Isle of Man Post Office is pleased to present this set of six stamps featuring a selection of the most bizarre and ingenious automotive challenges featured on the most popular motoring programme on British television.

The Top Gear set of stamps

This collection of lavishly tooled stamps commemorates some of the bravest and most innovative transport solutions created by Clarkson, Hammond and May in the course of Top Gear’s most fiendish challenges. OK, so most of these cars didn’t actually work very well. Some of them caught fire or sank, occasionally simultaneously. But they all demonstrate the very things that make Britain the finest nation on Earth: inventiveness, hard work and a healthy disregard for maths or accurate measurement. Affix them to your tax returns with pride!

Please visit our website at www.iomstamps.com to find out more about the Top Gear Challenges collection

MOTORHOMES Over the years, Top Gear has waged war on caravans and motorhomes, destroying these slow-moving, jack-knifing road menaces in ever more inventive ways. But how would our intrepid presenters respond to the challenge of building their own compact-yet-stylish motorhomes? Richard devised a Land Rover Defender that transformed into a three-bedroom bungalow, James converted his Lotus into a streamlined ‘aero-pod’ while Jeremy built a two-storey modernist Citroen. Then they set out on a nice beach holiday in Cornwall, where their trio of modified motorhomes proved to be both impractical and entirely dangerous. One of them didn’t return…

TRIUMPH HERALD SAILBOAT No one has ever designed a successful aquatic car, a vehicle equally at home on both road and water. The reason for this, according to James May, is because aquacars have always embraced the wrong power source. Ever at the forefront of technical innovation, wind-loving Captain Slow turned a classic Triumph into a classic schooner, complete with billowing mainsail and 20-foot mast. The ‘Mayflower’ was a simple, eco-friendly solution with just two fatal weaknesses: James’s total lack of sailing ability… and low road bridges.

ROBIN RELIANT SPACE SHUTTLE Space shuttles are among the most expensive pieces of engineering in the world, costing literally billions of dollars to build, send into space and bring back down again. James and Richard believed they could save the space industry a bunch of cash by bolting a Reliant Robin – every Yorkshireman’s favourite three-wheeler – to a blooming great rocket and standing well back. The Reliant Shuttle took off with a bang, but the landing didn’t go so well…

POLAR HILUX When Jeremy and James were ordered to drive to the North Pole, they declined, pointing out that the Arctic is very cold, very dangerous and very lacking in good pubs. But when Richard rolled up on a traditional polar sled with a team of huskies, James and Jeremy felt obliged to defend the honour of the car and reach the top of the world first. In a Toyota Hilux modified with huge tyres and an escape hatch in the roof, they became the first men to reach the North Pole by car, defeating Hammond and his gang of fetid dogs in the process.

CARAVAN AIRSHIP As we may have mentioned, Top Gear isn’t very keen on caravans. But what if, instead of clogging up our roads, the caravans took to the skies? With the aid of a giant balloon, an old caravan and a dangerous volume of propane, James May set out to discover whether a wobbling holiday home on wheels could be turned into a majestic airship. After causing a national security scare by wandering into the fly-zone of Norwich airport, he concluded it probably couldn’t.

HAMMERHEAD EAGLE i-THRUST Electric cars should, in theory, be relatively simple to design, with far fewer moving parts than one of those tricksy petrol vehicles. Turns out they’re actually quite complicated. Tasked with building their own electric car from scratch, the boys borrowed the chassis from a TVR Tamora and the electric motor from a milk float, adding a range of innovative design features including a ‘visibility hatch’ for Richard’s head. Despite its rakish good looks and blistering performance, the Hammerhead Eagle i-Thrust failed to impress the independent road testers from Autocar magazine. On the plus side, it did dispose of Stig’s vegetarian cousin…

Buy them here

Isle of Man Releases Top Gear Stamps is a post from: Anglotopia.net

An enterprising artist has managed to make a portrait of the Royal Couple entirely out of pictures of William’s mother — Royal Mail stamps!

Check it out below. It’s really quite impressive. Click to view a full-sized version.

From the artist:

The William and Kate design uses a representation of the Rose Window from Westminster Abbey, in itself an iconic piece of design in stone and stained glass, where the marriage is to take place. The wedding on April 29th 2011 will be the 15th royal wedding in the abbey’s thousand year history. The circumference of the Rose Window can be traced from the outer edge into the eye and cheek of William and round through Kate’s face back to the window symbolic of their wedding.

Check out the artist’s website here for more great stamp artwork.

Royal Wedding: Portrait of William and Kate Made out of Royal Mail Stamps is a post from: Anglotopia.net

Britain’s Royal Mail is releasing two Harry Potter related stamps as part of a collection of stamps related to magical realms.

Featured on the stamps are Dumbledore and Voldemort as well as other characters from fantasy and fiction.

Check out the details and buy them here.

Royal Mail Releases First Harry Potter Stamps – Magical Realms Collection is a post from: Anglotopia.net

The set of stamps, launched today, celebrate the 50th anniversary of the classic Gerry Anderson TV shows such as Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet, and feature iconic images from the programmes, like Thunderbird 2 in take off.

Also in the pack is a set of Thunderbirds ‘motion stamps’ – a UK first – which show two different images when viewed from different angles. If that wasn’t enough, the pack also features a specially created comic strip as well, a snippet of which I’ve included below. All pretty cool!

There’s also some pretty exciting news that the Thunderbirds could return!

From the Mirror Today:

ITV, which owns the rights, is revamping the cult futuristic 60s puppet show. Creator Gerry Anderson, 81, said: “I am going to make a new series of Thunderbirds – and that’s official.”

ITV said: “Thunderbirds was one of our biggest and most important brands but we never did a new series as the time didn’t seem right. Now things have changed.”

Source.

You can buy the direct from the Royal Mail here.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Thunderbirds really are go on latest Royal Mail Stamps is a post from: Anglotopia.net

Starting this week, I’m starting a semi-regular music news update. Let me know if you have any suggestions.  Here is what happened this week:

Rock Mail

Thanks to the Royal Mail you’ll be able to lick some of rock’s best loved albums. Yesterday, January 7th, a new collection of special edition stamps featuring classic albums was released. Each stamp features a cover of ten iconic albums from the past 40 years, including Let It Bleed by the Rolling Stones, IV by Led Zeppelin, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars by David Bowie, Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield, London Calling by The Clash, Power, Corruption and Lies by New Order, Screamadelica by Primal Scream, The Division Bell by Pink Floyd, Parklife by Blur and A Rush of Blood to the Head by Coldplay.

For more information, or to order your own stamps, visit the Royal Mail online.

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Albums Down, Singles Up

The British Phonographic Society announced this week that UK album sales continued going down, but single sales, thanks to downloading, increased in 2009. 16.1 million albums were legally downloaded throughout the year, while 98 per cent of all singles were sold as downloads, with the total clocking in at 149.7 million.

The Top Ten selling UK albums of 2009 were:

1. Susan Boyle – ‘I Dreamed A Dream’
2. Lady Gaga – ‘The Fame’
3. Michael Buble – ‘Crazy Love’
4. Black Eyed Peas – ‘The End’
5. Kings Of Leon – ‘Only By The Night’
6. JLS – ‘JLS’
7. Beyonce – ‘I Am Sasha Fierce’
8. Paolo Nutini – ‘Sunny Side Up’
9. Lily Allen – ‘It’s Not Me, It’s You’
10. Robbie Williams – ‘Reality Killed The Video Star’

The Top Ten selling singles of 2009 were:

1. Lady Gaga – ‘Poker Face’
2. Black Eyed Peas – ‘I Gotta Feeling’
3. Lady Gaga – ‘Just Dance’
4. Cheryl Cole – ‘Fight For This Love’
5. Joe McElderry – ‘The Climb’
6. La Roux – ‘In For The Kill’
7. Black Eyed Peas – ‘Boom Boom Pow’
8. Rage Against The Machine – ‘Killing In The Name’
9. Alexandra Burke Ft Flo Rida – ‘Bad Boys’
10. Black Eyed Peas – ‘Meet Me Halfway’

–

No Stones at Glasto

The Rolling Stones announced that, no, they won’t be headlining the Glastonbury Festival this summer. Not only are they not playing the festival, but they aren’t touring at all in 2010. Maybe this will give Ronnie Wood a year to figure out what he is doing with his life…

–

Pete Plays Music

When not in court, jail or rehab, Pete Doherty plays music. The former Libertine is setting up residency at the The Rhythm Factory in Whitechapel from January 14-17. Hopefully he’ll show up.

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Coldplay Raises Money for Charity

During the holiday season, Coldplay decided to clean out their closets and auction their stuff off for charity. The ebay auction was a huge success, raising more than £250,000 for Kids Company. Items included guitars, signed posters, props, uniforms and clothing.  Kids Company is a London based organization focused on providing emotional and educational support to children and young adults.

This Week in British Music: Coldplay, Susan Boyle, Royal Mail is a post from: Anglotopia.net

The Anglophile Link Directory is one of the most traffic pages on the site, but it’s still not very full of links.

Anyone can submit links to the directory and it’s not hard at all.

Let’s make this directory the best and only Anglophile link directory out there!

So, please dust off those old bookmarks and submit them! I know you all have your own treasured sources of Anglophile goodness, so why not share them? You can submit any relevant links and I’ll approve them. If you don’t see a category and you have sites for it, let me know and I’ll add the category.

You can visit the Anglophile Link Directory Here.

Thanks!

Anglophile Link Directory Hungry For Links! is a post from: Anglotopia.net

I used to collect stamps as a kid and still have a passing interest in all things related to Stamps.

Recently, I heard that Royal Mail is coming out with some stamps related to British Design Classics. They’re stamps that show items and objects that the Brits are known for designing.

The 8 stamp set features:

From the distinctive lines of RJ Mitchell’s Spitfire fighter and the stylish chic of Mary Quant’s daring mini skirt to the calm of the Penguin Books jacket and the practicality of Robin Day’s Polypropylene chair. But there’s one that remains close to millions of people’s hearts – the Mini. In 1959 the first Mini rolled off the production lines at the British Motor Corporation’s plants at Longbridge, Birmingham and Cowley in Oxford.

It also features the iconic London Underground Map by Beck, the Routemaster Bus, the Concord Jet and the Red Phone Box.

Interested Anglophiles can purchase the stamps directly from Royal Mail and they will be posted to you. You can order them on their website. The stamps will be released on January 13th. I’m definitely going to pick up a sheet. It’s only £3.60.

British Design Classics Stamp Set is a post from: Anglotopia.net