back on the couch watching the sports

July 2, 2024Leave a comment

Before we get to all the sketches from London and France, which I am still scanning, here are some from the last couple of days back here in Davis. The weather is hot, very hot, very very hot, and getting hotter. There may not be much going outside for a while, unless I start doing the early morning sketching like I do when I’m on vacation. I am still getting up early, thanks to jetlag, and I still want to just go back. But there are things to do. First though, the football. But before that, the Formula One. I was up early on Sunday to watch the Austrian Grand Prix, a ho-hum race for the first two thirds, and then a crazy exciting race for the last third (Max and Lando crashed into each other fighting for the lead, and then George Russell won it in the Mercedes; F1 is back). I sketched from the couch, my usual seat with the side-on view. Our cats are pleased we are back, I assume. I looked at the Austrian Alps in envy. I want to go everywhere, and I’d like to go back there. As I look at the long hot Davis summer stretching out ahead of me, I just want to get on another plane and explore somewhere very far away, while the world is still there to explore. Anyway, then it was time for the football. I’ve had a strange relationship with this year’s European Championships. In the past it has been one of those exciting times of year, but I’ve struggled to get as interested this time. The kits are okay, I suppose, but I haven’t wanted to get one this time. I think in the run up, I was so busy and stressed out that I didn’t think about it, and then it started while we were in London. This meant watching it at unusual times for us, that is, the afternoon and evening, as opposed to the typical very early morning that we have gotten used to (or that 3am start for the Women’s World Cup). I saw the opening game Germany vs Scotland with a friend of mine in an old Dutch pub, De Hems, in central London, Scotland got battered like a piece of cod. Some of the games have been interesting, Austria look good, Spain look frightening, but let’s face it – England have been dull as dishwater. If I had spent hundreds, thousands of quid to go and watch them chug about the field against teams they know they should beat, barely taking a shot or connecting a pass, I’d be furious. The group stage was so boring, football at its worst. But everyone’s tired! they say. So are we all, mate, so are we all. The knockout stages should be better. I’ll be back home, watching them in the mornings from the couch (or my desk if I’m at the office), and they are must-win. England v Slovakia was, predictably, turgid. Slovakia played well, England did not. I sketched during the game, above. The commentators, in the closing minutes of the game with England 1-0 down, were putting the game very firmly in the England Hall of Shame, with the leading men Kane, Bellingham and Foden having done absolutely zero. I was telling my friends back home, it’s bad news for the English game. They aren’t creative enough, they are positive enough, they’ll go on getting bad results, getting bad results, getting bad results. Everyone seemed to know the score, we’ve seen it all before. And then, in the 95th or 96th minute whatever it was, Jude Bellingham, the young Real Madrid superstar, decided to do a bicycle kick to plant the ball in the bottom corner, breaking Slovakia’s hearts, as the cliche says. Full-time, 1-1; extra-time, and Kane makes it 2-1 instantly. Suddenly the, er, narrative changes. It doesn’t wipe out the previous 96 minutes of dull porridge, but England are in the next round now, just as England topped the group, and like in 1990, nobody will care how boring they were because of a brief moment where it went right. That’s how football works I guess. As I look towards the long hot summer in Davis with nothing but work and imposing heat on the menu, I think about the trip we have planned right at the end of summer before Fall begins, and maybe that’s the Bellingham and Kane moment that will make Summer 2024 worth it. I dunno. We had a pretty nice trip just now, I’m just in the post-vacation blues. England are in the next round against the Swiss, who look really good after knocking out a dreary Italy.

I sketched a couple more games yesterday, writing down the commentary as I went. France v Belgium (ended 1-0 to France, a goal they classed as an own goal by my man Jan Vertonghen), France otherwise just don’t know how to score properly. This was followed by Portugal 0-0 with Slovenia, Cristiano Ronaldo who is playing his 112th tournament trying as hard as he might to score goals and failing, much to the eternal patience of his team-mates who would like a go please. Ronny, you don’t need to take every free kick, your record of those for Portugal is actually rubbish. Of course he had a penalty saved by Oblak, ending in tears and more looks towards the heaven (and the big screens). He hasn’t scored in eight tournament games and wants to pile on more for his own personal record, team-mates be damned. And then it ended in a draw, and a penalty shoot-out. Portugal’s goalie made three saves in a row, and Ronny scored his penalty this time, but mate, that don’t count as a goal. Portugal v France in the quarter finals, along with Germany v Spain on Friday. The Euros are back. Meanwhile, the Copa America is on, hosted by the US. I finally watched a game last night, USA vs Uruguay… and the USA lost, and are out in the group stage. Oh well. As American politics gets charging towards the ugly election in November, I remembered, oh yes, there’s a British general election on Thursday, right in the middle of the Euros. It would have been strange for England to be knocked out right before it. They fight on for another weekend. I ain’t going anywhere.

christmas eve in front of the telly

January 4, 2024Leave a comment

We all have our holiday routines. For us, Christmas Eve has become our family day. Since on Christmas Day we will typically get up and go over to Santa Rosa for the day with my wife’s family, where we will eat crab for dinner, it’s Christmas Eve where it’s just us and we will have the traditional turkey and roast potatoes dinner, with ‘picky bits’ during the day. We will spend the day watching all our favourite Christmas shows and movies, though we always spend the couple of weeks leading up to Christmas watching all the old faves. Home Alone is the classic, though we always save Muppets Christmas Carol (my personal favourite Christmas movie and Michael Caine’s best role). A Christmas Story is great (and the new sequel that came out last year was surprisingly very good fun). Love Actually is the cheese but we love it; it always reminds us of the London that existed when we left it, and we saw that at the cinema in Muswell Hill when we lived on Hornsey Lane. We even watched Die Hard this year, which I’d not actually seen since the early 90s, because it used to be on tv a lot as a generic action film before people realized it was set at Christmas so we have to argue if it’s a Christmas movie (I think you can say it definitely is, I don’t buy people saying it’s their favourite one, but each to their own); it was fun and I realized the big blond hulking terrorist who wanted to avenge his brother’s death reminded us a lot of Erling Haaland at the end of that Spurs-Man City game. We love Iron Man 3, a total Christmas action movie. We also watched the Creature Comforts Christmas this year, which I’d not seen before, and we always watch the Christmas episodes of the Simpsons, and the festive Father Ted Christmas special, the one with the Golden Cleric Award (“and now we move on to liars…”). This Christmas Eve, we started by putting on a bunch of Christmas episodes of Friends, followed by the other favourite, Charlie Brown’s Christmas. It always reminds me of when we took our son to see a kids stage production of it in Folsom when he was about three or four, in some tiny little venue, very simply produced yet amazing and memorable. Then it was time for the Blackadder’s Christmas Carol, which we know word for word and absolutely love, especially the bit where Beadle’s portly lads sing “piggy-wiggy-wiggy-wiggy-woo” which I used to sing to my son when he was a baby. Then it’s time for The Snowman, a proper gentle piece of festive animation; this was one from my own childhood, I was about six or so when it came out and remember watching it on TV, and being excited that the kid had red hair like me. Then it’s time for The Muppets Christmas Carol. I have it on an old DVD so it’s the full version, and I love how straight Caine plays it. It’s pretty close to my other favourite version, Scrooge (with Albert Finney), which I haven’t watched in a while. There are so many versions; I never really liked Scrooged, and don’t get me started on that TV version that Ross Kemp did, but nothing beats the Muppets. This year we followed that with a film that will always feel like Christmas to us, The Force Awakens. It does have snow in it, but it’s because it came out right before Christmas that it feels right, and we loved that one. Actually that year was the last one where we spent Christmas in London; hard to believe we’ve not spent Christmas with my London family in so long, I do really miss them at Christmas. By this time we’re already getting ready for dinner, and so there might be a bit of music or maybe a nap, but after dinner is done and the last bit of wrapping gets underway, it’s always time for It’s A Wonderful Life, which is a Christmas classic without really being that much of a Christmas movie itself, just that bit at the end. I love it though. There are other films that come on Christmas Day when we visit family (Gremlins played this year, and Elf usually comes on) but this is pretty much our usual tradition, just spending the whole day at home, and it’s a fun one. I hope you all had a lovely time this year. It’s already 2024 now and slowly back to work, but we did get a lovely tropical holiday in for New Years; sketches coming soon. Happy New Year!

living room in red

September 28, 2023September 26, 20231 Comment

I was on the couch, not feeling too well, and I wanted to draw in red pen, so I looked at the cat (number 1 of 2), lying there asleep, and drew the living room looking towards the kitchen. Drawing in red pen is interesting. Not a lot interesting to add here though.

lionesses before dawn

September 17, 2023Leave a comment

We all got up at 3am, for the second time in a week, to watch England playing in the final stages of the Women’s World Cup. The midweek semi-final was a fantastic win. The final, in those wee hours of a Sunday morning, as sketched here, did not go quite as well. Spain were the better team on the day, and deserved to win 1-0. Of course we all know what happened next with that awful Spanish FA president, it’s been quite a drama. The Women’s World Cup overall was a really fun tournament, even though we could not watch too many games live (as they were in Australian and New Zealand), we watched all the highlights each day. The USA were not so good this time, but I was pretty happy with how England did overall. European Champions last year, beaten World Cup finalists this year (I guess we start counting ‘years of hurt’ again now?). Congratulations to Spain though. This was nearly a month ago now, and these days we are back in the Premier League fun times, and Spurs are doing great so far under Big Ange Postecoglou. However now I am getting right into the Rugby World Cup, of all things. I’ve never been much of a rugby fan, I used to watch it sometimes on telly when I was a kid, but never really understood it like I do with football. I still don’t, but it has been fun watching these huge guys smash into each other this past week. Sport, eh. It’s the big distraction from all the other shitty things in the world, and there are increasingly shitty things in the world, that my mental health just can’t deal with, so I go back to watching sport. I was up at 5am this morning watching the Formula 1, and what a race (Carlos Sainz won; Max Verstappen for once did not win, coming fifth). Earlier this summer we watched pretty much all the Tour de France (well, all the highlights each day, I’m not actually watching them race live). At this rate I might even start watching cricket (no, let’s not go that far). But we loved the Women’s World Cup. And I’m now a big fan of goalkeeper Mary “F***-Off!!” Earps.

big time charlie

June 10, 2023Leave a comment

So King Charles got his Big Hat then. I know, I know, it’s old hat to be flippant about the coronation. Sure, it is an expensive ceremony, a chance to get all the old shiny things out and invite all the old wrinkly things in, play some music, wave some flags, interview lots of people and give Charles a massive crown. But I appreciate that this is an important moment, one that most of us have never actually seen before, given the last one was 70 years ago, and in black and white. I didn’t get up in the middle of the night to watch any of it, instead we watched a replay of the whole thing on YouTube. It was long, so of course I sketched the TV and surrounding areas while it went on. It was like watching the World Cup again, drawing my TV cabinet, writing down some of the things the commentators said. It was a historic moment, not because there was anything unexpected, maybe because there wasn’t. I really liked the music. Westminster Abbey is a stunning location visually, but aurally it’s incredible. Cathedrals tend to be, it’s one of the reasons I love cathedrals. Yes yes, Westminster Abbey isn’t a ‘cathedral’. It’s not an ‘abbey’ either, it’s a ‘Royal Peculiar’, but who is splitting hairs. I liked the bit when they were playing Holst’s The Planets, the conductor was very entertaining. All the people coming in, it was fun face-spotting, but I was mots surprised and delighted when they announced “Baroness Benjamin”, and it was Floella Benjamin! Kids TV presenter from when I was very small, I absolutely LOVED Floella, PlaySchool was my favourite program other than perhaps the Mr Men. The Round Window, all those toys like Big Ted, Humpty, and that strange little doll Hamble. I was hoping to see them at Westminster Abbey too, the PlaySchool toys, Jemima and Humpty, Big Ted and Little Ted, and Poppy (who I remember replaced Hamble), all sitting there looking out at all the royals and dignitaries. When Charles and Camilla came, I thought they looked very nervous. I imagined him talking to his plants (as he does) before the ceremony to ease his nerves, “I’ve been waiting a loooong time for this moment, my little green friend”. They got their massive crowns, Charles did that whole anointing thing, there were the ritual objects like the ‘Rod of Equity and Mercy’ and the ‘Robe of Righteousness’ – that sounds like something James Brown would wear – the ‘Rod of Jane and Freddy’ – no wait I’m mixing up PlaySchool with Rainbow now. In preparation we watched the film The King’s Speech, which is a good one. Anyway, King Charles the Third and Queen Camilla were crowned, they went back to Buckingham Palace, it was all very exciting for everyone there, and I’m glad I wasn’t in London with all those crowds. I did that last year for the Queen’s Jubilee with my Mum, who loves all of this pomp and party. I ordered her a special Coronation afternoon tea and scones set from Marks’s. Me and my wife did watch the whole thing though, all however-many-hours it was, on YouTube (I was wondering if in Shakespeare’s time they would watch coronations on ThouTube), so I’ve done my civic duty as a far-away Brit who doesn’t really mind that much. I spent the rest of the day playing Horizon Forbidden West, and packing for an upcoming short trip back over to Blighty.

I Wanna See Some History

February 27, 2023February 26, 2023Leave a comment

And in the end, they put the Queen in the ground, and that was that. The Funeral was a Real History Moment, the sort that gets played back in years to come on history shows, with the AI clone of Simon Schama in the year 2081 stating solemnly, “Even for us smart-alec artificial-intelligence history bots, just simple bits of code flying around on a Silicon Valley server, even we had to stop sniggering and start paying attention, knowing with a suspicious lump in the HDMI cable that something immense had happened, the death of a matriarch; this was history happening right before our very photoreceptors.” We had to watch, of course. The Queen’s Funeral was long, solemn, and quite the spectacle. It was like the Avengers Endgame of British royalty and politics, and although the Queen’s last words probably weren’t “And I Am Elizabeth II”, she did somehow snap her fingers and make Boris Johnson disappear into dust. She worked right up to the end, and one of her final acts was to usher in a new Prime Minister, Liz Truss, who managed to hang on to her job until just after the Queen’s Funeral. We didn’t watch the Funeral live; we watched it on YouTube after getting home from work. I’m glad I was in America. My friends back home said the mood in Britain was getting out of hand, which doesn’t sound like Britain at all does it, and said the BBC had started to be called ‘MournHub’. In the end though, we got the show, we got the pomp and pageantry, and I will admit, the version of the National Anthem that they played in Westminster Abbey, in that place, was easily the best version you will ever hear, much better than the dreary durge they belt out at England matches, or that used to be played on BBC2 at about midnight before Close. This stirred the soul, it made my feel feel ticklish. I think it may have been the last time we’ll hear the God Save The Queen with that lyric in a while, in my lifetime anyway, it’ll be all God Save The King now. Sounds a bit off, like something Lord Whats-his-name would say on Downton Abbey.

I drew the Westminster bit in Procreate, before taking a break and then watching the Windsor part on my iPad, drawing on a brown envelope, making those red coats of the Scots Guard stand out. It was a long old drive up to Windsor Castle. The Queen was buried at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, and now we have a King, Charles III. Honestly when I first saw that headline, I thought it read “Charles ill” and I thought, oh here we go again already.

The last event like this I’d actually watched was the Funeral of Princess Diana, back in that frankly bonkers period of time in September 1997. Anyone who was alive at the time will remember this, but for those of us in the UK the response was utterly ridiculous. I had no idea the country could react in such a way to anything. On the night Diana was killed in that car crash in Paris, along with Dodi Al Fayed, I remember that I was unironically eating in an Egyptian restaurant just around the corner form Kensington Palace which had pictures of Diana on the wall, and I even said “wouldn’t it be funny if Diana and Dodi came in right now.” They had not been off the front pages of the newspapers all week, their fling in France being like Christmas and birthdays rolled into one for all the tabloid editors, gossip columnists and paparazzi. They were ruthless; she was not the ‘People’s Princess’ or the ‘Queen of Hearts’ back then, that would not be until a few days later. I didn’t know Diana had died until early the next morning, when my Mum woke me up to tell me the news. She was shocked and upset, being a big fan of the Royals, and it was very shocking news. Throughout my young life I’d grown up watching the Diana story unfold – the wedding of Charles and Diana was one of my earliest memories, and we had a street party for that, one in which my dad won the “dad’s piggyback race”, where you had to run to the top of the street with your kid on your back. My mum did meet Diana at least once, while working on catering jobs, though she regrets that she never got to meet the Queen. The most famous person I met while working on those catering jobs (because I used to work as a waiter when I was first old enough to work) was Ronnie Corbett, and he was brilliant. Anyway, we got the first edition of the Sunday newspapers, News of the World or one of those old rags that don’t exist any more, and the first few pages were pure Historic Moment – the shock, the tears, the gushing about the Queen of Hearts is dead, the anguish, the instant canonization of Diana – and yet, because editors had to get this newspaper out in time for people to grab the papers with the biggest headlines, they had not yet updated all the articles a few pages deep into the paper, which were still full of “Diana is disgracing the nation” and showing long range pictures of her in skimpy outfits with Dodi on a yacht off the Cote d’Azur. Still, I had no time to join in the national mourning, because I was off to France myself, taking the coach to Strasbourg with my friend Terry for a few days of being silly, a little vacation before I started university. While we were away, people would ask us, “are you doing ok?” and we’d be like, “er yeah, we’re fine,” thinking, strange thing to keep asking us.

We didn’t know that back in England the place was slowly becoming Diana Crazy. I sometimes call Britain “Totally Normal Island”, but this was the country at it’s Most Totally Normal. The sea of flowers in front of Kensington Palace was only part of it. When we arrived back in London on our coach from France the country had been gripped with the Diana Fever for several days already, and we were a little taken aback. I went to Kensington Palace to have a look at the flowers; hundreds of people were standing around, many bawling their eyes out. My mum signed the remembrance book down there; I didn’t know what to write so I just put some Beatles lyrics in there, I can’t even remember what. It probably wasn’t ‘I Am The Walrus’. Then the Funeral took place. The whole country closed down, shops, schools (I mean it was a Saturday so they were closed anyway), and we all sat around the telly while about a million people lined the streets of central London, watching on big screens down at Hyde Park. This was Funeral with Entertainment. This was the 90s, we had an excited new young cool PM Tony Blair steering the ship Cool Britannia, and Diana was friend of the famous – her good pal Elton John performed a rewrite of one of his classics, singing “Goodbye England’s Rose”, his eyebrows bobbing up and down as that guaranteed number one echoed through the hallowed stones of Westminster Abbey. And the Diana was put into the ground up at the family home at Althorp (which we learned was pronounced ‘Awl-trup’), and then over the next few weeks the country blinked and looked around as if coming out of some trance and went, what the bloody hell was that about? I started university a couple of weeks later and even then, people were not sure what had just happened, and how we were supposed to think about it other than some collective temporary madness. It’s something we can all look back on though, all remembered slightly differently, all with different degrees of cynicism or sadness, but it was a Historical Moment and gives expatriate Brits like me us a funny story to tell Americans.

flags up

June 16, 2021June 16, 2021Leave a comment

“Who’s going to win the Euros?” you ask. I don’t care. Despite all of this, despite the elaborate chart I have made, despite my collection of shirts, despite that massive long autobiographical post I made with digital illustrations of players past, despite getting up at 6am to watch Scotland lose to the Czechs, despite all the flag banners I have put up and the paper mosaic flags I have painstakingly made (they go back several tournaments), despite hunting in vain for this year’s Euro 2020 Panini album here in California and then finally just spending money ordering it online just to have it with all the others, despite all of this I don’t actually care who wins the bloody thing. I don’t care who wins the groups, I don’t even really care who wins the games themselves, although obviously I want England to win theirs (yet I will wear the Scotland shirt this Friday when they both play, my son will wear the England shirt), and it would be nice if England actually won the tournament, there’s been too many years of hurt. Perhaps instead of “Jules Rimet still gleaming” someone could sing about the “Henri Delauney”, to the tune of Roy Orbison’s “Only the Lonely”. But no, I don’t actually care. Several reasons, firstly I am exhausted from football. It’s been a long couple of years. Imagine how the players feel. Secondly, Spurs aren’t in it, so I always feel differently about international football. Thirdly, watching Christian Eriksen nearly die on the pitch live on TV on Saturday morning scared and horrified me a bit. I was actually in a hotel in San Francisco at the time, and just couldn’t believe it. I can’t really comprehend all the feelings I have about that incident, all I can say now is that I am so glad he lived and is, as much as we know, ok. Alive. I was going to draw him in Illustrator tonight but I’m still upset thinking about him on that pitch, surrounded by his team-mates, trying to bring him back. I have a soft spot for Denmark having spent a formative summer there at the end of my teens, but I love Eriksen. He spent a long time at Spurs, he could have left long before but didn’t, when he finally decided he needed a new challenge he went to Italy and won the Serie A title with Inter, and bloody good for him. He was long part of my favourite ever Spurs team (maybe equal to the Ossie/Hoddle/Waddle/Allen etc team) and he’s still on my son’s wall; that Tottenham team forms part of the bond I have with my son, so I have a lot of affection for Eriksen. That’s all I can say on that. It wouldn’t be fair to say it’s made me not care about the Euros, on the contrary it’s probably made me appreciate all the players who take part in it more, they are human beings doing what they love so we can watch them. I think I don’t care who will win because I just want it to be all good and worth it. It doesn’t really matter who wins. Though of course, tell me that when England are in a penalty shootout in the quarter finals and I am in the kitchen eating a packet of Pringles too nervous to watch. As I write all the teams have played once; I drew this during the first match, Italy vs Turkey. You’ll see from the note that we had a plumbing incident, that would be the toilet spewing out sewage, which I was hoping wasn’t a metaphor for international football. However it was a really good start from Italy, and despite my reservations about this multi-country tournament I absolutely love that many teams are playing in front of home crowds. After this bloody year, it feels really fantastic, especially watching Italy in Rome with Andrea Bocelli banging out ‘Nessun Dorma’ (though of course Pavarotti was better; I said to my wife that it was a bit like having Ringo sing ‘Imagine’). The best bit was the little remote control car that drove out onto the field with the match ball on top of it. Star of the show. “Is that a Volkswagen?” someone asked; I said “I think it’s a Nissan Dorma”. Sorry, it’s late and I just needed to get that joke out of the way. Italy looked good, they could be Dark Horses. There are lots of Dark Horses in this tournament aren’t there. Why do we say Dark Horses? I mean, horse racing usually takes place in the daytime and a Dark Horse would be easier to see. Maybe we should say Green Horses, they blend in with the grass. Or Invisible Horses. Anyway it’s been a good tournament so far, some great names, there’s this one guy called Varcheck everyone’s talking about (or it may be his wife, Varcheckova). I know, just getting those ones out of the way. I was pleased to see Sweden have a player called Danielson, it reminded me of the Karate Kid. This will be a long tournament, honestly. I don’t care who wins.

back on the sofa

November 9, 2020November 8, 20201 Comment

Another view of my TV screen from my sofa, drawn on the iPad, because it’s 2020 and there’s a lot of this. Before the election of course. I use Procreate to draw on my iPad, it’s great, although I feel like I have a lot I could learn. I should take an online course or watch videos or something I don’t have a lot of time for. This is a different brush than I usually use though, the Dry Ink brush. I was watching Tottenham play Antwerp, a team that had somehow overtaken my Belgian team Charleroi at the top of the Belgian Pro-League. And we lost, we bloody lost 1-bleedin’0. I wasn’t super happy about that. I’m still not, but ah well, that’s football, we’ve won a few games since. The cat sleeps on the chair, not giving a tommy tit about the football, or the election, or anything until dinner time, or play time.

all we need is music, sweet music

November 8, 20205 Comments

And so, it finally ended. Woo – and I cannot stress this enough – hoo! Though of course it will keep going on for a while. Almost worth it being most of a week to get the results on a Saturday morning, and celebrate the rest of the day (or in my case, go for a run, coach soccer, draw a lot, and have some beer). As if there weren’t quite enough words filling this week, the three sketches I did of the TV (one above, of Vice-President-Elect Kamala Harris, first female VP as well as first black VP and first VP of Indian background, gave a great speech introducing President-Elect Biden. I wrote down as much as I could while drawing. Same below, though my sketch of Biden doesn’t look too much like him, more like Alan Pardew. Personally I am just really looking forward to having leaders where we don’t have to worry about what nonsense all-caps words they have rage-tweeted. But I try not to think about those too much, I don’t follow it, nor engage in it; as much as I use Twitter (mostly I tweet about Tottenham or football shirts) there are so many bots and trolls sweeping it looking for fights about politics, it’s like Camden Town at 2 in the morning but with Warhammer and Robot Wars thrown in. Actually it’s nothing like that at all, because that sounds awesome. (Who hasn’t witnessed Sir Kill-A-Lot glass a Giant Orc outside the Mixer before getting a bag of chips and jumping on the Night Bus?) Apologies to my American friends, this reference is possibly niche. Still it was nice to hear a calming voice, a voice of reason, rather than one moaning about how unfair everyone is to him and how tremendous he is. I get enough of that watching Jose Mourinho. By the way, this morning Tottenham actually went Top of the Premier League for a few brief moments, before Leicester retook the lead in the next match, which was a fake match and actually Tottenham have in fact won the league with a big 1-0 win, and I’m claiming victory in all remaining games. (Literally the entire world has done a variation of this joke already, better than I could). By the way, the actual funniest thing yesterday is far and away the press conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping. Straight Outta The Thick Of It. Earlier in the day while still watching the Newsathon, I drew various announcements on my iPad (below), as people celebrated and danced on the streets of Washington DC, and cities everywhere. My cat looked out of the window, unaware that there has been a change in the human leadership, only concerning himself with whether he will be allowed to play in the yard or get dinner a bit earlier. The cat agenda is never taken into consideration by human politicians. I’m glad the new President will have pets though, the only pets the last President (whoever that was – still is, I guess) had were peeves. Of our two cats, they disagree on a number of issues and call each other all sorts of uncivil names but they cross the aisle when it comes to Being let outside to play in the yard, or Opening the window a bit, or Getting fed now right now. It’s been quite a week, exhausting and exhilarating, and sure the fun isn’t over yet (not by a long shot; just give it up, man!), but I probably won’t be glued to the TV waiting for Breaking News Updates about there maybe being a few extra votes counted in Wherever County or whether the Losing campaign claims there were votes from time-travelers from the future or something. I’m glad I drew some of it though, historical record and all. 2020 is really the story that keeps on storying. I got a new great-nephew on Friday when my eldest niece gave birth (welcome baby Che!), and a new President and Vice-President on Saturday. Take the good moments when they come!

a long, long tuesday night

November 3, 20201 Comment

Election night 2020, it’s been a long year, it’s been a long night, I think it could be a long week. Been a long few years to be honest. The TV has words spewing out of it, the “Road to 270” is still very tight. It feels like watching a Spurs match where we’re holding on to a narrow lead but we keep giving away free kicks on the edge of the box. What a year this has been, and it ain’t over yet. Here’s another living room sketch, done in the new watercolour Moleskine (“sketchbook #38”). Fingers still crossed, but I’m not the optimist in the room.