KieltySaur

So he's decided to surface again. This time in a newspaper that I only read because I needed summat to wrap the play doh in. So there was this newpaper from the past sunday in the recycling basket. I picked it out and took it upstairs to wrap with. Opening it I took the back sheet off and decided I should read some before I put the rest to recycling. Turned it over, started reading the first big story I saw: 'Police confident of cash-for-honours charges'. But then above the article which was rather dry was this black and white photo, rather alarming, a pair of legs staggering behind this framed portrait of a man apparently in shock. GONZO SHOTS FOR AN AMERICAN ORIGINAL. A show, gONZO,opened in Chelsea at the Michael Hoppen Gallery 3 Feb, of photographs tracing the life/works of HST. Much better than the CONTD FRM PG 1.

Excess is named thus for reasons beyond my comprehension. Perhaps it's to do with the decorative, from William Morris to fashion photography that's certainly an element in the work on display. Artist paints anatomically correct motifs onto his skin using traditional henna methods. Woman plans to have tattoo of her working partner's recollection of the wallpaper he lived with as a child.

They steal my heart when they quote Charlotte Perkins Gillman'S The Yellow Wallpaper, '...one of those sprawling designs...committing every artistic sin.'

Not yet sure whether this is sinful. Definitely decadent. From leather sofas dotted with pearl headed pins spelling out a flock of birds, to glossy magazines sewn over pierced and nailed where the female models' skin should be, the concentration is in the details. Meticulous.

The William Morris is in his designs cut out from pages from porn magazines creating delicate laceworks of flesh, suspended in deep frames.

And then the big ones. Huge photo prints by ex-fashion photographer where models picked their own designer clad deaths. Lying in acid bright environments alone in airports or factories, the girls are apparently in a sad situation but seem to well dressed to have regrets.

Excess is free and in place until January at the Angel Row Gallery.

After spending seven hours in a retirement home, I've seen enough. The date is set. Once I hit 50, BAM- I'm out.

Names will be coded and the establishment will be described but not named.

I'm sure there are hundreds just like it.

Nice enough place- clean, in a quiet neighborhood, everyone with their own bed. I chatted with 'Elsa' who was lucky enough to be in a room to herself. From what I heard, she pays through the nose for the privilege. While the other residents eat in the dining room, Elsa takes her meals upstairs in her room. Perhaps because she likes it that way. More likely people complained about her moaning. Her rhythm gets interrupted by noises that mean it hurts or she's confused.

"Mmmmph....well....owwwwwww!

...You see, the funny thing is. When you...as you get older...owwwwwwwwww. Sometimes I......I just...."

I said something and her head snapped round to look straight at me without blinking. That much attention is intimidating. What was I saying? Elsa's face, looks frightened. I'm being melodramatic, at worst she's confused a bit scattered as her connections deteriorate with age. But to think it takes the sort of money she's paying , I don't even know how much but the looks on the faces when it's discussed hint at hundreds, just to be kept going in a room while she's slowly dropping into pieces is enough to make it hard to picture there's still someone in there, who used to earn a wage and hold a conversation and hold a tea cup without assistance, and now starts screaming when the sentences won't line up between brain and mouth. I'm headed that way. The thought terrifies me.

Television is the art medium of the masses. The British public's devotion to the box, evidenced either through comments like "Well I never knew what she saw in Fred" overheard in the shopping queue or fierce living room debates ignited by that night's Panorama program, owes to the balance between entertainment and information/news.

Often, the line between the two becomes fuzzy as writers like Sally Wainwright set their TV dramas in a contemporary setting. The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard follows the 'next' PM on her journey from supermarket manager to resident at number 10.

As Simon Basketter points out, Wainwright decided when it was too hard to stand for Parliament the only other option was to script her hopes and get them on the telly. The points illustrated in the series are reaching a wider audience than they would have, coming from Wainwright as an MP.

Public response to the show is actually being gauged on Mrs. Pritchard's campaign website.

Enough people are engaged by what they percieve as entertainment (shows doing undercover investigations or unmasking 'villains' who rip off OAPs) that Wainwright's decision may well have been the wisest.

I kept waking up at intervals through the night or more accurately early morning. 3:00 and I could hear Grandad next door complaining through the thin wall. Early part of 6 I woke and dozed sporadically between the knowledge that in an hour I would have to be moving to kit up and pack, and the warm pocket of air I'd created in the cocoon of duvet and body heat. This was worse than getting up for school. Why had I arranged to come? I did not want to do this. But I would.

Some have said that not wanting to get out of bed in the morning is a sign of depression. I would argue it's simply the logical preference of warm, soft material molded to the shape of one's body to the extra-duvetial experience of supporting one's own weight against hard floor, surrounded by frigid non-supportive air. As I lay curled and balancing precariously off the bunk I realized this already unnatractive prospect would likely be the easiest part of my day. Because the next transition would be from the carefree role as the backseat passenger to the foot of a trail up the highest peak in Wales. With no experience and no training, I was going to walk up Snowden.

Well it seemed doable, damnit. My uncle and grandfather had already made the trip and on a whim I suggested we go together. I had, however, said this from the porch comfort of one of the flattest hottest states in the US at the peak of my summertime graduation elation. 6:51 and I catch a glance in the mirror on my way out the room, my hair is grease-filthy and I don't look pleased with myself.

Uncle asleep still on the couch. My decision to move had been partly to rob him of the satisfaction of waking me. Grandad's up so he must've had some trouble sleeping. I start making sandwiches.

The sandwiches are made with care because like the first awakening I know they will be part of the more pleasant moments in the day ahead. That and through some guilt and reaction based belief system I've adopted in the absence of familiar structure and Catholicism by making good sandwiches with good thoughts for my companions I will have a better chance of enjoying myself up there at the heights. Uncle wakes up and starts acting the fool. We dress and eat, then we get in the car.

Upset begins with conversation between father and son, it was mainly about speed cameras but I wincesmiled as softly as I could when son put on the Brakes loud without asking, between music and argument I didn't want to take sides. That was not cowardice.

Won'tyoushutthefuckupImajusttryintowatchthebaaandIfhegetsaticketthenhel'llpayitIfyougetcaughtI'llsueyehDadrelaxNonotheydon'tthey'vegotemallalongherewhenIgotoneitwere6oquidand3pointsyoudon'tseeemtheyhavetopaintthemyellowwillyouit'sa30thisishowIalwaysdriveRINGADINGDING, etc.

It might've been funny.

After getting lost, getting back, parking for free and pissin behind a tree because the youth hostel won't let publicites sit on its toilets, we began. The uphill climb seemed easy but beginning it overeager to prove nothing was wrong proved problematic. Sweat and hard breathing snuck out, c'mon not in front of them, now, already. Frequent breaks were luckily taken by me grandad, so on pretense of supporting him I got the rest I needed. It didn't look this steep from the bottom.

'Relax into your tension!'
Uncle trying to talk me through his relaxation techniques. It gives you something to think about so whether that's the relaxation I dunno. Up. Up. And onward. Serious walkers came by time to time and one had the cheek to say 'break time already?' as we supped our sandwiches. Cheeky beggar!

A lot of the method seemed to be confidence. The weight you put into your step and hence the amount of security it lent you all related to how confident you were putting your foot down. As we trundled along with that mountain bikers amazed us by insisting on rolling down ground we struggled to navigate at speeds where they had little or no control over unpredictable terrain. I envied them while I scoffed them.

Those sandwiches were good.

It took roughly 2 hours to get to the peak. It had been hotter than expected but cloud formed and descended almost directly below the peak itself. Promises of hot chocolate toilets and chocolate bars were countered by JCBs and fencing. How they managed to get the machines up, must've used the train. Saw the yellow stone steps we could've used, but we were here now and those looked slightly more tedious. A young boy with maybe his dad was saying when I go up Ben Nevis will you wait for me? More like you'll be waiting for me son. A lot of scouts and school trips, but quite an eclectic mix of people taking this on in their weekend.

There were moments when we stopped talking and I tried to appreciate what I was looking at. Looking down into bowls of slate rubble, seeing the spot where cloud was being generated. Hearing nothing for moments, and seeing nothing move.

Looked back at the mountain and thought, 'We just came down a fucking mountain.....YES!'

The trip comes highly recommended- there's a pub at the bottom of the trail that serves a very nice dark ale called noir.

Among the many artists currently on show at the Angel Arts Bistro, one avid scrawler stands out. Deep positive lines in graphite cut across a white expanse, in a firm assertion of space- from the marks emerge planes, monsters and men, colliding and coinciding in a dizzying spectacle. The story behind the images lies only with the artist himself, whose identity is betrayed to the viewer by the signature he was obliged to leave behind. It says simply, 'Linus'.

Not yet a major figure in the Nottingham arts scene, Linus was still well-informed enough to turn up to the private opening of the premier exhibition at TAAB. The venue opened last week on Nottingham's Angel Row under the ownership of Jil. Linus's presence at the opening no dount owed to the fact that his mother was exhibiting also, but nepotism played no part in his rise to the challenge of fillling an empty space with semiotics charged gestures. Reminiscent of the work of COBRA group artists, the drawings nonetheless possess a great deal of mystery. One cannot simply walk by without feeling tugged back sharply for closer inspection. The figures in their space command the viewer's attenttion becasue their significance is witheld from us, we do not know what or who they are or what their story is. See here apparently the man with the big hat, is it safe to extrapolate that he in some way represents the burdened human? And that the various creatures around him are the pressures ad escapes we undoubtedly come across in this life? Such morbid representations of the psychological suffering of man can scarce be said to have been seen since the work of Goya.

Unlike Goya, however, Linus has room in his drawings for people other than mistresses and patrons. In the true spirit of wall art he shares his space with other artists whose doodles lace in and out filling the gaps between scenes.This type of behaviour is exactly what Jil had in mind for the bistro, a community forum forlocal artists to utilize and gain the experience of seeing their art up on a wall. Only one week old at the time this article is being written, TAAB had already attracted the interest of Nottingham Trent University, Creative Launchpad (*a resource centre connecting creative artists to the people and places they need), and the Long Journey Home- an East Midlands initiative to connect artists lkiving in exile from their native countries to schools and platforms in Leicester Derby and Nottingham . These organizations are forming a steering group for the venue for its future work in providing work/exhibition space for Nottingham artists, not least of all Linus.

Even living in Stabbo there are reminders of Flor'da all around. Hemingway's retreat and Caldecott's place of expiry- tshirts and jumpers everywhere say Disney.