To the book festival for something like a mea culpa from Steve Bell, the Guardian cartoonist. His life is fraught with danger in these dismal times, and the artist said he was asked on several occasions by his editor to alter a cartoon about Charlie Hebdo, for fear of reprisals by the deranged.
“However,” he said, “the irony is that the next day I drew this,” revealing the “incest and Scottish country dancing” drawing which purported to represent the core demands of Ms Sturgeon and Mr Salmond, ahead of the referendum.
“Usually I get about seven comments online, but this one reached 900 before they had to shut it down. For f***s sake, it was a joke, sometimes jokes do not work. This one was one of them.”
Note: the joke is an adaptation of Sir Thomas Beecham’s sage advice: “Try everything once, except folk dancing and incest.”
* Raise a glass to Luca Cupani, winner of the So You Think You’re Funny? prize at the Gilded Balloon. His subjects are porridge and the anguish of a meagre love life. A man after Auld Sneekie’s heart.