We had lunch in Cropredy today at The Old Coal Wharf, where we were hugely entertained by an amazing duo, Rimski and Handkerchief. They performed music hall songs, arranged for Bicycle Piano and Double Bassicle. These instruments appear to require not only the usual musical skills but also quite a lot of athleticism and an aptitude for on-the-spot engineering repairs. I now finally understand the phrase “pumping up the bass.”
Lunchtime doodle
In those days there were no grass-roots movements, largely due to the lack of any grass.
This comic was inspired by an eye-opening talk at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History on “The Cambrian explosion and the origin of animals” given by Prof. Paul Smith. Even before the Cambrian started, 540 million years ago, animal body plans were evolving down in the smelly mud at the edge of the continental shelves (as I understood it.)
Pictured left-to-right: Charnia, Dickinsonia and some kind of jellyfish.
Finally I can reveal the (main) reason for lack of recent posts… my new book is out!
Containing 108 hippos (and a hippo robot) in 36 pages, with 11 full colour illustrations and other surprises. Suitable for human beings.
£7 a copy plus p&p. Email me to order (see the “about” page for email address.)
Current rates for p&p for a single book (these may change):
UK — £4.20 (first class) £3.80 (second class)
US/Canada — £9.70 (5-7 days from posting date)
EU — £8.65 (3-4 days from posting date)
Sometimes the things that arrive in the sketchbook are best not explained.
We enjoyed an unsual musical act at the Old Fire Station on Friday. Thomas Truax plays songs with an understated, whimsical, often dark humour, with the occasional help of an mechanical drummer (named Mother Superior — you can see her at bottom-right in my doodle.) Also starring were the Hornicator and the Stringaling, and an impressive selection of effects pedals and looping tools. Thanks Thomas!
There she is again. This time the sun came out, and provided you stayed in the sunshine it was warm.
So Karen has earned herself a regular gig, singing solo at North Parade Market. The market is small, friendly and food-centred, with top-quality live music … what’s not to like?
Yesterday both Karen and I had music gigs at the East Oxford Farmers’ Market. However, she didn’t draw a cartoon of my early music band performing. The character on the small table is Pink Fluffy Monster (friends call him PFM.)
The Albion Beatnik Bookstore (the world’s finest bookshop) yesterday launched two new publications under its own imprint: issue 2 of its occasional magazine The Sandspout; and Baret Magarian’s novella Mirror and Silhouette.
In addition to a lot of top-quality writing, The Sandspout is especially notable for the quality of three illustrations, on pages 51, 54 and 103 by invisibules.org (alone worth the cover price of £3.00.) Take note, because the editor didn’t include them in the index.
He did, however, add a scandalous bio on p51: “Andrew Kay is a mathematician and research engineer: he is actually paid to think about welding Kit Kats to motherboards. His drawing took flight when his vanity on-line comic strip (he studied with Adam Murphy) featuring invisible characters was running out of I-can’t-see-you type gags. He leads bodybuilding workshops, likes hairdressing, plays early music with his recorder – though he himself is always late (his Skeleton Crew early music consort kindly call it syncopation); he once broke his recorder on-stage at the Isle of Wight.”