June has been a slow month which feels like it has nothing to show for it. It seems odd to say that after over three months of lockdown, but having written, drawn and published a complete graphic novel - of which I'm really proud (Prince Of Denmark Street) - between the middle of March and the start of June, I can really look back at those first two and half months and know what I did.
But, having finished the art for PODS on June 1st (my whole worksheet is here) there was then all the bitty stuff to do, which isn't so creative and feels less substantial. I launched the Kickstarter, compiled the pages into a book, printed a Blurb version, made amends based on how that looked, and waited till the Kickstarter finished (£2024 pledged, let's see how much comes in after some people have backed out, and Paypal and Kickstarter have taken their wedge) before completing the Thanks page and getting it off to the printer. A lot of little stuff, and a fair bit of waiting, coupled with lots of tweeting, emailing, and otherwise spreading the word, which has paid off but, you know, doesn't leave you with tangible stuff where you can say "look what I achieved today".
Of course I also started writing a third book, on June 5th in fact, but doing that at the same time as all the above has meant I'm taking it slower. Nearly a month later, I've only just laid out all 120 text pages ready to start the pencil rough scribbles. (PODS took 14 days to write, 4 to lay out; FM took 9 days to write, 8 to lay out; MNDT has taken 14 days to write, 6 days to lay out. Oh, it just seems slower than the other books, in fact it isn't).
Doing the first Zoom class was a boost, and gave me the hope that my teaching work could be revived. So a lot of emailing of schools and teaching contacts took up a couple of days. Since when I've learned that, not only is end of term just ahead for everyone, but that some school authorities aren't allowed to use Zoom, and some that do classes (with Microsoft Teams, which I can get) aren't allowed to see the kids. Which would make my class a little unworkable. "Hold your work up to the screen. Okay, now describe it."
June has been the month where financial reality has bitten, lockdown wise. March through May really were the honeymoon period where, not only did I have the boost of not having to put thousands of pounds into my usual planned Edinburgh show, but I also had my income coming in for all the work I'd done up to the middle of March. That always takes two months to come in, so I didn't even have any dip in income till the end of May. But now I, and all freelancers obviously, have to start finding sources of income, or things will get progressively worse. I'm working on it. But comic art classes will only build slowly, and even then probably not till the Autumn term.
And the books, though I'm proud of them, are not turning much of a profit yet. The Kickstarter for PODS covers the cost of printing, and mailing out to supporters, but that's about it. I emailed every comic shop and independent bookshop in the country (another couple of those days in June that didn't show much for the time spent) and got about half a dozen copies ordered. Until face to face events resume, which were my big plan for promoting Findlay Macbeth, I'm going to be sitting on boxes of books for the foreseeable.
The lockdown has loosened considerably. So, though we are still enjoying our Clevedon walks, and in these three months have seen more of the back streets and surrounding countryside of our fair town than we'd seen in the preceding 30 years, we've been able to go further afield. We now wear face masks, but not constantly, and in Clevedon are about the only person we've seen wearing them. They're more prevalent in Bristol, but far from universal.
Quoting Cumming Rules, we drove through Bristol for the first time in 12 weeks on May 31st, having not dared to even leave Clevedon other than to shop at M&S Food Hall in all that time. Since then I've had my car serviced, an event that had been postponed since the end of March, and we've walked round most of our old stomping grounds in Bristol. Though most shops have still to open, and the museums and galleries aren't back yet, and one still feels the need to avoid narrow alleys and places where you can't keep six feet from strangers. Normal service has definitely not yet been resumed.
July will, by the look of it, be spent writing the new book. This time with the increased nagging feeling of not earning any money ever present in the background. Let's see how we get on. In the meantime, here are my nuggets of wisdom from Facebook.
June 17 - Coronavirus hasn't gone away, why are people acting like it has? - The Guardian
Tell us about it. We're currently fuming cos our upstairs neighbours and their kids have returned, arms full of party balloons, from their third stay away at one or other of their parents houses, over 100 miles away.
Am I wrong or aren't you supposed to treat a house divided into flats as if it was one house? It's back to fumigating the door handles, avoiding them in the hallway, and posting passive-aggressive posts like this! 🙂
June 18 - Logan Run Video
Interesting this video should pop up when I was thinking about Logan's Run and how this is actually the world Covid 19 could give us.
A disease that kills old folk but leaves kids, teenagers and twenty somethings unharmed? I see a near future where it's me and Jenny Agutter on the run, again.
June 19 - Drive In Movies announced
"Your only technical requirements will be: a convertible car, the sun to have gone down by 7 o'clock like it does in the States (not nearer 10pm like it does here), and for it not to piss down all summer."
June 20 - Slade As Girls
I think I may have broken Face App. Recalling my childhood when, watching Top Of The Pops, the cry would go up from Mum and Dad: "Is that a boy or a girl?"
Turns out Face App thinks female Noddy would have sideburns, and female Don would look like, well, this.
So, is taking the disease seriously a phobia, or irrational fear, now? Would The Sun prefer we learned to ignore it, or embrace it (like you do with other phobias, say spiders or heights)?
I mean, I don't mind them using Sun readers as the petri dish for this experiment, rather than me. But it does seem a bit brazen doesn't it?
June 23 - Lockdown restrictions will allow theatres "but not live performances". Why?
If you're worried about comedians projecting particles, why not put us behind a screen? Hint hint, this comedy act performs behind sheets of tartan material and wears hand coverings throughout!
Announcing my new ventriloquist act, safe to perform under the latest lockdown restrictions. #TakingBookingsNow
June 24 - You can call Bingo, but not tell jokes
Looking forward to a lot of Bingo Shakespeare soon. “On their own-a, the Two Gentlemen of Verona”
June 25 - Maxine Peake Interview in the Independent
Oh gawd, it doesn't take long to fall down a rabbit hole, does it? I was looking at the "Starmer sacks Long-Bailey" story, and seeing he'd done it cos she retweeted an interview with Maxine Peake which mentioned in passing a suggestion that US Police had been trained in techniques, including the knee-on-neck hold, by Israel's defence service. A suggestion which, it was said, was an anti-semitic conspiracy theory. So why would Maxine have said it? I googled.
In the rabbit hole of research the big thing to double check is the sources, so I automatically dismiss obviously biased websites (eg, I dismissed TRT because it's a Turkish national paper). That left me with Amnesty International, The Washington Post, and The Times Of Israel, all with articles from the last month about how the choke hold used on George Floyd was one of many techniques taught on exchange programmes and training seminars between US police forces and Israel's defence forces.
I have no doubt dozens of police forces have been trained in dozens of other nasty things by organisations in dozens of other countries. Surely stating that, if it is indeed a fact, isn't an act of discrimination against either of the countries involved, or the ethnicity of their population, is it? I hope I'm not going to be accused of anti-semitism am I? If it's any consolation, I would have fired Long Bailey cos her mouth's too small.
(The articles are in the comments, so I'm not blatantly re-posting stories whose veracity I still haven't established).
UPDATE: I've had very good points made to me, on and off thread, about the 'dog whistle' messages, bringing Israel into Black Lives Matter in a way that reinforces antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories. I confess I too was deaf to the dog whistles and, looking at the Maxine Peake interview, saw nothing untoward. I now see how it can look different from a different standpoint, and that a lot of people from parts of the Labour Party have history on this.
June 26 - We have a new winner in US states doing worst against Covid: Arizona, whose infections have tripled in the last fortnight.
Talking of changing the subject, guess which President chose which US State to hold a rally in this week?
June 27 - "Shut up and play Ja Ja Ding Dong!" (We enjoyed the Eurovision film)
June 27 - With Graham Linehan, did Twitter just try turning him off and on again? #glinner
So who else now has a Guilty Pleasures pile of TV and music that they, secretly, still enjoy, despite the guys who made it? I can't bring myself to hate Father Ted & The IT Crowd, and recently enjoyed a rewatching of Black Books.
I still like, or at least get a nostalgic twinge from, music like Rock & Roll Part 2 and Everyone's Gone To The Moon. There must be people who have the same conflict with music by R Kelly. And, as far as I can see, nobody's stopped playing Michael Jackson. Dammit, I even have fond childhood memories of the Jim'll Fix It theme. And I still use Gill Sans.
Anyone else got proper guilt Guilty Pleasures like these? (Or am I just the worst person left on the planet and should cancel myself?)
June 27 - Legendary designer Milton Glaser's died, aged 91. He designed the I♥NY logo, as well as one of the best DC comics logos. And he made this film, Mickey Mouse in Vietnam.
Milton was one of the beneficiaries of a fashion among Jewish American parents in the early 20th century to name their kids after poets and authors. Hence a cluster of 90 year olds with names like Milton, Melville, Shelley and Byron. Not interesting but true.
Just watched Billie Eilish at Glastonbury. How 2020 was this stage gear?
June 28 - I've finally finished that gig in a library I started months ago. What idiot taught me I had to read the room?
I wrote something earlier and now I can't see it for duck feathers. I doubled down on it.
June 29 - Hotel rooms in Edinburgh this August for £30 a night? I can see an impromptu Fringe happening (unless Covid-free Scotland closes the border to the bubbling cauldron of poison that is England, in which case: still missing you Edinburgh!)
June 29 - I don't get this fad for watching every episode of Friends but only the scenes with Chandler in. Oh, you said Binge watching?
June 29 - Can anyone verify a story that I heard at the time but now can't find evidence of? After Bowie had played his Glastonbury set, he stayed at a nearby hotel. When he left the next day, reception found he'd left his credit card behind.
They phoned the bank and were instructed to destroy the credit card and they'd issue the client a new one. So the staff at a hotel near Glastonbury duly cut David Bowie's credit card in half with scissors. Just as David returned, having realised he'd forgotten it.
Anyone got a written record of that story?
For anyone who doesn't appreciate how stupid The Leicester Lockdown coinciding with Pub-Opening Weekend is - look at that map!
On Saturday, the government has now guaranteed that Covid will be spread to the seven - yes SEVEN - counties that border Leicestershire. Forcing every pub-goer, and shopper, to the adjacent county (and show me another county with that many adjacent counties) must be a deliberate move, no-one could be that stupid.
Come on, it's one of the counties Cummings drove through on his way to Durham and back. He must have noticed!
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