A new start

I just started my new post at the Eye Pavilion last week. To put you in the picture, for the last ten years, I've been working on the ward, looking after inpatients and day cases. In those years, my payscale has gone from D grade to E grade to Band 6, then down last year to Band 5 and a half. Now I'm working in the clinics, and I'm back up to Band 6. I'm also back to where I originally started in 2001. Such is the circle of life I guess.
It was internal rotation that took me up to the ward. I was only supposed to be there for six months! All I can say is it has been the longest six months ever!

Conspiracy or Cock-up?

I know it's been a while. About four years I believe since I last posted. I doubt if anyone's going to read this, but what the hell, here goes...

Two days ago an American drone strike obliterated a Taliban leader called Hakimullah Mehsud. This is in line with US strategy of removing the leadership of terrorist organisations to disrupt the chain of command, with minimum risk to American military personnel.

As you will know, Mehsud was due to meet the next day with representatives of the Pakistan government for peace talks. Maybe something would have come of them or maybe not. We shall never know now.

To say that the people of Pakistan are a bit peeved would be an understatement.  A fragile structure - like a house built of playing cards - has been literally blown away, and they are seriously pissed!

So far, so sad, but so understandable.

But

To the world, it looks like the USA has deliberately sabotaged this peace process. And to be honest, I can't see any other way this can be interpreted, other than incompetence. If the drone operators were unaware of the upcoming meeting, then the mission was an unfortunate coincidence. But that implies US intelligence didn't pass on the information.... Nah! I don't think so either.

So what's the strategy?

And why is nobody in America discussing this?

If you Google using keywords such as 'drone strike', 'American reaction', you get plenty about what they're saying in Pakistan, but trying to find out if Americans are for or against it is very difficult. On Yahoo news, the commentators are 99% for! But then I guess they're American.

Tweet Tweet

Good Grief! It's been over a year since I last posted something here. I've just joined Twitter, and I thought it might be a fun idea to post tweets here. You can see them in the side bar. Let's see where this leads.

Nota Bene

By the way, If you click on the pictures, you can see them in all their glory. Even the ones that are just a red cross.

Introducing Bill.

Meet Bill. I've had the last panel in my head for the past few weeks, and I've been slowly - oh so slowly - working the strip towards this point. And now, today, I've comitted it to... well I suppose not paper, maybe an electromagnetic pattern on the internet.
It's the way I write. I see the story as a landscape, leading off into the far distance, with a number of waypoints, of which this is one. I have no idea what I'm going to find as I make my way there. The details come seconds before I write them.
Do I know what is going to happen to Bill? Absolutely! The basic outline exists in my brain. Do I know the details of his journey? No way! The fun of writing this strip is finding out along with the audience what happens.

Sic transit Lemony Teabag

I've just killed off a main character in my ongoing cartoon strip 'Bill the Klingon'.
Sir Lemony Teabag was an eminent Shakespearian actor who starred in such screen gems as 'Show us your tackle' and 'Centurion'. His final role as Saruman in the Klingon translation of the fourth Lord of the Rings film led to his tragic demise. He was last seen being dragged to uncertain doom in an alternate dimension by a hideous monster.
I shall miss Lemmy, but the demands of the plot dictated that he should be sacrificed. JK Rowling isn't the only one who can murder their darlings.

The return of Spellcaster!

I've had a week's break from Stripgenerator. So today I log back on, and find ... Spellcaster's back! He departed last month, after a bit of a tiff with Neochomik, but they seem to have made up. They're both polish, and I think they're both teenagers.
Neochomik's strips are unusual in that he doesn't use the predrawn characters, but creates them using the shapes. Simple but effective. Spellcaster loves to imitate. Neochomik got irritated because Spellcaster was doing similar versions of his stuff. But imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Spellcaster made @lpha in April through sheer force of numbers. He does several strips a day - usually one panel jobs, and so gets a high turnover. But hey, all credit to him. He put in the effort, he got the reward.
I missed him while he was away.

Bill the Klingon - an intro

[url=http://deaconbarry.stripgenerator.com/2008/05/28/bill-the-klingon-dramatic-elements.html][img]http://static.stripgenerator.com/generated/deaconbarry/strip/2008/05/28/bill-the-klingon-dramatic-elements_embed.png[/img][/url]
If this works, you should be seeing the latest but one episode from my strip cartoon, "Bill the Klingon."
I'm hoping to revive this blog as a forum for the strip. I'll also be able to discuss its progress.