25 April 2005

There's a white prism with phony jism spread across its face

Me again.

This morning my dentist asked me if I needed a polish. I said that I thought it was his job to tell me that. He said I didn't need one, but he thought he'd ask.

We have a waterfall feature over our front door as a result of a leaky gutter, which makes me feel like Daniel Day-Lewis in The Last of the Mohicans whenever I set off in the rain. I got very soggy.

I asked a French person to translate a bill I have received from the hospital where I was treated in France back in February. He read the instructions printed on the reverse of the bill to me - in beautiful French, before handing it back to me with an enigmatic smile.

I think I may be getting sick.

Here are some of those great pictures Jo took yesterday. I have been given permission to use them here, so don't get funny.



24 April 2005


I absolutely love this picture - sent to me by two people with exquisite taste in everything.

The perverse possibilities of the Barbican - you could be invisible here - you could get a notion of floating across the City

Wh'appened then? Dear oh dear, what a bleeding great flummocky-lummox of a month. Sorry, I've been away. I've been in another place. It wasn't here. Now I'm better and I'm back. Pay attention once again. This could get really interesting, from here on in.

Looking back then. I went to Nottingham to see my very good friends Steve and Caroline. I travelled up on the train, in the midst of a blindingly boring bunch of beardy-wierdies from CAMRA - the campaign for real ale people. Anoraks or what? Jesus wept. The worst thing of all - I get to Nottingham, go for a coffee, wander around an art gallery, get on a tram and meet Steve in a pub - and who sits down at the table next to us? Yeap - the very same whiskery bores who I have barely tolerated during the two hour train journey. You can't make it up - well, you could make it up but nobody would believe you, except for the little pixie folk from the land called Gullible. The next day we went walking in the Peak District and ended up in a remote pub called The Butchers Arms where we were horribly murdered by a mad, axe-wielding barman in shiny shorts who called me 'Darling'. We were then served up as the dish of the day, and I nearly missed my train home.

The next weekend I took Hugo to see Rufus Wainwright play at the Shepherds Bush Empire - t'was one of his many marvellous birthday presents - as if I wasn't enough. It was phenomenally good - one of the best ever - toe-curlingly, goosepimplingly, hair-on-the-back-of-neck-standing-uppingly good. Rufus is a genius, a bit camp, a bit mad, and a bit bollock-blastingly-brilliant.

The next day we watched super-fit Fiona give Paula Radcliffe a run for her marathon money as she sprinted around the Isle that is of the Dogs, and then went down The Gun and drank everything they had, wobbled a bit, wobbled a lot, stood up and sat down again very quickly and had another bottle of bubbly, and had a headache on the Monday.

Last week I decided it was time to leave my job a million miles behind me. More on that next time. It's kind of 'come-to-a-crossroads' time, and I ain't going straight ahead no more no more. Now you're just going to have to keep checking back here to find out what happens next!

Jo came up yesterday and we went on a photographic tour of discovery in the City, stopping at the Barbican for a fabulous dose of Tina Barney and Christian Marclay before heading off to the White Cube to check out Gregory Crewdson's exhibition - 'Beneath the Roses' which is all very fine and nicely unsettling. Jo took sixteen-million photos, and maybe, just maybe, she might send me one of her finest to share, right here, with you. We went for an Indian meal, I bit on a chilli and felt a little queer.

Thank you for your patience. And your snakes and ladders.


How can a guy grow up in a circus like this?


Father and Son by Tina Barney


The Long Road to Mazatlan by Isaac Julien


This is a competition...who do you think this is? Clue: once described as 'the most beautiful man in the world.'



I went to see an exhibiton of the work of August Strindberg at the Tate Modern. He was clearly as mad as a bucket of frogs, and I liked him very much.


My favourite Tina Barney pic. It's called 'The Two Friends'.


Fun in The Gun on a Sun

04 April 2005


We miss you Sammie

Dog star

I don't normally 'do' sentimental, but our gorgeous dog, Sammie, died today and I am the saddest kid on the block. We loved her so much, and we will never forget her smiling face and continuously wagging tail.

To Sammie then...