Women’s March to the White House, Washington DC

 

James River, Richmond Virginia

 

Jamestown Settlement Museum

 

Queen Mary II Transatlantic crossing

 

Comedy of Errors, Shakespeare's Globe

 

MK Calling 2024

 

Not often exhibited, so enjoy the sight of a Knickers Book in the Milton Keynes Gallery, MKG, in the tactile section of the summer exhibition MK Calling. Hurrah!

With Hair!

 

Living out the van in Northumberland

 

How it all goes so wrong and so right

 

A beautifully located door in a little village en route to Naples. The lock broke and we couldn't get in. the resident came down to help and locked himself out as well. Then the neighbours joined in and we all waited for the locksmith. But it was all good. Out of the evening I got a free beer and a bag of crisps. Perfetto!

The favourite bog in Tallinn Estonia

 

Folk Dancing Estonian Style

 

Work in progress

 

Victorian Brass Grille Uncovered

All polished up and ready to slot back into the kitchen floor.

The Great Remodel, now with fire engine salvage

 

Back at the Studio...

 

Maybe it's Narnia

 

One of my tribe is working in Estonia this year, so that's a resolution, right there.

Well that was awful

I went on a 'Journaling Writing Masterclass' It was a birthday present to myself. Pft, it was awful. I left before it ended. 

I'd like to say, I stood up and made a Manifesto Declaration of Journaling Creativity. Then I left dramatically, slamming the door behind me.

It wasn't like that. More like the rest of the classroom (I use that word deliberately) wished I'd get the hell out, so they could carry on, in peace, looking at commas. And the tense. 

Tenses are important. Because, are you journaling using the present tense or the past tense? And don't forget to use descriptive language. This is also important, apparently.

Then not so much about Journaling. The way I understand journaling? That free-spirited, powerful, unaccountable, rush of creativity - do what moves you right there and then - this wonderful powerful surge of Here I Am, Making My Mark. This is the language for bereavement, betrayal, terror, desire, human urges that have gutteral sounds.

No! Not this type of Journaling! This course is about Literary Journaling, Grit. Don't you understand What Journaling Means? It means getting your tenses in order in preparation for publication.

Well, my journaling fails, right here and now. My tenses are all over the fecking page, splattered and splattering, splatting and splinging. 

The course, of course, was really about writing for your writing improvement. With all the implicit (and sometimes explicit) judgement that comes with that intent. Could do better. Improve it. Here are techniques the best writers use.

In the end, they make the writing dead. Publishable, probably. But dead. Slabbed out on paper like lettering on a tombstone.

I'm still working out why I went! I think the word Journaling twinkled at me. And the promo, which used the type of phrases that I believe do exist in real life, emerging from writing your own thing: life transforming, unique, original.

Well, those promises weren't delivered. The class was derivative, exclusive, unimaginative, restrictive. With a sub-current of resentment that writing exists outside of tenses (unless you are one of the chosen ones who are selected to validate the whole). It demonstrated the worst of the Lit Heritage Establishment. Ignorant of life outside.

Will they change? Probably not. I expect to see the same writing masterclass hooked onto any other literary form that the institution decides to promote. 'Biography Writing Masterclass'. 'Short Story Writing Masterclass'. 'Non-Fiction Writing Masterclass'. 

You'll get exactly the same writing exercises that I did. And if you try and say the opposite, no matter how cack-handedly, awkwardly, socially inappropriate, like me, you'll be made so unwelcome you'll think, well I may as well go home. 

Save your money, the hours, and waiting in the thunderstorm for the bus replacement service. 

Journal at home.

Ironically, after I'd left (or been booted out, depending on your point of view), I re-read the blurb, which promised an 'enthusiastic inclusive environment'. At least that made me laugh. 

And laughter - as any old reader of Grit's Day will know - is good.

ha ha ha ha ha ha

Oh! The contradictions, knots, twists, torturous reasonings! 'He's a man for the public.' 'He's a private man.' 'He's a king dedicated to serve.' 'He's his own man.' Whatever you want, you can project it on to Charles Windsor.

I'll have a go as well, then. 

He's the head of a large, opaque, unaccountable, profitable corporation. 

The aim of the business, apart from to reap a large amount of cash, is to protect the unequal contract made by the super-privileged, and imposed on everybody else. 

The trick is, get me to agree to it. Create an abusive relationship where I can't leave and end up asking it for support. Throw me a kind word and I'll weep in gratitude.

Except I like to put my money where my mouth is. I already gave my silver coin to Republic.

 

Gates. Simple.

A pair of ordinary metal gates. If I could have gates this simple!

Perfectly suited to an industrial Victorian setting. Exactly the design style needed here.

The other day I popped in to the back of the Escape Room and asked if I could buy one. Just one of their gates. One would probably do the total gap of about 10 foot.

It would be smart to have two gates, so we could open them in the middle. 

I guess those perfect metal gates would measure 150cm each side, if they're on two metal holding columns, one on either side (but I'm holding a floppy tape measure, so all my measures needs double-checking).

We don't need the letter box. I just like the brass-black combo. I like the handle too. And the rivets. I like those a lot.

Yes, it's this simple. We lift up the central bar and open the gates. Sigh. If only gates could be this simple!

A column, one left, one right, holds them up. I'll measure those columns, when no-one's looking. I guess they're about 10cm. The gates hanging from them are lightweight. The sort of everyday, commercial style gates we see everywhere. 

I can't seem to get hold of them though.

I agree these ordinary, metal, non-see-through gates look like this, normally. (Huh, Asee, or whatever that tag reads.)

The gates I've considered lifting from the Escape Room Car Park are painted black. That's all. 

 Ahhh. It all seems so simple.

Come and See me... Knicker Drawer Note Books

 

Knicker Drawer Note Books is at the Christmas Craft Fair, Village Hall, Cosgrove MK19 7J. This Saturday and Sunday 19th/20th November 2022, 10.00am - 4.00pm. Love xx

Big Old Bad Bruiser Gets Haircut

 

Tough decision, to sever someone in their prime... but at least they're less likely to come smashing through the roof, come next storm.

Alternative Valentines

The people I've loved most, I've usually wanted to push them off a cliff.  

The ones who rouse my murderous id - they're the ones who get properly under a skin, electrically wired down to my fingerend nerve endings, pulsing into the emotional heartbeat to a life. 

They're the voice in the head and the drum beat telling me daybreak is here.

With them I laugh more than anyone else in the world; I listen to them, argue with them, tell them to shut up for a blasted minute while I'll defend their nonsense, their bizarre behaviour and their right to be bonkers, down to my last breath. 

I'll restore them, rebel against them, and turn my red blood into revenge for them.

It's contradictory, love, and on my Valentine's Day, unicorns don't appear. Neither do fairies, lovehearts, cute fluffy things with big eyes, and all the rest of the diamond sparkle spinning in the star-lit skies blah blah blah.

Love. In my world it's blood, guts, viscera. This had to be.