View from our front door

I stood on our doorstep drawing for twenty minutes every morning for three weeks.

Fulham 3 Tottenham Hotspur 3

One thing I really enjoy about sport is when an individual or a team cut loose and freely expressing their talent, at the expense of less gifted opponents.

From my childhood I think of Viv Richards walking down the wicket while Bob Willis was running in to bowl at him, then flicking him into the Lords' executive boxes. Or the crowd shouting 'ole' as the great Brazilian teams play keep ball and deny the opposition a kick.

Sportsmen so in tune with their ability that they turn a high pressure professional encounter into an effortless stroll in the park.

Even when my team are on the receiving end I can't help admiring it.

Berbatov and Malbranque strolled round Craven Cottage on Saturday, coming off their markers, playing little angled passes. Revelling in the space they created for themselves.

It had started to go wrong when we gifted them an early goal. Spurs took control. Then Robbie Keane put Berbatov through one on one against Niemi. From where I sat it looked as though he had enough space to drive a bus between Niemi and the near post and that is were the ball went, at a rate of knots.

At 2-0 Spurs were cruising. All around me was silent, apart from the bloke behind me turning the air blue with his expasperation. Fulham have a new team, almost all the players have been brought in by Sanchez this summer. Not only does it take the players a while to get used to each other, it takes the fans a while to get used to the new team, to identify players who can lift the team, who can lift the crowd. We couldn't see where any inspiration could come to turn back the tide.

Andrew was fidgeting in his seat next to me. I tried to keep his mind on the game.
'We need a goal before half time'- I told him.
'We need a miracle' - said the man behind me.
We got a corner straight away and scored from it. 2-1.


I imagined Sanchez hyping the team up at half time and Fulham mounting a second half surge towards the home fans in the Hammersmith End. It didn't happen. You can't mount a surge if you haven't got the ball. Spurs played exhibition football. Keane played Gareth Bale in through on the left behind the defence. I could see space for another bus between Niemi and the near post, so could Bale. 3-1.

Fulham fans are quiet, hardly got the spirit to boo the returning Malbranque. He hit the post with Niemi beaten. Tottenham fans were serenading their team, enjoying an easy win. But the trouble with exhibition football is it needs to have a ruthless streak to it, a killer punch.

Spurs took off their captain Keane and replaced him with Defoe after 75 minutes. I told Andrew they were doing it because they know they have the game won and want to give Defoe some match practice. A sign of complacency

Fulham went for broke and put three central strikers on. Spurs got worried and took Malbranque off from the right side of midfielder, replacng him with a third central defender, Dawson. When he came on you could see the midfielders and attackers looking at Dawson, waiting for instructions, wondering where they were going to go. Their captain Keane wasn't on the pitch to sort it out.

If you are on top in a game and want to make sure you win it, you have two options, you can either bang away your chances on the break to kill of the other team, or you can play keep-ball to deny them any possession. Spurs had missed their chances, and once they had gone down to three in midfield they couldn't play possession football. Fulham could just pile on the pressure for the last ten minutes.

Fulham's second was a lucky deflection. The third goal was an unusual overhead kick/lob from Joe Kamara. Its funny how time stops when your team scores an important goal. When you come down from whatever height you have jumped up to, you find yourselve face to face with someone whose been just behind / beside/in front of you for ninety minutes, but whose existence you were never aware of. You forget all about the players and the pitch.

The spurs fans on the way home looked like they had lost a pound and found a redundancy notice with their name on it.

I hope Jol doesn't get the sack. I like watching his teams. They entertained us thoroughly and had the decency not to leave with all the points.

Return to Downhouse Farm

We went back to Downhouse farm near Bridport in West Dorset for our two weeks holiday.

Here are some views of the cottage, outside and in:

Sleeper

I really enjoyed getting the sleeper to Edinburgh last week.

It meant I could pop home from work, have something to eat, read the kids their bedtime story, go back to London and have a nice six hour sleep on the train.

Then wake up, get the bus to my favourite cafe in the Scottish capital (Marvid's cafe round the corner from Heart's Tynecastle stadium). One round of tea and toast, one chat with the cafe-owner about Kurdish-Turkish relations, then its back on the no 25 bus to start work.

Our kitchen

I'm running out of rooms to draw in the house now.

I'm going on the sleeper train to Edinburgh tonight, so if I wake up early enough I'll draw the carriage

mum and dad's house

We went up to Dalgety Bay in Fife for the weekend, my first stay in my mum and dad's new house. I enjoyed waking up before everybody else and having a choice of different rooms to sit and draw in.

Yesterday I sat on an armchair in dad's study (above). The day before I sat on the landing, at the top of the stairs, looking down to the hall below.

Warm sunny days, indoors

Room 6, Hotel Chatelet, Luxembourg, Thursday June 14, 6 am


Luxembourg: the smallest nation ever to be immortalised in a Smiths song.

I could find no discernable trace of those frightening verses which may or may not have been sent to a buck toothed girl in the Duchy. It was a long shot....

From the bottom step

Another view of our hall.

I drew the door too narrow. Good job I'm not an architect, and good job we don't have to get prams and buggies in and out.

our hall

I sat on the ninth step of our stairs every morning last week to draw this picture.

Oulipo evening

On June 5 I'll be going to Rational Rec's OULIPO evening at Bethnal Green Working Mens Club. Below is Russell Martin's blurb for the event (I've added a few links):

The OuLiPo - an acronym that translates as "workshop of potential literature" - was a post-war French literary movement that included Georges Perec, Italo Calvino and Raymond Queneau. The tenet of the OuLiPo is to create literature via constraints such as palindromes and lipograms.

The event Features:

-- An OuTraPo performance (Workshop for Potential Tragi-comedy)

-- Interview with Stanley Chapman, the first exponent of OuLiPo in the UK in the 1960's

-- OuLiPo like music pieces by Tom Johnson and Damien Ricketson

-- Oulipean activities and games for the audience

-- "Documentary Saga of the OuLiPo" - a new multimedia work by Rees Archibald, Andrew Infanti and Matthew Shlomwowitz that promises to explain everything you need to know about OuLiPo.

-- Book stalls by Bookworks, Artwords Bookshop and Strange Attractor.

Stanley Chapman (b. 1925) was a British architect, designer, translator and writer. He became a member of Oulipo in 1960, founded the Outrapo, and is also a member of the French Collège de 'Pataphysique, and the London Institute of 'Pataphysics and the Lewis Carroll Society. His English translation of Hundred Thousand Billion Poems was received with "admiring stupefaction" by Raymond Queneau.

Groundhog day picture

I sat on the same armchair for fifteen minutes every day for a week to draw this picture of our living room at 6.55 am.

Alexa is in typical pose in her corner after her morning stroll. The sofa cushions are still up from the previous night - our ploy to keep Alexa off it.

Alexa

This is Alexa, she is an ex-racing greyhound that we have adopted from Hersham Hounds.

Our first dog, and she seems to be settling well. She's very placid (but we have had to hold on tight to the lead on occassions when she has spotted a cat or a squirrel or a toy electric car). She doesn't waste energy so when she's not out for a walk she's usually spread out in her corner like you see in the picture.

Hersham Hounds gave us lots of good advice about looking after greyhounds. We knew needed a greyhound that is friendly with other dogs and happy to be around children, and Alexa fits the bill on both of those.

Four things I like about football

1: the routines
Fulham v Liverpool. A 3pm kick off means a 2pm stop off at the River Cafe outside Putney Bridge station. The fact that Andrew had already had his lunch didn't stop him ordering his usual bacon chips and beans.

This was't a routine game. A loss today would mean Fulham would probably have to beat Middlesboro on the last day to stay up.

2: the gossip.
The guy next to us on the long thin elbow-to-elbow River Cafe tables has been told by a reliable Fulham source that Alan Shearer has agreed to be the next Fulham manager if we stay up. And that Chris Coleman's sacking was partly due to the frequency of his womanising and drinking and with his assistant Steve Keane in the Weatherspoons next to the Motspur Park training ground.

We got some more gossip on the way back: Zat Knight's broken jaw in December wasn't done larking about with brother, it was a training room brawl with Louis Boa Morte. Thats why we had to sell him to West Ham.

3: the interplay between crowd and players.
Seventy minutes gone, in what has been hyped as the biggest game in Fulham's history. West Ham are winning, so we need to win too. The game is flat. Fulham had been as threatening as a bowl of blancmange (does blancmange still exist?). Crowd quiet, aware that elsewhere West Ham were 3-0 up. Throw to Fulham right underneath where we sit. Liam Rosenior has the ball in his hand. He looks at us. Gestures to us. We start singing. He points to the badge on his shirt,we sing louder . Come on he says. We are on our feet now, he's got us going, the whole place is lifted, transformed. A few minutes later Simon Davies wins the ball in midfield, an exchange of passes, Liam Rosenior is behind the Liverpool defence and does the right thing, low and hard across the box, all Dempsey has to do is to make contact. 1-0


4: the feeling you get when your team wins.

A friend in need

Anna was sick into her lunchbox at school on Wednesday (and over the table, her cardigan and the new dinner lady).

She was in the school office waiting to be picked up. A girl came up to her, selflessly offered Anna their lunchbox and said

'here Anna, you might like these sandwiches better'

Drawing in restaurants

As a consultant you get used to sitting in a restaurant on your own. You arrive in a town/city at 8:30pm. You are hungry, so you find a place to eat. The food is nice, but I used to feel like Norman Nomates until I started taking a sketchbook along.

Restaurants are great places to sit and draw for an hour. You don't have to move, its warm and dry, no-one is going to chase you out the door, and if you want anything else to eat or drink you just have to nod to one of the waiters.


On Monday I ate in aa kebab shop in Brussels (Le Botannique Snack)



Last week I was staying on Anglesey and ate at The Bridge Inn in Menai Bridge.

Travel broadens the mind

Brussels, Villa Royale, Room 205. 6 February 2007, 6:40 AM: ,




Brussels, Villa Royale, Room 206. 13 February 2007, 6:40 AM



Brussels, Villa Royale, Room 206. 14 February 2007, 6:40 AM



Anglesey, Wales, Gwesty Victoria Hotel, Room 24. 22 February 6:40 AM

Volgan war

We are in 2079. Joe Pineapples goes to Russia, to destroy Volkhan their head of state. As with all incoming robots, his satellite navigation is removed on entry to the country. His rockets are useless without it.

He takes a taxi to a cemetry. Once there he knocks the driver out, cannabalises the taxi and uses its satnav to fire his rockets at Vulkhan. He just misses. Joe is now running towards the Kremlin, armed to the teeth. Blackblood, defending Volkhan, isn't worried. He knows that all robots entering the country have been fitted with a bomb tag. And he has just given the order to detonate every single tag. It is unfortunate that a lot of innocent robots will be killed. The detonations will happen in three seconds time.

I've been waiting three days for the explosions: the next issue of 2000AD is out tomorrow. And I've discovered the fun of comics as opposed to graphic novels: the difference between watching a football match live and seeing the highlights later. Blogs, football teams, comics: all at their best when you track one or several over time, as you flow through time with them.

Adam Crabtree and Gavin Hanley can give you a more sophisticated reading of Joe's adventure

Dylan Dog

I went to Italy a couple of weeks ago. I was working in Ispra, a tiny town on Lake Maggiore that has a European Commission research centre. I arrived at 10 at night. The hotel was virtually empty and its kitchen had closed. The receptionist offered to make me a sandwich. I was sitting in the bar eating it when I saw a small comic book on the bar.

I sat and read it. Set in London, a young detective, Dylan Dog, living with someone else called Groucho who looks and acts like Groucho Marx. Investigating some sort of curse on a building site. I only got half way through it. I didn't pluck up courage to ask if I could borrow it for the night, and the next morning it was gone (I think it belonged to the hotelkeepers daughter).

Next lunchtime I was in a newsagent with my colleague Paolo. I asked him what the Italian word was for 'bandes dessinees' (the French phrase that covers everthing from comics to graphic novels). 'Fumetti' he said and took me to a huge long shelf of comics, all the same size (A5/pocket book)and length (100 ish pages) as the Dylan Dog story I had read in the bar.

Turns out there are a number of popular comic book characters in Italy and every month they bring out a complete new story for the character. Paolo described all the characters. Tex the cowboy, who has been going for sixty years and is Paolo's dad's favourite. Dylan Dog, who I'd already met. Other characters whose names I have forgotten: one set in the future like Blade runner, a crime one. They didn't just have the current months story for them, they had back issues too. Spoilt for choice. The only comic on sale in UK newsagents is 2000AD.

I chose one of the back issues of Dylan Dog, Mystero di Venezi. It was brilliant: an ill-intentioned couple trying to get a Film Director and a tour guide to hallucinate into existence demons that would destroy Venice. I chose it because it was set in Italy. I later read on Wikipedia that Dylan hardly leaves London because he gets motion sickness (in my story he travelled by train). That it is the largest selling comic in Italy. And that Umberto Eco has said that he never gets bored reading the Bible, Homer or Dylan Dog.

My lack of knowledge of Italian didn't prevent me enjoying the story and the drawing. If you want to dip your toe into the waters of learning Italian you could do a lot worse than grab hold of a few Dylan Dog stories.

Fulham 2 Newcastle Utd 1

One of the nice things about watching football is admiring skill from opposition players.

Last November Arsenal came down to Craven Cottage. Early in the second half, a long ball over the Fulham defence from the half way line. Thierry Henry controls it with his left and curls into the top corner with his right foot before we could blink. The referee disallows it for offside. I told the bloke next to us that this was perfect, you see a world class player score a world class goal and it doesn't even count against your team.

Our seat is only 15 rows back, so we can see the whites of the players eyes when the action is near us. Newcastle had a throw right in front us yesterday. Nicky Butt received the ball at his feet. I paid special attention. Nicky Butt, a neat passer of the ball, growing up in all those succesful Man U sides. Man of the match in that England v Argentina game in the 2002 world cup that Tania and I somehow managed to watch on a hospital tv an hour before Anna was born.

Butt turned and rolled the ball square, towards were he thought his defenders where. But they weren't. Heider Helgueson was though, and he cracked the ball over the suprised goalkeeper into the net.

That is two nice memories I have stored up from Nicky Butt now.

Fulham 1 Tottenham 1

You have to think on your feet when you take your impressionable seven year old to a football match.

Son:What are they singing at Steed Malbranque Dad?
Dad: They are calling him a greedy custard son.
Son: Why?
Dad: Because he used to be a favourite player here, and now he has gone to Tottenham for more money, and he eats too many puddings.

Vincenzo's Montella came on. his fourth outing as a sub for Fulham. His sophisticated Italian touches have made him a folk hero here already. A few minutes later he has stuck away a penalty that looks like winning Fulham three points.

A new song goes up around the ground. Only one thing for it, sing an edited version in Andrew's ear as loud as I can.

Montella oh oh oh , Montella oh oh oh
He comes from Italy
He doesn't like Chelsea
Montella etc.

(the crowd claimed that Vicenzo harbours a much stronger resentment towards Fulham's nearest neighbours)