An interruption in the Comic Relief goodness for a bit of Sunday Express badness...

I've only just heard about this article in the Scottish Sunday Express from 8th March (I know, it shows how keenly I follow the news. I apologise).

There are pictures of the article in question hosted on my flickr (I downloaded them from the tinternet myself, and figure the more places you can find them, the better). View at full size to read the piece in full.
Front Page
Full Article

Basically, it's a standard "ooh, aren't young people terrible. We were never ever like that were we" piece, using Bebo and Facebook profiles for Damning Quotes. Only, in this instance, the point of the article has been to go out and find Dunblane survivors (now that they're 18, and so legal to prey upon), and then criticise them for growing up into real people.

Before I do a generic Blogger Ramble on why this is bad and what I think, here are links you can go to to find more out about the article, and places you can complain to.

• First, here is the Express' contacty complaints page, which is probably the most handy in this situation.
• Bloggerheads has an ongoing back and forth with Derek Lambie of the Scottish Express, information on how Elizabeth Smith MSP's comments were taken out of context. (there are also links to PDFs of the article), and a list of advertisers with the Scottish Express with a template complaint letter you can send to them.
• This is a link to the Press Complaints Comission. The page also has the code of practice which applies to members of the press. You can quote in your complaint which specific aspects of this code you feel have been contravened by the article in question. (I quoted Accuracy for the out of context quote, Privacy and Harrassment)
• It may seem obvious, but the very best way you can complain about this is without succombing to the trap of personal insult. That way your complaint will always be better than their article.
  

Underneath the article is a bit more of a praising one for the Good Dunblane survivors who have gone to Uni. God Bless Them. See how they, unlike the others, are being a credit to some imaginary sense of duty to Do Academically Well that must, obviously, be placed heavily upon a five year old who has been shot in the stomach.

There is, of course, the standard assumption that to be drinking and making mistakes is not actually living life to the full at all, because you'll not get a degree out of it.

Obviously these 18 year olds are living a WASTED LIFE and will never come to any good, whereas the ones at uni are perfect individuals.

Maybe it will turn out that the sainted ones end up having nice middle class lives that do the country credit, and all the others die in a ditch full of meths and smelling of wee. But lets not just go and assume that straight away, eh? There's plenty of room for error and improvement in everyone's life - 18 is a bit young to be able to say "You are Good. You are Bad.", even if you can be sure of what Good and Bad actually are, and then apply them with great confidence to strangers.

Tabloids are forever writing hateful and overly reactionary articles - it's their stock in trade as much as young hot teens (unless they're under 18, in which case it'll be a dirty pedo story, not a topless model). To be honest, you could probably safely find a reason to go to the Press Complaints Comission for 80% of the content of the mirror/sun/express etc.

I'm joining the Up In Arms furore over this one because, honestly, I really think it's horrible, and overstepped the mark by quite a considerable degree. If follow up newspapers, broadsheets and tabloids alike, can report that The Public said a firm "No. Bad. Don't do that" to this sort of reporting, or even just this story in general, then so much the better.

Too much time is spent going for the easy "You're rubbish because you're young and you're doing stupid things" angle. Most of it is inevitable - that's what you do when you're not young anymore; you look at the people who are young and think "I bet I did that better". If you're of an aggressive, bitter, or just plain argumentative state of mind, you shout it loudly, and use words like "shameful" or "disgusting". If you get money writing your opinion, you do the same, only in print, to an audience of millions.

Of all the teenagers that are the subject of Apalling Binge Drinking articles and Teenage Pregnancie horrors, some will, in ten or twenty years, be writing nearly exactly the same stories about nearly exactly the same things in exactly the same newspapers. That's just the way it goes.

But sometimes the articles are too vindictive, or too mean, or too shamefully written. Like this one.

This is the complaint I sent to the Press Complaints Comission:

I am writing regarding the article on Dunblane survivors, to complain in the strongest possible way.

Accuracy:

The piece used a quote from Elizabeth Smith MSP out of context. By bracketing it with quotes pertaining to the Dunblane survivor's sites specifically, it implied she was speaking specifically about the content of the Dunblane survivor's sites, when it was a previous statement on social networking sites in general.

Privacy:

The article has pried into the lives of a group of teenagers for no other reason than to chastise them for overcoming what must have been an appallingly traumatic event in their very young lives.
That their details are up on a social networking site does not mean it's then fine to broadcast those details in a national newspaper, along with a judgmental holier-than-thou attitude.

That they are now happily and confidently making the same mistakes as teenagers all over the world and living life as normal young adults, with all the non-saintly behaviour that entails is surely the best possible outcome of what was a terrible, terrible event.

Harrassment:

To actually TARGET these people because they were nearly shot and killed when they were little older than toddlers is unforgivable.

They did nothing wrong. They were four and five years old. Hopefully their memories of the day are muddled and hazy. So, realising they've turned 18 and are now fair game for some persecution, a journalist going out of their way to say "Oh, look at them. None of them are weeping recluses. They don't cut themselves every day at the anguish of their memories. They have not devoted themselves to the church, or become young community leaders." as if this is some failure to honour a tragedy thrust upon them is, at the very least, extremely unfair.

Not only that, but their names were printed, so that every single Express reader could then go online, find their sites and - if they were in a bad mood, or just feeling vindictive - berate them themselves! What do you think would be more distressing at the moment? A harrowing memory from their days in the first year at school, or a sudden influx of strangers fourteen years later telling them they are an insult to their friends who were shot and killed that day?

I think that they have grown up as normal, fallible teenagers is a credit to their parents, and the community that cared for them after such a shocking and unimaginable event.

To publicly attack, castigate and attempt to shame anyone because they aren't living a life forever focussed on an horrific event that occured when they were four years old is actually unbelievable.

Unsurprising from from an over-reactionary BNP leaflet, perhaps. Par for the course from some kind of irrational evangelical group; but NOT acceptable from a mainstream national newspaper, with a national newspaper's responsibilities. By publishing this horrible, bullying, victimising mess off a non-article, its nasty (and, frankly, disturbing) practise of rooting out a victim simply to make them in some way personally to blame for an attack and murder in their past is condoned and tacitly encouraged. There really is no excuse for it.

(apologies for over-wordy or unnecessary rambliness. It's been a while since I did proper writing...)

Laurie Pink's TwitFlick Drawing Extravagannnnzaaaa

Good day, all!
Would you like a picture drawn, Guvna? Missus?

I shall be drawing pictures until midnight tonight, at the request of those willing to give a cheerful £1 via my Red Nose Day Giving Page.

All the pictures I draw will be uploaded on twitpic and Flickr, with additional drawing commentary via Twitter.

How To Get Your Drawing:

FIRST
Donate £1 (or 2 or 3 or 4, if you would like more pictures) via my Red Nose Day Giving Page. Make sure your name & amount are public.

THEN
Send me a request via Twitter! With your name & the amount you gave on the donation page.
eg: @lauriepink 100 pictures of a circle with legs and a cheeful face, please! Mr.Smiley, £100
(circles with legs and smiley faces are quite easy to draw - there's a tip for you)

I will link to the finished picture on my Flickr & my twitpic with your name. That's your VERY OWN Laurie Pink Picture! You can put it on your webpage, or print it out and stick it on your wall!

EXTRAS:
If you love your picture, I can paint it onto a little canvas for you, for an extra donation of £20 - £40. This is best sorted with an @lauriepink request or Flickrmail (I'll send you my email via direct message on twitter, and we'll sort out a price & canvas size from there).

Also, I have a redbubble account that I shall put some of my favourite/most popular pictures from the day up on as cards and t-shirts, with profits going to Comic Relief.

It truly is an ExtravaGANNNNZAAAAA!

Please spread the word
I shall endeavour to draw ALL the requests that I get in up till midnight tonight. Bear in mind this may take a few days if I get an extortionate amount of requests, but I really will do my best to draw them all.

What shall I ask for?

In case you're all ready and raring to go, but all of-a-dither about a subject to suggest, here is a list of things that I am particularly good at drawing:

Cats, dogs, monkeys, cows, sheep, birds, clouds, chickens, trousers, jumpers, hats, speechbubbles, glasses of drink (wine & tumbler style), cameras, pens, books, combs, earwigs, butterflies, ants (they're just dots really, aren't they? I can do those really well), patterns, eggs, milk, dinosaurs, skulls, banners, flames, ipods, macs AND PCs, wolves, vampires, fleas, pipes, jam, tea, toast, poo, noses, toeses, brains in jars, most things that can be mounted on a stick, pangolins, armadilloes, sunshines and lovehearts.

(This is not a definitive list of everything I can draw. There's lots of other things too. I have an art degree and everything.)

You can see other things I've drawn on my flickr, and view my brief sojourn into the world of video-drawing on youtube, here.

Remember: funny is good, naughty is cool. Anything more is a bit too much for the bouncy and innocent Red Nose Day, and you will be politely asked to suggest something else...

Invest your pound wisely, grasshopper! I look forward to drawing for you!

Helpful URLS
(just in case you missed the links in the main body. I know, it's easy to do when you're excited...)

Red Nose Day Giving Page: http://tinyurl.com/lauriepinkRND
Twitpic: http://www.twitpic.com/photos/lauriepink
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/lauriepink
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurie_pink

Have fun, chaps!

It's ON!

I have been brought low by feeling mankiness, and thus my drawing extravaganza has had to be taken down a peg or two.

Thus the streaming webcam won't be possible (which is just as well, because I don't even have a nice red nose day t-shirt to wear, which makes me sad).

The drawing won't be over 12 hours, for I shall surely fall down and die. I'm going for 10 hours instead, which will start from when I post my next blog, which will be the one I'll link to for proper instructions, and I'll write it as soon as I've done this one (this one works as a little chattery one. The next is, y'knew, instructional)

Tea shall be provided to me by my beautiful assistant, Sj (who is at this moment, at work wearing pyjamas & bunny slippers). Horrid cat breath smells & licky noises by my feline companions & helpful stop-gap suggestions by friends I can poke on twitter and/or any of the three house-children we keep (well, nearly children. Two of them are taller than me already).

The All-But-Finished Plan

The set up (so far)

I shall draw on my mac from 12pm on 13th March - 12am 14th March, scribbling requests received during those hours (with a selection of pre-orders on standby, in case things need a kick-start).

Each drawing will be uploaded on Flickr, progress updates will be rambled on Twitter (pic links on twitter too, naturally).

There shall also be - dan DAAAA! - a streaming webcam! Wheee!
Well, there shall almost definitely be a streaming webcam. It relies on me finding out how to stream a webcam, which should be do-able.


Prices!
£1 per picture (extra money all welcome, of course)
Any picture drawn & painted up on a canvas for £30 to comic relief (I think a4-ish size canvases. Shall have to check out the exact measurements next time I am at the shop)

All requests to be made through my Red Nose Day charity page, so I know the money's gone in. Just be sure to mark 'yes' on the display name & donation bit:

http://www.myrednoseday.com/

(none yet, please!)

I thought of putting a limit of 1000 requests on. A request every five minutes would make 144 requests (assuming I'm finishing every drawing in those 5 minutes, too. Which is quite possible, as they'll be nice simple ones. That's every 5 minutes continuously, mind. I don't think I could do that). Filling 1000 would take a few days/weeks more, but it means mo' money. Maybe 500 would be more sensible limit... Of course, there's nothing to say I'll even get 144 requests, but it's good to be prepared.

All the requests I don't get round to finishing in the 12 hours I could do gently over the next few days.

Or maybe I should make a bit more of a gambling pot... I ONLY draw during the 12 hours, and pick which ones to draw. Or some can get quicker pictures than others & it's bit of a lucky dip. The logistics of this need some more pondering.

I'll write this up much better when all the little bits (web cam & stuff) are proper definited.

Definited - what a fine and not-at-all-clumsy-sounding word! I'll use that one again.

What do you think?

Every year at comic relief time I try and think of something interesting I can do.
Either I can only come up with something so wildly ambitious that I get overwhelmed, have a little sit down & then forget about it, or I can't think of anything.

Or I get distracted by a shoelace. Or a cat. Or a cat playing with a shoelace.

This year I have quite a good beginning of an idea, but it's still a bit pink and amorphous, and I'd very much appreciate any opinions that can help me solidify it into a nice shiny chitinous, um... giant...pink...ant creature.

The Idea:

I'm going to be doing a sponsored draw. Easy peasy! I draw all the time! My plan is to set aside a relatively impressive amount of time (I thought maybe 12 hours, with a break every hour or two hours, to prevent insanity). That's the only firm bit of the idea - the rest is a bit hazy.

I'm doing doodley drawings - nice simple lines (as is my way) & I'll just sit, draw something, finish it, draw another. Back to back, like.

The vital bit is that I want it to be an online interactive thing. What I'm trying to decide is where the money comes from. The best way, I reckon, is to do a drawing in return for a comic relief donation. Something easily manageable like £1 or even 50p.

There should be a nice easy way to donate to comic relief online - if there's a way to do it with paypal or the like, that would be even better. Then I could draw the picture on receiving a copy of the paypal receipt or some such.

As I go, all the drawings will be uploaded to my flickr and linked on twitter, so anyone who wants to can keep track of it (it's important that it can be followed on twitter, as that's my new toy).

My initial ponder was what does the paying charidee punter get out of it? Seeing as everyone is seeing all the requested pictures & so paying for a picture that isn't even exclusive to them.

Having written all this out, I realise that the request itself is what you pay for. I'll put the name of the requestee on the picture, too, so they can always print it out & frame it beautifully at home (I can save hi-res versions of them all, available on request, for nice printing).

Actually, that works quite nicely. I knew if I wrote it all down I'd be able to make it the right way up in my head. All the same, if you've read this and have any ideas or suggestions, let me know.

I'm particularly interested in opinions on its quality as a fundraising stunt. Would you like to see it? Do you think it's entertaining enough to be of interest to the wide world? What about the price? How likely is it that I'll get snowed under with requests? Is 12 hours enough? Should it be 24, or is it unlikely that I'll live through 24 hours of drawing?

---> You should look at the 24 hour comics project to see what happens when people really do work on a comic for 24 hours straight...

I know greater comic artists have worked that way when necessary (a large part of any art industry is always reliant on red bull & sellotaped-open eyelids), but that would be one of the many reasons they are greater.

Actually, if I promise that EVERYONE who requests during the 12 hours gets a picture, but may not necessarily see it go up in the 12 hours, that should cover it nicely. I'll just keep drawing them until they're all done, but it may not be all in that same 12 hour period.
Any overflows I'll work through the next day doing. Most likely there'll not be overflow, but you never know.

Thanks in advance for any handy suggestions/comments/improvements/praise/polite criticism, girls & boys. I really will appreciate it. Even though, yes, I have pretty much rambled through it all already.

Sometimes that's the way it is with advice - just putting all your ideas down on the page/out in the air can be enough to put things in the right order.

A few roaming thoughts to finish with:
•Requests can be uploaded to my redbubble as t-shirts, maybe for an extra £1/50p
•Always the possibility of celeb requests (which raises the profile of the whole thing & brings in more moneycash - woohoo!)
•If someone likes their picture, I can transfer it to a canvas for them for a canvas-picture price (after the whole 12 hour thing, obviously) & donate that price to comic relief also.


Consider me strokey-chin thinking, until we meet again...


++Edit:
Suggestion from @th3maw on twitter to include a suggested item/object in the picture, rather than put a name in: "would look better and make people feel part of it."

Bad Movie Club

Goodness me, I have had a busy few days!

My Twitter followers have nearly hit triple figures and I have won a super secret competition! It's been excellent wicked fun, and the product of being in the right place (twitter) at the right time (last week).

Bad Movie Club was born of Graham Linehan's brain (you know Grahan Linehan - he wrote Father Ted, The I.T. Crowd, and co-wrote the first series of Black Books. Fantastic stuff). The simple premise is a lovely one. And simple, too. Also, it is a premise.

Basically, it was a mass sychronised watching of a bad movie with mates. Only, instead of the front room, it was with thousands of twitterers, via the hashtag #badmovieclub. And, oh, it worked perfectly. The screen ran with comments from "WTF?" (this exclamation applicable to most lines of dialogue) to wry, pithy remarks that made me and Sj cackle like crones. There were few - if any - trolling posts, possibly because the phenomenon spread through word of twitter-mouth (or 'fingers', as I like to think of them), trotting gaily along the grapevine of folks who liked the idea of such a thing; I think I saw one or two not entirely positive comments, and they were mainly by people who were bored or just not understanding what the point of the whole thing was, which is no problem at all.

M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening was chosen as the eponymous Bad Film for the night. This pleased me as I'd heard how rubbish it was, but not watched it yet. Just a few weeks ago, Sj begrudgingly tolerated War of The Worlds with me when it was on telly. I can tell you now, War of the Worlds was a piece of art compared to The Happening.

Yes, so, in the lead up to Friday 13th (nice date for its inaugural run), I drew a logo for Bad Film Club. Beyond all my wahhhhldest expectations, it was properly picked up and put on pages and all sorts. Ace!

Seeing as I have my nice new redbubble account, it seemed churlish not to put the thing on a t-shirt as well (no profit being made on it, because it didn't seem right to take money off people for something that was being cobbled together in such a nice friendly way). I like buying things on t-shirts, I thought. Well, it turns out that other people do too! I know - I was also taken by surprise.It has actually been bought, several times. Now I need to buy one, too, so as not to be the only one without.

Come the night of the 13th there was a 9pm & a 12am showing to choose between. We came in at the 12am one, joining some people who'd already done the 9pm & were ready to go all over again. That's stamina, my friend. Phill Jupitus was also present at the 12am screening, having been getting excited with everyone else in the lead up to the event. I should have mentioned Phill Jupitus earlier, because he was also an integral part of the fun. The Bad Movie Club website had a countdown timer on it & instructions one which part of the screen to pause on, ready for the off. When the timer hit zero, the people hit play. Seamless!

We were watching on my mac laptop, so there was a bit of jigging of tweetdeck/movieplayer/photoshop screens to get it all fitting on right. Photoshop was necessary for me to draw through the film as well, because I do like to draw through things. A few minutes into the film, I had a little drawing epiphany as I realised one of the benefits of watching on the mac was the ability to take screen captures of the film & draw on top of them. Fantastic!

Swift & shaggy though my doodles as they were, they got some very nice feedback & and I had great fun drawing them. I thought I'd get more done, but was consistently distracted by the dubious scripting wonders of the film, and (even better) comments on those wonders being made on Twitter.

Then I gave Twitter a rest for a day or two over the weekend, and returned to find that my drawings had earned me Graham Linehan's super secret prize! Awww, shucks. Also lovely comments on his blog. I feel a special girl indeed.

So, not only have I had a good time, lots of lovely drawing praise, and know that several people shall be walking around with my poo on their chest (not many people get away with that sort of thing in this day and age), but I've won a box set, AND logged onto twitter to find a little pile of congrats tweets from nice people I don't even know.

I've uploaded all my pictures from the evening to my flickr, here.

And here is an article on the bad movie club from The Word magazine website. With familiar picture (wahay!)


So, yes, I have had very nice and productive weekend.

Sj got me flowers on valentines day - I have pink tulips - AND lego Indiana Jones for the DS. That's proper romance. I love her lots and lots. I got Sj this book. She's sat in bed next to me reading it now, and read me out a lovely excerpt a few minutes ago about the differences between "the white man and the black man's brain", when it comes to sex (it's a book of excerpts from The Sexologist magazine,from the 30s to the 60s. That particular excerpt was late '30s). Thank heaven I know now.

In other news - today we went to Pets At Home and looked at the fish. The blue starfish are still there, but the great big bright blue sea slug tumour thing has either found itself a home or snuck off in the night to murder old ladies. I miss it, even though I only met it once.

I have been drawed!

Squeeeee! Look! Look what my mate Benjamino did! He drawed me!



Go to his blog at http://www.furiouspie.blogspot.com
Do it now!

It has an ace name AND ace drawings! Must be because Mr Ben is an ace chap.

Staccato entry with ampersands and quite a few Coraline links.

Last night I dreamed I watched a duckling bite the nose off a chipmunk. First I thought the chipmunk was going to try and bite the duckling, but then the duckling got its beak to the chipmunk and took half its nose off! It was like a little pink false nail coming away, and quite gory.

I was quite relieved though, as at the time I was trying to keep a little batch of baby chicks & ducklings safe as they ran around the garden with all the cats out. Some of them ran straight for our goose (we don't have a goose, but did in the dream. Obviously), and snoodled under it, which was good. I suspected it may be willing to adopt the baby chicks & ducklings as it had recently gone broody, nesting on a ceramic character that was egg-shaped.

Not long after that, I got trapped in the rabbit hutch that the goose was living in & had to call Sj for help. I think the cats may have caught all the chicks, too.
It wasn't one of my more successful dreams. Oh, wait! Sj did get me out of the hutch. That was good.

Here is the evil buttons site, the blog listing the joys of Coraline news in the run up to the film's release, which I have been enjoying. The art around the whole Coraline film is so pretty. However, I am uncertain as to whether the film itself looks dark enough for my Coraline needs.
But it is a film for childrens, thus needs to retain some levity. Then again, Henry Selick is Mr.Nightmare Before Christmas, so talking about children's films not being to dark is a bit of a moot point, there.

Anyway, I still eagerly await seeing it when it opens over here in May, for a film can look all different flavours in trailers, depending on who the trailers are aimed at. If the pre-release stuffs, like the prettiness of the Evil Buttons site and the beautiful Coraline boxes that have been sent out to various bloggers is the best of Coraline, I shall be just as happy, because it really is ever so nice. You can even knit a tiny coraline jumper, like the amazing Althea Crome if you like. OR replace your own eyes with buttons (this one is a particularly beautiful page, an compatible with webcams for uploading pictures to be eye-buttoned. Yum).

Also, the other day I was having a look through the Coraline cast list for the first time and saw that French & Saunders were playing the little old ladies who live with performing West Highland Terriers. It was a piece of casting that made me pleased. Pleased like when I first saw Jennifer Saunders in Muppet Treasure Island. Me & Sj like Muppet Treasure Island a lot. Sj likes it partly because she can mock me over looking a lot like the small boy in it. Of course, the small boy has now grown up to be Kevin Bishop of the Kevin Bishop show, which is brilliant. I think I win that one.

(See how I say he has grown up to be Kevin Bishop as if he is but a wee young lad. He's only a year younger than me)

You know what writing my blog has taught me so far? I haven't written for aaaages. I have been all drawing pictures. Now I have to keep going back cleaning up my clumsy bits, or going back and staring at them going "that reads rubbish. What do I do?". Rusty...word...brain... get your things in the order of the...y'know... stuffs.

That reminds me - my mum's on the home stretch in the latest Septimus book. It's been doing her head in getting it to work right, be in the correct order and make sense all at once. She sounds a lot more sorted now, even though she is still knackered. It's the bit where the book is finished, but needs sorting. I always like it when you've finished a story and just need to jumble. It's all there and down and just wants a bit of hoover, instead of there being walls unbuilt.

Mmm, house metaphores.

Anyway, what am I talking about, sounding all knowledgable? I've not writ a story for ages. I've been drawing cats with little skirts on & speech bubbles saying "bum".


That was going to be the end of today's entry, but I feel I need to tack on an apology for arbitrary ampersand usage. They were being used out of laziness only, and then I thought they looked a bit sloppy (and, let's be honest, lazy), and have gone through replacing them. I think I've caught them all, but I may not have done. It's late now & I'm quite tired. Arrgh! Look! Look! There's one!

I can't even correct it now, because it would totally invalidate my hysterical reaction there. I could delete it all, but look at all the effort I've put into typing these words.

I would feel sad if it all went away. It would be like a piece of stray timeline after someone had been meddling in the past and changed the present & then gone back and they were all on their own in knowing what the original past was like. That's where the ending comes in, when the future is okay again, but what happens to that one person left with knowledge that doesn't actually exist...only, it does exist?

It's a recipe for depression & psychological decline, if ever I saw one. Maybe that's what makes the protagonist of the film the true hero.

Eels, eels, eels, eels

My sister, Lois, is living in Japan at the moment, doing a three month intensive language course (learning Japanese, as it's less well geared up over there for learning French). Yesterday she went to Akihabara, which is known as Akihabara Electric Town & where you go for anything & everything electronic, anime, computer & otaku ("Otaku is a Japanese term used to refer to people with obsessive interests, particularly anime, manga, and video games." -wikipedia).

Basically, it is Lois Heaven. Anyway, she was writing about her first encounter of miles upon miles of porn on one floor of a 7 floor store (one of which was a robot floor, just for robots).

Being familiar with the dubious wonders of Hentai (Hentai is a Japanese word that, in the West, is used when referring to sexually explicit or pornographic comics and animation, particularly Japanese anime, manga and computer games. The word "hentai" has a negative connotation to the Japanese and is commonly used to mean "sexually perverted" -wikipedia.), I posted her a rambly message in reply on the comparison you can draw with Victorian & Japanese culture & musings about porn & la-de-dah.

During the course of said ramble, I mentioned octopus and eel porn (the porn is of the octopus, not for the octopus. Poor octopuses. I bet they're sad there's no pornographic demographic they can be part of. There is a whole blog dedicated to all things cephalopod, though. It's here. Also Squidoo.com has an I Love Cephalopods page).

Then Sj got the Eels Song from The Mighty Boosh stuck in her head, and I found this picture online (I think you'll agree it's quite aesthetically intoxicating). So today I have discovered that once one has thought about octo-porn of evening, it's very hard to stop thinking about it, in one way or another (possibly this is the secret of its success).

Hm? Oh, yes. I was actually looking for octopus porn on Google Images when I found this picture (from the Posthumous Blues blog, 21st oct '96. "The official blog of Mat Tonnies, author, futurist and fortean", which is worth a read. Isn't it good when you find interesting sites through idle image searches?). Just out of curiosity, you understand. I'd recommend you don't follow suit unless you're REALLY interested (or unavoidably curious, now that I've written about it). It's the same sort of risky endeavour as image searching 'goatse' (I'm not going to start explaining that one for the uniniated - you can read about it here, in its wiki article).

Oh! Related to that, here is Pornotron. Not as dodgy as it sounds, it's a googley spin-off page that gives you only the images that you don't get with safesearch turned off (and no others). Go and play on it - a lot of the pictures have no adult content at all, but associated words like 'hot' and 'breast' (a very cheeky photo of, um, fried chicken).

Don't accidentally type in 'pornotron.com' if you're typing it in by hand, it's pornotron.org. The former is actually a porn site with a front page full of pictures you don't want to look at over a nice cup of tea. Again, not one to type 'goatse' into. I'm just warning you, that's all. Warning you by putting the idea in your head. What a lovely theme I am establishing for this post!




I will make it nicer:

There. All better. (from cuteoverload)


Anyway, next!

You probably need to watch this video. If you are already familiar with Hurra Torpedo, you will hopefully understand my eagerness to share. We only just found out about them yesterday. If reading the following series of words either peaks your interest, intrigues, thrills, fascinates or perhaps even faintly horrifies you, then you really should click on the vid link:
Bonnie Tyler • nylon tracksuits • percussive kitchen appliance destruction • gratuitous bum crack action • impressive hair & beard ensemble • swedish musical style.

Hooked yet?
Tut. You're too fickle. Go and have a look anyway.


Finally, here is Tontie. A game I got stuck to a year or so ago & recently rediscovered. So far I've only played it once. Though that once did have ten continue options, so maybe it counts as more than once. It's actually really really good, if you have a need to learn the little extended number pad on keyboards so that you can use it without looking. I had a terrible moment when I first played it on my laptop & didn't notice that I could press num lock to make a block of numbers & letters into a psuedo-extended number pad. I thought I may have lost Tontie forever. Once you have played it, you will understand.

Um, probably.

Have a look at the other games available too, particularly the 'grow' games, if you've not encountered them before. It's all about doing things in the right order. Oh, and if it IS driving you mad, you can cheat & look it up online. Which I have only done once, as an alternative to biting through a pillow and going "Gnarrrrrrr!".

Ending on a picture I drew a while ago, suitably raunchy to match my porno theme...

First T-shirt sale!

Someone has bought one of my t-shirts!
It was a Pirate Cat tee, which is a personal fave.
I have earned nearly two and a half pounds today. OoOOoooh...

2nd Post with bonus WORDS! Also, t-shirts & money musings

Today I shall actually write a blog with words, though it would be unfair not to put a picture in as well, so I shall find a nice one in my drawing folder on the mac & upload that.

First, news of merchandise - mmmmm!


Laurie T-shirts are available for the very first time!

Through RedBubble, which is perfect for my needs, as it asks nothing more complicated or organsation-heavy than an image upload. I am so very rubbish at doing more than that, thus this suits me to the ground for first t-shirt try-outs. The format is limited to one image within a pre-defined space on the front of the tee but, for the simplicity, I'm quite willing to forgo the opportunity of massive all-over prints and doodles on the sleeve.

So far they're doing quite nicely, with several comments and quite a few favouritings. My first tee (arse monkey. Great word for faux-tourettes sufferers) even got onto the featured page when it was uploaded, which was lovely. It's probably on the 2nd or 3rd page by now, but the interest it got me while it was on the first page did me good. Yesyes.

No sales yet, mind. I'd like a sale. It'd make me feel quite special, AND earn me £3!


Working on the new Trof Times for Feb at the moment (Trof are three bars in manchester, that you can learn more about at their website. Watch out! It's a noisy link), which is very welcome indeed, as I'd forgotten they weren't doing one for January & missed the cash very much indeed. BUT the month without did make me realise that I've come to rely on my monthly Trof income (which I'm very fortunate to have) which I shouldn't be relying on so much for, as all things, Trof Timeses are transient & one day will no longer there. Also, that it's too easy to get stuck in a rut & be doing the same stuff all the time, even for very little money. So I'm officially finding an agent now. No, really, honest. This will make my mum very pleased.

There's probably an excellent argument against getting an agent, as a potentially hip young street artist (though I am at the very edge of that definition, I think). Certainly managing my own jobs will get me that extra 10/20/30% (I forget what the current going rate is, and should perhaps check that, to avoid being diddled by the unscrupulous). However, if it bypasses me having to search for and organise jobs, that's money worth paying, I reckon. For, as previously mentioned, I am dead rubbish at that.

Also, agents talk you up a bit, and set decent prices for things. Half, if not three quarters of any artist's success in this world does tend to be down to their ability to self-publicise. Mum (who has spent most of her working life as a freelance illustrator) is constantly telling me that to price your art low is all very well, but by doing it you also lower the value of your work in the eyes of those you're trying to sell to. It's very true, and all a bit of a balancing act. Unfortunately, it's a difficult thing to price one's own stuff up higher, particularly if you need money enough that the possible loss of a sale is a worse prospect than a sale that brings in less cash.

Of course, if you're willing to play the bluff and say bollocks to a lost sale, the raised price will be all the better if and whatever work in question it is DOES sell. Thus you become someone who sells in a higher price bracket. Thus you get attention from those who buy in a higher price bracket. Thus your work does indeed become worth more. Thus you over use 'thus' in a blog post, and start to sound foolish.

Today Laura (11) has two friends over, both of whom come from clean & lovely but smokey households. I wonder if "smoking makes your kids smell funny" would work as an anti-smoking ad campaign.

Finally, some good stuff I've been perusing/using as displacement activities:

Neil Gaiman's Journal & Twitter.
By the law of averages there must be someone who hates him and all that he does, but they've probably confused him with L. Ron Hubbard. Easily done, I believe. Scienctology & Sandman both start with S.
Following the tale (ho! nearly an intentional pun) of his dog-with-a-poorly leg has been most entertaining. And pleasing, because the dog is getting better.

Steampunk Vader Mask

Yum. Find it here.
(via)

The Universal Comedy Flow Chart




Full size here

Also:
The Heavy Metal Band Names Flow Chart
Things You Say During Sex Flow Chart
All from comic vs. audience.

1st blog post, as presented by dino & dino cat. And hexabee.