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