"AAAAH GOON ,UNCLE TIM , GIVE US SOME MORE GOON SHOW STUFF THEY BEGGED ,SO BEING THE OLD SOFTIE I AM ,JUST FOR YOU DEADBEATS OUT THERE!.....

One of my very first attempts of using Acrylic paints to paint an illustration ,instead of going in with the old ink, wether i'll ever be able to do this stuff properly ,only time and my limited patience will tell......I still want to get the ol' ink n' brush out.

The next attempt was of Sellars ,like the MILLIGAN piccie of himself as a GOON and in later years. The two pictures lookbetter scanned and reduced ,thankfully.

The two proper drawings ,with ink and cross hatching and all those proper cartoony thingeys were all done as one drawing on A2, which to you many uneducated sorts is twice the size of A3 which is the limit of scan size for my new 'whizz bang A3 scanner', thats why they call it an A3 scanner ,ok ,ok ,i shall proceed, are we sitting comfortably?...I dont know if you can tell , but the 4 ,yes 4 original GOONS , Originally THE CRAZY PEOPLE, Along with the wonderful MICHAEL BENTINE, are bursting out of a box. It was done for a Goon show conference ,where SPIKE n' SIR HARRY where presented with A2 caricatures i'd done of them ,why they were punished and humiliated like that i dont know ,but both were very gracious and nice to me and didnt take offence. Funnily enough i met BENTINE and he was made up with a picture i'd done of him bursting out of a square planet Earth after his show MICHAEL BENTINES ,IT'S A SQUARE WORLD. We had along talk about comedy ,the goons and he was fascinated in ,my cartoonists 'visual thought processes'.....A really nice fellah, often forgotten these days ,but a comic giant ,up there with Spike .

The Goons were so wild ,surreal ,etc ,what people forget is how genuinely hillariously funny they were, at the time nobody was trying to be 'clever', surreal or all the intellectual labels heaped upon the show , which has scared people away from the total madness and hilarity of the total insanity of the shows. They were an absolute nightmare to draw cartoons to illustrate episodes for. The chaos the BEEB transmitted over THE STEAM POWERED RADIO, was as MILLIGAN often said ,in the mind, the imagination of the listener, thats why the GOONS would never work on the telly . The only way ,is like it was done on a couple of occassions ,the GOON SHOW performance was filmed as if it was being performed in the radio studio. I've seen them and loved them. The 3 main characters enjoying themselves often in tears laughing, then critics would complain it wasnt as good as it used to be ,couldnt the stupid ignorant educated bastards see that wasnt the point ,or see the audience and the band falling about crying laughing. They tried with puppets., but i've never actually seen an episode of what became the TELEGOONS. I know some people liked them ,so they couldnt've been that bad.

As i'm rambling on here ,i'd say the GOONS was the peak for all involved ,not because they faded off in later years ,they all did different things ,not so much together , but some good stuff all the same. But what happened was it all came together on the radio. It makes me realise that with our days of 3D telly ,computers ,SKY+, etc, etc ,CGI effects ,all visual stuff of hi tech and even hi'er costs, once the little wooden box in the corner that only had voices could whisk you as far and as fast ,the only limits were the limits of your imagination. It must've been wonderful!

If you dont believe me think of ORSON WELLES ,and his theatre group presenting H.G. WELL'S; WAR OF THE WORLDS. A huge chunk of the listening American public tuned in to a widely advertised weekly 'armchair theatre show' and soon the streets were filled with a panicked population convinced the martians'd landed and the invasion had started. I rest my case

GOON BUT NEVER FORGOTTEN!

As one of my faithful followers ,John the CARTOONMAN...(I'll bung a link on his site , but for those who cant wait ,have a look at various comments on the blog and you'll find the lad.)...I shouldnt advertise him as the' little get' is becoming a fairly decent caricaturist and i'd noticed he'd done a few' good 'uns' of the Goon show stalwarts of HARRY SECOMBE, PETER SELLARS, and ,of course SPIKE MILLIGAN. As i have a heap of GOON related daubings and scribbles ,i thought to save having to do anything fresh i could bung them on the blog and show this 'young pretender ' how its done with pencil and ink ,none of this new fangled computer nonsense. And , as we have an A3 printer now , i can scan some never before revealed A3 bits ,there thats one of the benefits of having an A3 printer, ahh ,see i'm not quite as stoopid as generally rumoured , understood and agreed upon by the people who know and love me! So if your not GOONED out yet ,you soon will be.

FORGET THE BRITISH BOBBY,DIRTY DAVID CAMERON IS GONNA CLEAN THE STREETS WITH ADVICE FROM AMERICA'S TOUGHEST COP!

Forget DIXON OF DOCK GREEN; Z-CARS,even THE SWEENEY......What do you mean you already had? Well i'll have you know that many of us still remember when the BRITISH BOBBY reigned supreme . The toughest baddie was reduced to blubbering tears by GEORGE DIXON, saying "Evenin' all!, or ,"Put down that shot gun, lad don't be an idiot!", worked everytime. And everyone went to jail happily ,as they knew they jolly well deserved to be there. But sadly times have changed and things've gotten a slight tad nastier and meaner. So DAVID CAMERON, gawd bless 'im ,he's the Prime Minister y'know. Well, our glorious leader in the spirit of CHURCHILL himself has in the spirit of goverment cuts declared another war ,but this time at home, its far cheaper you dont have to worry about armies and airforces , jut get the police, or whats left of them and brace yourself for some overtime claims , the british taxpayer can cough that up easy enough. He's reolute and he wont be defeated , so to sort out the METROPOLITAN POLICE ,he's done the obvious....Ran to the Yanks for help?

America is , apparently ,the LAND OF THE FREE. Your free if you can afford to be. But in a land where theres murders every fraction of a second; Gang killings by the minute; Psychotic gunmen shooting up schools n colleges every day or so. The name, land of the Brave is apt, I think you'd have to be, it'd scare the bejabbers out of me . These are the places totally out of control and left to their own fun and devices. David Cameron has seen them places and ignored them and in his bright eyed and bushy tailed little way, looked at all the nice little towns to see how they combat robberies of 'moms apple pies,etc. But maybe i'm doing our glorious leader a diservice and maybe he wants to see how the yanks do it ,so he can ignore it completly, but i doubt it. He'll ignore the best police force in the world, the one on his doorstep that hes cutting up and take the advice much to the Met's disgust of a man whose probably only holidayed over here, and who ,incidentally 'Our David' had lined up to take over the metropolitan police. I'm telling you ,the next set of riots wont be scally kids , but disgusted police officers.

ITS A WONDERFUL LIFE ...TWO OF THE DEADEST TOWNS IN THE WORLD AND I LIVE IN ONE AND GO TO THE OTHER ON MY HOLIDAYS!

I dug out this old cartoon as its another example of how in our hi tech world its not just animals becomming extinct. There was a time before computers ,now laptops, took over the world. When one of the cartoonists favourite cartoon situations ,almost as popular as the desert island, was the office IN TRAY , OUT TRAY and occassionally thePENDING TRAY. But ,sadly no more ,unless you can have an IN LAPTOP ,and an OUT LAPTOP,and ,of course a PENDING LAPTOP. In fact , dont be too suprised if said gag does make a showing in a fairly near future blog. Sorry about the use of the word GAG! For some reason that word has always got on my nerves, esspecially when in the context of cartoons .Maybe it reminds me of some old pain in the arse loudmouth American comedian from days of yore ,and ,of course us cartoonists are much better and classier than that .

Aside from the in and out trays the 'gag' is ,of course about Welsh place names and that famous one..LLANFAIRPWLLGWYNGYLLGOGERYCHWYRNDROBWLLLLANTYSILIOGOGOGOCH....Now Now thats a name ,i actually used to be able to say that ,one of the few things that me ol' dad ever taught me. But everywhere in Wales is totally unpronouncable ,esspecially to us English ,but that is a deliberate decision on behalf of the Welsh long ago. I used to drive to a lot of caricaturing jobs around Wales and i kept coming across signposts for what i thought was a town ,which threw my navigating skills ,limited as they were to begin with ,slightly 'skew wiff', until i realised much later the placename, or so i thought it to be was actually Welsh for SERVICES!

Theres a coastal town called ,or sounds like TOWYN, but its spelt nothing like it sounds ,and we sit in a caravan in between rain storms and read lots of books there. Actually its not a bad old place ,absolutly nothing happens there and basically we just 'slob out'.Occassionally we all go on a jolly jaunt to the market ,a car boot sale ,or the local SPAR. Then we return to the English 'Deadend' equivalent of WARRINGTON. Where excitment is a trip to ASDA,or even B&Q, Or cutting the grass,oh let joy be unrestrained.

I still like that old joke about the Welsh version of COUNTDOWN consisting of nothing but CONSENANTS,not a single VOWEL would be allowed. I dont know about numbers ,do the Welsh have numbers?. When my Father in Law reads this he's gonna rip my bloody Scrawny English neck off ,look you ,isn't it ,bach!

DOCTOR WHO,OR DOCTOR WHAT?WHAT?WHAT?...NEDDIE SEAGOON AS OUR FAVOURITE TIMELORD!

Apparently it nearly happened instead of JON PERTWEE, or TOM BAKER, around the early 70's when they were looking for a new DOCTOR WHO, the favourite for our favourite time lord was a certain HARRY SECOMBE...SIR NED OF WALES...NEDDIE SEAGOON.....Just sit back for a moment and try and imagine how that would've panned out ,one of SPIKE MILLIGANS crazier GOON SHOW scripts could only have come anywhere near it. Just as well the TARDIS, is "bigger on the inside than outside!".....Which would've been handy for Neddies portly blubberous frame...Mind you the doors could've been a problem ,the BEBC special effects people only ever show one TARDIS door open at a time to avoid showing the huge inside ,with SIR NED, they would've had to have both doors open for him to get in and out. nEDDIE SEAGOON being chased by DALEKS and CYBERMEN, etc ,well i'm chuckling imagining it now.

I met SIR HARRY SECOMBE a few times and a lovely bloke he was as well. The GOONS were wonderful. SPIKE MILLIGAN ,the tortured maniac who writed all the insanity and suffered for it, a manic depressive ,tortured genius ,etc. PETER SELLARS, A gifted mimic and a wonderful actor but like Spike a dark tortured soul. HARRY SECOMBE was the heart and soul of the GOONS, as he was a comic super nova. A fat ball of manic energy and humour.He was like that whenever i met him, but as far as THE GOONS. The humour was there from all three ,but the joy and laughter was mainly down to SIR NED. Who knows maybe he has become a time lord and is whizzing through time and space in a slightly bulging blue box, look up into the sky one starry night and if you hear a,"Whay ,hey ,what?what?what?", followed by a loud raspberry ,you'll know who's who!

IN THESE HARD TIMES KIDS CANT AFFORD NEW TRAINERS, COMPUTER GAMES,PLASMA T.V'S ,THE NECESSITIES OF LIFE FOR GODS SAKE!

Alls well with the world.....The police are being cut down to a few constables and a couple of cleaning staff. Just as DISAFFECTED YOUTH of our major cities as i've heard the hooded scally scum rampaging through the streets described as ,decide they need to update their necessities of life ;new training shoes; computer games consuls and a nice big plasma screen to play the computer games on; i-pads; mobile phones,etc. So lets all go and wreck our home cities and communities and help ourselves and destroy everyone elses property ,belonging to the rich .The rich ,as described by some of these scum ,are the targets of their 'attacks'. These are people who live nearby to their own poverty stricken hell holes, rich probably means people who actually go out earn a living and buy things using money. These signs of wealth like cars ,houses and appartments, high street shops owned by generations of families and employing local people ,well they all deserve to be blown to hell.

I would love to see the prancing shitheads have the shit kicked out of them by a police not terrified of getting whisked into an inquiry they could never win so fast their ears'd whistle and they're noses'd bleed if, god forbid, they struck one of the little bastards, who would then be a hard done to victim ,much like the gun weilding guy the riots are using as an excuse to get back at the police for opening fire on.

The damage has been compared to the BLITZ. If DAVID CAMERON had been around when the LUFTWAFFE had been bombing hell out of us inWW-2, he'd probably cut the RAF by 50% for greater efficiency and figures would've shown how less German bombers were getting through, etc,etc ,yakkity, yack, etc.....Same with the boys in blue now. But no weapons, rubber bullets, dye sprays or water cannons for these animals rampaging through our streets gathering their much needed toys. DAVID CAMERON will sprinkle his equivalent of a soggy teabag to quell the flames scorching our great cities(well i like mine!). Our national pride and spirit ,because although it's taken a hammering through the years with the shit our glorious leaders and powers that be have led us through ,it is still there. The good people of London and the other cities feeling the effects far outnumber the filth on the streets over the nights . Give them a chance to be heard and helped , they're the dissaffected victims , not the so called 'disaffected youth of community leaders and various politicians ,70%of the 'youth wouldnt know what disaffected means and about 80% couldnt even spell it.

KEN DODD,MAYBE NOT SCOURGE OF THE SEVEN SEAS, BUT OF NEW BRIGHTON PERCH ROCK...NEARLY!

Yet another week and i'm dragged from my bed kicking and screaming to do yet another days work!!!!!.....This time to a happily rejeuvenated NEW BRIGHTON ,on the WIRRAL across the MERSEY and up from the fair city of LIVERPOOL. New Brighton was a bouncing holiday resort in days of yore ,then hit upon hard times , but there does seem to be a little life left in the ol' resort ,yet and hopefully growing. On Sunday ,they had a huge ,pirate themed festival with fairs , music and a lone shivering caricaturist drawing a non stop line of kids n' mums n' dads .....But the highlight was a pirate seige of the old fort. They'd armed a sailing boat with cannons and gunpowder blanks ,but the fort and surrounding beach was laced with explosive charges to make it seem the barrage was taking effect. Flames and smoke and loud explosions abounded. A few days previously i was asked to draw a picture of KEN DODD as a pirate ,as he was due to be there, but had to cancel due to family problems ,which was a shame.

KEN DODD is the funniest and most amazing live show you will ever experiance , if ,as i truly reccomend you do, even tho' he's not a trendy 'Stand-up' .I mean he's not been on 'LIVE AT THE APOLLO; Michael Macintires thingy, etc, etc, but Doddy is the best and still at his advanced age the the widest ,liveliest ,funniest and hardest working comedian around. We saw him start a show at 7.30p.m and we had to leave after 1.30a.m. and he was only just starting to wind up. I listened to the manic non-stop ranting and raving ,the non stop outpouring of jokes .."Oh i'll remember that!".....At the end , i couldnt remember a single joke from the thousands i'd heard. The old jokes about having to suffer sore ribs through laughing are all true with this man ,believe me. Years ago Doddy was invited by the CARTOONIST CLUB OF GREAT BRITAIN as 'JESTER OF THE YEAR'. He asked me to join him on the journey from RUNCORN to LONDON. He was a really nice guy , even tho' being constantly pestered by passengers , he was totally friendly, accomodating and friendly with some real pains in the arse. What impressed me ,was that he was a listener. Most celebrities/entertainers prefer the sound of their own voice over anyone elses. I wanted to hear about Doddy's life ,but he was fascinated in my life as a cartoonist. When he arrived at the CARTOONIST PUB at the end of FLEET ST, he stayed the whole day talking and joking with anybody and everybody, unlike other celebs ,who were gone within 20 minutes. He is a true comedy hero of mine and theres nobody around to touch him ,long may he reign.

AHOY THERE N A YO HO HO ,THIS SALTY OL' SEA DOG IS BACK ON THE KEYBOARD...NOW PASS THAT BOTTLE O' RUM WILL YA!

Hello one n all your hero has returned!....No more will you have to drag yourself baffled , befuddled and alone through the drugery of life ,as i'm back ,somebody whose even more baffled ,befuddled and alone then all of you lot. Your pathetic 'cos you read this shit ,well, what about me?...I write this shit! But after dragging myself through the pain n heartache of my 51 st birthday, literally as i nearly got myself a hernia recieving 'The lovely Lynnes 'birthday present.....A whizzo, zap bang ,cor blimey ,guvnor ,printer .....Its got every thing ,which'll be thouroughly wasted on me .I can sit there for hours and listen to the multitude of bleeps ,blarps and bloops that come from the mass of lighted buttons that cover the front of the bloody thing. I actually think that most are just for show, just to keep the kids , well not the kids ,as they understand how to work it all ,but its simple minded ol' farts like that have the problems. So with my hernia ,slipped disc and trusty printer i can voice my concerns over the strange life and world we're stuck with and in.

My nautical opening title was brought on by the fact my lazy bone idle routine was horribly interrupted by being dragged off kicking and screaming to Birkenhead Secombe ferry terminal ,where is situated the WALLACE AND GROMIT SPACE EXHIBITION. They wanted me to work??????.....Drawing superheroes for the kids. They come to me with ideas for superheroes and their powers ,etc and i have to draw them up. I tell you there are some strange childish minds lining the banks of the River Mersey. Coming home i jumped the great ol' Mersey Ferry and basked in the sun as it made its way along and across the fair river, it was great i'd forgotten how great the ferries are i used to love riding them when i worked for a company years ago in the Cunard buildings alongside the beautiful Liver building ,(100 years old the other week!).....Then to recover from the strains that inflicted work had done to my system ,we went off to the Welsh coast to wash sheep shit off the dog and count the jelly fish on the beach.

Anyhow i'm off to do important stuff like wash the dishes before the Lovely Lynne takes it upon herself to rip me balls off. So 'till we meet again ,probably tomorrow.