was shocked and saddened to learn about the death of my ex colleague, friend and fellow inker of paper mister Dave Cripps earlier this month.

Dave was responsible for probably about 98% of the comments I’ve had on this site over the years. I first worked with Dave at a small printing outfit in one of the darker edges of Birminghams Jewelry Quarter in the early 00’s. He beavered away creating quality advertisements for some of the midlands premier autodealers and I knocked up the websites for them. I left the job there after a couple of years but Dave stayed and we kept loosely in touch through the Internet, and mostly, through the comment section of our respective corners of the web.

His comments were always left under the ‘Webazoot’ moniker, this was one of the many suggestions made when, working for the business in Birmingham, we were trying to come up with a name for a new website. I can’t remember whether it was Dave or Stewart who came up with the name now, either way it was one of the less sensible ones, though we ended up with ‘Webtropolis,’ which I think was my idea, so thats not saying much. Who knows, if we’d gone with Webazoot we could be all be millionaires now.

Such as it was Webazoot took on a life of its own, always a keyword for poor and over priced services and all that is bad in the design world. Several small projects involving Dave and the Webazoot moniker popped up over the years, I’ve collated a few of them below so at least I’ll know where they are;

Daves ‘quality’ Box – the recycling box from Daves desk, which we listed and sold on ebay for all of about £3.50 in 2003. We dutifully decided Dave should receive the profit from the sale, less listing fees, as he was now without a box to collect his recyclable paperwork in. I think the money was still sat on his desk when I left the company two years later.

Dudley Cripps in Space [Flash adventure game] – Play as Daves alter ego Dudley Cripps in a badly hacked together text based adventure game, familiar to anyone with a zx spectrum in 1984.

Webazoot Customer Support – the desk smashing angry computer guy was and early Internet meme, we all thought it resembled Dave with his corner desk setting so…

The Company Stapler on Daves holidays I just found this photo Dave emailed me, funnily enough I was in Barmouth last year and the Carousel Cafe still lacks a letter on its signage.

A very OTT under construction screen in Flash.

About Webazoot – A page Dave put together himself which probably sums up the ‘Webazoot ethos’ about the best.

I can’t really take it in that when I make a post I won’t have a witty/random/sarcastic/funny comment appear a few days later. It was a pleasure to know Dave and I’m sure going to miss him and his thoughts.

You can take a look at some of Daves drawings and paintings at his page on Elfwood.

RIP big man, far too soon.

Meanwhile this looks to be of interest at the newly reopened MAC arts centre in Brum. I spent much of my youth watching films at the MAC [and the Triangle], I still can’t watch Apocalypse Now without remembering the Chinese lady who screamed, shot up in the air and all but landed on my mate Phil when the tiger appeared during the ‘never get out of the boat’ scene at a showing there. Also remember seeing Clive Barker do a very entertaining talk there which we skived school to see if memory serves.

More recently I seem to recall their film program becoming quite mainstream so I’m hoping we might see a return to showings of the occasional obscure gem, or at least that I might get to see the next Alex Cox film when/if it gets a UK release. Certainly great to have the centre back and I look forward to a visit in the near future, not too sure on the new website, looks nice but not that great at delivering useful information, time will tell I guess…

I’ll certainly be tuning in to have a listen though as I can’t resist things regard local talk radio, well, apart from the actual Talk RadioSport station. I can’t see me making it along to the show, or to be a ‘performer’ , given the work backlog and the fact I’m aiming to get to the Screamin Festival in Spain at the end of the month, but you never know…

I should add some details;

introduction

Radio Z is the last station on the dial before the static and the microwaves and pulsar radiation.

The hosts of the night time show Tuning Out know all about facing down the void. Each night they start the show blank, with nothing planned, armed with just a stack of charity shop records and six hours in which to calm the world’s chaos and settle its people down to sleep.

This is a theatre show, which is also a radio show. You can listen to Tuning Out at home on-line via our website but true excitement comes when you visit its extraordinary studio in the theatre and become privy to presenter’s deeply compromised off-mic World.

Improvised afresh each night the show relies on content in part from messages and fragments of writing sent in during the course of the show by its listeners and audiences, both live and at home.

mac’s new Media Studio will be open for visitors wishing to contribute to the show and wireless facilities will be available throughout the building.

More about Tuning Out with radio z, which is on 13-15 May, here

After a week of that, and having some pictures in the local newspapers ‘Snow watch’ its back to busy busy busy. Got a few things on and working on some paintings, hope to update the gallery on here soon. Its been far too long. Then theres the shop page. Should really sort that out. What I really need is some kind of 168 hour weekend. Anyway, heres the snow watch pictures in a size where you can see them properly. May have overdone it with the filter on the first two.

The following quote did make me laugh

THESE beautiful pictures of Bromsgrove were taken by Chris Hathway and clearly show how beautiful the town looked during the wintry weather.

Its taken me three trips to the local park so far to find places that aren’t either over ridden with signage, full of street furniture that isn’t really suited to a park, it being ’street’ furniture, or thats a nice view ruined by one of the varied coloured dog poo bins which are placed in the most random manner posible, in fact, maybe a second post to follow.

Does that even make sense? Okay, so this one does…

But most of them seem to have got lost in translation and the final one was clearly over ambitious…

A belated Happy Christmas, or whatever you celebrate at this time of the year, and a brilliant 2010 to one and all.

This was taken with a TTV contraption, inspired to have a go by Pete Ashton’s pictures, and taken on a snowy winters morn outside the Bear’s Head in Brereton, Sandbach. I was checking the pubs name online, and it seems a lot of the pubs in the area are named after parts of a bears anatomy, The Bear’s Paw, The Black Bear Inn, The Beartown Tap, wonder why?

More updates soon. I’m just finishing off my second flu bug of the winter and I think two is quite enough for this year.