Man on the wall

So the weekend turned out to be impressively more disgusting than I expected. I attended a two-day gathering in a field in Kent, HUH FFF, which turned out to not be the kind of place where one can go and make a complete fool of themselves in relative anonymity. Needless to say, that the suicidal urges washed over me shortly afterwards like a thick wave of hate tipped knives. Lovely.

I was going to write something here about the weekend itself, but it turns out that all festival stories tend to fade into “I-guess-you-had-to-be-there” obscurity when read back by other people (apart from when my friend, who was tightly clad in a cow suit, was getting it on with a girl and she stopped him briefly halfway in to state that “things were really hotting-up” ).

So, in the interests of keeping this interesting to those few interested parties, I decided to blog about my moment of clarity the day after the four days before. I dragged my sorry arse out of my flat to be led around second hand furniture shops by my friend who was sorting out a video shoot. I was feeling very sad to say the least. The clouds had come out and I found I had lost the power of legible thought or speech, until we stumbled upon this little bric a brac shop run by a “bita this, bita that” geezer Darren. The shop had that incredible antique feel to it, mixing smells of mahogany and old paper into a claustrophobic clutter of thoughtlessly arranged items. The whole thing felt like a Sunday afternoon film. The only thing missing from this fantasia was that the soft sounds of Louis Armstrong and a mystery female (who is probably not mystery but I couldn’t recognise) were being pushed round the little room by a fisher price illuminated hi-fi and not a Grammar phone. I was so enthralled and disappointed at once as all of the items seemed perfect for my life, but I had not tuppence hapney to rub together. Until, that is, I found a perfectly kempt little book of L. S. Lowry paintings and drawings. I couldn’t believe it. His amazing collection of awkward drawings, kinda creepy sketches and almost childlike portraits, lifted me out of my post-fun funk like a forklift truck made of hugs. Just then holding my newly purchased book, the sun broke a little through the skies and shone an intricate rainbow over the sullen grey buildings, and I realised that I might be alright after all.