Christmas cards 2020...

see copyright notice. Page created 15-Dec-2020 updated 12-Dec-2024. Use the button groups above to navigate quickly around the site.

A.I. GrotBot (2024)

I'm apprehensive about the growing capability of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) to create content in the style of a well-known author, politician or whatever. Here though, I've attempted to reverse the roles by writing a couple of pages in what I perceive to be the style of A.I.

Some of the spadework was already done: I'd photographed the fireside scene with an open book a month previously, to illustrate an article in the local press. So I just needed to "clear" the original text (sorry, Mr Dickens!) and substitute some drivel. For the latter I simply scribbled down a long list of Christmas-related words and phrases, then wove them into the random "rubbish" that you can (just about) read in the enlarged image.

Robin Pud (2023)

This hand-knitted, Christmas-themed tea-cosy was a gift from a lovely lady who is sadly no longer with us. It was sized to fit a very small teapot that was available, back in the day, from Woolworths. For the photo, I perched it on an artificial flower stem, with a roll of insulating tape wedged into the spout hole to dilate it. The robin, which also features on my Bird Photos page, was snapped in 2017 at Beth Chatto Gardens near Colchester.

"No birds or tea-cosies were harmed in the making of this card".

Normal Christmas (2022)

I found a pile of D-I-Y magazines in my late Dad's garden shed, including some early issues of The Practical Householder. I believe it came from the same stable as Practical Wireless, of which my collection will perhaps be found in a similar way one day!

The starting point for this card was the front cover of PH volume 1 number 3. The speech bubble fitted conveniently in place of the magazine's title banner, and the only other change I made was to repaint the yellow rear wall in a pale blue, to suggest a window. Incidentally, there's a terrifying article inside, describing how to make those coloured light bulbs ("dipping is best done with the bulb at the end of a loose flex and burning"...).

And yes, fridges were on sale in 1955, but our thrifty D-I-Y bloke could apparently save money by making his own; a later issue (no 12) gave full instructions. The cost was stated as £49/19/8, of which £31/5/- was for the sealed refrigeration unit (plus 12/1 "Cost of returning empty crates (British Railways)") and £5/14/- for the polished asbestos-cement cabinet lining!! No doubt it would have taken pride of place in the kitchen of the bungalow he'd made earlier (issues 1-8).

Deexel Ad (2021)

Tired of boring old "3-bird" and "3-fish" roasts? This year, wow your family and friends with our amazing new 3-in-1 DEEXEL Festive Roast! Developed by MonSanta Bio-tech in partnership with the National Elf Service, the Deexel is a genetically-engineered fusion of 3 mammals - deer, squirrel and fox. The flavour is of rich, gamey venison, with a strong hint of nut roast and a lingering aftertaste of urban street food.

May contain traces of nuts and cardboard. Not for sale in the EU.

A real advert for a Three Fish Roast, by one of the supermarkets referenced in the fictitious Smirks & Waitbury name, made me think "Blimey, what next? A Three Mammal Roast?". That would be a tricky thing to construct, but maybe those Frankenstein Food technologists could create some ghastly GM monster...

I had some recent photos of a fox and a squirrel, taken from about the same angle, and found a compatible one of a magnificent stag in Kent, some 20 years ago. So I set to work to meld them together (a Three Pest Roast?). The stag had a similar background of vegetation to the fox, but I had to blur it selectively to make a convincing match. The inset is actually a turkey dinner from Christmas 2018, with the addition of a cracker modelled from 3 cylinders and 4 cones in good old trueSpace3.

Recyclabubbles (2020)

This virus-torn year, we were encouraged to "form Christmas Bubbles" - so that's exactly what I did. They contain fragments from my back catalogue (see companion pages), with a backdrop of that faithful old snowscape from January 2013, this time illuminated by a (synthetic) sunset.

It's a bit of a cop-out. My first idea involved a chimney and rooftop, with a table perched thereon, offering gloves, masks, sanitiser etc and a "Santa Stop Here" sign. But in the end I decided against this explicit Covid-19 theme, for fear of upsetting anyone who suffered as a result of the pandemic.

Wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas, and an Unprecedented New Normal Year...

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