Saturday 24 November 2012

The Hungarian Sausage Harvest


Every autumn, in the rural communities of Hungary, one boy from each village is chosen to venture out into the countryside and take part in the annual Magyar Sausage Harvest. It is a prestigious undertaking and taking part is considered a major, coming of age milestone in the lives of adolscent males. Few outsiders know the details of this tradition, for those foreigners who are privy to such information are sworn to secrecy, under pain of death. However, as a self-proclaimed avatar of truth, I have taken it upon myself to face the risks and disclose the following information:

Upon accepting his charge, each village's representative boy is given a single wicker basket. He then swears a public oath that he will not return until the basket is filled to the brim with only the ripest bangers, scrumped by hand from one of the ancient Kolbászfa (rare Hungarian Sausage Tree). This tree, renowned across Central Europe as the natural habitat of the now endangered Romanian Albino Sparrow, grows only in those areas of grassland which have been described in the past as "quaint" by British tourists.
Due to the scarcity of the reverred sausage tree, it is not uncommon for boys to return home to their villages several weeks after the beginning of the harvest. Some never return at all.
It has also been known for boys to lose their bearings out in the wilderness, and then, once completing their task, stride triumphantly into a familiar looking village only to discover that is not their own. As tradition dictates, these boys are then burned at the stake, finely chopped and served as nibbles during the closing feast (for confusion is the vice of the insidious Plague Fairy, and must be stamped out).

On the final day of the Harvest, once all the boys have returned home, been pronounced dead, or ritually immolated, the sausage haul is counted and all the people of the village gather in the town square for a hearty barbecue and accompanying firework display. Finally, the mayor of each village will officially close the festivities by congratulating/paying his respects to the triumphant/tragically deceased/missing boy and the town can start looking forward to next year's harvest.






Just so you know, none of that is true.

Funnily enough, there really is such a thing as a sausage tree: the Kigelia. It just has a slightly less bloody history than the Hungarian variety.

Tuesday 20 November 2012

Archive Dive - Evil Pumpkins

Yes I know Halloween was nearly a month ago, but do you know something? I don't care.

So ner ner ner.

Saturday 17 November 2012

End of week one

Well then, that's the first week of bloggering over and done with. Well maybe not quite a whole week just yet, this is only the fifth post after all. But since it is now the weekend I'm just going to round it up. And that seems fair to me. 

So anyway, you would imagine that since I am writing this on a Saturday I would have more time to sit and really think about what I'm going to talk about on here. And you would be right. In fact, I reckon that now would be a good time to take a minute to think about the environment…

…okay, you finished? Good. Right, I'm just going to go now because I'm bored and can't think of anything else to say.



Thursday 15 November 2012

Archive Dive - History Done Properly





Every now and then I like to delve into the dark abyss where I keep my old drawings, you know, just for something to do.

After digging out this old scribble of Pope Pius behaving in a much more agreeable manner than he actually did, I decided to redoodlefy the whole thing.

Enjoy.

Wednesday 14 November 2012

Tuesday 13 November 2012

So, a blog then.



Oh hello there you person.

What you brings you to my dingy little corner of the interwebs? I hope you didn't come here looking for something lewd, dirty or artistic. Because you know what those kinds of things will do to you don't you? Thats right, they'll make your palms go blind and your eyes go all hairy. You'll certainly not find any of that kind of naughtiness here (although you may or may not find some other kinds of naughtiness, depends on how broken your moral compass is).

Right, now that we've got all that cleared up, please allow me to welcome you to my doodle blog.

I have recently made a relatively significant change in my life (the effect of which is illustrated in the doodle up at the top there) and so I figured that now might well be a good time for me to take the plunge and try out this new fangled blogging gubbins that all the kids are talking about these days.
I'm going to be calling this a sketch blog since I spend the majority of my spare time doing doodlin's, and this seems like not a bad way to show 'em off to folks.

I'm not going to lie (which is always a good habit to get into, remember that kids. And also remember that strangers always have the best candy so make sure you get them to give you some before you call the fuzz on them) I'm doing this mainly for the self promotion.
At some point in the near future, hopefully before the cockroach overlords claim dominion over the planet, I will be launching a portfolio website showcasing the least rubbish of my doodles (or "illustrations" if you want to get all multisyllabic). So I figured that starting a blog would probably be a good idea, because that's what professional doodleists do apparently.

Yeah, well...that's it for this one. So go away now and come back next time when I will have another doodle for you, and possibly another ramble to go with it.