
This made me laugh; I thought of Santa and his helpers stopping by Excalibur every year on his trip around the world, and giving it a pull. And you'd think, if anyone could pull the sword out of the stone, it would be Santa. But no. Santa is not meant to be King of England. The next picture could be him giving the stone a good kick.
Would you like to buy this painting? If you go to the Indiegogo page and donate US $400 (that's roughly £250) to their campaign, I'll send it to you! Not only that, you'll get a DVD of the 1981 film signed by the lead role, Nigel Terry, who played King Arthur and the Director of the film, John Boorman.

The painted area of the picture measures about 24 x 16 cm. It's painted in Dr Martin 'radiant concentrated water color' inks, which aren't light-fast, so you'd need to put it behind UV glass and not hang it somewhere that gets sunlight on it, but if you're okay with that, I hope you'll like it. It's first-come-first-served, so send me a quick e-mail if you're planning to donate, and I'll mark it 'sold', so no one else donates and finds out it's already taken. Then forward me your Indiegogo receipt and I'll post it to you!

It's also partly a Christmas prezzie for my friend and co-author Philip Reeve, author of the Carnegie Medal-winning book Here Lies Arthur, who blogged about this campaign recently and really, really wants to see it happen. (Find out more and how to buy Here Lies Arthur over on Philip's website. Also makes a great Christmas prezzie for adults and kids aged about 11 and up.)

Edit: And he's posted it! Philip's also donating a bunch of goodies to the cause. Go have a peek!

Please donate to The Sword in the Stone campaign, even if you don't want my picture! I don't have a lot of spare cash, but I chipped in $25 (£15) via Paypal and I'll get a digital download of the film when it comes out.