• As the King told the Queen and the the Queen told the Dairy Maid, “Nobody, my Dear, would call me a fussy man, but I do like a little bit of butter on my…” Actually I don’t have butter on my bread, but I am missing my afternoon cup of Whitard’s Strawberry Tea!

    Whittards was one of the first casualties of the recession. Whoever bought them out has been rationalising and coming up with new, bright ideas. One of them was to scrap Strawberry Flavoured Tea and replace it with Strawberry and Orange.

    This is the most disgusting brew you could ever imagine. Remember all those revolting medicines you were made to take as a child? Most particularly, Amoxycillin Syrup? They said it tasted nice for kids – all oranges and strawberries? They were liars!

    Well that’s what Orange and strawberry tea tastes of. Revolting children’s medicines. Just smelling it makes me gag!

    I used to mix strawberry tea with Lapsang Suchong for my afternoon tea. It was the most thirst-quenching tea you can imagine. Please – Please – Please bring it back!

  • If You’ve not got a ticket to walk the Red Carpet, console yourself by learning how to draw an Oscar’s Statuette. You can make a speech when you’ve fished drawing it.

    Why Thank you! Thank you! Mr. deMille – I’m ready now!

  • Duh! I do feel stupid sometimes. My Drawing School video production takes me quite a long time. Each time I have to remember to do the same tasks – expanding the size of overlay images – lengthening the time of clips – fitting photos to the frame – making the same settings over and over.

    It just crossed my mind that basically, each video I do is much like the last, technically.

    “If only I could have a pre-defined video that I could drop new clips into,” I sighed to myself. Then… ding! I set up just such a video, saved it and checked to see if I could duplicate it – I could. Then I checked to see if I could drop new clips in the old clips and replace them – I could!

    I now have an automated production system that allows me to worry about the creative bit rather than getting the boring but important bits right every time.

    Sometimes solutions are staring you in the face. You just have to realise that you have a problem that needs fixing!