ARTISTS TALKING

# 41 [29 September 2009]

"Whilst doing my dissertation on the artist Joseph Cornell, I read an article entitled 'Pergolesi's Dog', New York Times, August 20th. 1980, by Guy Davenport (author and former teacher at Kentucky University). In the article he mentions a
"Countess Borghesi...a vaudeville figure of the 1930's. She had a trained dog who typed answers to questions on a special machine that fitted its paws. After the crowned heads of Europe became bored of her act, she and the dog legged it to hollywood and dropped into oblivion."

I cannot find any books, photographs or web links relating to this particular Countess Borghesi, although there are others. I suppose it was only her stage name but I don't know. Can you help me? Thank you."

# 42 [1 October 2009]

My mother used to say to me:

A swarm of bees in May
Is worth a load of hay.
A swarm of bees in June
Is worth a silver spoon
A swarm of bees in July
Is not worth a fly.

Along with sawing off my big toe (no PE either) this was one of my early money making schemes. to try and lassoe a swarm of bees in June into a Quality Street jar.

There was, this week, a car accident in Turkey involving a beehive in a lorry and a car one person was killed. The bees attacked the ambulance and firemen that came to the rescue and a group of beekeepers in white suits had to come and take the wounded way on stretchers. twenty people were went to hospital with bee stings.

Last year I was biking behind a man in a car with bees flying 'round in his car. He had a beekeepers suit on and helmet-he looked like Max in Annie Hall with his sun visor on.

A few years ago I was walking along the path by the river watching a man swimming with his black labrador when a cloud of bees engulfed me. They didn't hurt me at all and they passed over me like a ghost.

I was playing football with my friends Will and jamie outside the school where I live. Will kicked the ball and a cloud of treacle billowed up from the ground. The bees trickled out of the earth and over the high  Edwardian roof of the schoolhouse and poured into a hole in the roof.

My grandfather kept bees and every time one stung my mother he said 'poor bee. he is dead.' My mother is alergic to bee stings and her arm goes the size a thigh if she's stung. My father is too. I am not and i am reassured that like the daughter of the ugliest people in the world in Graham Greene's short story of the same title she is entirely different.

My beloved cycled through a swarm of bees. He was cycling uphil breathing hard and had to hold his breath.The bees were by the road swarming from a tree.

# 43 [2 October 2009]

Giant Lego penguin stolen from doorstep

A THREE foot tall Lego penguin was stolen from the doorstep of a home in Little Bealings.

The Lego bricks, stuck together in the shape of a penguin, were snatched from Martlesham Road between 7pm on Tuesday, September 22 and 11am the next day.

Anyone with information about who took the item or where it is now can call PC 163 Hammond on 01473 613500

# 44 [2 October 2009]

Last night I dreamt that I was watching a fellow tutor, John, in a cine film. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and had Shawshank redemption glasses on and the tenor of the scene suggests it was the sixties. He was sitting in a bullet shaped sidecar with three babies and a terrier. The babies were playing pat-a-cake with the terrier as she stood on her hind legs and two dead babies were kept in coffins under them.

Hanif Kureishi describes women who read cookery books in bed as ardour dampening. Talking about dreams is also meant to be a very efficient way of ruining a relationship boring your partner: they will be thinking about how much they are going to bid for their moleskin plus fours on EBay while you are describing the finer aspects of the colour of the hummingbirds that landed in the river Orwell last night.

I have a friend who finds anything maritime so dull he can’t think about getting an erection.

Each person’s list will be different In The Singing detective Peter Marlowe tries to stop himself from getting and erection as the nurse wipes unguent on his body by thinking of: The Blue Peter dog, Women’s Hour, Tax returns, George Formby.

I worry that anyone I love will be bored by the constant mention of my father and the dreams that are more real than my daytime feelings

Conscious fears:

Is my boat sinking?
I should lose some weight
Will I end up childless?
I would be a dreadful mother
I don’t want to be homeless
I would like to live somewhere different
Is my cat depressed?
I will never find someone I can marry

Unconscious:
Is my father living in the room where the landlord keeps his furniture?

 I am frightened of the old school I live in. Sleeping here on my own. I am writing this at 2 am. The high windows that I know are outside my room. The new glass replacing the old that was shattered in the war.

I have just run through the black studio needing a wee into the headmaster’s office that is now my loo and home to my zebra finches.

I give the finches old nests and they take them apart and make theirs much better. First they started off with a flimsy cotton wool and parcel-stuffing nest that had huge holes. Then they assimilate a greenfinches nest along with its fag ends and thread. Now they are on a blackbirds nest-which is lined with mud and harder to dissemble.


(Dream) I am making a film of the old school I live in and the ghosts of the children I wanted to film were demanding some kind of equity rights.

Waking logical explanations:

There is a strike at work tomorrow
My boyfriend was teaching film yesterday
I am scared of ghosts
I have just heard of another ex pupil who has died this week

# 45 [4 October 2009]

Margaret Attwood looked at a survey taken in the 1980s in the U.S.
Men’s biggest fear: humiliated
Women’s biggest fear: raped and killed

# 46 [5 October 2009]

My new wallet:

Is an old wallet and belongs to my friend Cad’s Nana. Nana looked like Rembrandt and like my grandmother was paranoid that tinkers were stealing the stones in her Waterford garden. Nana did other funny things that can be attributed to her being Irish: she called Thomas her grandson Toss, she wrote cheques for thousands of pounds and forgot to sign them- when questioned she would unzip her wallet and say ‘Here have a pound.’

Nana hated any kind of boozing and even on Christmas Eve stared at me as I quaffed a modest glass of sherry. No swearing unless it was blasphemy. Loathed the Pope, loved the Father. Mistrusted everyone apart from her daughter.

I keep finding new compartments: Greenshield stamps gummed to the inner wall and in the credit card space a Co-op voucher expiration date 1989.

A revolting piece of string that dangles from the zip-sticky with Nana. I cannot cut it off. The sherry eyes would look at me.

# 47 [5 October 2009]

Hello Angela is Kevin in please?

Hello it's Annabel sorry

Oh sorry, is it I alwyas thought it was Angela I am sorry. It's Geoff here from the seniors at the yacht club.

Hi Geoff I think you've got the wrong number, sorry.

Oh that's alright.

Now I'm sure I got the right number, are you sure?

Hold on wait...wait...it's here we are. Now I told you it's... oh no I see.

I just tried to record this conversation on my phone. I listened to the recording and it's just lots of me humming and typing and scratching and the cat licking herself.

I missed the interesting conversation I had with the checkout  boy who is training to be a marione and the checkout woman in M&S who is one of a twin-she, Georgette the jolly one, her sister Dreen the misery. I liked her name I told her and she reminded me of Georgette Heyer and the silk substitute.

I missed the conversation with the man in the tractor shop when I went to buy a CCTV camera sign. He told me how his father was murdered in a fake hunting accident. he had been there and had lost a knee cap-that's why he couldn't join the Army-that's why he ended up in Suffolk.

# 48 [6 October 2009]

I recently stayed in my mother’s house while she was away. A small 1970s bungalow with large dark furniture squeezed in like a dollshouse that has the interior scale wrong.
The three part Parisian wardrobe with cherry wood inlay is in my mothers will for me. I thought I could live in it under a tunnel if I am ever homeless.


The shower has handrails and a seat for my stepfather; he lost his leg in a Lancaster in the war.

I couldn’t have sex in the bed. The dreams I had were my mothers dreams being desperate for a wee, finally finding a loo and then realising the walls are see-through and the loo is on a dais on a building site manned by hundreds of construction workers.
 I wonder if Alex dreamt of POWs. He didn’t remember.

# 49 [7 October 2009]

Fao Annabel   Good afternoon. The wall that springs to mind is the side wall of what used to be "The Shell House", Cambridge Road ,East Cowes     http://ourpasthistory.com/Gallery/album301/Untitled_Scanned_60     The whole house and garden were at one time covered with pictures and models covered in shells, but now is reduced to just the side wall of the house, which is cleary visible from the road.   Could this be the one? In the meantime, I will search for other possibilties.   Regards   Steve

The young Freddy in 1852, when looking for shells on the beach, had his bucket of shells kicked at by another boy. Freddy kicked back, not knowing that the other boy was prince Albert Edward, the son of Queen Victoria.
The queen, having heard of the incident, praised Freddy because of his aplomb to defend his shells and awarded him with some money. The story goes on saying that this incident might be at the origin of mr Attrill's creative effort.

# 50 [8 October 2009]

I came home to find my way blocked by a pile of furniture, tubes of Anusol, divorce papers, my brother in laws knighthood certificate, stump socks, cigarette cards, pebbles, king penguin classics and picnic hampers full of receipts, dining room furniture, My sisters milk expresser.

Three of my sisters had similar piles and I was jealous of the sister who got my stuff and the Freemason apron and case.