“I can see your problem. You can draw cartoons but you can’t think of any decent jokes.” That was the very first thing I read this morning. And I mean: the very first. And it was directed at me… And you might wonder why I sometimes struggle with confidence? Yes, it’s Saturday and I *almost* […]
Continue ReadingI try to avoid using Twitter but I have two problems. The first is that I like it as a source of news. The second is that I like to keep in touch with people I perhaps naively think I know and like. The fault with the platform – and perhaps all social media platforms […]
Continue ReadingI under-blogged yesterday, if there’s such a thing and I’m not sure there is, but only because I was too busy writing two pieces for Reaction, one on the new kind of political convention (spoiler: I like them) and then a piece on the arrest of Steve Bannon (spoiler: only the best people…) Today I […]
Continue ReadingWas up until a stupid hour watching the Democratic convention. I’m not sure why except it never feels right catching it on Youtube the next day, where there’s too much temptation to fast forward a bit, which always turns into fast forwarding so much you effectively didn’t watch any of it… Perhaps that’s why I […]
Continue ReadingA new piece by me over yonder, talking about the US Postal Service. Today I’m going to spend more time drawing but not simply because I need the practice. I find pulling faces around to see if I can find a caricature quite relaxing and I definitely need a little of that after the whole […]
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It’s been an odd few days since I cleaned out ten years of emails from my old email account. If you remember, I mentioned that there were probably 38,000 emails from eBay alone that I had to delete. What I didn’t mention was that, as a result, I had to contact a certain organisation about […]
Continue ReadingCrashed into Monday morning with all the finesse of a cyclist with wet leaves clogging his brakes. It’s 5pm and only now do I have the time to sit down and blog. I expected to be doing this over my breakfast. So, apolgies for that and what will be a slightly rambling post. I’ve already […]
Continue ReadingPositively chilly today. It’s 18 degrees, cloudy, and rain (if not thunderstorms) are predicted. [Literally, as I publish this post, the rain arrives… Beautiful!] I could sense it was coming. Yesterday I could not wake up. And I mean: I. Could. Not. Wake. Up… I think it was some deep physiological response to the changing […]
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I bought a book. In fact, I blew all my Waterstones points on this sucker. I couldn’t resist. I tried to resist. Believe me. I kept telling myself that I didn’t need this in my life… But come on, I’d reply. It’s by Oliver Stone: the guy who wrote Midnight Express and Conan The Barbarian, […]
Continue ReadingMax asked this in the comments and I thought it might make a decent blog post. The simple answer is that, in my eyes, American politics is still rooted in the big ideas of freedom and democracy. British politics, for all its complications, is mundane in its breadth of thinking. There are some big ideas […]
Continue ReadingI’m struggling to write today, though that has been true for most of the week. The vibe hasn’t been there, which often happens when I’m keen to get back to the drawing. Part of today’s indifference might be due to my just sitting down and watching some of Prime Minister’s Questions. It’s not something I’ve […]
Continue ReadingI lost my internet (and hence my reason to live) for much of yesterday, throwing out my plans for the day… Virginmedia are generally reliable but they have lousy fault reporting. Their system status doesn’t actually pinpoint if their engineers are working on the local network, so when the system does go down, it’s too […]
Continue ReadingI’ve not followed the career of Ben Shapiro except by accident. He’s one of those people whose opinions pop up on social media and have generally led me to think of him as a walloper with spectacular means for self-promotion. Last night I only noticed him because he’d posted two maps of the US, challenging […]
Continue ReadingAfter a few stupidly long days, I’ve finally got the first of my two new cartoon collections live on Amazon. What’s more, if the technology is working, you should see an ad at the top of the page. I’m now finishing off the second volume whislt watching one of my favourite feel-good movies… Muppets Most […]
Continue ReadingMy brain must be particularly fogged today. I browsed the day’s headlines and I’m sure it said that Ian Botham is heading to the House of Lords. I know it can’t be true. His elevation has everything to do with Brexit, apparently, but Brexit doesn’t figure into why he’d be such a bad choice… I […]
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.
