Tim Leatherbarrow

THERES STARGAZING AND THERES BRIAN COX STARGAZING WISTFULLY FROM TOP OF MOUNTAINS

2012-01-18T15:36:00.003Z

Theres a BRIAN COX who is the original HANNIBAL LECTOR from the original Hannibal Lector film MANHUNTER,This is all before ANTHONY HOPKINS. But aside from the murdering canibalistic monster that Brian Cox is ,theres another BRIAN COX whose dead dead nice, always smiling and dead dead clever 'cos he's a proffessor of physics and is on the telly every twenty minutes or so. His main shows ,there we go ,not a programme , but a 'show' ...There was 'WONDERS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM, and WONDERS OF THE UNIVERSE....Both very good ,with lots of pictures of space n stuff, but lots more of him standing atop mountains and spectacular natural big things looking WISTFULLY to the skies. I mean have you ever seen PATRICK MOORElooking wistful? Over the last few nights, Cox and comedian DARA O'BRIAIN doing a stargazing programme, now the BBC have cottoned onto nightly reality telly about nature ,like summer/winter/spring/autumn watchfor animals, etc. They hit on the stargazing and isnt bad. They try and be funny and silly ,as for some reason everything has to be presented by a comedian. O'Briain is a clever fellah, but Cox tries to be funny as well and ,well stick to wistful physics, Brian!

I got a little pissed off the other day, they interviewed the 'LAST MAN TO WALK ON THE MOON.' Astronaut GENE CERNAN. They asked a few inane ,in my mind, questions about the future of space travel, etc. This mans mission lasted for 3 days on the moons surface and he went up mountains and gazed down canyons ,or Rilles as us spacenuts call 'em, he must've seen the most spectacular alien sights and landscapes of any human, it must've been totally mindblowing.

CHARLES DICKENS WOULD'VE BEEN 200 IF HE HADN'T DIED....THE END OF HIS UNFINISHED NOVEL..."AND THEY ALL LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER!"

2012-01-18T15:04:00.004Z

The last unfinished novel by CHARLES DICKENS was 'THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD'....But after extensive research i've found the ending. It was either something to do with Edwin and his lady friend surviving a nuclear blast and riding across the desolation towards the sun to start a new world away from the city of apes. The other is.."And they all lived happily ever after!"...Take no notice of the BBC's made up ending from their costume drama over christmas. It turns out that our greatest dead writer woul've been 200 about now, but he died which puts the'kibosh' on any birthday celebrations friends and fans were planning. My friend Dave, or WEE DAVEY, as he's called having lived up in Glasgow for many years now is a massive fan and he's the reason i drew up the piccie for him. I have to admit to not being a fan, exposed to a little of 'GREAT EXPECTATIONS' at school, as with SHAKESPEARE, i'm totally ignorant ,my only introduction was at school with 'THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.'

I dont know if i'll ever get any further wit Bill Shakespeare, but i may give Dickens a shot. Just recently i've read a few books about the days of BARE KNUCKLE PRIZEFIGHTING from the last century and it's a fascinating story and time . I've also read about JACK THE RIPPER, so with serial killers slaughtering ladies of ill-repute and big fellahs knocking 'seven bells' out of each other for hundreds of rounds, and i like the cartoonists,GILRAY,HOGARTH,ETC of the time ,so it does seem to be an interesting time and place. Theres also the amazing names that Dickens used for his characters, i did look them up on the computer ,but i havent the time to get them at the moment, but some crackers. So i might have a go at Charlie as a birthday prsent ,will he get royalties for book sales up in heaven.

MONEY DOESN'T BRING YOU HAPPINESS,BUT, APPARENTLY 'HAVIN' A FEW BOB' WILL CHEER YOU UP...OFFICIAL!!!!

2012-01-18T14:41:00.004Z

Work is non existant and my benefit ,as i'm a social parasite bleeding the country dry claiming a benefit ,but i was caught by our eagle eyed goverment and dont get a penny not a bean!.....So i was sitting drawing ,or was it writing some rubbish or other and feeling pretty down. The radio informed me that among the things my cancelled benefits were paying for was a new hi-speed rail link so we can get to Birmingham half an hour quicker. Not only that , but a contract to build a pile of new fighter aircraft by the Yanks , it turns out that due to a design 'mistake', the aircraft wont be able to land on aircraft carriers due to the positioning of the snatch hook on the aircraft....Instead of at the rear of the plane ,they've put the hook between the wheels of the undercarriage, so when the wheels run over the snatch cable flattening it the hook wont touch it, so theres a few billion more blown, but i'm doing my bit giving up my paltry 60 quid a week. Theres m,any other things my benefits'll help, even a new yacht for'Her Majesty'....Your welcome, Ma'am!...(can you post me knighthood?)

But another important cost was encrued by paying for a study to tell us how we are happier when we've got a 'few bob!'......I've just checked one pocket and there was nothing in it and i felt a wave of depression, but that was wiped away when i found a fiver in my other pocket. They stopped my benefit to pay for a study telling me i'd be happy with a'few bob'...And its true, so thats ok then, maybe the goverment actually do know what they're doing?

NAPOLEAN SOLO....THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. and the CORONATION STREET AFFAIR!!!!

2012-01-10T15:56:00.002Z

hen i were a snotty kid and loved spies and all kinds of guys who shot baddies and blew up secret bases, JAMES BOND,obviously....GARRISONS GORILLAS a wartime telly version of the DIRTY DOZEN....But another favourite was the adventures of ILYA KURYAKEN and NAPOLEAN SOLO in the MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. and their unending battle against the evil organisation THRUSH! The main character was NAPOLEAN SOLO,but ILYA KURYAKEN,originally a side character became an equal team. Solo was played by ROBERT VAUGHN who has appeared in every film and television show ever made....A real Hollywood star, currently he's been on a ruck of British telly stuff ,most recent being 'HUSTLE',which i have to confess never seeing. But he'll always be NAPOLEAN SOLO,THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. to me.

I don't know if its a move ,up ,down or sideways for a Hollywood star to become a member of the cast of ....CORONATION STREET!!!!.......I can see him outside the corner shop, or the 'Rovers' speaking into his little pen radio, saying those immortal words,"OPEN CHANNEL D"....Every show title was 'the something ,or oher AFFAIR!'.....So this is 'THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. in the CORONATION STREET AFFAIR!'

Whats next?......WILLIAM SHATNER/CAPTAIN KIRK in EMMERDALE(its life,Jim,but not as we know it!).......ADAM WEST/BATMAN in EASTENDERS,he managed GOTHAM CITY,but could he handle ALBERT SQUARE?

Its totally insane, but wonderful!

SHERLOCK ,HIMSELF....BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH, ALMOST AS GOOD A NAME AS SHERLOCK HOLMES

2012-01-10T10:50:00.004Z

I always thought TIM LEATHERBARROW was a bad enough name, but i take my sympathy hat off to a guy called BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH. He's an actor who plays somebody else with a cracker of a name...SHERLOCK HOLMES!....We all know the name ,but if you were given the name as your mum n' dad were fans of somebody else with a ood name, an author with the mouthful of a moniker ,SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, well you wouldnt be too happy. In a world were hardly anybody has a name with more than 3 letters unless its a nickname, the kids in your class at reform school wouldnt let you getaway with a name like Sherlock.

The other night we were watching the updated remake of the SHERLOCK HOLMES epic ,THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES in the BEEB series 'SHERLOCK'. I thought it was really good ,savage dogs and magnifying glasses replaced by animal testing, clone research, nerve gas and I-PODS. But it worked. The funny thing is ,its gotten me watching the old JEREMY BRETT excellent traditional adaptations of the original stories. I've been reading the new JAMES BOND book ,which name ive forgotten for the moment, but is actually very good,but i've also found myself watching the originals on DVD again.

Theres nothing wrong with trying to update our favourite heroes, there'll always be those fans who'll think of it as a form of heresy, but they can stand alone in their own right and expand the popularity of the originals, a new generation go back to the'source material 'to see what the fuss is all about. My daughter loves 'SHERLOCK' and loved the GUY RITCHIE, SHERLOCK HOLMES films, at least it gets her away from HARRY POTTER.

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH,is a fine actor with that 'odd' look about him that a character like Holmes demands, i cant help thinking he'd 've made a good DOCTOR WHO. MATT SMITH has that 'odd' look, but is too young and the writers seem to be going very weird and could destroy one of the greatest fictional characters since SHERLOCK HOLMES.

RONALD SEARLE (R.I.P.)....Chiz,chiz!!!

2012-01-04T16:25:00.005Z

When i was a snotty kid long ago i remember around christmas they used to show a couple ofilms on the telly most years. They were "THOSE MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES." and "MONTE CARLO,OR BUST(Those brave young men in their jaunty jalopies!)",which were just silly fun-packed films and i still love' em. But the thing that caught me ,originally was the opening title sequences. One about these madcap planes and the same sort of thing about cars for the other. I saw the name RONALD SEARLE and it was a long time later until i found any of his work. I saw the original ST TRINIANS films, but didn't realise that they were from his cartoons.(i wont mention them f***kin' remakes!) But my introduction was a literary masterpeice called 'BACK IN THE JUG AGANE!"....These were the adventures of the gorilla of ST CUSTARDS, the inimitable NIGEL MOLESWORTH. I loved the whole series of books crammed with Searles scratchy dip pen drawings and even today still sit and read the wisdom of MOLESWORTH in his observations on life ,the universe, skool sossages and the skool dog!

I now have a good collection of Searles books as his work as a cartoon illustrator covers everything from the plain silly to travel reportage for magazines all over the world for every kind of major event, war zones , even the ADOLPH EICHMAN trial and heaven knows what. His work was ,clever ,funny ,nice to look at and very powerful.

He was a prisoner on the BURMA RAILWAY for most of the war, managing to amass a heap of sketches showing the conditions in the camps,which he managed to smuggle out when they were released and are well worth having a look at. There is a RONALD SEARLE BLOG called PERPETUA and is definitly worth having a look at.(ronald searle.com)

Ah well, he was my hero and in a world where there is few real legends,theres one less!

DRINK UNTIL YOU PEE BLOOD AND EAT UNTIL YOU REACH 42 STONE, THATS A HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

2011-12-21T13:52:00.002Z

HAVE A GOOD 'UN, ONE N' ALL!

YO HO HIC!...UUURRRPPPP!!!!....ITS THE MOST BOOZIEST NIGHT OF THE YEAR!!!!

2011-12-16T12:56:00.004Z

As i sit here with my 47th mug of tea using up my 94th tea bag of the day and a good chunk of a sugar mountain....Every channel through the digital interference (those annoying little squares that freeze the picture when the weather does its stuff, like today ,as the snow is casscading down)....But all the channels keep announcing on the news that today is the 'BOOZIEST DAY OF THE YEAR!'......So as me n' the dog sit here watching the news slurping gallons of tea, everybody else is out BINGE DRINKING, apparently ....The jammy Bastards!!!!...... I can imagine all the old boozers in Liverpool will be filled to the brim with guzzling festive frollickers. I might managhe a glass of wine tonight when i'm catching up on my SKY+ ,somewhere between 'LAST OF THE SUMMER WINE', 'STEPTOE', and 'THE HIGH CHAPPERALL.' You have your booziest and i'll have possibly the boringest night of the year!.......Now they're calling it VOMIT FRIDAY......I hope i can keep my mug of tea and banana buttie down!

AIR POO-LLUTION

2011-12-13T14:36:00.003Z

'Up There!'.....Theres nothing there as its only thin gas we know as air and if you toss a stone or something up it flips and plummets straight back down again twice as fast as it went up. Theres no way anything should be able to stay up there. Then your argument hits its first hiccup when the first birdie flutters by and shits on your car windscreen. Birds are amazing creatures with the gift of flight.....Well their exterior ,the feathered bit is gifted their insides arent as gifted,but as long as the insides stay inside all is well. When the remains of their last meal decide to make an appearence as happens with all of gods creatures, gravity snatches the disgusting mess from beneath the tail feathers plummetting down to splatter across the pristine windscreen or shampoo'ed hair of some poor pedestrian. This ,in our little land is a mere inconvenience, but when we lived in India and Malaysia and EAGLES,FALCONS,HAWKS,etc constantly circled high overhead . Their 'do's' were like being shit on by a shire horse from 800 feet. Natures very pretty and all that, but dont look up too often.

If you look up where we live you see a sky criss crossed with aircraft vapour trails, when you see a jet flying through a clear cloudless blue sky i cant help thinking"What in gods name is keeping it up?" The moisture and fuel droplets filter down over us as do the billowing clouds from local power stations and the flagrant emissions that bubble and billow forth from RUNCORN and WIDNES and various spots around the fragrant NORTH WEST. It all eventually falls from the skies ,as did the radiation from CHERNOBYLL all thoseyears ago ,i remember the weather forecasts reporting the progress of the radiation cloud. And i was in LIVERPOOL as it drifted over during a rainstorm, little irradiated raindrops dripping over our heads.

All the SPACE JUNK building up ,sattelites and space stations,etc some losing their orbital velocity and turning into a fireball as they hopefully burn up in the atmoshere, but not all the time. Hands up all you old farts who remember SKYLAB falling out of orbit ,not NASA's proudest moment ,landed in Australia, i think. But while all these goodies from bird muck to space stations are constantly pouring and tumbling out of the sky, theres even more mysterious and deadly forces at work. Dust and rocks, meteors and meteorites are burning through the skies. If your not too worried about the effect of a fair sized lump of rock fresh from the KEIPER BELT or the OORT CLOUD at the limits of the SOLAR SYSTEM, just ask any DINOSAUR what he thinks about meteorites. I was looking at a picture of a place called TSUNGUSKA(i think!), but a meteor exploded above the ground and flattened forests for 500 miles around all the trees flush with the deck radiating away from the blast zone.

At the risk of spreading fear and paranoia, the sky looks clear ,fresh and emty ,totally harmless ,but its not, actually as i've been typing this garbage a bird flew into the window of my studio ,put the fear of god up me ,stupid little feathered get!

LETS DRINK TO IRANIAN DIPLOMACY, POSSIBLY THE BEST DIPLOMACY IN THE WORLD!

2011-12-02T14:13:00.003Z

The world is a wonderful place and we all love it ,and possibly we'd all love it n' each other ,not caring who lives how and where as long as we can live and eat, we dont need tellys, computers cars ,etc the paraphanalia that is the horrendous complex shithole of a planet we live in. My family used to live on a farm in the middle of Ireland and we tried that stuff they used to call,'fresh air'. We'd walk on stuff called grass and soil and when people complain about dog muck we had 3 foot wide cow pats to stand in. Actually i quite liked the smell of cow shit. couldnt stand horse shit though! Nowadays theres not a kid who'll leave the house to try fresh air or even to walk on grass and through trees etc. Whereas we lived and loved a natural life ,thats all gone now. We live on estates watching reality telly ,computer games ,etc claiming our benefits as nobody has a job in this land and world run by those in power.

The aforementioned arseholes who run our world are the ones who create and maintain borders create international conflict, create the weapons to fight the conflicts they drag us into. As i write this rubbish, over in IRAN, one of the most popular countries in the world. Theres millions of perfectly normal poor people who just want to get on with their life. They are ruled by a friendly looking big eared smiling little bloke who wants to build nuclear weapons to blow his neighbours and us swine and infidels in the west to smithereens. Oh oh oh wot a lovely world...Just spoiled by those who run n' ruin it!

TOP GEARS JEREMY CLARKSON SHOOTS HIMSELF IN HIS FOOT IN FRONT OF TRADE UNION MEMBERS FAMILIES....

2011-12-01T16:13:00.003Z

JEREMY CLARKSONor 'JEZZA!' as he's oft known as has stuck his size 42 foot in his gob again after saying how public sector strikers should be taken out and shot in front of their families. Today i was amazed to find on the radio a intellectual studenty sounding girl who apparently represent the unions saying how disgusting it all was. It was sick, appalling and deeply offensive to the families of those involved. They played cobbled together bits that when later when they played the whole interview had a totally different context to the one initially pushed. Clarkson when collared at an airport said "just listen to the full interview!".....I actually like' ol Jezza!'. He's a cross between ALF GARNETT and JOHN CLEESE. He is a journalist, but a humourous writer and journalist and nobody should be suprised at what he says by now as he's almost a national institution. They invite him one to a daily magazine show ,get him started and feign shock and suprise when it blows up in their face ,just as planned and the complaints from the moral majority come pouring in. If the immoral minority ,which is the rest of us ,who thought it was funny,and who couldnt be arsed anyhow and definitly have more things to do with our lives, sad though they may be, than write to complain to the BEEBEEBCEE! Because if we did their computers ,etc wouldnt crash they'd vapourise with the flood of correspondance.....Another sign of how when we need it most the Great British sense of humour is being crushed. They never interview people who like or enjoy things, just people who have to think things to death spoiling it for themselves and the rest of us who've got to listen to that shit!...They're the ones who should be shot!

CHARLES DARWIN WASTED HIS TIME ON 'ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES' ,HE COULD'VE MADE A PACKET WRITTING 'THE PLANET OF THE APES' FILMS.

2011-11-29T14:36:00.004Z

Just to make the point that clever brainy people who devote their life to science can still change the world and make a 'few bob'. The 'origin of the species' said a lot about simian and human evolution which is covered in all the'PLANET OF THE APES' films.....But they dont have many birds, lizards, beetles, etc, but nobodies particually interested in'PLANET OF THE BEETLES', or 'PLANET OF THE FLIGHTLESS BIRDS', etc.....So if CHARLES DARWIN had given it a little thought he'd've got his message across and made a fortune......But they would've had to have invented films, but CHARLIE DARWIN was a clever bloke i'm sure he'd have been able to get round that minor obstacle.

IF EINSTEIN GOT IT WRONG ,MAYBE NEWTON DID TOO!....THE APPLE DIDNT FALL TO THE GROUND,BUT ROUND THE GROUND!

2011-11-29T13:48:00.005Z

There was a time when people with a keen eye and a sharp mind used to see things and observe what was going on about them and this would spark thoughts and ideas which would drive them to discover why 'said' things happened and the forces involved. ISSAC NEWTON, supposedly sat in a garden watching an apple fall from a tree, some say actually onto his head. I would imagine the former being more likely to get a mind formulating the orbits, speed n' momentum of planets and moons within the SOLAR SYSTEM and unlocking the secrets of the force of GRAVITY, whereas the latter option would cause a mild concussive bump on the head followed by a torrent of bad language ,as ,apparently Newton was a bad tempered old fart.

ALBERT EINSTEIN imagined what it would be like to actually ride on a beam of light. This visualisation led to theories os special relativety and E=MC2, etc. In both cases these very special chaps changed the universe for all mankind ,having more effect on our knowledge of life, the universe n' everything than CAPTAIN KIRK, JEAN-LUC PICARD together....Maybe DOUGLAS ADAMS can claim to have made more sense of the universe.

My point ,yes believe it or not, there is one of sorts. Nowadays physicists are on telly in their own shows and guests on comedy chat shows of which there are a few. DR BRIAN COX, has a couple of series of him looking spiritual ,wind swept n' interesting on tops of mountains and glaciers, etc. But the main change is that the keen eyes and sharp minds that observe cause and effect of events around them now use that curiosity to formulate a stand-up routine for their LIVE AT THE APOLLO, or whatever ......Stand up comedy is the new science and discovery. Newtons apple would've gone into a sketch of how they land on your head and never in dog shit which you sit in when you sit under the apple tree, etc, etc. Or if you could ride a light beam, how could you get from home to the local ASDA carpark to get the shopping in, with our human reflexes we would have to put the brakes on instananeously ,but even then we would've circumnavigated the globe 846 times before we could stop at the store, then, of course at a 186,000 miles per second would it be better to use diesel or petrol and how long would it take to fill the tanks the size of Jupiter. Its sad, but the geniuses are being being taken over by smart arsed funny folk, not advancing humanity's knowledge of the universe ,but to get on a comedy panel show on SKY T.V.'s DAVE CHANNEL.

DANIEL CRAIG N' STEVE McQUEEN ARE THEY RELATED OR AM I JUST A LOUSY CARICATURIST?...(That doesnt require an answer.)

2011-11-25T16:47:00.004Z

As i'm sure many of you remember being dedicated followers of this font of wisdom that is this Blog, that i had a great deal of difficulty trying at one point getting a likeness of MR BOND!...JAMES BOND, himself ,or CRAIG ...DANIEL CRAIG as he is known in darling 'thesp' circles. I had another go at getting his craggy good looks from my brush to the inkpot to the paper. I think i got a 'likeness', but being the perfectionist you all know me to be it could've been better. I found an old attempt at 'THE COOLER KING' himself a certain mr STEVE McQUEEN, who looks a little like our DANNY. In my defence a few people mentioned how the two do have a similar facial structure, so i will claim that my keen caricaturist eye spotted that . So there they are ,if not brothers ,possibly cousins in caricature.

I've noticed that with the internet it was easy to get pictures of people on the computer and try and use the photographic reference as a template for your caricature. But now i've noticed , in many cases equally, if not bigger files exist of caricature images of the same people. I would say many people are using other peoples caricatures as the reference for their own work. Hopefully this wont cause a 'flattening out ' of styles as people just copy other existing styles and effects. The funny thing is ,if you look at DANIEL CRAIG caricature images ,theres not many that are any good. That made me feel a little better after my struggles.

EFFIN' N' BLINDIN' ;RACIAL ABUSE N' SHAKING HANDS, THATS FOOTBALL!

2011-11-25T16:08:00.005Z

After a supposed racial comment uttered by one of those fine body of national heroes which constitute our footballers, the mucky stuff has hit the fan. The recipient of this abuse didnt seem to mind too much and was content to let it go, but apparently a lip reading member of the public wasnt and reported it. The police were pulled in and weeks later i think its still bubbling on. After a whole ruck of abusive remarks were reported , some people defending the abuser and the abused. Blaming 'the heat of the moment',etc,etc. The major sin it struck me ,now most of our football league is foreign players the mention of race is the sin, rather than the simple more basic act of being simply abusive.

I remember when i started watching and going to watch LIVERPOOL F.C. in the (gulp) 70's....There wasnt many Black or foreign players, but there was plenty of abuse. Those swearwords were viewed as utterly disgusting behaviour and players were punished for this totally ungentlemanly and thuggish behaviour. But now you can swear all you like at fellow players even referee's, like policemen ,apparently they expect to be sworn at. But the trouble now is if a racist element is tossed into the abusive stew, police investigations ensue ,players are stripped of their place in squads ,even international. People get angry and open their big mouths and nobodies got bigger mouths and smaller brains than those posing overpaid ,spoilt pains in the arse, the proffessional footballer. Their power and influence over their adoring fans is so immense that their behaviour and attitudes affect a lot of people so all of them ,whatever colour or race should have their arses kicked if they start shouting and yelling at each other or any decision made on the pitch. Bring back BOBBY CHARLTON, IAN CALLAGHAN, IAN ST JOHN, etc ,etc gentlemen of the game in a more decent innocent time.
The boss of FIFA, i cant spell his name ,he reckons that a firm handshake will cure the ills of the modern games, the firm handshake ,now theres no physical contact has been replaced by the petulant spit in the face.....Those who remember people like TOMMY SMITH and a mass of hard bastards from 'the ol' days', just imagine some of todays gobshites gobbing in their faces..."OUCH!"

LOUIS ARMSTRONG INT' AIRPORT; JOHN LENNON INT' AIRPORT....JEDWARD INT' AIRPORT?

2011-11-15T16:43:00.004Z

I have to admit to being a little dubious when it was announced years ago that LIVERPOOL INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, or SPEKE AIRPORT as the locals called it, was going to be henceforth known as JOHN LENNON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT. I just thought it was carrying things a little too far. I'd imagine John sitting on No:9 Cloud pissin' himself laughing. The BEATLES are worl famous and beloved throughout the world ,but it has to be said the hallowed city fathers n mothers havent always held them lovable local rogues in such high regard and for years made no effort to push the legend of the BEATLES. Then respectability is pronounced upon them somewhere along the line and airports are named after them.

I was reading that NEW ORLEANS INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT was going to celebrate SATCHMO himself. LOUIS ARMSTRONG wouldve been 100 years of age , so they were going to call the airport after the great man. not SATCHMO INT' AIRPORT, but , i'd imagine LOUIS ARMSTRONG INT' AIRPORT.....I can hear the famous cackle now. I'd imagine in his time he didnt get treated too respectably being a jazz player n' black! It does seem respectability is something that comes long long after you've popped your clogs, so theres hope for me yet.

But the ideas caught on naming airports after musicians and popstars, etc . Any chance of DUBLIN INT' AIRPORT being renamed JEDWARD INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT?..oh i do hope so!

THE BEATLES AND THE MAGICAL INSANITY TOUR!

2011-11-15T15:55:00.004Z

Over the weekend i spent hours watching telly programmes about those four Liverpool mopheads who stormed the world. They were and are superb ,but they were always Liverpool lads and it came to me in an interview with SIR MACCA' mCcARTNEY. He was on about GEORGE HARRISONS teddy boy greasy quiff when he first met PAUL McCARTNEY and JOHN LENNON....He said something along the lines of,"It's only a fuckin' quiff its not a fuckin' turban!"....I had to laugh as i'd never heard any of the BEATLES swear and when PAUL was imitating it ,it had the scallie scouse accent that they had before they had to become famously semi respectable and adopted that sort o' nassally drone. I recognised them. The coverage of their tours and BEATLEMANIA still stun and astound after all this time and their magic is still as powerful as ever .Liverpool is still crammed full of BEATLE TOURISTS.

The MARTIN SCORSASE(?) documentary about GEORGE HARRISON showed interviews with Paul n' Ringo relaxed and enjoying telling stories and reliving those crazy days with their closest friends. Apparently the BEATLES did meet up on occassions and PAUL N' JOHN would meet up.

But what a journey ,from staying in cleaning cupboards in porno cinemas on the Reeperbahn in Hamburg to the CAVERN in LIVERPOOL to SHEA STADIUM and on and up , what a story ,what a band!

YEEEEHHAAAAARRRRR!!!!!!....THE COWBOYS'RE BACK IN TOWN SPITTIN' DUST N 'SOUND EFFECTS!

2011-11-01T15:23:00.006Z

When i was that pimply snotty nosed ,scabby knee'ed kid you know from my many fond recollections from my past we used to have the old black n white telly. With our 8feet wide flat screens of today the mere 12inches or whatever from them days seem tiny, and with the big switches that your dad had to try and click to change channels or later the press buttons which you almost had to take a run at to press them enough to change to one of the mere three channels that we had. For years we never had BBC2, although we could hear it through the on screen snow. GRANADA had on a Monday at 8 o'clock WORLD IN ACTION and the BBC1 had PANORAMA.....BBC2 had THE HIGH CHAPERRAL, or ,ALIAS SMITH AND JONES. The happiest Monday night of my life ,i wont say happiest day of my life as that would be fairly pathetic, was when after 5 minutes fiddling at the back of the box of valves that was the telly by some fellah me dad knew we suddenly got BBC2 and i could watch the 'cowies' for the first time on the monday night ,no more current affairs for me, buster.

Just recently on our masssive flatscreen telly with tiny touch sensitive knobs 5000 channmels and not a valve in sight telly theres been a lot of western television ,films and series recently .THE HIGH CHAPERRAL is one RAWHIDE with a certain young fresh faced CLINT EASTWOOD inbetween shortpants and a poncho. I'm loving it ,a few newer ones ,one called DEADWOOD with our very own IAN MACSHANE as the town baddie, yup ,LOVEJOY hisself!...They've even drug up BONANZA and GUNSMOKE ,which ,apparently was the longest running, but i actually dont remember it i dont think GRANADA showed them. I wonder if ALIAS SMITH AND JONES is next up ,but there was STEVE MCQUEEN in WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE. He was a bounty hunter who didnt have a pistol in his holster ,but a sawn off WINCHESTER RIFLE. There was a series with ROD TAYLOR called THE BEARCATS as they played good mercenaries who travelled around in a STUTZ BEARCAT car doing brave good things ; CASEY JONES, jeez! I'm sitting here humming the bloody theme. CHUCK CONNORS in BRANDED!.. i'm singing the dramatic theme "Branded!..scorned is the man that ran ..What do you do when your branded and you know your a man?" He was supposed to have deserted and they broke his sword to compound his dishonour ,but he was dead brave really and travelled around with his broken sword so everyone knew he was a coward ,he may have been really brave but he was really stupid. CHUCK CONNORS other series was THE RIFLEMAN. Ah and on it goes, every second series in them days was a 'cowie'...

I have to resist the urge to hop and skip around outside ,slapping one buttock with one hand while firing a pretend gun made from joining two fingers together and trying to make gunshot sounds like we used to do around the playground once upon a lifetime ago.

HOW THE AMERICANS STOLE DUCK APPLE NIGHT TO FIGHT TERRORISM AND ABUSED OUR HUMAN RIGHTS BY GIVING US BLOODY TRICK OR TREAT!

2011-10-31T13:06:00.005Z

When i was a young fresh faced ,scabby kneed and constantly snotty nosed schoolboywe used to look foreward to Halloween. For the life of me i dont know why. Me mam n' dad would lay a copy of the LIVERPOOL ECHO, a broadsheet in those days in the back room. (The one for guest ,without the black n' white valve filled telly....This is history taking place.)....Onto this makeshift paper groundsheet with HAROLD WILSON on the front and ROGER HUNT and IAN ST JOHN on the back. we would place the grotty green plastic basin we used for washing the dishes. Filled with water we would then tip in a pile of apples ,which'd been sitting in a bowl on the table for a fortnight or so. The idea was to stick your head into the freezing water and try and take a bite out of the apples. Eventually as you lay gasping and pantig with water streamin out of your mouth nose, ears amidst the laughing and gay banter of the rest of the family as you hoisted your spindly half drowned frame up to see, with much excitment if there was a slight nibble mark on the skin of one of the apples. We were simple folk in simple times , well yeah we were F****'in idiots. In them days families used to sit round bowls together and try and drown each other for fun. Who'd 've thought years later the yanks would steal our simple pleasures in their war against terrorism.

Over recent times our American cousins have had 'a bit of stick' over how they treat bad guys, or terrorists as we affectionatly refer to them. They are taken away to sunny tropical islands and their heads are stuck into bowls of water and when they've recovered from half drowning these 'bad guys' will tell the 'good guys' all they need to know. What we call 'Duck apple', they call 'waterboarding'. All human rights organisations are 'up in arms' over this fragrant abuse of their human rights. When i was getting half drowned for a bite of an apple not one person stood up for my human rights!...These mean nasty terrorists cant be that tough with all their whinging and whining. I was only a 9 year old schoolboy and that was one way 9 year old schoolboys enjoyed themselves before all day telly n computers.

Whatever you may think about the various human right issues committed by the Americans is one thing, but as far as i am concerned the worst violation of human rights is a far worse form of torture that the Americans have inflicted upon us. Like a sort of global virus the Americans have infected huge chunks of the world with TRICK OR TREAT.

Once this god awful custom was restricted to nice early 60's family sitcoms and stomach churning stuff like 'THE WALTONS'. Halloween is tonight and is devoted to ghosts, demons,phantoms,ghouls,devils,wee beasties of all shapes and distortions ,but theres also kids,kids,kids, n' kids all of which are horrifyingly real. The LOVELY LYNNE has stocked up with sweeties for the little darlings so we will be swamped wit, it has to be said some pretty imaginative and sick costumes. After an hour or two of taps on the door ,knocks and doorbells i'll be grinding my teeth and upping the volume on the telly. After a while the kids'll fade away to go home and rot their babyteeth on their haul of sweets. Then its time for the second wave, the scallies. They'll be in their own costumes ;tracksuits, hoodies. One'll be on a BMX bike ,some girl'll be texting and one of them who's best out of the group at stringing a few grunts together will mutter ,in that dull resentful teenage, braindead, monotone voice, "ertrickrtreat..." They used to talk about kids overbites ,now they've evolved under droops . The bottom lip hangs under the influence of gravity and spit, only the bottom half of their face moves when they mutter. It is at this point the childish innocence is replaced by intimidation and this is when my lovely wife makes me answer the door in case they scratch the car or burn the house down.

THE EUROPEAN ULTIMATE POLITICAL IN-FIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIPS...SARKOZY V CAMERON......

2011-10-28T12:54:00.004+01:00

Once upon a long time ago combat sports were bare knuckle events where two bruisers knocked seven bells out of each others battered faces ,taking turns to hit each other. Then , it all turned soft and moving about and dodging was allowed. Even throwing over the hip ,the 'cross buttock' was allowed. Afterwards it softened again with names like Figg and Mendoza, real bare knuckle sissies who turned good old scrapping into an arty farty form of self defence. Well, the rot had well and truly set in and as skills improved and times passed and truly skillfull pansy fighters evolved and started to wear gloves of all things and that noble girlie art of boxing came about.

Martial arts from all over had their beginnings in fighters who were there to fight ,kill and rip the throat out of their opponent. Over the years they became sportified and control wa required as you were scoring points ,rather than trying to kill your opponent. But what goes around comes around and with the phenomenal increase in various 'so called' full contact karate's and such of which there was various sorts over the 70's-90's mainly from the u.s. Evolution which is a runaway process in the good ol;' u.s. has evolved now into the ULTIMATE FIGHTING andMIXED MARTIAL ARTS which is a respectable name for what is commonly known as CAGE FIGHTING. I've been watching some of the increasing number of reality shows based on the fighters and training on ESPN . I've come to the conclusion they are totally nuts and the best place for them is in a cage knocking seven heaps o' shit outta each other. There isnt any rules that i can work out ,i've not noticed any firearms or sharp implements so maybe thats one rule. But out from that , fists ,knees ,elbows ,feet throws ,locks and the nastiest ,when their opponent is on the deck they can hammer their face with their fist. Even during training its the full works.

I was watching our glorious leaders arguing over Europe the other day and CAMERON and SARKOZY were both looking a bit flabby and comfortable as their middle jacket buttons strained to keep their ties covered. Stick the two of them in the cage i say and let them work out their differences ...I mean the French telling the British to "shut up and mind their own buisness"..Waterloo was faught over less!

ALL WILL BE WELL IF WE USE THE RIGHT WHEELIE BIN!

2011-10-27T15:04:00.003+01:00

Once a fortnight i've got to drag me sorry arse out into the wind and the rain to put the grey rubbish bin out as well as the blue re-cycling bin, then the following week just the grey bin. Every odd Tuesday ,the frequency of which i've never quite managed to work out , i've got to get out of bed quick as the men are coming at some ungodly hour for the green garden waste bin. I leg downstairs yanking a scabby pair of shorts on ,race through the door shouting at the disapearing bin wagon and the severly hearing impaired bin men manning the wagon, they seem to respond to the shouts when they turn to high pitch screams as my bare feet make contact with the stones lying across the driveway as i drag the bloody bin half a mile up the road.

When the conservative party had their annual back slapping get together the other week in Manchester under the guise of the Conservative party conference . An occassion to spend a fortune on nice hotels food n drink after a day of telling each other what an absolutly whizzo job they're all doing to save the country after the last lot screwed it all up. Unlike at debates the only interuptions are the endless standing ovations.

As the country and the world turns to shit it was good to see they had things in perspective and they concenterated on sorting out the frequency of wheelie bin collections. There was a little talk about a broken 'Iron clad' promise to hold a referendum on Europe, but thats another political broken promise...I wonder what colour wheelie bin they need for all those broken iron clad promises!.....

THE NAMES ENGLISH!...JOHNNY ENGLISH....(re-Bean)!....

2011-10-27T13:54:00.005+01:00

After a hard day slaving away trying to do an ace topical cartoon for HA MAGAZINE, the internet humour page(humour.co.uk) and linked on t'other side of the page ,they've took mercy on me lately and published a couple of my daubings and scribbles. As i sat gazing into space guzzling my 47 th gallon of tea trying to think of a good reason not to go out into the cold and go to Karate that evening it suddenly came to me in the form of a visiting mother and a wife who wanted to go to the pictures. I pondered long and hard, about the same time it took the neutrinos to beat the light photons in the race from Swiss Switzerland to Italian Italy the other week. It has to be said it was the part about going for a drink n a bite in the pub rather than the pictures that illicited the response in the affirmative.....Kwai Chang Caine and Bruce Lee never had these temptations dangled in front of them to interupt their dedication to mind and body beautiful. But i do and i succumbed and found myself stuuffing me face and guzzling a few pints of Guinness in a country hostelry. I wasnt so sure about the second half of the evening when i was given the choice of going to see TIN TIN, or, JOHNNY ENGLISH-REBORN.....

I'd had a hearty feed and a few pints and the guts were bubbling and gurgling not compatible internal conditions for spending in a cinema seat for the next few hours. Plus i'd heard the JOHNNY ENGLISH film hadnt much of a write up and i dont like the CGI 3D's so i really didnt fancy TIN TIN.... The Lovely Lynne wanted to see the JOHNNY ENGLISH so we went.

The seats were spacious and i was by the aisle if needed for a quick visit elsewhere was needed. But to be fair i enjoyed the film. It was a silly daft ROWAN ATKINSON film ,thats what i expected and thats what i got and it was fine by me. Especially as GILLIAN ANDERSON was in it ,yes AGENT SCULLY from the X-FILES ,herself with dark hair and an english accent ,looking a bit different ,but still decidedly fanciable.

So the critics were right in all they said as they criticised the 'silly' film and thats why i enjoyed it as it was just a silly film.

SCRATCH ONE NUTJOB CRAZED DICTATOR, WHILE WE WAIT FOR THE NEXT ONE LETS STOP MAKING FIGHTERS, SACK THE AIRFORCE AND GET GOING ON THE GOVT CUTS!

2011-10-21T10:24:00.010+01:00

Now our favourite crazed dictator has been shot to death in a sewer pipe in Libya and the people are free and the conflict is over until the next nutjob dictators take over, lets get back to the serious job of enforcing goverment cuts. They've shut down BAE Systems who made the international TYPHOON fighter bomber the staple of our air defences once the goverment at the time got rid of everybodies favourite vertical take off HARRIER, to pleaseour johnny foreign neighbours. So now we can lay off the airforce as they're not needed. If we have another scrap soon we'll have to round up all these out of work aero-engineers and pilots and start knocking together an airforce. I'm sure our prospective military opponents following the rules of gentlemanly warfare'll hang on while we 'bang' a few squadrons out.

During the second world war we had to rip up all our iron railings, etc to build SPITFIRES, etc. Now the railings wouldnt be able to be touched as , even more important and powerful than the Ministry of Defence is the DEPT OF HEALTH N' SAFETY. They will decide which is more unsafe the country on the brink of war or removing the railings from ancient village duckponds to the local communities. Ah what would ol' WINSTON CHURCHILL have had to say about it all.

NEVER MIND WHERE'S WALL/...WHERE'S THAT WALLY BLAIR???

2011-10-19T14:53:00.004+01:00

I remember 'our Tony' during his leadership days he will always stand out for me as the man who encouraged our politicians from all sides of all the divides to yank their tie off ,take their jacket off and roll their sleeves up to give the impression that they were getting down and getting dirty with the rest of us to save our great nation, The reality was they were doing bugger all ,but Tony had invented 'spin' so everything was a photo oppertunity to be taken advantage of and used. The country hadnt sunk, but you could hear the rocks in the shallows scrapping against the hull. The other fine thing he did was get us into an interminable war with our 'special allies' under a real nutjob of a president. This was a good excuse for Tony to spend lots of time across the pond 'cementing' our' special relationship.

The main reason for our politicians enthusiasm for this 'special relationship' is that its a good pension fund for them when they leave the 'house' . Tony handed power over to that other fellah we've already forgotten .Then he went home wrote his memoirs, went back to the 'states' and earned a fortune on the lecture circuit. Nobody over here' d be arsed paying to spend an evening listening to Tony.

Tony ,then got a job. With the blessing of the U.N. Russia, European union and America he's representing the 'Quartet 'bringing peace n' harmony to the Middle East. His ,charitable Tony BlairAssociates ,of which nobody knows nothing ,except Tony is raking in quidsinzillions for whatever he's supposed to be doing.

The Middle East is the most alien place on Earth. There has been war, strife ,blood snot n' tears since, never mind history ,but since time began. Today the powderkeg has gone up again ,but worry not ,this time they've got Tony Blair to 'sort it'. You can tell he's working on it as he's not wearing a tie ,shirtsleeves are rolled up and bugger all seems to be happening.

ITS OFFICIAL..RUGBY IS A GAME FOR HOOLIGANS PLAYED BY HOOLIGANS!

2011-10-17T15:05:00.004+01:00

The worst thing the English squad did whilst out in New Zealand attempting to do something ,in fact anything to bring some pride to our sadly prideless land in the Rugby World cup, was that they failed miserably not only on the pitch and off the pitch as well. On the pitch they sort of managed and muddled, but that was it. But off the pitch something very strange happened. Rugby players are big hard men who like a drink ,sing loud bawdy songs and have wild boisterous boys nights out making complete tits n arse'oles of themselves in the process.This is expected and accepted behaviour from these hooligan gentlemen . But for some reason when the English squad put on their dancing shoes and hit the New Zealand low spots they made themselves look totally sad n' pathetic and in competition with the other less than angelic big bawdy rugby chaps from all over, they lost that side of the rugby boozers world cup by appearing as a bunch of knobheads who couldnt take their ale and made everybody else look like good clean decent lads.

As the English squad arrived home to scorn and disgust ,did any body bother to meet or pick them up at the airport even? The Welsh were waiting to play their semi-final clash with them Frenchies. All of England were backing the Welsh to win, for gods sake thats almost as bad as wanting the French to win...... Thats how bad the English team have damaged national pride. We even had sympathy for the Welsh being just defeated.

But the Welsh had 'it sorted' , a man short they soldiered on. Its always more important to have an excuse for losing , than to win the match.

ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND FALLING ABOUT AS THE NATIONAL ANTHEMS PLAYED!

2011-10-03T16:30:00.004+01:00

If you were up Saturday morning chewing on your morning bacon butty as was i, you probably saw part of it fly across the living room closely chased by the dog as you blurted out something along the lines of "OH £$%&*@ YES, MY BEAUTIES!".....As ENGLAND in the dying seconds of the maul of a match against 'the ol enemy' SCOTLAND ploughed across the line to score and beat the Scots. Half the world blurted out the above comment whilst the restof the world blurted out a less than joyous, not so positive expletive as ,for some reason the sight of England beating Scotland didn't fill them with glee. Everybody loves the English, just ask the WELSH,IRISH,SCOTTISH,FRENCH, etc, etc ,we saved the world , if everybody didnt hate the English so much they'd hate each other a lot more and the world'd be a bigger mess than it is now. Mind you i'd say we've handed our loathsome crown to AMERICA and long may they be hated instead.

But back to the RUGBY, i kept thinking about the poor team coach driver thinking he's in for an extended holiday in NEW ZEALAND all of a sudden he's got to set the alarm to go home the next morning. Ahh but the English lads are flying the flag pissing it up every night ,upsetting and copping off with the Kiwi ladies who frequent international rugby players drinking clubs. And it makes you proud to see how pissed our national heroes actually get ,i can take me ale better than MIKE TYNDALL, judging by the news stories of his wild nights ,i wonder if his 'Granny inlaw' has been on the phone. If Zara ,her mum and M'am have their way he wont be playing in the England quater finals he'll be crated home to the tower.

But it was good to see them win ,i even didnt mind the dog eating my bacon butty, even if he was barking for Scotland being a WEST HIGHLAND TERRIER.

PRISON OVERCROWDING SOLVED...LOCK THE CLAUSTROPHOBICS INSIDE AND THE AGROPHOBICS OUTSIDE!

2011-09-30T18:00:00.005+01:00

(THE AGROPHOBIC CONVICT)

As we hear on a daily basis terrible stories about how the poor badly done to guys n gals swelling our prison system are up to 15 a bunk or something and still new batches of offensive offenders come flooding through the portals to all her majesty's holiday camps. As tax payers it affects us all. From the upkeep of cells to the upkeep of prisoners, to paying for the tablets of soap left on the shower floors????....

But ,as ever i'm here to help solve the problems that no one else can solve. I might have the wrong end of the wardens cosh, but i was lead to believe that prison was a punishment and as all good punishments afford a certain degree of suffering for those being punished. So to make it all the more miserable for all involved and make more room to help spread more misery to all the extra offenders able to be crammed into our splitting at the seams prison service.

There our lots of psychological fears , or PHOBIAS as the psychiatrists call 'em. There are an amazing amount of phobias with amazing names for everything, but they end in Phobia. The main ones are CLAUSTERPHOBIA, fear of confined spaces......Simple cram all them into cells inside the prison.

AGROPHOBICS...Fear of open spaces ,simple put them outside by themselves, as ably illustrated by yours truly.

Theres also a famous phobia ,a fear of heights, whose name escapes me for the moment and with this crappy computer i couldnt be arsed trying to find out on Google. I'd only returned to find all this hard written crap had dissapeared , so you look it up on Google ,anyhow i'm not meant to know everything .Ok nearly everything, but theres limits. But back to fear of heights, stick them sufferers on the higher floors, to compound the suffering , put them on the upper bunks.

THE GRE(=mc2)AT RACE ?.....OR BACK TO THE BACK OF THE BEERMAT, ALBERT?

2011-09-27T15:17:00.005+01:00

Everybody knows and loves ALBERT EINSTEIN, even people who cant count the thumbs on one hand for some reason know his SPECIAL THEORY OF RELATIVETY equation the infamous E=MC2, even if they havent got a clue as to what the hell it means and to be fair they wouldnt be the only ones. But basically it sums up the laws of the universe ,space, time ,and a few other odds n' sods that keep the cogs in the machine turning and squeaking. He's everybodies idea of 'The mad scientist ', Amass of unkempt white hair ,glasses on the end of his boozers nose and an old fashioned bent pipe pumping out clouds of smoke. He sat there and just thought and imagined what it would be like to travel on a beam of light . His imagination took him across space and time and opened these theories to him it was only later when he had to get the numbers to agree.

His basic law ,NOTHING CAN TRAVEL FASTER THAN LIGHT IN A VACUMN. This is the lynchpin on which every scientific theory and idea is based. And quite simply cannot be broken, up until last week that is.

In the DEAD BIG HADRON COLLIDER, or whatever size they call it they produced cute little subatomic particles called NEUTRINO'S which can travel through anything ,so they shot them through the earth from Switzerland to Italy and they arrived a billion zillionth of a megasecond ahead of time ,beating the speed of light.

Quel horrers!!!!!! ..As foreign scientists probably say ,in one billionth, zillionth of a megasecond the universe has been turned arse over tit . It even opens the way for time travel. Some wit cracked a funny ....

...........The barman said"we dont sell beer to neutrino's!" A Neutrino walks into this bar and asks for a beer....(geddit?)..... If they can beat time in the drag race, The law of Causality is broken , which means quite simply 'The cause happens before the effect!' Unless light can regain its title. If not you could read this before i've written it. So if you dont like it let me know , save me wasting my time.

There is questions about the accuracy of the timing and distances involved to measure these billion ,zillionths of megaseconds. If they want to get it spot on, get JEREMY CLARKSON, CAPTAIN SLOW and THE HAMSTER, from TOP GEAR with their trusty stop watch to measure the speed and time round the top gear track. In fact THE STIG can road test the LIGHT PHOTON and THE NEUTRINO, that should solve the problems.

IS ALL THE LIFE IN OUR RIVERS AND STREAMS 'COS OF CLEAN WATER OR 'COS THEY'RE USED TO THE SHIT?

2011-09-27T13:00:00.004+01:00

As you go through life you take things for granted...One of those things was , ever since i was young was how rivers and streams were dirty and you should never drink the water, etc, (where would we be without out mummies, eh?).. The simple fact was all those factories pouring out smoke ,smells and chemicals were filling the nearby water supplies with nothing but 'pure shit'. The fair city of LIVERPOOLS, own shit filled tributary THE RIVER MERSEY was legendary amongst shit filled rivers. Upstream we had the fair villages of WIDNES,WARRINGTON,RUNCORN,ETC....All plied high with factories with chimneys pumping shit into the skies and a little more descreetly pipes pumping all kinds of crap into the once crystal waters. All this was washed out into the Irish Sea to meet up with all the shit pumping out of DUBLIN BAY,there was a patch of sea water that the mere thought of is enough to put anyone off ,never mind their dinner ,but eating for life.

Then for some reason it was said that the rivers were becomming cleaner. The whole of the country laughed, never mind all of Liverpool when it was announced the Mersey was getting cleaner. Everyone whose ever sat on a MERSEY FERRY has been astounded at the junk and crap floating on the waters. I used to be very embarressed and jealous at the number of condoms floating about ,it meant most of Liverpool, Birkenhead and all points up stream were having a lot better time of it then i bloody was. Some of them condoms probably still had the wearer connected to them ,judging by the fair number of bodies that were pulled from the murky depths, and probably still are!

There came a time when people started doing ridiculous things like canoeing and wind surfing on the Mersey. "My god! They must be nutters!" going anywhere near the water of the Mersey. Then time passed and people swam in it, and survived?

So now Otters and all kind of creatures and fish are supposedly filling our streams and waterways, is this because the waters cleaner or because they are more resiliant to the quantities of shit?.....And did you know the water in rivers is see-thru?...I'm yet to be convinced about the Mersey, tho'. I notice DAVID WALLIAMS only swam a hundred miles or so along the THAMES, a little gut and bowel trouble aside ,thats easy ,lets see if he can handle 5 miles of the River Mersey.

PETE TOWNSHEND (WHO HE?) ON STEAM POWERED RADIO 2 , MY EXCUSE FOR ANOTHER PETE TOWNSHEND PICCIE!

2011-09-08T16:26:00.007+01:00

Gawd bless the BEEB say i, They ran a couple of documentaries over the last two weeks by and about the amazing PETE TOWNSHEND. Something along the lines of GROWING OLD BEFORE I DIE'. As some of my readers will be stunned and amazed to find out ol 'pete' is one of my absolute heroes. It was good to listen to the man telling his astounding story ,but enjoying himself and making it funny and entertaining. But for me the other vitally important aspect of the shows is its an excuse to bung another Pete Townshend caricature on the blog. If highly august caricaturing genius's like SEBASTIAN KRUGER can get away with banging out loads of caricatures of his heroes THE ROLLING STONES, then i, who doesn't sadly deserve to breath the same air as Sebastian, can whack out a few PETE TOWNSHEND and THE WHO piccies . Another eason is that the STONES and THE WHO were possibly the ugliest bands in the world and so are so much fun to draw.

Not only have the BEEB done a documentary about Townshend, but last Tuesday they did one about a certain KEITH MOON....."I'M KEITH MOON ,WOTS YOUR EXCUSE?" I havent had a listen yet ,but i shall and if i can get my arse into gear may even have a drawing of the 'LOON'(r.i.p).

"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!.....

2011-08-29T13:13:00.005+01:00

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!

2011-08-29T11:35:00.005+01:00

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!

2011-08-26T19:08:00.009+01:00

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!

2011-08-22T13:52:00.007+01:00

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!

2011-08-12T16:42:00.006+01:00

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!

MOUNT EVEREST IS FAIRLY HIGH ,BUT LIFE'S A LOT HIGHER AND MURDER ON THE JOINTS.

2011-08-09T16:02:00.005+01:00

We went to see the wonderful JOHN CLEESE the other week in his one man ALIMONY TOUR. He was brilliant, we were starstruck much to my suprise ,"my god thats JOHN CLEESE!",all 6 ft 15 ins of him standing ,as John Cleese does speaking in that clenched way that CLEESE does ,in life ,as BASIL FAWLTY,and in a million MONTY PYTHON sketches and films. The following day there was a clip from that wonderful 4 YORKSHIREMAN sketch .Then yesterday ,in reference to the poor kids destroying the capital ,somebody mentioned the mountain in life they have to face ,but then i found this old cartoon i did years ago for a mountain climbing magazine. A mountaineers version of the 4 YORKSHIREMEN. So ,with my chance combination of MONTY PYTHON and mountains i thought i'd fill a bit of blogging space with this useless waste of blogging space.

An interesting conversation took place the other week ,it started about KARATE training and stumbled along to encompass life in general. Life was a mountain to be climbed. You strove and strained ,with the peak forever there in front, your aim in life, you endured the pain during the long ascent. Your mind ,body ,muscles and joints felt the pain ,then you may reach the top and the only way is down and you do the descent in a minute fraction of the ascent , possibly on the seat of your pants , so lifes journey finishes with you a broken wreck and your arse in tatters...Make of that what you will!

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

2011-08-09T14:25:00.006+01:00

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!

2011-08-09T13:39:00.004+01:00

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!

2011-08-02T17:18:00.008+01:00

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.

APOLOGIES TO ONE 'N' ALL, BUT ME SCANNERS BLOWN UP SO NO SCANNED PICCIES FOR TIM'S BLOG FOR A WEE WHILE ,BUT I SHALL RETURN!!!!!!

2011-06-06T09:51:00.002+01:00

As i said the damn blasted printer scanner thingey's gone 'n' blown up , so for all you fans 'n'n followers of whats really happening in the world with your ace 'finger on the pulse roving (between the studio and the kitchen) cartooning reporter, fret ye not ,it'll all come right and your leader shall return to educate ,entertain ,baffle ,befuddle ,irritate and annoy to the least best of my abilities!!!!!!!!

THE ROYAL WEDDING! WE ALL SAW 'THAT' DRESS, BUT MANY OF US WONDERED ABOUT 'THE UNDERWEAR.

2011-05-09T15:41:00.006+01:00

I have to apologise first off, as my ever alert finger on the pulse hasnt been alert or on the pulse ,due to a infilltration of the computer by stuff like viruses and trojans and worms and trojan worms, this was F**'IN up the computer and was nothing to do with a sky remake of JASON N' THE ARGONAUTS. But my alert finger and the pulse is back to entertain ,edjucate and no doubt annoy n bore the arse of the variety of weirdo's that read this shit. Anyhow fans and cuddly affecianado's of culture and crap here we go again ,no more excuses. But the world has turned a good number of times since these stubby fingers have battered the keyboard, and amongst the throng of stuff thats been n gone and been assigned to history was , that ROYAL WEDDING which suddenly came and went. The eyes of the world were set intently on 'THAT' dress!!!!!.....As the lovely bride left the family hotel to go and do the buisness at that big church. I listened to the women of the Leatherbarrow household "Ahh n' Coo" about 'THAT' dress. I couldnt help wondering about what was underneath .....'THOSE' commoner drawers from 'Marks n' Sparks' ?

Later on in the day i thought my questions would all be actually answered when that Welsh newscaster off the BEEB announced that when the new bride n groom left the palace they would do it in a manner which would be a suprise and a treat to all us commoners who'd parked their arses on the couch for the last hour or so, or those maniacs who'd parked their ,now soggy,grass stained arthritic arses outside the gates of the palace for 7 days or so. When the AIR SEA RESCUE helicopter flew over the palace i thought WILLIAM would attach himself to the rescue cable and hitch the missus up and carry her across the thousands of arched necks as the people swayed like reeds in the wind trying to see up 'THAT' dress at 'THE' underwear. But this was not to be. Instead they drove out in a good old JAMES BOND fashion in a wonderful ASTON MARTIN. I thought "Oh please, dear lord i will go to church every Sunday if you activate the EJECTOR SEAT in the button at the top of the gear stick!"....But ,alas t'was not to be. A simple request thought i, but the ol fellah wasn't in a granting meagresimple requests n' favours mood. Is it any wonder the numbers going to church on a Sunday are falling.

TIM LEATHERBARROW THE PETE TOWNSHEND OF SCRIBBLING CARICATURISTS AT THE SHREWSBURY CARTOON FESTIVAL

2011-05-05T15:19:00.005+01:00

After returning to our dark gloomy n' damp ol' country after getting absolutly frazzled n' fried, boozing and stuffing our faces in Portugal, i had a night at home with a chinkey take away and a bottle of wine in front of the telly catching up on hours of SKY + recorded episodes of CORONATION STREET. Then the following morning i bade farewell to my beloved brood and made my way off to the fine town of SHREWSBURY, as it was time for the scum of the cartooning world to decend upon the pubs and backstreets of that fine and once respectable town. Whenever the cartoonists decend upon any place any semblance of ,class, style, order,decency, and general good n' nice things legs it out in the opposite direction as fast as their respectable legs'll carry them. This time would prove to be no different ,especially as a group of hooligans and deadbeats, generally refferred to as the IRISH CARTOONISTS' were coming over from the emerald bogs. I've not seen many of them for a number of years . I'm still recovering from the ravages of a variety of Irish cartoon festivals over the last 20 years or so.

Not long after arriving i got dragged into the main square ,where cartoonists were drawing on boards and sheets of various sizes from normal foolscap to 8 by 10 foot boards. I got dragged into the caricaturing for the public. There was a big queue ,so instead of carefully drawn brush pen renderings , i snaffled a couple of free A3 pads and some black markers and dived in doing ,as they say, 'lightening sketches'. People enjoy the fast almost frenetic scribbling. Once somebody called me a KEITH MOON of cartooning....I was telling one of my targets that, as i was stretching my arm ,swinging my drawing arm above my head . He said i was more like a PETE TOWNSHEND of caricaturing. I dont know if that was because of the swinging arm; The target badge i had on my shirt.....Or just my big nose! But being ever the showman i went into a TOWNSHEND WINDMILL AND LEAP in the air, very silly, but it got a laugh and a round of applause. I did consider ripping the drawing and smashing the marker pen on the deck, but i do draw the line, along with all the others.....I do have limits to my stupidity ,but it was probably the prospect of having to bend all the way to the ground to break this little chunky marker, doing me back in and probably smashing my fingers.

Then, at the first oppertunity we dissappeared into the boozer, finally meeting up with the Irish lads; GRAHAM KEYES, TOM MATTHEWS, JIM COOGAN and later TOM HALLIDAY. And much to my disgusted suprise GUY CARTER had been invited to film the chaos and disorder. The evening then degenerated into boozing, stuffing our faces then back to the boozing. The mixture of beer, wine and .....whisky ,all in vast quantities, at the time seemed a good idea, but time would tell...

And ,Jeez ,it did!....The following morning was a little like a scene from one of those zombie films. What the human being will do to themselves in the quest for a good night is beyond belief. But a good cartoonist is nothing if not experianced in the art of handling the worst of hangovers. After a few gallons of tea and coffee we hit the main square and scribble the fine people of Shrewsbury. Filled with stale drink; And festering hatred for myself, the suffering i put myself through and for the others who forced drink down my unsuspecting and innocent gullet; and hatred for everybody sitting in front of me , my jaws aching as i clenched my teeth with a couple of tons of pressure on my molars and fillings in an unflinching sincere friendly smile.

Its quite easy being a caricaturist in a festival ,as people are always saying things like,"Dont draw my spots, freckles, big nose, wrinkles, bald patch, double chin, etc, etc, ", half the time you dont have to look up. After a bit the locals genuine good humour bucks you up and its time to get 'THE HAIR OF THE DOG' down you. The LOVELY LYNNE n' THE LITTLE 'UN arrived in the afternoon. They had a wander ,as GUY CARTER, decided he wanted me to film the cartoonists and public. I took to it like a 'FISH TO CONCRETE'. Over the day and evening the language and pure insanity that came out on the attempt at serious investigative journalism was unbelievable. I reckon theres about 3 days of film, but by the time it gets edited down ,there'll be about 45 seconds of usable non offensive film.

That evening when we hit the hotel bar ,in the company of GUY CARTER and the EMPEROR DALEK, himself, JOHN LANDERS. John was driving Guy nuts, as Guy wanted John to introduce the festival in this incredible DALEK voice that he manages somehow and never fails to crease me up. He wouldnt do it so Guy was yelling n' 'effing n' blinding and ,after a while sounded more like a DALEK then JOHN, but for the second time in as many months i was in a totally uncontrollable fit of laughter ,crying and tearing of the ribcage ,but John picked up on it and took up laughing ,which set me off again and vice versa, neither of us could breath for an hour or so. Everybody looking over.."What the F*****'s wrong with them shit'eads? written across their faces . When i went to bed i was still in pain and the following day my ribs and throat were wrecked.

A good time, as ever was had by all, while the festival was on, afterwards you have to pay the ferryman for the overindulgences. As you get older the suffering lasts about 3 times longer than the sinfullness that was responsible for it in the first place.

The 'ace(but not pretty)face' HUNT EMERSON made a showing at SHREWSBURY, but after a mooch around the main square ,he looked for us in a few boozers, but couldnt find us, so returned home to BIRMINGHAM. Either Hunt needs to wipe the ink off his glasses;Missed us in the pub; Or he was in the pub when we were looking at museums and cathedrals and such places of cultural interest. It was a shame we missed him, as he's a grizzled veteran of the Irish festivals as well. Ah well, maybe next year.

ROGER DALTREY: HE CAN STILL SING A MEAN PIN BALL !

2011-03-29T15:24:00.003+01:00

My run-down Guinness soaked body is only just recovering from a few days down in the capital. As regular readers, there must be one or three out there...It's nothing to be ashamed of.....Well maybe a little ,just keep it to yourself and carry on reading your laptop under the blankets......Well as i was going to say , i was down in London and you'll not be too stunned shocked and amazed if i say it was to go and watch ROGER DALTREY perform TOMMY at the ROYAL ALBERT HALL. There! i bet your shocked , stunned and amazed.

We hit the big city and hit a few boozers quite soon afterwards. Later in the afternoon we met up with two caricaturists of my ,but hopefully not your aqaintance, a certain SIMON ELLINAS and a certain PAUL BAKER who forced us to drink even more beer .We gave Simon a spare ticket for the show ,i tthink it was on the roof of the R.A.H. We agreed to meet later ,shockingly ,stunningly and amazingly ...In a pub!. Just around the corner from the hallowed hall. The problem was we couldnt find the pub, so while Simon tried to find a decent 'spec' we retired to the bar. Whilst i gagged on the tin of Guinness ,because of the price ,my friend ,also called Simon, incidentally. Obviously a common ,nasty name , not like TIM. Well Simon (2) gagged on some Taiwanese lager ,for a number of reasons ,two being :It tasted of donkey piss with bubbles and it cost a bomb. But these arent big enough reasons to put a galavanting pair of northern lads off their 'pop', so we carried on guzzling away 'till a certain Mr ROGER DALTREY hit the stage. It has to be said him n' his band did a blistering performance ,his voice sounded years younger and was more than up to booming over the band ,who were a rocking bunch of chaps. After, they did a pile of real WHO oldies ,even LIVE AT LEEDS stuff, and pulled it off superbly. The biggest cheers of the night tho' were for a certain Mr PETE TOWNSHEND, who couldnt resist it and came on for two tracks. Both Simons agreed it was a great night.

The following morning Simon (2) awoke ,mentioned in his Geordie accent "worra grayte show tha' was!", let a loud fart out and rolled over to go back to sleep. Simon left London that day and i met up with a couple of caricature deadbeats and wasters in the form of GUY CARTER and later on PAUL BAKER They took an innocent northern lad to evil nasty pubs and dens of iniquity in the back streets of Londons fair city. Guy and Paul arent the most handsome of faces, in fact i'd go ,at a push as far as to say they are ugly as sin, but it was good to see their grotty visages again, and ,of course Simon from the day before. But the sun shone the Guinness tasted well ,i laughed more than i have for a long time, as KEN DODD would say in his analysis of "What is a laugh?"...It starts in the 'CLACK' and moves on up to the 'CHUCKLE MUSCLES'...Well ,my chuckle muscles were strained and pulled that day.

YET ANOTHER REASON WHY COMPUTERS DRIVE ME NUTS...

2011-03-23T18:08:00.004Z

Will somebody please explain to me what the bloody hell those little boxes of upper and lower case letters and numbers ,for security ,or something are all about ,cos i havent a bloody clue.They're all distorted and jumbled up together ,sometimes with coloured patterns behind them and you have to dechipher the 'items or write a strange word. I was having to write 6 letters n' numbers from a box to send a mail, but for the life of me i could only find 5. What and why are they there for. You have to write the letters from a stupid word which is often quite easy, but then theres coloured ones and then it becomes an optical illusion which can make you dizzy and feel like your 've been smoking some weird substances, which actually would be better as that would make me mellow rather than drive me into that pit of driving rage and frustration as the red mist decends as i keep getting knocked back by the bloody computer for some distorted grammatical mistake in trying to dechipher the distorted grammatical and numerical mish mash in the first place. The stuff on the computer may be safe ,but i become very unsafe ,infact downright dangerous.

PASSIVE SMOKING IS ONE THING,BUT THERES NOTHING PASSIVE ABOUT 'DOG SHIT N' BUS TICKET' ROLLEE'S!!!!!

2011-03-18T16:13:00.004Z

As our beloved leaders show themselves totally inept and incapable of doing anything of use for the occupants of these fair isles, very craftily they have shifted the crosshairs away from the important target problems to other, according to them vitally important 'stuff'. Basically saving all our lives. This will make us fit n well so we needn't have to go to doctors or hospitals, then the NHS can come crashing down around our ears and we wont even notice. Very important scientific scientists have done vital work on the effects of drink ,drugs ,greasy chips n burgers on the cholesterol bunged up vessels of the average healthy obese Brit, who even tho' he drinks ,smokes ,stuffs his face, knows its not the healthiest way to spend his rapidly reducing benefits. As the country goes to hell in a nicked Asda trolleycart; The arab world goes up in smoke ;japan hit by horrendous natural and manmade disasters, but all this is partially eclipsed by thegoverment announcing their latest attempt at saving our lives and the importance of covering the advertising labels on packs of fags! Apparently if you cant see the coloured pattern on your usual pack of 20, you'll not want to smoke anymore. And those who dont smoke ,mainly youngsters are attracted by the bright colours and before you can 'strike a light' they're on 70 a day. So the top shelf will be covered magazines, i'm a good catholic lad so i've no idea why that would be .Maybe they're car magazines and as a way of reducing the number of cars being bought ,because of pictures on the cover of glossy car mags, we reduce the carbon footprint, yeah that must be why. Then below them little white boxes with nothing written on them ,just that whatever is in them gives you cancer.

Most of my family smoked and to be honest it never particually bothered me. And later in pubs n boozers, i wasnt too bothered, passive smoking ,they called it, not saying i liked it, but it was cheaper. The problems started when my dear ol' dad went through a rough patch and for a variety of reasons spent a little time in a certain resthome called STRANGEWAYS in the fair city of MANCHESTER. It must've been wonderful for him, as it was the time when there was fighting and riots and rooftop demonstrations. The main effect was when he came out he ,like a good ex-con would smoked'SNOUT', or rolled up tobacco as you n me might call it ,or the famous ROLLEEY!......He would roll one of these things into a battered hair thin paper tube that when lit burnt more like a fuse on a stick of dynamite ,as opposed to the gentle smoulder of a normal ciggie. As the rollee fizzled away he would be rapidly rolling yet another just in time as the 2 inch column of ash from his mouth tumbled down onto the growing ash mound on his lap. He'd have a cough and promptly dissappear into this cloud of ash. But aside from all that was the smell of the bloody things, the old dog shit n bus ticket adage came to mind never mind nostrils. The worst thing about the rolleeys was that they never stopped rolling and puffin the damn things from morning 'till night. At least with the ciggies they did stop and breath air on occassions. It does strike me as funny that our glorious leaders havent mentioned loose 'baccy, maybe they're keeping that as a secret weapon for the next batch of measures in the noble proud task of the nannification of our NANNY STATE.

YOU CANT BEAT A GOOD DISASTER, BUT ITS GOT TO BE A REAL BLOODY GOOD ONE !

2011-03-11T16:16:00.006Z

Tim Leatherbarrow

As i dragged myself out of bed this morning and set about consuming the first of my 5 litres of tea over the following half hour , i turned on the telly to see what the world had in store for me on this fine wet windy ,freeze the bollocks of ya Warrington morn. I was stunned and amazed to see all this footage of the JAPANESE EARTHQUAKE and the resultant TSUNAMI. All of it absolutly amazing ,'gob dropping stuff'. As the day drew on i was transfixed watching the events unfold. The last time i spent the day just watching the news was the day of the TRADE TOWERS. This was amazing stuff, it had the lot; The country getting hammered by a major world record earthquake, and hundreds of nearly as bad aftershocks; A resultant Tsunami which slammed a mere 10metres high wall of water moving at nearly 90 miles an hour in to the nearby populated coastline, blasting ,everything out of the way , boats, ships ,lorries, cars ,buildings ,just everything; Petro-chemical plants exploding into raging infernos hundreds of feet into the blackened smoke filled sky; Nuclear reactors shutting down ,and one whose coolant pumps malfunctioned and nearly caused a nuclear catastrophe; A Tsunami that, as time passed swept across the PACIFIC OCEAN to swamp everywhere around the biggest ocean in the world. This was incredible stuff and it wasnt done with CGI with BRUCE WILLIS and SLY STALLONE to pull our little oriental friends out of the SUSHI. This was all tragically real.

On a personal level i noticed something slightly disturbing about myself. This doesnt come as any grea suprise as theres a lot about me that disturbs me and people who know me. As all the disaster footage was being shown i was sitting there comparing bits of footage with other bits of footage . I sat there watching a country getting destroyed and comparing bits with other bits and preffering some scenes of disaster with other bits of disaster as if it was special effects on a film. As the TSUNAMI swept across the PACIFIC, i got quite excited as they counted down the time until the wave would hit HAWAII. As the time drew near , a reporter said that small waves had come up the beach and i 'tutted 'with disgust. He followed that with a comment about how ominous it was that the tide had withdrawn rapidly, this is a sign of an approaching 'big wave'. This rekindled my waning excitment. When eventually a 1 metre wave hit and basically 'splashed the beach' i was dissapointed. Theres a side that doesnt want any harm to fall on anyone ,but theres a dark side that just wants to be amazed and stunned by the forces of OL' MA NATURE when she gets her knickers in a twist. I was in Malaysia when 'THE BIG 'UN' went off in 2004, KUALA LUMPUR was spared the Tsunami but we felt the shocks, i was like a little boy ,totally amazed. I looked down MOUNT ETNA, and i could see the steam ,feel the heat and hear the silt moving, again i was 'gobsmacked. I told THE LOVELY LYNNE(actually it was our honeymoon,aaahh!)....I told her i was going to travel the world looking at volcanoes.

Its still a disaster even if it was amazing telly , so all the best to JAPAN and to the JAPANESE, i've never been to the country ,but met plenty of people through the years and they've been brilliant and dont deserve any of this.

RUGBY A GAME FOR GENTLEMEN PLAYED BY BLOODY BIG PSYCHOTIC NOT VERY GENTLE-MEN!..

2011-02-28T14:06:00.005Z

Rugby a hooligans game played by gentlemen ,apparently....Bloody big ,psychotically deranged gentlemen maybe ,but there y'go. I was watching the 6 nations games ,over the weekend and noticed how the players nowadays are a lot more muscely and hard n meaner looking than in days of yore. It also adds to the meaness when you've got these French eight foot fifteen fellahs with hair down around their shoulders and everyone calling them 'horse' , or some animal name.

It also strikes me as odd ,when i used to watch and ,yes ,once upon a time play rugby ,the players would all be covered in mud and green grass stains. But not now ,yellows ,blues ,purples a variety of pastel shades from the pitch adverts.

I remember working at a caricature'gig' up in Scotland a number of years ago and while i was scribbling away the Englih squad arrived to play Sotland the following day. Jeez! they were big bastards, not just big ,but ,big!...I was passing by a hallway in the hotel and the players lined the hall waiting to get into their rooms. A little maid had to 'run the gauntlet', of walking down the length of the hall with these leering monsters either side. She looked absolutly terrified.

As i've been a little lazy of recent i've put on a few rugby cartoons wot i done over the life of this here blog. Hope ya like 'em!

IT DOESNT MATTER WHERE YOU ARE YOU ARE ALWAYS NO MORE THAN 10 YARDS AWAY FROM A LIVE POLITICIAN!

2011-02-03T11:13:00.005Z

Normally when you see all those reporters outside the door of Number 10 Downing street, the home and centre of democracy and all thats good in the world. You see the reporter with their collars up ,looking like their freezing to death even in summer The poor ol' Policeman bouncing from foot to foot and slapping their gloved hands together as obviously the Kevlar keeps the bullets out, but not the cold. Suprisingly occasionally you'll see somebody in a suit with a breifcase walk briskly in ,or ,for that matter out. Funnily enough, for reasons i've never been able to grasp, the main traffic is people in fleeces with studenty looking backpacks on,and boots with thick treads on, maybe they're dropping extreemly important documents off to help our leaders run the country before leaving them on a train, or in the back of a taxi. Or maybe the stairs in No10 are very steep and they need their student hillwalking gear to get to the third floor.

But then theres the other visitors ,who dont seem to be too shy ,or embarressed at being seen and ,actually seem to be increasingly joining into the celebrity infatuated world in front of the television cameras. The RATS.....Our rodent population are taking after our politicians and Katie Prices of this world and grasping at any opportunity to get in front of the cameras. So if you couldnt be arsed listening to what ever crap is being served up by or about CAMEROON n' CLEGGY..You can just pass a few minutes looking over the shoulder of the reporter and look out for the increasing number of rats scurrying past that famous door. That door that almost symbolises GREAT BRITAIN and the EMPIRE, etc, with hoards of rats scurrying around the doorstep, make of that what you will, as everyone else will. There is a difference between a rat and a politician, slight though it maybe, the rats dont carry breifcases and wear dead smart shiney double breasted suits ,but who knows ,if the media rat explosion continues they could latch on to their potential celebrity status. There are enough rats n rodents running the papers ,media and public relations , never mind the goverment. The rats instead of running it could become part of it. Although some may say ,its already happened, but i wouldnt say such a thing.

EDWARD WOODWARD AS CALLAN WAS THE BADDEST GOODIE.....AND ANTHONY VALENTINE AS TOBY MERES WAS THE GOODEST BADDIE!....

2011-01-28T17:02:00.006Z

The other day i was watching some of the mass of telly stuff that just keeps on collecting within the SKY + thingey box. One of them was an Arena documentary about the one and definitly only ROLF HARRIS. Our fave Aussie was "KERSPLONGING ;SPLURGIN' N 'CAN YE TELL WOT IT IZ YIT'IN?" away happily painting portraits of various tasty ladies of stage ,screen n' catwalk. But as he slapped the paint on and eventually they evolved into damn good paintings. The bit that struck me was he said that he never drew his pictures out before 'kerspluging'the paint on. I thought i'll have to give that a whirl.

The next programme i sat and watched alone, as the LOVELY LYNNE tends to have no interest in anything i tend to want to watch. As i dont record LOCATION,LOCATION,LOCATION, or, 'COME DINE WITH ME.'I tend to have the telly to myself as Lynne is absorbed in the I-PAD i bought her for x mas. But on this particular occassion as i sat alone watching COLDITZ. A great classic from THE BEEB. With a whole host of stars locked up in the castle. Amongst these 'chaps' were ILLYA KURYAKIN from ,THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E...DAVID MCCALLUM. ROBERT WAGNER, from IT TAKES A THEIF...And damn near every film ever made. But one fellah in it who stood out is the wonderful ANTHONY VALENTINE.The slim steely eyed young man isnt quite that these days. He's older, balder and carrying a bit of weight these days, but you may remember him from doing a stint in'CORONATION STREET' over the last year. But in the old days ,he was one of tellys favourite psycopaths and baddies. He played the commited Nazi officer in Colditz, but this was after his crowning achievment as possibly the nastiest man alive.

One of telly's absolute classics was CALLAN. EDWARD WOODWARD was ,as they say ,'a down at heel' working class goverment assassin with a consience but still as hard as nails and mean as hell.....Great as the 'baddest goodie' on the box. But his 'sidekick and partner was the upper class, possibly not as hard ,but definitly meaner, TOBY MERES, a slimey smart ,slim ,steely eyed ,evil smiling ,old school tie and trendy suited psychotic killer who hated Callan as much as callan hated him, but they were a team and had a fascinating on screen relationship. Meres was played by ANTHONY VALENTINE.The goodest baddie on the box. The I think Toby Meres could've got his own series ,or Valentine could've made a great baddie in a BOND film.

I thought i'd have a go at painting a caricature of our favourite anti-hero, but had a murderous job finding a decent nasty picture of Anthony Valentine. Much to my chagrin ,lots of pictures of him laughing and smiling and looking like the goodfellah he sadly is. But i had a go. The result looks a little funny ,as acrylic paint seems to darken considerably when copied onto the screen. But as a treat to my followers and fans ,just to show how wonderful i am, i've even thrown the Edward Woodward picture i did the other month when he 'popped his clogs', gawd bless 'im. I might get away with the dubious likeness , as its only old farts like meself who remember 'nerdy' stuff like this.

YOU CAN KEEP YOUR WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE AND OSCAR WILDE N' ALL THEM CLEVER ONES ,WHAT WE WANT IS BOOKS WRITTEN BY ILLITERATE SCUM!.....

2011-01-26T14:10:00.006Z

Ah England , my England ,land of SHAKESPEARE, OSCAR WILDE, CHAUCER,CHARLES DICKENS n' all them giants of literature I dont read 'em meself,of course as i'm still reading my e-comics. But i took a walk into a few bookshops the other week and couldnt believe the number of autobiographies from our beloved celebrities.Take for example,you may have heard of a lady called KATY PRICE/ JORDAN, whatever, she's only about 30, but she must have about 6 volumes of her autobiography. I came to the conclusion that every single person who appears on telly or radio or scribbles a word in a paper has a bloody autobiography out.And lest we forget ,every bloody'stand-up' comedian whose been famous since just before christmas, they've managed to pull out their fascinating life stories. I dont think i'll be jumping on the band wagon, banging out my auto biography for the simple reason , i cant remember about 90% of my fascinating life. So basically i dont think i'll make a fortune out of the total of three months i can dredge memories from over the last action-packed(i assume), 50 years of the wild, living on the edge(and quite often falling over that edge), life of ....MEEEE!!!!!......WILD TIM LEATHERBARROW. Anyhow ,just as well i cant remember 'cos if i did me mum'd kill me ,not to mention THE LOVELY LYNNE.

But the thing that fascinate me the most was this huge section devoted to the life stories of ,basically the scum of the Earth. Ex-reformed ,they're always ex's and always reformed....Various hooligans ,criminals ,football hooligans, murderers for the mob ,gang members ,drug dealers ,bank robbers, and plain old dispensers of the good ol' 'knuckle butty' for various gangs, .Theres the sweethearts who have affectionate nicknames like 'mad or crazy 'before their names. Theres the heartwarming tales of how some used to go around inserting knives and or bottles, into people: Of course theres the sweeties who took the more direct approach and blew them apart with various guns n' rifles: Psychotic bull-shitting gobshits who've lots of stories of booting shite outta some poor sod at the match ,waiting his turn from the other 50 or so scallies waiting patiently in line to crowd around and sink his steel toecaps into some poor curled heap on the ground: Multiple murderers who spend their time in solitary confinement pumping iron and when they're not doing that they're tatooeing themselves or getting married ,and writing books ,if they have enough time left in their busy schedule in maximum security. They are all general hardcases and you can tell as they'll all have a black and white picture of his shaven headed scowling face, of course on the cover of his literary tome.

Ah sod it ,i'm going back to my comics, i've given the MARVEL COMICS a good hammering and i'm now working through 3 cd's of THE ESSENTIAL BATMAN COMICS.....Ah life can be good.

THE WHO: NOT ANY OL' WHO, BUT THE WHO BACK ON THE BLOG AGAIN!

2011-01-17T15:59:00.004Z

As the LOVELY LYNNE carries on suffering with peurisy,i'm doing my best to keep her comfy and her hot water bottle kept warm. But this Tim Nightingale display had to stop for a couple of days , quite simply because THE WHO were playing at a cancer charity gig at the HAMMERSMITH APOLLO.....or ,the 'Ammersmiff 'pollo'.....The guy from THE VERVE, kicked off proceedings , followed by a solo by a certain ROGER DALTREY. Then a canadian chap called BRYAN ADAMS ,who to be fair wasnt bad. But he was followed by a guy whose not bad on the guitar , his name was JEFF BECK and he was blisteringly outstanding. I'll be looking on Amazon for a bit of his stuff. He then backed a slightly wobbly DEBBIE HARRY ,she wasnt bad, but the glory days of BLONDIE are way behind. But then the Boys were back in town! Their old stomping ground of HAMMERSMITH, SHEPHARDS BUSH N' ACTON, rang once again to MAXIMUM R&B,THE WHO were home... And they let rip! ROGER DALTREY was in fine voice and PETE TOWNSHEND, maybe not the tune player in the manner ,as is MR BECK......But nobody plays like Pete and he showed that nobody can do what PETE TOWNSHEND does best, which is play the guitar like PETE TOWNSHEND! I defy anybody to not watch TOWNSHEND ..He fascinates me with his spirit ,power ,aggression and humour.. God bless ya ol' farts ......Thats all of THE WHO, for now.....'Till next time anyhow!

But we celebrated our night in a few 'Ammersmiff' boozers, and got to bed at some ungodly hour. The following day we met up with a cartooning legend the famous GUY CARTER..And we hit a pile of SOHO boozers ,before ,in the evening meeting up with the CARTOONIST CLUB, for a CARTOONIST PISS UP.....And again this resulted in going to bed at some even worse ungodly hour ,covered in cuts n' bruises. For some reason these social functions do take it out of us both physically and mentally. We''re getting older ,but the 'hootin n' hollerin' hasn't changed over the years. At the end of the night those casualties of extreme excess included ;Simon Ellinas;Paul baker; The Angelic Cathy Simpson , all people from the other side of this page . A pile of others and now i dont get to these 'do's' anymore and basically dont get to see anyone being the sad bastard i now have become , it was good to see these deadbeats n' reprobates . I eventually got home nursing a smashed forearm and a battered knee for ,and as a result of my sins, to my stricken beloved. And i s'pose thats my social blast for another year....

COULD LIVERPOOL BE BACK ON TRACK NOW KING KENNY'S BACK?

2011-01-12T17:00:00.005Z

Ahhhh As the new year blasts into the new decade with freezing snow ,shootings ,soaring taxes and V.A.T,plague, disease ,floods ,pestilance; Jordan divorcing Alex Reid; Politicians begging for forgivness as they get dragged off to jail for screwing the incresingly screwed taxpayer. But its not all bad news , as LIVERPOOL F.C.'s reputation and table position plummets a miracle has happened. It might not be the second coming "He's not a messiah ,he's a very naughty boy!"......But he's a short ,big eared , slightly battered looking scot ,who may be British ,but doesnt ,as far as i can work out ,speak English.....He's back , one of L.F.C.s all time greatest players and managers, a certain Mr Kenneth Dalglish of the parish.....KING KENNY IS BACK!!!!!.....And long may he reign, i just hope the moneygrabbing bastards who run the club will bend to the will of the fans and Kenny seems up for it, let him carry on even after the season end. As he said himelf, summing up the ridiculous manager situation in football these days. "If i last 'till the end of the season i'll be the longest serving manager in the football league!"...Often a true word in jest!

HAPPY NEW DECADE,I'M GETTING OVER THE FESTIVE DEBAUCHERY,I'M LOSING THE WEIGHT ..DOWN TO 36 STONE AND FALLING!

2011-01-11T13:48:00.003Z

After the disgusting over indulgencies of the festive debaucheries, it is now next year ,no, hold ,it is now the next decade. So happy new year and great new decade. I've got to get my booze- ridden; chocolate stuffed; food scoffed; telly watching unmoving sprawled (for weeks now) form into some kind of workable condition. Now i'm not talking going to the gymn to hone my body in the furnace of my will; to run marathons and equally silly things like that. Just to stand up under my own power and be able to walk the 15 feet or so to the downstairs bog'd do. I'm on a strict regime of diet and excercise......I'm changing channels twice as often on the remote control, using both thumbs and i'm down to 3 boxes of Quality street a day. And it seems to be working, the weight is falling off me. 36 stone and counting.

The family ,gawd bless us one n all have been coughing n spluttering for the last few weeks. I ,due to my regime of excercise and good healthy living have been spared ,plague ,flying pig flu and all the other festive lurgies that have beset our fine land and bunged up our health system as solid as a schoolboys snotty nose. But joking aside the LOVELY LYNNE has come down with a belter of a dose of PLEURISEY. I had 'a dose', years ago and can vouch for how much fun it is to have your inflamed lung linings ,(pleural cavities to those like me who've got biology qualifications)...rubbing against your rib cage. This results in a wonderful combination of feeling like shit and being in agony. Oh how i remember the joys of having a coughing fit whilst your lungs scrape against your ribs, as my beloved is discovering for herself even as i type.

To add to her joyous introduction to the new decade, we had booked train tickets and hotel rooms to go to London to see THE WHO in concert and go to a cartoonist do the following night. So thats up the spout....So thats how our new decade is kicking off, only 9 years 11 m0nths and a lump of days 'till the next one ,lets see how that one compares.

MERRY STUFF AND HAPPY NEW THINGIES!

2010-12-21T16:41:00.004Z

Yo ho ho ( ice n' snow) ho ho (accidents) ho ho (travel chaos)ho ho ho !.......Were in a state of suspense at the moment as the 'little'un's skiing in Italy on a school trip. Will she get home to Heathrow on Thursday, or is it chrimbo in an Italian airport. We shall see!

Anyhow youse lot ,bracing yourself for the debauched sinful overindulgence as you force food n drink into your tortured body over the next fortnight sprawled in front of the telly. Ah you cant beat a good traditional christmas..(Brrrppp!....hiccc...ooops ,well we gotta start sometime!)....I hope you have a 'good un' and we'll carry on where i left off ,if we manage to survive until the 2000 n' 11.

30 YEARS AGO THE OTHER DAY DR WINSTON O'BOOGIE POPPED HIS CLOGS!

2010-12-14T16:53:00.006Z

I remember going into work at the hallowed halls of LIVERPOOL POLYTECHNIC and being told ,"Hey 'ave yer 'ear about JOHN LENNON getting 'is 'ead blown off by some nutter in New York?"....."Yer jokin'!"....So being the sentimental scousers we are we spent the morning in the canteen talking about it ,then pissed off to the boozer, to spend the rest of the day talking about it. We got 'hammered'. We had a good day ,sorry about Lennon and that but 'life goes on ', and 'its your round.' But LENNON N' THE BEATLES was the main topic of conversation and the general concensus was that "Well ,that F***ks up the re-union, then!". But it was an astounding day ,generally ,nobody could really believe it. I'd only bought DOUBLE FANTASY the previous day.

They had a memorial on the steps of ST GEORGES HALL, thousands were there ,but i lost count the number of times they had us all singing IMAGINE. Because of that day i still hate that bloody song. But still it was the thought that counts. Thirty years ,jeez ,thirty years on and LENNON would've been a 70 year old man. He may never grow old ,but i know i'm bloody feeling it. Ironically ,he must be reading this blog as 'MERRY CHRISTMAS, WAR IS OVER' has just started on the radio, its one of the first chrimbo songs i've heard ,i've managed to avoid the onslaught which no doubt will hit any day now.

I've been reading a few magazines about LENNON and it seems that him and PAUL MACARTNEY were on good terms for most of the time and that the BEATLES had 'messed around'in studios together on occassions which was nice to consider after all the press about the 'supposed bad blood'. And there was talk ,by LENNON of coming home to LIVERPOOL, basically to show the family 'His home.' That would've been interesting. Ah well! life goes on , leaving some behind, normally the good 'uns, but the nutjobs seem to survive, sadly. Chapman Lennons killer is trying to get released ,as hes served his time, he wont last 30 seconds outside

WHAT DO ALL THOSE OLD DUFFERS KNOW ABOUT LIFE ?......

2010-12-14T15:41:00.006Z

About 15 years ago , i was sitting on a train going down to London to a cartoonist piss up, at the CARTOONIST PUB . As i was sitting on the train i was doing a little pencil work on one of a set of greetings cards we were making at the time ,and making a fair bit of money from ...Ah the good ol' days. As i got off the train an old fellah came up to me and asked if i was a cartoonist. I told him i was and we started talking and had a coffee. He had always enjoyed doodling and sketching and had been watching me on the train, but didnt want to bother me. I told him, "Not to be so daft n' i'll be glad to be interuppted." It turned out, he was a survivor from AUSCHWITZ. His name was LEON GREENMAN and he was an English man who'd been caught up and thrown into the camp with his family. They were exterminated virtually upon arrival and Leon was put to work. He survived Auscwitz ,BUCHENWALD AND THE INFAMOUS DEATH MARCHES....I was stunned at his story, and saw his numbered tatoo on his arm. He used to send little drawings ,As above. with a note wishing me n' the family all the best. They never met him ,but he never forgot their names. He sent me a copy of his book .AN ENGLISHMAN IN AUSCWITZ. I lost contact with him after our period abroad , but on trying to get back in touch ,found he'd died a few years ago.

The other day i was watching a tv documentary with JEREMY CLARKSON, about the commando raids on ST NAZAIRE during WW11. How these men tried to blow the

sea gates off the dry dock used by the German battleship THE TIRPITZ. A truly amazing story told by these friendly mild old fellahs, who ,as Clarkson never tired of pointing out were "Hard as nails, and God, they were tough!", and i wouldnt disagree. I visited St Nazaire when i was nearby at a cartoon festival years ago and visited the dry dock and the Submarine pens. In one there is a fully restored U-BOAT. We went inside banging our heads knees and elbows on pipes ,doorframes and everything else in this tiny space. I couldnt wait to get out after 5 minutes ,but the crews were in the middle of the ATLANTIC OCEAN for weeks or months at a time.

A heap of years ago LIVERPOOL celebrated THE WESTERN APPROACHES. This was , at last the official recognition of the work of the MERCHANT SEAMEN during the ATLANTIC CONVOYS. I met a heap of old sailors and the stories they told, dear god!....My uncle who i took along served towards the end and was adrift at one point in the Atlantic.

Another uncle got the VICTORIA CROSS at TOBRUK,Fighting off one of ROMMELLS panzer units. He was a quiet shy little man and 'never mentioned the war. Another was a member of the SPECIAL OPERATIONS EXECUTIVE, dropped behind enemy lines , blowing stuff up and possibly killing with bare hands ,etc. I found that out as he was on his death bed. A friend of mines dad was in the CHINDITS in the BURMESE JUNGLES fighting the JAPANESE. My own dad ,was never in the war ,but was in some R.A.F. intelligence unit ,whose job was travelling around east and west Europe trying to find crashed and missing aircraft from the war. But his dad , my 'pop, served right through the WW1, from beginnig to end ,all through the big battles in the slaughter of the trenches.

The whole point of this was this is stuff that we cannot imagine, its amazing and these people lived through these hellish situations of which we thankfully will never have to. But when an old boss of mine ,years ago , gave me the advice after i'd made some disparraging remark about my dad , possibly."Ah whats that ol' fart know!"...He said he'd thought that about his own dad like that, then thought , he'd never really asked him about his life. So, they went out for a pint and he grilled his dad about his life.He couldnt believe what he'd heard. He said "try it ,it'll be worth it for you and your dad!".....So i did!....And it was.....I'm sorry i left it so late

NEVER GOT TO HOST THE WORLD CUP, BUT GOT A TYPICAL ENGLAND RESULT...OUT IN THE FIRST ROUND!

2010-12-03T14:23:00.006Z

When they said the 'heavy guns of DAVID CAMEROON(mispelt intentionally), PRINCE WILLIAM, and our lord n' leader DAVID BECKHAM were going to front our bid for hosting the world cup the response was varied. Accordind to the 'MEEJAH' it was a "cor ,wow!" from the Great British public; The Great British public, it was more of a "Oh great!"; And to all those Johnny Foreigner sorts , it was a "Who?"

The Russians had the right idea. Their political leader stayed at home, only turning up for the celebration party. Our deadbeat arse'ole of a primeminister The Great CAMEROON latched on and made sure that his greasy smiling and expensively coached camera face was on display all the time. England was promised votes and only got 2 , and one was one of our own. Actually thats a point. Why didnt the rest of our team vote?
The result was like a EUROVISION SONG CONTEST result. Maybe we should've had the 'TOGMEISTER', TERRY WOGAN himself to host our bid. But RUSSIA the biggest country in the world ,totally run by the RUSSIAN MAFIA winning, hmmmmm, who'd o' thort?

I'm sure our 'hard sell' was very good , all about our wonderful infra structure as long as it doesnt snow or rain heavily, etc, etc. What they should've pointed out to everybody was the savings to all the international squads having the games in England. Because all the international players are playing in England. So the players would all jump into their FERRARRI'S and meet up with their national team mates from around the country at a coach station , or drive straight to the ground their qualifying round was being played at. Squads neednt worry too much about hotels , as the players could go home for dinner and an early night. Flying the squads around the world wouldnt be a problem ,just the coach and his suitcase for the whole world cup.

But the dream is over , we've saved /lost billions depending if your for or against. But it cost us millions to be humiliated , so our boys can drink and deal in Zurich for a week.

DAVID BECKHAM, as it turns out seems to be a decent friendly intelligent bloke when he's interviewed on chatshows. But for some reason when players give interviews about football. The brain is totally disconnected and its the usual cliche ridden bullshit they all spout, intersperced every second word with my favourite, "AT THE END OF THE DAY!"....As if this endows whatever inane crap they're spouting with a deep philosohical profundity. David, gawd bless 'im, was being interviewed after the 'disaster', and 'the end of the day' got a real hammering.

So, thats that ! The players will be playing at -50 degrees, then 4 years later in Quattar +50 degrees. I dont think our freezer is that cold ,or our oven that hot.

R.I.P. LESLIE NIELSEN, AND DONT CALL HIM SHIRLEY!

2010-12-01T12:17:00.002Z

I've this wonderful vision of the flashing police squad car light and siren wailing as it travels out of a Hollywood graveyard, mourners diving out of the way; Then up a tunnel of light; Smashing through the pearly gates, as St Paul dives out of the way; The light and siren carry on , bumping over white fluffy clouds , slamming into golden harps as angels dive all over the place. DETECTIVE FRANK DREBIN of POLICE SQUAD has arrived! Or LESLIE NIELSEN, as a few may remember him.

Any old farts in their 40's and (sadly) 50's will remember Nielsen , as he was in thousands of telly series and hundreds of films. Not starring , but as a character actor that popped up time and time again all over the place. F'rinstance he was the captain who went and overturned the ship in THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE. I dont think he was always a baddie ,but quite often a sneaky wealthy bad guy up to no good with the hero of whatever series it was.

Apparently when they were going to make AIRPLANE the producers didnt want comedians , but straight faced actors and Nielsen was one of the best and proved it. The short lived POLICE SQUAD spawned the NAKED GUN films and a heap of spoofs , hated by the all important critics ,but beloved by the buying public, but they dont matter , its the critics who know best, cos' they're proffessionals, and get their DVD's free, so can afford to be dismissive of every film they have to watch. Who cant like films with lines like .."Is this some kind o bust?"...."Yeah its very impressive ,but we need to ask some questions!"

TIM LOOKS COOL IN JEANS ,TEE-SHIRT AND.....9 INCH STILLETTO PLATFORM HEELS ????

2010-11-16T19:08:00.004Z

All these years i've lived a good unhealthy ,butch manly existance.....Eaten n' drunk too much too often;Passed wind from all the windswept orifices; Sat n' scratched myself in company and been a general slob n' arse'ole, in other words a healthy 'male of the species'. Nowhere near the "in touch with his feminine side " for Timothy B Leatherbarrow, no sirree!(And ,no ,i'm not going to tell you what the B stands for.)....Well, that was until the other day!

I was stood in the fair city of LIVERPOOL watching the world go by. I happened to watch a lot of sexy stylish ladies saunter by , this couldnt be helped, as a large percentage of the 'passing world' are girlies. Another thing about these fashionable gurlies, is that the STILETTO HEEL has returned with avengance, not only that but the heel in combination with a platform sole , adding even more height to an already highly dangerous style of footwear.

I have to admit to being fascinated by the ladies ,admittedly some tottering ,but a lot walking very gracefully .Watching (as if i have a choice) ,CELEBRITY COME DANCING, I'm amazed at the ladies leaping and spinning across the floor. I watched MAGGIE Q, in a tv series called NIKITA, she was booting the shit out of a group of fellahs while wearing the highest heels i've ever seen. I couldnt believe you could stand on them, never mind do flying spinning back kicks and stuff like that. I have suddenly got this urge to walk in a pair of these things. I know that within seconds i'll be lying on the floor screaming in agony with compound fractures of my ankles and legs. I'm not turning transexual or nothing, no dresses or 'sussies' or naughty underwear ,or anything like that . ...Well, for now any way ,never say never n' all that. I'll stick to imagining tottering about in my stiletto's

BOOM BANG-A-BANG AIRLINES.....

2010-11-02T14:00:00.007Z

Over the years all of us who've done a bit of whizzing around the world on airplanes have experianced the joy of queuing for hours on end while our ,toothpaste;Bottles of water;After shave and stinky stuff bottles; Tubes of lotions; nail clippers;Pen knives,just about sharp enough to cut paper is all confiscated for the safety and security of one n' all. In the never ending fight against terrorists taking over planes, we cant take chances. One of these maniacs threatening the crew with nasal hair clippers to stay back and do as they're told as he primes his underpants . You have to understand that terrorist technology has moved with the times and they have refined the art of exploding things like underpants, socks n' shoes. So, is nothing safe? Obviously not as we've had a spate of suspected bombs on a few planes, over the last few days.

But it turns out all the security we've been forced through was an ,almost, total waste of time. Unless you had a big black ball with a fuse sticking out the top, and the word BOMB written on the side in big white letters, they had no real way of knowing for sure if there was explosives on board.It all seems to be just another blast of "LETS BE SEEN TO BE DOING SOMETHING FOR THE GOOD OF THE BRITISH VOTERS-NESS!!!"...By our beloved politicians, gawd bless their expense bought cotton socks.

The thing that stuns me is that ,as the conversation on various news programmes goes on about the possibility of the average air traveller being blown to bits at 30,000 feet or so, which is bad enough to spoil anyones day. The subject is changed from the possible bloodshed-type problems, to the much more important POLITICAL PROBLEMS this would cause to CAMERON n' OBAMA......If ,god forbid i do find myself being sucked out of the fuselage of an aircraft at 50000 feet , a few thousand miles from the nearest land.....Well Cameron and Obama ,you have my sympathy!

IF YOU AVOID SHOPPING WITH THE MISSUS BY WAITING IN THE BOOZER,YOU MAY AVOID THE SHOPPING TRIP, BUT YOU MAY STILL END UP FLAT ON YOUR FACE!

2010-11-01T16:05:00.006Z

The other day the LEATHERBARROW rabble went shopping in the fair city of LIVERPOOL. Normally ,i trail along behind the LOVELY LYNNE like a good husband, faithful n' true. Actually thats not totally true. If i walk in front, she gets sidetracked by everything in every window she saunters past. Leaving me to march manfully on, until i turn to say something witty and profound, only to discover she's not there. This is a pain in the arse ,as obviously, i love her dearly and worry whats happened to her n' the little 'un in the hard brutal times we live in. That ,and the fact , she's driving and i cant get home without her.

Lynne is murder to go shopping with and i couldnt stand it any more after a few hours with her, me mam n' the little 'un. So, THE LOVELY LYNNE, gawd bless her cotton tights suggested i go for a drink and she'd meet me. So, for you SCOUSE boozin' sorts. I went into the CARNARVON CASTLE, just off CHURCH STREET. Its a little boozer, but do a nice pint of GUINNESS and i partook....Then again.....And again......

Now waiting for the missus to return from shopping in a pub seems a good idea, but it can be dangerous. Your stood at the bar minding your own business, absolutly no idea if your going to be there for half n' hour, or 3 hours....And ,aside from a few brief asides to others about you, you've nothing to do ,but drink. Then eventually ,you notice somebody who arrived around the same time as you, getting a little rowdy, and it occurs to you that, "Shit!..I'm knockin' it back a bit"....But i'm not of strong enough character and resolve to order a soft drink. I'm in the boozer 'till my beloved throws me over her shoulder and carries me home to the dog house, so may as well make the most of it.........."CAN I HAVE ANUDDER PINT O' GINNISSS OVER 'ERE , LUV, PLEESE ...UUUUUURRRRPPPPP!!!!!!!".....Do you know i could get to like shopping.

I THINK MY DAUGHTERS GOT A FACE.....SOMEWHERE BEHIND THE COMPUTER GAME , UNDER THE HAIR!!!!!!!

2010-11-01T14:13:00.005Z

The other day my darling daughter was all excited 'cos her friend was coming over to stay the night , or have a 'sleep over'. When they arrived ,there was a little talking and giggling ,then they sat down in different rooms huddled over those 'damned, bloody effin' GAME BOY computer games. All i could see was the back of the game boy; a pair of hunched shoulders; And a mass of hair hanging down between them. No words were passed ,just a mass of bleeps ,blarps ,bloops , etc, etc. Thouroughly puzzled ,baffled and befuddled by this very strange scenario. I commented, or ,as THE LOVELY LYNNE, would argue , i shouted....."What the hell is going on?..Your best mates here and you havent spoken two words and your not even sitting in the same bloody room, fer christs sake!"....Lynne informed me that they didnt need to do any of these things, as they were playing a game with each other on the two game boys... I rolled my eyes and remembered how 'As a lad' if i had any mates around the house ,we'd damn near wreck the joint. And wouldnt stop talking 'till exhaustion set in, or my dad threatened to kill us if we didn' ''Shut the 'eff!', up''.

But i hate that bloody GAMEBOY, it hooks into her brain and communication of any kind is totally useless and an utter waste of time. I just get this uncontrollable urge to smash it to bits. I'm told my daughter ,ELARA is very pretty, but its been so long since i've seen her face, i cant actually agree or disagree. I imagine she must be ok, coming from good breeding stock as me and the LOVELY LYNNE, she's not bad a bad looker, i must admit, and i'm relatively gorgeous, so she must be quite pretty, unless she's taken after the dog.

AAH THE SWEET SMELL OF BAD BREATH AS IT BLISTERS THE WALL PLASTER!!!

2010-10-14T17:32:00.003+01:00

A couple of weeks ago me n' my beloved family hit the fair city of LIVERPOOL. I was going for a pint or six with some ol' muckers, while THE LOVELY LYNNE and THE SHORT ARSED ONE were going to do some shopping. On the way we stopped at a place called FRANKIE N' JOHNNIES for a bite to eat. All very nice and tasty it was too. Afterwards we carried on our journey into 'the fair city'. I met up with the arse'oles who comprise my friends and started guzzlin' n' gabbing the usual rubbish as we strove to put the world to rights. Another mate arrived a little later and made a remark about somebodies breath stinkin'. I hadn't noticed anything untoward or overly pungent. It has to be said ,there was a reason for this. The rancid respirator was 'yours truly'. It was some spices or garlic in the snack that we'd had. Very embarressing ,but on the bright side as it was me ,i didnt have to smell my rancid breath.

It reminded me of times long past when we'd all put our suits on ,collars n' ties, even blow dry your hair after a long bath. And fish around in the laundry basket for the least smelly socks.....We were going 'clubbin' and we were 'coppin' off'....I remember swaggering into town and posing at the bar, the 'bee's knee's'. But on the odd Friday my sister used to cook the tea and she'd discovered GARLIC!... .So, as i addressed my partners in drink ,sin n' debauchery, "A'right , lads!"......"Effin' hell! you been eatin' garlic or dog shit or somethin'?"......I would roll my eyes , bite me tongue ,yank my tie off, and consider f**in' off home. But 15 packets of extra strong mints 30 pints of GUINNESS , and some of YATES WINE LODGE'S, 'god awful 'OZZY WHITE', a licensed paint stripper which removed the lining of your tongue , oesophagus and stomach ,even garlic couldnt resist .I think it did the job ,funny thing was , we still never 'copped off'!

DID YOU HAVE A GOOD DAY AT THE ORIFICE , DEAR?

2010-10-04T13:52:00.005+01:00

"I JUST SAID,"OK! TAKE FIVE!".........AND SHE DID!"

I've never actually got my 'rocks off'..Watching MUCKY MOVIES ,but i've definitly 'laughed me 'rocks off' watching 'MUCKY FILMS' ,or BLUE MOVIES, or whichever you prefer to refer to them as. My 'appreciative 'lack of appreciation' of mucky movies began years ago when i used to work in a pubs behind the bar . There was always videos knocking around the regulars. Actually the first 'flesh flick ' i ever saw was in a mates house in the early 70's. His dad had a reel to reel projector and a film on a reel. My mate set up the film reel to reel and turned on the projector ....The film moved ,stopped, flickered and jumped....Stopped...Started to blister and boil and a big black hole appeared in the middle of the screen as the projector burnt through the film. I dont know what his dad said as we didnt see him again for months.

But i always remember watching my first mucky movie and following the complex storyline. I think a half naked sex starved women seduced the gas man or something. But it was at the end when 'the credits' 'came up'(phnar)....(jeez ,how pathetic is that reading the credits on a blue movie?).......But i was glad i did , as i fell into a fit of laughing when the SCRIPT WRITER, STORYEDITOR, FROM A STORY BY , etc, etc.......was listed, these creative masterminds deserve their due, and i for one appreciate their creative genius.

There is , of course the actors and actresses who 'star' in these body pumping celluloid 'fun for some of the family' stories of real-life sex starved neglected housewives and tatooed television repairmen ,etc ,etc. The cast get their 'scripts' and get their partners , of all ages ,weights ,sexes ,etc ,etc ,i suppose its luck of the draw on the day what kind of scenario they're in on a certain day . Your average movie star must make about 15 movies in a carreer ....The porno stars probably do that in a week. Apparently a lot of people 'in the business' are married to people 'in the business'. So Mr n' Mrs are both spending their days about other peoples bits n' pieces and various orifices....The conversation of the day must be interesting over the table at dinner....I'd imagine they'd have to let the kids eat in another room. When they're at home and go to bed 'For an early night' Its probably to get a good rest so they can have an early start the next day to make a film about somebody else 'having an early night.'

THAT WAS LIVERPOOL FOOTBALL CLUB; THAT WAS ANFIELD...GOD BLESS AMERICA! AND OUR AMERICAN COUSINS!!

2010-09-28T15:11:00.006+01:00

Once upon a time footy clubs had normal people who trained and played for the club and took their orders from the bobble hatted manager in the (even) cheaper track suit than the players wore. There was a club chairman ,but he watched a few games ,but mainly had access to the club bar. And the whole thing revolved quite simply around the football. All VICTOR, HOTSPUR and ROY OF THE ROVERS stuff. The fans went out with their mates and kids . Bought a few bags of chips ,or a meat pie and had a couple of pints. Crammed into the stands with their rattles and if you werent careful, you got your pocket pee'ed into from the fellah behind. I dont think any women ever tried peeing in somebodies pocket. But ,who knows ,stranger things've happened. Remember the days of rattles, stripey scarves n' bobble hats, funny haircuts, tight shorts,leather caseballs and mudbath pitches.

Now the football is total business.Plastic grass, plastic balloon balls, Players suddenly pink and silver boots and handled by agents, p.a's and p.r. people. Football became almost showbiz. Players moved around for the best price so quickly and often ,it was almost as if they were on tour. Fixed squads beloved of the fans ,going through the highs and lows of the clubs history became a thing of the past. The satellite telly people upped the ante, and the money went even further through the roof. Now we all know the monsterously overpaid gobshites whose names we can only pronounce with lots of practise, and then when we can, they're probably moving on to another club and even better wage . The players arent around long enough to form a tightly knit squad and become responsible for a clubs performance. So now the manager, the man who was once 'The boss', and is now only sometimes referred to as that in post match interviews. He is now the the scapegoat for the club losing a few games and is out on his arse before he's had a chance to wet his sponge in the club bucket(like they used to.). Because today is the day of the club owners. These Multi Squillionaires, from all over ,China,Middle East, India, Russia and sadly the'Good ol' us of A'. who for some reason want to spend money on something to play with, like a major footy team, to help pass their boring wheeler dealer days.

I remember a great team called LIVERPOOL FOOTBALL TEAM. As you walked down the tunnel to the pitch was a club LIVER BIRD logo, which said, simply, not welcome to...But,"THIS IS ANFIELD".....This once great club is a prime example of a national institution, almost screwed over by the money men.American Money men for their ,purely financial reasons ,giving promises about what they will do for this "Great British club and their fans.."And hated with an unbelievable intensity, they still will not leave after going back on virtually every promise made. LIVERPOOL F.C. is ,apparently ,a mess in the bank and on the pitch, all due to our beloved AMERICAN COUSINS..."GOD BLESS AMERICA!"..'Cos LIVERPOOL wont!

GOD DIDN'T CREATE THE UNIVERSE, HE NICKED THE IDEA FROM ,STEPHEN HAWKING

2010-09-09T14:50:00.004+01:00

STEPHEN HAWKING, recently announced that there wasn't any need for GOD in the creation of the universe. The BIG BANG;The creation of time n' space n' the creation of the force of GRAVITY n' all that stuff ,well, Just happened!...So not unaturally the shit hit the fan. As we all know everything is like it is ,cos of a nice fellah with a toga and a beard.Thats the picture that all the religions have pumped out since time imemorial. Thats why this 'lovely bloke',who made us all and is still taking care of his favourite planet and followers. If this jolly nice caring chap did create the universe why does he look like a human grandad?

We live on a grotty mediocre planet on an outer ring of a grotty mediocre galaxy in a grotty mediocre group of galaxies in a grotty mediocre corner of the universe. If there is a god ,how do we know he's not a scaly ,tentacled ,slimey mass of teeth and claws like something from ALIEN. If he did , that'd bugger up all the holy books ,bibles ,korans and screw up the whole religous setup. If god looked that horrible ,imagine what the angels ,etc would be like. HEAVEN doesn't look quite so appealing now. Instead of fluffy clouds and harps, i keep thinking of the flightdeck of the deep space mining ship NOSTROMO in RIDLEY SCOTT'S classic'ALIEN'. Now ,if thats heaven ,just imagine what the other place would be like.

WAYNE ROONEY SCORED LAST NIGHT AND IT DIDNT COST HIM A PENNY!

2010-09-08T13:30:00.007+01:00

Yes our personally troubled hero WAYNE(shrek) ROONEY scored last night for England. Gone is the tired weary, lacklustre player we had to endure through the travesty of the world cup. Now ,although he may not have a smile on his face, he has the skip and spring in his step again. I think i know why. Rooney has been caught paying £1200 a night to a naughty lady to do whatever demonic things £1200 will pay for. This has taken its toll on the much needed Rooney fitness and drastic action was needed to get him back on form. This is were the wife COLLEEN comes in.

Most houses in our fair land seem to be in possession of an american style BASEBALL BAT?.. No, catchers mitts or even baseballs?....In fact nobody plays BASEBALL at all! Girls play ROUNDERS, which ,incidentally is a good way of upsetting a yank by pointing this fact out. The reason people buy the baseball bats,is to leave by the bed and to beat the hell out of any burglers or housebreakers, who, god forbid may threaten your home or family. Another function for this finely balanced and designed bats is to take to your husband if he's been playing away, for £1200 a night.

The reason for Rooneys return to fitness is ,undoubtedly that COLLEEN has taken Waynes SWEETIE MONEY away from him and has been chasing him around the ROONEY MANSION threatening to "Smash his f***kin' 'ead in!"....Let us not forget , she's a good LIVERPOOL girl and you do not cross Good Liverpool girls ,and live!...So it is Colleen's BASEBALL n' EXTREME VIOLENCE fitness regime that has kept Wayne on his toes and put the spring back on his studs..

I think Rooney's going to have a good season . His training regime with Colleen , i think will carry on for quite a while yet, so dont expect too many smiles from Wayne, life on the pitch is going to be a picnic compared to life at home....

As an added extra!....I've just returned from a sortie down to the shops. While i was in there i looked at the magazines and newspapers. One newspaper revealed how the girl who Rooney spent his £1200 a night on.....CHARGED HIM AN UGLY TAX!!!!... Apparently she didnt exactly fancy young Wayne. One of his friends was a little more to her high standards and she gave him a"£75 QUICKIE" in the bar toilet. Hows that for paying over the odds in tax? Poor Wayne......Oooh we live in a wonderful world.

WAYNE ROONEY AND THE ENGLAND TEAM LOOKED TIRED BECAUSE THEY WERE ALL 'SHAGGED OUT', AS THEY SWAP WAGS FOR SL**S!

2010-09-07T14:12:00.011+01:00

When the WORLD CUP was on the other week and the laughingly called ENGLAND TEAM disgraced themselves and the rest of us . It was said they looked tired and lacked the fire and energy needed to do ....Well anything!....At the centre of all this attention was a very low key, lacklustre WAYNE ROONEY. The reason has at last 'come out'. Laughingly described as "Having private and personal problems". Our Wayney-poo's,the little red devil, is getting his stubby muscley little legs over a young lady for a mere £1200 per night....£1200 PER NIGHT????....Whatever the hell you get for £1200 ?There must be trpapeze's, trampolines, bullwhips and various electrical chairs..... Well, its no wonder he's tired his legs must be shot! Theres a big fuss about Rooney playing for ENGLAND against SWITZERLAND. The manager says he's mentally strong and fit to play, even if his body is totally' shagged out!'....I nearly choked ,this morning when a newsreporter on the telly asked if there was any chance "rooney'd be 'YANKED OFF'?"..... Well, after all those £1200 nights, he'd be more than used to it.

It also appears that 'the lady' in question has basically been around the footballers in the premiership. All those fine athletes our children idolise , their accountants must be wondering what all these £1200 's are for. The wags are being replaced by slags. Those fine proud players are having their energy and fitness sapped and they're paying £1200 a night for it. And she is going to name names. So Rooney's un-named team-mates are soon to be named. Ah, the beautiful game!

BRITAIN AND FRANCE COMBINE MILITARY MIGHT ,THEN WE NIP DOWN FOR A PINT AT THE FRENCH FOREIGN BRITISH LEGION CLUB...

2010-09-06T14:58:00.004+01:00

Here we are BRITAIN at war and what do the politicians decide to do in the midst of the conflict but reduce our military might. The major choker for any English man is that we should combine our naval fleet with the FRENCH??????...... The last time we had any dealings with the French navy was in the SECOND WORLD WAR and we went to North Africa where it was berthed and we sunk the whole of the French Fleet. Funnily enough the French weren't too happy about that. I like the French ,i've a few French friends and i hope i still have a few French friends. (Robert ,is that invite over to Canada still on?).... We could merge the army with the Germans . Why not the RAF with the German LUFTWAFFE. I mean all around here in the locality of Northern Europe ,We all have a history with each other. We're neighbours. Any neighbours have arguments and upsets from time to time. Just watch CORONATION ST, or EASTENDERS, to get my point . So the French and the Germans ,we've had a little upsets with through the years ,but lets forgive and forget and nip down to the FRENCH FOREIGN BRITISH LEGION SOCIAL CLUB for a PINT OF MILD and a glass of wine .

TONY BLAIR: BOOZE, POLITICS N' THE ROCK N' POLL LIFESTYLE...HE TOOK US TO WAR, BUT WORSE HE TOOK HIS TIE OFF AND UNBUTTONED HIS COLLAR!!!!!

2010-09-01T14:41:00.006+01:00

TONY BLAIR GIVES IT TO GORDON BROWN......A signed copy of his autobiography, hot off the press!

Todays the day, the day when our once beloved glorious leader, TONY BLAIR has his autobiography released. The pavements outside of bookshops all around the country will be full of news reporters reporting how theres nobody queuing for 'Tonys Tome'. I'm sure the tale ,entitled 'A JOURNEY' will be a fascinating read. Apparently he's upset at soldiers getting killed in a war he sent them to; He hates GORDON BROWN. Apparently he's a bastard, etc, etc. Now thats the stuff people want. Vitreol and hatred and spite and a smattering of blame . Tony,like all great celebrities also hit the bottle ....POLITICS, THE NEW ROCK N' POLL!(sorry!). As Tony not exactly hitting the excesses we ussually hear about from our beloved celebrities. He'd have a G&T, then a few wines after dinner. I do that before dinner and i've never ran the country.

I get to order the dog to get out from time to time, thats the limit of my power and influence. Tony's away in the states pushing the book during his highly paid lecture tours. Apparently this very evening, our hero is having dinner with BALLCOCK O'BARNPOT( The afro-Irish president). Poor ol' OBAMA is going to get a copy of Tony's Tome wether he likes it or not.

Aside from all the 'stuff' he did when he was in charge. There is one thing i cannot forgive him for. Even worse than the military hell he's left us in. It is the ,taking off of his tie ;Undoing his top button;Taking his jacket off; And rolling up his sleeves. When in office, he created and cultivated his own Tony's Team...BLAIRS BABES,etc.He was surrounded by PR sorts; SPIN DOCTORS, advisors ,etc, etc. One day one of these bright young things came into Tonys office bubbling with excitment. Not with a way of fixing the health system , or sort inflation ,etc. No,Something much more important. An image issue. "Prime Minister ,the next time you give a speech ,take your tie off and even ,if possible your jacket then people can see that as you roll up your sleeves ,your one of the people, determined and willing to get down and dirty with all the voters."Tony must've though"WoW!"...."Thats really, really brilliant, guys!"Happy and relieved that he wouldnt have to work on something important, this was something to make him look good, so off came the tie.....DAVID CAMERON, who modelled himself on Tony also Whisked the tie and the jacket off. GORDON BROWN the LABOUR leader was a bit more CONSERVATIVE and settled just for the removal of his tie.Now ,every damned politician in the country, whenever they are speaking ,are always open collared. Even if every single other person in the hall has a tie on. It really pisses me off these politicians trying to be like normal blokes. They're not ,they are politicians ,they arent even human. And they can claim a nice silk tie on expences.

DID YOU KNOW IT WAS ILLEGAL TO OWN A NUCLEAR BOMB? 'COS I DIDNT!...

2010-08-25T15:30:00.005+01:00

As i was slurping at my 47th gallon of tea of the day i was watching the 'BEEB' news. This to help me to help you by keeping my finger on the pulse of just what is occurring in our great wide world. One thing that came out is the rocketing numbers of rules and regulations n' laws n' stuff. This mass of laws, etc , covers virtually everything. So, whatever your doing, you better stop it right away, as its probably illegal. One of the rules ,is that, apparently it's ILLEGAL TO OWN A NUCLEAR BOMB!!!... I mean did you know that? Because i certainly wasnt aware of it. When we moved into our new house in Warrington, after our few years in the far east, we brought a pile of stuff we'd aquired with us. A lot of this stuff ended up in the garage, shed or attic.
Our story begins in India. One day ,partaking in the KINGFISHER and COBRA beers in various boozers in the fine city of BANGALORE with a few friends , i got talking to a fellah ,in a bar, as you tend to during the aquiring of 'a skinfull'. He sold me an old nuclear missile and warhead. It was old Russian army stock, which the Indians ,always people with an eye for a bargain were swallowing up. Lynne went up the wall. I had to take the MIG FIGHTERS and the AIRCRAFT CARRIER back. The nuclear missile got lost amongst the LOVELY LYNNES stuff.

So after the news i got a shock when i was getting the lawnmower out of the shed and there in the corner was the nuclear war head. A little dusty and rusty and droplets of URANIUM 235 on the floor glowing away. I thought,"maybe i'd better get rid of some of this junk", as THE LOVELY LYNNE is always going on to me about doing. I thought of selling the warhead and booster together on E-BAY(UK), but i didnt know how much to charge for postage for the booster assembly.I mean it wouldnt be worth selling after all the wrapping and cellotape. And i bet ,even if i did wrap and stamp it . It wouldnt fit in the letterbox and that miserable cow in the post office wouldnt take it over the counter. The only thing i can think of is the local carboot sale, up the road. As even the charity shops wouldnt take the stuff. "Some days you just can't get rid of a( nuclear) bomb!"( Thanks to ADAM WEST in BATMAN,THE MOVIE for that immortal quote!).... Gawd! its hardwork being a honest law-abiding citizen

THE BONZO DOG DOO DAH CAR ALARM BAND

2010-08-23T12:48:00.008+01:00

(car alarms in perfect harmony.)

Even though we live in violent, crime ridden n' riddled times and towns, its not all bad. We're protected by whats left of the police force. We have modern day 'dads army 'in neighbourhood watch, etc .But our property and safety is secured by a variety of alarm systems to protect us from various forms of accidental or malicious grief and problems which may arise to generally screw up your day. Not to mention the next few months trying to sort out what the insurance companies are actually there for. As you try and get money you've paid to them and are entitled to recieve back to ease the suffering in just the sort of sad ,bad and even tragic circumstances you may find yourselves in. To combat and protect our property we have a variety of alarms . The most infamous being ;THE HOUSE ALARM; THE CAR ALARM THE SMOKE ALARM. The ideas behind these various alarms are pretty valid and reasonable. But, the reality ,as ever, never quite matches the sales brochures,the blurb on the box, etc.

Whenever you walk down a street, somewhere a house alarm is ,howling ,clanging, bleeping ,or some other deliberatly mind scarring noise. But nobody thinks,"OH MY GOD! THERES A HOUSE BEING BURGLED, CALL THE POLICE ,!".....No, the eyes get rolled and ,"OH F***'IN HELL !....TURN THE BLOODY THING OFF, FER CHRISTS SAKE!".....And telly volumes all down the street are boosted up so the X-Factor ,or Come Dine With Me, isnt interupted too much. House alarms go off ,just cos they feel like it or a piegon flies too close. Car alarms are the same .They go off ,nobody yells "OH GOD! THERES A CAR GETTIN' NICKED, CALL THE POLICE!"...... Nope, rolling of eyes as the screeching, honking ,or whatever goes on ,because a dog pee'ed against a lampost 10 feet away. Smoke alarms 'let rip' with their ear-drum splitting howls, just for boiling an egg or making a cuppa, not because,"OH MY GOD! THE HOUSE IS BURNING DOWN!"........ A lot of alarms lights still shine ,but most have had the cables ripped out just to shut the noise off, as the owners have normally forgotten the access code as well.

The other day ,THE LOVELY LYNNE had left the car window open and it had been raining. Being the ever dilligent caring husband i reached into see if the drivers seat was wet. The car alarm let rip. We turned it off with the key fob and all was quiet again. Until a few seconds later a car across the road went off, closely followed by a few more around our sheltered little close. I thought i should walk out into the centre of the close and orchestrate the alarms into a symphony for car alarms. Who knows with a little arranging a backing of house and smoke alarms to make it an alarm classic. I thought of MIKE OLDFIELDS:TUBULAR BELLS...At the end THE BONZO DOG DOOH DAH BANDS once, sadly now long dead front man VIV STANSHALL ,as he did on Tubular Bells , could've gone through the various instruments. This for the various car alarms.

"FORD!".......(HONK HONK HONK!!)

"TOYOTA!".....(WHEEEEOOOOO....WHEEEEOOOOO....WHEEEEOOOOO)

"VAUXHALL!"....(BLARP...BLARP....BLARP)

"DIATSU!".....(TOOT...TOOT...TOOT!)

"ROVER!"...(WHARPP...WHAARRPP...WHARRPP..!"

"CORTINA!"...(FRRRRRRRPPPPPPppppppp.......flat battery!)

"PORCHE!".....(WHUP..WHUP...WHUP....WHUP......!)

Dont tap your feet too hard to the funky beat you'll set off the house alarm.

THE BIRDS N' THE BEE'S, GIRLS IN VERY SHORT TIGHT SKIRTS, THE GOOD LORD MADE THEM ALL...THE DIRTY DEVIL!

2010-08-11T15:30:00.006+01:00

The other day as i was standing on the train platform awaiting the," delayed due to signalling problems", but arriving five minutes early(?) train to the fair city of Liverpool. I stood calm and relaxed. All bodily functions and levels as 'labelled on the packet'. Until, from nowhere came a girl, obviously 'going into town'. To the keen observer, 'girls going into town can be determined and recognised by the tall hair; short skirt and high heels. The skirt was so tight it had to be a size or so smaller than her skin. This had a not altogether beneficial effect on my aforementioned bodily functions and levels which suddenly 'flew off the scales'....As i'm a happily married middle aged ol' fart.(i can admit to it, just!)... I tried, and failed miserably to avert my cross-eyed gaze and to return my swollen tongue to its lair inside my mouth, from where it had suddenly decided it wanted to reaquaint itself with my chin and nostrils and share spit n' drool. Its a sign your getting old when a part of you on seeing such 'a sight' wonders."Does her father know she goes out like that?"

But as she stood posing and pouting half naked tottering even as she stood still on her 18 inch stilletto platform heeled shoes on the Liverpool side of the track. On the 'other side of the track', which to every scouser is the Manchester line. And the girls stood there going into Manc-land were Middle -eastern and wrapped in various scarves from head to foot.As their religion or culture demanded. They want to keep wrapped up, fine .The Liverpool Lou,slave to the demands of fashion, religion not playing too big a part in it. She wanted to be unwrapped, fine. I dont imagine god was too upset,in either case as some would imagine. As we all know God's a bearded wise old fellah. He designed women to attract men. And unlike most creative artists, given a blank canvas he created the whole universe, it has to be said, that knocks Da-Vinci;MichaelAngelo; VanGogh and Walt Disney(at a push) into a cocked hat.They earned a few bob drawing women and god himself. But he designed and created the original design for women,the MK1 sporty models, as well as the more functional models and designs. Either way women ,without doubt are , i think,in my considered(but not by many)opinion, is one of his best designs, so when the female form is 'shown off', or not,as the case may be, as long as its appreciated he should be rightly proud.

I wonder why he never signed his work.

Tim Leatherbarrow: IT'S A WONDERFUL THING THE HUMAN BRAIN, I'LL HAVE TO LEARN HOW TO USE IT ONE DAY.

2010-08-06T14:42:00.001+01:00

Tim Leatherbarrow: IT'S A WONDERFUL THING THE HUMAN BRAIN, I'LL HAVE TO LEARN HOW TO USE IT ONE DAY.

CARTOONS,CARTOONISTS N' OTHER CARTOONS N' CARTOONISTS N' WHAT MAKES CARTOONISTS HAPPY!

2010-08-04T13:25:00.006+01:00

Its o.k , folks! Your beloved leader has returned to amaze,and amuse on occassions, i'm sure it must've happened sometimes on the admittedly very odd occassions; To educate ,which must have happened on occassions, albeit even less occassionally then the amusing times; And at the very least ,so you can say with n'er a small degree of smugness,"There! I told you that Tim Leatherbarrow was a F***kin' knobhead".Which i'm sure doesnt happen on rare occassions ,but occurs on a regular basis. But i've returned from a spot of frog-trotting in the land of 'Johnny Foreigner', itself ,nowhere less than the 'sarf o' France'!.....So after a week of being burnt to a frazzle and eating all the various curious lifeforms that the 'med' has to offer much to my daughters disgust, compounded by 'daddy's stinky breath', after the garlic has taken its toll. To be fair the area is a beautiful place as it wasnt bombed to bits in that little fracas we had with the Germans, way before the world cup. So, the villages, etc are still as they were and a nice life is had by all. South o' france ,back to Warrington, need i say more? I also read 'THE COMPLEET MOLESWORTH'...(Down with skool!...How to be topp!...Whizz for atomms!...Back in the jug agane!)Not just for the enjoyment, but as Molesworth learned fr,grammar at ST CUSTARDS, much like i did at my skool. But those sneaky french talk it totally different to wot i wos tort, sounding like they're gargling jelly.

The one thing i do like and admire about the Europeans ,generally is that they, unlike us ,do love their cartoons and cartoon books. Any news agent has all the ASTERIX; LUCKY LUKE, etc, etc books, as well as LA FLUIDE GLACIALE cartoon/ comic magazines . Even tho' i'd swotted up with NIGEL MOLESWORTH on my fr; grammar i still cant read a bloody word. The French have definitly changed the French language from that one wot i used to do at skool. The artwork is great stuff and ,like any kid,"i jus' look at the pictures", and try and make some sense, but on the whole just admire the art and wonder why we Brits, virtually invented the cartoon as an art form have let it die like everything else we've given to the world. Abroad you'll see adults reading through cartoon books and comics quite happily with 'non-embarressment!'....As would we Brits, given the choice.

But enschonsed comfortably on the reading seat (the bog at the top of the stairs.) i plough through these comics and admire the characters, layout, linework and animation, etc and think "BASTARDS!.....BASTARDS ,THE WHOLE LOT OF YE 'R ARE BASTARDS !...THATS THE ONLY WORD FOR THEM...BASTARDS!"......This to those not too educated in the psychology of the cartooning rabble is the basic response any cartoonist has to somebody elses work, whose any good ,or even worse, successful. At any collection of work you will hear chuckles n' laughs, but the thought bubbles are thinking "BASTARD!"....A variety of reasons for this ,as i said ,the artwork ,success and, of course ,the idea, the joke, gag, whatever. This is possibly the hardest to take as even the cleverest of ideas, when viewed become obvious and you think ,without fail,"WHY THE HELL DIDNT I THINK OF THAT?....And sometimes it seems so obvious now that your convinced the artist nicked it off you in the first place. You've only got to go home and look at the crap you've been pumping out overflowing from cupboard shelves and drawers to sadly realise and accept that maybe that brilliant idea was his own and he didnt nick it from you, but that just confirms he's, yes you guessed it..."HE'S A BASTARD!"...... Of course i wouldnt think along these lines as i'm comfortable in my talent and skill, but i know other cartoonists who arent, i bet they're sitting on a bog somewhere looking at my work and thinking, "BASTARD!"...Oooh i do hope so.

The creative mind constantly needs stimulation to keep it firing and sparking with images and concepts to amaze and astound all the 'normal people 'who inhabit the grotty grey miserable world outside our creative bubble. One way for me is to put BUBBLE-WRAP on the toilet seat and rock from side to side. This causes hilarious popping and farty noises and tickles your bum. This ,of course is just one way of stimulating the mind, i'm sure all the 'greats' of creative mindom throughout history had their own ways of being stimulated, i mean what did they do before 'BUBBLE WRAP'?

BLOWING OFF LOUD WINDY FARTY NOISES,DRIBBLING SPIT..ALL THE JOYS OF THE BRASS BAND..(notice no blowjob jokes?)

2010-07-17T20:01:00.008+01:00

DOCTOR WHO AND THE TUBA'S......The most terrifying adventure yet. So bad he's off the telly until christmas to recover. I did a series of brass band cartoons for a friend of the family and immersed myself in the world of wind loud farty noises being blown off right across the musical range and , of course ,lest we forget ,the wonders of the 'spit valve'. And like the good Doctor i'm a bit 'brassed off'(sorry!),i'll be off your screens for a bit,cleaning the muck from my under my finger after all this time being pressed firmly on the pulse, oh and the computers getting its valves n' pipes cleaned, but i shall return. So heres the windy fruits of my brassy labours for you to laugh n' titter over....Well, you dont have to, y' know, doesn't bother me...True talent' will out 'one day..When Lynne tells me to "get out " again, i'll be discovered, that'll wipe the smile off her face as she throws the last of my bin bags down the road after me, just you watch......See ya round!

IT'S FINALLY HAPPENED, THERES MORE STREET ENTERTAINERS IN LIVERPOOL THAN SHOPPERS!!!...

2010-07-16T15:14:00.004+01:00

The other week i stepped off the chuffa train at Liverpool Lime Street and stepped out into the sunshine of our fair city. The roads were full of cars,taxi's, busses and trucks chugging n' honking; Then there was those brave bold and by neccessity slightly insane pedestrians trying to get past the traffic to delve into the shopping area in and around St Johns precinct opposite. All together people and engines make an impressive noise. But the air was filled with not so much a 'white noise', more of a 'white boom'....Puzzled as i was i made my way into the centre and realised what it was.

In the old days of my youth, there was the odd acoustic guitarist occassionally with a full quota of strings; Some old tramp with a tin whistle, or occassionally the odd accordian. But now!...There was whole bands; Carribean steel bands with about twenty drums ,and to make it worse ,the public were allowed to have a go; There were guys who'd set up electric keyboards and synthesisers; Electric guitarists with stacked amps ,that were once ditched by The WHO, or LED ZEPPELLIN at one time; There was a guy battering the hell out of a full drum kit in the middle of a side street; But the worst of all according to theLOVELY LYNNE was the group playing the bag-pipes; On top off all this a marching band came through town to add to the cacopheny of sound .And as well as that you've the drivers who want us all to share their 'BOOM, BOOM,BASS' horror, as they cruise by with all their windows open. The thing that struck me is how the electric musicians are flooding the streets .Where do they get their power from. No crocodile clips and car batteries for them. I just wondered if the shops that they're playing outside of have noticed an extra plug in their multi-socket plug point, and a lead going out the door ,or into the staff toilet and out the window.

As you wend your way through these purveyors of noise.You have to be very light on your feet. Theres now dancers ,even plays and traditional entertainers juggling away, etc . To escape the street chaos we would hide away, as ever in various back street boozers. We would purchase our 'refreshments' and then discover we weren't to be spared the horrors of noise. Our hopes of talking and being heard where about to be destroyed by the worst most awful form of noise there is....Karioke....The x-factor auditions all rolled into one and sung for your own personel pleasure as you choke on your drink. The LIVERPOOL BLITZ was a lot more tuneful and pleasurable to listen to, definitly not as loud....Aaah, i'm starting to sound like the miserable old fart i ,at last am, eh?

OH SHIT!..IT'S FINALLY HAPPENED....I AM NOW FIFTY YEARS OF AGE !!!!....OH SHIT!........

2010-07-15T11:45:00.004+01:00

AAAAAHHH!.....ITS FINALLY COME TO PASS , ITS HAPPENED , ITS OCCURRED ...YOUR BELOVED FINGER ON THE PULSE, EYES N' EARS OF THE WORLD...(And all the other bits attached, of course..) HAS FINALLY HIT THE BIG FIVE OOOH!..50...(sob ,sniffle ,snort)....
I went to my bed last night a young fresh faced young 49 year old and was awakened about 6.00 a.m .this morning by my excited daughter. Not, i hasten to add that she was excited for her beloved father. No! It was because we share the same birthday and shes hit the big 12.... The Lovely Lynne ,even at that ungodly hour, wished me a happy birthday. I replied , not unreasonably i thought, "Sod off ,its not my birthday ,its too early." But over the next 10 minutes or so a mug of tea was supplied, my first as a 50 year old. I opened a couple of presents and a heap of cards, which cheered me up a little. The lovely Lynne and the not so sweet 'Little 'un went off to school n' work or whatever, whilst i slobbed on the couch in a dressing gown guzzling tea watching 'Randell and Hopkirk; The saint; The Proffessionals, all good 50 fare. I might even put on some SUPERCAR,or FIREBALL XL5 dvd'ds later with a touch of MAN FROM UN.C.L.E.; With a smidgin of VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA dvd's before me mam n' the mam n' dad in law descend this afternoon.As they'll watch some of those antique afternoon things and COUNTDOWN and DEAL OR NO DEAL, not on DVD ,i hasten to add.As we wait the return of the Lovely Lynne before we go off to a local boozer for a bit of scoff. I'm not drinking, i cant take it at my age!..(But i'm still a guy who can't,but should a little more often, say no!)... I'd politly inquire as to wether they'd prefer to watch GERRY ANDERSON'S U.F.O. but i dont think they'll go for it. Ah well ,i s'pose i'll be off i've got to get me over 50 tablets and new walking stick n' stuff , oh and get a moth eaten cardigan that buttons up wrong with the few buttons left. Age is a terrible thing.

THE BIG FIVE-OOOOOO(AAaaaarrrrggghhh)OOOHHH!....OR SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST FOR 'F'- ALL!!!!

2010-07-12T11:31:00.005+01:00

I MIGHT HAVE HAD A 'DO' FOR MY 50 TH , BUT I'M STILL ONLY 49, 'TILL THURSDAY..!

Yeah the process has started ,the fact i'm on the cusp of being half a century old. We had a party and my suffering afforded great amusement to the family,that Irish/Scouse rabble that embarress and humiliate me wherever and whenever theres a bar open. Along with them were the hooligans , scallies and deadbeats who comprise my friends. I think ,one and all had a good time. I partied like a 21 year old and awoke the following afternoon like a 60 year old. A few too many' wee-ones' thrown in with the Guinnesses' that were constantly building up in front of me on the bar. As the naive, but Lovely Lynne pointed out."You dont have to drink them all!"..But i think if people in these recession hit times, are all struggling to get by,and if they spend their hard earned money to buy me a drink, its only fair i drink it. From now on i'll be a cheap night out, as i've given up 'The drink.'And its orange juice and mineral water for this ravaged ol' fart from now on.

Thanks for the best wishes ,some of them are almost clean and i may be able to keep them, before my wife n' daughter see them. Ah well heres to the next 50 years!!!!!!

PLAY IN A BRASS BAND AND YOU WONT HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THE HOSEPIPE BAN...

2010-07-05T16:34:00.002+01:00

As the country starts to boil under 5 straight days of searing intermittent sunshine.....Well, its time to look foreward to the hosepipe ban. Part of the reason for the hosepipe ban is, when the goverment announce that there's going to be a hosepipe ban if the reservoir levels fall and the north west of England doesnt have 8 straight weeks of monsoon rainfall in the next three hours or so. The kneejerk reaction to this shocking news is that every single person with a blade of grass or a plant or a flower in their back garden is suddenly dragging yards of rubber tubing connected to the stand pipe alongside the house. But when people jam these pipes onto the tap, only a fraction makes it to the buisness end of the pipe. Water is spurting and dribbling from where the pipe is roughly jammed to the tap. And then, the water spurts n' dribbles from the cracks and splits in the pipe itself. This is the gardening version of the water board or public utilities who let us have some very precious exspensive water through our taps, but obviously the cheap crappy water is allowed to flood streets and roads in the middle of towns and cities through burst mains, etc. Apparently the hosepipe ban doesnt apply to the millions of gallons of wasted water, funny that.

The reservoirs in the lake district are way down apparently. It is a little ironic as the towns all around are still being rebuilt after being totally flooded, bridges swept away, the works.... Now theres no water. Around the north of England theres lots of brass bands. Having 'The Lovely Lynne' and her family coming from a brass music background, i've a little experiance of brass instruments and i'm fascinated by the spit valve. The amount of fluid coming out of an average tuba being played constantly whilst walking/marching around the garden would water the grass and flowers. Even the smaller stuff like trumpets and cornets ,because they take heavy puffing and blowing to get a tune would keep a lawn green. The Lovely Lynne plays the trombone and with the varying length of the 'moving bit', she can sit on top of the shed and water the garden near and far depending upon what note she's playing. If the bands stood around a near empty reservoir they could damn near fill it after a performance.....Just remember to boil what comes out of your tap, if and when the goverment see the potential of the brass band for our water supplies.

WATCH WHAT YOU SAY TO THE NEIGHBOURS THE NEXT TIME YOUR AT A COCKTAIL PARTY AS THOSE SNEAKY RUSSIAN SPIES ARE EVERYWHERE!

2010-07-02T12:56:00.005+01:00

" INFORMATION FROM AGENT X-15.....THE NEW YORK YANKIES WON AGAIN; MACDONALDS HAVE PUT 3 CENTS ON THEIR BIG MAC; THE LADY FROM 5556 IS HAVING AN AFFAIR WITH THE PIZZA MAN; THE DOGS HAD PUPS....AND HE'S GOT TODAYS DOONSBURY STRIP".....

There!...you all thought those nerve jangling fear-filled days of the cold war were all over. Well, this America and Russians as 'besie' mates was all a sham. The hard fought trust that has been built up over all these years has been shattered by those damned Ruskies. They have seeded the local population of the land of the free with their 'sleepers'....Agents who live in a house ,have a family ,watch the telly, go to the shop, go for a drink. Exactly like you or me(except we're not yanks).....But unlike you or me in their free time they dont slob on the couch scratching n' farting, as they are too highly trained in sleeper school to do that sort of stuff. What they do is go off and contact Moscow and tell them all they have learnt from the 'neighbourhood and cocktail parties'. But this priceless intelligence is utilised by the enemies of freedom to....Well, frankly i haven't a bloody clue.

The thing i'm worried about is the wave of paranoia that is already building , even in our green and pleasant land. Only today ,the ex' of one of the spies told how she associated with shady Russian sorts, so dont fool yourself they're here. They know ROY HODGSON'S the new manager of LIVERPOOL. ;They know GAIL TYLDSLEY was found innocent on CORONATION STREET;That CHERYL COLE'S going to change her name back to TWEEDY(oh god!).....All this priceless intelligence is being swallowed up by the KGB. Remember, "Careless talk costs lives". I, for one am going to be watching what i'm saying the next time the neighbours have a cocktail party. I've also started moving the road signs around to confuse the invasion forces, mark my words, its only a matter of time.

The thing that dissapoints me about all of this, is the effect it will have on the genre of the spy film. Out will go JAMES BOND and JASON BOURNE and in will come something more akin to the PARTRIDGE FAMILY with a powerful transmitter.

DONT MENTION THE WORLD CUP!!!!...........

2010-06-28T15:01:00.002+01:00

so i *%*$£@+^%££$&XXXXXXXX'in' wont!!!!!!

AMERICAN GENERALS WITH BIG MOUTHS !...DONT APOLOGISE ITS TRADITIONAL!!!!!!.....

2010-06-26T19:01:00.003+01:00

Its always good to see , in these days of uncompromising change that old traditions are surviving and are indeed alive and well. One in particular. The one that all American military men have big mouths. In times past they've had generals spouting off, chewing cheroots and walking around with pearl handled six guns. Not like British generals, of course. Mind you ,ol' MONTY wasn't backwards in coming forewards and his battles with our allied generals from across the pond was a lot more bitter and nasty then the battles he waged against the might of the German forces.
The boss of the AFGHANISTAN conflict was a certain GENERAL McCHRYSTAL. A quiet man, apparently. And with his background in BLACK OP'S, and SPECIAL FORCES,etc,etc this quietness could come in handy, blacked up behind enemy lines. But now he's a desk bound cigar chomping 567 star general he goes about his duties with his own war correspondant in tow. I never thought of ROLLING STONE magazine having a war correspondant, out side of Hollywood and the Oscars. But with the reporters in tow this ,obviously not so smart leader of men starts voicing opinions about his president and various suited and uniformed bosses in the white house and the Pentagon. I find it funny that all these unfairly berated(i'm sure) 'Sons of Bitches' actually read The Rolling Stone. A copy in the Oval Office and the War -Room of the Pentagon.
And so, our big mouth brave hero is summoned home, grovelling apologies, but, alas to no avail, as BALLCOCK O'BARNPOT(the Afro-irish president of the us)..Is a man reborn and revived, with the bit betwixt his big smiley pearly white teeth. He's fighting wars; Oil companies; The world economy,without breaking a sweat. One big mouth general who called him a name aint gonna give O'Barnpot any trouble ,oh no way, man! So as i type this rubbish Ex- General McChrystal is picking up his first dole cheque, or starting flipping hamburgers somewhere.

I USED TO HIDE BEHIND THE COUCH WHEN DOCTOR WHO WAS ON THE TELLY....NOW ITS WHENEVER ENGLAND PLAY.

2010-06-22T16:07:00.004+01:00

When i was younger in the days of black n' white DOCTOR WHO'S. A long time ago when the Doctors had passed the age of puberty, like WILLIAM, HARTNELL and PATRICK TROUGHTON...When the DALEKS, CYBERMEN, etc, etc..scared the living daylights out of young lads. And as we know we all used to dive behind the couch at the first "EXTERMINATE!"....The dark was cosy and safe behind the horrendous settee with the flower patterns on that were a lot more horrific than any beastie, robot or monster the Doctor Who scriptwriters could come up with.

But ,as we grew up our fears changed and it wasnt so much the beasties, robots or monsters that scared us, but the fact that our television license payed for the worst special effects and wobbliest sets in telly history. Even worse than CROSSROADS, but that was on ITV. We didnt have to pay for that,so that was ok.

But much like the classic Doctor Who days, the boyhood fears have returned me behind the couch . When i sit to watch ENGLAND play(if thats the word). The acting is the same ,way over the top; Most of the game looks like certain defeat for our heroes,(and ussually is), as they run around screaming and shouting, like all the Doctors assistants: And as for the monsters and beasties, well, we've a few, well able to drive you behind the couch....Well! WAYNE ROONEY for a start

AAAHHH, IT MAKES YOU PROUD TO BE.....ALGERIAN !

2010-06-19T10:46:00.003+01:00

U.S. AND US !

2010-06-18T17:17:00.005+01:00

An American politician once said...."NEVER LET A GOOD CRISIS GO TO WASTE!"....

Theres a dark ,greasy, slimey,filthy,polluting filth filling up the Gulf of Mexico and it is understandebly upsetting the people who have to live and work in the reigion as they watch their livliehoods and ecological, natural landscape getting destroyed. And then you have the Dark, slimey, oily, greasy, filth that is American politics. Ballcock o'Barnpot( the Afro-irish U>S> president) has had some wonderful photo oppertunities out of this ecological catastrophie. And , the slavering morally determined mass of congressmen, who are up for re-elections in a few months want to be seen to be fighting for the suffering 'man on the beach'. O'barnpot, after getting a 'little' slagging off.("He's said too much too late") is getting tough and is going to get tough with them "Goddam Limey sons of bitches" at B.P. Or British Petroleum, as we once liked to call it,But O'Barnpot still likes to call it ,as often as he can squeeze it in to his televised blathering. I'm sure its nothing to do with building up anti British feeling in the home of freedom, democracy and moms apple pie. And while the resentment boils up ,if he can screw a few billions of dollars from B>P> and the British pensioners. Well, the electorate'll love him forever.(What was that about 'a good crisis?)... The strange thing is ,i was reading that the oil-platform that exploded and killed all those men and caused the oil leak, was supplied by a company called TRANSOCEAN. Who were once the finest supplier of deep sea oil drilling technology. They merged with an American company called SANTA FE,something or other.They're based in J.R.EWING territory of Houston, Texas. But since the Americans moved in and took over Transoceans reputation has plummetted worldwide. So, it seems to a naive sort, as my good self, that the Yanks have a lot of blame to shoulder in this oily sticky mess, as the platform and crew was theirs.

The new england world cup song...OH CHRIST !...'ERE WE GO !(again!)...ERE WE GO !(again!)...ERE WE GO!(again!)........

2010-06-14T18:59:00.005+01:00

BUTTER-FINGERS!!!!

Everywhere i look ,there's England flags flappin n' fluttering, health and safety regulations allowing, of course. This is a wonderful show of pride and patriotism by the people of our great proud country. I have a lot of faith in the pride and belief of 'everybody' back here at home. The problem ,for me lies with the fact i've absolutly no faith in 'our boys' in the England squad. "C'mon ,Tim, give 'em a chance"thought i to myself and sat down to watch the travesty of a game against the USA, for christs sake. Then afterwards, looked out at the flags fluttering from houses and cars in our close and thought "Ah well, they'll be coming down by the end of next week."

But even after one of the all time goal-keeping 'cock-ups'; And half the squad of deadbeats chosen by our Italian 'gaffer' dead n' beaten by injury, its not all bad. Every cloud has a silver lining, they do say. And even at this time of National disharmony, pain and fear for the next few games and our increasingly slim chances in the tournament, this old saying is true. I was asked a few years ago to illustrate a book in Hong Kong, for the chinese, written by a Geordie lad, explaining various football sayings and expressions. As ever my moment of fame never came to pass and the artwork wasn't used. But after the England game ,this particular one , i think is particually apt.

ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS ,A QUESTIONABLE GUIDE TO THE LIFE ,THE ,UNIVERSE N' ALL THAT STUFF!

2010-06-10T14:14:00.005+01:00

Gazing out into space, cos' you can see it from our back garden on a clear day. I wondered on the mysteries of life the universe ,smelly socks n'the intensity and frequency of skidmarks on underwear n'stuff n' everything of importance to our daily grind. I put my massive,if underused intellect to the problems and mysteries involved. After a while i'd solved half of the mystery of the cosmos. I'd worked out the questions.

WHAT..?

WHY...?

WHERE...?

WHEN....?

HOW...?

PHEW.....WHO WAS THAT....?

WHOSE ROUND IS IT....?

DO YOU FANCY A BIT O'..........?

WHERES ME KEYS.......?

Now having solved half of the equation all i needed was the answers, easy, no sweat......

ARE YOU DEAF,OR WHAT?

'COS!

WHEN DID YOU LAST HAVE THEM?

THEN

LIKE THAT

IT WASN'T ME

I GOT THE LAST ONE.

NO!..GET OFF N' GO TO SLEEP.

(couldnt find an answer to that one)

So, there you go all the problems that weigh so heavily upon our feeble mortal shoulders .Cause us so much stress,stomach disorders like flatulance and wind (stress farting is on the increase in our high pressure age.) Falling out hair. Go on havent you been slightly alarmed at the massive knotted clumps of hair blocking up your plug hole?....All those problems have been analysed and solved.You can all relax, now. When you understand it, life ,the universe n' everything, etc,etc is quite simple and straight foreward in a curved spacetime sort of way(except for the socks n' skiddies!).No, theres no need to thank me, i shall take my leave. I've solved everything and i haven't even had my breakfast, yet.

TIM(FINGER ON THE PULSE)LEATHERBARROW TOLD YOU SO!

2010-06-05T18:03:00.003+01:00

If you scroll back through the widom and deep penetrating observations of the insanity and inanity of our jolly lives in general,as pointed out and explained in this blog thingey. One of the 'finger on the pulse 'items was about the possible sudden exiting of a certain Spanish manager of Liverpool FC.....I frighten myself sometimes at my understanding and 'on the button 'prophesies,its almost paranormal, ESP, X-Files, etc,etc.........

FAREWELL TO RAY ALAN AND LORD CHARLES.....NOT PRINCE CHARLES!(He's alive n' kicking, and apparently doesnt speak with a hand up his back, apparently)

2010-05-25T15:30:00.006+01:00

RAY ALAN(R.I.P.)....LORD CHARLES(R.I.P.).......PRINCE CHARLES(alive n' kicking)

Once upon a time when we were young and only had 3 telly channels; Testcards; The High chaperal and Benny Hill: All day religion on a Sunday; The Saturday Big Movie and Jimmy Hill on Match of the day. There was also lots of variety shows. One of the faces that was a fairly regular one popping up on Rolf Harris; David Nixon; Bob Monkhouse: Royal Varieties ,etc, etc was a guy called RAY ALAN.Sadly he 'popped his clogs' and died today.He was a ventriloquist.He was the best ventriloquist.(Does anybody know what one of those is nowadays?) But his puppet/character was the wonderful monacled and permamentaly sozzled LORD CHARLES("Silly arse!")....If you want to see how funny and clever this guy was look on you tube at a sketch where Lord Charles is trying his hand at being a ventriloquist. Wonderful stuff!

I cant help wondering with all the stuff in the various obituaries and the mentions of LORD CHARLES.....I wonder if some foreign leaders ,maybe Ballcock o'barnpot (the afro-irish U.S.president) amongst them have sent messages of condolance to THE QUEEN, after having confused Lord Charles with PRINCE CHARLES. Who is, as we all know alive and kicking and doesnt need a hand up his back to function....Well! iAssume so ,but what he does in his own time is up to him.

IF OPPOSITES ATTRACT DOES THE OPPSITION CONGEAL? AS OPPOSING MILIBAND BROTHERS OPPOSE FOR THE OPPOSITION!

2010-05-24T12:04:00.007+01:00

Apparently ED n' DAVID MILIBAND,arent only brothers, but are the best n' closest of friends according to the spin merchants n' publicity shit peddlars of the LABOUR PARTY, which undoubtedly means the brotherly shit is flying all over the floors and walls of the loving Miliband family shared appartments. The ruck is over which is going to take over from GORDON BROWN(remember him?).....The fighting was vicous until 'the penny dropped and it suddenly occured to them that they weren't fighting over 'Gordo's 'old job which happened to be PRIME MINISTER of our once great nation. The post was now a little lower down on the political scale. Only LEADER OF THE LABOUR PARTY!....Which wasnt a bad job description to drag around. Then the second realisation hit them. They would be in charge of the losing party of the General election, which meant that the post they were fighting over was non other than ,LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION....That is basically political speak for The loser in charge of the losers, or Chief Loser. Considering the strange state of affairs after this election, Hung parliaments, etc. Normally the goverment side sit alone and the congealed mass of other parties sit opposite in opposition. But it seems now the goverment is the congealed mass of other party members. They sit there giggling at the poor old Labour party sitting opposite with no one to talk to.

This situation has the two loving brothers still arguing,but each wanting the other to take charge. Even if the opposition is the easiest job in the world. All you have to do is disagree with absolutly everything the goverment say. You dont have to plan policies at home at night for the following day, just turn up and 'wing it'. The brothers have their pride and want the other to take the fall and lead.

WWW.FFF-IN'.COMPUTER.DEADSTOP.COM

2010-05-19T14:59:00.003+01:00

Some of the sharper eyed of you out there will have noticed the more than usual irregular examples of rantings and ravings and all round blatherings lately. This is partly due to a severe case of pure unadulterated bone idleness on my part. But when ,with a superhuman burst of effort i dragged my lazy arse to the drawing board and got to it. When i'd finally produced something. I'm not saying it was worth the effort of producing it, or, for that matter of reading it. But it took time so that was your lot. wether you liked it or not. I sat at the computer to post the rubbish on the blog. But the computer just wasnt having it. I'm no fan of computers but a critical computer! I'm not standing for that. The internet and world wide web,etc,etc are very wonderful and clever things. The whole planet connected by photons and electrons whizzing about at almost the speed of light. Except here. Our computers photons and electrons dont so much whizz as move with the speed of a peanut sinking in a bowl of porridge. In our hi- speed age ,our computer harks back to a slower more relaxed time .

The slow workings of the computer can be forgiven, as me n' it are very similar and are alike in lots of ways. But what drives me up the wall is when it comes to a dead stop. As the computer screen freezes and i cant change pages ,move it up down across or shake it all about. Its inanimation gets me animated, into a totally psychotic rage .Where i want to smash and destroy and kill this already dead machine 'stone dead'. Then theres a slight flicker and the damn thing works up until the next hiccup. It has become a battle of wills with me n' the computer. If for a moment i let my guard down and show satisfaction with the computers progress. It will pounce and cut out on me. I have to intimidate it from start to finish. I sit in front with a CLINT EASTWOOD squint(Post DIRTY HARRY mid 1970's, best Eastwood squinting years.) and hopefully i'll get lucky with that punk computer.

IN WHATS LEFT OF OUR LIVERPOOL HOME;WE SPEAK WITH AN ACCENT EXCEEDINGLY RARE;LIVE UNDER A STATUE ,EXCEEDINGLY BARE,WELL WE DID ,BUT HE'S GOT TO GO...

2010-05-12T14:27:00.003+01:00

AND THE LIVERBIRDS COULD BE THE NEXT TO GO!

One of the most wellknown sights for anyone going into the fair city of LIVERPOOL, is the LEWIS'S DEPARTMENT STORE. Stood there standing, through fire, wars ,blitz, depression, and a variety of other things guaranteed to ruin anybodies day, since the 1850's. Throughout its history it has had a whole record of firsts and biggests, etc .And is basically beloved by scousers going back generations ,wether they be customers or the remarkably loyal and faithful staff. The other main landmark ,esspecially for the kids, was the 'nudie man' standing proud and semi erect over the front enterance. The people who commissioned it and the artist who sculpted it, called it LIVERPOOL RESURGENT. But to the people of Liverpool, he's always been DICKY LEWIS. The pavement under Dickies knob is the most famous meeting spot in the city. Lads n' lasses waiting for their dates. Myself included. Sharing the experiance with the likes of JOHN LENNON and CYNTHIA.

But it has been decided by the powers that be ,who, As we all know, their only thought is for the people and character of Liverpool. The councillors and the property developers who think that the old buildings in the city should be replaced by yet more shopping malls. Tiled floors ,Costas ,Starbucks and as many cloths shops as can be forced in to the new shopping/leisure facilities. Apparently, they plan to bung in a few skyscrapers into the surrounding area. A couple of towering glass tubes ,bound to draw the tourists into see the famous port of Liverpool. I like old buildings;old towns and old shops; I like old back streets and old back street pubs. I dont see why it all has to go to make way for "change!". Liverpools most famous landmark, after all is ,basically a back street and a couple of back street pubs. And a basement club called THE CAVERN.This was originally demolished by some genius. The empty space stood empty for years. Until another genius decided they'd build an exact replica, but a few feet to the right. All this to a certain four man beat combo called the BEATLES.Who,played and drank in MATTHEW STREET. The Beatles, incidently used to play at staff parties in Lewis's. They played on the roof ,as well,long before the ABBEY ROAD ROOF. And Sir MACCA was a delivery boy for them before he threw it all away and joined a band.

PETE TOWNSHEND CANT HEAR ONE OF THE LOUDEST ROCK BANDS IN THE WORLD AND HE'S THE LEAD GUITARIST!!!!

2010-05-10T16:22:00.005+01:00

Shock, horror and aghastness abounded as i ambled along the magazine rack in Asda the other day. I avoided all the Katie Price and Alex Reid stories and stumbled across a headline in one of the music mags. Basically it was ROGER DALTREY saying that 'cos him n' PETE TOWNSHEND are both 'shagged out' and...(this is where the shock n' horror an' agahstness really kicks in!)...THE WHO MAY HAVE TO STOP PERFORMING!!!!...

Roger has trouble with the voice, but has managed to overcome that as his apparently triumphant performance at the R.A.C.(No, not the car people..the ROYAL ALBERT HALL..if you dont mind!)..of QUADROPHENIA. But he's also having hearing troubles. But not as bad asthe almost deaf Mr Townshend, who's tinitus may be beyond repair. So one of the loudest guitarists in the world could be playing ,blowing the eardrums of stadiums full of fans and not knowing if his guitar is plugged in.

THE WHO were officially once registered as the loudest band in the world. I think it was a concert at CHARLTON F.C.( Probably the only thing Charlton fc is famous for.) The noise, apparently was the equivalent to five atom bombs going off in your living room. If your standing three feet in front of the speakers producing this cacopheny of sound, i'm sure the ol' tympanic membrane (ear drum ,ya ignorant gets)...aren't built for that kind of hammering.

The other possible cause for Townshends ears was the famous filmed version of a performance of MY GENERATION, on American telly and at the climatic instrument smashing end, KEITH MOON thought it'd be a bit of a wheeze if he dynamited the drum kit. Which he duly did. The explosion knocked Townshend sideways across the stage and was reputed to have added to all the other drum wreckage across the stage a set of perforated eardrums belonging to poor ol' Pete.

The other probable cause ,which is a lesson in this MP3 n' all that stuff age. Its been said that Townshends lug'oles have taken a hammering from earphones over the years in the recording studios, etc. Its not suprising really. The old earphones were cushioned and 'clamped around the head. Whereas the modern earphones actuall bore deep into the ear cavity. The noise can still be heard from the far end of a train carriage. I dont know which is the more annoying the actual ,being able to hear the music being played;Or the buzzing ,when you can hear the noise, but not make out the track. Yes, i know i'm a moanin' ol' fart, i've a loving(?) family that constantly remind me.

IF YOU START PADDLING YOU MIGHT CROSS THE ATLANTIC AND MAKE THE SHREWSBURY CARTOON FESTIVAL!

2010-04-21T15:45:00.005+01:00

iTS THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN...THE SHREWSBURY CARTOON FESTIVAL is about to explode into inky action when cartoonists are either mad bad n inky or mad bad n boozed up. Where the main squares are full of cartoonists drawing cartoons on boards or bored drawing cartoons and caricatures in all temperatures and weathers. Being as well as a stupid breed a hardy bunch of breeders or bleeders, i'm still not too sure which. I never imagined that the nice town of Shrewsbury and the not so nice deranged scribblings of the countries cartoonists would be tied up with an erupting volcano over in Iceland ,but it is. There was meant to be a bunch of scribblers from 'Darn under! coming along, but thats looking extreemly dodgy .And a very talented caricaturist and friend ROBERT LAFONTAINE from Canada was going to come over. We had cleared the lawnmower and various bits of stuff so he could sleep in the shed at 'chez Leatherbarrows' for a few days and then we would hit Shrewsbury together. But likewise i cant see that coming to pass!

Last night i spoke to him on the phone and over in Canada nobody seemed to know what was occurring. At that time no plane at all was flying in British airspace from anywhere to anywhere for another couple of days. So i advised Robert to get the kids dinghy and start paddling if he wanted to get to Shrewsbury. Then a mere few hours later on ,when the multi million pound losing air authorities arm wrestled the goverment in a drinking lounge in the bowels of Westminster, in to lifting the ban on aircraft flying over British airspace. In a matter of hours the skies were safe and theres nothing to worry about. We know that cos the minister for safety said so.

If anyone out there is flying over the Atlantic just keep a look out for a lean tall guy with an art portfolio in a dinghy

NEWS FLASH......Our hero has made Blighty. And as i type he's having a wander around the fair city of Liverpool. I dont know how Quebec compares to the 'pool', but he's got to face Warrington later on!.......Bon chance ,mon ami.....