This post is to alert you to the fact that three forthcoming announcements are to be made on this blog tomorrow. They relate to this website and my cartoon work. I am hoping that by posting with an air of mystery that expectation will be heightened and that an avid audience will tune in for the particulars. By highlighting the words ‘three forthcoming announcements’ in bold type above I am hoping that any who skim read the posts will be stopped in their tracks and will be caused to want to find out what the unusual boldness is about. By emphasising that fact that there will be three announcements I am hoping that any who would shrug off a single announcement will log on knowing that even if two of the announcements are rubbish and uninteresting at least one of the announcements will be worth the time and energy involved in tuning in.

Thank you.

Posted by Dave at 7:51 pm on May 31, 2006 and filed under CartoonChurch progress, Mundane, Profound, Utter nonsense.

10 Comments

Posted by Dave at 9:05 am on May 31, 2006 and filed under Cartoons, Household hints.

1 Comment

At the 2005 Christian Resources Exhibition I met Tim Wakeling. I met Tim again this year and he showed me some of the cartoons he had been doing. He has now placed a few on his website ‘for general perusal’. To quote his site:

Since September 2005, inspired by the work of Dave Walker at CartoonChurch.com, I have begun to discover the spiritual gift of cartoonage. Here are some of the less Lee-Abbey-specific examples of my early work.

You can see more of Tim’s cartoons here. Great stuff Tim!

It always pleases me when people are inspired by my work to have a go drawing their own cartoons. Go on – have a go.

Posted by Dave at 8:00 am on May 30, 2006 and filed under Cartooning, Links: cartoonists.

2 Comments

Just a quick note to say I’m aware that Wibsite.com is down with some sort of database issue. We’ll try to get things up and running as soon as we can. In the meantime, Wibloggers, feel free to post any burning thoughts in the comments here.

We’ll be upgrading the site onto new webspace hopefully late this week or next week which should help to iron out some of the problems we’ve been having. Thanks for your patience if you’ve been affected.

Posted by Dave at 12:22 am on May 30, 2006 and filed under Sundry posts.

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Today we have been filing sundry items so that things can be moved from A to B so that other objects can in turn be moved from C to B so that walls D, E, F and G can be painted with paint, colour H. It is all terribly complicated.

The following DHL delivery note came to light during the extensive reorganisation. In circumstances similar to those previously recounted in the Cartoon Blog entry dated the 4th of June 2005 a delivery was left in a ’safe place’ outside the house.

Enlarged version of the precise location of the parcel:

DHL is, in case one had forgotten “the global market leader in international express, overland transport and air freight” according to their website. It is also “the world’s number 1 in ocean freight and contract logistics“. So there.

The moral of the story: Make sure you don’t order things over the internet if there is any chance that they might be delivered on bin day.

Posted by Dave at 12:02 am on May 30, 2006 and filed under Essex Life.

7 Comments

For some reason I’ve been drawing gardening cartoons today. I don’t know why.

Posted by Dave at 7:41 pm on May 29, 2006 and filed under Cartoons, Household hints.

1 Comment

Here in the UK it is the Bank Holiday, which means all of a sudden all the Cartoon Blog readers who normally tune in for hastily drawn cartoons, weighty analysis on the latest Anglican goings-on and in-depth reflections on campervanning and bicycling suddenly have an urge to know what I have been doing in the garden. Which is lucky, because that is what I am going to blog about.

Since we last talked about the garden I have been trying out various anti-slug remedies and assessing their effectiveness. Here are the results of my findings:

Copper coins: Rubbish. The slugs just walk over them.
Eggshell: Useless. The slugs just stride straight past.
Small traps filled with cheap beer. Semi-effective. But although they catch a lot of slugs there are still more slugs that they didn’t catch. I also now have a lot of Tesco value 2% lager hanging around the place. It tastes like bad shandy. Any takers?
Slug pellets. These were the ones that are harmless to animals and pets. I think they may be harmless to slugs too. One snail did get caught.
Stamping on them. Effective if you can devote your life to watching your plants on a 24 hour-a-day basis.

The latest plan is to put the few surviving plants on a plastic table. The top of the legs of the table have been coated in WD40 household oil, thereby meaning that any slugs who climb up get to a certain level and then fall to their deaths from a great height. I shall report back. Any slugs who want these plants are going to have to resort to James Bond-like antics. Which they probably will.

In other gardening news: Do giant thistles have no predators?

Enjoy your Bank Holiday if you have one. Garden well my friends.

Posted by Dave at 6:50 pm on May 28, 2006 and filed under Essex Life, Household hints.

6 Comments

The Mad (Make a difference) show which was to have been held in London next week was on my ‘to blog’ list. It was to have been “the UK’s largest ethical lifestyle show, showcasing the best of fairtrade products, ethical services and sustainable & organic lifestyles”. Alas it has now been cancelled and the organising company wound up.

It is with great regret that we have to announce that the conference and exhibition scheduled to be held at Earls Court has now been cancelled. Whilst considerable expenditure has been made in marketing the event, the take up of tickets and sponsorship has rendered the event totally unviable. Accordingly we have taken professional advice and have been advised that we should take steps to liquidate the company.

Very sad. The event was to have hosted a green bloggers panel and lots more besides.

I only heard about the event a week or two ago, by which time it sounds as if they had more or less decided not to run it, but I am sorry for not blogging about it as soon as I heard about it. See other blogs on the subject here.

Posted by Dave at 12:47 pm on May 27, 2006 and filed under Environment.

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There are lots of cycling blogs of course, but these are three by people I know:

Pedallingmythoughts
Cycling blog by Ian, the brilliant but quirky youth adviser for the Oxford Diocese. His Youthblog is here and is called Youthblog, but it is his cycling blog we are interested in today. Lots of interesting and inspiring cycling thoughts and links. One of Ian’s bikes is a Brompton, which folds up into your pocket* so you don’t have to leave it outside. *Well, smallish anyway.

Mr M’s Tour de France
Mr M is the husband of Wiblogger Miffy. He has reached Belgium as we speak, which must be on the way to France. I’m not sure. Anyway, definitely one to add to your feed reader for the next 6 weeks.

42: Cycling
This is the cycling section of Cartoon Blog reader Dave Warnock’s site. Dave rides recumbent trikes, which really do look like a lot of fun.

I haven’t been out on my bike for nearly a week as the weather has been poor. Unless you count yesterday’s trip to the Post Office to buy stamps to send all of your postcards out. Talking of which, I should go to the Post Office to send all of your postcards out.

Update: Another cycling link. Paul goes on a cycling break. I’m inspired.

Posted by Dave at 11:56 am on May 26, 2006 and filed under Blogging, Cycling.

8 Comments

This one has been added to We Blog Cartoons, my site with cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog. Please freely re-use it on your blog.

I keep looking at this cartoon and thinking that it must be offensive to someone. People who live in bins perhaps. If this is you please accept my apologies. My intentions were always good.

Posted by Dave at 10:13 am on May 26, 2006 and filed under Cartoons, New Weblogcartoons cartoons.

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The Ship of Fools online church project ‘Church of Fools’ has been relaunched as ‘St Pixels‘. The site is being officially launched at the Churches’ Media Conference at the Hayes, Swanwick from the 12th to the 14th of June. (Would love to go – another year perhaps.)

One of the first features on the site is a debate on Mission-Shaped Church featuring emerging church guru (my description) Brian McLaren. “As well as the weekly discussion questions there will also be an “Ask Brian” thread.” The site also has blogs and of course the actual church simulation bit where you wander round as a pixellated being. I’m not sure whether that is up and running yet or not.

You may remember the Church of Fools in its original form from a year or two ago. It was very popular but proved too expensive to keep going as I recall. The Methodist Church supported it then and is supporting it again. ‘Hurrah for the Methodists!’ as I often say. (People look at me oddly.)

I wish Simon and Steve all the best in this venture. I’m sure they’ll get plenty of media coverage as they usually do. The only slight comment I’d make is that the design could possibly be worked upon slightly, which I suspect they are planning to do. I thought the old ‘Church of Fools’ design was top notch but the new one looks a tiny bit… brown. But perhaps brown is fashionable.

Update (15th June): Greetings to visitors from Ship of Fools and St. Pixels. Do say hello in the comments below. Comments are moderated but they do all appear eventually. And while you’re here do take a look around, perhaps at the main Cartoon Blog page or at my cartoons specially designed for use in churches.

Posted by Dave at 9:28 am on May 26, 2006 and filed under Church, Ecumenical matters.

4 Comments

My free ‘How to make church brilliant’ postcards offer is still open. See here for the full particulars. Unfortunately I will have to restrict it to UK readers only from now on, although I will be sending postcards to readers from the rest of the world who have signed up up to this point.

I went to the Post Office to buy some stamps, but unfortunately got a bit dazed and confused at the counter as there were about 8 people behind me and only one counter, and I had to send a recorded delivery letter to Archbishop Rowan [Journalists reading: never you mind.] and also my money was all in small change and it was all a bit much for me what with all the different destinations.

All being well all the postcards that have been requested up until this point will be posted tomorrow, so should get to you early next week (UK), late next week (Australia) or in four weeks time (Billericay). With the UK ones I have enclosed a small treat heavily disguised as some high pressure sales material, and also some some high pressure sales material heavily disguised as a small treat.

So, anyone else in the UK want some free postcards? Click here and I’ll send them out next week sometime.

Posted by Dave at 3:43 pm on May 25, 2006 and filed under CartoonChurch progress.

4 Comments