Ragged Clown

A long time ago, I had a girlfriend and I used to sing to her. At that period of my life, I was entirely entranced by Billie Holiday and my most favourite song was Solitude and my girlfriend used to ask me to sing it to her. I sang it over and over. Continue reading →

Finger Painting

This one’s for Stan.
In one of the universe’s subtle attempts to mess with me, my grandmother died yesterday on the same day that I finished this painting – Girl Seated in a Cemetery by Delacroix. In another week or so, I’ll be standing … Continue reading →
I have a routine now. I google for an image on my iPhone and prop it on my knee while I sketch it on my iPad. I think that’s enough copying for now though. Time to come up with my … Continue reading →
When I first started fingerpainting, I would slap out a picture in an hour or two. As I got better at it, I would pay more and more attention to the detail and it took longer and longer and became … Continue reading →
I might have to take a break from sketching. This one took me forever. More sketches on Flickr.
I did this one on Monday while waiting for Jazz. I used to have a print of this picture when I lived in London until, one day… I was taking a shower before work in the morning when the water … Continue reading →

Pencil Sketches

More Posts by Ragged Clown

Diversity is good for software companies. It helps us make better products. Continue reading →
We were late coming into Mrs Timm’s history class as we often were, but this time we had a rock solid excuse. Continue reading →
You either got faith or you got unbelief and there ain’t no neutral ground. Continue reading →
One thousand years later, beer is still excellent and the song is still fantastic. Continue reading →
The sweet spot for his glorious Squeak seems to me to be kids who find joy in creating and exploring. Continue reading →
Crossing the line is an important milestone in a young sailor’s life. Continue reading →
We spent Christmas Day anchored in San Carlos Water. Continue reading →
Anyone who has ever joined a startup knows the feeling of pregnant possibility and the quickening as the ideas swell and kick the new company into life. Continue reading →
I opened the book and, on the very first page, was the program that changed my life. Continue reading →
I’ve been meaning to play with Garage Band since we got the Mac. Today was the day. Continue reading →
It cost me an E string and the skin off the top of my ring finger but I am done. Making music is hard. Continue reading →
Little Red Rooster Too lazy to crow the day.
I’m planning to draw one of Renoir’s dances every decade. Continue reading →
I’ve had an idea that answers the question “What are dreams for?” floating around in my head Continue reading →
The Ragged Clown finds his home at last. Continue reading →
I was 15 when all the kids in my neighbourhood snuck into Marten’s Grove to go skinny dipping. It was the first time I had ever seen so many girls my own age in the nude. Continue reading →
A little while ago, Jeff and I attended a funeral because Julio reminded us that you should always go to the funeral and on the way back we talked about how the one thing religions really do well is funerals … Continue reading →
I read about america’s worst mom when she became famous last year. She has a book out. The media dubbed me America’s Worst Mom (Go ahead, Google it.) But that’s not what I am. I really think I’m a parent … Continue reading →
They teach way too much english and history in school and not nearly enough physics (but that’s the topic of my next blog). But the one subject that they really need to teach more of is rhetoric. Jay Heinrich believes … Continue reading →
Affirmative action is counter-productive. So is the minimum wage. And minimum standards of education. Technology is uninteresting. Well over 90% of science fiction is crap. Checked exceptions are stupid. I am afraid that pubic hair will go the way of … Continue reading →
Oyasuminasai! First customer visit. After three train rides, four tickets (costing an average of 8 million yen) and about a thousand miles, Australian Jeff, Polish Mirek, Japanese Yukio and English I arrived at our destination (late) and rushed in to … Continue reading →
Python. It’s not quite Ruby. Continue reading →
You can make something out of nothing but the thoughts in your head. Continue reading →
What was it like to have so much hatred for someone she does not even know? Continue reading →
In my travelling days, I used to keep one note and one coin from every country I visited. I just came across some notes in a photo album and, on a whim, had a look on eBay to see if … Continue reading →
Said Judas to Mary, “O what will you do with your ointment so rich and so rare?” Continue reading →
For about a year, I drew like a maniac and then one day I just stopped.

Continue reading →
What should I bet if I draw three cards to a straight in Texas Hold’em? Continue reading →
Our hero awakes. Startled by the noise and the stranger in his room, he sits bolt upright in his bed. Continue reading →
It has come to my attention that there is a whole continent of people who have never listened to Jeff Wayne’s musical version of The War of the Worlds. This is a crime against humanity. The War of the Worlds is … Continue reading →
I didn’t know the solo part in the middle so I made shit up. I fired the drummer. Continue reading →
Levi Stubb’s Tears is one my favourites and I’ve wanted to learn it since I got my first guitar. Continue reading →
When I said that Crick was a flawed, flamboyant genius, I was guessing really. Pretty good guess, it turns out, as Matt Ridley’s fascinating mini-biography makes vividly clear. Let’s get the flaws out of the way first. What I had … Continue reading →
We arrived early enough for a beer and the biggest pizza ever shared by two and, once we had our nasty little tickets in our sweaty hands, we ambled up to the stage and picked out a comfortable spot about … Continue reading →
Roger Ebert has written a powerful, meandering essay about shame. The essay takes many twists and turns and each one of them is fascinating journey in its own right. It starts out as a review of the movie The Reader … Continue reading →
When I was 20, my girlfriend’s brother bought me Bleak House for my birthday saying “I love buying books for people who will get pleasure from them.” I’ve flirted with Bleak House more times than I can remember but there is always … Continue reading →
It used to be hard to find well-thought-out justifications for atheism. Most people I knew were atheists but didn’t like to talk about it much (probably because they didn’t know that most people they knew were atheists too). The only … Continue reading →
I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance three times. The first time I read it, I thought it was the best book ever and it got me reading Plato and interested in eastern religions and philosophy. I also … Continue reading →
Hearing the reports and interviews about the San Francisco plane crash brought back a long lost memory. I had just turned 21 when I joined the nuclear submarine HMS Revenge. I was one of two petty officers responsible for all … Continue reading →
Tom lent me the Game of Thrones to read recently. I enjoyed it thoroughly but I couldn’t help but think that – if you take away the thin veneer of magic and fantasy – it reads a lot like the … Continue reading →
One of the many books I am reading at the moment is The Peregrine by J.A. Baker. It’s a bird-watching diary written by a man who (according to the intro) is in the last year of his life and decides … Continue reading →
I used to sing this song every day to my first baby clown. He used to sing along. Not any more. Oh no. And It Stoned Me (performed by The Ragged Clown) http://www.raggedclown.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/It-Stoned-Me.mp3
I’m not really sure why they call him Slowhand. My hands were much slower than his. I gave up trying to copy the last two measures of the solo and just made something up. Sunshine of your Love http://www.raggedclown.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/sunshine-of-your-love.mp3 Performance … Continue reading →
There is a beautiful, sprawling tree on top of a hill by our house. It has a rope swing and someone has nailed boards into the trunk to make it easy to get up to the crown where a splendid … Continue reading →
Timoth Garton-Ash describes in The Guardian what he sees as the root cause in the difference between the US outlook on the War on terror and the European outlook. He compares the pro-war conservatives in the US with the militaristic … Continue reading →
Remember, rememberThe fifth of November.Gunpowder, treason and plot. I see no reasonWhy gunpowder treasonShould ever be forgot. A long time ago, there was a King of England called King James I. In the years before James came to the throne, … Continue reading →
Footscray. Council estate. Fancy grammar school. Parents divorce. First in class. Run away to sea. Engineering apprenticeship. Girlfriend. Falklands patrol. Girlfriend. Sonar engineer. Polaris submarine in Scotland. Patrol North Atlantic. Midshipman. BRNC Dartmouth. Quit. Backpack (California, Tahiti, Moorea, Bora Bora, Huahine, … Continue reading →
Mrs Clown and I attended the Remembrance Day parade in Bristol yesterday. My nan and grandad took me to my first parade in Footscray in, maybe, 1972. I was in the first rank of the Bexleyheath parade as a Sea … Continue reading →
Everything I know I have learned from a book or figured out for myself. I wish I had someone to learn with. Continue reading →
A charming meditation on the wonders of old age. I’d previously read Mr Klein’s wonderful little book of philosophy jokes — Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar — but didn’t realize until halfway through that it was the … Continue reading →
Bob’s post about liberty reminded to to finish a post I started about 3 years ago. Most people think of politics in terms of left and right. In America, there are liberals and conservatives and anyone in the middle is … Continue reading →
Sitting in those pews transports me back through my memories and even further back into the memories of so many centuries past. Continue reading →
A couple of years of ago, Beckham left ManU for Real Madrid and, a few days later someone new showed up wearing the No7 shirt. “Who is that?”, I wondered. Within about 3 minutes, I said “I think we got … Continue reading →
I just got through reading Charles Murray Real Education so I was perfectly primed to be alarmed by this passage Teachers can’t prepare for the content of the tests and so they substitute practice exams and countless hours of instruction … Continue reading →
Since I have access to all the songs in the world I told Rhapsody to just play me some songs that you think I might like. Rhapsody thought I might like to listen to some Kate Bush which was nice … Continue reading →
Because you’re my best girl and the best you’ll always be.
I bought The Golden Treasury of English Verse and a harmonica as my only mementos of civilization when I set off to go backpacking around the world. I’m not entirely sure why though because I couldn’t play the harmonica and … Continue reading →
It started with a random comment on a blog. A few months back, I blogged about a rather famous party at my school and, last week, Helen left a comment. It’s always exciting to get comments on my blog- especially … Continue reading →
I heard from several correspondents that they thought my attitude to religion (Christmas vs Holidays) was unusual. One had been brought up in a religious environment and now rejects the whole shebang – she can’t understand why I am interested … Continue reading →
I finally made it back to my room, giftless and tired, with two hours remaining before our next installment of eating and drinking. I was looking forward to just relaxing in the bath but, when I checked my email… bling-o! … Continue reading →
I’ve been reading a lot recently about how leftists are supposedly disappointed with Obama because he was not leftist enough and centrists are disappointed because he was not centrist enough. I’m disappointed, but none of that rings true with me, … Continue reading →
Why is that these two statement evoke such different reactions? I hear they are making a movie of The Lord of the Rings. I hear they are making a movie of The Lorax. Those of us who are fans of … Continue reading →
Spoilers Ahead! Before I read the book, I had always understood Lolita to be a sexually precocious teenage girl who seduces an older man. In this scenario, Humbert is technically guilty but it’s still possible to have a little sympathy … Continue reading →
I hear the song as a wistful reminiscence of beautiful ways and a mournful expectation of the winter to come. Continue reading →
Like I wasn’t gonna get the new GarageBand for iPad?? It’s pretty good but VERY frustrating. There are tons of bugs and it’s a little too slow to keep up with any kind of complex strumming. I lost my whole … Continue reading →
The third post in which I blog my reactions as I plough through Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. This was the first section where I was listening to most of the albums for the first time and … Continue reading →
Who knew that this : Would become this: ? Can anyone in the first picture pick me out from the second? Vice versa?
Quick! Name a heroic action in World War I. I bet you can’t. Modern European attitudes to war and nationalism were largely shaped by that most patriotic of wars. Passchendaele, The Somme, Verdun, Galipolli. The names of the battles are … Continue reading →
I have a sense that Facebook is about to score its first victory in the battle for civil liberties. Facebook has been ablaze with outrage over the new Porno Scanners at airports and their creepy human cousins, the Groping Agents. … Continue reading →
The religious battles of the 2000s in the USA backfired spectacularly and any victories were pyrrhic and temporary. Continue reading →
A new day, a new trap… Hello! Son of Simon!
I’m reading the biography of Winston Churchill by Max Hastings and I’m also following along with The Orwell Diaries on RSS. I’m at a similar point in both stories and what strikes me most forcefully is how bleak those times … Continue reading →
HMS Invincible just sailed off to the scrap yards. Invincible came into service right before I joined up. It was a big deal at the time because Thatcher’s Axe inflicted a series of massive cuts on the armed forces right … Continue reading →
I started this picture ages ago but I got frustrated trying to draw her face. So she has been stuck on my iPad for about a year waiting for me to finish. Then, when I came to finally finish her, … Continue reading →
[story is a little out of sequence due to international dateline] Woke up this morning feeling only slightly fragile and, with my three dinners of the night before fully digested, I was ready to make an attempt on the World … Continue reading →

Ragged Clown

It's just a shadow you're seeing that he's chasing…

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Finger Painting

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Pencil Sketches

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