How to turn a roomful of peaceful pupils into a partisan mob with a rugby related anecdote.

Come on, we've all done it, haven't we?

Great day with staff and students of Wade Deacon High School in Widnes, Cheshire. This has been the first of three visits I'll be doing over the coming weeks, speaking to students in Years 7, 8 and 9. Showing incredible kindness and generosity, the school have chosen to purchase around 150 copies of "Rise Of The Wolf" for select pupils in each year group, a tremendous gesture. It was a huge thrill to see students walking around today with their books clutched to their chests, my graffiti daubed within the covers.

I got booed at by quite a few of them, but you can hardly blame them. I did point out that Spud the Scarecrow of Bob the Builder fame has a red and green scarf because my beloved rugby team, Warrington, had those colours for their away kit the year I designed the show. You could say I was leading with my chin(s), sullying their childhood memories with partisan rugby banter. I like to think it was playful booing, although the shoe-throwing and screwdrivers in my tires were a bit over zealous....

Tomorrow sees me heading down to That London to meet up with my old mucker Tom McLaughlin. Tom's a super talented author/illustrator (you'll have seen his fab books) and the two of us have collaborated on our first 'lift-the-flap' picture book for Egmont Press. I haven't illustrated this - odd, considering my past in picture books - but simply written it. Fab artwork all supplied by Tom.

On my OWN doodle front I'll be doing a new set of black and white pen and ink illustrations for the chapterheads in the UK edition of "War Of The Werelords". Kicking off with those on Thursday and I'll be previewing them on here too ;-) Stay tuned, Wereworld fans!