Spectating

For as long as I can remember I’ve purchased the magazine “The Spectator”. But 30 years is nothing. I doubt there can be many other publications on the planet that have appeared weekly since 1828 !!!

I recently found this issue from 1927 in an Antique/Junk shop. The front sheet/cover contains all the adverts and can be removed to reveal the proper front cover. I like the advert for the portable radio. Only portable if you had a burly butler or chauffeur to carry it for you! Amazing that regularly broadcast radio programmes had only begun five years earlier in 1922. The first “wireless sets” for the home needed an aerial and an earth wire often along with a seperate power supply. By 1927 Rees-Mace have designed a “modern” all-in-one unit. Interestingly, Harry Roberts of Roberts Radios fame began his working carreer at Rees-Mace.

PS: Only in “The Spectator”. A recent issue contains a letter with the fascinating information that Iggy Pop and team recorded the legendary “Raw Power” LP at CBS Studios in London in 1972 fuelled by Harveys Bristol Cream Sherry !!! 

PPS: Hours minutes seconds of fun can be had reading the Classified ads. A girls school in Shanghai is seeking an “Assistant Mistress” to teach a wide range of subjects. The applicant must be between 25 and 30 and unmarried!! The wages are 235 Taels per mensum (whatever a mensum is (?!?). It goes on to say that a Tael is approx 2s 6d but is liable to fluctuate. Therefore does that make the pay to be £30 per term ??

PPPS: Visit http://archive.spectator.co.uk/ and you can browse through a mind-boggling 180 years worth of back issues.