Unfortunate-but-hilarious headline of the week, courtesy of the BBC: Hampshire workmen paint white lines around dead badgerIf you click on the link (warning: contains blurry picture of squashed furry roadkill), you can see that the workmen in question basically just stopped painting and started again. Admittedly, the Turner Prize has been won with ( Read more... )

As an avid fan of the wilder corners of the animal kingdom, I was charmed to hear of the earthshaking discovery that crop circles are made by stoned wallabies. Presumably this explanation holds true only in Australia, though. British crop circles are probably caused by squirrels on scrumpy, and in the US, I don't know... bison on mescaline, perhaps ( Read more... )

There's been a spot of cartoon controversy lately over the fact that loveable marmalade-munching bear Paddington is making a comeback to star in an advert for Marmite. Now the plot has thickened, as Paddington's original author has declared that Paddington's switch of culinary preferences from marmalade to Marmite sandwiches is just not canonHas ( Read more... )

There is really no excuse for the following scribble, apart from my not-very-secret past as a Star Trek fan and my recent exposure to too much bad British TV.

( When Channel 4 property shows meet Star Trek villains... )

On a recent night out with sydpad, we were discussing the ubiquity of certain creatures in major film franchises (step forward, penguins) and speculating idly about whether other less glamorous species could be souped up for silver screen success. I wandered away with herring on the brain (no change there, then) and the following scribble popped out:

( The anti-hero herring of Fin City... Jake McKipper! )

This week I was reading about a book that's recently come out in the UK called The Female Brain, which is apparently about the brain differences between the sexes.

The content of the book has caused a fair amount of controversy in itself (see here and here), but even without reading what's inside, I can't help pulling a face at the cover design. ( Read more... )

There seems to be no shortage of things that make me feel old nowadays, but it's hard to believe that Comic Relief has been chugging along in its biennial fashion for almost twenty years now.

When I was 17, it was a very good year the second Red Nose Day ever, and some of my schoolfriends and I had the wheeze of drawing our own charidee comic book ( Read more... )

It was anw's birthday this weekend and he asked for Greek Gods, so here's my latecomer to the celestial party:

( Ares, God of Standing Around Semi-Naked (= Good Thing) and War (= Bad Thing) )

There are many great drinking establishments in fiction: Rick's in Casablanca, the Queen Vic in Eastenders, and The Three Broomsticks in the Harry Potter books. However, there are also several lesser-known watering holes that you may stumble across while wandering the outer reaches of fandom. Since it's the tradition around here for a pub to have a ( Read more... )

Following an unexpected but not entirely unpleasant burst of artistic activity, my website has now got a new front page picture. Yes, it is a self-portrait of me in a slightly Searlesque sulk. Obviously this is a cheap ploy to make myself look alluringly angst-ridden, because in real life, I remain a bouncy little ray of sunshine at all times (hem ( Read more... )