Radio Cartoonist

Cat

2012-01-26T07:00:00.000Z

It’s a spooky week in this week’s sizzling, soaraway Westmorland Gazette.

The demolition of a house in Kendal was interrupted when a builder spotted a face at one of the windows. A picture was taken and examined. It was the image of a previous owner, long since dead. The builders had spotted a ghost! (The fact that said building was being demolished to make way for a commercial property which might benefit from a bit of free publicity in no way diminishes the paranormal nature of this claim.)

Elsewhere, two ladies out jogging (or women out jogging, I’m never sure which word I’m supposed to use to avoid getting into trouble) on Scout Scar one evening (I hope you haven’t lost the thread of this sentence) spotted two eyes glowing in the dark. They turned their head torches on it and yes! - It was the fabled Big Cat. It swished it’s tail at them and, rather than investigate further, they ran away.

Now, this Big Cat has been lurking round South Lakeland for a while now. Either some farmer is keeping very quiet about his insurance claims for missing sheep or a supermarket is doing a roaring trade in Whiskas. I am roundly sceptical and really should go on a diet, but until I see this Big Cat for myself, in daylight, standing next to a rules, I will remain sceptical.

However, ghosts and Giant Moggies do enliven newspaper cartoon day, so I’m always grateful when they appear. Next week I want goblins (although not these goblins) In the meantime, below are the sketches I sent to my esteemed editor. You’ll be able to see which one made the front page by tuning into my website on Friday morning.

“These stories about a mystery giant cat are a gross exaggeration.”

“I’d say that’s incontrovertible evidence there’s a Big Cat round here.”

“At least they haven’t found out about the Yeti’s holiday home in Ambleside.”

“I’m the Gazette’s new spooky sightings reporter.”

Big

2012-01-23T08:21:00.002Z

There were a variety of cartoon candidates amongst this week’s Westmorland Gazette stories. Two in particular exerted a strange, cartoony pull.

In the first, it has been announced that the law has been modified, allowing personal locator beacons (PLBs) to be carried by walkers. Previously restricted for use by those at sea or in the air, this opens up exciting possibilities. Chief amongst them is yet more call outs for Mountain Rescue Teams who have to go recover hapless dolts who have set out into the mountains in shorts and flipflops but who bought a PLB as the latest must-have gadget touted by the outdoor magazines. They already think a battery-operated GPS and mobile phone is a valid substitute for a map and a brain, so I can’t see PLBs improving the situation.

The second story is about a family. No ordinary family but one which is about to appear in a TV documentary. Even that is ordinary these days but this family is appearing in a documentary about big families; they have 15 children. Clearly someone gave them a book entitled the Birds and the Swarm at an early stage in their marriage. Laudably, they are taking part in the documentary to correct the standard Daily Mail impression that all large families are on welfare benefits.

During the course of the afternoon’s cartooning, I sketched away at ideas but always had one particular drawing in the back of my mind. Unfortunately I didn’t have a caption for it. A few generous souls on Twitter offered to crowd source a caption, which was noble but impractical; it would have meant revealing the story on Twitter where it could be snatched away by the Gazette’s perfidious rivals.

I left the drawing until last and, as is often the case, the act of drawing it caused a caption to happen. You can see all the sketches below and click here to discover which one won the prized position on the front page of the Gazette.

“Being the youngest of 15 means all the hand-me-downs have disintegrated by the time I get them.”

“It’s disgraceful, the way these TV companies sponge off large families.”

“It’s a personal locator beacon, so my wife can find me in the supermarket.”

“Mountain rescue? Can you send someone to find my personal locator beacon?”

“We liked the idea of David Cameron’s Big Society so much we decided to start our own.”

Clocking on

2012-01-12T16:02:00.001Z

After last week's rather heavy Westmorland Gazette front page, it was a relief to turn to something lighter this week. 6,000 new homes are to be built in the South Lakes area.

Anything involving building work in a national park is guaranteed to have people hopping about in indignation.The requirement for more homes, doubly so (especially as there is a large pool of predominantly unoccupied second homes in the region).

In other news:

Tourism chiefs (as opposed to tourism squaws) want the clocks to go forward to allow people to enjoy more daylight hours in the Lake District (i.e. spend more).

A burglar broke into a house, made some toast and fell asleep on the sofa, where the police found him the following morning (a classic case of story-funnier-than-any-cartoon)

And there's a campaign to remove A-boards from the street as they are a hazard to pedestrians.

View the sketches , pick the one you think should be on the front page and then stroll over to my website to see if the editor agreed …

“Will you stop going on about the economic benefits of moving the clocks forward.”

“I’m all for it as long as they don’t build any near my holiday home.”

“Fortunately we found out about the 6000 new houses just in time and bought a 2^nd home in France instead.”

Hold the front page

2012-01-12T11:30:00.000Z

For an unfortunate few in the Lake District, 2012 started in the worst possible way.

Over the Christmas holidays, two students got caught out on England’s highest mountain in blizzard conditions. Scafell Pike is not an easy climb on the best of days. This was the worst of days and only one of the nineteen year-old climbers got down alive. On New Year’s Day, a 41-year old woman died whilst canoeing on Hobdale Beck, near Sedbergh.

From the point of view of the regional press, these are major stories and quite rightly featured on the front page of The Westmorland Gazette. A heavy diet of news for the start of the year and one which presents a problem when your job is to come up with a joke to lighten the page.

On occasions like this, I have to resort to stories from inside the paper. There were a few good candidates; the weather, the sighting of another Big Cat and a man who had panned Scottish rivers to glean enough gold to make a ring for his fiancé.

I get three hours to work on the cartoon, from first sight of the stories to submitting finished artwork. On the way, I show the editor sketches of my ideas and he selects the one to go on the front page. Last week he went for number 4, below. I drew it up and sent it off, just inside the three hours.

Then Phil the Sub spotted that the cartoon didn't sit well alongside the canoe story.

It’s a fine line but whereas I feel humour has no boundaries if handled correctly, I don’t propose to upset the recently bereaved.

So… hold the front page! I swiftly drew, scanned and emailed a second piece of artwork and it was on the page by 5.15.

You can see the sketches, false starts and finished cartoon below and the colour version is on my website.

"Unfortunately I only found this old tyre."

"That Big Cat must be wild - no sensible domestic cat would be out in this weather."

"As the garden is a sea of mud, we thought we'd capitalise on it."

"My fiance´made me a ring made of material he found in a river."

"My fiancé made me a ring from stuff he found in a river."

"The mystery Big Cat must be wild - no sane domestic cat would be out in this."

An Englishman's Home is His Ashtray

2011-12-29T16:27:00.002Z

The seven days between Christmas and New Year is always tricky for a weekly newspaper. Reporters are on holiday, everyone’s had too much sherry and no one is out there creating news.

This also presents a problem for the front page cartoon. There’s usually a broad sweep of smaller stories, with nothing specific to focus on.

It started out like that this week. A story about Britain’s Got Talent star Steve Hall giving up the day job, another about a hospital radio station trying to beat Chris Moyle’s 52 hour continuos broadcast … And then, just as I was losing the will to draw, gold dust.

A pro-smoking campaigner has decided to open a smoking shop.

This is not your usual tobacconists (do those still exist?) but one selling pro-smoking t-shirts. Sales of these will, apparently, raise funds so that he can lobby parliament to overthrow the ban on smoking in public places. According to the campaigner, “Smoking is one of the last remaining pleasures for the working man … “

Possibly the working man should get out more.

As smoking is one of the topics which brings out the Jeremy Clarkson in me, I enjoyed working on this one. In fact, only the looming presence of my deadline prevented me from pitching more ideas than the seven shown below.

To see which the editor voted for, rush out and buy The Westmorland Gazette, or blow across to my website.

"Must be the comedian I get whenever I ring up to complain about my broadband."

"That must be for the number of sexist remarks made in a 2-hour broadcast."

"That must be the new pro-smoking shop."

"It's from the pro-smoking shop - now I can smoke in public places."

"I work in the new pro-smoking shop. Ironically I have to come outside to smoke."

"That should make the auld grey town a little greyer."

Sleighed

2011-12-29T15:48:00.002Z

Christmas comes but once a year and so does the seasonal opportunity for a colour cartoon on the front page of The Westmorland Gazette.

It’s become a tradition and it’s always easier to achieve when there are some seasonal stories to match. This year we managed ghosts and parking.

Levens Hall has a ghost, along with many other historic houses. This one is the spirit of a spurned traveller who issued a curse, claiming a male heir would only be born when the River Leven freezes over. (Hence the third cartoon - yes, technically inaccurate but you get the idea).

The festive parking story was South Lakeland’s bright idea to make residents pay for residential parking permits. You’d think they could generate enough income from their enterprising new drugs farm in the public loos.

Here are the sketches I pitched to the editor. A scruffy bunch but drawn in 2B pencil with little eye for style; some of us have a dealine, you know. The final artwork was a composite in order to arrange all the elements into the 2cms square space I get these days. Just for a change, I’ve shown a couple of the sketches for the final artwork, along with the finished cartoon, as it appears in the Gazette. It also features over on my website.

“Ignore him, it’s just another tax reminder from the Inland Revenue.”

“Oh no, it’s the ghost of Christmas Future!”

“It’s freezing out. Do you fancy an early night?”

“Have you got a £25 resident’s permit for that?”

A couple of early sketches for the final artwork:

Going to Pot

2011-12-16T11:34:00.000Z

Drug farm in car park toilets!

Not a headline one usually encounters in The Westmorland Gazette but this week we went all urban and edgy.

New Road in Kendal is an area of some controversy, having been used as a parking place alongside the river for many years. Apparently this isn’t strictly legal and the council would like to landscape it and make it nice. (I’m not sure where all the cars would go, somewhere not nice I assume.) It also has a quiet, unassuming toilet block which, in line with general South Lakeland District Council policy, is permanently closed.

But some enterprising scamps have been putting it to use by wiring up heaters to the light fittings and planting £500 worth of cannabis in the ladies’ loo. If harvested, the cannabis would have had a street value of £10,000. Perhaps not quite what our beloved PM has in mind in calling for a more entrepreneurial Britain.

I only get three hours to do the cartoon, otherwise this story could have generated dozens of ideas. Here is the half-dozen I fired at the editor. You can see which landed on the front page by visiting my website.

Bothered and beleaguered

2011-11-24T12:25:00.001Z

Last week, the Westmorland Gazette's front page lead was an exciting story about a Morecambe Bay NHS Trust whistleblower who was calling for the head of the Trust to resign.

It is not the sort of story to go away and in the intervening week the colostomy bags have really hit the fan.

The NHS Trust executive in question has refused to resign. A local GP claims that staff are too frightened to speak out. And local MP, Tim Farron, has been swamped with similar complaints about the Trust.

As Private Eye has extensively reported, whistleblowers are not exactly flavour of the month at the NHS. There has even a website set up especially to preserve their anonymity when disclosing information to the press. And given that the local whistleblower in question has identified a specific individual, it’s a fun-packed legal minefield for a newspaper cartoonist.

However, not one to be daunted, here are the sketches I pitched for this week’s front page cartoon.

Number 4, you’ll notice, isn’t about the NHS; a twinning scheme has been set up to highlight the lack of public toilets in third world areas like Grasmere and Bowness. This was offered as a backup in case the other three attracted too many legal problems.

You can see which cartoon made the front page by buying the Gazette or visiting my website after 3pm today.

A Matter of Trust

2011-11-17T07:36:00.000Z

Last week I remarked that my newspaper sometimes presents me with a range of stories competing for the front page cartoon. At other times, it’s got to be the front page lead.

This week’s Westmorland Gazette has a splendid lead story: A consultant who works for the Morecambe Bay Hospitals Trust has condemned the Trust’s governing body, saying that none of the staff have any confidence in them. The Trust is more interested in ticking boxes and hitting government-set targets than actually looking after patients.

Damning stuff, made all the more exciting by the fact that the consultant wants to remain anonymous - NHS Trusts don’t have a good record for their treatment of whistle-blowers.

Usually I get three hours to work on the cartoon, from initially reading the stories to finished artwork, scanned and emailed to the sub-editors in Blackburn. Yesterday that was down to two hours - the story was still being written and - I imagine - was being slowed down by having to be run past the Newsquest lawyers.

Below you can see the four ideas I pitched to the editor. The chosen cartoon is, even now, on the front of The Westmorland Gazette … or pop over to my website on Friday, where you will be able to see it in colour.

Overground, underground …

2011-11-10T13:23:00.000Z

Ideally a blog about a newspaper cartoon would focus on the headline story from the front page. It would explain carefully the essence of the story and then offer a dazzling array of sketches, all taking a different line of attack to arrive at the final, finished cartoon.

And then there’s the real world …

This week’s Westmorland Gazette front page features two stories which aren’t suitable for a cartoon. Within the paper there are several stories which offer potential. Here’s a swift rundown, so you have some idea of what I’m burbling about this week:

1. A new indoor climbing wall opens, the tallest in Britain.

2. A cave system has been opened up which links Cumbria, Lancashire and Yorkshire (potholers and troglodytes rejoice).

3. Cumbria Crystal has some of its products featured on hit ITV drama series Downton Abbey.

4. The rout is announced for the 2012 Olympic Torch. It involves a lake cruise on Windermere.

Suitably armed with this information, I now invite you to peruse the five sketches. Feel free to declare which one you think should have been on the front page. You can see if you’re correct by buying the paper or visiting my website from Friday morning.

Round the Houses

2011-11-03T09:58:00.003Z

Several houses and two stories vied to be the subject of this week’s Westmorland Gazette front page cartoon.

The first involved a tree house. A resident of Hincaster has built a splendid tree house, much enjoyed by local children. It’s in his own garden, no trees were harmed and no one objected. Until, that is, the South Lakeland District Council spotted it.

They despatched their Arboreal Recreation Surveillance Executive (ARSE) to sneak into the garden, take pictures and issue the owners with a Take It Down At Once notice. Good heavens, we can’t have children playing safely in their garden; they should be out in the street where they belong, indulging in wholesome activities like rioting and looting.

The second house story is just as depressing. Fifty years ago Kendal had 347 public houses, along with 72 inns, 49 houses of ill-repute and 19 mint cake factories (editor’s note: figures obtained from the internet so they’re bound to be right). Today the number of pubs has dwindled dramatically and more pubs look set to close. Publicans blame high rents, competition and having to buy beer from their brewery at inflated prices.

Below you can see the four ideas I pitched to the editor. As usual, these are delivered in scruffy sketch form. The chosen cartoon is a thing of artistic beauty and you can see it on the front page of today’s Gazette. Alternatively, sashay over to my website on Friday morning and it will dazzle you in colour.

How to drive traffic to your blog

2011-11-01T14:05:00.000Z

Grit, Crabs & Blobs

2011-10-27T10:27:00.001+01:00

This week’s newspaper stories consisted of grit, crabs and blobs - with an added dash of Vikings.

Grit first. Having been marooned in the frozen wastes two winters ago, Troutbeck residents have got together and bought their own gritting machine. It seems everyone is anticipating a harsh winter. Good topic, but I pitched a grit cartoon last week and didn’t have anything new to say. Moving on …

Another Viking horde of gold and precious stones has been found locally by a metal detector enthusiast. (Aside: There must be a better word for them than metal detectorists, which is becoming prevalent. Detectoraks?). Again, I’ve tackled a similar story not so long ago, so only had one idea to pitch for this.

An alien crab has been found in the Duddon Estuary. The Chinese Mitten Crab is apparently a menace and highly invasive. Keep a look out in case you see one scuttling down a river near you.

And finally … the blobs. Walkers in Patterdale spotted these glutinous invaders, took some pics, wrote a blob blog and the story went global. The UK tabloids speculated that it might be an alien life form, brought here by meteorites (this is because UK tabloids assume their readers have the intellectual capacity of a fern). After testing, the blobs turned out to contain stag semen. So either the aliens are humping the local wildlife or the explanation is more prosiac.

Below you can see the ideas I pitched to my esteemed editor. Only one made it to the front page. I think you can all guess which one didn’t. To see which did, rush out and buy a copy of The Westmorland Gazette or visit my website from Friday morning.

Socks & the Countryside

2011-10-21T12:11:00.001+01:00

The Lake District is an upmarket, aspirational landscape.

We know this because the advertising tells us so. The first time I encountered the phrase, it was used in Creative Review magazine about a Land Rover advert, being shot at Tarn Hows. Prior to that, I hadn’t considered Tarn Hows to be upmarket or aspirational. Or Land Rovers, come to that. Clearly, I was deluded.

The latest advertising campaign to be shot in the Lakes is for Sock Shop, purveyors of woollen footwear at railway stations. Again, I didn’t know socks were upmarket and aspirational but I suppose it depends who is wearing them. And where.

This was one of the stories to greet the cartoonist’s eye at The Westmorland Gazette this week. The other which leapt out was a tale of grit. Specifically, the lack of it last winter and the Council’s attempts to stockpile it for this. Apparently, it’s going to be a harsh, upmarket, aspirational winter in the Lakes this year.

The sketches for these two stories are below. I presented them to my upmarket, aspirational editor and you can see which one he chose on the front of this week’s newspaper. Or you you can view it in colour to my upmarket, inspirational website.

Lines from the Liars' League

2011-10-17T15:23:00.001+01:00

The Society of Authors held its Authors North autumn meeting in Manchester over the weekend and it proved to be one of the most exhilarating and inspiration events we’ve run.

Authors North head honcho, Clare Dudman, has given a splendid write up on her blog. As she explained, Saturday was rounded off with something rather unusual; an evening with the Liars’ League. This group of professional actors perform short stories by writers from around the world. It’s a unique opportunity to hear how your work will play in front of a live audience. As they say on their website: Writers write, actors read, audience listens, everybody wins.

Imagine the scene: A crowded upstairs room in a characterful Manchester pub, an actor takes the stage. The audience is held spellbound …

And for a cartoonist, a spellbound audience means one thing - an ideal opportunity for some unobtrusive sketching …

To see what the Liars' League are up to next, click here.

To see what everyone said about the weekend on Twitter, search for #authorsnorth or follow:

Liars' League

Society of Authors

Clare Dudman

The Millionaire's Pudding Club

2011-10-13T14:39:00.002+01:00

This week's Westmorland Gazette newspaper cartoon is all about a pudding.

Not any old pudding. Not even a Queen of Puddings. It is a £22,000 Emperor's New Clothes of a pudding.

No, I didn't fall asleep with my nose on the zero key. It costs £22,000.

It's ~~a cynical marketing exercise~~ exclusive dessert whipped up by the chef of the Lindeth Howe Hotel, which is in Windermere, famous for it's deranged, millionaire holiday trade. Styled like a Faberge Egg (i.e. disgusting) it is apparently the world's most expensive pudding. Ingredients include edible gold, champaign caviar and a two-carat diamond. I'm not sure if the £22,000 includes the dentist bill when you crunch on the diamond.

Below you can see my thoughts on the pudding, in the form of sketches submitted for the front page cartoon. To see the one picked, rush out and buy a copy of the Gazette or visit my website from Friday morning.

The Illustrated Finale pt 2

2011-10-12T15:47:00.002+01:00

From 6.00 p.m. BST today I'll be illustrating the winning lines in The Society of Authors Twitter short story Grand Finale.

Neil Gaiman's opening line will be posted at 6 p.m. BST. Using the #soatale search tag, you can tweet a suggested next line until 6.30 (you can have as many goes as you like). I'll illustrate the opening line on this blog and it will appear shortly after 6.30.

At 7.00 the winning line goes up and again, when entries close at 7.30, I'll post an illustration. The final line goes live at 10.00l. Good luck and I hope I illustrate one of YOUR lines!

You can see the results from this morning's Twitterthon here.

Neil Gaiman's FIRST LINE : "Quick," he said. "Drink." The nightmare tasted like velvet and purple and volcanoes in her mouth. She sipped, and reality dissolved. #SoAtale

LINE 2 FROM @valmote : He repeated the ritual again until all 7 were under. No one putting up a fight. He wasn't surprised. This is what they paid him for.

LINE 3 FROM @Gem_Clair : Pocketing their cash, he took his real pay before they woke; a memory, a fear, a touch of desire from the girl. He drank them in. #SoAtale

LINE 4 FROM @doug_said : Suddenly the remembrance of a long-forgotten flavor touched his soul. Pained, he looked at her more closely. #soatale

FINAL LINE FROM @janjonesauthor : #SoAtale She didn't move. An Adept of the Nine Realms didn't have to. She opened her terrible mind and drank him in. And she laughed.

The Illustrated Finale

2011-10-11T11:56:00.002+01:00

From 11 a.m. BST on today I'll be illustrating the winning lines in The Society of Authors Twitter short story Grand Finale.

Neil Gaiman's opening line will be posted at 11 a.m. BST. Using the #soatale search tag, you can tweet the next line until 11.30. Whilst the judges are judging, I'll illustrate the opening line here.

At 12.00 the winning line goes up and again, when entries close at 12.30, I'll post an illustration. The final line goes live at 3.00 so there are 5 lines and 5 illustrations in all. Good luck and I hope I illustrate one of YOUR lines!

The FIRST LINE: I didn't expect the God of Thunder to live in Clapham. I definitely didn't expect to learn it from a card in a newsagent's window. #SoAtale

2nd LINE by Naomi_Adams: He opened the door unshaved wearing one sock, and a pair of pants as silent lightning streaked across the blackened sky. #soatale

'3rd LINE by @Laura_E_James : Flu,' he mumbled. 'Bad head. Shh.' I walked in and waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. 'There.' He pointed. I looked. #soatale

4th LINE by @will_lefleming :Strewn across the floor: leather breastplates and swords. A pair of wings hanging by the stairs. 'You know what to do,' he said #soatale

5th & LAST LINE by @stroodlights : He told me of the curse,but who cares about that when you're the new Thunder God? I soared, and filled the sky with fire and music. #soatale

GRAND FINALE PART 2 - Join the Society of Authors again at 6pm tonight for the start of the SECOND short story by Neil Gaiman. And I'll be back here doing cartoons of the winning lines.

Short Story, Big Campaign

2011-10-11T11:43:00.000+01:00

Last week authors from all over the world collaborated on a short story with Joanne Harris. The week before, they worked on one by Simon Brett. And before that, Sarah Waters and Ian Rankin. Why have these world-renowned writers sought co-authors?

It’s the Society of Authors Twitterthon.

The BBC have decided to cut back on the number of short stories broadcast on Radio 4, in order to make room for news. They will drop from five a week to one. More news is obviously just what we need, rather than diversity, an opportunity to stretch our imaginations or, perish the thought, a chance to relax.

The cutback reduces even further the number of outlets for an endangered art form. The Radio 4 spot exposes short stories to the maximum possible audience. And it exposes the Radio 4 audience to a wide range of viewpoints, voices and imagination.

There is a vigorous campaign to oppose the cuts and at the forefront of the protest is The Society of Authors. As part of the campaign, for the past five weeks the SoA has been running a weekly Twitterthon.

Each Wednesday morning, at 11 a.m. BST, the SoA posts an opening line written by a famous writer. Twitternautes have 30 minutes to compose the next line. A jury of wise authors then picks the winning line. At 12 noon, that line goes up and the story continues.

There are five lines in all so each story is succinct, punchy and can shoot off in any direction. Last week’s certainly did. The bedroom clown scene was all my fault.

Entries are coming in from all over the globe. UK and French media outlets have written about the Tweetathon and Stephen Fry is tweeting about it to his 6 billion followers. And from 19th October the winning entries will be read out by actors Brenda Blethyn, Bill Nighy, Maureen Lipman and Hugh Bonneville.

The campaign is already having results with BBC Radio 4 executing a partial u-turn, by doubling the proposed number of weekly short stories from one to …um… two.

It all ends tomorrow with a grand finale. The guest writer will be offering two opening lines - at 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. (North American writers and those who sleep in, please note).

And the writer will be … TADAA! … Neil Gaiman. Expect the unexpected.

On a personal note, I've always had an ambition to illustrate a Neil Gaiman story so I’ll be blogging a cartoon for each winning line as it is posted on Twitter.

To join in and collaborate with Neil, follow The Society of Authors on Twitter and use/include the #soatale tag in your tweets.

And when you’ve done, go sign the petition and fight the cuts.

To read more about the grand finale, go here

To read the stories so far, see here

BBC Goes Radio Gaga

2011-10-07T11:51:00.000+01:00

Yesterday the BBC announced it’s cuts to slash 20 percent it’s operating costs. The cuts cover a wide range of broadcasting and a lot of staff are going to suffer. The Beeb has a lot of waste, so doubtless some cuts were necessary. But one of the more indefensible was the decision to eviscerate BBC local radio .

As part of the cuts, my local station, BBC Radio Cumbria will now have local content only at peak hours, relying on relaying Radio 4 during the evening. I am not sure how much this will save but I doubt it will be much, in the general scheme of cutbacks. Even across all the local radio stations, it probably will only just equal the salaries of a couple of big name stars on BBC1.

To the local community, however, the cut is going to have much more impact. The whole reason for the existence of local radio (apart from the BBC planting it’s foot somewhere before commercial radio got a toehold) is the local community. It supports the station, listens to it, gets breaking news from it and interacts with it. During the 2001 foot and mouth crisis, Radio Cumbria was breaking news of national interest, scooping bigger stations and giving a ground-eye view on how the outbreak was effecting people who live and work in the area. It was local radio at its best and Radio Cumbria deservedly got an award for it.

The decision to cut back the station has left me feeling a bit cross. You may be able to tell. I'm not the only one. Our redoubtable local MP has waded in with his support and there are campaigns on Facebook and Twitter.

The Beeb will have spent nearly £1b relocating staff and production facilities from London to Manchester in a bid to be less London-centric and support the regions. Then it saves £5.3m by cutting local radio programming to rebroadcast Radio 4 from London. Brilliant.

According to the Telegraph, the BBC has 382 staff earning more than £100,000 a year. 100 of its senior staff get a salary totalling more than £20m a year.

So perhaps the BBC should preserve BBC local radio's distinctive voice and look elsewhere for its cutbacks. Here are a few suggestions. I'm sure you can think of more

1. Fiona Bruce is nice to look at but, frankly, so is the virtual assistant on my online insurance site and I'm sure she could read out the news just as well.

2. Andrew Marr is reputed to earn £600,000 a year. Perhaps it would be cheaper to get someone less well-known to do one weekly radio show, a Sunday TV programme and annoy viewers by getting in the way of the scenery on an occasional documentary series.

3. Switch off Radio 1 between midnight and 6 a.m., when most of its listeners are out clubbing or looting anyway.

4. Stop making pointless and expensive adverts for BBC programmes which we were either going to watch or avoid anyway. A list onscreen would do.

5. Sack the person who thinks it is a good idea to talk all over the end credits of TV programmes.

6. The BBC director general’s salary could go back down to what it was when Greg Dyke was an arguably more popular and adept DG. That £400,000 would be very welcome in local radio.

7. Switch off daytime TV. Students should be out doing part-time jobs to pay back their student loans.

8. Do we really need 24 hour news on television? Really? Can't the less attractive newsreaders get jobs doing something else?

9. There are fast food outlets everywhere. Do we really need 478,000 cookery programmes a week?

10. Downsize the department which thinks up BBC job titles like Head of Brand Guardianship, Content Manager (Culture), Controller of Multi-Platform and Portfolio (£177,000 annual salary), Solutions Architect, Change Management Leader and Director of Audiences.

Home and Away

2011-09-28T21:46:00.000+01:00

There were three stories for the cartoon in this week’s Westmorland Gazette. One of them was the lead - that’s always an attraction - although it was a subject I had tackled before and that’s usually a put-off. But this time it was a subject close to my heart, which I have railed against so many times, the Gazette banned me from tackling it for a while … holiday homes.

Or more precisely, the need to build new homes for locals. The two are the same. Despite what holiday home owners will tell you, the blight of second homes in the Lake District is resulting in closed schools, reduced facilities and fewer young people able to afford homes in the communities in which they grew up.

The Lake District National Park Authority has identified potential sites for 900 new homes in the area. Understandably, a lot of locals are opposed to all this building - the more so because so many houses remain empty for so much of the year.

Grr.

Anyway, I had four goes at the subject and sent them off to the editor. Esteemed editor came back and pointed out that they weren’t particularly funny, would I try again?

Grr squared.

I fired off a 5^th. Then a 6^th. And I’d actually got a 7^th ready but by then I was seriously pushing the deadline and it was never sent. Fortunately, one of the cartoons had already been deemed suitable. Time to move onto the final artwork.

Which you can see on my website or in the newspaper from Thursday. Meanwhile, I leave you with the preliminary sketches …

Wild Things

2011-09-21T20:38:00.000+01:00

Cumbria is full of strange and exotic creatures.

Red deer, ospreys, char, golden eagles, Bownessie, ostritches, tigers, giraffes, even the occasional cartoonist. Many of these exotic animals (not the cartoonist) live at South Lakes Wild Animal Park, which has plans to expand to include even more exotic animls (still no cartoonists).

Local councillors have other ideas, however, and there is something of a stand-off occurring at present. Two sides to a conflict, each with a voluble spokesperson - an ideal lead for any newspaper.

The other story which whiffled past the cartoonist this week, is one which is bound to create controversy. Emma Thompson, actress and daughter of the narrator of Magic Roundabout, is writing a sequel to Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit, set in Scotland.

I had a few ideas what this might be like, most of which were judged unsuitable for a family newspaper. Fortunately we’re made of more robust stuff here, so you can see the ideas sketched out below. To discover which cartoon is on the front of this week’s Westmorland Gazette, buy the paper or waft over to my website from Thursday morning. In case you were hoping, it isn’t number one …

Winds of change

2011-09-15T09:44:00.000+01:00

The cold winds of change are tugging at political skirts around Cumbria at the moment.

The Parliamentary Commission on Boundary Changes, Gerrymandering and Fiddling Round the Edges has recommended that Cumbria’s political boundaries be randomly hacked about in order to generate correspondence and boost sales of local newspapers.

And I think it may work. Residents of Hawkshead and Windermere, for instance, who have hitherto been content to share their MP with the fine folk of Kendal will be more than a little dischuffed to discover they’ve got to share one with the lower class oiks from St Bees and the west coast. They’ll be reaching for the headed notepaper in droves. But they’ll be out of luck. Droves is now lumped in with Carlisle and Penrith.

As it is a cartoonist’s task to get outraged before the readers, the target for this week’s newspaper cartoon was clear.

But lo, there was a second story worthy of attention. Kendal is suffering declining air quality. For once, this was not caused by the thick fumes which belch forth from the dozens of mint cake factories on the outskirts of town. It is caused by traffic. And probably traffic at a standstill; in addition to high concentrations of nitrogen and carbon monoxide particles, tears of frustration were found in the dense smog.

Here are the four ideas I submitted to my editor this week. As usual, you can find out which was the lucky winner of the Caribean cruise by shimmying over to my website.

A Pressing Concern

2011-09-08T07:44:00.000+01:00

We’ve all done it.

We’ve picked up the remote control, fiddled around and pressed the wrong button.

Before we know it, the video has turned off halfway through a recording, the neighbour’s garage door has opened or we’ve launched a major air-sea search-and-rescue incident.

This is exactly what happened to a gentleman on Ullswater last week. He was on his boat, demonstrating his radio to his grandchildren. Unfortunately he pressed the Mayday button and sent a signal to Liverpool coast guards.

They in turn triggered rescue boats from Ullswater Outward Bound Centre, a nine man team from Patterdale Mountain Rescue and crews aboard the Ullswater Steamers.

The man was eventually found, three hours later, at a local marina, blissfully unaware of the havoc he’d caused and, probably by this stage, introducing his grandkids to the delights of Werther’s Originals.

The leader of the Mountain Rescue Team commented, with commendable restraint: “I wouldn’t implore his intention of checking his equipment although I would query how well he actually did it.”

This, clearly, is ideal stuff for a newspaper cartoon. Below you can see the pencil sketches submitted to the editor. It’s really one idea plus four variations; it sort of grew on me.

To see which one adorns the front of Thursday’s Westmorland Gazette, rush over to my website urgently!

Street Cred

2011-08-31T19:02:00.000+01:00

An interesting mix of stories for the cartoon in this week’s Westmorland Gazette.

And regular blog readers may have spotted that I’m not enamoured of interesting mixes. If the cartoonist’s eye roves over too many stories, it usually means there isn’t enough in one of them to work up a good head of cartoon steam. (Unlike last week’s smoking story, for instance.)

However, I settled on two this week and pitched ideas for them. The first was a report about a Passion Play coming to Kendal next Easter. Not sure why I used capitals there but apparently a Passion Play is a Thing and not just a random play with a religious theme. Frankly I would (and will) rather go and see Mintfest, which strikes me as more diverse and interesting. Besides, it’s always disappointing if someone has already given away how the play ends.

The other story concerned Grange-over-Sands venerable Lido. This was built in the 1930s and has had mixed fortunes over the decades. It currently sits empty whilst developers circle overhead. In a bid to thwart their plans, someone has set up a Facebook page of objectors and is trying to get the Lido listed by English Heritage.

Below you can see my three plus one cartoons on these subjects. To see which graces the front page of tomorrow’s newspaper, stroll casually over to my website on Thursday morning.

Going up in smoke

2011-08-25T22:12:00.000+01:00

Smoking is a contentious issue.

There are those who think it is bad for you - e.g. medical practitioners. Then there are those who think it makes you look sexy, is a declaration of free will and may even prolong your life by keeping away germs - e.g. everyone in the tobacco industry, UKIP members and the certifiably deluded.

So when a local councillor proposed a New York-style ban on smoking in public open recreational spaces - such as play grounds - you can guess the lines along which opinion divided.

“Good thing too,” declare the medical lobby (which is a sort of corridor with doctors), “it prevents secondary smoking.”

“Secondary smoking? No such thing!” cry various outraged interest groups, political ne’er-do-wells and people whose regular domicile is a padded cell.

I like to remain neutral on most matters * but will happily admit to coming down on the side of the smoking-is-harmful-and-makes-you-look-like-a-weak-willed-pillock side of this argument. So I was moderately gleeful when the story appeared for my consideration in this week’s Westmorland Gazette.

Below are the four sketches I submitted. I won’t say which one got in but here’s a hint: It required a slight caption change.

If you wish to see the chosen cartoon in unrealistic colour, sashay forthwith to my website.

(* I’m lying)

It's a Riot

2011-08-17T20:40:00.000+01:00

It's been a riot the last couple of weeks in England. Unfortunately not the good kind. You may have noticed.

As the rioting largely involved disaffected young people, the media (in some cases) wheeled out middle-aged comfortable people to pontificate on the causes of the riots and how the rioters should be punished.

One of these was Kendal-born historian David Starkey, who got into a spot of hot water with one or two of his views. Ever ready to spotlight the sons of Kendal, The Westmorland Gazette has an article about the fuss.

Meanwhile, Cumbria tourist groups are focussing their immense brains on how to encourage people to the Lake District whilst next year's Olympics are on in London. I'd suggest a big sign saying No Olympics Coverage In The Lakes and then we all promise not to talk about it.

These were the two stories which became cartoon fodder this week. You can see the sketches below in all their scribbly, black and white glory. For the editor's choice, don your dark glasses and sashay over to my website first thing Thursday morning, where it will be presented in full colour.

"We could always divert the men's 1500 metres …"

"This is our new marketing slogan."

"He's trouble, that one … it's David Starkey."

"A right little trouble-maker … he wants to be a

historian when he leaves school."

Tombstoning for Beginners

2011-08-11T14:18:00.000+01:00

Do you tombstone?

This may seem an odd question. Especially if, like me, you associate the word with Twilight or Wyatt Earp. Tombstoning is, however, the sport of leaping off cliffs and bridges into pools of water. It’s been popular in the US for decades but also attracts people to the Lakes, where you can do it at a number of locations.

Frankly, I think it’s about as sensible as tying yourself to a rubber band and jumping off a bridge. If you want that sort of thrill, do it properly and jump out of a plane.

Tombstoning in the Lakes is now attracting attention for the wrong reasons. A local Tory councillor managed to hospitalize himself as a result of engaging in the activity.

The fuss associated with the activity (calls for it to be banned), rather than the incident itself, formed the lead story in this week’s Westmorland Gazette. Never one to forego the chance to get involved in a touch of tasteless controversy, here are the four ideas offered for this week’s front page cartoon. To see which one got past the editor’s eagle eye, go visit my website.

Sky High

2011-07-28T13:46:00.002+01:00

In the 1980s, low flying jets were a popular topic for the Westmorland Gazette cartoon. The letters pages were full of complaints from unpatriotic locals, complaining bitterly at the noise as a brave airmen refined their hair-trigger skills to defend the realm against the incursion of Johnny Foreigner and his alien hordes.

One result of this was the Windermere Air Show, which the RAF supported as a thank you for putting up with their training exercises over the Lakes.

Wind forward and this year, people are complaining because they can’t see the jets flying over the Lakes. Or, more precisely, they’re complaining about being made to do so.

Windermere’s 11^th Air Show last weekend was run by an event management company. So not only did they charge for parking and programmes, but access to The Glebe (a public park) was by entrance fee only. As it provided the most obvious vantage point for most people (the unimaginative ones), there has been An Outcry and, inevitably, Letters To The Press.

Meanwhile, in other news, research has shown that over the last 20,000 years, people in the north have developed bigger brains than those in the south. Northern newspapers have been very keen to report this research. I can’t think why - but then I am an unrepentant Southerner.

Here are this week’s choices which I presented ot the editor. Only one received the Seal of Approval and appears on the front page of this week’s Gazette …

The Thin Blue Line

2011-07-21T12:37:00.000+01:00

This week’s major UK news story has heaped revelation upon resignation. Corruption extends to the highest echelons of the media, police and politics. What can be done? Who can replace the people at the top? Who do we trust now that even the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and his Deputy have resigned over the scandal?

Well, Cumbria Police have an idea or two. They’ve been recruiting local school children to illustrate crime. The results ranged from bank robberies, drug dealing, incidents of violent crime … and you thought the Lakes was a rural idyll. Ha.

Clearly this was ideal territory for this week’s Westmorland Gazette cartoon.

Below, you can see the sketches I pitched to our esteemed editor. And if you tootle over to my website, you can see the one he chose. It was a damned difficult drawing this week.

"If the police are using kids as photofit artists, you and me are in deep trouble."

"Great. So the suspect is a dead ringer for Spongebob Squarepants."

"According to our child artist, this is the drug dealer we're looking for."

"I need trauma counselling. I've just seen the kids' pictures of violent crime."

Leaving an Impression

2011-07-13T20:29:00.001+01:00

Phone hacking, newspaper closures, police corruption, dodgy journalists, supine politicians … it’s been an exciting week for news. One story has dominated the headlines on the back of underhand journalistic practices.

Over on my own newspaper, things are a little less exciting. Not only can I confirm that no one in the newsroom has ever hacked someone else’s phone, many of them have trouble logging into the editorial computer. If someone has lost the post-it note with the password, we’re all doomed.

So no phone hackery for this week’s front page. But lurking within the the pages of The Westmorland Gazette, were a couple of stories which caught the cartoon eye.

The first is a new initiative to rent electric bikes in the Lake district. There are charge points being established throughout South Lakes and the bikes are already for hire.

In other news, a family came home from holiday to discover the shape of an owl on their French windows. Most of us just find Jesus in our toast but this was an astonishingly clear image, caused by the dust on the tawny owl’s feather imprinting on the glass. No sign of the owl, so they assumed it recovered and flew off (I suspect a well-fed fox).

So these are the ideas I pitched. And in answer to Martin Lewes, ace reporter for BBC Radio Cumbria, the decision about which cartoon to use is not made by either white or black smoke from the editor’s office. Instead, a bar of Kendal Mint Cake is thrown from an upstairs window. White and it gets in, chocolate covered and it’s rejected.

You can see which got the white mint cake by visiting my website on Thursday morning.

Invasion of the Hordes

2011-07-07T06:02:00.003+01:00

A bit of a mixed bag rich variety of stories lined up in the cartoonist’s sights this week.

The silliest is to do with Ulverston carnival. Wet sponges have been banned for health and safety reasons. Apparently they are used for throwing at people who volunteer to go in the stocks. (Why would anyone volunteer to go in the stocks? Is not the sad, mental decline of such folk a bigger story?) Anyway, sponges can pick up grit so they’re tooooo dangerous to throw.

Another sort of danger also reared its head. Tesco is threatening local Ambleside shops by opening a Tesco Express. In Bristol, earlier this year, such a move provoked riot. I suspect in South Lakes there may be Severe Tutting and a couple of letters to The Westmorland Gazette.

And finally, a horde of Viking treasure worth millions has been found in Furness. I'm off to dig up the garden. Meanwhile, you can see which cartoon graces the front page by visiting my website at www.shelbourn.com/gazette

Silver Ninja

2011-06-30T12:16:00.001+01:00

This was one of those frustrating weeks when it came to doing the Westmorland Gazette cartoon. My cartoon always appears on the front page and usually relates to the lead story. Since the paper went - um - compact, this hasn’t always been the case. And this week, the best story for ages was tucked away inside the newspaper.

The front page story concerns a 63-year old lady who was mugged. The mugger got more than he bargained for as the lady in question was a retired night club bouncer. Good cartoon subject, as you can see from the options below.

The gem, though, was the story of a mountain rescue. Man goes missing. Wife raises the alarm. Mountain rescue called out. Wife returns to hostel where they’re staying and discovers husband was in bed the whole time.

I was quite proud of the cartoon for that, although it turns out that only 2 out of 3 journalists in editorial had ever heard of the phrase. Must be a generational thing.

If you want to see which of the other three cartoons got onto the front page, pop over to my website.

That Pesky Wabbit

2011-06-15T20:06:00.001+01:00

This week’s blog and Westmorland Gazette story comes straight from the Department of Irony.

On the west side of Windermere lies a pair of tiny hamlets called Near and Far Sawrey. In one of these stands a little, Lakeland cottage called Hill Top. And within that house once lived a lady called Beatrix Potter who became very famous for writing her first book, The Tale of Peter Rabbit. And over the next 110 years, people came from all over the world to see the funny little house where this funny little lady wrote this funny little book … and she became world famous, all because of a funny little rabbit.

And now, the locals are rather less keen on funny little rabbits because the local rabbit population has got somewhat out of control. There has been a veritable bunny boom in population and both hamlets are knee-deep in rabbits and the funny little locals are not at all happy.

After ruminating for a while, this was my reaction to this tale. Can you guess which cartoon my Big Bad Editor chose, children? *

* See my website or Thursday’s Westmorland Gazette for the answer.

P.S. He’s not that Big.

London Lies for Tourists

2011-06-10T17:23:00.023+01:00

The last couple of days, the Twitterati have been indulging in a splendid game called London Lies for Tourists (click the link to see them all). It was instigated by Time Out magazine, who have 20 of the best on their website (although, quaintly, they think they were all from Londoners - hence 21, below).

Clearly, it was the duty of every cartoonist to join in, so these were my contributions. Feel free to add your own in the comments box.

1. London IS paved with gold. Make sure you examine all the cracks very carefully as you walk along them

2. The man on the top of Nelson’s Column is actually a mime artist

3. The Olympic Stadium will be finished in time

4. London cabbies are chosen because of their broadmindedness & inquiring natures

5. A Monopoly board will help you navigate easily around London

6. Covent Garden is an area set aside for quiet contemplation & religious meditation

7. In Harrods you get special attention if you say you know Prince Philip personally

8. Rest assured that every souvenir bearing a Union Jack is guaranteed to be made in Britain

9. All London branches of MacDonalds sell whelks and eels

10. The patron saint of London is Tommy Steele

11. You are not allowed to get off the tube at Baker Street unless you know all the words to the Gerry Rafferty song

12. Everyone in London is a personal friend of @stephenfry

13. London was actually sold to the Americans in 1967. The one in England is a replica

14. Cyclists are allowed to ride down the escalators

15. The Saatchi Gallery is full of interesting & attractive art exhibits

16. You are only allowed to travel clockwise round the Circle Line. If you miss a stop you have to go round again

17. There is a Royal Wedding held in London on the first Saturday of every month

18. London was sold outright to Russian oligarch Boris Johnson in 2008

19. If you read out all the station names backwards on the London Underground map, you summon the devil

20. Whitechapel and Baker Street are still lit by gaslight and shrouded in fog

21. Once you get outside London, nothing else exists

Stalactite Nights

2011-06-08T21:47:00.001+01:00

Drawing cartoons for a newspaper is an odd way to earn a living.

A major UK news organisation gives me money. In return, I produce some scribbly ideas. One of these is then refined into a finished drawing. This gets placed on the front page in a computer program. The page goes down some wires to a printing press. The presses roll, the newspaper is distributed and the following day the cartoon makes several tens of thousand people laugh over breakfast.

It’s very odd, when you start to think about it.

But perhaps not as odd as agreeing to get married in a hole in the ground. Not me, I hasten to point out, but the subjects of one of the stories in this week’s cartoon.

It’s the old story. Boy meets girl. They fall in love. Boy and girl decide to get married. They invite all their friends underground for the service.

Did I mention that they are both potholers?

Elsewhere in the paper is the news that Google Street View has issued a self-serving fatuous press-release held a competition and the A591 beside Grasmere has been voted the most romantic stretch of road in Britain.

Below are my sketches on these two stories. To find out which made it to the front page, join the thousands and buy the newspaper on Thursday morning. Or be one of the millions and find the answer on my website.

Digging a hole

2011-06-01T18:57:00.000+01:00

Cartoons, dogs and the 2012 Olympics; a fine menu for a Wednesday afternoon. Add a dash of deadline, a seasoning of sketches and serve hot on tomorrow morning’s front page.

By now you (or your bank manager) will probably know whether you’re one of the lucky 420000000000000 to get tickets to watch the event of your choice at the Olympics. It was a bizarre way to allocate tickets but presumably someone thought it a good idea. Probably the banks, as they’ll profit hugely when everyone goes unexpectedly overdrawn.

I didn’t apply. Partly because I thought I’d let you all have a better chance. And mostly because I’m busy trying to get to see the final space shuttle launch in July, which I regard as considerably more interesting than watching drug-enhanced athletes running round a circle.

In other news, two dogs were lost down a hole in the ground. They were out with their owners hunting squirrels at the time. At night. Yes, I thought so as well. Once they went down the hole, they got stuck and were down there for several days whilst their owners mobilised the forces of western technology to get them out. It all had a happy ending: The dogs got out and the squirrel got away.

Two cartoons on each subject were submitted for the gimlet-gaze of my esteemed editor. You can see them below. The choice to adorn the front page will be revealed in The Westmorland Gazette tomorrow morning. And on my website, in full colour, around the same time.

Don't All Rush

2011-05-27T14:39:00.001+01:00

Dramatic news from The Westmorland Gazette this week - the Lake District is awash with gold.

Nearly. It’s awash with gold prospectors. There are 40 of them around South Lakes alone. (It would have been more in the spirit of things if there were 49 of them, but never mind.)

It turns out that gold prospecting is a burgeoning hobby. More labour intensive than metal detecting but similarly attracting groups of lonely, sad… um, enthusiastic men in sensible outer-garments, who like nothing better than pottering around, poking about for a hidden fortune. I prefer to do my prospecting down the back of the sofa, where the haul of treasure is more reliable.

But is was a good topic for the cartoon this week. Below you can see the four ideas I pitched to the Gazette’s editor. Turn to my website now if you wish to see which one he selected.

My New Flame

2011-05-18T21:18:00.000+01:00

The big news arrived today before I’d even sat down to look at the Westmorland Gazette’s front page stories. The Olympic Torch is coming to Cumbria. Hurrah!

Well, I suppose hurrah. I’m not entirely sure why someone has to carry it around the country in a bizarre route from Lands End to London. Looking at the path the Torch is taking, it isn’t a very good advertisement for British navigational skills. It’s travelling a total of 8,000 miles. Even I can navigate from Cornwall to London in rather less than that.

But no matter. It’s visiting the Lake District and we will, I am sure, dig out the bunting, cross off the names William and Kate and scrawl Welcome to the Torch over the top.

In other news, a monster pike was caught in Windermere (the lake, not the village) and a farmer is taking a lamb to Slovenia, for reasons which escape me. Possibly they don’t have Tesco in Slovenia.

So here are the four ideas I pitched to the newsroom. As usual, they are fast scribbles in all their blue-pencil-and-felt-pen glory. To see the full majesty of the final artwork, buy Thursday’s Gazette or pop along to my website. I’ll keep a torch burning for you.

Super! An injunction

2011-05-12T13:44:00.000+01:00

An unusual Westmorland Gazette cartoon blog this week. It's subject to a superinjunction.

Almost.

The story concerns an alleged assault. Now, despite the fact that there is a victim with palpable injuries, a witness and an arrest, the newspaper is not allowed to ascribe any criminal misdeeds to the person arrested. The UK has this namby-pamby notion that a person is innocent until proven guilty. Until a court decides what happened in a crime and who (if anyone) is to blame … newspapers have to steer clear.

And the same applies to the newspaper's cartoonist.

Which is a pity because it is a cracking story. Man allegedly assaults chap in car park late at night and runs off. Chap's friend is still in her pyjamas but gives chase. "You won't catch me, you're a girl," shouts alleged perpetrator. Girl turns out to be ex-champion fell racer who catches him and calls police.

That's the story. You can read it in the carefully-worded full version here.

Below are the cartoons I submitted. Some captions have been subjected to the stern gaze of the blog's resident legal sparrow. These are among the wittiest captions I - or any other cartoonist - has ever written in the entire history of the world. Sadly, however, they must remain unseen.

The astute among you may also spot that one cartoon appears three times. This was a bid to come up with a caption which was acceptable.

You can see which one got into the paper by visiting my website. For the others … you'll have to wait until the case goes to court.

Who did you say you were?

2011-05-04T17:03:00.005+01:00

Fresh from the excitement of last week’s Royal Wedding and giddy with anticipation of this week’s AV Referendum, another Royal story is the subject of this week's Westmorland Gazette cartoon. A local man has traced his ancestors all the way back to an ancestor of Elizabeth II. It makes him 4200000000th in line to the throne, apparently. Exciting for him but no reports yet on how thrilled the Queen is about this.

(On a side note: Do members of the Royal family ever trace their ancestors to see if they’re related to any common oiks?)

Other stories in the news … toilet closures again … Kendal is the best place to pass your driving test … some bearded bloke shot in a foreign country …

Below, for your delectation and delight (or not) are the sketches sent to my newspaper. You can see which got onto the front page by buying Thursday’s Westmorland Gazette or visiting my website.

The AV NO campaign for Dummies

2011-04-28T14:37:00.001+01:00

The NO campaign in pictures (for those of you too dim to understand AV):

Royal flush

2011-04-28T08:17:00.000+01:00

It’s only a day away and the whole of Lakeland is bursting with excitement …

Or maybe simply bursting.

Overshadowing news of the forthcoming nuptials, South Lakeland residents are in an outrage. The Council’s brilliant ploy of closing public toilets to save money has had the predicted consequences. Queues of frustrated visitors, some of whom have marked their displeasure by… um … marking the outside of the closed public toilets.

Not very welcoming for an area which relies on tourist income. The fact that it is also an area with lots of lakes, waterfalls and running water probably only makes it worse.

But it was, once again, the subject of this week’s Westmorland Gazette cartoon. With a bit of judicious bad taste, I was able to combine it with the week’s Big Event.

You can see the submitted ideas below, in all their sketchy, blue pencil line glory. To find out which burst forth onto the front page, rush out and buy a copy of the newspaper or run over to my website.

Counting the days

2011-04-20T16:56:00.002+01:00

It’s not long now until the major event which has gripped the nation, when we all come together to celebrate that most hallowed of things … the return of Doctor Who.

And a week after that, there’s the Royal Wedding.

To celebrate (the Wedding, not the peripatetic Time Lord), Kate Middleton’s family has commissioned a Coat of Arms. This features a number of elements including, apparently, reference to the Lake District. At least, it does according to The Westmorland Gazette who offered the story for my consideration this week.

The other cartoon candidate was much more amusing. A local council election on May 5^th has been cancelled. The reason? Two of the candidates filled in a part of their forms which said “six words only” by putting in seven words. Cue cries of outrage and “it’s bureaucracy gone mad”.

I pitched the regulation four cartoons … only to have them all rejected. And lo, there was much dark muttering within Cartoon Towers.

As usual my harsh but fair editor was quite right and the second batch was better. There was the token bad taste joke but see if you can spot which one got in the paper.

The answer will be on the front page of tomorrow’s Gazette and printed upside down on my website.

Close and be Damned

2011-04-13T16:59:00.001+01:00

Cumbria County Council are starting a consultation process about the closure of rural libraries and the junking of the mobile library service. This is all part of Cameron’s Bold New Big Society, in which those who are big enough to go to posh schools survive and to hell with the rest.

The Westmorland Gazette is a family newspaper so, sadly, I can’t say what I really think about this idea for fear of putting people off their cornflakes. It rhymes with duck-knitted.

Anyway, here are the options I did submit.

As usual, the chosen cartoon will be on the front of tomorrow’s paper and adorning my website.

Buy the paper on the way to your local library. You are using it, aren’t you …?

An App Too Far

2011-04-06T18:59:00.001+01:00

Today’s venture into the world of local news brought me into familiar territory. The mountain rescue services are once again complaining about unprepared walkers.

This time, it seems, people are happily skipping up the Lakeland Fells, armed only with a bar of Kendal Mint Cake and a smartphone. They’re depending on Google maps to navigate them to the top and using the smartphone’s flashlight app if they get benighted on the way down. Clearly these people are deluded and should invest in a decent Lakeland walking book or map.

But it’s a good story and one I have tackled before. A few years ago, I was commissioned by Cicerone to produce Take A Hike, a book of cartoons based around walking and the outdoors. Inspiration came in the form of the various equipment walkers were starting to use - from high tech waterproofs to trekking poles and GPS thingies.

Since then, technology has moved onto the humble mobile and inexperienced walkers are beginning to rely on it. Which is good as it gives me more material.

Below are the sketches for this week’s cartoon. You can see which was chosen by my esteemed editor by purchasing a copy of the Westmorland Gazette, or by firing up your smartphone and navigating to your way to my website on Thursday morning.

Going Gaga

2011-04-05T09:33:00.001+01:00

Last week’s Westmorland Gazette uncovered a hitherto unsuspected undercurrent in South Lakeland society; royal apathy. Apparently in the whole area, there have been only two applications for street parties to celebrate the forthcoming wedding of Prince …um… you know, the oldest one and Kate …er something.

Locals are much more thrilled at the prospect of Lady Gaga arriving in Carlisle for this year’s Radio One Roadshow (I’m given to understand that this it’s something to do with popular beat music enjoyed by young persons).

These were the topics of the front page cartoon. Below you can see the scruffy pencil sketches which were presented to the editor. In fact, this was one of those occasions when I presented four and was cruelly sent away to think of some more. This is usually a guarantee that I will deliberately think of some bad taste alternatives. This time, however, I was being polite.

You can see the cartoon which battled its way to the front page by popping over to my website.

Budget Blues

2011-03-25T08:25:00.000Z

Excitement, thrills, tension, drama … all these things and more were absent from the UK Budget on Wednesday. Following it live from the Commons via streaming video, it was one of those events where the commentary was more interesting than the event itself.

Local MP Tim Farron was tweeting live from the Commons, highlighting aspects which had repercussions for the Cumbria economy. Money expert Jasmine Birtles was giving point by point analysis. It was all far more entertaining than watching Burlington Bertie’s performance at the despatch box. The only thing which caught my attention was the increased tax on private jets. Now how am I supposed to get about? At this rate, it will soon be cheaper to take the train.

I was watching all this whilst working on this week’s Westmorland Gazette cartoon. You can see the effect it was having by casting your eye over this week’s contenders. (I could have done one drawing and four captions this week. But - in answer to the question: which comes first? - doing the drawing usually helps me get the caption straight in my mind.)

In the end, the sketches weren’t all about the budget, although I was amused that one budget story I picked out hadn’t actually got as far as the paper yet. (Proving my claim that it would be much easier if I submitted cartoons and the reporters then wrote stories to fit.)

The other stories included BBC plans to reduce local radio output, a bizarre re-definition of 'affordable housing' based on local house prices, not income and a European ruling that Cumberland Sausage can only be called Cumberland Sausage if it is actually made in Cumberland (which no longer exists).

To see which cartoon has leapt onto the front page, pop over to my website where you can see it in full technicolor.

Family Guy

2011-03-17T15:08:00.000Z

International news featured in the award-winning Westmorland Gazette this week. The leader of the Free World (as opposed to the Paid-For World) is visiting the UK in May and the campaign is on to get him to visit the North West.

More specifically, Warton. This unassuming village (which is neither sleepy nor nestling anywhere, despite being outside the London media circus) has connections with George Washington. Specifically, his ancestors lived there and one of them helped build St Oswald’s Church. The stained glass window has the family coat of arms which, legend has it, inspired the design of the US flag. The villagers still run the US flag up the village flag pole every 4^th July.

I’m not sure why Barak Obama should feel particularly impelled to visit someone else’s ancestral home, just because they once held the same job as him. But any excuse to get a state visit.

On the other hand, if the President would like to venture a few miles north, an even more epoch-making connection may be established.

Here are the cartoons I pitched for the paper this week. One of them was clearly doomed not to get in. To find out which of the other three hit the editorial bullseye, pop over to my website at once or rush out and buy the paper.

Monster Mash

2011-03-09T21:24:00.003Z

This week’s Westmorland Gazette provided a range of stories for cartoonist examination. Cumbria County Council are making cutbacks to rural bus services, street lights in Windermere have been lit continuously for several months due to an electrical fault, local school children have been consuming vast quantities of alcohol …

Oh, and Bownessie the lake monster has been popping up again. In fact, there were two stories about everyone’s favourite lake monster.

The first of these disputes that it is everyone’s favourite monster. The people at Loch Nessie are getting a tad techy and have issued a statement pointing out that they’ve been faking monsters far longer than we have. And Nessie contributes far more to the economy than Bownessie ever will. And he eats porridge, so there.

In response, the Gazette have compiled a Top Trumps game in which they point out that Bownessie swims faster than Nessie, has been seen more often in recent years, has its own Facebook page and has got four humps not three.

Which leads us to the second Bownessie story in which someone has found an old tyre which, when cut up and thrown in the lake, looks like a four-humped mythical lake creature.

It’s all very exciting and I can’t wait for the next instalment.

Meanwhile, cast your gaze downwards and you can see my sketches on these vital subjects. As usual, the editor’s final choice will appear in the Gazette and on my website on Thursday morning.

Somewhere to go

2011-03-03T12:56:00.000Z

The news over the last two weeks have shown that we all have an appetite for certain basic human rights. These include the right to freedom, the right to democratically elect our leaders and the right not to get shot at by leathery-faced lunatics in dark glasses.

Another right, often overlooked by short-sighted local councils, is the right to go.

Given that we elect and pay for these councils, one would imagine they have our best interests at heart. Sometimes, it seems, they forget our most basic needs in the desire to cut costs. Yes, I’m talking about toilets. Or rather, the Westmorland Gazette has been talking about them.

Kendal has followed the rest of South Lakeland in closing down public loos. This is particularly cruel in Kendal where, thanks to the splendid traffic system, you may have spent several hours cooped up in a car, looking for somewhere to park. And it’s one more thing to help deter anyone from visiting the town.

Fortunately, in a move worryingly close to the Big Society waffle from David Cameron, local organisations have come to the rescue. Some of the shops, pubs and attractions in town have offered to make their loos available to the public.

So this was the main subject of the cartoon ideas, submitted on Wednesday afternoon to the Gazette’s news desk. The other was the intriguing news that 1980s post-punk bombshell Blondie is going to be headlining this year’s Kendal Calling music festival. Something of a coup. But given her age, I hope the toilets will be open.

As usual, you can find out which of the sketches made it’s way onto the front page by buying the newspaper or popping over to my website.

I'm a Monster Get Me Out of Here

2011-02-23T20:59:00.001Z

It’s amazing what some people to to court publicity. Some write blogs and burble away on Twitter. Others put themselves in front of a lens and expose themselves to the Great British Public by means of reality TV shows.

I have a thing about avoiding reality TV shows (I prefer programmes which involves the engagement of a few brain cells on the part of the producers). So, sadly, I won’t get to see a new Channel 4 series called The Hotel. Shame as it is local. It’s the Damson Dene Hotel in South Cumbria and the hotelier has let a film crew set up fifty cameras to capture the fascinating … really quite interesting … mildly diverting … not very voyeuristic … zzzzzz … Sorry, where was I?

Anyway, it was a potential subject for this week’s Westmorland Gazette cartoon. As you can see from the first, un-captioned drawing, I was tempted to go down the obvious route of guests caught having a naughty weekend. I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it, so that one didn’t even get a caption (or joke). I made up for it by returning to it at the end, with this week’s token unpublishable idea.

The other story I sprang upon was … tadaa, Bownessie. Since we last gathered here, dear Reader, he/she/it/they (depending whether you subscribe to the monster, bin bag or family of otters school of thought) has gone global. It has been reported as far afield as Norway. (The story has been seen in Norway, not Bownessie.) Clearly he/she/it/they is sorting out their PR machine.

Below are the five and a half ideas pitched to the editor this week. To see which one made it, rush out and buy the Gazette or see my website on Thursday morning.

Monsters from the Deep

2011-02-17T10:41:00.000Z

A quiet cartoon news day this week … with a main story too serious to tackle, the obvious candidate was lurking on the inside pages. And lurking is the operative word.

After 200 years of tourists visiting the Lake District suddenly, in the last 2 or 3 years, a Mystery Beast has been spotted in Windermere. The lake, not the village.

Now, far be it from me to think that there is anything untoward in the fact that the major promoters of said mystery beast sighting have any vested interests. Being rigorously impartial, I will ignore the fact that they include a photographer (who took the first pic) and a hotelier and a TV psychic (whatever one of those is - someone who can guess what’s coming on next without the aid of the irritating BBC adverts?). And we can skip over the tendency for mystery beast to appear just before the start of the tourist season. Or it’s remarkable resemblance to a pile of old bin bags floating in the lake.

But it does leave the minor question of why the Freshwater Ecology people - who have studied the lake for decades - have found no signs of said creature or indications that it has impacted the local food chain.

Still, it’s been given a jolly name - Bownessie - and no doubt soon soft, cuddly models of the beastie will be appearing in tourist information centres to support the local economy (just as soon as they take deliveries from the manufacturers in China).

Below are my sketches on the story, submitted to The Westmorland Gazette. The last was deemed cruel and unfair. And I suppose comparing a large, unwelcome creature lumbering into the district with a mythical prehistoric monster was a tad insensitive.

As ever, the colour cartoon (and my lawyers) can be found over on my website.