There are times in a cartoonist’s career where there’s the opportunity to win the lottery ticket job where you get paid an inordinate amount of money for the rights to a drawing. These moments are as rare as hen’s teeth and I can’t really say that I’ve ever been there. I’ve had my moments but not the big ticket.

There was a time when someone asked my to do some work for them and that I’d get a royalty for every image that was used. So there’s the carrot and now the schtick! To be fair they did not promise riches beyond dreams but they had lit the blue touch paper of possibilities. Not a lot came of it but I put a lot of effort into the drawings.

Last year I saw one of the drawings on the side of a decorators van as I plodded along back from Sainsbury’s. I said to the decorator who was there: “I did that drawing”. He looked at me as if I’d wandered into Wetherspoons for the afternoon on the journey back from Sainsbury’s. He muttered something like ” Gorrit of the internet” and got on with his undercoating.

Fast forward to today, a rainy day and a time to rifle through old stuff, and I came across one of the drawings. I chuckled, yes one is allowed to find one’s own work amusing at times, not all day long, that would be unnatural, but every now and again. The drawing that touched my chuckle muscle was not the painter, but another in the series.

So here it is, my lottery ticket. Shame the numbers didn’t match.