Have you been out today?

Apologies for lack of words. I am contemplating a legal document, contemplating a major change to the blog, contemplating a storyline and avoiding writing a match report of a cricket game that I don't really remember very much about. So in the meantime, here are some doodles...

Oh dear.

My website, and with it my email account and the images on this blog, is currently out of action. This is due to my current attempt to switch webhosts. A clever man called Darren is busy sorting it all out even now though so normal service should be resumed soon.

Update: Seems to be getting back to normal. Email is back, main website is back, blog images are gradually reappearing as I type...

Update 2: Aaaand we're back.

As far as i can tell everything is now sorted. If anything makes you think otherwise then please let me know.

M'good friend Faz has pointed out to me this archive of Clive James interviews including one with the goddess that is Posy Simmonds.

It includes a tantalisingly brief glimpse inside one of Posy's sketchbooks. I recall there were a couple of her sketchbooks on show in a glass case at the Magic Pencil exhibition at the British Library a few years ago. Agonising to see the gorgeous drawings on the pages on view and know there were so many more contained in the rest of the books that I would never see. And, sadly, however hard I concentrated I still couldn't cause the pages to turn with the power of my mind. Very frustrating.

Some monkeys what I drew currently showing over at Non-Working Monkey's ever excellent blog.

The eponymous monkey has just embarked on a new life in Canadia. We wish her well.

Last one from S.O.B. A6 number 3, circa early '94.

Notable for an early appearance of glove puppet imagery that will recur any number of times in future pages/books.

Heading to buy foodstuffs at little Sainsburys yesterday I observed the long queue of (mainly oldish) people outside Northern Rock and briefly thought that the sign in the window ("Come in, let's talk") was proving to be amazingly effective. But then the half listened to news item from earlier in the day came back to me and I realised that these people were actually panicking to get all their money out. They'd formed an orderly (and seemingly stationary) queue to do so but they were, nevertheless, panicking*.

Have these people never seen "It's A Wonderful Life"?

I was thinking that the whole situation was very like that thing from game theory, The Prisoner's Dilemma, but actually on closer inspection it doesn't quite fit. There's the possibility in the dilemma for a better personal outcome through taking the unselfish option, just so long as the other guy does too, whereas everyone getting their money the hell out of Northern Rock I guess has nothing to (personally) lose by doing so. Apart from the day they spent standing in a queue (and actually, given how few days some of those people looked like they had left, maybe they should have considered this more fully).

The woman on the checkout in little Sainsburys enquired as to the state of the Northern Rock queue as she bipped my foodstuffs and a Grauniad before lapsing into a reminiscence of the wartime/post war queues of her childhood (a lot of semi-retired types on the checkouts in little Sainsburys - normally a better bet than the bored teenagers). Not quite the all in it together/Dunkirk spirit vibe to all this though.



* At least most of them were. Maybe there was somebody near the back who just wanted to pay in a five pound postal order and wondered what the fuss was about.

Change of pace. This one started out looking like it was going to be awful, then flirted with being brilliant and ended up, um, okay. Shame I'd put in the page number so inappropriately before the drawing though.



Click image for larger version.

S.O.B. A6 number 3, circa early '94.

Currently receiving approximately 100 spams per hour. More specifically: they're not actual spam messages directed at me but rejected spams with the sender's address faked as being from my website domain rejected by the addressee and bounced back to me.

This is a little tiresome.

Anyone with any top tips as to anything I might do to curtail this irritation please do let me know.

S.O.B. A6 number 3, circa early '94.

Largely a terrible couple of pages but notable (to me) for:

Reminding me of that stripy jumper on the figure at bottom right on the left hand page (which is kind of me - though I've never actually smoked. Sadly the pony tail is historically accurate).

The right hand page being, kind of, a commission, having been drawn as a favour for some friend of a friend who was starting up some kind of arts magazine I think. Can't remember what the article was about. Can't imagine that this was a good illustration of it. That (badly drawn) TV is still going strong though.

The dog saying "woof" which is the one bit I still quite like.

And about time too...



Click image for larger version.