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Nobody wants to work anymore. Modern music is destroying society. We’ll all be living on Easy Street a hundred years from now. With a few basic tips, even you can eat a pear! Welcome to The Press Gallery, the museum of newspaper clippings, a beautifully designed coffee table book that offers reassurance that the past made as little sense as the present.

Last July, I read a tweet complaining that nobody wanted to work anymore. I had a hunch that this wasn’t the first time someone had expressed this opinion, so I dived into some old newspaper archives and quickly found examples from every single decade back to the 1890s. I shared what I collected in a thread on Twitter, and, if the two weeks of continual notifications on my phone were to be believed, it appeared to resonate.

After that, I began to curate collections of other classic complaints – people complaining that kids today were too soft, or that men today were too feminine, or that people today had lost their sense of humour. You can find people complaining about exactly the same things again and again. Dame Shirley Bassey had it right: it is all just a little bit of history repeating.

There’s more than just complaints in the book – old newspapers are full of interesting and surprising things. I will share the first British experiences with pizza in 1860 ('The pizza cake is your only social leveller for in the pizza shops rich and poor harmoniously congregate'), the time the Pope endorsed iron tablets, how poor George Millet was kissed to death, alongside my favourite newspaper titles (a close race between the Volcano Lubricator and Big Hole Breezes).

The Press Gallery

Paul Fairie
Status: Manuscript Received
Publication date: TBC
  • The Press Gallery
    Hardback
    £25.00

    First edition hardback and the name of your choice printed in the subscribers’ list at the back of the book.

    Name to be printed in the back of the book
    Name to be printed in the back of the book
  • Ebook Download
    Ebook Download
    £7.00£10.00Save 30%

    The Ebook and the name of your choice printed in the subscribers’ list at the back of the book.

    Name to be printed in the back of the book
    Name to be printed in the back of the book
  • Signed Hardback
    Signed Hardback
    £35.00

    First edition hardback with bookplate signed by the author and the name of your choice printed in the subscribers’ list at the back of the book.

    Name to be printed in the back of the book
    Name to be printed in the back of the book
  • Coffee Mug
    Coffee Mug
    £15.00

    Please note that the book is not included so you will have to add that to your bag separately.

  • Tea Mug
    Tea Mug
    £15.00

    Please note that the book is not included so you will have to add that to your bag separately.

  • The Press Gallery
    Patron Bundle
    £250.00

    Both mugs (The Coffee Drug and Tea on the Battlefield), the online Q&A, name a day and Paul will choose some clippings for you, two signed first edition hardbacks, the ebook and the name of your choice listed listed as a PATRON at the front of the book.

    Name to be printed in the back of the book
    Name to be printed in the back of the book

Nobody wants to work anymore. Modern music is destroying society. We’ll all be living on Easy Street a hundred years from now. With a few basic tips, even you can eat a pear! Welcome to The Press Gallery, the museum of newspaper clippings, a beautifully designed coffee table book that offers reassurance that the past made as little sense as the present.

Last July, I read a tweet complaining that nobody wanted to work anymore. I had a hunch that this wasn’t the first time someone had expressed this opinion, so I dived into some old newspaper archives and quickly found examples from every single decade back to the 1890s. I shared what I collected in a thread on Twitter, and, if the two weeks of continual notifications on my phone were to be believed, it appeared to resonate.

After that, I began to curate collections of other classic complaints – people complaining that kids today were too soft, or that men today were too feminine, or that people today had lost their sense of humour. You can find people complaining about exactly the same things again and again. Dame Shirley Bassey had it right: it is all just a little bit of history repeating.

There’s more than just complaints in the book – old newspapers are full of interesting and surprising things. I will share the first British experiences with pizza in 1860 ('The pizza cake is your only social leveller for in the pizza shops rich and poor harmoniously congregate'), the time the Pope endorsed iron tablets, how poor George Millet was kissed to death, alongside my favourite newspaper titles (a close race between the Volcano Lubricator and Big Hole Breezes).

... from The Eagle’s 1895 warning of “The Bicycle Face: Its Several Horrible Details Carefully Analyzed and Explained”, to the Southwest Washington Labor Press’s 1923 prediction that the “Four-Hour Day Will Come Within The Next Hundred Years”
Paul Fairie

About the author

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Updates

Back from the depths of the newspaper archives!

Good news, everyone – I have returned from a journey into the newspaper archives with more than 500 cuttings and a completed manuscript in hand! There will still be more work to do before the book is ...

25.09.2024
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