16 July 21 – New Starter

16 July 21 – New Starter

Hi Everyone, Hope you’re having another great week

I’ve got an important announcement to make this week, so I’m going to big this one up with the help of a terrible drawing of Dermot O’Leary, take it away Derm. Now Derm will pause for a while, usually the time it takes for universes to be born and black holes to rotate on their axes, while staring benumbed into the camera. Something like this. Then he will pause some more, until everyone does this Tiny bit more, because he can. Then he will announce, just before the universe goes into heat death. I couldn’t be bothered to draw Dermot again. And the new starter is… Go away Dermot… It’s my wife. She’s the new starter. She’s called Diane and it took me three months of persuading, I’m going to go as far as cajoling, to secure her employment. It involved a lot of in-depth discussions which I’ve summarized here: ‘Pack in that job, it’s stressful and rubbish’ ‘But I’ve been there for ages’ ‘Just pack it in and enjoy the rest of your life’ ‘But I’ve been there for ages.’ The sound of a wine bottle opening. ‘Just pack it in.’ ‘Okay.’ So, she’s starting next week. Here’s what she’s going to look like in the new job. Just to warn you, she’s got dimples. But don’t draw attention to them, if you can help it. After another bottle of wine, I came up with a great title for her new role: Skwiggles Customers Services and Business Administration Manager. I know, sounds good, doesn’t it? I immediately got jealous, so Diane thought up a new title for me: Absolute Skwiggling Superhero. She loves acronyms but not sure why that’s relevant right now. The great news for you is – she’s really nice. Well, as long as you don’t pick your teeth when she’s around, or scratch your head noisily when there’s a romantic moment on First Dates. From Monday, she’ll be answering your emails, she’ll be interacting with you on the social media platform of your choice, she’ll be helping with returns and prints and website admin. She did put a request in for a Gary Barlow tee shirt, so I said to her If a massive Take That section appears on the website, you’ll know there’s been an emergency business meeting and she’s threatened to leave if I didn’t do it. To which I replied. Hopefully, the Take That page won’t happen, unless Gary picks up a guitar and knocks out a Allen Collins Freebird style guitar solo anytime soon. So, in short, I’m very happy that she’s joining ‘the team’ aka me. She was manager of a very busy opticians for the last 10 years and ran the business amazingly well, so I’m sure she can manage me and a few skwiggles. This will free up some time for me to get through that to-do list I keep going on about. Here’s her email address if you want to say ‘Hi, you’re really lucky to have a husband like that’, something like that anyway, it doesn’t have to be exact. diane@skwiggles.co.uk She’ll see you next week..

That’s it once again.

I’d just like to say that, thanks to everyone who reads this email, things are going well for Skwiggles. While the Skwiggles Customers Services and Business Administration Manager will have the business running like a dream, the Absolute Skwiggling Superhero will also be running his side of the business like a dream.



This sketch shows me in full creative mode, thinking deeply about composition and conceptualizing the underlying idea and processes by which beauty is achieved from any tangible or intangible theoretical outcome.

Last word from my new manager: ‘Get up or I’ll shove that pencil…’

I think it’s going to work well.

Enjoy your weekend.
Take care and all the best,

Ian