Jumped

Kris Carter, colourist for Jump Leads is currently recuperating in hospital and so the latest pages have been posted, sans colour.

In order to reassure Kris that his job is safe, this is my attempt at colouring in Jjar's artwork.

Page 12:


Page 13:


Get well soon, Kris.

Marathen

Thousands of people are running the thirty-first London Marathon today. I'm not, I got it out of my system last year, but I wish them well.

Last year's event raised millions of pounds for charity and saw 41 world records broken. Here's to more of the same...

Shakespeare Shuffle

A week from today at 2:30pm, I'll be taking part in one of Chris Tranchell's 'Shakespeare Shuffles', a collection of scenes from the works of Shakespeare. Exploring the link between two Williams, this one is called Topsy And The Bard, as the scenes selected have been chosen because they mostly have a link to William Morris, nicknamed Topsy (he's the one on the right, below).



Some were favourites of his and some are parts he played himself. Fittingly the performance is taking place at the meeting place of the William Morris Society.

The venue is:
Coach House,
26 Upper Mall,
Hammersmith,
London
W6 9TA

Black Squadron

Adam and Joe have recently returned to the BBC6Music airwaves. Those that listen live to the show's first half hour are dubbed: Black Squadron. Members of Black Squadron are assigned a task to perform, usually in the form of an instruction that is open to interpretation and then given the duration of a song to get it done.

Despite listening to the show for a long time, I've only managed to be part of Black Squadron twice. For various reasons, I've been too Slack Squadron the rest of the time.

To celebrate the return of Adam and Joe to BBC6Music, here are both my Black Squadron efforts to date, the instruction followed by the photo:

'Human Christmas Tree':

These are my feet and this is my T-shirt. Although this is not necessarily how I wear it. Other Human Christmas Trees, can be found here.

'Unusual Sandwich':

Sarah named this one Dalek Bread. Other Unusual Sandwicherie here.

Go And Tell It To The Trees

I was reminded of these whilst wondering if I had overwatered the plants on the kitchen windowsill. This was the first time I was in a newspaper, eighteen years ago, namely The Wantage And Grove Herald:



I don't know why I was chosen out of the assembled schoolchildren as the poster boy for digging, but it certainly wasn't because of my horticultural expertise. The breaking news also appeared in The Oxford Mail and these girls are presumably now aged 24 and 23 respectively:

Carruthers Camera #11

Another batch of photos for the Carruthers Blog:

I don't recommend taking photos in children's play areas when they are being used by their target audience: children. All Aboard was taken in Victoria Park in London when it was well and truly empty.

Invincible was taken in a bathroom in Saltaire.

Guarantee was taken out of the window of a bus on the way out of London. It's got rudeness in it, so naturally I put it in a post regarding the sex therapist sketch.

Where Theres A Maim... is a photo of the window of a personal injury solicitors in Bradford. With grammar as good as this, how can you go wrong?

Taken in a hotel nearly in London's Russell Square, Turn Me Over exposes the practice of turning the mattress in hotels quarterly.

Censussed

This isn't an April Fool's Day joke, which is the least funny way for an April Fool's Day joke to start.

Up and down the UK households have been filling out Census forms. One of the questions on the form requires that you describe what you do in your job. Here's my answer:



Now although I'm posting it here today it's not an April Fool's Day joke, but I like to think that in a hundred years time it'll look like one.

In 1851, Queen Victoria took part in the census, recording her occupation as "Queen", while Prince Albert was listed as the head of the household. Ten years later this was reversed and he was listed as "Husband".

Over the years people have volunteered their occupations as "sailor's wife and brothel keeper", "professional wizard" and a "retired smuggler". William McGonagall's occupation, is listed in the 1891 census as "poet", with quotation marks added afterwards by a cynical census taker.