Author(s): Robin Laurance

General

Question: what do Mount Kilimanjaro, a hundred-million-dollar marble mansion, a pair of handcuffs, a jar of walnut jam, the bleeding heart of a dead elk, an incontinent donkey, two Scottish terriers called Negus and Stasi, a fur-lined jockstrap, an attempted blow-job, and the fossilized bowel movement of a turtle have in common? Answer: they have all been offered as birthday presents to some rather famous people (respectively Kaiser Wilhelm I, Mrs William Vanderbilt, Diane Keaton, Josef Stalin, Jack Nicholson, Gerald Durrell, Eva Braun, Leonard Bernstein, William Jefferson Clinton and A.A. Gill). Just What I Always Wanted! presents a curiously compelling collection of celebrity birthday gifts from the 16th century to the present day. Calendrically arranged from 1 January to 31 December, it includes at least one birthday boy (or girl) for every day of the year, along with details of the gift given and the often extraordinary story behind it. Quirkily illuminating and endlessly entertaining, Just What I Always Wanted! puts the pair of socks, the tie and the box of chocolates firmly back where they belong. From the 40-carat diamond given by Aristotle Onassis to his wife Jackie, to the framed photograph of a vagina given by David Bailey to the photographer Terence Donovan, it is stuffed with gifts that stretch the imagination as well as the wallet.