Category: Uncategorized
Face to Face with Napoleon
“Can Simon come out to play?” It was a simple request to the father of a boy along the modest terrace of houses where we lived way back probably 70 years ago. The father, like my own dad, was a young police officer and the police houses belonging to an estate where the big estate house served as a training establishment for the force. My father and this neighbour of ours would both have been instructors at the Police College. “I’m sorry” came the reply “ he’s busy reading ‘Face to Face with Napoleon‘ so he cannot. I went home … Continue reading Face to Face with Napoleon
Side Effects
Many medications come with side effects, and the dialogue tends to go like this. “As you are on these it’s best that you take these to counter the side effects of those, however those will come with their own side effects for which it might be best if we give you these, so with those and these we might be able to improve your condition. Take them when there’s an r in the month but never on a full moon, eat huge amounts of fibre just so you don’t get too constipated as with this level of medication it’s possible … Continue reading Side Effects
Reading aloud should not have been allowed.
I started writing this blog over ten years ago. I was encouraged by being in a local writers group, though somewhat intimidated by some of the more skilled members who could write superb stuff straight off in our meetings. The idea of the group is to be given a subject, write for an hour, then read it out. I wrote some awful drivel and eventually gave up, but used to pop in now and again to listen to some of the stars. I then found it more natural to write this blog, at home! I’m still in the group, I … Continue reading Reading aloud should not have been allowed.
Butter on the ceiling
I’m doing a bit of recycling here, I originally published this 3 years ago. I have been back to the school in the past year for a Reunion dinner, which brought back a few ghosts of my time there. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I went to boarding school, many years ago. At meal times, if you could call them that as the cooking was a not the very best, but there was alway bread and ‘jam’ to fill up on. The bread was thick white sliced, the butter was margarine in a plastic bowl, and the jam was normally red stuff that tasted … Continue reading Butter on the ceiling
MEGA
I’m not one for pre grated cheese, it’s one of those things that I would ban if I had the choice, and this is not just my opinion. The respected politicians for the Monster Raving Loony Party ( for you people outside the UK, there is indeed such a political party, and Such is the key word here, as it was founded by the late Screaming Lord Sutch, and he did exist ) One of the chief aims of the Party and stated in their manifesto was a promise to ban pre grated cheese of any kind in order to … Continue reading MEGA
The Road Trip, The Reunion and an Italian speaking Uber driver.
We decided to take a trip back to our lives when we were 6 and even younger. My brother and I set off on a journey to Lancashire where we spent out early years. John’s good at driving so he was roped in to be at the wheel. He’s used to long hours at the wheel gathering antiques for his business from contacts up in the North. I only ever went on one of these buying trips once but it was an education. He had what seemed then to be a bladder the size of a garden water butt, able … Continue reading The Road Trip, The Reunion and an Italian speaking Uber driver.
Jane Austen’s ‘desk’
On the face of it an unremarkable small table and chair, but this is where the words of some of Jane Austen’s best works were written with dip pen and home made ink. It resides in the small village of Chawton near Alton in Hampshire. I’m not a frequent visitor to the area and we were on our way to further south, so we took the opportunity on the way to book ourselves into this lovely house. They get as many as 250 people a day there, so one has to book in advance. I loved it and the fact … Continue reading Jane Austen’s ‘desk’
Back to school
I was last at art school in the 60s and if my memory serves me right, the art bit was not on the top of my priority list. I was then a recently released internee from a boarding school I was not terribly aware of the world. In my first year at this art school I was allowed to have a go at everything, with a base layer of life drawing. The first time I’d ever seen a naked woman for life drawing, and this one seemed to be having a day off from being a traffic warden. I did … Continue reading Back to school
Restaurant trousers.
I don’t go out to ‘restaurants’ very much these days, I’m more at home with cafes after a good walk. There are some where I will go out of my way to visit, one being the local privately owned Garden Centre ( here ) where I can feed my plant addiction as well as my food addiction. One of my acid tests for a good eatery is the quality of the coffee, and Dundry coffee is second to none. More recently we went to a Cotswold pub which is these days a pub/restaurant. So a notch up or two from … Continue reading Restaurant trousers.
Chopin Liszt
No, I meant shopping list. There I was scribbling it out on an old piece of layout paper where I’d scribbled this little drawing that I planned to put on the back of a greetings card envelope for Ruby, a baby I don’t know but close to my good friends Mike and Judie. A long story. Mike asked me if I’d do a little something for this little somebody who’s just arrived. Off it went on the back of their greeting card envelope which he’d forgotten to post and as a sort of apology to ‘management’. He was happy. I … Continue reading Chopin Liszt
An Approximate Biker
Working on a book by a chap called Jim. This is one of the many characters in the book and my approximation of motorbike at speed. My drawings/cartoons are always approximations. This tends to elicit comments from people like motorbike purists. I was once asked to draw a bloke’s favourite bike, approximation would not do, it was a nightmare for me. I gave up in the end and we never spoke again, sadly he assumed that as I could do approximations I might be able to do exact. No, not exactly, in fact not at all. Some illustrators can draw … Continue reading An Approximate Biker
Paul Davies Cartoons & stuff 