Gazing thoughtfully at a painting by Jenny Saville, I am struck by the thought that in some parallel universe the subject of the painting, a girl, could be gazing thoughtfully at a painting of me.
It's these kind of astounding and ground breaking thoughts I have viewing art that keep me coming back to galleries. It's not the art itself. No, not the art. It's about my interpretations and the thought processes I have which are merely stimulated by the art.
When are these artists going to realise it's all about me?
Today I went with Ben to pick up his new car tax disc. I didn't have to, but I had offered and he had accepted. It's the sort of thing one would normally do alone but, being a Friday, I had a bit of time to kill. Moreover, since getting rid of my Punto I've missed the many joys of car tax purchasing.
I was really looking forward to discussing with Ben whether he was going to go for six or twelve months tax. Alas, he had already made that decision when I met him - pre-ticking the six month box, which, incidentally, would have been the box I'd have recommended.
At least I would have the pleasure of seeing how Ben approached communicating with the post office cashier.
Options are:
a) Approach window and announce 'I'd like to pay for my car tax please' whilst passing the relevant papers through. It feels quite an unnatural and formal approach and one that is not particularly popular in West Oxfordshire.
b) Approach window, say a simple 'hello' whilst passing papers through. My usual tactic.
c) Approach window, pass the papers through and mutter 'There you go'. An arrogant method.
d) Approach window with a broad smile and a quip such as 'Oo It's that time of year again' before passing papers through.
e) Approach window and whilst passing papers through deliver an awful gag such as 'If I slip you seventy quid under the window and you slip a tax disc back then I'll have a slipped disc. DO YOU HEAR ME AT THE BACK OF THE QUEUE, I SAID I'D HAVE A SLIPPED DISC.'
Sadly as we entered the post office I received a phone call from O2 and subsequently missed Ben's cashier exchange.
Ah well, I still had the pleasure of discovering which colour the new tax disc was going to be. But, would you believe it, at the very moment when he walked towards me with his new disc I was struck down with colour blindness. Inexplicably, Ben contracted lock jaw at the very same moment and thus was unable to tell me what colour it was.
The whole outing had become a bit of a damp squid. My only consolation is at least Ben went for the six month option. Otherwise I'd have to wait a full year for another chance to experience the joys of car tax purchasing.
Whilst on a countryside jaunt I called up two friends, one a singer/songwriter, one a photographer, and left voice messages pretending to be an American agent called Lionel Fuckface.
Acting as Lionel, I offered the singer/songwriter a Festival headline slot on a Scottish island and the photographer a one-day exhibition at a top San Francisco gallery. Both fictitious offers were for the 25th of December (Christmas day) and both involved them being paid a shed load of money and crack-cocaine on tap. As much as they wanted of both money and crack-cocaine.
Neither friend replied. Lionel will be taking his offers elsewhere in the future.
Festivals change lives. It was a festival that changed the life of the female lady woman massaging me today at Wildnerness Festival. In between my awful puns she tells me she was at a festival (Glade) when she decided (thought process resulting in action) to jack in (give up) her job (corporate something or other) and become a masseuse.
Similarly, it was after a festival (Glastonbury) that I decided (thought process resulting in action) to take Fridays off work (graphic design - 12% off for nice people) and write a book (Man Friday - unpublished) about it.
However, why I've decided (thought process resulting in action) to suddenly overuse brackets (marks of punctuation used to interject text within other text) is a real mystery (something unexplainable that Inspector Morse/Batman/Scooby Doo tries to sort out).
Outdoors at night, in a wood, by a roaring fire. The perfect situation for a bit of storytelling. But what to tell? I don't really know any stories, apart from the one about the couple that break down on a shady lane and get into a whole load of shit with a mental man.
Instead I make one up as I go along about a Lincolnshire Penguin who bunks off work and convinces his seal friend to cancel a day with the in-laws to accompany him on a road trip to the Norfolk coast where they end up spontaneously swimming to Holland. There's a hilarious bit where they stop off at Peterborough services and, without telling each other, the seal buys a Penguin chocolate bar and the penguin buys a CD by Seal.
I'm thinking of doing a sequel tomorrow night where they hitch back on a boat owned by Rick Wakeman. Rick doesn't feature. He just happens to own the boat but I think it will definitely give the narrative added interest.
