Issue August 2023 - The Oldie (2024)

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The idea for the Oldie was cooked up 25 years ago by its founding editor, Richard Ingrams, and his much-lamented successor, the late Alexander Chancellor. Their aim was to create a free-thinking, funny magazine, a light-hearted alternative to a press obsessed with youth and celebrity. The Oldie is ageless and timeless, free of retirement advice, crammed with rejuvenating wit, intelligence and delight. With over 100 pages in every issue, The Oldie is packed with funny cartoons and free-thinking and intelligent articles covering a wide range of topics – from gardening and books to travel, arts, entertainment, and so much more.

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in this issue

RegularsAmong this month's contributorsCharlotte Metcalf (p18) is an awardwinning film-maker and freelance writer. She is the editor of Great British Brands and co-presents the Break Out Culture podcast.Griff Rhys Jones (p29) starred in Not the Nine O’Clock News and Alas Smith and Jones with Mel Smith. He co-founded Talkback, the TV production company, and presented A Pembrokeshire Farm.David Pybus (p34) has lectured aboard cruise ships for 25 years, on everything from Dragons’ Den to pirates. He is a perfume expert, who has recreated the scent found on the Titanic.Justin Marozzi (p82) is a travel-writer. His books include Islamic Empires: 15 Cities That Define a Civilisation, Tamerlane and The Man who Invented History – Travels with Herodotus.…1 min

RegularsThe Old Un's Notes✽ ‘Given sufficient notice, one can always be spontaneous.’If this saying reminds you of Oscar Wilde, it’s entirely appropriate. With this aphorism, Robert Eddison has won the fourth Wilde Wit Competition run by the Oscar Wilde Society, in partnership with The Oldie and The Chap. Oldie columnist Gyles Brandreth is the Society’s honorary president.Eddison’s quote topped the list of more than 300 entries sent to the Society. Contestants vied with each other to produce Wildean aphorisms, both amusing and profound.The shortlist was chosen by the Oscar Wilde Society Committee and guest judge Darcy Alexander Corstorphine, who won the first three years. He was invited NOT to enter this year, so as to give others a better chance.Second place went to AJ West for this quip: ‘If it weren’t for nihilism,…5 min

RegularsNOT MANY DEADDecision on 200 homes plan in Harrogate is delayed Northern EchoShopping trolley dumped in park Bolton NewsBench fear for OAPs Millport Weekly News£15 for published contributionsNEXT ISSUEThe September issue is on sale on 26th August 2023.GET THE OLDIE APPGo to App Store or Google Play Store. Search for Oldie Magazine and then pay for app.OLDIE BOOKSThe Very Best of The Oldie Cartoons, The Oldie Annual 2023 and other Oldie books are available at: www.theoldie.co.uk/readers-corner/shop Free p&p.OLDIE NEWSLETTERGo to the Oldie website; put your email address in the red SIGN UP box.HOLIDAY WITH THE OLDIEGo to www.theoldie.co.uk/courses-tours…1 min

RegularsKillers I have Known - and liked‘Never commit murder,’ said Oscar Wilde. ‘A gentleman should never do anything he cannot talk about at dinner.’To date, there has been no blood on my hands, but that may change. I am busy devising the perfect murder. I haven’t had so much fun in years.It started as a cure for insomnia. When I go to bed, I nod off right away. At 5am, I wake up and can’t get back to sleep. That used to be a problem. Not any more. I now kill the time between when I wake and when the alarm goes off at 7am on an imaginary killing spree.I don’t have a particular victim in mind. My focus is on the murder itself. It has to be quick, clean and undetectable.As regular readers may remember,…4 min

RegularsWarning! Moronic road signs aheadAdmirers of the highest classical culture will fondly recall Clash of the Titans, the 1981 filmic meisterwork in which Laurence Olivier’s Zeus and his fellow Olympians look imperiously down on humanity, and use their limitless powers to manipulate the affairs of mankind.The identity of this modern deity may never become known beyond the screen-filled room in which they toy with mortal events.But somewhere, in some municipal, modern Olympus elegantly styled after the Lubyanka, there is a Zeus du jour with a penchant for torturing motorists with palpably false traffic information.There could in fact be dozens of them dotted all over the land. If only for narrative simplicity, however, I prefer to believe in a lone deity responsible for every fraudulent illuminated road sign that plagues a motorway or A road.What…4 min

RegularsOLDEN LIFEWHAT WAS a boardman?The boardman was the lowest-paid, most important member of staff in the betting shops that appeared legally on the nation’s high streets from Monday 1st May 1961, then known as licensed betting offices.He – almost always ‘he’ – was the only member of staff to liaise directly with the clientele, as the other workers were clustered behind a counter, protected by a bandit screen.The boardman stood in the main area of the shop, liaising with customers. He displayed on his chalkboard – later replaced by white plastic ones and felt-tip pens – the latest betting odds and race results.Horseracing and greyhound racing accounted for almost the entire turnover of a betting shop. The biggest betting events were the Grand National and the Derby.Race commentaries were transmitted over…2 min

Issue August 2023 - The Oldie (2024)

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