The not- quite- daily internet column of Dave Walker. Dave is a freelance cartoonist who also writes and draws for the Church Times. (
Especially like the "thistles"!
This morning I received this letter and also a very similar one asking for information about flat pack calendars.
When I was young I remember writing off to various people asking for information or samples. There was a ‘beer mat’ collecting craze when I was at primary school and we all used to write to the different breweries asking for samples and they used to reply with a brown envelope containing a selection of beer mats. Some people managed to get bar towels sent to them as well, but my letters were obviously not interesting enough to warrant such generosity. The real winners were classmates whose parents could bring back beermats from far-flung exotic locations which of course the rest of us could never match. I don’t think we really knew what beer was in those days, let alone a beer mat, but it was a fun craze for the few months it lasted. Such a hobby probably wouldn’t be allowed these days of course.
Anyway, I have now reached the stage in life where I am the sort of respectable businessman to whom children write when they want to gain new wisdom (the fact that it is only because I have a good Google ranking for the term ‘flat pack calendars‘ is neither here nor there). I feel an obligation to write back with useful information which will reward their intrepid letter writing. Therefore I feel the need to draft some fully working blueprints for a 3D flat pack calendar – I might as well kill both the ‘3D’ and ‘flat pack’ birds with one stone after all. If anyone has any ideas of how to make such a thing then I would be pleased to hear them. Remember that this is a year 10 project not a primary school one, so it will need advanced features, moving mechanisms etc.
I’d ask readers not to send me letters written with their left hand pretending to be children asking how to make a fully functioning tv/dvd player using discarded food packaging and the leftover bits and pieces you get when you have constructed an item of Ikea furniture. I would not find that funny at all.
This is a single Cartoon Blog entry, posted by Dave
on Wednesday, January 10th, 2007 at 10:38 am.
If you enjoyed this post you might also enjoy these (possibly)
related articles: