FOR SOME REASON AIRPORT SECURITY IGNORE ALL THE INTERNATIONAL BADDIES AND ALWAYS PULL ME IN

For some reason not everybody agrees that i have the face of a, it has to be said, slightly battered angel; A face of a certain rougish charm; A strong yet serene face. In fact it would seem that some people think i have the face of a thug, or a mean nasty cold nasty criminal. This, i s'pose i could live with. I mean some women like cold hard steely eyed 'sorts' .James Bonds description in the books; Clint Eastwood made a few bob playing that Dirty Harry type character,and film n' books're filled with cold ruthless enigmatic characters such as this. But my problem is, the people who think i'm a bastard n' a criminal all work for airport security and customs. I went through a patch where i could be on a plane full of international criminals, terrorists and all-round bad guys. And, i would be the one pulled into an office, questioned, searched. etc.(i have to admit to having been spared any body searches involving rubber gloves and the sort.) People with AK47-shaped wheelie cases, or, rocket launcher-shaped shoulder bags were allowed through. Whereas i got the ,oh so familiar, "Could you please come with me please, sir."

One good thing about marrying 'The Lovely Lynne,'(One of many, of course, imust point out.) Is that marrying a bank manager, as long as i'm with her, pulling the cases, like someone who knows their place, as a good husband should. I am part of her airspace of respectability. Rather like Parker carrying Lady Penelope's bags. Even criminal sorts like me n' Parker become respectable. As long as the 'Lovely Respectable Lady Lynne' is nearby, i'm fairly safe. As she knows too well, if i wander off by myself, like hounds chasing a fox. Trouble will catch me.

This must all be borne in mind as we go away to the U.S.ofA. in a few days time and the excitment is building in the house,(all this excitment building and us without planning permission!...sorry!).

I'm not excited, i know i'll enjoy myself there. I enjoy myself, wherever i find myself. It's just getting up at ungodly hours, farting about for hours in airports specifically designed for maximum discomfort. I always end up sleeping on the floor, thats how comfy the seats are. Then when we arrive in yank airspace, the filling of absolutly hilariously ridiculous forms inquiring if i've killed anyone, peddaled drugs, been a nazi, took the dog for a walk without a poo- bag and wether i'll be doing any of these fun things during my time in the good ol U.S.of A.

They do say the longest journey begins with the first step. I'll probably trip on the doorstep.

Anyhow, all the best, see you in a couple of weeks, if they dont send me too Guatamelo(?) bay, mind you i think those orange overalls look quite smart.

BLADE RUNNERS TRACK DOWN ROGUE REPLICANTS...DO INK RUBBERS TRACK DOWN ROGUE CARTOONISTS?

This is an example of one of those ideas that hits you, you think, "Wow, thats great!" Get off your lazy fat arse and start scribbling, inking, and even painting away to illustrate that great idea. Then, you come to a point where you think to yourself. "Well, maybe, it's not such a good idea." Which does happen. But since i've drawn the picture, i'm not gettin' paid, and none of you lot could give a' toss', anyhow. I'm afraid it's 'tough titties', cos, it's going on to the blog, so there.

It's meant to be a piccie of me being held up, like Harrison Ford, at the end of that excellent film, BLADE RUNNER. Rutger Hauer, as the replicant leader saves me/Ford from falling off a building. Then Hauer gives the best end dialogue of any film, ever! You know the one. About ,"Attack ships off the shoulder of Orion. And. C-Beams, and the Tannhouser gates..All these moments lost like tears in the rain, etc..."..Brilliant! I could listen to it for hours.Even if i haven't a bloody clue what the hell it's all about. It's still just great. It's on the excellent Vangelis soundtrack.

The reason for all this 'blathering' is quite simple. I'd been listening to a copy of the aforementioned Vangelis soundtrack. That evening, the Lovely Lynne was out rehearsing with one of the bands she plays with. I've lost track of her musical comings n' goings.So, i stay, sprawled out on the couch watching Dvd's. This particular night,inspired by the soundtrack, i finally got around to playing 'Blade runner..The final cut???'( As there's been about 47 different versions released since, it's release. Studio versions, directors cuts, etc, etc.). But, anyhow, i enjoyed watching Harrison Ford n' Rutger Hauer knocking 7-bell's outta each other. And, retired to my bed with a head full of futuristic cities , rogue replicants, going wild on the outer planets, and here on earth Harrison Ford n' all the other 'Blade Runners' hunting them down.

Not too suprisingly, i s'pose. I had a dream. I was a hunter of Rogue Cartoonists..an INK-RUBBER!...So, i had to illiminate these not human cartoonists. At the end, Rutger Hauer made a guest appearance. Just as well he did, too. I had fallen off a building and he grabbed me and hauled me back onto the roof, and even gave me a version of his closing speech from the film. Here it is. About rogue cartoonists returning to Earth after going wild at off world cartoon festivals.

"I have seen things, you people wouldn't believe. Smashed cartoonists, on fire, shouldering their way to the bar of Ryans( a pub in Rathdrum, Ireland.)

I have seen Hunt Emersons glasses glitter in the dark near Birkenhead Town Hall gate.



All these moments will be lost in time.



Like beer dregs down the drain .....Time to die...From some shocking hangovers....."



In the film, the mystery is, is the Blade Runner(Harrison Ford) a replicant himself?..Likewise, in my version. Is the Ink Rubber(thats me.), am i really a cartoonist? Will we ever know the answers?

There! I told you, it seemed like a good idea, at the time.

JEREMY CLARKSON, JAMES MAY AND 'THE HAMSTER' GOING INTO 'TOP, REVERSE GEAR'......

I'm by no means a 'petrol head', and my knowledge of motor cars is pretty limited. Basically to the car i'm driving at any given time. And given the fact, that due to medical hiccups within this finely honed physical specimen that is me, i'm not, presently able to drive. Which along with screwing up my living as a performing cartoonist/caricaturist, has also caused that part of my brain which dealt with motoring matters, to f-f-f-fade away! As lots of my brain does when it's not being used on a regular basis. As no doubt, many of you have commented upon, (smartarses!)....But despite this lack of knowledge and lack of interest in cars, although i did love driving. And, was quite good, if i do say so myself.(i've the points on my license, and the receipts for my fines to prove it.). But even so, i do enjoy watching,'TOP GEAR' on the telly. And all the 0-60, in 2.3 seconds and the 5000Brake Horse Power, and 260MPH's, which is so vitally important to the 'supercars' and their smoking tyres around the 'TopGear' airfeild.

The goverment, gawd bless 'em have decided to save us all from being killed by nasty motorists by implementing 20MPH speed limits around everywhere around our green n' pleasant land. Which will be the same size, but just seem a lot bigger, cos' it'll take so bloody long to get anywhere. It's clever, in a way. I s'pose it's one way of reducing 'The carbon footprint'(remember when it was plain old pollution?)....By getting us to walk. This 20mph, combined with the increased gridlock, would make it quicker to walk. The cars using lower gears would probably pump out the equal amount of crap anyhow, so changes to our beloved motors would have to be made.

I can imagine 'TOP GEAR', in about 5 years. The 'Supercars would be able to do 0 to 16 in 5 seconds; The top speeds, obviously, way above the speed limits, would be breath taking velocities like 50MPH, or even higher! The Brake Horsepowers would be replaced by Brake Donkey Pull. Somehow, i can't see Richard (Hamster) Hammond, as he always seems to have a fascination with the Brake Horsepower of a motor, being too excited. Or, Jeremy Clarkson, 'Yahoooing' as the car goes into a 30MPH spin. Mind you, James May, or Captain Slow, as he's nicknamed, well James May ,just may, but i doubt it.

I would imagine a drop in flattened hedgehogs in the roads, as we'd never catch them to hit them. And then theres the film industry. Can you imagine James Bond 32... The car chase?... Well, i can wait.

THE BEATLES SANG 'HERE COMES THE SUN'...BUT THEY NEVER MENTIONED THE MOTOR MOWERS, THE ANTS, AND THE KIDS ON BLOODY TRAMPOLINES!

The grotty grey warrington canopy of rain clouds break apart and reveal a bit of blue sky and then, if thats not suprising and unusual enough. The sun breaks through!..Real, honest to god sunlight...Bright n' hot n' everything that sunlight is meant to be, just like i seem to remember it being. I will take advantage of this climatic miracle( for this part of the world, anyhow.).So, i got a few copies of the two years supply of Victor comics, i'd gotten off the E-bay; Kitted myself up in my sun gear. The vest, socks, sandals and khaki shorts, handed down through the generations of style concious Leatherbarrows. I sat outside to 'soak up some rays', and to read about ;'The tough of the track,' Alf Tupper! The only man to win the olympics, after a plate of fish n' chips; Braddock of the bombers. They always said how the British bombing in the war was 'a little off the mark', in other words, not very accurate. Well, they didn't know about Braddock. He could drop a bomb on a nasty German 'Kraut', right between his "Donner" unt his "Blitzen!". And there was a heap of others to rekindle my war mad youth with.
This peace was then interupted by me scratching my leg. I glanced down to see a pile of ants scurrying around my feet n' legs, crawling up and down the cracks of the paving stones of the patio. Soon after, before i'd finished stomping and slapping the little bastards to death there was the sounds of metal springs 'boinging' away. As, so it seems, every house in the area has a trampoline in the garden, and so ,every kid in the area decided. "Sun out, lets hit the trampoline." As the twanging and boinging increased in intensity, they were suddenly drowned out by the combined onslaught of every motor mower, or electric or petrol driven gardening tool within 15-20 miles being 'fired up'. I stood up and could see the odd puff of exhaust fumes, and bouncing above the garden fences, in every direction i cared to look was a snotty little kid's head for a second to be snatched away by good ol' gravity, but slung back into view by nasty ol' potential energy in the coiled spring and rubber of the trampoline.
Bloody sunshine! bring back the rain and wind, a least you can get some peace. And you don't feel you should be outside enjoying the weather, you can stay in n' be miserable.

AN ADDITIONAL ADDITION, ON THE SUBJECT OF FAGS N' FLIRTING WITH GIRLIES N' STUFF.

I've just returned from a trip into the bouncing city of culture of Liverpool, after a few drinkey poo's with a couple of mates , and it is for this reason( n' a few pints of Guinness) that i couldn't be arsed drawing a cartoon for this little addition to the previous 'piece'. Well, not that i suppose anybodies out there paying the slightest bit of attention. But, i mentioned my opinions on smokers outside the pubs in the previous outpouring of wit n' wisdom. It seems that a lot of 'coppin' off' is taking place inside them clouds of tobacco, betwixt smokers of the opposite sexes(sometimes not opposite, we are living in enlightened times lest we forget.) But the point is theres now a word for the smokin' n' flirtin'....SMIRTING. So, thats whats going on outside as your sitting there nursing your flat pint. The smokers're having a jolly good 'Smirt'.
There y'go, hows that for finger on the pulse, incisive, news on the street, street talk blog for ya?..........God!...There's just no pleasing some people.

SMOKING CAN DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH, BUT LIFE'LL KILL YOU!..(Pass me a ciggie will ya.)

I think i'll start smoking. It may well damage your health, kill you, make you smell and be totally anti-social and virtually illegal. But it looks like fun during that limited period while your healthy and alive. Why? I hear you ask.( Well i heard something.) When you go to a boozer these enlightened days when smokers are banned from 'lighting up'inside, they all go outside and 'light up. So, inside are the drinking partners left nursing their rapidly flattening fizzy lager, whilst all the smokers are outside having an absolute ball. The drinkers sit there looking at the walls or ceiling sipping their drink, listening to the 'hootin' n' hollerin', laughing and loud conversations of 'both sexes' outside. This in stark contrast to the quiet of the bar. Like a star within a planetary nebulae of an interstellar gas cloud preventing the light escaping across the universe. The 'Baccy' nebulae of 'fag gas' masks the fun and socialising going on amongst 'the smokers'. Whereas , originally the 'smokers'd' nip outside for a 'quick drag'. Now, they're more likely to stay n' light up again. Not because they're gaspin' for a fag, but just so they dont have to come back inside to the bar to get bored shitless and, probably collared for a round of drinks.

A pub nearby, and it's not alone, has a sheltered, heated, seated area with a telly for the 'smokers'. It's ,sort of outside, but unless its freezing cold,etc, the drinkers'd be quite happy to sit there rather than inside. They've managed to convince me. A lifelong non-smoker that smoking is a stylish, social pastime, you make lots of new friends and cough your lungs up together. In fact i may even try a pipe.

WHEN YOU CAN CROSS THE GARDEN WITHOUT STANDING IN THE DOG MUCK, IT WILL BE TIME FOR YOU TO LEAVE, GRASSHOPPER!

Last weekend, a merest flash of sunlight through the murk caused my missus ,the lovely Lynne to race out of the house to do 'something 'with the garden. She wasn't open to my suggestion. "Look, lets get someone in to concrete over the whole lot." When she said she was going to do something 'with the garden', any hopes i had of her hacking through the 6feet growth of grass, at the front, or the 9feet of grass at the back, where soon dashed as i saw her rearranging bits of muck, on a muck n' stone lump we call 'the rockery'. So, as she no doubt knew, as women do, i would do something, much as i tried to fight it, i felt guilty and set to, cutting through the miniature Amazon rainforest, that constitutes our back garden.(Or as any good Scouser'll call it "Our Back Yard."Even if it's 14 acres of grassland.). As i forced my way throgh these lofty grasses, i kept thinking of the beginning of ,'PLANET OF THE APES'. When Charlton Heston n' his buddies and a whole heap of humans are hunted down by the apes through all the grasses, vines n' undergrowth. I stood there 'under' all this 'overgrowth trying to unravel the cable for the mower, wondering if there was any chance of an ape on a horse, armed with a rifle taking me away. But, it didn't happen, so, i had to hack through the back and the front. I was aching, sweating like a pig, as my dearly beloved was shaping the leaves on some cute little tree in a plant pot. "I love gardening", sez she. I replied ,but we've both forgotten my reply but i think i've been forgiven .

With our new bowling green flat 'Back Yard.' The sun was shining and i thought after my long lay-down, sorry, -off. Due to a 'gammy' leg, i would start doing some Karate training, but, outside in the garden. So, as i powered away, forging my body in the furnace of my will. Part of my mind was on technique and the mysteries of the east, and turning myself into a 'human fighting machine.' Whilst the other part of my mind was concenterating on where i put my feet. Not for stances, etc, but to avoid standing in dog shite.

I thought back to the classic telly series, 'KUNG FU'. And how the Shaolin monks trained David, Kwai Chan Cain, Carradine how to light and extinguish candles; Walk on wet bog paper,or, rice paper ; Fight blind ol' fellahs with sticks; Bounce spears off his wrists; Snatch pebbles from old monks hands, as well as humping around molten cauldrons(old way of tatooing). Well, Grasshopper managed all that and passed his Kung Fu O-levels and left the monastary. But if they'd given him the ultimate test. Walking over our garden without standing in dog muck, Caine'd still be there. But i managed it, so now i'm trying to work out how i can scratch an image of a tiger on one side of the kettle and a dragon on the other. Then lifting it with my forearms to brand them onto my arms, so i'll be the only Shaolin cartoonist in Warrington.