Below Belief

I’ve been a big fan of Hugh MacLeod, cartoonist over at Gaping Void for many years. I find his cartoons refreshingly honest, sometimes challenging – but always amusing.
He now sells his cartoons as limited edition prints, but allows anyone to download them off his site for free for people to use them for whatever (thanks Hugh!). Turns out lots of his followers do this, including me, and he’s coined the term “Cube Grenade” to describe their use as disruptive social objects – printing them out, putting them up somewhere and using them as conversation-starters.
Mine are in the hallway at home, rather than in a cube, but I love the fact that people do find them interesting and they are a conversation starter:



I’ve also used Hugh’s cartoons to illustrate newsletters I’ve sent out at work – always selecting an appropriate cartoon from the huge back catalogue to summarise the mood of what’s going on.
And Hugh’s right – in the future I might very well upgrade some of my favourites to a limited-edition version in much higher quality (than my tatty printouts) so that I can always enjoy his art and continue to start bigger conversations…

I was cycling home the other night, about 11pm, along a luckily deserted stretch of road near home, when this happened:




For the uninitiated, that’s the seat post off my bike and yes the saddle just sheared off…
Other than being further evidence that I must be fat, this was a pretty nasty incident – because the bike shot out in front of me and I landed on the tarmac on my coccyx.
For the first few moments I was winded and could hardly breathe – then finally I came to my senses and got off the road – my back was in agony and I thought I might have broken something. Luckily I hadn’t but I’ve been walking round like an old man for 3 days now and it’s very painful to sit down in the wrong way!
Anyway, bloody painful experience and I’m lucky it didn’t happen on busier roads earlier in my journey. Am wondering if I should report this to the bike manufacturers as it seems the seat post might have been defective for it to shear like that.

We had a lovely time over the bank holiday staying with J & K at her parents in Cilgarren – a tiny village on the West Wales coast near Cardigan.