Comic Cuts - 6 January 2017

Happy New Year to you all. I hope you all had a merry Christmas and a joyful New Year celebration. I'm sure others must feel, like I do, that the past two weeks have shot by and it feels like the world stood still, just waiting for you to pick up where you left off. On Tuesday, having not thought about it for ten days, I found myself posting an article on the Hotel Business website and copyediting a Q&A that we will be running in the next issue, sorting through e-mails and pulling side material that can be used in various columns and news pages. It felt like I'd never been away.

Which, technically, I hadn't as I spent Christmas at home and let people come to me for the most part. This year we were entertaining my sister's newest dog, a Russian Toy with bat-wing ears and a constantly wagging tail – off which, despite the dog's small size, you could probably power a reasonably-sized generator. And welcome back Tyson, who is still a lump but who has calmed down remarkably since the last time he visited.

There was an outpouring from people glad to see the back of 2016 all hoping that 2017 was somehow going to be better. Personally, I see 2017 as the year we reap what was sown last year: this is the year that the new President is sworn in and our government triggers Article 50, putting us on a path into the unknown. This isn't the future I signed up for! As an optimistic teenager, I was expecting the world to pull together to expand our horizons in science and space travel... and it was happening. The UK joined Europe which was surely a sign that the World Government wasn't far away and scientists of all nations would start working on practical jet-pack technology.

Even as a cynical fifty-something, I still can't understand how the UK can be retreating into isolation when we rely so much on the rest of the world, unless this is some high-level conspiracy to buy up the land beneath our feet, price out the citizens and turn London into the money-laundering capital of the planet.

I try to steer clear of politics here because there's an overwhelming amount of it on all platforms of social media. However, the real world will intrude this year. Print costs are likely to rise which could affect both my day job and Bear Alley Books. Postage costs have already risen – brought forward from March to January 3rd because of the fall in the value of the pound. I'm not sure if I can absorb the additional costs, so if you're thinking of buying one of my books, grab it quick before I realise my profit margins have been squeezed!

Having to return to work is bad enough but after only two days I had a lousy Wednesday night, temperature up, throat feeling raw, nose runny. I spent Thursday battering the bugs with Lemsip and hopefully that will do the trick. I don't think it's anything more than a head cold. Fingers crossed.

Today's random scans... how could I not celebrate the canine side of my family tree – they are my sister's babies, after all. Here are a few doggy-related titles.