Issue 54, 27 September 2021

Monday. Argh. The wind bloweth and it ne'er raineth – it poureth. What a sodden summer it has been in north-western Europe. 

What’s to be done? Well, for my part, I've been eating less meat (unless in the company of my parents who’ll offer nowt else), and trying in general to be more thoughtful about my carbon footprint. I will not fly again. And, etc. We need less of everything, not our compulsion for more, and that, I suppose, includes travel, plastic trinkets and breeding. 

On the other hand, emerging from the isolation of the last year-and-a-half, blinking in fright at the gathered crowd, I really enjoyed my first canapé in a long time at the Signature Art Prize gala at Bankside Hotel last Friday. Especially the smoked salmon ones with caviar on blinis. Less so the glazed chicken thighs (see above, and for the sticky lips and awkward spitting of bone into paper napkins). And bottled beer, begorrah! 

Gosh, it’s been a while though, hasn’t it, and I was positively stuttering with nerves when talking to Liorah Tchiprout, whose monoprints I love. And I apologise to Ursa the young lady from Wisconsin for wilting her with a beery, hungry breath – canapés aren’t filling, are they? And somehow I never managed to say hello to Margo properly; I think I was too engrossed explaining some of the many layers of Sausage, Dogs & Schadenfreude to a tall man in a blue suit called Scary. 

There were 31 etchings in the show, of a total now of 700, many printed in the last year at Thames-Side Print Studios down on the river opposite the Tate & Lyle sugar refinery. Here they are:

They were picked at random and hung to suggest a narrative of some kind, but, as usual with this work, it is for you, the viewer, to interpret the story. Ideally, I’d let you shuffle them about on the wall to determine the whole caboodle of what the hell is going on. “Very mysterious,” is what one punter muttered, peering closely at a decapitated Rex Harrison in a German uniform (DCLXXII - A Perfect Match). 

Each etching has a number and a title:

59 - LIX - That What Grandad Did See

198 - CLXXXXVIII - Let It Begin

205 - CCV - Jostling

207 - CCVII - Nighty Nighty

208 - CCVIII - Pyjama Pyjama

210 - CCX - Tingles

212 - CCXII - You Cock

248 - CCXXXXVIII - A Prelude to an Encounter (Just Not Ever Not on a Bed)

249 - CCIL - Argh

268 - CCLXVIII - I Wish I Knew That One

277 - CCLXXVII - Apocalyptic Superheroes

303 - CCCI - And Then

325 - CCCXXV - I only Have One

360 - CCCLX - Circling an Abyss

387 - CCCLXXXVII - I Watched It Suck Away and Fainted

411 - CCCCXI - Nothing Is Not Revealed

436 - CCCCXXXVI - Whichever Comes First

441 - CCCCXXXXI - Hah

442 - CCCCXXXXII - I Lie of Course

448 - CCCCXXXXVIII - It Gets Unbearably Momentous

456 - CCCCLVI - Forthcoming

460 - CCCCLX - I Could Be a Prize Fighter

493 - CCCCLXXXXIII - Hanging on the Walls

497 - CCCCLXXXXVII - Because I Made It

503 - DIII - God Save the Queen

535 - DXXXV - At the Point of Death

592 - DLXXXXII - Bollocks to this Game of Soldiers

609 - DCIX - So Here We Are

672 - DCLXXII - A Perfect Match

677 - DCLXXVII - But Let’s Move On

757 - DCCLVII - Can You Hear It