Month: December 2021

Everybody Loves Tardigrades

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tardigrade uc davis

They do, don’t they. Everybody loves tardigrades. This is a sculpture of a tardigrade, also known as a ‘water bear’, outside the Academic Surge Building on campus, next to where I work, home to the Bohart Musuem of Entomology. I took me three attempts to spell ‘Entomology’ by the way, going through ‘Entemology’ and ‘Entimology’ before finding the right spelling. I knew it probably wasn’t ‘Entamology’, and ‘Entumology’ looks very wrong, and ‘Entermology’ is right out, but looking at it, it should really be a word for something and it’s a shame it isn’t. When I first came to campus I actually interviewed with the Viticulture and Enology department, and they actually offered me the position despite my response to “what is Enology” being “it’s insects, innit.” No, Enology isn’t insects (it’s actually wine science), but Entomology is. So, they have a big tardigrade sculpture outside, because yes, everybody loves tardigrades. Except students awaiting exam results, they don’t like tardy grades. Here’s one, “what is the difference between an Aquarius and a Tardigrade? One is a water bearer, and the other is a water bear.” Ok that joke needs a bit of work (actually I think that joke needs a different job), but it’s true, everybody loves tardigrades. They are tiny little super beings that can live in any temperature and in any environment, although even they probably avoid parts of south London after dark. They are miniscule, and have been found in every part of the Earth, from volcanoes to the deep oceans, from the Antarctic to the Amazon, from Tesco to Asda, they are everywhere and can survive any conditions, although even they probably couldn’t sit through half an hour of watching Mrs Brown’s Boys. Thanks to humans feeling the need to pop off into space, tardigrades are probably already colonizing the moon, and are watching down on us wondering why it’s taking us so long to come back and get them. They are sometimes called ‘Moss Piglets’ but that might just be their band name. They have survived all five mass extinctions, though I still don’t fancy their chances under the Tories. They don’t actually live for very long, about 3 or 4 months, but that’s still longer than most Tottenham managers’ careers. Everybody loves tardigrades.

“it’s lights out and away we go!”

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Oct 24 2021 watching F1 on couch

A Sunday afternoon sketch at home from October, drawn on the iPad with Procreate, a slice of the life. Watching the Formula One, this was the United States Grand Prix, which seems like a million races ago now. More on that later. There’s my increasingly-tall teenage son on the couch stretched out with his favourite cat on his lap (apologies to the other cat, no he loves you both equally), while I draw. Outside was a massive rain storm. They called it the “Bomb Cyclone” because everything has to have a gimmicky name now. The “Atmospheric River” and the “Moisture Firehose” were also terms used by the weather news people, who frankly are just having a laugh now. Moisture Firehose indeed, do me a favour. We had such little rain this year, the drought in the west has been very worrying, but then all this rain came along on the same day and provided a perfect backdrop for staying inside, which we would have been doing anyway, especially with this race going on. I was worried that we would lose power, the lights were flickering for a bit, and not get to see the race (it really would have been “lights out and away we go” as they say at the start of the race). And boy, was it was exciting. The young Dutch buck Max Verstappen beat seven-times legend Lewis Hamilton in the end with them being close right down to the final lap of the race. This whole Formula One season has been one of the most exciting in years, with Max (we used to call him ‘Waluigi’- MarioKart reference) Verstappen storming about to win loads of races in the Honda-powered Red Bull, maybe on course for his first world title, while the GOAT Lewis Hamilton in the slick Mercedes has pulled off some of the best drives I’ve seen him do to bring it back to level-pegging, and they go into the final race of this season on EQUAL POINTS, a situation that’s only happened once before (back in the 70s), and that final race is this weekend in Abu Dhabi. Lewis has been magnificent in recent races but it all comes down to this. Whoever comes ahead of the other will WIN the title. If they both crash out (something that’s been done before), Max will win, because he has one more race win than Lewis. To say I’m excited for this grand finale is an understatement. I’m a long-time fan of Lewis (and especially after the way he raced in Brazil this year) but more than anything I’m just a fan of the sport and I like all the characters, and it would be interesting to have a different champion, and I’m not particularly interested in the arguments and entrenching into different camps and all that, I’m just glad we’ve had an epic season. It’s very much a team sport, and a technical sport, not just about the bloke in the cockpit, there’s so much involved. I think Red Bull need to win it now because Honda will leave the sport next season and they won’t have that great Honda engine. Max will be probably champion at some point regardless, but I’ve said that before about drivers. Still, I’m actually very nervous about this weekend. I really don’t want a ‘both crash, Max wins by default’ situation, that would be crap, I just want good racing, and good strategy. I’m still annoyed about Schumacher and Hill in 94. But it’s all drama, and the big race is this Sunday. I would love if the team principals Toto Wolff and Christian Horner just had a massive punch-up, the psychologicals between them all season has been just as entertaining. I have a feeling that Max will win. Aargh I’m so excited!  

lewis hamilton

And just as a throwback… November 2008, Lewis Hamilton’s second season in F1, and he won the title in the very last race of the season, in dramatic fashion, right at the end when local lad Massa thought he had won it (still feel so bad for him). Back then, we didn’t get the channel that Formula One came on but the cable channel still showed it without sound, and I’d have the closed-captioning on. The people writing the subtitles obviously weren’t familiar with a lot of the names, and would write “Lou Is Hamel Ton”, “Right Gone On” (that was Räikkönen), “Cove Align On” (Kovailainen), and “Along Sew” (Alonso). I would watch it for the subtitles mostly. Those were exciting seasons though, and so I drew this in my notebook back then, Lewis Hamilton’s winning McLaren. I didn’t draw cars much back then…

in rust we trust

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rusty car on E street, davis

This old car has been parked in old north Davis for years, I’ve passed it many times thinking, I must draw that some day. That is definitely a thing to sketch. And then days pass into weeks, weeks into months, months into years, years back into months, and then months gives weeks a miss and jumps right back into days. So finally, on the day I ran the Turkey Trot, I took the afternoon to sketch around town. I decided to finally draw this old thing. It’s nice with the autumnal leaves all about. I saw fellow sketchers Allan and Alison while drawing this, they live nearby now. It was a nice afternoon, it had been a nice morning. I had a good race, I shaved 2.5 minutes off my previous 5k race time which I’m still well pleased about. For the first race back since early 2020, I didn’t feel rusty at all. I felt pretty good afterwards too, runnin’ makes you feel good. I ain’t ‘fraid of no ghosts. I do want to draw some more old vehicles. There are at least a couple I’ve had my eye on sketching for a while, one near my house which never moves and has a lot of cobwebs on it, I’ve just never sat outside drawing it. I like the ones that just sit there getting rusty. I like rusty.

ol’ bobby dazzler’s

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Bobby Dazzlers Hearse

Yeah I know, these ones are from just before Halloween, and it’s already December. Halloween, alright grandad, that’s so fifty years ago, we’re decorating gingerbread houses now. The Friday night before Halloween, some of the players from our youth soccer team went to a pumpkin patch (we had a tournament the next day in Roseville, in which teams traditionally wear costumes; we had Spider-Man uniforms, many of the others were really elaborate, one team we played were dressed as Pac-Man ghosts, others dressed as robbers, one team were all cow-girls (the coaches had inflatable horses), one team were aliens, and there was even one team all dressed as Jake from State Farm (the coaches dressed as Flo form Progressive) (they were popular; people like adverts. One team even got the current zany Spurs away kit and all dressed as that. If I hadn’t been coaching that tournament, I would have enjoyed sketching everyone. Unfortunately our team ended up being drawn against some high-level opposition and we lost all our games, but at least the costumes were fun to see. I say high-level, because two of the teams were two divisions above us, while the other one literally play in the foothills of the Sierras, at a higher altitude than Davis. A bit like playing Bolivia, or West Brom. Anyway, the night before we went to the pumpkin patch and I drew some pumpkins, and this big old hearse, which was being driven by a skeleton. Bobby Dazzler’s is the place, it’s just outside Davis. Here are some pumpkins I drew as well. I had to draw them quickly because they were going to turn back into carriages. I’d never been to Bobby Dazzler’s before, it was pretty good. I suppose it made me think of Bobby Davro, a TV light entertainer and panting mimer from the 80s in England, and also leader of the Daleks if memory serves (nope, memory doesn’t serve). Bobby Dazzler is the sort of thing people would say in the old days up north, “he’s a reet Bobby Dazzler” they’d say, in the working mens’ clubs. Also, they are both the names of X-Men characters, Bobby and Dazzler. Maybe Bobby Dazzler is the younger brother of Adolf and Rupert Dassler, the founders of Adidas (short for Adolf ‘Adi’ Dassler) and Puma (Rupert’s spin-off which is short for for Poo, Man) (actually Puma was going to be called ‘RuDa’, true story, after Rudolf Dassler, but everyone said that sounds RuBbish). Maybe Bobby was the youngest Dassler and maybe he could never have a voice with his siblings so instead he voiced his sibilants. Ooh that was a stretch. Anyway enough rambling. They also have a Christmas tree farm in November and December and so I might go back up there again. I won’t get a tree though, because our Cat Overlords don’t allow such things, we just re-use our old plastic one. 

Bobby Dazzlers Pumpkins

dream a little dream

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kerr and california, UC Davis

Catching up on posting October sketches still, although November actually ends today. Can you believe it’s December 2021 already? Wow. It’s a good job I finished making this year’s advent calendar already. This year I made an unusual one, not so much a single calendar as 24 plastic baubles on a miniature tree that are opened each day to reveal the chocolate inside. Oh and each one is painted with a Studio Ghibli character, in acrylic, because of course it is. We should have gone to Japan this November, that was the plan. That was the plan last November too. The pandemic put paid to our plans across the Pacific. We were going to Tokyo, and one of the things I wanted to do was visit the Studio Ghibli museum. My son and I are both big fans of those films. We were also going to Tokyo Disney, my wife is a big fan of the Disneylands. I was also hoping to see my oldest friend Tel, who has lived in Japan for ages now. We still message each other, usually stupid messages. My son saw over my shoulder me and Tel were just messaging the word ‘bollocks’ to each other for ages. Needless to say, we aren’t debating Proust. In fact I can already imagine the jokes if we ever met someone who wanted to debate Proust. Still it’s been bloody ages since I saw him, would be nice to go and pay him a visit. I actually had a dream about him last night, or rather I had a dream and he showed up. That happens sometimes, I dream about my old mates. In this dream I met up with him and two other old mates (Rob and Roshan if I recall) and we went to a bar, but I was waiting at the bar so long for our drinks that I didn’t get to spend any time with them, and every time the drinks came they were wrong, and then everyone had to go home, and I didn’t see anyone again for years. I mean, I miss my old mates, but come on, in real life we would probably all stand at the bar while we waited for the drinks. Who knows, dreams don’t make sense. It’s also true that nobody actually cares about your dreams, they are not actually interesting at all. Like, literally the most boring thing is to talk about what you dreamed about. You may as well just say, I had this stupid thought, isn’t it weird I had that stupid thought, I wonder what it means. You happened to be asleep of course so you thought it was real. You never say, I had a thought the other day, and you were in that thought, but you were painted green and driving wheelbarrow made of ham, no people would be like, right, ok mate. That said, back when we were kids Tel did tell me about a dream he had, about Robin Hood and his Merry Men all dressed in skirts and dancing about singing “Don’t F*@k with me, I’m Robin Hood”. That made us laugh all the way down Green Lane. So I turned that into a song. Well a four-song musical actually, which we performed as part of our Expressive Arts drama class at school (though my teacher Mr. Hart made me change the words to “Don’t Muck With Me, I’m Robin Hood”). We didn’t wear the skirts. It went down well, I guess, nobody cared that much probably. I think I played Robin Hood? It was thirty years ago. A few years later, Tel did tell me he never actually dreamed that song, he just made it up for a laugh. So I mean, that’s the same thing. 

By the way this is a sketch of Kerr Hall (background), on the UC Davis campus, while stood outside California Hall, the fancy new building in the foreground.