home ("Your mother has had the flu. Her little plan to give up spirits for Lent lasted three and a half days"). Roger's letters range from reproachful ("You may think it mildly amusing to be caught poaching in the park; I would consider it more hilarious if you were not living on the knife edge") to resigned ("I am very fond of you, but you do drive me round the bend"), but his correspondence is always filled with warmth, humor, and wisdom that offers unique insight into the relationship between father and son.
A fat boy with a passion for sweets and a loathing for games, the young Michael Simkins finds in cricket a sport where size doesn't necessarily matter and a full-blown obsession is born. Now in middle-age, he still harbours the somewhat deluded belief that the England middle-order might usefully benefit from his hard-earned skills. From impromptu Test series played with his dad in the family sweetshop through to his years running a team of dysfunctional inadequates, Fatty Batter is the bestselling and hilarious story of one man's life lived through cricket.
The year AD 122 was the first time a Roman Emperor had set foot in the Province of Britannia since the invasion in AD 43. No doubt he had read many reports concerning the damage caused by marauding tribesmen crossing from what is now Scotland into the Province. Hadrian, therefore, decided in the words of his biographer 'to build a wall to separate the Romans from the Barbarians'. This engaging work from author Michael Simkins explores in depth the organisation, equipment, weapons and armour of the Roman Army from Hadrian to Constantine, one of the most exciting periods in Roman history.
Though happy enough with his lot, Michael Simkins has never truly shaken the nagging doubt--helpfully upheld by his partner Julia--that he somehow lacks worldly sophistication. While she spent her teenage years as a nanny on a boat moored at Cannes, his utter lack of travel experience (Weymouth, Cleethorpes, and a day trip to Dieppe) still has the power to shock people into leaving dinner parties early. So as he hits middle-age, Michael takes up the challenge of broadening his horizons. He decides to improve himself in the same way English gentlemen lacking refined edges have for centuries: by learning from their more cultured French neighbours. Michael, an English provincial ingenue, sets off to discover just what the Gallic nation can teach him and the rest of us Anglo-Saxons about living the good life. Armed only with 50 Useful Phrases in French, he waits to see if his odyssey from La Manche to the Riviera will finally turn him from the scotch-egg eating spawn of Anne Widdecombe and John McCririck into the champagne-sipping love child of Serge Gainsbourg and Catherine Deneuve. Julia is saying a prayer for him at Lourdes.
Luvvies. Tyrannical directors. Useless agents. Less job security than an England football manager. Who’d be an actor? Michael Simkins isn’t sure, even though he’s been one himself for over thirty years. Join him backstage as he examines that business called showbusiness, from am dram to Hollywood, and from Shakespeare to ads for flatulence pills. In a career that started as a plump teenager in ballet tights at RADA, Michael has appeared in countless West End plays and musicals, presented safety training workshops for sewage workers, and when resting, worked as a crate smasher at a car factory. He’s done movies, soaps, ads, and voice-overs, and worked with everyone from Meryl Streep t...