Art, plasma, monkeys and madness

IMG00039-20110208-1108.jpg

2011-02-10T00:42:00.001Z

I love the shapes that smoke makes caught by hard light in still air. My brother Andrew has some gorgeous shots he took the previous winter one fine morning... was it something like 4 that you left the house to catch a numenous jack frost with your breath in the still icy night? Hoary ink blots. Smokey impressions aren't as healthy but certainly more comfortable. Special effects to rival poltergeist. Love.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

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Muriel's in Bingley

2011-02-07T23:10:00.001Z

Have been getting arty in a fine art stylie this week. I've cast three faces in plaster at the playhouse in prep for mask making and also started painting/constructing a large indoor mural at a yute centre in Bingley. Thought I'd paint a giant pink humbolt manga squid called Alberto. Part of the squid based installation includes a set of giant musical tubes. I wonder if the commissioning authority realised what they were getting when they hired me and mine... Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Throwing the stone.

2011-01-02T00:32:00.000Z

New years day at Hunstanton. I threw an old stone. A necklace piece that had been weighing on my mind for some time. Its gone to the sea now. If you look carefully you see my brother, the photographer, has caught the stone mid flight.

Below a student demonstrates Vsevolod Emilovich Meyerhold's solo classical étude “Throwing the Stone,”. The 21st century body lends an absurd weight to the movement that makes it rather comic.

Its rather different back in the days of the Moscow Arts Theatre. There is an expression of a noble truth. He was executed in 1940 by good old Jo Stalin.

Theatre should be full of truth. Not always the truth that exists in the everyday world... something more magnificent perhaps.

Mandrake's Magnificent Machine

2010-12-31T17:58:00.000Z

Well the Magnificent Mandrake's Machine has run its first race and shows some darn good form. Me and Simon discovered the beast this summer and after some training it turns out to be a reckless animal capable of winning a few at races least. Could turn out for stud as well unless the boys from the black stuff cut off its head and stuff it next to me in ma bed.

Its a play by the way in case you were wondering. An absurdist steampunk pantomime no less. We, a good and happy 30, put it on at the Bradford Playhouse this Christmas and it won't no community fudge either. It was more chaotic than a liberal conservative government and attracted almost as much attention.

It followed a young inventor called Mandrake Eldridge ( I have his facebook page you know ) who had created a machine for raising and decreasing apparent levels of reality. With the aid of the machine and an odd group of fellows under the name of The Leather Gentleman he travels to the mystical land of ephemera and unleashes all sorts of madness and frivolity. Luckily we had an amazing performer & fight choreographer on board (Brendon Mccoy: http://www.uk.castingcallpro.com/view.php?uid=98875) so we could settle the whole thing with a fantastic sword fight which I shall post with other goodies on't the tinterweb for your delectation. What I owe you cannot be repaid... quite literally. Try the fish.

I feel like Gilbert or Sulivan... maybe Gilbert O' Sullivan. Whats more I and my happy band of writers wrote an original pantomime. Rather spiffing what? A new one for the canon and it might float up there... wouldn't that be nice. (Sound of head violently inflating).

Special thanks to Simon, Maren, Vicki, Sam and the rest... even including Hedley Brown esq.

TTFN

The review: http://fringeleeds.wordpress.com/2010/12/20/mandrake%E2%80%99s-magnificent-machine-review/

Rehearsal Shots: http://www.flickr.com/photos/iblogology/sets/72157625343704899

The Amazing Chemaine Cooke:

Choreographer Miss Pina Musgrave with one of her favorite dancers:

The management:

Thank you also Anthony for these amazing shots :-) http://anthonyjamesphotography.co.uk/

William Blake

2010-09-06T02:35:00.000+01:00

Some strange street theatre experimentation in Bradford

2010-08-22T21:50:00.000+01:00

Here is some pretty funky playing around in Bradford I did last Thursday. We think the boots dilute the illusion slightly and I think certain positions could be held with more grace and time. Still reckon the illusion is quite striking and a rather interesting costume and statement to make in Bradford no? Of course Bradford has links with Venice... it flooded in 1968.

Of course there are other elements which really bind the whole thing together. I must admit I hadn't realised how close to the bone the costume was.

The Bradford to Shipley Line

2010-08-18T14:34:00.005+01:00

The Bradford to Shipley train line.

Here's some of the shots.

2010-08-16T00:38:00.000+01:00

Well here are some of the pics from Fright Night. Good photographers and models. Good harmless fun.

www.huujuu.com

Back at the Bradford Playhouse

2010-08-14T23:58:00.000+01:00

Am stretching my artistic muscles once again at the Playhouse. Currently writing an absurdist Pantomime for this Christmas with the epicurian Simon Cantril and steering a performance collective towards the stage. This Thursday I'm off to do a little street theatre experimentation in Bradford City centre. I shall report back.

John Casson

2010-02-13T16:34:00.001Z

Group was amazing today. So meaningful. I managed to make the most out of it after only one hour of sleep. Last night was amazing too. I spent most of it wearing a pair of donkey ears and drinking gin. Love!

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Socrates & Diotima on the nature and being of love.

2010-02-13T03:35:00.002Z

From Plato's Symposium:

(Diotima)

And now, taking my leave of you, I would rehearse a tale of love which I heard from Diotima of Mantineia, a woman wise in this and in many other kinds of knowledge, who in the days of old, when the Athenians offered sacrifice before the coming of the plague, delayed the disease ten years. She was my instructress in the art of love, and I shall repeat to you what she said to me, beginning with the admissions made by Agathon, which are nearly if not quite the same which I made to the wise woman when she questioned me-I think that this will be the easiest way, and I shall take both parts myself as well as I can. As you, Agathon, suggested, I must speak first of the being and nature of Love, and then of his works. First I said to her in nearly the same words which he used to me, that Love was a mighty god, and likewise fair and she proved to me as I proved to him that, by my own showing, Love was neither fair nor good. "What do you mean, Diotima," I said, "is love then evil and foul?" "Hush," she cried; "must that be foul which is not fair?" "Certainly," I said. "And is that which is not wise, ignorant? do you not see that there is a mean between wisdom and ignorance?" "And what may that be?" I said. "Right opinion," she replied; "which, as you know, being incapable of giving a reason, is not knowledge (for how can knowledge be devoid of reason? nor again, ignorance, for neither can ignorance attain the truth), but is clearly something which is a mean between ignorance and wisdom." "Quite true," I replied. "Do not then insist," she said, "that what is not fair is of necessity foul, or what is not good evil; or infer that because love is not fair and good he is therefore foul and evil; for he is in a mean between them." "Well," I said, "Love is surely admitted by all to be a great god." "By those who know or by those who do not know?" "By all." "And how, Socrates," she said with a smile, "can Love be acknowledged to be a great god by those who say that he is not a god at all?" "And who are they?" I said. "You and I are two of them," she replied. "How can that be?" I said. "It is quite intelligible," she replied; "for you yourself would acknowledge that the gods are happy and fair of course you would-would to say that any god was not?" "Certainly not," I replied. "And you mean by the happy, those who are the possessors of things good or fair?" "Yes." "And you admitted that Love, because he was in want, desires those good and fair things of which he is in want?" "Yes, I did." "But how can he be a god who has no portion in what is either good or fair?" "Impossible." "Then you see that you also deny the divinity of Love."

"What then is Love?" I asked; "Is he mortal?" "No." "What then?" "As in the former instance, he is neither mortal nor immortal, but in a mean between the two." "What is he, Diotima?" "He is a great spirit (daimon), and like all spirits he is intermediate between the divine and the mortal." "And what," I said, "is his power?" "He interprets," she replied, "between gods and men, conveying and taking across to the gods the prayers and sacrifices of men, and to men the commands and replies of the gods; he is the mediator who spans the chasm which divides them, and therefore in him all is bound together, and through him the arts of the prophet and the priest, their sacrifices and mysteries and charms, and all, prophecy and incantation, find their way. For God mingles not with man; but through Love. all the intercourse, and converse of god with man, whether awake or asleep, is carried on. The wisdom which understands this is spiritual; all other wisdom, such as that of arts and handicrafts, is mean and vulgar. Now these spirits or intermediate powers are many and diverse, and one of them is Love. "And who," I said, "was his father, and who his mother?" "The tale," she said, "will take time; nevertheless I will tell you. On the birthday of Aphrodite there was a feast of the gods, at which the god Poros or Plenty, who is the son of Metis or Discretion, was one of the guests. When the feast was over, Penia or Poverty, as the manner is on such occasions, came about the doors to beg. Now Plenty who was the worse for nectar (there was no wine in those days), went into the garden of Zeus and fell into a heavy sleep, and Poverty considering her own straitened circumstances, plotted to have a child by him, and accordingly she lay down at his side and conceived love, who partly because he is naturally a lover of the beautiful, and because Aphrodite is herself beautiful, and also because he was born on her birthday, is her follower and attendant. And as his parentage is, so also are his fortunes. In the first place he is always poor, and anything but tender and fair, as the many imagine him; and he is rough and squalid, and has no shoes, nor a house to dwell in; on the bare earth exposed he lies under the open heaven, in-the streets, or at the doors of houses, taking his rest; and like his mother he is always in distress. Like his father too, whom he also partly resembles, he is always plotting against the fair and good; he is bold, enterprising, strong, a mighty hunter, always weaving some intrigue or other, keen in the pursuit of wisdom, fertile in resources; a philosopher at all times, terrible as an enchanter, sorcerer, sophist. He is by nature neither mortal nor immortal, but alive and flourishing at one moment when he is in plenty, and dead at another moment, and again alive by reason of his father's nature. But that which is always flowing in is always flowing out, and so he is never in want and never in wealth; and, further, he is in a mean between ignorance and knowledge. The truth of the matter is this: No god is a philosopher. or seeker after wisdom, for he is wise already; nor does any man who is wise seek after wisdom. Neither do the ignorant seek after Wisdom. For herein is the evil of ignorance, that he who is neither good nor wise is nevertheless satisfied with himself: he has no desire for that of which he feels no want." "But-who then, Diotima," I said, "are the lovers of wisdom, if they are neither the wise nor the foolish?" "A child may answer that question," she replied; "they are those who are in a mean between the two; Love is one of them. For wisdom is a most beautiful thing, and Love is of the beautiful; and therefore Love is also a philosopher: or lover of wisdom, and being a lover of wisdom is in a mean between the wise and the ignorant. And of this too his birth is the cause; for his father is wealthy and wise, and his mother poor and foolish. Such, my dear Socrates, is the nature of the spirit Love. The error in your conception of him was very natural, and as I imagine from what you say, has arisen out of a confusion of love and the beloved, which made you think that love was all beautiful. For the beloved is the truly beautiful, and delicate, and perfect, and blessed; but the principle of love is of another nature, and is such as I have described."

I said, "O thou stranger woman, thou sayest well; but, assuming Love to be such as you say, what is the use of him to men?" "That, Socrates," she replied, "I will attempt to unfold: of his nature and birth I have already spoken; and you acknowledge that love is of the beautiful. But some one will say: Of the beautiful in what, Socrates and Diotima?-or rather let me put the question more dearly, and ask: When a man loves the beautiful, what does he desire?" I answered her "That the beautiful may be his." "Still," she said, "the answer suggests a further question: What is given by the possession of beauty?" "To what you have asked," I replied, "I have no answer ready." "Then," she said, "Let me put the word 'good' in the place of the beautiful, and repeat the question once more: If he who loves good, what is it then that he loves? "The possession of the good," I said. "And what does he gain who possesses the good?" "Happiness," I replied; "there is less difficulty in answering that question." "Yes," she said, "the happy are made happy by the acquisition of good things. Nor is there any need to ask why a man desires happiness; the answer is already final." "You are right." I said. "And is this wish and this desire common to all? and do all men always desire their own good, or only some men?-what say you?" "All men," I replied; "the desire is common to all." "Why, then," she rejoined, "are not all men, Socrates, said to love, but only some them? whereas you say that all men are always loving the same things." "I myself wonder," I said,-why this is." "There is nothing to wonder at," she replied; "the reason is that one part of love is separated off and receives the name of the whole, but the other parts have other names." "Give an illustration," I said. She answered me as follows: "There is poetry, which, as you know, is complex; and manifold. All creation or passage of non-being into being is poetry or making, and the processes of all art are creative; and the masters of arts are all poets or makers." "Very true." "Still," she said, "you know that they are not called poets, but have other names; only that portion of the art which is separated off from the rest, and is concerned with music and metre, is termed poetry, and they who possess poetry in this sense of the word are called poets." "Very true," I said. "And the same holds of love. For you may say generally that all desire of good and happiness is only the great and subtle power of love; but they who are drawn towards him by any other path, whether the path of money-making or gymnastics or philosophy, are not called lovers -the name of the whole is appropriated to those whose affection takes one form only-they alone are said to love, or to be lovers." "I dare say," I replied, "that you are right." "Yes," she added, "and you
hear people say that lovers are seeking for their other half; but I say that they are seeking neither for the half of themselves, nor for the whole, unless the half or the whole be also a good. And they will cut off their own hands and feet and cast them away, if they are evil; for they love not what is their own, unless perchance there be some one who calls what belongs to him the good, and what belongs to another the evil. For there is nothing which men love but the good. Is there anything?" "Certainly, I should say, that there is nothing."
"Then," she said, "the simple truth is, that men love the good." "Yes," I said. "To which must be added that they love the possession of the good? "Yes, that must be added." "And not only the possession, but the everlasting possession of the good?" "That must be added too." "Then love," she said, "may be described generally as the love of the everlasting possession of the good?" "That is most true."

Neriads

2010-02-05T23:00:00.001Z

Went to the British Museum today before college. Thought this little sea nymph was 'a bit of alright' Pity she'd lost her head. Possibly the best place in London to spend your time when you have nothing better to do. Fire alarm went off when I was there. We all had to exit through the basement which was cool. It was like a scene from the Thomas Crown Affair. Tried to grab the Roseta Stone on the way but they were watching me too closely.

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Snow time.

2010-02-04T01:01:00.001Z

Midnight by the graveyard. Tubular bells.

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2010-01-31T22:44:00.000Z

Did a video instalation for Bradford playhouse this friday. It was an excellent experience. Have been up to all sorts of hijinks in Leeds and Bradford creating, making and breaking. Am feeling the love of many people at the moment and this makes me a very happy person.

This is a video wot I made:

Canyons of your mind

2010-01-23T18:50:00.000Z

Last night at the Bradford Playhouse involved me Dave, whisky and tequila. I have never in my life been made to feel so welcome in such an artsy establishment before. They mostly turn their noses up but in the Playhouse there is a feeling of inclusivity that produces some really interesting art.

Here is what my good self and Dave Grovsner put together after we got home from the playhouse.

I'm looking forward to group therapy in Manchester tomorrow. I think it will be needed.

Captains Log. Much like treacle.

2010-01-22T15:55:00.000Z

Stardate 22012010

The day is much like treacle. Plumbing is bust as is the washing machine. Hmmmmmm. On the bright side I got a new contract today which is great! I'm meeting up with Dave today who's a good freind and into arty stuff. I'm thinking of maybe getting down to the playhouse this evening and relaxing over a few pints. I'm gonna leave the bills and the kitchen till monday.

Giles has put some new songs up on his myspace and now has a website:

http://www.myspace.com/gileswinterton

where you can listen.

Back at work

2010-01-19T23:33:00.001Z

Work is good. Got my cheque in which is good. Have spent most of the day paying bills, writing CV, rewriting CV, doing a little on website, making a weird film about shirts, sending my CV to a company who does arts with special needs and lots of other bitty bitty bitty things. The plumbing is blocked again. Grrr.

Tomorrow I'm helping a freind put an instalation up and getting very drunk midweek. Feel like I need to let loose and be anarchistic alchoholic instead of creative workaholic.

I've invited Nick (diamond geezer) to come along to help out with the installation and in getting drunk. It is my hope that he will get some of his lovely artwork up on the walls of the playhouse bar at some point. My mate Steph is going to join us later for the volunteers meeting.

2010-01-18T23:50:00.000Z

All the snow has gone. They say it will return next Wednesday. I had my first day back at work today and spent the evening at the playhouse in lovely company. I felt fragile at about 8 so walked up the hill home. I'm zonked.

Bradford Bound

2010-01-17T19:36:00.001Z

Back to Bradford on the bus, every bloody one of us- on board is stifled. Heard about the man who died (who'd commited suicide) now the bus has gotta drive- a different route. I pray that pavement pizza's soul will get to heaven as we go home. Amen.

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The Smoke

2010-01-17T00:31:00.001Z

Doin' well daan saaaf! Top of the game and very proud of myself. Met an old mate of mine called Lindsay- had beer, pizza and soul food. Big smiles

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Westminster Cathedral

2010-01-16T01:32:00.001Z

Is a strange unfinished dark and smokey place. Its undecorated vaulted ceiling is full of shadow. Below the chapels are lavish. From the outside it looks like leggo. From the inside like breezeblocks and broken pottery.

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TED: Ideas worth spreading

2010-01-14T23:42:00.001Z

via ted.com

Challenging thinkers talk online! Stuff for everyone.

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Melt Water in Ravenscliff woods

2010-01-14T23:32:00.001Z

via youtube.com

Up at 4. I really should get to bed. Its time for: THE NATIONAL EXPRESS!

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All the way home

2010-01-14T02:20:00.001Z

Big foots all wrinkly like Bellamy.

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My website

2010-01-14T01:37:00.001Z

Today I learn who Pina Bausch is. She died recently. Reminds me of Rite of Spring. Much synchronicity tied up in this:

I finished a new version of my business website today and I think it looks darn fine.

Calling all proof readers out there. You know who you are. I shall come groveling cap in hand with a wink and a smile.

Fractal tree

2010-01-13T11:58:00.001Z

Today is an ice day. All buses in the city were cancelled. Sure hope I get down to london on friday.

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Two sides of the same coin.

2010-01-13T01:18:00.000Z

Broccoli the fool shows off his favorite place: The Bradford Playhouse. It is a most excellent place steeped in brandy and a little history. The world is a better place because of it. Duke Ellington and his royalty free band agree.

First day back at work in the morning. Thats going to be one hell of a culture shock. What with snow days and all I've only worked 1 day in the last month. Cabin fever be gone!

Frozen Mechanical

2010-01-12T02:01:00.001Z

Taken at Bradford Industrial Museum.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Tundra

2010-01-11T23:49:00.000Z

Captain Gaffard's the only survivor left of the expedition. 500 hundred miles from anywhere and with polar bears on his tale he makes his fated last entry on his trusty handy cam. After this we assume the batteries died. His body, found frozen, has been kept in a freezer, by his estate, for prosperity.

In the library with the candle stick.

2010-01-10T23:38:00.000Z

One day I shall look like this for real. Ding dong I'm destined to become Colonel Mustard or Professor plum!

On the other hand and when the shoe is on the other foot.

2010-01-09T23:08:00.000Z

Feet are funny things.

I sometimes go months without exploring the hidden wonders between my toes. I wonder if feet are things you can lose touch with as you might lose contact with second cousins and so on.

You can never forget about hands like that. Hands are high maintenance fellows but leave a foot alone and they'll not make a fuss, not a peep, and you're only reminded when you've completely forgotten all about them and stub your toe.

I walked barefoot in the snow today. Cold, cold, silky soft then feathery burning. Run back in and slip hop slip then living room. That feeling: warm, red, fresh flesh and throbbing with your heart beat. I wonder what the neighbours think.

I found the offcuts meat tray at the deli counter in Morrisons today. Yay! Oh happy day. All the lovely chunks of boiled ham and such for pennies. Mix it up, add some mustard and what a sandwich.

I leave you with Love Cats:

Tiffany Twisted by Junglemunkey

2010-01-08T18:22:00.000Z

Tiffany Twisted by Junglemunkey

Today I post an old comedy cover I made some years ago with my brother. I feel the urge to make music today. I was in good old Bradford town this avo and saw a horrible machine that I was inexorably drawn to. It was like one of those old time dime press recording booths that get lampooned in the Simpsons and by Jack Black. It had X FACTOR! plastered all over it. People sniggered at me as I perused its list of tracks and was very pleased to find it had Copacabana on its listings. I was displeased to find out that the bloody thing costs fiver a pop.

Bradford playhouse want me to do a Video instalation in their foyer on the 29th and it looks as if there may well be a crowd of people in the place that weekend so I guess its worth a shot. Suddenly I'm a VJ. I often think that VJ is just an acronym to describe a wannabe film maker who can't DJ either.

Nick is coming over tonight as he is concerned I may have gone feral or have cabin fever or some such. Nick, it must be said, is a diamond geezer.

The Dark Side

2010-01-07T17:14:00.002Z

The clock is about to strike five and I'm off to Bradford Playhouse at seven. Below is a vid wot I carelessly constructed last time me n' Aidan were mucking around in the playhouse wardrobe.

Another snow day today and on this occasion I decided to stay in bed till 3. After four cinamon muffins washed down with a large cup of Darjeeling the jim jams and dressing gown are still on- as is my fuzzy head.

Darjeeling you say? Why yes... Duchy Origional Organics as it happens and I got it in the pound shop. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

I leave you with some Sufjan:

2010-01-06T22:47:00.000Z

I ventured deep into the muffled woods. Echoe had fled. Dogs barked in the distance. The snow compacted like meringue underfoot. My trainers had no grip of any kind as I set out to see Badger. I could hear weasles in the distance carelessly reving their quad bikes.

Warm coffee, snickers, camera and russian world music carried me deep into the wild woods.

Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow...

I decided to take a break and make a video:

I met a horse with no name. Well at least none that I knew.

A mare I think chewing bark and waiting for sugar lumps.

I had no sugar lumps.

I met a fawn idling by a lampost but he objected to my taking his picture. He muttered sheepishly about toasted tea cakes. I told him I'd packed my lunch. I offered him a cigarette but he declined. Bloody fawns.

Not wanting to be turned to stone in the snowy wood I made my way home on the number 47.

Fifteen feet of pure white snow

2010-01-05T15:38:00.006Z

Been snowing all day and still going. School have declared a snow-day today and tomorrow... might have the whole week off if it keeps going. I'm going exploring tommorow for sure. Deep down into the woods I think with a warm flask and a camera. Gonna sort my house out this evening.

The cheek of it.

2010-01-04T17:44:00.003Z

I found out this morning that my classroom had been broken into. There was glass everywhere and the windows had been boarded up. Nothing was stolen. Quite frankly I find that insulting. Apparently it happened on Christmas eve. Maybe it was Santa pissed off at not getting any sherry or mince pies.

Was put off by the fact that no one had even bothered to clean up the glass before the kids arrived but it was all fixed by lunch time so no harm done. The morning was spent drinking coffee and playing pass the parcel with the autistic spectrum. Kinda got away without doing any real work and it gave me a chance to observe the kids settle down into routine.

In the afternoon I worked with key stage three on an archetypal story based on the hero's journey. In our story the hero is off to search for the dastardly trickster to bring him back to justice. Before he leaves the castle he visits the king to get three magical items to help him on his quest.

1. The faulty magic lantern
2. The golden pear of invisibility
3. The all seeing sword of Metukaki

via dolor frikin' osa

2010-01-03T21:50:00.016Z

Why do I only give my self four hours sleep before a big day like today? I love sleep soooooo much and this the first time in almost two weeks I’ve had my own behemoth of a bed. I stuck myself in Beeston after the New Years holocaust sleeping on a floor for two days. It must be said that Nick is a diamond geezer.

Now its sunday morning and its up, up, up, up at seven.

Its been snowing in Bradford and I heard it would get thicker in Manchester. There are, of course, no buses from Fagley on an early Sunday morning because no one’s insane enough to get up at this blasted hour. I blame the Catholics. So I walk. Via delor frikin osa.

Two miles downhill and its beautiful. Midnight blue sky, moon all big and hazy with rainbow circles round it, pink champagne sunrise then clear-blue, crisp-blue sky. Moisture all sucked away from me as I observe the fossilised frozen footprints of the drunks slushing home last night. I walk it in 45 minutes and get rid of Bradford at 8.45.

Slow train, cheap train, sleep train... but its all too beautiful passing through Hebdon Bridge with the hills piled up like wedding cake. Sleeping giants with clean sheets wrapped tightly about their bulging bodies. The platform at Mytholmroyd proudly declares it the home of The Iron Man.

I want to take picture but feel to inhibited cause of the couple playing footsy opposite me. I should have. The snow is deep. It is amazing.

Manchester!

Science Museum!

Weeeeeeeee!

Chocs away!

If only I could have flown.

The journey back was slightly better than suspected cancer.

Leeds had beat Manchester United. I'd wondered why there were so many coppers in Manchester on the way in. Bloody Sundays. As we waited in a crowded delayed train a Yorkshireman lit a cigarette in the cabin. Some old Mancunian lady shouted at the top of a wavering voice not to dare to smoke it. He moved further into the carriage and blew smoke in her face. A short well dressed diminutive manc. stepped up all polite like and shoved him off the train... he shoved back to a chorus of approval from the Leeds united girls. I stood up and said in a very loud southern voice that there was certainly no need for this sort of thing and shouldn't we all be getting on. Stupid, stupid, stupid.... but they stopped. Then I saw the police man who'd appeared behind me. You couldn't write it better.

On the way home the train broke down in Rochdale. We had to wait on a snow drifted platform for an hour and a half before the next train came along. I briefly explored Rochdale and promised myself never to return.

The heart of Rochdale

Bored

Balls

Frozen!

I closed the door to my home in Fagley at precisely 9.30 and it’ll be another late night before my first day back at work if I don’t watch out…

2010-01-02T23:49:00.000Z

I went to Otley to John's party this evening. He had a Japanese themed night so I brought along some Chinese folk music. I had so much wasabi on my sushi that it felt like my face was melting.

Its snowing again and its super extra cold. The snow has gone all crunchy and powdery and it sounds like walking on cornflakes. Manchester tommorow.

2010-01-02T16:19:00.000Z

Just arrived home in Bradford. Walked home up a frosty hill. I needed to get the blood circulating after New years. Lots of drinking and the like.

Did you know it was a blue moon on the 31st? Second partial eclipse of a full moon that year. It took me by surprise outside the pub as I looked up. I took a drag on a Marlborough in the frosty air and saw a bite taken right out of the moon.

Later I was strangely mute at the house party. I had no words or any energy to give. Guess there were too many strangers for my liking. To many that I'd not get past persona with and no point in trying. Not enough friends to feel at home and the foggy threat that the old friends are wandering. Those radically intense relationships of the naughties are drifting.

The turn of the decade was fantastic though with all of us singing that song and jumping up and down in a small dining room till the ground shook.

The after, after party was my favorite where you get down to sitting and chatting with the people you know and love. This feeling of not having anything I wish to give still pervades though. Emptiness.

The maker of the plane pictured must be said is a diamond geezer. Its a WWII Lancaster decorated entirely with cutouts from Viz.

First Blog

2009-12-29T20:29:00.000Z

Here I stand. My art is healing me. Its addictive and I obsess. I'm in Peterborough with my beloved family. Its in these few bank holidays and around my birthday that I can put my house in order. new songs on the phone, upload those photo's, read that book, stock up, unwind and ready myself for the year ahead.

Two old freinds: Duncan and Neil. I met up for drinks this Christmas with them. Hadn't seen Neil in 18 years. Neil was my best freind and as I find out today he's just as much a freind as he always was.

Duncan and I are among the last of our lot still to be making a serios bash at the art thing and after 12 years apart we still have much in common. He's up for an audition and looking for speeches. We found the caretaker which I hope will see him through.

Life can be lived beyond the surface of now and as I reach into the past it all seems to come together some how.