WHY, WHEN YOU WANT TO SEE THE DATE ON YOUR WATCH IS IT ALWAYS QUARTER PAST THE HOUR?

Every good ,well brought up lad knows ,the breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

So, this morning ,as my uncaring wife ,the Lovely Lynne, hadn't stocked up on bacon for a growing lads diet of bacon butties, i had to consider the alternatives . The daughters comprehensive ,and growing collection of boxes of cereals with the words ; CHOCO, WHEETO,FLAKES ,KRISPIES ,oh yeah n' lets not forget HONEY, in the garishly designed titles on the said boxes. I stuck my hand in one of the boxes and it took my 3 hours and a virtual skin graft to get the bloody CHOCO POP off my fingers. So, i decided i'd go for ol' faithful and have a boiled egg n' some toast. Yeah that'll do the job. Now there are many reasons as to why the Lovely Lynne married me, but one of them is ,cos if theres one thing Tim Leatherbarrow can do ,that is boil an egg!

So, without giving too much away into the mystic arts of egg boiling. I set the pan of water to the boiling point of water. Plopped the eggs in and commenced timing the process on my swanky watch's chronograph. I pressed one of my collection of buttons lined around the top of the rim of the watch face, and a variety of little fingers started clicking around various little dials at various rates. One ,the fastest measured 10ths of a second; The second fastest measured seconds. And slowest was one measuring the hours. Then ,aside from this array of ticking and movement ,there was a large second finger, which with the moveable dial outside the watch was all you needed. Then when i thought the egg time was up , i was going crosseyed trying to read the dials on the face of my watch. The numbers were in 10's and could be read ,but the individual lines were a blur .The accuracy of the chronograph is fantastic ,if you could see it. Why do people need watches with all these extra clocks n' dials ; showing the sun, moon n' stars and seasons ,and aside from that see the internal workings of the bloody thing .And you can do it all 90metres under water ,for some reason i'm sure somebody could explain to me. My watch'll do 10 m's, which isn't much ,but it's enough for the average swimming pool,or for a shower. And i can time myself taking it .Cos, thats another strange thing about chronograph's ,once you start timing yourself ,you find yourself doing it wherever you go .It wont make a blind bit of difference to your speed or timekeeping ,or anything, just something to do while your going ,or doing ,wherever ,or whatever you are doing or going.

But one of the great mysteries ,is why do they put the date by the no3(quarter past)..Because whenever you are asked or need to know the date ,you can guarentee it's quarter past the hour and the minute hand'll be over the 3 ,so you can't see the date 'till 20past. So, if they stuck the date somewhere else on the face ,the problem wouldn't arise ,simple ,eh ?

ANGER ,RAGE ,FURY ,LOSING YOUR TEMPER,VENTING YOUR SPLEEN ..IT'S ENOUGH TO DRIVE YOU NUTS,BUT I ENJOY IT.

Apparently the world is becoming an angrier place ,as we all tend to lose our already short tempers a lot more often than we used to. As anyone who knows me will openly attest, this doesn't apply in my case ,as i'm a lovely laid back sweetheart of a guy...AND WHAT 'RE YOU LAUGHIN'AT? YER "@%$&*'HEAD!....Well, okay ,i can get just a teensey bit irritable on occassions ,but for good reasons,and for things other people do ,none of it is my fault .So, i think i have the right to lose it from time to time . My concience is clear,Buster!

I'm a happily married fellah ,the missus is the lovely Lynne and she's a wife and a woman,both features guaranteed to cause the average well balanced fellah grief and frustration .

(1) Women are convinced they understand men ,whereas men openly admit to not having a clue about women. They also assume men can read their minds and know what they're yattering on about when they leave the room you've been sitting together in most of the evening ,suddenly to hold a conversation with you from upstairs or three rooms away.And when they find you've no idea what they 're on about, you find yourself in 'the doghouse 'without the slightest clue as to why. .........AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

(2)The daughter ,Elara....Well she's the daughter and put on the planet to drive you nuts (but she's sooo damn good at it ,she knows the exact buttons not just to press, but stomp on to drive me crackers .I think she's related to her mother.)Mesmorised by the telly ,whatever is on. And then there's that bloody little computer game she's always stabbing away at the buttons of.......AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(3)The dogs ,howling ,barking and yapping away if anyone comes within half a mile of the house.Mind you ,god forbid it ever happened and any one broke in ,they wouldnt make a bloody sound ,except for the wagging of their tails and the licking of the B£%&*'S hand. They are also possessed of psychic guts. No matter how many Doggy -Poo bags we take out like the responsible dog owners we are.The little bastards'll have 2 more dumps than the number of bags we brought.....AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(4)And we have what the good ol' cathode ray tube in the telly sprays us with all day n' every bloody day .Guaranteed to get me in a scowling ,teeth grinding frenzy are;Politicians ,M.P's,Prime ministers ,presidents ,bishops, Proffessional sincerity merchants ; Celebrities,and shows with celebrity in the title;Films with cute or 'smart' kids in,American High school comedies ,etc ;Comedian based panel game shows . What happened to comedians who did shows ? Now they do 'stand up gigs'. And who're all these perrier award winners who supply all those 'funny',smart remarks on those endless flow of : 50 GREATEST THINGEE'S : 100 ALL TIME BEST WHATSITS ,etc,etc.That seem to be on every night of the weekends. And these new 'CAMP'comedians, are back ,but a lot worse than it ever was in the days of Larry Grayson or Frankie Howard, wheres that bloody remote ? How many channels can Jimmy Carr be on at once?.......AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

(5)When a pint of Guinness is poured like a pint of lager and plonked in front of you,and instead of the smooth inch thick white creamy top ,its five inches of slightly 'yellowy' froth with (sob) bubbles in it. Looking more like a bad pint of mild.........AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGG

GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!...

..YUK!!!!!

There now i've vented me spleen ,i'll go n' put the kettle on with a serene smile on my face ,imight even pinch a chocolate bar out of one of the missus's or little 'un's easter eggs. Revenge may be sweet ,sad n'pathetic ,as well as being bad for the teeth ,but you have to take it where you can find it . There's an Aero egg ,i haven't had an Aero in years.

WE'RE FIGHTING THE WAR ON TERROR....IT'S THE BLOODY YANKS THAT TERRIFY ME !

The other day i was watching good ol' ,Eamon Holmes on Sky News and he showed some speech that everybodies fave yank, George Bush gave .He was blathering on about how everythings rosy in THE WAR AGAINST TERROR. 'Hmmmmm!', i thinked to myself. What is this terror, i pondered(multi tasking ,thinking ,pondering and contemplating.).I must admit if a member of AL QUEADA came storming through the door waving an AK47 around his head ,i would feel a little nervous. But, when i hear of the U.S. preparing to go anywhere ,it terrifies me ,in fact ,quite frankly it scares the shit outta me.

Uncle Sam ,gawd bless him, has taken on the mantle of the worlds kindly uncle and protector.And considering he's got more money , manpower and equipment than the rest of the world put together, he doesn't have to think twice about racing around the world to show whose boss. Anybody thinking of invading somewhere ,when confronted with an aircraft carrier the size of a large country ,where the deck curves with the earth and the bow is still in daylight when the stern is in darkness,well they may just think twice about the naughty ,nasty military things they were just about to do. This power and might is probably the reason the yanks military record is quite frankly'less than impressive'. They didn't want to join the 1st world war. And when they did ,eventually we had to give them guns. They didn't want to join in the second big 'un,but when they did it was the massive fire and man power that "did it for them",not tactical brilliance an' all that. The Germans and the Brits were united in their lack of respect for Uncle Sam. Generals stomping around in riding jodpeurs and pearl handled revolvers around their waist and a massive 'ceegar' clamped between their teeth.Hollywood did them more favours than they did themselves. Any American will tell you how it was them that won the 'war'.

They've always shown a reticence to fight with us in Europe ,but they broke speed records to get into places like Korea, and Vietnam .Blew both places to smithereens and came away with nothing. The sure sign is that theres hardly any films about Korea and Vietnam outside CHUCK NORRIS, SLY(RAMBO)STALLONE, STEVEN SEAGAL, going into get prisoners out. Lots of cigar chomping and "lets get in there n' kick some ass!"-type dialogue. Where the truth is as we would say it was them who "had their bottoms kicked."And on it goes in Afghanistan .They'll never 'win'.The Russians got booted out,and it's almost home turf for them , and it was a full scale invasion. The yanks are in a 'policing action' from the other side of the planet. And ,of course Iraq has become one badly screwed up military quagmire of a place.The yanks are always going somewhere, but never seem to get anywhere. And we're getting dragged along as well.

WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH..USE THE REMOTE CONTROL ,OR KICK THE DOG !

Dog kicking is a skillful art to be mastered, and also good for mending legs with pus-pumping abcesses.



For tough steel hard fingers and forearms like bridge cables,as well as changing channels,try the remote control.

As i've been sitting here with my huge pus-pumping hole in my leg ,drinking gallons of tea and watching 32 hours of daytime telly ,every day. It suddenly occured to me after watching STEPHEN HAWKING ,MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE. That i am evolving into a black hole. A black hole is a gravitational anomaly ,where gravity is so powerful ,it sucks everything ,including light into a microscopic point called a SINGULARITY. I have become a singularity. I'm not very big ,and my whole universe is being pulled into this tiny point on the sofa where i am sprawled.Is it my imagination ,or is it getting darker outside, as the light gets sucked in? There is nothing outside me n' the tellyn'the kettle .Now this isn't as good a thing to happen as some people might think .Imagine being the centre of the universe,it sounds quite impressive ,but it actually can get quite boring. The only excercise you get is by clicking away with the telly remote .As sattelite telly repeats all its shows ,not only ,over days ,but actually on the same day,it is almost impossible to watch a programme only once.So, you manfully carry on stabbing away ,desperatly seeking anything over the 800 channels you have that you've seen only three times,at least. You start with one hand ,hitting with the thumb .This soon changes to the two hand grip ,where you forcefully stab away with the index finger. I could peirce wooden blocks with my toughened fingers and forearm muscles like bridge cables...It's the rest of me thats wasting away.....You'll have to excuse me ,the centre of the universe needs a cup o' tea.

I've finally managed to venture outside. The universe still exists, which deflated my already floppy ego even more. But as i walk the dogs around ,its like the film I AM LEGEND. I am the only person left, well maybe not in the world ,but sure looks like i'm the only one in Warrington. Theres not a soul about. so i wander on excercising my leg. Well, both ,actually, it's just one needs it a bit more than the other. The endurance and fitness come from the walking through the deserted streets and woods. The more skillful movements come from kicking the dogs. Theres a whole variety of ways to boot ,flip,flick,spin ,stomp,back heel,wallop and whack a dog with the tools nature has bestowed upon you .Your toe, instep ,heel,sole and sides of your feet (to impart some spin). So with a little practise stopping the dog yapping with a good boot can truly be a 'BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM' skillful endeavour ,as well as being good for your health, not sure about the dogs tho'.I may be the last man in Warrington,but there's nobody to beat me with the telly remote and dog kicking.

WITH THE GREAT STRIDES MADE IN TECHNOLOGY,GETTING TOTALLY LOST HAS NEVER BEEN EASIER.

Stunning and amazing as it may seem,your hero (thats me by the way!), had a caricature job the other week. I got an e-mail asking if i was still attending 'the wedding'. I thought as a guest .I couldn't remember the wedding or even the people. A few days later my dear beloved Lynne was plowing through our e-mail history and stumbled across a couple of e-mails to do with me doing some work at a wedding,'next year', in Lancashire ,near Wigan. This news which i'd totally forgot illicited two responses....(1) Whoops! Closely followed by (2) Oh shit!...... But 'your hero'(thats me ,by the way.) was not nonplussed for long .Soon the lightening smooth caricaturists reflexes 'kicked in',and,like a scene from an Indiana Jones film(Indiana Jones and the shit'ole of doom). i tore into the 'shit'ole',laughingly called my studio and fumbled ,stumbled ,grabbed and groped for any drawing equipment and paper with which to scribble n' caricature, stun and amaze the wedding guests with. Underneath a heap of dusty rubble in the corner was a bag,last used once long ago, on my last commission. In amongst the dust cobwebs and beetles was a heap o' drawing stuff. So, 'your hero'(thats still me) was ready for action.
My dearly beloved Lynne ,again leapt to the computer (she's a clever girl.) To find out where we where going. There was maps of various scales and even sattelite pictures of the actual building it was in.Getting there wasn't going to be too hard as it was just off the M6. The problem came when we asked the computer to show us how to go to some friends nearby,after 'the gig' was over. I left the wedding(the gig) flushed with success as the old Leatherbarrow magic was still there.Also flushed with a few pints of Guinness.(One of the benefits of having the lovely Lynne doing the driving .) The journey ,apparently, was only a very short easy trip .But computers havent been developed by clever boffin sorts through the years just to give short easy answers to problems. So it didn't. It gave us a wonderfully complicated route taking us 'all over the place.' When we found ourselves up to our motor's door panels in mud up some farm dirt track ,with a single lone light about 40 miles away the only 'thing 'we could see through the darkness',we came to the conclusion,we were just a teeny bit ,totally lost. Now i know how it must be for people with Sat-Navs .Those wonderous devices that take all the traffic off the M1 and puts it onto the B2n'i/2 sideroad ,or similar. So, the wondrous device (often with celebrity voices giving the directions for gawd's sake ,we truly live in strange times.) takes the mass of traffic thundering through tiny little hamlets ,villages and beauty spots ,farmers tracks,or basically anywhere the drivers don't want to go or,where the locals don't want them either. Very soon ,the motorways will be deserted ,except for the odd bit of wind blown vegetation or litter, while villages towns and sideroads will be solid gridlocked ,end to end lines of rusty steel.

POLITICS IS A NOBLE CALLING,POLITICIANS ARE NOBLE PEOPLE,SO LETS GIVE THEM A UNIFORM TO WEAR WITH PRIDE,SO WE CAN GIVE THEM THE RESPECT THEY DESERVE.

Theres one thing you can bet ya bottom dollar on and that is that there's wars being waged all over the show any time of the day or night that you wanna bet that bottom dollar ..Actually its quite apt being a dollar , as it's normally the yanks who have something to do with the shit flying around the planet. It used to be us ,but the difference is, we used to win and actually did some good around the world. But it's the land of the free thats adopted the mantle of saving the world,so,keep the head down and let the shit fly. It seems strange in these enlightened times that the blame for these wars is placed firmly on the shoulders of the boys n' girls in the various services 'on the front line.'

This does seem a little unfair .As 99% of the Army, Navy n' AirForce didn't join to fight and put their life at risk. They wanted to go to hot sunny places ;Walk along beaches as the sun goes down over the horizon of some exotic ocean a long way from the Irish sea or the English Channel. Then ,go and drink drinks with long straws and longer umbrellas in;Shoot some rifles and drive a tank;A whole variety of things absolutly nothing to do with fighting.In fact, just like on the adverts on the telly. So, this thing about RAF people not wearing their uniforms in some town ,so as not to upset some braindead locals seems a little unfair. It's our old friend the politician that plunges our uniformed adventurers from the beach bars, sea n' the sand to ,well the sand !...Of Afghanistan n' Iraq.

The troops wear uniforms and live in barracks. Whereas politicians wear the finest cut suits and live in nice big houses with their families .But, while in London they need large luxury appartments to crawl to after whatever reception or show they've had to attend ,then 'screw' their personal assistant,whoever that may be ,or whatever sex they may be. But the 'screwing' doesn't stop there.They carry on screwing.Screwing the system they've been entrusted with maintaining and improving. Politics is indeed a noble calling. Only people of certain qualities and attributes can make it and survive .They ,and we should be proud of them,they shouldn't hide their light under a bushel .They should wear a uniform ,tastefully designed in keeping with their noble calling .They can walk with their jowly heads held high with pride. And we can give them ,in no uncertain terms ,the respect they deserve when we meet them in the local boozer,where the politicians hang out.

ANY NURSE'LL TELL YOU, THE DEGREE OF PAIN DEPENDS UPON IF THEY PULL THE BANDAGE AGAINST OR WITH YOUR LEG HAIRS.

WITH THE HAIR AGAINST THE HAIR
As i sit here alone awaiting my daily visit from 'the nurse' .Who will whip off my 6'in square bandage on the back of my thigh .I'm hoping its an Indian male nurse who's visited a few times. The rest of the nurses are very nice personable and it must be said , very attractive ladies. The only problem is ,that they're women. And women have an unhealthy fascination/obssession with pain. Not only do they quite happily inflict it on other people they inflict it upon themselves...They wax their legs for gods sake ? In fact there is a whole plethora of activities incorporating high levels of pain.Not only will they partake in these tortures in the quest for the face n' body beautiful. They will pay lots of money and get a 'Jolly girls outing',and a coachload will happily go off to be tortured .All the telly secret agents were men ,James Bond ,Callan , etc,etc...Maybe they should've had women. There is no pain the KGB.or the EAST german STASI could inflict in their torture chambers which could be worse than a day at a beauty parlour or whatever. They'd never have got 'the information' out of them using pain. (All they'd of needed to do was have a drink and a natter and it'd all have come out in conversation.) Anyhow i digress, All this was to do with the nurses pulling my bandages off daily . I'd grit my teeth manfully and scream horribly as they pulled it off. One actually said "Oh good your hair is growing back!",before promptly ripping them out . The Indian guy came the other day .I manfully gritted my teeth and clutched my Kleenex.(i've been getting a lot of practise.).He pulled it off .And..IT DIDN'T HURT!.....With tears(of joy) in my eyes.I asked how. "Oh ,simple enough ,just pull the bandage in the direction the hair grows!"....It's when you pull the other way against the hair growth that it hurts. A lady nurse called the following day ..AND IT HURT LIKE HELL????...And they know what they're doing,and why ,which is more than me . Men were put on this world to suffer ;Women were put on to help us suffer, but somewhere down the line they took a bite from the forbidden fruit and liked it. Right i'm off to suffer some more , i must admit to getting a taste for it .
As i sit watching all the old telly (RANDALL AND HOPKIRK ,DECEASED; SPACE 1999;THE SAINT , THE CHAMPIONS;THE PROFFESSIONALS; UFO;,etc,etc )My suffering goes on .I haven't been working , as instead of being an obssessive cartoonist ,i'm currently an ABCESSIVE cartoonist(ba dum ,tish!),geddit? I mention this because as i sit here in my pain and misery. I recieved an e-mail from a certain HUNT EMERSON demanding to know why i havent written any of this inciteful finger on the pulse shite lately. Hunt is an odd one ,he is different to anyone else i know .As everyone else i know has said when i 'was regular', "Why're you writting this inciteful finger on the pulse shite?".I hope you can sleep at night, Emerson causing me to drag my pain wracked body to this bloody computer....I've missed an episode of LOVEJOY and an episode ofTHE SAINT,cos of you ,you swine,you!