This is the review from Kirkus:

A little boy named Kit and his dachshund Willy are the narrators of this SERIOUSLY FLAWED BRITISH IMPORT written in the style of a child’s illustrated school report about dogs.
Kit wears a 10-gallon hat and declares that he is “a cowboy from Montana in the good ol’ USA.” A short text is combined with clever spot illustrations of Kit and Willy introducing 13 different dog breeds with hand-lettered labels and speech balloons (complete with corrected spelling errors). PROBLEMATIC TEXT AND NEGATIVE RACIAL STEREOTYPING are present in the narration and illustrations for two breeds. In the description of Afghan hounds, the text states that because of the war, “everyone is too busy fighting to take their Afghans for walks, so they feel quite sorry for themselves.” The illustration shows a character resembling a cartoon-style Native American shooting at Kit (in a tank) with a bow and arrow.

The pages on Pekingese dogs include a stereotypical cartoon of an emperor with a conical hat and long pigtail as well as a cook chasing a dog with a meat cleaver. The text asserts that “some people in China eat dogs” so “if you are a Chinese dog then maybe you should think about moving anywhere else.”

THINK ABOUT BUYING SOMETHING ELSE. (Picture book. 4-8)

Fabulous punchline, cleverly adapting my phrase into quite another phrase guiding people quite firmly away from buying this book. Of course in my defence I was clearly referring to the old days of Ancient China when the emperor did actually look like Fu Manchu and as for eating dogs people do eat dogs in China several thousand will have been scoffed while you were reading this!
As for the Afghan war, in my version as well as the Red Indian, there is a UFO, a Spitfire, a parachuting dog and a child in a tank waving a sword, ok, it’s not 100 percent historically accurate, but what’s not to like? If you do want to see any more pages from this highly controversial book then you’ll just have to buy it (and hide it if an American comes to visit).

BOYS

Brian
Osamabinladen
Raymondo
Sir Alan
Tom-Tom
Pemis
Gripper
Rastamouse
Thingummy
John-Lewis

GIRLS

Cheddar
Nicorette
Tubbs
Lady Diana
Babaganoush
Chlamydia
Vagine
Amanda
Peppapig
Salmonella

Also, while I was visiting it I overheard an extraordinary snitpit of conversation which got me thinking. I could be on the verge of another intrigue on the scale of Darren Brown’s Da Finchy Code with this one…

Did Tintin in fact not come from France at all but from Tintern Abbey, Wales!? Tintern, Tintin, Tintern, Tintin Abbey, it’s not too great a leap of imagination. After all, his dog was called Snowy, after Mount Snowdonia and his sidekick Obelisk, has a name that sounds very Welsh to my ears. Anyway it’s at least enough to hang a best selling novel (and e-book) off, so I’ll get to work on that. In the meantime, this beautiful print of Tintern Abbey, (I’m the one in the yellow mac eavesdropping) will be available to the public in a limited edition of 150, which is the amount of leeks per capita eaten in Wales over a weekend (not a bank-holiday one, that would be a lot more).

Well really! I mean? It is true that he published an awful lot of books about birds, my favourite is Woodpeckers of the World, which is enormous. However, being as I am an obliging sort of fellow, I looked into the matter and discovered that there are indeed quite a few birds who’s names could be misconstrued as rude, if you have that sort of mind (it goes without saying that I don’t). There are not enough, sadly, to make up a whole book, but as it so happens, there are the perfect amount to fit on a limited edition print! As of course this is a worldwide blog, read by people from all over the world from the USA to America, some of the rudeness may not be rude in your language. To avoid confusion I have left out the ones which I know aren’t rude outside Britain and Scotland, such as the Wanker Bird. If still there are innuendoes that you are not familiar with then please contact me directly through the contact section and I will explain as delicately as I can.

This is a very beautiful print, which from a distance doesn’t look rude at all, apart from the fact that at the top it says The Rudest Birds of the World in quite big letters. So anyway it is ideal for people who like birds and also people who like rude things (shame on you).

Of all the lovely soaps available in the world of soap, my favourite has to be the mighty Imperial Leather. I know for a fact that a lot of Captains of the Soap Industry read this blog, and to them I would like to make an impassioned plea. Don’t give up on soap in favour of shower gel! There are too many reasons to go into as to why soap is superior to ‘gels’ starting with:

1)Fun. Soap is quite a lot of fun.
2)Long lasting. Soap lasts a lot longer than gel and changes in character the older it gets, like a friend.
3)Slipperyness. Soap is more slippery than gel and yet wonderfully, things can get stuck to it, like hairs, which is bizarre.
4)Names. It has lots more names than gel, such as cake of, bar of, pat of, tablet of, and box of.
5)Soaps. It is no coincidence that TV shows about everyday life are called soaps. You use them nearly every day and they are good clean fun (don’t know if this is true, I don’t watch them myself) and think how silly they would be were they called TV shower gel operas! Quite.

I’d like to return more specifically for a moment to Imperial Leather, the Prince of soap. As a child I was aware that Imperial Leather was the choice of soap bar for my Grandfathers. And what struck me then and still does, as being completely and utterly remarkable is that the label, no matter how much you scrub, rub or soak it, it NEVER comes off.

As a tribute to this soap, one of the finest inventions the world has ever seen, I have carved in Bath stone (get it?) a statue of an almost finished bar of I.L. With the label part gilded (24 carat) and painted with enamel paint. This will make a wonderful bathroom statue (an under-provided for area of sculpture) for someone, possibly a Russian? I’m not jumping on the money sleigh here, I mention Russians because it was a Russian who invented Imperial Leather in the first place. In 1768 Count Orlof commissioned an after shave from Bayley’s of Bond Street, who did as he bid and it was named ‘Eau de Cologne Imperiale Russe’. When Mr Cussons bought Bayley’s he decided to use the perfume to scent his new range of soaps and whatforth, changing the name slightly to Imperial Russian Leather and then in 1938 to Imperial Leather. The rest (including what came before) is history.

A personal message to the board of PZ Cussons (the makers of Imp Leath)
You have spoilt the label design by constantly modernising it. Think of Marmite and Llyles Ggolden Ssyrup, they don’t tinker with their labels and neither should you. Return it at once please to how it appears in my statue. Also, I have written to you over an over again, by post and ‘e’ suggesting you buy a series of my Imperial Leather Statues in decreasing sizes – I.e starting with a full bar and ending up with the highly eroded core (as pictured) and having them in the foyer at head office. You have never replied, not once, which is very rude…. I’ll give you a good price.

The following quote comes from an advert from 1957 and pretty much sums up why I use the stuff…
I couldn’t put it better myself.

“Cussons Imperial Leather is the choice of men of fame and men of promise. It is the choice of men of good taste.”

I’ll tell you why- I was enjoying a read in a book the other day called The Bible (Y Bibl in Wales) and in it was this highly arresting piece of information:

“To him that hath shall more be given and to him that hath not, the little that he doth hath shall be taken away.”

I fell to thinking about it a bit. And as unfair as it sounds it really is rather true. My friend Josh for instance had a wonderful collection of curios and bits and bobs. He had a human skull, a chocolate coin from the Festival of Britain, a real leopard skin rug etc. Well, whenever any of his friends ever found anything interesting they’d buy it for him. I remember finding an over-sized Polish fork once and as soon as I saw it I said “I must give that to Josh” and I did, it cost a bit too, that fork. So Josh ended up with all the interesting stuff and the rest of us didn’t have that much at all. Sadly he’s dead now and the bailiffs took the lot.

Then look at those who really hath, (you know who you are) such as celebrities, Royalties, Richies etc … they are constantly being given free stuff- fancy clothes, handbags, holidays on yachts, the best seats at the football, nougat, signed prints and whatnot … to the extent that, if they’re clever about it, they don’t ever have to pay for another thing as long as they live.
And then there are the Hathnots, those who would really benefit from some free strappy gold sandals or a seat at Centre Court with a nice hat, but not only are they not given anything but they are actually being robbed of the meagre tat they do own. For if you are poor then you can’t live abroad and have a Swiss bank account, you actually have to live in a shit-hole, pay taxes (to fund the bankers’ bonuses) and get burgled regularly. I don’t know what Godfrey (that’s his full name) was thinking about when he made up the rules.

Here is a (possibly rather sentimental) rendering of an event I remember from my childhood which illustrates a hathnot situation. I am the one wearing an Aston Villa strip, not West Ham.

Being very young, I barley remember the hey-day (or purple patch!) of the tins’ design, but having visited the odd charity shop since, I have become acquainted with them, full, as they tend to be now, of orphaned buttons.

A 21st century Quality Street tin is a thing of quite extraordinary ugliness, but, once, a long time ago, it was very different. Where now there is a hideous depiction of an explosion of foil-wrapped sweets, for 50 carefree years there cavorted, from a large scene on the lid, to a selection of vignettes around the tin’s waist, a brave and handsome soldier in a scarlet coat and shiny hat and a beautiful female brunette in a purple gown with an umbrella.

They were often to be seen sharing a joke in a carriage, or walking together pensively while an urchin (clean) ran behind them propelling a hoop with a twig. They were normally accompanied by a small dog, the ground beneath them was gaily cobbled and it was all played out in front of a backdrop of pastel coloured Georgian house fronts. A beautiful world, a place where our imaginations frolicked with the lovers while the caramel oozed down our chins and we spat the coffee creams across the room.

How the marketing department on Quality Street could have so shamefully and needlessly retired this pair of icons leaves me feeling bewildered and unsure. They have denied an entire generation the joys of the association between the munching of choclit covered toffees with Romantic Nostalgia …. SO, not being one to dwell, but a MAN of DESTINY, I have stepped in and breathed a new puff of life into them. In line with the modern way of things, but picked out in the appropriate style, I proudly present the latest chapter in the great flirtation on Quality Street…I did approach a tin maker who said the minimum run for a printed tin was 10,000 units, which even though I have high hopes for this design, I was never likely to sell. It will be available, signed, in an edition of 259 Giclee prints on thick paper, ever so slightly shorter than A4 but just as wide.

Fonts and birds DO interest me. Did you know that the font Garamond was created in 1530? And that one of the most beautiful fonts of all time, Doves (also the name of some birds, which is a coincidence), was entirely dunked into the Thames in 1902 never to be seen or used again?

In this print I have used 12, or a dozen if you prefer the imperial system, ‘o’s from different fonts as the eyes in my blackbirds. You should find this print quite chic, it would make a good present for someone who likes white space and uncomfortable chairs as well as those who, like me, enjoy birds and fonts.