Snow and schools - photos from my travels

It's been a busy start to the year with Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, coupled with writing and previewing the Socks' new show Superheroes, and doing art jobs for the Chartered Insurance Institute and finishing off my Bible Society work. Busy busy. But never too busy to put on a good pose for my ID badge at a school.

When you're working on a show about Superheroes, you start seeing them everywhere. This mural was on a boarded up shop in Weston Super Mare.

The scalding cup. You could market this thing as guaranteed to scald. It was one of those schools who take Health and Safety precautions and really run with them. In this instance, and you get this in quite a few schools, they've fixated on the ban on taking hot drinks into classrooms. The argument, quite reasonably, is that kids might get burned by your cup of coffee (and the school will get sued, which is most likely the real cause for concern). Their solution, however, is anything but. Their solution is the scalding cup. I was brought a cup of tea in this lidded flask, which was very kind, and for which I'm very grateful. But I couldn't drink it.

As soon as I took a sip from the narrow lip at the top I had to spit it out as it was scalding. So I sealed it back up and left it. Whenever I returned to it, it was still undrinkably scalding hot. Of course it was - it's a vacuum flask! That drink will never get any cooler. Ergo it will never be drinkable. Double ergo, it is consequently scaldingly hotter and more damaging to any child than if I'd taken a normal self-cooling cup of tea into the classroom. A normal cup of tea, of course, would have been drunk in a couple of minutes, thus eradicating the danger to the kids, whereas this high-temperature time-bomb remained blisteringly deadly until the end of the lesson. I finally poured it into a cup in the staffroom, left it to cool a minute, and drank it. But really.

If you ever wanted a definition of Health And Safety done very badly, this is it.

I don't usually take photographs of my food, but I thought this was worth a snap. Bringing to mind John Finniemore's excellent song Put It On A Plate, we have my breakfast at Cheadle House Hotel brought to me in a jam jar. Very nice, sweetly stylish. In fact I liked the hotel so much I stayed there again a week later. But this second time I did without the breakfast. At £15 a pop, and with Heather joining me for the second visit, that's a bit steep for some beans in a jam jar.

Having done caricatures at a Holiday Inn in Wakefield, Hev and I stayed over in town and the following day were able to take in the Hepworth Gallery, which is one of the country's finest fine art galleries. This fun installation was by Anthony McCall and is the perfect thing for entertaining families and non-art-lovers, and attracting a wider audience to the gallery, without letting the side down. It's a smart conceptual and installation artist who can straddle the divide between challenging brain-doodles and theme park ride. If you haven't been to the Hepworth, you really should.

My travels included journeys around the country in the face of the Beast From The East, a day or two of cold weather which we'll be struggling to recall when it comes to Big Fat Quiz Of The Year time. It did, however, give the opportunity for some nifty pictures. This is the view from my hire car during my trip to Berwick On Tweed.

When you're writing a show about Superheroes, you start to see them everywhere. This was a shop window in Stratford On Avon (visited en route back from Leicester).

Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing for The Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who et al, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. View the promo video here. 

Comic Art Masterclasses open to the public:
March 17 - Prema Arts, Uley, Gloucs

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre are Superheroes at The Gilded Balloon at the Edinburgh Fringe from August 1st to 26th. 

Previews:
Mar 14 & 15 8pm Dram Glasgow 
Mar 29 - Bath Comedy Festival
May 26 3.45pm & May 27 5pm Komedia Brighton

June 16 - Zion, Bristol

July 13 - Neath
July 19 - Bedford Fringe

 - with more preview dates to be announced