Matt Buck’s Hack Cartoons Diary

A new drawing for campaign group No2ID.

The Times Educational Supplement is reporting this week that schools are being asked to get all their pupis to fill in a personal qestionnaire on the behaviour of their parents. I’m reproducing the intro to the frontpage story below – and also the cartoon I was asked to draw about it.

> Heads shun ‘Big Brother’ Ofsted survey asking 10-year-olds if they get drunk and if mum works.
Pupils as young as 10 are being asked personal questions, including how often they get drunk and whether their parents have paid jobs, in an Ofsted survey.
The education watchdog has told teachers they do not need parental permission before children complete the online questionnaire because it is anonymous.
But pupils are being asked for their full home postcode.

Anyone else find this slightly worrying? Ofsted are supposed to be an educational standards board – not an arm of social services.

… is published here.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAkhdQ04kzU]

Here’s a short video interview with Bob Mankoff, cartoon editor of The New Yorker. Generally, cartooning isn’t big on prestigious things, but being cartoon editor of the New Yorker is probably about as close as it gets. Please try and ignore the fact that the clip is at least in part, trying to associate a IT firm with the essential coolness of getting to draw for a living.

Here is a link to a fantastic interview with one of Britain’s most outrageously gifted cartoonists, Martin Honeysett. Obviously, rather than getting admired here, he had to go to Japan to get interviewed.

I particularly enjoyed this Jules Feiffer quotation that Honeysett cites;

“Jules Feiffer once said that ‘outside of basic intelligence there is nothing more important to a good cartoonist than ill will.’ “

>-)

The UK will be building a new generation of nuclear power stations.

My colleague Royston Robertson has kindly posted details of some links to pictures and video of the recent Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival at which we both worked.

There are some details on what I did there here, here and here.

Although I’m told I ought to warn you about the hat which appears.

British Airways are running a green audit for their information management team.
[Story from Computing newspaper]

Now this is a scary thought if you’ve spent anytime working in the traditional print media. A link that is well worth a read