A Christmas Special - A Special Christmas

Merry Christmas! Have a wonderful day!

Today isn't the usual strip - it's a Christmas Special! Hope you enjoy it.

Acknowledgements, and eternal reverence, to Raymond Briggs's classic, The Snowman.

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Not the Smartest Monkey

Can you guess what it is yet?

Quoting The Office: 'It's probably a bottle or something' - 'Oh you think so Gareth?' - 'The shape!'

The Santa Suicides

Partly inspired by a traumatic episode of my cousin's childhood.

What's on your Christmas letter? Is it less depressing than Jenny's?

Oxbridge Mums

Just wait till the neighbours come around for tea with their son who's at Harvard.

The Monkey Has a Name!

Thank you so much for the avalanche of names here and on Facebook following the plea from Tim's monkey to finally BE GIVEN A NAME!

There were so many great suggestions that I couldn't just pick one, so I picked my seven favourite of all:



Humphrey - by Mathilde
Hamilcar - by Audrey
Emmanuel - by Agathe
Bubbles - by Richard
Oscar - by Mathilde
Haiku - by Becca
Tennessee - by Françoise & Jonathan

Yes, Mathilde did have a slight advantage with two names picked, but she submitted tons and for that reason she deserves un gros bisou.

Having put all these wonderful names in a Celebrations box...



...I asked an innocent hand to pick one at random!



And after the tension of this crucial moment, the innocent hand finally chose one of the little blue papers, and all became clear:

The winner is...



Congratulations, Audrey! Send me an email with your postal address in it and your choice of prize (A, B, C or D). Ah, there's just one little thing you need to know about prizes A, B and C... unfortunately they're out of stock. Bad luck! still, you'll get the drawing.

A big thank you to everyone who took part in the contest!

Personal Overstatement

Personal Statements, or the art of bragging humbly about extraordinary but half-imaginary achievements that demonstrate without a shadow of a doubt but always very politely that you are way specialer than the specialest of the rest of the equally quite exceptional but excessively modest fellow applicants.

Take It Philosophically

What's the point of children's books if they don't teach children the harsh realities of life and death?

If you haven't yet done so - or even if you have - submit a name for Tim's Monkey on this page!

Give the Monkey a Name!

Give the monkey a name... and if it gets picked, you get to choose one of these 4 amazing gifts:

A) Eternal Life
B) A night with your favourite film star
C) The Cloak of Invisibility
D) An original drawing of Jenny, Tim and the Monkey

Note: gifts A, B and C subject to availability.

The name has to be: 1) understandable in English, and 2), NOT 'Darwin', even if you think it's really funny. You can submit as many names as you want. Contest closes on December 14th.

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen adieu...

It's the end of term! but not the end of the doodles. Jenny and Tim don't live too far from each other so they might be able to see each other during the holiays...

Cindelirious

Unfortunately for Sophie, it wasn't Prince Harry but a second-year Art Historian at Madgalene called Ben.

Complaint from random internet user: 'But he doesn't look AT ALL like Prince Harry!!!'

Dear random internet user, it's called artistic licence. It can also be called 'being absolutely unable to draw real people'. See previous example.

The Happiest Girl in the World

I've been guiltily watching a few Jane Austen adaptations recently and I thought (yes, you can think while watching a Jane Austen adaptation (well only when they're taking useless walks around the countryside (and when Mr Dashing isn't around))), and I thought, then, that I'd like to know what the rather silly euphemism 'He's just made me the happiest girl in the world' could mean in the modern world when it doesn't mean 'He's asked me if I'd be happy to acquire his surname'.

This is Jenny's interpretation. What's yours?

Dreaming of a White Cambridge Christmas

First published in TCS Michaelmas Issue 9, 2010


Cambridge Christmas, or the stubborn, collective and annual decision in a smallish city of the UK to ignore that there is still 1/12th of the year to go until it's actually time to celebrate.

This is the last TCS comic, but fret not, for the Thursday comic will be maintained (and so will the Sunday one)!

Despair of the Indiscriminated-Against

Am I the only one who thinks that Stand Up Week discriminates against legless people?

(JOKE)

More about Stand Up Week here! (well, it ended yesterday but better late than never)

Grumpy Old Pottermaniacs

Why this is an extra pseudo-cartoon and not a regular cartoon:

A. Because it fulfils a shameless desire from the creator of these cartoons to express her strong feelings against the Potter movies.
B. Because it's not even funny.
C. Because Michael 'DIDYOUPUTYOURNAMEINTHECUP????' Gambon is. Just. Terrible. As. Dumbledore.
D. Because the aforesaid creator of these cartoons is still going to go see the wretched production today so it's not even reflective of reality.

Do YOU want to profess your hatred for the accursed movies? let's all be grumpy together.

Endangered Species

First published in TCS Michaelmas Issue 8, 2010

Personally, I'd keep the monkey.

The Grand Theory of Utter Bollocks

Having wasted quite a lot of nights noting down hundreds of pages of atrociously badly written, completely insane stories in the heat of a ferocious bout of midnight inspiration, I've now learnt to restrain myself and not turn on my laptop when I wake up having just had the idea of the century that's going to turn me into an instant Nobel Prize winner.

(Stephenie Meyer, unfortunately, hasn't.)

Sense and Fancybility

Yes, there is such a thing as 'Wear Fancy Dress to Lectures Week'. That's how the British have fun. But they'll never do as well as our very own very French national joker, n'est-ce pas, Rémi Gaillard!

The Real World

Happy half-anniversary Jess and Kevin!

How to avoid the real world:

A. Do a PhD
B. Do a PhD
C. Do a PhD
D. All of the above.

Congratulations! you are now a professional, fully-funded Real World Avoider!

Week Five Blues

First published in TCS Michaelmas Issue 6, 2010

I don't get Week Five blues anymore. Maybe it's because I've got better at layering, and my umbrella is literally stapled to my bag at all times.

Tricky Treat

'I drink to forget I picked up a slag in a Halloween Bop'

Happy Halloween everyone! be generous with the little brats tonight.

The Spookiest Halloween of Their Lives

First published in TCS Michaelmas Issue 5, 2010

Even worse than finding a razor blade in an apple, as happens all the time in the US according to urban legends.

Maltesers and Prejudice

According to Jenny, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a Tim who's been coerced into watching six hours of romantic BBC drama must be in want of Maltesers.

You just have to share Maltesers. They're so sharable it's like there's some kind of moral obligation to share them. Like, you're on the train and you think 'Should I open my bag of Maltesers now? Should I? If I do, I'm going to feel morally obliged to ask EVERYONE around if they want one! and then I'll end up with none! And if I don't ask everyone around, they'll all think I'm really rude! Oh no oh no oh no! I should have bought a Mars bar instead!'

This is the kind of dilemma that just kills me.

iPad and Punishment

First published in TCS Michaelmas Issue 4, 2010

'I know! I know! Pick me!'

'You don't know, Chris. You just googled it. It's not the same thing.'

'But look! look! I can tell you where the nearest toilet is!'

'GOOD. Now go and drown yourself in it.'

The Clarkson Drive

Seriously, what is it with Clarkson? The Brits are unanimously crazy about the man. 'Clarkson for PM! Clarkson for PM!' WTF?! Just because he can be vaguely witty about the Nissan Qashqai doesn't mean he can rule your country, for chrissakes.

Getting inspired

First published in TCS Michaelmas Issue 3, 2010

'Maybe Tim's research is on the historical evolution of porn through the ages?' I hear you ask. No it's not. Not that he didn't try to write on the topic, of course, but every single aspect of it had already been covered by generations and generations of male MPhil students.

Different Muses

Dave was asked by Cambridge University Press to edit The Cambridge Companion to The Cambridge Companion to Kant because 99,99% readers don't understand The Cambridge Companion to Kant, let alone Kant. The next step is The Cambridge Companion to The Cambridge Companion to Kant for Dummies.

Note: I haven't read either Kant or The Cambridge Companion to Kant. Just in case you thought I actually knew anything about what Jenny's talking about. I have literally no idea. Personally, I'd rather listen to Plug In Baby.

You're my personal brand of heroine

First published in TCS Michaelmas Issue 2, 2010

'What theme can we find this time that will get the girls even more naked than last time?'

'Hmm... "James Bond"? "Uniforms"?'

'No no no. We have to be more subtle than that or the Women's Officer will say no.'

'Oh yeah forgot about her. Damn them hairy feminists!'

2 kool 4 skool

In comic art, this is called breaking the fourth wall. It used to be cool and edgy, now it's become fairly tacky. Still, you gotta love it.

Unfortunately for Tim, the Cambridge University Secret Elite Police Armed Force will find you literally anywhere in the world and drag you back to your desk and make you work on your essays. Even if you're hiding in a secret fourth dimension of Flatland.

Fresheritis

First published in TCS Michaelmas Issue 1, 2010.

Hello, Freshers! Welcome! We love you really. You're the future of this university, after all. Oh God. That one's a Goth. And that one looks like a right slapper. And that one's already going to Cindies instead of lectures. And that one!... Noisy slackers! Pompous brats! Back in my day...! (etc)

The Great University Lie

The trick is to convince all the kids around you that university is really really hard and you do lots of homework and read books that are bigger than them and never ever watch TV. Also when you go to university you can't bring your Playmobil! It's University Rule Number One: NO PLAYMOBIL ON CAMPUS.

Then let the little brats cry themselves to sleep and get Peter Pan complexes.

Prime Concerns

First published in TCS Easter Issue 1, 2010

Politicians just don't address important issues. Once I emailed the Cambridge MP to complain about the daily amount of junk mail we get and he replied 'I know, it's annoying innit.' So now I have to sit by the window and throw stones at the Domino Pizza guy when he walks up to the house to try and rape my mailbox.

Wet Blue Dreams

First published in TCS Lent Issue 8, 2010

Of course Tim would get wet dreams about Avatar. It's so seriously sexy.

[Cut scene from Avatar]

Neytiri - We don't do sex on Pandora, oh no. Sex is so uncool and so not 3D. No, we do hair. Hair is the new sex. And we're so open about it we do hair with everything we can find - trees, banshees, horses, people, chairs, lamps, shoes, everything. Let's do hair together and it'll seal our relationship.

Jake - But I've just done hair with my ikran, like, just now.

Neytiri - That's ok. Like I said, we're totally open to multiple hair relationships.

Jake - Wait, have you got a hairdom? Cause I don't want to catch a hairly transmitted disease.

Academia, Inc.

First published in TCS Lent Issue 7, 2010.

So poor Jenny didn't get a job with Accentuloitte-Coopers in the end and will be doing an MPhil this year which will make her even less employable by Accentuloitte-Coopers next year so she'll have to stay on to do a PhD and that will make her so unfashionably unemployable that she'll become an academic.

EPIC WIN!

The Oxbridge Game

First published in TCS Lent Issue 6, 2010

The Cambridge Game, Continued:

Dear Potential Employer,

I am convinced I would be a precious asset to your shamefully money-making thriving, world-renowned business. In addition to my two months of organised slavery in a bookshop extensive work experience in the marketing, sales and communication sections of a worldwide chain, I have gained at Cambridge the ability to bullshit my way through anything understand, argue and assess various points of view. I will be an attentive, passionate and arrogant motivated employee, and I am very eager to earn a six-figure salary bring my knowledge and experience to your company.

Respectfully yours,

S. Lacker, BA (Hons) (Cantab)

An Enlightening Date

First published in TCS Lent Issue 5, 2010

Jenny and Kant decided that evening that people who bribe the RAG Blind Date organisers to get handsome clever triple Full Blue dates don't realise that should their actions be taken as a universal law of rational beings the whole system would just collapse and selfishness and frustration would be the rule. Also the ugly ones get put together and then think of what may happen.

Prime Minister. Poke back.

First published in TCS Lent Issue 4, 2010

What do YOU put on Facebook? How can you be sure it won't be used against you when you become famous some day when you're all grown-up? Your friends will become your enemies. Your computer will be hacked into. Your photos will be stolen. Your life will become HELL.

Oh wait, that's just what 'being famous' means. With or without facebook.

Sensitive Spots

First published in TCS Lent Issue 3, 2010

That was about Belgium and France attempting to ban the burqa and the British media being all like 'Omg that's so offensive! Offensive offensive disrespectful! Offensiveness to the power of 200! Shock breaking news offense from Belgium & France even worse than usual! [...] Could we possibly do it here in Britain do you think?'.

The Freshest of all Freshers

First published in TCS Lent Issue 2, 2010

15-year-old student admitted at Cambridge! WOW scandal! How's he going to cope with all the sex and booze and heavy drugs? And his supervisors are going to need a CRB check!

We get that story pretty much every year. But then all freshers are tiny and look confused anyway so you don't know which one's 15 and which one's done 3 gap years already.