Yes, it looks as though Summer has arrived here in good old Blighty, bringing with it all the concomitant joys and agonies of seemingly endless sunshine and heat. Some of the joys we might categorise as bird-song trilling through your open window; tea, supper, breakfast, snacks and sleeping them off - on the veranda; smiling faces; loose clothing; a sense of time slowly melting like butter on a windowsill ....
And the minus points? Flip-flops for men to start off with - urrgh; flip-flops in general; loose clothing; water-bombs thrown at the bus by gangs of youths; rubbish in the park; hay-fever and of course the terrible itchy, burning heat, crawling beneath your lobster-pink epidermis like an engorged ant...
The brand new post provided by the pen of Mr Bove (Mr Bove being indisposed due to his being slumped in a sorry, heat and drink induced coma on his bathroom floor, the brave pen pluckily stepped into the fray and produced a rather fine cartoon, infinitely superior to Mr Bove's usual scrawl) rather reminded me of the agonies of the heat; the unbearable nature of one's skin in the merciless heat of noon, and the secret longing to tear it open and step out, to wander hither and yon in your nice cool bones.
Of course the strip has nothing to do with this latter feeling, being more to do with the dreadful burden of self-image and the conflict with the the way that others see us; not to mention a large dollop of self-loathing and madness into the bargain. But heigh-ho, I am in charge and if I and wish to identify the skin-ripping strip with the prickly heat I am currently suffering due largely to being overweight as a result of a life of lavish excesses; I can, so nyeeer!
So, enjoy Mr Bove's / his pen's new amusement. There is one in black-and-white for those of you cursed to work in dark, forbidding offices out of the stone-age with leaky-ceilings, wooden filing-cabinets, nicotine coloured carpets, and of course a total absence of colour inkjet printing facilities. Whilst of course for those in the 21st Century, there is a colour version which Mr Bove (or his pen) has hand-coloured with Corel Paint Shop Pro in the hope of evoking the four-colour comic strip of a bygone age. Two strips for the price of one! That is how generous we are at Gindylow! So touch then with your virtual fingers, select them, copy them, print them, pin them over your dull schedules and drab to-do lists and generally enjoy them in this new fangled sunshine thing (but of course do not attempt to rip off your skin, you may not be as lucky as our hero!).
Ultimately, I feel it gives a new meaning to the words comic STRIP.
Poor, hot and itchy and ever-so slightly twitchy Trevor.
by A. Bove
