I DON'T KNOW ABOUT 'THE KIDS',BUT THE THE 'ORRIBLE 'OO! ARE MORE THAN ALRIGHT !

T'was the Sunday before christmas,or two! and all was still, especially on the motorway network, or what laughingly passes for it on the way from the 'grotty norf' to the' sunny sarf', and our beloved capital of London,what with all this travelling and possibly...No,without doubt the worst couple of cups of coffee i've ever tasted in my whole adventurous life. I used to be a connoussieur of fine n' awful coffee's n' teas in paper n' plastic cups from service stations, greasy spoons and station platforms from my days of travelling when i was on the caricaturing circuit(ahh those were the days, i can tell you!). But the stuff i was slurping at ,not for refreshment, but just to postpone going back out to the car again for a few more hours of the dark frosty journey, was without doubt on a level of disgustednous that cannot be imagined. In my time away and off 'the road',the whole driving experience, the roads, the driving ,the whole sheebang ,now including the coffee has turned to complete and utter shite!..I always used to stop for a jam dougnut at Keele services, i can only hope that the jam doughnuts haven't been swept down in this general shitedness that has swept the land. But it's a long time since i've travelled those highways n'byeways, so, maybe i'll never know, maybe it'll be a good thing living in jam doughnut ignorance. Keeping my jam doughnut dreams alive...

You may well be wondering as to why we went on this voyage of discovery and bad coffee.....And don't get me staeted on the Watford Gap Kentucky fried chicken!......Somebodies lost Colonel Saunders secret recipe, believe me!....But the reason we put ourselves through all this was because we were on a pilgramage. THE WHO! ..were back in town! My two favourite pensioners in the whole world were back home. Namely, a certain Mr Roger Daltrey and a Mr Peter Townshend, of the parish. I remember years ago working at what was laughingly Tony Blair's ,(whatever happened to him?) crowning achievment ,tthat bloody tent that made us the laughing stock of the world, The Millenium dome. Famous because JAMES BOND(Pierce Brosnan,really!) dropped out of a balloon onto it in the 'World is not enough.' And of course the bridge that was fine as long as people didn't walk on it together in step,they had to stop marching as pedestrians in the city do all the time.They had to break step or the bridge'd start swinging. Doctor Who should think on that next time the Cybermen are chasing him through the big city. But what was the dome is now something called the indigO2 arena, or something. Do you remember the days when places were given names and not named after advertising logo's?...Proper names like ,Empire,Lycium,Palace ,etc,etc....Liverpool , for instance has the Echo Arena, i wonder where they got that name from!

But the IndigO2 is to be fair quite impressive and on the night i didn't realise until the end that next door to us a little band called COLDPLAY had been banging out a few tunes to a few fans. Theres not much chance of coldplay being heard over theWHO, but i'd like to think that the Cold play crowd were banging on the walls trying to get their noisey neighbours in THE WHO to hold it down a bit. The 'ORRIBLE 'OO' were wonderful, Townshend was wild and even at his advanced state of immortality full of adrenaline,power,aggression and just immpossible not to watch. Daltrey was still able to keep up and the screams ,etc, were all there and his power is still there. They enjoyed themselves and the banter from the stage was genuinley funny. The only problem was, we were up on a balconey quite a way back and some fuckin' prick, apparently from Leeds as he started singing about it, as if he was at the match.This, in between shouting witty Yorkshire reposts to a distant Townshend on the stage. I lost it and went for him, the 'Leatherbarrow finger' was pointing at him as i made my feelings known. I mean to say we'd travelled all bloody day ,spent a packet on tickets, suffered the motorway coffee n' Kentucky's just to listen to this knob'ead yelling down my 'lug'oles'?...No, i think not!

Afterwards my adrenaline was up and i was hyper n' tinglig all over looking for a quite corner where i could go and practise my Pete Townshend air guitar moves. The following day coming down from the high of the previous night into the morass of mundanities of an everyday Monday, i did a 'Pete' leap and windmill to 5.15, off QUADRAPHENIA (a little technical info, for the fans!), and pulled my bloody shoulder, the damn things still not right. And the pain wasn't helped by haven't to freeze my knackers off at a carol concert in the little 'un's school playground that night. Ah, the rock n' roll lifestyle, eh ?

A MERRY THINGEY N' A HAPPY NEW WOTSIT,YOU GET OVER THE BLOODY FLU N' YOU'VE GOT TO SUFFER BLOODY CHRISTMAS!!!

Yup! Here we go again, now we've gotten over having the missus blown up and the deccies're up and the tree's thistles are all over the bloody floor and its not even bloody christmas yet and the bloody trees fallin' apart. I haven't seen the Lovely Lynne in days as shes behind a heap of presents wrapping, wrapping ,endlessly wrapping...I can't see her, but i can hear her through the rustling of forest loads of wrapping paper, the snotty sneezing and full flemmed coughing and spluttering of my beloved and her 'real snorter 'of a cold. The little 'un Elara, thankfully is at my ma 'in law's ,she's got the full dose of a real dose of flu. So ,hopefully Father Christmas'll bring heaps of antibiotics, oh and some presents......(That bloody WII, that everyone is going on about....It looks like people pretending to box,play tennis or ski on a set of bathroom scales when i see the ads on the telly.)

We had a slight embarressment today. Being the wonderful neighbour i am ,i delivered a card to the nice lady next door.(Kath, if your reading this, yer lovely!)...The dog was sniffing around behind her leg as she was speaking to me, then to my horror and then gut busting laughter the bloody stupid creature, cocked his leg and pee'd down the back of her jeans. I thought i'd better make my excuses and so in the spirit of good neighbouriliness(?) i 'legged it.' I told the Lovely Lynne over the phone, so the outcome a box of After Eights originally meant for a cousin was given to Kath next door as a peace offering.

Anyhow you lot have a 'good un and if you survive the festive excess's i'll be back to bore the arse off you in the new year. I've decided that i'll be back to being a productive cartoonist/blogger next year, i can resist Sky +, I can ,i tell you!......That was another 'balls up', with the bloody Sky broadband thats why we've been off line and my wonderous ramblings have been denied you for so long. Blame them shitheads at Sky broadband ,we had some real fights with the ,laughingly called customer support people......Anyhow i'm off. A heap of reindeer shit just landed in the back garden, its nearly time for all good boys n' girls to go to bed, the rest of you ,just hit the bottle.......(hic...Buuuuurrrrpppp!!!)

AMAZINGLY,WHEN I CONNECTED THE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS TO THE MAINS THEY LIT UP...SO DID THE LOVELY LYNNE!

It's that time of the year when i sit here scratching myself a lot more than normal!....Yes ,as that bloody ASDA advert Bing Crosby song tells us every thirty seconds.."It's beginning to feel a bit like christmas(groan)". As for my increased levels of itching. This is due to my forced entry into the attic to rummage round for the bloody christmas decorations. When i get covered in the loft insulation, which keeps me warm for a few days as i don't sit still long enough to cool down ,i'm a constant blur of scratching and scraping at fibres of loft insulation. But i hauled the boxloads of baubles, decorations,mangers and,of course miles of lights. Now ,i faced the lights with more than a little trepidation. When i neatly wrapped them up last year they were working perfectly well. But, as you all will know, that means nothing. cos' as you plug them in again, the bastard things wont work. It is an unwritten law of the universe....Christmas lights will not work when you first plug them in! I wandered scratching n' scraping; Putting off the inevitable, just for a few more minutes to put the kettle on and have a cuppa. (Like the song 'Right!' said Fred.... An we woz gettin' nowhere. An' so we 'ad a cuppa tea...") All tasks can be subdivided into mugs of tea, it's what made Britain great. But, a monumentous discovery was made whilst i was about my kettley duties. Instead of leaving the travesty of the great christmas lighting (attempted)turn on to me, the Lovely Lynne went about it herself. Then it was conclusively shown miracles do happen...THE BLOODY LIGHTS LIT UP!....The mains alternating current went through the lights and they lit up. Unfortunatly the same mains alternating current went through the Lovely Lynne and she lit up, as well. I knew nothing about this until i saw her still smoking shoes on the floor beneath the charred hole in the living room ceiling, and she reentered the room with a strange 1970's disco style frizzy haircut with large sparkling if slightly crossed eyes. I leapt into action and shoved her out of the way ,i had to make sure the christmas lights were still working. The highly charged Lovely Lynne, or 'Sparky'as i affectionatly call her is fine, with no after effects from her 'shock' except she doesn't need the telly remote control to change channel, just clicks her fingers, same to set the car alarm. She's always only had to click her fingers to fire up my systems and get the Leatherbarrow sparks flying, but the battery's still flat, maybe next year when she lights the lights again, or maybe when i stop scratching...Bloody loft insulation.

SWEAT,SNOT,FLEM,WHEEZING LUNGS LIKE BAGS OF FROG SPAWN, YES , FOLKS ITS THAT FUN PACKED FLU-TIME OF THE YEAR. !

Yes, it's that time of the year! It starts of easily enough the throat is a little tight and your voice sounds a little husky, and even (possibly) you might be in for a bit of 'lurve'in' from your beloved due to your movie star vocals. But this is highly unlikely, so as the days pass the throaty, husky sound is replaced by a squeaky tone as the lining of the throat is ripped off by deep racking coughs ,which you pull from the soles of your feet to scrape the length of that itchy irritating windpipe. At night any sympathy your dearly beloved may have had for you is rapidly dissipated if not totally extinguished by a combination of,Racking coughs ;Wheezing lungs, which, sound like the dogs squeaky toy with a variety of different squeaks n' sqwarks as you inhale or exhale :The snorting and sniffing as you try to get life helping oxygen into your flem filled lungs. This inability to breath through the nose leads to holding the mouth wide open and exacerbates what, i have reliably been informed through the many happy years of my marriage to 'The Lovely Lynne', my amazing snoring ability.



Then, the daylight hours. The problems encountered have a slight twist.Plastered in sweat ,steam coming out of your collar, sleeves and socks. Your sprawled out on the couch watching the telly. (Just recently, we had Sky+ fitted, its great, so i'm watching recorded films and television series and haven't watched an advert in weeks. Quite frankly, the flu can stay as long as it wants.) But ,from time to time, i feel like i've swallowed a housebrick ,it wont go down so its got to come out. When we were at school, horrible snotty little bastards we were. We would 'Gob', anywhere. We would also take great pride in the size of this great green glutinous mass we'd just 'Gobbed onto the deck. The girls were often quite impressed too. The fascinating thing is, in an average day i can 'cough up'(..Don't Gob, now i'm all grown up)..About x5 my body weight in snot n' flem. I thought i could put it to good use and build a sculpture, a little like Richard Dreyfuss moulding that mountain with all that mud in 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind'. But, i could do a sort of 'Collossus of Rhodes 'standing astride guarding the front drive of the house in dryed out crystalline snot n' flem.(A Flemish masterpiece?...no?,ok then). I can see it now 50 feet tall in Emerald green. The Lovely Lynne wasn't keen though, she's happy with a rockery.





Last night the telly had a new series'Survivors' about a bunch of gorgeous trendy, with it young actors who survive a Flu-pandemic that wipes the rest of us, that aren't as good looking enough to appear in the increasingly cliche'd casts of every sci-fi, cop.spy telly series that they 'bang out'. Basically every series made in the last few years has got to have a young pretty,but feisty,with attitude(etc,etc,) cast with the correct levels of sexual and ethnic representations in the mix. And maybe an oldie, over the age of 25. But a gorgeous cast and computer special effects is what we all want, apparently. I've just had a thought, how about taking the cast of "I'm a celebrity get me out of here!". Then swapping them for the cast of "Survivors"?..Onr thing about that "Survivors", idon't know if the flu actually killed everybody. Or, that they're sprawled out on the living room sofa working their way through all the programmes they recorded on SKY+.

WOOLWORTHS ON SALE FOR A PENNY!..GIVE ME 50, AND A LOAF OF BREAD, SO ICAN HAVE A ROUND OF TOAST AS I WATCH THE MILLIONS FLOOD IN!

We ,undoubtably live in dire, dark times. Recessions, credit crunches, Financial meltdowns, banking 'balls ups, Goverment' fuck ups' and a whole array of banky financial terminology that us men on the street, (now, in many cases,permenantly!) would never be able to understand. But for some of us for whom the survival instinct runs deep, and partly due to the fact our height measures only 5foot 6 inches, on a hot day, in thick socks, have their ears close to the ground, which explains why i didn't hear the snippet of financial news which is about to change my life. So, standing up straight taking my ear off the cold ground,which, apparently may explain touches of earache, recently. No, it's not the missus, the Lovely Lynne ,thats not an ache, thats more of a pain!...But, Woolworths're going to sell their highstreet branches at a PENNY!.....YES A PENNY!, a shot. So i'm racing down to the cash point. Technology being what it is, i can't have a penny, so i'll have to get a fiver, at least. So, i buy a heap of Woolworths branches for a few bob then sell the stuff inside. I can't lose. Even if i knock the prices right down ,or 'slashed', as we in the retail trade say. On top of making a fortune, its solved my christmas present headaches as well.And The Lovely Lynnes credit card bill, after running up horrendous amounts ringing to keep John Sergeant on" Strictly, celebrity ,i'm a ballroom dancer ,get me outta the x-factor,on ice", or whatever. So, you lot may be suffering from credit crunches ,but due to my quick thinking i'm Debt crunching .

Just before the financial news, i referred to came on the news ,some baseball cap wearing 80 year old hip-hop skateboarder was on the telly, i was shocked and amazed to see it was 'Brucie' Forsythe. He was on about a certain fat political journalist leaving a certain dance show. I thought it a shame that the judges on the show gave him such a hard time. The Lovely Lynne is the one who watches the programme, its just on in the background for me, i'm too much of a man to watch cissy dancing n' stuff, i've got dinner dishes to wash. they don't do themselves y'know. But, to be fair the amount of training that they all put into the competition is impressive. Ol John Sergeant may not have been a top dancer, but he was an entertaining character and he gave it a good go, coming ,as he did from way, way ,behind the others start lines, due to his age and physical condition, etc.As has been said. The Great British public like the underdog; don't like authority and being told what to do and 'whats right'. So, the public had a chance to 'shove one up' em', and took it. Personnally, i think the judges should retire.

But, now! Don't get me started on the F*************'IN' X-FACTOR!!!!!!........ For similar reasons, as the dancing the Leatherbarrow house rings to pain in the arse wanna be "its all i've dreamed about, since my family dropped dead"pop stars ; Gob- shite boy bands; Hairdressers and tanning salon employees girl bands, etc, etc. If they want to be 'pop stars ,go out on the road and play and do the bloody job, instead of rehearsing mariah carey songs and dance moves in your flamin' bedrooms. Simon Callow and Louis Walsh, you've a lot to answer for, you bastards!

NEVER TELL A BOY SCOUT TO GET KNOTTED, 'COS LIKE A DOG LICKING HIS COBBLERS, HE WILL 'COS HE CAN !

Once upon a time when i were 'nobbut a lad,' i was a cub scout, i never got as far as being a full blown scout. As our cub pack was very possibly the lousiest cub pack on the planet. Lord Baden Powell, gawd bless 'im, wouldn't've been too impressed shall we say. If he'd seen us ,he would have slunk away to a quiet place ,picked the correct knot and hung himself. There was a badge ,which, apparently was the basic badge. The 'Bronze Arrow'. This badge was the first, taking only weeks to attain, before you moved onto more heady things, like the Silver and Gold arrows. It took us 4 years to get our Bronze Arrows. This great achievment wasn't attained through a deep understanding of knots or tent poles. No, it was because ,we survived 4 years of being a cub in our 'pack' . We would turn up on a Wednesday evening all woggled-up and ready to go. Basically all we did was beat the shit out of each other in endless games of 'British Bulldog'. I can't quite remember the rules(?)...But it was something about ,if you were 'it', everyone else charged at you and you had to stop them , so someone else'd be 'it'. I think the game was so named, after so many games the battered veterans of 'our cub pack' had faces like the British Bulldog doggie has been blessed with.

My darling daughter ,has now become a Scout and seems to be building up a fine collection of badges. A damn site more than her daddy ever did, it must be said. But,on the minus side, kids don't know how to play games like 'British Bulldog',anymore. Another part of our fine British heritage fades into the P.C haze of modern life and methods. I was stunned and shocked to be told that the kids are being taught SEX EDUCATION!!!!..... Cubs, Scouts and Beavers(not naughty) Do not have sex n' stuff. You can get badges for everything to do with knots, tents and tent poles, but now its not only tent poles that're studied. So, the kids sit in a muddy field and learn about what their mum n' dad used to do. So when they one day find themselves trying to get their 'leg over' with their beloved missus, she can and will tell him,' to put a knot in it' ,and he can.In fact he can choose from a whole arsenal of knots he's qualified to use for any occasion, including this. Mind you, nobody in my old cub group'd be able to do anything to incorporate knots to dampen their ardour. The Bronze Arrow, never covered this, in my day. A good game of British Bulldog n' a cold bath were 'good enuff fer me!'

SHOULD JONATHAN WHOSSY,BE GIVEN THE SONIC SWEWDWIVER AND BE THE NEW DR WHOssy?

Somewhere in the far flung reaches of the galaxy, on an alien planet, on a B.B.C.-owned rock quarry, the quiet and stillness is broken by an asthmatic wheezing sound as a blue 1950's police telephone box materialises on the rocky floor. The doors open and from the amazingly large interior, loud schoolboy squeals n' giggles can be heard. Then a tall man with a strange tight suit and a very loose haircut stumbles out. This exiled wanderer(without pay) in space n' time is, Doctor Whossy. He isn't alone he has a black hairy alien assistant/ pet with him, skipping along waving his arms about manically, this is a Russell from the planet Brand. They make an odd couple in this seemingly deserted alien B.B.C. backlot. They are giggling as they have just brought the universe to the verge of war, as they have been leaving obscene messages to the DALEK answer phone on the Dalek homeplanet of Skaro. The Emperor Dalek was particually upset with references to a sexual encounter the Doctors hairy pet is supposed to have had with DAVROS, the creator of the Daleks. The repercussions have reverberated throughout the known universe, complaints have poured into the Time Lords on the Doctors home planet of Gallifrey from all kinds of various lifeforms;Cybermen,Sontarens, Sea Devils, even conservative M.P's. The spaceways're filled with bandwagons that various howling (political,not intelligent) lifeforms are all jumping on. While all this goes on the TARDIS(Time And Relative Dimensions In Space) vanishes off into the vortices of space and time manned by two other TARDOS'S( Tossers And Real Dimwits On Suspension). Maybe oneday the Doctors lost wanderings and mischiefmaking will end and he will finally return home to the chatshow from whence he came. As for Russell, give him a venusian banana, that should keep him happy for a good while and inspire some odd jokes to pad out the material for the sketch that this will all become when he takes it 'on the road for his next tour.

QUANTUM OF SOLACE!. I'LL SWOP MY BUCKET OF SOLACE FOR YOUR QUANTUM, ANYTIME, MR BOND!

JAMES BOND'S cold grey eyes gazed unblinkingly straight ahead, even as the room echoed to the sound of explosions; Rockets firing and the so familiar sound of machine gun fire."Thunderbirds". Bond hissed impatiently through tightly clenched teeth and pressed the cold plastic button on the Sky T.v remote control. He'd seen this one, where Thunderbird 3 has to rescue a ship which is flying straight at the sun. He turned through the channels from the Sci-Fi channel to the ridiculosly named 'Dave' channel where the new Aston Martin DB9 was being reviewed by Jeremy Clarkson on 'Top Gear'. Bond was a little irritated that this 'so-called' expert who never made any mention of the cars inbuilt armoury of twin Vickers machine guns:Rocket launchers or ,even ejector seat.

Bond took a bite of his toasted Wharburtons bread; Buttered with 'I can't believe it's not butter', using the clean side of the knife. Sipped at his Yorkshire tea made with 30 second boiled warrington tap water and 2 heaped spoons of sugar. He opened his sealed orders from 'L'. He had to hoover the living room and clean the kitchen; Walk the dogs and pick 'the little 'un 'up from school. Bond swore. It had been almost a fortnight since his last adventure when he had to travel the world; Bed beautiful women and commit various acts of mass destruction, murder and genocide, all washed down with a fine wine and dinner. It was his own fault, he had to admit if he was honest with himself. Bond had began to wonder if he'd had enough of the constant danger and always having to be' on the edge'. He had said, at one point that he needed ,just a, Quantum of Solace". A tiny piece of peace and quiet. Then those filmpeople that lived their life making films about him pounced on the phrase and were due to make another killing with yet another film about his killings.

Tim Leatherbarrow, cartoonist and would be agent, spy and goverment 'blunt tool'. said that if he wanted a Quantum of solace, he's got buckets of solace. He had so much peace n' quiet he didn't know what to do with it. So, if Bond wanted some of that he could help himself. So Tim is off somewhere causing untold destruction murder n' mayhem.The dinner suits a little loose on his small but perfectly formed frame; He's got to watch it with the ladies as 'L', The lovely Lynne'd kill him; And, he's got to take it a little easier on the 'pop, due to medical reasons. So, it's down to destruction and food, for agent00.7, (Decimal fraction of 007!). Bond sighed and plugged in the triple suction, ball roller Dyson hoover to make a start on the living room carpet, "Damn", he snarled to himself. As the Dyson started pulling at the carpet fibres,and a page of the Warrington Guardian wrapped around the hoovers front roller.

I THINK BOREDOM IS VERY EXCITING.

Any shopping precinct in our concrete n' pleasant land ,is distinguished by the shutters over the windows and the sparkle of glass fragments on the pavements. This is a symptom of a virulant virus sweeping our land, it goes by the name of boredom. It affects our youngsters, those cuddly 'hoodies' and bearers of asbo's,and generally brain dead morons, we're meant to feel sympathy for, who, when driven crazy with boredom ,ease these symptoms by stabbing somebody or smashing a bus stop up. When asked. "Why did you do it?"Only illicites the reflex-like reply "cos ,i'm bored, there's nothin' to do'round 'ere!"

When i were' Nobbut a lad', there was sod all on the telly for most of the day, computers hadn't been thought of, so we'd ride our bikes; Play footy for about 18 hours a day ,go home and read some comics, even on accassions a book. We may have hung around and got into 'mischief', but we were never really bored, simple souls that we were. There is a lot of truth in the theory that the little darlings of today with all the 'gear' they have, have lost one vital thing that makes life bearable and fun.....IMAGINATION!

I found a long time ago, if i was 'bored'. Instead of wishing time to pass, so something would happen. I went the other way and sort of made time go slower, taking in all around me, using things to spark thoughts ,ideas and memories .As much as i could ,so every moment became an experiance of its own. I took time and stretched it as far as i could. The memory and imagination fired off each other and became an enjoyable and suprisingly relaxing experiance. The mind is moulded by your experiances and carried by your imagination. The mind is as big or as small as your imagination. If you give your imagination ,memories ,observations and thoughts free rein, you will never be bored ,as such. You will look foreward and enjoy sitting watching the world go by and"Being bored ,'cos theres nothin' to do." Look at it this way, everybody talks about this 'High speed world', we live in. It's not a 'High speed'world, on the whole .Communications ,some forms of transport, etc, etc, But to most of us ,at the end of the day the good ol' Earth still turns sedately ,second by second; Minute by minute; Hour by hour ; Day by day, and will carry on, i'm not going to bust a gut and go 'High speed' for no one .I'm going to sit with a pen and notebook just in case inspiration hits me while i'm sitting bored stiff, watching the world go by.

IS THERE ANYTHING MORE PAINFULLY BORING AND TEDIOUS THAN A FORMULA ONE WINNERS PRESS CONFERENCE?

There is yet another point of bafflement and befuddlement to me,Why Formula One racing drivers are such miserable uncommunitive, boring bastards. How, people who race high powered Formula One racing cars; Earn millions a week( i s'pose to be fair, it's cos they have to work weekends.); Jet set around the world in private planes, meeting wonderful important beautiful people; Have everything laid on for them so that even tho' they can afford everything they'd ever want or need, they don't need to 'spend a penny'(unless they've had 'a few'!). Like many 'who've got it', they never need to spend it.(A little social comment ,there!). But these people who live 'on the edge, racing around,as for example only yesterday, the 'Lace Tlack of the Chinese Gland Plix', adrenalin pounding through their system by the gallon from adrenal glands the size of watermelons. While here on our side of the world, the rest of us drag our tiny withered long drained adrenal glands to B&Q, or Asda .As we empty our shopping trollies after shoving it the length n' breadth of the Asda's three car parks trying to find 'The Lovely Lynnes new car, which i still can't recognise ,yet. But, meanwhile back on the other side of the world the racers get out of the moulded cockpit, built specifically for them ,(different to ours, we just fill our space in the front). They take off their helmet and replace it with something a lot more important..THE SPONSORS CAP! This vital bit of F1 appareil is pulled down ,not only over the eyes, but damn near the whole face. The ad agencies and their designer clients dont want to see young fresh faced racing drivers faces ,they want their designer logo from the neck up. We then have the anthems, trophies and champers.This is where you see the designer label with a champagne bottle sticking out from under. Then what follows is the charade of good sporting lads together having fun spraying each other with the booze, they all face away from each other ,'cos in Formula One, everybody hates each other, just watch the body language sometimes, great stuff! Incidentally thats why you'll never get anF1, Scouse or Irish champion, we don't like seeing good booze go to waste.

Then its time for the lowlight of the day...THE WINNERS PRESS CONFERENCE! I take a twisted pleasure in this, as its so awful, its great! You can take any conference over the last 20 years and you'd almost be able to play it over film of any other conference. "The car handled great, the crew was great ,blah,blah, ad infinitum". Although, yesterday the 3'rd driver was on about how the car was great, all weekend and there was no problems or complaints. Just it wasn't fast enough, in the race! I don't know , but i would've thought that was something to worry about for a multi million pound- F1 Racing car, but maybe thats me being picky.

Then there's the ads. Those on the chest and arms must be 'the Biggies' and i'd assume as you go down the drivers body , the ad space price falls, except, of course when you come to the drivers 'bum'....Thats were research has found ads for womens 'things' seem to work well. Women, being the funny creatures they are don't seem to get excited by the Bridgestone, or whatever tyre logo the drivers display on their caps, there i told you they were funny creatures.

PEACE N' LOVE..BOG OFF!...PEACE N' LOVE...SOD OFF!....PEACE N' LOVE....£%$*@ OFF!....IS RINGO,,GOING, GOING ,,GONE OFF HIS ROCKER?

John Lennon was once asked if Ringo Starr was the best drummer in the world, to which he replied, "He's not even the best drummer in the Beatles!"(ouch!). But anyhow the lad hasn't done too bad for himself since those wild crazy days. It was Ringo, funnily enough that the majority of the fan mail went to. Over the years ,it probably still pours through the' letterbox', the great sliding doors that allow the truck loads of mail into the warehouses for Ringo's mail. I'm sure that the lad answers the odd letter and signs a fraction of the requested autographs, or does he have a team of proffessional Ringo Starr autograph signers, to sign the pictures and album covers that flood E-Bay. Esspecially after all these years ,it must be a pain in the arse to still have the love of your fans. I wonder what address they use to send his royalty cheques to, i'm sure that wont get lost among the sacks of pain in the arse fan mail, they dump on him as he's lying in bed eating his caviar butties for breakfast alongside 'The Bond girl who loved him', Barbara Bach(ooohh!!!).

But for some reason, best known to good ol' Ringo, he's filmed himself telling everybody to sod off n' leave him alone .He's too busy or something. Maybe he cant see to write, has anyone seen his eyes since he started wearing sunglasses in about 1965? But the man has my sympathy ,but not many others ,i'm afraid .The fingers were flying all over the place(Knuckles facing in,well most of the time) as he was peace signing, fit too bust and "peacing n' loving" in between telling one n' all to, basically 'piss off. ' I was listening to Terry Wogan and he had me in stitches as at any opportunity ,everyone was doing Ringo," peace n' love . .Now 'BOG OFF" impersonations. I was once told by a friend of how he'd spoken to a guy who was one Ringo's crew a while back. After a few drinks the great man started to cry as he was on a lot less money than t'others in the 'Fab Four', he was down to his last 40,ooo,ooo, or so. So maybe with the downturn in the economy ,financial melt downs ,house prices dropping, Ringo's down to his last 12 mansions ,so some 'cost cutting needs to be implemented. Lay off staff ,yeah thats it, everybody else does it. Get rid of all those highly trained Ringo Starr autograph signers. Ah it's a sign of the times i'm afraid, as ,once when working in a bank was a job for life, but not now. There was a time when being a Ringo Starr autograph signer was a job for life, but not now. But if you could get a job with Sir Paul, or work part time for Sir Cliff, you could keep the fan mail from their door and the not very fan-like wolf from your own. Gosh its tragic the hell that these poor celebrities have to go through....Peace n' luv.....Peace n' luv........NOW BOG OFF!!!!!!!!! Tim Leatherbarrow xxxxx

AND HERES MORE ME ,YOU LUCKY PEOPLE!

Do you know ,there is an unmistakable charm in there ,somewhere!!!!!!!

PEOPLE RECOGNISE ME FROM MY SELF CARICATURES, DOES THAT MEAN I'M TWISTED ,DISTORTED N' UGLY, OR I'M A GOOD CARICATURIST?

Only a week or so ago, if you've been paying attention you will have known about my adventure at a comic fare down in 'Brum', with that fine physical wreck Hunt Emerson . On the night i arrived for the musical opening in a boozer in the city, i was waiting for Hunts lovely lady Jane, as she being the fine Irish girl she is doesn't like to see a travelling cartoonist without a drink. But as i sat there, a very attractive young lady came over to me and said those words that all us egotistical bastard who draw(hopefully) funny piccies for a living want to hear..."Excuse me, but are you Tim Leatherbarrow?"
In response to this welcome inquiry, a small tsunami of smugness swept over me, and i raised a nonchalent eyebrow, that Roger Moore would've been in awe of ,in any opening of an episode of the saint. I could almost hear the music, and took it for granted there was a halo over my head. She told me she read my blog and enjoyed it,( going well, so far!) Then...." I recognised your face from the caricatures you've done of yourself. The eyebrow dropped dragging the other one with it ,to a point midway down my nose, yes ,i know thats a long way for an eyebrow to drop. This movement caused a suave smug Simon Templar to become Urko, the bad tempered gorilla general off Planet of the apes. And the halo dropped over my head and tightened around my neck.
But i managed ,by sheer force of will to haul my deep frowning eyebrows back over my eyeballs and once again those sparkling blue Leatherbarrow eyes beamed out on the world again. So, this lady had recognised my twisted, distorted, ugly, monsterous caricatures i did of myself . So the question must be asked am i twisted, distorted and monsterously ugly, or am i an excellent caricaturist? I'll let you decide.(loud bang, as Tim shoots himself in foot!) I know, joking aside ,what you all think ,,Yesss! ...Thats it i'm a wonderful caricaturist.
Every silver lining has a cloud, or something like that ,but this has been an excuse to put some of those excellent caricatures on display again, "You lucky people!"

I WENT TO THE TOILET WITH BATMAN !!!

Last week i went to my very first comic festival, and a very strange affair t'was as well. The fine Hunt Emerson and his lovely lady Jane let me stay in their humble home and fed n' watered me , so thanks for every thing.(the cheques in the post!). There was an opening night party at a pub in 'Brum' city centre and Hunt and his band 'Let rip' ,he's a fine 'Little plucker' is our Mr Emerson. Then they were followed by two editors from DC, a brit n' a yank who hadn't rehearsed, but they were quite good. They were followed by a bit of a heavy rock band who weren't bad, they played some unusual songs, given a rock twist and came out quite well. (e.g. 'The avenues and alleyways and Delilah',as heavy metal songs.) I got upset as they did a version of The Osmonds 'Crazy Horses', turned into the Who's 'Wont get fooled again', then from The Who back to the Osmonds' Crazy Horses'....hmmmmm?????!!!!!!






The following morning i was booted off the very comfy settee i snored the night away on. A gallon of tea and a loaf of toast and off we jolly well went to the Millenium point ,i think it was called, a very impressive building with one floor full of comics. We set up Hunts stuff and i got coffee for Hunts friends and guests, (arent i wonderful?..Didn't i mention i was wonderful?); Tony, the publisher and salesman, Paul, a canadian artist and Steve ,who Hunt does work for. All nice guys, not as wonderful as me, but who is, eh? I went out to get the drinks and passed a very long queue of very strange looking people, for it was they, the comic fans. A lot in fancy dress and some real weird dressed ones who became weirder when i found out they weren't in fancy dress. Finally the doors burst open and the hoards powered in ,i dont know about bulls in china shops, but herds of buffalo's in comic shops. Lots of comics ,maybe not too suprisingly. But i was made up to find an IPC stand with sheets of original artwork from all the British comics ;Lion,Valiant,even the Eagle ;Robot Archie; The Steel claw,etc, etc, No Dan Dare, but the Eagle stuff was great. It was all very enjoyable .There was artists drawing away, a couple really good guys i managed to view past the crowds queuing around them. I was sent for coffee just as a slightly recovered Jane made a showing. It had taken a couple of gallons of strong tea at her friends breakfast table to attempt to drown the 'Hangover'(never?). But she was her usual cheery self soon enough. Poor ol' Hunt's suffered tho' ,he's done his back in and lost a filling the day before on a plate of muesli(there ,i told you these health foods'll do you no good. But does anyone listen?)....So, that was giving the 'lad' a bit o' gyp. But our hero ,beared up manfully, he wasn't going to let a busted tooth get in the way of making money.

I decided it was time to retire to 'The Bog', so without a second thought i found a cubicle to accomodate my very specific requirements, and set too fulfilling those requirements. As i sat there, listening to a sexually orientated convoluted conversation, which i felt i should let them finish before i showed my face. So after a good flush i walked over to the sink( you've got to be seen to make the effort, haven't you.) I just happened to glance up and the speaker was Batman! Not a crappy Adam West schoolboy vest version, but the whole moulded suit, i'm sure Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman dressed him that morning.Thoroughly 'gobsmacked', i walked out desperatly needing a strong drink.







When i said i was going to the comic 'do', Elara ,the daughter ,when she found i was seeing Hunt, "Hunt Emerson,COOL!"....Hunt through the years gawd bless'im has done bits of work for her, and shes a big fan and never misses the Beano, for Hunt Emerson. But i bought a couple of Hunts more 'Artistic' Stuff ,shall we say? Firkin the cat ,etc I don't think i'll show this stuff to 'My little angel', cos at the end of the day "your a very sick/strange/weird man, Mr Emerson, but we love ya!"

THE PEACE AT THE END OF THE DAY ONLY DISTURBED BY THE WIFES TOENAILS RICOCHETTING AROUND THE BEDROOM WALL.

At the end of the day ,as today slides into tomorrow and in the quite and darkness we retire to the comfort and tranquility of our bed. This peace is only disturbed by the rustle of the quilt, the turning of book pages, the gurgling of stomachs and the passing of wind from those same stomachs, but, also the sound of toenail clippings ricochetting around the bedroom. The lovely Lynne is a (sob!)......Nail picker and a... (Sob!)....Nail biter (sniff, i'm ok now, thanks...she'll always be perfect to me.) . She has a highly stressful job and when shes concenterating will nibble away at the keratin based talons of her fingers .She keeps trying to stop, but with limited success. From time to time she'll let em grow , but she slips back to a good chew , she even chews false fingernails, i kid you not.

I remember my mother worrying about me, as i was biting my fingernails. She kept asking if anything was wrong/was i alright? after a while ,i exploded "yes i'm fine ,ok ,super ,dandy, tickety boo!, for christs sake why? "Well, your biting your finger nails."I had to explain there was nothing mysterious, just that my fingernails seem to grow quickly and i nibble them just so they stay below 4 inches or so. I must admit if i'm lying on the couch watching the telly i may start picking at a toenail and end up splitting my bloody fingernail and having the toe nail split down instead of across. So, 'effin' n' blinding ' i've got to go and find a pair of scissors to cut them as short as i can ,as the nail will catch in my sock over the next few days. This messing around may lead to another unwanted result. There will soon be a shout as my beloved Lovely Lynne finds the heap of toenail clippings i'd accidentally left on the arm of the setee, before becoming distracted in my suffering .Women don't understand that men feel pain too. We do, they just enjoy it more.

As the cartoon shows ,even our heroes and superheroes need to cut their toenails, i wonder how Superman, the man of steel cuts his. With kryptonite laced scissors brought in when he arrived as a baby from the planet Krypton. Batman and most costumed crusaders would have to be careful and have regular pedicural work done as the fate of the innocent and weak could be decided wether Batman n' Robin ,Spiderman, etc, etc had a ladder in their tights/stockings. The fate of the world could not only be in their hands but on their fingernails and toenails. I mean you can't go out battling the Joker or the Green Goblin worrying wether you've got ladders in your stockings/booties or even sleeves and gloves, this distraction from the fight to the death could be the clincher for the forces of evil.

WE MAY BE UP SHIT CREEK WITHOUT A PADDLE, BUT GEORGE 'DUBYA'S' GONNA WORK SOMETHING OUT TO SAVE US, THERE, NOW DOESN'T THAT MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER ?-

There is a pile of finance companies in the 'good ol' U.S.of.A, which go by names like 'Red neck George Finklesteins'; Auntie delores's amalgamated ; Chuck n' Butch's money factory, mom's apple pie finances, etc, etc, all who seem to be having money troubles. But far from being the names of back water Kentucky shops n' banks out of old Beverley Hillbilly episodes, they're huge American finance corporations and they are having all kinds of money troubles, which ,apparently is screwing up the prices of unsmoked back bacon, Rice Kripies and teabags in Asda over here. So as the world plummets down towards this financial catastrophe of one of old or new testament or even biblical proportions. Banks, building societies, etc close or have to be bailed out by the Bank of England,staff are booted to hell out of it and theres nothing else on Sky News between Eamon Holmes and the weather n' adverts, but financial 'shock horror, breaking, latest financial updates. But its alright, theres nothing to worry about. No! George 'Dubya' Bush is going to work on solving the cash crisis that threatens to engulf us all. He will be aided in this task of averting this financial meltdown by the man who sold all our gold reserves, lost us all our pensions and made it so we can'retire untill we're about 96, the 'boy' wonder, Mr Gordon Brown. There i told you, it'd be ok.

I wonder why the money and finances of the world aren't left to bankers and experts in finance whose aim is to keep the money and wealth flowing, admittedly ,some going their way, but that is a little more understandable than having the finances of the world totally dependant on bastard politicians, party politics,opinion polls , presidential candidates, spin doctors, etc, etc. Imagine going in to hospital for an emergency operation and instead of a surgeon they dragged in a politician, because his party cares and wants to save your life and to show the British public how ,not only is the NHS safe in their hand ,but he can whip your spleen out too. The patient may die, but a goverment spokesman would put a positive spin on it, so all would be well, well not for you, but your dead .

WHOSE THE CLOWNS,THE FELLAHS WITH THE BIG RED NOSES AT ZIPPO'S CIRCUS, OR THE FELLAHS WITH THE BIG ROLL OF RED TAPE AT BIRMINGHAM CITY COUNCIL?

Red tape strikes again!..Clowns at Zippo's circus in the fine city of Birmingham have been banned from playing their trumpets live ,under the clown playing trumpets live act, without a license, of 1602(4.15 p.m, Tuesday afternoon,sometime in March). Enforced by those fine folk in Brum city council, in the Department of stopping strangely dressed entertainers playing instruments live without a license.(The DOSSDEPILWAL). Keep up the good work ,chap n' chapesses, we'd be lost without you. My god ,imagine how the world would be if clowns were allowed to roam free around circus rings blowing unlicensed trumpets to unsuspecting families. If they knew the truth they wouldnt be laughing and enjoying themselves..It'd be the beginning of the end..ARMAGEDDON!!!

Mind you, it's not all bad. This has given me a chance to use a cartoon about trumpets i've had lying around the floor of the studio, 'for a while'. There's no clowns or city councillors, or red tape in it, but there is a trumpet ,or a likeness of a trumpet, so it'll have to do......Oh c'mon do you know what its like to have to draw something for every comment i want to make. Just making life a little easier for myself, but still bringing happiness, joy ,knowledge and wisdom to the world. I can do no more.

NEITHER MAN NOR MARTIAN CAN FIGHT AGAINST RED TAPE

Theres a lot to be said about being a lazy bone idle get, and being a dedicated, proud 'arlarse' of many years standing(on occassions), i've heard most of them. Everybody needs to have a rest from their everyday activities(or lack, thereof), so, when i'm not slobbing about, i relax by forging my body in the white hot furnace of my will, into a steel hard finely honed fighting/killing machine by doing a bit of Karate. A few parents of kids who go to my daughters school asked if i'd run a little basic afterschool class for them. I thought any opportunity to belt a few snotty kids around the 'lug'oles', is an opportunity not to be sneered at, so i said ok, go'ed(an old ancient Liverpool expression of assent). The school seemed happy enough to have me drag myself off the slightly sticky cover of my couch once a week to go down and reveal the secrets of the Orient ,Zen and the art of smashing somebodies face in. Then the fun starts.

To do ANYTHING, now requires filling in of endless forms detailing everything, place, whom, what, where, why for every ten minutes over the last 20 years. For someone who has an uncontrollable hatred of forms and the people who give them to me ;And the people i've got to send them back too. To await their bloody reply/decision, or whatever, so, i dumped it on my Lovely Lynne ,faithful wife n' form filler-upperer. So this 'effin' form was sent to the police criminal records people, or something to see if i was Jack the Ripper or Gary Glitter, or someone. Apparently, i'm not, so i'm in the clear. I was a little dissappointed to see only a few speeding fines mentioned. I was hoping to be on an old 10 most wanted, somewhere in the world. I'm getting on, i s'pose my wild days're behind me,(sigh, it comes to us all!). Well, with all that sorted, i thought,' well off we jolly well go', but no, that would be too simple.

Now, through the years i've been called a liability on many occassions,( often by many ,if not most of you reading this, ya bastards!)....A public liability , and even a private liability, but we'll draw a heavily stained blanket over the private stuff, as it doesn't really concern us now, as i don't need insurance for that. But i've just been told i've got to pay and be accepted for public liability insurance. All this just to do the local school a favour for half an hour a week. I trained for years and got me black belt ,(yeah ,now!ya boo n' sucks to you!), but i've fought many people ,even won a couple, but i concede defeat to bloody red tape.....RED TAPE HAS BEATEN ME!!!!......There is a company ,THROTTLE, STRANGLE and ENTWINE Ltd and they make red tape for all the goverment departments whose sole purpose is to make the simple complicated and everything baffling and befuddling and not worth doing. Theres health n safety ,those must be strange people .Their job is to find danger, everywhere! Then come up with ridiculous ways of earning their wages by illimnating the ,danger, risk, peril.or whatever that nobody noticed in the first place ,then install 'safety features' that nobody wants or likes or uses . Then, there's probably a very creative busy department that designs forms, for everything..AAh we live in wonderful times.Some of the departments in that big old building with the clock in London must have departments that make the Ministry of Funny Walks quite resonable.

In the wonderful Jeff Wayne's 'WAR OF THE WORLDS', who can forget Richard Burton speaking about the 'RED WEED' that spread across the world strangling the life out of the existing vegetation all over the planet Earth. That was why Mars was red. Because of the Red Weed. That 'Rip-off merchant H.G. WELLS' said the same in his 'War of the worlds'. Now its slightly different our blue/green Earth is being strangled by Red Tape. The martians'll be wondering why parts of the Earth is looking Martian red. I s'pose, one good thing will come out of it, tho'. Well, if we can't walk without stumbling over Red Tape ,what chance do the martians have stomping around in those big,huge tri-pods? They'd be antennae over tentacle before you knew it. So they wont be invading yet. Not 'till they get the forms through, anyhow.

THOSE LESS THAN MAGNIFICENT SHOWER OF BASTARDS AND THEIR FLYING MACHINES.

Ahhh, the joys of flight! Zipping around the world, almost effortlessly. You arrive at the airport; Your bags are taken by happy smiling staff and you help yourself to food n' drink , then when your flight arrives you amble along to the departure gate, onto the plane and your seat with happy smiling cabin crew helping you all along. And before you know it , your up, up and away. Then you arrive and all this pleasurable experience is repeated in reverse with a different accent and off we go. As in all fairy tales we go and live happily ever after. Like all fairy stories , its a heap o' shit!

Only days ago we flew from Liverpool to Dublin. We parked the car somewhere in North Wales, walked to the John Lennon international airport. Ryanairs team of experts checked us in and took our bags , stripped us before irradiating us in the xray scanners with a variety of expressions and requests none of which was smiling or friendly. Then when we'd deciphered the totally garbled announcements ,we had to walk , virtually to Manchester airport to get to our gate .The flight eventually got to Dublin airport(or is it Val Donican international airport?)..An hour late, not bad for a journey that only takes 20-30 minutes. When we got there, i think, actually we landed at Shannon, going by the walk we had to get to Dublin arrivals.

The day we were coming home we started walking from Dublin to Shannon to our gate after asking someone what the announcer said, nobody had a clue. I know we live in enlightened times .We actively combat, Sexism, racism,ageism, and a whole variety of 'ism's' too many to mention or even to be aware of. One that should be scratched off the list is ,Accentism. Just get an announcer that can speak good 'proper' 'English ' in British and Irish airports. Somethings got to be wrong when everybody in a major international airport looks up at every announcement and says to their companion or anyone around ."What the F***k did he just say?". As i said we continued our long trek to gate D77.A gate etched forever into my memory. When i go, i want my remains spread or scattered, depending what they do with me, at gate D77, Val Doonican international airport. We stood for an age, or so, just growing older, layers of dust and cobwebs formed over us, children reached maturity, mature adults reached old age and passed away, free from the queuing at last. But the rest of us queued on only to find out that our 1345 plane was cancelled till 20.00 that night. After another walk back, a queue of a few more hours , only to find our 20.00 flight was now at 1.00, in the morning. because of technical problems??? Which we were quietly told was technically there wasn't enough people to fill the plane, so they quite simply cancelled it. Nice of them. Mind you, we did get a meal voucher for £3.50, just enough for a small coffee. then spent an age trying to get our bags back just to hand them in again. Eventually we got a plane 10 hours later, only 20 times the time the journey takes

During the course of our day we went through the x-ray machines countless times. But i did discover that ,as we eventually went to bed, finished our reading, as thats what married folks do when they go to bed.( thats a little priveliged info for you dashing young batchelors and single ladies out there). When the light was turned out, we both glowed in the dark like luminous hands on a watch, i thought the Lovely Lynne looked quite fetching irradiated. Does anyone know where we can get a 2nd hand x-ray scanner or some old Uranium, Plutonium,Cobalt. Just to add a little radiation to our sex life, you know what i mean, nudge, nudge.

DEAD COMPUTERS; DEAD COMPUTER REPAIRMEN ALL GET CONNECTED AT WWW.PEARLYGATES@HEAVEN.COM

Hello there, one n'all. Sorry about the on-line, finger on the pulse ,incisive comment-less couple of weeks, but this was due to a technological 'spanner in the works'. Namely the bloody computer blew up /crashed-out. And eventually after trying to work it all out myself, seeing the amount of cables stuck in the back of our basic PC. Roughly about twice what the Large hadron collider has around its magnets, i looked and thought something along the lines of "£$%&* that!!!" We'll get someone in, but couldnt find the guy we've used before. And wrapped in the cables was the skeletal remains of ,who i suppose to be the brave noble soul who was the last PC repairman we called out the last time the dangblamed thing decided to screw us up.

I imagined as i unwrapped the boney ex repairman from the mass of cables. The dogs were showing great interest, lots of bone, but i dont know if ex PC repairmen have much in the way of marrowbone jelly for a dogs healthy teeth n' coat and all the healthy things dog food advertisers place such importance on. I dont suppose he's too worried, being the dedicated sort like these PC repairmen are. He's sitting on a celestial cloud somewhere still nobly trying to get an internet connection from those fine chaps at AOL(?). It's hard enough to get one down here, it must be murder in paradise. I think he'll have to change his broadband supplier to http://www.pearlygates@heaven.com/.

Technology is truly a wonderful thing, so i'm told. Obviously all this smashing of subatomic particles together to unlock the secrets of the universe is very nice, but that is as nothing to my beloved wife, the Lovely Lynne. To whom sciencs begins and ends with a new dishwasher. So, we get one. Two sweaty fellahs from Curries hump this big box into the middle of the kitchen floor, then smartly piss off. Then follows 2 days deciphering the single page of Enigma code transcript that comprises the instructions on how to fit the bloody thing. We swore solidly for 2 days. I got a mate in, he's a handyman/plumber, he spent the day adding to our growing collection of swearwords for fitting dishwashers too. Eventually a couple of fellahs came out a day or so later and added to our dictionary, but finally we did it, got the damn thing fitted and connected. I don't understand why we need it. I don't mind washing up, sticking some loud music on; Grabbing the Fairy Liquid and off we jolly well go. simple!

Using the bloody machine you have to rinse everything before you put everything in its special place. then when its done you've often got to rinse and wipe the'clean' stuff again. So, why not forget the machine and save time and just wash everything in the sink 3 or 4 times? It may not be a highly puzzling technological question on par with the big bang, but it confuses the hell outta me. The Big Bang, does seem to make some sense to me, unlike women and dishwashers.....Gawd, i need a drink.