Issue 22. August 2006The magazine of the Federation of Cartoonist’s Organisations, UK section.

The

FOGHORN

THE FOGHORNIssue 22 - August 2006

Published in Great Britain by FECO UK

FECO UK CONTACTS

President (Caretaker)

Andy Davey tel: +44 (0)1223 517737 email: feco@andydavey.com

Secretary

John Roberts tel: +44 (0) 1565 633995 email: john@mad-badger.com

TreasurerFoghorn Editor

Tim Harries tel: + 44 (0) 1633 780293 email: tim@timharries.co.uk

Webmaster

Keith Spry email: Keith@sprycartoons.fsnet.co.uk

Foghorn Sub-Editor

Bill Stott tel: +44 (0) 160 646002 email: billstott@lineone.net

International Liaison Officer

Roger Penwill tel: +44 (0) 1584 711854 email: roger@penwill.com

Web info

FECO UK website:www.fecouk.org.uk

FECO Worlwide:www.fecoweb.org

August AlmanacWelcome to another super ‘Scorchio’ edition of The Foghorn - here to help you cope with the blistering heat! “How?” I hear you cry ... Well, simply print off this issue, read it from cover to cover and then cunningly fashion a small fan out of it. Whilst you cool yourself, shout out to nearby sweaty com-puter nerds “Let’s see a PDF do this, Captain Geekpants!”

Ahem. Anyway, this issue sees Dave Brown succumb to John Roberts seductive interview skills, John Stuart Clark (Brick) takes us on a trip to China and finds plenty of things to write home about, Curmudgeon takes a few names, while Hack (or the artist otherwise known as Matt Buck) is our featured Nib Nerd guest. Cracking stuff!As if that wasn’t enough, (you greedy devils!) we also have a fab front cover from Noel Ford and a great illo below from Jed Pascoe. Cheers chaps!

Ooh, one last thing - this is the last Foghorn before October, so a quick reminder that Subs will be due on October 1st - make a mental note to have your chequebooks poised and ready for that date! (Don’t send a cheque just yet - details and a reminder will come later.)

Thanks, and hope you enjoy this issue.Tim Harries, Foghorn Editor.

What nib/pen do you use?

I use pentel brush pens most of the time, with occasional inky lines from those Pilot Hi-Tecpoint cheapy things. I aspire to wield a red bic biro with the finesse that John Jensen did in his seminal caricature of ‘HRH Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother.’

How do you colour your work?

On a computer using either Photoshop or Painter. I tend to use Photoshop because I’m more familiar with it and quite like the flatter colour finish it gives.

Do you use any software for your artwork?

Yes, see above, plus, of course, the soft head matter.

The software has to be subservient to the idea, I did go through a stage where I was overworking and colouring everything. In ret-rospect, this was just because I could, but I think time and closer experience with deadlines is knocking that out a bit. Good job too.

Any other secrets?

Gin and sleep deprivation.

Thank you, Matt Buck!

CARTOONIST CALENDAR

August and September have the following to amuse and excite: London Life6 July - 3 September 2006The Cartoon Museum

An exhibition of the winners and shortlisted cartoons from the Evening Standard’s cartoon competition and a selection of other classic London cartoons by Bateman, Lee, Heath Robin-son, and others.

Calman6 September - 15 October 2006The Cartoon Museum

This exhibition organised by Stephanie and Claire Calman and Pat Huntley celebrates Mel Calman’s witty drawings from the Times and elsewhere.

Payback 2006Claim your share of over £2 million in Payback 06! The DACS website has the following information:

‘Payback is the annual service from DACS which pays artists, photogra-phers, illustrators and all other visual creators (and their heirs and benefi-ciaries) a share of collective licensing revenue for secondary uses of their works, If you represent creators as an agent or picture library, you may be able to claim on their behalf.

Secondary uses include photocopying an existing reproduction of a work in a book or magazine, or making a video of a television broadcast in which artistic works appear, for

use as an educational resource in a school, college or university.

To claim a share of Payback, visual creators (or their agents) fill in a simple claim form, telling us about the uses of their works in publica-tions and on television.

If you’ve claimed before, we will be sending you a claim form automati-cally with details of your previous claim.

If you’ve never claimed before

contact Daniel on 020 7553 9062, or email payback@dacs.org.uk

We will be launching Payback 2006 online in July 2006 to make it even easier for you to claim your share! Check the website for further news.

The closing date for claims this year is September 30, 2006.’

Web info

www.dacs.org.uk

Q&A This issue, John Roberts asks The Independent’s Dave Brown about life, the universe and drumming ...

I understand that you went to Art School – what did you want to do after graduation?

I went to Leeds University in the late 70s where I ‘studied’ fine Art. Like most art students my ambitions were to sleep until lunchtime, drink to excess and play (in my case drums) in a band – the first two of which I achieved spectacularly. Unfortunate-ly, any dreams of punk-rock stardom were shattered when, on graduating, the band’s guitarist chose to take up a PhD at Cambridge, rather than the record deal we’d been offered. The sure-fire No.1 (ahem!) was never released, the band split up, and in a moment of clarity my overdraft spoke to me and said ‘get a real job’.

When was it that you decided to be a cartoonist?

The real job was teaching Art in an education centre in Wembley for adults with learning difficulties. It was certainly real work…too real for me, and after three years I jacked it in to be a full-time painter, have another crack at the music biz, or simply revert to my ambitions of sleeping till lunchtime, and drink-ing to excess. However, after a few months, my studio, which doubled

as the band’s rehearsal space, had a compulsory purchase order slapped on it, we were forced out, and it was bulldozed to build a new Tescos. I couldn’t find anywhere else afford-able in London, the 16’ x 8’ canvases I had embarked on wouldn’t fit in my shoebox of a bed-sit, so I decided to take up a more modest-sized art form. I’ve always drawn cartoons - from creating my own comics to amuse friends at junior school, to caricatur-ing the teachers from the back row at senior school. I’d had a few unpaid

commissions at college for Student publications, and while teaching I drew political cartoons for the local Trade Union magazine. I decided I needed to put together an impressive range of work for a portfolio, so set about it with all the vigour of a man whose ambitions were still sleep-ing, drinking, etc. Then, late one Sunday afternoon in 1989, I went to the newsagents to find that my paper of choice at the time, The Observer, had sold out. I settled for a Sunday Times, and took it home to find they were running a cartoon competition. I entered three single-frame cartoons and won; Tony Husband won in the ‘strip’ section (ooh er..doesn’t bear thinking about…Ed). A couple of weeks later they gave me my first professional job, standing in for Ger-ald Scarfe when he was on holiday, and it has all been downhill from there really.

Who, if anyone, did you consider inspirational as a cartoonist/s and why?

I have to admit when I started work-ing as a cartoonist I was pretty igno-rant of the history of cartoons, and of a lot of the other guys working out there at the time. I used to see Les Gibbard in the Guardian every day,

who I thought was always brilliant at nailing even the most arcane political stories, and I remember at a Stead-man exhibition on the Southbank be-ing gobsmacked by the freedom (and size) of some of his artwork. I can also still recall many images from the history books at school, which were full of Gillray, Tennyson and Partridge cartoons. Although I didn’t know the artists’ names at the time, I probably have them to thank for get-ting me through my ‘O’ level!But my influences come just as much

from the comic books I read as a kid, the ‘serious’ art I managed to learn something about at college, film and cinema, and the whole gamut of im-agery we’re continually bombarded with each day.

Where do you have a studio?

I work at home in Finsbury Park, North London, in the spare bedroom. It’s the room which overlooks the street, and as working home alone can send you stir crazy as it is, the

view is an essential connection to life out there. Over a year ago, I bought a large studio easel in the local art shop sale, with the intention of doing some painting again. However, I’ve yet to clear enough of the detritus from the studio floor to even unfold the bloody thing, let alone paint. Memo to self…stick to the sleeping and drink-ing ambitions.

I think that you produce at least 6 daily cartoons a week for the In-dependent – can you describe your typical day?

I draw a cartoon a day from Sunday through to Friday for the following day’s paper.

My radio comes on just before 6am every morning, I ignore it, and sleep through the first half of the Today programme while trying to absorb the news by osmosis. Unfortunately sleeping till lunchtime is no longer an option, so just before 8 (a time cunningly arranged to avoid listening to the pious idiots on ‘Thought for the day’), I go out to pick up a big bundle of the day’s papers. Then it’s breakfast, put in the washing, put

out the bins, and any other chores to distract me from getting down to work, in between flicking through the newspapers, with the Radio on in one room and 24 news TV in the other. After the 10am news I ring the Comment Editor on the paper and we have a brief chat about which of the day’s stories look most promis-ing. Then it’s time to sit down at the drawing board. The idea could take 4 minutes or 4 hours, and seeking ‘inspiration’ is ba-sically a mechanical process; it’s re-ally just creeping up on an idea from behind (the only ‘blinding flash’ I’ve ever had was when the light above my drawing board exploded spec-tacularly!). I don’t give the paper a choice of ideas; I fax them a rough when I’ve got something I’m happy with. If they like it, fine, if not, I have to think again. Fortunately that doesn’t happen too often.That leaves the rest of the day for the easy part, actually drawing the cartoon. If the idea has come quickly then the drawing might be quite elaborate, if the idea has taken all day the drawing has to be simpler. I also keep one ear on the radio in case a government minister does the decent

thing and resigns (rare), or Bush does the indecent thing and invades somewhere (less rare), in which case it’s time to scrap what I’m doing and start over. In any case I need to have finished, scanned and e-mailed the cartoon by around 6pm.

Fridays are a little different as the cartoon for Saturday’s paper is part of a series called ‘Rogues’ Gallery’, which makes over one of the political stories of the week as a pastiche of

a famous painting. This is often the only day I get colour for the cartoon, and as the art work is often quite elaborate I usually try and get the idea sorted on a Thursday evening, leaving me the whole of Friday to paint. The Rogues’ Gallery cartoon is also less of a hostage to the future of changing news, so on a Friday afternoon talk radio goes off and music comes on…usually something soothing like the Clash or the Jam.

CARTOONS MADE ME...A loosely drawn autobiography in four balloons

By Libby Purves (patron of the Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival)

PART 2 .... so, after that childhood immersion in Punch and old annuals, in my second decade I found myself at boarding school, surrounded by nuns (who are, in their rustling black habits and strikingly wrinkled or beaky faces, often living cartoons in their own right). I was a glum teenager, and needed reminding quite often that the world is basically ridiculous and that there is very little you can’t twist into a gag. My brother, at another school, became a suddenly gifted caricaturist and used to send me funny letters decorated with pictures of his headmaster with a vast bulbous nose. I started doodling Kilroy figures along the top of my exercise books, and wishing I could do what my heroes did with four or five vigorous lines and a snappy gag. But I couldn’t. All I could (and can) draw were cartoon hedgehogs. Punch went through a staid phase, but Private Eye got founded and a new wild vigour came into the genre. They took all the rude ones that Punch wouldn’t. They let Barry Humphries loose with the ill-drawn brilliance of Barry McKenzie, chundering through the ‘60s in search of compli-ant sheilas. They got Bill Tidy to start the noble saga of The Cloggies, of which I am happy to say I still own every volume . And they brought on the Rabelaisian Willie Rushton with his loopy lava-torial gags: I still have Rushton’s Dirty Book with shots of huge ballerinas doing bad, bad things and sharks diving up out of lavatories to goose fat men. With its pale creamy cover it looked, at a distance, like a devotional book. Which was just as well when Sister O”Leary came along to ask what I was reading so intently.

Is it a pressurised job?

No, not really, though I might oc-casionally pretend otherwise. Actu-ally, my best work often stems from a tight deadline; without them I’d get nothing done and it would be back to sleeping till lunchtime.

Most people in the cartooning busi-ness always seem to prefer to be doing something else – would you rather be doing another job/art-form?

Sleeping, drinking, playing in a band…ooh, and painting.

Have you ever had a cartoon you were really excited/pleased about rejected by an editor and on what grounds?

Usually if there’s a problem with anything I’ve done it’s tackled at the ‘rough’ stage. The grounds for ideas being rejected most usually come under the ‘taste and decency’ head-ing, which in practice means no knob gags or arses (though I do manage to slip them one occasionally).I think I’ve only once had a cartoon passed at the rough stage but then the

artwork rejected. A few years ago I drew a pastiche of William Holman Hunt’s painting ‘The Scapegoat’, with Arafat as the goat, and Sharon approaching from the rear in a tank costume with a phallic barrel. The editor saw it on-screen as the page was about to go, and apparently blew a gasket. As there was no time to redraw we had to settle for cropping Sharon from the picture and printing just a rather lame goat.

Do you still get a kick out of seeing your work published in the news-paper?

Yes, of course, though you’d prob-ably never realise it, as I usually open the paper and find something in the reproduction, cropping or printing to tut about!

Thank you, Dave Brown!

withJohn Stuart Clark (aka Brick)

Do not believe that what you read about cartoonists in Beijing and Shanghai in any way equates to the state of our art in China. If I had 100 RMB (£6:80) for each time I was asked what a cartoonist is, I could afford to buy a helicopter in Jing-dezhen, or a handful of pens back home.

And that was another thing. Every implement I use in my caricaturing, every felt tip and brush pen, is made in China, but could I fi nd any in China? I had artists offering me seri-ous money for my beloved Chinese calligraphy fountain brush. Just to play with it was worth a shot of ‘bi-jou’ (fi rewater) and a packet of fags.

And there was a third thing. While possessing one of the fi nest senses of humour I’ve encountered in foreign lands, the average Chinaman has ab-solutely no idea what satire is. Gags, puns and daftness they’re brilliant at receiving and giving, and though it can take them time to latch onto the nuances of irony, once cracked they’ll use it relentlessly and lethally. Satire, however, is a cut too deep and has never taken hold outside of the mega-metropolises.

There is a sanctifi ed tabloid called ‘Cartoon Weekly’ (titled in Eng-lish) which I believe is nation wide, though the Chinese characters spelling out said title omit the word ‘cartoon’, a noun that requires too many adjectives to explain it away in Mandarin. And the other thing you won’t fi nd in the red-top is carica-tures. You’ll fi nd lots of spots ripped off from the likes of you and me world wide, and a load of writing I’m sure is side splitting (if only I could read Chinese), but caricatur-ing is simply a no-no. It’s satire and, anyway, who would you caricature? Premier Hu? Chairman Mao? Basket-ball god Yao Ming? As it was put to me, “Have you any idea how bad a good Chinese prison is?”

So every time I drew a caricature while I was in China, I handed over the fi nished product with trepida-tion. “No, of course it doesn’t look exactly like you. It’s a caricature, a

‘manhua’.” But news quickly spread that there was a ‘laowai’ (foreigner) in town who could draw like they’d never seen before, with a brush, on the street, playing to the crowd, and he gave you your picture for free. Guaranteed, within seconds of setting up on People’s Square in downtown Jingdezhen (JDZ) I would be envel-oped in an orderly throng, apparently 64 strong on one occasion.

I was actually in JDZ to research another travel book, this time to be illustrated by alter ego Brick, but that was proving diffi cult. Everything I read in preparation told me the only way to get beneath the surface of China and its people was not to travel around. The Chinese need to get to know you, to like and trust you, before they will open up and show ‘straight face’. That means staying in one place and building relation-ships. When a successful advertising executive accused me of being a spy

ChinaCaricaturing

Paintbrushes by the dozen

Brick at work in the studio

I knew any book was going to be a long haul. Six weeks later we were bosom buddies and he was confi ding in me like I was his analyst.

What I wasn’t prepared for was just how far from the China mark the vast majority of Western travel writers have been, and I include greats like Colin Thubron and Paul Theroux. My caricaturing was opening doors they could only dream of knocking on, and I knew I was damn close to some remarkable stories. But there was one stumbling block I would never surmount. No matter how fl u-ent I became in Mandarin, I was a ‘laowai’, a foreigner and barbarian, albeit of the friendly variety. I had to work with a Chinese writer, not as a translator (whom the Chinese dismiss as ‘collaborators’) but as an equal voice. Where would I fi nd such a person in this down-country Jiangxi town? I was in crisis and ready to fl y home early.

Then Huang Hui suggested, “Why not do your caricaturing on ceramics, on tiles? After all, Jingdezhen is the porcelain capital of the world.” Hui is somebody I caricatured early one morning taking exercise on Chiang-nan Park. It turned out he was an up and coming Qing Hua (blue and white) painter. I visited his mosquito-infested studio. He stuck a brush in my hand, passed me a ‘blank’ (a pot made by somebody else) and said, “Show me what you can do.” Two ‘blanks’ later I was addicted and unpacking my bags.

There is a strong link between Western cartoonists and JDZ, one I wasn’t expecting to exploit. In the 18th and 19th centuries, prints by Rowlandson, Cruikshank and many lesser cartoonists were shipped out to China for copying onto porcelain din-nerware. Not surprisingly the fi nished results looked more Chinese panto-mime than English drawing room, but at least the setting (invariable the bourgeoisie taking tea) was totally accurate. Porcelain originally came into the West as ballast for shipments of tea. Jingdezhen lies south of the Yangtze, in the heart of the Yaoli tea belt. The links were beginning to be made.

For six weeks I slaved over a hot drawing board churning out mono-chrome Qing Hua cartoons, a process not a million miles from my current

preference for working with a brush rather than pens, but one that simply cannot be rushed. Painting in the famous cobalt blue (originally called Mohammedan or Persian Blue) was a labour of love, principally because the absorbance of the clay and thick-ness of the pigment totally negated the quick fl ick integral in my style. Thinning down the oxide so I could paint quicker simply produced a wishy-washy fi red product, and fi ll-ing in areas was a strange process of pushing paint around at high speed. Then there was the fi ve strengths of pigment to conquer, the baffl e-ment that it all looks much the same strength when applied, the Chinese way of holding a brush to master, brushes with names like ‘chicken head’ to have custom made… (When was the last time you bought a chick-en feather brush made specifi cally for

Caricatures are drawn and swapped.

The ceramic cartoons on display

Web infoCheck out John’s website atwww.brickbats.co.uk

your drawing style that cost 75p!?).

Not only was I learning the painstak-ing painting process, I was getting to grips with the foibles of ceram-ics – the tiles that crack as you near completion, or are under-fi red by the kiln master, or turn out to be low quality porcelain when you thought you paid for ‘White Gold’. On top of all that I was also exploring the aes-thetic limits of a medium traditional-ly used to depict mountains, fl owers, rivers, blossoms, dragons and birds, none of which were exactly my bag. Although I caught myself checking out the quality of the Qing Hua on washbasins and table tops (this stuff is everywhere in China), it has to be said that 90% of what the Chinese do with cobalt blue is pure kitsch, a word none of my friends ever found a translation for, thank god.

identify with the super rich.

Drawn into the arty set, I was cor-nered by a middle-aged bank of-fi cial who was exceptional for being divorced and a single parent while

Students of the high art spend four years at a technical college just learning to paint ‘mountains and water’. If a heron happens to fl oat into mind, they’re buggered. ‘Flow-ers and birds’ is a different four-year course. I had less than two months to get up to speed, and didn’t do badly. The reaction among the Chinese was humbling. Master Chen (who had a studio the fl oor below me) regularly sent up his students to check out my latest Qing Hua wheeze, instructing them to note how hard I worked on research and references, never mind my 17-hour day. Suddenly I was be-ing offered exhibitions in Shanghai, showcases in Beijing, meetings with Mr Big in the local government, aka the Commie Mafi a.

More importantly, I was now speak-ing the same language as my hosts. Locals and ‘laowai’ alike, we were all trying to push the boundaries of an exquisite art form that has come to cripple Chinese imaginations. “Where can Qing Hua go in the 21st century?” was the overriding ques-tion in JDZ, a town built on astonish-ing artistic skills and unique seams of the purest of clays called ‘White Gold’ by the emperors. From the Song Dynasty (12th century) on-wards, the town was the site of the imperial kilns that produced all those priceless Ming and Qing vases we

Brick gets to work with a new ceramic creation

retaining good relations with her mad ex, the painter know locally as ‘Monkey’. Huang Run Juan had re-cently completed the research for an esoteric work by an American author about Chinese folk art, and was now writing a TV documentary script of the same. She had heard there was a tall grey foreigner kicking around who wanted to write and illustrate a book about the unseen China. “You have your illustrations,” Run Juan said, scanning the twenty tiles I had managed to bang out, “And I’m here to work on your book with you.” That was three weeks before I left China, allowing just enough time to get to know something about each other and begin the long process of building trust.

The one thing western travel writers have correctly observed about the Middle Kingdom is that it is hard work. China is a very complicated country, and if not inspired, it is unquestionably the most inspiring on the planet at present. I certainly never expected to fi nd a totally new home for my cartooning nor land myself with a Chinese co-author. My fl ight’s booked for next April.

A streetbarber caught in action

Master Liu

The Fog is alive with the sound of moaning! Like a mixed-up member of ABBA, Curmudgeon wonders just what’s the game of the name? This issue: “Sticks and Stones”

Recent research [three mates and the cat] suggests that not everybody is entirely happy with their name. Or indeed, either name. Or ALL their names – because toffs and the off-spring of ardent [deranged] football supporters often get saddled with at least half a dozen. But I don’t mean the obviously daft choices beloved of 80s rock stars, or the aforementioned sad footy slaves. I know folk with names I would have given my entire Dinky toy collection for when I was ten. Lance. Dirk. Anything pointy ,dangerous, crisp and male - sound-ing.[ But not Dick.] Presently howev-er, I know two Lances and a Dirk, and all three would have preferred Tom, or Harry. But not Dick. Almost anything else, in fact, though. I suppose its all to do with self image. How irritating is it to hear a drop dead beautiful [but stupid] starlet going on about how she hates the way she looks? That should really be left to us uglies. Or if that’s too severe, us non descripties.And if you’re really brassed off with your huge hooter, little chest or baggy bum, and if you save up, or if you’re ugly and independently wealthy, there is an army of medical types just ach-ing to add bits or lop off offending protuberances. I’m making it sound too easy, aren’t I? Cosmetic surgery hurts. Its expensive. It can go horribly wrong, especially if the consultant’s handwriting’s a bit naff…………..But millions do it. What fascinates me is that the law of averages states that of all the ugly folk who go under the “make me beautiful” knife, quite a few have really unfortunate names too. More research [Google this time] tells me that a full body lift – and here

we’re talking serious bloody, painful cutting, not being assisted upstairs, was performed [in the US – where else ?] by a Dr Arsen Duppe – I’m not kidding ! ! Wait, it gets worse – on a Mrs Jancene Waite ! Mrs Waite was 23 stone and 5 foot 2 before the op, so I can see that whilst her surname would have been a real drag when she was at her fighting weight, it may well have become a nice, ironic icebreaker at parties after Arsen had worked his magic.Thing is though, I can understand Mrs Waite wanting a name change in an era before the Dr Duppes of this world, but it beats me why Arsen Duppe hasn’t rushed off to the US equivalent of the deed poll office and dumped his moniker before now, and changed his life with a nice Lance, or Greg, or even Ambrose, for heaven’s sake.Yes, yes, I know….in the States, “ arse –end up” might not be imme-diately obvious, inasmuch as they do have trouble with the most basic English, insisting for example, that rubbers are a type of birth control de-vice ……… but it happens here, too. People with really silly, funny, and embarrassing names choose to do ab-solutely nothing about it. If my family name had been, God forbid, Crapper, I’d long since have become almost anything else. We had a Crapper in my primary school [cruel laughter], and he got laughed at, hit, and gener-ally abused all his school life. Jean Bottomley didn’t fare much better either – but only behind her back, because she was huge and scary. Then there was a teacher – A TEACHER! – who really should have known bet-ter – called Mr. Ponce. Peter Ponce ! And, what makes it worse these days is that we live in a disrespectful era. Mass media coverage, instant com-munication, wall to wall satire – all of these things must make it hell for people called Roger Dick or Annette Curtin. Or do they ? Maybe I’m making a huge assumption here. Perhaps those saddled with risible labels are tons more grown up than me. Perhaps they

don’t collapse laughing at farty noises in TV outtakes, or fall about when some poor soul’s toupee starts to lift in a force 8 whilst putting.Come to think of it, that’s probably what it is. I’m really juvenile and still a little boy [as every female anywhere will tell you, ALL men are very little-boy-ish]. Trouble is, I’m now quite old, and I can remember some of the things which absolutely creased my long-dead father. The also long-dead BBC Home Service news quite often featured respectful stories about the to-ings and fro-ings of government high flyers – and they WERE respect-ful and rivetingly down beat. I’m not quite old enough to remember Neville Chamberlain declaring in an awful monotone that “A state of war ex-ists…….”, but it was all so matter of fact. These days, one dead soldier in the Middle East rates more air time than ten thousand copping it in WW2. Even worse in WW1. The annihilation of a whole generation on the Somme was, “a setback”.Similarly, attitudes to stupid names were downbeat. My Dad, a time served little boy, called Chamberlain “Chamberpot” Hugely amusing in pre – en suite days. He also always got a laugh [I wasn’t supposed to be listen-ing] by insulting the then Minister for Somethingorother, Sir Stafford Cripps. “Sir Stifford Crapps”, he’d call him. There was another target called Hoare-Belisha, believe it or not, and they and a hundred other high profile political types sailed serenely above us commoners, safe in the knowledge that sticks and stones….etc etc.And its still happening. Something should be done about it. Folk are still floating about with names like Doris Norris. That is true. I know her. Her husband’s name is Maurice. I don’t think it bothers them. On the other hand, they are keen line danc-ers AND go to Great Yarmouth a lot …………… shame one of them’s not a florist …………But then there are others – people in the public eye, in public service, with feet on the great and good ladder who

Anything to get off your chest? Send your malcontent missives to the editor at: tim@timharries.co.uk

The editor and FECO UK accept no responsibility for the opinions expressed by contributors. All images and characters are copyright their respective authors.

are either having a laugh or thumbing their noses. Probably both. For ex-ample, the Minister of State – you’ll note that- MINISTER OF STATE ! – for education and the other tacked on bits is…..wait for it……….is.. LORD ADONIS !Oh come on ! Adonis ? Lord Adonis? I mean, what IS lord Adonis ? A Superhero? A wrestler ? Champion of Cruft’s ? No, actually he’s Minister of State for Education. Worryingly, the fact that he got to choose his tag of ennoblement but decided to keep “Adonis” – his surname as an or-dinary bloke - and stick on “Lord”, suggests several explanations. Frankly if I’d been called Adonis during my time at Barrowford Secondary Modern School, it would have been a living hell, but in those dear dead days before Playground Mediation, you could discourage name callers by hitting them. Given “Adonis”, I would have been fighting every waking hour. Perhaps Lord Adonis didn’t go to a Sec Mod. Maybe he attended a posh school where there were lots of kids with bizarre family names, so bizarre, in fact, that Adonis hardly raised an eyebrow, let alone a derisive raspber-ry. For all I know, the upper echelons of our strange society are full of Lady Amazings and Lord Fantastics who

would be puzzled by this commoners’ mick – taking, because they rarely meet anybody but folk with funny names. On yet another hand, our Lord Adonis might have promised his old Dad that he’d use the name with honour and sod what anybody thinks. He might also be a control freak who USES his name to winkle out anybody in his department who as much as smirks – thus exhibiting guts, foolhardiness, or worse still, a politically incorrect sense of humour.Hmmmmm….the more I think about it, the further away I seem to be from an answer, although I suspect that it might lie in that uncomfortable area – Moral Fibre. Notwithstanding Keith Adonis who was lucky enough to be offered the chance to dump a silly name [but eschewed said opportunity for reasons above], there are thou-sands of people out there who could, but don’t change their names. They’ve got bigger bags of M F than I. An-thony Bottoms. Timothy Bottoms. Annabelle Froute – Bottoms. Honest! William Balloon, Thomas Baggie, Christine Breaste [pronounced Bree-ast]. Even the woman in “Keeping up Appearances” insisted on a particular way of saying “Bucket” But as far as we know, she and her long – suffering

husband never actually changed any-thing officially. Why ? Same reason, I suppose that there are still lots of folk with giant hooters, squints, flappy ears, no chins, who either choose to stay as they are, or can’t afford to do anything about it, or who are scared of needles. They just get on with life and rejoice in their inner beauty. Re-ally ? Good point, that, I suppose.So, I’ve learned a bit whilst writing this. One, I’m a bit shallow when it comes to silly names. I do not ridi-cule folk with big hooters, though. Or laugh at false teeth dropping out – mine have done that before now. Two, I’m equally shallow when it comes to living with a silly name, and three, I’m no nearer knowing how I feel about somebody called Keith Adonis who passes up the chance of calling himself Keith, Lord Carstairs, and sticks with sounding like some-body who swans about in a cloak and tights.

Mind you, they do, Lords, don’t they?