Electrickery

Inasmuch as I thought about them at all I used to dislike pylons. A chain of blots besmirching a much loved landscape. Etc. And I would happily put my name to any petition that sought to discourage their relentless march.

But a while ago drawing one made me look at them afresh.

And I realised I actually quite like their extraordinary height, their slowly tapering perpendiculars and intricate geometric symmetries.

And just as with weeds, once you've learned the name of something it’s harder to hate it. Pylons are officially called ‘transmission towers’ and they come in a multitude of styles and permutations. The most common are L2s and L6s but just when you think you have their measure you’ll spot one that doesn’t conform to anything you’ve previously seen.

Wouldn’t this look just dandy in the Turbine Hall ?....

(And as it turns out I'm not the only one: they even have their own Pylon Appreciation Society. Check it out.)

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.