William S. Burroughs and These Paranoid Times

Bill Burroughs was an early literary hero of mine, mainly because he was so far out there. I read - or struggled through - The Naked Lunch just for respite from the Eng Lit A Level novels I was studying at school. I really had never read anything quite like it. A comic strip adaptation of the Mugwump sequence I attempted was soon discarded: I realised it would just be impossible.

I worked behind the bar in my parents' pub at the weekend for a bit of pocket money. A regular customer was Robert, a small middle-aged man of Indian origin who spent lengthy periods of the year abroad doing some unspecified job for Texas Instruments. With his hare-lip and mildly scarred face Robert had the slightly sinister air of a Peter Lorre-ish outsider figure, but he was well travelled and had a good knowledge of literature. If he’d been in the Middle East, as he often was, by the time he got back to the UK he had worked up quite a thirst and we always held a case of Jack Daniels bourbon just for him. On quiet Saturday lunchtimes after he’d knocked back a few he would tell me stories of his travels and one of these was of the time he lived in the same hotel in Paris as the writer William Burroughs. In suburban Essex I had scarcely met anyone who’d even heard of Burroughs at this point. “A strange man” Robert said, “I would look into his room occasionally and he’d just be sitting there staring out of the window....”


I never met Burroughs but I did see him read at an event in London once. And I made many drawings inspired by his writings. I haven't read him for a long time but I’ve been thinking about him again recently because one of his themes was the paranoia that begins to seep when big business and the machinery of state become too closely entwined.


I was observing this gorgeous dragonfly in my garden yesterday when I was startled by a loud thrashing engine noise above my head. I swung my lens upwards and framed this Apache Gunship circling and hovering around my patch. From one bug to another. I assume they’re practicing for some deployment in Afghanistan or somewhere. This is not so unusual. The Colchester Airborne Garrison is not that far away to the south and there are still USAF bases up in Lakenheath and Mildenhall. As a small boy I found soldiers thrilling. Watching the changing of the Horseguards at Whitehall, I felt proud and reassured to think that they were there to protect us. But now ...? I know they’re there to protect something, but I’m pretty certain it’s not my interests they care about....


This morning an unsolicited email from Amazon headed ‘Tilt’, informing me of some discounted Scott Walker albums. Firstly, I’ve never ever purchased an album from Amazon and secondly, how the hell do they know I like Scott Walker? Maybe that's what that helicopter was finding out? The Soviet Bloc was notorious for keeping it’s citizens under constant surveillance lest they think an ideologically unsound thought. We appear to be adopting similar if more advanced techniques in order to monitor and encourage the public's spending habits. Is there a future just around the corner where we’ll be arrested and taken for questioning for simply not buying enough? “Tell me, Meester Johnson, vhen vas ze last time you were in Next? And vere are ze receipts? And ve can find no ZZTV records of you in Westfield at all!”

Paranoia.... just paranoia....

Pushing The Envelope

Some of my new envelope drawings can be seen (and even purchased) alongside many other nice bijou pieces by talented local artists as part of Gallery Q's 'Small is Beautiful' currently showing at Quay Theatre and Arts, Sudbury, Suffolk CO10 2AN. Until December 2.

In The Land of Grey and Pink....

Today I'm looking through the ... bay window. And what do I see? The faces below are from my local town and although they look made up they are in fact all from real life - can you recognise someone you know? Or perhaps yourself....?


And to go with: a little helping of classic English whimsy-rock for no other reason than that the girl above and the grey and pink and it all sort of you get the picture...

The Road To Ruin

What is it that draws many of us to old abandoned buildings? For many years I thought it was just my own personal quirk but now there’s a whole internet subculture of ‘Urban Exploration’ dedicated to finding and documenting obscure and disused buildings and structures.

When I was a child, my corner of London still had plenty of WWII bombsites along with derelict and deserted warehouses. That’s all gone now (see Ghost Milk entry). But perhaps it gave me a hankering curiosity. Some need to always want to look inside. Just to see. Usually, what one finds is always the same detritus. But the aura of mystery and the small frisson of trespass remains.

Here’s a place I used to visit in Essex. A classic ruined 18th Century 'haunted' mansion - at the time it had become almost completely overgrown with creeper and bramble; every crevice sprouting with elder and buddleia. The only people that seemed to know about it were thieves and vandals. And me. I spent many afternoons up there hacking through the undergrowth to find a stone face staring blankly back at me. I felt as though I were discovering some lost Incan city.






Since that time, the house and it’s gardens have been rescued from decay by a Trust who are diligently restoring it to it’s former grandeur. Finally safe from the depradations of the antiquity raiders and the tendrils of nature, it can be visited on several open days each year when you will be guided around the good works.

Here’s a ruin from another age. This place can be found, almost incongruously, hidden tree-deep in otherwise bucolic Suffolk countryside. It’s a former chemical factory. I stumbled on it almost by accident and was suddenly transported back to ‘the Zone’ in Tarkovsky’s ‘Stalker’. Even the weedlife looks oddly mutated. Hope I don’t grow any extra fingers....

Where Have All The Flutterbys Gone?

A couple of years ago, we had what can be called a real 'butterfly summer' around these parts. Never have I seen so many and of such wide variety. Everything seemed right in the world.

This year, in contrast, I've seen only a handful of Cabbage Whites and one or two Red Admirals (above). Hope this is just a seasonal blip and not a sign of anything more alarming...

One Swallow May Not Make A Summer ... But Four?

Okay, after the darkness the light. Couldn't resist sharing these little fellows with you all. A family of swallows have been returning to my garage studio for as long as I've been here. They arrive back from Africa on virtually the same day each spring and it so gladdens my heart when I hear their chattering and chirruping again. They normally raise two broods each summer. This is this year's second clutch. Once they're big enough mum and dad encourage them outside for trial flights, guiding them and showing them how to hunt for insects. In between they come back to their perch to rest - at night they return to the little mud nest to sleep. By September they will gather together with the local flock and make that incredible flight south for the winter. A really remarkable little bird and a real privilege to share my space with them.

Bill Oddie and friend.

London Metamorphosis

All this does take me right back - I wasn't involved in the 1980’s riots but I well remember the sense of young male excitement at seeing normal laws and rules suspended and not knowing what might happen next. Now it doesn't excite me, it just makes me depressed and concerned. I was listening to Radio Five-Live last night in bed and from the panicky and heightened reporting it appeared to be spreading right across London.

No doubt that most of what's happening is what they call 'recreational violence' with no point other than thieving and 'fun'. But you can't help reflect that we've built this culture where we send signals all the time that we value possessions and status above all else. How can we be surprised when people without cushy jobs in the city or the media suddenly decide to just help themselves?

I feel sorry for the small businesses that have felt the brunt of it all. I feel like there could be some political justification if they were marching on big multinational business but it seems to be mostly small family concerns being ransacked and burnt to the ground for no other reason than that they can. My gut feeling is that it will all peter out but what I dread now is the forthcoming weeks and months of endless analysis, enquiries, newspaper columns etc etc. The left will blame it on racism and economic deprivation - the right will want to bring back the birch, hanging and national service. In the end police powers will be even more beefed up and we'll all lose. Anyone would think we were back in the days of a Conservative Government....

I was looking for a drawing to illustrate this piece... but what do you do? What would be a suitable artistic response to all this? An angsty graphic of police stormtroopers? An ink spattered apocalypse of menacing hoodies, maybe some leading politicians wryly portrayed as looters? Other artists will be busy doing this right now: guns, fire, anger... but it’s all been done and it all seems a bit inadequate to be honest. So I’ll simply leave you with the lady above who wandered across my drawing board earlier today...

Sleep tight.

And to go with, the beautiful and incomparable Karen Dalton 'It's Alright' ...