Diary: May 2019

1 May 2019, London

At the Guardian Archive today Box 22 of Don McPhee opened with five sets of negatives labelled 'Gay Weekend/Manchester'.

2 May 2019, Somewhere North Of Rugby

The speaking toilet on the Virgin train to Bangor tells me that, although she soldiers on being a bog with relative ease, it could be worse. "I used to be a public toilet," she chirps. 

3 May 2019, Penllech Farm, Bryncroes, Llŷn Peninsula, Wales

Jane has borrowed a pair of my longjohns. She thinks there might be something wrong with us townies because none of the natives seems to feel the cold. 

4 May 2019, Wales

The garden at Penllech Farm has walls with small cavities cut into the stone. These, I am told, are "goose holes", a safe haven from predatory foxes. Hard to believe a wily fox would not identify it as a place to trap unsuspecting bird.

5 May 2019, Gwynned, Wales

Some pictures from today.

6 May 2019, Gwynned, Wales

A trip to Plas yn Rhiw, the National Trust house and gardens formerly owned by "three unmarried sisters", the Keatings. The woods rang out to the noisy cackle of crows or rooks.


7 May 2019, Gwynned, Wales
The way K&K talk about T's hopeless situation shacked up in a filthy HMO in Litherland with no sense of a future, it is like hearing about a new species of human, Homo Alienus. 
Later:

8 May 2019, London
There have been some feisty words in the Morning Star over the past few days about "internationalism" and how its definition has been hijacked by the neoliberals

11 May 2019, London
To 'Avalanche - A Love Story', starring Maxine Peake, at the Barbican last night. When the burden of obsession gets to a critical mass, your whole world caves in. Mike Leigh got out of a taxi as we arrived.

14 May 2019, London
Naively, I of had always thought of academics as Enlightenment types, and I'm sure that can be true. But not always, and maybe even not very often at all. This came to me as my brain was being examined by a Trinidadian researcher at the National Hospital in Queen Square.


15 May 2019, London
At the Guardian Archive today, I logged Don McPhee photo envelopes from Box 22 with the titles 'Single Parent, Salford' and 'Oasis, Lapland'.

15 May 2019, London
Does Art always follow the money?

16 May 2019, Glasgow
We are in the Merchant Quarter in a big serviced apartment. To The Pot Still for a quickie before supper at Gamba.

17 May 2019, Glasgow
Visited Project Ability on Trongate next door to TJ Hughes. Was greeted kindly by director Elisabeth and given a tour of the studio/workshop space (huge and very light) where we met a few artists, including stroke survivor John McNaught. He used to be a painter/decorator. Then off to Scotland Street School (I cheekily asked an actor playing fierce Victorian school teacher with leather strap whether she had ever appeared in Taggart), and House For An Art Lover for lunch. In the evening on the bus up to Hyndland we saw a fight at a bus stop and lots of red sandstone buildings. Glasgow is a lot like Liverpool, especially in centre around George Square. My Freedom pass does not work on Glasgow buses.



18 May 2019, Glasgow
In the Guardian today, Marina Hyde describes Boris Johnson as a "Frankenstein assemblage of all the rejected personality disorders of the minor Greek gods".

A man in the Ubiquitous Chip tonight told us he had us marked out as "theatre types" then went on, with little prompting, to rattle quickly from Brexit to Me Too. Maybe he was pissed.

20 May 2019, passing through Lancaster railway station
There is a Short Cuts article about Brexit in the London Review of Books, Volume 41, Number 9, in which the author, Tom Crewe, concludes: "But it's also possible to see the vote to Leave in another way: as a moment when reality triumphed over storytelling. The referendum was an opportunity for a section of the population to signal that they didn't believe in the existence of the country they were told they lived in - a land if high employment and opportunity, a prosperous and just nation at ease with itself - and that the gap between everyday life and everyday rhetoric had become too great. That disillusion is now, happily, general. Brexit, whatever the dangers, is forcing Britain to get to know itself better. Not all countries are given that opportunity."

This chimes with the happiness I felt seeing David and Tim, father and son, deep in earnest Brexit conversation alongside the sandwiches and cake during Mike's 70th birthday party in November last year.

Sketch done on train, stolen from the background of a photo by Therése.

And here's one I did earlier of Christ at the Renaissance Nudes exhibition at the Royal Academy.


May 22 May 2019, London
This one is called 'Another Bloody Nude'. A theft from the RA exhibition.

May 22 May 2019, London

Some of the Don McPhee pictures from the late 1990s (Box 22) I catalogued at the Guardian Archive today were titled: ‘Euro launched in Rotherham’, ‘Peat bogs in Yorkshire’, ‘Euthanasia conference in Telford’ and ‘Cliff Richard lookalikes’.

May 23 May 2019, London
'By the time she was prepared to speak the language of compromise her capacity to deliver it had shrivelled to nothing.'

Guardian editorial on Theresa May's failure at Brexit

May 23 May 2019, London
The William Eggleston picture I was supposed to talk about at Tate Modern today had been replaced, so I had to wing it. I survived with my dignity intact.


May 24 May 2019, London
'These elections are not for a government. They are an answer to a stupid question, asked incessantly by Nigel Farage: do you approve of how the big parties have handled Brexit? It would take a strong stomach for anyone to go to the polling station and put a cross against that.'
Simon Jenkins on the Euro elections, the Guardian

May 25 May 2019, Brighton
I am prompted to recall the names of two former local councillors, Jason Kitkat and Nimrod Ping.

27 May, 2019, London
Hi Connie
Just had a look at that picture and if you can flog an image of a woman with a massive set of male genitals up her long, floaty skirt as 'God Is...' you are a bloody genius.

27 May 2019, London

Just found this one hiding in my Autodesk gallery.

28 May 2019, London

A bit corny in places, and it’s always squirmy when actors sitting at the kitchen table suddenly break into song. Many of the songs carried a poignant narrative thread. 'Tiny Dancer’ was a standout for me. It made me like the Bernie Taupin character even more.

29 May 2019, London

Latest City Matters column. Disappointed to not be on a page with the puzzles, but happy to see Chris’s ‘Venus’ picture used so big.

31 May, 2019, Brighton
I can find something to like in most things.

Diary: February 2019

2 February 2019, London

I used to remember my dreams, but not so much since I was visited by You Know What.

2 February 2019, London

Séan and Jane were grabbing the air in front of them at this.

5 February 2019, London

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Absorbing, very funny and not a duff performance. Hard not to recall Withnail when Richard E Grant turns in one of his overcamp romps.

9 February 2019, London

Golden Lane Jumble Sale. We made £30.

10 February 2019, London

There is a lot of talk in the media of how the big two political parties are packed with internal conflict. Political commentator Andrew Rawnsley states in the Observer that their problems are a symptom of an old voting system that breeds tribalism. He urges reform. The piece made me wonder what British politics would look like if the parliamentary whipping system was scrapped and every MP had a free vote. Would this force political rivals to engage in a more meaningful dialogue and negotiate on behalf of the citizens they represent?

11 February 2019, London

If Beale Street Could Talk. A quite intense love story, beautifully played and photographed.

14 February 2019, London

At Headway reading group today SD told us about his “psychopathic Irish girlfriend Mo” and the poor-man's Valentine's gifts he lavished on her back in 1989. Feet were among them. SD and Mo were so poverty-stricken that Valentine’s Day became an embarrassing reminder of their dire straits. SD says he got some old cardboard, made a box and in it he put small drawings of the things he knew Mo would like but he could not give her: chocolates, bits of jewellery and the like. Mo suffered with her feet, so SD sketched a new pair of feet for her.

15 February 2019, London

Brexit metaphors are all over the place, so I thought I’d give it a crack. The swivel-eyed loony Tory fringe are like six Premier League fullbacks refusing to play unless the offside rule is changed.

16 February 2019, Brighton

I just got a message from Facebook telling me I posted this illustration three years ago. I remember its origin. I’d read an inspiring article that claimed that the 21st Century would become the Century of Sharing. I liked the sound of those words. They had a ring, so I started to think how I might illustrate them.

I also liked the sentiment, the idea that a more caring, sharing society might become a model for future generations to aspire to, blah, blah. I’m writing this diary entry because yesterday thousands of schoolchildren in Britain went on strike to protest our government’s failure to tackle climate change.

The sharing symbol/pictogram from internet browsers I ended up using was a shameless act of theft. I do like it, though. It looks like a molecular model for water, H2O, which gives the concept a natural, elemental flavour. In the studio, I later created a sculpture of this idea with three plastic footballs from Poundland, two cardboard tubes, some scrunched-up newspaper and a lot of Modrock. I painted each of the balls red, green and blue (RGB).

In the sculpture, the concept shifted to a more political one. The two satellite balls were each marked MARKET and STATE. The central core ball was marked SOCIETY; the idea being that Market and State can only communicate with one another by journeying the length of the ‘bond’ to and from Society. Society is thus the key to a better world. Everything must pass through Society, so build a good one that can handle the different types of traffic. Stupid, eh?

17 February 2019, Three Bridges

Is there a New Barbarism trend emerging, just in time for post-Brexit Britain? A nation of gentlemen and white savages?

18 February 2019, Liverpool

RIP Sylvia, age 91. Holy Trinity Church, Breck Road/Richmond Bowling Club.

18 February 2019, Liverpool

What if … across the political spectrum, MPs simultaneously resigned their party's whip and united around a Deal Us In coalition to secure a fruitful future relationship with the 27 countries of the European Union?

19 February 2019, London

I finally got to meet the Rotary Club of Gants Hill. I won't pretend it was a long-held ambition. I was there, at Kanchans restaurant, with fundraiser Rosy from Headway and we were on a mission to secure some kind of donation. Four women, four men, they were charming and showed genuine interest in our pitch. I didn't tell them that last Thursday, in preparation, I had discussed their organisation with SD at Headway. We noted that the Rotary Club logo is a wheel with six spokes and 24 cogs. We didn't quite know what to make of that. It wasn't exactly a Satanic code. Not that we could see, anyway. When SD pointed out that there were 5 gaps between the spokes, our imaginations quickened, but only briefly. I think it might just be a wheel. I sat in a Turkish coffee bar called Gold's for half an hour before the meeting, sipping camomile tea and reading the introduction to 'Theft by Finding’ by David Sedaris. A Turkish music TV station was playing in the corner throughout. In preparation, I also had this about Gants Hill up my sleeve: “The name could have originated from the Le Gant family, who were stewards of Barking Abbey. The name Gantesgrave appears in records as early as 1291. Alternatively, the name may be derived from 'Gnats Cross' in reference to the insects.” Named after a transposition error, that’s quite cool.

19 February 2019, London

An unusually shaped Plane tree outside the British Council, Trafalgar Square. Planes are normally trimmed for upward growth since they pump tons of life-giving water and oxygen into polluted city centres. This one has gone all horizontal.

19 February 2019, London

To the Mall Galleries off Trafalgar Square to see the British Life Photography exhibition of those recently awarded prizes. Included were three by Paul, one of them, from Brighton beach, in the 'Rural Life' category.

20 February 2019, London
On Twitter.

21 February 2019, Hackney
A bit of promo text for Michelle flogging a collaborative piece called ‘Love London’.
The heart of London is big and generous and full of love. It beats strongest when its people do their daily dance to the city's sounds. Its smells never fail to entice. Its rhythms guide us powerfully through every step we take. We instinctively feel the warm throb of the metropolis and slip easily into its hustle and bustle. From north to south, east to west, the London we know and love is above all a creation of its people. They come from all over the country and from across the globe in search of London's passionate embrace. They yield to it and give their hearts back in return. This collective work celebrates that beautiful relationship, of London and its people and the partnership they have forged to make our city the envy of the world.

23 February 2019, London
We went to a Headway/Hackney Roots fundraiser last night in Chats Palace, a community centre near Homerton Hospital. Members of Headway Music Group performed with jazz entertainers the Grand Union Orchestra.

They had a showman trumpeter, Claude, who was good at engaging people, a young hip dude on a very cool semi-acoustic electric bass guitar, a very senior citizen on trombone and electric piano and a senior saxophonist who Jane said resembled the Lady In The Van. A smirking drummer completed the line-up.

It was an enjoyable evening, mostly because so many Headway members turned up, either as performers or spectators. Seeing them out in the real world having fun was a joy. The event probably didn't raise much money but it momentarily elevated Headway members from their daily struggle with brain injury.



Check out @HeadwayELondon’s Tweet: https://twitter.com/HeadwayELondon/status/1099416704441090048?s=09

25 February 2019, London

Keith has just pointed out on Instagram that this drawing I posted was a bit phallic. I honestly never noticed until now, but he is dead right.



26 February 2018, London
I'd forgotten how sensual this film is. Lots of acting with the eyes and lots of touch. Even the sound is powerful, the soft piano, the waves, the rain, the squelching mud, the tribal noises.

29 February 2019, London
Couple of digipix.

Plus a marketing idea.

Diary: January 2019

1 January 2019, Los Cristianos, Tenerife

The fireworks last night were surprisingly spectacular in a very non-grand way. The one I hadn't seen before was like a missile aimed at shooting down enemy aircraft, zooming horizontally at a slight incline into the sky.

1 January 2019, Los Cristianos, Tenerife
This is where the world is today.

8 January 2019, Tenerife
On the return flight, before takeoff, we were asked not to consume anything containing nuts, or to spray perfumes or use nail polish. The reason was passengers with allergies. I asked Jane whether the sandwiches she had made earlier in preparation for our flight home breached this request. She said she didn't think so. I told her I could not remember whether or not I used cologne this morning.

10 January 2019, Hackney
Just tried to add a Reminder to my calendar and by the time I opened the window in which to type the note, I had forgotten what I was trying to remind myself about.

12 January, 2019, London
The Melanie version of 'Ruby Tuesday’ is a revelation.

15 January 2019, London
With Headway and St Luke’s at ‘Modern Couples’ Community View and art workshops. That's me in the middle wearing a flamenco hat and scratching my chin with a large paintbrush.

17 January 2019, Hackney
Further to SD's story about his 'nanny’ Rose (20 December 2018) and her petty thieving activities while in charge of the young SD, he told me today about Maria, Rose's successor, and her young daughter Anna. Maria and Anna would go on to become SD's mother and sister.

19 January 2019, London
It was never about Europe, apparently.
Brexit is Britain’s reckoning with itself.

19 January 2019, London
Rachael and Lisa did slot in this called Souled Out. Pauline McLynn (Mrs Doyle from TV’s Father Ted) was another star turn. The whole thing was a tragi-comedy juggling act and female retort to the previously very male exploration of the Faustian thing about selling your soul to the Devil. It put good and evil, morality and ethics, dilemma and conundrum into the pot and shook it up. Left feeling that all of life itself is some sort of Pact.


20 January 2019, London
I have just spotted an unintentional, accidental half-baked metaphor in my last City Matters column. Towards the end of the piece I explain that I am filing the column from the island of Tenerife and go on to draw a couple of similarities with London. One is the north-south divide, “and bang in the middle is an active volcano,” I state, describing the alien landscape of Mount Teide. It never occurred to me at the time that the City is a volatile, strange mini-state within London, remote, rock-hard work and potentially dangerous. It is also constantly renewing itself, which parallels a volcano constantly renewing the earth's surface.

22 January 2019, London
My notes for a talk with two large groups of physios at St George’s University, Tooting for Headway. I used the visit as an opportunity to pop in to see the Bridges crew: Heide, Tess and Chrissy.

During the training talk, one of the students asked me if I was Liverpool or Everton, a reference to the text in my painting 'Surrender’. I asked him to guess and he chose Everton. I asked why and he replied, “because you are quite humble.”

23 January 2019, London
Rachael and Lisa came to the coffee and chat at the community centre and it was amazing to see the ease with which they slipped into chatting with people such as Naomi, Lela and Brigitte. It must be part of their skills in getting their ‘Verbatim Theatre’ scripts together

24 January 2019, London

SL at Headway has written about her brain injury. She used to work in business in the City and it is nice to see in her writing that she has somehow managed to turn the bullet-point list into a form of poetry.

28 January 2019, London
A bit of drivel for Headway award entry

The voice of brain injury isn’t an especially loud one. It is soft, reluctant, cautious even. Those who have been affected by a catastrophic life-changing event, don’t shout about it too much. They are best heard in their actions, and it is in what the members of the Headway East London community in Haggerston do for each other that has the greatest impact. Just recently one of them spoke at the bookshop Pages of Hackney about the agony of deciding whether to undergo brain surgery that might OR MIGHT NOT relieve his condition. Every two months, a whole team of them prepare and deliver an evening of freshly cooked food and fun for the Headway Eats supper club, attended regularly by up to 60 guests at Headway HQ, Timber Wharf, Kingsland Road. And art by Headway members, made in their Submit to Love studio, can be seen all over Hackney, most recently at vfdalston, where member Tony got to show off his unique typographical skills.

With a lot of love, Headway does Hackney proud by taking what to many looks like an insurmountable disability and turns it into something super-special, something worth shouting about and something worth sharing.

31 January 2019, London
Got to attend a posh exhibition of S2L studio art at Rathbones, an ancient capitalist investment outfit at 8 Finsbury Circus in the City. The views from the 8th floor were spectacular and the evening was well managed and enjoyable, and I discovered from the CEO's speech that Rathbones started in Liverpool. I helped Cecil sell his Tower Bridge picture to an unsuspecting punter called Elizabeth, who fell, as I knew she would, for Cecil’s obvious charms. Jane bought my brain picture for £120. I think it was a pity purchase, so I agreed that the money should come out of the family account. The group picture here shows me and Michelle posing with some Rathbones people and the Many Faces of Eve collaborative painting, for which I wrote a mini-essay in the exhibition leaflet.

Diary: December 2018

2 December 2018, Pangbourne
Sodden newspaper on metal bench at Platform 2 of Pangbourne railway station.

2 December 2018, London
Got these roughs from Hackney artist Coline L’Archiver. We did a jazz/art workshop at Headway last week with the aim of producing artwork that might appear on T-shirts for a jazz event. Mine is the crappy Letraset thing, a case of do it faster, make it better.

And this from Errol.


4 December 2018, London
On a 'Best of Ennio Morricone’ album is a fab version of 'Gabriel's Oboe’ from the film The Mission played on flute, guitar and pan-pipes.

6 December 2018, London
Message sent to Hackney artist Coline L'Archiver
“Many many years before I became an artist at the Submit to Love studio at Headway East London, I worked as a writer in the music press. One day, for some reason, I was invited to the retirement party of Jack Hutton, the managing director of the company I worked for. Jack was an old jazzer, so the party was at Ronnie Scott's in Soho. It was a lively event at which Jack made a speech. He told stories from his past as a young reporter, one of which was the occasion on which he interviewed John Coltrane. Jack finished his interview by asking Coltrane if he had any advice. Yes, answered the master, “Have sex and travel”. Only when Jack returned to the office and repeated his gem of a quote to a senior editor did he learn that “Have sex and travel” is a roundabout way of telling someone to “Fuck off!” Jack's unhappy brush with a legend was the inspiration for my typographical piece HAVE SAX AND TRAVEL. It is a small detail in the rich tapestry of jazz, but one that nevertheless always makes me smile.”

20 December 2018, London
At Headway today during Christmas lunch, SD told me a story from when he was a young boy in Birkenhead. While his mother was ill in hospital - dying from cancer as it came to pass - his father employed a woman called Rose as a home help. According to SD, this woman abused her trusted position to run up massive bills and even to pilfer the contents of the young SD’s plastic piggy bank. When his father came to check the contents of the piggy bank and found it empty, he blamed and scolded SD for spending it all on sweets. A smack around the head is what SD got when he protested his innocence. SD said I was the first person he had ever told that story to. Unfortunately, he started the story by describing Rose as his “nanny”, which led instantly to cruel jibes from me about SD’s fellowship with Jacob Rees-Mogg.

21 December 2018, London
Paula, Sean and Sue Howard came round for pizza and a viewing of the film Elf, which coincidentally stars both Lou Grant (Ed Asner) and Professor Proton (Bob Newhart). Sean’s treat as an 8-year-old was to talk to Alexa, and he wasted no time in getting familiar. But unlike the adults we have introduced to her, he did not treat her as a slave. He spoke to her politely, asking questions such as who was the first Roman Emperor and which was the heaviest dinosaur. Alexa was polite back, even to the extent of her response to Sean’s declaration of his love for her. “Wow!” she replied, “That’s very flattering.”

22 December 2018, London
Saw MH from GAH at the bus stop today. She said she had been unwell with a cold and had gone to get her hair cut to cheer herself up, but it didn’t work. She also told me that when her husband T was still alive (he died in 2016), they had given up buying each other Christmas presents because they had everything they wanted. Nevertheless, each year Ted still bought her some Chanel perfume. Since his death she has bought it for herself, but told me she rarely had much use for perfume “these days”.

22 December 2018, London
Merry Wives of Windsor at the Barbican Theatre. Roll together off-the-shelf, writing-to-order Shakespeare humour, Are You Being Served, ‘Allo ‘Allo, The Only Way Is Essex and Carry On Everything and you get the picture. Great Christmas fun. It made me want to re-read all of Shakespeare’s comedies.

23 December 2018, London
In the 'paper' today. Labour leadership under pressure over Brexit.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/23/labour-leadership-is-at-rock-bottom-wont-be-forgiven-for-conniving-in-rightwing-brexit

28 December 2018, London
There is a coffee bar in Farringdon that does not take cash. I remember when it was difficult to pay by card. Retailers were suspicious. Card-reading machines were rare and banks did not repay the money very quickly.

30 December 2018, Los Cristianos, TenerifeColour combinations. Pink and grey has long been a favourite for me. The grey clouds and the pink sunset here at Paloma Beach is mesmerising. Add a pristine sky blue to those colours and the effect is sublime.

Diary: October 2018

4 October 2018, Hackney 

In the studio today.

Bit rude, but never mind

which is a companion to...

Addicted to Bette Davis Eyes on Spotify Easy 80s collection

5 October 2018, Paris
It is such a long time since I last spotted a bit of rolled-up carpet in a Parisian gutter.

6 October 2018, ParisNot only do they have those hire bicycles you can just leave anywhere on the pavement, they also have a motorised scooter equivalent. The marginalisation of the pedestrian is in full swing here in Paris.

Paris has motorised scooters 

6 October 2018, Paris 

Spotted in the 15th Arrondisement.

Parisian dentists leave this stuff lying around

6 October, 2018, Paris 

Out and about in Convention.

Le Comptoir toilettes 

Le Comptoir menu 

Exotic Parisian goth reads paper 

The things you see if you look down 

Working out our winners 

7 October 2018, Paris 

A day at the races.

First drink of the day 

A spare bottle is always a good idea 

The view from the cheap seats 

Getting the Smartie-suit guy and the Peaky Blinder in one shot was not easy 

Lipstick at the race track

Behind a row of horsey hoorays 

8 October 2028, London

Just back from a weekend in Paris, where not only do they have those hire bikes (Mobike) you can leave anywhere on the pavement, but a motorised scooter equivalent. Now I read in City Matters, number 083, a story that hints at a future where the highway conflict shifts from motorist versus cyclist to motorist and cyclist and scooterist, or whatever, versus pedestrian. As the City's ‘Culture Mile’ tourism programme gains momentum, footfall will increase, but so will the march of technology and the public highways will become the province of all kinds of gadgetry. The distinction between road and pavement is breaking down and the City will become a much more dangerous place for walkers.

Clipping from City Matters 

11 October 2018, Hackney
The best thing for me at the Headway Co-Production workshop today was Rosy’s answer to the question: "Why HEL members should be involved in decision making?” Rosy is not a Day-Service member, but she did benefit from talking to day-members, which she did actively. I especially enjoyed a conversation with her and Phil Chimes during one of the breaks about being a cop (pre brain injury). We shared the experience of not being able to multi-process. We both can only do things serially, start-finish, start-finish, etc. Rosy said also that she retained some of her pre-brain injury embedded characteristics, what I frivolously referred to as “being plod”. She was still very observant, suspecting and cautious. She had not “lost it”, as she told her closest friends.

12 October 2018, London

The puppeteers did not wear gloves 

18 October 2018, Hackney
Bit of writing for Michelle about masks.
The studio's current artist-in-residence is Stephen Wright, who found fame turning his house in Dulwich, south London, into a living museum of Outsider Art. He called it his “House of Dreams”, so it was interesting to see him bring his dreamworld to Submit to Love.

One of his first projects was to get members making masks. The temptation to draw parallels between masks and dreams is strong. It could be said that both are multi-layered confessions, and Steven agreed that masks are more often about revealing than concealing.

Our members took first-base inspiration from a serious book about Mexican masks, but roamed freely with the subject thereafter. So it wouldn't be a good idea to read too much into these masks. Some of them are of real people (Michael Jackson), some are just for fun. Some are self portraits. AD's image of herself depicts a wild-headed woman with her tongue sticking out. It's a remarkable likeness, both physical and metaphorical, of the AD I know. Studio manager Michelle modelled herself on an evil crone with sunken eyes and a hooked nose. As I said, don't read too much into these things. Errol Drysdale did the mask of a lion. That's a good character fit, too.

Thankfully, I managed to dodge doing this project 

One of the fascinating things these masks all have in common is that inside them, their essence, their soul, is one day: Tuesday, October 16, 2018. This is because they all started as scrunched-up pages from that day's copy of the Metro newspaper, on top of which is layer upon layer of Modrock.

The front-page headline in the Metro on that Tuesday was “MEXIT!” followed by a story about how Prince Harry's wife, Meghan, will be enduring the pain of childbirth on the same day the UK is scheduled to leave the EU. Good luck with that, thought Sam Jevon as she turned this story into the outsized nose of a grinning idiot.

Other stories that day included one about Katya from Strictly Come Dancing trying to repair her marriage after a slip of the tongue with a long-haired comedian called Seann. There was something about Universal Credit not only being a pathway to misery for tens of thousands, especially women, but a total waste of billions for the taxpayer. But my favourite story was an interview with the artist Finn Stone (aka, the Mad Hatter), whose north-London house looks like it just came out of Stephen Wright's toilet.

It is weirdly comforting to think that the Metro newspaper's worldly wisdom is embedded in these creations. More so that each of them carries an identical tabloid voodoo and yet look so vastly different. It's both enlivening and creepy in one take.

I still can't resist mentioning that huge pink nose to Sam Jevon at every opportunity. She giggles coquettishly, but I'm pretty sure she's wishing I’d just shut up and piss off.

18 October 2018, Hackney 

In the studio today.

Oils are so messy

22 October 2018 🎥, London
The cynic in me says Bradley Cooper just wanted to cast himself in a love story with Lady Gaga.

I don't advise dissing Brad

24 October 2018, London

A sort of cross between Kids From Fame and It Ain’t Half Hot Mum.

It turned my po face into a big grin

25 October 2018, London
Children looking remotely happy are rare in this exhibition.

Maybe it's because they is posh little squirts

26 October 2018, London
Early this morning I heard on BBC Radio 4 Extra a gripping 20-minute play made in 1978 called 'The Revenge’. It was written by the actor Andrew Sachs, who is also the story's principal character. The stand-out feature of the play is that contains no spoken words. The drama is communicated purely by sound. To get the idea, think of the difference in sound between someone breathing calmly, at ease and in a relaxed manner, and someone breathing desperately during a chase.

26 October 2018, London
Another Corrie woman to go with those appearing in the print show at Could Be Good in Deptford.

Ena Sharples

Others in the series include Bet Lynch, Hilda Ogden, Vera Duckworth and Elsie Tanner

27 October 2018, London

The writing is so clever 

28 October 2018, LondonInteresting introduction from a woman who told us about Czechoslovakia's early adoption of votes for women (1918). This film cries out for a women's Monty Python-style remake.

I think some of the humour might have been lost in the mists of time