I’ve hit a bit of creative burnout, people. Happens to the best of us. It may have something to do with that inevitable, eventual information overload, or the hailstorm I slid through yesterday, or the fact that I’ve not been getting my full 6 hours sleep a night. Who knows? So here I slump. Hence the title, ‘slumping at the water cooler’. It goes without saying that the HOD and her gang are casting dark looks at me, but I’ve sort of perfected the ‘speak to the hand’ ignore – when I’m not slumping or draping myself over the bottle fed, I upend myself (a little like the water bottle does) and hang upside down, trapeze like. If anyone approaches with a battle light in their eyes, I just lift my top lip, showing my fangs, uhh, canines, ever so slightly. Works like a charm I tell you.

So, the idea today is all about free association, which as you may have twigged by now, is rather a speciality of mine. Before you chip in, no, you can’t play – this is a game I play all on my ownsome. Off we go:

Penguins – Opus & Bill – fabulous, fabulous cartoon from Berkeley Breathed circa the ‘80’s. I passed my passion for Opus onto a dear friend of mine who named his cat after him.

Cat on a hot tin roof – Fiddler on the Roof – To Kill a Mockingbird: A life changing novel by Harper Lee. Cannot even begin to explain the connection there.

Wacky Wicks – Beechies – Strawberry Beechies and that bubble-gum smell. Still a favourite.

Nosferatu – Dracul – Dracula – Nazgul (the winged creatures from The Lord of the Rings). Okay, that one, perhaps, is not so difficult to figure out.

So, there you have it, dear people, plenty of brain fodder for you to go and eddicate yourselves with. Pleasure.

Psst. The photo of the penguin baba was initially chose for no reason at all – just because it’s a really good photo and also because it’s of a cute, fluffy, baby penguin. This of course started the Penguin – Opus etc. association. Powerful stuff, eh?