Ten Minutes Of Glory

If you've read this blog recently you will know that I went for an audition for the BBC's Antiques Master show on Monday. I wasn't convinced that I had done brilliantly but on Friday evening I was delighted when Dylan, one of the BBC's producers, phoned me to say that I had been chosen to appear on the show and that I would be specialising on my favourite Japanese Satsuma ceramics. Filming is due to take place in the third week of March at the beautiful Townley Hall in Burnley where I spent a week last May as a stand in contestant hoping that a missed train or a motorway jam would give me my five minutes of fame. The nearest I got was a breast feeding mum who thought that her baby wouldn't last through the filming without a feed.


Our son Paul works in television and I explained to Dylan that, since my audition on Monday, Paul had been successful in being offered a job at the BBC and I wanted to flag this up to ensure that there would be no conflict or problems. "When does he start?" asked Dylan. "14th March" I said. "Let me get back to you" says Dylan. Ten minutes later Dylan is back on the phone and my moment of glory is over. As a family member of a BBC employee I can't take part. Talk about rotten timing! Never mind. I'm absolutely thrilled for Paul that he will be developing shows for the BBC - his career is far more important than my bit of fun - but with him at the Beeb and his wife Josephine at ITV my chances of any appearances are now pretty limited. Are there any antiques shows on Four or Five?

We're just back from St Andrews where we were visiting our daughter Sarah and her partner Duncan. As you can see, Sarah's pregnancy is going well and she is blooming. We can't wait to be grandparents and hope that we will be back in Scotland again a few more times before the happy event.

And when we do go back we will certainly return to the wonderful Old Course Hotel. Located, as the name suggests, right on the famous Old Course that is the home of golf, the hotel has mastered the art of customer service to a tee. Every member of the Old Course staff treats the guests in a friendly manner which makes the hotel stand out as you are made to feel at home from the moment that the concierge opens your car door on arrival to the minute you leave. This welcoming attitude is reflected in great little extra touches like these complimentary glasses of champagne and canapes that arrived at our room one evening. We've stayed at some grand places in our lives and found them intimidating and snooty - atmospheres that are often linked to golfing and golf clubs - but, even though this five star hotel caters for VIP guests, it is neither snooty nor intimidating and I strongly recommend it. 

An Audition At The BBC And The Brilliant Danish Drama The Killing

Just back from my audition in Manchester for the BBC show Antiques' Master. I said yesterday that I wouldn't take Guan Yin with me as my sample antique but I felt strangely compelled to take her as I went to pick up the chosen coffee pot - she seemed to be sending me vibes that said "pick me". I managed to find an old rucksack of Paul's that she just fitted into and, wrapped in a towel and some bubble wrap, she was pretty safe strapped into the passenger seat. The rucksack was very heavy and ,although the Buddhist deity is a large piece, as I approached the BBC I thought that something else must also be in the rucksack. I stopped and found a heavy mallet and a load of sharp metal tent pegs from the last time it was used at the Leeds' festival way back when Paul was a lad. I'm glad that I did stop and take them back to the car as I am not sure what impression they would have created at the BBC security.


The audition went reasonably well. I met Dylan, the young producer who had been involved in the show last year, together with his new colleague and I had to answer a written antique test followed by a challenge similar to the ones in the show. I thought that I did OK but my responses were hardly perfect and I think I was more Antiques Apprentice than Antiques Master. Oh well, well see what happens. Dylan's auditioning loads more potential contestants so I won't hear for a while. I shouldn't have any problems in meeting the filming dates if I am successful but I won't be counting on it.

We're heading up towards St Andrews tomorrow. We're breaking the journey up and staying at a Travel Lodge on the M6 tomorrow which is convenient but not exactly luxury. But the stay at the Travel Lodge will help us to arrive at the wonderful Old Course hotel (which is exactly luxury) early and, hopefully, refreshed. We don't play golf and we don't have any interest in golf but there's really only one place to stay in St Andrews. We've stayed at many of the other hotels since our daughter Sarah moved up to Scotland over ten years ago but the service and comfort of our last stay at the Old Course was so outstanding that it's unlikely we'll choose any other in future - can't wait.

I said that we weren't going to get sucked into Sky Atlantic with it's fantastic array of American Drama series and we've stuck to that but then we've gone and got ourselves hooked on BBC4's imported Danish detective show The Killing which runs to no less than twenty episodes. Fortunately the BBC are showing two episodes consecutively every Saturday night so that's a ten week rather than a twenty week commitment but that's still a hell of a chunk of time. If you haven't seen it yet, you are really missing an excellent piece of TV drama. I know I'm not alone in liking this as I've seen nothing but praise online and in the press.


Here's a taster and don't worry, there are subtitles on the BBC's version.

Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

I'm off to Manchester tomorrow to audition for the next series of Antiques Master. I've been asked to bring an antique with me and I've been looking around the house to find something suitable. Believe it or not, this is my favourite antique. Marion likens it to something you might win at a tacky bingo stall at the fairground but she nonetheless indulges me by letting her stand serenely in the dining room. At over two feet tall, she is a big chunk of pottery. Made in Japan about a hundred or so years ago, she is Guan Yin (sometimes known as Kannon or Kwannon),the Buddhist goddess of compassion, and I love her.

I love her mostly for her serenity which has a strangely relaxing influence on me but I also love the intricacy of the decoration on her costume which is quite beautifully done. The only problem is that carting her to Manchester might be a bit of a chore although my other favourites are not exactly tiny.

There's this slightly risque art nouveau statue Papillon, a winged female, by the Bretby pottery but she's a bit delicate and has too many protrusions to risk the journey.

Or there's this fabulous (ok I said beauty is in the eye of the beholder), cat painted with huge cabbage roses by the famous Wemyss artist Joe Nekola but the people doing the audition might think that this is not quite antique enough and then there's this sensuous Italian bronze diver but she weighs a ton.

So I think I will take this coffee pot. It's over 230 years old and was made locally in Liverpool so I should be able to spout on about it sufficiently for the purpose of the audition which is intended to check if I can be enthusiastic about antiques and I don't think that anybody who knows me would doubt that.

We're off to see our pregnant daughter Sarah in a few days so Marion has been up in the attic rooting through the boxes of the kids' books to find all the ones suitable for the very young. Some of them are thirty years old now - not quite antique but almost vintage. There are hundreds of books up there and as we went through them the memories flooded back - Grandfather Gregory wheels his wheelbarrow whilst the Very Hungry Caterpillar is still very hungry and Little Tiger and Little Bear's Panama still smells of bananas - wonderful.

Whatever happens at the audition tomorrow I hope that it doesn't go like this - tragic for a passionate collector.

Eeyore, Piglet And Pooh - Our Very Own Elgin Marbles

A tweet from the excellent Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) this morning linked to a blog about Christopher Robin's original toys. You can read the excellent "Scouting New York" blog  here. I found to my horror that the original toys that inspired AA Milne to create his wonderful stories can be found in the main branch of the New York Public Library. My reaction was probably akin to those of an Athenian on first discovering that the Elgin Marbles are stuck in a museum in London - "This can't be right".

A most important part of our heritage has been uprooted and stands forlornly in a distant land.

When our kids were young, we lived close to the Sussex border in Kent and would sometimes travel to the Ashdown Forest and emulate Christopher Robin and Winnie The Pooh with a game of Pooh Sticks on the famous little bridge over the tiny stream. There is a sort of quintessential Englishness about the area, the books and the characters themselves that makes the vintage toys' sojourn in a bullet proof glass case in a New York Library just plain wrong. If you've seen what Disney did to Winnie The Pooh in giving him an American accent and bright yellow body you would know that we need to repatriate them to their rightful place in rural Sussex quickly before they come to any harm and further loss of identity.

Unfortunately our claim on the toys is not as strong as the Greeks' claim for their marbles as, far from being looted from their rightful place, it seems that they were given by none other than Milne himself to his New York  publisher in gratitude for his support and were subsequently donated to the library. However, now that they are back in the public domain, it is time that a movement was started to bring them home. We need someone very English and very forceful to lead such a movement and I suggest Joanna Lumley, who, after her resounding success with the Gurkahs, fits the bill perfectly. So Joanna, how about it? Lets get the toys back home.

If you used to read my Instanta blog you might recall that I spent an enjoyable week at Townley Hall Burnley last year as a stand in contestant for the BBC's Antiques Master show. I didn't get to compete as all of the contestants turned up safe and sound and I was not required. I got to know quite a bit about the show and decided that it was probably a good thing that I missed out as the winners certainly knew their stuff and I am just a keen amateur. So when I saw the BBC advertising for contestants for a new series I decided not to apply. And then I got a phone call asking if I would be interested and, being one of those people who doesn't like to say no to people, one thing led to another and somehow on Monday I'm off for an audition in Manchester. It was nice of them to remember me.

And a very big positive is perhaps another opportunity to meet the lovely Sandi Toksvig