I recently had the misfortune to have to drive into Wigan. Anyone who drives through or around the centre of Wigan will immediately know why I say “misfortune”. The one-way system in Wigan is so bad it is conceivably possible to wear your tyres out before you find your way out again. The daft twists and turns all over the place down single-lane one-way minor roads means that it inevitably gets congested at almost any time of day at some point or other. In fact, there are probably a few people who’ve been going round and round in there for weeks without getting out. I did notice a few motorists with long beards …. clearly, this bizarre road system could not have been developed by any human mind. No matter how off-the-wall, twisted and misanthropic the relevant civil servant(s) might be this piece of planning is well beyond the scope of their fevered brain-cells. Mulder would certainly conclude it to be the work of aliens. No doubt “Wigan in Rush Hour” is a top rating sit-com in the Betelgeuse nebula with Mommy, Daddy and offsring waving their tentacles in delight at the mad antics of the strange human creatures going round and round in their little tin boxes. Hoots of gurgling laughter and Daddy alien falls backwards over the green sponge sofa as the earthlings in coloured boxes grind to a halt in front of another red light, then all go again, stop again, go again etc etc. Their imaginations are staggered by the fact that this happens EVERY DAY and they don’t do anything to change it! Of course, they are unaware that it is their close neighbours the Spoogels who actually designed this crazy road system. Spoogels have large strangely curling purple tubes rather than hair and this gave them the general plan for the Wigan road system. Of course, nowadays the original designers Kloondyk and Mogglitchn live of their royalties from the media shows and occasional after-slurping speeches (Spoogels only consume liquids).

The most disconcerting thing about all of this is that since Kloondyk and Mogglitchn have more or less retired, living as they do on their own private planet with their luxury Khiggits (that’s a kind of yacht) and the relevant council departments have not changed this crazy road system in all these years we can only come to the conclusion that the creatures we believe to be civil servants in our local authorities are in fact Spoogels. This of course does, in fact, explain quite a lot about Local Government in general and we can only wonder at how widespread this infiltration is. It might interest you to know that when a Spoogel smiles its mouth goes into a funny rectangular shape rather like a letterbox … which does rather bring to mind a certain wife of a certain member of parliament.

The phone rang and a gentleman asked to be put through to one of the most famous artists we deal with ostensibly because he is trying to track down someone this artist knows in order to ensure they get the back-royalties they are owed. A noble venture we can only praise and support. However, the gentleman in question seemed unable to comprehend that the artists featured on our website are not in fact resident at Artists UK’s offices!

My mind was filled with the wonderful idea of all these artists from present and past living and working at Artists UK. Salvador Dali might be in the restaurant chatting with Bob Venosa (that’s no surprise since they did know each other) but what about Brian Froud, Alan Lee and a few others having lunch with Arthur Rackham? It would be lovely to see Josh Kirby back again and the corridors could be filled with his Voyage of the Ayeguy paintings! There’d be a group of old TSR artists and Magic would be Gathering in the bar. What would Picasso think of digital imaging? William Blake might be rather shocked by Todd Lockwood’s War of Angels. Sulamith Wulfing and Susan Seddon-Boulet in mutual admiration? Cicely Mary Barker and Beatrix Potter would probably be astounded at some of the modern fairy paintings and fantasy illustrations but perhaps feel that they were a bit too gaudy for their taste. Rodney Matthews and William Blake might have a fair bit in common … or possibly not. Who knows? Who would you like to see in the great art skyscraper?

We did of course forward the gentleman’s request to the artist concerned and hopefully a particular writer will get the royalties he’s due … and they all lived happily everafter

It is very simple - just go to our ecommerce website here . Click the appropriate option into your shopping cart and you have bought a space in the gallery for a whole year! You go to the checkout and pay by credit or debit card. You then have two weeks to send us a jpg of your painting before your year starts. If you don’t have access to digital technology you can send us a high quality photograph that we will digitally photograph for you at no extra charge. Make sure you tell us as much as possible about the original work to help us sell it for you - materials used including the board or canvas, your inspiration for it and whether it has been published or won prizes etc as well as about yourself. You decide the price for it (remember to include your cost of delivering it to us when it sells and we charge a handling fee of 6% of the sale price for each sale). You can email your jpeg(s) & additional info to us (we only need a small jpg image that shows at around 4″ x 5″ on screen). We only display a small jpg so your copyright is better protected.

So; what are you waiting for? Your art can now be on sale to the whole world for a few pennies a day! Or even less if you exhibit more than one piece! See here for details.

If you are an artist are you checking our Opportunites section on our main Artists UK Dotnet site? If not, it is located here .

We regularly feature various exhibitions and events for artists that we have come across or where the organisers have asked us to add it to our list. Take a look. You might find something that is just right for you. By all means give us feedback if you attend one of these events. Your views are important and will help us to improve our service.