William Sutton's Blog, page 16

You’re Welcome, Aspex Gallery

‘You’re Welcome’ is a day long event (29 April) which will see performers, poets, writers and musicians take to the stage to promote togetherness in Portsmouth — whilst also raising money for local refugee and asylum seeker services.

Over fourteen acts will be performing throughout the day, including: Majid Dhana (poet exploring refugees, addiction and mental health), Amanda Garrie (member of the Portsmouth Writer’s Hub and PhD student), and William Sutton (musician, playwright, raconteur and author of the popular Campbell Lawless book series). All acts will be announced in the lead-up to the event.

Throughout the event, attendees will have the option to create artwork/designs, forming a visual response to the event and it’s theme for audiences online. There is also open mic opportunities from 13.50hrs.

The event will take place at the Gallery on Sunday 29 April, 11.30 – 15.30hrs. Booking is available via Eventbrite (click here) or is payable on the door.

All profits from the £3.00 ticket will be donated to the drop-in at Portsmouth’s British Red Cross.

Our cafe partners, artisan bakery  will also be open, serving drinks, pastries and light lunches.

‘You’re Welcome’ has been organised by writer Emily Priest, in collaboration with Aspex.

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CrimeFest – The Victorians: From Industrial Revolution To Covering Piano Legs

CrimeFest – The Victorians: From Industrial Revolution To Covering Piano Legs

Diana Bretherick, whose Turin mysteries feature Cesare Lombroso, father of criminology.
Nick Rennison, editor of anthologies The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes and The Rivals of Dracula, author of The Bloomsbury Good Reading Guide to Crime Fiction, 100 Must-Read Crime Novels and Sherlock Holmes: An Unauthorised Biography. Crime novel, Carver’s Quest. Reviewer for The Sunday Times and BBC History
Linda Stratmann, unparalleled Victorian police expert, author of Mina Scarletti and Frances Doughty novels.
William Sutton, whose Campbell Lawless mysteries with Titan Books explore Victorian London’s underground: trains, sewers, prostitution, electricity & terrorism.

Participating Moderator: Kate Griffin, author of the Kitty Peck mysteries

With a title designed to enrage the honest #Victorianist, we shall be debunking, debagging, and demystifying the era, from the crooked vantage point of our literary nooks, from Turin to Tower Hamlets. See you there.

crimefest.com/programme-cf/

Visit CRIMEFEST’s TICKET page to register.

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Philip Jeays: How the Light Gets In Festival Appearance, Hay on Wye

On Sunday 27 May, 8:30pm, I shall be playing bass for Philip Jeays at How the Light Gets in Festival

Guitar supporting Philip Jeays as he plots revenge on his friend Geoff





Philip Jeays: Live and Embittered

Following his spectacular tour with Robin Ince, Philip Jeays has been travelling through smoky bars and seedy clubs bringing his unique brand of darkly comic chanson to the masses. With wistful laments for lost youth, and dirty ditties for femme fatales, Jeays is the natural successor of Jacques Brel sprinkled with the pop-panache of David Bowie.



‘The finest new songwriter I’ve heard for 10 years’ – Tom Robinson

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Brave New World

As the creative call goes out for The Front Room/one000Plateaus ‘s next audio-visual multi-media adventure BRAVE NEW WORLD at The Loft, King’s Bar, Southsea, May 31st, I’m enjoying this film of our outing in last Oct/Nov’s DarkFest, Cure or Be Cured.

Cure or be Cured @ Southsea Castle October 2018 from Big Adventures on Vimeo.

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Guide to Victorian Sex #4

More test-yourself rounds from Guide to Victorian Sex. Answers by application.

Can you untangle this juicy Victorian slang?

bit of raspberry
biscuit
piece of house furniture
paw-paw tricks
doodle-dasher
Portuguese pumping
Ecilop
charpering omi

Miltonian, Johnny Darbie
Flirtina Cop-all
dollymop
goose grease
shooting one’s roe
feasting with panthers
(Oscar Wilde)
double-barrelled backscuttle

Fill in the Blanks part 3: A Victorian Guide to Sex

When a woman becomes flurried she feels for a ???; when a man becomes flurried he feels for a ?????.

A woman never sees a baby without ?????? ?? ??;

a man never sees a baby without ?????? ???? ??.

Advice on pleasure:

Once bathed, let the husband come to her private rooms. He must seek to entertain her, perhaps with ???? ??????.

On no account should he abruptly break into the physical act, for that will cause her ?????? to be ?????? ??????

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Guide to Victorian Sex #3

More test-yourself rounds from Guide to Victorian Sex. Answers by application.

Which of these books is not real? Which are not Victorian?

a.The Ins and Outs of London Sodom, or The Quintessence of Debauchery
b.The Whore’s Rhetoric
c.The Sixteen Pleasures
d.The Natural History of the Frutex Vulvaria
e.Harris’s List of Covent-Garden Ladies, or Man of Pleasure’s Kalendar
f.The Crafty Whore
g.The Cabinet of Venus Unlocked
h.The Lifted Curtain
i.The Romance of the Rod
j.The Cockchafer: Flash, Frisky and Funny Songs, Never before Printed and Adapted for Gentlemen Only
k.The Ladies’ Telltale & The Lustful Turk
l.The London Jilt: or, the Politick Whore Lucretia, or the Delights of Cunnyland
m.Lady Bumtickler’s Revels
n. Mutton Walk Cyprians

Fill in the Blanks part 2: A Victorian Guide to Sex

Indicators of male self-pollution:

Weariness; defective development; vacant expression; fickleness; bashfulness or boldness; wetting of the bed; craving of ??????, slate pencils, plaster or ??????.

And female:

secretions will produce a soreness in the ?????? of the ?????? on the ??????, accompanied by ??????.

??????of the part is often found to be the only cure.

The ?????? ?????? will also be elongated: I have seen cases in hospital where this condition is so bad that they resemble the ?????? of a ??????.

 

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Guide to Victorian Sex #2

A few test-yourself rounds from Guide to Victorian Sex. Answers by application.

Fill in the Blanks: A Victorian Guide to Sex

The reported medical risks of ?????? are far too great to be ignored.

There is an appetite, which must be appeased else nature revolts. The dark outcome of such starvation is the dreaded symptom of ??????, or worse;

the harmony of society falls before a maniacal fury created by solitude.

No man should attempt to marry a woman with a ?????? that is similar to his own – their household will be a constant battleground.

Tea, coffee, tobacco, cinnamon, cloves, and other strong essences are ?????? ?????? of the ??????, and must be avoided.

Small-footed persons are dangerously prone to ?????? and ?????? ??? ???

That’s round one. Questions cribbed from Fern Riddell’s Victorian Guide to Sex.

 

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Guide to Victorian Sex #1

What lovely things the audience said about Guide to Victorian Sex, my scurrilous assembly in Portsmouth Bookfest, supported by CCI University of Portsmouth.

Utterly brilliant Dr Kate Lister won us all over, educating, scandalising and amusing. This avid Twitterer, Lecturer at Leeds Trinity University, ally to Sex Worker Rights, and fighter for sexual freedom, should be immediately installed as presenter of every historical TV documentary henceforth made. See Whores of Yore and also her notorious Word of the Day.

  

With third panellist Fern Riddell notably absent, composer Dominic Crawford Collins and I stepped up to the mark providing everyday tales of Victorian sexual life. Dominic read from his audiobook, fully scored, of the greatest erotomaniac of Victorian times, mysterious sex addict ‘Walter’, whose insights into the era outdo Dickens.

My Secret Life, erotic memoir, will be looked up by many of the audience, I imagine, and I only warn them to be cautious of doing so at work.

My thanks to so many friends old and new who spread the word and made up a great audience, rapt and intriguingly curious. Thanks to Deborah Sugg-Ryan, David Percival and Jade of Portsmouth Libraries, Pippa Bostock and Ollie of University of Portsmouth, to Karl Bell, Brad Beaven, Eilis Phillips, Beatrice Ashton Lelliott, and many many more.

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Lawless & DoES for less than one of your English pounds

Titan Books have reduced the Kindle edition of Lawless and the Devil of Euston Square to £0.98 for a while.

 

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Typewriter Thanks

A record of our creative mayhem in Portsmouth Bookfest. Thanks for these photos to Olly Jackson @misanthropist_misdoer, Christine Lawrence, Amanda Garrie, Eilís Phillips and Andrew Larder.

 

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Thanks to Southsea Coffee for having us and White Dog Gallery for materials.

Thanks to Los Dave for artistic help, to Benedict Froggatt for design work, and to Jan Jenkins.

 

      

 

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