Illustration Friday - Excess

Guvverment Departments are increasingly relying on e-mail, and this has led to an excessive build up of  traditional post.

There's only one more of these subversive cartoons left to appear on here, and I'm hoping to get that all done and dusted very soon.

Here's another one ...

This is the second of a series of four.  Bureaucracy is causing me serious concern at the moment ...

Yet another ... erm ... mistake on the part of Guvverment Offishuls

Personal details of 25,000,000 people fail to arrive and are lost in the ether... the best we can hope for is that they've ended up in one of the rooms full of unopened mail which are another feature of guvverment departments!  Merging the Inland Revenue with Customs to create another unwieldy, overcentralised bureaucracy was a bit of a master stroke, but then getting 
rid of 25% of the staff required a level of genius worthy of Lewis Carroll!  Well done Gordon Browntrousers!

Anyway, I'm getting increasingly alarmed at the prospect of ID cards and am therefore fighting back in the way I know best;  here is the first of a series of postcards I'm designing for the NO2ID Campaign:

Illustration Friday - Superstition

Cecily was always very careful not to step on the cracks between paving slabs.  Someone at school had told her that the bears would get her if she did, and they may well have had a point.

Just a quick rant before I start thinking about Illustration Friday

On the ward at the hospital.  Art group going well.  Nurse comes up and says that the patients would like to do some Christmassy stuff in the coming weeks, and she's made a list:  paper chains, Christmas tree decorations, and can the cookery group make mince pies?  Great stuff.  I think up a few things of my own, too, and visualise a really fun display where the patients can participate, with all the benefits which this entails; and can see the results of their labours, with all the positive self-esteem which this entails; and all the team work which will really help them when they go back into the community.  Lovely jubbly.

Had meeting this morning with Head of Nursing Staff, who wanted to know our ideas for stuff we could do on the wards.  When I raise the above, she responds ' I'm not a party pooper, but' ... (had you noticed that when people say things like 'I'm not a stupid w****r, but ...'  THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT THEY ARE BEING?) Health and Safety won't allow that ... burble ... burble ... mutter ... mutter.  I'm waiting to hear back what won't be allowed by this dysfunctional organisation which has banned more activities than the Taliban ...

In the meantime, I've a good mind to get the patients to paint on the wall something along the lines of 'I hope you like this colourful display because that's all you're getting in the way of Christmas cheer because of the painful jobsworths at the HSE'.  I can see that some of the patients would probably enjoy the activity.

Ok, now who do you think REALLY has the mental health problem here?

P.S.  It's not me, now I've got that out of my system!

Illustration Friday - Scale

The musicians are practising their scales,  much to the horror of the robbers lurking inside the house.  (They sort of decrease in scale, too).

What do YOU call this game?

In the cartoon below, 'Jehovah's Agnostics', the characters are knocking on someone's door AND RUNNING AWAY.  When I was a kid, we called this game 'Knock Down Ginger';  Valerie Walsh has referred to it as 'Doorbell Ditch' - but there must be loads of regional variations.

So, all of you who are acquainted with this annoying practice (and, indeed, may have done it yourself!) - what do you call the game of knocking on the door and running away?

Illustration Friday - Hats

Here are some recent headlines:

'Heads roll in cost cuts at BBC'
'Heads roll in wake of US meltdown'
'Heads roll in Spanish finance scam'

All these rolling heads have led to a number of homeless hats. Here Francine is building up a collection.