Basement Access

Because of the crazy driverless lorries, the pavements are no longer safe, and we are forced to walk along high ledges, parapets and rooves.

My shadowy partner is more fit than me jumping up athletically; I just can't do it.

We decide the other option is to travel through the city basements avoiding danger that way. A special booklet is provided which is like a kind of basement passport.

I don't think it will work - I am sure no-one will know what it is.

Art Danger

Like a great revolutionary orator, a Polish artist addresses a crowd in front of Somerset House. He storms towards a shop window smashing the glass. Inside is a block of an extremely unstable substance at which he hurls a handful of coarse salt. A poisonous vapour is emitted.
How can he do this and survive I wonder?
The audience is spellbound and flocks towards him in admiration. Everyone now has their face bandaged as protection from the fumes.

Overwhelming Mass Of Disaffected

This was no normal demo of environmentalists and ramblers - this was an expanding rabble in search of rest and sustenance. We knew they were due to arrive but little had prepared us for the large numbers gathering below our glass room.  

"Dont give them one inch," says our friend, "we have to be tough otherwise the next generation will swamp and destroy us." 

Meat Beat

I have heard about this art installation where participants are encouraged to paint with raw meat. At the entrance of a dark labyrinthine warehouse you buy a big slab of meat and then whack it against the walls of the building. Some have a much more delicate approach but everyone is covered in blood. I didn't really want to get dirty but now I find myself slamming the meat against the wall leaving red and yellow marks- its revolting but sort of pretty.

A New Home

I have wandered out of a big party and am now somewhere in North London near Dalston Junction. How am I going to get back? I am shown pictures of a building with a central tower which is being offered to me for £35000. I can afford that - I am keen to buy it.

A Lost Cause

Charlie, a young male student and I are visiting a huge college.  The student is considering applying to study here. Although he has no appointment, he wants to speak directly to the Head, so we follow the arrows to his office. The corridors become more complex, stairs leading up one moment and down the next. Now there are no more clear directions but the naive student marches on regardless.  I find myself lagging behind doubting the whole exercise.

Too Perfect Town

For two months I will stay here in New Jersey visiting some friends in a beautiful house on stilts. Half of it is empty, the windows without glass. Out of one window I can see the rest of the town - unusual buildings with second floors that seem to hover in the air. They are in fact fixed by metal brackets to a huge white wall surrounding everything. I like the design - the rest of the town I am unsure of - everything seems too perfect.

Special Access

I have to get one of my special needs clients up to the top floor of a castle to complete this exercise. The way up is through the stone fireplace but I know he will panic and besides he's far too big to fit through. I complain about the lack of access stating that it is akin to banning him from joining in. The castle keeper takes me upstairs and lifts up two trap doors cut into the wooden floor. "He can come up in the lift," he tells me.

The New Neighbour

A handsome man has moved into the downstairs flat- he's a film producer I think. D, a pushy acquaintance from my past, and another overbearing friend start to monopolise his time. There is major competition for this man's attention - I don't have a leg to stand on. After I have been sent off to collect something unimportant I find D in the newcomer's place. I lie to him and tell him that the newcomer and I had become very intimate.

New House

Sarah and I have decided to sell our individual homes and buy a 2-up 2-down terraced house together. We will divide the property in half so we have a floor each.

Fighting My Way Out Of A Dream

"Can you tell your builders not to leave such a mess in my garden, " I say to one of the workmen. The head builder, a huge man in his 50's , emerges blocking my way. He punches me and then empties a box of screws and nails on my neat tiered garden. "Just leave it!" I shout backing away. My only exit is through the flat upstairs where the men are working. I push my way past a dozen aggressive workmen. I know I have to wake up to get to work but more people pour in through the front door so it becomes harder to leave. Eventually I get out and wake up.

Precarious Exit

I have been trying to get downstairs at Camberwell Art College, taking my usual route through tiny windows. I decide it is too precarious this time and am advised to use the fire escape caked in pigeon shit. I am going up rather than down. I climb higher and higher into forbidden rooms - through the head's empty office. Here the chequered marble steps grow narrower leading into Russian style copulas until they are impossible to squeeze through. I race back down skating over the stairs to avoid contact with any official. Once outside I gaze up at the hundreds of complex towers and spires and crazy rocket launch pads.

Precarious Perch

I am perched high up on a window ledge in a timber yard sawing letters out of planks of wood. The ladder leaning up against the wall is a few feet away from me. It will be difficult to get down.

Death Of A Twin

Everyone else has left this modern low rise building but I remain. I look back at the death that I have caused but I am unable to really face it. This one man keeps on and on at me for help. I refuse - I don't know what I can do - he's beyond help. His twin screams at me and still I ignore him. Maybe I am even winding him up. Eventually he obviously dies and I wake up horrified, my heart pounding.

Tower Of Babel by the Old Kent Road

Just by the Old Kent Road roundabout near Currys is a massive wood and glass structure, maybe 100 metres high. It is a gothic rocket embedded in the soil leaning at an uneasy angle, it makes me think of the Tower of Babel.

No-one At Home

We are dropping by June's huge mansion. She isn't in, or at least she doesn't answer the door. I explain that that is normal because it takes so long to get to the front door. Well, she doesn't show up so we assume she has gone on already.

Sabotage!

Someone has sabotaged the overflow outpipe of the cistern containing the life blood of this building. When I climb up to the loft to investigate I see the ball cock has been removed. The pipe has been deliberately severed and water is seeping down through the ceiling. Not only that but the rich life blood supply for the building has been cut and is dripping slowly from a kind of battery. This is the equivalent of a terrorist attack. I work out how to repair the damage by getting others to help, connecting the blood battery to the water supply. We find a scrap of paper left by the saboteur- he hated change and anything that didn't fit in with the norm.

Snow In Summer

I am staying over in Tor's grand old English farm set in hilly terrain. The sun is shining and it is a beautiful summer's day. A school party of primary kids are descending the hill. We hear a big crash from the courtyard and go to investigate. The snow has melted and slid off the roof flooding the yard. Bulbous icicles hang from the trees. You'll have to go round the back, I tell them, its too dangerous here.

Chaos In The House

I am in a public building - maybe a community arts place - trying to get my old drawings into some kind of order. In the kitchen antique crockery is piled on the dark shelves. There has been an attempt to place everything neatly but there are too many things and so the overall sense is of chaos.

Nazi Fossil Found

I have been working in this Elisabethan garage for a few weeks and have produced a book of dreams. Outside on the ground I find what appears to be an old fossil which turns out to have some kind of SS connection.