i've been so lost in my own head for a few days that i seem to have missed all the world's important news.
Word in this morning's tv news: that really was fecal matter in the ice cream. We'll have to wait for the DNA tests to find out whether it was 'bullshit, monkeyshit or the well known human variety', to quote Henry Miller.
My pal White alerted me to that one. he tells me they went to the trouble of freezing the poo before burying it in the ice cream 'It was a proper job' he says.
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meanwhile:
"So for a "scandal" of such alleged magnitude, it's been a slow burn. The Radio 2 broadcast in which Brand and Wossy insulted that popular old trouper, Andrew Sachs – since playing Manuel in Fawlty Towers the 78-year-old actor has basked in beatified status – went out on October 18. It took a week to go viral, a Jurassic unit of time by modern media standards - when any mega-scandal less dramatic than murdering a baby on Blue Peter ("here's one I chopped up earlier") has usually come and gone in 48 hours. Yet here it is, on all our front pages today. Even Piers Morgan, a journalist synonymous with moronic behaviour for many of us, has joined the pompous chorus of outrage in the Daily Mail, widely echoed elsewhere..."

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And in the land of the loonies, where if a kid is given a comic book with willies in it there will be a public outrage, an eight year old kid gets to a have go in a shooting range with an uzi and accidentally kills himself:
"Why is an 8-year old child allowed into a gun show in the first place? Why is a little boy encouraged and allowed to test-shoot an Uzi sub-machine gun, or any gun for that matter? Shouldn't there be an age requirement to get into a place that is full of loaded guns? Though I don't presume to question the right of qualified adults to own a gun..."

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On more pleasant matters: while perusing Paul Gravett's site: "Ability to draw is not a requirement at Arvon, and, as graphic novelist Ben Katchor has found teaching at Parsons in New York, it may even be a hindrance. Katchor finds that his "writing students have the hand of a child coupled with the mind of an adult. With no facile conventions to fall back on, everything they draw must be invented. Many art students are trapped by their drawing habits and have to overcome an entire psychopathology of commercial art techniques and style to find their autographic voice."

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I've just noticed wee hayley campbell's been writing the blog for Gosh's comic store in London for the last month: "A big thank you to everyone who came along to the Jill Thompson signing on Saturday! A lovely time was had by all and Jill signed for well over the two hours, providing amazing and beautiful sketches for all in attendance while they told her all about sherbet lemons, Yorkshire pudding, and the Lewes bonfire night. Or maybe that was just me."

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thought for the day: "Do you want to trace your family tree? Run for office."- Patricia H. Vance.