It might seem as if I post the same cartoon week in and week out, but in fact it’s just your memory playing tricks.

On Saturday we went down to Greenwich market. It’s quite easy from here - for those that are interested: Buy a travelcard, change at West Ham onto the Jubilee line and then onto the Docklands Light Railway at Canary Wharf. On the way back we decided, upon a whim, to go into the centre of town. It was crazy - absolutely crazy. Oxford street was closed to traffic and the whole place was thronging with a great multitude as far as the eye could see, which wasn’t that far as there was a great multitude in the way. There were queues to get into the tube station, out of the tube station and most places in-between.

Shopping is the religion of our day, with football being a sort of a runner-up religion. Of course I can’t blame everyone else for being there outside Bond Street tube, as we were there too. Perhaps they all, like us, went on a whim.

The church is trying to stop Sunday opening hours being extended, and for that I applaud them.

For me, the ideal as far as present buying goes would to not spend so much on Christmas presents this year and instead make them out of odds and ends that I find lying around the house. We do have an abundance of odds and ends and we need to cut down on them, so it would be good from all points of view. I will start by dismantling the cardboard-box house I built for the cats and seeing what I can turn it into. We must all pull together, and that includes the cats.

I doubt I will succeed, but I will try a bit. The Buy Nothing Christmas site (Thanks to Ian for the reminder) has ideas and resources for those who, like me, mean well.

Posted by Dave at 7:33 pm on December 3, 2007 and filed under Cartoons, Essex Life, Religion, Advent.

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As I have said before (hence the continued’) I love the idea of getting a folding bike. The picture above is me test riding a ‘Brompton’, the ultimate in folding bikes, at the Cycle Show. Bromptons cost about £600 once you have bought all the trimmings. As you can see I am blurred owing to my great velocity. The lady on the right is guiding the traffic as the test track is a figure of 8 - in other words it crosses over itself on a diagonal basis. This is to give an element of danger which adds realism to the test ride. The other lady on the right is the assistant to the lady guiding the traffic. I’m not sure what her job is, but it involves standing there. The figure on the left is a cardboard cutout for safety reasons as it would be too dangerous to have a real person there with all these test-cyclists whizzing around. This also adds a sense of realism for those who will find themselves regularly riding in areas populated largely by cardboard cutouts.

When I was in the supermarket yesterday I noticed that someone was advertising a folding bicycle for only £25 in the postcards. £25! Buoyed with enthusiasm I called up and made my enquiries. Unfortunately the man did not have the answers to my in-depth questions, like ‘What make is it?’, so I decided I had better go and see it.

I went on my folding bicycle inspection excursion this morning. Upon seeing the bicycle I instantly knew that it was not what I was looking for as it was a bit rubbish, so told him that I would not be buying it. I came up with a convincing reason involving the handlebars. He said that that was fine, not a problem at all. At which point in a moment of madness I said: ‘Oh, alright then, I’ll buy it.’

I am an idiot sometimes.

Unfortunately the bicycle really is rubbish. It is unique amongst folding bicycles in that it folds into a shape bigger and less convenient than the shape it started from. One popular folding bicycle website says this about it:

The Skoda of folding bikes - the Universal is still the cheapest folder available, but the Chinese are challenging. Made in Poland, the bike looks like a 1960s-vintage ’shopper’, which is exactly what it is. It’s heavy, it doesn’t fold very well or clip together, and the ride and handling are poor. Yawn, yawn. Long, long overdue for a replacement

Does anyone want to buy a folding bicycle?

To you - £25.

Posted by Dave at 11:31 pm on October 31, 2007 and filed under Essex Life, Cycling, Photographs.

7 Comments

We are currently in the evening class signing up season. Brochures are being thumbed, tutors are reading up on their subjects and people like me are telephoning the admissions hotline.

Last year if you remember I did two different oil painting classes. This year I have changed direction and have decided that I am going to not do something artistic but rather study a topic of general and sundry interest. So, I have chosen to go to a class about Psychology. I am hoping to learn about the secrets of good morale and also Wednesday evenings are convenient.

Is anyone else going to a course and learning about something about which they were hitherto ignorant? Is anyone tutoring and if so what on? Is anyone umming and/or arring about whether to do a course? If so step forward and we will persuade you.

Update: I spoke too soon:

Posted by Dave at 1:14 pm on September 19, 2007 and filed under Cartoons, Essex Life.

15 Comments

I have recently been working on the website for the Parish of Langdon Hills, Basildon, Essex. I’m just putting a post on here to let the search engines know about it. Regular readers: feel free to talk amongst yourselves or take an opportunity to visit the lavatories or the book stall.

If you’re looking for a Basildon Church or more specifically a Langdon Hills Church then this is the place to find information. There are specific pages on St Mary’s Church and St John’s Church. Brilliant!

There. That wasn’t so bad was it.

Posted by Dave at 10:45 am on September 18, 2007 and filed under Church, Essex Life, Religion.

7 Comments

This is a three minute cartoon, which explains why it looks a bit odd. The dogs look like crosses between sheep and rabbits, but that is just the angle. The man walking is stooped over owing to the burdensome cares of life which are weighing heavily upon his weary shoulders. The trees are just there for scenic effect, so I have put a minimal amount of effort into them. You will notice that there is one tree near the three dog walkers, but three trees near the single non dog walker. This is hidden symbolism.

I have noticed that it is not really acceptable to go walking in our local country park without a dog or a child. I suppose this is why people have dogs or children. The advantage of a dog over a child is that a dog can be walked on any day of the week, whereas children are mainly walked at the weekends.

Yesterday I went walking for about two hours. We are blessed with a country park that is a few minutes from the house and it does not take long to get to a point where you could be in the countryside as long as you go in one particular direction. From some of the lofty points you can see Canary Wharf and the Gherkin, as we are the first bit of quite high ground that you come to if you go east from London. It really was quite beautiful yesterday evening, what with the sunshine and everything.

I have put up a poll in the left hand column to see what you take when you go walking. It will help me to see whether I am odd when I walk, or whether it is the people giving me odd looks who are odd.

[Update: results of poll are to the right.]

Posted by Dave at 7:44 pm on July 2, 2007 and filed under Essex Life, In-depth analysis.

29 Comments

Owing to various problems I went to the doctor. I told the doctor that I thought my problems might be connected to my ears, so he took a look and told me that perhaps my ears and my problems might be connected.

To tell the end of a long story: I am going to have my right ear syringed tomorrow. I went a week ago and had it done, but it did not really work, so I am going back for another go.

In order to prepare for the aforementioned procedure it is necessary to put olive oil into your ear thrice daily for a week. Two drops a time, making a total of 42 drops. I have done it for two weeks, so 84 drops. If I am to be honest I have quite often forgotten, so I put 6 drops in at the end of the day so that my overall droppage is still what it should be.

In the olden days olive oil was placed in ones ear using a teaspoon and a shaky hand. It was quite difficult and often meant olive oil on the face, hair and carpet. Nowadays you go to the chemist for a special dropper. It is a lot easier and means that you will only get oil over your face and carpet.

It is important to incline your ear after you have applied the olive oil, otherwise it will run straight back out onto your face, hair and carpet (as in the days of the teaspoon). It is best to continue tilting for a number of minutes or for as long as you can be bothered to be so inclined. The diagrams above show some of the postures I have been adopting over the last two weeks whilst trying to make olive oil soak into my inner ear. Hopefully this will explain a thing or two.

Message to people seeking invoices / replies / answers: I’m going to try really hard to get up to date within the next 48 hours, though some of this work may be delivered at an angle of between 30 and 45 degrees.

Posted by Dave at 11:30 pm on June 26, 2007 and filed under Cartoons, Essex Life, In-depth analysis.

22 Comments

Evie sits on the desk and shows me where the lines should go. Unfortunately she is rather more interested in things like noises and creatures, so her attention is often divided as the picture shows.

This evening I had planned to some of the drawings you suggested earlier and also one or two e-mails, but I spent the evening attempting to feed tablets to cats instead.

• Tablet crushed and sprinkled on catfood: failure
• Tablet crushed and sprinkled on lovely chicken: failure
• Tablet inserted into a piece of catfood: failure
• Tablet inserted into a piece of lovely chicken: failure
• Tablet inserted into a piece of lovely cheese: failure
• Mouth of cat opened by force and tablet shoved in: failure

Tomorrow I will be phoning the vets and explaining our problems.

Apologies for the things I have left undone (e-mails etc). See note above about tablets.

Posted by Dave at 11:48 pm on June 18, 2007 and filed under Essex Life, Cartooning.

24 Comments

This post is of interest mainly to people reading who are fairly local to me, which is probably in the region of between none and three.

The Leigh Art Trail is on at the moment in Leigh on Sea. The idea is that lots of local artists display their work in different venues, and people can wander around and take a look. This is a BBC report. It finishes this Saturday, the 16th of June, so I am a bit late posting about it.

We are going there this evening as some of my oil paintings are on display in the college where I have been doing my evening course. It is part of an exhibition called ‘ART’, so called because that is what it is. The exhibition does not really seem to be advertised anywhere unfortunately, but it it is at the Leigh Community Centre in Elm road, which is about 12 minutes from the railway station. It is next door to the Police Station and just down from the Sarah Moore pub. Leigh is about 50 minutes from London Fenchurch street using the railway. The Art Trail would make a nice day out on Saturday perhaps. You could print off a map and everything. Do not travel specially to see my paintings from any distance though as your disappointment will be widespread and bitter.

If art isn’t your thing there is a free folk festival in a few weeks time.

Posted by Dave at 1:27 pm on June 14, 2007 and filed under Essex Life, Art.

7 Comments

Last week was Christian Aid week. I suspect some readers will, like me, have had the joy of delivering their Christian Aid envelopes and then collecting them a few days later. The above not-really-humourous-I’m-afraid diagram illustrates the various responses one gets at the doors.

Now, one thing must be said. I am not a particularly heroic Christian Aid collector. Last year I volunteered for one road, and discovered it had six houses. This year I chose two roads which turned out to have a total of 19 houses. I approach the collecting with great trepidation, but I do actually quite enjoy doing it when it actually comes to it, so next year I will do three roads or perhaps even four.

As you can see ‘no reply’ is the most common occurrence when one returns for the envelopes. This is often because people’s door bells do not work or because they do not hear you knocking. I estimate (using figures I have just made up) that non-working and ineffectual doorbells cost Christian Aid about 3 or 4 million pounds a year. Quite a few feign ignorance, but this year I only had one entirely negative response.

I was quite pleased by the whole experience this year. Two houses already had their coppers bundled up in the envelopes waiting, and a further two found something to stuff into the envelopes. That is a better response than I have been used to in the past.

I think one of the reasons for my trepidation is that I really don’t like people coming to the door when I have no means of checking who they are, so I can understand when people are suspicious. If I did not know the person who collects Christian Aid envelopes in our road I might well not give them very much, preferring to send it directly to Christian Aid or something like that. It is asking quite a bit of people to give generously and provide their information to reclaim the tax when you look a bit shifty (and I do) and have only a hand written badge for identification. That said I know that Christian Aid would not be able to do much of what they do without the door to door collections, so I think it is important that we keep on supporting them.

Joe has been collecting too - he shares some reflections here. Surefish has some Chrstian Aid collectors tales.

Posted by Dave at 11:10 am on May 22, 2007 and filed under Sundry posts, Essex Life, Make Poverty History.

10 Comments

Today was a day for attending to the woeful state of the garden, which has been allowed to fall into rack, ruin and disrepair because because we have been busy with getting cats and doing all the travelling we could manage in the six weeks before getting cats.

I assembled a mini greenhouse. The above illustration is meant to give you a taste of the sort of complexities involved. It was not easy I tell you. I do not know how these things are designed and made, but it seems to me that there are no testing stages between a mini greenhouse design leaving the drawing board and the boxes being shipped off in bulk to Argos. They do not make them with the intention that you should actually be able to put them together.

We also went to the garden centre to buy some plants. I bought a melon seedling. It is very unlikely that we will successfully harvest very many melons given that everything we will grow will be in plastic pots in a mini greenhouse, but for 99 pence it is worth a try. Failure brings no shame, but success will mean I am the talk of the gardeners of Basildon. Such a prize is worth striving towards.

Oddly enough Katie on the Wibsite assembled a mini greenhouse today too. I’ll ask you the same question I asked her, which is as follows: Can the sun’s rays penetrate through the plastic cover of a mini greenhouse, or do I have to take the cover off every day? It is a seethough plastic, but quite thick as seethough plastic goes. If you can advise on this or anything else I would be grateful.

Posted by Dave at 10:59 pm on April 21, 2007 and filed under Essex Life, Household hints, Environment.

7 Comments

I have been overwhelmed by the immense level of interest shown in our new cats by those in certain sectors of the internet. People have been e-mailing in, and other people have been writing blog posts about them and everything.

Here are some more pictures:

The answer to a question that a lot of you have on your minds: Yes, we are thinking of home schooling them. Originally I had imagined we might get them up to A level General Studies sort of level, but I think to be honest they are more gifted at practical subjects rather than anything involving too much thought and analysis. Our first lessons have mainly involved a stick with a yellow and green bird on a piece of string.

Sorry not to give you any drawings or anything today. I was suffering from low morale, but am over it now and feel ready to take on the world.

Posted by Dave at 10:51 pm on April 19, 2007 and filed under Essex Life, Photographs.

11 Comments

These are our new cats.

They have been here two days and have brought much joy thus far, but cause me stress during the day as it is my responsibility to ensure that no-one is escaping or doing things that they should not do.

Above: Cat sitting in pepper plant pot (yes, these peppers, which still survive and produce continual peppers).

The cats are 6 months old and came from the Cats Protection people. They are called Matins (Mattie) and Evensong (Evie).

Posted by Dave at 10:35 am on April 17, 2007 and filed under Sundry posts, Essex Life, Photographs.

15 Comments