Nice acquaintance. Auld?

In a pub/restaurant at lunchtime & one couple are changing their baby’s nappy at the table - feels like an unwelcome new development? I’m all for people not having to leave the table for breastfeeding etc but actual nappy changing?

probably because they have to keep stopping to pick up their backpacks

Reading The Feast by Margaret Kennedy. Such a strange book - marketed as a ‘vintage mystery’ but actually a sort of satirical allegory, so lightly done that you don’t notice till the end. & full of a vivid postwar longing for lobster salad & marshmallows

Does anyone have a suggestion of a graphic novel/comic that might convert a 15-year-old boy who never reads (or anything else that might be given as a Christmas present since he doesn’t seem to like anything as far as I can tell?)

Why isn’t the Wizard of Oz on TV?

I’m guessing eventually people will save time & just have AI children (I bet this exists already - a bit like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf but with photos & chat from the imaginary kids)

Some kind of Boxing Day starfish massacre on Margate main sands today 😢

Watching Madness playing Embarrassment on tv - confirms my theory that sad lyrics + cheery tune always makes the best songs

Wasp print #ArtAdventCalendar

Oh no this is definitely going to turn into a marching ghost army, come on

Snail print #ArtAdventCalendar

Shell print #ArtAdventCalendar

Crab sketch #ArtAdventCalendar

Easter Parade sketch #ArtAdventCalendar

If you hear a rumble, it’s the sound of hundreds of people who’ve worked in publishing running to their phones to type ‘IT’S HAPPENING’ into their message groups.

Finished wasp bowl - happy with how it turned out #ArtAdventCalendar

OK, so to prevent dementia I need to eat cheese, drink coffee & listen to music? Fine! (Yes yes something about exercise, healthy eating, I didn’t hear that part)

This Broadstairs seagull looks like he’s seen some things

So great - you can almost feel the incredible static electricity generated by their frocks

Conclave sketch for #ArtAdventCalendar

There were already pink clouds in the sky at 2.40pm today, who do I write to about this

Octopus for #ArtAdventCalendar

Can hear the religious lady with the incredible sound system winding her way all round the town. It’s amazing - she’s only small but somehow manages to pull speakers that make her louder than Dreamland on a little shopping trolley

Sketch of my dad for day 10 of #ArtAdventCalendar. I don’t think it looks that much like him - but strangely it does apparently look a lot like his dad, who I never met

Suspicious fairground horse for day 9 of #ArtAdventCalendar

Shrimp sketch for day 8 of #ArtAdventCalendar

computer going to take my job? no. i’ll pour water on it

Crocodile sketch for day 7 of #ArtAdventCalendar

#ArtAdventCalendar day 6

We should put together a list of books you can buy this Christmas from authors who were robbed and had their careers sabotaged* by Unbound. (*What makes me forever angry is that it's about so much more than money. You'd think people who read would be better at empathy and understanding.)

Pottery wasp for day 5 of #ArtAdventCalendar

Trying again with a haughty old lady from Separate Tables #ArtAdventCalendar

FFS Bluesky. Can’t even see my own life drawing sketch for #ArtAdventCalendar because it’s labelled as adult content. Even Instagram has no problem with a charcoal male bottom

People posting Epstein’s island photos with jokey comments especially the men cheerily remarking on the ‘dentist’s chair’: please stop

Andor sketch for day 3 of #ArtAdventCalendar

Sketch #ArtAdventCalendar

This year I tried to do a sketch a day for a year challenge - it looks like I gave up around day 160 but it means I did a lot of drawing & it’s interesting to see how much my style changed even in that time. Putting up this one from about halfway through for day 1 of #ArtAdventCalendar

Weevil sketch

libro.fm/audiobooks/9... With Stoppard's death it's worth mentioning that you can get the BBC radio versions of pretty much his entire body of work for a single audiobook credit (also available on Audible, but Libro.fm is far better)

Goodbye to the master. ❤️

Got some good rainy day reading from the hospice charity shop

A generation of Bartlebys (except they’ll never know who Bartleby is ofc because they hate reading)

I suppose I understand the ‘people just want something to cheer up a gloomy time’ point. But can’t we do something else cheerful in November in that case? It feels like wishing the year away. We need more festivals! (Especially in the UK where we don’t have Thanksgiving)

Have people always put their Christmas trees up in November? What’s going on? Have we all decided we’re not going to make it to mid December?

A really big gap opening up between how science people & arts people view the use of AI - I think often scientists, medics, tech people etc are really unaware how strongly those in the arts feel about it