New Zealand being the world’s oldest democracy (Icelandic women didn’t get the vote until 1915, and the Isle of Man is not a country, thank you very much) Jessica caring about apostrophes as much as I do You Look Nice Today, world’s funniest podcast, is what you would expect from three yappy geeks combining potty humour with Voltaire “May the sinews of his hams snap suddenly in moments of achievement!”, chant the artisans in Ernest Bramah’s delectable chinoiserie, the Kai Lung stories I recently unearthed from storage The charango, a ten-stringed South American ukulele played to excellent effect on the latest Minisnap album That pleasing moment-without-a-name when the song on your car radio and your turn signal are in perfect rhythmic synchrony The anachronistic typography in the Indiana Jones movie maps (I was proud I spotted the Avant Garde in Crystal Skull) Having the hatefulness of Comic Sans rudely recognised in the comic Achewood The disadvantage of an elite American education persuasively argued by William Deresiewicz Using a true “et” ampersand like Trebuchet’s to write et cetera as

Helen Taylor created some lovely drawings for the ukulele book; she and her partner Ben Brown have been in the writing/illustration game for a while, and when I mentioned some of my frustrations with freelance artists, they supplied some tips from the professional illustrator’s point of view.

“It’s all about the brief.

“The brief is the basis of the client/illustrator relationship. The client needs to communicate clearly what they want; the illustrator needs to understand clearly what’s required. If the illustrator thinks the brief might be outside their particular ‘style’, ‘genre’, or area of expertise, the sooner stated the better for all concerned.

“The illustrator needs to understand the difference between a ‘commission’ and a ‘work of art’, and so does the client.

“Establish a process: view and approve concepts and roughs before proceeding to finished artwork; know the difference between a quote and an estimate; get it in writing; define parameters; and communicate all the time.”