Laurel and Hardy and the Sons of the Desert are at the heart of Bowler Dessert magazine and Bowler Dessert Online
Bulletin
05.06.11.
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Birthday sailors Sailors Beware Tent #262 celebrated our fifth birthday in May with a special fez cake made by member Emma Hurst. The cake stood on a bed of sherbet sand and even Stan and Babe (made of icing) made an appearance. The loyal toasts and singing of, "We are the Sons of the Desert" must have been the loudest ever. Needless to say, the cake was absolutely gorgeous and was demolished in swift fashion! Stuart Green
Silent show in
Staffordshire A leading silent film improviser will
be making a return visit to Hanley on
11th
June, to perform in the
Victoria Hall Organ Proms. Donald
Mackenzie, the resident organist at the
Odeon Cinema, in Leicester Square, London,
will be accompanying a short Laurel and
Hardy film and a main feature film, Buster
Keaton's Sherlock Junior. Donald says: "The Buster Keaton film
dates from 1924 and shows the exploits of
a cinema projectionist turned amateur
sleuth." The title of the Laurel and Hardy film
is being kept a surprise until the
day. Tickets are available from the box
office on 0844 871 7649.
Fruit case Len Trodd was photographed outside the Bembridge Hotel on the Isle of Wight. Len chuckles, "It seems everywhere I go I find pineapples." Fine "Another fine mess dogs have got us into," was the headline of an article in The Herald (27.05.11.), but there was no mention of the Boys. "Beast" blunder It was a mishap of Laurel and Hardy proportions - yet one that a Scots security expert says could have cost the American President his life. The US Presidential Cadillac, nicknamed "The Beast", failed to make it out of the US Embassy in Dublin on Monday when it became stuck on a ramp.
In the press Len Trodd sent us a page from the Daily Mail Weekend magazine (07.05.11.). Adrian Edmondson was asked: [Who is] the figure from history for whom you'd most like to buy a pie and a pint? His answer was: Stan Laurel. I still watch Laurel and Hardy obsessively. All the jokes you see on modern telly are there. I'd ask him where he got them from. Len also sent us a page from Portsmouth News (31.05.11.) in which there was a report on David Cooper's birthday surprise. David is the general manager of the Kings Theatre in Southsea and the newspaper reported: "David is a massive fan of Laurel and Hardy," explains Sandra. "So we got a cake made with their picture on and instead of Laurel and Hardy's faces we had pictures of David and our vice chairman, Ian Pratt, on it." The clipping on
the left was sent to us by Eric Woods. He
says, "It looks like they still have
Chumps at Oxford." It also made him think
of Come Clean and even Chickens
Come Home. |
25
years ago Glasgow hosted a celebration of Laurel
and Hardy at the weekend. The Sons of the Desert - motto "Two
minds without a single thought" -
congregated in the city near the
Panopticon where Stan Laurel made his
first stage appearance. The Sons of the Desert is an
organisation aimed at keeping the memory
of Stan and Ollie alive. Donning the obligatory fez, members
stringently dedicated themselves to
Article VI and Article VII of the
organisation's constitution. Article VI
demands a sense of good order and
deportment. Article VII states Article VI
is ridiculous. They visited Queen's Park School where
Stan was a pupil and visited various
houses where he once lived as a boy. Year bar badges John Robertson took orders for year bar badges for Sons of the Desert at the UK Convention in Paisley. He has the badges now in stock, but has lost the names and addresses of some of the folk who ordered the badges. E-mail jockrobertson@blueyonder.co.uk with your details and number of badges if you are awaiting delivery and John will put the items in the mail. Movie Café The Movie Café (BBC Radio Scotland, 02.06.11.) discussed the Britannia Panopticon Music Hall in Glasgow in the first in a series of reports by Bob Dixon on movie palaces. Judith Bowers spoke about the history of the building, including its role as a cinema as part of variety shows, and the Laurel and Hardy shows currently staged by the Sons of the Desert were mentioned.
I saw a white van in the Broxburn area, with the legend, "Sorrel and Hardy" on the sides. Don't know where they were from, or what the business was, as we were too far away. But the name grabbed my attention. A sorrel is a type of plant, so they could have been florists or nurserymen (cf hardy annuals). There used to be a business in Lanark, Floral and Hardy, and that's what they were. Also, a guy in our office has a picture of the Boys at his desk, Ollie watching Stan lighting his thumb - you've seen the one. His name? Jerry Lewis. Bizarre or what? Martin
Tierney
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