I couldn’t believe it when I slipped the word “bloody” past my editor. I was sure it wouldn’t make it through the copy checkers at RBMA, but it did. Of course, the word was only really rude for a couple of centuries (it was fine before the mid 18th century) and is very mild, even in England, now.

The postman swears at Howard's burrow

An interesting piece on h2g2 – The Origins and Common Usage of British Swear-words

I enjoy drawing the title panels to the Sunday strips and since they are often discarded, I’ll put up some of them here.

Oscar gets to play Captain Kirk in an upcoming Arctic Circle strip

After a mere 9 years of nagging, my cartoonist friend, Harry Venning has finally got himself a website. Harry draws Clare in the Community, which appears in the Society section of the Guardian and Hamlet, which appears in The Stage. Clare was turned into a couple of Radio 4 series, which were actually funny (unusual for Radio 4, but aided by the fact Harry was one of the writers).

Clare in the Community cartoon by Harry Venning

Now to get him on twitter…

Oscar gets concerned about tin can linings

Treehugger reports today that some home canning jar lids also have Bisphenol A on them -aaaaaarrrrrrghhhhhhhhhhh

I’m excited to be part of my first ever Book Group. We had the inaugural meeting last week and we’re kicking off with Kate Grenville’s Secret River. I wanted to get the book either second-hand, or at the library. There was one copy in the whole Glen Eira catalogue and I called to reserve it, but it was in transit.
“Don’t worry,” said the librarian “if you come into the library first thing tomorrow, it will be here and you can have it without paying a reservation fee.”
Score! So I cycled over to Elsternwick….and then realised I had left my library card behind…duh. The librarian was very accommodating and said she could look me up on the computer and do it without the card…but the book hadn’t shown up. Turns out it was a bit damaged and Carnegie had held on to it. They would loan it to me, but I needed to cycle home and get my card before cycling over there to pick it up.

Since I had already cycled to the pool in the morning, that was a lot of cycling.

Anyway, I got the book and I hope it’s a good read!

Elwood book group's first read

 Here is the list of possible books to be read:

Alan’s

• Carson McCullers – The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter
• Mordecai Richler – Barney’s Version
• Graham Greene – Brighton Rock
• Joyce Carol Oates – A Garden of Earthly Delights
• John Updike – Rabbit, Run
• Siri Hustvedt – The Sorrows of an American

Mine

• Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (non-fiction) -
• Darwin and the Barnacle by Rebecca Stott (also non-fiction)
• Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (Author)
• The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Catherine’s

• ‘Goulds Book of Fish’ – Richard Flanagan
• ‘The Red Tent’ – Anita Diamont
• ‘The Book Thief’ – Markus Zusak

Louise (co-ordinator)’s

• The Road Cormac McCarthy.
• The Slap -Christos Tslokis.. any other books starting with “The”.. ha ha
• James Joyce.. Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man.
• Gabriel Garcia Marquez.. 100 years of solitude.
• Everything is illuminated Jonathon Safran Froer (actually recently read this but its on the Penguin cheap book printing and was worth another read).
• Anything in the Penguin cheap orange prints at the moment such as In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Australia’s 2009 Ride to Work Day has been announced for Wednesday 14th October (Spring in Australia). This is exciting as, although I work from home, it is a day where there is a really good atmosphere on the streets. The more people who are encouraged to cycle, the safer it gets for us. One of my friends started biking to work on last year’s Ride to Work Day and kept it up right through until the winter.

Part of an upcoming Arctic Circle cartoon.

Another reason for me getting excited is that I might get an updated version of my Melbourne bike map. It is a fantastic way of finding the safest route to places and my copy is getting very worn.

2008 Travelsmart Bike to Work map from Bicycle Victoria

Update: I just read the comment on the previous post – it is almost impossible to be completely environmentally friendly, but if we all made as many green choices as we could, we would end up in a much better situation than throwing up our hands in despair.