This blog was created on 15th January, 2004 and has been updated regularly since.
It contains over 3,000 journal entries (to which almost 29,000 comments have been received), but as you will see below, only a few of them are publically visible.
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I'm sure I posted this at the time I drew it, but comments on my post yesterday reminded me of the strip I did in 2007 for a competition run by the Observer.

( It's big )

That is all.

I am cartooning at the moment, yes I am, well, I am drawing things in boxes and scanning them into the computer and drawing over them in Photoshop and then deciding it's not good enough, which is my far-too-labour-intensive way of cartooning at the moment, and one I'd do well to move on from.

See, the ever-beneficent cleanskies (or clea8n5sk!9s as the kitten calls her as he walks across the keyboard) invited me to contribute to transatlantic femicom Strumpet. She knows my hours are largely accounted for, but the deadline is long and the pagecount is short, so I said yes.

At the moment, I am pencilling frames, scanning in, creating a new layer and drawing with a tablet over the top. This is a step forward, in terms of how much time it consumes, from my previous non-intuitive method of drawing in pencil, inking, erasing pencil, scanning, and tidying up in Photoshop. But to be honest, I'm not sure the Photoshopping is doing me many favours. I'm tempted to go back to the Eighties and draw the whole thing in pen and then take it to a copy shop where a disaffected youth in pixie boots and a crimped fringe will A3 photocopy it for me.

Meanwhile, I've been wondering - always assuming I finish the bloody thing - what name to put it under. It is sobering to think that my last concerted efforts at the comic thing were, ahem, pre-internet. The term 'online persona' had not been invented. The term 'brand management' probably had, but was far from my hippified, co-operative-living, jumble-saleing world. For various reasons, I used to put my work under the name Tristram Puppy, and sometimes Myfanwy Tristram.

I really, really doubt that anyone Googles either of those names now, or that there's anyone wandering round using up good synapse power on retaining them. But a little bit of me would like, for the sake of connectedness, to put the new strip out as by Myfanwy Tristram. Look! There is the faintest of webtrails: here. Here. And OMG here. On the other hand, I've discovered Mathilda Tristram, ace cartoonist, and that's definitely a mix-up waiting to happen.

I mentioned this on Twitter, and the general reaction was that I should put the old stuff online. You can reputation-manage online. You can transfer from one old name to your new chosen name, simple - redirect from myfanwytristram.com to myfanwynixon.com, have an explanatory page, whatevs.

How funny that I've never even thought about scanning any of this old stuff. The truth is that there isn't a single strip that I can look at without it just seeing terribly, horribly jejune, and poorly drawn, and naive, not in a good way. It's all under my bed, some in printed form and some originals. I probably ought to get it out and see if any of it is worth putting online. You know, when I get some time.

I should finish the strip before I actually worry about any of this stuff, shouldn't I.


(And oh my goodness, a website set up by an ex-colleague, when not only was the internet new, but the whole concept of *having a computer* was new. I remember having a staff training session about Geocities, involving FTP. I think he hosted these pictures because I'd visited the Brighton media centre, got to grips with a scanner and how to use it, saved the pictures to a CDR, and brought it into work because I didn't have a PC at home to look at them. I am touched that he's kept it live, especially this page with my random illustrations on, all these years. "Highly successful screenwriter" *snort*. That dates it to, erm, 1998.)

That papier-mache figure I saw at the end of my run on Saturday?



Its owners tweeted today that it has been stolen. I *thought* it was odd that it was all alone with no-one in sight, but I guess they thought no-one would steal something so big.

Has anyone seen our giant Regency gentleman? He was stolen after the Children's Parade on Saturday. Same Sky need your help to get him back!

The 3-meter high figure, named “Percy”, is holding a book and wearing full regency dress, including a waistcoat made from a map of the world, and a top hat.

Percy was made by Same Sky community artist, Jo Coles, especially for the Children’s Parade. Jo spent two weeks making him from willow sticks, newsprint and domestic paint.

Jo said: “We’re very upset and terribly worried about him. He’s a gentle soul – a romantic and a scholar – and really shouldn’t be out in Brighton on a Saturday night. He needs looking after.” Because of his height, Jo is worried that someone will leave him outside, possibly in a garden. “He won’t survive being outside for any amount of time and will fall apart if he gets wet.”

He was taken from underneath the Arches on Madeira Drive as our crew were clearing up after the parade. Did anyone see him (or maybe even photograph him) being taken?

Anyone with information is asked to contact Same Sky at info@samesky.co.uk

I told them when I'd spotted him and got the reply: We are on the trail. We have a spotting of him in Coldean on late Saturday afternoon.

Meanwhile, the sign that normally hangs outside Kemptown's art deco teashop, Metro Deco, has also gone missing, as also announced by tweet. I can only suspect a lonely, tea-drinking giant. Better jokes welcome.

Some things I have seen while running along the seafront:

- A bride and groom, being photographed in the bandstand, under cloudy skies.
- A swallow, seen fleetingly as it swooped at eye-level, but unmistakable for its tail.
- A bearded tramp on a bench, surrounded by his bags and somehow eliciting steam from an electric kettle.
- A newly-painted shelter, white, with a string of cricket-ball-sized spheres along its roof-edge, bright yellow and looking, from a distance, like lights.
- Kite-surfers, small against the gradated grey silhouette of the Shoreham incinerator chimney.
- A drummer, alone, 2km down the undercliff path to Rottingdean, sitting on the wall and drumming to the sea.
- A *gang* of drummers, under the lower promenade's covered walkway, and making full use of its echo.

I can't stop and photograph these things, but I wish I could.

This guy, however, was at the end of my run yesterday, so didn't involve breaking my stride:



Presumably left after the children's parade, to be picked up later?

As a Brightonian, when I read Nick Cave's novel The Death of Bunny Munro, I must have a very different experience than someone who's unfamiliar with the city.

Cave set the novel in and around Brighton, so you find yourself accompanying the text with strong mental images as Bunny mentions picking up girls in the Funky Buddha club, or visits his boss' small, sad office above an off-licence on Western Road, or goes for a pint at the Wick pub.

I had the idea of plotting the points on a Google map the first time I read the book, but I was a couple of chapters in by then, and more intent on finishing it than on anything else. Three years later when the idea came back to me, I was surprised to find that no-one else had yet done it. So I did.

There are 43 mentions of specific places, most of them immediately identifiable either by streetname, or because they're well-known Brighton sights or establishments. There are a few places, like hotels, where the descriptions of the interiors and staff are so unflattering that presumably Cave, or his publishers Canongate, thought it politic to change the name. But it is clear that Cave had a very strong idea of precisely where every piece of action occured, to the extent that I found myself wondering whether he drove round Bevendean or Newhaven as research (or was familiar with them for some other obscure reason). As he can barely walk through the North Laine without generating over-excited Instagram pictures and Twitter updates (guilty), perhaps he, too, turned to Google Maps to do some of his research.

I hope people will find the map when they read the book - particularly people far from Brighton, who may never have visited the city, but will be able to add a dimension to their reading by employing Streetview. Although, as the world is always sunny in Streetview, it may make an odd match to such a dark work.

Plotting points on maps is, I have to say, a very mySociety-style activity - but I don't think I was influenced by my workmates here. As I say, the idea first came to me three years ago. However, what my far more clever colleagues do may have inspired my further thoughts, to wit, if only the book was in an open data format, you could tie the map in with the Kindle or iBook editions for a geolocation-rich reading experience.

You may laugh at me. Here is a timeline graphically depicting my return to knitting (last attempted circa 1978?), where you can clearly see my loopy efforts at the beginning, turning to neater rows when I suddenly figure out pulling to an equal tension at the end of each stitch.



It's a chainmail grey (actually a bit more delicate and pleasing IRL) because that's what we had hanging about at home, and it has a green stripe because that was the scrap of wool my mum started me off on down in Exeter.

Now, questions:

1. Dear old non-judgemental Item doesn't mind it like this, and it's going to be a scarf for her. When it's done, I'll start a new one, in nice colours, and probably stripy. But, is there any simple way to unravel that first bit and reknit it? I'm guessing not (unravel yes, knit backwards, no).

2. Now I can do plain knitting, what should I learn next? I'd like to learn techniques while making simple things, rather than study techniques and then think how to apply them. Things I'm interested in making right now include moar scarves (for the Boy, Item and myself), fingerless gloves, hats, and maybe even a plain jumper eventually. Is there some resource that takes you through simple projects one at a time like this?

3. Everyone talks about Ravelry. Is that something I should look at?

Excuse the rubbish phone photos - my scanner is... well, it's not broken, but something tripped the power, and I'm scared to plug very much in at all until we've had it checked out.

But anyway, I did a few sketches on the train journeys to and from London yesterday.



I liked this man's elaborate scarf-tying.



That man on the right, in the middle? He definitely saw me drawing him and he gave me such a frown.

I also drew Item from the photo I took of her the other day - I liked the shape she made when she fell asleep on the sofa.

I seem to be doing a bit more sketching these days than I have in a long while, mostly from photos taken on my phone.

On Saturday, we went to our friends' house and Item (in her tiger suit) was so delighted to discover that they had three cheeky guinea pigs:



(You can tell I love her, because I've drawn her too big! I guess she looms large in my world).



This is the nice old Moominesque house on the corner of our road. Coming back from my run yesterday, it looked pretty dramatic against the blue sky and tufty clouds.