Issue 20. April 2006The magazine of the Federation of Cartoonist’s Organisations, UK section.

TheFOGHORN

THE FOGHORNIssue 20 - April 2006

Published in Great Britain by FECO UK

FECO UK CONTACTS

President (Caretaker)

Andy Davey tel: +44 (0)1223 517737 email: feco@andydavey.com

Secretary

John Roberts tel: +44 (0) 1565 633995 email: john@mad-badger.com

TreasurerFoghorn Editor

Tim Harries tel: + 44 (0) 1633 780293 email: tim@timharries.co.uk

Webmaster

Keith Spry email: Keith@sprycartoons.fsnet.co.uk

Foghorn Sub-Editor

Bill Stott tel: +44 (0) 160 646002 email: billstott@lineone.net

International Liaison Officer

Roger Penwill tel: +44 (0) 1584 711854 email: roger@penwill.com

Web info

FECO UK website:www.fecouk.org.uk

FECO Worlwide:www.fecoweb.org

New Editor. New Danger. Welcome one and all to a brand new bumper sized Foghorn, belched forth from FECO UK’s secret lair (Newport, actually). Yes, this is my first Foggy as Editor, after getting the job through a careful selection process known as ‘rock, paper, scissors’. Huge thanks must go to the outgoing Ed, Keith Spry, and I’m extremely grateful for the hard work he’s put into the Foghorn over the years, making it a truly excellent read. A tough act to follow, so no pres-sure there then .....Happily, in another round of FECO musical chairs, Keith’s taken over from me as the new Webmaster. Be sure to check out our newly re-jigged website at www.fecouk.org.uk - a good chance to see if your members page needs updating. As you may have noticed in the contacts list on the left, there are new additions to the FECO UK committee and very welcome they are too. John Roberts is back on board as Secretary (“Just when I think I’m out, they pull me back in!”), Bill Stott is the new Foghorn Sub Editor, so there’ll be plenty to look forward to in future issues. The newly created role of International Liaison Officer has been filled by Roger Penwill who I’m sure will do us proud. If anyone else feels they want to help or get involved in any capacity, feel free to email any of the committee. Onwards and Upwards!

Anyway, hope you enjoy this issue of the Foghorn. We’ve got an excellent front cover courtesy of Gerard Whyman, an interview with Pete Dredge, Tayo Fatunla exploring ‘Our Roots’, articles from Bill Ritchie and Bill Stott, plus a variety of silliness. Letters are very welcome, so write in with your views, thoughts and bribes.

Tim Harries, Foghorn Editor.

PS: Just a quick note to say Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival is almost upon us. (see below). If you’re attending, please feel free to drop by and say hello, I’ll be on the lookout for Foghorn contributions from the festival, so any snaps or articles you think may be of use, pass them on. Cheers m’dears!

Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival - this just in!

Today (1st April 2006) the first two exhibitions of the 2006 Shrewsbury Interna-tional Cartoon Festival were launched by the Deputy Mayor at Rowley’s House, the town’s Museum and Art Gallery.“Europe - the BIG idea” is a new exhibition featuring 48 cartoons on this theme from Steve Bell, Martin Rowson, Peter Brookes, Dave Brown, Alex Hughes, Peter Schrank, Les Gibbard, John Jensen, Morten Morland, Richard Cole, Mark Reeve and, of course, FECO UK’s Andy Davey. Andy was responsible for badgering his political cartoonist peers into submit-ting their work to create this excellent selling exhibition. Five cartoons were sold within 90 minutes of the exhibition opening.The other exhibition features nearly 40 cartoons by German cartoonist Peter Ruge. These large, colourful and rude works are unique in the manner in which they have been created. Peter makes them out of fabric, with black machine sew-ing replacing ink lines. The result is stunning, memorable and unlike anything you will have seen before (unless of course you have seen his previous exhibi-tions in Stuttgart, Berlin, Basle and St.Just).These two exhibitions run until 1st May. In two weeks time, three more exhibi-tions open, which will run for 2 weeks, straddling the Festival weekend of 20th-23rd April.If you would like a leaflet listing all the exhibitions and the public events, give the Shrewsbury Tourist Office a bell on 01743 281200.Roger Penwill

What nib/pen do you use?

Bill: Leonardt 256. Currently not widely available, but the same pattern as the dip-in nibs I used at school in the 50’s. Nowadays, they’re gold and shiny and retail at around 70p. When I was teach-ing in Liverpool in the 70’s, thousands and thousands of unused nibs, brown and humble then ,displaced by biros, became available and I got a shedload of them. I used the last in the late 80s.But they can still turn up from time to time. Ink; FW black acrylic - LOADS better than the Indian ink I used to use. Can rot reservoirs a bit.

How do you colour your work?

Bill: Cotman watercolour. Coloured pencil sometimes, if I’ve ballsed up the watercolour. I hate re-drawing. Paper; Anything be-tween 150 and 220gsm.

Do you use any software for your artwork?

Bill: None. I’m not anti computer, it just doesn’t attract me. I LIKE the fallibility of nibs and brushes, and dislike the bland perfection of some of the stuff I see from cartoonists whose work I like, but slightly less now, because of that flatness - not the actual gag, but the drawing which carries it. On the other hand, I do understand that using software might ease things with the end user, and I’m sure that if one of the major dailies said, “Here’s loads of money, but you must use software”, I’d be an instant convert.

Any other secrets?

Bill: Watching “Animation Nation”, because it tells me where all the young cartoonists are. Some of the drawing and use of colour is stunning, and encouraging, too, in the face of some of the dross tolerated by some ignorant editors.[who wouldn’t appreciate it any-way because decent gag cartooning doesn’t sell papers - free CDs do that]. An admiration for Rolf Harris, who not only re invents himself every ten years or so, but actually Can Do. I’m irritated by numbskulls who say, “Oh, so you’re a bit of a Rolf Harris ?” . Watch him paint. He’s really quite good. The knowledge that being a jobbing cartoonist is OK - something to be grateful for in fact. It beats being a senior adviser in B&Q.

CARTOONIST CALENDAR

April and May are chock full of cartooning goodness this year with plenty of festivals and exhibitions coming up. Here’s a few to put in the di-ary.

Shrewsbury CartoonFestival.Exhibitions 1st April - 8th May including Louis Hellman MBE and the festival theme ‘De-grees of Magnitude’.Festival weekend Fri 20 - Sun 23 April includes talks by Steve Bell, Bill Stott and Steve Best.www.cartoonshrewsbury.com

Fizzers: The Alternative Portrait Gallery.Scottish National Portrait Gal-lery.Exhibition featuring carica-tures of Scotland’s leading personalities.7 April, 2006 - 2 July 2006

Pixar: 20 years of animation.Science Museum, London.Go behind the scenes to dis-cover the science and magic that created some of the most popular films ever made.1 April to 10 June 2006.www.sciencemuseum.org.uk

Mars in their Eyes.Cartoon Museum, London.An exhibition by Professor Colin Pillinger and the Car-toon Museum, telling the story of Mars exploration and sci-entific discovery, past, present and future, as seen by cartoon-ists.21 April – 1 July 2006www.cartoonmuseum.org

I understand that you went to Art College – what were you hoping to do after graduation?

Art college was really a buffer zone between leaving school and entering the real world and I had no real longterm plan in place. However, I have only recently become aware of how cartoon-focused I must have been at school having bumped into for-mer schoolfriends in later life who say “I always knew you’d become a cartoonist, one day, Dredgie!”After college I drifted into graphic design in the days of traditional “cut and paste”(I can still smell that Cow Gum!)with cartooning being just a distant pipedream. My lack of design discipline soon told me that graphic design was not a long-term career option and I put all my eggs into one basket and dived headlong into the murky depths of gag cartooning (Classic Mixed Metaphors.No.63). Thank God for Geoffrey Dickinson at Punch who must have recognised some smidgen of raw talent that had been simmering below the surface for all those years.

I see from your excellent website that you were a fan of The Ea-gle and that you were impressed with the likes of Thelwell and Fiddy – were you always inter-ested in cartoons?

I had an interest in all forms of comic illustration in those early days and Frank Bellamy was God for me with his brilliant double-page colour spreads of “Heros the Spartan”etc. I found myself more fascinated in the drawing

and page layouts rather than the storylines. The cartoon work in the Eagle was just another facet of their excellent standard of il-lustration and was particularly

targeted to the schoolboy market of the 50’s and 60’s so I wasn’t too aware of “adult” cartoons at the time. However I can remem-ber being gripped by “Calamity Gulch” and “Useless Eustace” in the Daily Mirror. A little while later I can remember marvelling at the “sparrow” cartoons of Harry Hargreaves in Punch which I used to peruse at the barbers shop whilst waiting for my short back and sides.

Over the years have you seen major changes in the business and if so what?

The demise of Punch magazine has probably been the biggest and saddest loss particularly to the gag cartoonist. I was lucky that it was

Q&A This issue, John Roberts takes off his hat, pulls up a chair and has a chat to

Nottingham’s finest, Pete Dredge.

still around when I first broke into cartooning (indeed it’s existence was the main motivational reason for my wanting to be a cartoonist) . It acted as a nurturing incubator and showcase for many emerging talents and, sadly, there is nothing around at the moment that fulfils this role in quite the same way. And, of course, the arrival of the computer, email and internet have completely revolutionised the way we now work. When I started cartooning I didn’t even have a fax machine so it’s hard to imag-ine how any work was done! I can remember when I used to work for the Radio Times illustrating the letters page and taking dicta-tion from the letters editor down a very poor phoneline. Happy days!

As you are aware I am also involved with the organising of the Shrewsbury cartoon festival and you are the artistic director of the Big Grin (Nottingham fes-tival). Do you enjoy doing this and what is the greatest plea-sure/reward you get out of it?

“Enjoy” is probably the wrong word. There must be some degree of masochism in anyone who decides to take on a voluntary role of this nature. The “you must

be mad” comments from fel-low cartoonists only confirm this theory but, despite all the ratio-nal arguments from family and friends, you buckle under when it comes to the crunch and boldly go etc,etc. Festival organising is a team effort and when initial ideas come off and happen it’s very rewarding. Obviously the first Big Grin was the scariest and most rewarding. I’m a Nottingham lad

and it was great to bring cartoon-ists such as Steve Bell and John Jensen, the VIZ artists and all my other old mates into my home city for the first time. For subsequent festivals the pressure is on to, not only maintain the standard set, but to improve and grow but most of the time it’s a compromise situa-tion where funding rules the roost. As some of you were aware our third Big Grin was a struggle to

“The first Big Grin was the scariest and most rewarding. I’m a Nottingham lad and it was great to bring cartoonists such as Steve Bell and John Jensen, the VIZ artists and all my other old mates into my home city for the first time.”

put on because of a number of reasons, loss of some key team members, funding shortfalls, last-minute venue problems etc, but efforts are being made to restructure the management tea m, install a paid project manager and relaunch in 2007 and I’m now just getting back my enthusiasm for the task ahead .

I understand that you were a successful script writer for the BBC tv’s Not The Nine O’Clock News back in the ‘80’s – did you carry on submitting sketches/ideas to other TV programmes/companies? How did you get into the situation of being a script writer?

It was a chance meeting in the late 70’s with cartoonist Ed McHenry at some gathering or other( a “Duck Soup” editorial meeting I think.) who mentioned he had sold some ideas to the first series of NTNOCN. So I had a go, too. Just submitting

“It was mind-blowing to see my name sandwiched between Richard Curtis and Colin Bostock-Smith on the Not The Nine O’Clock News credits. I have the BBC tapes on video and still get a thrill re-running the shows even now. What a saddo!”

scenarios rather than scripted copy. They took about a dozen over a period of time and it was mind-blow-ing to see my name sandwiched between Richard Curtis and Co-lin Bostock-Smith on the credits. I have the BBC tapes on video and still get a thrill re-running the shows even now (what a saddo!) This was 1980 and appeared to be my “golden age” period (a fleeting,flickering phase that soon faded into the routine hand-to-mouth existence I now lead!). I had only been cartooning for four years and I decided to concentrate on draw-ing for Punch, Private Eye, Pent-house, Mayfair etc so the TV stuff fizzled out after the rejections became more regular! In hind-sight I wished I had kept my hand

in as it’s useful to have more than one string to your creative bow in these ever changing times.

You, along with colleagues used to run the excellent College of Cartoon Art Home Study

Course (which I underwent with you as my tutor!). Did you find this a worthwhile experience and were you sad/relieved when the course folded?

I can honestly look back with pride at the product the five of us created and it made the many months of development worth-while. The fact that a number of our students (including your good-self) are now out there earning a decent living from cartooning also endorses the quality of our ef-forts. The business eventually ran it’s course (scuse the pun!) and although it could have provided a reasonable return for a one-man operation the profits were neg-ligible split five ways and there were no real regrets when the plug was eventually pulled . The sad death of Dave Follows, one of my fellow co-conspirators, made the decision easier to make.

We have spoken in the past about a personal cartoon hero of mine called Holte (who I understand is now retired) who you have met over the years. I find a lot of cartoonists’ work impressive but I always find Holte’s artwork totally breath-taking and ALWAYS makes we want to pick up a pen and draw when I look at it. Is there any cartoonist (living or dead) that has this effect on you?

Yes, Trevor Holder (aka Holte) was/is a tremendous cartoonist but Mike Williams (still living despite the excesses of Shrews-bury 2005!) was the cartoonist who made me salivate! Superb draughtsmanship combined with

achingly funny gags ! His work for Punch heralded the emergence of that band of northern cartoon-ists in the 1960’s that included Bill Tidy, Ray Lowry and Albert along with the great Larry, Hec-tor Breeze and Martin Honeysett from other pockets of the UK. The thrill of meeting these guys at my first Toby Club dinner ( an annual dinner for Punch cartoonists) was embarrassingly humbling .

Do you have a studio, and if so where is it?

I work from home in a spare bed-room.

Can you describe a ‘typical’ day?

No, but a typical night is worrying about whether a typical day will follow!

“Mike Williams (still living despite the excesses of Shrewsbury 2005!) was the cartoonist who made me salivate! Superb draughtsmanship combined with achingly funny gags!”

Web info

To see more of Pete’s excellent cartoons, strips and illustrations go to:www.petedredge.co.uk

No, I haven’t seen one of their programmes, sorry, shows, all the way through. No, I didn’t know that they’re both double firsts in Physics with trimmings from Oxbridge, or that they’re both heavily involved in giving all their worldly goods away to the needy. But the bits I have ranted through got me wondering whether Trinni [?] and the other one actually fulfil a need we didn’t know we had. As somebody – Victoria Wood, I think – once observed about schools’ special needs departments – we used to have raffia. And I’m not saying for one moment that SN depts are unnecessary – far from it, appar-ently, just that once TV programme makers start looking for A Need, they usually find one. For the uninitiated [don’t lie – you’ve probably seen it], Trinni[?] and the other one advise fashionably chal-lenged folk about what to wear. And this is not bottom line essential ad-vice we’re talking about here. Trinni and Whoever aren’t psychiatric car-ers making sure that some poor be-nighted souls don’t turn up for work wrapped in sheepskin rugs or torn down curtains. Indeed not. Trinni and Wossname target Ordinary People, sit them down and in front of millions of twerps who have a need to watch this sort of twaddle, and thoroughly trash Ordinary Person’s entire wardrobe, whilst, it must be said, looking bor-derline ordinary themselves. For Trinni and Doodah are GURUS.They know. They are right. They can help us. We poor, Ordinary Folk.

GURUI suppose there have always been Gurus – blokes usually, who sat in caves somewhere inaccessible, thinking about stuff. Occasionally a troubled soul would turn up strug-gling with the meaning of life, and the Guru would go on at length about snow melting on yak’s backs. Rarely, if ever, would the old boy say any-thing at all about whether the Seeker

After Wisdom’s bum looked big.And probably there have always been Trinnis and Whatsernames. Fashion’s been around for ages, and in one way or another, clothes de-signers have needed to create a need through things like Pathe Pictorial News – shown in every cinema in the land 50 years ago- which gave us Ordinary Folk a glimpse of the New Look, and lots of Audrey Hepburn look alikes with pointy breasts and sticking – out frocks stomping in that silly model walk to a Bob Danvers – Walker voice over which went on about “Oo la – la “[the film clip was inevitably from Paris, pronounced Paree], then switched abruptly to War Widows scavenging for coal on the banks of the Tyne. No need for Trinni and Erm there, then.There is now though. Now the fash-ion industry’s much less exclusive, now there’s SO MUCH available [And today I’m wearing a neat little coal scavenging number..] now, we need Trinni and So and So to stop us ruining our lives by appearing to have big bums, fat arms or stubby necks. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. If a bit of friendly, sensi-tive advice makes us feel better about ourselves, and we can dump the frump [probably drop it all into one of those clothes collection skips – SKIPS mind you ! –after which it’ll be sent out to coal scavengers in Armenia] and become assured and confident about how we look, then that’s a nice bit of need fulfilling. Well done Trinni and……and…I still can’t remember the other one’s name. I’ll call her Doris. Which would really annoy

her because its so……its so…….coal scavengerish………..BUT – and it’s a really important BUT – Trinni and Doris don’t do it like that. Not at all. They swan into shot and completely take the piss out of an Ordinary Person. They poke fun at their clothes and laugh at their hair and shoes. Then, when the Ordinary Person has been completely neutralised, slumped sobbing over a pile of ridiculed garments, Trinni and Doris Take Them In Hand, and deck them out in new gear and watch benignly as Ordinary No Longer Per-son sets about life with a new confi-dence and smaller bum. What a load of utter tosh. I mean, where do they find these badly dressed Ordinary Folk in the first place? Well, almost everywhere, actually. But how many fat-arsed women squeezed into un-suitable jeans and displaying a fleshy life ring with a bluebird tattooed on it volunteer to go on national telly to be humiliated by T and D without some sort of cash inducement? What ? No cash changes hands ? You mean all those contestants insulted by Anne Robinson on Weakest Link do it for nothing ? And Trinni and Doris have hordes of makeover wannabes

INDECENT EXPOSUREBill Stott lets it all hang out

queueing up to be dissed ? What for ? Just for the fun of it ? Well, yes, actually – and, incidentally, to make Trinni and Doris shed loads of cash. I mean, it can’t be easy, tell-ing a 40year old frump they’re a 40 year old frump on national telly, can it ? Hence Trinni and Doris’s huge fees – to cover the pain and anguish brought about by having to tell a 40 year old frump she’s a 40 year old frump…..AND THEN having to go shopping !!

LIFESTYLEThere are several words – prob-ably made up by gurus – of which there are now thousands – gardening gurus, food gurus, communication gurus, which when uttered by almost anybody are bound to get me go-ing. One is Lifestyle. I even heard it used by some eager little media airhead[that one, I quite like] whilst describing life in the Bronze Age. She said that whilst clan chiefs had it reasonably cushy, apart from the odd battle here and there, the Ordinary Person’s lifestyle was quite different to ours. Like Trinni and Doris Bronze had a choice ? The other day I heard A Doctor saying that a patient he was discussing with a presenter[don’t worry, no names were mentioned] wasn’t helping himself because of his lifestyle. The poor devil they were wringing each others’ hands about was a hopelessly dependent heroin addict, an ex-soldier living under a tarpaulin in a disused railway sid-ing and who’d been refused place-ment in a drugs rehab unit because it was full. A lousy lifestyle. One which probably didn’t go anywhere towards getting yer man off Charlie. But its NOT his lifestyle, you stupid doctor ! It’s the bloody rotten dead end life’s handed him. “Lifestyle” implies choice, and a huge number of people don’t wallow about in acres of choice. One coal scavenger to another; “D’you know, I’m really fed up with this lifestyle…….”But the word which really, really drives me towards watching the his-tory channel, or even the totally dire Holby City instead, is “Makeover” Trinni and Doris territory really, but

today’s TV programmers, bereft of imagination and original thought, imagine that its ok to churn out room makeovers, house makeovers, pet makeovers, children makeovers – I even saw an ad the other day for a little plastic thing which was – wait for it- a phone makeover! It all started with Lawrence Llewe-lyn-Doris who filled wannabes houses with mdf boarding and said soft things like, “And we’re really trying for a totally DIFFERENT look here” – totally failing to see that if his god-awful programme worked, EVERYBODY ‘S HOUSE WOULD LOOK LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE’S, LAWRENCE !. Those who seek to flog overpriced togs do much the same with expen-sive, in your face ad campaigns, urging us to buy THEIR jeans with the slogan “Celebrate the difference!” What difference, you morons? Teenagers do it all the time. In their spotty, gloomy quest to be different, each tribe dresses the same. “Why have you got a barbed wire tattoo on your upper arm”“Well, I wanted to be different, in-nit?”You mean like these other six and three quarter million people with barbed wire tattoos on their upper arms ?” “Dunno………whatever……..”And maybe that’s the point. Gurus make the colossally arrogant assump-tion that we don’t know. And we play right into their hands by merely switching channels instead of march-ing down to the studio, waiting until Trinni and Doris emerge after another assassination, and pointing at them and sniggering things like, “Bloody hell – look at the size of her bum, you’d think she’d know better..”At this point, Trinni and Doris fans will leap to the pair’s defence and point out that they’ve both had at least nine kids and they look pretty good all things considered, and besides, its not about how THEY look, but how they can help folk with their extensive aesthetic skills. Rubbish. They do it for money. And silly people watch it to laugh with them at even sillier people who have

volunteered to be on the programme. Its all wannabe-ism. Warhol’s few minutes of fame. When Alan Titch-marsh and Charlie No-bra came and dug up your garden, you got a new garden, yes, but you also got to be ON TELLY ! You got noticed.Hundreds of years ago, before telly, mobile phones,Ipods, the internet, wholesale tattoos and Trinni and Do-ris, good sports used to enter Knob-bly Knees contests at holiday camps. I’m grumpy and awkward enough to know that I’d never ever do that. Standing on a windswept stage somewhere near Great Yarmouth – itself one of the ugliest places in the world –[ on purpose, mind you – the tourists like the tat] –exposing an allegedly ugly part of your body to a crowd whilst some minor celebrity – in those days, quite possibly a ven-triloquist who’s dummy did the in-sulting – poured scorn on your knees was, let’s be honest, stupid. But you got noticed. And back in those dear dead days beyond recall, it didn’t really do any harm, did it ? I think its called Innocent Fun, isn’t it ?But back in the here and now, with our fingertips on the edges of a new century, Innocent Fun’s long gone. In the absence of research, I can’t be sure there was a Knobbly Knee Guru or not. I am sure however that there were some pretty astute types around who rapidly rumbled how to make a fast buck out of Ordinary Folk by offering them a week in a converted army camp where they could dis-play their knees officially, if they so wished. After a World War – a life changing[or in a few million cases, ending] experience if ever there was one, yer Ordinary Folk latched on to anything which indicated a personal freedom to do as they wished with their cash, and Sir Billy Butlin, and the gloriously named Fred Pontin were on hand to take it. But now – now we’re not surfacing after six years of hardship and deprivation, and have had 60 years to do some-thing half-way decent with our ever-increasing clever communications technology, why, oh why do we need endless Lifestyle Makeover Reality Knobbly Knees TV?

Perhaps we ARE stupid and dull after all. I was in Tesco the other day and listened to a woman in the checkout queue explaining to somebody God knows where how “they” hadn’t got any of that cake you like so she’d got Black Forest instead. She was doing this on a mobile. Mobiles cost hardly anything to buy, a bit more to use, but billions to develop, and yet we use them to talk crap on. Listen to a teenage conversation. Crap. Listen to the conversation of almost any of the millions of Ordinary Folk who would swear they’d be lost without their mobiles. Mostly crap. I’ve got a mobile, but only a very few people [3] have my number. I have it with me in case of emergency or major inconvenience – trains being late, traf-fic hold ups, cars dying, abduction by slimy things from the deepest reaches of known space. The absolute last thing I need is people ringing me up on the off chance I might want to talk to them, or, heaven forbid, “have a chat”. If its really urgent, they’ll know one of the three number holders, who in turn know NOT to pass the number on. Those addicted to “chat-ting” on mobiles don’t appreciate them. Last word on mobiles. This really happened. Bloke on train, between Peterborough and Birmingham New Street. He’d been babbling away for ages on several different calls – all work related – he was a surveyor [I know that because I read his laptop on the way back from the loo]. Then he said to The Unseen, in what was his final call before the very dreadful Birmingham New St station,” Hi hun, its me. Yeah, yeah. No, its on time [we were 3 min-utes away from New St] See you in twenty.” He wasn’t alone here. A score of my fellow travellers were making the same mundane, meaning-less and totally unnecessary calls to tell somebody something they knew

already at the same time. Actually, it wasn’t his final call. I spotted him on the stairs as we all hauled ourselves out of the depths to street level…….”Yeah, yeah, just coming up the stairs now….” On a promise, perchance?

ALL ABOARDBirmingham New St Station is, in itself, an excellent example of tech-nology misuse, worse in some ways than Trinni and Doris , or mobile babblers. At least you can turn T&D off, and you could pinch the babblers

phone and stamp on it, but you can do nothing about the unending public service announcements over a loud PA system at New Street. They go on and on and on. Many begin with. “For your convenience…” Which is a damned lie, whilst others KEEP telling you that the WHOLE of the station is a no – smoking area. And that your baggage will be blown up if you don’t sit on it. Somewhere in this miasma of auto talk rubbish are train time announcements. Now, New Street is a complicated station, on more than one level, and serving quite a few routes, so train announcements are vital. Also, our

rail system is run by penny pinch-ing rich folk who wouldn’t be seen dead on the 10.23 from Ely, because they know that somewhere in the system, there’s always a spanner. The resulting clash of one voice telling you that , “this is a non-smoking area. Unattended luggage will be vapourised. Please stand clear of the platform edge. Travelling without a valid ticket may result in you being imprisoned for 300 years” again and again and again….with another, less cultured, and more distorted and mut-tery informing interested parties AT

THE SAME TIME that, “We would like to apolo-gise for the late arrival of the 5.54 for Sponge Hill, which will now arrive at Platform two, not three and will depart at 6.17, not 14. The first [indistinct] coaches will terminate at [indistinct].The thing is, we waste our wonderful technol-ogy. We allow rubbish on the telly. We make it too easy to talk crap over huge distances, and when we really need to help the home- sick residents of Sponge Hill, we screw it up.Since starting this rant, 47,004 other abuses of technology have come to my notice, some involving gurus. One was George Galloway’s

appearance on that Big Brother paint watching thing. Shrewd, George. Now that his political career’s gone phut for reasons other than pretend-ing to be a cat, he’s laid guru foun-dations. He’s loomed large in the mindless department, and will never be forgotten. All he needs now is a makeover from Trinni and Doris……………….”Does my bum look big in this ?” “That’s your head, George – your bum’s at the other end.”

Web info

Bill Stott’s website:www.billstott.freeuk.com

Born in England, raised in Nigeria, FECO UK member Tayo Fatunla got his professional education from the Joe Kubert School in the early 1980s. One of Africa’s best-known cartoonists, he’s most famous for his globally syndicated work, Our Roots, which celebrates the historical achievements of people of principally African heritage. Tayo Fatunla’s weekly cartoon feature covers the lives of black achievers in the arts, science, poli-tics, culture and sports. They include newspaperwoman Mary Ann Shadd Cary, airplane pilot Bessie Cole-man, Haitian revolutionary Toussaint

Web info

Tayo’s website: www.tayofatunla.com

TAYO FATUNLA’S

L’Ouverture, reggae musician Bob Marley, astronaut Ronald McNair, traffic-signal inventor Garrett Morgan, rodeo performer Bill Pickett, poet Alexander Pushkin and more. Our Roots began syndication in the US in 1995.

The great thing about being a FECO member is the chance to compete in so many inter-national cartoon competitions. Mind you this can be quite a daunting task. I must admit I find some of the named themes quite hard to work out; ‘Addic-tion and hands behind it’ - what does that mean?Maybe I should stick to ‘free’ options. Another thing - where are some of the competitions being held? Knokke-Heist, Tabriz, Iran, Cataluya, Ploiesti - where on earth are they? Bad enough trying to find Caerphil-ly or Friockheim for that mat-ter. Out with the world atlas ... maybe we should have a world map hanging in our studio, with flags marking the different

competition locations. The next problem is, do we send original work or photocopies? Quite a few competitions only accept originals. Anyway you’ve got to create originals in the first place.You pack up your efforts, pop out to the nearest post office (usually miles away as your lo-cal post office has been closed down) and baffle the teller with some obscure address. Maybe you should take the wall map along, “there it is, the red and yellow flag - Wolpyongdong, Daejeon City”. Anyway, off go your cartoons and by some magic, hopefully reach their destination.You have to wonder if other cartoonists all over the globe

are doing the same thing - sending their precious car-toons into the blue yonder. Is some Eskimo in his or her frozen igloo inking in some cartoons on a theme they don’t understand?The weeks fly past, maybe even months, you’ve forgot-ten all about your cartoon entry. Next thing a bulg-ing envelope arrives, with a strange stamp and your address just about right. You open the package and low and behold - it’s your cartoon entry you had for-gotten about! Your originals back and a nice glossy cata-logue. You haven’t won a big cash prize, or a golden nib award, but as you look through the catalogue you find your cartoon, stand-ing out between an entry from Romania and one from Italya. It makes you feel proud your work will be seen across the world. It doesn’t matter if they have got your name wrong and that you come from Inglitere and not Scotlandtere! You marvel at some of the contents - great humour and fine drawing. You don’t feel so isolated, knowing that lots of folk are out there, hitting their head against the drawing board, looking for that inspired idea. You feel you must try again ...Where’s that Bulletin competition list? You hope you haven’t missed the dead-line and that you have under-stood the rules. You pack up your entry and send them off to where? Out with the atlas and those map flags again!

It’s a

SMALLworld after all

Bill Ritchie let’s us in on his atlas based antics. And yes, where IS Caerphilly?

If this ever makes it into the pages of Foghorn, the 2006 Winter Olympics will be long forgotten, but a couple of weeks watching folk do unbelievable things on frozen water has given me a shed-load of new stuff to rant on about. When the Proper Olympics hap-pen, there will be old favourites to laugh at - Synchronised swim-ming – Walking – Yes, yes, I KNOW they’re really, really hard to do, but come on, so’s wallpa-pering. And wallpapering doesn’t look anywhere near as silly as grinning women liberally coated in waterproof makeup emerging from the depths with bulldog clips on their noses.[ But it’s balletic. So why do it in the water ?? Be-cause we can. ]And the walkers are superbly fit and tough, but they have me roll-ing about. Running races I under-

stand – even the 9 million metre ones where it takes forever to get to anything remotely exciting – like the finish. But walking ? Why bother ? Mind you, I bet it takes ‘em no time round Tesco…….And small bore shooting ? I’m not going down the “small bore” dead end, but suffice to say that the whole thing would be much more riveting if the guns made a decent bang; if there was a satisfying flash and a cloud of smoke. All you get is a “phut” and Ludmilla Skyrenskoya gets the freedom of Verkoyansk. [again] Skiing, I cannot do. I have tried, but it took too much dedication and humility and effort and will power. It also cost a bomb. So I’m full of admiration for the down-hillers, the slalomers, the super G – ers, and I mean all of them, not just the winners hysterical com-mentators chatter on about as if Furtmeister’s 1.51. 003 is going to wipe out third world debt. And speaking of commentators – one or two, like Robin Cousins – he of skating fame – really get up both nostrils when his only comment on the performance of some also ran competitor who’s tried her damndest to zoom about

and leap up and down on tiny steel runners across a dangerously slippy rink is, “Well she pulled out of the triple blanco, and her looped spritzer was a bit laboured, so she’ll be no threat to the lead-ers” Quadruple Lutz fodder.I’ve been ice skating too. On at one gate. Fell down. Off the next. Its very hard to do – so whatever happened to that quaint old notion about taking part ? Long dead, I fear. Winning’s the only thing. Athletes and commentators alike care only for the victor – com-mentators especially. With tone of voice and choice of superlatives they seek to elevate the bloke who slid down a mountain with bits of carbon fibre and steel fixed to his feet three seconds quicker than the unmentionable who came twenty- eighth to a level we proles must worship. Perhaps the competi-tors, especially the winners have the excuse of sponsor approval. They go on about “personal bests” and being “very happy with my performance “ to a degree unheard of 30 years ago. And if Bostik, or B&Q have ensured that you don’t need a proper job, you have to sound confident. You can’t go say-ing things like, “Well, thank God

The Fog is alive with the sound of moaning! Under the cloak of anonimity, one tired and emotional car-toonist tackles lifes stupidities with a sharp tongue and a healthy dose of the funny. This issue: “Blood pressure sports”.

Worfsnigger and Grumpsthaal fell over – I’ve been dead jammy.” But the event which combined commentating hysteria with com-petitor arrogance most irritatingly was snowboarding. Not the “who- can- get- down- the- slippy- hill- on- a –snowboard- first” type snowboarding, which is quite ex-citing, but the one where all hands take turns going up and down a big icy half tube thing whilst ex-ecuting moves with names which remind me of rap music. Which is also tedious and arrogant.No, the pipe troops, [ that’s what they call the big icy half tube thing – a pipe] are a bunch of highly skilled pains in the back-side. Not for them the downhillers uniform. Instead, they’ve trans-ferred the adolescent self obses-sion of spotties in the shopping precinct to posh places high up in Italy. They also affect the trousers-almost-falling-down look.. A sort of I – don’t- care- what- you- old bastards- think attitude . And the names they give their moves ! All designed to keep we ordinary folk at bay. “Kerb Grab”. Last time

I did that, I was a student full of Newcastle Brown. And they take themselves SO seriously. After the hysterical commentator had shouted at me throughout Bobby Klutz’s display, with which said Klutz had taken the lead, and had trudged off camera, looking sulky and ever so serious, dragging his three hundred thousand dollar board behind him, the commen-tator said, “ Well, you don’t get many smiles from Bobby Klutz. And we certainly didn’t.” Could you honestly give a damn ? Babbling commentator then went on to say, about Klutz’s bril-liance, “He’s the new kid on the block, and I don’t think anyone will match his amplitude. “ Then there was a very short pause. The idiot then said, “Amplitude means height.” No it bloody well doesn’t, you wannabe, it means breadth ! It’s a deliberate adolescent obfus-cation, like “wicked”! OK?So today, it’s not what you do, it’s the way it’s presented that matters. Commentators, and the media generally feel a deep need to gild whatever lilies fall into

their laps, and at the time of writ-ing, I’m steeling myself for the first, swan, goose, gannet ,wagtail or grebe to drop dead from bird flu on these shores. Or indeed, the first Famous Person to get within sneezing distance of a poorly wren anywhere. Sports commen-tators will seem as measured and understated as John Arlott (who’s he? - Ed). TV news and papers will crank up the crisis to Bubonic Plague levels.CHARLES FELLED BY DY-ING DUCK SHOCK; HEIR TO THRONE BIRD FLU HOR-ROR SMASH.Terror struck the celebrity slopes of Klosters today as the skiing Prince collided with a plummeting mallard believed to be infected with the death virus…..etc etc etc. PLUCKY PRINCES AT DAD’S BEDSIDECAMILLA IN LEMSIP MER-CY DASH…………….

Send your malcontent missives to the editor at tim@timharries.co.ukwho reserves the right to notpublish them if they’re a bit rubbish.

The editor and FECO UK accept no responsibility for the opinions expressed by contributors. All images and characters are copyright their respective authors.