Have you been out today?

I think that I've finished my book.

There may well be a few odds and ends of corrections to text and illustrations and probably questions to answer and tweaks to tweak about cover designs and such but, essentially, it's done.

Hurrah!

As such, I've been tidying up the Mac's desktop and sweeping up all kinds of oddments, some of which I'll probably bung up here as I gear up to The Next Big Thing I need to do, which is book two of Good Dog, Bad Dog.

Anyway, here's one such scrappy scrap...

A6, Seawhite of Brighton sketchbook number 10, begun 31st October 1997.











(I think I'd been told not to draw on both sides of the page by someone - probably the estimable and wise Ms Jackie Batey. It's all right, it didn't last long).



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It's been sunny. Me and the Main Squeeze went to the park the other day (with a flask of tea) to look at people and perhaps, if the fancy took us, to draw them.

These are a handful of mine (hers were loads better).

I'm just putting the finishing touches to the cover (about which, more later) and endpapers of my book. I think the original contract suggested I'd be delivering the finished work at the end of May 2010. So not quite a full year late then. Hope it's worth the wait.

Today the kitchen has been visited by many fruitflies.

I squished one and scanned it for artistic purposes and share it with you here for your undoubted delight...

Doodling with brushy brushes in Photoshop...

A6, Seawhite of Brighton sketchbook number 10, begun 31st October 1997.











Ooh dear, a pair of dull ones there. Oh well, that's the way it goes some weeks I guess.



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A6, Seawhite of Brighton sketchbook number 10, begun 31st October 1997.







That list of punsome (and mostly killingly unfunny) book titles on the left hand page was for a proposed series of cartoons called Misheard Classics that may or may not have been the brainchild of Mr Steven Haslemere. I don't think I ever got round to drawing up a single one (as had been the intention). And I suspect that the few genuinely amusing ones must have turned up on I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue before now anyway.





Hmm, "...their breaths kissed in the air between them." I still rather like that. Perhaps I'll find it a home somewhere someday.



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Saturday I answer the phone and it's a girl working for some three letter acronym of a market research place and, unusually, I agree to answer some questions. I am not from the 18-26 age bracket in which they are especially interested but apparently they still value my data highly enough to bother talking to me. I'm expecting a series of questions about my favourite laundry detergent or something but instead I'm quizzed on a variety of subjects including general stuff about income brackets and specific stuff about internet usage and social networks. We're a good ten minutes in when I'm somewhat thrown...

"So, on a scale of zero to one hundred - zero being a very cold, negative feeling and one hundred being very warm and positive - how do you feel about the Palestinians?"

I take a moment. Consider. I do not laugh. I do not comment upon the validity of the question, nor the way in which it has been put.

"Um ... 50?"

"Okay. And, again, on a scale of zero to one hundred - zero being a very cold, negative feeling and one hundred being very warm and positive - how do you feel about the people of Israel?"

I take a longer moment. I still do not laugh. But I hope that my questioner might.

"Er ... 48?"

"Okay..."

The next couple of questions are also about Israel and Palestine. I opt for "don't know" as my answer and then, when it becomes apparent that more of the same is to follow I suggest that, perhaps it will save time to just mark me down as "don't know" for everything to do with Israel and Palestine.

"Oh, right. Okay. Hang on a moment ... There, that's done."

She returns to her script.

"Now then - Iran—"

"I think maybe it's best if you just mark me down as 'don't know' for anything to do with the Middle East as a whole."

"Oh, okay."

Happily, there isn't much more after that.

At the end I am thanked for my time and asked if I might be marked down as someone who would be happy to take part in further such surveys. I politely decline.

A6, Seawhite of Brighton sketchbook number 10, begun 31st October 1997.







I'm guessing there's a touch of Fargo in that right hand page, though it had come out over a year earlier. I remember seeing it (probably a number of times) at the old Cambridge Arts Cinema where I used to be an usher. Good film for ushers. All those snowy scenes early on made for a relatively well lit auditorium so latecomers didn't need so much help finding their seats.








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I am buying beer, chicken thighs, carrots and bread at the Co-Op. The cashier is unusually smily and chatty. "Hello, how are you today?" she says chirpily. "Um, very well thanks," I say, more or less truthfully. Then, rather halfheartedly, "And yourself?" She informs me that she too is very well. Then she says, "You know, in those glasses you look a bit like Heston." I assume she means cookery's Mr Science, Heston Blumenthal, rather than Charlton Heston (the possibility of which only occurs to me later). I do not resemble Mr Blumenthal and my glasses do not resemble Heston Blumenthal's glasses. Nevertheless for the duration of a four item purchase we conduct a conversation about the proprietor of The Fat Duck in Bray during which it becomes apparent, to me at least, that the girl on the till knows considerably more about him than I do (I consider mentioning that Dave McKean illustrated his last book but decide against it). I am informed, for instance, that she made his orange chocolate cake (I think that was it, though that seems rather ordinary for HB - possibly it was lychee and squirrel and I've misremembered) at Christmas. It was good, apparently.

The transaction complete we wish each other a pleasant evening and I depart. I think about it some more. I really do not look like Heston Blumenthal. My glasses really, really do not resemble Heston Blumenthal's glasses. What she was saying, I conclude, was "you are bald and wear spectacles." Fair enough then.