My idea advent calendar, day 15

December 15th: Penguins

Birds are special within the animal kingdom, not least because many of them are of those wonderful species where it is easy to tell male and female apart at a glance. Mallard ducks, for example, have a clear and separate plumage colouration indicative of sex, and they are by far from alone amongst our feathery pals. However, some of their kind are less forgiving to the casual bird sexer, as it were. My idea is that penguins should be brought into line with the mallard. Females can retain their familiar colour scheme, but I suggest males could be negatives of that - black where the female is white and vice versa. The only downside of this scheme is that it would require armies of penguin painters to get up close and personal with our fishy chums. Hardly a chore!

My idea advent calendar, day 14

December 14th: Pockets

Men have pockets. Women have bags. These are the general rules for carrying stuff about. Indeed, I found out recently that some commercially available women's trousers don't even HAVE pockets on them. The simple fact is that, whether they know it or not, women are missing out. My solution to society's great oversight is Nockets, which I have invented. The stick on pocket with a glue so strong you can even wear them whilst naked (hence the name). Seriously, you'd not be able to get them off again.

My idea advent calendar, day 13

December 13th: The rise of technology

The great irony of modern society is that the only way to publically declare that you are a Luddite is either on your blog or on Twitter. Nevertheless, the terrifying speed of development of communications and entertainment technology leaves me rather befuddled. If you'd told me, just 10 years ago, that the next mobile phone I got would most likely have the entire internet on it, I'd have told you I'd never get a mobile phone. I did, of course, such is the force for social change offered by our new trinkets. We belong to the first epoch in human history who dedicate more time to finding new ways of entertaining ourselves than we do feeding ourselves or making wheat hardier and taste like Tizer. My idea is for a moratorium to be declared on all new developments in TV, gaming and communication for five years, in order to allow people like me to catch up. Failing that, I'd like mobile phones to have a button on reading "HELP" which, when pressed, immediately dials The Samaritans and directs you to the nearest Bygones museum.

My idea advent calendar, day 12

December 12th: Animal names

Language is a fascinating area of study, as we all know. It can also be a barrier between us, inspiring humans to come up with various ruses such as the universal language of Esperanto. I'm not proposing anything so sweeping. However, I am well aware that in every language, there are names for all the animals and that some of them are better - more expressive of the animal in question's essence -than others. My idea, then, is to choose the best name for every animal and have a universalised set for all to use. So, the butterfly may well become a papillon (French) and the hippo could be a Flußpferd (German). However, I rather suspect that English weasels, ferrets and donkeys will remain untouched.

My idea advent calendar, day 11

December 11th: Climate change

Climate change is very much the topic of the day for people all over the globe, so it would be remiss of me to not try and think up an elegant solution to the growing problem. However, it is fair to say that this is quite a challenge. In the past I have rather glibly suggested that a bear could eat the excess carbon, which I STILL MAINTAIN WOULD WORK. But it seems like the time has come for a more urgent and radical solution to be found. And here it is: collect all the carbon dioxide together and fire it into space. Actually, that may not work, because space rockets are quite polluting. Give everyone their own tree and a wheelbarrow to carry it round in.

My idea advent calendar, day 10

December 10th: Animal Fights

Here is my idea for a TV show, called Animal Fights. Every week, a contestant has to prepare for a fight with an animal on Saturday evening's live show. The twist is that they are not told what animal it is that they will be fighting. As such, the contestants will have to prepare themselves in a broad variety of ways - mental strength as well as physical, plus psychology and in-depth research. This way, be it an adder or a kodiak bear who issues forth from behind the curtain, our protagonist will be as well-prepared as possible. With its blend of reality TV, fighting, self-betterment, educational segments and animals, this programme would tick all the boxes for 21st century TV entertainment and appeal to virtually everyone.

My idea advent calendar, day 9

December 9th: World Cup

Football fans amongst you may have been watching the draw for the 19th FIFA World Cup in Johannesburg last Friday evening. We now know the match schedule for the 32 qualified teams in South Africa next summer. However, you will not need to be an expert on socio-political geography to know that there are some large areas of the globe who will not be represented at the tournament. A 32 team tournament not only represents a small proportion of FIFA's 208 member nations, but from a wider perspective, the failure of China or India to qualify accounts for nearly half of the world's human population being disenfranchised! As you may have guessed, my idea is to let everyone play in the World Cup. Maybe in one giant match, last team standing wins.

My idea advent calendar, day 8

December 8th: Aluminium foil

Christmas is quite a foily time of the year, with many delicious foodstuffs which need to be baked in a hot oven with the modicum of protection afforded by a thin piece of metal. Indeed, so high is the demand for this miracle product, you may find yourself running out at a most inopportune moment. The solution to this is simple. Take a potato peeler and whittle some slices off a nearby car. This is particularly useful for thin foods, such as snakes or gizzards.

My idea advent calendar, day 7

December 7th: Advent calendars

You may have noticed, loyal reader of my idea advent calendar, that this calendar runs sequentially. This is one of the things which makes it better than a conventional advent calendar, which has its doors spread around without any rhyme or reason. If I were to make an advent calendar, the doors would open in neat rows from left to right and from top to bottom. No more searching for doors! Plus, it would be pleasingly uniform, like a Big D peanut board.

My idea advent calendar, day 6

December 6th: Pubic hair consolidation

Evolution has produced many strange things. The proboscis monkey. The duck-billed playpus. The hammerhead shark. However, perhaps its most peculiar trick to date is the fact that human beings still grow pubic hair. The purpose of this, no-one* knows. However, it can be a problem, especially to wearers of bikinis. My wish for the next million years of human evolution is that instead of lots and lots of inch-long curlers, the human pubic hair is consolidated into one, centrally-mounted hair of about 10-20 feet. This would be easier to conceal in thong panties and also could come in very handy for escaping if you are imprisoned in a tower.

* someone might know

My idea advent calendar, day 5

December 5th: Pet choice

It is always hard to lose a pet, as they become a part of the family. So, if you have an elderly or infirm pet who is coming to the end of their life, help keep a small part of them alive by letting them choose their successor. Simply put pictures of animals on the floor and wait for them to tread, sit, lie down or vomit on one of them. In the interests of science, the list of animals (which is entirely up to you otherwise) must include a shire horse.

My idea advent calendar, day 4

December 4th: Vases

You never know when you're going to need a vase, but I think we all know that the need for one will always arise at some point. So, here's my idea: houses to be built with fixed vases at strategically important vase points. In fact, as a part of the house's fixtures and fittings, they could also be plumbed in to the water system and be fitted with a little tap, saving two jobs. Not only would this save hundreds of thousands of vase finding hours every year, but the rather ugly prospect of empty vases scattered around your room would see plant sales rocket and homes everywhere be filled with lovely colourful flowers and bees.

My idea advent calendar, day 3

December 3rd: Contact details

Our society now is more interconnected than at any time in human history, thanks to advances in electronic communications and transport technology. The majority of people in the developed world now carry with them a small box of tricks in their pocket or bag containing their entire social networks, available at the touch of a button. And yet, we still behave unspeakably to one another. Being objectionable on trains. Pushing in in line. Carving people up on the roads or with supermarket trolleys. So, here's my solution. Everyone should have their mobile phone number written on a piece of card and stuck to their front and back, like a car number plate. This would make everyone accountable to one another. Even in the worst-case scenario, it would still see annoying people spending their lives answering abusive phone calls and text messages.

My idea advent calendar, day 2

December 2nd: Eschatology

I grew up in turbulent and parlous times, the death-throes of the Cold War frequently producing critical moments for humanity. However, I didn't know about any of that. What I was worried about was Nostradamus. By the time we got to the fateful year 2000, I was a little more relaxed about matters. You have no time for the end of days. However, the effect the whole pre-millennium tension thing had on me as a child (and beyond, let's face it, I am an anxious oaf) has made me very mindful of the impact of end time thinking on children.

My niece will be 6 and at school in 2012, the latest in a long line of landmark dates, and I'd hate to think she'll spend a single minute worrying about Mayan doomsday prophecy theories or John Cusack. So, for anyone in that position, here's my solution. Break a mirror. This will ensure you have seven years bad luck, guaranteeing you will stumble, papercut and divorce your way to 2016 at least. When, undoubtably, there will be all sorts of new prevailing theories about dates and times of the rapture. So, get plenty of mirrors. Break a dozen.

My idea advent calendar, day 1

This year sees my 30th advent and Christmas period. As such, I thought I would mark this anniversary with a unique advent calendar of my thoughts and ideas so as to demonstrate the extent of the wisdom that time has given me.

December 1st: Bodily collections

Recently it has occurred to me that, should I ever have a child (which may not be for the best, in view of the idea I'm about to relate), I would collect all its nail clippings, bogeys, ear wax, scabs, etc. in separate vessels. In recent years, I have often wondered what such a collection of my own sloughings would look like. But to start squirreling this stuff away now, however diligently I did it, would still represent an incomplete collection. As a parent, I would be able to provide this archive for my children once they became able to decide whether or not collecting their own bodily waste was something that interested them. Parenting is all about forward planning.

Farewell to Inky Jim

The story of Inky Jim Jinkers should be one known to every schoolboy in the land. It is a story of commitment, love and, in the end addiction. As tales go, it is both romantic and cautionary. By rights, Jim Jinkers should be as famous to British people as Sir Winston Churchill or Henry VIII.

Jim Jinkers was born in 1971 to Terry and Sheila Jinkers, both shepherds. Like many people of his generation, Inky Jim was of the last intake of school pupils to have an inkwell on their desk in the classroom. During a rainy lunch break early in 1977, a friend of Jinkers' made Jim a fateful dare - I dare you to drink that ink.

From that day, he was hooked. By the end, he was drinking up to 12 bottles of ink a day, but in the early stages (as is so often the case) it seemed like his ink drinking habit was manageable, sociable. The odd blue wee aside, Jim did not start to show any ill effects until his final year at university in 1992, when all his teeth fell out. A graduate position at Parker Pens in Newhaven, East Sussex, did little to help his condition. Now a helpless addict, Jim was dismissed after 18 months when he was caught mainlining ink cartridges during tea breaks.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy of Jim Jinkers' short life, however, was that his ink drinking drove many women away. Jinkers' lot was a lonely one, and after the death of his father in 2001, he found himself living alone and with no-one to reign in his baser drives. By 2005 Jim was bathing in ink and waking up with a shot glass of Quink on his bedside table.

Now heavily in debt and farting brown clouds, Jim Jinkers found himself on the street for the last 12 months of his life, rooting through bins for discarded ballpoint pens and licking free newspapers at the recycling dump. His growing ink blindness was what finally accounted for him, accidentally drinking a bottle of India Ink rather than his favoured water soluable brands, which turned his colon into a Rorschach Test.

There is much that we can learn from the sad, short life of Jim Jinkers. Chief amongst these lessons, surely, is that you should not drink ink.

"Inky" Jim Jinkers, 19th January 1971 - 19th November 2009.

Neville

On Saturday at tea time, I watched the end of the film Jurassic Park. One thing and another, Jurassic Park has played a notable part in my life. I saw it in the cinema when it first came out, and it became the first big summer blockbuster that everyone was talking about that I too was able to talk about. 5 years later, I studied it in excruciating depth for my Media Studies 'A' level coursework.

Yes, I did Media Studies at 'A' level. Yes, I'm aware that it's a doss subject. That is why I picked it. I got three A grades at 'A' level, so I'm not going to sit here and have you plebby scum judge me.

All of this pales into insignificance - the cinema trip, the coursework - when my old mate Neville the T. Rex appears on screen to deliver what I think is his greatest ever performance. Life can be hard for a jobbing actor who is also a T. Rex. Whilst anti-discrimination legislation guarantees him a fair chance, it's always going to be difficult to find a role for him in EastEnders or The Bill. Really, Neville has been typecast as a T. Rex. Fans of dinosaurs will also have seen him in the BBC's documentary series Walking With Dinosaurs. He was also a body double for the 1998 remake of the film Godzilla.

Some of you may be thinking, 'surely all the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park are female, as made plain by the plot?'. But come on, people. You're obviously the type of person who calls out to Barbara Windsor "hello Peggy!" in the street. These people are actors. Neville, who is very much at one with his sexuality (as you might expect from someone who does all his scenes naked), and understood that he had to play a female T. Rex in the film. His sympathetic portrayal has impressed a generation of film-goers. It's just a pity that the scene in which he finds out that he's missed his period was left on the cutting room floor.

Such deceptions are not uncommon in the land of film. Katherine Hepburn was played by two midgets - Ethan and Ralph - stood on the other's shoulders for the entire shooting of On Golden Pond, Hepburn dubbing her lines in afterward. In more recent years, Harrison Ford was played by a monkey in The Fugitive.

The real test of a great film is if you can put this knowledge to one side and lose yourself in the story and the characters. Jurassic Park ticks these boxes for me. But when the credits roll, it always seems right to doff one's hat to Neville, an unsung hero of modern entertainment.

Avec crudities

Let's face it, readers, like them or not, penises have played a part in all of our lives at some point. Casting aside the Freud-inspired worship of meaty wangs, it is still easy to understand why it is they represent something which has proved irresistible to the artistic community. On nearly every toilet wall, text book inside cover or biology GCSE paper, you will find images of the phallus. There is something satisfyingly primal about these adornments. And also, amusing. Amusing, that is, if you happen to be a giggly, immature child. Fortunately, I am all of these things, and as such present for your pleasure this post here today.
Early this year, five of this country's most inspirational they-were-once-young minds found themselves in each other's company of a Saturday evening. The location was a pub in Brighton. What happened next has lain dormant in a little sketchbook ever since. The contents are so potent that it's a wonder that the book has not spontaneously ignited since, but it is posterity's gain that it has not. Because what happened next was an artistic symposium of ruinous power. Five people, one pen, one pad, one cock drawing each. The rules were simple... draw a cock. There was another rule as well, actually, and that was that there was to be no premeditative pondering. These cocks had to come from the unconscious mind. Let's have a look at them.

This is cock number one. The artist was a 39-year old male Flash™ programmer. They were born in the West Midlands, an earthy and direct place which obviously had a profound effect on this cock. Look at the pressure of the penmanship and the forcefulness of the lines. This cock is a little bullet not to be messed with. Particularly worthy of note is the urethral opening, drawn with a last flourishing stroke. This is the sort of cock which inspires confidence and respect.


This is cock number two. The artist was a 30-year old female civil servant. Unlike the creator of cock one, this artist grew up in bucolic surroundings in south eastern England, which shows in the ethereal beauty and simplicity of this cock. Particularly of note here is the meatiness of the shaft in relation to its companion knackers. This is not to diminish the importance of the balls to this drawing, the left one being particularly worthy of note... fleshy and bulbous, with three distinct and proud pubes. Topped off with a linear representation of some ejaculation, this classical image of the meat and two veg proves that classical images hold that status for a good reason.

This is cock number three. The artist was a 36-year old male working in debt collection via legal means rather than the traditional car park beatings. This is a very interesting drawing indeed. From the halting lines - compare this to the first two examples' smooth, single-stroke depiction of the willy and hangers - right up to the juiciness of the ejaculate, this is a cock to be reckoned with. Its most notable characteristic, of course, is the detail given to the glans penis. Not for this artist the simple demarcation of a single line. This cock is the sort of medically accurate drawing which would proudly adorn the printed content of a biology text book, rather than its subsequent additions.

This is cock number four. The artist was a 39-year old male computer programmer. Like the previous offering, this cock is characterised by a halting line. But just as cock three, it does not diminish the effectiveness of this musket. The pubic hairs are equidistantly distributed on a taut scrotum, whilst the penis itself is drawn at an angle which leaves the viewer in no doubt as to its tumescence. This cock, too, has an exceptionally detailed glans. Whereas the previous entry would well-illustrate a medical tome, this racier entry would be well suited to a filthy lithograph.

This is cock number five. Its artist was a 28-year old male who, uniquely for this experiment was actually an artist. Perhaps this explains the florid nature of the pubic hair detail and the style-over-substance approach to the shaft. This over-ornate offering does still have much to offer, particularly in the subtle detailing on the glans and urethral opening, and the juiciness of the spunk. However, the over-intricate balls can draw the eye away from the business end a little too much.


CONCLUSION
These five cocks represent a major body of work in the ongoing art of anatomy. Each one has its own unique character and personality, and each one has much to offer the development of the genre. However, it has to be said that cock number 4 is the standout offering. Noteworthy construction, coupled to anatomical accuracy and economy of line makes this wanger a winner. A special mention, however, must go to cock number 2, the classicism of which should inspire all who see it. It is very much my favourite offering.
However, this is not a line drawn in the sand. I welcome all further offerings of cock drawings, either in the comments or by email (link at the top of the sidebar). However, I would request that anyone wishing to submit an art does not do so anonymously, because that would be a bit too weird. Also, anyone emailing photographs of their actual cock will have their details passed on to the authorities.

Bear and bunny, in that order

(click it for bigger)

Pictures for sale

The wolf being firmly at my door, it's time to try and sell some pictures. There are three here, and I also take commissions, if that floats your particular boat. All prices listed are inclusive of p&p.

Boxer (10" x 10" (with a depth of 1"), acrylic on canvas, £65)
Fabio Capello (15" x 11", marker pen and watercolour on 220 gsm cartridge paper, £50)*
Darts tournament (12" x 8", pen, ink and watercolour on 220 gsm cartridge paper, £40)

* football fans may also note I also have not-quite award winning strip Shit Shot Mungo artwork available.

If you are interested in any of the above, or a bespoke creation, email me clicking here.