Unattributed portrait....

As inscrutable as a new born baby...

I found this in my office the other day - no doubt the work of one of my boys. I found it utterly intriguing; brilliant. Probably says more about me than it does about the picture. I suppose all our pictures do really. 

As seen in NETTO

"We've got your ass covered..."

Andy Parkin in Birmingham

Andy Parkin has journeyed with us over the last two years in the creative endeavour which has become "Andy Parkin - A Life in Adaptation".

In August Andy came over and as a team we tried to come up with the form for the DVD package which best represented the film.We knew that it had to reflect the collaborative nature of the whole process (which had been extremely important all along the way). We knew that it had to have a strong creative stamp on it - something which represented Andy's artistic practise. Andy took this away with him and set to work back in Chamonix. We had thought that he would produce a sort of limited edition run. Little did we know that he would return with about 100 original works. The process had taken him a good proportion of the summer and nearly driven him round the bend!

When we laid them out beside each other on the table they amounted to an amazing personal statement. It was an incredible piece in itself. Probably as close to autobiography as Andy will ever choose to get. Ironically this special release has moved even further away from being a DVD release - it is much more about the art. For all of us, I think that this has made it such a satisfying conclusion to the film.

Andy Parkin October 2009 from Weekday Productions on Vimeo.

Redditch's finest.

Obsession from Chris Doyle on Vimeo.
Rich Simpson, a bit like a cross between pinocchio and a pit bull terrier. Here in Chris Doyle's film he gives a bit of an insight into the intensity of character which has so far got him up "Action Direct (9a)", run a sub 4 minute mile and driven him to becoming a competitive amateur boxer.


Update: A lot of this climber's claims have been questioned and discredited since the original time of writing.

“Hell is other people” wrote John Paul Satre, with sweeping Gallic flair. I think that had he been English, he would have restricted his scope to “Hell is other people’s children”, a more suitably anglo-saxon small-minded sentiment.

I am writing this on the train returning from Dublin, whose easy manners and raffish charm invited 800 years of extreme English vexation. At the moment I’m sitting in the “Quiet” carriage of a Virgin train. The "Quiet" carriage is nothing short of the embodiment of a coiled irritation, just waiting for a reason to snap. It magnifies any normal annoyance into being “against the rules”. It takes the notion of consideration and turns it into expectation, it gives us greater justification to resent each other. 

The traditional Victorian English hatred of childhood rose to the surface on this occasion, causing one triumphantly childless couple to exercise their indignation on those who had inflicted the next generation upon them. 

I am on my own today - the kids are at home, so I count myself amongst those vulnerable to infection from the grumpiness.

I’m not sure that is quite what JPS meant with his phrase, but very often things boil down to just these kind of petty irritants. But just in the way that the “Quiet Carriage” sets itself up for all manner of infringements, so often does our own private bubble of indignation. I think it usually turns out that we provide the Hell and we populate it with other people.

Pigs might not fly...

...but they definitely Flu

Obama

Today Obama has to convince people in his country to adopt some kind of Public Health option for those who are most vulnerable, most disadvantaged in society. It seems to attack a basic premise prevalent in America (and to a certain extent here too) that you must never offer too great an incentive to people who are in a position of disadvantage to remain in that state. An essential founding tenet of the The American Dream is that you have chosen to be there to better yourself.

Whilst to a certain extent this is understandable, it has created a number of dynamics. It amounts to a kind of social 'darwin-ism'. It has allowed big business to come into that space and commodify health. That does not seem entirely right to me. Here we have a culture which has allowed itself to drift into strange paradoxes. For example the State vehemently upholds the right of a person to own and carry a gun (the ultimate symbol of personal power and self determination) and yet holds good health as a privilege to be attained only by those who can afford it.

That is a culture which would appear to despise weakness and celebrate power. It is not a very compassionate position to hold.

Beginnings.

This morning,

walking up the hill back home.

I had just resolved in my mind to come home and open this: box 18.

My eyes fixed on the newly resurfaced pavement in front of me. Nice job.

"Excuse me, is this the way to psychology?"

I look up. Brand new Uggboots, young, bewildered, bleach-blonde, redolant in fake bake for the start of term.

"I've no idea" I say, equally bewildered. "That's a bit too profound a question to be asking this early in the morning." I add.

She walks off, bemused.

Didn't think I looked like a psycho.