The Square Root of -1

Christ, I think I just have luck so complex and bad that it can only be expressed as the square root of a negative number.

I woke up this morning about 7am with an idea rattling around in my head. It was a really good but obvious idea but the best ideas usually are the most obvious. So, with the room in darkness, I felt around for my Note, which is never far from me, and I jotted down the idea before the screen burned itself onto my still dim retina.

Later on when I was awake the idea still looked good on the screen, so after I’d finished my other work and dispatched the resulting corporate video to remote regions, I got stuck into the task of writing eight hundred words. By about two o’clock, I thought I had something very readable and which made a few good and occasionally funny points. It was precisely the kind of thing I’d like to read, though that’s not necessarily a good thing.

Now, the obvious part of my good idea wasn’t just the subject. It was also the idea I’d had about sending my article to a place where it might be more readily accepted than other places I’ve been sending my work and where I’ve been ignored a dozen times in row despite their website asking for content, saying how interested they are in different points of view, and wanting to encourage new contributors...  So I sent it to this new address and within ten seconds I had a reply

The reply said that their office is closed for almost the entire month of February.

In the words of Sparks: ‘Balls!’

I see that The Independent has finally printed a cartoon yesterday of Eric Pickles as a flood defence. I drew mine last week so I suppose it was only time before somebody else came up with the gag. ‘Balls!’ is all I can exclaim a second time and now the melody is stuck in my head, I guess I’ll have to listen to the album. I wouldn't mind but this is the second time in seven days when I've drawn a cartoon which had exactly the same gag as a cartoon that appeared in a national broadsheet some days later. I should perhaps take that as a positive or as evidence that the universe is essentially malicious and likes to torture its victims slowly .

Positives of the day: the hits are still coming in from Egypt where Richard Madeley has found new popularity. I wish I could search Facebook to see who posted the link but among the many things that Facebook does badly is the ability to search its content. I guess it will have to remain a riddle, as difficult to solve as the one involving the lack of positive emails arriving in my inbox.