Radio Cartoonist

A Likely Tail

2013-05-16T06:00:00.000+01:00

Usually my blog posts are a finely-crafted thing, I'm sure you'll agree.

The blog gathers together the disparate elements of the week's Westmorland Gazette stories, honing them into a coherent story and presenting the resulting cartoons in a diverting web-sized nugget of opinion and humour.

On other weeks, it's a mishmash of stories and random jokes.

This is one of them weeks.

A rare albino mole is spotted in South Lakeland, Windermere businesses bewail the lack of fibre-optic broadband, Furness General appears to be trying to infect or electrocute (yes really) visitors to its A & E and a pair of lemurs have gone missing from a local zoo.

Now you're up to speed, here are the ideas pitched to my steamed editor. He exercised his astute editorial judgment and picked one for the front page.

But which would you have chose? Add your comments below (not on Facebook, Twitter or a nearby toilet wall, if you don't mind) and then shimmy off to my website to see if you got it right.

Sketchbook - 30 April 2013

2013-04-30T15:48:00.000+01:00

It's always a bad idea to let a cartoonist wander around the local shopping experience armed with a sketchbook and time on his hands.

It's not only the burgers in here which are not what they seem …

PC World: "Can I help you? Please? If I don't meet my target I get back to Shop Assistant Rescue."

And background muzak; "You're listening to Lakeland Radio where Phil Collins is still considered hip … in the operation sense."

Incidentally, apologies for the intrusive copyright log on these drawings. You can blame Our Dear Government for that - follow this link for a letter from David Bailey about what the blighters have been up to now. When you've done that, go sign the ePetition against it.

The Unkindest Cut (Again)

2013-04-25T06:00:00.000+01:00

I am a big fan of the National Health Service in general and the local Trust in particular. Over many years, it has provided a healthy diet of stories for my cartoon in The Westmorland Gazette.

This week it has served up another front page story with news that it is cutting 230 jobs in the coming months, in a bid to reduce its deficit (which was in turn the due to the combined efforts of managers, our glorious government and its predecessor).

A couple of other stories also drifted past the Cartoon Desk.

The first is that passengers alighting at the railway station known as OXENHOLMETHELAKEDISTRICT are often distraught to discover that the nearest lake is 11 miles away.

The other story is that the recent visit to great Tower Scout Camp by the Duchess of Cambridge has caused a recruitment surge …

You can see all six ideas below. These were subjected to the stern gaze of my steamed editor.

But which did he pick for the front page?

More to the point, which would you pick?

Add your comments below and then hobble over to my website to see if morphic resonance has worked its magic.

A plague of second homes

2013-04-18T07:00:00.000+01:00

This week’s Westmorland Gazette front page story is about second homes in the Lake District. Again.

A report from the Cumbria Rural Housing Trust has identified a number of Lakeland villages which are in danger of becoming overwhelmed by second homes. Elterwater consists of 80% holiday homes, Skelwith Bridge 70% and many more are around the 50% mark.

As house prices are forced up by second home ownership, and the number of young couples who can afford them decline, the Lake District is in danger of becoming a kid-free zone.

And it is not unique to the Lake District, other areas like Devon and Cornwall are similarly affected.

Second homes artificially inflate houses, lead to a reduction in local services, shops and schools and drive local people from the area.

Now, I may have tackled this once or twice in my cartoon in the past. (At one point I was banned from doing cartoons about the subject.) But the story keeps coming round and I still have things to say about it.

Below are six sketches I pitched to my editor. In addition, there’s an idea which combines a local story (electricity cables being dug up and stolen), a national news story (you may have heard of it) and an element of bad taste.

Which, dear reader, do you think was the editor choice for today’s front page?

Place your vote in the comments box below. Then take a trip to my website to see if you were right.

Doom Robes and Snow Globes

2013-03-28T06:00:00.000Z

Last weekend Cumbria was hit by the worst snow storm since 1950.

There were drifts up to twenty feet deep, 70 motorists were snowed in and had to stay for two nights in the local school, electricity cables came down and there was general chaos, as you can see in these BBC pictures.

The snow has continued all week. In fact, there are flakes falling as I type this. It’s like we’re in a giant snow globe and someone keeps shaking it up.

Or a giant doom robe, as autocorrect insisted on calling it when I tried to tweet that remark this morning. (After some debate, my Twitter followers and I decided that a doom robe was Voldemort’s dressing gown.)

My garden shed decided to put on a particularly fetching display of shedcicles.

(Photographs © Pam Grant)

No prize for guessing the subject of this week’s front page Westmorland Gazette cartoon. The three ideas below were all pitched to my steamed editor - but which one would YOU have chosen?

Vote in the comments box below, then put on your skis and swoosh across to my website to see if the editor agreed with you.

Falling Down

2013-03-21T06:00:00.000Z

A cartoonist’s working life has an uneven rhythm. A fixed point of mine, for twenty-odd years, has been the front page cartoon for The Westmorland Gazette. The afternoon before press day, between 2.00 and 5.00, I know exactly what I’ll be doing - even if I don’t know the stories I’ll be working on until I start.

Within that three hours, there is another set of rhythms. The first hour is looking at stories, exploring ideas, the second is coming up with sketches to pitch to the editor - usually four - and the final hour is finishing the artwork, scanning it, manipulating it in Photoshop and firing it off to the sub-editors in Blackburn.

This week went slightly awry.It doesn’t happen often but when it does, it gets more exciting than usual.

The story I was concentrating on was about mountain rescue, increases in fatal accidents, the unpreparedness of walkers. As a walk book writer, it’s close to my heart and I wanted to comment on it.

First four cartoons (including one on another story) didn’t quite get there. The ‘brain’ cartoon was a bit too pointed given there had been fatalities. The UFO one …well, there had been a group of UFO-spotters rescued but it was buried on page 2 of the paper.

So try again. And numbers 5 and 6 didn’t work either.

By now, my normal, carefully-composed schedule had gone out the window and it was 4.35, with the deadline still fixed at 5.00.

Fired off cartoon 7. Hm … editor runs it past one or two others. Bit of debate as it isn’t, strictly speaking, a joke (newspaper cartoons don’t have to be, they’re allowed to make a point - ask Gerald Scarfe).

4.50 and number7 it is, giving me … ooh, ten minutes to finish it off. In the event, I was able to do this because it was drawn on the computer and needed little additional work before sending to print.

So, now you know which one got in. You can see it here on my website. And here are the seven candidates in full.

Health Scare

2013-03-14T15:36:00.000Z

Your health is important. My health is important. I’d argue that my health is more important than your health but I think we’ve established the principle that, generally speaking, health is pretty important.

That’s probably why it appears in the news so often. And because politicians, administrators, managers and other unimaginative fiddlers keep interfering with it.

Morecambe Bay Primary Care University Hospitals Trust (re-arrange those words into whichever order they’re using them this month) has announced that it has a £30m shortfall in its budget. So it has announced economy measures. These include booting patients out at night, employing boy scouts as anesthetists and switching off computers at bedtime (only one of those is invented).

I have a long history of drawing cartoons about the Health Trust for The Westmorland Gazette. I’ve done most of the obvious ones - “it’s condition is critical” - so don’t react with total glee when the Trust features as the front page story.

But there are always more jokes to be mined and here are seven of them.

You - yes, you, ill or not - can say which you think should have gone on the front page by adding a comment below.

Then take up your crutches and hobble over to my website to see if the Gazette’s editor agreed with you.

Click any image for the full Imax experience

Cumbria Day

2013-02-14T06:30:00.000Z

It has been a good week for cartoonists, with horse meat turning up in everything and the pope resigning (rumours that Tony Blair is taking on the role is untrue as he considers it a step down).

Some of this appears in this week's Westmorland Gazette. Not the pope, unfortunately, as the Gazette doesn't yet have a Vatican correspondent.

The other three stories were more snow, high levels of gambling and Cumbria Day. The latter was a superb marketing exercise in which the entire population of Cumbria went to Westminster to lobby government ministers to do something or other.

Here are the ideas I pitched to my steamed editor.

Feel free to vote for the one you think he should have chosen to grace today's front page.

Then trot along to my website and see if you were right.

Nuclear Dumped

2013-01-31T13:10:00.000Z

For several months now, there have been constant rumblings about a plan to site an underground nuclear waste facility in the UK. In an odd move, our beloved government asked councils to bid to host the facility.

The rush was underwhelming and it came down to two - Allerdale and Copeland - both on the west coast of Cumbria.

Anti-nuclear campaigners called it a nuclear waste dump and said it would ruin the image of the Lake District, ignoring that Sellafield has been storing and managing nuclear waste in Cumbria for over 50 years.

Yesterday, Cumbria County Council voted no to the plan, overruling the district councils of Allerdale and Copeland, who were rather more keen on the idea (and the jobs).

Given the above, I was keen to tackle this story for my front-page Westmorland Gazette newspaper cartoon. You can see the ideas below, each of which was submitted to my steamed editor.

Which would you choose? Will you pick the same one as the editor to win this week’s star prize?* Vote in the comments and then sashay over to my website to find out if you were right.

* A stick of genuine Lake District rock which glows suspiciously in the dark.

Tour de Hawes

2013-01-24T06:00:00.000Z

A veritable avalanche of good cartoon stories in The Westmorland Gazette this week.

For a start, a local hairdresser is a hit on Channel 4's Come Dine With Me show. (If you haven't seen it, this a show where people you don't know go round to the houses of people they don't like and eat food which they are then rude about.)

The Tour de France is coming to the Yorkshire Dales National Park. (I was banned from doing any performance-enhancing jokes for this one, including ones about Wensleydale cheese.)

The local anti-nuke brigade are hopping mad.

Sorry, I finished that sentence early.

The local anti-nuke brigade are hopping mad that Cumbria Tourism is being carefully neutral about the prospect of a managed nuclear facility in Cumbria. Sorry again; nuclear waste dump. Ironically, another group has been set up to try and overcome the resistance to the proposed Killington wind farm.

And finally, one of the UK's last independent record stores is finally closing down, citing competition from music downloads as the cause.

Here are the sketches. Below is the comments box. Vote now!

The blow over to my website and see if you picked the right cartoon.

Catching Up

2013-01-23T19:34:00.001Z

These are the cartoon sketches from last week's Westmorland Gazette newspaper cartoon. The stories were an interesting bunch:

An international cartoon festival is being stage in Kendal (see my blog about it here).

A couple were rescued and airlifted by helicopter to local hospital after falling down a railway embankment during an 'amorous encounter'.

More snow forecast to arrive at the weekend (it didn't).

The Lakes International Comic Art Festival

2013-01-17T00:00:00.000Z

I have some news for you. You may want to sit down for this:

Kendal is going to have a Comic Art Festival.

I’ll say that again in case you missed it. In fact, I’ll say it in bold with a bigger font and exclamation marks:

Kendal is going to have a Comics Art Festival!!!

The first Lakes International Comic Art Festival takes place on October 18-20, 2013 and will be centred on Kendal. The aim is to make the auld grey town an international comic book venue to rival the likes of Angoulême and Comiket.

Given that these two festivals receive 200,000 and half a million visitors respectively, this may seem a tall order. But everyone has to start somewhere and, judging from the launch at The Brewery last night, this one is off to a flying start.

The driving force behind it is Julie Tait, who also works with Lakes Alive. Festival founding patrons are ace comic artist Sean Phillips

and Bryan and Mary Talbot, whose graphic novel, Dotter of her Father’s Eyes, won the biography category in this year’s Costa Awards.

Comic books (or graphic novels if you live in Hampstead) are coming of age in the UK. The broadsheets have been telling us this every two years for the last decade, so it must be true. Across the Channel, bande dessinée has been a strong force on the French cultural scene for many decades, where one in three books sold is a comic book. No one looks down at a comic book fan, let alone someone who does squiggly drawings for a living.

Comic books today are more than Dan Dare or The Beano writ large. They can deal with any subject under the sun, up to and including current conflicts abroad. They are imaginative, enthralling, exciting and inspirational. So it’s surprising that the UK - the spiritual originator of cartoons and comic art with the likes of Hogarth and Rowlandson - has never had a comic book festival. Good grief, we’ve only had a cartoon museum for ten years and we invented the cartoon!

Julie and her team hope to set that straight. It sounds like the event is going to be awash with big names, from the UK and abroad, both in the graphic novel and cartoon fields. There are going to be family events, trading stalls, talks and drawing. Lots and lots of drawing.

As you can tell, I am in no small measure quite excited by this. So much so, I’m going to have to go and have a lie down.

To find out more, see today’s national media or zap across to their website at www.comicartfestival.com

You can also follow them on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest and if all that fails, ace comic book blogger John Freeman will have all the info at www.downthetubes.net.

And I’ll be posting regular updates here and on my Twitter feed. 'Natch.

Museum Piece

2013-01-10T06:00:00.000Z

Occasionally a story comes along which gets me cross.

Okay, it’s more than occasionally. But it’s not always in the pages of The Westmorland Gazette. When it is, my front page gives me the privelage of being able to let rip about it.

One such story appears this week. Honister Slate Mine (slate mine, notice - this is important) has, for some time, been campaigning to be allowed to instal a zip-wire attraction. Cue cries of outrage from Friends of the Lakes, Chums of the Fells and Dodgy Uncles of the Peaks. It would despoil an otherwise … um, already man-made landscape (see Slate Mine earlier).

The second application for the zip-wire has just been turned down, despite a lot of support - not least from mountaineer Chris Bonington. Sir Chris was also, until yesterday, secretary of Friends of the Lakes but was so annoyed at their opposition to the proposal that he resigned.

I hate the preserve-the-countryside-in-aspic tendencies of the English and regard with deep distrust any retreat into tradition or history to bolster an argument. So I was happy to have a go at the story and didn't feel any need to be impartial.

As it was a fair bet the story would be in the Gazette this week, a few people joined in on Twitter. The last of this sequence of ideas was contributed by photographer Steve Barber. I drew it as he told it, so didn’t really want to use it for that reason (I like to add something to the joke). The Jurassic Park joke was prompted by Julie Darroch, aka LakesPR who mentioned dinosaurs in a tweet. The rest are my own doing.

The editor’s decision took a while but, as always, is final (unless the lawyers object).

Which is your favourite?

Comment in the box below and then zip along to my website to see if you picked the editor’s favourite.

A Damp New Year

2013-01-03T06:00:00.000Z

Happy New Year to all my readers. I hope you have your wellington boots handy - it’s going to be a wet start.

2012 has gone down as the wettest year in Cumbria since records began in 1910. Given that the Lakes already has a reputation for rain (it’s how we keep the lakes topped up, you know), visitors decided they’d had enough and stayed away in droves over the Christmas period. The tourism industry wasn’t too happy about that.

This became the main story in this week’s Westmorland Gazette and, as it is becoming a novelty to tackle a page one story, this is the one I concentrated on for the cartoon.

Below are the four ideasI pitched to my editor. The final one of the four is my favourite. Sadly, this also proved to be controversial; the Gazette’s editorial team felt that flooded hotels were too recent a memory to be popular with our readers.

Now you know which one didn’t get in … so which would you have chosen for the front page?

Cast your vote in the comments box below, then paddle across to my website to see if you were right.

Santa's little helper

2012-12-19T21:27:00.002Z

Christmas is upon us and in news rooms up and down the country, the search is on for stories with festive cheer.

This week, The Westmorland Gazette presented me with the tale of a reindeer. One which had escaped from a local garden centre, where it was giving rides to gnomes (or something).

My first sketch (see below) caused consternation in the news room. The last time the Gazette hinted that Santa MIGHT NOT EXIST, it unleashed a flood of letters from angry readers, e.g.: “How dare you upset my little Timmy, who I had vowed to keep in ignorance of the truth until he was 37.”

Now, I'm all in favour of telling the nation’s young that their parents are peddling a big fat lie. It’s good preparation for when they find out there’s an even bigger whopper being put about.

However, I was overruled. * In any case, of course he exists - the U.S. Military tracks him every year via radar.

Elsewhere in the news, protestors are getting their veins in a knot about Cumbria being used as a dump for nuclear waste. Campaigners lit a candle on the stump of Brockhole’s ex-monkey puzzle tree for unspecified, possibly magical, reasons. (They don't seem to have noticed that we've been dumping nuclear waste in the area since the 1950s.)

And finally, someone put a cat in a wheelie bin. Possibly a copy-cat incident.

Here are my cartoon sketches. Which would you choose to grace the front page? Let me know in the comments box below. You can find out if you were right on Thursday by visiting my website.

* Wait till they see next week’s Gazette investigation: WHAT REALLY LURKS AT THE BOTTOM OF YOUR GARDEN: THE GREAT FAIRY MYTH!

Making Plans for Brockhole

2012-12-13T06:00:00.000Z

Brockhole is the Lake District National Park Authority visitor centre and is justly famous. It's a Victorian mansion which stands in Thomas Mawson-designed grounds on the shore of England's largest lake.

It's a lovely old building in a superb setting. I'm quite fond of it.

But over the years it has suffered at the hands of consultants, planners and a number of folk who wanted to improve it, maximise it's visitor potential or chop bits down. As the Park has gradually withdrawn from servicing visitors - closing down many of its tourist information centres, for example - Brockhole is looking increasingly out on a limb, exposed to the cruel ravages of the UK recession and political whim.

Now we have yet another Masterplan. Yes, they've been making plans for Brockhole so that it can boldly go into the 21st century. This was reported yesterday in the Cumbria media, including my own Westmorland Gazette. Not unnaturally, I wanted to tackle it in my front page cartoon.

You can see the results below. My first batch was rejected as a little too aggressive. I submitted a second selection and … we went for a cartoon about Crooklands village constantly losing its electricity supply, whilst the rest of Cumbria gets superfast broadband.

What do you think? Was the right choice? Comments welcome below.

(The musical links in this week's blog are entirely gratuitous. I needed cheering up.)

X-Tractor

2012-12-06T06:00:00.000Z

At this special time of year, what could be better than rushing into the countryside and throwing your clothes off for charity?

Well, any number of things. I can think of about a million. However, five female members of Cartmel Young Farmers Club decided to shed their kit for a charity calendar in aid of the Great North Air Ambulance, and St Mary’s Hospice, Ulverston.

The Westmorland Gazette describes this “X-Tractor” event as involving “five farming lovelies”, which made me think that somewhere out there might be “five farming horribles”. But that was a distraction from this week’s cartoon.

Here are the four ideas I submitted to my steamed editor for the front page cartoon. “But which,” I hear you ejaculate, “did he choose? And was it the one I would have chosen?”

Calm down, dear reader. Make your choice in the comments box below and then throw caution to the winds and head to my website to see if you were correct.

If you want to contribute to the charity, you can buy a calendar by calling 07791413163.

Leveson - the local view

2012-11-29T08:22:00.001Z

Today sees the publication of the Leveson report into press misbehaviour.

Fortunately, the Inquiry’s attention is directed at the national papers. In the regional press, naughty activities are much less prevalent.

At the Westmorland Gazette, our idea of a successful hacking operation is getting the editorial photocopier to work. Our biggest local celebrity is historian Roger Bingham and no one’s sure if he even has a mobile phone. And the only ones likely to be papped by our photographers are the sheep.

Stories here can be just as exciting but our methods for getting them are less questionable.

So what are the headlines this week which drew the attention of the Gazette’s cartoonist?

Anti-nuclear campaigners are encouraged/discouraged/livid/deranged (delete whichever apply) by a local council leader claiming that using Cumbria as a nuclear waste dump will damage it's brand image.

Floods have swept the area after a bit of rain.

And the council have given in to people who find it too difficult to type their car registration into the new parking machines.

Below are the ideas I submitted to my steamed editor. Which would you have chosen?

Vote in the comment box and then paddle over to my website to see if you were correct.

Not shaken but stirred

2012-11-26T13:01:00.003Z

And so to the Reebok Stadium in Bolton and the very swish De Veres White Hotel for the Boot Out Breast Cancer charity event. As I mentioned in my previous blog, this is a James Bond themed night and I'm on hand as the live cartoonist.

The event has booked two rooms - one with sponsors selling their services, the other for the ticket-paying attendees. This is the one with the bar, dance floor, roulette wheel and blackjack table. All very Bond.

The first customers start to arrive, some of the men in tux and bow tie, not so many of the women.

I cruise the room and develop a patter: "Pay attention, Bond, I'm not so much Q - more HB. My mission is to draw a cartoon of you and yours is to liquidate some funds for the charity …"

My first cartoon is of a tall guy who seems to be the centre of attention. That's because he's one of the sponsors - footballer and Sky Sport pundit, Ian Dowie. (I knew that, of course.)

I make an effort to spot the famous footballers. This is easier if you concentrate on the wives.

At this sort of gig, people want to be flattered, which is always a considerable strain for a cartoonist. I appear to be managing okay:

I tell these two guys to make it more Bond, less Brokeback Mountain. Their girlfriends find this funnier than they do.

As always, it's more fun cartooning people who don't know I'm drawing them …

Result of the evening? Money raised for charity. No one throws their drink over me. I get out alive.

Many thanks to Banu Adam and Dr Ahmed of DermaClinix for inviting me to take part.

Cartooning live for Boot Out Breast Cancer

2012-11-22T10:40:00.001Z

Here's the thing. I am a cartoonist, not a caricaturist. The two skills are similar but one can't necessarily do the job of the other.

I always take great care to explain this when anyone asks me to do caricatures at an event. I will be doing cartoons. The results may be unpredictable. They'll be fun … but not necessarily what the ~~victim~~ subject expects.

For example …

On Friday 23 November I will be doing a cartoon gig at a James Bond Charity Event in support of Boot Out Breast Cancer. It's taking place from 7.30 at the Lion of Vienna Suite, DeVere Whites, Bolton (click the link to see the venue - posh or what?). Click on the ticket image below for more details or follow the link here.

It should be a lot of fun. I have no idea if my impromptu models will like the results. Why not come along and find out?

If you can't make it, give @DermaClinixBond a follow on Twitter. If I find wi-fi (and no one objects to the nose I've just given them), I'll live tweet the cartoons via my own Twitter feed - @colinshelbourn

(Phew. Made it all the way through without a single shaken-not-stirred joke. Well done, me.)

Sketchbook - The Times Business Forum

2012-11-20T15:15:00.003Z

Earlier today I attended a business forum in the Coronation Hall, Ulverston, organised by the Ulverston Business Alliance.

Nothing unusual there, you may think. But this was a forum run by The Times newspaper. Yes, that Times - the one in London. Hurrah for a newspaper which admits that business life exists outside the M25 force field.

The panel consisted of business leaders, educators, a leadership expert (handy if aliens arrive and want taking to one) and the Barrow-in-Furness MP, John Woodcock.

It was an interesting session and all kudos to the organisers. But it lacked a couple of major points: No small business representation (by that I mean really small …) and no Q and A session at the end. Other than that - all good. I look forward to more of this sort of thing.

To show I was paying attention, here are a few quick sketches of the panel. (As usual, any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental.)

Al Mather, Centre for Leadership Performance

Greg Rooney, GlaxoSmithKline and SLDC councillor Peter Thornton

Wayne Singleton, Tronic-Siemens

Marjorie Pickthall, Furness College

Harry Knowles, Furness Enterprise

Alisdair Nimmo, The Times

(Panellists John Woodcock and Rob Johnston eluded the blue pencil on this occasion.)

Going for a spin

2012-11-15T06:00:00.000Z

Occasionally, when I enter the newsroom at The Westmorland Gazette, there is one story which everyone expects me to do.

Even before I’ve read the stories, a reporter will say, “Oh, are you going to do so-and-so. That would make a good cartoon.”

This naturally makes me suspicious that it involves sheep (perils of being a Lake District cartoonist) or toilets (perils of being a cartoonist).

But this week the reporter was right.

Earlier this week, a £220,000 limited-edition Lamborghini Murcielago was delivered to a local garage for an MOT. In order to test the brakes, one of the mechanics had to take it for a spin. Unfortunately he took this rather too literally, crashing into a Ford Focus and causing £20,000 worth of damage to the Lambo. The cost of damage to the Focus wasn’t given but assuming a write-off, I’m guessing about £47.15.

Only 4,000 Murcielagos have ever been made (possibly for reasons of taste), so the owner wasn’t too thrilled to find his 630bhp, 4-wheel drive Italian supercar looking significantly worse than when it went into the garage.

With ingredients such as these, this story will be all over the tabloids later this week so how could I not want to do cartoons about it?

Below are the contestants for this week’s front page. Declare your favourite in the comment box below and then roar over to my website to see if you were right. You could win a Lamborghini* (delivered in several instalments).

Click on the cartoon for a bigger, better, washes-whiter version.

* But not from this blog.

iPad Mini Sketchbook

2012-11-13T10:21:00.000Z

For this cartoonist, a trip to London involves two statutory pilgrimages.

The first is to the British Cartoon Museum. This splendid establishment is tucked away near the British Museum. It is funded entirely by private donation and its terrific exhibitions celebrate the best of the art form.

The second pilgrimage is to the Regent Street Apple Store to check out if the latest machines live up to the hype.

The iPad is intriguing, especially when you see what David Hockney has been doing with it.

The original Apple iPad is too large for me to use as an everyday electronic sketchbook. But the iPad Mini is just right.

The screen doesn’t appear substantially smaller or less sharp than its Retina-display big brother but the iPad Mini is notably lighter, neater and easier to hold. Just right for one-handed finger sketching.

I used the Paper app, because that’s what the Apple store has on the machines. I believe Hockney uses Brushes and I look forward to trying it out.

The Apple store has the machines set out to allow you to play. There is even a low table full of iPads for kids to use. There’s no sales pressure and you can explore for as long as you want.

I ended up with one of the Genius Bar staff watching me to see what the Mini and Paper app could do. (Note to Apple: I’m available for hire to give demonstrations.)

Street sketching (and in pubs and cafés) is an important part of what I do. I often research a drawing by sketching in the wild, then returning to my studio to scan and work up the drawing on my main computer.

The iPad Mini makes process faster, more immediate. And more fun.

The Paper App site is here.

The Brushes App is here.

You can see more of David Hockney's wonderful artwork here.

Veg out

2012-11-08T09:38:00.000Z

A horticultural theme for this week's Westmorland Gazette cartoon candidates.

Venerable organisation Cumbria In Bloom - which celebrates the best towns and villages in the area - is suffering a shortfall in its finances.

And Brockhole's famous, 110-year old monkey puzzle tree has finally been cut down, despite protests. The National Park Authority says it's been done in order to make the garden more in line with designer Thomas Mawson's original intentions. Complete with adventure playground.

None of which is as exciting as the US Presidential Election but that's the lot of the local cartoonist. Compensate by making Your Vote Count in the comments box below and say which cartoon you think should grace today's front page.

There are no exit polls, no unnecessary chads, no vote rigging … simply head straight to my website to see if you were right.

Going down a storm

2012-11-01T09:04:00.000Z

There are a number of standard reactions when I tell people I do the front page cartoon for The Westmorland Gazette. These include:

"Oh, which cartoon do you do?" (there is only one)

"You don't look like a cartoonist."

and

"What's The Westmorland Gazette?"

The question I like least is: "Do you ever have a week when you can't think of any jokes?"

This is because it guarantees that I'll have difficulty thinking of any jokes that week.

So there I was, lounging about in editorial, staring at the ceiling and pretending to work, when up came new journalist Hannah. "Do you ever have a week …?" And my mind immediately went blank.

To be fair (to me and Hannah) it was one of those weeks when no single story sprang out as an obvious candidate for the cartoon. My first sketch was a bad-taste warm up. The second was about Kendal's twin-town Rinteln celebrating 20 years of twinning with a groovy sign in the main street of Kendal. Then a rare Australian black swan has been seen um, swanning about the river. And finally, a local artist held an exhibition only to have it closed down immediately when the curators realised he was more BNP than RAA.

So here is this week'squiz. Which did the editor choose? Would you have chosen the same?

Answers on a postcard - or in the comments box below. The answer will be revealed on my website.