Juli

I have so many volunteers going through our organisation and most of them are really cool. I end up drawing them a lot over their stay, so I thought I may as well start putting them up.

This is Juli. She's German, completely crazy, but really nice. She's a proper old school rebel, and is always going on marches, protests, demonstrations etc. She often gets into trouble and sometimes lands in court. She's like one of the Baader Meinhof gang. She hangs out in hippy communes, goes to climate camps, eats out of bins at the back of Tesco (sometimes), the whole bit. I like trying to annoy her by talking about my share portfolio, but she doesn't take the bait. She's a really good caseworker, but doesn't have much patience with lesser mortals around the office. I think some other vols are scared of her! I wish I was as idealistic and committed as Juli, but I'm too cynical and pessimistic. Tant pis! I drew this on the tube train going from Colnbrook detention centre near Heathrow.

Heavy Week

I've been working all week on trying to finish something for tomorrow's small press fair. I was previously hoping to do two or even 3 different strips - but i have only just managed to finish one.

Also this week, my first workshop at Colnbrook Detention Centre (I give legal advice to detainees). The whole experience left me incredibly depressed: people who have been detained 3, 4, 5 years beyond their criminal sentence, because they are foreign. It would be fine if they were being deported, but they aren't. They are just rotting in detention, slowly going mad, because the Home Office can't or won't obtain travel documents and it's too politically dangerous to release any of them. In the evening, after the workshop, coincidentally, was the LDSG report launch on indefinite detention: detained lives. It looks like an interesting report, and I look forward to reading it. Alisdair Mackenzie spoke - always amusing and value for money, but Alison Harvey of ILPA was the most impressive and impassioned speaker.

Here is a drawing I just did. It was supposed to be a self-portrait, but doesn't really look like me, still, interesting...