March in the Socks calendar - Tracy Emin

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre's 2014 calendar is on the theme of modern art and March's page sees the boys taking on everyone's favourite YBA on whose merits no-one is divided, Tracey Emin.

The calendar is on sale through Lulu.com at a devilishly reasonable price and is a joy to see and a marvel to treasure.

To see all 12 entries, plus the front cover, click and look at the free preview of the calendar. And you can see 2012 and 2013's calendar (cult icons and sci-fi respectively) on the website.



The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre are on tour... NOW!
Mar 15 - Largs Barrfields Pavilion
Mar 20, 21 - Dram, Glasgow
Mar 22 - Spread Eagle, Croydon
Mar 29 - Kings Lynn Arts Centre
Apr 3 - Adam Smith Theatre Kirkcaldy
Apr 12 - Stroud Subscription Rooms
May 9 - Exeter Barnfield
May 14 - Camden Head, London
May 17 - Brighton Komedia
May 23 - Keighley Exchange
May 31 - Aylesbury Limelight
June 6 - Hazlitt Theatre, Maidstone
June 7 - Butlins, Bognor
June 11 - Camden Head, London 
June 19 - Phoenix Arts, Bordon Hants
June 20 - Derby Assembly Rooms
June 21 - Halifax Square Chapel
June 22 - Derby (family show) 
July 4 - Old Joint Stock Theatre, Birmingham
July 9 - Bedford Fringe 
July 11 - Beverley Puppet Festival 
July 13 - Sheffield New Barrack Tavern 2pm
July 17 - Larmer Tree Festival, Wilts
July 18 - Leeds Carriageworks
July 19 - Cradley Heath Comedy Festival
July 22 - Comedy Den Cardiff
July 23 - Taurus Manchester
July 30 - Aug 25 Gilded Balloon, 10.30pm - Edinburgh Fringe 2014

Credit where it's due - in this week's Beano

Well here's a welcome turnup for the books, credits in the Beano. Have I started something?

A marvellous thing to see, it was briefly tried under Alan Digby's editorship back when I was last a regular in The Beano, and now Craig Graham's doing the same, crediting writers and artists in a table up the front of the comic. Is it a coincidence that I start asking to get my name featured on my strips, or back in the day hiding it in the background of all my drawings, and widespread credits start appearing all over the shop? Well, whatever the inspiration for it, I'm delighted to see it. And fascinated to see that Mike Pearse, my role model when I started in The Beano, is writing the Bash Street Kids for David Sutherland to draw.

And talking of credits and collaboration, this week's Bananaman should by rights have borne another name, on top of my own and Wayne Thompson's, because this week's story came from an idea by Hev Tweed. It was she who googled Bananaman, found the characters Appleman and Kiwi Fruit Girl in his back catalogue of co-stars, and came up with the Banoffee Pie story idea. I then wrote the story which was nothing to shout about, but inspired me to write more. A three-parter featuring these characters in a bizarre love triangle should be appearing soon. (Hopefully the gentle tweaks to the dialogue that seem to be a feature of the sub-editing, as you can see below, won't leave any of its subtle nuances behind. We'll see.)

We Was Chased By The Moon - new comics by kids

A smashing brand new selection of comics by kids, from Hertfordshire and Weston Super Mare, two days apiece in each. As always the titles are the result of every member of the class writing a title on a piece of paper, then we vote one against the other in a big group knockout contest which gives us the best of 30 suggestions. Above you see what happens after 232 other equally good ideas have been eliminated. Kids are a creative bunch when they try.

The celebrities they ended up nominating for the 'treads on a worm' demonstration were Bear Grylls, Miley Cyrus, Will I Am, Simon Cowell, Johnny Depp, Harry Styles and Katy Perry.

If you want me to come to your school and work my Comic Art Masterclass magic, do please get in touch. And if you're voting in the Beano's poll for the favourite strip, the name you're looking for is Bananaman.



More comics from pupils in Chorley, Newcastle Under Lyme, Borehamwood and Henley, in Dartford and Henley, in Cardiff, Falkirk, Birmingham and rural Devon. You'll find many more if you scour this blog.

Photographing food & bins, living the dream

In a turnaround of the usual state of affairs whereby I'd be off galavanting with the Socks and the schools all over the country leaving Hev at home, this week I find myself with the flat to myself while Hev looks after her folks in North Wales for a short time. And while I busy myself writing Bananamans (yes that is the plural) and sending off Socks tour flyers, I've managed to distract myself with a couple of firsts.

I don't think I've ever photographed a plate of food before. Indeed the subject was in the news last week when a restaurateur forbade diners from photographing his dishes and I thought why would anyone even bother? Well, here's the reason. To show your other half what she's missing. I haven't got the hang of half portions yet, and so devoured salmon steaks and an omelette that would easily have fed two. And that's not all I've photographed for the first time.

I've definitely never photographed the contents of my bin before, but today was driven to it when the recycling lorry came and went, leaving our food recycling untouched. Why was that I wondered? Can you guess? I thought it might be something to do with the eggs (past useby date but uncracked). But no. The answer came from North Somerset Council via Facebook:

"They aren't allowed to bang the bins on the side of the vehicle to dislodge anything that's stuck in the bottom, as that often breaks the lid."

So, a trip to the tip in my soon to be stinky car beckons. The slight madness that being alone in the house  brings on, and which is quite different from being in strange hotels on my own, reminds me of this week's episode of Inside Number 9: Tom & Gerri. If you've not been watching this incredible TV series by Steve Pemberton & Reece Shearsmith then you must, it's the best new writing I've seen on TV this year. 

Just call me Jack Kerouac - writing on the road

Tinsel town in the rain, Glasgow yesterday

I feel like Kojak sitting in a cadillac, I wanna eat I wanna eat a flapjack, stack, rack, six pack Jack, just call me Jack Kerouac. And full marks to anyone who can identify that lyric, which comes to mind having returned from two days in Stirling and Glasgow, during which I got a surprising amount of work done.

I was up there for the Socks to play at the Macrobert theatre in Stirling, which they did to great acclaim. But the costs and timings of flights meant I had half a day in Glasgow & Stirling before going up for the gig, then a full day in Stirling & Glasgow before my 8.50pm flight back. Luckily for me, there was Beano writing to do.

On the morning of my setting off, I was asked by the Beano to write some Little Plum scripts, and I was already in the middle of writing a batch of Bananamans. And, working variously in my hotel room, on buses and trains, in the airport, and at a cracking cafe in Glasgow called South Block, I managed to write 5 Little Plum stories (Damon The Shaman, Totem Pole, Mind Reading, Summer Camp and Bare Grrls) and two Bananamans (Cafe Hero and Bell of Doom). The most productive time I think I have ever spent while travelling between gigs.

And if you want to get a feeling of the romantic atmosphere of the itinerant writer on the road, here is my hotel room (The Golden Lion, don't cha know, Robert Burns stayed there back in the day) yesterday:

"Arsom" - Bananaman Kong 2 in this week's Beano

The "arsom" quote came from one of the comments forms the kids filled out after my classes at libraries in Harpenden and Borehamwood this week. I am officially arsom, and the kids don't lie. I am also the most over-credited man in a comic this week. Look at this panel from this week's Bananaman: King Kong part 2:

Not only does Wayne Thompson leave his own name off the artwork, but he's snuck mine in there on the cover of a book, in much the way I do with my own strips, and then Craig the editor has put a full credit for me up in the title bar. As Alan Partridge might say "I am so big headed."

Not that I'm complaining. For the last few weeks my Comic Art Masterclasses have once again been peppered by kids bringing in their brand new Beanos to get signed. It is good to be able to suggest they pop out to the shop at lunchtime and they come back with my stuff, instead of having to seek out old Beano annuals (or, in a recent case, a copy of The Worm, a book I contributed to 20 years ago, and a Dr Strange comic from the mid 90s).

And today, to add to the fun I've been having doing Bananaman and Pansy Potter, I wrote my first Little Plums. My empire grows.

The Most Popular Comedian's name is..?

Reading the programme for the Leicester Comedy Festival, I started spotting clusters of names. Obviously, being a comedy festival, it is dominated by blokes doing stand up. But unlike, say, the Edinburgh Fringe programme, it's still manageable enough in size for one to pore over it and tot up the various names and how often they appear. It's also alphabeticised by first names which may well infuriate grammatical purists but is very helpful for this little game.

There are women in the Festival, of course, the most common female names being Holly, of which there are two, Burn and Walsh; and Harriet, of which there are also two, Dyer and Kemsley. Of the 498 acts in the programme, only 76 are female (or include a female member, eg Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain which has 2 girls & 6 boys but still counts). So yay Feminism, but some work still to do.

So here, apropos of nothing, are the Most Popular Comedians' Names, using Leicester's line-up as a representative sample (do please try guessing before you scroll down the list):

Bubbling under

With 4 apiece we have:
Andrew (Bird, O'Neill, Ryan & Stanley)
Ben (Briggs, Hustwayte, Norris & Van Der Velde)
Chris (Martin, Mayo, Ramsey & Stokes)
Joe (Bor, Lycett, Ross-Williams & Wells)
Sean (Hughes, McLoughlin, Morley & Turner)
and Simon (Donald, Evans, Feilder & Lilley)

Also on 4 is David, who would be higher up the chart if you count the 2 Daves and a Davey, which I don't. (Elms, Morgan, O'Doherty & Trent +, if you must, Griffiths, Johns & Connor)

Then in equal 5th place, with 5 comedians sharing the same first name we have:

James (Bannon, Campbell, Hately, Loveridge & Mullinger)
&
Mark (Cram, Olver, Restuccia, Simmons & Smith)

In equal 4th place, with 6 comics of a similar nomenclature, we find:

Matt (Dwyer, Forde, Hollins, Price, Reed & Rudge + one more spelled Mat, Ewins)
&
Rob (Beckett, Coleman, Deering, Gee, Halden & Rouse + one more if you count Robert Newman)

In 3rd place, with 7 comedians to its name, is:

John (Cooper, Cooper-Clarke, Gordillo, Hastings, Kearns, Lynn & Robins)

In 2nd place, with 8 comics of that ilk, we see:

Tom (Binns, Craine, Deacon, Rosenthal, Stade, Toal, Wrigglesworth & Young)

And at number one, the most popular name for comedians at this year's Leicester Comedy Festival, with an impressive 10 men bearing the same monicker, it's...

Paul  (Chowdry, Currie, F Taylor, Foot, Kerensa, McCaffrey, Revill, Ricketts, Savage & Tonkinson)

Does this tell us anything, other than that the names of my childhood seem to be having something of a revival (my 1st year high school class included 5 Pauls, so many in fact that two had to be moved to another tutor group because it was getting too confusing)? I don't know. But thanks for letting me waste your time.



Scottish Falsetto Socks Spring Tour 2014:
Feb 19 - Macrobert Arts Stirling
Feb 22 - Aberystwyth Arts Centre
Mar 15 - Largs Barrfields Pavilion
Mar 20, 21 - Dram, Glasgow
Mar 22 - Spread Eagle, Croydon
Mar 29 - Kings Lynn Arts Centre
Mar 31 - Bath Comedy Festival - Natural Theatre
Apr 3 - Adam Smith Theatre Kirkcaldy
Apr 12 - Stroud Subscription Rooms
May 9 - Exeter Barnfield
May 14 - Camden Head, London
May 17 - Brighton Komedia
May 23 - Keighley Exchange
May 31 - Aylesbury Limelight
June 6 - Hazlitt Theatre, Maidstone
June 7 - Butlins, Bognor
June 11 - Camden Head, London
June 19 - Phoenix Arts, Bordon Hants
June 20 - Derby Assembly Rooms
June 21 - Halifax Square Chapel
June 22 - Derby (family show)
July 9 - Bedford Fringe
July 13 - Sheffield New Barrack Tavern 2pm
July 17 - Larmer Tree Festival, Wilts
July 18 - Leeds Carriageworks
July 19 - Cradley Heath Comedy Festival
July 22 - Comedy Den Cardiff
More dates to be announced
August - Edinburgh Fringe 2014