One of the pleasures of writing a blog is having intelligent conversations with people who visit. It does me some good to have my opinions challenged in a way that’s largely consequence-free and where I’m in no more trouble than a slightly bruised ego when I get things wrong. The downside of this is that […]
Continue ReadingOkay. No more Benadryl for me. The hay fever was terrible, but this sleepiness is worse. I skipped a dose yesterday to ensure I didn’t sleep through the podcast, but I took one just before I went to bed last night, thinking that the effects would have worn off by the morning. They hadn’t. Holy […]
Continue ReadingYesterday didn’t go as planned. Just after I blogged about intending to spend my day drawing, I got a delivery through the post. It was some hay fever tablets I’d ordered after finally accepting all the weird symptoms I’d been experiencing the last few weeks (sore eyes, sneezing, pressure in my ears) were explained by […]
Continue ReadingThis is a blog so you’ll have to excuse it if it occasionally follows the rough contours of my mood. I got up today feeling like I have nothing interesting to say. “Hmm, when has that ever stopped you?” I hear you ask. Yet I really don’t feel like writing. It could just be the […]
Continue ReadingA new piece from me, yesterday, on what I think is missing from so much of the coverage of Trump in Tulsa. As I sit here today, however, at 11.20am on a Tuesday morning, I’m waiting for the news to break that the lockdown is finally ending. I’m not entirely sure what to make of […]
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Once upon a time, many cold winters ago, there lived a fnigle eater of Shdadt… Or that, I am reliably informed, is how these stories usually begin. Myself, I can’t say that I fully understand this rather ridiculous tradition. After all, everybody knows there was a fnigle eater of Shdadt because, well… Where would Shdadt […]
Continue ReadingBit late today, as I’m always likely be late after a weekend of important political developments. My blog writing always comes after I’ve finished my more serious work, so this morning that meant a 1000 words about Tulsa. I don’t think I approach either my more serious writing or my blog writing any different, except […]
Continue ReadingThree people dead and more in hospital after a stabbing in Reading and the troglodytes on Twitter were bouncing with nervous energy. They needed a name, a nationality, or least a skin colour, before one side would be able to claim the high moral ground. Was it a white nationalist and a member of antifa? […]
Continue ReadingOne of the unintended consequences of publishing that book earlier in the week was that it forced me to think about the collection of new cartoons I was considering put out there. Turns out that this isn’t going to be as easy as I’d hoped… It’s not so much the work – so much work! […]
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A product of my Gag Machine but also, I thought, the best way to end a week which began with a filthy cartoon about Philip Schofield, then developed into a three-day exercise in republishing a book of slightly vulgar but hopefully funny tales (current sales: a hardly surprising zero), and which ended with my experimenting […]
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Whilst looking for some old work which I thought I might as well archive here before I lose it (and discovering that I might have indeed lost it), I came across a directory of old monk cartoons that never made the finished book. I keep finding these directories so I never know which I’ve made […]
Continue ReadingI never take selfies. It’s a rule I have but, I confess, this FaceApp fad I’ve spotted on Twitter did make me wonder what I’d look like as a woman. Yes, yes, I know. Stop the giggling at the back and don’t claim you’ve never wondered about the whole opposite-gender thing yourself. I didn’t exactly […]
Continue ReadingI’m not sure how or when “truther” became the go-to word to describe people who routinely spread lies, but I suspect it’s going to be a word we hear a lot in the coming months. (Quickly checks the OED. First use: 2005, in the alt.fan.gene-scott usenet group, during a discussion about the government’s “involvement” in […]
Continue ReadingIt’s been a busy day. I wrote a new piece for Reaction, about the disclosures in John Bolton’s new book. Link here. I’ve also added a link to that other book I shall not name over on my Books Page. It still feels weird putting this book back out there. I’ll probably regret it in […]
Continue ReadingWhy Dunciad.com?
It’s a cool domain name and it was available. Yes, I know. Available. Crazy, isn’t it?
Really?
Yes. It also helps that it’s also my favourite satire written by Alexander Pope, one of the most metrically pure English poets who also knew his way around a crude insult or two. If you’ve not read it, you should give it a try.
So this is satire, right?
Can’t deny it. There will be some. But it’s also an experiment in writing and drawing, giving work away for free in order to see how many people are willing to support a writer doing his thing. It’s the weird stuff that I wouldn’t get published elsewhere in this word of diminishing demands and cookie-cutter tastes.
