These are from all over the place from the UK, USA ,Greece, Italy, Montenegro and the poppy was on my allotment last year.

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I’ve not seen my neighbour for weeks, that’s not unusual as he’s quiet and reserved at the best of times. Then this morning he’s there stepping out early to take the dog for a walk, and he’s grown a beard.

Another quiet neighbour has also disappeared, his normally manicured grass cut to within a centimetre of its life is now growing like the other neighbour’s beard. The company that descend on his place every week are nowhere to be seen and the regular sound of mowing and blowing, even if there’s nothing to blow, have evaporated into the new normal silence of the area that makes the birds seem positively riotous.

So there’s a run on hair clippers, I’m likely to start to look more and more like Wurtzel Gummidge as the weeks progress. I toyed with the idea of buying some electric clippers but the memory of last time I let my other half free with them still haunts me. My daughter used to do it for me back then and made a great job. After she left home I asked my wife if she would do it. She was somewhat nervous and approached me with the buzzing clippers rather like a pilot on his first landing at an island airport with a strong crosswind. The clippers bounced on the runway and there was some turbulence in the room. We landed but it felt like she’d landed on my head without the landing gear. Her promise to do a little better next time was met with a “ There’s not going to be a next time thanks”. One does not want to land at an airport in a crosswind with the pilot announcing that he’s going to “Give it a go!”

So project hair ended there, and I searched for a decent barber. Found one, after some research, but it may be some time before I land there again.

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No mention of the c word or the v. Take a tour around these images, all pieces of fine art that I liked, I hope you do too.

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Some will recall the phrase on the BBC by a cultured voiced announcer : “There will now be a short intermission”. That’s what I’m doing today. Some random images from my archives for no apparent reason, as there’s no apparent reason for anything these days. I hope you enjoy them.

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These were the almost last instructions from my dear late father when, back in 1966, he and my mother were flying off to Norway for what for them was a once in a lifetime holiday. They were leaving me and my elder brother to cope as best we could by ourselves, when he uttered these words I asked, not unreasonable, ” Why? “

“So you don’t cut yourself” was his simple reply, thinking that I was obviously far too young to be wielding a bread knife and that I’d be found lying on the floor soaking up blood from a crusty wholewheat special, when they came back. What this simple sentence did was to illustrate how worried he was that they were going away and leaving us to our own devices and that he and my mother loved us.

When back, we took it as an opportunity to use whenever they went out of the house, even on a small errand, to rub in exactly how funny this was to us. He and my Mum took it in good part and later he used it ironically himself if we were ever going a away. It became a family saying which just meant ” Look after yourself”

On the way back from Norway, my father, then a smoker, took time out in the plane’s loo for a quick drag. One has to remember that these were the days when smoking was the norm, but not on a plane. As he lit up a voice came over the tannoy and barked something in Norwegian. ” Crikey they’ve seen me lighting up” my father thought to himself from his comfortable seated position, quickly extinguished the cigarette and adjusted himself for re-entry into the cabin when the English translation of the Norwegian came over the tannoy: ” You will be pleased to know that England have defeated Germany in the World Cup Final at Wembley in extra time. Well done England!” My father left the cubicle on a cloud of euphoria as well as a little smoke.

Meanwhile back at home my brother and I were probably slicing through a wholemeal in celebration.

My neighbour said to me from a sociable distance. “ I wouldn’t know what that was like” I replied.

“Neither do I” he countered, somewhat hurt.

I’m sure he’s right. On both counts.

How do you do it? Some people can turn their hands to all sorts of practical tasks to help in a crisis, and for the first time the word crisis is the correct word to use in the present situation. Perhaps a first time in recent years, makes Brexit seem almost inconsequential, even though it’s not.

I do it by banging on about stuff and trying to extract a smile. I wake up with ideas, go back to sleep and then forget what I thought of. I’ve been writing “Keep your distance posters” as if I’m employed by the Ministry of Information. I’ve been drawing cartoons as usual, with the same sort of theme, I’ll probably go on to the theme of staying at home. I’ve been gardening like fury, finding seeds and plants here and there and glaring at the pots challenging them all to germinate.

Our diet has changed, we’ve avoided supermarkets as much as possible and found other ways to get what we need. I’ve not seen a chicken for a while, but we have a ready supply of veg supplied in boxes from a farm shop. So I’m making myself useful here again by encouraging you to change your shopping habits, go local and find a farm shop. Our last supermarket order that was delivered was short of every basic that we had ordered and the veg we got came from Mexico and Morocco ( asparagus and brocolli ), For crying out loud, it must have been flown here. We ate it with a fair amount of guilt spooned over.The veg box from the farm shop? All the veg came from around here, and had not long left the field, tasted wonderful and their system of non contact worked a treat.

Local neighbours here have been busy arranging donations for the homeless, so they must feel pretty useful, and the young son of a good friend has been churning out parts for facemarks on his 3d printer to supply to the NHS. How brilliant is that?

“Keeping in touch with family and friends is important” says he who hands the phone to his wife when the kids are on and says “Best talk to your mother” On the other hand, my friends get the benefit of a long and rambling call when they probably had something much better to do in the garden or making something for the NHS.

Here’s a sample of my posters, and you can get almost any of these printed on a t-shirt or even a mug from right here. As well as the typographic designs there are cartoon versions. What’s more I’ve set a zero mark up on these in the hope that the people who print and produce them might get some work from it and stay in business. I have no wish to profit from them.

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Having uploaded these to Red Bubble yesterday I took a look around at other Covid 19 stuff and there’s quite a bit. But what was immediately apparent to me is that the USA is still stuck in Imperial measures and one is asked to stand 6 feet away from anyone else to comply with social distancing. Strange, strange times.

Please share this as much as possible. Make yourself useful.

I recently posted a short video of me drawing. The clip was done on time lapse so it looked quite speedy, I draw fast but not that fast! So here’s another with the drawing in real time. Here’s the drawing as it was finally used, though come to think of it, although this is the final I might well have done it again after, so this may well not be the one in the film, if you get any drift.

And here’s the movie. It’s not Cecil be De Mille but I am working on my production values. I’m hoping this works but will persevere if it does not. I hope you find it diverting, I’ll be trying more of these very soon. Thanks for visiting.