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
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