THE COST OF GETTING CHARGED !

In the wonderful hi-tech world we now find ourselves dumped in, some people would say we have been blessed with things like mobile phones ,Blackberry , personal computers, computer games, electric razors even. Myself being a boring old fart i think its all one giant portable electronic pain in the arse. And i'm fairly sure there a whole range of portable electrical items speciffically designed for use on ,in and up various parts n' points of the body. The thing that unites all these wonders of science and communication,texting, games, playing music , stimulating body bits and removing bodily hair off hairy bodily bits.....Is quite simply that they all need to be recharged. Whereas once it was all down to the good ol' battery, nowadays we have what was one a housebrick sized electric box called a transformer to supply DC current to our boyhood SCALECTRIC racing cars.

These are now simply small plastic things called chargers. "Where's me phone charger/MP3 charger/Shaver charger",etc, etc. Heres where the technological hiccup is located. Every single item that has to be recharged has a different connection, requiring a different plug (2 or 3 pin, square or round). Then theres the other end, the jack plug which has an infinitly larger array of shapes, sizes, shapes, width, lengths, etc, etc,.......I wanted to recharge my razor ,opened the drawer and was stunned by a mass of chargers and miles of cable all attached to a different jack plug. I just said "F**K That!" And went back to the good ol' 'wet shave'. I only have to use my phone once every so often as i hardly use the bloody thing for calls,and also as i'm incapable of texting, and quite frankly just don't see the point. But as wherever i go ,everybody is clattering away texting, even if they are sitting with their friends or beloved, i admit it must be that i've missed something. But that wouldn't be the first time.

As i was typing this garbage i remembered watching a documentary about the SHAOLIN priests. They were swinging these ropes with blades attached all around their body,under their feet and bouncing off their back like a rap dancer body popping, or whatever as the cable went under them, very odd, but no doubt very effective. But as we're not allowed to wander around with knives and sharp things, so i believe. Maybe its time to adapt, so the shaolin could be deadly with a mobile charger or ladysoft leg razor recharger.

THE THREE MOST HORRIBLE WORDS FOR ANY CARICATURIST !!

Being a fine upstanding pillock of the community, i find myself being at the behest of the said community , esspecially since the little 'un's old school, with the help of the 'Little 'un' and the Lovely Lynne found out what a wonderfully gifted and talented cartoonist and caricaturist i am. This combined with, apparently me being a wonderful human being who would do anything for anyone???????????..........Well, this got me volunteered by my beloved family to draw hundreds and hundreds of kids at various summer fairs and so such 'do's'. This spread to the scouts functions and general charity functions. Jeez! its hard work being wonderful.

It always started with a telephone call to the lovely Lynne and i would hear the words WORK, CHARITY and FREE...It didn't matter where i was in the house ,or even if i was a mile away walking the dog, i would still hear THOSE words!!!. It meant i was being volunteered again!

The ironical thing is that everybody goes to the lovely Lynne to see if i'll 'do it!'.... Even if i answer the phone they'll ask to speak to the Lovely Lynne. She'll volunteer me ("Of course he'll do it, we're doing nothing that day" ).... After the day is over and the school or scout newsletter, or whatever comes out, there'll be a nice "Thank you"......For the Lovely Lynne for her help.

The other week , the lovely Lynne's sister , the exotic Elaine called and those words that chill any caricaturist to the bone...WORK...CHARITY...FREE...(My ink tinted blood is curdling even as my trembling hands type at this)..... came out as the Lovely Lynne spoke on the phone, i couldn't finish my X-MEN comic ,even. So, a week or so later i was away in the Cheshire countryside freezing me cobblers off drawing at a special needs school......Aaaah maybe i am wonderful..... The words will always have the same affect on me ,but i'll keep on letting the Lovely Lynne volunteer me. I'm still not talking to the exotic Elaine tho', much to her amusement.

IF THEY HAVE WHEELIE-BIN RACING IN THE OLYMPICS WE'LL BE UNBEATABLE

Every house in the land has a wonderfully coloured array of plastic wheelie bins stuck around the side of the house. And the pile of lazy bastards who just leave them at the top of the drive for us all to walk past. Each different coloured bin has a different function. One, normally green carries garden waste(within strict council guidelines); The blue one for re-cycling(within strict council guidelines) And the grotty grey one for the usual shit and stuff that your not sure if it should go in the other pretty bins(within strict council guidelines) or not. So we have our range of pretty bins and all we have to do is pull them out to the road to be emptied, whenever!.... Various councils throughout our fair isles have deemed, in their usual efficiant way that various bins of various rubbish should be picked up at various times and at various frequencies. I still haven't a clue when and which binis to be emptied when. So, like most sturdy Brits, on hearing the wagons around the corner ,you go racing out to grab the grey bin. Only to find out its a blue bin day, so you run back with the grey and swap it, only to find out that next door who'd put their blue bin out was wrong. So your lovely wife shouts down "it's the green bin !" SO another swap takes place. Soon as you idly gaze out the window, you see it was actually the grey bin all along. Then you burst out of the front drive to grab the grey bin ,drag it up the road after the accelerating dustwagon, then drag the grey(thankfully empty), and the green(still f***'in full) back round the side of the house till the next bin-based adventure in days, weeks, months, god, who knows, but councillor shitinthegreybinforbrains.

But every grey bin has a silver lining. A few weeks ago we were at a village festival in Wales and they had a wheelie bin race. A variety of men and women of a broad age range, some in fancy dress dragged these wheelie bins around a thickly grassy field riddled with cow pats and with footwork akin to a ballroom dancer they sprinted, jumped ,turned and leapt over the obstacle course that was the farmers field.

I think, forget the running jumping, athletics ,swimming, gymnastics,etc,etc. The future of British sport lies in the wheelie bin.....I'm not sure which colour.

ZEN AND THE ART OF PICKING YOUR NOSE !

As i wandered through the hustling n' bustling streets of the fine city of clutter that is Liverpool, i wandered past the famous Liverpool Playhouse theatre. I'm highly cultured me y'know i pass posh theatres on my way to scabby back street boozers and drinking dens. Leaning against a poster advertising the playhouses production of 'THE POSTMAN.....(A PLAY BY HAROLD PINTER)', was a cultured 'scally' with his finger shoved so far up his nose it was sticking out of the opposite ear. There he was in a world of his own picking his nose, with n'are a care in the world. I found this a comforting sight and smiled to myself. Nobody picks their nose anymore, it has become a dying art ,another good old British tradition fading away. Nowadays all the kids n' scallies walk around 'gobbing' all over the place, not nice at all , not like picking your nose.

For the dedicated and skilled nosepicker, the index finger is without doubt the tool of choice. If possible for best results the fingernail on this finger should be kept long and taken care of ,much as a classical guitarist does with his thumb and various fingers. This is for when the picking digit is inserted this allows for maximum insertion and optimum 'scrapeage'. Then when maximum point of insertion has been attained it is time to replace upward thrust for ,rotational force. The well maintained, pedicured nose-picking finger will now be able to scrape from its sides. At this point the crystalline deposits which have lined the nasal passages for a few days at least will start crunching and grinding noises and movement of the wall of the nasal passages will be felt and a gelatinous sound and feel will start to take over from the aforesaid crunching and grinding.

Although nose-picking is looked down upon in many quarters ,as are many personal habits, there is no need to not make an effort at deportment and etiquette as you scrape away. I find by raising your little finger, this supplies a touch of elegance to your snotty manouvering. The twisting of the hand and finger through an optimum 180 degrees of turn requires a little flexibility and strength esspecially in the forearms. So, maybe a little excercise to keep you 'at your picking peak' from time to time might be a good idea.

It is at this point where the delicate touch of the artist takes over from the mining engineer. The challenge of the true nose-picker is to withdraw the snotty ore, dilligently dug for into a long drawn out snooty strip from the tip of your diggin finger to the nasal passages and way up the sinuses and to see how long you can draw it out...Before it ...........



......SNAPS !!!!!!!!

"AND, GUYS 'N' GALS AT No: 1, THIS WEEK IN THE TOP OF THE 'WHAT DRIVES ME NUTS CHART ,IS.......

Now that a suitable period of mourning has passed since the sad loss of poor old Buster. Life, has settled into its usual parade and collection of tedium ,frustration and general irritants and annoyances. As you all know, on the whole i'm a pretty wonderful person. Theres always a smile. Just not quite sure where it is. I've looked everywhere for it, under cupboards, back of couches, but can't quite find it at the moment. So i'm making do with an old scowl i used to wear a lot when i was younger. But there is something that would wipe the smile off my face, if i had it. And even the scowl isn't enough to express my total, complete and utter anger and irritation of this 'thing' that 'gets on my tits', every single morning as i sit there with my toast and boiled for 4 minutes, precisely pair of eggs, in front of the telly.

Well may you ask what can drive such a sweetheart as lovely Tim, to the edge of sanity and the verge of total murderous rage. Well, even if your not interested i'm going to tell you. There is a channel called COMEDY CENTRAL on the SKY network. And as with all the sky channels, its constant repeats .And if by some amazing way you manage to miss the 475th repeat of ,'whatever', there' s a whole set of the same channel with a +1, after the name so you can watch the repeat, again an hour later.????.....I turn on comedy central ,or sometimes comedy central+1 an hour later depending when i'm having my breakfast. Its all Yank sit-coms, but one i like is FRASIER. But, before that is a thing called TELESHOPPING. This has been on most of the night, but whenever you turn it on theres always women in fitness bikini-like gear with socks and trainers and headbands. With them is a fellah with a bikini-like affair showing his 6-pack. The two of them comparing a variety of twisted metal frame things that you rock and pull on; machines you push, pull, curl, extend, step,cycle, and a variety of other unatural bodily functions to get the most of your tummy(Abs, as they call it in the body beautiful trade) ,biceps, triceps, quadraceps and tone all the other muscles and ligaments you dont pull or wrench. But, suddenly all this stops and is replaced by this COMEDY CENTRAL logo slowly bouncing around the screen as one of those symbols on your computer screen when you leave it for a while. This moving is accompanied by some kind of single banjo note being twanged once at a time. Now this might not seem like much to you, but it drives me F**k'in' nuts!... Try it for a few mornings. And if you don't find yourself smashing your boiled egg to a yellow and white mess splattered over the table and walls of the room, your a better man than i, Gungah Din!

BUSTER (R.I.P.)....FINALLY SHUFFLED AND PEE'ED OFF THIS MORTAL COIL...

To many of the cartoonists who have visited the Leatherbarrows various hovels throughout the years on the way to festivals, crashing out on the way to a job ,or just visiting for whatever reason. They will have gotten to know a very scruffy and incredibly stupid , but very loveable creature....No, not me!...No, Buster, the family pooch. Who today was 'put to sleep', as we say when we trying to break the news gently that he's 'popped his paws' and is dead.

Buster was bought for 'the Lovely Lynne ', and grew to be an incredibly stupid creature whose single brain cell rattled around his cranium like a marble in a biscuit tin. He would race around attacking all kinds of brushes for some reason. Yard brushes and toilet brushes held a strong fascination for him. He was named Buster, after one morning he was only a few weeks old and got hold a bottle, with a rubber stopper of artists acrylic ink(crimson red)....His nose, tongue and the carpet had splashes of acrylic red ink over it , so showing whose boss i said, with the famous Leatherbarrow finger wagging menacingly. "Listen ,Buster you do anything like that again and i'll kick yer arse..."You know the gist!..But The Lovely Lynne ,still lying in bed, thought Buster was a nice name, so that was that. He was a short stubby Cairn terrier. He also had the ability and Tardis like capacity to pee on every blade of grass and bush wherever he went. Even as he grew older he'd shuffle n' pee, accompanied by ,pants, snorts, sniffs n' grunts. But age did its bit and thats that .Hopefully he's in doggy heaven feeling a little more lively, as once he was. He'll definitly be shufflin n' pee'ing on the clouds ,so i'd better be a little careful when i look up from now on.

TOMMY WAS A DEAF DUMB 'N' BLIND BOY WHO COULD PLAY A MEAN PIN-BALL,BUT AT 6.30.A.M, TIMMY'S DEAF, DUMB 'N' BLIND AND CAN PLAY F***K ALL !!

My darlin' dearest 'Little 'un started 'Big Skool' this week. She's loving it. The missus, the Lovely Lynne is upset as she's "lost her 'little girl', and i'm F***ked as i've got to get out of my bed an hour or so earlier. Getting out of bed has never been something i've been good at, but as i grow older and need my 15 hours more and more, i seem to be getting less and less. When i awake on pure instinct,as at this point, concious thought doesn't enter into the equation at any level. I leap out of bed. My legs are unable to support the upper levels as they haven't woken yet, buckle, causing me to crash over a variety of bedside cabinets, then a few seconds later are the cause of me falling 'arse over tit' down the stairs. When i crawl into the kitchen, totally devoid of any sensory stimulation. Somehow, a primevil instinct allows me to put the kettle on and make a bucket of tea. The angel of the morning isn't quite dead yet, not far of it, but not quite.

My theory about the total inability of the bodies sensory or muscular system to 'kick in' when you get up ,until 3 buckets of tea have been consumed is all down to the brain in the skull cavity. When you lie in bed the brain like scots porridge oats slops to the back of the brain cavity, the furthest point from the sensory organs which are situated mainly at the front of the skull, so everythings dissconnected when you go to bed, rather like turning off the telly and things when you go to bed. It helps you to you sleep, i s'pose. When you leap out of bed the foreward momentum presses the brain even harder against the back of the skull and it takes the congealed porridge of your brain a few minutes and lots of tea to slop to the base of the brain cavity and reconnect to eyes and ears and tongue, etc. And only then does the world gradually come into focus. I can even put the telly on ,Sky News and cannot believe that at this ungodly hour there is a smart, groomed,smiling, chirpy, sincere, earnest politician being interviewed by Eamon Holmes, at least he always looks like he's just out of bed.

The other puzzling thing about getting out of bed is how much hair you seem to have. At no other time of the day are you that hairy!... You could go and have a No 1 crewcut, but when you get up at some ungodly hour, hair is sticking up all over the place. My theory is that as you lie there relaxed your 'barnet' is influenced by the Earths magnetic field. I've seen pictures on the Discovery channel showing the magnetic field and it looks like my head in the morning. Ah well i'll have plenty of early morning starts to reflect on these things over the next god knows how many years, the 'Little 'un's'at big skool.