You may have read in the papers - right after the endless stories about how Jeremy Corbyn cloned Lenin and then totally did it with him while flipping off the queen - that I have finally finished the zoetrope I was working on. The above represents the remainder of the images used in the final thingamajig (well, there are over a dozen variations on the first image - the first frame of the animation inside the internal drum - each minutely dfferent from the last - but I think I can sppare you them) . Does it work? Am I happy with it? Yes and yes. Now let us never speak of it again. Also there's another page of Rag and Bone because that's still stumbling on.
I've actually enrolled on an art course at my local college in an effort to improve my basic fundamentals, give me a grounding in different mediums and get me out of the house and away from the accusing voices that haunt my empty hours. I do worry that there might be a bit too much emphasis on the fundamentals. Last week I drew a pyramid. This week; spheres.
Until a guy called the Joker startedmessing things up
And he did it while dressed as a clown.
The Joker was hired to kill our friend, Bats
At the behest of some dudes in the mob.
For crime was tired of being thumped in the mouth
Every time they went out on the rob.
They first fought one night during a soiree
And some poor buggers car got all bent.
Things then got worse! A hospital blew up!
Then Joker did a number on Dent
Bat finaly collared Joker one night
When trying to blow up some boats
The clown hit the bat in the face with a pipe
'I've beat you, you pansy' he boasts
But bats isn't beaten, he throws the crook off
And show him that crime doesn't pay
And Joker falls down, to certain death
And he did it while laughing away
But Batman lassoed him, before he went splat
And clown prince of crime hung there smiling
This joke's not funny, Batman decides,
So he hoyed the sod in Arkham Asylum
The people of Gotham still despair of Bruce Wayne,
They wish he would do something right
This is because they are kept in the dark
That Bruce Wayne is Gotham's Dark Night
The above was written as an attempt to teach a class of thirteen years olds about the ballad format of poetry, with various stanza's containing inciting incidents, rising action etc. etc. You probably didn't cotton on to this, but the plot is cribbed from Christopher Nolan's little known indie hit The Dark Night. I could tell by the faces of the children that they all thought I was a super cool guy, with great hair, who probably owns a kantana and is the best at swimming. Unfortunately I later decided that teaching is not for me, mainly as I cannot speak in front of a large group of people - even when those people are in a pupal state - without my voice rising three octaves and sweating profusely. Ho hum. The academic sector's loss is the soul crushing customer service industry's gain.
More recently the Alice in Sunderland project inches along, latest effort below:
For the remainder of this week I have been shaking my head in wearied horror at the shenanigans around the Labour leadershp election, trying to halt the decline in my physical state by lifting heavy things up and down and spendingmy valuable alone time pretending to be a cowboy complete with spit bucket and assless chaps.
Another image for the Alice in Sunderland themed Zoetrope thing that I'm working on. I'm currently with struggling with how to get the bastard zoetrope thing to turn, however it has now occurred to me that I don't have to. All I need to do is get anyone observing it to run around the stationary images at a fast enough speed of 24 frames per second. This one conflating the Carrol poem Jabberwocky, with the North Eastern folk ballad The Lanbton Worm. For the record I'm far from being the first person in the world to make this link, so it's not like I'm just pullling it out me arse. The structure in the image is not the Acropolis but Penshaw monument, a Victorian folly that sits on a hill near Washington that the worm is meant to have wrapped itself around. Like all follies, the monument has never fulfilled any actual function beyond looking vaguely impressive and acting as a geographical point of reference when your a bit discombobulated. As I write this it occurs that I've never actually been up to see it, which I really should rectify at some point.
Spent yesterday building sandcastles on the beach. It should be noted at this point that I do not have or am in any way associated with any young children. The whole thing was done at the behest of my thirty something girlfriend, whose enthusiams for the whole thing didn't stop her insisting that I go on her behalf to purchase a (Mr Man themed) bucket and spade. Joke's on her though as my sandcastle was blatantly better than hers, mainly thanks to clever use of my Little Miss Sunshine sand rake to form a drawbridge. Scintillating stuff.
I'm currently working on an Alice in Wonderland themed zoetrope, because that is what Jesus would want me to do. Actually its more to do with the 150th anniversary of the books for which local big wigs have asked for submissions in any artistic medium around the theme of Alice in... wait for it... Sunderland. My thinking is that a zoetrope (it's an early animation thingamajig. You'd know one if you saw one) is a more interesting submission than just a picture of the of the mad hatter and march hare, blaked on Frosty Jack and screaming at seagulls. Also it's a fun word to say.
As I've mentioned before the North East has numerous connections to the artist formerly known as Dobson's Victorian masterpiece. Most of these links are highly tangential. In the case of Bryan Talbot's graphic novel Alice in Sunderland that's kinda the point - that everything is connected to everything else and that every community has a wealth of culture and history, often of national or even global significance, if you care to look for it. The local authority appear to have taken this as a starting point and ran with it, leading to the slightly eyebrow raising implication that Carroll's book has the same sort of relationship with the North East as the works of the Bronte's have with Yorkshire or Hardy's to the West Country. Which is bollocks, but understandable given that Wonderland is one of the biggest literary brands this side of Narnia,
The below are works in progress intended to go on the outside of the device, with the inside showing a short animation of Alice falling down the rabbit hole. In case you're wondering, I''ve sacked off the traditional appearance of Alice with blonde hair and blue dress as i wanted to have the city colours of red, white and black prominent and also because I figured she'd be easier to animate in keks. If you're unfamiliar with Sunderland landmarks such as Roker pier and Wearmouth bridge, let me assure you that I've got them spot on and you should be well impressed.
A week last Thursday saw the launch of the first Sunderland Short Film Festival, a sister festival to the already established Washington DC event. I like to consider myself something of an aficionado of the silver screen being a fully paid up member of the Billy Zane fanclub and having seen almost all of the Police Academy movies and so duly toddled down to the first screening being held at Sunderland Minster. Given that the thing had barely been promoted and nobody I spoke to in the days leading up to it was even vaguely aware of the its existence the capacity audience was a pleasant surprise, as was the free popcorn and Indian street food, As well as the eight or so screenings there was also speeches from councillors, the US festival's currator (who put me in mind of Vince Gilligans slightly camp uncle) and a peformance by the band Lilliput, who kinda passed me by when I saw them at last years Split festival, but here, at much closer quarters, made a much more positive impression.
The festival lasted four days, but lack of coinage and real world commitments meant I was unable to attend every screening, although I did go to the announcement of the festival winners, this time held at the city's software centre, which it must be said is considerably less dramatic or evocative location, feeling as it does like what it is: a clean and modern, but utterly unremarkable office building. Of course its about what you see rather than where you see it and of the entries that I managed to catch all were at least interesting with most being very good. The eight winners - who each received a years supply of gravy and bus money home - are below (links to films, trailers and clips in title -where I've been able to find them):
Best Drama -I'm in the Corner with Bluebells (Ako Mitchell) - Drama about two biological siblings meeting for the first time as adults and immediately feeling an intense sexual attraction. The (somewhat squicky) subject matter is sensitively handled with the nature of the situation revealed to the audience through pregnant pauses and awkward glances rather than anything too on the nose. Very well acted and beautifully shot.
Best Foreign Film - Dinner's Served (Tony Partamian) - Armenian (I think) story of an ageing couple preparing for their (I guess) children to return to the nest for (presumably) Christmas. Unfortunately the screen was angled in such a way that the subtitles were obscured by the various bonces of the front row. Much as it pains me to admit it, my Armenian is somewhat sub par, so I feel unable to provide any sort of informed judgement on what I'm sure was a wonderful work.
Best Art Film -Intrinsic Moral Evil (Harm Weistra) - Interpretive dance piece about church classification of homosexuality as a sin. Normally I'd wonder what the point is of putting a stage-bound medium on film, though there's enough cinematic flourishes to justify the use of the medium. S'alreet. Definitely at the more abstract end of the spectrum..
Best Documentary - The Reinvention of Normal - (Liam Saint-Pierre) - Lovely documentary following Dominic Wilcox, an inventor who's work revolves around challenging perceptions of what constitutes normal - such as a device that transfers sounds from your left to your right ear an vice versa. I loved the use of animated interludes and the note of disappointment in Wilcox's father's voice when he says that his son is going to forgo the family business to spend his time creating toothbrush maracas.
Best Sci-Fi/Horror - The Herd - (Melanie Light) - Horror about trafficked women. I'm sure it's brilliant, but the organisers were unable to screen it due to the presence of a minor in the audience. The little shit.
Best Animation - Late (Christi Bertelsen) - US animation about losing your keys/phone/bus pass take on a life of their own. Not the most incisive observation perhaps, but there's a definite charm to the animation.
Best Comedy - After Eric: Part of that World (Marcus J Richardson) Mockumentary following Ariel (of The Little Mermaid fame) a few years after she left the sea. Less Walt Disney and more Jeremy Kyle, Ariel is now depresssed, single (Her lover couldn't handle people yelling "fish fucker" at him) and desperate. Her health's declining and her waist expanding ("Y'see I used to go swimming all the time" she explains). It's genuinely funny with a nice melancholy undertone and enough subdued criticism of the occasionally horrendous morals of its source material to make it interesting. How the film, and its score in particular, has escaped the attention of the notoriously litigation happy Disney company I'll never know.
Audience Favourite Award - Stephen Caught a Star (Michiel ten Kleij) Dutch fantasy film about a little boy's flights of fancy which are, in part, a coping mechanism to deal with the breakdown in his parent's marriage. The film contains one trope that has never really worked for me - the parent who is bafflingly aghast that a small children has an active imaginations - but leaving that aside, I love me some whimsy which this had in spades along with some very high production values.
Best Regional Film or Geet Canniest FillumRoad(Robert Carr) A man wakes up on an empty road, shoeless and with no recollection of how he got there. With no other options presenting themselves he begins to head down the road, hoping for answers. It's a nice set up which wasn't, in my opinion, matched by its pay off. Still some of the imagery is striking and imaginative. The guy who made it also looks sickeningly young.
I originally meant to post the above a week ago, however real life drama reared it's ugly, invidious head and so I've been sufficiently delayed that I might as well mention another festival thingummy that took place the other day; the Sunniside Live Festival. For those unfamiliar with the area, Sunniside gardens is the historical centre of the city which was redeveloped a few years ago in the hopes of establishing it as a cultural quarter. Unfortunately, due to its perceived isolation from the rest of the city centre, a proliferation of halfway houses, hostels and needle exchanges immediately adjacent and the generally shitty economic climate of the last few years, its highly underused save for skateboarding yoofs and the perpetually refreshed (or piss artists, to put it crassly). Which is a shame as, as it stands, it is by far the best looking part of the city and a lot of time, money and effort has been spent restoring it. Hence Sunniside Live, a free music event put on by local artist and businesses to draw people into the area and remind them that there's more to the town than betting shops, Greggs and Poundlands. The event can also be seen as a scaled back replacement for the very much missed Split festival, giving local artists a platform to reach new audiences.
Unfortunately I missed Social Room, who got a place on the bill by virtue of winning a battle of the bands. Since then I've listened to a couple of their tracks via the wonder of Youtube and there's a lot to like, the lead singer's got a good voice if nowt else. Hopefully hear more of them in the future.
To be honest a lot of the acts prior to the headliners seemed to fall into the professional karaoke category, while Olivia Lawson, from The Voice, sounded a bit crap from where I was sitting. The event didn't really get started until Hyde and Beast took the stage just as the weather seemed to be taking a turn for the worse. The band remain as tight as a nut, with a knack for a catchy tune and lovely harmonies. Being completely honest, the band's Randy Newman by way of The Beatles sound, as undeniably well done as it is, isn't something I'm automatically drawn to, although the noticeably rockier and lead track off their upcoming EP definitely is and sounds like it's going to be worth looking out for.
Bill topping duties went to local good eggs Frankie & the Heartstrings The Heartstrings have never really impressed me on record (that is, prior to their just released third record, Decency which I'm still digesting, but so far has done a much better job of grabbing me). Live, they're a much more engaging prospect; fast, wiry and urgent and with a bit of a thump behind the music. The crowd were all onside, the threat of rain vanished and good times were had. Hip Hip - and indeed - hurray
If I had to criticise anything it'd be that there was a stupidly long wait between acts and that the choice of drinks at the bar was shite. I do wonder if this wasn't deliberate as it encouraged people to leave the festival area and sink a few in one of the other pubs and bars in the area, before returning suitably merry. As with the film festival, Sunniside Live is just starting out. It certainly seemed like a success and hopefully it can grow into an annual event with organisers building on the experiences of this year to create something special.
Random daftnesss. Huzzah! Will most likely return and edit the ever loving shit out of this so that it scans better at a later date. Also apologies for being about six years too late to the party in using what is possibly the most parodied image of the 21st century. Also, apologies to anybody named Wayne. Yours is a fine name that just so happened to fit in with the rhyme scheme I was working with
Just doing an image dump this week as nothing of consequence has happened to me in the outer world while my once rich internal life has shrivelled to the point that it basically consists of me staring slack jawed at the wall and trying to figure out if I'm hungry or merely bored.
Still I did a title page/front cover for that Rag and Bone thing I am always bleating on about. I always feel - for want of a better word - sort of presumptuous making stuff like this, but the deed is done so might as well hoy it on here.
Also, here's another thing that I thingled. I'm not sure I'm 100% happy with it, although the background, even when taking into account the gratuitous use of gaussian blur (a favoured tool of the lazy and the scoundrelous) turned out far better than I thought it would
Apologies for the recent inactivity. A combination of ill health, career cul de sacs and general fed uppedness has meant time I should have spent being constructive has instead been spent lying slack jawed on my sofa clad only in my underpants and a filth encrusted t-shirt, the seagulls eyeing me hungrily from their vantage of a neighbouring rooftop, waiting for hope and then breath to abandon me, so that they can swoop in through my window and feast. It has not escaped my attention that this malaise has coincided, against all mainstream predictions, with the election of a Conservative majority government. It may seem utterly illogical and childishly petulant to blame David Cameron and his disconcertingly hairless face for my own sub par physical and mental well being, but that's what I'm doing.
Preoccupied as I have been with staring at the ceiling and occasionally sighing, I've not been up to whole lot recently. I did manage to drag my mopey arse to the inaugural Wonderlands graphic novel expo last week. The fact that I was stricken with the poorly-ills meant that I couldn't stay long, but I did manage to catch The Guardian's resident cartoonist Steve Bell - who was reassuringly beardy and also is the only other person I've met who holds a pencil the same way as myself - and Dave Gibbons of, among other things, Watchmen fame - who had a few interesting things to say about digital distribution and motion books. Also saw Alice in Sunderland creator Bryan Talbot just hanging around looking very pale and interesting. Fortunately for him I am far too self conscious to approach people so I left him and the other talented individuals present unharrassed. Hopefully, like Sunny Con, this'll become an annual event so I can attend when not in a mental state that sees me weighing up the pros and cons of running into traffic.
In comparison to the work on display I don't imagine for a second anyone's going to be impressed with my own scribblings, but I've managed to cobble together a few more pages for Rag and Bone. the whole thing in sequence can also be found here, for ease of browsing.
Random thoughts on the upcoming British Election, because democracy David Cameron could give two squirts of piss
For the first few weeks of the campaign the current PM really looked like he couldn't be arsed with the whole rigmarole. He refused to take part in debates, visibly irritated at being quizzed on his record and had a re-election strategy that consisted of jerking his thumb at picture of Ed Miliband and pulling a face and if questioned just honking 'long term economic plan' and looking smug (you can read more about the utter genius of that long term economic plan here) At some point around the halfway mark somebody obviously pointed out that this wasn't coming across very well because he subsequently appeared on telly waving his arms around and shouting 'by golly, I'm motivated' which, of course, convinced everyone.
Since then the Tory line of attack appears to be a three pronged approach of constant slandering of opponents, spending promises based on money that they have repeatedly and unambiguously said does not exist and suggesting that the votes of those people registered in Scotland are somehow illegitimate. While this may be enough for them to win in the short term, in the long term this is damaging to people's perception of politics, damaging to the economy and damaging for the union of crowns that less than a year ago the PM was getting all wobbly lipped about. The PM has been given a chance to communicate the ideals and principles behind his brand of conservatism and wasted it on short sighted politicking.
David Cameron wants to win because he doesn't want to lose, which, as far as motivation goes is fine when playing rugger or quidditch or whatever it is posh people do, but is nowhere near good enough when you're asking for the chance to lead the nation Ed Milliband is not, and will never be, cool
The Tory press did kind of shoot themselves in the foot by portraying Ed Milliband as a man so inept and awkward it's a good day if he's put his trousers on the right way round. While it was fun during the life of the parliament, come the increased scrutiny of the election campaign anything shy of Mr Miliband transmogrifying into Some Mothers do 'Ave 'Em era Michael Crawford meant that he's exceeded expectations. Still the subsequent screeching U-turn depiction of him as a maniacal Marxist meddler determined to subvert the democratic process and impose Russell Brand on the nation's daughters hasn't really convinced either.
In my opinion Ed comes off across as a reasonably principled man, with a functioning brain in his head and with views that broadly coincide with my own. However there's a reason that the initial line of attack was to draw attention to his innate dorkiness and that reason is, at the risk of sounding redundant - the man is innately dorky. I would hasten to add that dorky is in no way the same thing as inept or weak willed, but there have been fewer moments more cringe inducing than when, transparently stage managed, he starts dropping his aitches, telling us that we've "gotta know, that ain't gonna happen" and then awkwardly eye fucking the camera. True, all politicians do this shit, but Mr Miliband is particularly bad at it and I wish he'd stop.
The man's both a gonk and a wonk and rather than trying to fight that he should own it. Besides, what other world leaders are there who are really, genuinely cool? Angela Merkel looks like she had fun once and hated it, Vladimir Putin has the air of a man who will send you unsolicited dick picks and I'm willing to bet money that Francoise Hollande owns multiple airfix models. sure, Obama could be perceived as possessing a somewhat louche charisma, but then you remember he answers to the name Barry and geeks out over Conan the Barbarian.
Scottish people don't count for some reason
You may remember back in September there was a whole referendum on whether Scotland would leave the union. In the end they opted to stay on the understanding that further powers would be devolved to Edinburgh and people were dead glad. Or they were for about a couple of hours until the PM decided to use the platform of the referendum result to attack the injustice of Scottish MP's having an influence in Westminster on legislation that only pertains to England and/or Wales. While there's a case to be made there it's complicated by the fact that, due to the disparity in population between the home nations, most laws effecting England will have a knock on effect in other parts of the kingdom. Suffice to say it's a complicated issue and emotive issue and there's a time and a place to raise it. Unsurprisingly this is not less than 24 hours after one part of the country was having a long hard think of buggering off and setting up it's own state. With blackjack! And hookers!
Since that time, against the backdrop of sky rocketing support for the Scottish National Party, there's been increasingly shrill suggestions that, because the SNP's raison d'etre is seperatism, they should not be able to make up part of any UK government - by which logic all UKIP MEP's should be resigning their positions.
The election on Thursday is a general election pertaining to the whole of the United Kingdom. Scotland is a part of that kingdom. If the people of Scotland should see fit to elect Bobby Davros and his ever so wonderful vibrating hula girls to parliament then to parliament they shall go, where they will have the same freedoms as any other political party, I've been to Scotland and the people there talk and write and say things and generally exhibit all the signs of being functioning human beings with a capacity for higher thought. It's therefore reasonable to assume the people there are aware that the party that many of them are voting for are mathematically incapable of forming a government by themselves and it's therefore reasonable to assume that there's a preference for a coalition (formal or otherwise) including the SNP. The main Westminster parties are free to reject such an arrangement, but to suggest it's illegitimate due to the provenance of one of the players is utter bollocks of the highest order. The whole UKIP thing stopped being funny a while ago
The Hell in a Handcart gang were meant to be the main attraction in this election, storming the battlements of political correctness armed with nothing more than a pint of mild and good old fashioned common sense. Instead their performance has been somewhat ineffective and sad, like an old man shouting at the kid's playing outside his window, but who's too infirm to get up out of his chair to chase them off. Last year we had Mike Read's UKIP calypso (AKA the worst thing ever) which confidently predicted that Farage would form the next government, now it's entirely possible they'll come out the other side of the election with fewer MP's than they went in. In response the party's gone a bit tinfoil helmet, claiming that the bad polls and coverage are the result of liblabcon (sigh) conspiracy, reporting people who make jokes about the party to the police, going to "war" against the BBC (which doesn't extend to cancelling publicity appearances and interviews) and adding the Scots to the list of Nasty Foreigners Wot We Hate (please see above).
The kippers have always reminded me of a line from The Simpsons where Bart is running for class president: "My opponent says there are no easy answers. I say they're not looking hard enough!" Unfortunately there will always be a percentage of people who would like to live in a world where every grievance in the world can be put down to the European Union and immigration. Therefore I don't think UKIP will be going anywhere for a long time yet. Nor do I think Farage will dissapear if he fails to win his seat, rather he'll do a Putin and take a backseat role for a few years before resuming the leadership. What I hope is that 2014 will represent a high watermark for the party, although I am somewhat pessimistic on that front
This is going to drag on and on and on and on...
What looks likely to happen this Thursday is that the Tories will win the most seats, but not enough to form a government, and with too few potential allies to get any legislation passed. Therefore Labour will form a government backed by an SNP who would do less self harm renaming themselves the Saucy Naughty Perverts than being seen to enable the Tories. While such an outcome is constitutionally legitimate and it could be argued that over 50% of the votes cast were for a progressive party of some stripe, meaning that such a government would be an accurate reflection of the result, the fact that the blue team got the most votes would held up as proof that the arrangement is all kinds of bullshit. Even if there's no loophole for the Tories to wrangle their way back into government or get a second general election called, the fallout from such a result will last far beyond the election, probably for the duration of the parliament. Even if Cameron concedes and goes quietly into the night I cant really imagine the Murdochs or the Dacre's of the world doing likewise.
Or, alternately the Conservatives will cobble enough support to form another coalition or govern as a minority in which case they can resume Operation Plebshaft. Four weeks in and I'm sick of the general election, but whichever way it goes I suspect the ball ache's set to continue for a while yet. The below's by Cassetteboy, I suspect most people reading this will have already seen it, but what the heck.
I completed the Sunderland 10k on Sunday despite some truly pissy horrible weather conditions. Thank you for anyone who sponsored me. You are not only generous, but devastatingly attractive.
After a week of blood and tears I've finally started to make some progress with the website, It's still very much a work in progress, but at least the damn thing now loads, which is something. As before you can have a wee gander at www.talesoftheboxingnun.com. The ten thousandth unique visitor wins a potato that looks like Gary Oldman. I would have like to have created something special for it, but instead I farted out the below. It's a rejigged version of a strip I drew many, many years ago called Myxamotosis (so named because random non sequiturs are the same thing as wit, right? Right?!). It was - and I hope I don't sound too conceited here - deeply, deeply shit, but out of the fifty or so strips I managed to create before friends and well wishers intervened there's perhaps two or three that I'm fond of - or, at least, don't find offensively bad.
As all true Ingerlish patriots know it was St George's day Thursday gone. It something of a meme that this our national day is something that we, as a nation, are actively discouraged from celebrating. As with the similar urban myth about how Christmas has totally been renamed winterval so as not to offend the Zoroastrians, this can be readily disproved by the highly scientific method of wandering around any medium to large English settlement with your eyes open and noting the surfeit of red and white flags outside and on top of every pub, church and government building.
What is true, or at least truer, is the general lack of enthusiasm expressed by the general populace to for a possibly fictional Lebanese guy who never came here and probably never even fought a dragon. But apathy is not the same thing as censorship and, really, what could be more English than a half hearted shrug and mumbling "s'alrite, I guess,' when asked to comment on our national heritage. We all carry our own version of England around with us; some of us carry it in the chambers and vestibules of our heart, some of us in a metaphorical Tesco's carrier bag, pulled from a pile of of other metaphorical carrier bags that we keep stuffed under the sink (also metaphorical). For John Major -via George Orwell - England is long shadows on cricket grounds and old maids cycling to communion through morning mist, for me it's more ill advised daytime drinking, going to Greggs the bakers when you can't be arsed to cook and using utterly unsexy words like 'knockers' and 'bonking' to describe otherwise sexy things. The point being that it is private and peculiar to each English man and woman, which to my mind is far preferable to waving plastic flags and getting wobbly lipped over Elgar (private and peculiar is also as good a summation of the national character as I can be bothered to come up with at the present time).
Far better, if we must celebrate something around this time of year, to make a song and a dance about it being Shakespeare's birthday; he invented, like, a million words, bequeathed his wife his second best bed and may have really been two tiny Catholics dressed as a single big Protestant in a trench-coat. Also Language can be a more positive force than nationalism, and when it comes to language the English are the best word guy people around. Way better than the French.
In other news I'll be running in the Sunderland City 10k next week, because I am good like that. Look out for me, I'll be the purple faced one with the tears rolling softly down his face As is the custom with these things you can sponsor me, with a donations going to Shelter.
Apologies about the lack of an update. I'm currently on trying to set up a proper, grown up website for the various bits and bobs of creative detritus that I've uploaded here as, if I'm honest, Blogger is not a particularly good platform for displaying images. Unfortunately, as the north east of England's techno-weenie in chief this is taking rather longer than I anticipated, by which I mean I've spent the last two hours trying and failing to get an image to display on an otherwise empty screen. Friends and well-wishers assure me that technology has now progressed to a point where tasks such as setting up a website are basically idiot proof. This leads me to the somewhat discomfitting conclusion that I exist on a level somewhere below idiot and should not be let out of the house without adult supervision.
Intellectually I know that throwing my computer out of the window and sobbing like a child will do nothing to further my goals, but on a gut level this feels very right. I shall keep you updated whether head or heart wins; in the case of the former by means of this blog, if the latter, by means of shouting git loud off somewhere high.
As and when I get the fucker working you can get your peruse on at www.talesoftheboxingnun.com (link not currently working because of course it fucking doesn't you worthless piece of shit I swear if you were a man I would straight up kick you in the bastard throat scrattumfrattum......). In the interim here's a picture of a boxing nun, because that is the thing what the thing is named after
Pictured above: Art
In other news, the precious moments I've been away from my computer screen have been spent wheezing my way around the Tyne and Wear metropolitan area as I'm currently in training for the Sunderland City 10K. As is customary with these things you can sponsor me by clicking the following link, all donations will be going towards the UK charity Shelter
The bi-decennial festival of equivocation, obfuscation and all round bullshit that is the British election is upon us, heralded this year by a series of television debates. The first was between the Prime Ministers and the leader of the opposition. Except it wasn't, as the PM outright refused to partake in anything resembling a one on one debate and what we got instead was two back to back interviews with Jeremy Paxman, a walking advert for the dangers of believing your own hype, and an audience Q and A featuring such hard hitting questions as "Who is your favourite Power Ranger, and you can't say the green one,' and 'Potatoes: roasted or mashed. Discuss.' The whole thing, therefore, could be written off as a colossal waste of time if it wasn't for the incumbent government's frankly bizarre strategy of depicting their opponent as a man so incapable he couldn't relieve himself in the wilderness without pissing on an electric fence. While the meme of Mr Miliband as an awkward dork didn't exactly spring from nowhere - please see literally any interview the guy's ever done - the Ed as Mr Bean line of attack has been so overplayed that we've now reached a point where 'man answers question reasonably coherently' suddenly becomes a political turnaround on par with Marc Anthony's 'honourable man' speech in Julius Caesar.
Then, of course, we had the multi party debates or - as they were somewhat inevitably referred to - the massed debates, featuring every political leader in the land who A) have MP's sitting in the House of Commons and B) aren't Northern Irish, because fuck those guys (apparently).
For those who are A) unfamiliar with British political party leaders B) don't care C) are unable to recognise them from my shitty drawings - l-r we have David Cameron (Conservative), Ed Miliband (Labour), Nichola Sturgeon (Scottish Nationalist), Leanne Wood (Plaid Cymru), Nigel Farage (UKIP), Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrats) and Natalie Bennett (The Green Party)
Two observations about the gratuitous mass debating have already been discussed by far cleverer people than me at great length: that 1) when the full range of mainstream political opinion is given a platform it quickly becomes apparent that the UK is a lot more left wing than a perusal of The Sun would have you believe, and that 2) it's generally nice to see more XX chromosomes on the podium. For me though, the takeaway is - again - how significantly our expectations have been lowered with regards to public discourse in this country. That UKIP's Mr Farage, a man who couldn't be more of a spiv if he grew a pencil moustache and began operating a coconut shy, and the physical embodiment of the sort of received wisdom that ascertains that Jews can hear gold and that Asian ladies have sideways fannies - is welcomed by the media as some sort of rebel voice, while Nichola Sturgeon, the leader of a reasonably progressive party with a solid record of competent governance, is regarded as a dangerous unknown quantity, depresses me more than I can articulate at present. The other point I would make is that British politics has become so fractured that the first past the post system we currently implement is fundamentally broken. But that is rant for another time. With regards to the above scribblings, I feel I should apologise to any supporters of Ms Bennett, who generally speaking, I have some time for. At the risk of explaining the joke, her line is a reference to a recent car crash interview in which she lapsed into an embarrassed silence when asked to cost some of her policies and later blamed this on a case of the sniffles.
I also apologise for the reduction of complex political positions to infantile soundbites (although what's good for the goose...). I am to political satire what farting in the bath is to perfumery Love and Fishes Dave Denton
Just a quick image dump this week. I shouldn't be pleased with myself for managing to produce a page two consecutive weeks in a row, but I am. Don't judge me. You don't know my life.
I did have an accompanying rant about how I'm 86% confident I could take Jeremy Clarkson in a fight. Unfortunately I only got as far as drafting it out in the purple lined notebook with the happy elephant on the cover that exists exclusively in my head before I was kidnapped by a gang of desperate characters and forced to participate in a dangerous mission of international importance, by which I mean I went out for a Nandos with the family. I will bore you with my very important views on trivial matters next time,
Was away last week on romance related duties, hence the lack of an update. It was me and the missus's two year anniversary so she took the high road and I took the low road and we were both in Scotland before ye. We didn't get to the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond, but we did make it to Edinburgh, which is - as I'm sure you're aware - plenty bonnie itself. I've been to Auld Reekie before, but more in a go there, get shit done, leave again capacity so it was nice to see the place in a more leisurely context. If you've never been, go there now, it's beautiful. Also hilly, but that's not really relevant. Thanks to the wonders of deal-of-the day-voucher websites we stayed in what was quite easily the swankiest hotel I've ever been in. The restaurant served food on unconventionally shaped plates, so you knew it was legit posh.
We also went to the zoo, because nothing lets a girl know that you love her and cherish the years you've shared together better than taking her look at some incarcerated animals. We saw pandas and penguins and bears (oh my) and I have now decided that squirrel monkeys are the best monkeys. A good time was had by all, save perhaps one melancholy chimp whose mate nicked one of his carrots. I would recommend it to anybody reading this and thinking of going, although would advise you to allow for more time than the few hours we set aside as it's deceptively large and, as with everything else in Edinburgh, hilly.
Closer to home the above image is a bit of a homage to Get Carter. I've recently finished Ted Lewis's Jack's Return Home, the source novel for the film, which in turn inspired me to watch Michael Caine's Geordie western, which in turn inspired the above doodlage. While I've written previously that Billy Wilder's The Appartment is my number one film of all time, Get Carter has a quite comfortable berth in my personal top ten, mainly because it is one of the most insanely quotable films of all time, think Philip Marlowe by way of Mike Leigh. The film is also notable/notorious for being the number one factor in prolonging the life of Gateshead's Trinity Car Park one of the locations in the film and a building notable for being a) completely and utterly fuck ugly, and b) a car park which, thanks to the somewhat acute angle of its entrance ramp, was inaccessible to cars. There's a Tesco's there now, which is also fuck ugly, but at least you can actually access it to buy some dairylea and toilet duck.
Also, to make amends for the lack of words, there's another page of Rag and Bone below, inform the people.
I finished the latest page of Rag and Bone, because I said I would and I'm good like that. As I was congratulating myself on a job well done (or probably more accurately a job that's... well... done) and prepared to settle in for the night with a lovely hot cup of Worcester sauce it suddenly popped up in my news feed that Hyde and Beast were doing a free gig at Pop Recs round the corner from me. Despite already having changed into my lazy pants I made an executive decision to go check it out, because, dammit, if I don't go to these things, who will?
Actually it turns out that lots of people will as the place was packed with the great and the good of Wearside. As is traditional at these sort of things the very tallest present had arranged themselves into a blockade directly in front of me, compounding the fact that the lead singer of the group is a rather diminutive,beardy chap who may or may not have taken part in the quest to reclaim Erebor.
I didn't really know much about Hyde and Beast going in beyond there's two guys, one who's called Mr Hyde and another who, disappointingly, is not called Mr Beast. It transpires that they play jaunty McCartneyesque pop/rock that I wouldn't really have imagined coming from former members of The Futureheads and The Golden Virgins. While a record shop's not really an optimal setting to see any band, the band came across as tight, likeable, with plenty of tunage in their arsenal, certainly on a par or better than a lot of the guitar based acts out there.
Of course, the fact that it was free was a definite plus. Again, full props should be given to the various Heartstrings that run the Pops Recs record shop for providing a space for shit like this to take place. Earlier this week Sunderland announced it'd be bidding to be the UK capital culture 2021. While the initial reaction from myself and others was the raised eyebrows and suppressed snorts of the terminally cynical if there were a few more places like that around town it wouldn't seem quite so daft.
Below's the video for a single from last year's Keep Moving album, which I thought had a nice Crosby, Stills and Nash 'Our House' vibe
I've spent most of this weekend working on a daft distance learning thing. It's basically an employers market at the moment and as such most companies feel little compulsion to train or develop staff. I therefore figured it'd be a positive step to take the initiative and do a few things that I could add to my CV. Unfortunately, as the whole thing was done in a sort of 'tomorrow is too late' spirit I ended up signing on for the first course I came across, which was a course in Equality and Diversity. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm generally all for equality, diversity, tolerance and rainbows, but when 90% of your course material can be summarised as 'don't be a bigoted dick-meister', then you'll forgive me if after a while I began to find the whole thing a bit tedious.
One lot of people who would probably agree that the whole thing was a waste of time - although probably for very different reasons - would be PEGIDA (Which stands for Patriotische Europäer Gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes. Duh.), who were just up the road in Newcastle the other day. If, like me, you are baffled as to why a German right wing nationalist movement were demonstrating in the north of England it seems that the group operates a sort of franchise system within different countries (a structure it shares, perhaps ironically, with Al Qaeda), so it was basically the English Defence League/Britain First/The National Front waving different flags and trying to piggyback on the success of a more successful group of toss merchants. Even so Newcastle seemed a rather arbitrary choice of venue. I spent several years years living on Tyneside and it never really came across as a powder keg of racial tension. A cynic might posit that it was selected as the North East has quite high levels of social deprivation and historically such places tend to be fertile breeding ground for the angry slap heads.
The organisers predicted that there'd be thousands demonstrating and, in all fairness, they were correct, with attendance around 2,000. However it should be noted that those thousands were on the other side of the police barricade, at the counter demonstration organised under the banner Newcastle Unites. PEGIDA meanwhile managed less than a fifth of that, and most of those seemed to be coming from outside the region. For the most part though, it seems the Geordies simply couldn't be arsed. The inorganic, bussed in nature of the whole thing was probably best illustrated by the fact that the organisers had utterly failed to take into account that Newcastle United were playing at home. Given a choice between standing in the freezing cold, shouting into the drizzle about things you hate or doing something halfway enjoyable with their Saturday most people seemed to have plumped for the latter. In a nice little demonstration of the occasional synchronicity of the universe, the Geordies won their match with a goal by Pappis Cisse, a practicing Muslim. Back in the Bigg Market meanwhile, a lot of council taxpayer's time and resources was spent humouring the clash of civilisation fantasies of a handful of professional miserabilists. So that's something.
Most of the way through a page for Rag and Bone, added a work in progress below. should have it finished by next week. Huzzah
A Cockernee wifey was slumped in the dirt, Now and then sipping a tankard. Her vision was blurry and her speech was slurred Because she was utterly wankered. Away up a rooftop, all covered in soot A dashing young Cockernee fella, Fancied this wifey, sat there in the muck And so he serenaded her all a cappela:
"Gin! Gin! Glorious gin!
Makes me feel 'appy compels me to sing.
Good times will follow, when this booze 'ere I swallow
In me own filth I'll wallow, drunk on glorious gin."
This fair pearly queen he aimed to entice
Squinted up at the man on the roof
She mused that this geezer looked somewhat nice
as she swigged down some 50% proof.
She liked her a song just as much as a drink
And so winked at the bloke she'd just met.
on baby deer legs she got to her feet
And lifted her voice in duet.
"Gin! Gin! Marvellous gin! Makes me feel 'appy compels me to sing. Good times will follow, when this booze 'ere I swallow in me own crap I 'll wallow, drunk on glorious gin."
From all over the city drunk Cockneys came
Twirling and dancing in tandem.
Dancing and singing they poured into Gin Lane
From East Hammersmith right down to Camden.
A Cockernee knees up of gargantuan size
they all came down there to rejoice,
These loved up piss artists and the drink that they drank
As they all sang aloud in one voice.
"Gin! Gin! Wonderous gin! Makes us feel 'appy compels us to sing. Good times will follow, when this booze 'ere we swallow in our own crap we'll wallow, drunk on glorious gin."
With apologies to Flanders and Swann and the good people of London Town. I spent far longer on the above than I'm comfortable admitting, but, goddamit, it needed to be written.
Love and Fishes
Dave Denton
The other week, as I was passing, I popped into me mate's mam and dads house, just to make sure that everything's tickety boo and that they haven't been pillaged by vikings. While there I was presented me with a carrier bag of Dave detritus that'd accumulated over the years. Most of this was notebooks full of my witless ramblings and photos from the magical before time, when you had to go round boots and give them monies before you could see that half the pictures you'd took were of some random dude's out of focus chin. In addition to this there were also several doodles and cartoons, because I am me and that's a thing I do.
I'd guestimate the above dates from the early 2000's (Jesus shitting Christ, I'm old) and, sad to say, probably represents the upper limits of my draughtsmanship at that time. I've posted it above, not just as a bizarre act of flagellation/confession/egomania, but also because, serendipitously, yesterday also saw the release of No Manifesto a documentary film by Elizabeth Marcus about the Manics and the various Manic Street Preacher Fan Men (and women) what follow them.
I believe I've indicated previously that I've got a bit of a soft spot for the occasionally popularish Gwent beat combo. This however is from the perspective of me now. From the perspective of me back then, when it was still possible to come across a new album, film or piece of art and still get excited about them as if they mattered, the Manics were the greatest band in the history of the universe ever and ever signed God. Or, to put in a slightly more measured way, they were a philanthropic chain letter*: introducing me to more writers, musicians, poets and thinkers than any other artists I can think of and framing the pursuit of knowledge, critical thought and a predilection towards the arty as things that are not just broadly positive, but actively glamorous. If only for that reason I'm prepared to give any release of theirs at least a cursory listen - although for what it's worth, of the bands last four albums I'd rate at least three of them as being very good to fantastic.
The film itself has a sort of choppy, patchwork structure (which feels appropriate, given the band's fascination with collage), switching between subjects, time periods and mediums at will. It gives a nice overview of the band's history up until 2008, without going into any real depth. I'm not sure if non fans would have any interest in James Bradfield''s mastery of the all day breakfast or Sean Moore's frankly alarming firearms collection, but there's something satisfying about watching the band's creative process in the studio. The film also does a good job of sketching out the central tension between a pretentious rock 'n' roll romantic id and down to earth artisan superego that helps keep the band interesting. It's also refreshingly up front about some of the group's bigger failures, such as their making much more of a splat than a splash in the American market.
While the film's home-made, fanzine nature is part of it's charm it does weaken it in some ways. It could certainly have done with a few less interviews with fans,who all seem plenty nice, but hardly provide much in the way of insight beyond what could be gleaned from five minutes googling. There's also an animated sequence that looks like it was made using Microsoft Paint.
Like a lot of these of these things, No Manifesto kinda lives or dies on whether you've any interest in the artists being discussed. As it stands, I like Manic Street Preachers, so I liked the film. It's very much a portrait rather than an in depth analysis, but that is in no way a criticism. If nowt else the music's good. Also, through it, I found out you can still get Wimpy Burgers in South Wales. Who knew?
Love and Fishes
Dave Denton
*I think I might have nicked that from James Dean Bradfield, although I can't be sure, so sod it, it's mine now
Today is my sister's birthday, in honour of this and the fact that she's a game old bird I've decided to talk shit about her on the internet. Below are 31 facts about my diminutive sibling that may or may not be true, one for every year of her life
1) Our kid is banned from the town of Merthyr Tydfil. She refuses to tell us why.
2) Our kid ate her twin, provisionally named Ermitrude, while still in the womb
3) Our kid had a short lived rap career in the early 2000's under the pseudonym Lethal Rizzle
4) Our kid doesn't know the difference between left and right and gets angry when you try to explain it
5) Our kid spends her spare time writing erotic Diagnosis Murder fanfiction, starring thinly veiled self inserts.
6) Our kid self identifies as a bisexual dark pegasus fire wizard trapped in an adult woman's body
7) Out kid was born with a tail, which she now keeps in a jar under her bed. She whispers her secrets to it on a night
8) Our kid's knowledge of the solar system is drawn entirely from The Clangers and Button Moon
9) Our kid kept right on going through hammer time
10) Our kid can and will shit in your shoes if you annoy her
11) Our kid ran away when she was a child, and by ran away I mean she hid behind the curtain and then threw an epic tantrum when we weren't sufficiently distraught at her disappearance.
12) Our kid does not know the rules to hide and seek
13) Our kid does not remove the skin when eating a banana
14) Our kid likes to start every day with a nice, refreshing cup of gravy
15) Our kid saw Thomas and the Magic Railroad in the cinema 23 times.
16) Sometimes, when she's feeling blue, our kid likes to get behind the wheel of her parked car and make brum brum noises
17) Our kid's favourite band is The Wiggles
18) Our kid is incapable of saying the word 'toilet' without giggling
19) Our kid craves the taste of human flesh, but will mostly just make do with licking strangers
20) Our kid is in complete agreement with everything that Kanye West has ever said. She also refers to him as Kanye Best
21) Our kid honestly believes if she can't see you, you can't see her and will try to hide by closing her eyes
22) Our kid has yet to walk past a cow without mooing at it.
23) Despite being a health care professional our kid believes that disease is a by product of sin.
24) Our kid has only read four books in her life; The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Each Peach Pear Plum, The Tiger Who Came to Tea and Cervantes's The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of la Mancha in the original Spanish
25) When confronted with food she doesn't like our kid will simply throw it on the floor.
26) Our kid has been cautioned by police twice for shaving her legs in a public space.
27) Despite being only a little over five foot and having a fairly slim build, our kid weighs approximately 32 stone. This is down to her incredibly dense skeletal structure. This also means that....
28) Our kid is incapable of swimming and must content herself with taking a deep breath and running along the bottom of the pool.
29) Our kid has caught all 719 pokemon, fifteen of which are shinies.
30) Our kid wants Gwen Stefani's Hollaback Girl played at her funeral
31) Our kid keeps a "poop diary"
