Art or Balls.

The most natural thing to do, when you have an empty wooden fruit bowl and a pile of pool balls is to put the balls in the bowl.

I found the balls in the back of a rubbish truck in Notting Hill. The bowl was a gift from a woman who knew that I didn't have one.

What worries me is that this image would be quite happily considered 'ART' by those who think they know best.

It is nothing more than a bowl of balls.

Postcard from Rusty.

Rusty did it!

I recieved a postcard fro him this morning. that in itself is a miracle with the postal strikes we have been suffering; no doubt the postmen will be back at work in time to collect their Christmas bonuses.

The card was posted in Yorkshire (not an area noted for its rodeos).

The photo on the card is of a rhubarb mine; the caption says: Deep underground the plant is propagated by Yorkshire folk who are now completely blind. they live on a diet of batter puddings and Pontefract cakes...

Rusty writes: Hey Jan, you know it seems funny. London always seemed so big,, but you know you're in the largest county in the nation when you're anchored down in Harrogate. Harrogate Yorkshire.

He went on to write that Nurse Caz was travelling with him. They were together but not really together; Rustys heart was with Lula-mae in a tar paper shack close to a small town called Lizard Bend somewhere in North Dakota,

Nurse Caz's heart is in a specimen jar in Imperial college, London.

I listened to Michelle Shocked while I reread the card and thought of them both. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hffcyJ1GAg

Just back from my weekly dream analysis with doctor F. It does not concern me that she has been struck off (in fact I am rather hoping she will apply some of her malpractice on me) and can now only practice as an amateur.

Each time I visit I am encouraged to paint an image of my latest dream.

Last night I dreamt I was a child. It was a stormy autumn evening and I had been milking pomkin the goat who had lashed out at me with her hooves annd rendered me unconscious for a while.

Groggily I returned to the house and entered, but somehow I had gone in through the wrong door and found myself neither inside nor outside. there was a wall of raining teaspoons clouding my view of the walnut tree and of the three beakers on the window sill; my mothers red one, my dead fathers black one and my yellow one. Each time I reached out for my beaker (I was very thirsty) my hand was stung by the falling spoons.

I gave up in the end and finally fell asleep.

I awoke some time later on the straw in pomkins shed.

If it is possible for a goat to sneer, pomkin sneered.

Doctor F chuckled and clapped her hands on hearing the dream and seeing my painting and then ushered me out of the room giving me no explanation as to what it all might mean.

Rusty, depression and horse shit.

Rusty came round for coffee this morning. He looked distressed and depressed, I've not seen him this bad for a long time. I'm worried because I know I'm not going to see him for a while.

I said go to see the nurse Rusty, she can help.

I doubt it said Rusty. I hear she ain't nursing no more, I hear she has taken up horse riding. How do you know that? I asked.

Well, he said. Every time I see her she smells like stables.

I told him he should perhaps go back on the rodeo circuit one more time before he got too old. And Rusty, I said. Why not ask the nurse to go with you, she could look after the horses for you.

That woman is every man's dream, Rusty.

Yeah he said. But not every night.

I talked to nurse Caz later this morning. Told her I was worried about Rusty, and would she help? She said she would get back to me on that one. I also said that I had heard that she had taken up riding.

She laughed then (I have not heard that mountain stream for a long time) and said; I've just been putting horse shit on my garden.

I will not pass that information on to Rusty, I imagine he would prefer to keep an image of Caz in tight johdpurs in his minds eye rather than the reality.

Advice for young lovers.

If you are going to keep bullshit in a treacle tin there is no point reading each other the label.

Eyes.

Mutate Britain

www.mutatebritain.co.uk

Rusty, Babs and Dame Nellie Melba.

Rusty called round this morning to analyse Tristans performance last night.

We decided not to talk about it.

Instead I went to make cheese on toast for us all. I could hear Rusty and Babs talking and laughing in the other room as I grated cheese and then a finger. I burned the toast and Rusty came in to criticise.

I was about to throw the burnt toast in the bin when he pushed me to one side. He then grilled the bread on the other side, cut off the crusts and sliced the slices horizontally. once toasted on the cut side he had made 4 pieces of melba toast.

Here he said; presenting it to Babs.
What's that she asked.
Melba toast!
Why is it called that?

It is named after Dame Nellie Melba, who, when not eating peaches liked to eat this stuff.

Ditto TV at the Tabernacle. 10th October.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi6-jFsX0aU

Bridges I have lost shoes from. I've lost count.

I'd gone down to the Serpentine this morning to photograph the bridge having lost a shoe there a while back.

I was astonished to find Tristan there fishing. Fishing is not permitted in the serpentine. I pointed out the sign stating this fact.

He said. I'm not fishing Jan, I'm pretending to fish.

Have you caught anything I asked.

Only an old shoe and the attention of a crazy old woman who said if I catch a tuna she has the maionnaise...

What bait are you using?

Approachability.

Mountains, views and dogs.

Babs calls from Mountain view, California.

And I think is that a view of a mountain or a view from a mountain and Babs says that the sky is as high as an elephants eye.

And I say you are lying Babs

And she says I know, I heard it in a movie. And eveyone knows that the movies lie.

I left that sleeping dog to do the lying.

Horse shit. Bull shit. Holy shit.

She said I suppose you are going to use this as material for a poem or a story or something.

I said no. Personal experience is like horse shit; it needs to stand around for a year or two before you dig it into the garden. Otherwise it is too caustic to do anything other than kill everything.

So you won't be writing about me.

Oh yes! I'll be writing about you, but only the stuff I make up.

Prairie omelettes, hangovers and male bonding.

Rusty came round tonight. I thought he'd want to skirt the nurse but no.

He said, as he eyed my larder, she may be a nurse Jan but the only thing she is nursing right now is a hangover. He went on to say: Women teach us a lot of things Jan but all she done teach me is that I'm way out of my depth, and she aint teaching me to swim.

He found eggs, strawberries, black pepper and cream.

Heck, if we aint got a prairie omelette. He said.

What is in a prairie omelette I asked.

Whatever you got left in the chuck wagon at the end of a drive. He said.

Do you know, a strawberry and black pepper sweet omelette with cream is quite extraordinarily delicious.

Hey Rusty I said as we licked our fingers, let's go rent Brokeback Mountain.

Aw shucks. Said Rusty.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypRTiSq4qas&feature=related