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!

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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...

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.

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.

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!

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!"

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!

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.