Guardian All Ears 28th November

During the drawing of this picture my computer crashed forcing me to have to draw those creepy twins from the X Factor twice - I can categorically state that I have never watched the wretched thing - horrible easy listening mush for all the family - but you can't escape seeing them everywhere - rant! rant! rant!

(Article by Michael Holden)
Years of satanic number crunching at my local train company appear to have finally yielded a system that enables them to deploy the absolute minimum of carriages no matter what time of day it is. So, off-peak travel – once one of the great perks of self employment – is now just a grotesque and scaled-down, Fisher-Price rush hour. The torment of others, which might ordinarily have been confined to an avoidable area, now closes in from every side.

Woman 1 (to my right, "waking up" having feigned sleep to stop people trying to sit next to her) "Give us that mag."

Woman 2 (opposite her, defending her own space with a bottle of partially drunk cola and a crescent of low-rent magazines, one of which she passed over) "That had me laughing out loud."

Woman 3 (directly opposite-reading from a paper to a husband who made faces but never replied) "That zero-carbon housing development is going ahead."

Man 1 (behind me - talking into his phone) "Theo! Theo! It's Mark. I've been in Sweden … and Hamburg … I'm on the train … I think the problem is with the gearboxes … yeah, it's a bad signal …"

Woman 2 "Did I tell you what happened at work? I only had the key for the top lock, and I asked her for the key to the bottom lock and she give me a load of grief."

Woman 1 (ignoring her, staring at her mobile) "I can't do that predictive text."

Man 1 "Theo … Theo can you hear me? Theo? Can you hear me?"

I put on some music before any of these crucial issues were resolved.

Fishy...

more fishy sketchbook nonsense

Elephant thing

crustacean coiffeur

Today has been...

Guardian All Ears 21st November

I've always wanted to include Pocari Sweat* in an illustration (* Japanese isotonic drink with amusing name) - figured a bottle of Metaxa for the Greek reference might be slightly over-egging things perhaps...

(article by Michael Holden)
You might think there are places you can eat in the world where the couple on the next table won’t turn out to be English. And you might think a Japanese restaurant, in Athens might be among them. And you’d be wrong. The man looked like he could have been in Right Said Fred, the woman looked like Naomi Campbell disguised as Casey Jones.

Woman (looking at the man as he sat down): “You look bigger in your photographs.”

Man: (not joking) “Yes. I am bigger.”

Woman (sitting) “Busy day?”

Man “Not really. Lots have people have to wear a suit to work but not me, not today. I was going to wear a tie, but my big meeting got changed till Monday morning.

Woman (looking dubiously at the menu, and then around the restaurant) “I'm not really sure about the meat…”

Man “They have chicken…you know what chicken is?”

Woman “Yes I like chicken. Maybe I can try salmon?”

Man “Have what you like. Eat what you feel…”

Woman “I have to go to the toilet, will you order for me?”

Man “Sure.”

Woman (back-after less than a minute) “It’s busy. I don't like waiting in toilets. You never know what germs are there. I'd rather wait in here.”

Eventually some food arrived.

Man “You’ve seen chopsticks before?”

Woman “Yes, once. In Leeds.”

Man (demonstrating) “These will be the same. You can do it the Japanese way or the Chinese way…”

Woman (regarding the tempura he was holding-which to be fair-did look quite phallic) “What’s that about then?”

They burst out laughing. Then she opened her mouth and he steered the crooked lump of batter between her lips while I prayed for the bill.

Skater-boy

No reason for this (but I must admit to rather enjoying watching kids continually fall off at the Southbank - does this make me a bad person?)