Tag: Writing

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Jodie could…

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For some unknown reason I got a posting on Facebook featuring Jodie Foster, the well known American film actor now an equally, if not more talented director, asking about impossible words to pronounce in French. She is a fluent French speaker. Now I did ‘O’level French and then got another one when I tried to do the ‘A’ level version, way back in the mists of time. I never got around to doing the reading of all those French classics, like the eternally miserable books by Albert Camus. Wrist slashing stuff. My French is not great despite my being a … Continue reading Jodie could…

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Who buys this stuff?

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Insurance? It’s a mystery tour to me. Seems like they get their prices by throwing a few number blocks in the air and then settling on the red ones. Some companies, like plumbers, give you such an astronomical price that you wonder if they do it to make sure you won’t buy.. Of course, as one gets older, it gets more expensive. I’m talking about travel insurance here, but it can apply to driving. While driving, the risks do increase as our faculties and reactions slow to the same speed we now drive. Younger drivers toot for no apparent reason. … Continue reading Who buys this stuff?

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The Black Shed of Slad.

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From quite some years ago now, I was driving in the little, very bright yellow van ( 100% Yellow plus 15% Magenta for complete accuracy) towards Stroud on a mission for the company I worked for: Severnprint. I was probably delivering proofs for a job and trying to drum up a little more work from the area. In those days, one could wander around trading estates and shops looking for work. I learnt early in my brief and not that distinguished career as a print salesman ( though it read ‘ Account Manager ‘ on the business card) that one … Continue reading The Black Shed of Slad.

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Why do we do what we do?

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It’s a question that I keep asking myself. At the outset, I used to draw for a living. It was generally a collaborative sort of thing; in short, I was a commercial artist with a bent for large noses. I’ve drawn a lot of stuff, and generally, I was asked to do it for money, so I got lucky. Later, I was asked for ideas on what to draw, so although collaborative, I sort of got more authorship, if you want to use a fancy name for it. I came up with some of the odd ideas all by myself. … Continue reading Why do we do what we do?

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Bruvver.

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There are 11 months between us, and my surprise arrival may well have generated some ‘heat’ for our father at the time. Me on the left, John with one hand protecting me and the other picking my pocket, perhaps. His birthday is on the same date as the King’s, so he gets a reminder. The cartoonist and the antique dealer, who would have thought it, both now at an age where we are both not quite antiques but might be termed ‘collectables’. The plan was to take a trip to West Wales to celebrate my brother’s significant birthday. I thought … Continue reading Bruvver.

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“Go on then, make me laugh”

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I listen to a lot of Radio 4, and there’s a lot of humour on the channel, and even more talk about whether something is funny or not. There’s a lot of ‘or not’ too. “Feedback”, a programme that looks at Radio 4 output, has recently had people complaining about a ‘so-called funny programme’ (so-called used here because they think it’s not ) called “Jonathan Pie”. This character first appeared on Social media and was a credible take on a TV News presenter’s foul-mouthed interaction between him and his producer, Roger. It was funny because it was so credible. For … Continue reading “Go on then, make me laugh”

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Never buy from your Auntie

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She was a lovely lady beneath the grump. Smoked like a chimney and as if she had to suck the thing to death. There I was without a car back in the early Rooster years. My partner (business rather than pleasure, but a pleasure doing business with him) and I were doing okay and managing our fledgling business quite well. Our only sleepless nights were when we were working due to the demands of the advertising businesses we served. It was the time of the three-day week in the 1970s when the lights went out, for Graham and me, the lights … Continue reading Never buy from your Auntie

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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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Reading aloud should not have been allowed.

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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.

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Butter on the ceiling

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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