#weeklycartoon — Boris and Gove in Amsterdam — Michael & Josh
Over the weekend here in the UK we heard how at least 6 politicians, who are standing to be chosen as Britain’s Prime Minister, admitted that they’d taken illegal drugs at some point during their lifetime. A massive debate has ensued whether they are fit to be in office or whether we forgive them for their past mistakes. Imagine if one of them gets selected, the fact that they took illegal drugs will be forever in the forefront of our minds, correct? Forever…
Anyway it inspired us to create this little cartoon. Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, both forerunners in the contest admitted to both being weed smokers. I imagined that if we never leave the EU, it would actually be in their favour!
William and Kate announce royal baby to Prince George — Michael & Josh #dailycartoon
There’s a new Royal Baby in the UK and it’s time for celebration, but maybe not everyone will be that happy? Prince George for example.
Whenever there’s a new Royal Baby, the world goes bananas. The fact is there are millions of babies being born every single day, why should a Royal one be so special. It’s not like he’ll ever be King right?
Anyway it inspired us to create an appropriate cartoon, like all children I’m sure George won’t want to share his toys with him!
William The Conqueror defeats King Harold in 1066 — Michael & Josh — #dailycartoon
In one year’s time the UK will leave the EU (Brexit). I listened to a radio programme on the BBC and it shared a couple of history lessons. One of those was the story of William the Conqueror, a Norman from France, who at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 defeated King Harold and became King. So, if you were to begin by asking, in Monty Python style, “What have the Normans ever done for us?” Without the Norman Conquest, Shakespeare would not have been Shakespeare, because his language would have resembled 16th-century German or Dutch.
Colonol Sanders chasing a chicken — Michael & Josh #dailycartoon
KFC UK & Ireland recently ran out of chickens. Something to do with transport and changing supplier to DHL. Was wondering if any chickens managed to live longer as a result, which inspired our cartoon. So the question is: ‘Why did the chicken cross the road’?
I saw on the 5th March that supplies are back up to 97% and nearly all stores are back to normal. The chickens nearly got away with it but not quite.
We’ve recently been experiencing a bad snow storm in the whole of the United Kingdom, they even gave it a name, ‘The Beast from the East’. The phenomena was due to the fact that the jet stream, which normally flows from west to east around the UK, had reversed and was flowing from east to west, bringing it with itself huge amount of cold air across Europe and as a consequence huge amounts of big snowfall.
In addition a rain storm with high winds coming up from the south, named Emma, hit the cold air and as a consequence deposited huge amounts of snow as well.
The whole affair was actually short-lived maybe 5 days in total. At the end of the fifth day, all snow has pretty much melted as a consequence of higher temperatures and normal rainfall.
We love talking about the weather in the UK and we love even more creating stress and drama about the weather, which indeed the media did for these storms. Don’t get me wrong there’s always a threat to life when bad weather lands like this and unfortunately 10 people did lose their lives as a result, which is very sad. Note however that on average 32 people die every week on Britains roads and they rarely get reported. The fact that we had a big snow storm made it worthy reporting.
“A macro view of a chainlink fence covered with snow in winter.” by Lance Anderson on Unsplash
All of it really is not assisted by the media hype and constant bombardment of hysteria, film footage, photographs and other such reports of doom and destruction. Yes it is bad and dangerous but rarely as bad as they make it out to be.
Weather reporting in the UK is massive Clickbait. Clickbait is where you create sensationalist stories in the press and media to get viewers and readers to click through to their publication and reports on the weather. When you are there, you are likely to see adverts, see requests to donate to their online website and see other articles which you will potentially read.
Why does the press need Clickbait? To ensure they can prove to their advertisers that they have millions of viewers/readers coming to their websites and as such their website is a great reason for the advertisers to spend their money with them instead of different media outlets.
In 2017 I looked at headlines every single day and copied them onto a Pinterest board to try and evidence the sensationalism that exists in the press to get us to click through. The headlines on UK weather were by far the worst and of course Donald Trump headlines too. But the weather ones were rarely factual or true and worded in such a way that you would be fooled in believing that the country would come to a standstill. It rarely does.
