IF "Climbing"

My first IF in ages! I had a funny (ish) one in mind but in the end two therapeutic doodles won out. I have no idea why the moon ladder... guess that says something about my subconscious at present...?

Commuter Birds / Tube Tree

It's been so long since I posted last... I don't know where the days have gone...? You know how sometimes you get fixated on an idea then as you work on the picture you realise it isn't living up to what you originally had in your minds eye... well this post is it. I've always loved the graphical simplicity of the London tube map and the way Harry Beck's original design approach has developed into an iconic image. The whole tree/tube notion has been floating around in my head for weeks now and I decided to do something with it. This doesn't do the idea justice but to honest I think it's a dead end path for the present and I need to get onto more productive projects. Plus I sometimes find working in adobe illustrator a bit sterile. This post felt a bit like doing a maths problem. Ho hum, you live and learn with every picture don't you.

Tele Bird meets Bookworm. Part the fifth.

...but in this meeting of minds Bookworm comes out the winner.

This tales moral, if you want to be well fed,
TV in moderation and try and be well read.


Now I'm the last person to find fault with TV as a whole (you should see my TV shows DVD shelf...) but without sounding too opinionated there has been a greater deal of tossycock on the box of late! Reading seems so much more consistant (if you pick the right books that is (the only thing I have more of than DVD's is books...!). At least with less to tempt on TV it's easier to put in the hours on the blog.

After just finishing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (in my epic rereading of all the Dahl's) I realise I have been treading the same ground with these last few posts as the Mike Teavee Oompa-Loompa song. The more I blog stuff out the more I realise how the influences from my childhood are seeping out. Makes you see just how important children's literature is on malleable little minds! Hope I haven't sounded to preachy. Just a bit of fun.

Tele Bird meets Bookworm. Part the fourth.

Telebirdy is early but this wormy is smart,
and not to be caught despite TB’s head start.

For avian lunch a worm will do,
but for Bookworm it is bird on the menu.

Our worm consults bird books and a DIY guide,
and builds a great barbecue and birdwatchers hide

From here the cunning invertebrate,
leafs through a cook book while for birdy it waits.

Wormy is well hidden with nothing on show,
while up above is an arrow on t'bow.

TB arrives on a hunt for it's dinner...

Tele Bird meets Bookworm. Part the third.

Now while Tele Bird is a slave to TV,
The Bookish Worm favours the library.

For wormy no life spent in televisual haze,
better to find books upon which to gaze.

Therein to be found all of lifes pleasures,
a gripping good yarn and knowledge to treasure.


I think I might get an ex libris bookplate design out of this one. The writting on the worm's body took longer than expected. It's been so long since I last wrote anything in longhand I've forgotten how. I tried to think back to all the 'sandcastles in a line' exercises we did at primary school to practice before we started longhand proper. I used to get ticks and 'well dones', not any more. Mrs. White would turn in her grave to see that alphabet!

Tele Bird meets Bookworm. Part the second.

It’s favourite shows jam pack the screen,
with TV chefs and their haute cuisine.

Too many cooks make a broth poor and smelly,
but not, it would seem, with a broth cooked on tele.

The Tele Bird drools while treats grilled on skewers,
are served up to thousands of couch potato viewers.

Only now does it find a TV diet lacking,
such avid viewing leaves scant room for snacking.

Birdy is peckish and flys off for some lunch,
preferably kebabs, if not, worms to munch.


Hope you want to hear more...
PS. in reply to anonymous' comment in the last but one post, no (thankfully) I am NOT that Matt Dawson.

Tele Bird meets Bookworm. Part the first (again).

The Tele Bird learns all it knows,
being zapped by endless TV shows.

It does not need to sit and stare,
stuff flys to it from out of the air.

While atop the aerial on the roof,
it pearches transfixed, engrossed, aloof.

By day and night, come shine or rain,
tele rays bombard it’s pea sized brain.

I wanted more than the rough watercolour was giving, and I'm liking the retro feel which has happened with this approach. Part two quick as a wink.

A bird

Just so I do something creative before the day is out.

Tele Bird meets Bookworm. Part the first.

The Tele Bird learns all it knows,
being zapped by endless TV shows.

It does not need to sit and stare,
stuff flys to it from out of the air,

while atop the aerial on the roof,
it perches transfixed, engrossed, aloof.

By day and night, come shine or rain
tele rays bombard it’s pea sized brain.


Well I have to do something to cheer myself up for January. I've been reading a lot of Roald Dahl over the last few days. I really like the way he handles his rhymes and I thought I'd have a stab. From time to time I enjoy the structure of having to do a narrative which rhymes. I'm no poet (I know it...) but it's fun nevertheless. Hope you enjoy... if you do there's more of the story to come, so watch this space.