Guardian All Ears 17th January

This drawing is based very strongly on sketches I made of a guy who I saw kicked out of the Blue Note club in New York a couple of weeks back which was probably worthy of an All Ears column of it's own!
Amidst a very hushed & reverent audience this one man was making a lot of noise & when (very politely) told to be quiet started repeating very loudly 'why are you talking to me from the next table? Why are you talking to me from the next table?
Don't tell me to shut up; just because you heard some guitar playing!'
When challenged further he began ranting -
'I know what the fucking Blue Note's all about. It's about fucking self expression!'
until they eventually threw him out.

Anyway...not sure if the line background characters work too well in this one but colouring them seemed to overpower the main character - hmmmm...



Article by Michael Holden

Once the world was a stage but, now, demented by technology, we are turning into an office-or possibly the set of The Office-either way it’s not good news. We may be in recession but public transport still echoes to the sound of people fending off the errands that follow them like dogs through the limitless wastes of contemporary tedium. There was a perfect example on the bus the other day, playing solitaire on a laptop while depressing his colleagues via mobile phone.
(as though he loathed having explain himself but enjoyed the sound of doing so) “I am requesting CCTV because our till was left unattended for five minutes and we think a member of the public might have been in there…”
He paused and moved cards about while the other person responded.
“ All the 20 pound notes were gone, there were only two left in there, that’s not right...”
He made affirmative humming sounds for a while before unleashing a new and presumably terrifying possibility.
“Listen, all I’m saying is, Rodney’s not gonna like it…if anybody thinks that’s gonna come out of my wages for the next month, that’s not gonna happen, I can’t let that happen. You can forget that.”
Sounds of consternation followed.
(placatory) “Well I’m telling you so that you know… you know the numbers on the door and the numbers in the till and it doesn’t add up.”
There was more squealing down the phone.
“He’s not gonna be happy…”
Then the voice on phone fell silent at the implied threat of Rodney.
“I’m not passing the blame, I’m just, giving you the head’s up. Anyway, it’s my stop, I gotta go.”
But he stayed where he was and dealt himself a fresh hand.