Quick one I did on holiday, scribble in fine line. Did a few digital touch ups afterwards and the background was from a foggy walk along the canal. That day was about 6 months ago and was seriously weird, the foggiest day I have ever seen, litterally 100 meter visibility over the whole of Warwick and it was really eerie being along the canal.

Which leads me onto some artwork I spotted in the Times art supplement last week, a new exhibition by Australian artist Ron Mueck. It was really nice to see an exhibition showing amazing technical skills.

Muecks work consists of fibreglass people or body part sculptures recreated in extraordinary detail but with a difference, they are all at the wrong scale. I must admit some of his subjects I find slightly squeamish, the newborn baby is actually quite frightening but the level of skill in creating these is just fantastic and it was one of the first time for years I’d looked at some artwork and just though “wow that’s amazing”.

What really annoys me though is that so called art critics have not exactly been kind to his work saying that it is just a display of technical skill rather than art. What sort of critique is that, surely if an artist shows some skill rather than random squiggles or “ideas art” l it can still be art ?

If you want to see more go and look at the washington posts pages for a previous exhibition.

Quick set of robot illustraions done on holiday, amazingly I managed a page of sketches everyday for 10 days.

Anyway the next pub strangeness was in Buncrana. I walked into the pub at lunchtime and there was only 1 customer at the bar. The customer in question seemed quite friendly and asked where I was from which I replied Warwick. At this point I noticed that the custoemr in question was missing about 5 bottom teeth and rather disturbingly his tongue kept flicking out rather like a snake tasting air.

The barman then popped in and I said “pint of cider please”. At this point I realised that the customer was actually rather nuts as he then proceeded to tell me the price of cider at the other 10 local bars, I replied “er thanks.. thats handy to know”.

I retreated to the corner and then overheard him saying to the barman “can I have another, I think this is my 4th now”, I was thinking 4 pints before 1pm, that explains the conversation, only he wasn’t drinking beer, he was on orange squash, I stayed there for an hour and he had another 3 pints, what was most impressive is that he didn’t go to the loo once and secondly he always had at least 1.5 pints on the go at any one time.

luckily though they didn’t serve scones at this pub.

Wahey I sent some images off to Prickie to open a shop before I was away and got an email to say I have my very own badge shop !

So Irish pubs, yes they are great, in fact bloody brilliant, each one was an adventure. My first pub story is from Ramsays Bar, quitely drinkling my Guiness at the bar (which incidentally was the most creamy yummy stuff).

One of the locals orders 2 pints and a scone, which I was thinking that’s a bit odd. Crisps, nuts or maybe scratchings are a good beer related snack but a scone, that was just plain weird. Anyway after about 5 minutes the scone orderer had got through about half a Guiness and no scone had even been touched. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw him pick up the scone like a cricket ball and attempt to hit his mate who was about 5 foot away.

Just as he let go his mate reached down for his pint and the scone missed. At that very same moment one of the waitresses from the restaurant next door just happened to pop her head through the hatch and it hit her right in the mouth exploding over her face.

The bloke who through it kind of went to hide and the next thing I saw was him being frog marched out of the pub by the rather large looking barman.

That, surprisingly is the first time I have seen someone thrown out of a pub for a scone related incident.