paddington bear falls foul of immigration

michael bond has written a new book: "paddington here and now". in it, paddington has to deal with issues of the modern world, e.g., being an undocumented alien. the bbc reports:

"Bond, 83, told BBC World Service's The World Today programme that Paddington's roots - and his new life in London - had always been the essence of his character, and that he wanted to make it the heart of the new book. "Refugees are very much on people's minds and in the newspapers," he said, adding that his creation was partly based on his seeing evacuees from London with labels round their neck. "It always stuck with me, because I thought it was a very sad sight," he added. "Equally, going to the cinema in those days, one saw so many pictures of uprooted families - that kind of thing is still with us, and I think it's very sad.""

the rest of the article is here.

under paddington's hat

there was a bit of a stink yesterday in the times when michael bond, creator of paddington bear, felt he had to write a letter to the editor with regard to paddington appearing in an advertisement for marmite. since, as we all know, paddington keeps marmalade sandwiches under his hat, some of his fans decided that mr. bond had sold his soul for some filthy lucre. this was his response:

"Sir, Natalie Haynes wrote an amusing piece that managed to combine, among many other things, words of wisdom from Samuel Goldwyn, nude Plasticine models, Bagpuss, apple sauce, Scrabulous and Ivor the Engine; no mean feat (report, Sept 17)!

However, somewhere along the line she unwittingly perpetuated an ill-founded rumour doing the rounds that I was responsible for the script of a television commercial featuring Paddington Bear testing a Marmite sandwich, adding that one of the reasons may have been that Marmite paid me a truly vast sum of money.

I should be so lucky – particularly since I didn’t write it. In fact, I have to report that although Paddington found the sandwich interesting, bears are creatures of habit. It would require a good deal more than the combined current withdrawals from Northern Rock to wean him off marmalade, if then. Besides, Squeezy Marmite may spread well, but it doesn’t have any chunks.

MICHAEL BOND
London W2"

you go, michael.

here is the terribly clever article by natalie haynes.