Fractured or Mending.... The Dissolution of the Certainties

My father was a deeply committed Christian. He believed. He knew things. He was certain.
I am not. I do not believe. Or rather, I don't think I believe. In fact the process of thinking is a large part of the problem. It is about the concept of Faith. It is about the conviction that there is only one solution. It is about the arrogance inherent in the absolute confidence that one version is real, true, genuine (depending on evangelical muscularity) and the other is illusion, false, fake.
What at one time was called heresy before the ideals of freedom of speech or religion were discovered.

The problem is - I read books. In the process of reading I enter the narrative metaphorically. I interact imaginatively with the characters. I become involved. When I think about the book and any meanings which it may carry, even accidentally, I interpret that message. I make my own decision. In fact this is the best reason to read the book rather than watching the film. For the act of reading a book - substitute the problems of living in this modern world - participating by speech and thought and word. The modern human being is being encouraged to think for himself (up to a point). One is presented with a multiplicity of interpretations of every shade of opinion. Opinion makers varying from tabloid to television, from grapevine to graffiti, from fiction to fact, and between ideology and insinuation and information lies (possibly) the mystical new grail of the truth.

But perhaps therein lies the fundamental difficulty in decision-making. There may be more than one truth. There may be many truths. There may indeed be more than seven types of ambiguity. There may even be a single valid interpretation for each single individual. When societies were united, whether by Church or by State, by celebration or crisis, the consensual perspective seemed to be accepted (particularly from the historical viewpoint). When Henry VIII altered the goalposts he burned the conscientious objectors. When war is declared aliens are interned. The Roman legionaries on Anglesey probably exchanged few philosophical pleasantries with the Druids. History traditionally records very few dissident voices. The modern age is however steeped in dissidence. The chattering classes witter and wail and write. The media manipulate and the press pontificate. Outsiders abound even in the midst of organisations devoted to the Status Quo and they all have voices. And there ultimately is the individual, whistling to himself and playing pick 'n mix with the meaning(s) of life, the universe and everything.

He/She is now alone. Not the fearsome cold of an existential isolation but the crowded, conflicting, cacophony of a children's playground. The decisions the person has to make start with either detaching or participating from their allotted space. In other words whether to belong to a gang or not. And most importantly the question of how that gang and its members behave in its interactions with the surrounding world. I think I want to be in a gang of one. I want to be able to interpret the world through my own lens and to learn to live with this fractured image of uncertainity and relativity. This is the tolerant approach that democracy hints at, but is afraid of. This is a methodology that can make and mend the status of the individual, it will reduce the organisation of religion, education, politics, communication and employment to also-rans in competion with each other, reducing them simply to human interest stories that carry no heavier threat than choice, chance and catharsis can deliver. I would like the world to think for itself but to accept that no one perspective is absolute truth in any field of endeavour or sphere of influence. I would like the world to read the millions of narratives it constructs and to share them. I would like my late father to understand that he did, in fact, help to teach me this.

Creativitality

Lanyon Quoit (Cornwall)


Should I draw ? Should I paint ? Should I write ? Should I do what I do best ? How can I make time for these activities or any combination thereof ? What happens in the arena when I am disappointed in my performance ? Is it okay to surrender ? Who makes the rules up ? Why do I have to follow them ?

I suspect Artists might be a somewhat selfish breed.
I do what I want to. I do what I enjoy. I try not to be motivated by guilt, by the feeling that I should or must or need to do anything. This is a suggestion that hidden in the perfidy that is procrastination there might be a hidden seam of gold. In my case yesterday if the BBC 4 documentary "The Art of Cornwall" lured me away from my metaphorical easel - so be it.

All these creative activities I feel are intertwined. After all they do originate from that same dark cave - somewhere in my seething little cerebrum. The ways that they are linked is the interesting concept in a world rapidly becoming networked up to its armpits. I read a letter from Robert Genn and it leads me to a writer (shamefully) I've never heard of, and I search the writer out and the work reminds me of another writer. That is ; in Mr Genn's contemplation concerning the artistic banishment of the blues a quotation by the writer Annie Dillard : “You need a room with no view so memory can meet imagination in the dark.” strikes a resonant chord. I am reminded of Virginia Woolf's "A Room of One's Own" in which the necessities for artistic creativity are mused upon. Reading that online leads me somehow to the other side of the equation. The sacrifices that an artist makes in the production of his work. Family dynamics and obsessional drive somehow point me to the portraiture of Lucian Freud and from there to the Paint as Flesh connection with Jenny Saville. The fizzing of these ideas keeps me awake until six am in the morning (luckily accompanied by a very fine England cricket display down under).

The point is that this movement between word and image, between the historic and the contemporary, between the deliberate and the random is itself a creative imperative. It is a journey that in itself is enjoyable and in its documentation can lead down assorted different and diverse directions. If that journey in turn creates something new and you enjoy that creation that is all the motivation and validation that is required.

How Exley Avenue Lost a Mural and....

What could have been.....

At the end of the cul de sac on which I live is a large and extremely boring grey concrete wall. It measures approximately 30 feet tall and 60 feet across. A while ago a few of us inhabitants on the avenue decided that it would be an ideal site for some kind of beautification. No firm ideas : just vague hopes. Interested parties were consulted and meetings were announced. Some people were enthusiastic and motivated and attended. Many were apathetic and did not. Any prospective art work would need, we realised 100 per cent approval and tolerance as the work transformed the wall. To cut a long story short it never got off the metaphorical ground. Hostility was muted and polite but nevertheless it was enough to spoil the party.

At one meeting several books of art graffitti were produced to show more extreme forms of wall-covering. "Graffitti" or even nowadays "Street Art" are not however terms to make the more conservative brethren amongst the avenue forget property values or automatically embrace a culture of artistic adventure. Whereas Ben Eine or Banksy or Roadsworth have achieved acceptance within areas of the art world outside the north of England critical acclaim would not necessarily be bestowed on them by the folks of Exley Avenue. They could, of course, really like concrete. Or really distrust Artists.

Of course I had a plan. I always have at least one plan. I wanted to create a Trompe L'Oeil effect. I wanted to make the cul de sac into a road. To fade the grey tarmac into moss, grasses, undergrowth and a path seen through to a country trackway. To change the Urban of the real into the Rural of the imagination. To have the trees in the distance fading into greyness, their boughs interlocking to encourage that sense that here, there, was the road not travelled.

If I had to demonstrate the beauty of this type of art I would recommend not the art versions of shock and awe, the patron saints of taggers but the narrative illusionism of John Pugh and I am not for a second suggesting I could create anything as fine as his masterpieces. The idea however still exists and now it is documented in cyberspace. The question becomes: How to persuade people to decide on Art in their environment rather than the merely utilitarian. I even made the point that if it was unsightly or somehow offensive a decent coat or two of battleship grey would assuredly bring back the beauty of the concrete wall. It is possible to live with the wall as it is but it is not strictly necessary that it always stays the same. A future artist is equally entitled to suggest his cunning plan and put that to the vote. Even if that obliterates my work. The point is that if Pope Julius II had decided to go with the flock wallpaper and said no to Michelangelo then the Sistine Chapel might also now be a road not travelled, an artwork that exists only in the mind of its potential creator.

Perhaps, in the middle of the night, with a stencil and an aerosol I could make a start....

Show your working out.....

They used to say, back in the days of Oxford & Cambridge Examining Board GCE Mathematics (1973) that the student should always show his working out. To demonstrate that he knows NOT just the answer but HOW to arrive at it. Strangely enough I suspect the same concept might and should apply to drawing and to painting, perhaps to all Art with a capital "A". I have always (and mistakenly) treated my sketchbooks as the repository for artistic greatness. In this I will keep all of my DaVinciesque studies. A masterpiece on every page. I start with perhaps 80 pages and, in turn, each drawing goes either "a little bit wrong" or "I'm not happy with that section" or "Just crap from the start". Tidy boy, neat boy, Perfectionist (?) boy. So I tear the page out. When the sketchbook is finally the size of a handout leaflet I discard it or hide it or conveniently forget about it.

Why am I so hard on myself ? Why do I never finish a drawing ? Now and only now finally, I realise in ART it is the working out that matters. The process of drawing. The rough sketched outline is fine. As the shape is described by the objects around it the lines firm up. The various lightly adminstered pencil strokes show where the hard line actually IS. Perhaps only for that split second before the light changes or your daughter knocks over the still life so carefully assembled on the table. But it was and is right. And then finally, you realise what does it matter ; because the NEXT drawing will be even better. As I draw, as I paint, the process becomes more familiar and comfortable and you realise you are AN ARTIST. Or perhaps somebody tells you and then, for no apparent reason, you suddenly believe them. To recapture that feeling, that worrying but exciting stress that you find in struggling determinedly to work something out, you, the artist, know that you will need to attempt working in a different manner, new, or a different medium or stand still. Repeat the same style. However I want to progress my work towards ......what..... and that is the final question. Why do artists do art ?

It is not like in the maths exam where the correct answer achieves the reward. For the artist it seems that it is the process that inspires us. It cannot be for riches or fame (although some artists do manage this). It can't be for the sociable comradeship unless you can share an easel. It is for yourself. A selfish reason : and of course, others may also like your work and that may validate the artist's existence. I paint primarily so that I can be somebody else. When I work with my sketchbook now, I am seeing the world in a far more detailed and interesting way than when I was younger. I am going to fill sketchbooks with my own perspectives on that world. I want to look. I want to be free to view the world sideways in my own way. The artist feels he has a vision and he is fighting to put it on paper, or canvas, or board. To sculpt that vision, to capture it in his viewfinder. I believe in making a mark and drawing in deep breaths.


Note : Due to (at least) two years of cheating in Maths I was put into the top set. Where being a genius I was supposed to take the exam early and pass and go on to Advanced Mathematics. I (of course) failed. Then failed the re-take. I passed it (scraped through Grade 6) the next year from the bottom set. I never showed my working-out because there was none.
Post Note : I now have a calculator,

How to index your life...

Once upon a time it was a running log. Then over a period of that same time it became a journal. And now it has gone online but only inasfar as it is then printed off. It remains a book. Solid, paper, tactile, humane. It contains quotations, postcards, ideas and random thoughts. It aims to be a resource and an ally, a confidante and a vent, a repository and a to-do list. The question is "How to index it ?"

At present I rely on my memory to avoid repeating myself. Words that I stumble across which make me stop and think are written down but how long is it before that same word again strikes me as fascinating (again) and I repeat the process ? In other words "What is the attention span of this journaller ?" Similarly in wanting to connect keywords and ideas together beyond the linearity of a narrative - of what comes next - I want to create a more flexible circling index. I want to show what references Joyce's Ulysses with Marilyn Monroe, to Norman Mailer, to Jerry Siegel ; and whether such a transition is found only in my own personal cerebellum and whether the journey is worth the price of a ticket. I want to find the entrance into my own head and navigate its tunnels, galleries and balconies. I want to examine it's architecture, it's archaeology and it's history and along the way to contemplate other writers, thinkers and artists who have made the same journey in their own fields and in their own idiosyncratic styles.

My journal aims to be a road map, and a commonplace book, an anthology and an art gallery, an abbreviated encyclopedia and a frustrated dictionary. It wants to be everything and nothing. It wants to answer questions and question answers. It wants more than an audience of one but it wants to to remain private. It wants to be famous and anonymous. I want it to say who I am and who I am not. I want it to say what I like and what I don't like. I want it to tell one truth but also to show the other millions of truths that exist out there. It aims to be "The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady" without being a diary, rural, female, or Edwardian. It is "The [ ][ ] of a(n) [ ][ ]". It aims to be open to the reader, provocative to the browser and to be everything for the writer. It aims to be the wor(l)d. Last. Mine.

Abstract Paintings Are Go

I am beginning to work on a new area for me. I have finished two abstract "paintings". I still haven't managed to use any colour but a style is appearing. It demonstrates perfectly the anal-retentive, obsessive-compulsive side of my creative mind. Ideas are beginning to flicker through my mind constantly : being changed, adapted and mutating. However, alongside this, so are critical musings on the work. Why does this occur ? What makes me question why I do something instead of just doing it ? Is this my inner critic justifying the artwork ? Is it my psyche feeling threatened and therefore defensively pre-empting the world-wide discussions of the pieces ? When I collect enough work will I have to build the gallery, design the catalogue, pour the wine or will I settle for simply being a library assistant with a black pen.

At school in my art classes the focus was always on the figurative approach with the hyper-realism of an almost photographic perspective towards creativity. This was, I now recognise, because essentially we were aimed at passing particular examinations. It was not Art intended as a career and definitely not as a life-enhancing aspect of everyday existence. Even the careers which I was directed towards, and advice was sketchy to say the least, took more notice of salary than satisfaction and left the arts and humanities students to either teach or be taught forever.

I have repeatedly tried to do portraits and landscapes never finding the results to be either what I expected, or of sufficient quality to even merit keeping. There was always the nagging thought that a camera could do the job far better. So, at what point did my attitude to Art and Creativity begin to mellow ? From where did my symbolic muse suddenly appear ? That quiet little voice that persuades me I am on the right lines is also the voice that reassures me that even if nobody else ever views the art I know it is developing. I visualise a strange hybrid art form - part book part painting - born out of Blake and the illuminated manuscript and infected by Rothko and the Letraset catalogue. It will try to link the literature I love and admire with the art that inspires me - It will play games - sporting with the obscurity and the complexity of a Joycean narrative with the Northern philosophies of Roy Clarke and the late lamented Alan Plater. Like Joseph Cornell's boxes it will include the whole world of one man's interests and hopefully be of interest to more than that same one man.

R. I. P. RBP

Robert B. Parker.
Born September 17th 1932 Springfield, Massachusetts
Died January 18th 2010

I have grown up with Spenser. I remember the power of the early works. I delight in the wit and humour and intellectual rigour of the later books. I relished everything about the books. Even as the critics levelled their charges I bought and read and kept the books. To me Parker's creation of Spenser and the characters around him carried an intense meaning that sums up how I interact with literature and life on all levels. I would sit with Spenser at his desk, with a glass of Irish whiskey looking out of the window. I remember Paul Giacomin, the boy who shrugged. I remember the shock as Susan left him. I appreciated the total self-awareness and intensity of emotion reflected in the words and the meanings behind the words.

When John D. MacDonald died and Travis McGee departed to that great Marina in the sky I felt cheated that there would be no more in the series. With Robert Parker I feel grief of the same ilk but also a sense that the characters cannot die. I don't mean for a resurrection of RBP the franchise or an attempt to turn a doodle on a deskpad into the unfinished work that is reminiscent of, but not quite, the genuine article. I mean that in Spenser, Hawk, Vinnie, Jesse, Sunny the images survive in the mind. They live on, and of course so too, does Robert Parker in that sense. I always wanted to read his PhD thesis and perhaps his publishers might consider that but above all I will miss the chance for Spenser and the rest to live their lives on. I would have liked to carry on living with them all instead of having their existences paused with that sense of anti-climax. I could use any number of quotations from the books that might seem apt for this sad occasion but I remember with particular fondness "Early Autumn" where Spenser is teaching Paul how to live, indeed how to survive by himself, in himself, yet at the same time demonstrating the type of relationship that underpins all meaningful human interaction. Parker helped me to understand these type of ideas within the same framework as other great writers from the very highest canons of world literature. For this, Robert, I am grateful. When you're milling around up there explaining to your friends (who made the journey sooner like Robert Urich) what you had envisaged for Spenser and Susan and Pearl (the Wonder Dog) I hope you will feel the love and affection in which you were (and still are) held. I pass on my commiserations to Joan and say thank you for her husband and his work. I raise my glass in salute.

Resigned to my fate...

No rethinking then. A new organisational structure. No mention of terms such as regrading or promotion. No evidence of thoughts ever having touched on them. I notice both my old departments Serials and Document Supply have been renamed or submerged under different titles. My always-lurking paranoia questions whether perhaps my deafness has been factored into the move. That perhaps I have been found wanting in my customer care skills.
I move to St Georges Library in January (unless those lottery numbers come up first) and expect that life will go on. I will miss the team I have now - they have easily been the best team I have ever worked with. I came to Document Supply trying to find a way to deal with a fractured trust and a feeling that management had used me and exploited me. Being continually asked to do small extra tasks that might eventually give me a job description that would merit upgrading. The promise was dangled above me various times in Serials - new job title - extra responsibilities - but Pay and Reward rather failed to reward me.
Document Supply made me glad to go back to work, not because I believed the future was any brighter but because I loved the people I work with. Thank you for helping me. I wish we could continue.

Restructuring.... Feudalism

At this moment in time I am hoping for a re-think. For a miracle - for the forces of management to stop their meddling in people's lives and start considering their people. You know, those people, us, that they supposedly invest in, in order to get that plaque. The shield that has been carefully removed from the mezzanine level for safekeeping whilst our workplace becomes a building site.
Of course according to the latest rather vague plan under orders I might be deported off to another workplace come January. In management's version of consultation I have been offered either the job I do now in a different place or a job where I stay with my friends, my team, doing a job I have no desire for - and a hearing problem that makes it almost impossible to really do it well. I consider this offer further evidence that when it comes to consultation some levels of our organisation possess the man-management skills of Vlad the Cataloguer.
The culture of academia has long been considered more humanitarian than,for instance, industry and commerce but within its management framework there are still elements that view those ununionised days of toil and strife as the ideal world. Whilst the world of Trade downsizes, the planet Academia considers the merits of "cheaper, faster, better" and voluntary severance schemes. It pays lip-service to its slave labour, says thank you for building those pyramids with the payoff of Danish pastries and collages of melons but pay and reward is remarkably patchy. The workplace is placed under intolerable conditions. Floundering in a miasma of mahogany dust and accompanied by the rythym of decibel-rich diamond drilling we whinge and we work. Then the library staff cope. Its employees are willing to struggle but we would like to be able to use the experience we have accumulated. If I am separated from my team the University Library will still survive but the world will be less enjoyable particularly for me (and my friends I think). I don't suppose it really matters it just means that caring will become a little bit more difficult.

BBC Poetry

Although I dislike the way television governs people's actions (especially mine) I must admit to entering into a very difficult stage of the year. These next two months will find me stretched between the Ashes cricket and the Tour de France, but on top of these is a more peculiar return to an old love. It keeps me awake at night and it makes my eyes go glassy and write interesting phrases into a notebook. It isn't healthy like my love of running, or jogging, or sitting in an armchair eating doughnuts whilst watching cricket. Poetry. Perhaps it was just a combination of factors. Television programme about Eliot and Prufrock, tidying my attic and finding Stephen Fry's "Ode less travelled", and remembering an old friend Christina whose views on poetry depended on the use of rhyme. No rhyme equalled No Poem.

Stephen Fry was alternatively scathing about the belief that Poetry was easy to write because it didn't need to rhyme. He stresses the discipline of the different forms and the difficulty of finding the "write" word. I am intrigued by the fact that as a writer (of whatever quality) I can feel if a word is correct. I can feel that also there is a better word but, at this moment in time I can't remember it. Where does that word live ? Where does it come from ? How does it return ?

This "vocation" also fits in with that strange need to comment on whatever surrounds me. Whether in emails to friends and strangers alike. Whether in comments directed to my colleagues passing by an enquiry point in a deserted catalogue hall. Whether in those occasional times when I exchange diction for drawing and design. I am unsure as to whether I am some sort of detached observer whose failing ears have kickstarted some long-submerged literary and emotional turbine or whether the creativity virus has always infected me and gradually metamorphosed out of dormancy.

Whatever - I thank all those people who made it possible - BBC included (although I still begrudge them the licence fee) and will finish with a poem (as they say, defensively, a work in progress...)


On/Off : the rails

Background noise, loud-mouthed boys
Humming conversations.
Power games, shrill-voiced girls
Expressing complications.
Landscape moving, no-one watching
Visions craving patience.
Tram rails down, approaching town
Arriving platformed stations.
Mobiles waiting, appointments, dating.
Embarrassing situations.
Thinking, writing, avoiding fighting
All possible variations.
Riders dispersing, rarely conversing,
Alighting then into the silence.
Remarking in murmurs, remembering journeys
The walking, the driving, the distance.
Passengers roam, but the writer’s returning
Determined, believing in learning.
Inspired to try, not frightened to pry
In the sound of a voice gently yearning.

Twitterdom

All things considered.
Well, no. Not really. I never consider anything. I just do it (to quote an old advertising slogan). I don't understand it really but this glamorous woman said Do this - so I did. It is like all the other next big things ; Web 2, Wii fit, and other monstrosities moving rapidly from wow to old hat. All it served to do was to remind me that I ought to update some of the other last big things.
My blog, unnoticed by the entirety of humankind serves as a sort of diary to myself in which I hardly ever participate. Perhaps in that parallel universe where I run the world as a wise, benevolent and magnanimous dictator I actually do what I say I will.
Or maybe I won't.
The idea is that we are basically interested in what OTHER people are doing. Now. It's an "In the present tense" idea. How to track people. We used to call it stalking. Now it's described as social interaction. Following a succession of Status messages. Like the dylanologists used to study Bob's leftover Curry cartons to discover the meaning of life. Are we defined by what we say we do and what we say we are ? My dad, Christian to the last second believed that we are defined by what we do; by action. By deeds. I think he assumed Good deeds. If this is true and my current career and lifestyle in the library-world serves to define me then I am going to face a pretty boring recitation of my achievements at the Pearly Gates. Pete, er, well, I'd like to confess three major sins but want 8,000 renewals to be taken into account and I once offered additional support to a totally innocent bystander.
God (or the other one) will certainly have an archive. A dark shadowy place where shelvers fear to tread. I can see the management-speak as the red fiery horned one suggests doing a spot of shelf-tidying and we, taking it all on board, respond in the affirmative and trudge off into the corners of life's mysterious and modular shelving.
Anyway Status. Not waving but drowning.
...and you're not vile.

Old Age - Bucket Listing

I remember once hearing a definition of old age (or it might be of past-it-tedness) that from that one particular moment in time you suddenly realise you will very probably not sleep with anybody new ever again. This is not simply a question of fidelity and monogamy although both are relevant but more about the options that expand or contract as we move through life. Perhaps it is concerned with possibilities or probabilities and no-one accepts that individuals are guaranteed to never make a mistake, walk on the wild side or play away (pick your own euphemism) but it is seriously unlikely that the latest Hollywood starlet (that shows my age to begin with) will want to help me tidy my attic. Test cricket watching is not very likely to raise their temperature either (although Val for some strange reason thinks Andrew Strauss is cute; as she does Jason Statham although I suspect that impulse may originate from a different section of the cerebral cortex).

These concepts of shared interests and lifestyle compromises imply that even if our hero had a body like a Greek God then certain avenues of exploration were, shall we say, closing relatively quickly. Now in reality with a waistline like the Tropic of Capricorn and a hairstyle in which the term Fringe can no longer be deemed believable it would need something special to draw anybody to look at my etchings.

So attention mysteriously shifts to what we would like to do if our days were numbered and we knew it to be so. One possibility is to purchase all those books such as 1001 paintings to see before you die and use this as the guidebook towards self-satisfaction before destruction. Of course using a book means that the agenda is already set. In fact these are someone else's choices and reflect their tastes not necessarily yours. Indeed perhaps we should already have been working through the books year by year as we approached the heavenly terminus or you can cherry pick which parts you wish to partake of although you would risk being left thinking if only I'd had time to... The same goes for Albums you must hear (subdivided into a separate sister publication of 1001 Classical Recordings to also hear). The publishing boom continues; 1001 Historic sites to visit, 1001 buildings to see, 1001 Gardens to go to, 1001 Natural Wonders,1001 movies to watch, 1001 Paintings, 1001 foods to try and even bizarrely 1001 things to spot in Fairyland. All before you die. All those experiences and so little time. If you are not too tired by this strenuous activity on the borders of ultimate incapacitation then one could take a less structured response.

I do not drive so travelling down Route 66 won't work. I have no money so visiting the Pyramids of Giza or anywhere outside Sheffield city centre is unlikely. The most likely scenario is to buy the above-mentioned books and look at the pictures. But it doesn't quite fit the dynamic impact pattern that we are looking for. Therefore in terms of experiential learning ; sleeping with supermodels is out, travel and variety are out and that leaves only two potential shots at immortality left. The first is achieved already. All life's experiences might be waiting for Carrie, my daughter and her fame, power, glory, achievement all reflect on us, her parents. On the other hand if she descends into a life of sin and depravity then similarly that is also down to us. And then there was one.

The final act in one's life when all other options are spent is to indulge in a purely personal relationship with Art. It definitely does not guarantee lasting fame or wealth but it can be unique and immensely satisfying. To create Art. Creativity. Whatever the art is; from Abstract expressionism to Zoological illustration, from doodling in the margins to monstrous conceptual installations towering over the little ants below it. On my bucket list are two entries - to be happy and to create something that is mine. The two may go together (but they may not) and Art is, of course, a fickle mistress. Now that I am 50 I have served my apprenticeship. As the school report once said and paraphrasing it slightly Christopher's work is "not bad but could do much better". 1001 paintings to paint before you die. 1001 Virgins to deflower. 1001 attempts to read Ulysses. 1001 books copying the Da Vinci code formula. 1001 Muesli recipes. 1001 religions to offer the truth.

Art, literature, Creativity, Style ; They are all about making a mark on something. How and Why is up to the individual.

Investing in What....

Yesterday was the day my partner Val was turned down for a job she had really set her heart on. Experience had warned her repeatedly that to invest too much interest and enthusiasm on behalf of her employers could only lead to disappointment. However she ignored those quiet threatening noises and applied anyway. She put aside her cynical thoughts and sceptical attitude towards management and hoped for the best.

She was not even granted an interview. Kiss of Death.

An immediate explanation beyond a few mumbled phrases was not given and an email was sent inviting Val to contact Kiss of Death's secretary (who was on holiday) to set up a meeting. By pushing a personal visit Val was given no reasoning behind the decision making process because Kiss had not had time to prepare for a meeting with her.

One might think that is not so unusual or surprising but it was for a position within the organisation she already works for. At best it translates as a very poor response to a valued worker, particularly bad public relations to a place that claims to be investing in people, and absolutely destructive to a staff morale prone to the odd upheaval.

We await the final appointment to try to witness the hiring process at its best. We expect the appointee to show us why they were picked and another was not. We will try not to take it personally. But, the point is, that it is personal. And it hurts.

Couch Potato with extra Mayo

Summer is rapidly approaching and my trainers are starting to become noisy. They sit there on the shelf glaring at me and daring to suggest that just perhaps, once again, you ought to shift some of that lard from around your midriff. They are cruel but accurate. I swear my body still thinks it runs 35 miles a week and is storing this largesse in case of an impending famine. It isn't as if I don't feel guilty - I do and every night as my eyes try to find my toes I tell myself - I will run, I will get fit, I will shed this mysterious five stones that somehow has attached itself to me. Somehow ! I know how, the anchor that tightens my trousers seemingly by day and night, is a terrible disfiguring disease. Found more often in the United States it has nevertheless made its way to South Yorkshire. Fatbastard's Doughnutitis is a creeping sort of virus that sneaks up on you in the lunch and tea breaks of Test Matches - those 5 days you spend pinned in the armchair admiring the battle between bat and ball. And subtly, gently, session by session, you turn into a ball.

One is still able to appreciate Athleticism simply not perform it. I remember that first great sentence of "The Competitive Runner's Handbook" which said "You are an athlete" and at that time I believed it. Nowadays those PB days of 1.34 are long gone. In the last Sheffield Half Marathon I ran in it was over 3 hours until I finished. The stewards were dozing and failed to point me into the stadium, the medals were all gone and the following sweep bus spend the whole race trying to overtake me.
And now I want to run again. I have considered retirement but the thought of developing larger breasts than my partner is distinctly disturbing. After my kidney transplant I was so keen to run, presumably just because I always had done and was now not allowed to. I counted down the 90 days until I could run and I then did. Slowly. And I got slower. And I got fatter. Until now.

Now I aim to change this. To change the worst excesses of my debauched lifestyle. To cast away champagne and oysters, foie gras and melted toblerone (on cornish ice cream); I have divorced my doughnuts, discarded my Dime bars, pole-axed my pork scratchings. I know it will be difficult and I will not lament my pre-transplant times (1995) but set up a set of new criteria. I will run to smell the roses, to feel the wind on my face, to face the oncoming traffic, to fit into a size 38 waist once more. I will let you know how I get on.

Where are you ?

As I approach the half century and consider my impact upon the world (minimal) and the world's impact on me (monstrous) I lie awake at night and consider other more important questions. Will Sheffield Wednesday ever win the Champions League ? Will I ever lose those last few ounces to bring me back to my fighting weight (five stones to be precise) ? Will I find out where two of my school friends disappeared to ?
It is not urgent. I am simply curious. If they are hiding from the combined police forces of the Western world then I don't want them to give themselves up. I simply wonder. My friend Sam, possibly the finest full back since Skinner Normanton to destroy a ball-juggling Fleur-de-lys Ronaldo, finds a real faith in God and does his work in difficult conditions. But where are Michael Duerden and Jerome Clough ?

Michael, from Todmorden, out there in the badlands between Yorkshire and Lancashire was the bloke I always picked first in my footy team as I struggled to put a game together on those desolate Fylde coast Sundays.
Jerome was more of a mystery. Father something to do with Coca-Cola and Liberia but like Michael never mentioned in any Rossallian newspapers. I hope they have prospered and I really would like to know how they have got on with their lives. I have no intentions of appearing at their front door to reminisce about juvenile pranks or profound speculations about the merits of boarding schools (or their failings).

Out of all the people you know and talk with regularly where do thoughts like this come from ? Why these two boys/men - last seen in 1976 ? Why have their names floated back to me all of a sudden. If for instance my life was summarised as rapidly as possible it would read. University. Failed. Dole. Job. Thinking; temporary. Still there now. Clearly Permanent. Librarian. Married. Divorced. Kidney failure. Transplant. Val. Baby. Carrie. Now 11. Which brings me back to the impact of an individual and the connections that he or her makes around him. C. M. Duerden - Where are you ? J. Clough - Where are you ? Is it really a small world ?

Rossall School was a strange environment to grow up in. I always felt somewhat of an outsider and somewhat rebellious but always with the feeling that my idealism might be, after all, misplaced. I couldn't play the games which that world wanted then and I certainly have not since. I still wait for that Eureka moment when the world I inhabit now finally makes sense and I understand it. If I have found answers to questions they have come from the pages of a book. Answers balanced between interpretation and criticism but not essentially mine. I think I am still doing now what I did then. I act, I posture, I pretend, I look as if I am in control but I am not. And then suddenly I think in the midst of this middle age, in the dark of the night, I wonder Whatever happened to ....

Xanadu Thinking Processes.....

What I want. What I really really want is a Curriculum, a Reading List, a Prospectus which will direct my thinking and my reading for the rest of my life. It would obviously allow space for digressions or illogical rampages into alien territory or more esoteric tangents. It would supply direction and justification and would allow me to feel I was moving towards an indefinable purpose that someone or something had designed.

It is not as if my social life intrudes. Partying has never really appealed (even to my baser instincts). I think I was born old and I was born unsociable and my partial deafness has not made that any easier. I am not a joiner of clubs. I am a loner but a contented loner with a partner and a family (as opposed to the serial killer loner with a fridge full of body parts). Therefore when I tinkered with the idea of starting a running club (unofficially), just Colin (my brother) and I, in order to formalise our training I hit upon the name Xanadu. Since this was in essence a pretend club, a fantasy running club, Xanadu struck me as just the right name. This was probably based on a gentle admiration for the poem but also for the weird combination of letters in some bizarre scrabblesque thinking process. It did not inspire me to break into the elite fields of international athletics but I do still like the name. It denoted creativity and imagination and romanticism the upside of sweat and blisters. Now in my slovenly dotage the name has developed farther.
Indeed to the extent that if I ever developed a company (which I wouldn't want to) and they were marketing something or indeed anything then I imagine it would most likely be for a service or an educational use - a teaching process to enable a different style of learning or to empower an individual to comprehend a more varied set of experiences. It would be a kind of Creative Project management - a self help fix-it guide with a zenlike attitude to results and profit margins.
I see it all, life probably too, as a game.

With Xanadu thinking the world is in front of us we simply need to see it differently. To see it, according to Alan Fletcher - sideways.

Xanadu Thinking might be a range of tools, meditation or analytic tools which will help the individual towards the art of seeing Sideways. In 2008 this is the year that the magic number 50 will finally be reached. The half century. Halfway there or halfway gone. Glass half empty Glass half full. You pays your money and you makes your choice. Mortality first rings my doorbell. The first footstep is heard above.

Bookshops are filled with books listing 1001 films, books, gardens, paintings, places, natural wonders, to see before you die. As if living is merely observation or worse; a kind of metaphysical twitching where you tick the birds off in the cosmic birdbook before that great Ornithologist in the sky points his pigeon-shitted digit in your direction.

I am left again with the search for a reason. For a protocol to be governed by - for a posterity in which a memory may survive. For an inheritance that would be deemed worthwhile. For a rebirth, a renaissance of what makes living worthwhile and fulfilling. For Zanadu thinking. Incorporated.

January Blues... begging for it......

It is cold and grey outside and it feels cold and grey inside. The last payday was middle December and the next is the end of January. As expected that glorious feeling of space and time and freedom is replaced by the tightly repressed constriction of the working day. Hopes and dreams are reduced to a flickering candle-powered image like an early silent movie jerkily hopping from frame to frame in a sepia world of doom and gloom.

The unlikely possibilities of a windfall bequest from a wealthy relative or the miraculous jackpot of those six magic lottery numbers seem even farther away than usual (and they have never appeared very near). As my bank account hovers in those margins between black and red like the old Manchester City away kit the image of a fiscal desert dry and barren and dessicated floats through my mind. Insofar as it might help I have decided to grasp the bull market by the horns of a dilemma and whisper goodbye to my pride and my dignity.

Therefore I am making an appeal to anybody out there with a spare (I figured) eighty thousand pounds. An amount that I reckon that takes care of my mortgage, my bank loan and my credit card spending. Please notice that I am not seeking to retire from my current job nor am I wishing to indulge in the pamperings of luxury. I crave no Mediterranean rock upon which to bask nor an automobile to dazzle the roads of South Yorkshire. I desire only a freedom from debt and from worry. Constant worry.

I have decided to consider this as my approach to certain individuals such as Ms Paris Hilton or Ms Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, people who have suffered abuse at the hands of pundits, the press and certain portions of the general populace. Not because I particularly identify with them and have been personally villified but because such attacks offend my sense of fair play and decency. They are, in effect free individuals and can pursue their own dreams irrespective of what anybody else may see, say or think. I thought about Mr Bill Gates or whichever Mr Getty actually holds the purse-strings these days but I decided not to bother with them as their funds (albeit unlimited) may in fact be already allocated. Yes, this would and certainly will constitute an act of Charity but it would not represent a grand gesture or a publicity coup to anybody except myself and my family. The wishes of the donor would be paramount. I can definitely keep either a secret or hold a press conference. The choice is yours. I know this reads like one of those internet scams that seem to come from the needy third world based in the affluence of the free world but this is in essence simply, totally, genuine begging and I must admit I do not really expect any great success. In fact judging by the fact that I seem to be writing to an audience of one (myself) I expect no response at all (unless my schizophrenia worsens drastically).

My fingers are crossed (well, not actually because it makes typing difficult; they are only metaphorically crossed) and I await the flood of donations that might be heading my way. Obviously anybody is free to participate if they so desire - there is no sense of threat or intimidation involved, nor would I accept any personal gifts above the target of eighty thousand pounds (the overspill would be donated to the Northern General Hospital's Renal Unit). Once my mortgage was paid off and essentially my puny wage becomes disposable income (a phrase I have never used before) I feel that many more options would become available for us as a family which can only be for the better. I await the onset of a more relaxed and contemplative future.

A Work of Art

Heston Blumenthal's Christmas experience.



Christmas special: Wednesday 19 December, 8pm. BBC2.
Heston turned his attention to the biggest meal of the year, Christmas dinner, in this episode. His six guests all had one thing in common - a genuine love of food - and Heston's aim was to make them feel like children again, albeit with some very sophisticated tastes. When Terry Wogan, Kirsty Wark, Dara O'Briain, Rob Brydon, Richard E Grant and Sue Perkins arrived, they had no idea what to expect.

What they received was pure Art you could eat.

The Last Day...

...at work. With Friday off I can feel the bubbling optimism and joy sweeping through me. Christmas is marvellous but the greatest part is that I don't have to go to work. Yes I know that on January 3rd I will feel terribly depressed but that is in the future, far far away. At five o'clock this evening I hit the point where (apart from my annual Summer vacation) I have the maximum holiday in front of me.

Of course I assume I will be called upon (willingly I add) to do my share of sprout-peeling, toilet-cleaning and grocery-buying but my mood can be neither dimmed nor derailed. I tell myself I will dust my running shoes off, unpack my sketchbook and prepare my creative juices to explode into the vacuum. Usually it pans out to twelve days in an armchair stuffed full with calorific danger (me, not the armchair) with the only exercise being the lifting of the remote control to pause the sky plus whilst I do any business (pouring a drink) before returning to the cricket or the football.

I do without doubt, when faced by "spare time" always feel the urge to stretch my imagination, to write the great northern novel or paint the definitive study of Sheffield at dusk (or whatever). I know these desires are in there inside me struggling to manifest themselves. Even if they have not surfaced during the first 49 years it doesn't mean they might not suddenly escape. (image of Steve McQueen on his bike in "The Great Escape"). The truth is more likely to be that if I perform one task this holiday it will be to reduce the number of bookshelves surrounding the marital bed in the master bedroom. It feels like we are sleeping in a crowded, badly-designed Waterstones and I swear the books talk to me. I often will wake up and think where is that book, (for example, called Adam's Navel) governed by a totally irrational need to use this certain book and of course I can't find it. A reorganisation of reading matter would be helpful therefore to improve access to the books, to allow a deeper and more restful sleep (as being half-deaf I wouldn't hear the books talking in the night if they were in the attic), and to see what colour the wallpaper is (or was).

When I was at boarding school and I was longing for the holidays (and in a previous reincarnation of my current job when I was really, really unhappy) I use to create a chart to count down the hours until I would be free. When an hour went past I would tick it off (or colour the square in) first on a sheet of paper then on an excel spreadsheet (for recent bad times). Obviously overnight I would colour in an entire eight hours which make me feel far happier. This was not really born out of manic depression (although the citalopram does probably help) but rather from a sense of knowing that what I really wanted to do was not in that place but in a room of my own.

Therefore in these future twelve days (at present mercifully free from any extraneous commitments) my time is my own. Whether it is to write the Great Northern Novel or to paint the definitive study of Sheffield At Dusk (or whatever) these days seem to hold the possibility of promise. These twelve days also contain five lottery days, upon which numbers permitting, this delicious sense of freedom might (however unlikely) be extended even farther into the future. When I wake up I wake with the feeling of relaxed optimism. There will be no nausea of adrenalin surging through my body as I prepare to move through the days governed by management, by society, by convention or by pretence. Shackled by work and by fiscal famine (the necessity of one forcing the other) the day-to-day existence, the feudal servitude will be lifted for the holidays. For my twelve days of Christmas my motivations will be internal as opposed to external, ambitions genuinely fed by my perspective rather than anyone else's. I will arise and go and I will think "What shall I do today ?". The limitations are mine and I could ask for nothing more.

Getting it down on paper....

This is a probably futile attempt to organise my thoughts regarding all the creative ideas and concepts which make an impact upon me. How to structure what is thought or done or discarded should, in effect, when collected explain a great many of the complex narratives which in turn reveal the creative life of the individual. As a writer and artist whose initial drive is directed towards recording on paper and preserving for posterity (really ? he asks himself). In fact the intimate artistic history of impulse, impetus and imposition would definitely seem to make the base foundation of the examined life that of the Journal. Whether that can successfully record both stream of consciousness and external stimuli is a cunning plan born out of the mind of a collector and a creator.

How many of us lie awake at night with our brains fizzing with world-shatteringly brilliant dreams and need to write it down if only to grab some semblance of peace and quiet. Sometimes the idea is fine, sometimes it is rubbish but other schemes and schedules can easily develop out of this miasma of half-considered and semi-understood desires. If I had a copy of every doodle I had ever made or every quotation that ever attracted my attention, every book read and painting admired, every garden planned or rearranged would it help the process of creating art. I tend to regard every artistic or creative endeavour as being in some way linked. I like to keep archives of photographs that carry meaning. Imagery from magazines that arrests my attention. The thousands of volumes in my library that serve as a repository of reference material. I hoard pebbles, rocks, pieces of driftwood; all with colours and textures that for some reason have found a place in which to rest. The link between these collections and the creation of new art may possibly be argued for and be supportable (even if not immediately self evident) but the average person on the street who demands a "use" for an item might well be baffled.

The struggle towards creativity however has little to do with the concept of "average" and as in so many struggles what is most obvious is the confusion. It is in order to access the individual strands that combine intellectually, psychically, spiritually and even physically to create an artistic anything that I try to anatomize the elements of my own individuality. Yes it is self-absorbed but it looks both ways inwards and outwards. I am looking for connectivity between areas of interest and searching for the alliances between images collected and concepts explored. It is both academic and emotional moving between differing disciplines and entering into the shadows of areas not so seriously studied. Out of this navel-gazing and creative-stalking of myself I hope and aim to find out more about who I am and what I can do. If it reflects other elements of the environment that has designed me then so be it but this is a personal pilgrimage with all the overtones which that term can carry. To find the crux of creativity can bring both angst and absolution. To discover an intimacy of identity can forge either integration or isolation. To listen to the voices in your head and by mapping those personal perspectives you may begin to find a series of different directions in which to travel. The process is in the Journey.