Gone away

Much as I enjoy drawing the weekly, front page cartoon for The Westmorland Gazette, I occasionally need a holiday. This presents the editor with a problem. Put in a little message ("Our cartoonist is on holiday. His home is currently empty and contains a load of worthless junk but you might find something worth putting on eBay.") or just fill the space with something else?

Some years ago, we hit on a couple of alternative solutions; remote cartooning and crystal ball gazing.

The remote cartooning works OK, if I don't mind the holiday being interrupted. It's a bit weird drawing about Kendal traffic whilst sat in Cape Town in view of Table Mountain, but I have done it. (There was a shooting outside the hotel as I sketched, just to remind me I wasn't in the Lakes.) But it is an interruption and sometimes, you know …

So back to the crystal ball gazing. This relies on two things (1) long-running stories or (2) a definite news event in the diary for the following week.

Last week I thought we had both CBEs (crystal ball events). The Lake District National Park had sold off bits of the Lake District and there was the chance it was going to keep the identity of the purchasers secret.

Excellent. Two cartoons done and sent as alternative options (one tying in with a then-current and, rather tediously, still current national story).

But news had other ideas and the focus shifted. So neither cartoon was used. You get the chance to see them below. Trust me, they would have been funny if the story had panned out …

Taking the Jeremy

The Lake District National Park is up for World Heritage designation again. This has happened a couple of times in the past and always been turned down. The reasons vary from too much man-made alteration to the landscape, too many tourists, too many pigeons, etc.

This time round, the attempt to get the Lakes listed alongside the Great Wall of China has attracted a couple of notable commentators.

George Monbiot, famous deep-green columnist and CO2 generator for the Guardian newspaper, described the Lakes as a depressing place with a sheep-wrecked landscape. No vegetation will grow within jaw-range of these woolly locals, so its no surprise that the fells are stripped of interesting plants and trees.

The second comment came from noted environmentalist Jeremy Clarkson. In his opinions column in the Times, he berated the Lakes, describing it as full of bobble-hatted walkers with wizened knees. The knees are probably true but bobble hats haven't been seen on the fells since the days of the Ford Zephyr. Jeremy should pop up and do some bobble research.

The story made the front page of the bumper Westmorland Gazette and so, inevitably, was the subject of the cartoon. How could any self-respecting cartoonist resist?

Below are the ideas I submitted to my steamed editor. Which would you have picked? Put your comments below and then burn rubber to my website to see if you are correct.