Meet Ted

Quick, Obvious and Unfunny...

IDS Photoshop... aka The Iain Duncan Smith Late Night Special

When I saw Kim Jong-un's new glasses, I immediately thought...

Merry Christmas!

Cameron's Christmas Card

Over at TW&TW I've written a piece about the rhetoric of evil. Meanwhile here, I thought I'd make David Cameron's Christmas card look a little more festive.

The Syria vote: a little reminder...

Cameron, Erdogan & Gollum

Over at TW&TW, I've written a quick piece about the whole 'terrorist sympathiser' controversy.

As is usual, that piece of writing took some time. Here on my blog, it's brain to fingers time. Excuse the typos.

It's a horrible fact that people tend to prefer two minutes of effort on Photoshop than two hours of effort with a pen and ink. Photoshop is too easy and although the results can look good, the joke is often less cerebral. A good Photoshop gag leads you into the unreality of the situation you've created. A cartoon requires that moment longer for the joke to establish itself. It belongs in a different realm of the imagination than does the Photoshop which is aiming for realism.

All that said, I had to do a quick Erdogan picture. The guy is a menace. Not only does he shoot down Russian aircraft and then try to hide behind the coattails of NATO, he is locking up cartoonists who dare ridicule him. It's chilling to think of how many years in prison I'd probably get for posting this image.

On John McDonnell, spam & not much more...

Welcome to the place I like to think of as The Arse End of Nowhere. I'm again blogging daily in that I've managed to blog for six successive days and a few more before that My new technique of typing straight into the editor window helps. It stops me falling into my best habit of editing for hours. The down side is that this is not how I usually write. This is me at my worst. Unedited. Unpolished. Unstructured.

Today, I recommend my new article about John McDonnell. You can read it over at The What & The Why. There's also a cartoon and a bit of Photoshopping. I was quite pleased with all three.

Meanwhile, back here at TAEON, I'm under SPAM attack. That's the worst of coming back to a blog. I've lost what few regular readers I had but I've gained a place on the lists of sites that Spammers use. I've had four emails today asking me if I'd like bulk buy traffic cones from China. Three fake comments got through my defences and tried to sell you plastic straws (also from China). I also seem to have found myself on some list of business people in the North West and they keep asking me to attend a networking session at some local hotel starting at 6am in the morning. Even if I was a business man looking to network, I would not get up at 6am in the morning. It's an unGodly hour and even if I am unGodly, I'm not getting up that early.

My piece about Dawkins is coming along slowly. Phrasing things just the right way can be pain. I'm constantly trying to anticipate how my words can be misconstrued by people deliberately looking to misconstrue.

Also trying to find a job or work, which is soul destroying given that I only want to write and draw. People my age usually have careers around them or behind them. I just have years of strange and questionable accomplishments. I joke with people that I'll end up sweeping the streets but, really, I think that's probably aiming too high. All the good street sweeping jobs will have gone. What jobs for somebody hugely overqualified for most things, no track record in other things, and a whole lot of skills that nobody would want this end of the country? I couldn't even work for a local newspaper since my skills aren't exactly suited to detailing the drama of a chimney pot falling down. This time next year, I'll be lucky to be living in a tent.

Anger Mounts at David Cameron's Photoshopped Poppy

New Tory Cabinet Sets Agenda

The Mysterious Folder of Blatteryness

I've been going through my old work directories, sorting out my cartoons, when I came across this folder of mysterious Photoshopped pictures. I have no idea why I created them, only that it was way back in 2011. I don't know what to do with them other than post them here. Perhaps somebody will find a use for them...

The Spine Election Podcast - Episode 8

A last minute change of mind and I have 28 minutes to post this before it's officially polling day.

This one isn't about the election as much as I wanted to write and say something about the role of the media. Not sure it helps. Not sure anybody listens. Yet it helped me to clarify a few thoughts, have a moment of hissing at certain pundits, and filled a rainy afternoon. Enjoy or don't enjoy. I'm weary with the effort of giving a damn. When will I ever learn?

Miliband Makes Pledge

And speaking of world leaders I'm in the mood to insult...

The Chinese Menace Revisited

I woke up this morning and, as I usually do, made it my first job of the day to check the web traffic. The numbers were quite high or, at least, higher than they've been recently, so I smiled and felt better about the world. A wash, a shave, a spot of breakfast later, I checked again and this time cast my eyes down the list of visitors. I began to wish I hadn't bothered to shave. My visitors were from the UK, then Germany, then China, then the US, then China, then China, then China, the US, China, China, Malta, China, China, the UK, the US, China, China, China... About half of the morning's visitors were from China. They've clearly not blocked me, despite my constant support for a free Tibet and taking every opportunity to mock their leadership. How many times must I mention that Xi Jinping likes to wear pink knitted sweaters and ballet pumps?

I don't have a problem with Chinese visitors reading my blog but I know these hits aren't from real Chinese visitors. Actually, now I come to think about it, I *never* get real Chinese visitors. These are Chinese computers hitting my server for reasons unknown and which makes me suspect that these machines up to no good. I've said it before and no doubt I'll say it again: China is already at war with the rest of the world. It's just that the rest of the world haven't been told by their respective governments.

Even as recently as a few years ago, Chinese SPAM was relatively rare. Russia was the main culprit. The last twelve months, though, China seem to have become the most maleficent force on the internet. I'm beginning to wonder if governments shouldn't actively get together and sever China's connection to the rest of the internet. In the meantime, I'm stuck adding blocks of IP addresses to my website's firewall to block further traffic. I know my statistics will plunge and will make me consider, yet again, quite why I bother writing a blog read by so few people, but this can't go on. The Chinese are playing a terribly cruel trick: they're making me think this blog is almost popular. Those evil devils!

No cartoons today. I've drawn three but now I have The Gag Machine working, I've been churning out good ideas and I intend to send a few off this week to see if I can get any of them published. Until they get rejected, they won't appear on the blog.

Merry Christmas

The Len Goodman Dilemma

What is a man to do? I should be feeling like this...


But I've woken up feeling more like this...

More Stars With Old Heads On Their Younger Bodies

[caption id="attachment_4260" align="alignright" width="271" class=" "] Tom Jones[/caption]

There's an inherent cruelty to this stunt. I'm aware of that and it does make me occasionally tut and hiss when one of these mashups come out and it doesn't look particularly flattering to the subject. I know this little game is meant to be (somewhat) funny but I'm not a naturally cruel guy and, I admit, I've made a couple of these that I just didn't think it worth showing because they were simply too cruel.

The difficulty is particularly acute on photographs of actresses and the fact that I feel bad about the results for actresses I've attempted this with (but haven't published) perhaps says something about my own perceptions of beauty. The gentlemen in most of these photographs don't look too bad. In fact, I think the last few blog posts back up something I've always said about generic Hollywood actors: that they generally look better as they get older. Of course, 'better' is subjective and perhaps what I mean to say is 'more interesting'. I preferred Clint Eastwood's movies when he got older. My favourite actor, Gene Hackman, got better the more he aged. Not that he was classic film star material to begin with but that is one of the reasons I'd always watch him. The same is true of Piece Brosnan, who made better films once he was too old to play James Bond. This also happened to Sean Connery, who made some truly great films once he turned grey. Liam Neeson is an example of a star who found real fame once he got older. Walter Matthau, another of my absolute favourite actors, was old the moment he was born but that was his appeal. If you're not watching a movie to admire the looks of the actor, then there's little or no point making you lead actor good looking. Dare I say even Brad Pitt will find more interesting roles now he's hit 50? Every day I wish Connery or Hackman would come out of retirement because I'm damn sure they'd still be more compelling to watch than half the actors I've had to endure in recent films.

What I think these experiments show is that Hollywood is stupidly obsessed with bland, tediously fresh-faced youth. I know Mel Gibson has done some dumb things in his life and I know there are many people out there that still won't accept his apologies. Yet the films he's made recently are, in my humble opinion, the best of his career. He is in that perfect zone that Clint Eastwood made his own as he got older. Give me Payback (1999), We Were Soldiers (2002), Edge of Darkness (2010), or the brilliant Get the Gringo (2012) over any of the Lethal Weapon movies or even, for that matter, Mad Max 1, 2, or 3.



The deeper truth, I think, is more troublesome. It's probably a trite thing to say and now doubt it has been said countless times before, but there's such a disparity between how we think of actors when they get older and actresses. I don't know who first pointed out that as some men get older they become more distinguished yet there isn't an equivalent for women. That, I think, is where feminism has been completely powerless in facing down that deep bias in our collectively psychology. It doesn't suggest that we are wrong in the way he think about aging actresses . It suggests, instead, we have the wrong attitude to actresses in their youth. Great acting ability means little compared to their looks. If we stopped trivialising young actresses, then we might have more respect for them as get older. Only then might we stop making them feel like they need the face lifts that turn nearly all of them into rictus mannequins of our celebrity sick times.

[caption id="attachment_4256" align="aligncenter" width="432"] Michael Caine[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_4253" align="aligncenter" width="428"] Mickey Rooney[/caption]



[caption id="attachment_4262" align="aligncenter" width="421"] Felicity Kendall[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_4248" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Mel Gibson again...[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_4254" align="aligncenter" width="684" class=" "] And Tom Cruise looks exactly the same...[/caption]

Film Stars With Old Heads On Young Bodies

Further to this morning's post, I thought I'd try out some other examples of old faces on young bodies.

[caption id="attachment_4233" align="alignnone" width="608"] De Niro[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_4258" align="aligncenter" width="702" class=" "] William Shatner[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_4234" align="aligncenter" width="390"] Stallone[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_4235" align="aligncenter" width="425"] Arnold Schwatzenhuffenmizer[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_4232" align="aligncenter" width="410"] Bardot[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_4237" align="aligncenter" width="411"] Macaulay Culkin[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_4244" align="aligncenter" width="534" class=" "] Happy Days[/caption]