Say no more about it.
The Prime Minister is going to Washington for one of his ‘reward’ visits for not rocking the boat. Demands at home are that he rocks the boat this time about standing off the horrors in the middle east, but will he dare do it in public?
Nah, thought not.
Here’s a belated report on the goings on at the Second Liverpool cartoon festival, which is running at the Royal Court Theatre. (Handily close to Lime Street station.)
More than 30 of Britain’s top gagsmiths sent work on the theme of performance thanks to the organisers Bill Stott, John Roberts and Paul Hardman. These three heroes have been trying to establish the festival as a regular event and to tie it in with the celebrations around 2008, which is going to be Liverpool’s year as European capital of culture.
Despite an excellent launch and a fine exhibition in a vast subterranean bar, it remains to be seen whether they can batter down the walls of prejudice which surround cartooning as an art form in Britain.
In the UK it is too often and too easily dismissed as childish and simple, when time spent examining it would reveal in very many cases, the exact opposite.
Of course, those who like to condemn the virtues of childishness and simplicity are usually among the many jaded old adults have lost their own sense of fun and wonder at the world’s absurdities.
Utter misery on the news as the middle east has exploded again.
I liked one piece of reporting I saw in which a Lebanese civilian asked, not for democracy, but merely for the human right to live.
Of course, it applies both sides of that unhappy border
… for the opening night of the annual Comedy Festival on Thursday. I’ve got three cartoons in a show based on the theme of ‘Performance’ at the The Royal Court Theatre.
http://www.liverpoolcomedyfestival.co.uk/
http://www.royalcourtliverpool.co.uk/
Should be fun … I’ll pass on anything fun that I learn while I’m there.
It’s one year since the 7th of July suicide bombings in London.
Commissioned cartoon on the sex lives of politicians – obviously it had to be Prescott. And he made a natural association with the famous poster of Skegness is SO bracing. It makes for a happy image I think.
Charles Clarke’s ‘savage’ attack on the Prime Minister and his successor at the Home Office, John Reid. (Sigh)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5119934.stm
Two British soldiers dead in Afghanistan in area just down the road from maiwand which appears in an earlier post on this blog. We’re in for a long and bloody involvement in Afghanistan all over again.
If anyone’s interested in why this huge and poverty stricken country is so important, I’d like to recommend a book by a historian called Peter Hopkirk. It’s genuinely illuminating and excellent about how and why we came to be involved in this part of the world.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1568360223/102-3580208-4928122?v=glance&n=283155
Someone very kindly asked me to draw them a picture about the official Catholic church position on the use of condoms.
I have to confess, I love this sort of story, a very human ability to ignore the facts on the ground in favour of some strange set of principles. Anyhow, this is what I came up with.
Aside from (I hope) the fun of drawing the Pope fly-swatting condoms, there is of course, also the anger about the strictures that this policy imposes on devout catholics around the world. One of the more serious examples is in southern Africa, where HIV infection is endemic and little pieces of rubber are an effective way of preventing further infections.
