Food group

Ferment

I illustrated 'Character Building' by Anna Rowena Bowers, for Ferment Zine issue four.

I really liked the poem from the off, a sweeping amorphous aubade to creation, cosmetics and town-planning, but I did have to read it about nine times before I could glean a cohesive meaning. I also had to look-up most of its constituent words including auriferous (got gold in it), megalopolis (big city), aubade (am version of serenade) and omphalos (still not really sure).

Ferment is  a creative writing / illustration zine printed in a limited run like a nice newspaper and done up with a ribbon like a present. It's a proper thing to enjoy and holding it open before you makes you feel like a dad at the breakfast table. I like it.

Thanks to Sarah for inviting me on board!

Sweet Preview: H & F

Here's a slice of Sweet View #11: Hammersmith & Fulham, still warm from the scanner.

On the All Night Diner

I gave a framed print of this drawing of the All Night Diner to mother for Christmas. It's what she asked for, for some reason.

The All Night Diner is a nocturnal greasy-spoon much loved by Brighton residents since it opened in 1975 by one man with a dream:

The Market Diner, as it is almost never known, is all things to all men (all night). It will welcome you into its sticky embrace whether you are looking for a greasy-spoon after-party or to curtail your evening out with the humble solace of ham, 2 eggs and chips (£4.90).

It is home to the legendary Gut Buster (£5.90). Truly: legendary. There's even a song about it. 'Theme from Gutbuster' by Bentley Rhythm Ace rocked the UK charts in May 2000 - just pipped to the top slot by Billie Piper's 'Day and Night' (and 27 other songs). To this day it is probably the best bit of breakfast-based music ever made bar the Coco Pops theme tune and 'Golden Brown' by The Stranglers, which is about toast.

The Gut Buster basically a normal Full English made worse with the addition of a burger and chips.

They have recently tried to extend their Buster brand with the Mega Buster, which is probably the same but with yet another complete meal added into the mix.

And that is everything I have to say about the All Night Diner. Good night!

Drive

A place in the wind

Back in October I was lucky enough to get an invitation to a Tuscan villa retreat. Fresconaccia they call it, which Google translates as "Fresh threat" but apparently means something more like "windy place". In fact it was neither threatening nor farty. It was just five days of tearing mozzarella balls in crisp autumn sunshine, like an ad from the Lucca tourist board but with more topless ping-pong and some shameful drunk freestyling.

Whilst there, I drew this:

So that was nice.

Pop strips

I made some comics about pop stars of the day.

Actually by all accounts they are nice young boys done good.

Azaelia Banks (who is rude) went to the same NY fame academy as Nicki Minaj. Everyone likes to play up their rivalry, or at least call Banks "the new Nicki" as there can only be one young sass-factory in hip hop at any given moment.

The Weeknd was one of the most buzz-worthy pop people of 2011 because in that one year he released a trio of highly acclaimed and much downloaded albums ... all for free. He also apparently hates the idea of touring so how he will monetize his mega-kudos without completely selling out has become one of the great mysteries of the modern age.
That said, it is a bit nuts how you sometimes hear of him spoken about as a lone wolf creator type when actually there is obviously a team behind him working on (and paying for) his websites and videos etc. so there's probably a business plan back there too, no doubt with a Nike megamix and a Mastercard ad in there along the way.

Jane Airs

Sweet View: Kensington & Chelsea + Tweet View

As announced last week on our mailing list and our brand new twitter account, we at Sweet View towers have launched our tenth print: Kensington and Chelsea. It's a sweeping panorama of Sloane Square, taking in all from the Royal Court right round to Peter Jones (the corner shop, not the dragon).

It was literally made in Chelsea, with me spending hours leaning against the window of Tiffany & Co. whilst I got the lines down (it took a couple of visits, this one).

The colours - especially the lilac tarmac - are my homage to David Hockney's Garrowby Hill.

Here's a bit more detail: the listed 'Venus Fountain' and an Ocado delivery truck peeking from behind a tree.

It looks great printed, and it's available to buy now from sweetview.co.uk

Tweet View
So yes, there is now a Sweet View twitter account - we are catching up with the world. Follow us! (23 people can't be wrong...) We put up sneak previews and details on our events, like the We Make London Christmas Fair at the Battersea Arts Centre on Saturday 10th December (as seen on the Guardian website).

The next print for Sweet View will be Hammersmith & Fulham. No doubt we'll be microblogging our progress on that one too, as if you don't have enough reason to jump on the @sweet_view_ bandwagon already.

One Green Bottle

Platform Bar | Great Little Place

Dom and I went to the Platform Bar at the top of Netil House, a big old office block that's now a, um, creative block: full of studios and spaces and lithe extras from Dalston Superstars. We were there on behalf of Great Little Place. Dom, who is my flatmate and a funny writer type, later wrote a "piece" about the bar for them. I drew a picture on the night to capture the "vibe" of the place in my sketchbook, just in case his photos didn't come out right.

His review is well worth a read, click here.

Here are the virgin lines:

And some more sketch book bits from the same night. This is live-looping ukelelist Milly Blue, who closed her set with a stirring acousto-rendition of Beyoncé's Sweet Dreams. It was just different enough from the original to lure the crowd into enjoying it before their anti-pop sensibilities could kick in.

Thanks to the GLP team for having us on board. Hopefully Dom and I will be joining forces for more review type things soon...

Clothes Horse (a poem)

Oh, the humble elegance of the clothes horse.
A collapsible monument.
A quotidian sculpture.
With fine skeleton and rounded shoulders,
like a boy.
And four feet in coloured rubber shoes,
like two boys,
holding steadfast against the dead weight
of wet fabric
so we don't have to.

Pop bitch

This is Char (in Pisa airport I believe) slagging off a young female pop star. For her most recent release, you see, the singer has eschewed her previous creative team and gone out alone to make something a lot more personal and - Char says - worse. I won't name them here though as that would be indelicate.

Oh, alright: it's Laura Marling.

Sweet Preview

Sweet View #10 will be the charming Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea. I finished the linework last weekend. Here's a little taste of it starring a couple of Kings Road mods.

(Sweet View is a series of limited edition London prints, for sale here.)

MoS: How Elvis Pringle Lost His Hairdo

The Ministry of Stories is "an organisation dedicated to the creation of stories by a new storytelling generation." They're pretty great.

I went along with Chisenhale Primary from Bow to illustrate their story of candy, crime and kidnap: How Elvis Pringle Lost His Hairdo. It was my first session at the Ministry (see shaky lines for evidence of nervousness) and it was a real privilege - fun too. You can read their collaborative opening below (feel free to finish it in you own time).


How Elvis Pringle Lost His Hairdo
Author: Chisenhale Primary School

Once upon a time, there was a marshmallow called Mrs. Marshmallow Woman and she lived in the Bermuda Triangle.

She was at the Elvis Pringle concert. Elvis Pringle was giving out Original Pringles when a deep-sea diver took Elvis Pringle hostage.

He took him to a large bag of Walkers’ crisps. The diver was Bob, the normal person. Elvis Pringle was very posh: he lived in a nine-bedroom semi-detached tube. He said to the Walkers’ crisps, “You lot are weirdos. You live in a bag.”

An hour later, Marshmallow Woman came bursting through the packet.

Bob the normal person bought the pack of crisps and ate all of the crisps. “What are a Pringle and a marshmallow doing here?” he said – and he chucked them out onto the floor. But were they all alone?…

So that was nice.