Ice Skating, Gun-axes, and a Meriticious Hellhole.

That's right, it's Edition No. 55 of OUTLINED.

MORNING ALL.

So, the process behind last week's edition seemed to work well, so we’re sticking with it!

Who Doesn’t Want a Gun-Axe?

Last weekend I found myself wandering around the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and came across a cabinet of very old guns.

Within that collection of progressively larger and more outrageous blunderbuses, I found this glorious thing.

Yes, folks.. It’s a GUN-AXE.

50 percent gun, 50 percent axe, and 100 percent “What maniac needed this?!”

It also got me thinking: There really aren’t enough “Things that are also an axe” these days.

So, this week I took the liberty of sorting that out for everyone.

Broom Axe. This one feels obvious.

Rolling pin axe. Much less obvious.

Wine Axe feels like a great idea, provided you haven’t drunk all the wine.

Then obviously you’ve got an Axe axe…

(Also, very happy with my reflection work on those axe heads)

I had a lot more of these that I was going to draw but then I quite rightly thought “WHY?!” and so now we’re moving on!

A LinkedIn Comic. (I know, how utterly dull)

Earlier this week I kicked things off with a little LinkedIn comic.

Obviously, I put it on Linkedin, and it’s my hope that someone will discover it via the inevitable and completely nonsensical notification that comes their way.

But that’s enough about that meretricious hellhole of sycophantic career desperation.

What’s next?!

“It Giet Oan!” (It’s going ahead!)

(or rather, it’s probably not….)

This week I discovered an excellent sporting event, which, sadly, I might not ever get to enjoy.

The Elfstedentocht, is a long distance skating event held in Friesland, in the Netherlands, and involves racing along 200 km of natural ice on canals and waterways, of which there’s plenty of in the Netherlands.

Frustratingly, what there isn’t plenty of in the Netherlands is skatable ice, which is the other key ingredient to this race. The Elfstedentocht can only be held when all 200 km of the course has a thickness of 15cm, which is enough to deal with the 25,000 people who are likely to skate over it.

As a result, the race has only been held just three times in the last 60 years, in 1984, 1985 and 1997. They got very close to the race being held again in 2012, and every effort was made to cultivate as much ice as possible but sadly at the last minute it was deemed too unsafe to attempt, and so sadly the traditional cries of “It Giet Oan!” were silenced once again.

The saddest part is that climate change is likely to make an already unlikely event even more unlikely going forward, and there’s a big fear the race may never be held again.

On a lighter note, I mentioned the race is held in Friesland, which also has one of my favourite flags of all time.

Just look at that thing! It’s SO GOOD.

By the way, those red things are Seeblatts, not hearts!

And that’s it for this week!

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See you all next week!

C.