No More Dreams

"I don't have any more dreams to tell," my dream self complains.
"I'll have to tell you mine instead," says his twin.
I'm not happy about it but agree to accept the offer as a compromise.

Judy Garland Remembers My Name

Judy Garland and Ruby Wax stand by the harbour front where I am walking my dog on a long lead. The lead gets tangled up around Ruby Wax. I call to the dog and she comes immediately. Judy Garland says, "I'm impressed, you've trained her well, ROBIN."
(That kind of memory is the sign of a true professional.)

Ancient Obscenities

Laid out on a table are about one hundred archeological finds that look like misshapen gallstones. Each is a symbolic sculpture representing a filthy abusive insult.

Riding The Storm

I am on a small ferry lying on the ground by a bunk bed. The waves through the porthole are like a wall of water twice as high as the boat. The captain advises us to lie with our feet facing the direction of travel. I am nervous but stay calm knowing the crossing is short.

Step By Step

Sometimes I have problems remembering what to do with my foot when I walk. I have to tell it what to do. It is as if everything has to be learnt for the first time and I am just pretending that I can do it.

The Printing Press

I am using a huge machine to print out a photocard of baked beans. An enterprising Polish man tells me we should be much more ambitious. We should aim to be modern day Brothers Dalziel and get an image in the Bible. You're made then he says.

Rereading Genet

I am directing the young boy in my dreams. He is trying to drag a GENET (a female donkey) up from the ground. If there was something this boy didn't understand the first time round, we know that he may be able to grasp it years later. The boy will never age because he only exists in dreams.

Flattened By One Hundred and Fifty Years

Walking down Camberwell New Road at night I see a Victorian dray horse lying dead by the roadside. It is completely flat. Its harness and reins are still intact.

Wild Dog

I am under a Thames bridge with a dog. The dog runs off up the steps of the riverbank towards the busy main road. My new girlfriend chases after him. Why didn't she put the dog on the lead? I shout to her but can't remember her name. This relationship has no chance of succeeding.

Howard Hodgkins Face

You stood there, your head darkening, turning scarlet and deep blue. Your face now a long red oblong with a blue border, covered with thick yellow buttons.

Empty Landscape

I am walking across the central Australian desert with an unknown companion.

Unproven Attempted Robbery

An apparently deranged woman brandishes a knife at the canteen cashier. A quick thinking customer presses the alarm button and the security grilles drop down. The woman acts as if nothing has happened and nonchalantly picks a fork and spoon from the cutlery tray. Had we all made a mistake in assuming her guilty?

Model Of A Desert

I am coating a moulded sheet of plastic with a sand based paint. The sand is not adhering to the plastic. This is a primary school task that someone else should be doing and I'm managing it badly. Who am I doing it for?

Potential Misunderstanding

A street performer in Charing Cross Road swings a scimitar at his young son, narrowly missing his head each time. The man is slightly cackhanded and at one point the scimitar flies off almost puncturing a lorry's tyre. I can see that some people are going to take this the wrong way and will imagine they are under attack.

The Therapist

My usual therapist is away so someone else stands in for one week. I tell him everything in forty minutes. In that time he changes sex and the room mutates five times. I thank him for a profound experience.

The Wannabe Boy Band

With my moustache and thick greying hair I know I am a bit old and sleazy to be in the band, but I have good ideas for the lads. As they are so useless at harmonising musically, I suggest we mix different combinations of their underarm odours to create an exquisite album of smells.

Three Men In A Loo

In a public toilet I meet three naked figures. The first guides me in: he is a man who was once an exciting lover. The second is a young man who rejects my advances. The third has no genitals like a shop window dummy.

New Wildlife In The Garden

I am excited to see my tree is full of nests from different species of birds. I only had two nests last year.

Reading Without My Glasses

I am trying to read to an audience in the Carnegie Hall. Because I can make no sense of the writing I sound like I am reciting an arty Dada poem. Later I realise that my "text" was actually a copy of a painting of a vase of flowers and that I had missed all its subtlety.

The Thumb Sized Dog

A tiny dog covered in snow finds his way into a cave with a miniature fireplace and settee. Everyone seems to find it so funny he is so cold, but I think just because he's small it doesn't mean his feelings are any less. I brush the snow off his back with my finger.

Unexpected Storm

Suddenly I am aware the ground is moving. It is as if we are on board ship and the waves are big and dangerous. I cling on to the mast and look around for Dad. I can't see him but try to reassure myself that he can find refuge somewhere.

Doomed Escape

At dead of night the police have stormed out of the carpark in pursuit of a murderer. Dave and I run down the fire escape of the building to safety. When we get to the bottom we realise the murderer has doubled back on himself and is HERE...JUST INCHES AWAY!

The Little Dress

I find a wardrobe at the end of a hotel corridor. It is empty apart from one tiny polyester dress hanging on a coat hanger.

The Most Glamorous Girl from Primary School

Beverley Farmer is now 50 years old. Her hair has been cropped short and her face is plump. She sits upright and aloof as she always did. She tells me she has been living as a nun although she is not really religious. She gives nothing away - her air of mystery is still intact.

The Would Be Lover

A young man crawls through the bedroom window of my childhood. He says "Sometimes love comes from the most unexpected sources. You should be open to all possibilities." Maybe he is right but as he mutates into George I know I just want him out of my room.

Covered in Fish Mud

A refuse van shoots a huge pile of shellfish slime which I am forced to climb around to get past.

The Harbour Bunker

I shouldn't be here - charging around so recklessly in the depths of the underground docks. Now I'm in a violent fight with some workmen and I feel scared and have to escape. I fly up into the dark night. Below me I see a running woman getting smaller and smaller.

Trapped in Talinn

I am in this strange foreign city with Sal and somehow we got split up. I forgot to take the details of our hotel and haven't a clue where it is. All I remember is "Coca Centrum"which according to the two women in the travel shop just means "cheap hotel".

The Elaborate Birthday Card

Perched on top of a brick wall, C produces a group of tiny puppets that jump, dance and mutate. As a finale they all disappear into a paper bag which then folds itself to form a complex pop-up card with Ronald Searle illustrations.

Feedback For God

I am playing God with another angel sending threatening messages down from the sky. First immediate response from people was that my voice was very annoying and why were there two of us when I was the only one to speak? I feel a bit guilty about this and know that I had droned on too much.

No Sex

A tall young man enters the flat nervously. Ten minutes later he is followed by an equally diffident young woman. Both have come to have sex with me. I am very excited and take them downstairs. Just as we are sitting down, C comes in laughing - it is his flat after all, and he is not budging. There won't be any sex.

Leroy And The Portraits

We have taken photographs of our different body parts. Leroy doesn't recognise his own picture because it is such a small image and he knows that he is the largest in our group.

Buying A Surprise Meal For Two

A man pushes in front of me in the fish and chip shop. He threatens me and we end up in a punch-up. Eventually I get my fish but without any chips, so I punch the man at the counter hard on the nose. I feel very pleased with myself.

Overflowing Toilet

In Tarin's mother's house I go down the end of a corridor to the loo. The floor is flooded and covered with faeces. It is impossible to use the toilet. As I return I notice smears of shit on the doors and the walls. Cleaning up will be a major operation.

Nightclub Design Is Doomed

Simon in a black frizzy wig tells me that I have to postpone the start date of my design work because Billy Joel insists on it.

John Humphries Dies On Air

On the TV news I see major world buildings in flames. Outside my tenement block window everything is burning and there is no-one to be seen. Is this the end? Am I the sole survivor?

Costly Idea

Small learning books that focus on one word each, looking at all the different ways you might use that word. £3 each - expensive I know considering the large number of books required.

The Bigger Picture

Collecting blackberries and wondering how the ones out of reach feel that never get picked.

Package Visit to Buckingham Palace

We have just been hurried through a small gateway into a busy rose garden. Live gnomes are set against giant red and yellow models of The Queen and Charles waving Mickey Mouse hands. It's a crazy place.

W. I. Party in the Tate Gallery

A tatty cord divides a painting exhibition from a party in an East European supermarket. I find Mum and a W.I. friend on the Tate side of the barrier. Mum is in a weird shapeless floral dress. We are both surprised and uncomfortable at seeing each other here.

The Disused Tower

We are climbing down the middle of a tower perched high on a hill. The way is steep and sometimes dangerous. Piles of old pornography lie in dank corners. We emerge finally from a dripping tunnel onto the main thoroughfare.

Mountain of Knowledge

I am climbing a mountain of mashed potato. Dave is following me a little further down.

Someone Must Be In Charge

I recognise few people at this huge college party. Down a corridor I find a grey hall full of tables laden with unappealing food. This is for the organisers. Does that mean me? Is this my party?

Pink Ted and Too Much Alcohol

On a Wild West film set, two young brothers have been let loose and are drinking themselves to oblivion. The youngest boy, just six years old, turns into my smallest teddy, long forgotten. I am not sure he will survive.

The Muscular Dentist

Stripped to the waist, the dentist tells me how beautiful I look, "You remind me of a Yorkshire lass back home ".
He leans forward to kiss me. Images of printer cartridges that need filling come to mind.

Putting Up With Second Best

At the junk shop I ask to buy a metal washing bowl. The shop-owner doesn't have one but sells me instead the bowl from an industrial food mixer.
I'm not really happy with it but say how amazing it is that I can always find what I want in her shop.

Drawing In The Sky

As night draws in, our cloud drawings become clearer.

Flight Across the Atlantic

I arrive in a small yellow plane in Texas, surprised at the ease and speed of the crossing. It looks grubby and familiar here.

Nothing Is Private Anymore

I am part of a demo though I don't know why.
Are the military police after us?
Have the roads been widened specially to allow them to march through the city?

New Garden Gate is Delivered

It is carried into the kitchen where it collapses into wafer thin pieces of wood stuffed with metal cogs and safety chains on padlocks. It is useless, I will never be able to reassemble it.