Status-Q

My statistic for the day comes from this week’s Economist:

An average day for a UPS driver in America involves 150 destinations

Arrrh! How many of you landlubbers knew that it was International Talk Like A Pirate Day, then?

Of course, I learned everything I needed to know about pirates from Captain Pugwash, a wonderful children’s TV series written and drawn by my (distant) cousin, John Ryan. If you were unlucky enough to have missed it your youth in the 50s, 60s, or early 70s, you can enjoy it again today through the magic of YouTube…

I have a couple of the original drawings used in the Pugwash series at home somewhere. They were a bit like a pop-up book – the movement of the characters’ arms etc was done by moving cardboard tabs which emerged at the side of the drawing, and it was an unusual technique when first done because it was filmed ‘live’ rather than using stop-frame animation. I must get them framed…

More about John Ryan on Wikipedia.