One month as it happened…
SUNDAY 1 I resigned from the committee of our local allotment group. I’d much rather be a freewheeling cheerleader than a faceless bureaucrat. Now I’m canvasing members for their top tips for a fertilizer. One member, Tim, swears by “dried blood” fertilizer. He seems quite bashful about his recommendation, as if he knows he is soon to be trolled by the animal-rights enthusiasts.
📌 Another word discovered while slogging through an especially difficult Squardle…
MONDAY 2 St Luke’s has a new CEO, and it’s a woman called Abi. I don’t know whether Michael jumped or was pushed, but he must have been close to retirement age. Carol-Anne seems happy with the New Broom. Abi has a history working in sport, so maybe that will become a theme for St Luke’s.
TUESDAY 3 I’m nearing the end of Mick Herron’s The Secret Hours, one of the standalone novels that prefigure the Slow Horses series. Only by reading these books can you properly see inside characters such as Jackson Lamb, Diana Taverner, David Cartwright (River’s grandfather, aka The Old Bastard) and Molly Doran, the wheelchair using archivist who presides over the bottom floor of The Park. The Secret Hours is by far the most detailed of these character studies and centres on Jackson Lamb’s post-Wall residency as a spy in Berlin, but I’m torn about what to do when I’ve finished. I will probably re-read the Slow Horses series to see the characters in a different light. And re-watch the TV series to marvel at what a great job the actors have done with these flawed spooks.
WEDNESDAY 4 The Peter Mandelson scandal is just the opportunity for Keir Starmer to throw up his hands and declare: “fair cop, mea culpa, bad judgement, I’m off to spend more time with my family”. Or at least it is a chance for him to sack the Machiavellian Morgan McSweeeney (a Mandelson fanboy), who everyone seems to dislike.
📌 Sam sent a fish picture and I suggested we got together to create an aquarium. I can’t work out which way up Sam’s fish is meant to be.
THURSDAY 5 RIP Cecil, nudging 90. We shared some great times in the studio and even got to do an exhibition together. He arrived in Liverpool as a stowaway on a boat from British Guyana in the year I was born.
📌 I am continually checking the news feeds to see if Morgan McSweeney has been sacked. I expect it to happen any minute now. Meanwhile, the drip-feed of revelations about Peter Mandelson only serves to perpetuate the widely held view that all politicians are scumbags. Or prone to embrace scumbaggery.
📌 Richard Herring sure has a talent for rounding off paragraphs in a way that makes not reading on impossible.
I had to do the worst thing for a middle-class person in 21st Century Britain. I had to look after my own child.
FRIDAY 6 Of all the things to wake up to on a Friday morning, Polly Toynbee’s earnest prose isn’t quite the one I’d have put at number one.
This local scandal on our little island lifts the edge of the global carpet that hides the cockroaches of power.
She does go on to point out that it is a pity that a decent man is very likely to be brought down by an immoral chancer, good principles defeated by bad judgement, etc.
📌 I’ve given the prancing stag image I stole from an ancient vase in the British Museum some cute red toenails. The stitching is moving along quite fast so I will now think a bit harder whether I’d like to paint in some kind of background. It might be a good chance to experiment with the old set of oil paints I’ve had lying around for ages. Or maybe they’ve dried up by now, in which case I will ransack the vast collection of Farrow & Ball tester pots my wife has collected.
SATURDAY 7 Breakfast at Magdalen House in Winchester wouldn’t be the same if we weren’t hoovering ladybirds off the kitchen window while spooning marmalade on to crumpets.
📌 Sarah’s new chap is a vinyl record nerd who likes orange juice in his dark rum. She seems quite happy.
SUNDAY 8 At last Morgan McSweeney has gone. What took him so long? Starmer has had a few positive comments today based on the idea that the entire House of Commons knew everything he knew about the Mandelson/Epstein connection and yet no one spoke up against his appointment as US Ambassador.
📌 It might or might not be the last time we view Winchester Cathedral from the top floor of Magdalen House, depending on whether the sale goes through.
📌 Another drawing of a fish arrived from Sam to add to our notional aquarium.
MONDAY 9 Politico reports that Labour’s leader in Scotland, Anas Sarwar, is calling for Keir Starmer to resign. Elections for the Scottish Parliament will be held in May, so is this another example of a desperate politician trying to save his skin?
📌 The workshop at Headway with Emily to create a new logo went better than I thought it would. The brain seems to be the most potent popular image, so I will work on that for now. Emily thought my coloured plan view of the brain hemispheres looked like profiles of two people gazing into each other’s eyes.
Community was another theme that came up in conversation, plus lots of colour. I’d not met many Monday members before, so it was a new experience. Jesús has painted his rucksack with tiny colourful images of Frida Kahlo.
📌 I haven’t had a top score in Waffle for some time. Yippee.
📌 Half way through and Hugh Laurie and Olivia Colman have finally reappeared in the second series of The Night Manager, which feels a bit more Len Deighton than John Le Carré.
TUESDAY 10 I’m really enjoying messing about on my iPad knocking up some ideas for the new Headway logo. I enjoy it so much my cup of tea goes cold before I’ve barely started drinking it.
📌 We finished The Night Manager and it ended in such a way that another series is inevitable.
WEDNESDAY 11 Got lots of positive feedback from Emily on the logo roughs I sent over yesterday. I will try a few more today, but at the moment I’m struggling to see beyond the images of the brain and of the Thames river. Is there a trick I’m missing? Is there a symbol I haven’t yet found? The answer almost certainly is yes.
📌 Got an email from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism with a revealing story about a mysterious editor, who has been sneakily changing Peter Mandelson’s Wikipedia entry to deflect from all the scandal. I wasn’t surprised, but very interested to read about the editing safeguards that are in place at Wikipedia, which are more rigorous than I’d thought they were.
THURSDAY 12 My wife has long suspected that Alexa is spying on us, so it wasn’t such a surprise to her when I told her I just got an email from Amazon saying we need to replace the black ink cartridge in our printer.
📌 The second of the logo workshops at Headway with Emily started abruptly when Mike urged us to think of Headway as a bank or any other corporation. The best logos, he persisted, did not communicate anything. He cited the Deutsche Bank logo as one of his favourites.
It was nice to see other studio artists being themselves inside a brief.
📌 To the Barbican’s sculpture gallery to witness the latest forced marriage of a modern artist (Lynda Benglis) with Alberto Giacometti. They call the project Encounters, but I’m not sure what Alberto Giacometti would have made of the contrived partnerships had he still been alive (RIP 1966). This is the third and final installment and I think it’s the best by far and enhanced by the inclusion of a few superb paintings.
Then it was off to Smiths of Smithfield‘s third-floor restaurant for Marge’s belated birthday dinner and a view of The Shard in the distance looking as if it was about to take off for a mission to the Moon.
FRIDAY 13 Foreign Affairs has a depressingly doomy article predicting a new rise in German military might.
📌 At a Headway meeting yesterday with physio Catherine to explore ways in which the therapy team can improve its service, two members of the group confessed to heavy drinking. One of them was on a bottle of vodka a day. I was reluctant to quiz them about this, but I got the impression that they were using alcohol as pain management. When I asked about their relationship with their GP they said it was not a good one.
SATURDAY 14 I’ve discovered that our cheap litter-picker is very good at picking virtually anything from the floor, which of course is a fabulous discovery once you get to an age when bending down is hazardous and painful.
📌 England had a torrid time against Scotland in the Six Nations rugby, but I couldn’t help once again noticing how obedient the players are to the referee. In the past, snobs would have claimed that this “politeness” was down to class, but I’m not sure that argument ever held water. So it’s a mystery I will continue to mull over. Maybe one day a definitive answer will arrive. I will report back when that happens.
📌 By some weird interpersonal form of submission, I watched The Masked Singer on TV, in which Toastie, who I had presumed to be Tom Daley was revealed to be Ben Shephard.
SUNDAY 15 The New Statesman has a fantastic assessment of the current Arsenal football team that just happens to be a restaurant review as well.
📌 This hasn’t happened for a while…
📌 To the O2 Millennium Dome with Marge for the Strictly Come Dancing Live Tour and a sometimes quite harrowing experience of the Venue Village concept in action. Lots of low-paid jobs here in North Greenwich inside a sinister playground of shops, restaurants, bars and an arena that hosts big-production entertainment events. It was fun-ish. It was (thankfully) free. It was tormenting in so many ways, but above all it was BIG. I won’t be hurrying back (two medium glasses of wine and a small can of beer cost £37). La Voix fell over and Craig scored her 1. Lewis & Katya won. Jimmy was our favourite. The “Ginger Tosser” lurked among the show dancers. The big revelation was that Craig is the director of these big annual roadshows.
MONDAY 16 I must get on the case and start reading Waiting For Godot, since my wife’s cousin is appearing in a current stage production and we intend to visit Liverpool next month to see it.
TUESDAY 17 I met Michelle and Sean at Acrylicize. We checked out the exhibition space and gave their staff a pep-talk about how to make a big appliqué banner of self-portraits.
📌 A very successful logo workshop with Emily triggered a lot of discussion (including the theory that the Amazon “smile” logo is a circumcised penis) and a few more ideas. We need to establish how important London is to the logo identity, and that will require a meeting with senior management.
📌 To Barbican Cinema 3 for one of the best black comedies I’ve seen in years. The Korean film No Other Choice is right up there with the Coen Brothers for wickedly entangling murder and morality in a way that makes evil seem OK if those doing it make you laugh out loud.
WEDNESDAY 18 Mr Konan, the orthopedic surgeon I saw at UCLH today says I need both hips replacing and the first one (left) will be done within 3 months. It was the outcome I wanted, but it will mean planning carefully as soon as we have a date.
THURSDAY 19 Larry Elliot reckons Labour can win the next election. He says the nation’s social and economic fortunes are on the turn. The only thing that can stop Labour winning is if Keir Starmer is still in charge.
📌 Chris was as stroppy as ever at the Headway Coproduction meeting, but he made some good points about a power-sharing continuum. He’s good on questions but short on answers, strong on the WHAT but weak on the HOW. People who don’t know him back off, but I know him and don’t.
FRIDAY 20 Andrew Mountbatten Windsor looks even more sinister in black and white than he does in colour.
📌 Michelle sent a picture of me and Cecil in the studio.
It was taken one day when I agreed to be a model for a life-drawing session. Cecil is pictured showing me his finished drawing…
📌 I searched the bedroom floor in vain for the missing sock. Then I realised I’d put two socks on the same foot.
📌 Devyani is to leave the Barbican. Her resignation coincides with the appointment of a very fierce-looking new CEO called Abigail and speculation once again about the Barbican’s commitment to diversity in the arts.
📌 We got plenty of good feedback from the management team when we presented the roughs for the new Headway logo and I think Emily has settled on a certain image to take forward and perfect.
📌 Michelle kidnapped me from the logo workshop I was meant to be doing with Emily to observe Jon Barry painting another glamorous portrait. Jon’s finished paintings always look serene and effortless, but behind them all is a colossal struggle.
SATURDAY 21 Oh what a joy it is to see Donald Trump losing control like a petulant child throwing its toys out of the pram.
SUNDAY 22 Liverpool nicked a nail-biting last-minute win against Nottingham Forest.
📌 At His Majesty’s Theatre in the West End we saw our great niece Rosie in a junior theatre show of songs from musicals. For safeguarding and duty-of-care reasons photography was not permitted, but the vision of the poor child from Cambridge screeching a badly out-of-tune Don’t Rain On My Parade from Funny Girl will live in the memory for years to come.
📌 On The Weakest Link, Romesh asked Patsy Kensit which architect designed The Shard in London, Renzo Piano or Giuseppe Keyboard. Patsy answered, with confidence, “Giuseppe Keyboard”.
MONDAY 23 A staggering number of young people in the UK cannot get work, no matter how hard they try. An article in the New Statesman at last states the obvious: that the problem is not the “workers” but the employers. There are simply no jobs to offer the massed ranks of young unemployed people. Employers have lost the appetite for success and can no longer build businesses that need real human workers. They have written off a generation as a cost too far.
TUESDAY 24 I woke up from a dream last night in which I was dissecting a worm lengthways. I made multiple fine slices along the worm’s body until the worm was effectively a worm fringe tassel. I woke up when each of the worm tassel strands began to automatically curl until the worm became a tight curly worm perm.
📌 The application form to be granted the Freedom of the City of London asks for the names and occupations of your parents. We dutifully filled it in but wondered how the question could possibly be answered by one of our friends who was born by anonymous donor insemination.
WEDNESDAY 25 For many years I have only ever owned a shortened version of my birth certificate. But in applying to be granted the Freedom of the City of London, I had to supply a full version, which I duly obtained. Now I discover that it has an error. I was born in Arkles Road, Liverpool, but my full birth certificate states my place of birth as Arkles Lane, Liverpool.
📌 The Sensemaker News Matrix claims that, among other things, working at home increases your chances of starting a family.
📌 Did the final logo workshop at Headway and got some good feedback. I needed to get consent from Isabel to use one of her drawings as the basis for the final design. She gladly agreed. The pressure now is on Emily to deliver some finished artwork. Luckily, Rosie got on board, so I think it will go off OK. I hope senior management agree to the idea of using handwritten text rather than some expensive piece of typography.
THURSDAY 26
FRIDAY 27 The New Green Party MP for Gorton & Denton is an early 30s woman who previously worked as a self-employed plumber and plasterer. Her name is Hannah. Jonty Bloom sees her convincing victory as a sign that Britain is now in the grip of an ABR (Anyone But Reform) mentality.
The combined votes of the centre left Labour and Greens was almost 25,000, Tories and Reform got 11,000.
Veteran pollster Peter Kellner headlines his analysis as a “humiliation for Labour”.
📌 On BBC Sounds there is a fabulous audio serialisation of James, a novel that re-imagines Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with the story told not by Huck but by his pal Jim (a slave on the run).
📌 Paul Mason thinks Keir Starmer can still pull off a win for Labour at the next general election. But he needs to act quickly. He is a poor communicator and has appointed a Chancellor who seems intent on blocking any visionary progressive policies that might, just might, make the government more popular and better equipped to see off the rise of Reform UK. Mason hopes that the Gorton & Denton defeat will act as a catalyst for radical change. That is what this government promised when it won in 2024, but what it has delivered falls way short of the mark.
SATURDAY 28 An article in the Guardian says that after the disaster of the Gorton and Denton by-election, Keir Starmer will come out fighting. The author says that he is crippled by an inability to speak out with conviction about the issues that really matter to voters. He dances around policy trying to find a diplomatic fix, but ends up sounding like “the vegetarian manager of a butchers shop”.
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