Saturday 28 May 2011

Handel, With Care

Young Joel (better known as the satirist Cheek by Joel) has sent me the following email. It’s a proposal for a TV drama provisionally titled Handel, With Care.

Jim Handel is a care worker in a residential unit for adults with acquired brain injuries. He’s a maverick who doesn’t mind breaking the rules if it means getting the job done. He’s heard of risk assessments but isn’t sure what they do. Jim doesn’t carry anti bac and won’t wear an apron whilst cooking but he never gets personal unless he’s tooled up with latex rubber gloves. Size L.  

Jeanette ‘Sharkey’ Tubbs, Jim’s deskbound, donut munching, lard arse line manager is forever hauling him over the coals. Sometimes Jim is suspended. On these occasions Tubbs demands Jim’s laminated ID badge, which he throws on her desk before going home where he stays up late brooding and drinking hard. He has an ex wife who walked out after delivering the ultimatum ‘it’s the job or me’. Jim is convinced she’s delusional if she thinks she can live without him even though she has since remarried and is expecting a second daughter.

Jim has a sidekick called Joy who, whilst secretly considering him to be ‘nice but fucked up’ is nevertheless loyal and will, on occasion take the heat to get Jim off the hook. Sometimes they are ordered to work nights where they watch 70’s American cop movies and drink coffee out of Styrofoam cups. They slept together once (at work) but both now agree it was a mistake.

Joel finishes off with the assurance that any similarities to the living, the dead, and the living dead are ‘all in my head’. Thanks Joel, and say hello to your mother from me.      

Sunday 22 May 2011

post apocalyptic post

It’s Sunday, May 22nd. Nothing unusual in that except that the Rapture was due to have taken place  yesterday at 6pm, local time.  Good job it didn’t because that was the exact time a group of us were enjoying wine, chilled beer and canapés at the Unification show in Cheltenham. Everone was there; Andy, Nathan, JB, Chris Spaceman, Roger Bigland, Darling # 1, Various and Yoke + Zoom. A mighty time was had by one and all but, imagine if, instead of enjoying Roger’s oil’s, Mr Spaceman's Spacemen or JB’s fabrics, members of the audience had begun floating upwards through the shop’s lighting and air con systems and off into the ether. I exclude from this the pneumatic blonde in the little black number who looked capable of rapture, ruptures and a little trip to heaven with or without divine intervention.

Robbie and Jean prepare for Unification

So, a top show, part of the Cheltenham Science Festival and afterwards it was on to Meantime Project Space where we were made to feel welcome with cocktails, arts quiz and even a blow on the Bass Clarinet. I’m delighted to be able to report that my team won! Darling Number 1 chipped in during the Literature round with a Dickens here and some Little Women there, and even Various Artist lit up the music section on the Eve of Destruction. Good to see Charlie again and be reminded what an enormous brain he has. Pitt disgraced himself with a fit of the giggles during the instrumental break but apart from that behaved himself.    


Returning to the Rapture I was bemused by the thought of lots of what can we call them……..believers…….idiots..…..Americans……….all heading to Florida in their Buick station wagons and Oldsmobiles  because of course Disneyland is the  only natural site of any second coming. Straight Outta Nazareth. Anyhow my theory is that the Rapture would be about 20 minutes late. At around 6.17 an early middle aged man in Eastern dress will emerge from the Back to the Future ride going ‘Phew, that was awesome, you guys gotta try it……….wait, sorry, no time”. Or was it Groundhog Day………

To finsh on an upbeat note, I received a text from A to say that her tumours had shrunk by 10mm. She said that it didn’t sound like a lot but hey, God moves in mysterious ways. Night all.         

Sunday 8 May 2011

Somerset and some are Runny

Well we made it back from Europe ok. Customs took an interest in our car load of art, well I say car but it's actually a Fiat Doblo. Less car and more biscuit tin on wheels. Kent looked fabulous in the afternoon sunshine and so transfixed by the siver towers in the disatance were we that we missed the M25 and ended up on the Greenwich approaches. Relations remained cordial for the most part with the only blip coming just outside of Ashford when Various wouldn't accept Pit not accepting his offer of a milk chocolate Rich Tea biscuit. Over tired, fractious and over here.

On the plus side Various has been asked to be in the Unification show being held later this month in Cheltenham. And he's going to get paid, which will be nice as it means he can finish off paying for his website (www.variousartist.org). The show combines science and art, neither of which he's particularly knowledgeable about. Various confided that it was a bit late in the day to be asked, a bit like being invited to a party on the day it's taking place. Not quite an afterthought but not a fixture either.

What about me? Well I'm down at Darling Number 1's near Bath in Somerset but have to report at the coalface at 8am in the morning for more Minimum Wage Manouevres. Spent the time watching The Only Way Is Essex and learning a dozen ways to say party without using all six letters. And hearing a lad ask, without a trace of irony 'Am I hot?' Sir, if you need to ask.....now pardee on etc

Sunday 1 May 2011

The Impossible Blondes

Ok well here we are in Bruxelles at the art fair. A weekend event over populated by impossibly slim, gorgeous, blonde, black wearing Dutch people with, bringing up the rear in room 110 Scot and Pit looking like a pair of bumbling country priests enjoying their moment in the smoke. We consle ourselves with the knowledge that come tomorrow each one of the impossible blondes will collapse in the doorways of their Dutch barns begging to be decanted to something acrylic and floral, but for now they remain impossibly cool. And blonde of course.

Anna and Glenn

Last night Pit and I in the company of two of the aforementioned blondes stayed out above and beyond the call of duty. Eschewing the arty party happening across town we instead trawled the backstreets in search of beer, pizza and more beer. Is it right to use a raw egg as the centrepiece of a pizza vegeteriane? No, of course it isn't but neither is it right to ask for the wine list in a Muslim pizzeria in the home of Brel, Poirot and the Pissing Boy. For a while I thought Pit was resting easily on the Dutch damsels eye but between ordering and the food arriving we managed to establish that we were all loved up. Back to bed and three hours sleep followed by two breakfasts, one in our hotel and one over the road in the Bloom. Or is it the other way round? Anyway, I digress.

Phillipe doing what he does.

Lots of pictures of impossibly cool, blonde, Dutch people wearing the Hoodigans (pin striped suit jackets converted into hoodies). They'll look good on the interweb and heaven knows that could do with a sprinkling of cool. As of yet no work sold but the Ladies is bearing up stoically. A couple of ideas emerging, one for a Hoodigan wearing footie XI and the other for some sound, but enough of that for now. Rest of day spent moving hither and yon, bestowing blessings and using the bathroom as an impromptu confessional. Part of the reason we've not sold anything could be explained by Pit turning away a Dutch artist looking for contributors for his own radio show because he, Pit was feeling 'out of sorts'. To rub salt into the faux pas he took him along the corridor and introduced him to someone else. As I type Pit is twittering.......Pit the twit.


That's enough. Possibly more than enough. We have an early start and have to pack up the mobile gallery before nightfall but until then so much to do and so much to see....the impossibilities are both enormous. And Dutch.