And this is a big coat.

That's a big jumper.

Sorry about the hiatus - this place often tends to suffer a bit when I have a lot of writing to do (in this case series two of Cabin Pressure). So, in order to keep the posts ticking over, and because I need practice, and because I've bought a new scanner, I thought I might start putting drawings and caricatures up as well. I expect they'll mostly be people and faces, because that's what I mostly draw. They'll tend not to be actual specific people, though they might be sometimes. Hope you don't this too self-indulgent, though possibly the ship of me not being self-indulgent sailed when I bought 'www.johnfinnemore.com', and filled it with three years of what I reckon about stuff. 

Anyway. Here's a chap. 

Also, at some point he falls in love.

At the cinema, there was an advert for something or other to do with the cinema itself, advance booking or something, that involved several ultra-mini-trailers for forthcoming films. One, in its entirity, went like this:

Clip one- Footage of second best special effect. Solemn Character: 'Evil has returned.'

Clip two- Footage of best special effect. Brave Character: 'We have to find the Dragonball!'

Now, I've got nothing against that sort of movie,  but it strikes me that that is pretty much its perfect length. This is literally all I know about 'Dragonball', but I bet I already know as much about the characters and plot from those two sentences as I ever would from a ninety-odd minute film. I suppose the director might argue that the edited version above lacks closure, and would want it at least doubled so as to include the lines:

Clip three - Brave Character: 'We've found the Dragonball!'

Clip four - Solemn Character: 'Evil has gone away again.'

But to be honest, I think he's wrong. I don't think anyone was in any doubt whether the Dragonball would be found and Evil would go away, or whether the Dragonball would forever remain down in the crack behind the washing machine, and Evil would settle in and start choosing new carpets. In fact, on the contrary, I think the edited version is still a bit flabby. Here's my ideal cut:

Footage of best special effect. 

Wise Character - Evil.

Brave Character - Dragonball!

That'll be £9.50, please, not including popcorn. 

Projects in development with the studio that brought you 'Fifty Dead Men Walking'.

• Fifty Taxi Drivers
  
• The Fifty Godfathers
  
• The Fifty Elephant Men
  
• The Fifty Ladies Vanish
  
• The Fifty Godfathers, Part One Hundred
  
• The Fifty Men in The Fifty Iron Masks
  
• The Hundred and Fiftieth Man
  
• Six Hundred Angry Men
  
• Five Thousand and Fifty Dalmations
  

More thrilling adventures of spending too much time in a library.

The franchise of the cafe in the British Library has changed hands, which has left me flustered, indignant and disturbed , despite the fact that the staff and prices remain the same, and the food looks, if anything, nicer. Is this a sign I have become institutionalised?

Meanwhile, find this mournful chain of comments written, in various hands, on one of the paper 'How to read a book, you idiot' signs on every desk.

- PHD-takes forever!
- Agreed
- Would never put myself through that.
- You don't have to.
- It's worth it in the end. DR.
- I didn't get funding, so...

Not sure whether the penultimate Smuggins signed with their initials, which is bad - are we supposed to know who s/he is? Daniel Radcliffe? Diana Ross? - or signed as 'Doctor', which is worse, and probably best treated with a smack in the mouth.