I've been signed - this week in schools

Here's a first, my Comic Art Masterclass being signed for sign-language readers by Tracey at Medstead primary school in Hampshire. She admitted it was the fastest talking she'd ever had to interpret, and she managed it magnificently. It was great fun, for the kids and for me, to see how she handled some of the phrases that come up in the class. I don't think I'd realised how many mentions of bottoms and toilets there were, until I'd seen her signing such immortal phrases as "The Hulk on the toilet", "Bart Simpson scratching his bum" and "The Old Man Whose Trousers Fell Down" (when I realised she was translating everything, I chose particular titles from recent kids comics to read out, to hilarious effect).

This day in rural Medstead was part of a week of travels which saw me in Wincanton on Monday (there's the flipchart I produced, below), Worle Tuesday, Swindon Wednesday, then for Friday I zoomed to Medstead (2hrs 10mins) then to Maidstone (2hrs in Friday traffic) for the Socks to perform a cracking 90 minute show at the Hazlitt Theatre the same night. Following an overnight in Maidstone (I've got a four poster bed, yes be jealous), it's off to Bognor for the Socks to perform at the Comedy Festival in Butlins, then it's straight off to a hotel off the motorway near Northampton (2hrs 30) in order that I can get to Leeds for 9.30 Sunday morning to start caricaturing all day at a DC Thomson event (my second such event of the month).

That is one hell of a lot of miles and, given that I then have 5 days of schools lined up starting Monday, it would appear I've forgotten to have a weekend. Again. The things I do in the name of... whatever it is I do. (Is it comedy, is it education, is it paid self-flagellation, who can tell?). Onwards and upwards.

Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing Bananaman in The Beano, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. He's been writing and drawing comics for 25 years, he must know something.