The Pearl Fisher

My Beloved has continued to send me information about blood suckers, here is part of the latest

“Mosquitoes are also attracted to contrasts, a fact that lies behind one theory that they are attracted more to platinum blondes and redheads who are, it’s proposed, more likely to stand out in a crowd. A variety of other research has suggested that ovulating women, people with smelly feet and those who have garlic on their breath are also preferred targets”

On the 24th we shall be heading to London for the opening of “Trying to Cope with Things that Aren’t Human” at Cell Project Space. I am completely failing to make any work and am in constant dread that someone will ask me that standard private view question: “What are you working on at the moment” I have recently promised to make some drawings for more than one person but so far all I have managed is to collect a lovely gold pen and propelling pencil from my father and place them within a glorious red pencil case (a present) They remind me of Dracula’s ring, blood and cape from “Drink the Blood of Dracula”.

I am returned from Cardiff. My head hurts and further events at work, which I shall not relate here, have confused me. People are shouting outside my window and the Seagulls woke me at dawn. I present here the fragments of my memory.

I got to the station an hour early and passed the time by watching the café workers attempting to hang bunting evenly. As time passed the bunting was cut to progressively shorter lengths until, in the end, only three small pieces were left stretched awkwardly across the smallest of the three windows.

Seated in the silent carriage a phone repeatedly rings, suspicious eyes pop up above the seats and fall on me as I look up vampire moths on google.

Ruth and Meriele said they would be on my train, but there is no sign. I don’t know what they look like and try staring encouragingly at pairs of young women.

Join ‘LinkedIn’ I’m not sure why. Passengers eye me suspiciously as the same phone starts to ring again.

Start to think about bingo

Standing in Cardiff station waiting I send a picture of myself to Ruth

G39 is tall, as is Chris Brown, and the show looks great. My film has a room to itself and is beautifully displayed. Up in the office drinking tea I look out of the window to see the prow of the John Lewis building bearing down on me like a huge black ship and start to worry in earnest about the evening ahead.

Ruth and Meriele jolly me along and take me to my lodgings which is decorated much like the homes in “Drink the Blood of Dracula” – a stag’s head hangs in the breakfast room.

John Plowman talks to me about the power of small men, he is smaller than I imagined. He has a list of words.

Later after frantic eating and chair arranging, we talk of many things, I burble and start sentences which I have no way of ending, John is more relaxed and considered. Luckily one section of the audience take pity on me and decide to take over the conversation, I remember thinking it is a great pity they will not be paid for there efforts.

Drinking Guinness. Richard Higglett produces some Cheshire cheese. I meet Mike Cousins at last but he has become the Ambassador for Welsh Art. At four o’clock in the morning I find myself lying across my bed listening to the seagulls.

My companion has become obsessed with blood sucking creatures, sending me many interesting and disturbing emails. Here is the first.

“Most common is the European flea (Pulex irritans), which prefers a human host. Dr. Hubbard recommends lumber camps, flophouses and seashore resorts as the best bets for collectors. He notes that Pulex irritans prefers young, tender-skinned blondes or red-heads—as well as hogs. From Time magazine”

My companion and I went to recce our local bingo hall last night. It was a beautiful place full of light, sound and movement. Well not much movement beyond the regular pumping of pens on card. Although the two rather individual men on the entrance assured us that it was a quiet night, serried rows of women moved to the numbers called by a bored male voice. Not brave enough for immediate initiation we left clutching forms to be filled in later. Outside, in a cage we saw a group of smoking women stamping their cards as a disembodied voice called out: “pink forty two, blue twenty….”. Upon returning to my lodgings we decided to watch the next Vampire film in my collection, a beautifully dark concoction called ‘Drink the Blood of Dracula’ It started oddly with Roy Kinear witnessing Dracula’s death in a previous outing went on to be quite racey and ended strangely as Christopher Lee succumbed to a surfeit of religious imagery. Tomorrow I travel to Cardiff, I am hoping things will progress in a similar manner

I have found a Phantom and decided that in the week to come I will go to Bingo. Both these things small in themselves are huge turning points in my life. Only time will tell what will come from them. The discussion for Café Artistique in Cardiff looms ever closer and it is with extreme trepidation that I view the journey ahead and the inevitable embarrassment of talking about things of which I am not certain. Conversely Mr Plowman seems extremely certain, evangelical even. Our brief exchanges on the axis discussion board (http://www.axisweb.org/dlForum.aspx?ESSAYID=18050#…) have left me downhearted in the extreme. Perhaps he thought I was being flippant, no doubt I shall find out in due course.