News about Quentin Blake

Quentin Blake, the world's best-known book illustrator, has listed a 600-year-old house for £950,000. The Grade II listed Medieval home on All Saints Street in Hastings has five bedrooms, two bathrooms, downstairs loo, flexible spaces for working from home, and a large, well-stocked garden. It was owned by an English cartoonist and children's writer from 1972 to 2222, and he would sit in the upstairs bedroom overlooking the street below. He has illustrated over 300 books, some of which were written by Roald Dahl and the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration, as well as 18 others, in 2024 at New River Head, London, to honor his contributions to the creatives.

We've compiled a fun holiday TV for all the family, beginning with Mog's Christmas and a charming half-hour version of UK author Judith Kerr's 1976 children's book of the same name.

The Heist Before Christmas, which conjures up a Yuletide miracle by mixing bleak elements into a mellow holiday film with a touch of edge, is among the TV dramas to watch over the holiday season.

Winnie The Pooh began life as Edward Bear, a first birthday gift from author AA Milne to his son Christopher Robin in 1921. The bear inspired 1926 book Winnie The Pooh, with illustrator EH Shepard, who contributed to bring the magical world of Pooh and his companions to life. The first book cost seven shillings and six pence (37.5 pence). A first edition of this Methuen book in excellent shape will sell for £3,500 or more, ten thousand times higher than its original price.

The Great British Bakeoff is returning to our screens as early as next Tuesday, and viewers are brace for more tense competition in the legendary tent. The series has solidified its place as the nation's most coveted bakery competition, with 12 winners since its inception in 2010. Edd Kimber of Bradford was the first to win the Bake Off crown, while Malaysian research scientist Syabira Yusoff won the most recent 2022 series.

University of the Arts London

Puffin hired sensitive readers to rewrite portions of the author's book to ensure that the books' enjoyment by all today's is as a result of Quentin Blake's bemusement. The characters' physical appearances were made much better – the new editions no longer use the word 'fat,' which has been stripped from every book – and the Oompa Loompas are now gender neutral. "If the work is wrong, it's wrong," Blake, the book's illustrator, said. We need to know if it's crude and insensitive.' However, he said that children chuckle at 'rude descriptions' of characters such as Miss Trunchbull from Matilda or The Twits. 'That's what they like! He may not have written The Twits at all if the sensitive had their way.'

The Groucho Club, the louche Soho joint where hard-living artist Damien Hirst once put his £20,000 Turner Prize winnings into the bar, has been sold in a £40 million contract. It's the most recent chapter in the storied Soho haunt, which has welcomed everyone from Kate Moss to Bill Clinton through its doors at 45 Dean Street. For the third time in its 37-year history, the Groucho (inset right), originally intended as an antidote to traditional members' clubs' suffiness, has changed hands for the third time. Pictured: Erin O'Connor and Jasmine Guinness in 1999 (left); George Michael and Liza Minelli in 1990 (inset left); and Liam Gallagher in 1998 (right); and Kate Moss in 2009 (right).