Big Dave

Big Dave arrived. He brought with him a bottle of M&S Islay single malt whisky. He was not unwelcome.

I summoned up my most creative kitchen mode and made a pasta dish of wholemeal penne with smoked bacon, onions, garlic, celery, plum tomatoes, a few sliced black olives, chilli, a pinch of thyme, a bit of chicken stock and a couple of teaspoons of anchovy sauce. It was grand, even if I say so myself, and Big Dave, who puts himself forward as something of a Big Man in the Kitchen, was interested in the two teaspoons of anchovy essence which had lent the dish a piquancy he had not been able to identify.

"Oh, just a passing reference to puttanesca," I posed.

Smoky bacon and anchovy essence being the salty elements they are, we resorted to making sure there were two empty spaces in the red wine racks in the kitchen. And then we had to find out if the M&S whisky was any good (it most definitely was), but not before we'd done a mutual sampling of an interesting sloe whisky I picked up last month.

And so to bed, grateful that we'd not wasted our time buying drink in the pub.

Venice

Venetian Wall (Oil on canvas, 40 x 40 cms)

I went to Venice for a week in 1997. This painting was one of the results of that trip and I've wanted to go back ever since. Earlier this year, I sold a picture for a decent price, so Patsy123 and I decided it was time to go back, this time for two weeks.

These are just some thoughts I wrote down shortly after our return

Venice was everything I remembered and more. I think I could happily live there. Even the heavy rain we got in the last couple of days didn't put me off. Indeed, while Buddy K and his wife were with us for a few days, we were hatching a plot to go back for a visit in the Winter (of some unspecified year).

The little bridges over the canals showed up a minor disadvantage of roller-cases. "These damn bridges," said an exasperated American tourist. "Why didn't they just build everything on the same level?" By which I guess she meant they should have raised the ground level by at least twenty feet - this, in a city where the ground level is already supported on piles driven into mud.

We wandered for hours every day, side-tracked by little alleys that might lead to a dead-end or a canal, but could just as easily open out into a delightful little campo, with kids playing in the pools of rainwater.

The Jesuits were not popular in Venice during the Republic, but when they were eventually given more permanent status, they really pushed the boat out in building their first church there - Gesuiti. It's the most vulgar palace of kitsch imaginable. They coated the entire inside with green and white marble, inlaid so as to look like the finest curryhouse flock wallpaper. And the balconies have huge swags of drapery all carved from green and white marble. The weight of all this grandiosity means that the church has suffered from subsidence ever since

Looking at paintings took up a greater part of the trip this time.

The Peggy Guggenheim is always worth a visit - Max Ernst's "Robing of the Bride," Picasso's "On the Beach" and Robert Motherwell's "Personage," to name but three I was glad to see again.

And the great collection in The Accademia. Amongst the many treasures there, of course, is Paolo Veronese's "Feast in the House of Levi" which eventually inspired a Monty Python (or was it Secret Policeman's Ball) sketch

But this time, ah this time I got to see the Tintorettos. After a spell-binding time with Titian's "Assumption of the Virgin" in the Frary, we went round the corner to the Scuola Grande di San Rocco. Blimey. After agreeing to the contract for the first painting there, Tintoretto (who,incidentally, is alleged to have been able to tell the difference between forty different reds) accepted a commission to spend his life filling the place with yet more. There are somewhere around sixty pictures by him .And all of them breathtakingly daring in their use of composition, perspective and light.

I like the description in The Rough Guide of the first picture to greet you as you enter (although it was painted in later life):

The tempestuous 'Annunciation', with the Archangel crashing into the room through Joseph's shambolic workshop, trailing a tornado of cherubim...

... scaring the life out of Mary who was getting on with her sewing. You can see the picture here.

The trip was not without its mishaps. I'd completely forgotten about the Mosquito Menace, and was bitten rather badly before we could get to a pharmacy to buy preventative measures and oils and unguents. Even with those, however, they got to me, and I do tend to respond rather unfavourably. As a result of a bite on my finger, I woke up in the middle of the night with a hugely swollen finger and a signet ring inclined to cut off the blood supply. I managed to keep it from turning blue, but had to find a jeweller the next day who could cut off the ring for me

A couple of days later, I woke up with my face badly swollen on the left side. Took two or three days for the swelling to go down with the aid of yet more stuff from the pharmacy and I was forced to go round with what, in my childhood days, would have earned me the ultimate insult - a fat fyess.

Later in the holiday, I evidently let one of the little buggers get up my right trouser leg when out to dinner. The next day I had 8 bites on the leg which gradually developed into coffee-saucer sized scarlet areas of painful itch

Despite all of this, I never wished I was anywhere else. One day we went to the Lido to look at some rather neglected Art Nouveau houses. Within minutes of getting there, we were pissed off with the automobile traffic and yearning to getting back to Venice itself where you can wander about and never think of getting run over.

Oh, and just about everything else. One night, the four of us went to a concert in Chiesa San Vidal in Campo San Stefano. Given by a group called Interpreti Veneziani who performed Vivaldi's Four Seasons, a Mozart piece and Folies d'Espagne by Marin Marais. It was splendid -- especially the Four Seasons, each of which were led in turn by one of the four violinists; and the Marais, when the cellist took centre stage and played the cello with every inch of his body, flinging his sweat-soaked long hair at the audeince

And then there were the bottles of Prosecco, glasses of spritz with Campari, plates of fegato, bowls of fish soup overflowing with mussels, clams, prawns, squid, and langoustine, excellent grilled sea bream, buns and pies, the fun of travelling everywhere by vaporetto, and above all, helpful pleasant people who never seemed to feel it was more than their job's worth to help where they could

I can't wait to go back

A Day at the Lake

On Sunday, Providence sent respite from pages of accounts and worries about the Felting Lads, in the form of a camper van full of Patsy123 and her friends from London.

The weather could hardly have been better, so after the obligatory visit to stand at the feet of Gormley's Angel of the North, we headed off into deepest Durham, ending up at the Derwent Reservoir.

It's years since I've been to the Reservoir. It used to be a favourite of my parents. They'd wait until a Bank Holiday came along, then join the other motorists filling the little roads up into the hills of County Durham. Never could see the point, and the Reservoir held little attraction for me then.

But now I'm older and perhaps a little wiser, and there's a great deal of fun to be had laying out a picnic of pasta salad, green salad, prawns with a sweet chilli dip, some crusty bread and a couple of bottles of red wine.

And even more fun in wandering down to the edge of the water where the beach of millstone grit gives way to rather sticky mud. We added to a small pile of stones someone had left there until we had our own Andy Goldsworthy, then carried back on our shoes rather more of the mud than we might have liked.

After driving from the Reservoir to the campsite at Acomb where Patsy123's friends were staying, we walked to the nearest pub. It was one of those country pubs which seem to be stuck in a time warp; forever 1950. Fizzy beer, no food and a box of Liebfraumilch.

But it was a beautiful evening, so we sat with our fizz at a table outside and watched the sky dim.

No sunset to speak of but I assured Patsy123's friends that they could look forward to another gorgeous day the following morning.

RAgbag

I got into London on Monday with enough time to take in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, though humping my bag through hot and sweaty London streets, given my current limp, was not a lot of fun.

I can't say the Exhibition was a lot of fun, either, though it had its moments. The usual ragbag really, but the Academicians seem to be taking over the place. Considering the show was set up to allow open submissions from the country, it pisses me off when the RAs decide to load it with their own works and invite "Honorary" RAs from abroad to show too.

There were the expected delights in the Small Weston Room, where very small pictures by your average Joe are skied alongside better-known names like Craigie Aitchison and Jane Corsellis.

The Large Weston Room was also good, being given over to prints as usual. It always fascinates me to see which subjects are given the long line of red dots treatment. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to see more red dots on an etching of a cute grey seal than on a colossal woodcut of Zeppelins attacking London.

In Gallery V David Mach had found a good use for hundreds of postcards of the Clotheshorse Princess. He'd cut up lots of Diana postcards, as well as others depicting fruit, grapes etc, and collaged them all together to form a reclining nude called "Princess."

Tom Phillips presented a typically idiosyncratic arrangement of 40 sheets of Minutes from RA meetings on which he'd doodled quite exquisitely.

Drawing seems to be making a comeback. Gallery VI was stuffed with them, many very good indeed. I don't include in this the two Tracey Emin monoprints of quite extraordinary ineptitude. I begin to think she may be dyslexic. But as Patsy123 puts it, while dyslexia should not be a barrier, it should also not be an excuse for lack of ability. Anyone unknown presenting such dross would have no chance of having it accepted.

Emin's crap was more than made up for by a beautiful Dennis Creffield charcoal drawing of Skenfrith Castle, Alessa Avelino's New York Drawing 1, Mary Fedden's two unfashionably precise pencil drawings, and On the Moors, a lovely poetic semi-abstract landscape in pencil, acrylic, oil stick and chalk by Victoria Petterson-Turner.

Too much to go into in any more depth. There was a huge polychrome sculpture of an owl in one gallery. Must have been 15 feet high. "No dear," said one deaf old lady in a loud voice to her equally deaf old friend, "it wouldn't go in my sitting room."

Anthony Whishaw, whose work I've always looked forward to, disappointed me by producing pictures in what I took to be simply black and white acrylic. Then Patsy123 pointed out how he'd painted over a heavily textured red underlayer which gave a fascinating effect apparently Not to my red/green defective vision, unfortunately.

There was some kind of function on that night, so we were thrown out at 5.30.

Time to shuffle and drag ourselves through the crowds outside to a pub with no beer, where we'd arranged to meet the Big Dave, True Rat, Buddy K and Suzie Sue. The Expected Welshman wasn't able to make it. Then on to an excellent meal at a Turkish restaurant. Lamb shanks all round, despite True Rat's suggestion that it might be Cockney rhyming slang for something offensive.

Jack me into the broadband and pass the stem cell toffees......

Torquil, Oil on board

You can't beat it, can you, a good night of amiable conversation and argument over an enjoyable meal?

Patsy123 is up from London again so we spent the afternoon wandering round the shops in town, just mooching. I bought another ludicrously expensive colour cartridge for my HP710c and Patsy123 found out the carpet she has on order for Tynemouth is gonna take another 4 to 5 weeks. I came off best.

And then it was time for another meal out. Can I afford it? Like hell. Should I stop? Like hell. This time it was an old favourite - for me at least - Paris Texas. It's an old student hangout in St Mary's Place; cheap and cheerful. If you stick to what they do best, like pizza, pasta or vaguely Tex-Mex stuff, you'll do fine. If you push the boat out and opt for something like grilled tuna steak, you'll be making a big mistake (won't you, Buddy K?)

The food was excellent, anyway. In fact I'm tempted to think they've got a new chef - they've definitely got some nice new bistro-style tableware. Must remember, also, to tell Will Barrow that there seems to have been a sufficiently large turnover of staff to maybe make it safe for him to go back again.

As the pretty good house red loosened my tongue, I found I was talking myself out of what Eric Maisel would call a meaning crisis. With some effort on my part, it may be that I should channel my efforts into a slightly different meaning container.

And what meaning container might that be, I hear you ask. Well, no, I don't hear you ask anything of the sort, of course, because you probably haven't the faintest idea what I'm talking about, so I'll ask it for you.

"What meaning container might that be. Mr Zip?"

Why, thank you for asking. I'll tell you. One of the strands running through my thoughts for some time, has been an urge to do some figurative painting. I spent years doing cartoon figures and all the while wanted to do figure paintings. When I finally got to painting, what did I do? Don't worry, these are all rhetorical questions. I began painting townscapes with no figures in them whatsoever.

In the last year or so, perhaps as an expression of my need to make and keep contact with people, figures have started to walk into my pictures. In ones or twos at first; in crowds later on.

But I've been trying to make sense of my attraction to certain kinds of figure painting. It's not a school to which one might attach oneself. The painters are as apparently diverse as Stanley Spencer, Paula Rego, Alan Feltus, Carel Weight, Balthus and Hopper (you'll have heard of him?)

In his foreword to a 1998 exhibition, Jeffrey Carr, the Curator, has this to say:

Embodied Fictions is an exhibition of twelve nationally known realist painters who use the figure to create fictionalized worlds. These paintings demonstrate the power of painterly figuration to embody content. The quality of embodiment relies on the depiction of visual appearances to create fictional worlds, in the way a novel or film can make an invented situation seem "real". This use of the figure is distinct from the way a modernist might use the figure for a purely formal exploration, or the way a postmodernist might use the figure as a cipher, a sign or a decorative symbol to generate content.

I think this, and his even more interesting essay, may be enough to point me in the right direction. "Go for it," said Patsy123, and she's often right.

But she wasn't right, I felt, when we later turned our attention to an argument about the current proposals for human embryo cloning. I'm much too tired to cover the ground of the entire argument - and it was a proper argument, not simply a difference of opinion - but basically I came down on the side of support for stem cell research, broadband connections for nursing homes and colonies on Mars (I think if you're going to have an argument, you should be wide-ranging). I ventured that science, research and technology are the only things which will get us out of the hole we're very likely digging even now. That they may have got us into it in the first place is irrelevant.

Patsy123's arguments tended to be more like reservations about the fallout from technology. Really, she's been reading too much Oryx and Crake. If Margaret Atwood would simply admit she's writing science fiction, I'd have a whole lot more time for her.

I think I played my masterstroke by telling Patsy123 that she was arguing from a position of a glass half-empty, while mine was half-full. She doesn't like to think her glass is half-empty. If I hadn't seen her opposition wilting, I'd have played my trump card (what kind of game requires strokes and cards?):

Anything the Conservative Right Wing Bloody Moral Majority in America are against must be OK.

I rest my case.

And my weary body.

Venus & Madonna

Ford Castle grounds (sketchbook, coloured conte)

Venus successfully completed its Transit of the Sun today. I suppose there never was any doubt that it would do so. However, the Weatherman had given me similar assurances that I would have no difficulty in viewing same, while I could expect to sit about being scorched on the hottest day of the year.

Round about 9 o'clock this morning, the skies over Stately Zip Mansion did their best to conceal the fact of the Sun, let alone the Transit, by putting on a thrilling display of black rainclouds. Lightning flashed and the accompanying crashes of thunder set off every car alarm in the street. That was Venus done for the day. Still, I saw it on the telly, didn't I, so that's alright.

We did get to the Alnwick Garden, however.

And what a mixed blessing that was. The Phase 1 Cascade is fine, the biggest in the country. But almost everything else is a sea of mud, concrete and noise. Dumper trucks jockeyed for position with elderly grey-haired ladies, most of them in wheelchairs. Down from Scotland in big charabancs, I trust the ladies didn't feel cheated.

I don't know how the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland - for it is their Garden - have the nerve to charge full price (£4.00) for permission to come in and have a cup of tea on a building site.

Except that they have the nerve for anything. The Garden is being built with £50m of Lottery money, which might sound OK until you realise that it's not a public garden, it's their land, their garden, and the public have to pay to get in.

And lest we forget, the public had to stump up £22m for the Madonna of the Pinks this year to stop the public-spirited Duke from flogging it to the Getty Museum.

Putting aside such socialist-inspired carping, however, there were small moments and places today of real pleasure.

Sheltered from the rather cold breeze, we found a handy wooden bench next to a circular pond and yelled at one another over the roar and gurgle of the fountain in the middle of it. And there CJ produced her picnic, splendid as usual. Poached salmon with Bearnaise sauce, potato salad, spicy couscous, green salad, washed down with my contribution, a bottle of Chardonnay.

Oh, and a special word for the ornamental garden and its attendant gardener, full of tales of heavy cow manure mulches and liquid manure feeding. Unfortunately, the delphiniums were only just opening and most of the roses were not yet in bloom. Suckers for punishment, we may well go back when the roses are out, and give His Grace some more money.

In the heat of the night.....

Believe me, I should be in bed now, not tapping the old keyboard. But suddenly I felt I had to keep up the pretence of blogging every day.

So just a few lines about the day just gone.

I saw Patsy123 off at the station. Through the window of the carriage I could see her arguing with a passenger who was evidently in her seat. Tickets were compared. I did my utmost not to smirk as she then shuffled back down two carriages to what was actually her seat. She told me later she'd tried to sit in the seat shown on her ticket to Newcastle, rather than that on the return ticket.

I know smirking is wrong and most ungallant - indeed, in Eshington, it's even bad for your health - but sometimes one cannot help a smirk stealing over the Zip features. I made up for it by smiling in an extra-winning fashion and waved at least twice as the train pulled out.

Other than that, well, it was a Do Nothing kind of day. I bought some acrylic primer and lugged it home, but couldn't quite summon up the energy to do anything with it.

I checked out the Martock Beans in their Enclosure and watered them, but am concerned with their definite dwarfness. Pinching out the tops in accordance with my Bumper Fun Book of Broad Bean Etiquette seems not to have produced the desired result. They are definitely not bushing out.

I thought for a while I heard a snigger from somewhere nearby, but realising that sniggering is an ungentlemanly thing to do, coming higher than smirking on the List of Unpleasant Traits, I knew I must be mistaken.

A ham sandwich and a cup of revitalising tea, replete with guarana and acerola, were sufficient to send me instantly into an afternoon zizz, and after that, well, Do Nothing indeed.

But tomorrow, I must be up bright and early. In addition to the Transit of Venus, there's the Garden at Alnwick to see. More later.....

Notes from a Sick Bed

Not wishing to dwell on my near-death experience (AKA my cold), but it has kinda dried up my creative juices. Not only that, but I haven't felt up to doing much, so blogfodder hasn't come my way.

On Thursday, the Frootbat and I collected some of my pictures from the Biscuit Factory. Then, over a coffee back at Stately Zip Mansion, we exchanged our views on the increasingly cluttered Zip living room, bloggery, and loss of memory. I'm sure we touched on more, but.....loss of memory.

Later that day, I met Patsy123 in town. After a pint in the Bacchus we ate in Pani's again. Another good meal (lotsa chilli!). Then we went home. Then we had our Bourbon. Then we went to bed.

Apart from a bit of desultory grocery shopping, and a lot of hacking coughery, I didn't do much on Friday, other than finally get the solicitors to complete on my remortgage. Which is a good thing, in view of today's letter from the old lender, saying they're putting up the monthly payment by a tenner. I fart in their general direction.

I know going to bed early is always a good way to recuperate, but I did notice there was a serial killer movie on Channel Five last night. Classic Kill starred Molly Ringwald as a classical music radio DJ, stalked by a serial killer who kept knocking off people who'd offended her with bad reviews or radio rivalry. There was some romantic involvement with a rather forgettable and unattractive cop with an angular face and dirty-looking designer stubble. There were numerous, fairly obvious red herrings and no way to guess who the stalker might be because he wasn't introduced until the last ten minutes.

Worst of all, the killer got rid of his victims with a poisoned bottled of expensive red wine. Did they writhe? Did they scream? Did their eyes pop? Did they fuck! They just looked a little surprised and keeled over. If you're going to do a serial killer movie, you really do have to have an element of the Baroque. Think Se7en. Think The Bone Collector. Bloody hell, think The Abominable Doctor Phibes!!

Socks or Curry?

According to the Editorial in La Petite Zine, this is the remedy for a head cold:

Soak a pair of cotton socks in a bowl of ice water. At the same time, soak your feet in a basin of hot water (not scalding, but hot as you can take if you want to intensify the process, take a hot bath). Once your entire body heats up (a little bit of sweat on your upper lip may act as your timer), remove your feet from the basin (or your body from the bath, in which case, towel off immediately and get into your
pajamas). Do the following in quick succession: remove the cotton socks from the ice water and put them on your feet; put on a dry pair of wool socks over the wet cotton socks; get immediately into bed, under sufficient covers, and stay there for 8 hours. Ideally, you should complete this process at night, and go directly to sleep. You will wake completely cured. At very least, you will wake with a clearer head. It works.

So it's ice cold socks versus a hot curry and a lot of whisky. I know where my vote goes.

Tonight, I have been eating mostly potato and leek soup with added chilli followed by oranges and a banana. Rounded out by a small yoghurt, not apricot. There was a pear and a glass of fino as an apperitif, and later this evening, the bottle of Bourbon will be wrung out. Socks? Didn't even bother to put any on.

Don't jerk me off!

Aaaargh! Just got back from collecting my mum's pension at the Post Office. I suppose I should be grateful for the continued existence of a Post Office hereabouts, but this one always pisses me off. They started out as newsagents, and until they shrugged their shoulders in a "Not my problem" kind of way when I complained they hadn't delivered The Observer, I gave them my business.

Then they started to stock groceries; bread, soup, microwaveable pasta, dog food, that kind of thing. This seemed totally unnecessary in view of the close proximity of a KwikSave which stays open until 8 o'clock at night. It just looked like greed and a wilful desire to drive the few remaining little shops out of business.

Then they took over the Post Office business. Rampant commercialism.

But none of this prepared me for today's horror. And this time it wasn't even of their doing. They simply provided the theatre for the appearance of....

...a packet of dog food called JERKY'S.

So what, you may ask? (And I wish you would.) At first, I thought nothing of it. But then a creeping doubt came over me, and while the queue stood still waiting for a dear old soul at the counter to finish the tale of her husband's dentures, I reached out and picked up a packet of JERKY'S.

And of course, they actually bore the brand name Pointer. They were actually Pointer's JERKY'S with game. Next to them were some Pointer's DOGSTICKS with chicken.

My blood froze.

You see where I'm going with this? This may well be the first example of a commercial product on which the superfluous apostrophe appears in the name. Obviously they should be Pointer's JERKIES!

Western Civilisation continues its collapse. We each begin to talk in our own individual language. Babel is upon us.

Don't tell me it doesn't matter. Don't tell me I'm aping Lynne Truss. Not so. It does matter. If they're called JERKY'S, I'm entitled to ask, "JERKY'S what?" And there isn't an answer.

By god, it feels good to get that off my chest. Off to the Old Farts' Club now, for a pink gin.

Hot News!

While helping CJ get rid of the Too Much Work Blues (ah, how I remember those) at the Sicilian restaurant, Pani's, tonight, I found myself with a face full of buccatini and no-one to talk to cos she'd gone to the loo. Looking up I found I was watching the "Hit Channel" on some Italian broadcast service. While a guy rattled on incomprehensibly over a video of some squawking bimbos, a banner ran across the bottom of the screen. If my Italian hasn't totally failed me, it seems Zak Starkly (sic), son of Ringo Star (sic) has joined Oasis and makes his debut with the English band at Glastonbury. Not hot news, huh? Do I care? Naah. I think it'll take more than Zak Starkly to pull their chestnuts out of the fire.

[Chestnut cliche provided by Over the Moon Services]

Blokeish Behaviour

The funeral on Saturday went with a real swing. I exaggerate, of course, but frankly I don't think there were too many people there who found the passing unexpected. The younger son had even opted for a fresh Spring approach of light grey strides and a striped Tie of Many Colours. Me? I put my earring in and spent some time talking art bollocks to various interested parties. There was a distinct lack of alcohol at the reception afterwards, perhaps because it was so early in the morning, but the buffet was more than adequate. As I left, I was invited to take a doggy bag, but the awful vision of the noxious couple of freeloaders described in Raised by Chaffinches came to mind, and I declined.

After that, it was into town to see buddies. In the relative calm of Fitzgeralds, I found Buddy K, Big Dave, Will Barrow and the Frootbat, well into a round. I say "relative calm," but in the Toon, all things are relative. Throughout the afternoon, groups of drinkers came and went, with varying amounts of noise. There were the usual gaggles of Fat Slags, giggling and snorting, their tattoos and navel rings on display between the skimpy bits of expensive cloth. Some were accompanied by more sedate blokes, dressed in their finest old jeans with their shirt tails hanging out. Mostly shaven-headed, they exuded Cool, as they puffed on their fags and followed on behind their impressive beer-bellies.

By the time we'd had several disagreeable pints of anything but the even more disagreeable Workie Ticket, and the Frootbat had destroyed the reputation of Islam yet again, we were joined by the women, Suzie Sue and the Apologist. They were carrying a four foot clipped yew tree, which went down well in the pub, and continued to be a source of local entertainment for the remainder of the evening. Almost as entertaining as the Apologist's new uppypusher bra, judging by Big Dave's reactions.

Diabetes and rumbling stomachs called for food, so leaving the Frootbat, we went off to Marco Polo's, where the tree was again well-received. Apart from the chairs, which seemed to be designed for the nursery and paid no heed to the concept of the human back, we had a good time, oiling the wheels of conversation with red and white wine. No, not red-and-white. Red. And white.

What else was there to do after that, but hit the Quayside and sink a few sambuccas at the Pitcher & Piano. Multiple sambuccas have become something of a tradition with Suzie Sue, but I guess I'm coming to the conclusion that one is probably enough. I think she was pleased to have her tree photographed there, though, but tried her best to be out of shot. I assured her that modern cameras would easily have included her with the tree.

"I hate to think that when I'm in my flat," said Buddy K, "that the Pitcher & Piano will be my local." I could appreciate that, so suggested that it might be worthwhile checking out the pubs downriver by the Ouseburn. The Tyne proved a blessing. It's one of those pubs I've never been in before, because in the days when I used to drink round there, it was an S & N pub with no real ale, but now it's excellent. Real ale aplenty, good bluesy music and a lot of live bands playing there several nights a week. My only reservation was that, dressed as I was for the funeral, I did feel a little out of place. I'd have felt better with a woolly hat and a dog on a piece of string.

By then we were euphoric. Scrambling about on muddy shrub-shrouded steps in a fine drizzle, we climbed up to the Free Trade Inn. Which was even better than the Tyne. Good beer, wonderful nicotine yellow walls which any interior designer would give his matching shirt and tie for, and a gents toilet covered in the most eloquent and original graffiti. "When the doors of perception have been cleaned, then we shall see the truth!" "These would be glass doors then?"

On Sunday, I did nothing.

Bean there, done that.

The trip to Leeds went off very well. Everything comes to he who waits, it seems. Will Barrow phoned to say that his licence had been reinstated, so he was able to drive me to the gallery with the five pictures. We got a little lost round about Weatherby, but that simply entailed driving through English countryside roads arrayed in glorious Spring finery, before hitting the road to Leeds again. No hardship there, and sunshine all the way.

The sky got a little miserable and wet nearer Leeds, but the journey back showed how splendid is the Tyneside area for its constant sunshine. Anyway, the pictures were well-received at the gallery and after a little quibbling over the price for one of them, I have some expectation of sales. This would certainly be a Good Thing, according to my most recent bank statement.

So there it was, a pleasant drive without surprises. Unless you count the beans Will Barrow brought me. Bean plants, that is. He tells me they are Special Beans. I know he spends a lot of his time going to markets in the area, but I don't think he ever had a cow to trade for beans, so.....what kind of Special might they be? They came with Special instructors, but I was too tired to read them when I got back.

Instead of going to the Scottish gallery preview at night, I picked up a pepperoni pizza and a bottle of £2.99 Hungarian Kekfrancos Merlot (don't try this at home - it was ghastly!) and did some comfy chair crashing. Despite the quality of the wine and my falling asleep towards the end of the evening's serial killer movie, I felt that, all in all, it had not been a bad day.

Who ate all the pies?

By the time I came out of the dentist's, I was really hungry. I'd deliberately not eaten before going and the Nurse Counsellor hadn't helped by rattling on about how much she'd just enjoyed her ham sandwich for lunch. So imagine my delight when I got on the Metro and found myself opposite a man with a big bag marked Greggs. He proceeded to wolf down a huge pasty, crumbs falling all over the place. Then out came a French bread pizza. More crumbs. More gusto. Then another French bread pizza. There was no slackening of pace, no thoughts of "Isn't this enough?" crossed his face. Only more crumbs. At last he finished the second pizza....only to pull out a Kingsize Chunky Kit Kat and ram it in in huge pieces. No, no, I thought there can't be anything left in the bag. But there was: a double Twix.

Far from feeling hungry, by now I was mostly nauseous. And the bloke was such a skinny little dude. Where did it all go? Maybe to feed a colossal intellect? In a mood of crumb-bedecked contentment, he pulled out the last thing in his bag. It was a pristine pad of Basildon Bond notepaper. For the rest of the journey he sat and read, with evident interest, the front cover of his notepaper.

Mr Zip Unzips

I spent last night in deepest thought, engendered, no doubt, by my scotch egg curry. Don't knock it till you've tried it! A pack of those mini savoury eggs, a decent home made curry sauce with a few mushrooms and a bit of green pepper, and there you are - ersatz nargisi kofta curry. Made even the can of Fosters drinkable.

Anyway, as I slumped in the armchair, the divine Billie Holiday doing her level best to cheer me up, I fell to wondering whether blogging was really what I wanted, considering the barrage of comments not so far forthcoming. But then I realised it wasn't so very different from the response I used to get from sf fanzines. I'd publish those and rarely get comments from more than a quarter of the readership. OK, there's a question of scale here. I'm talking about fanzines with a print run of, at most, 150, compared to a blog going out to ...well....the world. The world? That's not too many.

But really, publishing is its own reward. I know there's a nice lady who publishes her blog and doesn't even have the facility for comments. Doesn't want them. I'd like comments, but am enjoying simply writing for myself so far. And getting to grips with HTML and like so.

I guess the most obvious way of attracting comments is to tell your friends you're blogging and point them to it, but I wanted to see if I'd get any without them. I thought I'd give them a month of blogging before Revealing All. However, I relented a little when I found Will Barrow was having a Bad Time. I thought it might take his mind off his troubles if he had the scintillating wit and pithy homespun philosophy of Boogie Street to keep him occupied. So he has Been Informed and tells me on the phone that he is Interested.

[This posting courtesy of Initial Capitalisations.]

Time Well Spent

I know I must be contravening some Blogger's Charter by not having written anything for a day or so, but things have been hectic. It did occur to me tonight, however, that watching for the umpteenth time Captain Jayneway get her kit off to do battle with those big buzzing viruses on board Voyager, was not a useful way to spend my time. I could instead be blogging like crazy.

On Wednesday morning I realised the calendar in my head didn't agree with the one on the wall. I had to get a painting finished and to the framer's so he could frame it in time for me to collect it on Saturday. The picture was only barely started and quite a complicated composition. To be honest, I didn't think I could finish it in one sitting, but with the help of a lot of Liquin and a makeshift mahl-stick, I got it done by about 4 o'clock.

Which meant I just had time to shower and dress for a private view with CJ at Red Box. Interesting work, though I'm tempted to condemn with faint praise by saying it was "decorative". Maybe I lack the necessary feminist interest in paintings so clearly based on patchwork quilts and torn fabric samples. Would look good and unobtrusive on an office wall. Providing you don't have an aversion to the colour red. Isn't this favourite colour choice for women's art wearing a bit thin now? I think we all get the biological connection.

I always feel a little uncomfortable at Red Box previews. I don't recognise many of the people who attend. Oh, they'll be gallery hangers-on, artist's sycophants, "networkers" and general boozers like all those who go to previews (I do not exclude myself), but they're not the same ones who go to the other previews I attend. And quite often there's an unhealthy gathering of the University Cabal which makes me want to leave even earlier.

However, I can't grumble about the wine which flowed like...well, wine. And set us up nicely for another bottle over some pasta at Zizzi, followed by a drop more at The Bacchus. CJ was unusually unsteady on her feet, but I was fresh as a daisy.

Anyway, Thursday was therefore spent photographing the new picture, rushing to the framer's, dropping off film at the developer's, meeting up with Patsy123 who'd just come back from London, lunch at the Playhouse (which has now covered its tables with the most horrendous 50s style plastic cloths - all big roses and bananas), general shopping and collapsing in front of the TV to watch the quite likeable New Tricks. Followed by another serial killer movie, Blowback, with the unlikely premise that a serial killer is executed in the gas chamber, only to be revived by shady CIA operatives and conditioned to be an assassin for the government. This is swept away in a matter of moments by the serial killer then revealing that he hadn't really been conditioned at all and was out for revenge on those who'd convicted him the first time round. Barmy plot, not too good acting by Mario Van Peebles.

I'd have been better off blogging. You know it makes sense.

And just before posting and going to bed, I can see I have a lot of work to do with this Spell Checker. Doesn't recognise words like "barmy" and wants to substitute "motorcars" for "networkers"!