PachyMamma. Dreaming the Ancestors. The young elephant has been meditating on the Great Ancestress, the PachyMamma, goddess custodian of all things pachyderm and by extension of all things bulky -me included. He recalls the olden days and evokes sadly the time when elephants lost the ability to fly “Must have been Entropy’s doing, she being the ultimate Great Mother. She who in the end will devour even the greatest of great mothers. And fathers. And all their progeny in between., he thinks. NB. Although the anniversary proper is not till next week, this is the yearly Ash Memorial Doodle. These days I can never be sure when (or even if) I’ll be able to do something, much less meet deadlines, so carpe diem is my motto or, in this case, carpe squiggle. Here’s to you, old chum. I hope you’re giving all the other particles a really hard time. XXX

FoxyBusiness. This is for Maria Clara, aka Kay. Because I said I would. Hope you like him, or her, cherie. It is a true likeness of a real fox cub wot I fond fast asleep on my bedroom window sill one spring afternoon. 2017 has been an excellent year for foxes in my garden. Lots of them, lots of cubs. They use my garden like it was their private fiefdom. And very welcome they are to it, too.

Florence. Meet Florence, twin sister to the Gothette of a few weeks ago. Unlike the Wromantic Miss, this one one talks a lot. And loud. And forcefully. Hence the ShoggieGuards. They think she needs keeping an eye on, owing to her big mouth and her proclivity for telling things as she sees fit, and she being only 5’3. and slightly built.

Gazing B&W. “Make me one with the night., she demanded. So they did. Her jaw’s still lingering somewhere in the vicinity of her knees. 🙂

The Musrooms Lament aka Young Saurian. The Wild Mushrooms have come to lodge a complaint with the youngest of the Guardians of the Forest Primaeval: rains are late and poor, their habitat is being turned into golf courses, the art of non-destructive mushroom hunting is being lost, etc. The Crusty Emissary to the Powers of Official Nonsense is trying to divert the attention of the young caretaker with the usual warping tactics. Fortunately the young custodian is nobody’s fool.      Ah, this Russia hysteria… Will it ever end? It’s driving me up the sodding wall. Even El Paí­s is at it with a vengeance, now. Not that I expected El Paí­s to be any better than the fucking Guardian but at least it has a regular Forges cartoon. Oh well, Mehitabel rules. Always. She must. Meanwhile, here, have Forges’ latest:

Kindly translation for non-Spanish-speaking peasants:

-What’s for dinner?

–Estelada croquettes.

-Again!?

-He…They’re still on offer.

Birth Day in Honduras. A riotous, joyful scene at the Inn of the Nine Boons, in the Southern Borderlands. The Siamese Jaguar Twins are about to give birth to yet another batch of chubby Hippopoids, much to their cousins’ delight. The parturition is only relatively painful but the Twins are natural born drama queens and simply love to make a great fuss and as much noise as their little lungs will permit.   This is for my mate Mario, who hails from Honduras and from whose heritage I’ve borrowed (and done things to) these here chappies. The originals that so tickled my imagination and inspired this can be seen at the Maya ruins of Copan. And so much for Cultural Appropriation! 🙂 NB. I must remember to have a go/rant at this latest folly, Cultural Appropriation and its “discontents”. Ah, me. The smaller and more united and homogeneous and powerful the 1% becomes, the more the 99% of slaves beneath their fascist boot become fragmented and waste their limited energies in fighting amongst themselves. Robert Hughes, you were a sodding prophet, you were!.  (See: Culture of Complaint. Oxford University Press. 1993)

The Critics. No comment needed, really. Stay alert, stay awake, stay stubborn. And if you feel like an informative giggle, have a shufti at this:

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/409863-theresa-may-russia-threat/

The Alien Maker. Meet don Fidelito, the Alien Maker. He hails from Bilbao and he makes Aliens, that’s what he does. In his spare time, that is. He works part-time as a Fifth Columnist in the Mainstream Media Underminers International and chips in two afternoons a week at the local Anarco-Syndicalist Cabaret as Maracas & Ice Cream girl. His Aliens come fully kitted and irrepressibly inconvenient. Note from the Scribe. The Shub-Niggurath has been feeling somewhat unnoticed and extra stroppy, lately. She has demanded that she should appear in all my illustrations from now on. She claims that just because she’s a single mother, and fat, and a monster is no reason to snob her and neglect her. Even the Shoggies can see that she has a point, and that’s saying a lot as the Shoggies have a lot of bad history with Milady. However, no way we’re going to indulge her to the full extent of her demands. But she will be appearing pretty often in future doodles, whether her presence is relevant or not. One must look after one’s monsters properly and lovingly, mustn’t one?

Conillets (Baby rabbits). Here’s a rehash of an old Catalan counting rhyme for the game of Hide & Seek.

There are numerous versions and this has been adapted for these trying times of inflamed cheap sentimentality on one side and crass stupidity on the other.

My rhymes goes, more or less:

Little bunnies run to ground

The hunting hare is around

Day and night, night and day

The rat is running away

Setting fire to the farmhouse

Setting fire to the Law house

Little bunnies, little bunnies

What are we to do?

When we die we’ll look like poo!

And here’s a couple of musical versions

One with reggae beat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0BuLC1pB44

And one in a nice Valencian accent:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO3k_3ixGcg

Music. Here, a little sweet nothing, to counteract all the bile brought forth by my poor liver -not to mention my heart, over the Catalan Soap Opera. Let’s play on, people, let’s play on.

Floaters. OK, so the Russian Revolution failed pretty soon and pretty spectacularly and ended up in floods of Stalinist tears, further rivers of blood of the Long-Suffering Saintly Proletariat and bad art. But that’s because a) people are idiots and b) it was not a R-Evolution, just more of the same. Still, it was good for a while and, at the risk of sounding like a modern politician, lessons can still be learned. AND, and it’s a big “and., before things went hideously tits up, it produced the Constructivists and the Suprematists and, most of all, the ineffable Aleksander Rodchenko, who was not only a genius but he was drop dead gorgeous to boot. There, that’s depth for you. Happy anniversary Winter Palace!

Bob’s Your Uncle. This one is, as much as for the usual deserving, for poor Norman Finkelstein, who’s in the soup again and this time not for opening his big mouth and telling it as it is, as per normal, but for helping a friend in need. Oy vey… Stay stubborn Norman!   http://normanfinkelstein.com/

Egypt. There you go. Something nice and safe and non-contentious. A pretty lady. A cute animal she’s borrowed from Honduran myffology. Trees, flowers and moonlight. All is fluffy again!for now. And it’s almost non-p’litical. Almost. Read the inscription along the trees flanking milady. Look at her face carefully. Extrapolate. Use your imagination. Have a nice day.