Saturday 8 August 2009

Tangled up in blue

A shop window stopped me in my tracks last night. Or rather something in the window stopped me; it was a blue velvet Playboy bunny girls costume.
A costume iddentical to the one that Babs had worn for a few weeks while working at the Playboy club in Chicago back in the sixties. I had caught sight of Babs as she bent to tie the shoelace of a young folk singer who I could quite plainly see would be soon tangled up in blue, the scut on her arse sending alarm signals as it bobbed in the neon glow. I ducked behind a pillar as she leant into him to pick a piece of lint from his coat then left when she was out of sight.

I stood at that shop window transfixed as the Blue velvet spoke through the glass.

It said: I first came to consciousness in 1962 as a girl called Gillian slipped into me and then twirled for Hugh, then giggled nervously as he adjusted the gusset and smoothed the knap on her breasts and her arse.

A string of men begged her to slip out of the club and then out of her costume and then post-coitally out of their lives. Until the last one (to my knowledge anyway) took me as a memento, a trophy.

I hung on his wall until he handed me on to a new girlfriend who kept me for many years in the dark with occasional outings to be slipped into and out of prior to her being slipped into and out of.

Over the years I developed my patina of cynicism.

that woman handed me on to her son who handed me onto his girlfriend who has slipped into me from time to time and now hangs me in this window, in all my faded glory for all the world to see.

Sunday 2 August 2009

The Doorman

There is a club I visit called 'The doorman'; I cannot tell you where it is because it is oversubscribed already, but it exists.

When you arrive at the club you are greeted by the doorman who says: 'I cannot talk now but if you go into the waiting room , have a drink and a dance, chill for a while.

I will spare you a minute when you leave'.

Thursday 30 July 2009

Art and its profound affect on rock & roll

Back in the sixties I put on a show in swinging London that almost became the talk of the town.

however a few minor celebrities turned up, especially from the music world.

Yoko Ono came along a few times and took notes

one of my pieces in the show was a ladder standing in the corner of an empty white space, painted on the ceiling above the ladder and unreadable without climbing that ladder, were two words; 'FUCK OFF'.

Gary, a pop star of sorts climbed that ladder and read those two words then having climbed back down left the gallery in silence.

Years later I met Gary again, in more troubled times for both of us.

He said. 'Jan if only it had said YES on that ceiling I would never have left the Glitter Band and gone off to interfere with children in Thailand.

Picadilly urinals




Tuesday 28 July 2009

A well balanced diet


SSSSHHHHH!!! YOU'RE IN A LIBRARY













I saw the sign and had to go in.
Mick Jones' Rock & Roll public library at Portobello green. It is there until the 23rd of August. GO.

It is not only Mick's personal archive on view it is also a walk through ones own life; the ephemera that I failed to keep is all there to be pondered over and celebrated. It is like finding something long lost and long cherished in a forgotten cupboard.
there is none of the pretentiousness of say Sophie Calles birthday presents installations. It is to me a celebration of 'My Generation'. How many librararies would allow mick and others to play Sex Pistols songs in a rehearsal room on view to the public.









Monday 27 July 2009

how i became a coppers nark.

True story but I cannot name names or venue or city even.

I met tonight a very beautiful woman, a talented woman, an intelligent woman, fortunately i am still suffering from the after affects of the bromide slipped into my night caps by nurse Caz so was able to listen to her story.

At some stage she informed me that she was a police officer and flashed her badge.

I gave in, admitted everything, took the blame for crimes I had never committed, pleaded to be handcuffed and interviewed at legnth. I longed to help her with her enquiries on condition that there was no question of bail and that I would be kept in captivity for ever.

I went home to a warm fish and chips supper.

Caught bang to rights.

Sunday 26 July 2009

Only in London


the Muse and memories

Sitting at the Muse at 269 on Portobello road with a coffee and looking back over all those years and remembering fondly the muses who have slipped into and out of my life; Mona Hebuterne, the ballerina, Babs, Lula mae, nurse Caz.

It dawns on me that 'Muse' is a collective noun now; they are all still with me, goading me, bullying me, kissing my metaphorical neck and laughing with me each time I clean my teeth.




The Muse at 269 is a gallery/restaurant that puts on some interesting stuff. It is also the place that rusty, fluente, tristan and I hang out at and shoot the breeze over a coffee and a beer. Check it out

Rusty tears and kitten heeled cowboys

Walking on Portobello Road this morning I spotted Rusty weeping on the pavement outside a shoe store.

'Rusty' I said, 'pull yourself together man and tell me the problem.'










'come' he said and taking me by the arm led me inside. at the back of the store on a shelf was a pair of antique cowboy boots with kitten heels.




'Them's the identical boots to the pair that Lula mae always wore when baking pear pie' he wailed.

I left him there weeping under the suspicious gaze of the stores foxy owner. 'There's a man who is going to get stung'. I said to no-one in particular.

it's a lovely store full of vintage shoes boots and clothing. I bought a pair of boots there back in the days when nurse Caz was pushing my wheelchair.

282 Portobello, notting hill, London.

Friday 24 July 2009

Bicycle thieves

I would like to congratulate the idiot who stole my bike lock and ruined the integral lock rendering the whole thing useless.

I'm sure there are many uses for a locked motorcycle lock.

I can think of very few uses for a siezed up bike. Except perhaps throwing it at the clown.

Taking shelter from the rain in a cow.









On the way back from a symbiosium meeting the rain came. the only thing to do was take shelter in the Cow on Westbourne Park Road, Notting Hill.











Luti poured me a ginger beer (Rusty takes his with a dash of Tabasco but I find that a little excessive) to ease the passage of the coronation chicken. The Cow is a local and global institution and early evenings during the week it is the perfect local.

I like nothing more than to sit in a corner and lie through my teeth to any one prepared to listen; the missing tooth leaves a gap big enough to get some whoppers through.


It was neccessary to dash through the downpour to the Westbourne accross the road to get online. Another good pub!










Thursday 23 July 2009

Mick Jagger, unreliable memories and the Tabernacle.








At the tabernacle, Notting Hill last night to hear Joseph Macwan and his band 'Out of Karma' (check him out). People have done good things to the old place (I remember hanging out there back in the sixties when it was squatted by a bunch of anti-establishment dreamers and schemers and downright bad guys) you should go down and take a look and a beer and maybe lunch and sit in the courtyard as I did...

and cast your eyes over the house opposite where Performance was filmed when Mick Jagger was something of a God and drugs were not only cool but obligatory and London swung like a pendulum do.

I was Mick's body double for the bedroom scenes.

That is another story.

The Tabernacle, Powis Square, London W11 2AY
http://www.tabernaclelive.co.uk/

Saturday 18 July 2009

Separated by a cigarette paper 4,000 miles thick.

I got a woman said Rusty. An American woman. The only problem is that she is 4,000 miles away.

Thats about the right distance for a woman said tristan

Collaborating in El Camino



In my new found bachelor-hood I have been eating at El Camino in Portobello road, under the Westway, opposite the tented market.

It is the place you hope to expect when feeling low and humming Dwight Yoakam songs and thinking of crossing the border with all the pretty horses.

They have a shelf of Mexican toys to play with if you need to play with a Mexican toy. It is run by nice kids who treat an old man with kindness and tolerance and it;s the right side of inexpensive. you might hear the fuck word but you don't have to pay gordon Ramsay prices to hear it.

Makes me think of Rusty Mcglint and Fluente Maiale: how are those boys, maybe I should give them a call, invite them down for a Taco and a beer and perhaps even invite Tristan too; we are all walking the same road right now.


It is time to collaborate.

Electric Portobello,, Joy, Hope, Grace and Charity.

Lunch at the electric, Portobello Road with Joy and her sisters Hope and grace. My change contained an American cent coin which I have been unable to spend.
I shall give it to Rusty Mcglint the next time we meet.
The girls greeted Charity warmly.

Confiture/comfort

I have just tasted apricot jam again.

Absorbent lint,masking tape and joy.


Joy, a new presence in my life, and although an amateur, an expert at putting comma's in the wrong place, is an excellent nurse with hypnotism skills par excellence and a fine turn of ankle, has agreed to tend to my immediate needs.


boy are my needs immediate.


I met her at the opening party of the International times Archive in east london, she was working the crowd as a strippergram nurse handing out packs of absorbent lint, something new to me as the only kind of lint I knew was the stuff that Babs picked from Rusty's coat as she leant in, whispered endearments and then talked of love.


I told her i was a poet, she asked what stream of conciousness was and i told her i don;t know and don;t want to know and couldn't care less then the ghost of Bukowski walked metaphorically into the room, pissed in the sink, drank all the beer... told us to fuck off.


I woke up with something resembling a hangover and a pack of absorbent lint stuck to my chest with masking tape.


as our american cousins would say: Go figure.


Sunday 12 July 2009

Change/evolution and burlesque at cafe Ravenous

My old sparring partner Rusty Mcglint has changed.
I put this to him the other night at a burlesque show at cafe Ravenous in Portobello road.
Heck no! he said. I aint changed I've evolved.
'I aint the man I was six months or a year ago; not because I changed myself but because shit happens and it affects you. I will be a different Rusty in six months time; I ain't got no control over that, it just happens.'
He went on to tell me:'I met a woman once, Babs was the name, I loved her good and she loved me. I told her straight though; I told her I aint gonna change and she said that was fine and dandy, let's proceed. Then she tried to change me; that got to me and I couldn't cope.'

Babs. Photo: Sasi Langford
'I let her down bad and I deserve the fires of damnation for that.'


'But women do that, they fall in love with potential then try to mould the man into their ideal. If only she had let me evolve I woulda turned into something else pretty fast through osmosis and capilliary love action, through just being close to her spiritually.'

'I ain't proud of my actions but I'm proud of what I have learnt and what I have become... Long may I evolve.'

You know I respect Rusty for that... He is evolving!

I hope Babs can forgive him too.

nurse Caz, Saki and silence

To misquote my old friend Saki; nurse Caz was a good nurse as nurses go and as good nurses go, she went.

I shall not speak of her again.

Saturday 11 July 2009

The Tree


There is a painting, a painting that has always hung in our dining room since my earliest memory.
It is a small painting of a tree, a painting of a small tree. Nothing more than that… A sapling growing in a hedge in an anonymous landscape. It measures twelve inches by eight and is set in a good guilt frame.


I have always imagined that the tree was painted by my father, painted by my father before my birth (my birth that killed him) not far from the house where I was born.
When I imagine that picture now I see it as part of a much larger canvas and in that larger canvas to the left hand side stands a young boy, a twelve year old boy, watching the artist as he captures his subjects; both the tree and the young boy.
The artist is oblivious to the child.
I lost sight of the painting when I became alienated from my mother many years ago, I feared that it was lost to me, that it rested in some bric-a-brac shop in Antwerp or on some strangers wall. Misunderstood.
I have missed that painting dearly for most of my adult life; it was ‘home’. It was the father I killed, painting a tree.
And in my imagination he painted me into a corner.
Last week I saw my sister for the first time in many years, as we were about to part she informed me that she had something of mine in her attic. Mother had given it into her safe keeping for me many years ago.
It was the painting of course.
Thank you Honey.
 

Saturday 27 June 2009

Beat

We often mistake enthusiasm for passion.

In 1963 I went to a party in Chelsea with a good friend who threw shapes in a beat combo when he wasn't throwing off the shapes of his nightmares or shaping up a hangover.

I thought I was a beat poet at the time so could write shit shaped poetry like that

I had bought a new pair of sneakers that day and my bullet wounds were playing up; yeah I hung with Michael X or was it Malcolm?

















I met a girl; an artist, her name was quickly forgotten but I remembered it that night... I was enthusiastic.

She could not take her eyes off my sneakers and I witnessed an idea growing.

I wonder what became of her?

I found the photograph in an old copy of IT.

There was a photograph of a naked girl in that 1960's magazine who was the spitting image of nurse Caz. I confronted her with the image and she soon confessed that it was her mother.

I now know why nurse Caz has a passion for starched white cotton and sensible shoes.













Nurse Caz being hit on by a lipstick lesbian.

Friday 26 June 2009

Chivalry and Cod Latin.

She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.

(Even when crying; normally a distasteful sight), as she sat sobbing under a hankerchief tree.

Of course I approached her and offered assistance, a shoulder, and anything else for that matter.

I asked why she cried so publicly. She replied that she wept because she could not reach the hankerchiefs that festooned the tree above her.

I smiled then and reaching up, plucked a starched white flower from above and offered it to her.

She snatched it from my hand, still sobbing. then turned and waved the handkerchief at a man standing in a window of the house opposite. 'I surrender, I surrender.' she screamed.

Moments later the door of the house opened and the most beautiful woman in the world flew into the bastards arms, He then wiped away her tears with a tissue of lies.

Sic biscuittus disintergrat!

Tuesday 26 May 2009

Betjeman, Haidoku and Carol vorderman

Ever since the rather drunken picnic with john Betjeman on hampstead heath I have been a great fan of poetry and have a crack at it myself from time to time.

I am also an avid viewer of countdown repeats (the programme ended for me with the departure of Carol Vorderman) as well as an occasional sudoku do-er. I have tried to combine all three interests with a new verse form.

the Haidoku combines the rigid structure of the Haiku with the numerical content of the Sudoku; there must be three lines containing nine words, the words must be the numbers one to nine with no number repeated. The following is (I think) my best effort to date:

Carol Vorderman

One seven three
four... Six nine two
five. EIGHT!

Saturday 23 May 2009

Tap dancers, surgeons, soap and Frida Kahlo.

I have the hands, said Caz, of a tap dancer, combined with the feet of a surgeon. she made these observations as she watched me turn off the hot tap in my bath with a deft flick of my ankle.



I told her the story of the tap dancers hands.
The soap bubbles were full of her laughter; they burst with joy.
Nurse Caz says that I am as bad as Frida Kahlo; taking photographs of my foot all day long.

Friday 22 May 2009

Grayson Perry, Nicholas Serota and the Chelsea flower show

I have recently discovered crumpets.

yesterday nurse Caz thought it a good idea to visit the Chelsea flower show... how wrong she was!














Nurse caz insisted on a wheel chair for the occasion; I was therefore wheeled through a seething mass of people with my head at arse height. I saw nothing of the show and soon became fractious. Nurse Caz bought some velcro plant ties which cheered me up a little.

Her stiletto heels sank into the ground whenever we tried to go off piste, resulting in me pushing the nurse in the wheel-chair much to the amusement of the County set!

I thought I saw Grayson Perry arm in arm with Nicholas Serota at one point but was mistaken; it was a couple from Tamworth. The likeness was uncanny though!

I had forgotten to take my camera with me but consoled myself once back home by photographing the fox-gloves nurse caz has planted for me in the garden.


































Tuesday 19 May 2009

Nude wrestling and Mahler

I was unable to sleep last night and so arose and made my way to the gin bottle...

Nurse Caz had beaten me to it. I found her in the snug sipping a pink gin, comforting herself with the nude wrestling scene in 'Women in love' on the video machine.
pink gin

We got onto the subject of childhood memories. She recited the following poem:

The monster in my house

Creeping through the house one night
I hear the monster that goes hump
It isn’t in the sitting room (that place is quite a dump)
It isn’t in the kitchen
Nor in the little parlour
It isn’t in my brother’s room
Listening to Mahler.
I nearly catch it in the loo
Or at least I thought I did
When I go in I soon find out
That isn’t where it’s hid.
IT isn’t in the laundry room
Nor in the airing cupboard
And if it’s in my parents room
Then they are surely buggered.




Monday 11 May 2009

An Amanuensis speaks of unspeakable things

My trusted scribe and diarist has recently taken to treading the boards with his morcels of prose. I intend to escort nurse Caz to the Irish Centre in Camden Square on the 28th of this month to see what the boy is up to. I am hoping that he will not use any of my private musings as grist for his mill.

Nurse Caz has promised to wear her Junior red cross hygiene medal for the occasion.

A video exists of his 'gig' (horrible word) at Mesoteric in Hammersmith.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgJWfowdQo0&feature=channel_page

Friday 8 May 2009

Hygiene and wendy in bondage

Oh joy of joys.

Yesterday afternoon as I was leafing through a book of paintings by Tai-Shan Schierenberg (check him out) nurse Caz shimmered into my field of vision in her crisply starched uniform set off by a pair of pink kitten heeled mules. (I have been feigning deafness for some weeks now; obliging her to lean forwads in order to speak into my ear) She leant forward and the pendulous watch on her breast raced towards the cocktail hour.

'I have something special to show you Jannie.'

She took me by the hand and led me to her room, I sat on the edge of her bed as she went to a small set of drawers, rummaged briefly then turned and placed an object in my hand. I looked down as she said: 'My junior Red Cross hygiene medal.'





















Such was my elation at having shared such an intimate moment with my muse that I immediately took her to greenkensal and bought her a charming print of Peter Pan tying Wendy to the mast.... www.greenkensal.co.uk


Thursday 7 May 2009

Fluentes Maiale.

My old friend and sparring partner Fluentes Maiale has arrived in London for an extended stay. He is an outstanding comedian and raconteur (as well as the worlds only professional Mexican waver) and may well be doing a few surprise gigs while he is here...


Monday 27 April 2009

Cycling lessons with nurse Caz #1

An incident of note occured in Holland Park.

Female pedestrian: 'Get a move on and let me cross the road!'

JN: 'Shut up you old bag!'

Female pedestrian: 'You are a nasty old man and I hope you fall off and die!'

JN: 'So do I!'


I am learning a lot about cycling.

Wednesday 22 April 2009

The Royal Academy of Arts

It was Babs who saved me from that madness on the ice. She had been touring the remote settlements on a PETRA initiative; trying to get the seal clubbers to give up their barbaric ways, she performed a routine in which she rid herself of seal pelts to reveal her luscious body all the while writhing to the music of the Pet Shop Boys. She caught sight of me at the bar of the Aurora saloon and sidled up at the end of her act. "I see you ain't lost it ". I said. She fluttered her eye-lashes and leaned into me, picked a piece of lint from my jacket and murmured: "What's Jannie been up to?"

These were the thoughts that crossed my mind as I cycled, accompanied by nurse Caz, to the Royal Academy.

Foolish as it may seem, at this late stage of my life I have taken up; like my father before me, the art of cycling. My bicycle is Dutch, naturally but I have refrained from painting it yellow fearing that it will be a yellow bicycle that will kill me in the end.


Monday 23 February 2009

Impulsive action photography

Yesterday while queueing (why must the British always queue, Do they not know that the war is over and there are enough muffins to go round) I impulsively bought a packet of iced rings for the fragrant nurse Caz. Quite frankly the iced rings were a dissapointment and did not generate the frenzy of excitement I had expected.

Impulsively I photographed 3 of the remaining 4 biscuits... What do you think?

Nurse Caz says that licking them hurts her tongue!

Thursday 19 February 2009

Fighting with Picasso (again)

One summer, not long after the incident of the 'bull fight' with Pablo, I spent a few mad weeks on the Riviera on the piss with Hemingway and Fitzgerald. I had neither the drinking stamina of those literary giants nor the constant desire for fistycuffs that dogged them both like a beligerant corner-man. When the fights were upon them I would take myself to the beach for a spot of bird watching.

One afternoon I came accross Pablo posing just above the wet line, he was in the company of Dora Maar and another young woman who appeared to be dressed as an English maid. Picasso was in the blue and white Breton shirt he had stolen from my laundry basket and which, to him, had become ubiquitous.

I was pretty mad at the Spaniard at that time, he had stolen all my blue paint when he had last visited me. I suspect he wrapped the tubes and tins in the Breton shirt to hide them from the concierge.

I approached him and reproached him at the same time, teasing him about his stature and age and the youthfulness of his companions. Pulling Dora to her feet I set off with her in a merry waltz while singing (at the top of my voice) 'Little white bull'. Pablo and the other girl picked up parasols and proceeded to chase us down the beach waving them in the air all the while screaming Catalan insults. What a scene we made.

A young Scottish artist called Jack Vitterano (or similar) was on the beach with his easel. He quickly knocked off a sketch or two.

As the gendarmes led me from the scene I yelled at Picasso: "What a preposterous little man you are... You look like nothing more than a dancing butler!"




Saturday 14 February 2009

Tits and photography

I am heartened to see that our traffic wardens are taking an interest in the photographic arts; this morning as I smoked an illicit cigarette at the kitchen window while nurse Caz slept dreamily in her starched white nakedness a warden spent many happy minutes making a photographic study of a car parked in the road.

I opened the window and asked him what exposure and lens he was using.

He handed me a note which read: To whom it may concern. There is no point asking me anything; I have only just arrived here in the back of a refrigerated lorry!

Two frustrated tits sat in the tree eying the blocked bird feeder in an old fashioned way!

Wednesday 11 February 2009

Get along little dogie and the stolen Oscar.

I see the Jolie-Pitt children have been 'running amok' in the corridors of the Dorchester while the parents were at an awards ceremony.

I met John Voight when I was the colour stylist for the trippy party light show in 'midnight Cowboy'. I had recently shot myself in the foot while drunk with a good old boy called Roland Crater and as a result limped in a pronounced way. Dustin Hoffman stole my limp for the Ratso Rizzo character which won him an oscar! That Oscar should have been mine.


My foot after the plastic surgery to correct the two bullet wounds. The oversized 2nd toe is a result of the repair done using a rib removed from Cher. (I only have one musical bone in my body; it hums 'Gypsies, tramps and thieves' in cold weather)

I told John back then that his daughter Angelina was going to be trouble. I did not however foresee that her children would be causing mayhem in the Dorchester in 2009!

'Get along little dogie' was the song that John sang in the shower at the beginning of the film.



Sunday 8 February 2009

Nieupjur's declaration of intent.

This morning I was woken from my fitful slumber by both the brakes of a passing bicycle squealing like a morning cockeral (did my fathers brakes on his yellow bicycle fail him that fateful night so many lifetimes ago or did they scream a warning as man and machine skittered hungrily towards the icy canal and death?) ) and the four words that I have been searching for all my life:

EVERYTHING MUST BE MEMORABLE.


Tuesday 3 February 2009

Moules Mariniere

Today I recieved a disturbing letter from my old pie baking adversary Rusty McGlint. I am shaking with horror and disbelief but will transcribe it verbatim:

Dear Jan,
London is becoming less intimidating, my social life improves daily and I no longer spend my evenings at the stage door waiting for a glimpse of Babs as she leaves with yet another handsome boy on her arm.
I have met a charming young English girl named Caz, she is a nurse presently looking after a mad Dutch Artist and writer who seems to live in a world of his own. I must say I am greatly taken by the starched white uniform (a far cry from the flour dusted gingham chaps of Lula Mae) and highly polished brogues.
For her first visit to my little home from home I made her moules mariniere: I sweated onions in my largest saucepan and then added crushed garlic and finely chopped celery. When this was cooked I added half a bottle of white wine which then came to the boil, at this point I tipped in the mussels and slammed on the lid with a dramatic Kerrang.
When the mussels had all opened (a matter of a few minutes) I removed them to a large bowl. I added some cream and chopped parsley to the cooking liquor, brought it to the boil then poured it over the mussels and served them simply with crusty bread and a bottle of sauvignon blanc. This I find is a deliciously lascivious meal and breaks down many barriers!
After we had eaten I sang Abdul el Bulbul Emir and later still she went off to pee in a bottle leaving me to think.

Best regards
Rusty

what to do, what to do? Is this some ghastly joke or purely coincidence. I have grown very fond of the starched beauty of Caz and would be devastated should I lose her to that uncouth rodeo-clown.

I am so distraught that I cannot concentrate on selecting my lottery numbers and fear I may be filling in the ticket with the wrong coloured pen... It is a yellow one and I am haunted by the death rattle of my fathers bicycle on those far off cobbles.

Sunday 1 February 2009

Inanimate humanism and the things I know about my mother.

A perfect scale model of a Paladian villa stands upon a lapis-lazuli plynth. It is Decorated in Silver and Gold leaf studded with crystals and cabochons. Finials, like giant pearls cap marbled pillasters. It sparkles. It shines. On the pediment above the central door is engraved the word HUMANA in Roman numerals.
Printed on the plynth is the legend: YOU REALLY DON'T WANT TO OPEN THIS!

When the front of the house is opened one is presented with an interior covered in photographs of man's worst attrocities to his fellow man; Images of war, the holocaust and murder!

I originally intended to fill the work with raw liver which I had bought in Droitwich but Mona stole it and fed it to her dog Retch.

Saturday 31 January 2009

Tala Madani, Madame Zingara and a rebel yell.

little did I know that by the end of the yesterday I would be wearing a shiny green stetson throwing disco shapes in a maroon velvet tent...

The day started innocuously enough, I had knocked off a spoon painting which pleased me greatly when nurse Caz informed me that I was to accompany her to a gallery in the West End (whenever I use the word west I think of Ruislip now) where we were to look at the work of Iranian-American painter Tala Madani; she produces politically charged humorous canvases and I paticularly enjoyed those that utilised the enema bag!

I was pleased to notice a white Ant chair in the lavatory!

At this point the day started to go pear shaped resulting in me finding myself seated at a table for eight in a velvet tent eating beef in a chocolate sauce with nurse Caz to one side and a natural redhead to the other. The redhead and I shared a passion for smoking unlike the nurse who smoulders when I spark up (she is the tinder to the camp-fire of life).

As we ate a troupe of Motley dressed South Africans performed syncronised dangling (girl on girl) and ladyboy contortionism (memories of Lingling (I'd forgotten that she is still in the cupboard under the stairs)) fat ladies sang and bearded men in dresses roller-skated between the tables. More fat ladies sang and still it wasn't over.

Nurse Caz gave a rebel yell; particularly liking the trousers worn by one of the male danglers and went on to inform me that he looked like a Goan hippy! Fat ladies sang again and it still wasn't over.

Suddenly I found myself in a lime green stetson swaying to the timeless abuse of 80's disco. Then it was over, I cannot recal if the fat lady sang again.

We all parted in the car-park under the table legs of Battersea power station.

I refuse to mention the drinking straw in the shape of a penis other than to remark: "So that's what they look like".

Friday 30 January 2009

Annie Leibovitz and West Ruislip.

Wednesday morning found me, accompanied by a screaming hangover and Caz my new nurse, at the Annie Leibovitz exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. On arrival there had been a pretty ugly scene as Caz had been hell bent on trundling me about in a wheel-chair. I was equally determined that I should not be treated like some kind of invalid ( a broken foot is hardly an impediment to an old infantryman such as myself) and finally got my own way.

Annies photographs never fail to move me with their blistering honesty and integrity, the images of Susan Sontag's final years were particularly touching.

Leibovitz's formal images of military chiefs however left me as unmoved as the stiff shirts photographed. I have seen the Demi Moore pregnant thing too many times to be anything other than a nodding acquaintance. The swagger portrait of Daniel Day Lewis on the other hand smacked me soundly on the forehead with a base-ball bat!

All in all it was excellent and I was almost completely distracted from the crisp white uniform of nurse Caz.

On the underground railway home I suggested we go to West Ruislip as the train we boarded was going there too (I am a great believer that tubes are like life and one must always travel as far as possible) Caz said 'probably' which was a tad too enigmatic for my hangover to stomach.

Friday 23 January 2009

Studio life


Morocco, Modigliani and lesbian tea.



It breaks my heart to think of poor old Modi and the wheels I set in motion that would ultimately lead to his death.

One fine spring morning he came to visit me in my studio in Paris. Mona was with me sitting for the series of aural portraits that was to cause such uproar the following year. Mona's sister Jeanne Hebuterne was there, helping to vacuum pack the work. Jeanne and Modi hit it off immediately and were soon lost somewhere deep inside each other, they became inseparable over the next few weeks and, sensing disaster, I decided to take the love lorn artist on a trip to North Africa.

Marrakesh stunned Modigliani; the heat, the colour, the smells, the horny chicks. He became wild with enthusiasm over the tribal art from south of the Sahara on sale in the souk; his style changed overnight when I suggested he paint me in that manner!

I introduced him to Paul Bowles who was living there at that time trying to write a novel (he was stuck for a title until I greeted him with: 'Good to see you so well Paul, under a sheltering sky'.) Paul gave us cups of verveine (lesbian tea he called it) and served sweetmeats from brightly coloured plates and bowls. I still have one of those bowls the glaze worn away in places from the constant rubbing of fingers scooping out the last of the couscous!

Modesty forbids me from describing the action in the brothels but needless to say the local version of Abdul el Bulbul Emir contains verses celebrating our visit.
Our holiday over we returned to Paris; Modigliani to his untimely death watched over by Jeanne, I to my exhibition that was to nearly make me famous.

Wednesday 21 January 2009

Notes written with a noisy pen.

I am not fond of the taste of Advocaat but the yellow colour (remeniscent of the bicycle that killed my father) somehow seduces me into a glass or two, especially when visiting Edvard Munch in his studio!

This time of year always reminds me of Eddie and his sense of playful humour, his love of advocaat and his beautiful muse Mona. One January (the year escapes me now; the Altzheimers is as pernicious as my mothers arthritic hip) I called in on him as he worked on a series of drawings of Mona standing on some kind of causeway, her face hideously disfigured by a deafening silent wail.

'What is this all about Eddie'. I had asked. 'Oh' he had replied 'It is ever thus these days! As you know Jan, Muses may travel backwards and forwards through time, something to do with particle physics I think. Mona has recently been in the 21st century working with some British guy who seems more butcher than artist. She returned with that look on her face and whenever I question her about it all she will say is that she has seen the 'future of Art'!... I guess it must be pretty horrible!'

'What do you think of the sketches?' he asked.

'It's a scream Edvard. But at least no-one will ever want to steal them!'