Greenbelt 2010 has come to an end. I’ve had a marvellous time as usual. This year it was mainly (for me at least) about hanging around and chatting to people, my new book, the Church Times cartoon exhibition, and my nightly appearances in Last Orders, the late night comedy show.

The latter took up the most time and caused the most anxiety, but I loved doing it. I’m hugely grateful to have been given the opportunity. Hopefully I’ll get to do more of my slightly peculiar brand of ‘cartoon stand-up’ in the future.

I thought it might be quite useful for people who attended Last Orders to know how they can get hold of some of the cartoons, and so I’ve put together a list of the diagrams I used each night, links to their online location if there is one, and where they originally appeared. In particular I’ve listed the book (if any) that each cartoon is taken from, although in some cases the version I showed was not quite the original version. I’m afraid that these lists may appear a little nonsensical to anyone who wasn’t there as there were other bits of text in-between.

I’m aiming to do something similar with the cartoon exhibition cartoons in the next few days.

Friday, Part I of IV: Things you needed to know before you got here
The parable of the Greenbelters (New material)
How to analyse your camping neighbours – originally Tents (Church Times, The Exciting World of Churchgoing)
How to recognise your tent (Church Times Guide to Greenbelt 2007)
How to recognise your tent in the dark (Church Times Guide to Greenbelt 2007)

Saturday, Part II of IV: What to expect at the Greenbelt Sunday Service
The Peace (Church Times, The Dave Walker Guide to the Church)
Journey of the collection plates (The Dave Walker Guide to the Church)
The Sermon (Church Times, My Pew: Things I have seen from it)
Communion (Church Times, My Pew: Things I have seen from it)
After-service coffee (Church Times, My Pew: Things I have seen from it)
Suggested ways to behave, originally ‘How to make it known (The Dave Walker Guide to the Church)
The all-age service (Church Times, My Pew: Things I have seen from it)
How to tell what is going on (Church Times, The Dave Walker Guide to the Church)

Sunday, Part III of IV: Things you will have already found out by now
How to queue for a talk in a sensible fashion (previously unpublished as far as I can remember)
Returning to the campsite for lunch (Church Times Guide to Greenbelt 2005)
Taking something to sit on (Various places, including here and Church Times Guide to Greenbelt 2005)
Flagpoles (Church Times Guide to Greenbelt 2005)
Meeting people that you have not seen for a number of years (new material)
The programme for young people (new material)
How to recognise Greenbelters (new material)
The church party, originally New Year’s Eve (Church Times, The Exciting World of Churchgoing)

Monday, Part IV of IV: What to do now that you have become enthusiastic about Christianity
Church picture, originally It is not about the numbers (My Pew: Things I have seen from it)
The welcomers (Church Times, My Pew: Things I have seen from it)
The welcome pack (Church Times, My Pew: Things I have seen from it)
Will anyone notice that I am there, originally Numbers (Church Times, The Exciting World of Churchgoing)
The five worst places to sit, originally Pews (Church Times, My Pew: Things I have seen from it)

Launch of ‘The Exciting World of Churchgoing’

My new book, The Exciting World of Churchgoing will be available at the Greenbelt Festival and quite possibly in the shops this week. Hooray!

It is the third book of my Church Times ‘Guide to the Church’ cartoons. There’s no launch party planned. Perhaps I should organise one. Bit late really as people won’t have time to hire all of the formal kit etc.

[Aside: You can (when it becomes available) get the book via your local Christian bookshop, or via Amazon, Church House Bookshop, Waterstones or the publishers, Canterbury Press.]

Nightly appearance at Last Orders

This is the most exciting but most terrifying thing in the world for me at the moment. I will be showing some cartoons and doing some very limited talking in ‘Last Orders‘ on each night, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Last Orders starts at 11pm and is in the 2000 seater ‘Centaur’ venue, and other people on the bill include proper comedians like Milton Jones. Oh dear, what have I got myself into? On the plus side, whenever I have done these things before I have loved doing them and people have found them quite enjoyable and there has been some polite applause at the end.

No, I haven’t prepared it yet.

Cartoon Exhibition in the Church Times Tent

Some of my latest diagrams and some from the book will be on display in the Church Times tent. These will include ones like ‘The Periodic Table of Churchgoers’ which have thus far not been widely available beyond the newspaper.

The Church Times tent is in front of the grandstand. This year the tent has swapped places with the ‘Hub’ Literature venue as the Church Times was found to be on dodgy ground. By implication this means that the Literature is now on dodgy ground. This is a conundrum I haven’t yet got to the bottom of.

Map of Greenbelt in the ‘Church Times Guide to Greenbelt’

Every year I do a map of the festival site and moan about how difficult it is to draw for weeks on end to anyone who will listen. You can get hold of it in the free Church Times Guide to Greenbelt, available from the Church Times tent or from touts (ie me) who will be handing it out.

Loitering

When not doing other things I’ll generally be hanging around in the Church Times tent pretending to help. Do come and say hello, and perhaps we can meet up for a cup of tea or beer. Not too much beer though, as I must be alert during the evenings.

Other

I think I might be part of some comics thing. I don’t really know about that.

It is to replace the campervan which was retired from active service a year ago.

In order to prove to ourselves that we can put up the new tent we went on a highly unadventurous camping trip to a camp site approximately 3 miles from home at Barleylands, a ‘farm park’ that people around here visit in order to make themselves feel as if they have been to the countryside. This small escapade proved that our pitching is yet to be perfected. We did get there eventually though (picture above) and retired to a local pub to recover.

Question for tent geeks: The whole of the tent material seems to have ended up pulled right over to one side of the tent on both of the occasions we have pitched it. So on one side you have the merest glimpse of tent pole, but on the other side quite a few inches (or centimetres for you young people) of tent pole visible. This makes it very difficult to put the final pole into place. Such a thing does not happen in the video and there doesn’t really seem to be a way to make adjustments. Also (unlike the video) there are arguments and some mild swearing. Is this normal?

The incident (not that I’d call it that), occurred some time ago, although not that long ago. It depends what sort of time scale you are looking at. I’m not trying to make out that it was a recent occurrence, but it may not have been more than a number of months or years ago.

Some bloggers may or may not have written about it, although I’m not suggesting you should read their articles. Also there may have been news stories, which you may choose to read should you wish to do so (not that I’m saying there have been any). The people writing about it may have got their information right, or they may have got it wrong, and you should bear that in mind if you choose to read them, although I’m not for one moment suggesting that you should do such a thing.

I’ve tried to tell you as much as I can but for certain reasons I may have needed to keep some of the details vague. Writing in a more specific way could possibly have caused some problems, although I’m not saying that there is any reason for thinking that it would cause any problems.

ENDS

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.

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)

• Sara from the Library
• Peter from the Pathetic Acronym Creation, Marketing, Advertising and Naming department
• Eric Davey
• Nick from The Department for Administrative Affairs

I’ll be in touch with you shortly to ask for addresses for the prizes once I’ve seen what is in the special prize box. There might be a choice of prizes, I’m not sure.

The original sweepstake posts are here and here, in case anyone has no idea what I’m on about.

This is my photograph of Bishop Laurie, watching a pilgrimage go by whilst seated at a pub table.

Permission was sought / not sought from the following people for this photograph:
- Bishop Laurie [Not sought]
- Pilgrimage participants [Not sought]
- Pub owners [Not sought]

New today on CartoonChurch.com: The division of labour (click that link for the larger version).

I’m envisaging this cartoon being used by clergy with slack congregations to give them a bit of gentle encouragement. Also churches on the verge of introducing sticker schemes. If this is you you can find re-usage information on the page in question.