'Delightful...found myself laughing aloud'
(John Julius Norwich)
'Splendid stuff' (Robert Hardy)
'I'm a fan' (Neil Kinnock)
'V. funny' (Warren Mitchell)
'Full of darkly comic material' (Faynia Williams)
'I fell on the flore laughing' (Anon, age 10)
'Lovely' (Prunella Scales)
'Wonderful. Wonderful' (Jenny Hanley, BBC)
'The whole family enjoyed them' (Cherie Blair)
'For my money, Britain's funniest living poet' (Sandy Warr,
LBC)
WELCOME
to jclamb.com,
a website where you can sample and purchase 'The Ugly Baby', a 390-page
compendium of comic verse and other mainly humorous items by poet, actor
and croquet-hoop designer Jonathan Lamb, illustrated by the author and
designed for reading aloud. Some of the pieces, which are also available
on CD and will be showcased in London's West End this summer, have appeared
weekly in the Economist group newspaper European Voice; others
in The Spectator, The New Statesman, The Bulletin and The
Times. Their aim is to amuse, to provide actors and reciters with
a quarry of original audition and party pieces, and to supply the texts
of the CD readings by well-known voices like those you can hear by clicking
above. Readers include Neil Kinnock, Edwina Currie, Chris Patten, Richard
Eyre (Iris, Notes on a Scandal) and Luis Alberto Lacalle, ex-President
of Uruguay. This site is dedicated to all who get fun out of the spoken
word - especially to LAMDA, other schools who have used the books, and
to drama students everywhere.
CHAMOIS
The chamois skips from peak to peak
So gracefully and so precisely
Wide-eyed, dainty, swift and sleek
And it cleans your windscreen nicely
'The Ugly Baby' and two CD's are in stock and available right now.
The book is an omnibus edition of all nine volumes of Jonathan Lamb's
verse published between 1990 and 2005. You can order and pay by credit
card by clicking on the buttons below. If you have a query, if you're
a non-UK customer or if you prefer not to sign up to PayPal (a free, secure
payment system used by 100m people), just e-mail your order and delivery
address to mail@jclamb.com. You'll
get a swift reply from a real person.
The
texts of all the pieces performed on the CD's can be found in The
Ugly Baby.
TO ORDER:
BOOK The Ugly Baby, 390pp, illustrated
by the author (£9.99 plus £1.98
p&p to UK):
CD Lamb
Couplets, read by Prunella Scales, Robert Hardy, Timothy West
et al - profits to Marie Curie Cancer Care (£9.99
plus 90p p&p to UK):
CD Song and Verse, read by the author, with the choir Sarum Voices (£9.99 plus 90p p&p to UK):
BOOK The Ugly Baby and CD Lamb Couplets (£19.98 plus £1.90 p&p to UK):
BOOK
The Ugly Baby and CD Song
and Verse (£19.98
plus £1.98 p&p to UK):
BOOK
The Ugly Baby and both CD'S, Lamb
Couplets and Song & Verse
(£29.97 plus £3.99
p&p to UK):
Postage rates are for first class post to mainland UK only. If you would like delivery to an address outside the UK, contact mail@jclamb.com
CROQUET HOOPS
1) The Montevideo© hoop, for outdoor use
The Montevideo© hoop is available at £35 or 60 USD, plus P&P (costing on application, as it varies by weight and destination). Made of solid iron and designed for winter practice/friendly games on artificial surfaces, the Montevideo© turns almost any all-weather hockey or football pitch into several croquet courts. Practising on fast, flat surfaces over the winter improves your game no end. The upper crossbar is designed to prevent the feet from spreading and to allow the hoop to be held by an outplayer for hard shots; but the good news is that on the outdoor sanded carpet shown above, rover can be run with enough force for the ball to go out, from anywhere within two feet of the hoop and within an arc of about 60° in front of it, without the hoop needing to be held (as in the photo below: yellow started where blue is). This permits solo practice while encouraging precise approach skills. Montevideo© hoops are highly portable, can be installed in seconds and can be used on most all-weather surfaces without leaving a lasting mark. To order hoops, or to see and hear a QuickTime film of rover being run, send an e-mail to mail@jclamb.com.
2) The Mini-Monte©, for indoor and outdoor use:
The Mini-Monte© is designed for practising hoop approaches
and hoop-running indoors. The pins are shorter than the outside version
but still grip the carpet well without damage. The hoop is solid iron,
and can be
run gently from most angles without being knocked over.
Price: £19.99 plus p&p depending on number and total weight:
feel free to consult mail@jclamb.com.