Chester just isn't built for big people. I realised this about the time I demolished a display of Jonathan Dimbleby books in the city's cramped Waterstones. The destruction didn't bother me too much. Richard & Judy's blurb for the book says 'fascinating', which is a whole word more than I got for the book written by the UK's top Richard Madeley lookalike... Besides, Jonathan is only my fourth favourite Dimbleby (after David, Richard, and Alphonsus (no relation)). I did, however, feel bad for the young toddler whose mother scolded him for toppling the pile. I wasn't about to disillusion her and admit that my right elbow was the guilty party but I think I had good intentions. That child will grow up with a lifelong phobia of Jonathan Dimbleby and that's not a bad phobia to have. Hell of a lot better than an old friend of mine who had a phobia of tomatoes. Not sure if there's a tomato-based form of Tourettes but he would scream 'c**t' every time he saw a red vegetable in a sandwich.
But I digress...
I was in Chester because my sister had an appointment with a neurologist for her condition which continues to baffle medical science but could well be some magnificent fuckup with her sympathetic chain. The NHS have taken 20 years to spot what might be this magnificent fuckup in her sympathetic chain hence our travelling to Chester for expert advice. I've taken to joking that her sympathetic chain ends somewhere around me but that's clearly not true. My middle name is 'Sympathy' which also, quite possibly, is the name of one of the minor Dimblebys.
I joke but it's been a hell of a week, most of which has been spent accompanying my nearest and dearest as they have had hospital appointments of one kind or another.
The oddest day was Thursday, which is saying something given that I spent this morning sitting in a hospital reading Christopher Hitchens's account of having his balls waxed. Yet Thursday was one of those surprising and wonderful days that defined my week, month, year, and decade, depending on how you view the day I spent in London meeting a publisher who agreed to publish my book. That day was a sublimely good day but not a surprise. It also subsequently become tinged by the sadness of what happened to poor Stan Madeley. The status of 'best day of my life' was up for grabs and Thursday definitely grabbed it by its ears and rode it like an incontinent pig.
I went to Sale to attend Martin Rowson's cartoon workshop and lecture and it all turned out rather amazing. I'm trying to finish a proper full length review of the talk but, as you know, I rate Rowson as one of the best cartoonists in the country. Dare I say the best? Well, sod it. Some people rate Shelley higher than Byron but I prefer my poets madder and badder rather than happy, clappy, or all skippy through the dandylions. Rowson has a dark vituperative edge which elevates him higher than the rest. He's Byronic in his anger, satire, and wit. Byronic too in his kindness when it comes to treating a humble writer/cartoonist to a curry. Yes, that's right: I felt a bit John Cam Hobhouse as I had a curry with Martin Rowson. One day I might actually be able to put that experience into words and explain how much it meant. What I'll say is that he taught me a lesson in how to say 'fuck you' to the world and 'fuck you' to critics. No longer will I be plagued by the words of the 'Welsh Rockweiller' who greeted my book with possibly the shittiest review that Amazon has ever seen. Fuck you, Welsh Rockweiller! Fuck you!
The actual workshop also gave me a new way of approaching caricature and I intend to get at least one cartoon finished this weekend. Sadly, the use-by date has passed on a nice little drawing I'd started of Julian Assange pissing on the head of Philip Hammond so it will be something new I work on tonight as I try to stay awake for the Republican debate. I might not. I'm spectacularly knackered.
This coming week, I also have to try to write some new articles and attempt to 'place' them which means hope that somebody will buy them. I've had real strangers write to me in the past week saying how much they've enjoyed the pieces I've been writing. Short of getting paid for what you love to do, praise is possibly the best part of being a writer and/or cartoonist. That and being able to sleep late on a Tuesday...
Showing posts with label Christopher Hitchens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christopher Hitchens. Show all posts
Saturday, 6 February 2016
Tuesday, 15 December 2015
The Hitch and America
A new piece written today to commemorate the death of Christopher Hitchens and what he might have thought about the sad spectacle of the Zadroga Act in the US.
I suppose because I've been writing more serious pieces than comedy this year, my tendency to pick up Hitchens' writings has been more pronounced. I've always loved his work and have done so since I realised that he has good tastes . Yet until Hitchens made his move to the right in politics, I was always doubtful about him as I am about ideologues of any kind. It was important for me that he changed his mind about a great many things and, if we're honest about this, at the expense of much ridicule. The willingness to adapt his thinking to new information was stronger than any of his arguments, even those where I found myself in agreement. I suppose he followed in the footsteps of his great hero, Orwell, another great English essayist who died too early from his addiction to tobacco.
Speaking of Orwell, I foolishly had a thought the other day and wondered how much a complete set of Orwell would cost. I thought, perhaps less than £50. Now I've done my research I realise that the complete set runs to 20 volumes and a single hardback volume costs £50. That's £1000 for the complete writings of a man who spoke most eloquently about inequality and the British poor. Such a grim irony about that.
I suppose because I've been writing more serious pieces than comedy this year, my tendency to pick up Hitchens' writings has been more pronounced. I've always loved his work and have done so since I realised that he has good tastes . Yet until Hitchens made his move to the right in politics, I was always doubtful about him as I am about ideologues of any kind. It was important for me that he changed his mind about a great many things and, if we're honest about this, at the expense of much ridicule. The willingness to adapt his thinking to new information was stronger than any of his arguments, even those where I found myself in agreement. I suppose he followed in the footsteps of his great hero, Orwell, another great English essayist who died too early from his addiction to tobacco.
Speaking of Orwell, I foolishly had a thought the other day and wondered how much a complete set of Orwell would cost. I thought, perhaps less than £50. Now I've done my research I realise that the complete set runs to 20 volumes and a single hardback volume costs £50. That's £1000 for the complete writings of a man who spoke most eloquently about inequality and the British poor. Such a grim irony about that.
Friday, 11 December 2015
Galloway, Twitter & Christopher Hitchens
Over at CapX, I'm removing my gloves and laying into George Galloway and his habit of blocking anybody who disagrees with him. Here is the graphic I doodled whilst writing the piece.
Wednesday, 18 November 2015
Atheism, Hitchens, Orwell & Michelle Visage
Over at The What & The Why, I'm talking about the Paris attacks and making broad points about the whole troubled mess. I accept it won't be to everybody's taste but that was deliberately so. My views are atheist, sceptical, but also, I hope, humanist. Despite being cynical about most things, I'm no nihilist. I do believe in goodness, virtues, and human beings. We can do great things only we too often attribute those great things to God or gods when we should attribute them to ourselves. I expected a little flak and there was some criticism but nothing that convinces me that a sceptical approach to life isn't the best.
I suppose I should also have read some Christopher Hitchens before trying my hand at a full-on atheist argument. However, I didn't. Time to get Arguably down off the shelf. Not sure what it's doing up there. It's another of the books which usually sit in the only tidy part of my desk by the side of my monitor. I miss Hitchens terribly, especially at times like these when his clarity and anger meant so much. He was good TV because he was bad TV, in the sense that he was not anodyne or always kind but intellectually fierce and independent. He cut through the bullshit and made me wince at the things he would say. We do too little wincing these days. Or, at least, the wrong kind of wincing.
I have been reading a lot of Orwell recently. I hadn't read his essays in a while, though his collected best are always sitting in that favored spot on my desk. However, my old edition was falling to pieces, with half the pages having come loose. I was recently bought a new copy as a gift, which I'm cherishing and using as a little motivational reading before I start hammering the keyboard every morning. Last week I reread 'The Lion and the Unicorn' and thought it remarkable how little England had changed to the one he described back in 1940. I cannot stop going back to this passage. Something about it has been niggling away at me for days.
I've been wanting to write about something that happened when I visited Waterstones in Liverpool the other day; the strange experience of walking in to see a book signing by some American TV starlet called Michelle Visage and then seeing the prices of the newest Penguin books. It keeps reminding me of Orwell, perhaps some secret agreement high up in our culture that ensures that the crass is abundant and cheap and anything quality kept exorbitantly high. I suppose I shouldn't be too critical. Michelle Visage has over 200,000 followers on Twitter. I can't be bothered to break past 200. She is what humanity craves and, I guess, given a choice between following Visage or some supernatural god, I would have reluctantly choose to follow Visage. Damn! Never let it be said that atheists choose the easy route.
I suppose I should also have read some Christopher Hitchens before trying my hand at a full-on atheist argument. However, I didn't. Time to get Arguably down off the shelf. Not sure what it's doing up there. It's another of the books which usually sit in the only tidy part of my desk by the side of my monitor. I miss Hitchens terribly, especially at times like these when his clarity and anger meant so much. He was good TV because he was bad TV, in the sense that he was not anodyne or always kind but intellectually fierce and independent. He cut through the bullshit and made me wince at the things he would say. We do too little wincing these days. Or, at least, the wrong kind of wincing.
I have been reading a lot of Orwell recently. I hadn't read his essays in a while, though his collected best are always sitting in that favored spot on my desk. However, my old edition was falling to pieces, with half the pages having come loose. I was recently bought a new copy as a gift, which I'm cherishing and using as a little motivational reading before I start hammering the keyboard every morning. Last week I reread 'The Lion and the Unicorn' and thought it remarkable how little England had changed to the one he described back in 1940. I cannot stop going back to this passage. Something about it has been niggling away at me for days.
It follows that British democracy is less of a fraud than it sometimes appears. A foreign observer sees only the huge inequality of wealth, the unfair electoral system, the governing-class control over the press, the radio and education, and concludes that democracy is simply a polite name for dictatorship. But this ignores the considerable agreement that does unfortunately exist between the leaders and the led.
I've been wanting to write about something that happened when I visited Waterstones in Liverpool the other day; the strange experience of walking in to see a book signing by some American TV starlet called Michelle Visage and then seeing the prices of the newest Penguin books. It keeps reminding me of Orwell, perhaps some secret agreement high up in our culture that ensures that the crass is abundant and cheap and anything quality kept exorbitantly high. I suppose I shouldn't be too critical. Michelle Visage has over 200,000 followers on Twitter. I can't be bothered to break past 200. She is what humanity craves and, I guess, given a choice between following Visage or some supernatural god, I would have reluctantly choose to follow Visage. Damn! Never let it be said that atheists choose the easy route.
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