A global exploration of the many writing systems that are on the verge of vanishing, and the stories and cultures they carry with them.If something is important, we write it down. Yet 85% of the world's writing systems are on the verge of vanishing - not granted official status, not taught in schools, discouraged and dismissed.When a culture is forced to abandon its traditional script, everything it has written for hundreds of years - sacred texts, poems, p...

 The minstrel show occupies a complex and controversial space in the history of American popular culture. Today considered a shameful relic of America's racist past, it nonetheless offered many black performers of the 19th and early 20th centuries their only opportunity to succeed in a white-dominated entertainment world, where white performers in blackface had by the 1830s established minstrelsy as an enduringly popular national art form.This book traces the often overlooked hist...

From humble folk instrument to American icon, the story of the guitar is told in this "exceptionally well-written" memoir by the NPR commentator ( Guitar Player).In this blend of personal memoir and cultural history, National Public Radio commentator Tim Brookes narrates the long and winding history of the guitar in the United States as he recounts his own quest to build the perfect instrument.Pairing up with a master artisan from the Green Mountai...

At Last the 1948 Show is a classic satirical TV series that prided and inspired Monty Python. Featuring Cambridge footlighters John Cleese, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graham Chapman, this is arguably the finest sketch comedy series ever produced, and certainly something you do not want to miss...This is a large collection of the very best sketches from the first and second series of the show, including: Reluctant Choir (Intro); Psychiatrist; Secret Service Cleaner; Deadly Architectural ...

At Last the 1948 Show is a classic satirical TV series that prided and inspired Monty Python. Featuring Cambridge footlighters John Cleese, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graham Chapman, this is arguably the finest sketch comedy series ever produced, and certainly something you do not want to miss...This volume features a compilation of classic sketches from the first series of the show, including: Four Sydney Lotterbys; Visitors for the Use of...; Sleep Starvation; Mice Laugh Solftly; Char...

At Last the 1948 Show is a classic satirical TV series that prided and inspired Monty Python. Featuring Cambridge footlighters John Cleese, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graham Chapman, this is arguably the finest sketch comedy series ever produced, and certainly something you do not want to miss...This volume features a compilation of classic sketches from the first and second series of the show, including: Intro; Let's Speak-a English; Top of the Form; Spiv Doctor; Thief in Library; Come...

This thirteenth collection of the antidote to panel games finds Jack Dee giving regular panellists Tim Brooke-Taylor, Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden silly things to do - along with special guests Jeremy Hardy, Sandi Toksvig, Rob Brydon and David Mitchell. Highlights include ‘Uxbridge English Dictionary’, ‘One Song to the Tune of Another’, ‘Sound Charades’, ‘Historical Voicemail’, ‘Bankers’ Film Club’, ‘Sound Effects Storytime’, ‘Party Guests’, ‘84 Chicken Cross Road’, ‘Trail of the Lonesome...

This twelfth collection of the antidote to panel games finds the late Humphrey Lyttelton giving regular panellists Tim Brooke-Taylor, Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden silly things to do – along with special guests Jeremy Hardy, Sandi Toksvig, Tony Hawks and Linda Smith. Highlights include 'Play Your Chords Right', 'New Definitions', 'Naturists’ Song Book', 'Inadvisable Openings', 'Sound Charades', 'One Song to the Tune of Another', '84 Chicken Cross Road', 'Uxbridge English Dictionary', 'Swan...

The team are together again with more ponderous puns and wondrous witticisms than you can shake a feather duster at... The show where fun and laughter go together like a horse and marriage. Listen as two door-to-door salesmen try and sell dusters to Mr and Mrs Noah, or take a gander at some of the latest programmes featured in the ‘Ancient Radio Times’: ‘Only Fools and Wooden Horses’, ‘Homer and Away’ and ‘This Morning With Castor and Pollux.’ Here is more of the inventive ad-libbing that ...

Four hilarious episodes from the show that grabs listeners by the waist, swirls them round in time to a Strauss waltz, and then trips over the banana skin of convention. Laugh yourself silly with some of the most mind-stretching games ever to grace a quiz show: 'Cheddar Gorge', 'Gargle Gargle', 'Bedtime Stories', 'Good News Bad News', 'Tag Wrestling' and - not to be forgotten - 'Mornington Crescent'. The unflappable Humphrey Lyttelton presides over panelists Tim Brooke-Taylor, Willie Rusht...

Often imitated but never bettered, I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue is the only authentic antidote to panel games. After 35 years on air, this hardy perennial continues to bloom with inspired ad-libbing and wickedly improvised fun. This tenth collection finds unflappable chairman Humphrey Lyttelton giving silly things to do to regular panellists Tim Brooke-Taylor, Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden, as well as special guests Jeremy Hardy, Ross Noble, Andy Hamilton and Rob Brydon. Highlights ...

Four more episodes from the show that holds a mirror up to nature and then proceeds to give it a rather embarrassing haircut. Here it is at last, by overwhelming popular demand - Everyman's Guide to 'Mornington Crescent', the full and unexpurgated history of the most addictive addition to Britain's cultural heritage. The mystery of this great and baffling game is finally solved with the help of Henry VIII, Claire Rayner, Shakespeare and Beryl Bainbridge. The unflappable Humphrey Lyttelton ...