We bought a cheap suitcase to wheel some of our bulkier tools to Oslo in, the cheapest we could find at a mere £23! However, the wheels broke 4 mins after leaving our front door. The number of breakages in this single trip was really quite amazing:

1. Wheels break immediately and eventually disappear completely on final stretch
2. Foot breaks off bottom giving it a mournful tilt
3. zip handle pops off on back pocket
4. Back pocket goes all saggy
5. nipple for resting on side comes off leaving exposed screw
6. expansion zip gets stuck
7. compass in handle does not point north
8. Baggage handlers dent metal strut underside, probably with one finger
9. telescopic handle starts getting stuck

This gave us an idea for a game. Two friends going on holiday buy a really cheap suitcase each and gain points for every major malfunction. Bonus points may be given for flashy and useless accessories like said compass.

You must use lifts and escalators when available. All use must be within reasonable limits i.e. pulling off and up kerbs is acceptable, but not out of first floor windows. Obviously can’t exceed airline baggage limits. Believe me, you won’t have to resort to such measures anyway.

Many of you will know that David has been working full-time for the Henningham Family Press for some time now, and we’ve been working towards the happy day when Ping* could be too. Well, now a couple of years ahead of schedule, we suddenly find ourselves here! After a long string of part-time jobs, I find myself suddenly free to focus completely what we’ve been trying to do all along - have a family business; making art!

We celebrated the first day of full-time work together by (ironically) not working. Instead, we went out on a day trip to the Barbican, then spent some time praying at home in the afternoon; offering the day to Lord like a firstfruit of the harvest.

We had a great night last weekend when we performed our first live print music ballad with Jon Bilbrough at Stoke Newington International airport for the London Word Festival. The last few copies are available through our order form, or if you stop us in the street and ask for one {saves on postage}. Most were snapped up from the line while they were still wet. There are a few videos already online if you search for them, but here is our own humble contribution placed on the centre for Eternal Return that is Youtube

We’ve been asked to come up with a show for the London Word Festival so we will be performing with Indie-folk musician Jon Bilbrough at the Stoke Newington International Airport on Saturday 7th March, probably taking to the stage around 8.30pm. There will be music and live printing and a new publication available in and on the night! 

Just before the Christmas break and in the midst of our midwinter maintenence programme at the Press* we slipped in a commission on behalf of long-standing family friends at Sparks. This deluxe_christmas_card_cum_board_game has now recieved online special mention from Icon magazine here. We think it’s not outrageous to believe the cited retro feel may be down in part to the screenprint magic.

*Who hasn’t heard us moaning about the particular cold we’ve been feeling in our facilities this winter? Or the numerous times our CD player stopped working due to intense cold! Infra-red being particularly sensitive to heat or lack thereof. Or the condensation that rendered the central aisle a paper-free zone! Well now we’ve put in a false ceiling and insulation let’s hope that’s the last we see of winter horrors. I don’t know why it’s called a false ceiling BTW, it seems real enough to me.

I just wanted to share a picture of my tomato harvest.

The little ones are Moneymakers, the yellow ones are Golden Sunrise, the stripey ones are Tigerella, the normal looking ones are Gardener’s Delight. I also have giant pumpkin looking ones which are called Marmande, but they weren’t ready yet when I took the photo. They are all delicious and taste subtly different. If you post me a self-addressed box, I will post you a sample. Teehee.

My potatoes are also pretty much ready. I just need a sunny day to harvest them. They are Desiree (normal, red skinned), Pink Fir Apple (bobbly, a bit like ginger in shape) and Salad Blue (purple on the outside and inside!). I like to remember that potatoes come in all shapes and colours too.

I was also sent a list of 17 beans for 17 bean soup the other day. I had never even thought of all the different kinds of beans there must be in the world!

Musing on the idea that there is an incredible diversity of species for most things, I thought this quote,

“The biologist JBS Haldane was supposedly asked once if he could say anything about God from his study of nature. Haldane replied He must have an inordinate fondness for beetles.”

And the website where I found that quote also had another mini cosmos of diverse beings on it - the Science Tattoo Emporium. A place where scientists who have got tattoos to do with science can send in photos and explainations. You’ve gotta see this. I’ve never really liked tattoes very much as most modern, western designs I’ve come across seemed very whimiscal to me, the lack of content seemingly unsuitable for such a permanent medium. But these have made me change my mind. Some are the best tattoos I’ve ever seen. “Fitting the Foundations of Mathematics On One Arm.” Now that’s a tattoo you could think about for a while.

We just recieved these shots from the show in Indianapolis. Looks like a great space and it’s great that people were given gloves to handle the books.

Hello Everyone,

I’ve been making a lot of lists lately, mostly just for fun. One of my favourite ongoing lists is celebrities who function as sort of cheaper versions of other celebrities. That doesn’t mean they’re less talented, or less wonderful, just that if you wanted to cast, say, Darth Vader for a movie, but you couldn’t afford him (after all he is a stellar A-lister), you might settle for Judge Dredd instead.

Here is what I’ve got so far - feel free to contribute!

(”We’d like to cast” on the left…….. “but we’ll settle for” on the right!)

Denzel Washington …….. Eriq La Salle

(I actually thought he WAS Denzel Washington in one hour photo. He was playing FBI after all!)

Morgan Freeman ………… Danny Glover
 
(they actually make a joke about this in “Be Kind Rewind”, Actually Mos Def and Jack Black are probably good substitutes for Eddie Murphy and Jim Carey I guess!)

Tommy Lee Jones ………. Harvey Keitel

Vladimir Putin…………….. Daniel Craig

Pierce Brosnan ………….. Rob Lowe

Pamela Anderson ………. Jordan

Al Pacino ………………….. Dustin Hoffman

Ping* and I just popped to Edinburgh with our friend Kenny to see Tom Waits play. Definitely one of the most extravagant things we’ve done in ages, but it felt GREAT! It was an amazing gig; he roar-sang with the whole of his body for more than two hours, stamping on a weird circus-surplus platform covered with imported dust. By the end he was soaked through with sweat and lightly coated with said dust. I got the feeling he was definitely where he wanted to be in his career. He looks and sounds the way he’s always wanted to. I was especially pleased to hear the cemetry polka, and on another song he kept repeating the refrain “I know, you know, I know” we’re going to be laid down in the ground. He was a street preacher. The Saxophonist was playing two saxophones at once! And two of his kids were there too; it’s a family business, and to us an inspiration.

As the evening light grew dim on a drizzly wet London, a man wearing sneakers mounted on speakers thunked heavily up a small stair case and the room full of people fell into silence. Then he pressed play on the tape recorder, and an old man’s voice, fuzzy from the nearly obselete audio equipment, boomed out…

“Good evening and welcome. Tonight the Henningham Family Press will be introducing to you their latest book, entitled ‘The Erroneous Disposition of the People’, and written by David Barnes, David Henningham and Wade Bradshaw…”

At the risk of sounding a bit like an award ceremony, we just wanted to say an especially big thank you to Kerry Yong and Nick Houston who were heroes in helping us move and make sound equipment work, and also Uncle Geof, who read Wade’s stories for us. Also thank you to everyone who came on Monday night to help us launch this book. We hope you had a lovely time. Those of you who didn’t quite make it, don’t despair! We’ve put it up on our website bookshelf already, and we’ll be taking it to our future events. Or you could always pop in and have a look at it - that way you’ll get tea too.