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.

Continuing to explore issues of religion and spirituality...

It's a very serious place, Puflet Palace. A place for in-depth political comment. A place where the future of the planet is fleetingly taken into consideration. And, above all, a place where the myriad paths to spiritual enlightenment can be explored ... stumbled upon ... you get a stone in your shoe ... etc.

Anyway, it can be useful to express these themes in a visual way, and so here's a picture:

More stuff that's been in the news ...

Further to obesity being as big a threat to the planet as climate change, I heard today that the population of the UK is growing at a rate which will endanger food supply by 2050.

My first response to the information that the population was growing was along the lines of 'Well, this isn't really news, is it, because the population would have to grow if we're to achieve our target of 50% obesity by 2050'. But then I realised that I had misinterpreted the message. Not that the population was growing, but that there would be MORE PEOPLE. And that there won't be enough food for them all.

But surely won't that solve the obesity problem ...?

(I cannot bring myself to use the term 'obesity time bomb' as the mental pictures this conjures up are too horrifying to contemplate.)

Illustration Friday - Trick or Treat!

The famous sculptor, Jack O'Lantern, is here shown crafting his ideal woman.  Now, is this a treat for him, or a trick designed to mislead his arch rival, Hal O'Weenlantern?

There is no truth in the rumour that he was inspired by the activities of Chris from the Raven Madness blog, who spends much of his time crafting ideal women.

This is what I dun at the weekend

I went to Audley End House with Chichi and Clare, whose links can be seen on the right hand side. The house is rather tremendous and they've got great gardens up there too. You can only see the house as part of a guided tour, and we got there ten minutes before the last one started. It was full. Actually, that was OK as there were so many people in the same situation that they fitted in an extra one. That was the good news.

However, it being the end of the season an' all that, they were 'putting the house to bed'. We were given a special tour of parts of the house not normally accessible to the public - servants' quarters and suchlike. Usually when you see rooms like this, they have furniture in and a 'mock-ups' of what the original places would have looked like. Not this time! No furniture, wallpaper hanging off in sheets, huge damp patches and large areas of missing plaster - in fact it looked semi-derelict. We did have a little chuckle about it - they might as well have
advertised the dustbins, skips and septic tank as bits that the public didn't normally get to see. It did make you realise what a mammoth task the maintenance of these properties must be, though.

Anyway, here's a pic of me and Chichi, taken by Clare, shortly before we were metaphorically kicked out the greenhouse!  (For those of you who have never met me, I'm the bigger one with the redder hair!)

Woo-hooo! We're starting to hit the streets!

This piece has been bought by Oxford Daily Information, which was quite nice because I've only just started sending this sort of stuff out to strangers, and this was my first 'shot'!

Right - onwards and upwards ... got some more very silly stuff to do ...

Illustration Friday - Grow!

Willie Winkie was really committed to personal growth;  here he is undergoing Cognitive Behaviour Therapy.

But the words of wisdom here expressed by young Willie originate from the (Vauxhall) astral traveller himself.