Sunday, April 27, 2008

Weekend in Westcliff - Sunday

On the Sunday, we all went to The Shagor restaurant in Hamlet Court Road, where PJ had rented a room for a party for his sister Marion and her Daughter Hannah, for Hannah's 3rd Birthday. None of us had seen Marion in about 22 years, so quite a bit of catching up to do!

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Weekend in Westcliff - Saturday

We went down to see Fi, Grae and Harvey in Westcliff. The weather for once was warm and Sunny, so we started a barbecue, but as the sun went down it got a bit chilly, so we retired inside for dinner and to play on Harvey's car track.



Later in the evening, as it was still dry, Grae, Phil and myself went outside to start the 'Great fire of Westcliff' to get rid of the piles of garden rubbish Grae had. Though after a while certain items such a deckchairs did seem to find their way on as well....Hey, it was getting cold around midnight!

Friday, April 25, 2008

Dan the Man!

Managed to catch up briefly with Dan Walsh in London. After sorting out his T-Mobile 3G USB stick, we had a couple of pints in The Lamb in Leadenhall Market. Great to see him again! I left a rather cryptic message on Rick's answerphone...hopefully this will explain things!

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Various Cartoons

I've also now finally got round to scanning in some bits and bobs I've drawn over the years, including the 'Nottsgals' strip done for Trude, Gill and Lynn. Both versions are here, the original, and the cleaned up 'Family Remix'. The whole album is available here:

Music Illustrations

Over the years, I've done some illustrations for various local bands, and of course things for the Soul City Grooverz and Manet Brothers. Finally I've got round to scanning them in and posting them here:

Ah, Filber....

Here's a blast from the past...Filber! A rather shameless rip off of Gary Panter's 'Jimbo' strip, started one Christmas eve while sitting waiting to go home from the TSB! A lot were drawn on the fly or even on the road, hence the slightly rough feeling to some of them.

It allowed me to do a quasi-continuing strip, but experiment with different drawing styles. Lots of different influences here….Apart from Panter: Frank Miller, Biff, Ian Wright, Andy Dog, Moebius, The The, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The KLF, The Jam, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, The Clash…The list goes on.

The offset of images against ridiculously over the top or over romanticised prose is a direct steal from Jimbo (though nowhere near as good), but I remember that Fred Previous (where are you now?) loved it.

Of course looking back it’s a load of self-indulgent twaddle, but this was a time when I was most productive artwise, and I'm surprised how much of this stuff I produced!

Anyway, at number 50, it was time to call it a day! The full album is here:


Sunday, April 06, 2008

More up and down weather!

Last Wednesday it was a sunny 18c (64f), and this morning we've woken up to a heavy fall of snow!


Thursday, April 03, 2008

Here's little Magica!

Here's a picture of Leif and Solveig's new dog Magica. She's an Old English Mastiff, and very cute at the moment! The reason for the name is that she died during birth, but was able to be resuscitated, so when she came back it was magic!

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Red Arrows fly past

A group of us went up onto the roof of DnB NOR to see the fly past by the red arrows to mark the 90th anniversary of the Royal Air Force. It was a bit breezy up there, but we got a good view. It was obviously popular, as all of the bridges were packed, as were most nearby office blocks.