September 23

Summer has ended and I feel the autumnal crisis approaching with the rain preparing the way for the cold, and will the climate crisis make it a bitter winter?This month I am going to explore the idea of developing a theme in my art and this concentrating less on the daily sketch... I wonder how this emphasis will blossom on this daily sketch platform.

For a moment it was all very clear. Nothing was different to the day be fire, to the thought before. The facts were the same, the observations were the same but the thought was different. I needed to think about it the other way round. Instead of the effect it had on me, rather my response to the effect. Instead of shouting why is everyone calling me a shit when I am doing the same as I ever did, rather thinking about how I should act now the situation has changed.

What on earth is it that could be gained on the swing that would be lost on the roundabout? Is this a tale of a hardy yet foolish child gleefully playing on the swings but bitterly disappointed by the roundabout? I feel it should be said that many of the playground apparatus are designed to give similar thrills, not gain here and lose there . Don't go on the roundabout if you lost there last time.

How normal.can it be, perhaps a good sign of normal is to be able to laugh at impending disaster, not to laugh at the mayhem and missery the disaster may help at you, but laugh together with the solidarity of knowing you will face the mayhem and missery together.

The lines were simple yet suggestive, conjuring the fantasy of that first kiss, the thrill as tips of fingers touched skin, warm, hot, moist skin. Slipping beneath the clothing, constrained, hesitant, but only for a moment and when the alarm did not ring, no siren, just a purring into pure, momentary pleasure, remembered when viewing the drawing, simple lines

This cult of feelgood, constant feelgood, has few outcomes. It could be you never listen to anything again, no rocking the boat from the outside. Or it could be you never hear anything again, noticing the boat is rocking. Or it could be you never believe anything again, no knowing the boat is rocking. Rock me, rock my world.

So, round and round we go, but the truth be told not all roundabouts are the same. There is on not too far from me as I type this that is always busy, no matter the time of the night or day. Always. And there are five roads joining, five busy roads. And it is not designed to help cyclists. Cycling is just hard. Just hard.

He thought it was easier to wait silently for the moment to pass than to ask again what was said. All day he had to work out what people were saying, there various accents struggling against his poor hearing. And this time it wasn't a client but a friend, and the friend would let it pass, quietly, but what would the friend think? He was not a mind reader, no one is, really.

It is so much better to watch a game that is won through wonderful play than to watch a game lost by errors and dispirited performance. I guess the psychologists can get in there and lift the spirits so that the next time the game is played well whereas I am not sure what can be done to beat a better team.

Edgy on the edge, nine notes in and I have not worked out a plan, perhaps I should think about what I would like to say in a story and try to put together a string, a wire frame of ideas for drawing, thoughts about drawings, that build into a collection of interesting sketches that may only mean something to me, but they might mean something to me.

So, the family unit is regularly kept strong and robust by the matriarch, the figure who all know is there to nourish, to find the best in all the people in the family unit but to only find joy in service. It is in many ways the most revered roll but at the same time the roll with the least power. So how do we transfer this structure, the nuclear family, into a political system.

The nude figures are mostly female, smooth flowing curves of nubile young women. The remaining figures are nubile young men, lean and muscular with large cocks. They are all figures of the male gaze, straight or gay, I know this, but why? What is so attractive of the nubile young form? Is it a reliving of those tentative initial explorations into sexuality? Surely not, those time were fraught with anxiety. So is it the self invested power to redo those days with the confidence of age? Or is it just a pointless delusion?

The nude can be viewed nonsexually, every time there is nudity and not sex it is nonsexual. Simple. Beaches. Bathing. Sleeping. Sunbathing . Of course there is a lot of sexuality that is clothed, burlesque, for example, we all love burlesque, don't we. The nude can be embarrassed, or brazen. It can be practical nudity or rebellious free speech. It can be found in many places, perhaps I shall look for that to draw tomorrow.

The squirrel that has installed itself as the symbol for this month is clearly wary. The wariness is immediate, any changes within sight and hearing could mean imminent danger of death. It is not wary of the change in season, seasons have been weathered by squirrels since the first season met the first squirrel. Foolish squirrel, does it not know climate change will bring a cold snap that will freeze the animals in the park dead.

I wonder if like the squirrel I am wary of the wrong changes too.

Criss cross, clickity clack and suddenly the train is passed, long gone. The train in this metaphor was an argument, and the cross-crossing was the misunderstanding that led to the argument. And as the train disappears beyond the horizon I don't know, may never know, if the train is still on the right track (in this metaphor the train is our relationship) or if the misunderstanding, which now remains unexplained, has subtly redirected the train to a dead-end suburban branch line that only has those dull smelly diesel commuters.

Bees are good, but perhaps mosquitoes are better. They might be just the annoyance to demonstrate the mind of that older white male character who is continuously mistaking everything about him in lucid lurid terms and mistaking all the people he sees as naked beastars. Perhaps they all have one head, perhaps they have many. I look forward to finding out.

As he got older he had less energy to put himself back in these tricky situations, when he would not be sure what responses he wiuld give or what actions he would take. And because he didn't thrust himself forward he found he was less inclined to jump into those tricky situations. Situation a go go.

When I am feeling low, and something has gone wrong I drift away and find myself something to do, alone. Then you come and you ask me: what's wrong? Or: have I done something to upset you? And I am not ready to argue my case so I say nothing. And I get sadder when you say: alright. And I put the thing that went wrong I to my little box of injustices that eats away at my heart.

Thing about him is everything seems to be normal, he is just an older man, drifting along into the general decline. Some days he forgets to do things he should, other days he forgets the things he has done, but most days are just normal. Sometimes he wonders why so many people seem to be naked. And why they have animal heads.

Weather, wind and a certain lighting and instead of cycling home in London it feels like I am cycling home in the Cape of Storms. Cycling to the home I had all those years ago. The smells, the light and I am convinced I am back there, then. But truth be told it is very difficult to know how it felt to be me in long ago years

Momentarily I struggled to remember if it was an actual event, or a dream, for my dreams have been vivid lately, or a story I had read or heard. Perhaps because it was so bizarre, but perhaps the way people behave is not what it used to be before the crisis. It was like the time of plague, all those many years ago, when everything was strange, normal was strange until it was not and no one could remember what it was like, except for the few strange people. They always remained strange.

It would be interesting, as suggested, to make a comic out of a poem. A bit like Julia Donaldson for adults, or an illustrated but short, oh so short, play by the old board. But here is the thing, should the words and images be done together or by different creatives? And should any of the creatives be me?

Triumph, conquest, the realisation of a goal, in creativity and action in fire

In all this creativity we don't seem to have found an honest way to talk about sexuality, the enjoyment, the titillation, the taboo, for that is the issue as I see it. Sexy is part of everything, sex sells so much that we refer to good advertising as sexy, but, oh, I could not express the erotic tittilation in the same way as I could the food porn covering our Instagram. Free erotica from its chains.

What is this free market consumer culture, what is the antidote for this life, will my little protest of not eating meat make any difference to anyone? It is nothing more than the basic supposition that it takes a big bucket of earth to grow my year's bean, or of field of dirt to feed the cow slaughtered for me dinners. I'm not sure where battery chickens or prawns fit into this supposition.

Supposedly the tiredness from exercise is a good kind of tiredness. It certainly is good to feel that I can lie on the bed and relax my body but there is an edge of unwellness that is creeping up the back of my throat with scratchy tickles and the portend of bad things to come. Will bad things come?

It is in the tides and times that I heard said a good book can make you feel cleverer than you are, and I thought there is a lot more to it than that. Oh how I love to see people doing the things I would love to do but am to self consciou to attempt. Things that are brave and things that are not much more than a happenstance. Things that I have attempted over the years when I've been smashed, and usually not been successful. For now I will let the things rest in your imagination but be assured, not all of them involve nudity.

The fundament seems to be so unstable but, as the book said, if I can open my mind to the bigger picture, if I can let go of the little things (they are mostly little things) then I will be the better off. I can listen to the talk about football, and tell my anecdote about getting stuck in a police cordon, accidentally. And I can listen to the laughter and get the dishes done.

What he wants, what he so desperately wants is for them to like him, but he feels like a fraud, because he feels unlikeable. He worries that his jokes are not funny enough, that he is not assertive enough to be respected. He is worried his assertions will mark him as a fool, an idiot. No one likes an idiot, he knows this. But the truth is he is a fraud. Everything anyone sees is a carefully crafted facade. An image he thinks people.want to love. He is the fool for creating this ludicrous construct, simply be yourself even if you are not going to come up with those witty lines in the songs you love.

Always nice to chat with a happy person, just something to look forward to, something to smile about after. And there are so many opportunities to have little happy conversations, all it takes is a happy interjection and if something comes back then it can be a happy moment. And then next time there can be a little more than the moment. It can make you smile.

Wobbling, perhaps even stumbling into this new year, without much of a plan other than an idea of trudging along hoping the bad is bottoming out and the good still has a fair way to climb. It is a balance, not so? It is always a balancing trick.

Changed
For a moment it was all very clear. Nothing was different to the day be fire, to...

Roundabout
What on earth is it that could be gained on the swing that would be lost on the...

Together
How normal.can it be, perhaps a good sign of normal is to be able to laugh at impending...

Simple lines
The lines were simple yet suggestive, conjuring the fantasy of that first kiss, the...

Rocking rock
This cult of feelgood, constant feelgood, has few outcomes. It could be you never...

Hard Cycling
So, round and round we go, but the truth be told not all roundabouts are the same. ...

The mind reader
He thought it was easier to wait silently for the moment to pass than to ask again what...

Sportingly
It is so much better to watch a game that is won through wonderful play than to watch a...

Something for me
Edgy on the edge, nine notes in and I have not worked out a plan, perhaps I should think...

Matriarchs ltd
So, the family unit is regularly kept strong and robust by the matriarch, the figure who...

Pointless Delusion
The nude figures are mostly female, smooth flowing curves of nubile young women. ...

Nude not nude
The nude can be viewed nonsexually, every time there is nudity and not sex it is...