Tim Leatherbarrow

Whenever the rain and thunderstorms ease off slightly ; The snow and frost melt and you can see your hand ahead of you in the blizzard.......When theres a 15 foot gap in the bulbous grey, grotty cloud drifting menacingly 10 feet above the roof of your house, a gap able to allow a few cosmic rays and about half a dozen photons of sunlight through to reach the sodden ground below, this illicites an amazing response from the ladies of the houses.....It's summer and its time to do the gardening!!!!!.......We are dragged kicking and screaming out towards the garage door and thrown into the musty darkness to dig around for shovels, lawnmowers, strimmers and other items of gardenning paraphenalia that you had almost forgotten existed and wished to god would cease to exist yet again. Its time to make your little garden of Eden beautiful again(?) ,do your best for your little lump of OLD MOTHER NATURES wonderfulness that occupies a little square in front and back of the house, its only a little bit, but why can't MOTHER NATURE keep it looking good, why do i get dragged out to make her look good?

THE NEW LAD HE'S NOT FROM ROUND HERE IS HE?...

To a fellah the summer is sitting outside a traditional 'Ye olde English' boozer slurping his 8 or 9 th 'ye olde foaming pint of ale', watching the cricket on the green or morris dancing at the local village fete watching scantily clad sun loving ladies wander by. Even though theres nothing like that in Warrington ,we can still dream.

But, as ever real life and the ladies 'It's summer! reflex' is always around to screw everything up. The LOVELY LYNNE starts to poke and prod plants and 'weed', her having 'green fingers', whereas i have stubbly splinter and muck riddled fingers from my stint on the wrong end of a shovel , i know my place.I come from an Irish farming family and shovelling and shifting muck and shit is in my genes as well as all over my jeans. THE LOVELY LYNNE has always appreciated my skills and talents and is happy for me to work to my strengths. One of these 'strengths' in her considered opinion is my ability to remove fresh and fossillised dog turds from within the long grass. Wrapping my hands in 20-odd layers of plastic 'poo-bags' i set to the stomach churning ,teeth grinding ,,back breaking task of clearing up after the dog...Man's best friend?...Do me a favour!!!!......The scruffy little tyke has a TARDIS stomach , he's a lot bigger inside than out ,his capacity for 'crap' is totally awe-inspiring. When this oderous task is completed at some point i must mow the lawn.

"SHE USED TO BE A STRIPPER BEFORE SHE BECAME A STRIMMER!

When you mow the lawn the smell of freshly cut grass is a very fresh healthy smell, that is until the blade hits a missed fossillised doggie 'do' the blade hits the stoney outer layer exposing the inner soft core releasing an age old smell of 'dog'!...The knees wobble ;The stomach does a back flip attempt to leave your body and the eyes cross as far as the opposite ears. In addittion to this joyful event ,as the grass is long and soggy it congeals under the mower outside the spin area of the mower blade, but you have to scoop the grass and 'extras' within with your hands ,aside from the all-consuming thoughts of 'doggie 'do's'contained within the mush is the possibility of the starter button getting knocked and the blade removing your fingers. Then is the raking of grass, muck, leaves etc and trying to force it all into the garden bin(The green one)....This takes some doing as tamping down forcefully with a heavy shovel is required to get all MOTHER NATURES(And the dog's) waste in there as the council, or whoever only empty the bins roughly whenever HALLEYS' COMET is seen in the west.

My knowledge of the seasons is fairly limited , i know the winter is cold and wet ,and so is the summer. Even i know various plants, bushes and blooms bloom forth , but i know its summer when all of a sudden i'll sit outside in the sun to relax and have a read when the air is filled with lawnmower engines and buzzing strimmers, but worse is the horrendous mass sounds of rusty metal springs twanging and boinging as every kid within 15 miles starts bouncing on trampolines in the bottom of the garden so their snotty little heads keep popping up and down behind the rattling panel fence. My snarling expression slowly turns to a smile at the thought of the 'little bastards' landing on the trampoline at the wrong angle sending them flying onto the rockery or rocketing over the fence into somebodies porch......Ah if only!

People often say the best garden is a concrete one which has a major drawback, whereas in the natural habitat of grass and soil ants will happily live at the far end of the garden or prefferably next door, but if you have a patio chances are the ants are under those concrete flags and have easy access to your house to go on holidays during the summer ,oh we're having so much fun with those clever little devils.

When i were 'nobbut a lad' and discovered the martial arts ,originally through a few cheap photocopied sheets stapled together on even cheaper paper, i still thought it was great stuff. Then the great man himself came along...SENSEI TERRY O'NEILL....With his bible for all martial artists FIGHTING ARTS MAGAZINE(For the serious martial artist!....Not me , but i read it)...In the early days of the 70's when the legends of Karate were fighting for the national squad and mainly from LIVERPOOL..;THE RED TRIANGLE; KIRKDALE,etc,etc. Glory days indeed. They lasted for years ,but the greats ;O'neill, Sherry, Higgins ,Brennan, and on are still remembered with awe. I'd've loved to train at THE RED TRIANGLE, but never built up the courage to go and have the shit kicked outta me by the experts. I came close and had some great years training with the boss hisself TERRY O'NEILL....He worked the doors around the fair city of LIVERPOOL for donkeys years and was a legend. People say "Aw you cant do all that BRUCE LEE spinning back kick shit in a real fight!", But Terry could and did. The A merican magazine BLACK BELT named him the deadliest fighter in the world or something along those fairly impressive lines ,remember this is the yanks talking about a limey!.... Look out for a book called 'WORKING WITH WARRIORS' written by a good buddy of O'NEILLS, DENNIS MARTIN. That's got some good stories . TERRY O'NEILL was a stupendous competiiton fighter as well, inovative and spectacular and still talked about years after injury put an end to his competition side.

Another name from them faroff days of FIGHTING ARTS was a contoversial french bloke by the name of DOMINIQUE VALERA. He is a French fighter and through the late 60's and 70's he cut a swathe through anybody daft enough to stand against him. He was nicknamed 'THE CAT' or 'THE KING'...His movements and style were apparently very smooth and distinctive. The American BLACK BELT MAGAZINE named him top fighter on numerous occassions. VALERA'S moment of infamy came during the World Championships in Long Beach, California. During a fight VALERA felt a decision was unfair and smacked one of the judges and was banned from competing in international KARATE tournaments ,ever again!....VALERA stayed in AMERICA for a while and met and eventually befriended a U.S. FULL-CONTACT/KICKBOXER, by the name of BILL(Superfoot) WALLACE. He is a living legend and has never been beaten for most of his career, which is suprising as he only uses one foot and mainly one hand. His right leg was turned to mush in a judo fall and, i think he wears a brace on it, but he trained his left leg and it tops speeds people just can't imagine, if you find him on YOU-TUBE you'll see this leg and foot lashing out like a bullwhip or a snake strike it is astounding. Other fighters know exactly what they're going to get, but can't do anything about it. Valera trained with WALLACE and joined the ranks of the proffessional AMERICAN KICKBOXING or one of various names it was known by ,but it had a huge following. Apparently our French hero did quite well before returning home to promote full contact training around France, look him up on the internet as he combines the loose fighting style with traditional Karate self defence.

I'm still working on a TERRY O'NEILL caricature so i'll bung it on here whenever i manage to complete it , i'm not going to upset any of these guys for you lot!

ROCY MARCIANO.....THE ROCK....THE ROCK FROM BROXTON.......THE BROXTON BLOCKBUSTER......And a variety of names to do with 'rocks' and blocks' will give you a rough idea of the sort of fighter ROCKY MARCIANO was!

He was MURDER!....A short arsed little bit of murder with limited reach ,but i have to admit i don't think i'd like to have shared that tiny little roped in square ring. He wanted to be a baseball player, but didn't make the grade for reasons Americans'd understand, but us Brits who couldn't imagine ROCKY MARCIANO playing that English of all schoolgirls games couldn't..ROUNDERS!....(Now that really pisses off our cuzn's from across the pond). Rocky joined the army and started boxing to avoid having to work in the kitchens. The Welsh'll be glad to know he was stationed in.....SWANSEA..?...Loading stuff for Normandy.

When our hero returned home he started as an amateur and later turned proffessional. His first 16 fights were KO's before the 5th round and 9 before the end of the 1st. Thats not bad for somebody considered too short ,light and lacking in reach. He was also described as 'crude,wild, swinging, awkward and missing heavily...Nat Fleicher once editot of 'THE RING' said 2/3 of the 50-odd punches he swung against ARCHIE MOORE against the ropes missed! His right hand became infamous as 'SUZIE-Q!' and took down some mean opposition.ARCHIE MOORE ; EZZARD CHARLES ; JERSEY JOE WALCOTT and a slightly aging but great JOE LOUIS, whom Rocky beat and cried in LOUIS'S changing room after the fight as JOE LOUIS was always his great hero , (they say never meet your hero...Never mind knock 'em out of the ring!), .....The rock was a softee! The SUZIE -Q Rocky's right hand bomb was tested and that right punch had the equivalent force of an armour piercing bullet , or the force required to spot lift 1000lbs, that would spoil your day i'd imagine. It helped him win every fight 49 wins ,43 KO's and none of those losses or draws. He's the only fighter to never be defeated and retired at 31 and stayed retired.

'They', those people that do strange things like that did that!...That being ...Arranging a computer simulation of MUHAMMAD ALI v ROCKY MARCIANO...

They took sparring footage of both and joined them together ,apparently ALI won. MARCIANO said in a line worthy of ALI when asked about the result.."I'd be conceited if i said i'd won, but i'd be lying if i said i'd lost!"

A great fighter , the public always loved the scrappers, sluggers whatever you want to call them, but hard as he was everyone loved 'THE ROCK!'

JOHN WAYNE......THE DUKE!......Through the years 'THE DUKE' made a couple of hundred films of varying quality it has to be said ,but he was always the good guy ,all American hero and all that and entered the realm of legend for The Good ol U.S.ofA....Living on whisky and moms apple pie.

Apparently when the war broke out some old football injury and the fact that he was in his thirties and getting on a bit to be shot in real life excluded him from being called up for active service which 'broke his heart', personally i'd've been 'over the moon'. So he stayed with fighting and shooting people on the big screen.

This event is thought to be the reason that he became such a staunch republican and Anti -'Pinko commie fag'!....Joseph Stalin ,apparently liked John Waynes films but ordered him to be assassinated. The Yank soldiers still loved him and named items of equipment after him, even the toilet paper , as "It was rough tough and didn't take shit off nobody!" Now that should be on a tombstone.

I liked his classics and his later middleaged elder character going towards the humour of the western. His greatest creation was JOHN WAYNE and he was the character in every western ,same guns and cloths ,the only one where a whole new character was created was TRUE GRIT as the dubiously heroic whisky guzzling one eyed hero ROOSTER COGBURN! Hired by a young girl to track the killers of her father with the help of GLENN CAMPBELL,no less. The great fight at the end with ROOSTER storming down a grassy slope on his horse with a WINCHESTER RIFLE in each hand loading and firing with one hand for each gun , yelling something along the lines of "Fill yer hands you sons of bitches!" A great film ,performance and winner of an academy award ,i think the only one the duke won.

Whereas ,even when JOHN WAYNE was young i never thought of him as young ,just had darker hair and tended to be in black n' white. Whereas JEFF BRIDGES was a wild young thing ,i always remember him being CLINT EASTWOODS wild side kick in 'THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT'. He seemed to dissappear for a while, to return , now a 'more mature' character has emerged playing the old grizzled characters like WILD BILL HICOCK in 'WILD BILL'. a cracker of a film i saw fairly recently and loved it. When they said they were going to remake TRUE GRIT, i thought 'Well why?'....But who am i to question the money grabbing swine over there in HOLLYWOOD.

I bought a pirate copy in a boozer in the fair city of LIVERPOOL. It wasn't too bad until towards the end along the bottom of the screen you could see people going to and from the toilets along the rows of seats as people stood up and down to allow the pain in the arse cinema boozers to get to the bogs....And then to top it off some inconsiderate swine spoiled my enjoyment of my pirate DVD by allowing their mobile phone to ring ,just no consideration some people!

But i did watch the proper version and liked the more grizzled realistic settings and ROOSTER COGBURN, basically the same story and sequence of events, but did JEFF BRIDGES get rolls of cheap military bog paper named after him?I think not,he's an actor, not an American icon I think J.B. is great ,and J.W. is great....J.B is a wonderful actor and great at the tough grizzled character at this time in his career....Whereas J.W. was the great JOHN WAYNE playing the hero of whatever film he was starring in.

Two versions of the same film and i loved them both, JEFF BRIDGES ,'TRUE GRIT' would've been a classic without the shadow of JOHN WAYNE hovering over it, but JOHN WAYNES 'original ' has been a classic for years now after all this time it has competition.

Years ago there was a telly programme called GLADIATORS where all these muscley false tanned ladies n' gents used to do strange physical tasks for the enjoyment of the studio and viewing audience. They all had dramatic names like WOLF and YORKSHIRE TERRIER, etc.....Not really i cant remember the others ,there might of been a PHOENIX in there ,but generally like all fit sculpted body people they were a strange bunch.

There was a time when people used to do excercise to get fit ,things like 'jerks' and swinging of arms like soldiers in the morning when exercise was known as PHYSICAL JERKSas shown in those old war timePUBLIC INFORMATION FILMS... and the most technical was a press up or sit up. But now nobody plays sport(goverment cutbacks and money starved property developers removing playing areas and pitches,etc,but that's for another blog!).... or does physical occupations or pastimes ,so now they jump in their car and go to the posh gym which they've spent a fortune to bust a gut and sweat their cobblers off on a variety of very weird and wonderful looking torture devices. It has always been a source of amusement to me going past a leisure centre and seeing hundreds of people running on the spot all facing out at the traffic oblivious of the world passing in front of them as they've got ear phones on or watching the telly above them as drivers and pedestrians are laughing at them and commenting to each other ,"Look at them knob'eads!"....."It's a lot cheaper running around the block!".....

I know a lot of people who 'Go to the gym' and all of them are always complaining of aches and pains i've come to the conclusion that this healthy living will kill you. Whereas in the old days people were active and did their 'physical jerks' nowadays every muscle has a huge machine bearing a vast array of weights to strain this or that particular muscle, so people can develop whatever part of their body they want,mostly for appearance sake rather than health and fitness sake. Muscles have become a fashion statement, like most fashions they come and go and are designed. Take the abdominal muscles ,or as us in the know refer to them as 'AB's', or now the SIX-PACK Every pop or movie star ,etc has the 6-pack. The 6-pack is top of everybodies fitness shopping list, but is totally unnatural. You look at all the movie stars from before BRAD PITT,etc in the 80's back, CHARLTON HESTON,etc and not one of them have the 6-PACK!

You see people walking around town in the middle of winter blizzards in tee-shirts because they have to show their gym pumped bulk, funny thing is most work on their arms and have huge barrel like chests and powerful thick arms and sad spindly neglected legs. A lot of these muscle jocks accentuate their muscle with tatooes, i can't help thinking come the day when the gym membership isn't renewed and the pleasures of laziness and bone-idleness sets in and the muscle starts to shrink, does the tatoo shrivel like a picture on a scrunched up piece of paper.

I trained in KARATYE for many a year and like most young fellahs i used muscle power convinced that ,that was the way it was done ,but to do that you had to be fit and had to be warmed up before you could even start. Now i'm a middle aged old fart i've realised that is wrong. All fighters ,etc are finished by their 30's as their body can't maintain that strain. I discovered TAI-CHI when we lived in INDIA 10 years ago and combined with KARATE i discovered this insane method of training where, instead of speed and power ,general busting a gut ,et al....The slower and more relaxed you moved the better. My KARATE developed speed and power from going in totally the opposite direction, for a lazy bastard like me ,this was proof there is a god and he's a feckin' genius! I'm currently training myself to do a Karate seminar with one of the real Karate greats SENSEI TERRY O'NEILL....As i'm not with a club i'm training myself so i don't get too badly beaten. But the secret of Karate as explained to me once by the great Japanese master HIROKAZU KANAZAWA is in breathing ,relax and breathe and the speed and power is there. The amazing thing is i dont get stiff i dont even have to warm up, but it is advised, i'm a middle aged old fart and i can kick above my head although i've never been able to do the splits even after all these years of stretching excercises, but ah well......And i don't have a 6-pack , but i can take a punch in the gut off anybody.

Through the years we've seen on films how prisoners have had to suffer in various ways in jails through history from chained in dungeons and branded with branding irons ;working on chain gangs, wearing canvas sacking uniforms with arrows on. Punished, whipped ,flogged ,slung into 'solitary' ;roasted and frozen in the 'box' ,a favourite of film makers ,where the corrugated iron box is molten hot during the day and freezing cold at night....That was in a lot of cowboy films ,infact the other day watching an old 'KUNG FU' episode KWAI CHANG CAINE and another bloke are slung into one as way of punishment. The mere mortal normal 'con' is dying between shivering his tits off and sweating his cobblers off, whilst CAINE sits serene ,calm and placid feeling neither heat nor cold. Sure enough the ignorant mere mortal wants to know "What kind o' man are you ,Caine?".....To which he gets the Caine reply whispered ..."I am just a man!".....But he explains that to survive he must make contact with his soul....?.....There y'go ,simple! Now you need never wear coat, scarve n' gloves again when its miserable and cold, or strip in the sun when its not. So easy as that the fellah crosses his legs in the lotus position like Caine and days later emerges much to the guards amazement as 'fresh as a daisy!'...All very well, but how did he manage the lotus position ,just like that ? I can get my head around surviving the temperature extremes ,but for a new boy to sitting cross legged in a box for days ,how he's not crippled for life is beyond me.

Prisoners beaten ,whipped on the chaingang, (PAPILLON ,,,COOL HAND LUKE, etc)....Then the glamour of those far off prison islands and such is replaced by our much more less dusty sunny, less glamourous, far sighted prison reforms , tiles and bars ,the pot in the corner and the smell of boiled cabbage pervading the old victorian buildings. New concrete buildings are built and prisioner numbers go up and more time in cells,prisioners must be kept happy, tellys ,phones ,gyms, etc are supposed to be the prisioners lot these days. I don't know ,but i do know i don't have any sympathy for anyone who breaks the law ,the laws the law ,okay ,you might not agree, but thats it ,you break it you get punished. The other day our next door neighbours got broken into and thescumbag sweethearts turned the whole house over, far as i'm concerned theres no excuse and 10 minutes with a baseball bat around their heads should be given to my neighbour.

I've tried to explain to my disgusted daughter ,angry at rules at school about uniforms and hair colours etc, that the rules are there and if she breaks them she'll be punished ,she's on about writing to the European Court of Human Rights about not being able to dye her hair some purpley brown colour.

The other day that slimey, lying scheming MP was released after serving a fraction of his sentance for getting his wife to take the blame for a speeding offence. Apparently the prison is in a lovely part of the world and the prisoners lock themselves in at night ,if they want ,or they can amble down to the village, apparently after this few weeks of hell he's going to write a book about his ordeal ,as is his wife ,who was in a similar 'holiday camp'.....Can't imagine a PAPPILON type novel , definitly not a STEVE McQUEEN or PAUL NEWMAN film in there!

Anybody who has done any KARATE has heard of the RED TRIANGLE school in LIVERPOOL. This was one of the first schools were the legendary Japanese masters ,KANAZAWA and ENOEDA started training when they first arrived in the 60's. All the members have become Karate legends and comprised the national squad for many many years. But one of the 'Main men' was a certain TERRY O'NEILL.

ONEILL ,apparently was fascinated with feats of great strength ,etcas a boy and in later years started developing his body and in later years was a full blown body builder. A lot of people say that you cannot develop muscle and retain the speed and power that Karate requires, but O'NEILL managed it .He's a tall bloke anyhow, but with bulging bits was pretty intimidating and with his speed and incredible flexibility combined with this strength and power it's no suprise that the American magazine BLACK BELT named him the no1 in their list of 'DEADLIEST FIGHTERS ON THE PLANET'!.....Not bad for a 'limey' in an American journal?

Whenever he fought in competition he would be spectacular ,not to show off, but he was aware that he had an arsenal of weapons and utilised ,basically everything, whereas many others have their favourite tecnique and don't often waver from that. O'NEILL has amazing kicking abilities with the 7 foot legs he has and the fists aren't to be argued with either.

He has worked on 'the doors'....Security at clubs throughout LIVERPOOL even the CAVERN in the long gone days of yore. Apparently ,even in real situations 'on the street' his kicking was spectacular "All that BRUCE LEE stuff that nobody can do in a fight!".....Well he did!

I had the honour of training at his DOJO in the 80's...It was behind his martial art shop ,THE SAMURAI. I asked if i could train and he was very friendly, but informed me with a cold hooded look that if i didn't use control i would be sparring with him, I gulped and hoped that my sphincter wouldn't let me down and stammered "Yyyes, SSssensei!"....And a few times a week i sweated my cobblers off busting a gut ,training as hard as i could . One night i was giving it my all, until i happened to glance to the side and there was a tasty lady with an exposed low cup bra ,with contents on display....As my knees wobbled and my fists few all over the place, suddenly i could see the ceiling, the floor and the ceiling again before an almight thump and me gasping for breath as i hit the wooden floor....SENSEI O'NEILL had seen what had distracted me, swept my feet from under me then stepped across me looking down with a wry grin and just said "CONCENTRATE!"

Aside from teaching,training and competing he published FIGHTING ARTS INTERNATIONAL magazine ,quite simply the best martial arts magazine ever. He interviewed ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER( i bet you never thought i'd get that right!)....And got a small role in the second CONAN THE BARBARIAN film and got walloped ,along with most of the Hollywood stuntmen by the mercurial GRACE JONES who didn't quite follow the planned fight moves.

His acting career took off and he appeared with a variety of stars in some pretty prestigious films and telly shows. One , a story of ex soldiers called 'CIVVIES'...O'NEILL was a nasty sergeant in Ireland during 'De trubles!!'....His antagonist was JASON ISSACS. An issue of FIGHTING ARTS was late due to his filming commitments, but he didn't say that. He told a tale of how a personal grievence had finally blown up and sorted by a fight with pictures of O'NEILL and ISSACS, both looking battered and beaten ,O'NEILL didn't look as bad ,although he had ,he pointed out been beaten.

The following issue of FIGHTING ARTS was taken up by all those occuppying the moral high ground and voicing their disgust at how a respected Karateka like TERRY O'NEILL would lower himself to this behaviour. Much embarressment for them ensued, i hope as later on in the issue , O'NEILL wrote an article about the filming of a really brutal fight between the two characters that ended the series, i've still got it somewhere on old VHS tape and it's a stormer, but JASON ISSACS won.

I haven't seen SENSEI TERRY O'NEILL for many years ,although we did speak on the phone for a few minutes months ago. I'm not training with a club currently, but O'NEILL is holding a seminar for a day nearby in a week or two, so i'm training myself as a form of damage limitation, so i dont get too hurt....Only joking ,i'm looking foreward to seeing my old teacher and hope he's not too upset at the caricature!

Last Saturday i went along to a Karate Dojo ....Thats a martial arts training hall for all you out there whos hands aren't trained to be deadly weapons and whose body isn't a finely honed fighting machine, much like meself, i looked it up! The Dojo was recently opened by SENSEI,BRIAN BENTHAM, just off junction 25 off the northbound M6 . He's done a good job too and intends running courses in various martial arts and fitness virtually every day of the week and good luck to him. But on this Saturday he got one of the legends of world Karate ,Liverpools own TERRY O'NEILL.

As i've described in the previous blog all about Terry and my relationship with the man himself theres no point repeating it all, but it was good to see 'The Guv'nor' TERRY O'NEILL again after all these years. And i was pleased and flattered that he still remembered me......He said to me as we went for a break ,"Hey ,Tim yer still mad,aren't you!", but thankfully he was smiling. He also ,thankfully laughed and seemed pleased when i gave him the caricature which i did for the blog piece. And he let me live ,thank you, Sensei!

The dojo was full and Terry took us through various movements and techniques. Over the years he's picked up a few injuries and bangs from experts and was suffering from a long time smashed knee ,which i was present when he horrendously injured it at Crystal Palace in the 80's. He also had a few bandages over other parts ,but was still moving well and demonstrating. He talked a lot and explained all kinds of stuff and encouraged questions throughout. I for one was fascinated at some of the stuff and a lot of anecdotes and humour flowed.

O'NEILL through his career has fought in competitions throughout the world and has worked in security and 'on the doors' so has seen what real fighting is all about. Most people haven't a clue and couldn't take a smack never mind give one. He explained that ,say a punch in the mouth is useless as the opponent can still come on ,even if he's lost teeth or whatever. Theres the legendary 'driving the nose through the brain!.....pure rubbish.....He went through a lot of what we thought we'd do in a fight and most would be a waste of time, as ,say at night in town when a few things start getting a bit hairy and the scallies start with the drink or drugs firing them on and the fact that so many people can actually fight nowadays, fit n' hard and train in the myriad of martial arts clubs that abound all over these days;KARATE ,MMA, KICKBOXING,etc.....And these guys can take a dig as well as give it,it becomes vital to hit properly and in the right places.

TERRY loves Karate and that is obvious, but he has no doubts that a lot of people who train do so for fitness and wouldn't last a second in combat conditions and the 'never hit first' mantra is a load of cobblers ,if they move 'plant 'em!' There was a lot to think about.

Throughout he told stories to make points as the thought patterns bounced around like a pinball, which covered so much. It was a great day ,Terry and Brian seemed to enjoy it as did all who queued for pictures with the guv'nor later, which he happily did taken by his mate of many years BRIAN McKINNEY who warmed us up ,playing tick?.....He explained ,that we should imagine ,instead of 'a tick' with the hand on the head or leg, but a stanley knife!!!!!......That got us moving , believe me!

Terry seemed to enjoy the sessions and with his pinball like delivery stories and anecdotes bounced out and about making points and entertaining as well, theres a lot had me thinking all week and no doubt for much longer!

As i speak/type to you as you listen/ read to my ramblings ,i'm chuckling to myself due to a touch of irony which has hit me via Radio 5's traffic report. They are reporting ,not one ,but two cases of snarled up roads due to problems with caravans. Having spent many unhappy teeth grindingly frustrating hours through the years in lines of traffic stuck behind a car towing a bloody caravan. They are often covered in caravan club badges showing where they've been and screwed up the traffic system of that part of the world, wherever that may be. These chipboard boxes on wheels are towed in a dangerously wobbly manner through the highways and byways then dragged and pulled through the mud of whatever field in the middle of nowhere that they have decided to plant themselves for the following week or two. The caravan is disconnected from that hi-tec tow bar and the wobbly caravan is now on 3 wheels and a jack .It sinks 8 inches into the boggy mud and the family board this box .Right away the tone is setanybody moving,or even drawing breath ,the caravan starts wobbling from side to side like the 'SEAVIEW' submarine from that old 60's series 'VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA', but instead of electronic sparks theres the clatter of pots and pans as well as the rattle of cups. The rush for the minute space that constitutes the toilet follows ,as being British ,not only do we like to sit in a box in a boggy field ,but the boggy field has to be as far away from their brick n' mortar box as is possible, so after hours stuck in the car, to sit in a vertical coffin with a hole into a bucket with your knees up by your ears and banging your elbows as you yank on the cheap rough bog paper which is nessesary for all seasoned campers.

The other form of torture that the British classify as holiday is camping in tents. Instead of a chipboard box ,you sleep in a canvas sack and sleep in cotton zip up bags, and everything is done outside except sleep and listen to the rain and the deafening sound of the wind and rustle of the trees. All the times we went camping it was always raining. The fields were bogs. The clouds were 20 feet above the ground ,you could only see the trees or hills when it was going to rain and if you couldn't see them ,it was raining. The rain means that the British national dress is an anorack, supposedly waterproof, but the padding gets sodden, The proofs in the padding ,or disproved. Lakes joined up; Rivers burst their banks and paths became mountain streams. Tents and caravans have very interesting thermal qualities ...In the cold ,they're freezing and in the heat ,they're boiling!!!....

Camping and caravanning can be summed up in the film'CARRY ON CAMPING!'....Apparently it was filmed in North Wales and it was mid winter. It poured down rain and if you look at the scenes with a track and you can see mud and puddles. The feild was sodden and mud was everywhere, but they painted the ground green to make it look lush and summery. All the actors were dressed in summer wear and soon as they'd done their scenes wrapped up quick to stop shivering.

But lest we forget aside from the countryside ,full of wee beasties with a total dislike of humans,except for their warm cosy orifices theres nowhere to get stufflike food and drink that you take for grantedat home with your SPAR or ASDA next door, without walking into strange villages with strange locals who think the holidaymakers are nutters and quite often treat you like the average nutter. Also who has ever seen a cheerful friendly farmer? Around the countryside is a thin sandy rocky strip , covered in sharp stones and pebbles and jelly fish all designed to rip your feet to shreds as you go into the ice cold spew-inducing salt water 'for a swim???'....Affectionally known to all Brits as the 'seaside'. On the rare occassions when you find yourself on holidays when the sun is actually shining we all troop down to the 'seaside' and fry in the sunshine ,spending the rest of your relaxing break unable to touch or be touched as your skin has 3rd degree burns, which ,by the time you return home has reverted to the traditional ghastly palour that makes us the most white of the worlds whitemen. Then after all this suffering and enjoyment(?) that was your lot for another year.

My olde Geordie mate ,the incredibly tall (going grey) SIMON MALIA.....This maniac is a maaaaaaaaddd, maaaaaaadddd, mad , psychotic WHO fan since before they formed ,i often think. Well his lovely missus in a moment ofcrazed

alcohol fuelled love and genorosity treated Simon to a V.I.P. ticket for the WHO's performance of QUADROPHENIA at the MANCHESTER ARENA last night. So this entitled the lanky ,jammy Geordie bastard to be allowed in early to sit through the soundcheck ,get 'nibbles' and a bag of pressies and swap phone numbers with those TOWNSHEND and DALTREY chappies.

When i asked how it went ,he was still stunned . He explained that he expected the soundcheck to be ;ROGER DALTREY doing a little singing; PETE TOWNSHEND doing a little strumming on his guitar ; A few thumps of the drums; Tinkles from the keyboards; Parps n' toots from the brass, etc......."BUT NOOOOO!!.......THEY CAME OOT ROCKIN' LIKE BASTARDS!!!!!......DALTREY SCREAMING AND TOWNSHEND LETTING RIP LIKE A MANIAC ON THE GUITAR......THEY ROCKED LIKE ABSOLUTE F**KIN' BASTARDS!!!"....( his words ,translated from the original geordie to scouse for all you intellectuals out there.).....So ,Simon god bless his bry nylon socks, was blown out of said socks.

For the rest of us V.I.P.'s (very unimportant people) who had to fight through to our seats in the normal, standard hustling n' bustling pain in the arse way we finally got there in the corner alongside mr PETER TOWNSHEND,which was fine by me. I thought i would try my missus's (THE LOVELY LYNNE) old prescription glasses ,as my far distant vision isn't wonderful ,but these specs afforded this HD vision for the show which was quite revealing. I could count the bristles in Townshends beard , i couldnt believe it....I'm a little off a dog n' white stick, but surely my vision isn't that bad ,but surely its not meant to be that good!

Lynne ,the previous 2 nights had been playing with her ska band THE MANCHESTER SKA FOUNDATION, Friday in a boozer and Saturday we found ourselves in a tent in a bog of a feild at a festival in Stockport. I was given a posh laminated back stage pass to hang round my neck, as i was with the band....Felt dead important. I thought "I know i'll try and use this for the WHO tomorrow, but the bastards at the ARENA wouldn't let me.

But THE WHO were magnificent , fire and passion exploded forth and they 'let rip' and sounded great...Lynne was bouncing, singing and hammering hell out of my thigh...I have a MOD roundel of a bruise on my thigh today. The daughter ,ELARA was typically ashamed of her mum n' dad ,even though she loved the show. Lynne said that the TROMBONIST came in late a few times and she almost had to be physically restrained from running down to offer PETE TOWNSHEND ' Her services for free(?)'....I assume this was her tromboning abilities!

So if your bored with THE WHO , tough shit ,i'm not ,i'm still on cloud 9 and they are on next week in the fair city of LIVERPOOL and ,hopefully we'll see PETE'S little brother SIMON TOWNSHEND in town on the Monday

THE LOVELY LYNNE managed to get some quite good footage on her I-pad ,barring some womans 70's perm in front of us ,but one bit she did get, which if i can i shall put on ,is PETE TOWNSHEND having guitar trouble after a series of vicious windmills during BABA O'REILLY and ripping the guitar off and slinging it way back stage to wrap around some poor technicians head...If i'd've managed to get back stage with my fancy laminated back stage pass, i could've had PETE TOWNSHEND'S guitar wrapped around my head....Oh the chances we miss in life, hey!

BACON BEAUTY

My old mate HUNT EMERSON....A fairly decent cartoonist and an okay comic strip artist of world renown recently commented on the above cartoon ..."GROTESQUE, DEAR BOY!"...which from the sick twisted mr HUNT EMERSON as the ultimate accolade..... One of the many weird and odd facets of the EMERSON character ,of which there are more than a lot, let me tell you!!!.....One off the oddest to me being an out n' out carnivor, is that HUNT EMERSON is a VEGETARIAN.....yes!...A VEGGIE!

A number of years ago i stayed with HUNT as i was working at the N.E.C. complex in Birmingham. I hadn't seen the old fellah for a wee while and we talked and gulped a fair bit of drink far into the couple of nights i intruded upon his very kind hospitality. He cooked me a couple of very ,suprisingly for me ,tasty vegetarian dishes. Which i thouroughly enjoyed....Until the next day!

The next day as was working surrounded by hundreds of people as i was doing caricatures at some trade fair , i made a shocking personal discovery. Vegetables give me wind!!!....Not just wind ,but shocking wind ,basically i was farting my bloody brains out.

A few years later when we were living in India , i had a bad accident with a plate glass window whilst warming up a Karate class, to this day i dont know what happened . Did i hyperventilate ,or have a fit???..But a heap of severed tendons and sliced arteries later the students and sensei carried the mess that was me to a local hospital,spurting blood all over everybody within 20 yards basically saving my life. I awoke surrounded by people absolutly plastered in blood. Some in Karate gi's ;track suits ,tee shirts and some in shirts and trousers ,all plastered in my life giving blood. I was rushed in to emergency surgery . While i was getting resusitated three times, apparently ,they all went to a chinese retaurant nearby. I was told much to my morphine boosted amusement the following day that they got some weird looks from the staff and customers. I told SENSEI SUBRAMANYAN that they probably wont get many new students as everybody seeing them all plastered in blood must've said .."...GEEZ!...THAT IS ONE TOUGH KARATE CLASS!"...

The hospital was run by a religious group who were strict vegetarian and the food was strictly basic veggie fare. I ate and lay there with both legs in plaster and in stirrups pointing at 10 to 2...

Illiciting more than a few cracks about my contractions and had my waters burst yet and when was 'it' due, etc,etc....Aside from the legs my right arm was in plaster held up by a sling ,my left arm although thouroughly bandaged was let hang loose, but it was enough for me to be hand fed for a few days. Then ,it started!!!! The gurgling and the build up of pressure in my stomach as it actually distended before my eyes, as the internal pressure dials rotated'into the red'!

The room was empty so i thought i'd just sneak a little'PARP!' out,to ease the pressure off slightly, c'mon you all do it! But that was not to be ,my insides exploded like a deflating ZEPPELLIN with a sound like the fog horn of THE QUEEN MARY....Just as the ward sister came in through the door and faced me through my spread legs, which was the sight that greeted everyone who entered. She was pinned with a couple of tons of gaseous pressure to the wall until she dropped to the floor as the pressure dropped and the pressure gauges dropped out 'of the red'. She looked at me absolutly stunned and shocked.....She was attractive in a stern way, but she suddenly burst into laughter and the two of us couldnt stop for ages, every time she came in after she'd duck or skip past my exposed danger area, but it wasn't a one off, even THE LOVELY LYNNEwho originally was going to stay in my room took to going home and taking the visiting option. When they finally let me out all i wanted was to go for a meal and eat a steak ,a bloody big one!

On Saturday night came home to a very 'Ho-Hum' ROLLING STONES'Glastonbury gig ,but the following night we went to see the big boys do it properly. THE WHO were in the fair city of LIVERPOOL. The ECHO ARENA was 'chokka' and the noise was deafening and we had seats only 20 rows back from ROGER DALTREY. The show was even better than last week at MANCHESTER.. QUADROPHEN'YA has evolved into a real live piece after years of trying to get it on the stage to be performed properly ,well they've 'cracked it!'.....The place went mad.

Only problem is ,being a short arse i seem to attract all the concert knobheads who have to jump about wave arms, phones and holler and scream at every f**kin' word ,sung or said and insist in telling their mates 'how great this or that bit is'....I was stuck beside some girl who was annoyed as i hadn't given her enough room to dance, so in between dissappearing to the bar or the bogs she got her fellah ,this fat big getto have a word , ,i lost me temper and 'The dreaded Leatherbarrow finger came out'....As i politely explained to him how..."I'd paid 70 f**kin' quid to watch them ,not to argue over the 5 inches that i'd been pushed into 'his space' by the crowd , and would he F**K OFF!!!"It seemed to do the job and he shut his gob. But talking after ,everybody seemed to have their own pet knobhead to drive them nuts!

But that aside the show was magnificent . PETE TOWNSHEND has connections with LIVERPOOL and seemed pleased to be there....He's the only cockney who can come to LIVERPOOL and call us all "BASTARDS!" and we loved him for it. They seemed pleased to be back in the 'MESEY MUD'. as he called it......You'll probably be pleased to know i'll leave the WHO alone for a while as we wont see them again ,'till who knows?

Always being a lover of spy films ,books and telly series there are certain requirments of a top class agent, first off ,a good spy'ey name ;NAPOLEON SOLO; ILYA KURYAKEN; CALLAN; HARRY PALMER; MAXWELL SMART; MATT HELM.....ANTHONY BLUNT(" The names Blunt , Anthony Blunt ,dear boy hmmmmm!)?????....And , of course the new kid on the block: JASON BOURNE!

Without doubt though, the greatest ,smoothest ,coolest ,smartest ,suavist ,sexiest ,most ruthless, most dangerous killing machine and trained assassin ,licensed by her Majesty's goverment 'to kill' ,is ,of course JAMES BOND!

When IAN FLEMING decided to create the most famous secret agent (known all round the world?)....He speciffically broke the cardinal rule about spies having great names and gave the most famous glamourous agent ever the most boring hum drum name he could find. Ian Fleming gave his creation the name of an ORNITHOLOGIST!...A BIRDWATCHER!! ...A TWITCHER!!....We must be thankful as JAMES BOND could've been the smoothest ,coolest ,most deadly, trained killing machine .....ODDIE ,BILL ODDIE, Licensed to kill !!!!!!

Although Bill Oddie isn't travelling the planet fighting SMERSH or SPECTRE and all those other nasty evil sorts( I'll gloss over 'the women!).....He wanders through the violence and unrestrained danger of the BRITISH COUNTRYSIDE as part of those SPRING/SUMMER/AUTUMN/WINTER WATCH programmes which fill our telly screens for much of the year with MICHEALE STRACHEN looking windswept and ,er ,interesting! surrounded by equally enthusiastic pain in the arse presenters in knitted hats and sweaters ,kagools and those sleeveless khaki jackets full of pockets always bulging ,but nothing ever gets taken out.

They film birds and hairy things that live in holes and swim in streams and eat each other . Its always nice to see some rare THROSTLE THROATED BLUE TIT WARBLER laying its eggs ,sitting on them being filmed for weeks and the same camera filming the otter thats snuck into the nest to savage the freshly hatched chicks the presenters have been "Ooohhing n' Aaahhing !"over for bloody weeks as they watch them hatch and ,beaks open wide feed from their mam n' dad, then "Aaahh!" again as the mam n' dad come back wondering where their 8 or was it 9 'effin' kids 've buggered off to. Wherever they go the countryside is bursting with all kinds of weird n' wonderful and plain nasty forms of furry ,scaley and feathered breeds of wildlife . The endless quest for survival is basically what every creature is working 24/7 to achieve, building nests and warrens ,holes and tunnels and even damming streams ,either for water or they've cracked hydro -electric power.

I walk through local woods and hardly ever see a damn thing. Having said that the place is crawling with squirrels .These are American grey squirrels as they've got rid of the British brown squirrel ,probably enticed away by offers of free silk stockings ,cigarettes and candy bars , see, things never change not even in the natural world.

I did have the shit scared out of me a few months ago ,there was a hugh rustling in some bushes and a fluttering of bloody hugh wings as this massive bird took off ,apparently it was a Heron. With its long neck and long drooping wings i thought it looked like one of those old KLINGON BATTLE CRUISERS from the original STAR TREK, they used to be able to go invisible and drive CAPTAIN KIRK to "Fire Photon Torpedoes ...Maximum spread!"

I did stumble across some wild life ,impressing the females ,with loud swearing ,tatooes and gaily patterned and coloured track suits as they smoked ciggies to impress the others in the herd. There was also some youngsters in a bit of a frenzy as one had climbed a tree and couldn't get down. "Hey ,Mister can you get me mate down ,pleez?".....So being the upright ,friend to all ,responsibility my middle name ,etc ,i started to climb the tree murmering words of encouragment to the little lad up the tree. The little bastard started screaming and shouting to ,"KEEP THE OLD MAN(?) AWAY FROM ME!".....The little get ,moved up the tree ,so i grabbed him and carried him ,screaming and shouting down to the ground, resisting the urge to kick his scabby arse back up there again ,i turned and with utmost dignity i could muster left the wild untamed woods and the venom of mother nature and thought i'd watch wildlife on the telly.

Ah t'was only the other day when the apple of my eye; My reason for living had another birthday.....Bringing her within hailing distance of my advanced years , i'm !Hrrruuuummmmpppphhhh!!!!",years of age, Whereas she's a mere "Koff! Koff!, Koff!"years of age!.......So i did her this picture of her in action with her ska band THE MANCHESTER SKA FOUNDATION....Look 'em up on you tube and face book and all those funny sites that we spend what were once precious hours of our days studying what other rubbish others have put up ,so you can reply with some equally inane rubbish ,but theres some good footage of the band and my eternally young missus parping and tooting away ......I would like to point out this isn't a gastric problem due to her age ,its the sound of her trombone, admittedly it can sound like a gastric problem from people of advanced years, esspecially those with a taste for guinness!.....

For years shes played in brass bands ,swing bands ,orchestras and various groups always reading her music ,so people would ring and she could play for them that night, not a bother! For years she refused to believe she could 'play free', but over the last year with a quality bunch of players around her ,she plays and dances and even writes and plays her own solo's.

She once played a solo and a very impressed fellah came up to the stage to congratulate her with the comment "Great,Lynne !...YOUR THE BOLLOCKS!"......So she became LYNNE 'THE BOLLOCKS' LEATHERBARROW!!!! for a wee while! She loves the SKA music now and is always home from her working days in Birmingham to rehearse on a Thursday. I often go ,but get fed up as i'm at the side having a drink getting knocked all over the place by the nutters who follow the band dancing n' leaping around and there is a fair following and it can get pretty wild ,but Lynne living the rock n roll and ska life loves it, ironically the sweaty effort that goes into her performance actually relaxes her and takes her mind off work and the trials n' tribulations of the daily grind.

Her bones might start creaking ,but her spitvalve on the trombone isn't squeaking yet ,so theres plenty of ska tissue in the old girl yet!

The other day we had a wander in

The other day we had a family day in the scorching sunshine to go to CROSBY BEACH where the MERSEY MUD , meets the IRISH SEA SILT. It is actually a lovely bit of beach .....Famed for the ANTHONY GORMLEY cast iron men ,all 100 of them standing naked gazing out to sea.....They were only recently allowed to stay after complaints of nudity and danger from luring people into the soft mud.

The beach stretched off around a headland and i kept thinking of the finale of 'PLANET OF THE APES' ,where CHARLTON HESTON, as the stranded ,so he thought astronaut ,TAYLOR, finds he's not on an alien planet ,but on the remains of the good old planet EARTH, the give away was he tripped over the remains of the STATUE OF LIBERTY...Always a giveaway......I had visions of tripping across the LIVER BIRDS sticking out of the sand......I did my "GODDAMN YOU ALL TO HELL ,YOU BLEW IT UP....ETC ,ETC,!!!"oratorio on my knees in the sand, But the lovely Lynne wasn't too impressed with my oscar winning performance, just no appreciation of the finer things these women folks, i guess. So we packed up and went for a pint and a steak in a pub ,well i s'pose it makes a change from bananas on 'THE PLANET OF THE APES!'

well not quite what i had in mind!

Everybody likes 'scarey movies'.......When i was a lad it was the days of the HAMMER horror in the late 50's and early 60's and introduced to the world CHRISTOPHER LEE and a certain bloke with big teeth and blood shot eyes going by the name of COUNT DRACULA. Later the other original horror creation FRANKENSTEIN,he was a 8 foot fellah with a flat head and a bolt through his neck and introduced PETER CUSHING as BARON VON FRANKENSTEIN and these two fellahs were in every horror film of the series that flogged the vampire and monster to death . But these films were ,on the whole meant to be taking place in villages in central european mountainous reigions like TRANSYLVANIA, in massive gothic castles on a mountain overlooking villages full of gorgeous busty ladies with fantastic cleavages, i really fancied living over there, just avoid the blood suckers and flat headed monsters and you could be a happy fellah. The films always ended with the villagers getting slightly pissed

off with mysterious murders and vampires crawling around peoples bedrooms, in fact ,not only flat headed monsters and vampires wandering around making a nuisance of themselves ,there was the WEREWOLVES on the nights with full moons, but this combination of strange sorts always had the peasant waving flaming torches and burning down the castles. The original DRACULA was BELLA LUGOSI years ago in the 30's and the classic ,as i watched it fairly recently and suprised myself how much i enjoyed it ,but FRANKENSTEIN with BORIS KARLOFF. And one of the earliest and still creepiest is a silent film ,based on the DRACULA story called NOSFERATU, an amazing film.

Science fiction became popular and a classic scary films like PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE , possibly the worst not just horror film ,but worst film ,ever made...But the classics were spawned.THE FLY; INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, WAR OF THE WORLDS and a whole heap of creepy and tension filled films. As special effects weren't much kop! they went for tension and creatures in the shadows and used the imagination . Blood and snot made a showing and films were banged out full of blood and murder in the 60's and 70's.

Science fiction and the HAMMER monsters became more bloody and then the DEVIL made an entrance and the dark arts and devil worship became popular ,like HAMMERS 'THE DEVIL RIDES OUT' and the ,nowadays considered cult classic with the excellent EDWARD WOODWARD gettin burnt to death in 'THE WICKER MAN....Possibly the most horrible frightening thing in that film is ,CHRISTOPHER LEE with a trendy almost hippy blond haircut and 'DANCIN!!!!!'

One absolute legendary 'scarey film' ,which still scares the bejabbers off me is THE EXCORCIST, banned for years and even today some real shocking scenes haven't lost their power. I think the phrase 'Projectile vomitting was invented in the Excorcist, if you dont believe in god ,i think if you watch the EXCORCIST ,you probably will end up believing in the devil!

The power of the imagination can be shown by the fact that in the 70's a series of films were made ,but had to take it easy on the special effects due to money problems. For example 'JAWS'....Originally the shark was meant to be a lot more in the mix, but they had so much trouble with technical problems with the shark ,that its appearences were drastically reduced and as a result the tension was cranked right up and it quite simply became one of the cinematic greats that never fails to scare the 'SPEEDO'S' off you!

ALIEN ,an absolute classic ,the alien was reduced due to finances so the tension and suspense was cranked up and for that reason ,nobody sits comfortably watching that film. Apparently the most famous scene ,you know where i'm going dont'chya?....JOHN HURT and his slight indigestion problems. Apparently when they set the effect up ,the rest of the cast didn't know what was going to happen and the looks of horror, are really genuine...A classic film ,greater than the sum of its parts.

THE THING!.....Another classically scary tension filled film of some kind of polymorph and lots of slime and blood ,as a group of men trapped in a polar base and icey cold suspicion sets in ,with wonderful pre-CGI effects ,horrible and humorous, remember the head running of on spindley spider legs?

Another simple tale, but absolutly terrifying is the magnificent REUTGER HAURE in the excellent 'THE HITCHER', A lad picks up a psychotic murderer on a stormy night and is then on the run for his life , theres the famous scene of a girl tied between two trucks, you dont forget stuff like that , like the water going down the shower plughole in PSYCHO.

Nowadays we're flooded with CGI and the planet and cinemas and telly are swamped with ZOMBIES, totally relying on decaying bodies , no more great stories ,such as HITCHCOCKS ,'THE BIRDS' a story ,of a strange phenomenah ,birds going crazy ,theres no explanation ,just a terrifying film of the world 'going wrong', Birds going nuts . The effect is accentuated by the fact birds actually attacked TIPPI HEDRIN as HITCHCOCK wanted realim and scared the poor woman to death

PROJECTILE VOMITTING!!!!

About a year ago i got in touch about the possibility of a cartoon festival in the town where my family hail from in Ireland, with a family friend JONATHAN SMYTH who lives that little town in COUNTY CAVAN , called COOTEHILL, A name which caused much amusement of the cartoonist / caricaturist MARK NESBITT, (LUKE WARM). Infact he's doing the poster next year if it goes ahead again ,as we all hope....A lovely part of IRELAND very green with grass and cow dung ,off road....On road ,gravel and stones, the area is widely credited for inventing pot holes make driving an interesting and breathtaking experience....It is also the town where my mothers family come from and i spent a good chunk of my life visiting and loving every minute 'roughing it' with a mass of cousins on my 'Grannies' farm ,sadly no one is left there and the old house is falling to 'rack n' ruin....I always wanted to go back ,but suggested in passing about hosting a cartoon festival ,which they pounced on and before i knew it we were up n' running.

I got in touch with the ,mainly Irish cartoonists from the old and partially remembered wild insanity of the RATHDRUM CARTOON FESTIVAL organised by the late great TERRY WILLERS and his amazing wife ,that force of nature VALERIE, in the 90's. A few English lads jumped on board ,but i had to keep numbers down ,as money ,etc was at a premium...

As the year wore on ,there was a few bumps along the road as they say and at one time communications were few and far between and nerves started to fray and people started to pull out. When things were back on track and various suggestions were made and taken on board and we 'wuz cookin' on gas' and some of the crew were ,thankfully 'back on board'...And we were off!

The 13 September, Friday afternoon a group of us met up in ,suprise ,suprise !!! The bar at Dublin Airport!...Our lift and one of the organisers HARRY KEATING picked us up to take us from 'the Dirty awl town' out into the 'bogs' and the Craic was well and truly 'on' after not really seeing each other in a long time...But as with anytime friends get together even after a long time the conversation, piss taking and general bull shit carries on as if it had all been only yesterday!....Very soon our warm feeling was replaced by a full feeling eminating from out bladders, something to do with the bar in the airport! And a roadside emergency stop was urgently called for.....As we went about our 'business against some farmers gate, for some reasons ,of which i am not going anywhere near, the conversation turned to horses!...We had arrived!!!!!!!

After finding a very nice holiday home we were crashing in we stocked up on lovely Irish bacon ,sausages and eggs to keep us going in lovely greasy Irish breakfasts and late night butties as well as gallons of tea and coffee......Then!.....Into town and ....THE PUB!.....SMITHS BAR!.....Run by a highly disreputable character whom i knew years ago when he was slim, handsome with thick dark hair having 'a thing' with my sister.....As everybody in Cootehill told me they were aware as Don had told them , secrets never get kept or die the just get repeated and exaggerated over the years. Don is the official looking fellah next to me ,with the chain,seated 2nd from the right. Don ,gawd bless the swine was great with us all over the weekend ,everybody was great ,i've never been treated with so much friendliness as over that weekend!...

The guy on the left seated was another organiser ,Malachy Magee, a really nice enthusiastic guy who was so up for the festival to work.

The tall blonde lady in towards the middle was another organiser ,the lovely Elaine Grills who was ,again ,absolutly great ,god bless and thanks to them all. This was at the library where we were up to do a cartooning workshop ,noone had a clue where we were going with it ,i said "just wing it!".....Which is what we did and all of us contributed and the points ,techniques and ideas ,just bounced around like a pinball machine and was a great success ,the librarian MARGARET BANNONwas delighted and ,apparently a great time was had by all.

The 'HOLE IN THE HEAD GANG' consisted of ME..(of course,..Looking good after the excesses of the previous night!)....HUNT (The guv'nor ) EMERSON.....MARK ( Luke Warm ) NESBITT......ROGER ( I'm not dead yet!) O'REILLY.......JON ( Fries the best irish breakfast in Spain ) BERKELEY......GRAEME ( I didn't invite him ) KEYES.........AIDAN (Pain in the arse ) COONEY...And little Daniel kept hostage until they tore up our bar tab !...This is one of the last photos as Aidan drained the battery on my camera.....There wasn't a clean or nice word uttered over the whole weekend, but plenty of laughing ,mainly at others expense ,but ,such is life ,a good time was had by all and they all worked bloody hard ,which is amazing as non of them are even on nodding terms with hard work!

This is an ,apparently very rare shot of 'Mein Host ', DON SMITH smiling, as he said for me to "Make sure you get my best side!!!".....General hilarity ensued as the locals informed us in highly colourful terms their particular opinions on what constituted 'Dons best side!'

Don was quite annoyed that his entry into the COOTEHILL SCARECROW COMP' hadn't been accepted by the judges.....We asked where it was ,he told us it was just behind us. There was a table with a pair of shoes.......THE INVISIBLE MAN!!!!!!

THE FULL MONTY

E.T.

IRON MAN.

MARILYN MONROE

SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS

Over the weekend was big music festival for a ,now deceased local man who opened a shoe factory in the town his name was GERRY WHELAN and the festival took his name,his daughter CONNIE was one of the organisers, but was away in Australia during the festivities , so except for a few phone conversations, we never met, sadly. Every pub was playing live music and the old town was bouncing. One pub Mullens had a quartet of beautiful young girls who were also an excellent band ,me and Aidan Cooney drew them and a heap of locals then went ,by way of a few other pubs 'back to base' at Smiths bar ,he had a band ,although a great band ,they were the other end of the scale ,old and ugly ,real characters ,a joy to draw ,one guy with an old hat and a beard about 5 feet long, he was wonderful and had me dripping tears of laughter on my drawing.

The following day the weather broke and the wind, rain and cold hit, proper Cootehill weather!!!!...The main street was blocked off to traffic as stalls were set up ,classic cars ,food ,music ,a town marathon race and local man ,the one and only VINCE PILKINGTON.....THE WORLD TURKEY PLUCKING CHAMPION!!!!!.....Was putting on his very popular crowd pulling display, tough competition, indeed!...Actually ,if i'd 've known i'd've gone to see it myself. We scribbled in a tent and as the winds increased and the temperature dropped, i started

to shiver and had to concenterate on keeping lines steady. Locals started to supply me with hot whiskies, of which i'd never had one ,love Irish coffee's ,but hot whiskies ,definitly warmed the system and steadied the line. The crowds seemed pleased and came from all over even on such a miserable day as the Sunday turned out to be. Then ,finally into the boozer and 'a few!' and once warm indoor pub scribbling...Its a good way of staying sober and helps the Guinness flow smoothly. A few of the lads were nagging over having a rest or going for a bite, but i find that can screw me up more than staying drawing 'on the pop!'

But all seemed to go well and the organisers seemed determined to go ahead next year ,onwards and upwards, bigger and better.....And it only took 5 days to sort of recover !

Cheers and thanks to all involved and esspecially the bunch of cartooning deadbeats i have to call my friends ....YOU WERE GREAT !

MEEEEEEEE !!!!!!

ME....ROGER O'REILLY....GRAEME KEYES

HARRY (Our faithful driver ,A star!).....HUNT (Another star )EMERSON.

A happy GRAEME KEYES....A cause for concern ?

An intellectual looking JON BERKELEY....Theres no glass in the lens.

THE REMAINS OF THE FAMILY HOME!

On my way to Ireland the other week to take part in the COOTEHILL CARTOON FESTIVAL....After an intensive period of therapy and various drugs to cure me of a series of mental problems following my multiple attempts at booking a return ticket ,online with RYANAIR!....I had just about recovered from the multiple breakdowns and had been out of the straitjacket for days by this time, as my beloved missus ,the Lovely Lynne dropped me at JOHN LENNON airport ,or as the Scouse still call it SPEKE AIRPORT to get the plane i had suffered so much to get.

We were shuttled through quite quickly ,seated and before we knew it ,off and upwards into the great grotty grey with touches of blue yonder. The stewardesses were very friendly and drinks ,etc were on tap almost right away ,the coffee was nice and the chicken salad butty was lovely. Much to my annoyance the dreaded flying cattle wagon i had imagined was turning into a pleasant flight. Liverpool to Dublin is a veritable 'hop skip n' a jump!' So as we got our food and drink it was almost time to make our approach so the seatbelt sign went on and we had to put our tables up even though we all had our food and virtually full drinks, we had to juggle the two and listen to the usual totally indecypherable message from our smooth sounding Captain.....Then silence!

.......As the plane swooped down ,i was feeling quite relaxed ,not one to enjoy bumpy landings ,but i was quite calm, then this deafening bugle call boomed out of the speakers ,every passenger on the plane jumped ,what that weighty passenger instantaneous bounce did to the flight path on its approach i dont want to know.....This heart stopping 'Charge of the Light Brigade .'TARA,TARA,TARA!!!!!..... Was followed by an announcement which i thought said.."THANK YOU FOR FLYING RYANAIR!...Where 90% of our flights land?".....I had an image of 10% of RYANAIR aircraft scattered across the land and seas....It was later i realised they were telling us that 90% of their flights landed, ON TIME!....Then off ,straight through the area and to the bar , quite relaxed and dissapointingly pleased with my journey!

The reason i was dissapointed with being pleased and satisfied was because of the hell i went through trying to book on line a few weeks earlier ,it was an absolute bastard of a job and took me a number of shots to get there ,but in the end i got there and tried to print off my boarding pass and couldnt as the printer just gave up and has never worked since, not only did i find myself on the verge of losing my mind, but the printer couldnt stand the strain and gave up the will to print. The flight worked out at a respectable £41 ,but i ticked a low weight for baggage and was automatically hammered for £50 ,as it turned out the bag i took i could've brought on board for free, instead of getting hammered for £90-odd, so much messing with the questionairre i didn't realise 'till too late...(sob, whimper!)

A cartooning friend JON BERKELEY saw the suffering and pain i was going through and forewarded me this bit of FASCINATING AIDA performing 'CHEAP FLIGHTS!' a wonderfully funny skit on the cheapo flights and very ,in fact too close to the truth.

We've had a stereo system for a number of years now and a fine little set it has been ,until recently when it wouldnt play any CDs' and wouldnt eject any ,so i had 5 at this time favourite dics swallowed up....Nothing i could do would do any bloody good......The other day ,THE LOVELY LYNNE bought a very nifty small compact set from where else ,but ASDA.....One of the funny things is that it only plays one disc at a time which has had a strange effect .....Instead of filling the multi-disc with a heap of discs set to play in any order by the wonder of the wonderful 'Mode' switch, i've found i'm playing one disc at a time in order like playing vinyl records once long ago, then replacing it on the shelf ,which was a habit i'd fallen out of as a heap of disc holders built up alongside the player and stuff left neglected on the shelf gathered dust. But i find whenever i want to play something i'm choosing the stuff i'd not bothered with for ages.

Just recently i've been listening to a lot of PETER GABRIEL and early GENESIS which i've 'clicked onto and just love....A few of them were stuck in the old set with the full concert of THE WHO'S,....'LIVE AT HULL', which is part of the 'LIVE AT LEEDS' box set, so i wanted the stuff back. I started subtley enough with the screwdriver and as time and technology moved on i felt the implementation of brute force was required to get at the discs in a metal box in amongst the electronic 'gubbins ', i felt i was disconnecting the 'LARGE HADRON COLLIDER'....If i wasn't getting my discs back i could've discovered the secret of the HIGGS BOSON and the secret of DARK MATTER in the universe, but i decided that CERN in Switzerland could sort that out and i'd get my discs back, selfish ,i know ,but hey?.....I spend a lot of time alone in the house and i like music and the radio......

As i said ,if you've been paying attention i've been listening to a lot of classic GENESIS lately ,in fact a fair bit of 'PROG' rock , YES ....'GOING FOR THE ONE !' is great. I've also been watching a series on PBS about the history of JAZZ which is quite good and much to LYNNES annoyance i quite like 'THE BLUES', all this "OLD STUFF!!"...She's an 80's girl ...."YEEEUUUCCCKK!!!".....

The other week we went to see an 80 year old living legend PETULA CLARK and she was great...I''ve been whistling ,humming and singing 'DOWNTOWN' ever since. As an experiment ,gently hum 'Downtown!' and everyone around you within minutes will be humming, whistling or singing that 'damn song!'...I guarantee it....

Listening to it ,i've been kicked off again ,i'll be Downtowning for another week, at least ....She had a lovely voice ,clear as a bell ,ya gotta admit!....Listen to it and with the aid of a calendar see how long it is 'till you can get the tune out of your head!

When i were nobbut a lad.....On a Friday evening the local news programme 'GRANADA REPORTS' was on . One night a tall fellah with glasses was introduced standing in front of a huge sheet of paper....And proceeded to draw the weeks news in thick marker pen at dazzling speed as he spoke through the tales of that particular week ,in the 60's ,he was in black and white along with his drawing which in the space of a few minutes filled the wall with this wonderful universe of insanity which was all the more suprising as it was only the news and as every lad knew the news was boring as shit!....But i was hooked ! The following day i found myself drawing in the funny squiggly way that this fellah had done....This fellah was none other than the immortal BILL TIDY !!!!

So on a Friday that was 'IT!'....Whatever happened , tough!..BILL TIDY was on and that was the nucleus of my week....Infact in my cartooning universe BILL TIDY was the 'Big Bang!'....I don't remember much of his 'CLOGGIES' stories , a tale of hard drinking ,clog wearing folk, but his next epic 'THE FOSDYKE SAGA!',an epic tale of tripe making folk, was in the DAILY MIRROR daily....And a few years ago i got a heap of the books and they are wonderful ,BILL TIDY has a sense of humour that isn't so much 'outside the box', but just nowhere near any box ,i look at his stuff and ,obviously some are better than others, but its always a case of "where in god's name did that come from?"......Over the years i learned to love a variety of cartoonists from various sources ,but BILL TIDY must assume full responsibility for what i've become......SWINE !!!!!!!

These pictures are of Bill last week at a private showing of BILL TIDY...BILL STOTT....and TONY HUSBAND....Arranged by Bill Stott , the two Bills and Tony did an illustrated talk and very funny they were too. Bill Tidy introduced us to the 'CLOGGIES!' and a very large breasted barmaid which he clearly enjoyed drawing in greater detail than any other character that night.....A few glasses of wine and meeting up with some old friends ensured a very pleasant evening was had by all. I was quite pleased as Bill remembered me and we chatted ,very silly conversation ,he only wanted me to keep his glass filled...Telling me .."If you tell anyone you saw me with an empty glass ,i'll kill you!"....

Stood behind Bill is the other Bill, BILL STOTT seemingly enjoying himself as he should i believe he put a lot of effort into it ,well done ,sir....It was also BILL TIDY'S 90th birthday and they'd made a cake ,a beautiful creation by ANDY DAVEY'S partner ,who i'm ashamed to say ,i can't think of her name ,but she did this cake in the shape of a pair of battered old clogs ,wonderful and a shame to cut into it !

This is Bill ,no doubt giving me some fatherly advice ,or possibly telling me he'd smash me face in if i didn't get him a drink!

Sad to say ,comparing haircuts!!!!

I told him how everything bad thats ever happened to me is because of him and causing me to a cartoonist ,he seemed quite pleased and proud to accept the mantle of blame!

After this ,the boss..THE LOVELY LYNNE said we'd have to leave as we had to go out the following day so we only had about 12 hours to find our way out of Manchester ,it only took us about 8 hours to find the gallery and the pub where we were to meet CHRIS WILLIAMS ,he of the CARTOONIST CLUB OF GREAT BRITAIN inner sanctum.....Manchesters a swine of a place to get around ,Lynnes sat-Nav gave up and had a nervous breakdown ,started sobbing and wanted to" go home to mummy!"

GARDENING , THE CURSE OF MAN....GETTING OFF HIS ARSE TO MAKE OLD MOTHER NATURE LOOK GOOD!

DOMINIQUE VALERA: THE KING/THE CAT....ONE FRENCH FIGHTER YOU WOULDN'T WANT A PUNCH OR A KICK DANS LA GOB FROM !!!!!

ROCKY MARCIANO: THE ROCK :SUZIE-Q AND LOTS OF BUSTED NOSES !!!!!!!1!

JOHN WAYNE; JEFF BRIDGES.....BOTH 'TRUE GRIT ', BUT WHOSE THE GRITTIER AND TRULY THE 'TRUE GRIT'?....AND HAD ARMY TOILET PAPER NAMED AFTER THEM AS ITS 'ROUGH ,TOUGH AND WONT TAKE NO SHIT OFF ANYONE!'

ACHES N' PAINS N' SORE BITS AND HOW HEALTH N' FITNESS IS A PAIN IN THE ARSE!!!!!

...NOT THE CHAINGANG!.....WORKING ON MY BOOK ABOUT MY 3 WEEKS HOLIDAY IN JAIL,DARLING!

(SENSEI)..TERRY O'NEILL: LIVERPOOL'S OWN KARATE MASTER, TAUGHT CONAN THE BARBARIAN HOW TO FIGHT AND HAS FOUGHT AND BEAT HUNDREDS OF OPPONENTS ...EXCEPT FOR GRACE JONES AND JASON ISSACS !!!!!!

SENSEI,TERRY O'NEILL TEACHING A SHORT ARSED CARTOONIST HOW TO SPILL BLOOD INSTEAD OF INK!

CAMPING AND CARAVANNING , BELOVED BY THE BRITISH.....NO WONDER THE WORLD THINK WE ARE INSANE!

THE WHO: .....ROCKIN' LIKE BASTARDS !!!!......AND THATS ONLY THE SOUNDCHECK !!!!!!!

HUNT EMERSON ; VEGETABLES, EXPLOSIVE INTERNAL COMBUSTION AND THE ROUGHEST, TOUGHEST KARATE CLUB IN THE WORLD !!!1!1

THE WHO HAD THE LIVER BIRDS ROCKING TO QUADROPHENIA ON THE BANKS OF THE 'MERSEY MUD'!!!!!!

BRITISH WILDLIFE AND ODDIE ,BILL ODDIE LICENSED TO KILL AND TWITCH !!!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE LOVELY LYNNE.....EVEN THOUGH SHE'S GETTING ON A BIT ,SHE'S GORGEOUS AND HER SPIT VALVE STILL DOESN'T SQUEAK!!!!!

THE NEXT VERSION OF 'THE PLANET OF THE APES ' COULD BE ON CROSBY BEACH ON THE BANKS OF LIVERPOOLS OWN RIVER MERSEY!

FANGS, BOLTS THROUGH NECK, PROJECTILE VOMITTING ,THE DEVIL, THE LIVING DEAD, BURSTING STOMACHS......WHATS SCAREY ABOUT THAT?

THE COOTEHILL CARTOON FESTIVAL, CLASH OF THE TITANS....CARTOONISTS V THE WORLD TURKEY PLUCKING CHAMPION !!!!!!

10% OF RYANAIR PLANES DON'T LAND....AND 100% 0F PASSENGERS HAVE BUGLE INDUCED HEART ATTACKS ,IF THEY'VE SURVIVED THE MENTAL BREAKDOWN FROM ONLINE BOOKING!!!!!

HIS MASTERS VOICE! ......HIS MASTERS LUMP HAMMER !.....AND MY STUCK CD'S !!!!!!!

BILL TIDY........ALL MY PROBLEMS STARTED WITH HIM , ITS ALL HIS FAULT !.....HE WAS THE SWINE THAT MADE ME WANT TO BE A CARTOONIST!!!!