Forbidden Juice

Dad explains that when I was a kid I had been desperate for this string of sweet juice that I thought was sex energy. I was mad to have it, but I'd misbehaved so it was being kept from me. He said it was just Ribena, but I remember it as this concentrated solution of yellow Space Dust and sherbet lemonade steeped in tobacco tins.

Mr Obama Goes To Washington

I am in a communal sittingroom. I turn on the telly- white noise then a blue screen with fragments of  text - now a scene from a cheap American film. The setting is the early sixties, the dialogue uninspired. Lead character walks on and I realise it's a remake of Frank Capra's Mr Smith Goes To Washington but it's about Barack Obama's early life. It is as if it has been made with the racist undertones of a 1930's film so that gawky teen Obama is played by a white actor with exaggerated bulging eyes. I am angry at the grotesque caricature.

In the original film James Stewart plays the part of Mr Smith a naive idealist who fights political corruption and guards American values as a moral hero.

Celestial Flight

My dream leads me along a sunny country lane. I sense that my point of view is 6 inches higher than normal - am I floating? I take the liberty of turning my body horizontal and find I am able to partially control the dream. I glide up spiralling granite steps which morph into the carved feathers of an angel and here I sit singing with a boy's unbroken voice - a tiny insect held by the warm air pressure flying high high snug in those safe wings.

The rest of the night was filled with nightmares dominated by a giant Keanu Reeves slicing his arms open.

Yellow Dress

I get invited to this Roman toga party and end up wearing a lemon yellow nylon nightie and a blonde wig. Too much yellow I think - not very flattering - and the wig changes to black but is inside out.  I am  younger and more muscular than usual. 

Am I safe? I wonder as I clamber through a burrow into the town's library. 

I get the odd look but no-one is really aggressive and the overall feeling is one of liberation.

Quackery Smackery

Following his eviction from Big Brother we watch clips of Robert Kilroy Silk performing conjuring tricks where he removes people's intelligence.  The audience is transfixed. He used this device to attract voters but his shallow campaign has been exposed and now, even within his own crazy party, he is reduced to a laughing stock.

Back To Basics

A statue of Lenin high in the mountains is illuminated by artificial flames. I am finishing a week's drawing course here and I am the only student to have achieved nothing.  As dusk falls I set out with inadequate materials.  I wear a necklace I have found hoping this will give me inspiration but I am not optimistic. I decide all I can do is to make a series of small noctural landscapes- anything to get me going again.

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." 

Assault On Kid Gloves

Hanging in the sky are Mum's many pairs of kid gloves, which a rabble of street children are fighting over.  

She is unfairly accused by the law and loses her licence temporarily. The moral to all potential jurors is the police sometimes lie in order to attain their required monthly record of convictions.

Buried Wood

There are three short lengths of 3" X 2" half buried in a hole in the ground. 

Did I put them there or have I just uncovered them? 

Should I dig them deeper into the soil and hope they will break down or might they take root and grow into tall pine trees?

Light Touch

There are four of us presenting our work. 

I show a laborious sequence of images first. 

A woman paints everything royal blue including a local factory chimney. Its big and showy stuff but touches no-one.  

But it is the last that is the simplest and has most impact. A man directs us to concentrate on our breath and all of a sudden I am transformed and have stopped worrying about the poverty of my own contribution.

Lizard Man

I glimpse a man with the head of a lizard walking past an empty room.

Underground Performance Artist

At the end of the show a performance artist clambers down from the stage into a hole below the trapdoor. There he slips into a coffin his actions unseen. The audience is entralled but even more so when it is revealed that his sister has been patiently lying in a neighbouring chamber throughout the whole evening, checking that everything is in place.

Although the performance has officially finished the cast from Coronation Street troop in to watch.

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.

Unexpected Visitor

I am in a flat with a friend and my old dog Dilwyn waiting for someone to return. I am anxious.

Who or what are we expecting?

We see a figure at the front door window- is this my childhood home? It's Mum , but it's late, and why is she here? 

She hasn't knocked. She is on the mobile (she doesn't have a mobile). Her face is heavily made up, with bright red lips. she looks younger, different. glamorous somehow. She has been out somewhere mysterious. 

I rush to clear up because the place is in a mess.

A Lifeline

I have learnt to draw a lifetime using one line.

J has just died- her husband sinks into a state of depression.

How can I demonstrate that unravelling the life that has departed will draw in a lifeline, hauling her out of a slump?

The Invisible Meal

The restaurant is in grey twilight. There is no real food but a waitress convincingly goes through the motions of serving up a meal. She suggests smells and tastes so precisely that some customers actually believe they are eating.

I go along with this game and make to pay her. It occurs to me that I am possibly being ripped off but I don't seem to mind too much as I enjoy the conversation with her where I describe the dish as tasting lighter than air.

"Did you fold it in on itself so that there were layers?" she asks me, "Because then it is quite crispy."

I admit that I did not and question whether I have in fact missed a genuine experience here.

The Important Message

I have organised a party and in Polish tradition we are each to name a cause for us all to toast. The hall grows to accommodate perhaps 250 people. Music plays and one by one each person offers their particular blessing into the mike. 

I have a short text in my notebook that I want to read.  It is the reason I assembled everyone in the first place, so I am desperate and excited for my turn to arrive. 

I ask for the deafening William Tell overture to be turned down. The audience continues chattering loudly.

"PLEASE...LISTEN," I beg them, "this is such an important message." 

And I turn to my book to find the passage, but of course the page is missing. 

Deadly Silence

Pauline Fowler is fronting a  Family Values Campaign with other stars from Eastenders and Coronation Street. The downfall of the nuclear family signals the breakdown of society, she proclaims.

She sits on stage and is confronted by an onslaught of challenges: "Isn't it true you believe homosexuality should be outlawed?"

Her head bowed piously she answers nothing . Her silence says it all. 

Death Bed

Kev has come back to life again.  He has been pleasure seeking around the world and now has a new partner and wants to return home. He looks just as he did when I first met him twenty or so years ago. I am filled with a sense of dread.

Later an image of a death bed - cold and single.