NEWS

MAY 2008

Bird Playing Cards held their AGM at Cliveden as usual but it was interrupted by shareholders who seemed to find the yearly profit - and dividend offered - risible. The directors spent it on lunch.

You can read about Tony and Nicky Bird, founders of BIRD PLAYING CARDS, on the ABOUT US page of this site. The other partner, Robert Butler, is a modest man, resembling John Prescott but without the bulimia, whose only mention on these pages is a brief one – a short caption below a photo of him with N. Bird at Cliveden, the Astor’s stately home on the Thames, now a hotel and expensive restaurant, and the scene of our annual AGM, sadly disrupted this year by some vulgar heckling by a bloke in a kilt and a lady with a silly hat. Last week Robert and I revisited Cliveden to apologise to the management and enjoy a quite luncheon free from rancour and flying buns. We can’t recall what we ate. It might have been worth the loan. But a visit to Cliveden is a pilgrimage for those whose abiding memory of the early sixties is the Profumo scandal. Christine Keeler famously dropped her towel in front of Profumo at the swimming pool by the clock tower. Robert and I retraced her steps from the rented weekend house down by the river of her lover (and alleged pimp) Stephen Ward, up to the pool - where Robert dropped his towel, but somehow it wasn’t the same.

I met Keeler several times in the Star pub in Belgrave Mews, around 1965, which was run by a ghastly drunk called Paddy Kennedy whose idea of jovial eccentricity was to shout ‘Get your f*cking arses out of my pub!’ at closing time instead of the more conventional ‘Time Gentlemen please…’ A dreadful soak who organised a charabanc trip to the Derby but we got lost in Purley, so we never made it. He was sick on the dashboard and abused the Duchess of Argyll, who was behaving badly in the back seat with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. or Snr. she seemed past caring which (she was a fair piece, but always cadging money or a drink or a lift, a notorious sponger – she once borrowed a bungy from me and never gave it back, she’d nick your conkers off you too).

Keeler [‹ with Mandy Rice-Davies on left] had just come out of jail (perjury) and looked marvellous with her high cheek bones and pert mouth and bottom. I was 17 I think, and she didn’t seem very interested, but I bought her a few drinks and tried to impress with my knowledge of both Dinky and Corgi toys. A few drinks more and she was quite chatty. She told me she had given up ‘the game’, had only been on it briefly (contrary to the slander in the papers). I rather gave up at this point because I had rather thought my only chance was to slip her five bob plus a boxed Dinky Rolls Royce Phantom V (with independent suspension). I saw her several times after that but she seemed preoccupied – she showed little interest in a remarkably early (1939) Dinky Boeing B17 Flying Fortress, which was stupid of her because these models are unique, they come with gliding hole and pin.

Anyway, about Robert…he is the Finance Director, looking after the pounds, the inventories, forever questioning illicit use of petty cash. Every company needs one, needs a mean bastard, or so we’re told. He moonlights as a partner in a firm of graphic designers, the one that designs our cards, which was why we offered him the position, we thought we’d get cheap design and a wizard of the spread sheet. We were wrong. He has a pretty daughter and wife and supports Crystal Palace, which his ex-wife says serves him right. Robert has all Gordon Brown’s charm, ebullience, decisiveness and careful way with records, files and our gold reserves. In many ways a conventional man, he keeps wine in his cellar rather than his other family.

But I mention the Profumo affair for a reason – those of a prurient, subversive nature might be interested in two of our forthcoming packs. OOOPS! Subtitled Famous GAFFES, GOOFS & DUMB REMARKS…Pictured with silly photos of the famous are their fatuous remarks - 'You are a woman, aren't you?' (Prince Philip). 'I owe a lot to my parents, especially my mother and father (Greg Norman). ’I hope I stand for anti-bigotry, anti-Semitism…' (George Bush Sr.). 'Mansell can see him in his earphone' (Murray Walker). 'I think we ought to raise the age at which juveniles can have a gun' (George W. Bush). When George W. Bush finally departs, the world of the moronic remark will be the poorer.

Another pack for students of both recent history and tabloid excess is ELVIS LIVES! or HOLD THE FRONT PAGE! From the weird FREDDIE STARR ATE MY HAMSTER and the scarcely credible MERMAN CAUGHT IN SOUTH PACIFIC to classic front pages announcing WAR! and PEACE! Headlines that are merely nostalgic or memorable are included with the grotesque – and those that just got it plain wrong [see Truman holding Chicago Daily Tribune headline].

TABLOID TALES – sensitive and authoritative