More recently though, lack of time wasn't the reason I was thinking I might pack up my pens for good. It's the pain. I suffer from psoriatic arthritis. It affects my feet, ankles, knees, elbows, wrists and hands. It's pretty mild and generally more of a discomfort than anything else, even if it does make me walk funny sometimes. The places I can feel it come and go around my body - right now it's in my left elbow and wrist - but I can always feel it in my hands. First thing in the morning, they're very, very stiff and uncomfortable but once I'm up and about they loosen up. I'm fine for most things, but holding small items - like say pencils, pens and brushes - is difficult and painful.

So I was thinking is it worth it? Are my scratchy little comics worth the pain and awkwardness? I'm no Frank Miller, let's face it.

Last Saturday, I trundled down Bristol to "Britains Official UK Comics Festival", Comics 2001. It was top. I met lots of my old comics-chums many with new comics of their own, including Jason Cobley and Paul not-Davies. I hadn't seen them for years and had assumed they weren't creating any more, but they were there with new work - Bulldog Adventure Magazine, Britain's most British comic hero is back! There were lots of people I didn't know too, unfamiliar faces with unfamiliar comics, everyone talking and showing and swapping. On the trip home, Mitzy and I talked about the things that had been stopping each of us doing more comics, what cool new comics we'd do, why he likes Berol Fineliners, why I like brushes and how he almost started going out with a Belgian white supremacist.

So fuck the pain and stuff the awkwardness. Comics 2001 has fired me up and I'm full of enthusiasm and want and desire to write and draw comics again. If it hurts, then I'll find a way that hurts less. If I can't draw small pictures, then I'll draw big ones. If I can't hold the brushes and the pens, then I'll wrap tape around them until I can. If I can't find time to sit upstairs at my drawing board, then I'll have a pad on my knee in the sitting room. Don't care what the physical barriers are. They're not going to stop me any more. I'm going to draw.
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The Conservative candidate is a guy called Ben Prentice. He's about 23, but looks 12 and was no doubt selected because the other local Conservatives had better things to do with their time than run against Clare Short. On the other hand, he stood in last year's council elections so does already know how to handle crushing electoral defeat.
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Thirty two today.

He must love his job.

Taking the lift downwards one floor shall be punishable by death.

People who let their dogs shit on the pavement will be made to eat it up with a spoon.

As the weather improves, the park where I walk Badger in the afternoon turns into a turd minefield. Unfit householders decide that, given the warm sun, it might be nice to have an amble round the park.

They drag their corpulant dog, who's spent the entire autumn and winter sleeping, with them. The dog emerges, blinking in the sunlight, to be tugged round the park by their sweating owner. It can't be let off the lead, either because it's badly socialised and will get in a fight, or because it just never has been and the owner's afraid it will run off.

Despite the increased numbers of people using the park - kids playing, other redfaced fairweather dog walkers, people just enjoying the sun and the trees - it never occurs to them that leaving their dog's shit in the grass is fucking antisocial. So damn well bag it and bin it.

Good.

The fire went out. What was going to be the point of voting Labour? Had my confidence in Gordon Brown been misplaced? Where was the radicalism? At the polling station, I sequestered myself in the booth. It was me, the ballot paper and that stubby bit of pencil on a piece of string. I stared at the paper. It stared back. I didn't move. Nat shouted at me to get a move on. I folded the paper up and dropped it, unmarked, into the box.

My difficulty this time round is complicated by the fact that I don't know which constituency I'm in now. I'd believed that we were in Birmingham Edgbaston, currently held by Gisela Stuart and one of the last Birmingham seats to go Labour. The BBC's Vote 2001 website, on the other hand, says we're in Birmingham Ladywood, held by Clare Short.

If we're in Ladywood, my decision is easy. I vote for Clare Short as an individual candidate.

Edgbaston though is much more tricky. Gisela Stuart doesn't particularly inspire my personal loyalty, so I'd be voting on a party basis. In which case, I'm back to where I was in '97 - can I feel comfortable voting Labour?

It's not until October, but I'm already unreasonably excited about it. The two main events - Rob Van Dam vs Steve Corino and Juventud Guerrera against Psicosis - could really tear the place down. Van Dam is an incredibly athletic wrestler who's signature finisher involves a springboard dropkick across the full width of the ring. The man destined to be on the receiving end of a chair to the face, the King Of Old School Steve Corino is an accomplised brawler and willing juicer, and I don't doubt he'll be wearing the crimson mask by the match's end. Guerrara and Psicosis should be a strong technical match mixing mat based chain-wrestling with barking mad aerial moves. It's going to be great! (Or, if nobody gets off the plane until two hours before hand and Juvi repeats his Australian deported-for-being-off-his-head-on-drugs exploits, it'll be rotton.)

It's after I've done the few simple sums involved, I discover without exception that I've made some minor book-keeping error that involves me writing a cheque back to the business to balance things up. I never learn - if I took five minutes to check things over each month it wouldn't happen, but I never do. This year Nat's been overpaying me by a full £10 a month, probably because I wrote it down wrong back last May. I could go back and work out how much extra NI and tax is actually due, but it's probably easier to just to pay it back and say nothing. One day, a man from the Revenue might come round to inspect our books, discover these trifling errors and tell me to pay more attention in future. Or not - when we were inspected, the Revenue bloke didn't spot anything but I told him what I thought I'd done wrong anyway. He agreed it was a mistake but told me to carry on anyway, as it would look more suspicious if I corrected it. The Revenue men are OK with me - if you're straight with them, they'll be straight with you.
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News At Ten, BBC1

... there was violence throughout the day ...

Midnight News, Radio 4

... there was little violence, and few arrests ...