Spring has finally sprung here in sunny, sunny Sunderland. Windows have been thrown and coats have been cast off. The air is filled with music and the sea has transformed from its usual sludgy grey colour to an inviting, sparkly blue. Pigeon chested young boys and wrinkly old men alike have stripped to the waist and are parading round the town in a manner that is making the rest of us feel slightly queasy. And once again my head is spinning as I grapple with the realisation that if I want to sit in the park, read and eat ice cream then I bloody well can, because I'm a goddamn adult and can eat as much goddamn ice cream as I feel like, so shut up. Happily for me the good weather has coincided with a weeks leave from work, meaning I find myself in the happy situation of having nothing to do and a whole lot of time in which to do it. I have no responsibilities beyond vague ambition to put my flat in some semblance of order and a not particularly anticipated visit to the doctors in the next few days (It transpires I require a handsomectomy as, apparently, I have been handsoming for far too long and far too hard*).
There's also the Euro elections later in the week. Normally my interest in these would hover just above the nil mark, if for no other reason than round these parts you could pin a red rosette to a three legged dog and it'd win. This year however there is the rise of UKIP to contend with, a party that feel the need to tell people, unprompted, they are non racist and then proceed to run an election campaign based on foreigners coming over here and taking our jobs and about how discomforting it is when swarthy gentlemen move in next door to you. Depressingly, despite coming on like the political wing of the Daily Mail, it looks like they might actually win the thing, which, given they have no sitting MP's and were unheard of ten years ago is admittedly impressive, but ultimately depressing, like knocking yourself out with the smell of your own farts. Most people seem to be putting it down to a stick-it-to-the-man/a-plague-on-both-your-houses sentiment amongst the electorate (that, perhaps ironically, appears to be Europe wide), because nothing says anti-establishment like a party led by the white, middle aged, privately educated son of a stock broker. Frustratingly attempts to engage, reason and debate have been few and far between, with too many attempts to counter the party boiling down to drawing attention the fact that UKIP has a lot of reactionary nutters in its ranks, which is as much news as Noah building an ark, and is too easily dismissed as smears by the 'LibLab Con' (a phrase so steeped in fuckwittery that I actually got slightly angry typing it). It was therefore somewhat gratifying to listen to a rather prickly interview that Nigel Farage did with LBC where he was subjected to the sort of aggressive grilling that, rightly or wrongly, we should expect to be given to any party leader. More of this, please. But next time try to bring in the utter bollocks that is their economic policy.
The above doodle is for a story I've been working on, provisionally titled Stitchskin. I write "working on" as if there is any other state my various projects ever exist in. My own, ever evolving, standards coupled with the fact that I write at the same speed that old folk make love means that I've been on with it for fucking ever, a Sisyphusean task that'd be utterly dispiriting if I didn't take joy from the act of creation. Common sense tells me to put the whole thing aside and maybe try my hand at something else, like, perhaps, joinery. However, like a loose flap of skin on the roof of my mouth, I find myself unable to forget it or leave it alone. Maybe some day it'll get it'll reach a state of demi-semi completeness and I'll be able to get it out there. Until that time it's a good source of inspiration as any when I'm looking for something to draw. Below is another picture of the protagonist (Meg Thomas. In case you care. I suspect you don't) done way back when. Because why not?
Love and Fishes
Dave Denton
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