We bought our first vegetable rack at the weekend.

A person’s life can be divided into the time they live pre-vegetable rack (P.V.R.) and the time they live post-vegetable rack (Also P.V.R, confusingly). Of course there will be some people who are not able to purchase a vegetable rack at any time of their lives, a fact I have not forgotten.

For us, the moment of vegetable rack need came during our mid thirties. I don’t know whether that is usual. In your twenties you feel able to live with vegetables just lying around the house here and there. In your early thirties you try and designate a ‘vegetable shelf’ or a ‘vegetable cupboard’ but deep inside in your heart of hearts you know that that isn’t really the answer.

Ours has four shelves. We felt that was the way to go. Other vegetable racks have three shelves – in fact you might notice the one I’ve drawn in the picture has three shelves – a ‘three shelver’, as they are known. Three shelf vegetable racks are very good vegetable racks, don’t get me wrong. We’ve found that the main advantage of the ‘four shelver’ over the ‘three shelver’ was quite simply that it had one extra shelf.

I thought I’d post this as there may be someone reading who has a sort of an empty feeling inside and doesn’t really know why. You’ve tried going out and having a good time. You’ve bought the latest gadgets. You’ve even been to the doctor. Perhaps, just perhaps, what you need is a good vegetable rack.

Do let us know in the comments at what stage in life you first started using a vegetable rack. Did you go out and buy it, or was it handed down through the generations? Do you use it only for vegetables, or does a bit of fruit get mingled in too? Perhaps you are a carnivore and don’t even eat vegetables. All perspectives welcome in the comments.

Posted by Dave at 11:17 pm on October 2, 2007 and filed under Cartoons, Household hints, In-depth analysis.

45 Comments

Dear the BBC Weather Forecasters,

It would be really helpful if you could include a ‘washing forecast’ as part of your weather forecast updates.

I have devised a system that you could use to show us whether it is worth putting washing outside on the line to dry or not. First of all you will need to show us a map looking a bit like this:

The numbering system works as follows:

10 is a perfect washing day. Washing hung out on the line will be dry almost as soon as you put it out. It’s a good day to wash thick duvets and winter coats!

5 means that washing placed first thing outside will dry by the end of the day. There may be a little bit of mild dampness around the seams and pockets, but essentially it is a good day to do washing.

0 is the point at which washing will not really be any drier when you take it in than it was when you put it out. This could be because there is no sun or wind or because there are light showers. You could say that there is no point in putting your washing out when a ’0′ is forecasted. Even a ’2′ or a ’3′ would make it worth putting the washing out for a bit, but not a ’0′.

-5 is washing that gets a lot wetter when hung out because it has been raining. Better to put it over a radiator!

-10. A -10 scenario would be when there is so much rain that the washing is absolutely soaked through and dripping. Frankly, if your washing is outside in ‘-10′ conditions you might as well put it back into the machine and give it another spin.

I am aware that adding a washing forecast to the weather forecast will use precious weather forecast time. I therefore propose that the following items could be cut out:

1. Idle banter with the news presenter
2. News about forthcoming sports events. No-one watches the weather forecast hoping to hear about forthcoming sports events. In particular on the BBC London Weather we do not need to hear Peter Cockroft telling us from his rooftop position which football games we can hear on BBC London 94.9. It is not really of any interest to us.

Yours faithfully,

Dave Walker

Posted by Dave at 12:23 pm on September 26, 2007 and filed under In-depth analysis, Letters.

25 Comments

[The title is a Goon Show quote. Explanation at the end of the post]

I showed this cartoon when I did my live gig last week and as soon as I put it up it got an ‘Oooo’ from the audience. Now, I don’t get a lot of ‘Oooos’ normally, so I didn’t quite know what to make of it. It could mean that the cartoon is a bit sexist, it could mean that the 200 clergy had all had run-ins with ladies groups, or it could mean that the crowd were just hyped up and ready to go ‘Oooo’.

I have since been considering the ways in which churches sometimes hold activities that segregate people into their different sexes. Ladies luncheons, mens beer groups, ladies breakfasts, the ‘young chaps circle’, that sort of thing. I have to say I’m not a great fan of segregation by sex. I’d rather everyone just mingled in together.

I’m wondering whether it is more of an Evangelical thing to do, or whether churches of all kinds segregate people at various times. Certainly in my Evangelical upbringing we were partially segregated for Sunday school and youth groups.

It would be interesting to hear your experiences. Does your church run groups that are just for men or just for women? If so is it an evangelical church, or some other sort? Are you in favour of different groups for men and women, or are you, like me, a minglist (one who believes in mingling). Don’t just become a minglist on my account though, as my views are notoriously ill thought through.

[I'm not sure whether minglist should have an 'e' in it. Minglist. Mingleist. Hmmm.]

[As an unrelated aside, here is the Goon Show quote that I mentioned above.

Seagoon: ... And now, segregate the sinful sexes-­

Sellers: Wait! How many sexes are there?

Seagoon: Two.

Sellers:It's not enough I say, go out and order some more.

It is taken from Tales of Old Dartmoor.]

Posted by Dave at 11:59 pm on September 13, 2007 and filed under Cartoons, Church, In-depth analysis, Religion.

29 Comments

I have had cause to glue several pieces of wood together lately, so I thought I would keep you updated.

The budget dining room chair
This became broken because someone had been leaning back on it in the way that we were told not to do at school. I poured some wood glue into the holes and then put it back together. Unfortunately since my gluing the chair has one leg that is longer than the others so the chair wobbles when you sit on it or when a cat jumps on it. At the moment the short leg has a piece of folded-up newspaper underneath it which means that it is approximately level. As a longer term project I plan to cut a little bit off the other three legs (using my saw). This may need to be repeated so it is likely that the chair will become quite a bit lower than our other chairs. We will mainly use it for sitting at coffee tables or to take the humblest seat like it says in the Bible.

The budget two seater settee
This became broken during a particularly lively game of scrabble. One moment I was thinking of words using seven vowels, the next I was on the floor. I poured some wood glue into the holes and then put it back together. I plan to be a bit calmer when playing scrabble in the future.

The budget Argos lightbox
This became broken because it was not very well made in the first place. I use the lightbox to trace cartoons from one sheet of paper to another or to trace things I cannot draw, like horses. The lightbox had been broken for several months and broke into two pieces every time I picked it up to use it, which was a mild annoyance. I poured some wood glue into the holes and then put it back together. From now on I will be doing more cartoons about horses. Actually I do not think I have ever done a cartoon about horses.

Posted by Dave at 11:39 pm on August 17, 2007 and filed under Household hints, In-depth analysis, Utter nonsense.

7 Comments

In this day and age it is right that those who are able should travel to the supermarket by bicycle when they can. I find though that when I do so I often encounter problems transporting groceries, especially if they are delicate or malleable. My bread, as the jottings above indicate, often ends up rucksack shaped at the end of the trip which means that the bread burns in the toaster as it is misshapen into untoasterly forms.

I think that I need some better means to carry delicate groceries by bicycle. Perhaps some panniers, though most panniers that I have seen look a bit small and still liable to crush bread. I could attach a large plastic box onto the rear rack, but that would look a bit unstylish and clash with the sleek lines of my bicycle.

In the old days bicycles had baskets, but these are now frowned upon in areas such as South East Essex. I think some more innovative solutions are called for, hence the drawing of the bread-carrying hat above.

How do you get your bread home?

Posted by Dave at 6:01 pm on August 9, 2007 and filed under Cartoons, Cycling, In-depth analysis, Religion.

26 Comments

The Pope has said that non-Catholics are not the proper church. Well, he didn’t actually say it, but a document with his name on does say it so for the sake of this post we’ll assume he did say it in the planning meetings for the document. I have been trying to get my head around this as it could now be the case that us non-Catholics have not been the proper church all along when we thought we were. It seems to me that our status as the proper church or otherwise depends largely upon whether the Pope was speaking infallibly when he said it. If I understand things correctly the Pope sometimes speaks infallibly and sometimes doesn’t.

Here is my analysis:

If the Pope was speaking infallibly and was right then the Catholics are the proper church, making us non-Catholics not the proper church.

If the Pope was speaking infallibly and was wrong, then he was not speaking infallibly. Therefore the Catholics are not the proper church. Us non-Catholics would therefore be the proper church, but the Catholics certainly would not be.

If the Pope was speaking fallibly and was right then it would at first appear that us non-Catholics are not the proper church. But, a later Pope could overturn this when speaking infallibly, in which case us non-Catholics would be the proper church even though we had thought that we were not the proper church. Of course this later Pope might be wrong, in which case the Catholics would be proved to be not the proper church, making us the proper church.

If the Pope was speaking fallibly and was wrong then us non-Catholics are the proper church. The Catholics could still be the proper church too though, as you can’t blame the Pope for getting it wrong when speaking fallibly. After all, we all do that.

Of course, it could still be the case in several of these instances that neither the Catholics or us non-Catholics are the proper church, but that a third party that we have not yet thought of are the proper church and neither us nor the Catholics are the proper church. I do not intend to discuss this though as it makes the situation unnecessarily complicated which I do not want to do.

[Minor update to remove mistake made due to fallibility]

Posted by Dave at 1:02 pm on July 12, 2007 and filed under Church, Ecumenical matters, In-depth analysis, Religion.

20 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

I observed the above facility faculty notice during a wander around some churches in the City of London this week. (A facility faculty notice, for those who don’t know, is an application to The Powers That Be to make changes to a historic church. Well, more or less.) The notice reads:

The grant of (three?) licences for the use of a desk (and other facilities) in the Vestry of St Clement’s Church, Eastcheap 1 St Clement’s Court London EC4N 7HB for a term of 12 months from 1st January 2007

This intrigued me for these reasons:

1. Do you need a licence to use a desk in a vestry? Perhaps readers can educate me. Do any of you have unlicenced desks in your vestries?
2. Why do you need three licences for one desk? (I’m fairly sure that’s what is written, but not 100% certain owing to the fact the notice was written without the use of a desk.)
3. What are the ‘other facilities’? I think this could be the key to this notice. The desk is there to make us think that the vestry is to be used for writing in service books and suchlike, but it is my suspicion that there are some unusual ‘other facilities’ being installed under the smokescreen of a desk, so to speak. Any suggestions?

More info about the church in question is here. It doesn’t mention the desk, which just goes to prove my point(s).

[Edited to change my facilities to faculties.]

Posted by Dave at 11:59 pm on May 11, 2007 and filed under Church, In-depth analysis, Religion.

12 Comments

I notice from today’s Church Times that the job of gatekeeper at Lambeth Palace is being advertised.

You will control access of personnel and vehicles entering and leaving Lambeth Palace’ playing a key role within the team responsible for the security and safety of the Palace. In addition, you will process telephone calls received outside office hours, as well as informing residents of the arrival of guests.

This is probably one of the most powerful jobs in the Anglican Communion as it would enable you to keep Bishops that you did not really like waiting for no reason as they are on their way in to meet the Archbishop, therefore ensuring that the Archbishop will not heed their requests gladly as his schedule has been disrupted. Also long distance phone calls from undesirable quarters could be ‘processed’ in such a way that the post it notes with the messages on could occasionally go missing etc.

Obviously this sort of thing is wrong and bad and the likes of you and I would not do it, but I am just pointing out the possibilities so that Lambeth Palace can take this into account when interviewing and ask probing questions about lost post-it notes and the like.

Questions for Study Groups

Read this Bible verse:

I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of the wicked.
(Psalm 84: 10)

1) What would be the advantages of the Lambeth Palace doorkeeper job over (say) a live-in vacancy in the tents of the wicked?
2) Are people with tents always wicked?
3) Is it right to sneak around the tents of the wicked during the night and remove a couple of tent pegs on your way to the lavatories?

Unrelated aside
This was my 1000th post. Full list.

Posted by Dave at 1:52 pm on April 20, 2007 and filed under Anglican goings-on, In-depth analysis.

10 Comments

A larger version of this cartoon is here along with information about how to use it in your own church publications and elsewhere.

A version of this cartoon appears in the book. I was never very happy with the book version. It had three columns unlike the two in this version. The right hand column (not shown here) was some underlined writing to do with leaving rotas or somesuch which was OK but I wasn’t really satisfied with it. The truth is that I’d had the idea for the four pictures a long time before but finished drawing them the night before the book deadline.

In reality the four pictures are a summary of my ‘faith journey’ (appalling phrase) which perhaps don’t need a punchline. Though in hindsight perhaps the ‘emerging churchers’ or ‘alternative worshippers’ should have got a look-in as well.

I suppose what I wanted to say is that I have found something of value in all these different approaches to Christian faith. Some more so than others, and some of the things I once held to be important I no longer see as important. We all change and realise that we were wrong about certain things. I suspect I been more wrong than most people about more things than most people, if that makes a shred of sense.

Some people don’t like the labels (evangelical, liberal etc) of course, but we have to give things names otherwise no-one knows what we are talking about. Perhaps these days I tend to wear my labels sewn onto the inside of my clothes rather than emblazoned on the outside.

[Feel free to post this cartoon on your blog. Just sew this handy code into the waistline:]

<img src="http://www.weblogcartoons.com/cb/i-have.gif" alt="cartoon from www.weblogcartoons.com" />
<p>Cartoon by <a href="http://www.cartoonchurch.com/blog/">Dave Walker</a>. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at <a href="http://www.weblogcartoons.com/">We Blog Cartoons</a>.</p>


Posted by Dave at 4:51 pm on March 4, 2007 and filed under Ecumenical matters, In-depth analysis, New CartoonChurch cartoons, Religion, Spirituality.

7 Comments

[Larger version of cartoon on last year's Advent Calendar blog]

There has been some debate within the household about the putting up of a domestic Christmas tree. By this I mean one inside a house as opposed to in a shopping precinct or outside a town hall.

I have added a voting-type poll device to the left hand sidebar so as to gain an understanding of the Christmas tree habits of the Cartoon Blog viewing public. Please tell us when a Christmas tree should be put up. You might not have any strongly held beliefs on the matter, but please vote anyway telling us when you will be putting your tree or other decorations up.

This will then help us come to an informed decision, knowing that our habits are not vastly out of step with those of the Cartoon Blog readership.

Posted by Dave at 7:41 pm on December 13, 2006 and filed under In-depth analysis.

13 Comments