More English Guffaws you may not be aware of

Monkey-Dust was an animated series that usually hops quickly between loosely connected skits. But then they did the following epic which follows a fine arc of great comedy into a conclusion of utter horror.

Enjoy!


More clips from the show can be found here. It's also notable for great background music, most of it contemporary (I discovered this show through a link-go-round that started with the group Goldfrapp).

Quiet Days

Just been figuring out all the little details these past couple of days, so el bloggo has been a bit quiet. Sorry folks! I've been figuring out my trip to Canada in December, getting the post-apocalyptic script to it's final draft, practicing drawing and generally attending to all the stupid little things which get swept under the carpet when you're stressing over job hunting, money et al. All that being said, I haven't posted the last of my photographs from last Friday's romp through the west end and so here they are, starting with something which I thought might tickle the cold, dead heart of one Mr. North.
The Japanese Embassy, for those have an interest in that sort of thing.This particular fish shows up more places than you'd expect in London. This one was at the absolute bottom right of Hyde Park but the best is also a part of the lamp posts running along most of the Thames/Embankment area. Coming back up the Thames to the area in front of the Tate gallery, I had a go at a daytime version of a photo from a while back.If you live here, you're doing pretty okay.
I just like buildings that look like this!
Anyways, new comic tomorrow and if you all cross your fingers real hard I may have something to say about the first day at the new job on Monday. Certainly, I'll try to explore Hammersmith a bit more and see what might be picture worthy.

Finally, I've gotten on the Last.Fm bandwagon and am really enjoying it so far - hence the new widget on the side. Feel free to add me as a friend if you're on it as well.

Zer is a new comik in town

NEW COMIC

Meanwhile I'm working on a kind of art upgrade for Sunday's strip (and, theoretically, every strip after). I'm afraid that's all for today folk! Though if you still feel yourself to be in the mood for a good black and white comic, may I suggest the relatively new Octopus Pie? It has some great, clean art and fun writing for the little story arcs which the author prefers to structure the strip with. You don't have to, but you may wish to start at The Beginning.

Well, I'll be jiggered

I guess it can pay to hold out, sometimes. I just got a callback from the publishing company in Hammersmith which I had to turn down and they've offered me the job again, but with a pay I could live on and save with. It's not quite what I was making at Network Rail, but I'll be receiving valuable job training and getting that foot in the door with publishing which I've been seeking alongside the film and television bit. The big thing about this is that if I decide to come back to Canada for good in September of next year, I'll have some valuable job experience on my CV and thus won't be coming back to square one...only two years closer to the grave.

Plus I'm going to get to use my....whaddya call it.....degree.

In minor celebration I'm going to share some great George Carlin, who I've been enjoying the hell out of lately.

You may not be surprised to learn that some of the "...but he loves you" piece was used as a chapter introduction by Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion.

"Running...

...before walking" is an old line that kept popping into my head over the past fourty-eight hours.

So yeah, it should be pretty obvious why the latest First World Problems took me a while! I hope it mertis at some mirth!. To compensate, Wednesdays strip will be three panels showing only Clive's mouth as he recites my favorite Radiohead lyrics.

IN OTHER NEWS
There's a new, big climate change movie with a much more hollywood style spin to it than Senore Gore's offering. Here's the trailer.

Anyways, here's the film's website. Go crazy with your thoughts in the comments section! I'd love to get some other reactions before I settle my own.

Meanwhile, in a the more traditional vein of first world problems, living on a budget as I am now gets a bit sore when Threadless come out with not one but two shirts I really want for the first time in almost three years! BAH.

Just to rub things in, today I had to turn down an entry level job in publishing because it didn't pay enough to cover my expenses!. BAH.

Not that Prince Albert

Man, I do believe that the comic is going to be postponed until tomorrow in the interest of quality. It's really my own fault, as I've once again tried to run before I can walk with this thing. But there is a pretty decent consolation prize, pictures of the superb sight I alluded to yesterday - The Prince Albert Memorial.Now I knew that Queen Victoria had grieved for the death of her husband rather thoroughly (what with her wearing all black every day of her life but one, from the funeral onward). I knew that as Queen of the British Empire at it's height, she'd have some serious resources to draw upon for a tribute. But still, I was absolutely stunned when I came across this while walking from Kensington Palace to the Serpentine Gallery.
If you want to see some pictures underneath the monument and to learn more about how it was built, you can check out this here webpage.Each of the four outer corners is dedicated to one of the continents which the Empire held notable sway over. First we have Africa with it's camel.Then we have Asia with it's Elephant.
Followed by a Bull for Europe.
And finally, a Buffalo for North America.
And finally the big man himself.As if all this wasn't enough, we have the more widely known Royal Albert Hall which lay right where Albert's statue can keep an eye on it.
Tomorrow you all shall be treated to the loose photo's from Friday's bloody long walk and a new First World Problem strip. I'm going to try for another mid-week one as well, though I shall try to restrain myself and just do a simple, linear, three or four panel comic.

I....uh....I uh......

ummm.....

Godtube.com ladies and gentlemen!

Good old Popey

Ah, but will he consider giving contraception the okay so that there are less humans clogging up the works?

HUH

I'm not sure if it's the embeded google map or what, but now I can't seem to go back and edit/fix up the post I just made!

HUH.

Well I must say, yesterday gave me a few surprises and marvels I hadn't really planned on. After my interview in Hammersmith I decided I'd walk over to Tottenham court road, grab a drink and then eat my lunch in Soho square. This was a heck of a longer walk than I had imagined! Plus the initial stretch was so dull I figured I wouldn't be taking any pictures...and oh ho, I see that Google Maps now provides the html needed to embed any map you bring up - so let's give it a shot.

View Larger Map
The route I took shot me up along Hammersmith road, which then becomes Kensington high street as you pass through that prestigious neighborhood, and I eventually turned left into the south side of Hyde Park. It was here that I found cause to take so many pictures I'll most likely break this up into a couple of days of posts.

The first item I came across was a short strip of embassies which included the Israeli embassy - with heavy, temporary barriers all around it as well as a handful of policemen with submachine guns. Curious, I came a bit closer only to catch a couple of large "no photography" signs. Between these and a couple of very distressed looking men in suits who kept walking back and forth between the front door of the embassy and the policemen...well I think there's a story in there to be sure. But in the end it was the "No Photography" signs which really perturbed me, so of course I tried to be cheeky and grab a surreptitious photo from around the corner of a parked van a little ways down the street.So okay, the picture is pretty shit but you can at least catch the barriers and one of the policemen. As I was taking this I noticed a policeman not to far to my left that I hadn't yet noticed and lost my steady shot thanks to a quick burst of worry. Ah well, I'll be keeping an eye on the news to see if anything comes of this.
In stark contrast to the little "no media" zone I'd just left, I found myself along the south wall of Kensington Palace not thirty feet away where there were around three hundred people clamoring around the fences with their tributes etc. in acknowledgment of the tenth anniversary of the death of Princess Diana.From here I'm going to leap ahead chronologically about an hour to show a related item which I finally decided I may as well a see - the Diana memorial fountain. Once again, I was surprised by what I saw. Not only was there a complete lack of home made posters and television media opportunists, there wasn't a statue of Diana or anything like that.Getting up close I didn't see any crazed individuals like I had over by Kensington Palace, just a peaceful few clusters of people relaxing, playing and walking around this interesting water feature.Anyways, just before I end today's post I think I'll show you a restaurant which is situated right by the Serpentine gallery - which in turn lay roughly equidistant between Kengsington Palace and the Diana memorial.Tomorrow I'll be posting pictures of what I found just before I came across this restaurant, something which made me utter without a hint of "irony", maliciousness or mischief...

"Jesus.

H.*

Christ."

*Hornswagglin'

Addendum: This spoof of Axe commercials made me laugh, maybe it will make you laugh too? I guess that depends on whether or not you're dead inside.

And for those, like me, who seriously cannot stand either the LolCats business or the proliferation of "Internet English", then you may very well enjoy Realisticats.

Yesterday's FWP update has now been cleaned up, though I wish I could figure out how to get it under the current size (286 kb). I don't really want to make the image any smaller, so it's a tricky thing.

Nothing fancy to report today folks! Sorry, it's been a quiet week of work, then job hunting, with writing and drawing sprinkled throughout. That being said, I'm off to a part of London (Hammersmith) I haven't seen before for a job interview tomorrow - pictures may happen. Plus I am going to try and plan some kind of, also picture worthy, adventure into the city for Saturday if only for the sake of sanity. La dee dah!

MEANWHILE - If those of you in Canada were looking for a more specific environmental cause to get involved with, may I wholeheartedly suggest how most of Alberta is being turned into Mordor?

VBS TV covers it in their "News" section

And David Sazuki has also done an excellent episode of "The Nature of Things" on the matter. I haven't been able to find it online, myself, but a hundred *INTERNET POINTS* for whoever does!

They live in a pretty sparse town, it seems.

Holllllly crap is this a mid-week First World Problems Update I see?

Maybe!

Will we* be maintaining a two-strips per week update schedule?

Let's find out together.

*I


Addendum: Augh! I just spotted a typo, which I will fix tomorrah.

Busy busy today....

Nonetheless, I thought I'd post a link to this interesting editorial about the difficulty of getting people to pull their heads out of the entertainment sand and get more environmentally active.

More pictures from Barbican and beyond

If you like churches, then Barbican is the neighborhood for you. I've already counted seven within short walking distance of my work and that isn't including the monolith that is St. Paul's Cathedral. Regardless of one's thoughts on religion, anyone can appreciate the added colour and greenspace which these churches bring. In the garden of a church by the Museum of London I found this fountain, for example.You know you're further into the city because it's considered safe to have these fish where anyone could reach in and grab them. If these were closer out to Finsbury park or my neck of the woods then they'd all be speared on the end of coathangers by "the youth of today".Eventually I found myself in a raised area which encircles the museum, my pictures of which turned out to be a lot more crap than I thought at the time so we'll hold off on those, and was further driven to notice how downright futuristic this area seems in contrast to the rest of London. Just about everywhere was completely coated in glass so you could see what everyone else was doing (and yes, I did catch a guy picking his nose around the twentieth floor of one office building. Sadly I wasn't quick enough with the camera) and the upper area I entered at the Museum extended along quite a few buildings with many of it's own stores and restaurants. I really enjoyed this kind of mini, uber-city...even if it could lead to unintended consequences.As if to accentuate the futurism of the upper stories, there were several small ruins dotted around the base of these skyscrapers. Anyways, I wish I had a quick witted and/or pithy way to finish this post...but I don't!

True story.
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Addendum: In case there was any doubt as to the Englishness of The Good, The Bad and the Queen...scroll down their merchandise page and you'll see what I mean, just after the badges.

Another Sunday comic update.

Hey hey, the last member of the main cast is finally introduced!

Now I'm going to get some Canadiana in me by watching the "Bon Cop, Bad Cop" DVD which Cathy kindly sent over to me. To think, I've gone almost eleven months only hearing Parisian French.

The Good, the Bad and the Music review

The world of music reviews is pretty well covered by about a million other guys with sites like this. But since "London" specifically and "England" in general is the underlying theme of my lil' page here I think it is worth bringing up one group and one album. The name of both is The Good, The Bad and The Queen.

These guys qualify as a supergroup thanks to an astounding roster led by a man who continues to impress me more and more as the years go by, Damon Albarn. Most folk will recognize him from his front lining Blur and, later, the Gorillaz (under the cartoon alias of 2D). He's also been involved in a host of side projects. In the case of this group he has spearheaded it organizationally but it is hard to imagine him dominating the recording studio given the weight of musical input and talent from the other members of the band.

The next most recognizable member of the line-up is Paul Simonon who played bass for The Clash. Even if you don't think you're familiar with their work, odds are that if there is blood in your veins and a working pair of ears on your head that you've heard their classic tune "London's Calling" either on the radio or in one of any number of film soundtracks such as the one for The Royal Tenenbaums. Aside from his raw skill and years of experience, what makes Paul stand out as an interesting band member is his great interest in reggae and how that merges with Albarn's britpop roots. Not to mention the drummer...

Now I know it's sort of a running gag in the music world that the bass player is the least important or least recognized member of your average band, but for me it's always been the drummer. Though I appreciate what drums do for a song, I find that I'll generally pay the least attention to them and as a result give the least of a shit (this is a real phrase, honest!) about who the drummer is.

Tony Allen is seventy years old and has been drumming for basically his entire adult life, having first picked up a drum kit at eighteen. I was completely unaware of this man until I picked up this album but I'm glad it made me aware of him because now, for the first time in my life, I am wanting to dig into the back catalogue of a drummer. I've got my work cut out for me as this man has been frequently dubbed one of the fathers of Afrobeat and what he himself dubbed Afrofunk. The lion's share of his work would be the thirty albums he cut in the sixties and seventies as a part of the group Africa '70. Point is, this man comes from a very different musical background than the either Simonon or Albarn and is not only incredibly skilled but highly inventive. He steals the show on at least a couple of tracks on the album and I'm sure he had plenty to add during the recording session.

Simon Tong is probably the least remarkable member, having played lead guitar with The Verve during the last few years of the band's existence. That being said, when the least impressive member of a band was part of a seminal album like Urban Hymns - which featured the incredibly popular single, Bittersweet Symphony - then I think that is itself a powerful statement. His connection to this group came through Albarn who recruited him for a brief replacement stint in Blur as well as The Gorillaz.

So alright, this group has an epic lineup of mostly British talent. That's nice. But what makes it all worth mentioning here is that their first and only album so far (another is apparently due in September, these guys move quick given that the first came out earlier this same year) is a concept album about living in England in general and London specifically. It's more than just neighborhood name dropping (and what there is of that tends to be lesser known areas which I myself only recognized thanks to my time at Network Rail) and the subject matter manages to be more substantial than The Streets tunes about late night kebab runs and paying off your weed dealer, while remaining just as accessible - more so, really.

Obviously you don't have to have ever set within a hundred kilometers of London or England in order to enjoy the music. Their website is pretty generous with free video and song clips for all the sample. My personal favorite from the selection offered is "Herculean". May I suggest you check it out?

By and by, I wasn't going to include any band member pictures but Paul Simonon just looked too damn awesome not to include. I hope I can look not only that great but that interesting at fifty-five!

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Meanwhile the one child policy in China is having an interesting effect and science gains more valuable ground from the fairy kingdom of mysticism/religion.

Ta-da.....shucks

What can I say, we all get distracted. No comic tonight, I am afraid.

Some of us get distracted by The Great Happiness Space Documentary which chronicles the people who run and go to a Japanese Host Club.

It's a very interesting watch with far, far more to it than the "look at how those Japanese people do things which may not happen in your daily life!" angle. Mostly I found myself enthralled by listening to the way the people describe their interactions, social and financial, then seeing how the film editor contrasted them with what happens and what those on the other end of the transactions had to say.

Warning: It's also a good way to get very cynical about both genders! Just sayin'!

Ten Thousand People...

...live in Manila's one and only garbage dump. This five part series really helped me get in the post-apocalyptic "mood" for my script I just finished. As with the best documentaries, this one weaves a narrative through it's information and if only for that I highly suggest viewing all five parts (part one below).

Am I the only one...

...that finds this statement incredibly foreboding? "According to the latest estimates from the US Geological Survey, the North Pole region holds about a quarter of the world's oil reserves. As global warming continues to melt polar ice, access to the oil reserves should get easier."

St. Paul's Cathedral, also a cheery garbage eating device

As promised, I did a camera strafing run on St. Paul's Cathedral today. Odds are I'll come back to it as I certainly didn't cover everything in my limited lunch hour.

This is the front of the church......and here is the main front door. To give a sense of scale I swiveled left and grabbed a picture of this fella.Here we have the monument to Queen Anne which lay out front, along Cannon St.
Eventually I walked over to the Thames and sat down to eat. There I saw one of these things again...something about the exclamation mark in it's claim makes me want it to grow Thomas the Tank Engine style eyes and start nattering.Across from me was (and still is, I imagine) the Tate Modern. It's a great, free gallery - currently featuring a wealth of Salvador Dali - and arguably the first gallery which comes to most people's minds if asked. That's all for today, but when we get another sunny day this week (as you can see, today was pretty grey) I'll bust out the camera and grab some more shots.