Link: previous journals - Nov-Dec '05

Journal Page.

November 23rd. Orphans

Got this yesterday and it is more than wonderful. Every home should have one. You owe it to yourself to listen to it over and over. Put it on your Christmas list.

Meanwhile, hot off the desk...

November 13th. Illustrator's prayer

I said in my last post that I'd stick up some of the stuff that I've been working on. So here goes.

Actually, even though I've been very busy, it's hard to find things to post here to show that - mainly the stuff that I've been doing has been quite mundane - eg a piece of toast, five clock faces, a pan of scrambled eggs, a boy's face with freckles and glasses [etc] - and out of context on here it wouldn't be particularly interesting. It's not all glamour, you know...

Meanwhile, there are bricks [well, brieze blocks] in our garden. The excitement grows...

At our last monastic mealtime thingy we were talking about a celtic tradition whereby very simple prayers were written for and by folk that connected with their work... [a muck-spreader's prayer - "god be in my nostrils..."?!] We thought that it might be an idea to try and come up with our own variations on that theme - simple prayers that invite god into our work. Here's what I've come up with so far [be warned, it's a work in progress - I'm partly posting it up here so that I can find it again wthout having to search back through my sketchbooks!]

My creator
You are a big God
with an eye for the smallest things
Guide my hand today
and lead my eye
May I find you in my graft
and in the crafting of things
And may you be found in the things I create
amen

November 8th. ?

Apologies for the lack of recent posts. I been very busy and trying to stay away from the [desktop] computer as much as possible to rest my recovering back [it's a lot better, thanks for asking]

Today, the good folk at amazon sent me an email with some recommendations. Apparently, "customers who have expressed interest in Captain Underpants and the Big Bad Battle of the Bionic Booger Boy: Part 2: The Revenge of the Ridiculous Robo-Boogers (Captain Underpants (Paperback)) by Dav Pilkey have also ordered Mastering the Balance of the Principalship: How to Be a Compassionate and Decisive Leader by Robert Ricken..." Work that one out...

Last weekend I took the boys to Sheffield to see the mighty foxes take on the Owls [Sheff Wednesday]. It was the perfect in troduction to a life following Leicester City - our 8-game unbeaten streak was ended and we were totally bobbins for most of the game, only starting to play once we were 2-0 down. Matty Fryatt was good, so were Huuuume and - surprisingly - Momo Sylla, and Andy Johnson was more dismal than I have the words to express. And the ref was a total homer too. Still, it was great to meet up with Bruce and Ian before the match. And we had a good time, the boys are undaunted by the team's abject display and so another day out [in Barnsley] beckons sometime in the Spring...

Outside, the building work has begun! Trenches have been dug and concrete has been poured. It's getting very exciting...

Next time - pics of what I've been doing recently, I promise...

October27th. The Queen and I

Four nights out of six on sofa beds here and at my folks' in Norfolk equals a bad back. I was on my way out into the garden with the kitchen compost thingy when I felt it go.

I'm in good company though, as her royal majesty the queen has apparently also been laid up with a lumber problem and had to miss trips to Arsenal's new ground, and the races. Bet she didn't put hers out emptying the compost...

Meantime here's a shot of me and the boys, as requested by Penni

One good thing about doing my back in yesterday was that at least I didn't do it earlier in the week, which would've meant that I'd've missed my debut visit to the Turkish baths in Harrogate with Dan. In the monastic book that I'm reading [very slowly] it talks about establishing sacred places where you can go and be still - I think that the Baths work like that, or like Steve Collins' 'third place'. Needless to say, I'll be going back.

October24th. 40

A few years back I was getting very stressed with my workload. I felt like I was on some sort of unending treadmill, and that the stuff that I was churning out was getting stale and very unadventurous as a result. I felt like everyone was getting a poor deal - Sue and the kids were getting less and less of my time, I was feeling creatively frustrated and permanently exhausted, and my clients were sometimes getting work that wasn't as good as it could/should have been. So I prayed for some wilderness time. Time to stop, to "be still" and to breathe and to dream a bit, and to be refreshed. A year or so on, and we were moving up here to Leeds. My work slowed down to a trickle ahead of that move, which suited us nicely - a couple of work-free weeks before the move to pack and prepare, and a couple of weeks once we were here to explore and settle in. But those couple of weeks turned into four months with little or no work, and a lot of panicking. It was only once the work had started coming in again that i looked back and remembered that prayer and could see the wilderness for what it was [doh!]

The one really positive thing that did emerge from that lean spell was '40'. I nicked the idea from Stanley Spencer - 40 pictures - one for each day of Lent - of Christ in the Wilderness. I started just playing around with the idea as something that would maybe fit in with a Revive service at the Greenbelt festival, I wasn't even sure if I could make it work and I decided to experiment with drawing direct into the computer using my wacom tablet [normally I draw using my trusty Rotring Isograph and scan the image]. The result was really pleasing - much better than I'd ever have hoped or imagined, and it worked well at the festival.

MayBe saw it and asked if they could post it up daily, image by image throughout Lent on their site, and more folks saw it and the word began to get around. Simon Hall and Jonny Baker used it at conferences, and in the end, there was enough interest for us to consider producing the piece as a cd-rom. This duly hapopened, in time for Greenbelt '05.

It's sold pretty well - there aren't too many left now. But now here's the problem. It's started to appear on youtube - folk have, i think, downloaded the pics from the mayBe site and compiled them into a movie and bunged it online. My gut instinct is to be outraged, to be honest - it's drummed into you at college that copyright infringement is evil and to be confronted at every opportunity [at least it is if you're an illustrator]. And of course, folk might well be rather pissed off to discover the very same thing that they've shelled out for sat there freely available on the net.

But equally, the images were originally posted up online for everyone to see; and I do like that, I like the idea of my stuff as a gift and I like that so many folk have been able to see and use and enjoy the work. So I've been a bit torn over the issue. In the end, I've asked for the movies to be taken off of youtube, out of respect for the folk who've invested in the cd-roms, and people have been very gracious and apologetic in response, though in the end, the fault is mine really, I should've anticipated the problems and worked all this out sooner...

So, you live and learn. Apologies to all concerned... Next year [as I may have already mentioned elsewhere in this journal] Jonny Baker's Proost label goes all downloadable, so new stuff that I do will probably go out through him, maybe some of it for free. And I may well stick some stuff up on here for free too - Ian b* has been trialling some stuff for me which might just be ready in time for Advent...

*see his entry for October 21st...

ps ...still no sign of the wifi...

October16th. Dedication's what you need...

Monastic update. using the God be in my head prayer every morning is good. I've been working on this new plan - the computer doesn't go on before the kids are safely at school and i've had a coffee and done the prayer, and it's been a very positive little ritual to have built into my morning. If nothing else, it's put a bit of routine into the start of the day and cleared me some headspace - there's more of a boundary between work and rest/family and I'm enjoying that very much.

But the prayer itself is a good one too - initially I was using it as a way of setting me up right for the day; but through repetition it's becoming a bit more reflective and confessional. Although it's a relatively small and simple prayer, I'm discovering the depths in it. I think that I grew up in the church thinking of prayer as basically submitting your requests to god and then keeping your fingers crossed that they'd work out. Over the past few years though, I've come to see more and more that as you talk to god about stuff, you become more aware of your responsibility to act and to get involved. Less and less it's about me asking stuff of god, and more and more about god asking stuff of me, less about me seeking Him out and more about him/her seeking out stuff in me. It's been (and is being) a gradual revelation and I like that a lot (not, I hasten to add, that I am any kind of authority on the subject - my prayer life remains as it has always been, pretty weak and half-hearted at best...)

Evening prayer is proving a bit more elusive, to be honest. So the task for this week is to try and work out how to get some kind of ritual, some sort of dedicated space for that... Also, I'm reading 'Finding Sanctuary', a book on by the abbot of the monastery featured in that BBC2 documentary, and it's good stuff - virtue and silence are first things that i need get to grips with. So far though, I'm pleased with how it's all going on the monastic front...

We went back down South for Millie's dedication this weekend. She's a right sparky little thing, though she was impressively calm throughout the dedication itself. Good to meet up with a lot of old friends again, though it always feels a bit of a mad rush from place to place trying to see everyone and we're always very aware that we've missed out some important folk (Clive and Chezza - next time we'll be round to see you, promise!) Great to spend time with Bodge and the Swedes and Rachel and Daisy and Jemima and the B's and the Mintys and the Galvins and the Hydes and the Faulkners again. If I'm honest, I was a little overwhelmed by the warmth of the welcome that we got at Barley Hill Church on Sunday morning - overwhelmed in a good way, of course. There are some really top people there. And so now we're back up North and I'm knackered. I had 69 emails awaiting me this morning, only 6 of which weren't spam or mail non-delivery notification for things i've not sent. Grrr. Anyway, I should get wifi today (cheers Stratto! ) so if there's a lull in posting for a few days, it's probably because I'm struggling to get it installed and working properly...(!)

October10th. Hitting the target and missing the point

So our planning permission is still pending. Still. Turns out that once an application goes beyond it's deadline [set by the planners themselves] then it ceases to become a priority. So our plans have been repeatedly finding their way to the bottom of the IN-tray of late. Seems that the reason for this is that the planning dept will have targets to meet - a certain percentage of applications must be turned round within their alloted time. If your application exceeds it's due date, you just have to wait while they process submissions that will help them meet the target. So, something that is sold as a way of improving the service, actually - in our case anyway - just means you get a worse deal. That's not to criticise the planners themselves, they can only work within the confines of the system. The problem is Targets. They don't work. They'll give statisticians and managers and politicians nice, convenient, simplistic chunks of data to quote, but in terms of the end-user - in this case , us and architect/builder-Dan and the Planners themselves - they're just counter-productive. I think that you see the same thing occuring right across the public services (don't even get me started on Education. SATS? Literacy Hour? Grr...)

Update! According to the Leeds City Council website, the application is now finally approved! Hurrah!

Anyway. Me and Eddie just had a good time away with Max and Dan in the Forshaw's country residence* in Nidderdale. On Saturday afternoon we walked up a stream gushing with water that had washed down through peaty ground and was stained the colour of Black Sheep ale as a result. Watching it foam and bubble down over the rocks and settle in deep dark pools I understood very well just how Augustus Gloop felt in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory... Mmmmm...

Also, since my last post, we had a first tentative step into monasticism. Kind of. Esther and James and Leesun came round for a meal and we shared some hopes and ideas and the eucharist... We're using this as our morning prayer for the time being. Leesun sourced it and I like it a lot...

No time to post what's on the desk right now, but hopefully later in the week you'll be able to see more of what I've been up to...

I'm still getting messages of delivery failure for my unsent e-mails, though thankfully not nearly as many as last week. Apologies again if you've been on the receiving end... it's really not me sending you hot share tips, honest...

Oh yeah - and just in case I end up not having time to post on Thursday - happy birthday Dad!

*aka the static caravan...

September 31st. ...spam, spam, spam, [un]lover-ly spam...

Some internet git has hi-jacked this web-address and is sending unwanted emails advertising dodgy watches*, 'v1agra', hot share-trading tips and other spurious stuff. My inbox is now being clogged with delivery-failure notification messages for emails that I've not sent. I've been reassured that it's not a virus in my email, just someone borrowing the web-mail address thingy.

Anyway. Apologies if you've received something annoying and claiming to be from me - it isn't, honest.

And 'Vivian Paul', or 'Robbie Anderson' or whatever other pseudonym you are using today - you sir(or madam), are a git. Please stop using my web address and get your own.
There. That's told 'em.

meantime, on the desk of late...

*(I don't even wear a watch these days.)

September 26th. The Hounds of Love...?

So last week i finished reading 'Slaughterhouse 5' by Kurt Vonnegut. It's a book that I return to every few years, a great novel - as the blurb on the back says, it's funny, wise and compassionate. You can read it as the author's attempt to reconcile himself to the fire-bombing of Dresden, an atrocity at which he was present and only survived thanks to his incarceration as a POW in the titular abbatoir. The book is, in part, an atheistic wrestling with the problem of man's inhumanity to man - don't be put off by that, it's a very reductionist way of reading it and there's much more to the novel than that, but that's largely what resonates with me in it. You see, at heart, I am an atheist. I was brought up sceptical. I don't instinctively believe. I didn't grow up in the church. My default setting is, I think, humanism.

But somewhere along the line, god has got hold of me. There is, i think, a poem or a book or something that contains this metaphor ['Hounds of Love' by Kate Bush...?], but it's as if god, and the idea of God, just won't let me go. Whenever I let my guard down, he's there.
I could rationalise every aspect of my faith away, I can make you understand how none of it makes any sense whatsoever, and yet I'm still left with God, and he's not going away. I'm not sure if the constant tattering and piecing-back-together of my faith is healthy or not - i'm kind of envious of Sue who has a very solid faith and an instinctive belief in god and quite reasonably doesn't feel the need to struggle with all this stuff... Either way, in the end there's no escaping Christ.

So, anyway, I finished reading Slaughterhouse 5 and picked up another old favourite - David Dark's brilliant 'Everyday Apocalypse'. It's possibly the most inspiring book that I've read - like all the great books you read it and it feels like it could have been written just for you. It's a call to live and think "apocalyptically", to deny the powers that would impress the status quo upon us, and to dare to dream of a better way ("...to reimagine now is our work and our pleasure. Look harder. It is at hand") I may have to bore you with some other choice quotes from it over the next few posts. I'm trying to let it seep into me... hoping again for transformation - I'll keep you posted as to how I'm getting along... ;-)

September 25th. On the desk...

...lately...

September 20th. Randomness

Yay Corinne!

Downloadable Tom...

Our garage is no more. Gone. Hurrah! Planning permission is imminent. I am getting excited. I can actually begin to contemplate the end of days spent working in this cramped and wholly unsuitable box-room-office... can't wait...

Last week Victor and appropriately-named-Joy came up en route to Durham and stayed over. Great to catch up and share some happinesses and frustrations. Victor is an inspiring bloke - great company, a top story-teller and a bit of a genius - in his chosen field of type design he's right up there. At the mo he's working on a type that will make life easier for literacy workers around the world... you can see (and download) his Gentium font here...

September 16th. Tornadoes and Zephyrs

We were hit by a tornado on Thursday. Well, nearly. At about 4pm the sky went black and it truly lashed it down for about 15-20 minutes. Trees in our garden were bent to about 45 degrees, and according to someone at Eddie's cub's - always a reliable source of information ;-) - kids at the grammar school were lifted off of their feet and slammed into walls (but no-one was injured, Eddie reported back, with a certain amount of disappointment...) It passed fairly close to us anyway. Then half and hour after it started, the sky cleared and everything was lovely again. But not for Sue who was diverted on here way home from work because of trees and debris on the A61, and ended up in Wetherby. Still, it's an ill wind and all that...

Been listening to the Zephyrs this morning. I first heard them on John Peel a few years back, and got the album on the strength of that. (although 6music is v good, I still miss John Peel...) You can go here to listen to some of their stuff. It's very lovely in a slowcore, whispery-vocals kind of a way. I'd recommend 'The Buildings Aren't Going Anywhere' as a good introduction. It was playing when I found out that my nan had died a few years back, and somehow it fitted the moment... I miss her; she was an amazing lady and it's a beautiful song - I like the fact that it connects me to her somehow...

Anyhow, like I say, go listen...

September 14th. Busy (again)

I'm facing a bit of a work log-jam once again, so postings will be a bit few and far between till the end of the month. When it's like this, I don't have much time to spend typing and editing and posting, but also, there's not much to post about - it's just me in the box-room/office drawing stuff and drinking coffee and listening to the radio. Exciting, eh?!

...Someday soon I would like to have the time to revamp the site a bit - change the pic on the home page maybe, and update the links and gallery page, but that's probably a month or so off...

In the meantime, here's some of what's been on the desk this past week...

September 8th. Music News

Went to see British Sea Power with Ed and Liz and an assortment of their mates [including the very lovely Michelle and Tony] last nite. They [BSP] were great, and played most of my favourites - A Wooden Horse, Remember Me, Please Stand Up, Carrion, Fear of Drowning. They just write the most fantastic tunes - proper guitar music - and play it like they mean it. My ears are still ringing and my legs ache because I cycled there and back. The gig was down in Burley [at the Brudenell Social Club] and if you know your Leeds geography you'll appreciate that's pretty much all downhill from where we live [up here in Roundhay/Gledhow] So travelling down was a breeze. The ride back, already a bit knackered and sweaty from the gig was a different matter, but I only stopped five times, and one of those was to answer a text from Liz who was checking that I hadn't collapsed by the roadside. In a perverse way I kind of enjoyed the ride. And I saw a fox crossing the Stonegate road a few metres in front of me, which was nice.

Meantime, Robbie-bloody-Williams is in town. As a result of his concerts in Roundhay Park tonight and tomorrow half the main roads round here are closed from 10am-3am, buses are cancelled or diverted, and every local school but Eddie and Joe's is closed for the day because parents and pupils won't be able to travel in to them. Now if it was for anyone half-decent, this might be an inconvenient but acceptable state of affairs. But Robbie-bloody-Williams?! [...can you tell that I'm not a fan...]

80 quid to stand out in a big park with 80,000 other Robbie-loving punters [hi Stuart] or a tenner to see BSP tearing up a sweaty club...? I know which I prefer, but it takes all sorts I suppose...

Anyway. Sue reckons that we'll be able to hear Robbie quite clearly from here, but fortunately, the ringing in my ears from last nite will mean that if we shut the windows and turn the tv up I'll be spared that particular ordeal... Hurrah for BSP!

On the desk today=

Other news - planning permission has just-about-almost-not quite-but-very-nearly been granted for my new office! Just one more small hoop to be jumped through and then we're there...

I have a 'my space' page. I'm not quite sure why, or what I'm supposed to do with it, but if your life is empty and you have absolutely nothing else wortwhile to do, you could go have a look at it...