Think of this as a teaser for a more exciting title

Christmas time, whatever else it is (Excuse for last-days-of-rome style drinking) is a time when generally I work on something more substantial. Actually this christmas I didn't do that right away, instead I went on holiday - well I went and stayed with my mum. I saw my nan and family, met up with lovely old freinds, went to a gin and mince pie party, went to a party at a nursing home which was surprisingly ok once I started in on the brandy shots.

Now i'm back home and after 2 days in my pyjamas with this as my view


I got off my arse and started priming some wood. It's for a jumping jack bigger than the usual size. I decided to try a large one after reading about the french courts of olde were they used to make super-sized puppets. It's not gigantic but you can see the size of the parts next to a normal sized jumping jack below.


Also, large puppets seem to be becoming very popular over here... In the last 2 years Britain has been treated to 2 amazing spectacles by french events company Royal De Luxe involving enormous automated puppets. One of them took place this year in Liverpool, I didn't get to see either of them but the photos are stunning. The ones below are taken from 'The Sultan's Elephant' which took place in 2006.


On a much smaller scale, I ended up making a tiger to go with the tamer - no clear photos as yet, the weather is awful here. But you can get the idea



Now I think it's time to get back to view #1 and read some Angela Carter - I got a selection of her journalistic writings for christmas and it makes wicked reading.

Happy holidays!