Tag: fiction

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I wonder why I do this sort of thing.

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I first started writing these things over 12 years ago. I’m not quite sure why, but back then I think it was simply a way of putting my cartoons and drawings in front of people, and since I took up landscape drawing and then painting, it’s been useful to me at least. I’ve got over 300 followers now, which makes me sound like a third-rate prophet. And I make no money from it either, it’s profit less. How does one measure success on this? I may have the loyal 300, but I doubt that they all bother to read my … Continue reading I wonder why I do this sort of thing.

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Why do men not do this sort of thing?

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I’ve been on two ‘art courses’, the first up in the Southern Peak District, where there’s an ‘art school’ called Bullclough. It’s run from a lovely country home in the middle of a beautiful landscape. At that one I was the only man amongst about 12 of us. So I was surrounded by charming women. Our tutor, Rachel, was enthusiastic, encouraging, knowledgeable and generally charming, getting some brilliant results out of us. Some beginners, others who’d been doing this painting thing for quite some years and me, who has been drawing for aeons, but not painting. I’ve been at it … Continue reading Why do men not do this sort of thing?

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Giggabites

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It’s the name of the food concession at Bury Football Club, and if it isn’t, it should be. I have this liking or loathing of clever names for businesses, and this idea came to me very early this morning. You may need to know the names of football grounds to understand it, and if you don’t, then feel free to look up where Bury Football Club plays. Perhaps I should have stayed asleep. Yorkshire and Sheffield in particular seem to have a real problem with this habit. If your business name does not have some sort of clever name then … Continue reading Giggabites

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He ain’t grate on the spelling…

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…but ask him how to fix a door knob and he’s your man. I’m a big fan of YouTube short videos on how to fix stuff, and there’s always stuff to fix. Imagine this blog spoken in the same style as Tom Hanks’s in Forest Gump, and you might see the bigger picture. Speaking of pictures, he can fix them too. How to hang them, that is. In fact, he can fix most things around the house. He’s a guy from ‘Down the Deep South somewhere about’, who tells folks how to fix stuff. He’s not a natural performer, but … Continue reading He ain’t grate on the spelling…

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A Map of Peru?

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The eccentric: Actually, there was more than one. I worked as a print rep for a large printing company starting when I was a mere 58. It was my first proper job since my erstwhile career in the world of cartoons and illustration; it made a refreshing change from working alone and trying to get on top of the new digital age, without a great deal of success. And it was regular money and paid holidays- what’s not to like? My remit at the company was to sell print, simple. I knew a bit about print but was about to … Continue reading A Map of Peru?

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Sliding door moment: cow gum,dandruff and the Rooster years

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I’d been in London for a while, 2 years perhaps, I’d got a job firstly at a smallish ad agency on Picadilly facing Green Park. It was a job I didn’t really understand and they gave me a tiny office next door to a large office where the Creative Director occupied his time. I was supposed to be his assistant. A sort of ‘Gofer’ , go for this or go for that. It was not a job I enjoyed very much but it put me in contact with other assistant art directors, in particular with a bloke from Pembrokeshire called … Continue reading Sliding door moment: cow gum,dandruff and the Rooster years

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The Potter and Funny Business

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Back in the early 80s I had an agent, their business was marketing and selling illustrators and cartoonists like myself to ad agencies and design companies. There were only 2 or 3 people in the business and they were good at what they did. Generating work for us and generally getting very good fees for us, the sort that we artists would never have the brass nerve to ask. We got on well. Times were good. Each Christmas we were tasked with thinking off something novel to give to out clients, apart from just a free lunch at a fancy … Continue reading The Potter and Funny Business

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Face to Face with Napoleon

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“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

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Books you might not want to read on a train.

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“Surrounded by Idiots”. It’s a book lent to me by my daughter in law whose high powered job is to look after people, not in a nursing sense, she’s big in Human Resources. Spends hours of her days talking on the telephone or via computer to people all over the world. The book is about people types and how they can be graded in colour, and on reading the first bit of it I started to understand exactly what it was talking about. It tells of a CEO of a large company who said he was surrounded by idiots, and … Continue reading Books you might not want to read on a train.

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Productive days and non.

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Watching most TV and scrolling is non. Productive is reading a book, almost any book that makes you think. Lying awake thinking can be both, it’s non if it’s negative going over stuff but productive if it’s determining to write something or even doing a drawing in your head. I’m sure most artists do that, if not all. They think drawings, at least I do, and I only get around to actually doing a few of those I think about.There’s a huge number of drawings in the head plans chest, but that’s about as far as they get. The journey … Continue reading Productive days and non.