The Curse of the New Editor strikes again. Any freelancer will tell you that a magazine acquiring a new editor is almost invariably a Bad Thing. And so it has proved at “Aeroplane” magazine. I’ve been doing their monthly gag for a while now, and I enjoy drawing ‘planes, but along comes a new editor and one of the first things he does is dump the cartoon slot. Why ? Well it COULD be that the cartoons are rubbish, but obviously they are not because I say so. It could be that they are too expensive. Not that either. Could it be that he’s suffering from the same humour disconnect many of his generation don’t know they’ve got ? Has he ditched the pic so he, a journalist, can fill the space with lots more words ? Yes, he has. How disappointingly dull. So now begins the search for another aeroplane magazine with an enlightened editor. That’s “enlightened”, not “new”

In my capacity as Chair of the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation, I’ll soon be off to a Committee meeting down in London.     Apart from having to go to London, which I hate, I’m quite looking forward to it. The PCO Committee as it stands is a group of funny, articulate people with an excellent taste in biscuits. I only mention this because in my previous life, in education, I hated meetings. They were so often packed out with people who really didn’t grasp what the meeting was about but who felt they had to  say something because they had a chair, or even worse, people who had an opinion on everything. I used to call them “Ahbutters”. Just as you thought it was all coming to an end, one of the Ahbutters would say, “Ah, but…………” , whilst another would seize upon Any Other Business, so as to prompt a discussion on Childhood Obesity or chronic leaks in the Lower School toilets. For a couple of hours. Those days are over, thank goodness, but now, I must dash and try to find a cartoon-friendly flight magazine editor. Not many people have to do that.