That was the year that was

2012 was a year that was fantastic and miserable at the same time.

On the fantastic side, we had a Jubilee that exceeded all expectations, followed by on Olympics* and a Paralympics that were so good we all thought we'd been magically transported to another country. Locally, Hastings broke the record for most Pirates in one place at the same time, the Jerwood gallery opened, The Hastleon's Oliver was a huge box-office success and Keane played a blinder of a set in a concert just behind my back garden.

On the miserable side it started raining on January 1st and hasn't stopped yet. My work load appears to have doubled but my income definitely hasn't. Smudge died, and Gizmo's kidneys have packed up and he's not responding to treatment so he's not going to last much longer. (Though it must be said, he's baffling the vet - he has so much urea in his system he should be dead by now, but apart from the fact he drinks water by the bucket, pees it out by the flagon and smells faintly of pee, you'd never know there was anything wrong with him.) The BBC is imploding, the press isn't. And George Osborne is about to invent the Triple-Dip recession, at about the same time as the Republicans are forcing the US over the fiscal cliff with their childish intransigence. (Honestly, triple-dip is a word that shouldn't be heard outside of an ice cream parlour.)

I'm playing with Osborne's excuses for his economic illiteracy. The past few excuses he's used for the ecomomy performing worse than expected have been 'a cold winter', 'a wet spring', 'Christmas' and 'The Royal Wedding'. When he uses 'The Eurovision Song Contest' as an excuse we'll know he's finally lost it completely.

* They're over - it's safe to use the O word again.

Millie Week 69; Mon 30 Dec 1991 - Sat 4 Jan 1992

It's the new year, so it's time to buy that Gym membership that's going to last all year even though you'll never visit it again after 12th January.

Shell suits were very in at that time, gaudily coloured garments made of woven grocery bags, and sold at a premium to the kind of people who have never taken a day's exercise in their lives.

Comic nerds may be interested that, rather like the Mayan calendar, the Daily Mirror's date codes reset themselves every twenty six years. Tuesday 31st December 1991 was coded Z316, and Wednesday 1st January 1992 was A1.

Totter

Its how I've always felt when seeing footage of the coronation from back in 1953. How did she move under all that stuff?

Queen Smudge

Dedicated to the real Smudge, who died on Sunday.

Smudge was the kitten who chose me when I came round to visit her litter. There were two female blue and white cats and one hen pecked all-blue male. Smudge saw me and climbed up my trouser legs and up my jumper to say hello. I knew I was going to be hers from that point onwards. And that's how it remained. Linda says I had a special smile I only reserved for Smudge, and I guess that's true, she was always a daddy's girl, and she had me wrapped around her little paw.

She'll be greatly missed, but she'll live on to boss her brother around in this strip. May she bring laughter to other people's lives in the same way she brought joy to mine. And whenever you see a wall, think of her.

My original notes for today: There's very little surplus Jubilee tat in the shops but Sainsbury's and John Lewis are awash in unsold Olympics stuff, which only now has started to reach the sort of price where you would ever consider buying it. But only if you're a fan of Olympic fuschia.

Twas the night before Christmas

Merry Xmas Everybody, as St Noddy of Holder would say. Have a great time, eat loads, and fall asleep in front of the telly. It's the one time of the year when we're all allowed to act like cats.

Millie Week 68, Mon 23 - Sat 28 Dec 1991

Two strips missing this week. One is because newspapers don't publish on Christmas Day in the UK. The other is from Boxing Day, and I obviously couldn't be bothered to go out and buy a newspaper on that day.

Here's the missing script...

1. CAPTION: THE WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS
Millie and her mother in the kitchen, wrapping Christmas presents. Mum is producing beautifully wrapped packages while Millie is having problems - she'sone of thsoe people that require three hands to wrap anything.
MILLIE: I HAVEN'T GOT A CLUE WHAT I'M GOING TO GET FOR DAD THIS YEAR - HE'S SO DIFFICULT TO BUY FOR.

2. Mum gives her advice as she finishes tying the ribbon on a dainty little box.
MUM: THE BEST THING TO DO WITH PEOPLE LIKE THAT IS TO BUY THEM SOMETHING YOU'D LIKE YOURSELF.

3. Christmas morning by the tree. The family is unwrapping their presents. Dad has just unwrapped his one from Millie. It is a video. He's totally noneplussed by it but shows gratitude all the same. You know - the 'Genny's knitted me another hideous jumper; goodie!" kind of gratitude. Richard is laughing. Mum just looks up to heaven.
DAD: NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK LIVE IN MILWAUKEE - JUST WHAT I ALWAYS WANTED...

Silly souind effect note: "FRANT" is a village just outside Tunbridge Wells.

Postponed

I tell you, those shops are going to be so busy on the 22nd!

I'm drawing the view from my bedroom window here. I can wake up in the morning and if the curtains are open I can check the time from the clock on the church over the road. Better still, at Christmas they put an animated Santa illumination up on the steeple so it looks like he's ringing the bells.

Festive

It's sad really, Snoopy and Schroeder bore placards and counted down the days to Beethoven's birthday, but Scrumpy counts down the days to the apocalypse. And the main difference between them is that Beethoven's birthday always happens, while the end of the world won't.

Last of the sparkles

The animated sparkles seem to have gone down really well, which is good. They were well worth the extra effort it took to create them.

The tech specs are quite simple - this is an animated GIF with three frames set to loop endlessly. As most of the strip remains the same in each frame, with just the sparkles (created with a random scatter brush in Photoshop) different, there isn't much of a size overhead. I'll do this more often, whenever I can come up with a gag that warrants it...

Millie Week 67: Mon 16th - Sat 21st Dec 1991

Yes, you have seen strip number four before. Smith reused it a couple of Christmases ago. Here's that version... Interesting to see that when I'm drawing it myself I reverse the dark panels and the light panels so I have less to do.

There's a strip missing from my scrapbook again, though in this case I think it's a pasting-in error. It's Tuesday's strip, and the script goes thusly...

1. The sitting room - Millie's house. Millie watches as Richard manhandles a trussed up Christmas tree into the room.
MILLIE: YOU'VE GOT A REAL TREE, RICHARD!
RICHARD: YES - I'M FED UP WITH THE ARTIFICIAL ONES.

2. Millie holds the earth filled pot that the tree stands up in, and ensures that the tree stays uproght while Richard puts a pair of scissors to the bit of string that is holding the branches to the trunk.
RICHARD: MIND YOU, THERE IS ONE PROBLEM WITH THEM.

3. He suts the string. The branches spring up violently and needles go flying. Richard is caught full-on by the fallout. Millie, by the base, misses the worst of it.
SFX: SPROING!

4. Millie stands up to observe a now naked Christmas tree, and a Richard who looks like the victim of a natural materials only acupuncturist.
RICHARD: THEY DO TEND TO SHED THEIR NEEDLES A BIT.

Glitter rock

Here's the song Jones is playing on the Piano: Roy Wood and Wizzard's incomparable 'I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day'. Fantastic music, terrifying Glam Rock costumes, appalling miming, some bored children and a video that has 'contractural obligation' written all over it.

Glitterbomb

To get the full animated effect click on today's post and then click on the strip.

Fire!

Another childhood memory, from the days when we had a real fire in the front room. The main problem with it was that once you'd started it, it wasn't adjustable. However, it was quite useful during the many power cuts we had during the 70s.

Millie Week 66: Mon 9 - Sat 14 Dec 1991

I always wanted Millie and her friends to operate inside their own little bubble, free from parental influence. Sure, they'd have to interact with adults at school and in the outside world, but not at home - that would be unreasonable. At that age parents are just obstacles to getting on with your life.

The Mirror wanted otherwise, and so, here they are, in a week of strips specially written to introduce them. They're strictly traditional parents, Mum's in the kitchen and Dad's in his chair reading the paper - tabloids can be very traditional when it comes to family. And it must be said, Dad does look rather like Terry Scott from the world's cosiest sitcom, Terry and June. Mum's hair started out brunette but quickly changed to yellow.

My sister always used to call me Fred. I don't know why. Family names are always a bit embarrassing.

The economics of enlightenment

Written at the height of the Barclays Bank LIBOR exchange rate scandal this Autumn. I have some sympathy with Smith's analysis of human economics affairs - how can something so abstract bring so much real hardship to so many?

And say hello to our next door neighbour on Comics Sherpa, Snow of T. Shepherd's excellent 'Snow Sez...' I've always been struck by Snow's acumen when it comes to the economics of enlightenment. It's always seemed to me that every guru's advice has boiled down to these two sentences:

1: To achieve contentment let go of all material things.
2: £1,000 quid, please.

Nigh, I tell you! It's nigh!

No it isn't. Just because the Mayans need to buy a new calendar, it doesn't mean the world is coming to an end. It's a moot point anyway, the Mayans came to an end in the 8th and 9th centuries, so they overestimated the end of their civilization by about 1,200 year.

Scrumpy doesn't believe in the apocalypse either. He just recognises it as an easy way to make everyone else as miserable as him.

Pester power

I don't have any kids, but if I did I imagine this is how I would spend most of my time at the moment, when I wasn't hiding the Argos catalogue or disabling access to commercial kid's TV.

Note to Hastings Borough Council: this is a recycling bin. It's big, strong and re-useable, and can hold a week's worth of discarded newspapers and magazines ready for collection each week. It is not a flimsy pink polythene bag which will break as soon as you lift it up and which will end up as landfill anyway. Hint. Hint.

Millie Week 65, Mon Dec 2 - Sat 7 Dec 1991

Strip four was a variation on an advert for the Royal Mail, (or was it the Post Office?) that was on the telly seemingly every fifteen minutes at the time. From what I remeber (I can't find it anywhere on YouTube) the set up was the same -  a tongue tied young suitor was on the phone unable to say the one thing he really wanted to say to the girl on the other end of the line. The last shot was of the girl getting a letter the next morning and reading: 'Did I say "fine"? I meant I love you.' Aww.

The very idea of a teenager writing something on paper and sending it in the post suddenly makes this strip as dated as a Victorian three volume novel.