I’m keen on food, it has a tendency to help me get from day to day. These days people seem to take a lot of pictures of it and then write about it. I’m a big fan of Betty, not the tea rooms in Harrogate ( where I’ve been once and can recommend, and the owner is not called Betty at all ) but Becoming Betty, who’s also not really called Betty. Is there anyone out there really called Betty? (Become Betty ) She writes about food all the time and reviews it on-line in her blog. She’s in the … Continue reading Do we need to talk about food?

How would you like it cut Sir? Carefully? Mr Whippy on products Continue reading A style for Wednesday

Get this cut on a mug, or a t shirt! Bloke on a t-shirt Continue reading Tuesday’s cut

Buy this chap on a mug! Chocs away Flying Officer and others Continue reading Monday’s haircut

  You can buy this on a mug! Red Bubble I’ll be posting a haircut per day for the next week, I hope you enjoy them. Continue reading A week of haircuts

Only men get a haircut, women have their hair done. I did a load of drawings of men’s haircuts some time ago, and here’s a chance to describe how I came to this stuff. Some people can turn off here as I’m about to describe how I did the artwork. I can hear the snoring from here. I did a load of small drawings within about an A4 area and then scanned them into the mac on high resolution. I had a plan. What I wanted was a certain quality of line. “It’s only a cartoon. Get a life” I … Continue reading Haircuts, the Hackney way round.

It’s all culture here at present. Last week a trip to London, to see Jasper Johns amongst other things and a visit to the National portrait gallery to see what was on there. Neither disappointed, though the permanent collection of portraits of the Royals are curiously dreadful. Appallingly sycophantic stuff. There was however an exhibition of portrait drawings from the renaissance, which were brilliant in every respect. Having those faces from so many hundreds of years ago looking back at you was quite something, and you could get close. One had to deal with the “exhibition two-step’ of course which … Continue reading Looking at paintings, David Hockney and the exhibition “two step”

A trip to London to see Jasper Johns, Graham and David. Jasper is, of course, the famous American painter. Graham and Dave were at college with me when Manchester was still black with soot and there existed Colleges of Art instead of Universities. We lived in Rusholme and that is exactly the opposite to what we did. We rarely rushed home as the flat was, as I described it to my father at the time ‘spartan’. Graham recalled that there was one plug that did not appear to be connected to the meter, under his bed. So almost every appliance … Continue reading Eels and custard.

When I wasn’t doing that I took a look around Hackney and it looked absolutely lovely in the sunshine. A last gasp of Summer in the City. The yoghurt came off the ceiling without a problem, it was put there by my twin grandchildren but neither of them is owning up. Continue reading Can you clean the yoghurt off the ceiling, please?

I’m very proud of my home-grown sunflowers which are still flowering and look spectacular in the September sun, don’t try saying that without your teeth in. I was less pleased with the dahlia ( singular ) bulb that I had bought early in the season, at some expense. But then yesterday, there it was in all its glory. Not a mark on it. It obviously likes to bloom in private. Hope you like it too and that it cheers your Monday like it cheered my Sunday.           Continue reading September sun and the secret dahlia…