Woah!

Hey y'up, Leftovers has been on a mild hiatus for the last two months as I've been readying my first comic 400 Facts - it's just launched at 400Facts.Blogspot.com - have a peek!

A new Leftovers is due out in the new year though and work will resume ASAP! For now Merry Christmas and remember not to go out anywhere on New Year cos its always a jip and have a house party instead. Oh and invite me.

A Good Game of Thermonuclear War

I watched Wargames the other day and decided to do what Mathew Broderick did here

So, I grab my keyboard and my can of soda pop, invite my girl-next-door girl over (from next door) and sit her down instructing her to lean seductively over my monitor in a pair of hotpants while I attempted to hack NORAD, the conversation went as follows:

(clicky for bigger image)

Romantic Drive 2

Cheryls Thoughts

Dreamland

I've not sat down and begrudgingly churned out any staid and tired prose in a while, and usually I'm quite good at that. What have I been doing? Sleeping pal, I've been sleeping.

More specifically I've been dreaming excessively of late, and like most dreams when I first started to recall them a few weeks ago they'd be full of weird shit - phones made of toffee, celebrities declaring their undying love for me but then it turns out they're actually my sister - y'know normal well adjusted dreams like that, but they've now begun to slide into something much more mundane, they're becoming an alternate life.

Last week I dreamt I was having a meeting with a work pal of mine, and he invited me round his house to talk about throwing some ideas together into a new writing project. He made some tea, we had some sandwhiches (ham salad - I even recall thinking they tasted nice) and he showed me his new hat.

Fuckin' boring eh?

In another dream I have entered into a relationship with this woman I barely know, I'm dimly aware that its a mistake to get mixed up with her but she's very persuavsive, probably because she's a fiction created by my mind and she knows how to push my buttons.

The strangest thing is the continuity to each of the dreams, they may happen on different nights but people remember me and talk about others who have shown up in nights previous. The woman, sorry, my girlfriend, is giving me hassle about some other girl I was talking to outside a bar the other night and I'm worried about falling asleep tonight since I just know shes going to end up pregnant or something (technically I'd be the father and the mother wouldn't I?)

Are you worried about me boys? Ach, I'm grand though really, it's just a case of too many late nights and -



Tch, typical, I'm yawning again, that'll be her, the missus, trying to get me asleep, I've got to go then, face the music - If I don't see you then I'll probably be in a self induced coma. Here - wish me luck pal!

The 1990s Sitcom Stock Footage Establishing Shots Showreel Collection

Mojo Goes Tokyo

Our pal and feature writer Patrick Mojo Morgan went off to Tokyo for a week, he is a total jetsetter, always flying off to distant lands whenever he can and is thus the most experienced and culturally well versed characters writing for Leftovers today.

You may know him from the salaciously sexual tales of waunderlust in the sopping streets of manchester and belfast but today we show a lighter side. A side we like to call "Mmmmojo".

We love him and so should you, here's a video he made for us, isn't he lovely!

TELETEXT HEAVEN

D'ya remember Teletext? Did you read Digistiser? Planet Sound? Mega-Zine? Good for you, you're my pal. I once had a letter published on Digitiser, it was my proudest moment as a spotty teen and has now led to me helping make Leftovers every four months in some sadistic punishing cycle wherein I try and recapture my youth.

Teletext and Ceefax were real pioneers back then in my nostalgia addled mind. Aye, that's was where it was at for us kids back before we even knew what 56k modems were.

Teletext/Ceefax isn't gone yet, but it will be. Soon enough the Beeb are pulling the plug on us.

Ach, d'ya remember coming home pished aged 16 and trying to find porn on Ceefax at 5 in the morning?

You don't?

Well now you do:

My Mother - Homestead NARC

My mother and I, unlike you and your smelly aul maws, get on very well and rarely come to blows (rarely, but lets face it, sometimes you have to pay the fiddler*)

Alright maybe it isn't roses all the time, there's a particular foible of mumsey that really peels my orange, we'll be having a perfectly rational conversation when suddenly she'll speculate that the subtext/background cause of the conversation we're having is directly related to drug abuse when it plainly has bugger all to do with anything.

Strange to relate, but true. Just the other day I caught the cold and rang ma to get the lowdown on how to look after myself as I always forget.

"Hello ma, I have the cold" (I get straight to the point with mother, no messing)

"You were fine the other day" she warns back, the drugs abuse accusation train about to roll into the station.

"I must have got it at work, maybe I'm just run down"

"Have you been taking drugs" more statement than question, her good cop has left the room for a second and bad cop is bringing the ruckas.

"What! No!" I squirm sounding guilty as hell, even though I hadn't touched anything (officer) and anyway when was the last time you read the headlines and saw:

"GIRL, 19, LAID UP IN BED WITH LEMSIP DRIP AND COPY OF 'CLOSER' AFTER OVERDOSE'

This isn't the first time the accusation came up, it's been happening since I turned 12 I think. Have you ever seen the movie Carrie? You know how her ma is always banging on about her 'Dirty Pillows' and chastising her burgoning sexuality - even though the poor girl cannot understand what is happening to her?

That was my childhood, growing up I was guilty until proven innocent for many despicable things in my mothers eyes, especially so if I didn't know what those things were since it just meant that I could discover what they were at some point. She was a right paradox my mum, in fact that's dads pet name for her.

I digress, I remember once getting into the car after school one day and the following exchange took place:

"Good day at school?"
"Yeah yeah, fine"
"Well, aren't we grumpy today"
"Leave it out" (used to base my style on Grant Mitchell ~ 1993)
"Are you on crack right now?"

or even one time;

"Mum, d'you have a pen?"
"What for?"
"I want to do a drawing, there's this bird just out my window"
"You're tripping off your tits on them acid mushrooms aint ya!"

I remember she ran into my room one day with a bit of scrunched up bit of tinfoil; "I found this at the bottom of your bag - you're using that crystal meth aren't you?" I didn't even reply, just walked up, grabbed the tinfoil ball and unfurled it presenting her with the foily imprint of a wheat stalk commonly found on lunch-time favourite - the Breakaway Bar.

So you see dear reader, I can't win, admittedly the question these days is becoming less accusatory and more a 'keeping the aspidistra flying' for Mum-World as I slide wearily into my end twenties but it still irks me everytime it comes up.

One day I swear, the compulsion is going to seize up in me and I'm going to answer her question with:

"Actually dearest muma, mumoo, mater, this is the only occasion, in our entire history within each others company where I haven't been completely flipping up over my gums, twiddling my brain down a powdery chalk chute into hell and stretching my mind over infinite horizons of blazing colour. In short, I'm sober for once."

Oh we have a laugh really, do me and mumoo.



*punch your ma

Four Hundred Facts

We're currently devoting all our time (which is normally reserved for drinking gin) to writing and illustrating our first feature comic as well as killing all the spiders in our house.

Here's a promo image -