Fah! etc.

Just found out that the five sales I had made on my Envelop shop were an Indonesian scam. So there aren't five people walking around their kitchens in aprons with my design on. I was enjoying that thought too. . . A lot of other designers stuff was ordered as well. The scam was spotted before any harm was done. the idea was to order stuff, claim it never arrived and get compensation from the credit card co. Or something like that. Dispiriting that sort of thing. Oh well. Life goes on.

Son, he of the terrible nosebleed trauma around xmas, managed to knee himself in the nose during PE at school, doing a roll as part of a parkour routine (look it up), and, as far as can be ascertained at this stage ( too swollen to tell properly) he has broken the damn thing. I nearly had a bleedin heart attack when the school rang me. Apparently his nose bled but only for a short while, thank God. He will probably have a profile like Jack Palance (look him up too if you are too young to know who he is), but luckily he won't have a wonky Steven Fry nose, it is very straight looking.

Sigh. . . PE, dangerous sporty stuff, who needs it? Olympics? Yer arse. . .
Apparently the fabulous (fah!) Olympic logo looks like the youngest Simpson doing something very rude to somebody else. . . It does too.

Been doing the artwork for the prospective new Baby Owl book to be taken to Bologna in early April. Two spreads and a cover. All on spec, but it has a ninety percent chance of coming off as several foreign publishers are interested in the idea of new Baby Owl stuff, so I don't have a problem with it being as yet unpaid. I trust my publisher and if he can't close a deal on it nobody can. I can't show you any of it yet unfortunately ;-( but it's looking good I think.

Sent some work to an agency on spec, as being represented for non book stuff would be useful. No reply at all after about two months. Their submissions policy said there wouldn't be if the work 'wasn't for them' but that just annoys me and is just plain rude, so I sent an email saying 'I'll take that as a 'no' then?'. They replied that as they said in their submissions policy due to the number of emails they don't reply. . . . blah de blah, so I replied to that, saying 'Thanks for the reply. How long did that take? Twenty seconds? So why not reply to all unsuccessful applicants.' or words to that effect. If you can't be respectful to applicants, don't bleedin well allow email submissions! I am sick of content creators being treated like shit. We pay their middle man wages FFS! And I'm old enough not to worry about pissing a few people off so I will continue to challenge this attitude.

Interviews for my daughter's Art College choices are coming up. Bloody LCC have stopped the Surface Design course she really wants to go on. She can still go on it but will be in the last intake year. We are worried that a moribund course will be bad for all involved. It might still be a good course though, so we really don't know how to proceed. She, meanwhile is having a nervous breakdown about her portfolio. . . Am offering soothing advice coz she is conscientious and very able and obviously an asset to any establishment. . . But then I am her Dad.

So, life goes on, and so do I. I don't half go on. . .
cheers,
Jon x