My Afternoon: Ducks, Dogs, and Knickers

Busy day after a busy evening. Tomorrow is the deadline for material for the next issue of ‘Red All Over The Land’, the Liverpool FC fanzine to which I’ve been contributing cartoons this season. I normally don’t allow myself to get close to a deadline but this time I’ve been busy with too much work. The cartoon strip I’ve sent is the first I’ve drawn entirely on the Samsung Note, though the text and colour came afterwards in Photoshop. It’s a bit of a milestone finding that I can actually work entirely in digital and know that the results look almost indistinguishable from the work I would have done in ink.

However, that’s not the point of this blog post. I’m blogging today because I wanted to talk about dog owners.

In case it passed your notice, today was Monday and in The Spine household, Monday usually means that the shopping needed doing. As is usual, this fell to me so I jumped on my bike and headed off on my usual route which takes me down around the canal. And it’s there that I saw an odd sight.

Two women, possibly in their fifties, were out walking their dogs in the biting cold. Nothing unusual so far except one of the dogs had jumped into the canal, no doubt attempting to get to one of the many ducks the local council bus-in to make the place look reasonably rural. I don’t know much about dogs but I do know they’re prone to jump into rivers. Then they usually climb out, give themselves a shake (in slow motion), and Joanna Lumley starts blathering on about healthy gums. However, it being a canal and not a river, the banks are manmade. It’s a vertical three foot stone wall from the footpath to the water and there’s no way that a dog, having jumped in the canal, could ever hope to get out and give itself a shake. As for Joanna Lumley, the old girl wouldn’t come within twenty miles of our borders.

Which is what these two women had discovered by the time I arrived.

‘Grab the stick! Grab the stick!’ they screamed as they waved a short twig in the direction of the paddling pooch. Then they spotted me. ‘Oh help! Can you save our dog from the canal?’ they plead.

I didn’t know how to tell them they must has mistaken me for one of those suckers you hear are born every sixty seconds. My inner monologue had already kicked in and it had a BBC newsreader’s plummy voice: ‘A passer-by drowned today when attempting to rescue a dog that had jumped into a canal chasing ducks. The dog eventually made its own way out while the passer-by, thought to be a cyclist and notoriously unsuccessful blogger, rapidly sank twelve feet to the bottom of the canal due to the weighty Samsung Note 10.1 tablet in his backpack. Police believe that had Samsung UK’s Marketing Director Ms. Ines van Gennip sent him a Samsung Note 10.1 (2014 edition) to review in exchange for his now priceless cartoon, the lighter tablet would have allowed him to swim to safety. Frogmen recovered his body and a fragment of duck-based humour which it’s thought the blogger was writing at the time of his drowning because he thought it might make for a semi-amusing anecdote.’

It took a fraction of second for all that to cross my cerebellum before I knew there wasn’t time to explain the silence of Ines van Gennip. Instead, I began to wave to a point further down the canal where the path was lower.

Only my wise council wasn’t needed. As one of the women stripped off (I kid you not), the other crawled on her belly and reach down to the water. After a few efforts, she snagged the dog’s collar and with a snap of her powerful arm, she lifted the dog clean out of the water. Queue her shouting at the dog as she began to explain the dangers of canals and the other woman pulled her knickers back on.

I shrugged my shoulders and rode off. Dog owners defy logic and, had one of them jumped in, I can’t say that I would have done anything braver than waving a branch in her direction whilst tutting disapprovingly. The people I feel sorry for are the firemen who have to start arsing around on thin ice after somebody high on Pedigree Chum has jumped into a frozen pond in the middle of winter. It’s usually the humans that drown and rarely the dogs. I mean, it stands to sense that dogs usually find a way out of canals without human intervention, otherwise our waterways would be clogged with the bloated carcasses of family pets and bloggers with unnecessarily heavy Samsung tablets in the backpacks.

Thankfully, humans, dogs, and ducks emerged from this story relatively unscathed. But I think it’s a story that has an important message about water safety, dog ownership, and the reluctance of Samsung UK to help UK bloggers. Thanks to them, this blogger will remains negatively buoyant for the foreseeable future and what does that say about the Anglo-Korean relationship?

On Samsung, Bond, Boyd, and Teeth

So, I think we’re back and, as usual, I’m probably last to get updated name servers, those mysterious doodads that translate the www address you type into your browser into the real life address of the computers where websites live. I’ve been looking at a grey screen all weekend, waiting for the website to come live. Now it is, I’m left wondering what to say.

I wish I could say I had a busy weekend but I’ve been distracted by, among other things, the terrible news that Samsung are launching their cheapest Note 10.1 (2014 edition) in the UK at the price £479, or about £130 more than I’d hoped and considerably more than I could afford.

Another disappointment is the news that William Boyd’s new James Bond novel, Solo, might be a bit of a disappointment. If we’re to believe the early reviews, it’s probably the worst effort so far. It wouldn’t surprise me if it is, given that I’m a bit of a Bond purist. I will often reread all the original Bond books every year or so and then relive the disappointment of attempting the continuation novels. I’ve not enjoyed any of these new writers writing as Fleming. I thought Faulks’s effort the least objectionable despite the monkey pawed villain and the book being generally dismissed by the public. Deaver’s effort is as easy to ignore as he found it easy to ignore the canonical Bond, choosing instead to create something new and different and (sadly) popular. I couldn’t read any of the novels by Raymond Benson or John Gardner. The best was Kingsley Amis, though Colonel Sun was more Amis than Fleming. One book that I did enjoy but haven’t read it in many years was James Bond: The Authorized Biography of 007 by John Pearson. Perhaps I should give that another go.

Having said all that, I don’t want to dismiss Boyd’s efforts until I’ve tried it, especially when reviewers customarily confuse the literary James Bond with the movie James Bond. Reading Amazon’s reader comments, I found this, typical of many:

Remember how Fleming would introduce a subject? M would mention a name and Bond, showing off, would fire back a couple or three facts about it in half a minute which was supposed to be useful, as if spat out by his card index system (no computers worth anything in 1960-70: I used the first, at Manchester, a KDF 9 in 1965 which needed punched cards). This Bond is more intelligent. He takes serious injuries unlike the original who is always unscathed, his looks just as handsome as before. This version even has a scar.

I don’t recall Fleming introducing a subject through M and then Bond rolling off all the facts. That was the movie Bond. Yet the bigger mistake is in believing that the literary Bond was ‘always unscathed’. The Bond of the novels was routinely battered, broken, and bruised. It was his defining characteristic. He spends nearly the entirety of Live and Let Die with a broken finger and Fleming is always commenting on his scars, including the scar on his face which has never made it onto screen. It’s Bond’s vulnerability that makes the books so great. The films have entirely different virtues.

Speaking of battered yet misunderstood heroes, I’m going to the dentist later today to make a long overdue appointment. I’d like to say it’s precautionary but life isn’t like that. A bit of tooth broke off last week and it needs fixing. As soon as it happened, I knew my Samsung dreams had come to an end given that my money will now probably go to fund my dentist’s next skiing holiday.

Running Postmen, Creeping Dog Owners, and Your Surprise Free Gift

Why have postmen started to run? It’s a phenomenon I’ve noticed in the last few months but I’ve not been able to catch up with one long enough to find out why.

Our previous postman, Paul, was an old-school charmer who would walk fairly briskly but always take a moment to crack a joke and generally make your day feel a little brighter. He’d worked the round for about a decade before he disappeared last November and was replaced by a succession of nameless grey-haired postmen who literally jog walk the entire route. I tried to speak to one this morning and all he’d say is ‘good mo’ before he ran off. Can you believe that? I didn’t even get the full ‘good morning’.

I assume this ‘good mo’ing must be a new Royal Mail initiative. Perhaps the Royal Mail pay them more if they speed up, sack them if they slow down. Whatever the reason, it’s another of those small things that make the world colder, less inviting, and increases our alienation. In a few years, the Royal Mail will probably realise how they’ve damaged customer relations and they might encourage their postmen to start being friendly again. For now, I feel like I should meet the postmen at the gate because they treat walking up the path as such a huge inconvenience.

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Speaking of the path, I need to build a man trap or some workable method of catching the swine who keeps allowing their dog to shit outside my front gate. Three times in the last month I’ve had to stride over the pile of excreted dog situated on the pavement right in front of the house. It’s a sign that we’re past summer. The nights are slowly drawing in and, once darkness falls, dog walkers head down our street to play their disgusting little game. As soon as I’ve finished writing this, I’ll have the pleasure of going out to shovel it up. If I knew who had done it, I’d go dump it in front of their house and see how they like it.

The scientific part of my mind won’t let it rest with not knowing. There has to be a way of working it out. The evidence should help me identify the breed of dog. I was wondering if stool width could provide an indication of the size of the dog and therefore the breed. I’ve searched on the internet for a chart of rectum widths of different breeds of dog. There isn’t one but there damn well should be.

So if you have a dog, I’d be grateful if you could grab a tape measure and leave the dimensions of its rectum in the comments. This is the first study of its kind and it will further humanity’s progress by helping men and women across the globe push the right stools through the right letterboxes.

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Finally, behind my grumpiness, I’m hiding this bit of good news. This morning I had a remarkable stroke of good luck and I thought I’d share it with all of you who regularly read this blog. I’ve decided to buy each and every one of you a brand new Samsung Note 10.1 (2014 edition) tablet!

I know what you’re thinking but if you want to thank somebody, you really must thank Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the Emir of Qatar. According to the email I’ve just received from the Qatar Foundation, I’ve been awarded one million pounds. Obviously, the taxman will probably take a big bite out of that but I’m sure it will leave me pretty well off and I’d like to thank you all for your loyalty by buying you cutting edge technology. So, anybody who had read the blog more than four times in the last week (ten times over the past month) will get a free tablet, providing, of course, that the Qatar Foundation cough up the cash. I’m confident they will because they have an authentic Yahoo Hong Kong return email address, though the email came from an account at Poland’s University of Social Sciences and Humanities, which is where I assume the Sheikh is currently studying. Use the comments to state your preference: WiFi or 4G, 16/32 or 64 gigabytes, and whether you want it in black or white.

Since I’m also collecting dog data in the same comments, please label your comment either RECTUM or TABLET. I’d hate to get confused and send you a sample off the end of my shovel or push a brand new Note though the letterbox of some shit-shirking creep.

All Kinds of Swank

They stopped updating my iPad back when Jonathan Ive still had hair and the pecs under his tight figure hugging t-shirt weren’t made from vulcanised rubber. It means that my iOS is stuck in the low fives and the release of iOS 7 now makes me the last man on the planet supposedly stuck in skeumorphic hell. Skeumorphism, if you don’t know and (frankly) who does, is the trick computers typically use to make you think you’re interacting with a real object. A button might have a bevelled edge to give a sense of it standing proud of the screen. Skeumorphism is the theory that it makes sense that the corner of a page should peel back when you’re leafing through an ebook. It’s also that trick Apple use when they film their spokespeople whispering pretentiously against a white background and make you suspect they’re members of a strange Polynesian sect of bamboo worshippers awaiting the birth of the great coconut god.

iOS 7 does away with all of that for a clean flat aesthetic. It’s an interesting design concept with raises one important question: will I ever get a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 edition) tablet to review?

Personally, I don’t mind a bit of skeumorphism. In fact, I quite enjoy it. I get excited when I read that the Note recognises when you remove the stylus and plays a noise like a sword being drawn from its sheath. Will I ever get to hear that myself? I begin to worry that I won’t. It’s less than a week from the rumoured release date for the new Samsung’s Note 10.1 and I still can’t recommend it to the many thousands of you waiting on my judgement. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that Ines van Gennip, Samsung UK’s Marketing Director, hadn’t read my letter and that my cartoon and book have already been recycled and are now on their way to shops reconstituted as baby nappies.

It’s this kind of shabby treatment that could turn a man off Samsung and begin to look for a new object for his affections such as the new Wacom Cintiq Companion Hybrid. If I’m going to have unconsummated love for an electrical device then I could easily lust after one of these beauties. Except I’m not such a fickle lover. I have confessed my love for the Samsung Note 10.1 (2014 edition) and I refuse to look at another, even if that other does have a 13 inch display and 2048 levels of pen sensitivity!

I suppose you could say I’m struggling with the old Hilary Swank dilemma. Just when you decide that there’s room in your life for one toothy brunette film star along comes Amanda Peet. What’s a man to do? I had enough trouble justifying my wanting to see ‘The Core’ without my needing to come up with excuses to see ‘2012’ as well. There’s only so much bad science fiction I can profess to enjoy without things beginning to look suspicious.

For the moment, then, I remain a Samsung lover as I also remain a Swank man. I like her teeth. I suppose you could say there’s a bit of skeumorphism going on there as well. They make me feel like she’s more than a virtual presence up on the big screen. In an ideal world, both would think that such loyalty deserves rewarding.

The blog post in which my Galaxy Note obsession gets real

I tried to outstay my welcome but Manchester’s shops were far too accommodating. Between Carphone Warehouse and PCWorld, I had enough of a hands-on with the first generation Samsung Note 10.1 to raise more questions about the second generation than I already had.

I’m now more intrigued to see how the new 2014 tablet has turned out. I read yesterday that Samsung have used a PenTile display in the new Note which some people claim produces brighter images, while other people claim it can diminish the resolution. I guess I’ll have to wait and see but the screen on the first generation Note 10.1 was bright and certainly felt clearer than my old iPad 1. The tablet was thinner than I expected, lighter too, and pretty snappy switching between apps, though, surprisingly, I wasn’t entirely convinced by the S-Pen. That might have been down to my mainly trialing it on a Carphone Warehouse display model which probably wasn’t set up to be as sensitive as I’d like it. The one in PCWorld did seem more responsive but it had more annoying salesmen loitering around and asking me if I was okay. It’s a bit of a shame because until I have chance to get it just right, I won’t know how good this tablet really is for my style of cartooning,

If I had one other complaint it was that the S-Pen was too small. It wasn’t ridiculously small – big, even, compared to the pens on every other tablet device – but I was a little shocked at how small it felt in my hand and I wouldn’t like to use it for drawing for long periods. I’m not exactly a giant (6’ 2”) but the pen felt just a little too small in my big hand. However, I see there’s a larger pen available to buy separately which would probably be my choice and since I carry pencils with me wherever I go, it’s wouldn’t exactly be an inconvenience.

Simply because I thought I’d be able to use it quicker than the others, I concentrated on using the Photoshop app which did prove problematic. I was particularly struggling with the palm detection. My clumsy fist was leaving all manner of marks in the bottom right hand side of the page, occasionally opening menus. However, Photoshop was remarkably easy to use, like a cut down version of the real thing, with all the key features in the same place.

I’m really not interested in talking about the other note taking apps, Jelly Bean’s features and Samsung’s extensions to its feature set, or even how easy it is to copy things from the screen (though pressing the pen’s button allows you to draw a lasso around any content you want to grab which is a pretty good trick). From the point of view of drawing cartoons (which I only did scribbling since, for the life of me, I couldn't master the zoom), I think the Note 10.1 is as perfect a device as I’ve ever seen. Ideally I would have liked to have tried doing a little true Photoshopping on it but so far it suggests that it might be ideally suited to cartooning. The sheen of the screen would take some getting used to. Cartridge paper has a resistance which is noticeably more than Bristol Board. Working on board, as I’m doing at the moment, is a real pleasure and it does affect the quality of the finished work. However the difference between Bristol Board and drawing on a tablet is so huge that, at first, I felt barely able to draw. Also, I did have problems trying to draw smaller detail but this could have been a Photoshop problem or down to the device sensitivity. Only at the end did I switch to one of the other drawing apps and they felt much smoother and I felt like I might have more control. Trying these apps is the main reason I’m now thinking of biking over to my local PCWorld next week. By then, I hope to have figured out how to zoom.

However, as it stands, I think I did enough yesterday to satisfy my itch for a short time but getting hands-on with the updated tablet will be what will convince me.

Other than my bouncing between high tech shops and trying to fit in with the gangster types who can obviously afford these things and not like a cartoonist who can’t, yesterday turned into a bit of an epic day. Waterstones was crowded with people there to gawp at Jo Nesbø, the Norwegian thriller writer. I managed to take a picture but the fuzziness proves how little I know how to use the phone camera. I got home anticipating an early night and ended up working until half three in the morning. I should never do that but I got so carried away with work that I didn’t realise the time. When I looked up, I realised I had to go to bed even if I didn’t want to go to bed. Of course, my brain was so switched on that I couldn’t sleep and then, when I did, I slept too long, meaning a today’s late and rather rushed blog.

My Letter to Samsung

I’m not here. I’m out. And I’ll be scuffing my heels as I go. Even now I’m probably standing in PCWorld in the Arndale Centre, Manchester, staring forlornly at a first generation Samsung Note, wondering what happened to all the optimism that was there at the start of the week. Five days on, I’ve still not heard from Samsung. No early morning knocks on the door from keen-limbed couriers with mysterious cartons. Not even a sniff of high-end electronic goods to which I could dedicate my attentions in five star reviews for the rest of the month.

It’s gutting, of course. I’m wondering about a protest march, a Kickstarter campaign, a hunger strike. Looking back, perhaps my letter lacked a little punch, some pizazz, a cheque written out for the sum of £400, but that was a mere oversight, I tell you.

However, I’ll push on through this disappointment. Next week I might rename the blog to some part of the body, if only I could think of one. The current banner is beginning to mock my delusions of significance, shallow though they were.

Ms. Ines van Gennip                                                                              9th September, 2013
Marketing Director UK & Ireland
Samsung House
1000, Hillswood Drive
Chertsey, Surrey KT16 0PS

Dear Ines (if I may),

I was sitting here doodling a cartoon (enclosed) when it suddenly struck me that you’re probably overworked down there at Samsung HQ. Oh, don’t deny it. With an exciting range of new electrical doodadary destined for the nation’s pimpled salesmen, you’ll be kept very busy in the coming months and in need of some light relief. And that’s where I hope I come in…

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is David Waywell and I am a writer, cartoonist, and blogger, though you might know me by my pen name, Stan Madeley. More significantly, I run the website ‘Samsung Beauty’, which, as our expensive new banner proclaims, is ‘the world’s only blog dedicated to Samsung owners, users, admirers, and people in charge of deciding which bloggers get a Galaxy Note 10.1 inch tablet (2014 edition) to review.’

You’re a canny operator, Ines, so I won’t try to sweet-talk you. I bet you’re already thinking this is one of those desperate attempts to get a free Galaxy Note 10.1 inch tablet (2014 edition) to review. But there you’d be wrong. Is it ‘desperate’ when a man dedicates his life to ensuring that the hard-working folk in Samsung’s UK marketing department are happy? I don’t mean on any deep metaphysical level because who then is truly happy? But as Ernest Hemingway once put it: ‘happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.’ It’s my belief that just because you have the intelligence to match your wit, beauty, and very evident humanity, there is no reason why you should suffer from the burden of your job. You do such good work on behalf of Samsung, as well as your charitable causes, you deserve a bit of a lift. I’m therefore enclosing a personalised copy of my last book with the guarantee it will make you snort with laughter and pop a spring back into your step. Feel free to share it around the office as a team building exercise, especially with your PA who I hear is one of the best and always passes on letters which are clearly well intentioned and full of the old joie de vivre, as they say over at Samsung France.

No doubt you’re touched by my generosity but please think nothing of it. I normally charge £399 (rrp) for my cartoons but I want you to have this one for nothing. The wellbeing of you and your team is more important to me than money! It must be so depressing sending review products to semi-articulate simpletons in the technology press who don’t appreciate your efforts or the genius of the Note 10.1 (2014 edition). What do technology journalists know about technology? They have a quick glance at the features, make a big fuss about the luxurious faux-leather back and then spend the rest of their time talking about quality the bezelling. You deserve more than a bit of racy talk about quality bezelling, Ines. Will they talk about the 1024 levels of sensitivity in the stylus with the perspicacity of a jobbing cartoonist? Will they really appreciate the reduced weight by using it to produce top quality work, week in and week out, as it would in the hands of a quality blogger? How many of them will use it in everyday situations, learn to love it in a way only a truly individual cartoonist and writer could come to love it? Will they even bother to give it a name? Would they ever call it ‘Ines’?

Yes, Ines! That’s right! If only I had a Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 edition) to review, I’d name it after you! Because how many of those gel-fringed prima donnas in the gadget press will road test the Note 10.1 (2014 edition) every day for the next five years and recommend it to their readers? And did I mention that my blog is read by trend setters and top of the line professionals?

Listen, I better leave it there before I resort to verse and then we’d all be sobbing into buckets. On behalf of myself and all the readers of ‘Samsung Beauty’, may I send you all our very best wishes and hope that you continue to dominate those swine at Apple. We also look forward to hearing from you, hopefully in the form of an environmentally friendly carton delivered by courier. There’s always somebody in, so no need to fret on that score!

Your friend, eager to hand out the five star reviews,

David Waywell (nee Stan Madeley)
Samsung Beautywww.the-spine.com

New Shoes

You might have noticed that I’ve joined Instagram. It seemed like a sensible thing to do, plus I finally have a good reason to embrace this powerful form of voodoo. You might already know about my love for all things Samsung, especially the people in Samsung who decide which bloggers get a 10.1 inch (2014 edition) tablet to review. (Though my cunning scheme doesn't appear to be working...) Well, today I started to pack a Samsung S2 phone. Yes, big news!

The S2 came my way because my sister has now upgraded to something more powerful. Her contract had come to an end and she had a spare phone. I’m just happy to have something running Android. I rooted it yesterday and finally broke O2’s mind-lock so I could use my old Vodafone sim card. Turned it on and all manner of spectacular things began to happen. I’d spent a quid for a day’s Pay as you Go mobile data before I even knew how to switch it over to Wi-Fi. The camera excites me but I’ll try to think of interesting things to do with it, possibly involving nudity in public places...

Such positive vibes are unusual but this cool weather has revitalised me. My work always suffers during the summer when the heat slows down my higher brain functions. I need the cooler weather of autumn and early spring. Winter too can also be productive but I have to remember to hit myself with plenty of artificial sunlight or risk running my brain into a black wall. But for the moment, I have enough endorphins and the weather is cool so I can wear my favourite item of clothing: a thick Peter Storm long sleeve sweater bought from Millets.

I attribute the reappearance of my sweater with yesterday’s productivity. I’ve drawn a few cartoons for the blog but my main effort has been the four page short story I’m attempting to illustrate and write. I’ve been stuck on the fourth page for weeks. Until yesterday I couldn’t think of a way to join the middle to the end. Now I’ve done that so it’s just a matter of putting in a few more hours with my Kuru Toga Roulette (the best pencil ever made and which makes drawing a pleasure) and then the inking begins.It can get pretty tedious but I find that I can get through four pages in the time it takes me to watch two entire series of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

I’m also getting together a collection of my best cartoons to send to various outlets. My intention is to keep plugging away, though I’m beginning to worry about posting too much of my work here. Does that constitute publication? I worry that it does, meaning everything I’ve ever posted here is already lost, hence my posting one of my less polished cartoons today.

 

Dear Samsung

The people in my local Post Office didn't notice the editor of the newest technology blog, ‘Samsung Beauty’, standing among them. Nor were they aware that Rachel McAdams figured so heavily in my thoughts or that she too was excited by my plan...

The queue was at least twenty pensioners deep so it left me running late today, plus I also smell of Werther's Originals. But isn’t that the kind of detail that we technology journalists crave? One point three inches of caramel toffee, wrapped in a golden polyethylene wrapper laser cut into perfect squares. The caramel itself was luxuriously smooth, with class-leading performance when worked between dentures...

Why I was at the Post Office will become apparent in the coming days but needless to say that I’m hoping that my £1.60 was wisely spent. You see, I’m trying to open high level negotiations with the people at Samsung about my doing a review of the Note 10.1 (2014 Edition) preferably in black. I say ‘preferably in black’ but realise that I didn’t specify that in my letter…

Damn me and these careless beginner mistakes! Not that I would complain about a tablet in white but if we’re going to establish our reputation as the premier Galaxy Note 10.1 inch (2014 Edition) website, then we need to get these fundamentals right. As right, perhaps, as the faux-leather back of the new Galaxy Note…

We are now in for a few nervous days, perhaps even weeks, as we wait to see what happens. Will Samsung reply? Will they forward the name 'Burke Bevel' to MI5 for inclusion in a list of agitators and political malcontents out to undermine the capitalist system through a cunning use of comedy begging?

Comedy begging? I like that phrase and I think I’ll make it my own. After all, I’m not ashamed of what I'm doing. What is technology journalism other than a form of high-level begging? There was a time when a product launch involved a warm buffet in a third rate hotel in the middle of Bradford. These days, companies pay for journalists to travel the world, play basketball with the Harlem Globetrotters before being taken on a helicopter flight to some star-studded product launch at Everest Base Camp. The only difference between technology journalists and myself is that I’m willing to put on some extra effort up front.

That effort comprised this morning’s bundle: a large brown jiffy bag containing two pages of tightly-written prose, a copy of my book (inscribed and signed), and one A4 sheet of expensive (and mounted) Bristol Board on which I spent a good part of yesterday drawing and then inking a cartoon. Will they appreciate the gift I’m giving them or will it end up in the bin?

I go cold at the thought of that particular cartoon ending up in a bin but I guess if I’m foolish enough to send these priceless things to people who might not appreciate them, then in all likelihood they’ll end up covered with filter coffee and chewing gum. I suppose that’s part of the fun. It shows what a truly valueless world we live in.

I suppose that’s why I do it. In fact, I don’t suppose. I knowingly give my work away to strangers because it raises interesting questions about the way we value the things around us. How much would it cost to walk into a shop and buy that hand-drawn cartoon? Is it vulgar to ask? What price on my labour, even if I put zero price on my talen? My nearest shop selling cartoon originals, the Cartoon Gallery in Chester, sell them for nearly £300 a piece or about the same price of the old Samsung Note 10.1. Is that too expensive or too cheap for a drawing? What price would I set mine for if I were selling? £10? £50? £100? Of course, there's no upper limit on what you can ask, just a limit on what people might pay. I’ve seen sellers asking many thousands for original drawings by artists such as R. Crumb and even more for Golden Age superhero illustrators such as Fred Ray. Jack Kirby originals are priced like vintage cars.

Of course, I’m not a Crumb or a Kirby. I’m just me. So what price my originality? A mass produced lump of consumer electronics or the totally original piece of artwork drawn with a Rotring and dip pen over the course of ten hours? Does that seem like a fair swap?

If only it were that easy… Is that cartoon enough to make them think I’m serious or too much so they think I’m mad? Should a man aspiring to road test a Samsung Note 10.1 (2014 Edition) tablet even think this way? What would Jason Bradbury do? What would Burke Bevelling do?

The Launch of Samsung Beauty

Well, the digital elves might be on zero hour contracts but they worked hard into the night and, if everything has gone to plan, you’ll have noticed that things look a little different around here. Yes, yes! Thank you but save the applause for the trial. Once ‘The Gadget Show’ comes after me, I’ll need you cheering in my corner.

Of course, if you’re reading this via an RSS feed, then you’re probably wondering what I’m talking about. Well, today I’m relaunching this blog as 'Samsung Beauty', the newest super-hip technology blog staffed by twenty somethings who look like Jesse Eisenberg but are usually called ‘Tom’. It also excites me to change my name, so please, from now on, I’d like to be known as ‘Burke Bevel’, IT journalist and freelance gadgeteer. I’ll be modelling myself largely on the great Jason Bradbury so my habitual scruffiness and intense introversion are things of the past. Burke Bevel is all about primal sexualised baldness, big glasses, and an even bigger personality made for popular television, or, failing that, Channel 5.

Hey guys! It’s me, your gadget guru, Burke Bevel here! And we’ve got an exciting show for you this week. I’ll be getting frisky with the 2014 edition of Samsung’s 10.1 inch Note, whilst Tom dresses like a pineapple in order to explain everything micro-USB. Plus we’ve got the usual tech news and competition in which you can win half a million quid’s worth of tech gear simply by leaving your name and address on our £10-a-second phone line and then we’ll be investigating the perils of £10-a-second phone lines and how scammers lure you in with the promise of ridiculous prizes.

See what I mean? I’m so happening and now that it’s frightening to think how fifteen minutes ago I was just fifteen minutes ago.

So, what can you expect this week on ‘Samsung Beauty’?

Well, there’ll be the usual mix of cartoons you won’t want to share on Twitter and essays you don’t read all the way to the end. However, everything will have increasingly irrational references to the Samsung Note 10.1 inch (2014 edition) tablet! It's a format I'm copying from popular technology websites such as ‘Gizmodo’, ‘Crave’, and ‘Trusted Reviews’ but with more emphasis on the nervous breakdown caused by a man’s unrequited love for unobtainable Samsung hardware.

By the end of the week, I’m hoping to have a hands-on review of the Note 10.1, depending on when they get the new model in stock at the local PC World and providing they don’t chase me off like they usually do once they realise I can’t afford to buy. I’m just hoping the short porcine manager with the attitude problem won't recognise me with my shaved head, big glasses and bright yellow dungarees…

Of course, there’ll also be the usual news, reviews, and tips about how to use a fantasy Samsung Note 10.1 inch (2014 edition) tablet and because it’s a fantasy tablet the tips will involve appearances from Rachel McAdams, Natalie Portman, and members of 1980s supergroup Bananarama.

What else can I say? If you’re interested in the Samsung Note 10.1 inch (2014 edition) tablet, then this is the place to be.

Laters tableters!

Dear Samsung: Please Take My Soul For A Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition!

Does whoring yourself out over the internet ever work?

Most mornings of the week I arrive at my desk to discover at least one email from a web marketing company offering to buy my soul. They don’t phrase it as succinctly as that. They talk about this great opportunity to fill my blog with high quality content written by their talented team of writers and ‘totally in the style of your blog’. It’s all bullshine, of course. They really mean they’d burden this blog with the same steamrollered prose as fills 99% of everything these days. They just want to use my smiling (ha!) internet presence to sell something to you without you noticing that I’m being paid to slip you a lie.

That doesn’t mean that lots of bloggers are immune to taking their shilling. Perhaps I’d even take it myself if they offered me enough, though my soul does come with a hefty price tag attached. It would take life-changing amounts (so that’s many thousands not hundreds of shillings) before I’d even consider sticking an ad for online gambling on my blog. Even then, I’d probably feel so guilty about the deception that I’d highlight the whole sordid business with large red arrows and write personal letters to every single one of you asking for your forgiveness.

Having said all that, I’d now like to sell my soul to Samsung but I don’t know how to go about it.

I’m beginning to seriously obsess about Samsung’s new Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition and that’s never a good sign. It’s very rare that I really obsess over new technology. I pride myself on not desiring things. Despite my loving technology, technological abstinence has become one of the ways I’ve managed to keep writing, drawing and blogging. There hasn’t been a single Apple launch that excited me enough to want one of their products. My mobile phone (an old Sony Ericsson Cybershot) is about ten years old. I haven’t got a mobile contract, never bought anything with 3G or 4G, and I don’t really want to start now. There was a time, about a year or so ago, when I needed a better graphics card to help with my 3D animation work but that wasn’t twitchy as much as needy. The last time I felt this twitchy about a product was about the original Nintendo DS but, luckily, I had a job at the time and could satisfy my craving.

The problem this time is that the Samsung Note uses Wacom technology and there’s no word in the advertiser’s lexicon that gets me quite as excited as ‘Wacom’. Wacom make the graphic tablet I use (Bamboo), the graphic tablets I really should get (Intuos), and the graphic pen monitors I lust after (Cintiq). Microsoft also used Wacom tech in their pricier Surface tablet which was also lust worthy, especially after a video surfaced of Penny Arcade's artist, Mike Krahulik, using one.

The Surface tablets run closer to £1000 which takes them well into dream territory. The Samsung Note is cheaper and would fulfill all my needs. As much as I love using pen and ink, there are times in the day when that’s simply not possible. My logic then begins to run down this narrow and utterly immoral line of reasoning: a mobile tablet would allow me to work seamlessly at home and away, blog more often, and produce more graphic content. It would double my productivity, at the very least, and would surely pay for itself over a year…



Oh, get thee behind me… This kind of thinking will lead me to the madhouse unless I can get creative about my predicament.

So, my question is: how do I get Samsung to send me one of those Galaxy Note 10.1 inch beauties to review? I know this blatant kind of scheming works for some people. Things I’ve got free in my time as a blogger: one copy of a book of Clive James’s essays, a copy of ‘Hunger’ by the Norwegian Modernist writer Knut Hamsun, and a copy of a nameless book by a popular and multi-award winning blogger which was so appallingly bad that I quickly dumped it into a charity box and felt bad for inflicting such dross on a charity. (I won’t name the book but, if you’re interested, email me for details).

That’s a rather pitiful return, when you think about it, though none of those books came because I actively lobbied for freebies. This time I am and I'm aiming a little higher...

So, things to do in the next few days:

• relaunch this blog as one of those technology blogs that always get exciting new products;


• begin to act more like Brian Tong or shave my head and adopt ridiculous glasses like Jason Bradbury so Samsung begin to take notice;


• promise them a five star review and constant plugging for the next five years;


• get a large Samsung tattoo covering my buttocks (à la Cheryl Cole), which I also promise to flaunt in public over the next five years or until third arrest.

Hmm… Alternatively, perhaps those ads for online gambling aren’t such a bad idea...

The Blog Post in Which I Realise I’m Worth Less Than a Buttock

People who hang wet mackerel and seaweed among their wind chimes assure me that this might be the last hot day of the year. That promise is the only thing keeping me going. This sultry air puts me in fretful state of mind. Yesterday was a brutal day, depressingly quiet on the web, no emails from real people, no human contact, while visits to the blog continued to degrade my faith in humanity. ‘Animal Crossing porn’ might now be the single most depressing search term I think I’ve ever seen, though the day also saw rank upon file of people searching for news about Cheryl Cole’s bottom.

Here’s a depressing thought for you or, rather, for me... Nothing I will ever do in my life will mean as much to people as Cheryl Cole’s arse.

Think about that for a moment. Even one half of her behind means more to more people than my entire being as it exists over the entire course of my lifetime. Every single thing I write, draw, say, and do will be insignificant compared to just one of her unthinking buttocks. Anything my brain can create or has created is meaningless compared to this lump of skin, fat, and gluteal muscle now tattooed with something Microsoft normally include as a Windows background and which you immediately change to a picture of your dog.

I don’t know how I’m meant to function now that I’m aware of this depressing statistic. It’s like realising that you entertain fewer people than the Krankies with their freakish-old-woman-playing-a-schoolboy-who-sleeps-with-the-curly-haired-guy-in-the-celebrity-sweater act.

Hey! Hey! Hey! Snap out of it, you miserable hack! There are better things to write about this morning such as the new Samsung Note 10.1 inch tablet with Wacom stylus technology. Excuse me while I wipe the drool on my sleeve. I just need to figure out some new ingenious scheme which might help be buy one of these suckers. Samsung swinishly price their tablets reasonably for everybody except me. It’s clear victimisation. Ideally, I need to sell some cartoons but what’s the chance of that?

Of course, Cheryl Cole’s buttocks could afford to buy a Samsung Note 10.1 inch tablet, but how would it handle the stylus? That’s a question I bet you’ve failed to ask amid all this excitement. Mechanically it is possible, I suppose. You might argue that her bottom is perfectly adapted to handling a stylus, though I wouldn’t like to be the person using it next.

Speaking of the vulgar abuse of technology, I read last night that we can now apply for a one-way mission to Mars. I suspect it’s really one of those thin-out-the-species deals or some kind of Hugo Drax Moonraker scheme where all you super-bright types disappear behind the moon while the rest of us go toxic in the Apocalypse which is initially mistaken for a case of mass twerking or twerping. Either way, I’m up for it and I’ve filled in my application. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m tired of living in a world that wants to read Suzanne Moore. I don’t get anything anymore. I’m not on the left, the right, or even in the middle. I’m just lost. I also read in The Guardian today that there’s no end to David Walliam’s talent, in which case, a planet where culture comprises swirling dust storms and endless rocks seems infinitely preferable.

There’s a limited availability of these tickets but I guess the upside is that if you do win a place, you would be more significant to human culture than Cheryl Cole’s bottom, which, in this horribly bleak moment, feels like it’s the pinnacle of human ingenuity and accomplishment.

Okay, I have a cartoon strip to finish. Until tomorrow.