Welcome to my website
Please have a look around - the latest post from my blog is below and you can access older posts, links to my friends, buy some of my artwork or contact me by clicking on the links to the left.
I have chosen stuff for the portfolio on the basis of raising a smile or some sort of Proustian style nostalgia. I shall add to the collection after a second trawl through the archive. If there is anything that is unclear or puzzling , then please get in touch and I shall sort out the problem.
The comic strips from my previous website will be added soon. We are currently working on a format that will be easy for the viewer, rather than putting up what is ,in effect a printed page. Thanks for your patience on this.
I am also working on a couple of new ones which I want to put up in the Spring.
All the best and enjoy a browse.
Jan
08/02/2010
Of Captains and Kings etc..
I share your pain Tony, Tone, me ol’ mate an’mucker,
Tone.The Shame; a straight kinda guy likeyou hauled up to explain to a jumped-up bureaucrat
theinner rationale of the Worldstormer!I bet it wasn’tlike that at Fettes , or maybe it was; forced toexplain to your housemaster that it was the
dog that ate your homework. I bet you put up a magisterial, spirited
performance thenalso.A
pity that the other Weltsturmer , men
who toofelt the hand of History didn’t
have your problem, Alexander, ,Frederick the Great, Napoleon, Genghis Khan,
Tamerlane.Theywould
have put upan equally convincing show, but had no-one to whom to answer. No parliaments, just Destiny or God or in
Tone’s case a bit of both . Those who do
not feel the hand of History but the reassuring weight of a history book may
not be as easily swayed. Ultimatum given; ultimatum rejected.Hmmm...1914 springs to mind.When the Austrians gave the Serbs the
ultimatum after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand the Serbs accepted it save
for a couple of points aboutcontrol of
the police and foreign policy. But this was the point. The Austrians knew it
would be rejected and then this would be used as a cassus belli. ‘Well we were reasonable
but those ingrates the ....( fill in the gap here) refused or reasonable offers
and with a heavy heart and the hand ofHistory it’s “ cry havoc and let slip etc ., etc.”’ You all know the rest.I bet that if we all examine the ultimatums
that we have everissued ; tospoilt
brats, unfaithful lovers/spouses,
rebelliousworkcolleagues, wewant them to be rejected andunleash shock and awe.How bathetic to accept!The nature of the ultimatum consists in it
being givenafter the consequences have
already been decided.No one on the Chilcottboard has flagged this upto my knowledge., despite the presence of two
distinguished historians.Lots of
legalese though which will obscuremore
than it will reveal.
As for two mensitting on a sofa and planning an invasion, that’s been done before an’
all . Peter the Great of RussiaandAugustus II of Poland got togetherin theearly 1700in the course of a
gargantuan piss-up ( unminuted , of course) decided toknock Swedenout asBalticpower.Result?The Great Northern War (
which knocked Poland out as a Baltic
power). What a hangover, that was!Tchah!Menin pubs, eh?
There is much that dry bureaucrats can’t find in
documents.Never mind , Tone.Like the Great Captains before youcan do your lectures, write your memoirs and blame everybody else.No need for introspection. I’ll get round to
reading them eventually.
The cartoon below is based on ‘Napoleon on the Bellerophon’bySir William Quiller- Orchardson.I painted it at the time ofBanana Boy Milliband’s unequivocal( sic) pledges of support for Tone ‘s candidature for the Euro presidency ( for those of you who remember, tone was pipped to that post by a faceless bureaucrat...DOH!). I would put in Alistair Campbell now, emoting and blubbing like an American!But I think itcaptures the lonely tragedy of the Weltsturmer.LOL!!!!
