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.
　

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.

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!

Beautiful but smelly

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.