For some people this scribble will be utterly irrelevant, to others it will look strangely familiar.

In summary: we need to not believe the voices that tell us that we are not good enough.

The problem comes when we have to achieve something, but are utterly unable to do so, despite perseverance, new strategies, outside help, tears, and yes, perhaps even prayer. Not speaking from experience or anything.

A very short review of We were young and carefree by Laurent Fignon

I have read this entire book whilst on the train. This is unusual.

It will be of interest to those who, like me, watched the Tour de France on the television during the late 1980s and were then inspired to take up bicycle racing. Laurent Fignon (1960-2010) won the Tour in 1983 and 1984, but is often remembered for losing the 1989 Tour, after 3,285km, by eight seconds to Greg Lemond.

I found it fascinating. I hadn’t realised how quickly he rose through the ranks of cyclists, or how young he was when he won his first Tour de France. Of particular interest was the background information about goings-on in the races and amongst the riders and teams during that period. The book kept me interested and I looked forward to reading it on the 8.22 / 6.06 every day to find out what would happen next.

It also made me reflect on the bike racing that I did. I’d never have amounted to more than a reasonable amateur rider, but I gave it up in my early 20s to do church work (bike racing and church are not really compatible). Do I regret doing so? Probably, yes.

Links:
Book on Amazon UK (I found it in The Works)
Laurent Fignon obituary (NY Times – seemed the most complete)
(Below) Video showing the ’8 seconds’ finale (ITV 4, 6 mins). Not great quality but the best-edited I could find in English.

There are two tins:

1. Small change
2. Proper money

Small change is anything that is not really worth carrying around. This means 1p, 2p, 5p, and yes, 10p pieces.

Proper money is anything larger than that. So 20p, 50p, £1 and £2. Sometimes a 10p will make it in, depending upon my mood. If it is a note I just carry it anyway. Proper money is called upon when I need to park in Basildon, cross the Dartford bridge or buy a 99p coffee in Pret.

It could be that there are more advanced ways to organise one’s money, I don’t know. I will perhaps ask Margaret, my accountant, whether I am in tune with current best practice.

Questions for study groups
How do you organise your money?

Above: this is water polo (this one benefits from being seen at a larger size). In summary: you try to throw the ball into the opponents’ net whilst team mates hold the members of the other back, push them under the water, etc. Those may or may not be the rules, I’m not sure.

There is a certain amount of parading around in dressing gowns.

Also some team huddles.

It was great to have a walk around the Olympic park, as the last time we were there (for the cycling) is was strictly shuttle buses and no wandering.

The velodrome, seen across natural open countryside.

Coloured circles. Also legs.

We were test guinea pigs for the Greenway walking route from West Ham to the Olympic site along which many of the spectators will walk. It certainly avoids the crowds at Westfield. This is the view looking back towards West Ham.

Olympic park (larger version) with people thronging in for the evening activities. Photo taken from John Lewis.

Ideally this would have been posted yesterday. Originally from the Church Times, April 2010.

Feel free to share and that kind of thing

Above: ‘They didn’t have your name’. My sister gave me this duck and it makes me smile. It lives in my office next to a stone, five rulers and a tin labelled ‘proper money’. It is the sort of thing I will be posting on this website from this point on as part of my ‘daily blogging*’ routine. The daily blogging is part of my recovery plan, chosen as an activity because I know I enjoy it. I’m not sure exactly what I’m recovering from, by the way. But let’s just say that a week or two the possibility of not cartooning any more was a very real one.

Anyway, if you’d like to see photos of other everyday objects in my office please do say. I have various uplifting slogans pinned up, for instance. Also several drinks mats, and some pencils.

*When I have time

[As per usual with my photographs: click for larger versions on Flickr.]

Somebody had some fun with the ‘reserved seat’ signs on a London Underground train. Here are some more, from a set on Steve Collins’ Flickr stream: Central line stickers. See all of Steve’s photos, usually design-related with an occasional bias towards railways, here.

Also of note for those interested in church things: Steve’s ‘Small Ritual‘ site. A few graphics picked fairly but not completely at random:

• Should churches be based around big tables?
• What does your church year look like?
• Scalability: what are parishes and denominations in emergence?

…in 1959.

I’m not sure whether the intended readership of this sign are historians, vandals, or funeral attenders, but I like it. There is nothing worse than not knowing when a door was bricked up.

The church in question is St Mary the Virgin, Little Burstead, which is a couple of miles from where I live.

This photograph was brought to you as part of the DW ‘post something on the blog every day even if it is rubbish’ scheme. I can’t see it working myself, but there you go.

Yesterday we trudged through the rain to the Cartoon Museum in London to see the current exhibition, H M Bateman: The man who went mad on paper (pdf link).

Bateman (1887 – 1970) was one of the first to draw cartoons as we know them today, ie an humorous drawing with a funny caption. Until then the drawings had tended to be largely straight, with all of the humour being in a (often lengthy) text underneath. I like the style of much of Bateman’s work – often an entire scene with plenty to see, or a sequence where a comic situation unfolds. He is best known for his ‘The man who…’ pictures, which depicted various social faux pas, usually hapless individual doing the wrong thing whilst onlookers react with horror.

You can see more of his work via the H M Bateman website (click ‘print gallery’). The exhibition is on until 22 July and costs £5.50. Well worth seeing even if (like me) you have books of his work – I hadn’t seen most of them before.

Above: Cartoonist and caricaturist Henry Mayo Bateman (1887 – 1970) works on one of his sketches at his home in Reigate, Surrey. (Public domain)