Everyone's heard of Harry Potter. Quite a few are aware of Artemis Fowl. But another fictional character (primarily for children though really for their parents) who deserves to be in the big league is the marvellous Clarice Bean. Who?

Clarice appears in a series of picture books written and illustrated by a lady named Lauren Child. She has a big sister called Marcie (into make-up and boys), a little brother named Minal Cricket (plain annoying), and an older brother by the name of Kurt (who rarely sees the light of day).

There are unfortunate similarities between Kurt and eldest daughter of mine at times, since both want to be left alone and no-one understands them. On a whim at the weekend, I suggested that eldest should have a T-shirt, like Kurt, saying "Shut Up And Go Away". We decided to go the whole hog and include some of Kurt's favourite expressions and some of eldest's, and ended up with this design:

It took a little while to get there, and required the use of a scanner, some irregular polygons, dollops of pixel paint, special transfer paper, a printer and a cheapo GBP1.99 T-shirt, but we made it.

Unlike Kurt, she smiled. Now, when little sister or brother or dad gets on her nerves, she simply points at the required phrase. Job done.

Be seeing you!

Ed