Old Wives' Tales---Trouble up North

So maybe I've been a little sneaky!

...and maybe, just maybe, I've been keeping stuff from you...

Well there's a very good reason for this: A large portion of my readers are based in America (according to my stats) and would probably have more than a little trouble with the the words used in my cartoon feature, 'Old Wives' Tales'; samples below. Actually, some of my British readers would, and let's not even go near my European fans, who would probably have some internal circuitry blow up and have them charging to their English language teachers and demanding 'what the hell is being said here?' 

But I make no apologies. The cartoons below are from a northern English magazine called the Dalesman and deal with all things Yorkshire; hence the local-centric dialogue.

For quite some time I had been producing humorous gags and twists on features and stories local to the North of England---specifically the Dales---but about a year ago, Adrian Braddy, the editor, asked me if I would produce a stand alone cartoon panel about stereotypical Yorkshire folk.

Now before we go any further I think it only fair to point out that I am not from Yorkshire---I have

visited it, and it is a beautiful area---take a look yourself---but I have never lived there; so the dialogue I use in the strip is from memory and more than a little editorial guidance from those who work at the Dalesman offices.

But I felt that with the world wide appeal and popularity of such programmes as the Last of the Summer Wine, and All Creatures Great and Small and to a lesser degree, the cartoon strip Andy Capp  you were maybe ready for a bit of Northern tom-foolery.

But before I launch you---unsuspecting and totally unprepared into the world of 'Old Wives' Tales'--- I've added this little list of helpful handy hints on the way people 'Up North' communicate:

1. 'T' this is an abbreviation for the work 'the'. Example: "I am going to the shop." would become 'I'm goin' to t'shop
2. The existence of the letter 'G' is somewhat of a mystery to these dour and forthright people. So a sentence that says,---in percieved English: "If you are going this way, I'll be heading out that way" would suddenly, and without warning, become "If tha's goin' this way, I'll be headin' that way, tha's knowest" Now I see you all looking a little blank and asking 'Wha...Hey! What's with the 'Tha's' and 'Tha's nowest'? Fear not. Let me explain
3. The introduction of 'Tha' or Tha's' is simply a bastardisation of the words you, your or you'll as in 'If you are going' and you'll as in Tha's knowest. Knowest is an elongation of the word Know.
4. 'Allus' is another bastardisation of the word 'Always'
5. 'Reet' means quite literally 'Right'
6. 'Thy' equals 'Your' which is confusing. As the sharp sighted amongst you will already have noticed that 'Tha' and 'Tha's' also means 'Your'. Confused? Pity me, I've got to write this stuff.

Now there are probably many, many more, linguistic anomalies that I haven't mentioned; and a single blog post could never do justice to a millenia of the happy mangling of the English language perpetrated by these wonderfully eccentric folk,  I will leave you now with a selection from my comic feature 'Old Wives' Tales' published monthly in the Dalesman about two strong minded northern lasses (ladies) and their perception of married life to their hard nosed, hard headed and delightfully stubborn northern men.

Enjoy

I sincerely hope you enjoyed this post. If you did then please share it like a demented sharing person and keep on coming back for more of the same, and a whole lot more.

All cartoons are copyright Karl Dixon. Please feel free to blog about and repost my work for free but also please acknowledge me as the author and link back. Thank you.

Castle Comics P1

Well here it is! The first page in the serialisation of Castle Comics!

For those of you who are new to this spot, let me explain. Every Friday I will be posting a page from my highly popular, self published, specialist comic titled Castle Comics.

This book has sold almost 10,000 copies through the gift shops and specialist retail outlets all over the UK's Castle visitor centres and shops, and I have just 200 left, and of these two hundred I have plans that I hope you will find very interesting. They will be for sale, but with a little added extra. So stay tuned and keep coming back as I will be announcing my plans---probably next week---about the offer of Artist editions of Castle Comics.

But until then, sit back and enjoy the first page with the first two boneheads from the dungeons of D'Boncee Castle, home to the notorious William the Konk. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Lok and Key!

Castle Comics---Coming Soon

A couple of years ago I serialised a graphic novel called Brabbles & Boggitt, which was quite a big hit with you all at the time.

I did say that I would be putting it up onto Amazon one day, and I still intend on doing just that, but finding the time to sort out the formats and all the crap that goes with it is proving too time consuming at present. So for the time being you will have to wait for that particular little ray of sunshine to enlighten your days. But you can be rest assured that as soon as I have found the time to upload it, the sooner you will be able to purchase your copy.

But even before I posted the Brabbles & Boggitt story I produced a specialist comic for the Castle gift shop  market in the UK. The book was titled Castle Comics and was a collection of one, two, three, four and six page tales that revolved around the nut cases that lived in and around a fictitious medieval place called D'Boncee Castle. The book eventually sold into over 400 outlets and shifted thousands of units.

Although initially written for children, Castle Comics turned out to be as big a hit with adults as it had been for the kids; proving that I had inadvertently produced a comic book that transcended the age barriers. A true 'all ages' comic book.

All well and good, I hear you say, but why are you filling up my tea break with 'what happeneds' and 'maybe some days'? Well I'm glad you asked.

I've still got around 140 physical copies from the original 10,000 print run of Castle Comics sitting in boxes under my stairs, and I intend to start selling them through Amazon, and soon through the store section of this site, while also planning  to publish one page, every Friday---just like I did with Brabbles & Boggitt---until the whole book has been posted.

Now that said there is nothing stopping you going ahead and purchasing it at any time, and indeed I encourage such actions whole heartedly, and when Amazon have finally got their 'one-click' finger out of their asses and sanctioned the page, I will put a link on every post that I publish for Castle Comics so you can jump straight through, purchase my book and make my day.

So with all this in mind I thought it would be a good idea to post the two character pages as a taster of what and who you can expect to see over the coming few months before running headlong into the first page; which will go live this Friday 14th August.

All this and more regular updates on my other projects, tutorials, silly tales of my life and videos make this the one and only site to come to for all things Karl Dixon & Diary of a Cartoonist & Writer related.

Aston Villa: Cartoon Mascots

I've been producing the artwork for the Junior Villa Life (JV Life) for a few years--- I even used the characters, and an actual commission, to illustrate one of my tutorials on how I draw a comics page, all of which can be found on my cartoon tutorial page. The main characters are Hercules (the big muscular one), Bella (the leaping lady) and Chip (the techie, speedy one), are the anthropomorphisms of the clubs mascots.

Over the years I've produced a large body of work for JV Life--- some I have enjoyed creating more than others. And today  I would like to share just a few with you, along with my reasons for why they were such a pleasure to produce.

With this page it was simply the weather. I love drawing wind, rain and snow; in fact any extremes of weather. I particularly enjoyed the downward view in panel 7; it was just great when I got the slashing motion of the rain as it pummelled Hercules from above; I think it really added to the overall effect.

Students of the comics page and its colour balancing techniques may also like to know that when drawing murky days and gloomy settings, that darkening the shade of your characters natural colour will all add to the over-all look.

This is the second page from above and the action moves inside. With this page I still kept the dark colours on the main characters to darken the mood.

But seeing as this IS a children's comic, I had to lighten the mood.This came when designing the villain, Captain Splash. What I liked about this particular super Nemesis of the three Villa mascots was his umbrella head; it just made me smile and looked right. Villa though so to.

Normally I dislike producing caricatures in comics pages as it makes them clumsy and cumbersome; the people you caricature never have the same flow as the other cartoon characters on the page and can look a bit stiff.

But that said, my reason for including this page---despite the caricatures--- is simply panels 3 and 5. I just loved the whole shading look in panel 3 and the action in panel 5.

That's it really. Nuff said.

These two are here simply because I loved the action.

Both pages were amongst the very early cartoons I produced for Aston Villa, when the remit seemed to be action, more action and all out action. 

 love doing this, but sadly as they had new masters at the department that commissioned the magazine, they wanted to move away from the slapstick action style that seems to permeate through my style, and move into more story lead ideas.

It's been a while since I drew the last one and I hope there will be more. I think these characters have so much more to give and with the right direction could be so much more than they are at present.

Anyway, I love producing the work and hope that you have enjoyed the snippet trip down my memory lane.

All that is left to point out that all cartoons are the intellectual and actual property of Aston Villa FC, but the fun and love that went into producing them was all mine.

Cheers

PS: and as an aside, I've just noticed that the first ever post I produced for this blog was about these characters. Click here to view it.

It does seem strange that my blog is now five years old. I must write about that and maybe make a list of some of the highlights...maybe next week. Maybe...

Stealth Road Cameras: More cartoon silliness

Now in all fairness I did say I would be doing more editorials. In all honesty, I didn't think it would be this soon, but I did warn you.

But I'm rather glad that I did, because when I came upon this story from the Mail online site I just couldn't resist it.

Sometimes the headline alone is enough to spark an idea and with this one, the headline was enough. Now I admit I've played around with the actual story---it being about cameras and motorway driving---but the words 'stealth' and 'traffic cameras' were just too much of an opportunity for a mind as odd as mine to miss out on.

Also, this cartoon gives another, perhaps more true bent, as to the style of my cartoon editorial work: mainly that I love writing about life's absurdities more than the hard hitting stuff. I prefer to write about people more than murdering caliphates or twisted politicians, so this cartoon serves more as a guide to what you can really expect from me and my editorial work.

Any way. Enjoy and await more; there really is a whole world of silliness out there and I want to capture it and share it with you.

Enjoy!

Brabbles & Boggitt Page 41

Next Week: Finally the stranger breaks his silence

New to Brabbles & Boggitt? click here and start reading from the beginning.

If you like my blog and the things that I say and do, please tell your friends; mention me on Facebook, Twitter and any of the other fine social media networking sites you use. I would love to have my work reach a much larger audience and although I could no doubt eventually get there under my own steam, I'll get there a lot quicker with your help, so please, please spread the word.

Thank you

My World, my Thoughts, my Bad!

I appreciate that you're all going to groan inwardly at my latest statement and say: 'Karl's got too much time on his hands again!', but this latest glitch in my life has me genuinely puzzled, and here it is, are you ready?

How come my socks spin around my feet when I'm walking?

Today I went for a short walk. When I left the house my socks were on correctly--- as per the instructions on the packet---but when I got back home again and took my shoes off, the heel of the sock was now on the top of my foot, and I never felt it move.

Could someone please explain this conundrum to me so I can learn to better understand my socks and have more walks filled with the beauty of my surroundings and not, as is the present state, spend them wondering what the hell is going on in my shoes!

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Looks like my blog is being viewed by more people than I actually know. I've just been contacted by an art gallery who want to display some of my work. It's an honest to god gallery; I checked it out and it looks impressive.

'Very nice', I hear you say, and I would agree with you all accept for the fact that this particular gallery deals exclusively with artists who have mental health issues...

I wonder where they got that idea from?

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Today I managed to bite that thin strand of skin that connects the tongue to the bottom of my mouth; and it stings like a bitch! 

But really, how the hell is that even possible?

I've had a good look around my mouth with a dentists' mirror and a miners' lamp, and the best I can work out is it would require me to have teeth that could pivot backwards at a 45° angle and snip gaily away with industrial wire cutters.

So my best guess is either my teeth have turned into a semi intelligent life form--- independent of me and are launching guerrilla style attacks on the rest of my mouth--- or my dentist isn't telling me everything when we have our check ups...although it would explain his unexpected outburst last time I visited him when he said:
"Aclusal amalgam,  next one missing, three two one fine, al...oh my dear sweet lord, did you just see that...? ahem, sorry...everything else is fine, please take your notes to the receptionist and never come back..."

Does this mean that my mouth is also out to get me?! 

I hope they don't sign a pact with the spiders.

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A Day in the Life of a Cartoonist and Writer

It has been said of me on a number of occasions that I take too much on; that I have far too many projects on the go at any one time.

That's fair comment I would say, but the problem is this: If you are a writer, you create stories, tales, novels ect, that's what you do, and when you are a cartoonist, the same applies; you have to get your images onto the page and out there into the big bad ol' world; to be placed as greeting cards (coming soon, god help my sleepless nights), or graphic novels (Brabbles & Boggitt) and of course Roswell---god help even more sleepless nights.

But when you are both writer and artist...well I think you can see what I mean.

Anyway, I was thinking about what I did yesterday and the mountain I had to climb, and I thought: why not catalogue it with the relevant times; and through the use of both scanner, finished art and screen capture, show you what I did on that particular day, Monday 9th September 2013.

Here we go, fasten your pencil sharpeners and typewriter ribbons...

9.00am

Pencil & inked  two panel re-do's for Fridays Brabbles & Boggitt (all of which you will see when you come back here on Friday for page 40 with its brand spanking new panels, plus the ones they replaced)

11.00am

Much deserved cup of tea

11.15am

Colouring a comic book page

1.00pm

Lunch, cup of tea and a spot of light reading

2.00pm

Edit my Novel, Sleepy Hamlet (Oh please God, soon to be released)

3.00pm

More comic page colouring

5.30pm

Exercise

6.30

Modest Dinner with a few friends 

7.30

Two more pictures for mine and Clive Wards book 101 Uses for a Dead Mother-in-Law. These are just the black and whites, they will be grey-scaled before going to print and to be released through CreateSpace in time for Christmas, as will the Brabbles & Boggitt tale.

10.00

Stop for the night and sleep...phew!

So now you know what I get up to on a daily basis, and whenever you think to your self: 'I wonder what that cartoonist chappie is up to' as I'm sure you all regularly do, well now to have and answer....

HE'S FILLING HIS TIME MESSING AROUND ON PHOTOSHOP AND BEING GENERALLY SILLY!!

But then you wouldn't have me any other way...would you?

If you like my blog and the things that I say and do, please tell your friends; mention me on Facebook, Twitter and any of the other fine social media networking sites you use. I would love to have my work reach a much larger audience and although I could no doubt eventually get there under my own steam, I'll get there a lot quicker with your help, so please, please spread the word.

Memories are made of this...

I like to experiment with memory foam mattresses. For example I will often lay in one spot for a length of time then move. A few seconds later I'll move back to roughly the same spot then jump up shouting 
"HA! THAT'S NOT WHERE I WAS!! SEE YOU'VE FORGOTTEN ALREADY!"

It's a harmless bit of fun but it helps my night go faster, but does raise complaints from the neighbours when I'm still doing it at 3:30 in the morning: I did have a set of memory foam pillows but I forgot where I put them.

But I guess the main reason for this post was I’ve been forced to complain to the manufactures of memory foam mattresses, due to a wholly unacceptable incident that happened a few weeks back. The following is a direct copy of my letter:

Dear Sirs,

Where as I would like to congratulate you whole heartedly on the comfort of the memory foam mattress I recently purchased from Finglebone's Emporium of Sleepy Heads, I would like to bring your attention to the trades description act of 1972 which quite clearly stipulates that a product must do what it says on the tin; and I believe that they actually used the 'tin' analogy in the legislation.

But I digress. My complaint falls mainly on my mattresses inability to recognise me. Why only yesterday afternoon I happened to find myself in the bedroom looking for a sock that had mysteriously gotten away from me during a very hectic sandwich making session, when I waved a hearty salutation towards the bed; a bed, I might add that I'd just spent an intimate night with, and it singularly failed to recognise me. I nudged it a few times but it just kept on staring into blank space. I can tell you I felt a right fool.

So in conclusion I would like a full refund or a new mattress; preferably one that has a memory and not, as I suspect is the case with mine, has a bad case of Alzheimer's.

Yours Sincerely

Karl Dixon
C/O The Daisy Hill Funny Farm

They still haven't written back...

Perhaps they forgot

Brabbles & Boggitt Page 37

Next Week: The night before Goldy has her day in court...

New to Brabbles & Boggitt? click here and start reading from the beginning.

If you like my blog and the things that I say and do, please tell your friends; mention me on Facebook, Twitter and any of the other fine social media networking sites you use. I would love to have my work reach a much larger audience and although I could no doubt eventually get there under my own steam, I'll get there a lot quicker with your help, so please, please spread the word.

Thank you

Brabbles & Boggitt Page 36

Next Week: Boggitt discovers how dealing with the press is anything but easy...and once again, we see the strange mole, lurking around in alley-ways.

New to Brabbles & Boggitt? click here and start reading from the beginning.

If you like my blog and the things that I say and do, please tell your friends; mention me on Facebook, Twitter and any of the other fine social media networking sites you use. I would love to have my work reach a much larger audience and although I could no doubt eventually get there under my own steam, I'll get there a lot quicker with your help, so please, please spread the word.

Thank you

Brabbles & Boggitt Page 35

Next Week: Brabbles goes to the press, and if you thought the 3 Bears had a weird way of communicating you wait until you hear the Editor of the Onceupona Times.

New to Brabbles & Boggitt? click here and start reading from the beginning.

If you like my blog and the things that I say and do, please tell your friends; mention me on Facebook, Twitter and any of the other fine social media networking sites you use. I would love to have my work reach a much larger audience and although I could no doubt eventually get there under my own steam, I'll get there a lot quicker with your help, so please, please spread the word.

Thank you

101 Uses for a Dead Mother-in-Law---new book project

I mentioned last week, or quite possibly the week before, that I was starting a new book project, but unlike Ryan's Dinosaur Dreams this will be very much a book for adults.

It also heralds a new departure for me as this is the first time I've ever collaborated with anyone on a project. Mainly because it's been difficult to find anyone who has the same warped mindset as myself, but in Clive Ward I have found that odd-ball connection.

Clive is also a very fine cartoonist but prefers it when I do the drawings and he comes up with the ideas; that actually suits me fine, especially if it goes all wrong I can blame him and his sick and twisted mind, but if its a best seller I bow, accept the plaudits and put the bouquets of flowers in vases.

So what about the book? Well put simply its along the same lines as Simon Bonds 101 Uses of a Dead cat, only we use the mother-in-law instead. We are by no means re-hashing Simon's excellent work; all material is brand new, and seeing as he's married and I have been a few times before, we thought it was about time mother-in-laws caught the lash of our acerbic whip.

We are hoping to have it published by the middle to end of October so I've got a lot to be getting on with!

Well that's all there is to say on that subject so far, so I will leave you with a few samples and a promise that I will keep you updated with more news and extra samples, so keep on coming back and, of course, always let me know what you think.

Cheers

If you like my blog and the things that I say and do, please tell your friends; mention me on Facebook, Twitter and any of the other fine social media networking sites you use. I would love to have my work reach a much larger audience and although I could no doubt eventually get there under my own steam, I'll get there a lot quicker with your help, so please, please spread the word.

Thank you

Is Brabbles & Boggitt my thing?

Well as Brabbles & Boggitt move into the final 15 weeks of their story I've started to write the next tale.

And as I sat on the sofa, jotting down the meat and bones of the next story, I began to think back to when I first created these two little characters, and I thought it might make an interesting post for you, especially if you've taken both Brabbles & Boggitt to your heart, as so many seem to have done so.

First off I didn't think of Brabbles & Boggitt. Oh sure I created them and the world of the modern twist on fairy tales and folklore that they travel through; yes, I drew the original pictures and designed all the characters, but I didn't invent Brabbles & Boggitt, no, that distinction goes to my eldest daughter, Hannah.

Let me explain this in a little more detail: one day I was doodling about at my drawing board when I sketched, for no reason I have ever been able to fathom or understand, a ridiculously over confident yellow mouse and a doom and gloom caterpillar. I had just finished drawing them when my eldest, then probably no more than three or four, came toddling up to me to say my dinner was ready.

I showed her the picture of the two strange characters, as I always did with my girls, and she looked at them quizzically.
"Who are they, daddy?" she asked. I just shrugged my shoulders
"I don't know, I just drew them" I replied "who do you think they are sweety? I continued
She thought for a few seconds and screwed her little nose up in the cute way kids do. She nodded, as if with the finality of some inner decision and said, without a shadow of doubt:
"Brabbles and Boggitt!" then she toddled off to have her dinner.

I looked at the two characters and wondered where she could have gotten two such unusual, random names from. I shook my head and fortuitously I scribbled 'Brabbles and Boggitt' above the two and went off to have my dinner.

Hannah always loved to draw like her dad; and had about the
same attention span

This is a true story and I've often wondered why my daughter should've come up with such strange names that actually fit the characters so perfectly: it is true that everything that came after: notably the world they lived in, the storylines, the themes, the personalities and the myriad characters all came from my mind. But the names? That I owe all to one little girl who was just coming up to tell me my dinner was ready and set me on a course that you are all joining me with on every Friday.

Cheers Hannah, your Daddy loves you xxx

Don't forget to come back on Friday for the latest weekly instalment of the Brabbles & Boggitt tale: the Goldilocks Affair, or if you're new to Brabbles & Boggitt? click here and start reading from the beginning.

If you like my blog and the things that I say and do, please tell your friends; mention me on Facebook, Twitter and any of the other fine social media networking sites you use. I would love to have my work reach a much larger audience and although I could no doubt eventually get there under my own steam, I'll get there a lot quicker with your help, so please, please spread the word.

Thank you

Brabbles & Boggitt Page 31

Next Week: Decent in the camp and Goldilocks comes on really heavy with Boggitt

New to Brabbles & Boggitt? click here and start reading from the beginning.

If you like my blog and the things that I say and do, please tell your friends; mention me on Facebook, Twitter and any of the other fine social media networking sites you use. I would love to have my work reach a much larger audience and although I could no doubt eventually get there under my own steam, I'll get there a lot quicker with your help, so please, please spread the word.

Thank you

Brabbles & Boggitt Page 30

Oh wow, this weeks Brabbles & Boggitt really is late this/last week, but the good news is they'll be a brand new page on Friday (he says with crossed fingers)

Next Week: Boggitt is on the war path from the 3 Bears cottage, the mysterious mole makes another appearance, Brabbles sets out his case and Boggitt storms in to the camp to expose Goldilocks...and all on one page---Don't miss it!

New to Brabbles & Boggitt? click here and start reading from the beginning.

If you like my blog and the things that I say and do, please tell your friends; mention me on Facebook, Twitter and any of the other fine social media networking sites you use. I would love to have my work reach a much larger audience and although I could no doubt eventually get there under my own steam, I'll get there a lot quicker with your help, so please, please spread the word.

Thank you

Brabbles & Boggitt Page 29

Well here's Friday's Brabbles and Boggitt on Sunday...well, it's the thought that counts...

Next week: What's in the paper and how is Boggitt going to help the 3 Bears?

New to Brabbles & Boggitt? click here and start reading from the beginning.

If you like my blog and the things that I say and do, please tell your friends; mention me on Facebook, Twitter and any of the other fine social media networking sites you use. I would love to have my work reach a much larger audience and although I could no doubt eventually get there under my own steam, I'll get there a lot quicker with your help, so please, please spread the word.

Thank you

My Diary---week ending 26th June 2013

Once again we delve into my weird Facelessbook Ramblings; I've also added some Twitter twaddle to, and a comic strip at the end...

Enjoy!





June 22
Just been driving through Llyswen, a little village outside Brecon, when I saw a group of pensioners being bundled into the back of a transit van; seriously, I thought, OAP trafficking...surely not?!

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I just came in from hanging the washing out when I heard a faint squeaking sound, coming from somewhere near my feet. I looked, saw nothing and turned to move away when I heard the sound again. I turned and looked more closely. But still I found nothing.
It was only when I heard it a third time that I got more than a little concerned. Was it a little vole or mouse lost and frightened. Had an abandoned baby bird got caught in the undergrowth?
I moved closer with scrutiny etched on my worried features and as I did so I heard the squeaking sound again and it definitely came from around my feet. And as I bent down lower I saw a tiny hole in my trainers and every time I moved it sent a little pocket of wheezing, bubbling air out of my shoe making a little squeaking sound.
That's my Saturday, hows yours been?

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Well its summer time so Sky have put a Little House on the Prairie Christmas special on.
Something worth noting: the kids opened their presents and went whacko over a shiny new penny and a pair of mittens...lets all try that this year and see how far our kids let us get with a happy Christmas.

June 23

Okay, update on the whole 'Little House on the Prairie' thing. A warring Indian has just come into their cabin house with an interpreter. He says he will speak for the chief. The chief says: 
"Horo mon happ"
The interpretor says:
Big Chief Featherinhiscap say: he is proud warrior chief of the grazing lands of great buffalo of ancestors. He say many years he wandered over the snow capped mountains of the forefathers and many a battle he has had with the long knives and yellow beards, and pipe of peace smoked with fork tongues but now it is time to settle, now it is time to join his kin in the reservations, now it is time for peace" And I think he even chucked a 'How' in at the end...
I was just looking open mouthed thinking: if he got all that from; 'Horo mon happ' I can only guess that the Apache translation of Lord of the Rings is like about 16 pages long, and that’s with the 'bit about the author'

June 24

Stumbled out of my bedroom this morning to find my car keys on the landing---they must've fallen out of my pocket on the way to bed last night.
But the weird thing was a spider had attached a strand of web to them and appeared to be trying to drag the keys off.
Now I don't like spiders, and as a rule when I see them I either scream like a girlie or beat them with unholy and disproportionate force, but the sight of one trying to have it away with my car keys is not something you see everyday, so I watched a little longer.
After ten minutes I was still not sure what it was trying to do or even if its intentions were to get to my car, and with the aid of a few more delinquent spiders, go for a joy ride: my estimate would be the'd need at least six. Two to steer, three to operate the pedals and one with a very strong thread to shift the gears.
I watched for another five minutes, got board, used unholy and disproportionate force on him and buggered off down stairs to soak my cornflakes.
I haven't checked the car yet to see if the others were already in place--- and just waiting for the keys--- but now I think of it, they may have got tired of waiting and just hot wired my car. I'm just worried that my car may have been stolen by five spiders and how I'm going to explain that one to the police.

June 26

Just found out I've got Tennis Elbow in Wimbledon fortnight...the irony is not lost on me...Mind you I was also diagnosed with Beer Drinkers' Elbow at the Munich Beer Festival

Random Twitter Twaddle:

'I've got an eye test tomorrow; I just know I'm going to be up all night cramming for it.'

'When relief comes into your life it is transitory, when frustration arrives it brings suitcases and takes over the left wing of your mind'

'Things not to say to a customs official: Is this a gun in my pocket or am I just happy to see you. I still can't walk straight'

'What is food for thought? I'm having a cheese sandwich, but I have to admit I'm not getting any great ideas just yet. Perhaps it needs mayo'

'Further to my last tweet: What is 'food for thought' and does it come with a low fat option?'

'I'm off to bed to see if my dreams are any weirder than the one last night. That involved a black nurse a 4 inch guy and a butter-nut squash'

'Its free comic day today. Apparently no one told Forbidden Planet this and they chased me for three blocks before getting their comic back'

'If love is blind how come you can't get a disability allowance for it?'

If I have another odd week---which lets face it is a distinct possibility---I'll do more of these next week...Oh and I thought I'd throw a random comic strip in just for the hell of it!

I'm so good to you.

If you like my blog and the things that I say and do, please tell your friends; mention me on Facebook, Twitter and any of the other fine social media networking sites you use. I would love to have my work reach a much larger audience and although I could no doubt eventually get there under my own steam, I'll get there a lot quicker with your help, so please, please spread the word.

Thank you