In my quest for more odd names, I was recently telling my sister in law about this, my most recent “excuse to draw”. I’m in the middle of a series of drawings of people with odd names. Generally these are all made up by either myself or someone I’ve been talking to. The idea started some years ago when a work colleague who told me several names  that he’d seen whilst overseeing production of business cards. Derek, then used to come and whisper new ones to add to the collection and these were generally of his own making. I told … Continue reading What’s in a name?

I’m fond of sheds, and I tend an allotment. My favourite sheds are corrugated iron. It rots so colourfully.Yesterday we had a rare day of winter sunshine and I ventured out to the plot for a quick check on my rhubarb. My one half-succesful broccoli plant had decided to seceretly sprout some lovely heads for me to pick and I dug out some very strange looking parsnips plus one of my favourite vegetables, a celeraic. Rhubarb was slowly growing well. So the garden is producing things even in winter. I noticed that the national papers were full of headlines about … Continue reading What will they make of this in China?

We’re all selling something, some of us without really realising it. Some have made a living out of it, myself included. I was employed, later in life ( I’m quite late now ) to sell print. I loved it and I made a lot of friends and the occasional enemy. Having been a professional cartoonist for most of my ‘so-called’ adult life, it was strange to enter a world where things were serious. Unlike the very best salespeople I took with me the idea that I only wanted to work for people I liked. Which in fairness was most people.There … Continue reading You’re looking well, have you lost weight?

Linked in are chasing me to apply for even more jobs and it looks like I’ve found just the one for me, the downside is that it’s for a seamstress so there may have to be some adjustments and stitching in place before the application can go in. On the other hand I could opt for 2 days a week as a lingerie designer and spend the rest of the week in my jim jams, doing a bit of blogging and never getting out of my slippers. Nope! I’ll go for the first choice as they pay extra when they … Continue reading At last, a job where you don’t have to be able to spill.

I’ve been thinking again, perhaps I should n’t. Phones: we keep them in our pockets and if we are really up to speed we talk to them with them in our pockets via headphones and wander around seemingly talking to ourselves. Out in the supermarket or on the street we see people who are hearing voices, and it’s considered normal. In days of yore such unfortunate people were sent to large brick built institutions and filled with mind numbing drugs so that the voices might go away.They were treated kindly for the most part and pitied by the rest of … Continue reading “Just putting you through…”

I thought this would be a good song title, what do you think? With its double meaning of: ” Nobody understands my marmalade” or simply as it is ” Nobody is going to be given a jar of said condiment “. The cartoon is entirley irrelevant to the subject, but I’m having one of those mornings. I’m seeing many levels of marmalade, I’d best leave it. Continue reading Nobody gets my marmalade.

It might have been a folk tale but when I resided in that great city of Manchester, it was said that on a slow news day, the newspaper sellers would put the headline ” The Pope;no news!” headline on their little boxes from where they dispensed their wares. This was in fact true, within the pages of their papers there was no news of the Pope. So it was all factually true a it shifted quite a few of the papers as there are many Roman Catholics in the City ( generally the Manchester United supporters ) and quite a few … Continue reading The pope;no news…

Another from the book: Some Missing Persons . Again the golden words are crafted by my chum wordsmith Gordon Thorburn: Wordweaver I hope you’ve enjpoyed them as much as I enjoyed drawing for them. Visitors to this remote and historic ex-hostelry, far up in the hills where rivers rise, always used to enjoy looking at the old photographs on the wall. These reflected a bygone age when the local produce show was held here, customers formed football and darts teams and turned up in Toyota pick-ups. Those were the days, my friends, when the pub was the social sine qua non … Continue reading Ye Olde Sunnye Dryed Tomato

Here’s another from Some Missing Persons with lovely words by my chum Gordon. Wordsmith’s site He would know a lot about this subject as he was an enthusiast for frequenting such places, “all strictly for research though old chap”. This drawing is rare for me these days as it’s in colour. The original is in colour too, so it has all been hand crafted as they say, a bit like artisan bread.  £3-50 for a loaf of bread? In this case the colour is added using the old fashioned magic marker and then enhanced with chalks for the geeky illustrator types … Continue reading The King’s Breeches