All the Way There and Back Again

The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies Review

Given that Peter Jackson's adaptations of Lord of the Rings made all the money, it was inevitable New Line would make an adaptation of The Hobbit, they would have been financially irresponsible not to.  Also, given that The Hobbit is vastly different in tone, register and structure to the Ring trilogy it was inevitable that substantial changes were needed to make it fit in with the earlier films. And, given that puffing up a children's bed time story to the size of a Beowulf-esque epic is something of a big ask, you could also argue that it was inevitable that the new films would suffer in comparison to Jackson's earlier efforts.

This was most true of the first Hobbit film, where the boom and blare of Jackon's additions about falling civilisations and quests for revenge - copy pasted from the appendices - clanged like a motherfucker when set against the sing song pitter patter of Tolkien's original narrative. The second film was a definite improvement, settling into a more consistent tone, even if the action was that little bit too cartoony, undermining any sense of threat. The third movie is all crescendo; a two hour fight scene relying on the previous two films to provide it with context and substance

Luckily it's a good fight scene. There's an actual feeling of weight and peril to proceedings that was missing from the previous instalments (assuming that is, your not Legolas - in which case the laws of physics are your bitch). As for the few quiet bits, the stand off outside the gates of Erebor and Thorin's tap dance along the edge of sanity are well handled, and Martin Freeman remains the best Bilbo Baggins they could have possibly cast, even if here, as in the books, he's more or less run out of things to do at this point. Also there are war goats. I now want a war goat. But there's so little story here that it's hard to justify it being its own film and even at two and a half hours it feels too long. It's difficult to view The Battle of the Five Armies as its own thing, as opposed to the final third of  a larger story. That's fine. That's exactly what it is. But it presupposes a lot of heavy lifting in the earlier films which was simply not present.

In a broad sense all the changes that Jackson introduced are clever or at least understandable, creating dynamics and threads that run through all three films and going at least partway to reduce the gratuitous use of deus ex machina employed in the book. But it's when it comes to the execution that the adaptation sometimes sags. Take the much derided dwarf/elf romance, which didn't fall flat because the idea itself was stupid. On the contrary I thought it personalised the ongoing conflict, helped distinguish important characters within a large cast, created new dramatic tensions within the group and raised the stakes for the final confrontation. The reason it didn't work was that it was dealt with in an entirely perfunctory way, making it feel forced and unbelievable. Similarly anyone who's read or seen the supplementary material the film makers put out knows the individual dwarfs are all reasonably well formed characters, with a culture that a great deal of work had been spent into realising. It's just that almost none of that made it onto the screen, the preference instead being for overlong action sequences, comedy mugging and episodic scenes from the book that could have easily been cut, resulting in a amorphous, beardy mush.

I'm ultimately fond of The Hobbit films. Even putting my affection for the original novel to one side, Jackson's films have always been at least fun and now we've seen the trilogy in full it's possible to make out the shape of something very worthwhile. Whether that something would bear that much resemblance to its source is debatable, but it's hard to shake the suspicion that a ruthless, two film cut that included more character development while sheering the bloat off some of the spectacle wouldn't merely be good, but excellent.

                                                                                                                                                  

Anyone remember the scene in Candyman where Virginia Madsen wakes up in a strange flat, no recollection of how she got there, covered in the blood of a dog that it appears she's beheaded, some wifey screaming in the corner and a small baby missing. Yeah, well, after a not dissimilar Friday night I've decided to knock alcohol on the head for January. No sooner had I made this decision than an advert in my local bus shelter informed me that this was a thing that Cancer Research UK is encouraging people to do. While I am generally speaking pro cancer, I understand that a lot of people aren't and figured I might as well try and raise some money for charity while I'm giving my liver a stay of execution. If you feel inclined to donate you can find my Just Giving page by clicking the following link

I wont be posting next week due to festivities so I'll wish you Merry Christmas - unless you don't celebrate it, in which case Merry Thursday - and I'll resume my witless rambles in the new year

Love and Fishes

Dave Denton

The Walrus Loves the Carpenter

The moon was shining on the sea,

Shining bright and white:

The walrus and the carpenter

Sat out in the moonlight

And this was very odd, because

it wasn't even night.

Carpenter licked his fingers clean,

And tossed an oyster shell

Now that their repast was now complete

His face, it suddenly fell.

Those oysters, they had trusted them,

And they'd not been treated well

"Walrus," he said, into his chest,

sniffing away a tear

"We did those shellfish a great wrong

that they can't forgive, I fear

As now they're stuck inside our guts,

Are we the bad guys here?"

Walrus's flipper reached behind

And gave his back a pat

"My joiner friend, there is no need

To feel like you're a rat.

We were hungry. They taste good.

And that's the end of that."

He lifted up the chippy's chin

and looked into his eyes

"Don't be sad', the Walrus breathed

And to Carpenter's surpise,

Butterflies swirled inside his tum

and something began to rise

His face and loins were burning hot,

Carpenter suddenly knew

That oysters are aphrodisiacs

And he'd had thirty two

He put his mouth to Walrus's

At which point things got blue.

I'll spare you the gory details

of all things done and said

For walrus/man love is not a thing

you want inside your head

Though I believe you can find such things

Out there on the web.

They lay there panting, side by side

After the deed was done,

For sex is hard when your new lover

Outweighs you by a tonne

But thanks to lube and harnesses

They'd had a lot of fun.

"I can't believe that happened,"

Carpenter happily sighed

"But I'm glad it did as now it means,

I've no reason now to hide

That I love an Artic mammal."

"That's great," the Walrus lied

You see, what he was thinking,

But didn't want to say,

Was that he felt himself a player.

Monogamy? No way!

He'd just hoped to scratch an itch,

And get his end away.

"Oh Wally," said the Carpenter,

"I think that you're the one.

Do you think our parents will understand?"

But answer came there none-

And this was scarcely odd, because

That fucker, he had gone.

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With all due apologies to the estate of Lewis Carroll. This is apparently what I do with my spare time.

Love and Fishes

Dave Denton

Too Many Sandwiches

I'm feeling slightly delicate so I'll endeavour to keep this short. The reason for this is that it was my youngest brother's kinda sorta 21st last night. His actual birthday was back in November, but we were unable to celebrate it back then as he was busy running around the countryside, covered in mud and leaves attempting to defeat imaginary enemies (Just to clarify, this was in his capacity as a guardsman in the Scots Guards, not an escaped mental patient). The back room of the local pub was rented and invites sent to all relevant friends and family. Unfortunately of the fortyish people we were expecting only about a dozen showed up, which was a bit of a shitter, but I've always been of the opinion that if you need the fingers of two hands to count the people who are important to you then you're exceptionally blessed. It also meant that the buffet was essentially untouched. So if anyone's in the mood for 150 slightly stale sausage roles, pop round mine and I'll hit you up.

Her majesty's finest eventually left for the more substantial delights of nearby Newcastle, where by all accounts a good time was had until two of our kid's mates decided to start knocking lumps off one another. The reason we were given for this was that one lad fell over, so the other tried to help him up and got a fist in the face for his efforts. I'll admit that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, so  I think a better explanation would be that some people are arseholes when they've had a skinful, While me and the missus were lost in the blissful ignorance of sleep, my sister had to deal with the fall out when everyone returned home, spending an hour and a half in the local A & E with the fight's loser, waiting to get his lips sewn back onto his face. I came down this morning to find me dad's doorstep splattered in vomit and blood, while his kitchen floor was covered in slowly defrosting peas (because to the drunken mind Peas = Medicine). Happily everybody was friends again, although the young lad who'd had his 'tache slapped looked in a sorry state. 

Went to see The Lake Poets earlier in the week. Unfortunately we had to leave early so we only caught a couple of songs, not enough were I could really formulate an opinion. However he (despite the plural in the name, The Lake Poets consists of one guy) seems good in a sort of Damien Rice-y type way. He was certainly leagues ahead of the two support acts, who were both shite.

Also at the top and bottom of the post you have Christmas doodlage. Tis the season and all that..

Love and Fishes

Dave Denton

Lost in the Supermarket

I'm cool with Blue Monday and Orange Wednesday's, but when did Black Friday become a thing over here?  I don't think I'd ever heard of it till a few years ago and now the news has been filled with images of people from around the country fighting, shouting and making complete tits of themselves as they clamber over one another in an effort to get their sweaty mitts on that most coveted of all possessions: shiny stuff. I'm not saying that England is an especially classy place (despite the top hat and monacle stereotype, we were, at the end of the day, founded by a viking pimping out his daughter to a Welshman, not to mention all that barging into other countries and taking their stuff that we did) but I seem to remember that we at least attempted to put up a decorous front. It's a theory of mine that we're currently reliving the 1980's; The Tories are in power and telling everyone that the poor and unemployed are somehow the enemy within, a new fringe party is winning by elections and talking bollocks about forming the next government, the US is being challenged internationally by a rising Asian power, pop music is largely wank and, most distressingly, there appears to be a general consensus within the wider culture that greed and avaristic self interest are not only permissible, but somehow admirable.  Couple that with the peculiar shamelessness that seems to be the internet age's gift to the national psyche and you get scenes like on Friday, with red faced, sweaty men drop kicking little old ladies in order get their mitts on a plasma TV with 20% off (I may be exagerating a bit there, but - dammit - the point still stands),

It's even more depressing as, unlike the US, we don't even have the accompanying holiday that provides some justification for the ensuing orgy of consumerism. I've been lucky enough in the past to have been invited to spend Thanksgivings with Americans of the homesick expat variety and it's always struck me as a nice idea for a holiday. Granted there's not much niceness in how things really played out between natives Americans and white settlers (and apologies for being approximately the 9 billionth person to make that observation), but there's a lot to be said for a day when you get together with your friends and loved ones and acknowledge that given the endless suffering and bigotry that has comprised the human experience for most of history, we're lucky even - dare I say it - well jammy to have been in this part of the world and in this era. Plus you get to eat until you slip into a food coma, which I thoroughly approve of, even if my waistline does not.

So yeah, when I'm in charge - and God willing it shouldn't be long now - I would instate a British Thanksgiving because if the Canadians can do it, so can we. I would also exile all minor royals, ban incorrect use of the word 'literally', commission a third series of Spaced and move the capital somewhere a bit more central, like Barnsley. So follow me to a brighter tomorrow!

In the interim I've finished another page of Rag and Bone (below). Spread the word. The people must know.

Love and Fishes

Dave Denton

The Inevitable Return of the Great White Dope

First off an apology for my recent inactivity. I had a post ready to go when my lap top let out a sad little whine, like a puppy at the vets, and then just upped and died. I tried shouting at it, prodding it with a stick and rubbing it with Vicks Vaporub, but nothing would coax it back into life. I have therefore spent the past fortnight reliving the dark and terrible era known as 2003, before I had regular internet access and had to nothing to distract myself  with except a hoop and stick and a water damaged porn mag that I found in a ditch. Luckily the computer doctor man was able to do dark science at it and it's now working fine, although the work I did beforehand must now be written off as one of the great lost works of the 21st century. Luckily my readership is largely hypothetical so this isn't much of an issue, but the lesson here - and this is really something that should be taught in schools - is save your shit regularly. 

While waiting  in digital exile I've contented myself with wandering around the real world, which is colder and offers less instant gratification. It's now officially Christmas here even though it's only fucking November and me and wor lass toddled off to see Sunderland's Christmas light's being switched on, mainly because the better half has many fond memories of the accompanying fireworks display. This year the switch was being thrown by no lesser a personage than Faye Tozer from Steps. If anybody reading this is unfamiliar with Steps or their work, think of everything that rock and roll embodies; the sex, the wit, the rebellion. Now think of the exact opposite of that. They were a group tailor made for anyone who would have loved the Bee Gees if only they weren't so damn raunchy and as such were a big hit with the pre-tween girl demographic. Unfortunately, given that the group have been inactive for about a decade and those pre-tweens have now grown up, their current potential fanbase stands at around zero (give or take a 5% margin of error). They also had a guy in the group who shortened his name to 'H' - despite the fact that his actual name is Ian Watkins - which makes me unaccountably angry. Still, Newcastle had to make do with a guy dressed up as Shrek and Durham could only rustle up one of the Chuckle Brother's hairdresser so I suppose you take what you can get. In addition to Ms Tozer we also had PC Plum from Balomory, a swing band whose name I've already forgotten, a children's choir that just stood there silently, swaying awkwardly and some bell end from local radio who could not get over the apparently inherent hilarity of the local theatre hiring actors with dwarfism for this year's production of Snow White. As with the recent illuminations, it wasn't really our thing, but we were there for fireworks, goddamit, and if that meant twiddling our thumbs through an hour of sub Cbeebies wank then so be it

Unfortunately the whimsical joy of big fuck off explosions was slightly undermined by the setting. The whole shebang took place on the site of a recently demolished leisure centre. You can kinda see the logic behind it: the city's recently acquired a large green space right in the middle of town and when you've got one of those you might as well use it for this sort of thing. Unfortunately they had made one major oversight - which I like to think only became apparent to the organisers the moment the switch was thrown - in that the green is surrounded by tall buildings on all sides. We therefore didn't so much see the fireworks as hear them. Luckily there's a path through to the a space adjacent to the launch site. Unluckily, due to ongoing building work, this path is currently only wide enough to let three people walk abreast which, given the many thousands of mackems in attendance, meant the route almost immediately bottlenecked and became impassable. It's a small wonder that nobody was hurt.

Regardless, the distant booms and occasional flash acted as a starting pistol for the run up to Christmas, that most drawn  out and tiring period of the year. I've had one, fairly abortive, attempt at starting my Christmas shopping with a day out in Newcastle. I didn't manage to find anything, but I had a sub par steak sandwich and got to see the English Defence League acting like a bunch of miserable, deluded, violent, alcoholic fuckwits. So there's that. I'm currently debating utilising the gift buying strategy of my sainted and much missed mother, wherein I just buy the first thing that I see and then retroactively decide who the gift is for. So if everybody in my  life gets an egg whisk this year, don't say I didn't warn you

The above image is another illustration for Black Hackerty's Windmill, featuring the titular windmill. As before I've added it to the extract I've got up elsewhere on the blog. Also below is a new page for Rag and Bone which continues to inch forward. Due to my recent adventures in analogue I've got a few page lined and ready to colour (although I personally find that by far the most laborious stage). It'll be in double figures before I know it.

Love and Fishes

Dave Denton

A Very Happy Unbirthday

Winter, as the Starks - when they're not being deaded - are fond of saying, is coming. I sit down at the upside down cardboard box that serves me as a desk and it's bright sunshine. Seemingly moments later I look up and it's pitch black outside, stars twinkle in the firmament and wolves (or possibly the local winos) can be heard howling at the moon.

Taking advantage of the early nights, me and the girlfriend had a looksie up Roker Illuminations the other day. In addition to being an all round cutie and sweetie, wor lass is a keen amateur photographer and was hoping to get some night time shots of some of the displays. The plan had been to go several weeks ago, but various happenings and doings kept getting  in the way. This weekend was therefore our last chance before the whole thing is moth balled for another year and so we dutifully lugged camera and assorted paraphernalia across town. Upon finding a likely looking display she then spent several minutes setting up her tripod, trying not to get jostled by the streams of event goers passing us by. Of course, this was the point where it was discovered that she'd left the camera battery at home. How we laughed.

Still, it was a pleasant night and Roker Park's a pretty, wee place so it wasn't all for naught. The whole event was themed around Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and mostly consisted of fibreglass mock ups of characters from the book, covered in lightbulbs. There was one fairly interesting display where the fountains in the park lake had been synchronised to Live and Let Die, the jets of water illuminated by coloured lights. Unfortunately the effect was marred somewhat by the fact that, presumably due to noise and nuisance laws, the music was played at such a low volume that it was pretty much drowned out by the splashing of the water. It's fair to say that the whole thing is targeted to family's with young children - who all seemed to be loving it - and was somewhat wasted on the misanthropic thirty something demographic that me and the missus represent. I do think though that it'd be worth making it a biennial thing, perhaps alternating with the similarly but astronomically more successful Durham Lumiere Festival, and using the extra time and money saved to stage something truly special.

As a quick aside, the whole Alice in Wonderland thing wasn't something pulled out the organiser's bum crack. There's quite a number of links between the book and the North East in general and Sunderland in particular. A lot of the culture and history of the area feeds directly into the book's imagery. I would whole heartedly recommend Brian Talbot's graphic novel on the subject named, somewhat inevitably, Alice in Sunderland. I have no idea if this is already common knowledge or if anyone else cares, but, hey, it interested me the first time I heard.

Up top I've added another illustration from Black Hackerty's Windmill, this time from the opening chapter. I've also added it to the text I've got up in the Werdz section of this blog and have vague, but noble, aspirations to keep adding to it until it reaches a state of demi-semi completeness at which point I'll whoop softly to myself and go back to bed. That doesn't mean I've abandoned other projects and I've just completed the line work for another page of Rag and Bone, which I should have up next week. Also, because I'm a swell guy and Halloween's just passed, here is a picture of Dracula and the Wolfman. If they owned a pet shop. And were also in love.

still a better love story than Twilight

Love and Fishes

Dave Denton

Kill Your Darlings

When I'm not waging a one man war against the criminal underworld, writing and doodling or eating raw onions by the sack load I work a fairly humdrum job at one of the UK's big six energy suppliers. As far as jobs go, it's okay, not exactly taxing or in any way fulfilling, but it keeps a roof over my head and the fridge stocked with onions. A couple of weeks ago the department I work in ran a competition to design a mascot for an ideas box, with a small cash prize thrown in to sweeten the deal. The above is my effort, who I christened Bright Spark for reasons that are so obvious it would only demean us both if I were to explain them. To my never ending surprise I actually won the thing, which was nice. By my count this marks the third time that I've actually been paid for any sort of artistic endeavour - the second being when I got a cash in hand job designing chalk advertisement boards for a Cairn's travel agent and the first when I got a £5 gift voucher for creating a comic based on the wacky shenanigans of Saint Cuthbert. My point being that in terms of writing and drawing I'm very much in the amateur bracket and any sort of recognisable success is a nice little ego boost.

However, it should be noted that I only submitted the above line art. I only added the colour after I'd been told I'd won and the entry was returned to me. The actual colour job on the official design was done by somebody else and was sent to me the other day.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. The fact that the colour scheme's completely different is neither here nor there. If anything they're broadly similar as we've both taken the fairly obvious option of basing it off the company livery. What doesn't sit quite right is that, rather than colouring beneath the line art as I did with the first image they've apparently used it as a template which they've subsequently painted over. This - in my opinion - rather arse face first way of going about things means that they've then had to redo the line work. Given that the line work is all that I submitted there's essentially very little of mine left, despite the fact that it's my name attached to it. Most of the changes are small and, I suspect, almost none (bar the distinct hairline and clip art light bulb) deliberate, but there's a lot of them and it these small things - the position, curve and weight of a line - that I work at and try to get right.

Meh. I'm getting paid, regardless, so there's no point being too much of a prima donna about it, plus I'd be lying if I said I poured my heart and my soul into it. But it irritates me slightly and if I owned a cat I would kick it*.

Love and Fishes

Dave Denton


*For the benefit of me mate's mam, who occassionally reads this, this is written entirely in jest. I in no way practice or endorse cruelty to animals, especially kitty cats, each one of which is a little furry blessing

The Dark Knight Rinses

Does anybody else forget that Channel Five is there? I seem to remember there was a time when it was the only place you could see House and in it's very earliest days it was a good place for teenage boys of the pre-broadband era to catch a fleeting glance of a lady's rudey bits, but beyond that the channel has never really provided a reason to switch over to it. I therefore cocked an eyebrow in a manner that was both roguish and quizzical when I learnt that one of the bigger American imports of the year was to be screened there. Gotham, for anyone who doesn't know, is a Batman television show minus the god-damn Batman. rather it follows a young James Gordon as he explores the city's underworld, having times and solving crimes, particularly the murder of one Thomas and Martha Wayne.

Given that the nearest thing that Batman has to a superpower is a trust fund and a willingness to punch bad guys in the throat, when you remove him from the equation what you're left with is pretty much a straight police drama. That said Gotham is hardly The Wire. While it's a million miles from the camp glory of the Adam West show the setting still has to be presented in such a way that cosplayers knocking lumps off each other at some point in the future doesn't seem too out there. A better reference point would probably be Sin City; it's dark and gritty, but its designer dark and gritty; a facsimile of tough guy tropes and detective drama archetypes. Not that this is a criticism. The 90's cartoon, which was the absolute tits, had the same sort of Diet Raymond Chandler thing going on and one of Gotham's strongest attributes is the city that frames all the running around: part 1970's New York shit-tip, part film noir sound-stage, fully realised and wonderfully timeless. It's just a shame the producers get a bit over excited and ram references to the Batman universe in your face, pulling you rather sharply out of the experience.

Ben McKenzie is strong in the lead role. Granted, he doesn't really fit my own personal idea of a young Jim Gordon, but he's got a solid, burly presence and manages to portray a moral idealist without coming over like a naive tit. I'm less enamoured with Sean Pertwee, whose geezerish take on Alfred Pennyworth just seems a bit daft, but it's early days. The child actors don't embarrass themselves The standout however is Robin Lord Taylor's Oswald Cobblepot (or the Penguin if you prefer - which he doesn't) striking a great balance clammy menace, wimpy self pity and the surly bitterness of a dog that's been kicked too much. He's repellent, but the fact that there's something intangibly off about him also makes him fascinating. He's easily the best thing about a pilot episode that is, for the most part, merely okay.

Picture pinched from Paul Hostetler over at Deviantart

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I haven't had the opportunity to read Richard Flanagan's Man Book prize winning The Narrow Road to the Deep North, although I have just finished fellow nominee Joshua Ferris's To Rise Again at a Decent Hour. The plot follows Paul O'Rourke, a dentist who is shaken out of his existential funk when a stranger begins impersonating him online and uses his identity to proselytise in the name of an obscure religion.

The conflict in the novel, such as it is, is between the protagonist's secular and spiritual side. Paul is instinctively and intellectually an atheist, yet he's aware of a gap in his life that aches like a dry socket. He tries filling the hole with various hobbies and ephemera, but ultimately finds that the banjo is no route to beatification. the problem is compounded by the fact that he lacks any sort of defined identity and he blatantly - if unconsciously - covets the sense of place and history that those around him have. This results in him trying to appropriate the cultural heritage of his various lovers. Fine. Until he starts pulling stunts like, apropos of nothing, lecturing his girlfriend's (very Jewish) uncle on the history of anti-semitism.

Cue the mysterious Seir Design, who set up a website in Paul's name, and the Ulm religion of the Amalekites, a religion which seems tailor made for a man like Paul, being both Abrahamic faith whose one and only commandment is that adherents remain sceptical of God at all times and one that provides him with an access all areas pass to a history and a culture that stretches back to biblical times (and an oppressed one to boot! That's like 75 extra points on the whiteliberalometer!). I did wonder if the Ulm religion (discussions of which take up a significant percentage of the book's word count) functions  as a sort of parody of Scientology; a quick and easy shot of significance and theological soothing for those spiritually bereft who also happen to have a lot of spare cash sloshing around their bank accounts). Ultimately though what little comfort Paul finds is not from looking inward, or even outward, but from directly in front of him. For most of the narrative Paul is utterly dismissive of social media (he consistently refers to smartphones as 'me-machines', which gets more than a little irritating towards the end) and cannot wrap his head around the fact that a client (random dickhead)  is willing to dismiss his (trained professional) advice purely on then strength of a vague, ill defined feeling of wellness, the joke being, of course, that he's just as inward looking and self obsessed as those he derides. This all builds to a moment of epiphany where  (OMG! SPOILER ALERT! LOOK AWAY NOW! DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU!) he buys a baseball cap with the logo of a bollocks sports team on it

I'm not surprised Ferris was nominated for the Booker Prize. To Rise Again at a Decent Hour is well written, pertinent and, occasionally, very funny. I'm also not surprised it didn't win either. The book is extremely digressive, wandering off into extended faux biblical passages about the history of the Amalekites, which clash with the rest of the text in terms of language and tone and act as a major drag on the narrative. There's also the fact that, as relevant and timely as Paul's pains may be, they're very much first world problems, which results in him come across a bit like Holden Caulfield going through his mid life crisis. Maybe that floats your boat and if it does all power to you, but ultimately To Rise Again at a Decent Hour feels far longer than a 340 page novel should.

Love and Fishes

Dave Denton

Busting Makes Me Feel Good

It transpires that we are under attack. I refer not to any terrorist group or  or nation state, but the army of black eyed ghost children that have apparently apparated around the world, at least according to The Daily Star. The Star is hardly a paper of record. It is a paper for those who get thinky pains when trying to read The Sun. It long ago abandoned any pretence at actual journalism in preference of regurgitating reality TV press releases, creatively interpreting human interest stories from local newspapers (Elvis impersonator skateboards down Snowdonia, that kind of thing) and, when all that's been tried, straight out fucking lying. Therefore National Enquirer-esque stories about the undead are hardly new ground and barelyworth commenting on. What is noteworthy is the way they've been hammering away at it. Over the past fortnight it's been on the front cover at least half a dozen times, probably more.

Although, to be fair, fuck all else was going on during this time

The Not Honking Around Crew

(l-r) portraits by Richard Twose, Thomas Ganter and David John Kassan

The entry's for the 2014 BP Portrait Award rolled into town on Friday. Sunderland, it turns out, is the only English city outside of London that'll be hosting the exhibition, which was rather surprising but also nice. Given that you can't really moan about there being nothing of interest in town and then not bother when something does show up, I had a wander over to the Museum and Winter gardens where it's taking place. Now, I don't know a lot about art, but I know what I like  and what I like is puppy dogs and jelly babies. Sadly, neither of those things were on offer, but the various portraits were very good also. Plus you can totally tell it's proper art because some of the models have got their boobs out. Had a wander around the rest of the museum which in addition to the usual interactive displays and wax dummies dressed as pit yakkers has a couple of pieces by Lowery and a Sikh war turban on loan from the British Museum which, at nearly two foot high, struck me as utterly impractical for fighting in, Well worth an hour or so of anybody's time, so if you find yourself in the area go have a squint.

I Am But a Man

Just a quick post made mainly out of a sense of obligation. Had very many admirable intentions this week, but these have been rendered obsolete by the betrayal of my own body as I once again succumbed to the poorly ills. I am currently rolling around, clutching my head and expunging various fluids, while those around me roll their eyes and tell me, please - just once in my life - nut the fuck up and stop being such a wimp.

Not that I've not done owt.  Of course I have. I lead an exciting and glamorous life. I've been out socialising, failing to break into hospitals and worrying sheep, because that, dear reader, is how I roll. I've also had many deep and important thoughts about how to restore legitimacy to goverment in an era of declining political participation, why it is that cows look forward to getting milked and made the absolutely hilarious observation that ISIS is both the name of a nihlistic jihadi death cult and the name of the spy agency in chucklesome American animation Archer. It's just that I currently lack the energy to write about any of this.

I also fully intended to add another page to Rag and Bone, but due to my mortal frailty managed to complete a single panel (above). I know. You're devastated. But be patient and more will follow. In the interim I'm off to find my enemies and sneeze on them

Love and Fishes

Dave Denton

It's Dangerous to go Alone

Dah duh, diddle dee dah, diddle dee dah, diddle dee dah dah dah

I wouldn't really describe myself as a gamer. I mean, I play then. I'm a young(ish) person in the early 21st century. Of course I do. But I rarely stray far from the shallows of general gamer culture and what little understanding I have of developments and issues in the industry comes from a combination of cultural osmosis and knocking around with people who actually do know their Fox McCloud's from their Naughty Dogs. This is partly down to the fact that gaming tends to be an absolutely massive time sink, time that on reflection, I would rather spend doing other things. However, one franchise that I usually will make time for is the Legend of Zelda series, which I have a huge amount of affection for. You could call this the 'dibs' principle. Links Awakening on the Gameboy was the first time I realized that a game could engage you emotionally, that it could subvert your expectations and that it could play around with themes of perception and reality*. By simple virtue of being the first game I ever played that actually bothered to throw in some art alongside the entertainment the series still holds my interest twenty plus years later. A new instalment was released on Friday, which has prompted my ramblings and the above doodles of Link, the game's protagonist.

A Parcel of Rogues

You can't go, Scotland. David Bowie will cry!

I admit, I don't spend a huge amount of time writing about things outside the realm of pop culture ephemera or my own mundane goings on. This is not because I don't have an opinion, but because those opinions are basically the equivalent of a fart in a hurricane, nobody notices them and nobody cares. Still there are big things afoot in the grown up world of current events insomuch as the state that I was born and raised in - the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland - may - depending on how the people of Scotland vote on the 18th - soon cease to exist. In its place will be an independent Scotland and whatever we decide to call the rest of the country (Rump UK / Betty and Phil's place / The Anglo-Celt Experience feat. Cornwall). Given that this is potentially the biggest constitutional shake-up this country will go through in my lifetime, I though I may at least comment on it.

Work in Progress

I've had a bit fiddle on with the blog. The eagle eyed among you will notice that there's now a button labelled Dave Stuff at the top of the page, which leads to a page from which you can navigate to various writings and drawings without trawling through endless blog archives. You may not necessarily want to, but the option now exists. There's a few bits and pieces of additional content there, which I'll be adding to over time. This addition, which I imagine most people would find ridiculously easy, has taken me a silly amount of time, proving once again that I have the same aptitude for computers as lungfish do for major league baseball. Still, God loves a trier. It's very much a work in progress, so apologies if it's all a bit scrappy looking at the minute. I'll get there in the end, even if I take the scenic route.

Reader, He Married Her

Those of you who subscribe to Vanity Fair or Tattler will of course be aware that it was the Parsons-Sewell wedding on Friday. I am lucky enough to have a long standing friendship with the groom, dating back to an incident involving some yoghurt, a hedgehog and a hilarious series of misunderstandings with the worlds angriest Yorkshireman. As such I found myself invited to the wedding of the year, which sounds  like me being snidey and facetious, but is absolutely true when framed within the context of the small monkey sphere of people I actually care about. The event also necessitated the return of one Robert. W. T. Walker from the antipodes in order to perform best man duties for the groom, who we shall call Andrew, as that is his name. This flurry of social activity is also the reason for no post last week for which I apologise.

Rag and Bone

what a cloaca

Just a quick image dump as I used up all my big words earlier in the week with the Split review thingy. Above is a joke taken from the back of a lollipop stick and below is latest strip doo-dah, now with the provisional working title of Rag and Bone (Whaddya mean 'that's awful'. You're awful). At some point I'll set up a separate page so that pages can be viewed in sequence without pissing about scrolling through blog archives.

Should be away on a stag do next weekend. Don't know what's happening yet. Maybe's a few pints down the town, maybes hunting the most dangerous game of all (Man. Or crocogators). Either way, the groom's getting something rude felt tipped on his face

Love and Fishes

Dave Denton

Make Like a Banana

Apparently the Saturday leg of the Split Festival was a huge success. Dizzee Rascal killed it and the weather was glorious. Naturally, thanks to Hurrican Bertha, when me and wor lass showed up for the Sunday leg, it was pissing down. However, because we are not only culturally voracious young things about town, but also well 'ard, we were never going to let such a small thing as a little precipitation deter us. Review below.

Backpack Wankers

There are certain types of film that have a tendency towards shitness; video-game adaptations, films centered around sports that aren't boxing and anything that's ever been described as 'like x but on acid'. Another is spin off of British TV comedy. The Harry Hill Movie, Kevin and Perry Go Large, Keith Lemon; these films aren't just bad, but offensively bad. One surprising exception to this was The Inbetweeners movie from a few years back, which was not only a success, but its apparently the most successful British comedy film of all time. Granted, it wasn't earth shakingly brilliant, or even on par with the best episodes from the series that spawned it, but it was a laugh and given the numbers involved there was always going to be a sequel, which has now arrived. Hence review.

We All Scream

I like to think I have many talents. Today I learnt that eating an ice cream cone with anything approaching dignity is not amongst them. It started well. Me and the better half were enjoying a preamble along Seaburn beach and decided to round off a pleasant morning with the ingestion of frozen treats. The problem started when I became aware of the tell tale drip--drip-drip of melting on my hand. I tried to ignore it, but the trickle soon became a sticky torrent, coating my hand and making the cone soggy. There then followed a very real  moment of terror when I realised that the structural integrity of the cone was fatally compromised and urgent action was required - not shortly, not in a moment - but right this fucking second. Dutifuly I rammed the thing into my mouth, managing to get ice cream and monkey blood over my chin, cheeks and nose in the process. I was no longer deriving any actual pleasure from the thing and attacked the rapidly disintegrating mess with a frantic mechanical motion, a look of grim determination that I suspect was completely inappropriate for the task in hand. Luckily me and the missus (who incidentally encountered  no such problems) were in a place where no one else could see me make a spectacle of myself, otherwise I suspect I would be single right now.

Colour Me Badd

In order to break away from my crippling addiction to making terrible cartoons like the above I took part in the Sunderland Color Run last week*. The idea, which I'm sure even the slowest thinking of you has guessed, is that you run around a circuit while overly enthusiastic young people throw coloured dye at your person.

Awesome Squiggle Words

click to embiggen

Just for shits and giggles I've set myself a challenge. By challenge, I don't mean anything that could lead to personal growth or have any sort of beneficial ramifications. I won't be learning a new language, mastering a musical instrument or forcing myself to talk to new people rather than throw bricks at them. Rather I'll be writing and illustrating a short piece of sequential art, which is basically just an extension of what I do anyway. The narrative functions as a sort of prequel to The Great British Novel I've been trying and failing to write, which is pretty much the only reason the action's set in 1975 (although it does have the benefit of doing away with modern suspense fiction's greatest enemy: the mobile phone). Above is my first effort. You will note that one of the kids wears a bobble hat. This may prove to be very important later on (it won't). I've no title at present, not even a working one, so for now I'll just refer to it as Awesome Squiggle Words*.

I'm not committing to any sort of update schedule as I've played that game before and lost badly, but will be farting them out as and when in between the usual shite. It's highly conceivable that I will be distracted by pretty colours or an old man selling magic beans and thus never finish it, but given that I don't see this running any longer than 30 odd pages, it seems borderline achievable.

Charity run tomorrow. While the godless south basks in a heatwave, it's piddling it down up here. I care not. If necessary, I'll swim to the finish line

Love and Fishes

Dave Denton

* Which, you would assume, would make that the working title. However, for reasons that I am far, far too intelligent and important to go into, you'd be wrong.

Future Imperfect

Hey! Manic Street Preachers have a new album out. What do you mean, you don't care? Of course you do. It's the Manics. The last great literary rock band! They had a number one about the Spanish Civil War! No. Not 'Fernando'. That was Abba. The other one. You still don't care? Well, sod you, chum! It's my blog and I'll write about what I want. Review below.

We Went on Holiday by Mistake

Painting not by me (you can tell because it's good) but by Venus Griffiths

A couple of years ago The Idler released one of those banged out in time for Christmas, read it on the toilet kind of books simply titled Crap Towns. As the name suggests it was basically a compendium of  the less than desirable settlements within Britain accompanied by rants that were - theoretically - amusing, but too often degenerated into former students curling their lips at chavs eating chips instead of, say, foie gras. Sunderland, where I currently hang my hat,was top three. Middlesbrough, where the Denton half of my family hale from, also managed a solid top ten placing. Without wishing to be cruel, while I could argue the case for either town, the placing wasn't particularly surprising, given that they have both become synonymous with northern England's post industrial malaise.  What was surprising was the inclusion of my mother's home town, Cleator Moor, near the bottom of the top fifty. Not that the place is particularly glamorous. It's a small, fairly workaday former industrial town in West Cumbria. I only really know two vaguely interesting facts about the place, beyond  me mam being from there. One: LS Lowery sometimes visited the area. Family legend says that the guy actually sketched me mam as she played in the street and then presented her with the drawing. When me granda John heard this he promptly interpreted it as one of the dirty mac brigade perving on children and proceeded to throw the work of one of the twentieth century's greatest popular artists in the fire with a promise that if he caught the filthy bugger lurking around his kids again he would kick seven shades out of him. I have no idea if all that is true at all, but I very much want it to be. Two: kangol hats  (Y'know, the ones that Samuel L. Jackson wore circa Jackie Brown) were originally made there. Oh, and Three: The town experienced sectarian riots in 1871. So that's three facts about Cleator Moor I know, which isn't, I admit, much of a rebuttal to any accusations of crapness (especially when one of the facts I've offered up is historical religious bigotry).

What I would argue is a tick in the pro Cleator column is the town's setting. The lake district is one of the more beautiful parts of this country. As a kid I never really appreciated it, associating it with long drives, pissing down rain and me grandma's pathological desire to feed me and my siblings with as much stodge as possible. Now, as an adult, I've a much more developed feel of what a special place it is. Mountain, sky and water form a landscape that is serene yet dramatic, natural yet otherworldly. Or, to paraphrase Billy Connolly describing the similarly pretty Scottish Highlands to his children: Sky! Mountains! Nice! Now repeat after me: Ooh! Aaah! Nice!

Me and the better half took advantage of the weather and time off work to visit Keswick mid week. If you've never been it's a postcard pretty town on the Derwent Water and surrounded on all sides by hills and mountains, very touristy, but small enough that it's not obnoxiously so. A very lovely time was spent walking the area and exploring the various shops, museums and galleries in the town. It was not without cost however. My girlfriend, not as given to tromping round as me, ended up with mangled and blistered feet. But we've spoken with the country's top doctors and she will be walking again in time for charity run in a couple of weeks.

The William Wordsworth poem 'I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud' was inspired when, walking along Ullswatter, he rounded a corner and was confronted by thousands of daffodils swaying in the breeze. I had a similar experience when, walking along the Derwent water, I rounded a corner and was confronted by hundreds of ducks, also swaying in the breeze*. Both William and myself, separated by miles and centuries, but linked by a shared moment of pantheistic awe, stopped short, muttered to ourselves 'man, that sure is a lot of daffodils/ducks,' and, filled with a white hot burst of creativity, grabbed our notebooks and bled poetry onto the page. My effort is below.

Puddleduck

I wish I were a little duck

I'd float around - it wouldn't suck

I wouldn't miss those things I'd lack,

'Cause I could swim and fly and quack

I would dine on bread and fishes

Dine on me? I'd be delicious! 

I'm sure you'll agree, it is a masterpiece. You can probably google Wordsworth's effort. Whatevs. I've always been more of a Coleridge man.  Oh, and here's another illustration thingummy from Stitchskin, shorn of any context that might provide it with meaning.

Love and Fishes

Dave Denton

*Do ducks sway? yes. They do. Shut the duck up.

I've Decided to Become a Mensch

I drew the above after watching Billy Wilder's 1960 film The Apartment for the 9 billionth time. Despite what my efforts may indicate, the film is not a B movie horror about a sex pest with no peripheral vision who is murdered in an elevator by faceless ghouls, rather it is satire cum romantic comedy in which office drone CC Baxter - played by the late, great Jack Lemmon- advances up the corporate ladder by allowing his superiors to use his apartment to have it away with ladies who are very definitely not their wives. Hilarity ensues when his CEO makes use of this set up to get his sleaze on with the lady of Baxter's dreams, the very lovely Miss Kubelik, as played by the very lovely Shirley MacLaine.

Despite a lot of the references now being dated beyond belief (elevator girls/typing pools/Noo Yoik taxi drivers referring to people as "Mac") the film still feels relevant, given that it's essentially about allowing yourself to be debased in a soul crushing job in order to get on in life, which last I checked was still a thing. It's hardly an obscure film - it usually crops up in those 100 greatest films ever lists that are periodically published, but going off my own experience it's one that's passed a lot of people by and tends not to be talked about a lot, so I'm talking about it now. Think of it as an analogue version of Mike Judge's Office Space, only with better leads and no scene where three guys go gangsta on a photocopier. It is my very favourite film and if you haven't already seen it then I would  highly recommend you do so

We celebrated me dad's 60th over the weekend. Among other thing we got him giant helium filled balloons in the shape of a 6 and an 0. We will now hold onto them till they can be re-utilised when his 90th rolls round. Next week me and the missus are off up the lake district. I'll bring you all some kendal mint cake back

Love and fishes

All Men Must Die: Game of Thrones Season 4 Review

Warning, the below assumes you've watched seasons 1-3 of Game of Thrones so, yeh knaa, spoilers

"What was it all about?" Tyrion Lannister asks his brother at one point in season four of Game of Thrones. He's referring to a long dead cousin, Orson, who suffered from brain damage and whose favourite, indeed sole, pastime was crushing beetles with rocks. The gratuitous, methodical and utterly pointless killing apparently provoked an existential crisis in the young Lannister and he relates how he devoted all his time and energy to determining why his cousin felt compelled to smash insects into paste. He never gets an actual answer, but, it is inferred, it's the same reason that some men beat, kill, steal and rape. Because they can. Because they have a rock and you do not. Because they are large and others are small. And this, to get back to the original question, is what Game of Thrones is all about.  To say that power is tempting is obvious bordering on trite. But what George RR Martin conveys is that it's the application of power (the ability to impose your will on others) that's intoxicating, rather than the trappings (wearing a shit metal hat and sitting on the worlds most uncomfortable chair) and that it follows its own pitiless, remorseless logic, spurring the user on to ever greater brutality in an effort to fill the vacuum created by their own ability to act. The violence depicted in the series is brutal, ugly and very rarely satisfying-

Except this. Whoever made this made the most satisfying thing ever

-but it's a feels like a faithful representation of power politics which, when you strip out all the fancy words and dynastic posturing, ultimately boils down to one man twatting another man over the head until he does what he's told. Thankfully, for the most part, we follow the bludgeonees rather than the bludgeoners - the bastards, cripples and broken things that are as near as this setting gets to heroes - thereby preventing the show from being depressing as all hell.

Given the somewhat high mortality rate in Westeros more and more of the focus is on the younger cast members. They are, for the most part, excellent. Props to Alfie Allen, who at one point plays a dude, who thinks he's another dude, playing a dude, all the while trying not to think about how he now lacks that part of the anatomy normally associated with dudes.You do wonder if Jack Gleeson will spend the rest of his life reminding people that he is not in fact a homicidal, odious little turd who gets his jollies murdering prostitutes, or if Kit Harrington will forever be condemned to having complete strangers inform him that he 'knurrs nuffin.'

The standout performance is Peter Dinklage however. Compare with the Xmen film, where his primary character trait was having a sweet moustache here he's given much more to work with. We've spent three seasons with the character not only surviving within a system inherently prejudiced against him, but thriving. Now, when the powers that be really start sticking the boot in, we see him first reduced to the shell of a man, before lashing out with a lifetimes worth of stored venom. Over the final few episodes we pass through defiance, hope, despair and gallows humour, before staggering towards the final confrontation of the season, a man with not a single fuck left to give. All that's missing at the end of it is a mic drop. Good stuff.

It's not all good. There's a lot of plates to keep spinning and it's unsurprising that some wobble. Both individual episodes and the series in general are heavily weighted in terms of action towards the last third.This results in a lot of what can only be described, for want of a better term, as pootling about in the early and middle stages. Season 3 ended with Stannis (the Mannis) Baratheon realising that shit is about to get super real beyond the wall in the far north and he needs to get up there and start knocking heads together, like, yesterday. Cut to this season where he spends nine tenths of the time sitting with his lip out and giving Ser Davos (The inexplicably loyal Gromit to his dour, gloomy Wallace) the stink eye for failing to magically produce an army out of his bum, before finally remembering he's got some ass to kick in the final episode. The numerous plot cul de sacs and shaggy dog tales rob certain plot strands of any tension, such as the Jon Snow/Ygritte romance, while turning others, like Bran and chums quest for the magic pigeon, into a bit of a trudge.  At one point Arya Stark (Little Miss Mentalist) breaks down into manic laughter after being told that (metaphorically) your princess is in another castle. As an audience member, it's easy to sympathise.

Not that this is anything but the mildest of criticisms. Travelling round with Arya and the Hound, kicking ass and eating chicken is a fun way to kill time. But there's the nagging feeling that despite some fairly momentous goings on in this season we're broadly at the same place we were at the end of season two, with Daenerys Targaryen to the east being all Mother of Dragons and that, the white walkers to the north, wondering whether to finally get off the pot or shit and a major part of the kingdom presumably about to go apeshit due to the deadification of a prominent noble. The difference this time around is that, following the events of this season, many of the people remotely qualified to deal with things should the hammer drop are either dead or on the run. Roll on 2015.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I did start on a cartoon to accompany the above but real life got in the way, by which I mean I drank a litre of Um Bongo and gin and passed out in the park. I may add it at a later date, at which point I will make like Stalin and edit the above text to suggest it was always there. In the interim, and sticking with the GoT thing, I suggest you check out the Beautiful death website. It's not only neat, it's also swell.

Oh look, the cartoon that was always there is still there. How nice.

Back in the real world me, my lady love and my sister will be participating in the Sunderland Color Run come 20th July. Me and our kid are running simply for the honour and glory of our family name (Our house sigil: The startled badger. Our house motto: 'I'd give it five minutes if I was you'). Wor lass, however, is raising funds for South Tyneside Women's Aid, a charity that, among other things, provides refuge for women fleeing domestic violence. Assuming you're not reading this from the future, please feel free to make the world an ever so slightly less shitty place and donate here.

Love and Fishes

Dave Denton

The Trouble With Arsenal is That They Always Try to Just walk It In

I'd say that Chris O'Dowd* is my spirit animal, but I'm A) probably too old to get away with saying things like that and B) fairly certain that's the plot of Moone Boy

Some of the more culturally astute of you will have noticed that the World Cup's on. For those of you not in the know, this is a associated football competition contested by various nationalities including, but by no means limited to, the French. The last team standing at the end of the tournament is presented a golden ice cream truck by Dame Helen Mirren and given a lovely sloppy kiss and a high five. All the other teams have to call the winners 'Sir' and make them sandwiches for a year, at which point we go through the whole shebang again. This year the tournament's being held in Brazil who are celebrating the universal appeal and uniting power of the game by flattening poor communities and shooting protesters in the face.

Despite what the above inanity may suggest, I am actually quite fond of the World Cup. I like the spectacle, the sense of occasion and the little men running around and kicking balls. I even like the fact that something about Phil Neville's commentary on the BBC puts me in mind of a robot struggling to process the concept of love. You could argue that the Premier League provides the same sort of thing, but closer to home. But there are those of us out there who support solid, but not particularly glamorous teams like Middlesbrough who aren't in the premiership and so it's nice to have an international tournament every couple of years, even if it's awarded by a governing body as irredeemably corrupt as FIFA. 

What I've never been particularly boshed with is the whole three lions shite that often rears its head around this time. Don't get me wrong, I like England. I keep most my stuff there, the weather's unlikely to kill you and bacon sandwiches are plentiful and easy to come by. But nothing can persuade me to view twenty two men kicking a ball around as anything more than an entertaining distraction, as opposed to a re-staging of the battle of Agincourt, our hopes, dreams and aspirations hanging on the result. There's nowt wrong with a bit of enthusiasm, of course, but we seem to expect what is, at the end of the day, a game to somehow embody the nation, which ends up being just a teensy bit reductive as you've effectively condensed an entire national history to what the lizard brain of a terminally drunk football fan can still remember around around the eight pint mark. You can see why the Scots get arsey.  

Thankfully, mainly due to the national team being a bit on the green side this time round, expectations are much lower than normal this year and the resulting coverage has bordered on the sane. The Sun newspaper has made a token effort though, sending out a free advertisement newspaper, headlined 'This Is Our England' with a Sgt Peppers type collage of what it presumably believes are pre-eminent examples of English greatness. This is the kind of thing the paper always does, taking broadly popular cultural reference points and appropriating them, as if it itself was in some way responsible for Only Fools and Horses and The Beatles. Depressingly noteworthy was the sheer ball shrivelling banality of most of the choices. There are, let me be clear, many reasons I love England and am grateful that I was born here. James Corden and Simon Cowell are not amongst them. 

I was also interested to read about the brief shitstorm that hit Ed Miliband when the daft tit agreed to pose for a deeply unflattering photo holding the aforementioned shite rag, thereby offending the entirety of Merseyside (incidentally, when did we become okay with our senior politicians shilling for private companies in order to help them shift product?).  It generally seems to be accepted that the Labour leader's dropped a bit of a bollock over the issue, which I tend to agree with, but surely he's not the one who's come out looking the worst out of all this, given that it's prompted discussion of why this was considered such a faux pas in the first place. It's reminded people that The Sun, a paper that presumes to speak for the English working class, saw fit to slander Liverpool fans (the majority of whom are, erm, English and working class) in the most vicious manner possible  in the wake of the Hillsborough disaster, only offering an almost apology decades later. Amazingly, following Miliband's apology, this morning's editorial (The link leads to another blog discussing the issue. The paper itself exists behind a pay wall) managed over a 100 words of self righteous outrage without once even hinting at why so many in one of Britain's most important cities wont even wipe their arse with the paper, instead framing the controversy as the leader of Her Majesty's Opposition suffering some sort of patriotism cringe. 

So remember: overly enthusiastic, ever so slightly forced love of football is good and natural and proper. Actually giving a shit about the lives of football fans and their families is very, very bad and evidence you hate this country and should probably fuck off to Russia. 

Sod it, I'm off to watch the second half of France v Honduras and have a pie. Here's another character sketch from that thing what I writes.

This one has a moustache.

Love and Fishes

Dave Denton

*Yes, that's meant to be Chris O'Dowd on the left. Shut up.

Tobias P Hump

Tobias P Hump sat there in a grump

His mouth hanging down near his knees,

His face like a midden – always a given -

A man that nobody could please.

He thought of the world and his lip curled

A frown settled across his face

His thinking was that all people were crap

Regardless of age, sex or race.

A November moon shone into the room

He realised he should head to bed

'Thank Christ that's all passed,' said Toby, downcast

Then added, 'I wish I were dead.'

Suddenly, BOOM! Light filled the room

Much to our Toby's surprise.

His bottom jaw, smacked off the floor.

He couldn't quite believe his eyes

There, robed in white, surrounded by light

One he didn't expect to see

(At least in this life) for it was his wife

The previously dead Deirdre

'Deirdre! Me lover! Significant other!

You've come for me! Oh, rapture! Oh, bliss!

I'm sure that you know, I'm ready to go

There's nowt left for me here that I'll miss'

'Divvant be daft,' ghost Deirdre laughed.

'Now shurrup and hear what I say.

You've a little more life, to try make things right

Don't wish those last few years away'

'But this worlds a dump,' wailed old Toby Hump

I'm knackered, Dee, near eighty seven

I'm done with this place. I've ran me last race.

I'm ready to join you in heaven'

'Toby, in life, I was your wife

And it behoves me to just let you know

You're never not cross and it's pissed off The Boss,

So you're off to the hot place below.'

'But how can this be? You don't really mean me?'

Tobias cried out in dismay

'I'm well behaved. I should be saved.

I ain't foreign, a commie or gay!'

'But don't you see hin'? It's that kind of thing

There's no love in a man who just hates.

Please see the light, and live your life right

Or you wont fit through the pearly gates'

Said Tobe, all a twitter, 'it's age made me bitter.

Me soul darkened even as me hair greyed.

And ain't it the truth, good's easy in youth?

Now I'm old, and I'm lost and afraid.'

'Don't talk out yer bum, you never was young,'

Scolded Deirdre before he could hug her.

'You know that I knew twenty year old you

You were still a cantankerous bugger

'Now, I must leave, so, please love, Take heed

and use your time left here to do right.'

Then, with a sigh, she waved him goodbye

And faded into the moonlight.

Tobias P Hump sat, shoulders slumped

Trying to process what just occurred.

It probably sounds strange, but he'd no wish to change

He'd continue to hate, undeterred.

For while it was true, Tobias Hump knew

That he really should change for his soul's sake

It would take lots of graft and he couldn't be faffed

It sounded too much of a ball ache.

___________________________________________________

The opening few lines of the  above rhyme - I hesitate to refer to it as poetry - is one of those phrases that's been rattling round in my head for a good wee while. Whether or not it really needed to be expanded to sixteen stanzas I'm unsure, but I did. So there it is. Also, here's a doodle of Delirium from Neil Gaiman's Sandman, because why the hell not.

If you're in the mood for a more elegant use of words and pictures I did come across a short comic strip by a feller named Jeff McComsey, that I thought was reasonably nifty, depicting the fight between Oberyn and the Mountain from Game of Thrones last week (Warning: Spoilers. Obviously).

Love and Fishes

Dave Denton