One Sketch #104) Marilyn Monroe

The original candle in the wind
A lasting icon
But a frail and fragile person too
The person, long gone
But the icon?
Imperishable

Right, you need to stay with me on this one. A few days ago, on Tuesday, the England football team were playing in the last 16 of the FIFA world cup against Colombia. Now, being 54 years old, and a lifelong England supporter, you'll appreciate that I've been put through the wringer by England many times. In all honesty, my nerves just wouldn't stand watching the match. So I painted the Laurel and Hardy sketch which was actually my 100th One sketch a day. I finished just in time to see the England goalkeeper save a penalty to put England through.

So, today, England played their quarter final against Sweden. To put this into perspective, England have reached something like 7 quarter finals previously during my lifetime, and won precisely 2 - and the first of those, 1966 I am too young to even remember.

So I bottled out of watching it. Hoping to work the same magic as the Colombia game, instead I painted another iconic film star, the great Marilyn Monroe. She starred in one of the most joyous comedies of all time in "Some Like It Hot", and despite dying before I was born she's still as big an icon as she's ever been.

One Sketch #103) Isle of Lewis Chessmen (Friday 6th July)

Forgive me if I find I must digress
But who'd have thought of Vikings
Playing chess?

The first time that I can actually remember seeing any of the Viking chess pieces discovered in the Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides, was in the mid 1980s. I was at London University studying English, and Old Norse and Old English were two of my constituent courses. Those of us studying these courses took an afternoon to visit an exhibition in the South Bank devoted to art and culture immediately following the Norman Invasion. In the gift shop I bought a replica Knight and a replica rook, and had I had enough spare grant from my student grant ( if you're under 40, then ask your parents what they were) then I'd have bought the whole set. I thought they were amazing. I've seen the originals several times since in their home in the British Museum, and if you ever get the chance to do so, I highly recommend it.

Fast forward  good ten years and I actually did buy a full set - although the pieces were approximately half the size of the originals. That went the way of all flesh some time in the last 18 years or so since we moved house. Nonetheless I retain a huge amount of affection for these remarkably dramatic and animated figures, and it's nice to think of hairy Scandinavian beserkers settling down for a nice game of chess after a hard day's pillage.