Jon Mills is a blog-happy Mary Poppins with a kick ass eye for metalworking.

Jon keeps a blog of his current projects, giving readers an inside look into his creative process. He also keeps a blog for Mr. Watt, the Grumpy Man of Metal. Mr. Watt is a cartoon character of Mills' creation that does adorable things like search for his lost shininess in the land of dreams (note to self, email Mills for his dealer's number). Other characters in the series include Mrs. Witch. Things get hella weird, though, when Mills via Watt on the Watt blog starts talking trash about Jon Mills. Several posts revolve around Mr. Watt threatening to destroy Mills' possessions if various demands aren't met. Mills seems like a nice guy, but someone in England needs to check in on him. Bring a spot of tea, or blood pudding with vegemite dip, or whatever people eat over there.

Metalworking in steel has been Jon's trade since leaving college in the early 80s. Hell, Jon's blood practically pumps molten steel. Uncles, grandfathers, great-grandfathers all have been involved in making cool stuff from ferrous and non-ferrous materials. When his father married an artist, Jon's fate was practically encased in carbonite and delivered by bounty-hunters to Bespin at the behest of Lord Vader: In summation, there was no escape.

Public commissions are thrown at him with abandon. If there's anything from a waymarker, to a chandelier, to a clock tower that needs fabricating, Mills is the guy everyone calls. It's really a wonderful call back to the time when there'd be the artisan down the road that people would get for such jobs. He also brings the tools of his trade into schools, to show kids how cool life can be if you study hard and find what makes you happy. He invites kids to help him in the fabrication process, letting them go hog wild with plasma-cutters and forge equipment... under the safest of supervision, we presume, in case any blowhard fun-killers are reading.

The wonky metalworker from Brighton is a cleverly adaptive fellow. He's part of generations of metalworkers in Birmingham, an industrial hub, but went south to Brighton in the 1980s as factories were shutting down across the country.

I really like what Rosemary Hill said about Mills' work, "in spite of being forged and hammered, welded and riveted, his work has a surprising, spontaneous quality as if it had been blown together by a particularly strong gust of wind."

The man seriously loves kids. He's worked with groups of them on many of his decorative work (bridges, clock-towers, and gates and railings for public buildings and schools). The kids get to fire up the plasma-cutter and stick things in the iron forge, and even more fun, quench the hot work in buckets of water.