Scorched Birth

I’m reclining, reading, smoking - soaking in the sun - on a bench in a children's' play area. Every so often I get up to do a few pull-ups on the climbing frame. I’m in the Alps. I’m reading a book about Victorian climbers in the Alps. I’m looking at a photograph of a bivouac under a rock. I see a baby in the ashes of a campfire. I lift my eyes from the page, drop some ash, and from between my legs a child is born...

To be continued...

Postman To A Spoon-Bender

Burghley road SW19 backs onto The All England Club, home of Wimbledon Tennis. For many years I used to live close by, and the local greengrocer told me, rumour had it, celebrity spoon-bender Uri Geller was renting this pile (to run a workshop on psychology in tennis), and that he was going to bend a Wilson aluminium T-2000 tennis racket (as made famous by Jimmy Connors) using the power of thought. So I thought I’d bend Uri Geller’s lamppost. I was postman to a spoon-bender. Uri Geller: Helen Keller, even she would have seen the irony.

Astute Commentator

A photograph by Dr Jane Fletcher: by far the most astute commentator on my work.

Lusus Naturae

If I Blew It I Had To Do It

Smoking a cheroot (not a cigarette), contemplating a courgette. And yet I couldn’t see what was right under my nose: not until I saw the photograph (on playback). If I blew it I had to do it. So I abandoned the courgette, rushed out and adopted the pose of what was right under my nose – followed my nose.

“A nose that can see is worth two that sniff”. – Eugene Ionesco

Under My Nose

 To be continued...

Cross-Referenced

It wasn’t a great stretch back in time, from Fecamp to an army camp: another country another coast, another windowless-box, sealed with a metal plate. I’ve cross-referenced myself.

I Found Jesus Outside A Toilet In Fecamp

A Funny Kind Of Foreplay

Seven hours, all night, keeping the hand-dryer turned on: a funny kind of foreplay. When I dozed off, it turned off. I’d wake up freezing, go into an auto-Hitler saluting routine. Tried to dream, dream I was back at school (in class, instead of next to piss), hand above my head (triggering the blow into my bed). I had a wind-arm wind farm.

Wouldn’t have got any sleep at all if it weren’t for a beer mat. Used it to jam the button of the hand dryer on. It stayed turned-on until first light. What a night!

Turned On In A Toilet