The Association of Illustrators has just been in touch to let me know my image 'The Fish Supper' has been selected for their Images 35 exhibition next year. I'm really chuffed by this. Being an illustrator is mostly such a solitary experience, I do wonder sometimes whether I'm beavering away on a fantasy island. So I'm delighted this piece will have a life of its own.

I've just come across the work of the filmmaker John Krish. Steve and I went to see four of his documentaries this week: The Elephant Will Never Forget (1952), They Took Us to the Sea (1961), Our School (1962), and I Think They Call Him John (1964). There's a poignancy in these films, where he observes his subjects with great precision, and he's a generous filmmaker, giving the viewer a great sense of space for their own response. In They Took Us to the Sea he follows a group of children from Birmingham on an outing to the seaside. Though they're from impoverished backgrounds, and for some it's the first time they've seen the sea, he avoids the trap of sentimentalising them. I was impressed by how he succeeds at giving a sense of their inner lives, and I found myself wondering what had become of these children later in life.

I was on my way to see Christian Marclay's exhibition 'The Clock' on Friday afternoon at the White Cube and popped into the Royal Academy. I noticed this at the base of a door, and liked how someone had augmented the image they'd seen in the woodgrain. Is this something peculiar to visual artists, seeing images and patterns in the grain of stone and wood, and other surfaces? And do musicians hear patterns in the everyday sounds of the world around us, sounds that seem random to the rest of us?

I saw A Town Called Panic recently at a cinema just off Leicester Square on a rainy Tuesday afternoon - one of the nicest ways to stumble across a gem, I think. It's based on a Belgian TV show called Panique au Village. It was a lovely afternoon, sitting in the dark and laughing out loud, along with the few other people scattered around the cinema. I like the way it looks so homemade (though actually the result of very skilled animation techniques, I suspect), and I like the fact it's barking mad, whilst creating a convincing and satisfying little universe in which to exist.

Here's a recent acquisition of mine, from my trip to Devon. These two little beauties are a salt cellar and pepper pot. They're originally from somewhere in Eastern Europe I think — a holiday souvenir that eventually wound up in a charity shop in Minehead, to be bought by me. I like their slightly maniacal expressions, and they now sit on my work table, encouraging me with their unfettered optimism.