World Goth Day 2017

On #WorldGothDay please spare a thought for the unfortunate teenage goths on enforced family beach holidays.

August, dinosaurs & ice cream

Dinosaurs AND ice cream!?!? What a combo! The August 2016 page for my agents Arena Illustration 

Monster Facts #10

Monster Fact : Monsters do not receive mandatory holiday pay & rarely take time off - it is considered wise not to disturb them when they do*

*This also applies to freelance illustrators, crocodiles et al. Dogs, as EVERYBODY knows have Wednesday afternoons off.

Monster on vacation

I spilled espresso on this I'm afraid. Am pretending it's an artistic effect. Shhhhh!

Holidays!

NB no crustaceans were harmed in the making of this picture (that sandcastle got well f***ed up though!)

Guardian All Ears 20th March

(Article by Michael Holden)
The baggage carousel was once the final circle of holiday hell, a last chance to consort with you fellow travellers before normality resumed and all the strange vacation liaisons faded. Nowadays, people who meet on holiday have the option to haunt one another across the Internet for the rest of time. Good luck to them. The carousel though, especially an empty one that isn’t rotating, remains an arena for strange conversation. While a plane load of people muttered and found ways to blame New Labour for their lack of luggage, two men in their sixties recalled the previous night’s entertainment.

Man 1 “Some of the dancing was quite impressive.”

Man 2 (setting him up) “Yeah, but you’ve seen one whirling dervish…”

Man 1 (accepting gladly) “You’ve seen them all!”

Man 2 “That said, the second was much better than the first. He got up to full speed right away. There was no build up. Impressive rate of rotation-relative to the others.”

Man 1 “That belly dancer…”

Man 2 (lapsing into a florid-end of the pier-grin) “Big girl!”

Man 1 “Did you stay for the singer?”

Man 2 “No-she cleared most of the room-including me. At six pounds for a gin and tonic I need more incentive than that.”

Man 1 (poking at the bags that had started dribbling onto the carousel)“It wasn’t like she couldn’t sing.”

Man 2 (channelling the spirit of Cowell) “Quite. It was the wrong choice of song. Why come out with a soppy ballad? Better to have gone up tempo.”

Man 1 “Quite.”

Man 2 “That’s my bag!”

Man 1 (forlorn) “Good for you.”

Man 2 “I’ve got another one.”

Man (visibly cheered) “Oh, okay.”