John Noakes and the Spirit of the Braying Mob

Excuse me if this isn't polished or even interesting. I don't have any careful arguments to weave and, even if I did, I'm not sure I have the care and attention needed to weave them. I guess I'm feeling a bit dejected with the world. I've been working hard all month trying to communicate with the world but the world doesn't seem all that interested in talking to me. Well, screw the world. I can at least talk to myself or, if I'm lucky, some other lone intellects out there that don't belong to a marketing scam robot or some Chinese plastics company intent on filling my comments with spam.

I wanted to write about John Noakes who, you might know, went missing (but was thankfully found) yesterday and I wanted to write about him without using the word 'celebrity'. I despise that word, which has to be the curse of our age. It has been elevated to the point that to possess 'celebrity' means that you're a special kind of person, worthy of special treatment and to be judged against lower moral or artistic standards than the rest of common humanity. For example, I was searching last week for a publisher and I came across one who advertised their interest in humour. You should know how rare that is for UK publishers, who largely take no interest in humour unless it's disguised as some postmodern pastiche of Polish pork butchers in the 1300s. This publisher therefore caught my eye, until I read that writers would have to pay to have their books published. There was, however, an exception. In the case of 'a celebrity', the publisher would be very interested in discussing an advance and contact.

It's a sign of how the world has become. Yet the truth is that people who are celebrities tend to be the dullest among us. To be a celebrity is different to being a writer, a musician, an actor, painter, poet, illustrator, inventor, sportsperson, or even a politician. It's why the very best writers, musicians, actors, painters, poets, illustrators, inventors, sportspersons, and politicians live ordinary lives. They don't wish to live like a celebrity. To be a celebrity simply means that you have fame and, really, there's nothing less interesting than a person famous only for having fame. The other day The Times dedicated a double page spread to Alan Titchmarsh, one of the dullest men on the planet and it was amazing how many dull things the dullest man on the planet had to say in what was, predictably, a very dull article. Yet still: he's famous and because he was famous, he even had his face in full colour on their colour supplement.

Welcome to the UK, 2015. For those that have: here have more. Those without, we want you to have even less.

Last weekend witnessed another visible demonstration of celebrity when Kanye West took the stage at Glastonbury. He walked out thinking, perhaps, that celebrity would do most of his work for him. It didn't. It was a risible performance, highlighting the fact that this was one of the least enjoyable Glastonbury weekends in quite a while. All the excellence was to be found well beyond the headline acts. Patti Smith produced the performance of the festival but I also enjoyed, as you might expect, the show put on by FFS on the last night, which was largely ignored by the media. The media were too busy talking about The Who, who did what The Who have always done but didn't do it with much swagger. The fact that they refused to allow the BBC to broadcast their set was small minded, greedy, or both. In future, no act should be allowed to headline (or otherwise) at Glastonbury if they make non-broadcast a condition of the performance. The question wasn't so much who but why? Why were The Who performing at Glastonbury? I think it was simply because they're a world famous act. They have 'celebrity'.

I arrived at the beginning of this week reflecting, yet again, on how celebrity is ruining our culture. If you're not a celebrity, then you're obviously nobody, and perhaps it's because of the problems associated with being a nobody that an otherwise excellent band like the Fat White Family (a bit blues, a bit Velvet Underground, a lot The Doors) have to resort to the tales of the sordid excess in order to get noticed and then heard. The same is true of writers, actors, artists, comedians. To get noticed, you must doing something in excess. You must run out on stage whilst Kanye West is performing. You must paint your work in your own excrement or blood. You must write your book whilst sitting in a cupboard for ten years and never seeing daylight...

Then John Noakes went missing.

I can't think of many people who have meant as much to me as John Noakes. Yet to describe what he did is to skirt around the phrase 'celebrity'. He was, of course, a TV presenter, which usually is a job that amounts to very little. Presenters are usually celebrities. Vernon Kaye and Claudia Winkleman are both celebrities but I can't honestly tell you of a single discernible skill either of them has to make them worth the money the BBC pays them. Cut their wage to a sixth and you'd still find people equally adept at fronting that kind of show. I'm serious. I fail to understand why the BBC think it important to pay millions to people who are merely presenters. A disembodied robotic voice could link segments together almost as well... Did I say 'almost'? Well, I meant to say 'better'.

Yet Noakes wasn't simply a presenter. He was an accidental comedian. In fact, when I think of what I like in comedy, I think about those qualities that Noakes embodied. He was relaxed and slightly unprofessional in a way you can perhaps see in the very best comedy. You see it in the Marx Brothers but also in Robin Williams or Steve Martin. Noakes made mistakes and allowed people to see his mistakes, a bit like Stewart Lee does when he highlights a mistake and weaves it into his set. Noakes was a clown but doing serious work in the very same way that Clive James would always use humour to make a deeper point. Yet beyond all of that, Noakes was simply likable and so very and utterly human. He was the best uncle many of us have ever had with any degree of regularity in our lives.

When he went missing yesterday, I was upset. I don't know why. I'm not ashamed to admit that when I tried to explain it to somebody later on, I actually found myself getting teary eyed. I didn't realise how much John Noakes meant to me. He must have meant a lot because I even used Twitter to look for updates. Perhaps I wanted to find other people who shared my upset and I was genuinely heartened to find that there were others just like me. It reminded me that not everybody on Twitter is a hate filled troll.

Yet there were, predictably, a few others who saw it as another opportunity to make cheap jokes about the disappearance of an 81 year old man suffering from Alzheimer's. They are the people who made me quit Twitter or, at least, have minimal contact with social media. They are the always-looking-for-a-laugh narcissists, who are always at your elbow playing everything for laughs. They're the Colin Hunts of the online world who give a bad name to anybody who has ever tried to make people laugh for a living.

I suppose what I find irritating about them is that I could easily be one of those people myself. When I first used Twitter, I used it as a way of writing jokes and being 'witty'. Yet you soon find it's an insatiable medium. Your best material is stolen by others and the many of the people also in the business of being funny are quite happy to steal their material from old joke books. People who aren't serious about comedy seem unable to stop trying to be funny. Serious comedians are often described as sulky and miserable when they're not on stage but that's because people assume that to have a comedic outlook on life means that you're always 'up for a laugh'. In my limited experience, it's quite the reverse. It's why I despise Twitter. It's also a place where you're always encouraged to be that little bit more edgy. When I write what I write about real people, I don't mean to hurt them. I write knowing there's a distance between my writing and the chances of their reading what I write. Twitter is very different. Your words too easily end up in their timeline, seen by their eyes. Twitter magnifies the venom and I quit the moment I realised this. I quit the moment people began confusing my comic creation with the real Richard Madeley.

Others didn't share my concerns and still don't. Twitter comedians are no comedians in my eyes. They're precisely the people I didn't want to become when I was growing up. What I wanted to be was some latter day John Noakes, who was a free spirit, fascinated by the world but never to the point of pretension. He was funny but never to the point where it would begin to wear on you. He was balanced pretty evenly in that place where the best human beings exist: good natured, interested and, above all things, simply humane.

It's why his disappearance yesterday upset me. Not because John Noakes the celebrity had gone missing. It was because I remembered John Noakes as simply the best example of a generous, witty but unashamedly joyous spirit there was when I was growing up. He's one of the best examples of our kind and of a better age, before Twitter exposed us all to the vile psychopaths who hurt people in the name of humour. I'm now at the stage when I actively despise people who try to be funny on Twitter. They're little more than piss-soaked mongrels howling at the heels of the braying mob. Yesterday reminded me that they're still out there seeking their celebrity. And the sad truth is: one day their excesses might become so great that they might indeed find it.

Calm

Okay. I've had a cup of coffee and my mind has settled. I don't feel quite as dog drawn out bad as I felt yesterday.

It's been a strange business, dealing with my now no-longer missing Guardian Witness cartoon. Years ago, when I was first writing my first Spine blog, I'd post daily Photoshops. This was before Photoshopping images became known as 'mash ups' or became so prevalent that everybody and their whiskery-soaked aunt began doing them. My blog was nominated as one of Yahoo UK's 'Finds of the Year'. I had a few other minor whoopee moments. My work appeared occasionally on the big political blogs and in a few newspapers.

About that time, I became friendly with a journalist who worked for The Guardian. He asked his editor if they'd accept any of my Photoshops. The message that came back was that they'd love to but they were deeply concerned about image rights. Since my Photoshops were made up of other images, they couldn't publish my work for fear of breaking some third party's copyright. Around this time, one of my photos appeared on 'Have I Got News For You' and I spent a crazy afternoon sourcing the images for the people at Hattrick Productions. The people whose photos I'd used were paid well for their photos. I didn't receive a bloody thing.

It was that which made up my mind. I made a vow that I'd never again be at the mercy of third parties. I would diligently uphold the copyright laws and I wouldn't borrow a single thing to do my work.

It's meant losing out on a lot of the exposure you get when Photoshopping. I saw other people getting huge followings on Twitter with pretty poor quality Photoshops but I gritted my teeth. I wanted to do something better. I wanted to do something more worthwhile. And, thus far, I've been fairly loyal to my principals. Most of what I did from that point on was my own work, with perhaps the main exception being a photo of Richard Madeley which I used for my Stan Madeley project. Yet even that was probably sourced and paid for.

All of which makes it so bloody ironic that the Guardian withheld my cartoon because they thought I'd nicked it!

It's more ironic when you consider that the majority of photos on those Witness pages obviously use borrowed images. There's one there that largely contains a screen grab from the John Carpenter film 'They Live'. I don't know if Universal Pictures really care about lightweight 'borrowing' from their movies but this is the problem with the copyright laws as they stand. just how transformative does something have to be before it becomes transformative?

The other side of the problem is that the Photoshop culture is slowly killing the market for real cartoons. Photoshops have a veracity that you never get with ink. To appreciate a cartoon, you have to be a fan of cartoons and that requires imagination, an aesthetic sense, and perhaps even a certain refinement. To appreciate a Photoshop, you merely have to eyes to see. Photoshops are an easy laugh. Even bad Photoshops still have the power to impress because they hint towards a twisted version of reality.

The final problem is, of course, money. I shouldn't have sent my cartoon. I know that. It's to demean the art of cartooning. If somebody like me is willing to give his work away for nothing, I'm contributing to a culture where people are expected to work for nothing. Yet I want the exposure. I want my cartoons seen by people.

Sigh... I really do have a book I want to finish writing. I want to finish it before the year ends. I should go and write some proper words. And maybe later today, I might draw another cartoon.

Cartoon: The Porn Tories

I'm both ashamed and pleased with today's cartoon. I don't really care if people like it or find it disgusting. Last night, I think I finally accepted that blogging is a game for celebrities. Unless you're one of the very lucky people to strike gold, hard work amounts to nothing. I might as well give up. Today I feel more dejected than ever. If four blog posts from a TV news editor (albeit the best one there is) can get 3,500 page views after two days of blogging, then what chance do I have? Even if I work another 10 years, blogging every single day, I'll never hit those figures. So, sod it. Perhaps this is my swan song and it's a fitting one if that's what it is.

For what it's worth: the genesis of the idea was an interview given by the 'Honourable' Jacob Rees Mogg to Conservativehome. In his words:

“We talk about being progressive. We’re not progressive. We’re conservative. We don’t believe in changing things that don’t need to be changed. And so I think language is very, very important, and that we have thought the language of the Left is cuddly, and that therefore people will like it. Actually what’s happened is it’s made it very difficult to explain why we’ve done the good things we’ve done. Which are actually much more cuddly than what the Left does, because they actually improve people’s lives.

The first part is true. Conservatives are reactionary and, in that sense, I guess I'm a conservative at heart. I don't like change. I don't like radical governments. However, that's precisely why I dislike the current government. They're radical and delight in being radical. They take such a masochistic delight in austerity that it sounds almost pornographic. It is, of course, that same old 'New Toryism' which has never been called 'New Toryism' and is usually called Thatcherism. Had her governments been called the 'New Tories', the newness might have died by now. As it is, it was called Thatcherism  and Thatcherism was as ideological and radical as anything that's has come from the political left in the past half a century. Mogg's words could have easily been spat out by the High Priest of Thatcherism, Lord Tebbit. It's constantly about 'improving people's lives' and yet the society it has created (and would like to further create) is one in which we pay through the nose for everything or we do without. Competition in everything means a rush for cheapness with the greatest profit at the end. I think it's been to the ruination of our country. We've exchanged a nation of great libraries for a nation of Premiership footballers.

It got me thinking about the Tories and the personalities involved. A criticism that can be levelled at Tony Blair and (for that matter) David Cameron is that they are both bandwagon politicians. They respond to headlines and seek to be liked. In that sense, I don't see Cameron as a traditional Tory or even a Thatcherite. I don't believe he's really much of conviction politician. It's why he's not in this cartoon. Few in the Tory Party share his need to be liked. He is the personable figurehead of a party that seems to take a perverse delight in being perceived as the 'bastards in blue'. Some ham it up for the cameras or for their electorate who seem to take pride in electing hardliners who'll personally spend their mornings hammering matchsticks up prisoner's toenails. Other appear to believe in their self-created monster. It's a strange kind of machismo; a warped version of Margaret Thatcher's already twisted personality. She tried to out-man the men and now, I think, politicians that have been inspired by her, share a strange compulsion to a hyper-masculinity. Drawing this cartoon, I was inspired by a particularly grotesque image of Thatcher by Gerald Scarfe. He gave her a raging erection. I think most modern Tories are desperate to have the same. It's up to you to decide how they measure up.

Why Al Murray should stay out of politics

Wish I had time today to write about this at length and more subtlety but it appears that Al Murray is going to challenge Nigel Farage for the parliamentary seat of Thanet South in Kent.

The first thing to say is that the problem of politics is not the system. It's the people. As much as I dislike UKIP, I hate to see politics debased by these cheap stunts. If people want to vote for Farage, then they have the right. It's not up to others to 'spoil' the election. It's why I dislike these schemes whereby people try to 'swap' votes. Politics looks like a game but it shouldn't be played as though it's a game where cheating is tolerated.

The second thing is that the title of Murray's party 'FUKP' is pretty risible. Again, the problem of politics is not the system and a General Election is not the place to make cheap vulgar jokes. Culture is already debased so much that we hardly need another 'fuck' placed prominently on our news media. It might make a few schoolboys snigger but it's hardly the best of Al Murray. Nor, incidentally, is a general election the place to to enhance your profile as a comedian.

The third thing is that Al Murray's act has always been problematic. He supposedly has a brilliant mind and razor sharp comedic senses. He claims that he does what he does with a knowing wink. However, it's sometimes hard to see the wink. I know for a fact that many people who enjoy his act, don't understand the act. Sometimes it's easy to become the very thing you mock. Murray plays the bigoted English nationalist so well that he's enjoyed by people who enjoy listening to bigoted English nationalists. Watch a video of a typical Al Murray performance and question why the audience is laughing. It's clever stuff but I'm not totally convinced that there's not a small undercurrent of real nationalism running through it. That's not to say that pride in your country is bad. Patriotism and nationalism are too easily elides in meaning and, as Orwell points out:

Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. Both words are normally used in so vague a way that any definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction between them, since two different and even opposing ideas are involved.

Damn. Now I'm quoting Orwell and I really wish I had time to write more than this. I have a website to build and a tutorial for my new Windows application to record.

I guess all I wanted to say was that the General Election will is too important to devalue with cheap stunts. David Cameron should attend the debates and Al Murray and every other celebrity should keep out of politics. As for last night's cartoon: I drew it in a rush. I'll try harder tonight.

A Quick Cartoon About CIA Torture

An Ed Miliband Cartoon

A Body Building Cartoon

You find me hot and sweary. I’ve lost my bloody S-Pen again and I now see that I have to do something about this habit before it becomes a regular part of my working week. I’ve had the Note for six days and I’ve already lost the pen twice, which means that I’ve now used up all the time I usually give myself to tidy my office each year. This can’t go on. At this rate, I’ll have the tidiest workspace in the country but I won’t be getting any work done.

It’s already Sunday and I have work backing up and what is sure to be a horrible week ahead. Tuesday I’m going to the dentist for a much delayed check-up, although that’s not strictly true. ‘Check-up’ makes it sound like I might need no work but who chooses to spend £50 on a check-up and inevitable polish if they don’t need to? A bit of a back tooth came away last week and I know it will mean work. Probably lots of work. My tongue tells me it’s a cavity the size of a small bungalow. I imagine crowns, extractions, months of appointments stretching ahead into the New Year. By the time it’s all done, in six-months, it’ll be time to start getting phone calls from the dentists asking me to make an appointment for a check-up. If they didn’t pester me so much, I’d probably go more often.

Once I’m beyond the horror of Tuesday morning, I need to get working. I have real work to get on with, two cartoon strips need to be finished for a football fanzine, plus I need to settle on which of my unpublished cartoons I’m entering into a competition. Since I don’t think I’ve got one good enough to send, that also means more drawing. In the meantime, I’d throwing today’s cartoon out there in the realisation that nobody would want this kind of thing. My problem is that the cartoons I like aren’t cartoons that other people like, or, specifically, cartoons they’d be willing to pay for.

But I could moan on about that for another 1000 words but it’s not getting my S-Pen found. And I have to find it before I also lose my spare…

A Cartoon About A Man Called Derek

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.

 

Winding Up Important Civic People

I’m heading out this morning, so, if you’re reading this on Friday, 30th August, 2013, I’ll probably be in Blackwell’s university bookshop in Manchester, no doubt thumbing a copy of The Comic Journal and otherwise making the most of the quiet before the new university term begins. I’m also running off early to avoid any emails from angry civic leaders. Not that I’m in the habit of annoying civic leaders but sometimes it just can’t be helped.

There might be some sharp people who enter into local politics but I can’t say that I’ve ever met one. People who enter into local politics tend to be the last people who should be involved in local politics. To paraphrase the great Groucho Marx, I wouldn’t want to belong to any club that would have those prats as members.

As evidence, I'd like you to consider the following email exchange which took place yesterday, but first, I need to set the scene... You need to know that my old blog, ‘The Richard Madeley Appreciation Society’, was supposedly written by the real Richard Madeley, star of UK TV and the husband of the equally famous Judy. Of course, the blog wasn’t written by Richard Madeley but by me. Richard Madeley had nothing to do with it. You also need to know that I’ve not updated the blog in a long time but that it still attracts the occasional visitor.

What usually happens when a visitor arrives is that they ignore the blog completely. They don’t spot the disclaimers in the banner. Suspicions aren’t raised by Photoshopped pictures of Richard in various freakish costumes or the generally twisted nature of the blog. They just rush straight to the email address at the side and think they’ve got a hotline to a bona fide UK celebrity.

That’s when I get an email such as the following:

Dear Richard,

From the small town of Pud, Glossopshire we  would like to have you sometime to speak at Pud Town Hall if possible. How do we go about making a booking if you would be interested. You remember little Pud from your Glossopshire days  ? – we heard you recall your memories of the County on a recent Radio Glossopshire programme.

I am an ex Councillor and Mayor of Pud and I am a Player and Committee Member of our local Brass Band (Pud Marching Band) and have arranged successful fundraising events before.

Best wishes

Barry and Rita Elbow

To save the embarrassment of the individual who sent me this email, I have changed a few of the details. He wasn’t called Barry Elbow and there is no Pud or county of Glossopshire.

Now, you would think that the kind thing to do would be to email back to explain how they’ve fallen for a hoax. That, however, is the very worst thing you can do. I’ve replied like that many times and it usually results in a severe bollocking from some self-important Reginald quoting advertising standards, scripture, and the law of the land.

I don’t mind the anger. It’s always good to annoy these people. However, I don’t see why I should be punished for their shallow pursuit of celebrity. I’m also of the opinion that I shouldn’t let them down so lightly. If people can’t be bothered to read the blog of the person they’re contacting, it suggests they’re not interested in the person they’re contacting. Even though I’m not Richard Madeley, I do think that the real Richard Madeley deserves more respect than somebody buttonholing him to provide free entertainment during some rainy afternoon in Pud. If you’re going to ask a favour of the man, at least have the common courtesy of learning a little about him and don’t just ask to borrow his celebrity for a couple of hours.

Because, if you do that to me, you’re going to get a reply like this:

Dear Mayor Elbow and Lady Mayoress,

Thank you for your generous invite! I would dearly love to come and speak at Pud Town Hall, though you don’t mention a topic, so I presume it’s my choice! In which case, I’d love to talk to you about my new passion for the English whelk, to be seen next year in my new BBC2 documentary series, ‘Richard Madeley’s Whelk Summer’. A talk at Pud Town Hall would be just the thing to kick off our nationwide publicity about the show.

Did you know that British waters harbour 127 varieties of whelk, of which my favourite is definitely the thick-lipped dog whelk (aka nassarius incrassatus)? If that sort of information excites you, Barry, I could manage perhaps two or three hours on the subject, plus I have some rather amusing slides including one from the first time Judy tried to eat a whelk. Unfortunately, we didn’t know that she has a shellfish allergy so she ballooned considerably, as you’ll see from the slide. The air ambulance was a bit of a white knuckler but at least we can laugh about it now! Well, I can laugh but Judy has a slight residual puffiness around her lips which makes laughter almost as painful as yawning.

Barry, let’s talk wheelbase… Is there ample parking at Pud Town Hall? I’m currently driving a six-berth Majestic motorhome in beige as part of a promotional deal the Beeb have arranged with the makers. I must warn you: it can cause congestion in smaller town centres. In other places (Bridgnorth), local scout troupes were used to guide me into the parking bay. I’m sure with your connections, you could do the same. Nothing too fancy, of course. Just a small procession, perhaps with the Pud Marching Band providing the music. The theme to ‘The Damnbusters’ is a personal favourite. Do you know it and, more to the point, Barry, can you play it?

I don’t know about you but I think the best marching band music came from the films made about the Second World War. The Spitfire Prelude, The 49th Parallel, the theme to ‘The Great Escape’… Steve McQueen was never better, don’t you think? Little known factoid for you, Barry: he made that entire movie wearing a truss. Makes the mind boggle as well as perspire! More recently, of course, we have the music to ‘Saving Private Ryan’ but it doesn’t produce the same swell in the breast as ‘The Dambuster’s March’. I suppose it’s because it’s about Americans. Judy just reminded me about ‘Colonel Bogey’ which was another good one. Good tune, I mean. Not good American though perhaps he was. Now I think about it, if you don’t like the whelk idea, I could talk about World War 2 marching band music. Hit me with your thoughts, Barry (you too Rita!). You’ll both find that I’m very open minded.

By the way, I hope you're not contacting me after finding the blog 'The Richard Madeley Appreciation Society' on the internet. I should mention briefly in passing that the blog was a spoof written by a man of limited intellect and very little talent in the field of comedy writing. He thought himself funnier than he is and occasionally pretends to be me under the name ‘Dick Madeley’. You should watch out for him and try not to get too involved. His real name is Stan Madeley. He wrote a book mocking me but thankfully it was under marketed and therefore a bit of a flop despite it being a proper rib cracker.

But let’s not sour the good tone we’ve set with talk of internet pranksters. These spoofers are just one of the many down sides of being a national celebrity/treasure. Another down side is Clare Balding but best not to go into that over unsecure channels. On a more pleasant note: I’ve just hopped onto Google Maps and eyeballed the width of your High Street. It looks very exciting if a bit narrow for the well-equipped motorhome. I’m intrigued by the look of your ‘Caramel Floom’ tea house, though I’m very disappointed to see that ‘Pud Domestic Applicance Ltd’ has now closed down.

What’s happened to the British high street, Barry? Some people blame internet shopping but I read a story in Judy’s Guardian the other day which said that only 30 percent of people shop on the internet. Well, that just made me want to cry: what about the other 70 per cent? Out-of-town shopping is clearly the problem and I think it should be taxed until B&Q squeak! What we need is for councils to work more proactively to bring new commerce into our small towns. It’s why I’m excited to see your Caramel Floom. In my opinion, every town should have a Caramel Floom, along with a bookshop, a shop selling plumbing supplies, and somewhere to buy nails.

Before I forget: my agent will need to know the numbers you can fit into the Town Hall. The biggest crowd I’ve ever had to work for a talk was 27, though they thinned out a little during the final hour.

But perhaps it’s too early to talk logistics. Let’s just get this sucker organised. Send me more details, size of hall and details of your audio visual equipment (I’m hot on multimedia, Barry), so we can begin to lock down some of the arrangements ahead of what is sure to be a night of slightly saucy crustacean fun.

Again, thank you for the invite. I’m sure the kind people of Pud will give me a very great whelkome!

Sincerely yours,

Dick Madeley
‘The Nation’s Favourite Uncle’
http://richardmadeley.blogspot.com

So, how do you reply to a letter like that? With good humour? With a snide remark to indicate that you’re angry at the deception? Perhaps you don’t even reply at all. You allow the silence to convey your disappointment…

Well, not Barry and not Rita. Barry and Rita still think I’m called Richard but Barry is now harbouring some doubts….

Dear Richard

Thank you for your reply – will consider.

Barry

And we sometimes wonder why the country is in the state it's in?

Baconface The Comedian Goes Missing

Here’s a doodled strip about Baconface Smith I’ve been working on in my spare time while waiting for inspiration to strike. Yes, it makes very little sense but what the hell… I like it and I had fun drawing it.

The First Manchester United Cartoon of the Season

George Osborne takes to Twitter!

Somebody At The Door

So my heart sinks looking at a Private Eye cartoon

Spirits are so low today I’m finding it really difficult to get going. I’m wondering why I even bother drawing cartoons. In a way, it feels like my creativity is continually stifled. I started out, a number of years ago, writing novels and I would have had one published – a light-hearted satirical skit loosely based on Jacob Rees Mogg – if the publisher hadn’t been gobbled up by Harper Collins. I still write novels and have 90,000 unfinished words sitting here on this computer. Except I know there’s so little chance of getting anything published that I might as well dump the manuscript in the local canal, myself with it…

So I reduced the scale on my ambition. I wrote spoof letters and had one book published. I have a second book finished, even better than the first, but I can’t find a publisher interested...

So I reduced the scale of my ambitions again. I started to draw cartoons and comic strips, thinking if I condense my wit, I might have more chances to be published and earn some small income. Yet even that is proving fruitless. I submit cartoons to Private Eye and every one has been rejected.

It’s depressing but, as Tom Waits would say: ‘that’s the business we’re in’. Rejection is a chance to revise and edit. As Nietzsche puts it: 'That which does not kill us makes us stronger.' When I met Steadman, he said 'rework your failures'. Rejection should make me question my work. Are my cartoons funny enough? Are they drawn well enough? How can I improve? I ask myself all those questions daily. I struggle through doubt, confusion, and monstrous self-loathing. Why can’t I just find myself a humdrum job and be happy?

Yet the spirits are never more batter than when something like this happens.

Yesterday I bought Private Eye and I saw this cartoon on page 13.

And this is what I submitted to Private Eye back in the New Year when it was quickly rejected.

It’s the same joke done different ways, different styles, but that is always bound to happen when cartoonists address the same material and same ugly world. Was mine submitted first or second? I can’t tell. Is it better or worse? I guess it’s for others to judge. Mine is less 'on the nose', as they say, but perhaps too detailed for a single panel gag. All I know is that it again makes me wonder just why the hell I even bother getting up in the morning...

Unscrupulous Websites Already Trying To Sell First Images Of Royal Baby

Stewart Lee's Usual Friday Morning Rant

As a fan of great comedy writing, I tend to hang on every word of Stewart Lee’s agitprop, which is why I feel so bright and savage this Friday morning. I lay in bed chucking over Lee’s latest policy statement about the place of writers in stand-up and, by the time I’d finished, Lee's feisty words had certainly got the blood pumping. It contains some fruity insights, a few slices of Bacon, and only one disappointing nugget in the form of his denial that he took a ‘sideswipe’ at Michael McIntyre. It’s a great way to begin the day but an even better way to spend your morning is to watch the hour long lecture that accompanies the piece. It’s very highly recommended for anybody interested in writing processes, comedy, or stand up. It reminds me again why Lee is one of the good guys and I'm even more committed to finding the money to buy a ticket for his Liverpool show even if I have to steal a swimming pool from a neighbour's garden and flog it at the local flea market.



Meanwhile back in the land of the failing comedy writers: last night I endured another episode in the long-running sitcom, ‘Neighbours in the aforementioned swimming pool’. The latest ran two hours and included the classic line: ‘Grandma! Do a backflip!’ Sadly, no backflips were attempted because I didn’t hear that other classic line: ‘Grandma! Why are you being admitted into a spinal trauma unit?’

About 2am this morning, I finished drawing the main lines of my latest strip, which I hope to submit to a competition in the coming days. My previous strip was full of heartfelt biography but probably didn't hold together, whereas this new strip is outright satire and has a more coherent narrative and some bits that might make people laugh. Or I hope it does, once I get all the crosshatching finished which is what I should be doing right now…

The Proud Father Cartoon

The Dog Etiquette Cartoon

The Sinking Ship Cartoon