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

(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?

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?

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!

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!.....

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

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

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

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

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

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

GOON BUT NEVER FORGOTTEN!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!!!!!!

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.

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

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 !

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...

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!!!!!

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 !

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!..

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!