Foghorn - No. 46

Issue 46The best of British cartooning talentFOGHORN

THE FOGHORN2 WWW.PROCARTOONISTS.ORG

NEWS

The magazine of the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation (FECO UK)

FOGHORNFOGHORN Issue 46

Published in Great Britain by theProfessional Cartoonists’Organisation (FECO UK)

PCO PatronsLibby Purves Andrew MarrBill Tidy Martin Wainwright

Foghorn EditorBill Stott

tel: +44 (0) 160 646002email: [email protected]

Foghorn Sub-EditorRoger Penwill

tel: +44 (0) 1584 711854email: [email protected]

Foghorn Layout/DesignTim Harries

tel: + 44 (0) 1633 780293email: [email protected]

PCO Press Officeemail: [email protected]

Web infoPCO (FECO UK) website:

http://www.procartoonists.org

BLOGHORNhttp://thebloghorn.org/

What is Foghorn? British cartoon art has a great, ignoble history and currently boasts a huge pool of talent. It

deserves a higher media presence than it currently enjoys. Our aim

is to make sure it gets it. We want to promote cartoon art domestically and internationally by encouraging high standards of artwork and service, looking after

the interests of cartoonists and promoting their work in all kinds

of media.

CopyrightAll the images in this magazine are the intellectual property and

copyright of their individual creators and must not be copied or reproduced, in any format,

without their consent.

Front Cover: Steve BrightBack Cover: Gerard Whyman

Foghorn (Online) ISSN 1759-6440

Glossop: 3 Pangolin: 2

Once again, Foghorn takes its place with the outriders of poster-ity, caring not a jot for cuts. Why, I couldn’t find my trousers this morn-ing. They’ve gone. Since I’m a fat old geezer, they’re apparently classed as a quango. But never let it be said your Foghorn doesn’t support Big Dave’s Society. In these few scant pages, it does the right thing and volunteers,

nay, offers up proof positive that there is something not quite right in cartoonists’ kilter departments. Count the times you laugh out loud. If your score is nil, you’re normal.

Bill Stott, Foghorn Ed

“He’ll see you now.”

Diana was a daughter of the great cartoon-ist, H.M.Bateman and although not an artist she, through her father’s work, acquired a love and respect for cartoon-ing. During the 1980s worked with Mel Calm-an, Simon Heneage and the other Members of the Cartoon Art Trust towards the formation of the UK Cartoon Mu-seum. Happily, the opening of the museum in her lifetime validated her enduring enthusiasm for the art. Diana was a coun-try woman. She loved

tending her chickens, growing things: apples, figs, berries, vegetables, herbs. She was middle-class but totally without snobbery and full of qui-et adventure. When I was re-searching my book of H.M.Bateman drawings Diana revealed the fam-ily collection of origi-nals, of rough sketches, of sketchbooks, water-colours and caricatures stored in one of Green-ham Barton’s many rooms. This, around the early 1970s, was the beginning of a fam-ily friendship in which I came to love and respect

Diana’s down-to-earth personality, her ability to produce wonderful food from her old-fashioned Aga and to admire the strength of her character. In company with many, many others, I am grate-ful that I knew her. On Monday July 12 a Thanksgiving Service was held in Greenham church, a church so tiny that many relatives and friends could not all fit inside. Typically, Di-ana’s choice of music to follow the Blessing was The Padstow Lifeboat by Malcolm Arnold: a lively exit from the church.

John Jensen

Diana Willis, a founder member of the organisation which set up the UK Cartoon Museum has died, aged 83.

THE FOGHORN 3WWW.PROCARTOONISTS.ORG

FEATURE CLIVE COLLINS

WWW.PROCARTOONISTS.ORG

Toyshops in my life

Clive Collins

I’ve always had a soft spot for old-fashioned toyshops – the ones back in the 1950s, long before the days of Gameboy or X-Box, when playing with trains was just one step behind wanting to be a real train driver as the best of all possible worlds. Be-fore she achieved a degree of fame as a theatrical agent, my Mum used to run such a shop in Hounslow, by the trolleybus turning point, and opposite the Duke of Wellington pub. It was called R.S. Smith & Son after a long-gone previous owner, and had been bought by one of my Dad’s alco-holic ex-school chums, known to us as Uncle Ralph. Uncle Ralph would put-ter down to the shop late in the morn-ing in his battered Austin A30, play car snooker in the parking area at the rear of the shop - bouncing off other equally dented vehicles before com-ing to rest against the back door. He’d heave himself out, and lurch angular-ly through the back room, staggering and clinking over the countless accu-mulator batteries being charged up. Swearing and gasping, he’d fall into the shop, ker-ching the till, and make off with a handful of notes. He’d then

weave his way through the customers and out of the shop, to make his de-mented way across the Staines Road, dodging in and out of the traffic, and on into the pub. It was a Watney Red Barrel pub in those days, so we knew he couldn’t be enjoying himself. Oddly, he’s the only person I know who was once stopped by the police for drunken driving, on his way to a pub. Mum worked long hours in the shop, and whenever possible my sister and I would help out. There was a warm electrical smell from the various sec-tions of 00-guage test track at the rear of the shop, and that, combined with the low hum from the aforementioned batteries out back gave the place an almost homely feel. The shop was in a classic parade – butcher, post office, newsagent, fish-monger, sweet shop, café, toy shop, hairdressers, chemist, baker, pet shop etc., and all long before Starbucks had ever been heard of. I quite enjoyed serving customers, but never got the hang of wrapping up a fully inflated football. Why the customer couldn‘t buy it flat and inflate it at home, I’ll never know, but I’d spend valuable

time with this bloody thing escaping from my hands, slipping through my fingers and bouncing around the shop as I vainly tried to wrap paper around it. One customer, having watched for fifteen minutes, gave up and said he’d kick it home instead. I had quite a decent railway layout at home, and was allowed to save up and buy track etc, at a small discount, and this was proper track – none of your Hornby stuff – this was Wren track or Peco, where you’d lay it like you’d lay a full-size railway line; metal over separate sleepers. It kept me amused for hours, until I discovered girls and drawing – in that order. Dad would occasionally pop into the shop, but he had a zen attention span, and he’d stand, hands behind his back at the door, eyes rolling, before look-ing at his watch. He’d hold up one finger, which we knew didn’t mean just one pint, and he’d vanish over the road, just in time to help decant Ralph into a taxi. At Christmas time, the family would all be roped in, and we’d painstak-ingly recreate the Blackpool Tower in miniature in Meccano – a vision in red and green with working lift, and twinkling lights all the way up. The smell of burning in the shop would increase greatly at about this time, since Dad would insist on helping with the electrics, and more than once the entire parade of shops would de-scend into darkness as he blew the area circuits. The memory of those days has a warmth about it – and not just be-cause of Dad’s lethal electrical skills. It wasn’t long before a smarter, more zappy toy shop eventually opened at the other end of town, with more and more up-to-date toys and games. Custom began to ooze away, and there was less and less change in the till to be grabbed by Uncle Ralph.


BLOGHORN

Paint your dragonWe’ve seen elephants in London recently, and now Dragons have taken to the streets of Newport. Cartoonists from the PCO are involved once again, reports Royston Robertson.Sixty SuperDragons, as they are known, made their debut in the South Wales city in the middle of July. PCO members Gerard Whyman and Tim Harries both got involved, putting co-lourful designs on a canvas that is some-what different to a piece of A4 paper: a 5ft by 6ft fibreglass dragon. Ger created not one but two works: “Shipley”, based on the city’s maritime history (with famous Newportians past and present gazing from portholes) and “Rodney”, which was sponsored by Newport Gwent Dragons rugby team, and named after their Rodney Parade ground. Ger told the Bloghorn how he heard about the project - “My involvement with the Superdragons started when I got an email inviting to an open night last January with the organisers, mainly the company Wild in Art – who specialise in community art projects – and people from the local arts centre in Newport. I didn’t attend the meeting, but down-loaded the info and template to draw the design and then duly forgot about it until a few days before the deadline in mid March. Hastily I scribbled a couple of ideas down – basically a ship design with big portholes and a rugby crowd scene and sharpened my coloured pen-cils to colour in the dragon. About a month later I got an email to say that I had been successful with my entry. The winning designs were made pub-lic in an opening ceremony that took place on my birthday, April 16th and I was surprised to see that both my de-signs were displayed – the rules stated that many designs could be entered but only one would be accepted. I discov-ered that the rugby design was being sponsored by the local team, the New-port Gwent Dragons, and a sponsored design meant that a personal design could still be painted. All in all, a great birthday present – it meant two fees

were to be paid! The process of actually painting the fibre glass dragons started at the end of April. Funnily enough, the paint-ing of a Big Board at the Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival proved a useful dry run, as many artists were working in a communal space in a disused shop – re-named the Dragons’ Den for the dura-tion – which was open to the public. So, as well as painting, I was fielding ques-tions from interested visitors. I knew I was taking on a lot of work in painting two dragons and it felt a daunting prospect. The little A4 pen-cil sketches had to be transferred to a 5ft structure that had curves, contours and odd crevices – no mean feat! The satisfaction of completing them was immense. Now that the project is com-plete I feel slightly at a loss. It’s nice to have my freedom back but I miss the camaraderie of the fellow artists in the Dragons’ Den.” Meanwhile, Tim worked on one dragon design, named ‘Scrum’. Tim said: “I put a design together loosely based on the idea of Where’s Wally? I covered the dragon statue with cartoon rugby play-ers and only one rugby ball, which the public would be encouraged to search for. It was much more time-consuming than I’d envisioned and occasionally frustrating (where’s the “undo” button? Aaagh!), plus was a strain on the knees and I had a slight addiction to Sharpie pens due to overuse. The good points were working along-side lots of great local artists and il-lustrators, having a lot of fun actually painting and designing the dragon and seeing it finished, and getting a really good reaction from the public. Would I paint another one? Ask me again in six months when my knees have mended.”

You can see all the dragon designs at www.newportsuperdragons.co.uk


FEATURE LADY VIOLET

Random acts of humour

“They call him the Usain Bolt of sleeping bags.”

Foghorn’s very own ‘Agony Aunt’ Lady Violet Spume, answers your nasty little personal problems. (Dicta-tion by Lady Violet’s pri-vate secretary Clive God-dard)

Dear Lady VioletAs the summer holidays are upon us once again I wonder whether you might be able to suggest a few suitable events or activities to keep the youngsters happy. My youngest, Petronella, is already complaining that she’s bored despite having an ‘iPad’ an ‘X-box’ and the latest Dan Brown mag-ic colouring book.Yours,

Begonia Barely-Withit, Frimley.

Lady V: My dear Begonia,Modern children are notoriously fickle things, their gnat-like attention spans being a direct result of our society’s indulgence of their every whim. Rather than suggesting events or activities to distract the vile little ingrates I rec-ommend putting them to work. There is much to be said for good old fashioned physical labour. When my own hideous nephews and nieces are trotted along during family visits I always ensure there are plenty of simple tasks available to occupy them. The chopping of logs for the Aga, muck-ing out the stables, fetching winged pheasants and so forth, enabling the adults to enjoy uninterrupted time with a good sherry.

Dear Lady VioletI wonder whether you can recommend any quality summer reading material. Ideally something with a striking cover which immediately conveys to the casual observer that the reader is a person of considerable taste. I believe ‘foreign’ writers are quite in vogue, especially those whose names are a cluster of harsh consonants.

Beryl Spitcock, Norcs

Lady V: Beryl,Without knowing where you are holidaying I can hardly be expected to suggest suitable literature. As a general rule only be seen in possession of works by those dreadful co-lonial scribblers when in one of the better ski lodges. The Klosters crowd are keen on the unpronouncables. For Eu-ropean city breaks take something with a blue cover. Blue is popular. For African or Caribbean poolsides it is wise to be seen with classical works. Something with a hand drawn cover featuring bonnets and britches. If, heaven forbid, you intend to holiday nearer home then ensure you take bro-chures for Aspen, Antigua etc.


THE POTTING SHED

The Potting Shedwith Cathy Simpson.

As summer draws on, your bor-ders are baked gently golden brown, OR you have your own private flood plain – welcome to that most noble of Arks: The Fog-horn Potting Shed!

Our resident experts – Gordon Honk-monster, Binky Homebrew and Eu-phorbia Marmelade – are joined this week by a special guest. That’s Ivan Dumpwell, curator of the Glossop Weed Museum, who will be telling us more about the specimens we found in that patch of waste ground behind Tesco’s. In the chair is Alan Goatrouser, but he seems to have fallen asleep.

Binky presents a well-known garden favourite, convulvulus falafelumi-nus, and Ivan’s in his element!

“This is also known as the Boston Fern Strangler, so called because it will cheerfully throttle everything in its path. That includes abandoned cars and careless houses. It’s got a very chequered history, of course. One example was recently awarded First Prize in a ‘Longest Weed Con-test’ held by Cheadle Hulme W.I.; while its relative in Mobberley was

awarded an ASBO!”

Ivan’s eyes light up at the sight of the common teasel, pricklius stick-lius, brought to us by Gordon.

“Aha! An example of ‘Lord Pon-sonby’s backscratcher’! These were never used to scratch backs, of course, but they were an in-trinsic part of Georgian hairstyl-ing, to give your scalp a jolly good scritch. They’d then get tangled up in all that hair, so the only thing to do was pile on the tresses – lead-ing to that ever more extravagant coiffure. The deluxe versions fea-tured a small flock of goldfinches, while nests of mice were also very popular.”

Euphorbia blushes slightly at her offering, but Ivan’s onto it straight away!

“A fig leaf (ficus abrick)! This is well known to any student of classi-cal sculpture, of course, in that it su-perceded both the cucumber and the marrow in preserving the modesty of male statues. Its popularity contin-ued for centuries, until the invention of the swimming trunk, the bikini

and the budgie smuggler… erk!!!”

Oh! It looks as though that Boston Fern Strangler’s getting the better of poor Mr Dumpwell. Oh dear.

Will we be able to compost him in time for the next edition? Will we be able to keep it out of the papers? Come and join us next time at the Foghorn Potting Shed if you want to find out!


LETTERS TO THE ED

Letters to theEditor Snail Mail: The Editor, Foghorn Magazine,

7 Birch Grove, Lostock Green, Northwich. CW9 7SS

E-mail: [email protected]


Roger, Roger!

I have to agree with Roger... AGAIN!.. re: That in-terfering Prince Charles. In today’s paper it is said he even lobbied the Mayor re:the Chelsea site. But I take issue with Roger on his Olympic site com-ments. I took an hour tour around the site a few weeks ago, highly recommended. Whether you agree with the Olympics being here or not, the whole site is stun-ning and the Aquatic centre... floats. It is all unfin-ished of course, but that’s how I like to see buildings, I just hope they get the “aftermath” right. Could I yet again praise the Foghorn mob. Why Editors have not used some of the excellent cartoons published in Foghorn… baffles me. Whilst on that, apologies for my cartoon in the Specci... it was June 18th it was “tampered with” and makes no sense at all. And what is the purpose of James Corden?

Neil Dishington

Mistaken Identity

The feature by Clive Collins about being mistaken for the Clive cartoon in the Evening Standard re-minded me of when I too was summoned into the offices of a big international ad agency to meet the art directors and to discuss a major global campaign they were planning. At the time, the massively successful children’s book ‘Masquerade’ was riding high in the best-seller lists. As many will remember, this book contained pictorial clues as to the whereabouts of an 18-car-at golden hare. The artist was Kit Williams and, of course, the agency thought I was he. They must have realised their mistake pretty quickly as they flicked through my portfolio; my single-col-umn black and white cartoons for the Times Higher Education Supplement weren’t exactly the bejew-elled colour extravaganzas they’d been expecting. The art directors looked a bit awkward, as did the client who had flown in specially from Amsterdam that morning. Nothing was said about what was an obvious cock-up, and we said goodbye without either a penny or a golden hare changing hands.

Kipper Williams

“Don’t think I can’t see you, hiding at the back there... you’re cursed too.”


FEATURE CHRIS MADDEN

I’ve just typed the word colour into my laptop and a really annoying wiggly line thingy has appeared un-der it – the wiggly line that signifies a spelling mistake. The word should be color of course. My laptop is set to US English you see, and I don’t know how to change it to English English.

American spelling: it’s the sort of thing that raises the blood pressure of many a native of the British Isles. And you think that I’m going to be one of them, don’t you? Go on, admit it. Well I’m not. So there.

In fact I’m a very enthusiastic fan of American spelling, and I think we should have more of it. American spelling is simpler than British spell-ing, which can only be a good thing. Unfortunately, that very simplicity leaves American English open to the misguided criticism that simpler must mean dumber, mustn’t it?

Not necessarily.

Perhaps simpler means more elegant, more streamlined.

Look at it his way. If you owned a sleek sports car that’s perfectly de-signed to slice through the air with

minimal aerodynamic resistance you wouldn’t tack unnecessary protuber-ances onto it just for the sake of it. You wouldn’t give it, say, a decora-tive bonnet mascot (not withstand-ing the fact that such mascots are no doubt now outlawed under health and safety legislation). And you wouldn’t then pronounce that from henceforth all sports cars should come equipped with mascots otherwise they’re not real sports cars.

So it is with spelling.

Words should be spelt so that you can write them down as top speed, at the speed of thought. You should be able to accelerate into a thought as it’s forming in your mind and get the thing written down before you forget what it was that you wanted to say in the first place. Spelling shouldn’t be adorned with baroque ornamentation or burdened with historical encrus-tations that slow the words down. Spelling should be pared down so that words are smooth and sleek. Why write straight when strate will do just as well? It’s two letters shorter and it’s obvious how you pronounce it. And what exactly is wrong with spelling it as str8, which cuts the letter count in half? If you can think of any rea-son other than that it makes you feel

slightly uneasy about your grip on the modern world please let me know. And while we’re at it, why has know got that unnecessary silent k at the beginning, not to mention the rather superfluous w at the end?

As far as I can work out there’s only one reason why the written word should have any approximation to standardised (or is that standardized?) spelling at all. It’s so that you can look the words up in dictionaries. And the only reason you need to do that is when you don’t know what they mean – not when you don’t know how to spell them. Because of this, it’s really only the first letters of words that you really need to get right. If you didn’t know that the word programme should re-ally be spelt program you’d still have no difficulty locating it in a diction-ary. In contrast, if you didn’t know the right spelling of the word write – if you were unaware of the presence of that very useful and totally indispens-able silent w – you’d have to work your way through most of the diction-ary before you found it. Spelling both write and right as rite would be a step in the (insert word that means the op-posite of rong) direction.

Simplified American spelling isn’t the result of the Yanks being simple them-

A word to the wiseby Chris Madden.


FEATURE CHRIS MADDEN


Dr Jekyll’s first transformation didn’t go quite to plan....

“Funny guy, huh?”

selves, despite what our self-satisfied knee-jerk anti-American sentiment may suggest (It’s actually we Brits who think that America is populated by nothing but millions of George Bushes who are being simple). What other nation has put a man on the moon after all? American spelling was the result of a deliberate attempt to rationalize (rationalise?) the whole business of spelling while there was the perfect window of opportunity for it, while the nation was young and open to new ideas and while it was still feeling a little rebellious. However, even over in the States the forces of conservatism eventually put their foot down and called a halt to the project of jettisoning irrelevant letters.

Over here in the home of the English language (language: from the French: langue: tongue: which just shows how English the English language actually is) there have been periodic campaigns to dispense with unneces-sary idiosyncracies of spelling. Sup-porters of the idea have included such notables as Bernard Russell, who cer-tainly never had to worry about ac-cusations of being a dunderhead. But every time the idea of simplifying the language is mooted it always runs into the buffers erected by the intel-lectual establishment.

For some reason it seems to be im-portant to be able to judge people by whether or not they know that trees have boughs and not bows (That’s bows rhymes with cows rather than bows rhymes with toes).

Interestingly, when it suits us we drop letters from words without batting an eyelid. Without even noticing, Words such as Mr and Mrs, etc. Where’s the iste in the middle of Mister gone, and how do you spell the full-length ver-sion of Mrs anyway? And how come it’s okay for the word etc to be writ-ten with its last five letters missing?

The thing is, when you get down to the fundamentals, words are actually oral entities: things that are spoken:

and they are aural entities: things that are heard. Oral and aural are pro-nounced the same by the way, at least by me. The written word is nothing more than a symbolic representation of the oral (or aural) word - it is not the word itself. It doesn’t actually matter how words are spelt, as long as they are understood and can be converted into sounds or concepts in the brain. A squiggle will do to repre-sent a word as long as people know what it means. That’s why the word and can be spelt &, the word at can be spelt @, and the word pound can be spelt £. No one gets agitated about these extreme simplifications of spell-ing. Perhaps that’s because they have a suitable historical provenance. The ampersand & is a stylized ligature of the letters Et, which is the Latin for and, while the pound sign, £, is based on the letter L and is short for Libra, the Latin for weight (which is also why the pound weight is abbreviated to lb). They are both from the Latin, and are therefore good. The origins of the @ symbol are rather obscure, but it predates its modern manifestation in email addresses by several hun-dred years, so that’s okay too.

So, to sum up, spelling really shouldn’t be the straitjacketed thing that we’ve made it into.

To illustrate this point I have one final thing to say, aimed squarely at any spelling sticklers out there. This may be the clincher I think.

Read the following paragraph, if you can.

Algtohuh pcraialclty all of the wdors taht coospme tihs stecnene are je-bumld you can plrbobay udetanrnsd waht it syas. Waht do you tnhik of taht tehn?

It reads: Although practically all of the words that compose this sentence are jumbled you can probably under-stand what it says. What do you think of that then?

I rset my csae.


THE TREVELYAN FILES

The Trevelyan Files Chapter Four once again left our hero facing certain death. But fear not -

this issue’s guest writer Andrew Birch brings us the next thrilling installment...

... but only with your help! Here’s your chance to contribute to Fog-horn! If you fancy your hand at writing a future chapter of The Trevelyan Files, let us know!

email us at [email protected]

The Gallery

As the smoke from the miniature stun grenade cleared, the tables had been turned, and Trevelyan was holding the gun!“How does it feel to look down the barrel of your own weapon?” he asked coldly.“I wouldn’t know, not being a contor-tionist”“There’s no call for that sort of smutty remark!” snapped the sleuth. “Espe-cially from a lady!”“I’m no lady.” replied Agent Lara.“You can say that again!”“No, really - I’m no lady.”The trenchcoat fell to the floor.“Goats and Monkeys!” Trevelyan blushed as the foul oath escaped his lips. “What’s that sinister-looking thing?”The wig was shaken off, and the moonlight reflected from a perfectly bald head.“Dr Demenzia!”“Yes, Mr Trevelyan, it is I. And you have seen what no-one else has seen, and lived to tell the tale.”“But what is it? Some sort of prosthe-sis? I’m so sorry. May I?”Trevelyan tapped the strange protu-berence with his gun, and a metallic sound rang out.“Titanium?”“Correct. With a tip of depleted Ura-nium. And it is pointing directly at

your heart.”Heavy hands grabbed Trevelyan, and Johnny No-nose and Red Angus were there.“Bigger than yours, ain’t it?” sneered No-nose, taking the gun. “Still, it’s what you do with it what counts, which in your case is - nuffink!”“You uncouth devils!” shouted Trev-elyan. “Unhand me!”“Shall we kill him and dump him in the slurry pits like the others, Boss?”‘I think not, Angus. I have a rather more - exotic end in mind for Mr Trevelyan. I happen to own a Harris Tweed factory nearby, which seems a uniquely appropriate location to meet his maker.”“That’s impossible, Demenzia! Harris Tweed is only made on the island of Harris, hence its name! unless - ”“Indeed, Mr Trevelyan.” gloated Dr

Demenzia. “The Harris Tweed made there is fake, and only available in a limited selection of very dull colours, which run in the rain. A small part of my plot to destroy the British nation”Trevelyan felt the gorge rise in his throat.“As you’re going to kill me any-way, why not tell me the rest of your plot?”“Adding dried horse-dung to pipe to-bacco? Hundreds of moles released onto the pitch at Lords? Replacing Simon Cowell with an android? Or perhaps you mean my army of trans-vestites, equipped with individual missiles under their trenchcoats?They have already infiltrated all levels of government, the armed forces and the media, and only await my com-mand to attack!”“Which is?”“Ha ha! Do you take me for a fool? So in the highly unlikely event of your escaping, you can foil my plans? To the tweed factory!”To be continued...

Breaking news... Plucky have-a-go hero local Glossop farmer and Special Constable Maurice Norris kettles escaped Giant Pangolin.Says Maurice; “It weren’t nothing really. I was with my wife Doris, in our Yaris, tow-ing a nine foot agricultural kettle she’d bought in Paris and seen on telly what the Met do, so I done it. Besides them pangolins are harmless really. They might give you a nasty suck, but that’s about all. And I don’t believe they give TB to Llamas.” Well said Maurice! Completely real pic of Mr Norris


CURMUDGEON

I am reliably informed that Psychia-try is regarded in medical circles as the “Cinderella Specialism”, doubtless because fiddling about with wonky mental processes is expensive and no-where near as simple and effective as whipping out a knackered appendix. Our tidy society doesn’t tolerate folk dragging themselves about the place on broken legs. They get whizzed off by paramedics and fixed. But there aren’t many paramentals ready to rush in and treat depression, obsession or the myr-iad other ills our minds are heir to. There is one mental illness more liable to cause untold heartache, anger, fam-ily breakdown and financial ruin than any other. It runs unchecked through our lives. It is manifest in the busiest streets and quietest cul – de – sacs. Just as, in days of yore, serfs accepted de-structive visits from their local warlord from time to time, so it is now. This condition is called “Being a Builder”, and is a type of delusion. For those rash enough to engage one, there follows a list of experiences they may reason-ably expect to undergo shortly after the white van pulls up. (See separate box - ‘Handy 10 point guide’) If you absolutely must engage build-ers, this is best done on the recom-mendation of other householders. Be careful to ascertain the resulting mental stability of these people. Should you be invited in, look for staring eyes, so-licitors’ letters, trenches through grass verges, garage door dents, little hard lumps in the shagpile, and For Sale signs.

“Repeat after me... I will not swear. I will not play loud music. I will not call female clients ‘Darlin’. I will not go ‘Phwoarr!” at anybody. I will not be horrid to the archi-

tect. I will keep my jeans properly adjusted at all times...”

Handy 10 point guide

1] Said white van WILL park on your carefully manicured grass verge.

2] Builders do not recog-nize flowerbeds.

3] Builders are divided thus; Big Dave [boss] Gaz [underboss] Two callow youths on work experi-ence. Or probation.

4] Builders love Radio One or Club Anthem cds which are played loud

enough to drown out the noise made by their stone – cutter.

5] Builders will swiftly remove the exterior wall of your kitchen just before a thunderstorm then clear off to another job where the concrete’s arrived.

6] Builders will place de-livered material – sand, hardcore, gravel,bricks, scaffolding etc., immedi-ately in front of your ga-rage door,also using said portal as a backstop for rolling cement mixers.

7] Builders do not recog-nize carpet and have no concept of the wet con-crete/shagpile effect.

8] Builders drink about 16 litres of liberally sugared tea per hour.

9] Builders’ vans do not have toilet facilities. Hence the wet concrete/shagpile effect.

10] Builders are not in-timidated by plans, pre-ferring the title “tosser” to “architect”.

Can he fix it?


CARTOONS ROB MURRAY

“You’re allowed one blog entry.”

“For some reason, I thought he’d be bigger.”

Cartoons by

Nuclear Countdown

“They don’t eat together at the table anymore.”

“Whenever we go out we end up sat behind a pillar.”

“You only really need to wear those in the cinema.”

THE FOGHORN GUIDE TO

The World Cup is over. Hurray! The new season’s starting. Groan. There’s no escape. But knowledge is power – so here’s a bit to help you cope. Unlike more gentle human activities such as war or religious persecution, football, or soccer, as those strange American coves call it, is really seri-ous. Origins are shrouded in mystery and legend, involving pigs’ bladders and severed heads. The modern game involves two teams of eleven, each charged with depositing the ball into the others’ net via the foot. Or the head, shin, thigh, back, chest or but-tocks. But not the hand, unless you’re a short fat Argentinian with no neck. Why it is known as “the beautiful game”, is unclear, given the facial characteristics of many fans and play-ers. Research concludes that it doesn’t stem from football inspired epic po-ems, many of which are chanted at matches – e.g., “United are a load of s**t, load of s**t, load of s**t...” [re-peat 27 times] either. Cynics suggest that its because foot-ball is very good at taking lots of money from the many and giving it to the few. Which for them is beautiful. Or Blatterful. Following are brief explanations for the unwary of integral football termi-

nology:

FANS are the millions of people, predominantly but by no means ex-clusively male who demonstrate un-dying loyalty to “their” team, and who believe that “their” players could give a rat’s ass what they think. Fans, espe-cially obese tone deaf ones wear team colours, paint their faces, sing tradi-tional football ballads such as “United are a load of s**t”, and pay £50 a week to watch players being paid £200,000 during the same period.

THE PREMIERSHIP is the game’s top division consisting of teams rich enough to pay players a basic £200,000 a week.Those strug-gling to get by on such a pittance are paid a few million extra by fizzy bev-erage manufacturers to say they actu-ally drink the stuff. Many Premiership players with faces like smacked tripe attract the intimate attentions of beau-tiful women. Strange but true. Surprisingly, despite being a load of s**t, several Uniteds feature here. Beneath the Premiership are teams in other divisions. Some are quite good, but many in the lower orders find it difficult to recognize opposing play-ers, or the ball.

PLAYERSPlayers are unique in that they have incredibly high levels of loyalty. One week they are incredibly loyal to club A, then the following week they be-

come incredibly loyal to club B after club B has shelled out 18 million

notes to club A. This is called a “transfer”, or “pay – day”

Because they run about a lot and sometimes fall

down on to the horrible hard grass, players get injured. Injuries these days are lots worse than hitherto when Tommy Coggins merely hurt his foot. Ignacio Savanarola now dominates World News for weeks with inter-govial transceptions of the anterior metatarsal, requiring him to fly home and seek the services of a private con-sultant rather than a bag of frozen peas. Papal prayers are offered. [NB. The Coggins family was a relatively well – off Glossop coal merchants and could afford a fridge even in 1957]

MANAGERSSome, like the tiny but beautifully formed “Chosen One” are appointed by God. [but sacked by Russians] Many know the game intimately, have had distinguished playing careers, but are hopeless. Especially when their team isn’t winning. In order to make sure their team DOES win, managers are given big sacks of cash by owners to dangle in front of players and other clubs in order to secure the services of the former.

OWNERSSurprisingly, many owners cannot re-cite the off – side rule and wouldn’t know a professional foul from an clever hen, but see football as a way of making themselves very, very rich as opposed to merely very rich. Some attend matches and identify with or-dinary fans by sitting in the same 70,000 capacity stadium, humming along with “United are a load of s**t” whilst eating prawn sandwiches.

REFEREES are all partially sighted morons. They run about, sometimes backwards and blow their whistles at the wrong people, often waving yellow or red cards at entirely innocent players. City supporter Des-mond [Dezza] Fittock, legendary soc-cer poet and author of the timeless “United are a Load of S**t” recently augmented that opus with, “And so-o is the Ref.”

THE FOGHORN 13


BUILDINGS IN THE FOG

Taking the strain.

Now, I am in two minds on this. Having commuted into Victoria Sta-tion in London for over twenty-six years from the mid-70s, in fact for all my architectural years, I got to know that particular terminus well. It changed quite a bit in that time as the area around it changed and be-came less seedy, in a chic-seedy sort of way. Smoking became banned on the trains, so a fug on the trains it was replaced by a fug on the arrival platform when all the gasping-for-a-fag secre-taries lit up as they tumbled out, landing wobbily on sti-lettos. Slam door trains were phased out and with them their distinctive sounds. No more the dramatic sharp loud crashes of flung shut doors and the muffled screams of the passengers behind who received the doors in their faces or fingers. So what’s all this to do with buildings? Well, nothing, to be honest. But it does lead me onto railway architec-ture. Victoria Station doesn’t count because it hasn’t got any. Well, it hadn’t last time I used it. But those years did make me aware of what a station shouldn’t be. Some of the greatest city buildings in the UK are railway stations, built by the Victorians. Ironically, Victoria just wasn’t one of them. In that great Victorian expansion of the railways, the terminus buildings were somewhat strange beasts. The important, prestigious part was seen

as the entrance building, often includ-ing a hotel. St. Pancras must rank as the finest example of this. Architects worked this part of a station into whatever pastiche style they were into - Victorian neo-gothic or neo-classi-cal. The Victorians didn’t really have a new building style of their own, they kind of fiddled about with earlier ones. Typically they built in a gothic style using jolly coloured bricks in a striking pattern for no other reason than decoration. The action side of the building, were the smelly smoky trains were to be found, became the domain of the structural engineer. The platforms and concourse needed large, expansive roofs to cover them, and that sort of hefty practical design was something for those rough engineering types to sort out. Way beneath an architect, of course, who’d have important and necessary friezes to design.

These days, of course it is the bold train sheds that most people admire (except for frippery fans), and they deserve that admiration. They are the forerunners of all the dazzling roofs that cover all sorts of public spaces now, yet many of those originals still impress. It is surprising that such

practical engineering solutions appear so elegant. The beauty of the basic structure does not fade with age. It’s the fiddly decoration that dates and can lose its charm. That brings me back to the thing that I am in two minds about that has noth-ing to do with Victoris Station.. For 123 years, up to 1962, the en-trance to Euston Station was bestrode (bestridled? bestoden? bestrid?) by a 72ft high Doric-style gateway, front-ing the Great Hall of the terminus. Jol-ly impressive. But it didn’t fit in with newly modernising Britain. Harold Macmillan allowed it to be knocked down. It and the station were replaced by the drab, dull disaster of a build-ing that is there today. There are few places to sit and not a train can be seen. Good place for muggings, though. But plans are afoot for new terminus. What’s more it’s intended to rebuild the demolished archway, not quite in

the same place. Apparently this will include rooms in its attic and basements for bars and galleries. Heart-sinking-time again. The arch should not have been knocked down in the first place, that was a barbaric mistake. Some of the stones from it were dumped in a London waterway to fill a hole in the riverbed, and have now been retrieved. You perhaps know that I’m not a fan of neo-classical ar-chitecture, but somehow the lumpen assertiveness of that arch appealed to me. Flatten-ing it was the sort of mistake that can’t be undone. It’s gone. What is the point of re-building it? It will be a Dis-ney-esque pastiche, so why do it? Would it not be better to construct something new, striking and grand that pro-

claims the railway as the state of the art transport system it wants to be seen as. How does an archway pretending to be a pretend Greek arch do that?

Harrumph.Roger Penwill,

Platform 3


THE LAST WORD

The CriticAin’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone!Foghorn’s resident critic Pete Dredge watches telly so you don’t have to.In this age of net-savvy comparison website users, tv consumer affairs departments must be virtually re-dundant. Time was when products and services were openly promoted in magazine-style programmes or ‘advertorials’ as they are probably described in tv marketing speak. Pro-grammes today are almost exclu-sively about consumer protection. Roger Cook’s ‘Checkpoint’ pioneered the way for ‘Watchdog’ and ‘Rogue Traders’ etc. All well and good but one consumer tv genre that appears to have been consigned to the nostalgia scrapheap is the holiday show. The BBC lead the way with imaginatively titled “Holiday” with ITV coming up later with the jollier but slightly more downmarket “Wish You Were Here?” Judith Chalmers made the travel pre-senter role her own - a pigeonhole her ample frame has continued to struggle free from ever since. Whereas Judith

always appeared ‘on location’ holiday rep-style, the BBC’s Cliff Michelmore took the role of a studio-based high street travel agent perched behind an imposing desk. He would then invari-ably walk across to a smaller, more businesslike desk where sat a resident ‘travel expert’ or ‘John Carter’ as he would be more familiarly known. He would report on the more serious is-sues affecting the holiday-maker such as dysentry in Lloret, civil unrest in the Turks&Caicos, deckchair blight

in Morecambe etc. It was left to cosy presenters like Keiron Prendiville or pre-sex shamed Frank Bough to do the ‘on location’ stuff usually with ‘perks of the job’ family in tow. ITV’s ‘Wish You Were Here?’ policy was for familiar tv favourites to be flown off to sun-kissed locations where time invariably ‘stood still’ and bargains could be had by out-haggling the local leather goods and handicrafts artisans. So you would see the likes of Anita Harris or Lesley Crowther trying to look like they’re having a great time for the camera. All “piss off - I’m on a working holiday” autograph request rebuttals would end up on the Thames TV crew’s Christmas out-takes tape. Sadly today it is left to the Indepen-dent’s Simon Calder to be wheeled out whenever any negative holiday issue raises it’s ugly head. Wish you were still here, holiday progs? Well, yes I do - Judith Chalmers ‘n all.

FOGHORN (ONLINE) ISSN 1759-6440

“Yes, that’s a very impressive demonstration of your ability with a circular sawbut I really need to see evidence of your accountancy skills, Mr Snead.”

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