… I realise that it might need a little translating for some of you:

From corporation (British: a local authority) + pop (a drink, usually sweet and desired by children)

It’s a common phrase of Manchester (other regions use terms like council juice to the same ends) or at least it was at some point… You never can tell with old people whether the slang they use is ancient or so modern even you haven’t heard it yet.

The phrase was used, I suspect, to encourage children to drink (the very cheap) water rather than the (comparatively expensive) pop.

Pop… great onomatopoeia… fizzy isn’t bad either.

Do children still drink water?

I think they may have been turned away from corporation pop… oddly, by the pop corporations.

The British press is still obsessed by ‘out of control’ youths, a phenomenon, as far as I’m concerned, that has persisted for several hundred years at least. Still, it highlights my point – out of whose control exactly are these youths?

The parents? The Church? The police? The teachers? The government? The media?

All of them.

You see, everyone likes a nice bit of control, and who better to control than the young? Our institutions have been so keen to create them and then gobble them up that they’ve forgotten to let them have any control of their own.

But remember, you can only hold on to control for so long. The media for example – after all they started me on this particular rant – not exactly a spotless record. Even the wonderful thing that is the BBC loses grip sometimes. Take John Sweeney –

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjlo4u_8g60



It’s good to lose control, especially when you’re handing some over to someone that has none.

…I decided, to amuse myself, just to label all of the boxes with the word ’stuff’.

I wasn’t moving far, and since I was doing pretty much everything as far as loading, transporting and unloading the boxes went, I thought that I would probably remember the contents of the boxes without having to write a list on them.

And I probably would have too… if it wasn’t for a last minute change that required most of those boxes to go into storage all over the place.

Two years later, when I finally could get them back again, and oddly enough I couldn’t remember a thing.

At first it was like christmas, opening boxes full of things I had forgotten I owned… but it quickly became apparent that my packing abilities were lacking in more than just labeling.

Being a supposed short move I had just thrown most things into the boxes (normally I clean and wrap them meticulously) and for some reason I had just emptied out the entire contents of several cupboards into one box that, upon opening, revealed itself to be an experiment in diversity – I still don’t think I’ve ever seen a more vivid coloured mold anywhere else.

And so the moral of this could be something to do with reaping the rewards of preparation, or perhaps something to do with assuming a short move… but the truth be told, I’m telling you this not as a story of caution, but one of guidance.

I now live quite happily with my brightly coloured mold in my new house.

The reason for this is based on the origins of surgery, namely that the only man with the right tools was the local butcher (a Mr) … and so if someone needed a leg removing, they’d call him.

Whilst that sounds like a nice bit of etymological history, it worries me a bit.

Firstly, are female surgeons referred to as Mrs or Ms? I have no idea and I would hate to make some sort of faux-pas at a fund-raiser (who am I kidding… I’m not likely to end up at such a thing).

And then, you can actually gain qualifications in butchery… what happens when you get a doctorate?  You’d become a Dr, negating hundreds of years of tradition and creating a naming paradox… and no one wants that.

My friend, let’s call him Robin, is from a fairly small village outside of Lancaster, let’s call it Bentham.

On this particular day however, Robin had ended up in the big smoke, London.

…and whilst outside an art gallery, Robin spots someone he recognises and so walks up to  him.

‘I know you’, says Robin, ‘are you from Bentham?’

‘Nah mate, I’m not,’ says the other man in a strong Liverpudlian accent.

‘Are you sure? I know you. You must be from Bentham,’ Robin continues.

‘Seriously mate, I’m not from Bentham,’ says the other man in a slightly hacked off tone before walking away.

It turns out, so it does, that the reason Robin had recognised the man was not that he was from Bentham, but that he was actually Paul McCartney from The Beatles.

I mention this because I heard that Paul thinks we can save the environment by all becoming vegetarian… and whilst I’ll give it to him that there would be a benefit if we all did this, I would also like to point out that it would sound better coming from someone who hasn’t repeatedly traveled around the word on airplanes, has not had vast amounts of equipment transported around on tour and has not been in league with Lexus.

It seems to me that even Paul has a hard time recognising himself.

I keep small collections of the usual things – marbles, stones, coins and stamps – and every now and then someone indulges my sporadic habits… in this case, Ms-Em bought me a lovely set of first day covers for Christmas.

Click on the picture for a bigger version if you fancy a closer look.

Now, I don’t want you to think that we’re poking fun at the disabled, far from it… rather I want to highlight just how far we’ve come in 27 years.

The naivety of those illustrations is something to behold. Obviously my favorite is the hands spelling out ‘deaf’ in sign language – cheers guys, like I need reminding in my own tongue, so to speak.

Though I also like focusing on the wheelchair rather than the person in it… similarly, the one with the eyes gets all the attention in the guide dog stamp…

I know these stamps were meant to be a gesture of some sort, and most probably a genuine attempt at addressing disability, but still, way back when in 1981 we were still focusing on the disability and not the person.

The truth is I do have faith, misplaced or not, but not in a higher being or a benevolent deity – I believe in you.

I have faith in humans… well, most humans… some humans…

It’s been a really busy week – one of those where I find myself wearing a suit on two different occasions.

So, in lieu  of yesterday’s comic you get this one.

I’m hoping to add to the innate confusion with beard-wearing political philosophers.

I’ll see you tomorrow, when I’ll be back to spending my time watching television and drawing comics.

At our simplest level of abstraction we are donut shaped (torus, more accurately), and we consist mostly of water (between 70–80%).

That would make us an excellent low-fat snack to those from beyond.

I’m stuffing myself with peanuts now, just in case they have an allergy.

And whilst I mostly make that statement in jest, the truth is that working by electrical light can’t be ideal, environmentally.

And so: Go to bed, get some sleep, save the world.

On a good day, there used to be sort of pervasive fishy smell flowing from the river, barely masked by the odor of roasting coffee beans from Atkinson’s.

Then there was Nightingale Farm.

As is usually the case, places named in such a way rarely resemble the connotations. There were no nightingales and it was certainly not a farm – It was a rendering plant.

You know, that’s where they turn dead animals into all sorts of useful products such as glue and, strangely, animal food.

The smell of a rendering plant is hard to describe, being organic yet somehow mechanical and chemical… A little bit of death, a little bit of food and a lot of glue.

Fortunately, Nightingale Farm closed its doors for good last year. well, actually it couldn’t close its doors… mostly because they were burned down like the rest of the factory.

So that just leaves the fishy coffee tang in the air…

…and that’s not enough. It turns out that I have been triangulating my position in Lancaster using those three locations and their associated smells.

And so, if you see me, wandering around, looking desperately sniffing at the air, I’m not mad, just lost.

Or, if you prefer, we will eventually run out of immortality.

But that’s OK, we work well under pressure, a deadline so to speak.

It’s a strange thing. That we both will experience death’s clammy hand on our shoulder, but that we have very few people to turn to in order to ask what it is like.

Sure, like in that Kiefer Sutherland vehicle, Flatliners, there are some that have traversed back and forth, but is it really death? I doubt it – it lacks the finality.

And if you ask the recently departed, they just look at you in a funny way.

You know, he does Dinosaur Comics.

But more than that, he’s helped out other comickers like me… His work includes Rsspect, Project Wonderful and Oh No Robot.

That and he even tried to save Wikipedia too… using chickens.

I think that if we ever discover a new fossil for a nameless dinosaur, it should be called a Northasaurus. This would be doubly beneficial if it was found in the South, just to confuse students in general.

This time, Cedric Smith.

Despite Mr Smith being a mathematician, I know him from my time as a biologist… his mathematical methods were used for mapping genes on chromosomes. It’s a really elegant piece of logic.

But that’s not the reason why I want to mention him today. The thing I wanted to mention is that he, and a group of his friends, hid behind a pseudonym – Blanche Descartes.

Essentially, they made up a mathematician to study some of the more frivolous aspects of the science, such as puzzles – mostly of the tiling variety, but especially Squaring the Square…

The secret lives of mathematicians, eh?

Using their method for selecting a pseudonym (first name taken from a Tennessee Williams character, surname from a French philospher), I will assume the name Fred Bergson.

From observations, there must be at least three different variants of the cold virus doing the rounds, plus we’ve also played host to the charming norovirus, more commonly know as ‘that projectile thing’.

Indeed, I did witness such a launching over the weekend when heading into town… a young lady turned and did the best impression of the film, ‘The Exorcist’ I’ve ever seen.

Apparently it’s rather infectious, so I supose I can count myself lucky that watching that girl didn’t come at a price.

Still, the good news is that trial of a vaccine promise to immunise us from all strains of ‘flu…

Obviously when I say ‘us all’, I mean the western, developed world…let’s face it, ‘flu vaccine will be no good at keeping you healthy in the face of bullets, famine and a crippled economy…

…I can’t quite imagine living in a world free of influenza, it has been such a great excuse over the years – I can’t come intoday, I’ve been struck down with the ‘flu – in a way that I don’t think ringing up your boss to tell them you can no longer control your stomach or your bowels.

Apart from playing with some excellent bands, Keith is described as being a folk-metal pioneer (seriously, folk-metal).

I wish I could have been a folk-metal pioneer, but alas that ship sailed whilst I was still a boy.

I wonder what is left to pioneer?

You don’t know when they’ll turn up – perhaps it’ll snow, maybe there will be a strike – but when they do it’s the closest thing to making me believe in a benevolent creator.

But then there’s the sinister to yang to the unexpected day off yin – the unexpected day on. It might arrive as an urgent phone call or maybe you misread your calendar, either way you won’t be able to get out of it and will probably spend the rest of your day mourning the loss of some time well mis-spent.

That’s right, I have a fat brain now.

And so I’m off to do the mental equivalent of a starvation diet and rigorous circuit training. Hopefully, I’ll return a bit more brain-trim.
In the meantime, you might like to have a look at this comic; Line and Accident.

Received wisdom is an odd beast. Those phrases that are often said but little thought about…

Take, ‘in the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king’.

I think it is supposed to mean that even if you are disadvantaged,  you’ll be OK if everyone is disadvantaged more… though that doesn’t make sense.

But if you scrutinise it, what it is actually saying is that if you have one eye and everyone else has none, you’ll be their ruler… and that makes even less sense.

I think it’s safe to assume that the whole societal structure of the Kingdom of the Blind would be geared towards the sightless. Braille would be the prominent method of written communication, television would never have caught on but radio would flourish – so, not really an advantage, being able to see.

And you have to question why no one has any eyes… the only logical conclusion is that they don’t need them (perhaps they live underground, or in a permanent state of darkness), in which case, having an eye is not an advantage, quite the opposite – it’s an expensive piece of technical equipment that’s not only delicate, but useless in those circumstances.

Unless of course the Kingdom of the Blind pick a ruler on a preordained basis and that genetic unsuitability is a hallmark of a ruler, much like the descendants of Queen Victoria.

So, the one-eyed man is king, but only because he’s feeble and according to some archaic law predestined to rule… and who would want to be that?

I think this must be the time of the year when most appliances are plugged in… think about it; you’ve got all the additional lights and decorations for christmas, people are using more hair-dryers and straightening irons for the parties, games consoles, televisions, kettles…

Which is fine I suppose, except I don’t think many people know how to wire a plug.

That leads me to conclude the following:

• Badly wired plugs are more widespread than I initially thought.
• Being able to wire a plug will not be enough to avoid death unless you check the wiring of every plug for every appliance you come into contact with.
• I should stop thinking about electrical goods.

It’s nice to be back, by the way, how was your christmas?

I can comprehend death and love.

But I just can’t understand this idea of cold soup.

Obviously I think differently now. I’ve met so many cool people over the last year or so and whilst I doubt we’ll ever get a chance to meet, I consider them my friends.

You may have noticed a new banner running in the sidebar for the last week… It’s for a friend of a friend.

Viben Oodle, a superb name for a band, and I love their song titles too. They’re friends of Roos and they can be yours too.

Here’s their Myspace address: http://www.myspace.com/vibenoodle

Go and say hi, shake hands and listen to their music… all virtually.

And if you like how they sound, you can even buy a non-virtual recording. You can get that here: http://kunaki.com/Sales.asp?PID=PX00ZRS58F .

You see, Anton is part of me, and vice-versa and when you read this comic, you’re technically reading the contents of my mind.

And so, without Anton, there is no me and there is no comic… and yet I’m here, so that means he must be too.

You may have noticed one of my heavily-relied upon themes is the cyclical nature of everything and so it goes around again – This is the first strip of the next Flowfield Unity book.

Back to print again, but this time in the reverse process of taking a webcomic and making it into a real-life object.

This ends my nativity story. There were no angels, but we had a star and one donkey. Happy Christmas and thanks for reading The Flowfield Unity Christmas special.

Normal service resumes tomorrow.

Ad.

As far as the analogy to the nativity goes, The Flowfield Unity was born and the wise men (that’d be you) turned up and had a look and some of them stayed around for the party.

I had finally found what I wanted to do… and that odd period of wilderness when I was homeless and creatively bankrupt was all over. I left my job at the publishing house because I had learned everything I needed to know about making my comic… I had used it and moved on.

The change of job and the settling of my site (I’m very grateful to wordpress for this) left me with more time to make comics and so I turned my once-a-week habit into a nearly-every-day one.

And so, the last strip of the book became symbolic of my move away from print and into a brave new world of digital fun.

Except, as you know, I don’t believe in such thing as an end…

So, where was I? The Nativity…

I’d nearly finished making The Flowfield Unity book when I decided to put some of the strips up online, for marketing purposes. At first I used a freewebs site.

That’s when the idea of turning my print comic into a webcomic occurred to me. I could easily draw a strip a week but maintaining my site (it was straight HTML) took ages, time I didn’t have.

It wasn’t so much that there was no room in the inn, more that there were quite a few inns to choose from.

So, I tried Keenspot, but I found the people running the forums there were a bit ignorant and well, quite petty and offensive… especially one admin that had their own comic and used their forum presence to promote it by slating everyone elses. It was at this point that I decided I would never say a bad word about another comic – mostly because I knew how much effort went into making even a quite bad one.

Time to find a new home… and start a journey that made The Flowfield Unity into a peripatetic webcomic.

The next stage was SmackJeeves. They were great there, they provided me a steady home, some nice readers and that gave me the time and inspiration to really start as a webcomic – not just recycling the strips from the book, but making new ones specifically for the internet. I’ll always be greatful to the folk there for starting me on my way.

But, I wanted more, I wanted my own site, and that’s when I bumped into Transplant and it was here that my comic finally made the transition to a proper webcomic.

I’d like to think that again, it was all part of a plan, a grand design, but the truth is I pretty much just fell into it. That said, I did have plans for Anton…