Here's the inflatable elephant

what I won at Dr Sketchy but I still haven't got a battery for my camera (they aren't that easy to come by in Bromsgrove, you know!) and because he's an inflatable elephant it means that he's a deflatable one too, and as he was in decline anyway, I hastened the process so's I could get him on the scanner which would mean I didn't have to take a cameraic image, and here he is.

I will be reflating him very shortly, and then he can take pride of place in the room covered with papers, the one I laughingly call a studio ...

Dr Sketchy, Coventry

This is the sketchy what won 'Best Sketch of the Night' at Dr Sketchy, Coventry last night. The model had this fantastically expressive face; every now and then you come across someone who can be captured in a few lines and just seem to flow from your pen/pencil/typewriter.

It was a nice evening; on the way there I bumped into Saul Rose, who was about to play a gig just round the corner from the gallery, and Paul Chokran and I caught the second half of it after Sketchy's had finished.

It was good because I'd had two glasses of wine at Sketchy's and I'm not sure if my driving would have been a little erratic if I'd attempted it then. But a nice cup of tea (in a proper mug, not one of those poncy little cups you get) and time out at the gig sorted that one nicely.

Dear Agony Auntie,

My girlfriend dumped me after only three dates and I don't know why. I think we'd have been ideally suited because she has a tumble-dryer, and I'm fed up with drying my socks in the toaster, and I'm sure I'd eventually have learned how to use a condom.

As part of trying to win her back, I've been leaving witty little messages wherever I can on the web - just taking the p***, you know. She hasn't responded. So she must be a slag, or a lezzer, and has a lot of baggage and is childish and has no sense of humour. She hasn't responded to my emails, either, and I did send her one where I told her I'd rumbled her and that's why she's gone quiet.

Well, I've since found out that she was forwarding my emails to her friends, and they were all sitting around laughing at them. Apparently she's also said something like "Well, if I was TRYING to make him look a total plonker in public, I couldn't have done a better job than the one he's managed on his own!"

I am deeply hurt by this. How can I get my revenge without looking like a total plonker?

Yours,

Wendlebury Bandersnatch (aged 17)
xxx

While you're waiting for my elephant ...

Here's a pic of Alex with his monkey. Courtesy of Candee Photography.

Carnival of Creatures at Dr Sketchy's!!!

What a brilliant session this was - lots of fur and stripes and I won an inflatable elephant and Alex Hughes wanted an elephant too but then he saw the monkey and went for that instead! So this is what I dun:


The above was actually my favourite of the whole evening; didn't win a prize for it, but all those luvverly stripes for which brush pens must surely have been made ... and then here's Ditzy Diamond, who you probably wouldn't recognise from this because she's usually to be seen wearing a French maid's outfit:


And, finally, the one which did win a prize:


Unfortunately, when I went to photograph the elephant so I could share it with the rest of the world, I found that none of my camera batteries is still in the land of the living ... so that'll have to wait.

For more pics of this event, please take a look here.

Afterwards, Alex presented me with a strange something which had entered via his letter box - but that, and the elephant, will have to wait for another post!

Wooo-Hooooo!!!!!!

Well I got a phone call yesterday from the hospital, the one where they did stuff to me whilst I was "under", asking me to attend today to discuss the findings. It just goes to show how low our expectations ARE of the NHS, because my first thought was that it must be something dreadful, and it was only later that I realised that it could be that they're actually efficient. And so it was.

Nothing newly untoward, i.e. life-threatening, from their exploratory stuff last week. My internal ladybits are so malformed that they couldn't get to all the areas they needed to see, but since it must have been this way since before I was born I've long ago learned to live with the direct effects. Though they did say that if they ever find untoward thingies again on a routine smear - it's straight to surgery rather than carrying out the less invasive exploratory stuff which is rather restricted in scope. This was the only cloud on the horizon. So I am very pleased about not having ANY of the following:

* Cervical cancer
* Uterine cancer
* Bunions
* Varicose veins
* Gingivitis
* Cauliflower ear
* Housemaid's knee
* Tennis elbow

And that's just for starters! There are loads of nasty conditions I haven't got! Admittedly, my recent tests didn't concern them, but a quick visual inspection by myself was totally reassuring.

Halleluia!

I Just Love This:

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters
by Portia Nelson

i.
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I fall in
I am lost ...I am helpless
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

ii.
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it
I fall in again
I can't believe I am in the same place.
But, it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

iii.
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there
I still fall in ... it's a habit
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

iv.
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

v.
I walk down another street.


I reckon I've got to Chapter iii ...

Illustration Friday - Fearless

This 'Fun Fearless Female' is none other than Lilly Wiffin, whose adventures (along with her Aromatic Armpits) can be followed in Poot! Comic. Well, as of the next issue at least ... order your copy now to avoid disappointment!

Illustration Friday - Cocoon

Bertie had left his cocoon behind, but he could never fully let go of the past ... much to his wife's annoyance.