Humor

Footrot Flats Gallery I by Murray Ball.  ISBN 186971039. Published by Hodder Moa Beckett. Recommended retail price $29.95.

A reprint of the ever popular Footrot Flats series by Murray Ball.  Footrot Flats is back!  This Gallery series includes the very best of that hugely popular Kiwi icon, Footrot Flats.  Selected by author and illustrator Murray Ball, these cartoons take us back to the classic Footrot Flats, introducing all of the lovable characters such as The Dog, Wal, Cooch and Horse.  Come and join their adventures…

Murray Ball was born in Feilding in the Manawatu, New Zealand.  He worked on the Manawatu Times and the Dominion, then as a freelance cartoonist in the United Kingdom.  His most successful cartoon strips were the caveman ‘Stanley’ which appeared in Punch, and the colonial ruffian ‘Bruce the Barbarian’ in the Labour Weekly.  He returned to New Zealand in 1974 and produced his best-known cartoon strip ‘Footrot Flats.’ Softcover, 136 pages. Published in 2005.

Footrot Flats Gallery II by Murray Ball. ISBN 1869710525. Published by Hodder Moa Beckett. Recommended retail price $29.95.

A reprint of the ever popular Footrot Flats series by Murray Ball.  Footrot Flats returns!  This is the second book in the Footrot Flats Gallery series.  It includes more of the best cartoons of that hugely popular Kiwi icon, Footrot Flats.  Selected by author and illustrator Murray Ball, these cartoons take us back to the classic Footrot Flats, introducing all of the lovable characters such as The Dog, Wal, Cooch and Horse and introducing some of the less lovable ones…

Murray Ball was born in Feilding in the Manawatu, New Zealand.  He worked on the Manawatu Times and the Dominion, then as a freelance cartoonist in the United Kingdom.  His most successful cartoon strips were the caveman ‘Stanley’ which appeared in Punch, and the colonial ruffian ‘Bruce the Barbarian’ in the Labour Weekly.  He returned to New Zealand in 1974 and produced his best-known cartoon strip ‘Footrot Flats.’ Soft cover, 136 pages. Published in 2005.

Footrot Flats Sports Collection by Murray Ball.  ISBN 1869710401. Published by Hodder Moa Beckett. Recommended retail price $29.95

Kiwis love sport – and they love Footrot Flats!  In this new Sports Collection the two come together in a hilarious romp through Wal, Dog and friends’ sporting exploits.  Join them on the footie field, at the crease, on the netball court, in the fishing dinghy … and on many more sporting adventures.

Murray Ball was born in Feilding in the Manawatu, New Zealand.  He worked on the Manawatu Times and the Dominion, then as a freelance cartoonist in the United Kingdom.  His most successful cartoon strips were the caveman ‘Stanley’ which appeared in Punch, and the colonial ruffian ‘Bruce the Barbarian’ in the Labour Weekly.  He returned to New Zealand in 1974 and produced his best-known cartoon strip ‘Footrot Flats.’ Soft cover, 152 pages. Published in 2005.

Footrot Flats One (59.73K)

Footrot Flats Two (67.24K)

Footrot Flats Three (62.80K)

Footrot Flats Four (86.57K)

Footrot Flats Five (74.12K)

Footrot Flats Six (65.59K)

Footrot Flats Seven (69.45K)

Footrot Flats Eight (60.38K)

Footrot Flats Nine (41.89K)

Footrot Flats Ten (58.29K)

Footrot Flats Twelve (69.75K)

Footrot Flats Thirteen (63.51K)

Footrot Flats Fourteen (58.51K)

Footrot Flats Fifteen (65.99K)

Footrot Flats Sixteen (47.86K)

Footrot Flats Seventeen (51.86K)

Footrot Flats Eighteen (53.79K)

Footrot Flats Nineteen (58.96K)

Footrot Flats Twenty (70.67K)

Footrot Flats Twenty two (146.90K)

(46k)

Sense of Humus, A : A Bedside Book of Garden Humour by Diana Anthony. ISBN 0908704496. Published by Shoal Bay Press. Recommended retail price $19.95.

The trouble with most gardening books is that they are always commanding you to do something: prune, plant, how, sow, week … they forget that there are times when gardeners simply need to throw themselves into the depths of a favorite chair and read something entertaining about their passion – to smile at the foibles, fancies and fads of other gardeners, to be amused by their eccentricities, to share their tears and triumphs … and not to be overwhelmed with advice.

Garden literature contains some of the most entertaining writing in the world and, like gardening itself, is an infinite source of comedy and semi-tragedy, furnishing scope for the full range of human emotions. The collection of wit and wisdom offered in this volume is a somewhat kaleidoscopic affair; but no matter how the pieces are shaken or dipped into, the vibrant pattern that emerges reflects the humor, the color and vitality of the garden and its maker. We discover, in fact, that gardeners have a finely developed penchant for laughing at themselves and are possessed of a magnificent sense of humus.
This pot pourri of evergreen reading is enlivened by Diana Anthony’s own sharp wit and acute observations. It will entrance and entertain the perennial gardener in us all.

Diana Anthony was born in North Wales. After graduating from Bristol University with a degree in English literature and language and a diploma in education, she pursued a career as a teacher. In 1965 she met her army officer husband and subsequently combined motherhood, teaching and traveling the world with the British Army. Always a thwarted gardener, Diana Anthony made gardens across the face of the globe, leaving them every two years as the family moved on. On her husband’s retirement in 1987, the family emigrated to New Zealand.

A humorous account of the creation of her large garden (‘the last, and best loved’) wrestled from gorse and raw clay north of Whangarei has been described in her first book Seven Summers at Valley Homestead, which was published in 1994. That garden, which is open to the public, has been listed among the top ten New Zealand gardens.

Diana Anthony is features writer and correspondent for the New Zealand Gardener and she writes regularly for North and South magazine and other national publications and newspapers. Her other books include A Book of Gardens (1995) and The Potager: The Ornamental Kitchen Garden (1997). Soft cover, 256 pages. Published in 1997.

Last modified on Monday, July 28, 2003