Russell Brand and me

I doff my cap to you Sir, when I first started testing the pop up initiative all those years ago , as a means of having a platform to be able to ask people what they thought about the invasion of iraq and ideally sell a couple of pictures whilst doing it .... who would have thought that 15 years down the line , the middle east would still be on fire, we have gone from tony blair to gordon brown to may to cameron to whatever his name is bollock .... bollock johnson is that it ? facebook has become the mainstay for social interactions these days , well maybe i am old fashioned with that assumption , maybe its instagram or tik tok or youtube or whatever the hell the latest en vogue load of rubbish is that want you to sign up and add more and more of your dedicated online tie to the sole use of thier platform , just nonsense !! utter bloody nonsense !! we have had numerous wars, terror attacks, credit crunches, recessions and depressions .... the rise and fall of big brother ( on the t.v ) and maybe real life to - gone from cultural phenomenon to cultural phenomenon ,brexit , international pandemics and now even a possible world war three ... when I first started doing this stuff, way back down there on that isolated little spit of land on the south west coast line ... people just used to think I was strange , and I suppose in sme degree we all are a little strange .... but when we initially occupied iraq and I as a retaliation decided to get toether a few stout mwn and sieze control of a small off shore island and declare it a soverein nation ... people thought me quite odd, " whats this long haired mal content going on about , recessions for? whats all this noise hes makng about iraq ? why does he think there is a problem with holiday homes or chain stores squeezing out local independent ventures ? " think way back then , before social media had taken us all for fools ! and the bbc taking us for even bigger fools sp when little voices started coming out of the youtube ether , Chunky Mark Mcgowan aka the artist taxi driver , jonathon pie and james o brien ... then what was it about 2015 if I recall , old Russell Brand started doing his trews project , and it was fascinating ... I rememebr saying to my wife at the time ,have you seen any of the stuff that Russell Brand is saying lately , and we both remarked that it was extraordinary ! I will admit that the body of work that the man concerned himself with prior to these latest works were by my assessment trivial and frivolous and nothing more , but suddenly the guys was taking in a way that was realatable , and even more remarkable was rather parallell to these idle notions that had already become quite burdensome to me so awesome stuff man , I cannot support your efforts in these recent years as more valuable , of course feeling like a veteran on the cusp of burnout after all these years grinding what I assumed for so long was a solo position .... I am wondering of I should do youtube videos and t shirts too

A mid life crisis in a societal collapse ....

well what can i say , turning 40 years old during a pandemic as the world goes to pieces on the eve of a third world war ....a self apponited set of ' delegates ' earning handsome returns as the majority of the population goes without , its reminiscent of several periods in history that as testanent would dictate havent gone well ...... so, in light of many factors , most of all and above all else i think i am a bit if a hopeless romantic really , i just adore having a female presence around and after around 18 months as single now i figured , give online dating another shot ,you see i find you lady women are to me the finest and most confounding of all the universes mysteries, and as i turn 40 i am of course inclined to reflect back on some of the amazing creatures that i have shared my little journey with so far , and oh my goodness i have been exceptionally lucky ,even more so when I consider how many of them remain in contact and on good terms , of course it seems that can't always be the case ,and in the few cases that there are , it does pain me for the former lovers that preferred to revert to strangers rather than friends , in my mind ... if i have loved you ,then ill always love you ,i don't have a means to extinguish a sense of care for a person for whom i have cared deeply . I just dont understand the concept that you hear a lot these days " i wouldnt piss in my ex if they were in fire " ....who the hell walks around with that much malice in their heart ... well anyway , the point for this little post and accompanying cartoon is because i was recently afforded the opportunity to go out on a date with a girl 20 yeaes younger than me , i knew when we started chatting that this girl had the potential to turn my whole life inside out in a very short order .... i spent a few days practicing the mantra ' you might be having a mid Life crisis ' but hell what sort of fool would turn down such an opportunity .... so we go out and this beautiful nervous little thing is of course the most captivating creature i have seen in a long while , we discuss her reflections about her consideration of ' daddy issues ' and i reflect back on my midlife crisis justification for even considering this as a dynamic .... and we set a second date... now of course this is folly... thankfully the young lady in question saw reason and decided that it wasnt to be ....but i didnt , i wouldnt have not until it was far too late , it's a funny thing despite being familiar with many female companions over the years ...i am still a sucker for that little spark of chaos, far to old and worn out to entertain it these days of course ,but in days gone by, in bustling a bar room dynamic , i recall the chemistry that used to be apparent...you would talk to one girl , maybe dance with another .. all good fun but every now and again , you meet eyes with someone that has that air of mischief , that little spark of chaos , a vibe , an aura ... an energy ....an uspoken language tells you that you are excited about each other ....from across the room , this is something that just cant be emuated online , regarless of how immersive the meta verse would like to pretend to be these days with all the online chat its even stranger and upon reflection with my much younger companion the other evening ....across the twenty years that separated us , we both concluded that it's depressing ..... but there is a broader observation worth making here , several in fact , which I am still reflecting on and may well come back to re address at a later stage