Chatting with Rob about Philip Schofield (in my previous post) reminded me that I’d drawn a cartoon strip last year that I’ve never made public. There’s a good reason for that. I’m sure there are cartoonists out there far more obscene than I am (in fact, I’m certain of it) but if you like my […]
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Wrote too much yesterday (my statue piece on here and that Reaction article) and I’m still a bit rough (sinusitis) so I’m going to take it easy today, perhaps draw or read a book. Have a new doodle to fill the space.
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Affected by pollen yesterday, my sinuses flared. I blame lockdown. The upshot was that I didn’t do a thing. Couldn’t write jokes. Didn’t feel funny. No mood to draw. Just felt lousy. I eventually went to bed and watched two films. I’m a fan of Community and especially Ken Jeong, so I thought I’d see […]
Continue ReadingAn example of a very modern problem which, of course, begins on Twitter… It was over there that I read a “fact” which was so good that I had to verify it. Martin Rowson, always a great source of political stories, quoted something he remembered reading by Geoffrey Wheatcroft about the young Winston Churchill defacing […]
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My blog is unusual, I guess, in that I’m not entirely preoccupied with one kind of work. I write but I also draw, which probably means that people who enjoy my writing hate my drawings or visa versa. I try to cater to both audiences (tiny, minuscule, non-existent though they are) but that can be […]
Continue ReadingI’m beginning to regret mentioning education in the last podcast. I seem to be getting nothing but criticism from people who believe they understand my life better than I know it myself. The fact that I think reading is taught poorly in schools and that students should be introduced to a wide range of material, […]
Continue ReadingI missed the two-month anniversary of the blog which happened sometime last week when I was giving myself anxiety attacks over the Dominic Cummings story. Well, okay, “anxiety attacks” isn’t entirely the truth but I was feeling a bit Henry Fonda in Twelve Angry Men. I didn’t want Lee J. Cobb to shout at me. […]
Continue ReadingEvents overnight in Minneapolis ran ahead of my ability to keep track. It meant that when I sat down this morning to write a piece about them, I was faced by a staggering number of facts, details, and narrative threads that I struggled to contain within a simple linear argument. The insanely quick news cycle […]
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Lord Sumption is at it again, writing from his place at the high table as one the UK’s top jurists… And, yes, it’s important to note that I did write “top jurists”. I didn’t write the country’s top epidemiologist, virologist, data modeller, or mathematician. Nor is he an economist, behaviouralist, or even a scientist of […]
Continue ReadingI’m back. A few jobs done but I’m not in a mood to draw. Having one of those: “what’s the point” days. I know I moan too much about blogging — though it’s not the activity as much as the lack of feedback that gets to me — but it’s useful as a place to […]
Continue ReadingIn The Mail on Sunday, this week, Peter Hitchens again writes about what he calls the “Great Panic”. He complains that those that challenge him “choose to abuse me, often with lies, personal smears and swearwords.” He goes further: “Your childish, intolerant reaction has strengthened me in my conviction that mine is the better case. […]
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.
