525. After Depicting Polar Bears, Near-Equatorial Solomon Islands NowFeatures Penguins.

  The Bahamas Postal Service will issue 3 stamps on 6 March 2015 to commemorate the World Day of Prayer which is a worldwide ecumenical movement of women which holds a global day of prayer on the first Friday of March. A service written by Bahamas women will be held which centres on Jesus Christ's washing of his disciples' feet. The art used for the stamp designs is by Jessica Coalbrooke, Chantal Bethel and Tyrone Ferguson and printing was in lithography by BDT International:-

  Gibraltar Stamps issued a set of 8 stamps on 11 February 2015 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Gibraltar Fire and Rescue Service. The stamps were designed by Stephen Perera from illustrations by Nicholas Ferrary and were lithographed by Lowe Martin:-

   Gibraltar Stamps had previously issued a set of 6 stamps on 18 January 2015 as the second part of its series of issues which commemorate the centenary of the First World War. Designs were by the Westminster Collection and lithographed by Lowe Martin:-

  I now include illustrations of the 3 self-adhesive stamps which were issued in booklet format by the Cayman Islands Postal Service on 18 November 2014 to commemorate Christmas. The designs depicted local churches:-

  Malta Post issued 3 stamps on 14 February 2015 which make up a set titled Maltese Flora series II. The stamps were designed by Guido Bonett and lithographed by Printex:-

  An Post, the postal service of Ireland, issued a single self-adhesive "Love and Marriage" stamp on 12 February 2015 in a booklet of ten and as "collector's strip" of 2 stamps. The stamp was designed by Oonagh Young and lithographed by Cartor:-

Booklet cover.

  Australia Post's latest new issue to be released on 17 February 2015 is titled "Era of Sail - Clipper Ships" and consists of a set of 4 gummed stamps (2 x 70c and 2 x$1.40) and, apparently, NO self-adhesive stamps nor miniature sheet. The total face value of this issue is therefore only $4.20c (£2.12p) - perhaps Australia Post has discovered that, with an output of approximately an issue per week, collectors have given up spending their money on this flood of stamps and is going to cut back on the number of stamps released. Or is that too much to hope for?

The stamps were designed by Lisa Christensen and lithographed by RA Print:-

  The latest philatelic products to be released by Stamperija with the name of Solomon Islands printed on them have a stated "day of issue" of 20 December 2014. As usual there are 10 sheetlets each containing 4 different "stamps" as well as 10 accompanying miniature sheets. The subject matter of some of these items is extraordinary with "Antarctica" top of the list of subjects which are enormously irrelevant to Solomon Islands. For the record the featured subjects on these philatelic products are:- Antarctica, Trains, Domestic cats, Fish, Fossils, Impressionist art, Koalas, the Art of Peter Paul Rubens, Rescue boats and Whales.

   Therefore in the past few months near-equatorial Solomon Islands has found itself in the fortunate position of having had its name printed on "stamps" which depict both polar bears (see Blog 484) and penguins. What sort of (philatelic) world would it be without Stamperija?

524. A Bunch Of Comedians.

  The list of British comedians who will be commemorated by the upcoming Royal Mail stamp issue to be released on April Fools Day and titled Comedy Greats is surprising since it includes a large number of living comedy performers, some more worthy of commemoration than others, and at the same time manages to ignore some of the truly great British comedians of the past fifty years or so.

   Furthermore, a couple of the comedy personalities who have been featured on previous stamps quite recently are given a repeat performance in this latest issue which provides another example of the lack of imagination shown increasingly by those who choose subjects for portrayal on British stamps as is also the case with another soon-to-be issued set, that of British bridges (see Blog 520). 

  The comedy performers who are to be featured in the upcoming set are:- Spike Milligan, The Two Ronnies, Billy Connolly, Morecambe and Wise (Eric Morecambe was included in a set issued in 1998), Lenny Henry, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore (Cook was also featured on a stamp from the 1998 set), Norman Wisdom, the Monty Python team, French and Saunders and Victoria Wood.

    In the past, Britain's greatest comedy performer, Charlie Chaplin, has been depicted on 2 British stamps - 1 of the stamps from the Performer's Tale part of the 1999 Millenium issue and 1 stamp from the 1985 British Films set which depicted Chaplin as an older man in a photograph taken by Lord Snowden, the Queen's former brother-in-law (shown above and below):-

  Five British comedians were depicted on a set of stamps issued in 1998. The featured comedy performers were:- Tommy Cooper, Eric Morcambe, Joyce Grenfell, Les Dawson and Peter Cook.

  In the upcoming issue Peter Cook will be depicted with Dudley Moore:-

  A number of British comedy performers were depicted on the 3 stamps which were issued in 2008 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Carry On films. Among those comedy actors/comedians who appeared on the Carry On Stamps were Bob Monkhouse, Dora Bryan, Kenneth Connor, Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Kenneth Connor, Charles Hawtrey and Harry H Corbett. A number of others are named on the film posters which were used as the basis of the designs:-

    The earliest British comedy to be featured on British stamps is that of William Shakespeare - the set issued in 1964 to commemorate the quatercentenary of his birth included characters from two of his comedies - Puck and Bottom from A Midsummer Night's Dream and Feste from Twelfth Night:-

  The set of 8 stamps which was issued in 2011 on the subject of stage musicals depicted a poster for a Monty Python musical Spamalot:-

  The various members of the Monty Python team will be featured in the upcoming set - to the left of the stamp in the background is a depiction of John Cleese acting out the famous Ministry of Silly Walks:-

  (See also Blog 532).

   The most disappointing point about this new set is the omission of some very important comedians whom Royal Mail has chosen to ignore. The most likely reason for omissions of comedians such as Benny Hill, who at the time of his greatest popularity was internationally famous. is that of political correctness. There is no doubt that by modern standards Benny Hill's comedy is considered to be sexist in nature (and frankly his comedy was not to my own personal taste) but he enjoyed spectacular international popularity, especially in The United States, for a number of years. 

  Other British comedians have had troubled lives and one such was Tony Hancock whose greatness as a comedian is generally acknowledged and, despite his troubled life, he surely should have been included in this new set (there was controversy about his omission from the 1998 set) instead of subjects who have appeared on previously issued stamps or some of the living comedians whose achievements in the field of comedy are notable but hardly approach the importance of Hancock.

  Some of those ignored by Royal Mail:-

503. King John.

  2014 is to be an important year for unpleasant former English kings. Firstly, the funeral of the monstrous Richard III will take place at Leicester Cathedral on 26 March 2015 (see Blog 437) and then attention moves to the worst of them all, Bad King John, when the 800th anniversary of his consenting to the Magna Carta will be commemorated.  

  Royal Mail has wisely decided not to commemorate the funeral of the murderous Richard III although, as mentioned in Blog 437, he has been featured previously on a British stamp but the main British postal service will release a set of stamps on 7 June 2015 to commemorate Magna Carta. I do not know whether King John will feature in any of the designs of the stamps in the set but as many other murderous, villainous and, sometimes, inconsequential monarchs have been depicted on British stamps I hope that John will indeed make his first appearance in my British stamp collection. 

  John was born in Oxford on Christmas Eve 1167 as the youngest son of King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. With three much older brothers, it appeared unlikely that John would succeed to a significant inheritance and he was known as John Lackland. 

  However he succeeded his brother, Richard I, to the throne of England in 1199. He also became ruler of the "Angevin Empire" - about one third of France (see Blog of 4 July 2010) - but his nephew. Arthur, rebelled against him in an attempt to take over the territories in France. Arthur was captured and was killed possibly by John himself in 1203. 

  Subsequently John lost Normandy and the Angevin territories to the French and John failed to recover them. John fell out with the Pope, Innocent III, over the appointment of a new Archbishop of Canterbury so that the Pope eventually placed England under an interdict in 1208 and John eventually submitted to Innocent III in 1213 and agreed to England becoming a Papal Fief.

  With the various attempts to recover the territories in France, John implemented a fiscally harsh regime in England and civil war began as the barons opposed his actions. John lost control of London to the rebels on 17 May 1215 and was forced to give assent to the demands of the rebel lords in the Magna Carta at Runnymede on 15 June 1215. The terms of Magna Carta were so extreme that John gained fresh support and was able to restart the civil war against the rebel lords and the the barons invited the French Dauphin to come over to England and take the throne from John. However the king died of natural causes on 19 October 2016 having lost the crown jewels while crossing The Wash a few days earlier and was buried in Worcester Cathedral and succeeded by his nine year old son, Henry III.

  John has made a number of previous appearances on Commonwealth stamps and depicted above is the only contemporary portrait of him which takes the form of a depiction on an English coin. The coin appeared on the 2d value of the first Guernsey definitive series which was issued on 1 October 1969 and designed by Richard Grainger-Barrett and printed in photogravure by Harrison. 

  The above painting of King John which is in the National Portrait Gallery was reproduced on a stamp issued by Jersey on 25 June 2004 to commemorate the 800th anniversary of Jersey's status as a Royal Peculiar. The stamp was issued as a se-tenant pair with a picture by Victor Ambrus of Mont Orgueil Castle in the 13th century:-

  The same portrait was also used on one value of a set of 8 stamps depicting British monarchs issued by Solomon Islands on 24 April 2010. The issue does not appear to have commemorated any particular event or anniversary and was effectively nothing more than a catchpenny issue from a country which did not become part of the British Empire until 700 years after the reign of King John;-

  I have one other philatelic item in my collection which depicts the same portrait of King John. The item is a cover with a "silk " illustration of the king with a contemporary 8p Machin Head definitive and a souvenir "WINDSOR BERKS" postmark dated 15 JUN 1978 (the anniversary of John's assent to Magna Carta). This cover was one of a series, each depicting a portrait of a different English monarch from William I to Elizabeth II, which was privately produced by the dealer Henry Murray to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. An edition of 1500 of each cover was produced and they were sold with a special album to house them. It provides an interesting collection of portraits and relevant postmarks although there is one startling error in the set - the portrait used on the Henry IV cover does not depict Henry Bolingbroke but instead features in error a portrait of Henry IV of France!

  An imaginative portrait of John was used for the design of the seventh stamp of the Kings and Queens series of stamps which was issued by Barbuda on 15 May 1970. The portrait is based on the effigy on John's tomb in Worcester Cathedral:-

  Gibraltar depicted John on one of 2 stamps issued on 26 August 1968 to commemorate Human Rights Year. Famously, the stamp depicted an error by the designer, Alfred Ryman, because it showed John with a large quill pen in his hand suggesting that he signed Magna Carta whilst he did in face give his consent to the charter not by signing it but by applying his seal to it:-

  Tristan Da Cunha released one stamp on 24 April 2011 which was part of a set of 8 stamps which made up its "British History Part 3" issue. The stamp depicted King John examining Magna Carta with his barons looking on:-

  A commemoration of Magna Carta was the subject of one of the stamps which made up the 7th issue of the Royal Mail Millennium series of 1999. This part was released on 6 July 1999 and showed an unexciting work by Alan Kitching called "First Rights". The design highlighted a modern interpretation of the rights granted by John in the Magna Carta:-

   As noted above, John died on 19 October 1216 and was buried in Worcester Cathedral which was depicted on a Universal Mail United Kingdom Airmail Postcard stamp (UK0048) issued in 2012 (see Blog of 29 September 2012):-

  Finally, no-one can be all bad and, being a great dog enthusiast, I find the picture illustrated below reassures me that even King John might have had a fraction of kindness inside him. The illustration from a royal manuscript of c.1307 - 27 in the British Library shows the king stroking affectionately one of his dogs while another sits trustingly beside him - as I say - King John must have had a little crumb of kindness in him even if it was reserved for his dogs:-