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duff's fantastic cycling gizmos - the crazy inventions of a bike nut! graham high. cracking books paperback 60pp illus. £9.99

while plying my temporary trade as an art student and very much in order to keep myself in the style and drumsets to which i hoped to become accustomed, i spent those long-past summer months working at prestwick airport for the long-since demised grand metropolitan airport services. this subsequently became a part of modern-day diageo, owners of lagavulin and caol ila distilleries as well as both port ellen maltings and the soon to be revived port ellen distillery. though not germain to the subject eventually under discussion, i feel this an excellent opportunity to lift the lid on just how large and ultimately clueless this monolith has become.

several years ago, i was tasked by the local tourist marketing group to produce an islay whisky trail leaflet. produced with the co-operation of the island's distilleries, it was thus none too iniquitous that they desired their logos featured on the cover. having acquired all apart from the aforementioned lagavulin and caol ila, i contacted diageo's media department in london to request that they sent me the logos in an appropriate format.

disappointingly, they had no idea of which i spoke and passed me onto their irish media department who had even less idea than their metropolitan counterparts. ultimately, i garnered the necessary artwork from the respective distillery managers. if nothing else, this perhaps illustrates the folly of creating such a large corporate entity.

however, to return to my original train of thought, grand metropolitan had a quite impressively pro-active policy regarding the care and betterment of their staff. one example of this was the so-called chairman's prize which, if i recall correctly, took place every second month and offered suitable recompense to the employee who put forward an irresistable idea that might improve the company's profitability in the months or years to come. though hardly worthy of serious consideration, my own nomination consisted of the waterproof tea bag, for which i drew a short cartoon strip to illustrate the extent of my genius, proudly displayed on the staff noticeboard.

drawing cartoons had long been a clandestine ambition of mine, one that rarely saw the light of day due to having convinced myself that i'd probably run out of humorous ideas in a very short space of time. during my years at art college, we were encouraged to keep a personal sketch book in which we allegedly had carte blanche as to the contents. my previously mentioned cartooning aspirations had me copying facial expressions from charles schultz' peanuts syndicated strips, in order to investigate the whys and wherefores of his minimalist, yet highly effective illustrative skills.

rather unexpectedly, on having handed said sketch book in for assessment along with the rest of my year's work, i was somewhat taken aback to discover two pages torn from the sketch pads, pinned to the wall and underlined by the words "a bit less of this please". it appears that my art college lecturers had obviously misunderstood the common definition of the word personal.

ironically, at precisely the time i was discovering that art college was not all diet coke and roses, dundee born graham high was apparently having greater success at edinburgh college of art. subsequently graduating at postgraduate level from the drawing and painting department, graham became the political cartoonist of the scotsman newspaper between 1987 and 2000, winning the scottish press awards cartoonist of the year in 1998. such an impressive palmares heralds the publication of duff's fantastic cycling gizmos - the crazy inventions of a bike nut!, the intent of which is perfectly encapsulated on the cover, featuring a remarkably obree-like velocipedinal invention.

the back cover offers an ideal perspective in which the contents might be considered, comparing the fictitious duff to that of a modern-day heath robinson. apparently duff first made a public appearance in today's golfer magazine, curating a 'improve your game with duff's golfing gizmos', but we won't hold that against the author.

this slim, but highly (see what i did there?) entertaining volume contains several years' worth of bizarre cycling inventions, ranging from a fork adaptor allowing the front wheel to be replaced by your dog in order to cycle while exercising the pooch, to a throne bike for use by the monarch during state occasions in times of austerity. make no mistake, these exhibit an eccentric brand of velocipedinal humour; wonderfully drawn and described flights of fancy, none of which exhibit anything like the pragmatism that would have them feature in a kickstarter campaign.

for the members of your peloton who you think are too enthralled by the inner crevices of strava, this would make the perfect christmas gift, subtly pointing out how easily their idiosyncracies fit with graham high's bizarre imagination. i'm reluctant to pin my flag to the mast by choosing a favourite from the contents, but if push came to shove, i figure the inflatable d-lock bears the hallmarks of the sort of absurdity we all need in our lives.

the review copy will soon take up residence in debbie's café for the further edification of the velo club over froth and custard creams.

priced at a most amenable £9.99, 'duff's fantastic cycling gizmos' can be acquired via amazon, or, failing that, contact graham at crackingbooks@btinternet.com

tuesday 14 november 2017

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