I’m back from being away on holiday. I can never really tell you about our holidays beforehand for security reasons, but it is now safe to say that we went to Holt in Norfolk, where we stayed in a cottage one minute and fourteen seconds from the Kings Head. Activities included bicycling, railways and pretending not to keep an eye on Twitter.

Being back means that I need to draw diagrams. Oh dear. I have no ideas whatsoever, and so if you have any please feel free to post them below or in an e-mail. Thank you in advance, though I will also try to say thank you in arrears.

Posted by Dave at 8:44 am on June 6, 2011 and filed under Ideas appeal, Mundane.

26 Comments

Once again April was a particularly poor blogging month for me. If you look back over my archives you will see that I am and have always been an inept blogger during each of the Aprils that seem to come around once a year. It is something to do with the pollen or the gravitational pull of Jupiter.

So, what have I been doing? Well, I was very busy trying to some difficult work, then my morale was low for a while, then I went on holiday (including camping), then I hit my head on an historic beam and was out of action. Those who follow on Twitter will have heard me going on about this latter occurrence – thank you for your kind messages. I am now recovered from all of these things and ready to resume my duties.

Over the next few days I have a number of cartoons to post on the CartoonChurch cartoon pages. This makes me look like I am busy making lots of new pictures, which is the impression I am trying to give. The illustrations below were me testing to see whether I still have a pen that works.

Lots of people will have given up on this blog I’m sure, but if you haven’t entirely – thank you.

Posted by Dave at 9:12 pm on May 4, 2011 and filed under Mundane.

5 Comments

It is the 11th of January and I haven’t blogged yet in 2011. This is a scan from my this year’s notebook.

The left hand side is a cartoon, in case that needs to be said. I might draw it properly, we shall see. The words on the right hand side have been left in purely to provide a sense of mystery and intrigue. It seemed a shame to erase the words ‘PCC flower youth’.

I enjoy jotting things in a notebook. Unfortunately in this modern age it is all too easy to post one’s observations straight onto Twitter rather than draw them in a notebook. I have to resist doing this. The Twitter writing is a far easier course of action, but ultimately less fulfilling. What I am trying to say is whenever you see me on Twitter please ask me to be quiet and go and write in my notebook instead. Thank you.

It is also awkward to draw in a notebook in certain social settings. I tend not to draw whilst on the train, which is silly as it would be an ideal time. This is partly to do with not wanting to be overlooked and partly the intense pressure from society to look at an electronic device.

Happy mid-January to you all.

Posted by Dave at 5:36 pm on January 11, 2011 and filed under Cartoons, Mundane, Sundry posts.

9 Comments

This blog post does not merit being called anything.

I was out and about in the neighbourhood, scouring the empty shopping trolleys for completed cartoons that I could post on my blog or send to ecclesiastical newspapers. Once again I found nothing, so this will have to do:

This note was discarded, one assumes, by a chef purchasing essentials for some of the local delicacies. Note ‘Sasuages’, which are a form of sausages, but posher.

Questions for study groups
1) What did the author intend to write for item 6, before deciding upon ‘drinks’?
2) That’s an awfully thick pen for a shopping list, don’t you think?
3) Spend some time wandering off the topic for a bit.

Posted by Dave at 7:07 pm on November 7, 2010 and filed under Mundane, Utter nonsense, shopping lists.

15 Comments

Being as it’s Saturday and noone is reading I thought I’d publish some of the letters I get that, for one reason or another, don’t make it into the comments pages of this blog.

Althea:
Thankyou lots, I am obliged to announce that your blog is excellent!

Thank you Althea. I’m sure your blog is excellent too!

Hearst:
Hi There, I just spent a little time reading through your posts, which I found entirely by mistake whilst researching one of my projects. Please continue to write more because it’s unusual that someone has something interesting to say about this. Will be waiting for more!

Hearst – bless you! I’m glad that I was able to help you whilst you were looking for information for your archdeacon project. You’re right – the amount of really dull stuff out there on the subject of archdeacons is incredible. As soon as I write another interesting archdeacon post I’ll make sure you’re the first to hear about it.

Kerry:
The content on this publish is really a single of the very best material that We have ever are available across. I love your publish, I’ll occur back to verify for new posts.

Oh Kerry, you have quite a way with words. I’ll watch out for your reoccurrence the next time I make a publish.

Ezekiel Malinky:
Precisely saying thanks won’t just be enough, for your unparalleled lucidity in your own authoring.

Ezekiel – brilliant! I couldn’t have said it better.

Minerva:
When i was simply reasoning that there are a lot improperly stuff on that theme and yourself basically altered my personal attitude.

Minerva – I know! The improperly stuff on reversible knees irritates me too. But it is good to hear that my blogging has made such a difference in your life.

Toshiko:
Hello! Is it okay if I go a bit off topic? …

No.

Posted by Dave at 12:13 pm on October 9, 2010 and filed under Blogging, Mundane, Utter nonsense.

9 Comments

I know, it looks a bit similar to things I have already done. Also clumsy with the ‘that that’. But I had to post something to remind myself that completing a cartoon is still an achievable aim.

Feel free to repost. You could put some sort of link back if you wanted.

Posted by Dave at 10:29 pm on July 19, 2010 and filed under Cartoons, Mundane.

7 Comments

Come on now, you can’t complain. I haven’t posted any cat photos since 2007 (don’t check).

Evie sits on the pile of paper in my home office. Yes, that is the original artwork for the cover of ‘The Exciting World of Churchgoing‘. She sits on the documents in the hope that a game of ‘cord’ will be forthcoming. ‘Cord’ is a game involving a piece of cord. It is similar to another game called ‘ribbon’, which owing to constraints of time and space I don’t have time to explain.

This is the reason I needed my own office – to stop such diversions using up my precious time. In my job it is important that one is able to stare out of the window at the traffic on the dual carriageway without any distractions.

ENDS
(Do tell me when writing that gets tiresome)

Posted by Dave at 10:04 pm on July 15, 2010 and filed under Mundane, Photographs.

14 Comments

I now have the keys to the new office and will be moving some things in over the weekend. Here are some pictures of the office in its empty state. Warning: Those who find dull pictures uninteresting should look away now.

Above: Empty office. Note heater and powerpoints. The computing department will be on the left I think, and the drawing department on the right. The location of the filing department is still to be determined. It looks a bit dark – that is because the lights aren’t on, it was cloudy and the windows are tinted a bit.

(Click ‘read the rest of this entry’ for more of this kind of thing.)
Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by Dave at 8:57 am on April 30, 2010 and filed under CartoonChurch progress, Essex Life, Mundane, Photographs, Starting a Business.

12 Comments

My dullest blog in the world appears in the latest issue of The Economist. From Analysing the web: Blog mining:

“I NOTICED that the doormat was at a slightly crooked angle. I reached down and moved the mat back into its correct place.” Thus began a recent entry on The dullest blog in the world. Although this publication is something of a satire on the internet’s inane blogs, scientists are finding—to their surprise—that useful information can actually be mined from the tedium of the blogosphere.

The dullest blog in the world is here, or you can follow it via Facebook or Twitter.

[Cartoon from We Blog Cartoons.]

Posted by Dave at 10:06 am on March 15, 2010 and filed under Blogging, Mundane.

3 Comments

Regular readers will know that at the weekends the budget for this blog does not allow for the posting of cartoons or interesting anecdotes. Instead I focus largely on highlights from my filing system.

Today, a section from my bank file entitled ‘letters informing me of my idiocy’.

This is where I file letters that tell me that I have done something wrong in banking terms, generally whilst paying in my cheques at the automatic cheque machine. Usually it is because the amounts do not tally because somewhere along the line I have pressed the wrong button, either on my calculator or on the automatic cheque machine itself.

I have never been very good at pressing buttons correctly. If, at a future interview, I am asked “What are your weaknesses?”, I shall reply, “Pressing buttons correctly”. Unless the job largely relies upon the ability to press buttons correctly, in which case I shall make something up and this blog post will be quietly deleted.

Posted by Dave at 12:46 pm on February 6, 2010 and filed under Mundane, Photographs, Starting a Business.

2 Comments

Some people told me that one of my diagrams was on the front page of the digg website over the weekend. Here is a link to the page about it: Link to the page about it.

The comments are not very kind as you can see. I was wondering where the unkind people gather – perhaps it is on the digg website.

Posted by Dave at 9:29 pm on March 29, 2009 and filed under Mundane.

15 Comments

1. I was offered the opportunity to take part in 40 days of prayer for the bargain price of $9.98. For this much money I would get daily e-mail updates which I could forward on to my friends for free. They would not need to pay $9.98. I’m no businessman, but it seems to me that if you’re going to run a profitable 40 days of prayer you need to get everyone paying their $9.98.

2. A ‘wholly owned subsidiary’ of the Carphone Warehouse Group contacted me to say that they would be very happy to have a link to their site on my website, and in fact they would go as far as to write a whole page of information that I could post onto my site with a link to them. All for free. Unfortunately they “are not currently in the position of being able to exchange or return links”. Much as I’d enjoy participating in such an attempt to manipulate the search engines I have declined to respond to the unsolicited e-mail. Oddly enough I had thought, until now, that the Carphone Warehouse was a legitimate and above-board sort of company.

3. The Amazon internet company had a special offer whereby one could have a FREE trial of their ‘Amazon Prime’ service, which promises to send things out on a next-day-delivery basis. I can confirm the results of the trial based on a sample of one: The goods do not arrive the next day as promised, even if you wait in all day for them. Suffice to say it is not a service that one shall be continuing with.

Posted by Dave at 11:35 am on September 26, 2008 and filed under Mundane, Slightly grumpy.

8 Comments