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
12/07/2010
How Very Bazaar.
Bon Jovi,
That crazy, sexy humanitarian and art-lover Napoleon Bonaparte ( who incidentally trails Napoleon Solo in the Napoleonic Cool stakes) once said of the Little Britayners that they are a 'nation of shopkeepers' or 'un naseeon des schoppekipeurs'. This was meant to be an insult and in reply the Brits went off and hacked out the greatest empire ever; much bigger than any Johnny Francay could dream of. But I digress again, what was a put- down is quite a roundabout compliment . If anyone is a nation of shopkeepers, it's Polayne. My own block has its little bazaar: a township of little shacks ,sheds and pavilions selling all you need to live : excellent charcuterie, tasty bread and cakes ( jagodzianki especially , the little blackberry pastries) , fresh fruit and veg straight from the tree and field, and if you want , straight from from a cow. The produce is irregular, unwashed and delicious. The strawberry and cherry season is in full swing and you can buy a basket of a couple of kilos for a quid. Polayners from the sticks park up, open the boot and commence trading. There's not a plastic wrapper or sell-by date in sight. You buy daily and fresh, usually returning from work. Thus, the weekly shopping chore , at least in my part of town turns into a continual buying and consumption that is woven into your daily habits, therefore your daily culture. You don't need to worry that you may run low, as there's always a little kiosk nearby. I can't get used to it yet , accustomed as I am to the weekly shop. Perhaps the supermarket and the weekly shop has done more to kill off the culture of good food and family dining than we know or care. I love these little markets though, and it must be an EU commissioner's nightmare. Ha ha , ha haaaaaaaaah. Great! Napoleon must be spinning in his mausoleum, ( okay,okay, so they use his metric system) . Varsovia is like that , a big sophisticated capital with loads of Ronnie Barker style ' open- all- hours' ( most hours) shops. You need to know your way around as there are no big names nearby an it's all within walking distance so , people walk. The corner shop butchers and bakers disappeared from the baroque avenues and rococo squares of my old home town, the ancient royal city of Boltoon a long time back, never ever to return, ever,ever,ever: the law of totally forseen consequences of the bleedin' obvious operated brilliantly in this case. I hope that it doesn't happen here , but I am not so sure. The supermarkets and hypermarkets have sunk their teeth into the country and lifestyles are changing like in the West of Europe. Once we had Catherine the Great, Fredrick the Great and Joseph the ( all crazy , sexy humanitarians and art –lovers) now it' Real , Carrefour and Tesco. We could be digging our own graves with a smile. Worse, dig one :get one free.