An announcement this afternoon that new restrictions are to begin tomorrow.  This is the most urgent implementation yet, I believe.  Stay at home, essential shops only to open, go out for a walk but only with one other person, and so on.  This just reinforces the feeling of detachment, end, disengagement, empty time.  The bookshop … Continue reading 82.  Watching, not joining.  The Saturday before Christmas. →

It was a last minute decision to come here.  It’s okay.  Spacious, screens.  There’s a commotion about a group of young people.  They’re arguing.  That happens in groups of people, which is why I don’t function in them, or engage in situations with multiple people.  The mixed race man with check trousers is here, not … Continue reading 104.  Thursday afternoon at Cannon Street. →

At St Pancras.  I do like it here.  It’s more expensive than the other speakeasies I frequent, but more decadent, populated by continental travelling people.  I haven’t stolen any plates for ages, it’s not really possible with the number of attentive people hovering.  They’re mostly pleasant though. An attractive man opposite.  Pale, young, comfortable face, … Continue reading 66.  Friday. →

The first Sunday of the new year.  Why do we call it the “new” year?  Why not just the year? A cloud of irritability is settling in.  It is still bitterly cold outside, with a dark gery sky and wet streets.  Yesterday morning I cycled around the west end.  I’ve been intending to do this … Continue reading 86.  Sunday afternoon.  Murder, all bran and rape. →

I’m maybe oversensitive to it but it feels as though the distancing and mask thing is loosing importance and momentum now.  There’s a Hoggarth/Lord Of The Flies vibe of destruction abroad.  I don’t want to waste energy gatekeeping it.  There will be self-appointed expert authorities doing that for years to come.  The Melvyn Hayes character … Continue reading 45.  Another day.  Roughly the same place. →

I feel so much more positive today.  In control, content, not quite content or happy or satisfied, but accepting of the present state, knowing that I can’t change it at the moment, so I just have to tolerate it.  Not accept it completely or absolutely.  I’m not thinking about work when I don’t have to.  … Continue reading 126.  The same place, the next day. →

Every morning begins the same way at the moment.  I wake up at 6am, without reason.  The body clock is set now, for the moment.  Radio Three plays strange piano music.  There are softly spoken words inbetween, I only listen to a few of them.  I choose what to wear based on looking outside.  Cloudy … Continue reading 42. Thursday. →

Today is worse.  Bleakness, purposeless.  Winter wind and rain outside.  I’m not sure if I can function much longer like this.  Empty barren streets and alleyways.  More photographs of disrupted earth, but why capture them, does anyone want to see?  I want to paint the earth.  Acrylic paint is flexible, plastic, merging, blending, fake.  Tactile, … Continue reading 29.  Saturday. →

Back into old habits.  In the same place, it’s full of people.  I enjoyed seeing people yesterday, am enjoying them less today.  It’s too noisy, I’m not used to being amongst crowds.  I prefer the sombre half-state of desertion, forgotten places, dusty grey streets, all those evocative clichéd descriptive phrases I fall into the habit … Continue reading 103.  Sunday afternoon.  →