Friday, January 6, 2017

Exploration, Monty Python and WWII

I’ve always been an explorer.  As soon as I was old enough to walk or ride my bike around my hometown it wasn’t long before I knew of every back road, abandoned building and wooded area around.

My friends and I would explore, sometimes all down, the surrounding areas and when we got older often hitch-hiked to neighboring towns.

As soon as I got a car weekends were spent driving about and exploring.

Although finances kept me from going to other countries I did manage to go across country to California on my own.

Now that I’m older I still have the exploring bug, although it is pretty relegated to riding my bike around.

Carlton Books\Andre Deutsch and author Beau Riffenburgh, along with the Royal Geographical Society, take exploring to a whole new level with their ‘The Exploration Treasury’.

The oversize, softbound book, with 40 frameable prints, all come packaged in a beautiful, full-color, heavy bound, flip-lid box with a silk ribbon marker for easy removable of the book and prints.

The book interior faithfully reproduces the text, illustration and photos taken form the Royal Geographical Society’s exploration archives.

Famous explorers, explorations, archaeological sites and more are faithfully archived along with historical and informational text.

You get a real sense of the courage and tenacity of the early explorers back in the days when traveling took months of preparation and were often fraught with danger.

I first encounter Monty Python’s Flying Circus while flipping through TV channels and settling on the local PBS station.

What I saw totally blew my mind.

Here was a group of prime and proper Englishmen taking part in some of the most outrageous comedy skits I’d ever seen.

Nothing was spared, trains were skewed, long-held institutions and customs poked and prodded and innuendos flew with reckless abandon.

Skits assaulted viewers in rapid-fire succession accompanied by hilarious and totally unique animated sequences.
Songs, musical numbers, somber and sometimes silly skits coincided.  It was a veritable free-for-all all that was totally unlike anything I had ever seen on TV before.
Carlton Books presents ‘Monty Python’s Flying Circus Hidden treasure’ complete with a foreword by the Pythons.
Inside the hardbound, slipcased book is a complete history of the Python’s, spotlights on the various members, skit scripts, song lyrics, archival photos, tour guides, animation art and special archival document and photo inserts and clever and slightly absurd extras.

Now, how does that silly walk go?

As a former high school teacher I had a difficult time explain gin how pivotal and important World War II to our modern society to Millennials.

In this age of instant information at one’s fingertips, ease of access to information, material goods, freedom of travel, choice of career and unlimited possibilities it’s hard to imagine when all of that could have been taken away.

I’m old enough to remember WWII veteran’s regaling me with their war stories.  Much of the memorabilia left over from the war was sill readily available during my young years.

The horrors of the war were recalled during history lessons at school and the repercussions of the war were very much real-especially the lingering Cold War.

IWM and Carlton Books and author Richard Ovary recall the war that should have ended all wars in ‘WWII Remembered From Blitzkrieg TO The Allied Victory”.

The handsome hardbound book comes packed in a flip-open, display book with ribbon and tipped-in sleeve for the audio DVD containing 78 first-hand WWII veterans account of their experiences.

The book itself contains archival photos, graphs, maps, documents and accounts of every campaign and pivotal moments of the war.

Intermingled wit informative and fascinating text the book is a ‘must-read’ compilation of facts and memories of the war.

It successfully brings the ear years to life and documents the many sacrifices and horrific events of the greatest war ever fought.


A special ‘Top Secret Documents Enclosed’ folder contains reproductions of some of the vital and secrets documents of the war.