Arthur’s Court
An Introduction
By
Arthur Topham
Back in days of yore, circa 1998, when I first began publishing the monthly 24-page alternative tabloid The Radical I started a personal column titled Arthur’s Court. At the time the use of colour was very minimal and generally used to highlight certain text headings plus the masthead for the paper itself. I had it printed at Spartan Printing & Advertising located in West Quesnel. For newcomers that would be the first large brick building on one’s right that you come to when heading over the bridge from downtown. The original b&w graphic pictured below was what I used then.
Having been christened with the full name of Roy Arthur Topham and “Roy” being the English translation of the French “Roi” which means “king” I naturally grew up being attracted to all the Arthurian legends and stories even though throughout the first 40 years or so I was always known as “Art” to friends and associates. When I became a publisher and editor and the Internet got underway and the forums and debates and discussions started happening I would get detractors who enjoyed calling me “Artie” thinking it was a type of epithet but of course my dear mother would always call me by that name when I was a child so it never had the desired effect they had hoped for. Eventually I heard someone say “Art” was something you hung on the wall. It was around then that I decided to return to the original handle my folks gave me. Old friends still call me Art on occasion but it doesn’t bother me.
Now that we have all the sophistication that the net provides it’s no long necessary to stick with just b&w and being someone who, at first out of necessity, quite enjoys creating his own meme’s (thanks to my handy dandy GIMP program and FlamingText.com plus Duck Duck Go as my preferred search engine), I only need to put in the correct words and one can easily find a cornucopia of images to play with.
When I took on the job of publishing The Radical little did I realize just how busy I would be but before too long I learned that just finding the time to get my Editorial together prior to dashing into town to meet Spartan’s printing deadline was in itself a major task and so the number of times I was able to get my “Arthur’s Court” column in the paper (which ran for 42 consecutive months before I took it online in 2002) was less than half a dozen. I’m hoping this time I might get more in the Cariboo Sentinel but only time will tell. That said I’ll turn to the upcoming federal election in my next column.
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