A Christmas Folly

I am keeping this post short and sweet. First of all, Merry Christmas to all that visit this blog, regularly or irregularly, with many thanks for your patronage as well as sincerest wishes for the coming New Year from everyone in Folly Ground. Let’s hope that 2021 brings some relief and optimism back after what has been a pretty abominable year all round.

Secondly, I hope some of you have managed to get a glimpse of the once-in-a-lifetime astronomical treat that is the Great Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in the skies above. It has apparently been visible since last Saturday the 19th, and will be continue to be until Wednesday the 23rd, weather permitting. The planets are at their closest approach to each other tonight as I write these lines. If not, try to catch a live stream of the event online; there seem to be plenty of those on YouTube at the moment.

Finally, this post, just as the last one, comes with a bit of music: The Sundays’ terrific ‘Here’s where the story ends’. Perhaps not the most relevant or Christmasy track for this post, but some of the lyrics sure do resonate with our collective present circumstances.

So, Merry Christmas wherever you are and however you may be!

Out to lunch, part 1

I have always liked ‘out to lunch’ shop signs, I am not quite sure why that is. Perhaps it’s the ordinariness of the typography, but also because these three words seems to convey a world of possibilities; a condensed hour or so where one could be doing any number of things. Now I have finally designed one myself, hopefully the first of many. The rather upbeat exclamation mark was inspired by the excellent album cover of Eric Dolphy’s singular ‘Out to Lunch!’ (Blue Note, 1964).

At a loose end

The panels in this post are a continuation of my last entry (see ‘Friday night movie’ below). It also relates to ‘Date night’ (also below). Luci, having dropped off Raf at the cinema, is now at a loss for what to do with himself on a Friday night and, consequently, is feeling a bit despondent. He decides to return to work to while away the time with Ed, his boss at the Quicksilver Messenger Service (located, for the most part, at Roxy’s Espresso Bar in order to support Ed’s considerable caffeine habit). Now, Ed is generally fond of his young employee, but will he be understanding in this instance? Or will he compound his misery? Find out below.

If you are new to this blog and have not read (or perused) Folly Ground #1, you can still do so here (it’s free!). I’d like to think it’ll be worth your while, and it will give you a bit of background on the characters featured in these posts. Ed plays a prominent part in it alongside Luci, Raf, Flo, Paul and, of course, Gordon (that’s Luci’s dog). So give it a go, you might enjoy it!