The Kodak AIO is a top bit of equipment.
The only trouble is that is worse than Puzzle Donkey.

Trouty turned up (thank Cod) with a bit of paper which was the only copy she had of a very old photo. The photocopy thing that she had was super-large so I managed to copy it onto paper but was that good enough for me? Oh no.

Somehow, and I’ve no idea how at all, I managed to turn it into a super-glossy 4x6 photo.

Of course, a teenager could have acheived this in about 5 seconds but I am nearly 50.

Defenestration was not required and neither was loss of temper. How I did it I have NO idea. Why there is no instruction manual with these bloody things I have NO idea?

It’s a horrible guessing game where silly old men like me have to try and try and try again until something works. How? Don’t ask me.

There have been some minor victories this week; I got a free Seasearcher from Nauticalia although they seem to have to paid no attention whatsoever to my suggestion that they make the magnets trapezoid to stop them getting yanked out from between the retaining plates. I got a cheque from the water bastards although how they worked THAT one out is as big a mystery as to how the Kodak AIO works. 24 quids? There may well be a family of four living right nextdoor although they tried to make me feel guilty for having a ’small’ rateable value on the slum I occupy. Rateable values? I thought they went out years ago. It’s not my fault they are too bone-idle to fit a water meter. I won a tenner on the lottery so I suppose I’m about 2 quids up.

My vomit has been cleansed from the trackie-top I bought from the charity shop.

It’s finally stopped wazzing down with rain.

Tomorrow morning it’s the doc’s (again) but that’s near the art shop so I can get some white paint that I need. AND, it’s cheaper than you might think.

Trouty’s back and the crow has flown.

Now all I have to do is finish my paintings, work out why my Kodak AIO HATES my external drive, win the lottery, be twenty years younger, have a haircut and bath and work out all the other stuff that puzzles us so.

And tell the crow to fuck right off.

It’s a very sneaky thing, depression.
Some people refer to it as the black dog but to me it’s more like a crow, just as black but far, far cleverer.
Feeding on carrion and being a thief makes it much more dishonest than the dog.
The dog is obedient where the crow is sly.

I suppose I should aplogise for what I wrote the other night but, to be honest, I don’t really feel like doing so.

When the crow swoops, like a collapsing umbrella, and starts to watch then I know the trouble is starting.

Of course I have to feed my crow with drink for that is what he wants me to do. How may I refuse? He’s been around a lot longer than I have.

At the moment I’m thinking about the future. I either cannot or will not write. I either cannot or will not paint.

For some, who can live in the day, the lack of a future is a given. This is life on ‘automatic’ and for sometimes quite lengthy periods of time I can live like that. Sleeping and never checking lottery tickets for the certain knowledge of disappointment.

And then the ragged descent of the crow.

Without a future, what else is there? It takes a trememendous amount of strength to carry on, day after day and I’m not saying that I’m anything special, just one of the many who gets pecked by the crow every now and then.

Oh, and while I’m on… thank you to all who left such kind words - they scare the crow away.

No, no, NEVER wind up like me .
It might seem even ronatic; he never ges up until he wants to and fucks about with boats and painting.

Lets look at the sad truth.

My paintings are ARSE.

All I do is sit about in my smelly flat until Trouty clears it up. I wouldn’t even open the post otherwise.

BUT:

What’ the

oh fuci -i cabn br ased i wrienthus c ro anymotre

nrver

Bloody trains.
If you want them to be on time they never are but if you bust your nuts to catch one it will be bang on and the guard’s whistle will blow while you pant up the never-ending stairs.
And so I found myself (having been unable to put my own socks and boots on) listening to the 10:30 disappearing down the tracks. Why desperate people can’t throw themselves in front of locomotives when I need them to is beyond me; so, I was late again.
Doc Holiday was not available - how strange? I could see his sporty new silver car right outside. I was only 20 minutes late and I DID telephone ahead so that they knew I might be a tad tardy. Arsecakes.

Then came the announcement: “Doc Holiday’s flu clinic is blah blah blah”

More arsecakes.

Really I just like talking to him and Trouty had come along too so’s I could make her tell him how nice and everything I am - but it was not to be.

The receptionist told me I could have a session with Doc Speedy instead.

Doc Speedy might as well have one of those travelator things going through his surgery. Why he even bothers having chairs I really don’t know; he never even looks at you.

I had to see him once when I was scared I might have testicular cancer. He felt my bollocks for about five seconds and WITHOUT EVEN LOOKING AT ME pronounced that my goolies were in tip-top condition and started shouting “NEXT".

Him: ‘What do you want?’
Me: ‘I need some more diazepam’
Him: (writing out scrip) ‘These are addictive’
Me: (thinks: yeah like I DON’T know that) ‘Thank you’
Him: ‘Make an appointment to see Doc Holiday in one week’

And, with that, the travelator started shifting again and I was back out in the waiting room where I made crafty use of the bogs for a nifty swig.

In my imagination there must be a doctors’ meeting where Doc Speedy tells Doc Holiday that he shouldn’t really be giving alcoholics diazepam (Valium, in the old money) and Doc Holiday asking him what the fucking else he is supposed to do? Diazepam stops you fitting and I’ve had diabetic fits before. I REFUSE to go back to the hospital (where they nearly killed me) and so there is little else they can do. The dose is tiny; I’ve had tons more before where it makes you walk into walls but this litle load won’t kill me.

I think Doc Holiday has made the right decision. These small doses of diazepam ARE small but they make me so much nicer. I can sleep properly at night and wake up at a proper time instead of feeling that I’ve been whacked on the head with a mallet which is much nicer than the sleeping tablets that my psychiatrist (Quote: ‘In my country, killing people is like killing chickens’) gave to me.

Trouty has noticed a big difference in me. I no longer fly into a fury at the drop of a hat; the bubbling fury seems to have gone.

Being a diabetic I HAVE to have a doctor whereas before I never bothered seeing one from one decade to the next. Here’s Henry’s tip: Not all doctors are rubbish. Just see a different one until you find one that suits you. My doctor used to be Doctor Speedy until I walked into the surgery and said I had to see someone RIGHT NOW - RIGHT AWAY. By the grace of whatever I got to see Doc Holiday.

When I win the lottery I’lll buy him an Aston Martin but until that happy day I’ll just be grateful that fate brought us together.

He cares. He listens. He has no travelator.

Just because doctors are quaified doesn’t, necessarily, mean that they are any good. Do yourself a favour and get a good one.

OTHER NEWS

I have half-mended my external drive. My next picture (a pun on the canal tradition of ‘roses and castles’ which will be called ‘tulips and bungalows’ ) is already alive in my head and will soon be applied to canvas. I need an 18″ ruler but I’ll make do.

Like some kind of village idiot I’m back on 20 a day but there you go.

I have forced my kodak 3-in-1 to actually work and my external drive is half mended.

We haven’t been boating for a while but the luxury of having a flush toilet near at hand is so tempting.

Oh, and I’m getting a refund of about 24 quids rom the water bastards. An ‘engineer’ came round to see if a water meter could be fitted. I had to lend him a torch. He decided that one could NOT be fitted (I already told them that) so they are are going to knock a bit off.

Still, it’s better than a kick in the proverbials, isn’t it?

Love and regards,
H.

I always have lovely dreams.

If I could have a dream come true it would be acting with Robert DeNiro.

He’s not always the same like Sean (I’m so Scotch that I live in Amerika) or Michael (look at the imprints of my spec arms in ‘Little Voice’) Caine.

He IS always the same but that’s just his face. But then look at him in ‘Raging Bull’

I could watch Robert DeNiro all night and often do.

He is the coolest actor in the world. No doubt about it.

Some people may have noticed that the comments field on my blog has gone missing.

Simong points out that the reason is that the pictures submitted by Hutters are 2000 foot wide and I can’t work out how to ensmallify them.

If you can’t find the comments field just scroll right over to the right.

Since I buggered everything up by trying to delete some spammy comments a problem has arisen.

Trouty can read my blog OK but she can’t see, or add to, any comments.

Links still work on her craptop and she SWEARS that she hasn’t mucked about with any of her settings so I can only presume that I, in some unfathomable way, am to blame.

Other people can see and add to the comments but perhaps millions of my other fans, worldwide, are weeping into their keyboards unable to read or contribute to the comments.

In trying to destroy two pingthings I managed to make all the comments on that particular blog disappear in a puff of green smoke. Could I restore the damage? Could I? Well, what do YOU think? - Could I frying pan.

So what do I do now?

Her craptop still works but she can’t even see a comment link on my blog - THAT, my technermological friends is the problem.

Oh woe is us. Please help us.

Three submissions from Lord Hutton - let’s see if I can post them…

Trouble is, I’m not sure whether he’s submitting art or grub?

If it’s grub it appears to have been eaten prior to photographing and if it’s artistic materials I think Hirst has beaten him to it or the paint stuff he might be using seems a tad unreliable.

I’ll try to post them here:

and

Hooray! a submission for my grub gallery. I took the photo and it didn’t come out too badly.
At this rate she will be size zero in only a matter of [suggested time period deleted on legal advice].
But it looks tasty though.

Here’s a more rubbish photo though and I blame the photographer. He blamed the light but being out of focus is frankly ARSE.

This is how Nosebleed man is coming on. It’s got more oil on it than Trouty’s dinner. Still, he’s squintable if not edible.

Don’t forget to send your arties or scoffies to my email address and when I’ve stopped crying I’ll try to post them.

Tonight I’m going to make Trouty watch ‘Withnail and I’ and eat my own dish which will be a North African style cous cous with lamb and apricots. Which I shall make out of my own head. If you see what I mean.

Nighty night.

Nosebleed man has got a green beard now. I PROMISE it’s not a self-portrait although I’d have have trouble justifying that statement. He DOES look a bit like me I suppose but I’ve spent so much art-therapy time that it’s really the only face I know how to draw.

If I really HAD to draw someone else I wouldn’t really know where to start. They’re nearly always 3/4 profiles and then…

It’s bloody ME again.

The smell of the paints gets me going and the FACT that you have to LEAVE it for AAAAAGES before you can do a bit more. I just had to faff with the portrait again tonight and if he’s got a green beard then so what? I can do whateverI like.

AND his nose hasn’t even started bleeding yet.

‘Paint from the back to the front’ is what I was taught so that’s what I do -EXCEPT, when I painted the drowned man I painted the highlights first and the last bits were all the underwater bits.

Bloody art; it’s SO confusing. When I win the lottery I shall employ people to follow me around and EXPLAIN things to me. What’s this plant? What’s this tree? How does this engine work? Why is my ‘art’ so rubbish? Where does this footpath go? How come I like this poetry when I find this other poetry so arse? Why doesn’t my stupid compluter work?

This is all the stuff they never teach you at school. They teach you about Pi but not how to mend a tap. At school they never teach you how not to be stupid.

I entered schooling from the wrong end; I was not stupid. I learned nothing because I spent 11 or so years having ‘interest’ beaten out of me.

I spent 11 years reading books that I WANTED to read rather than the books I was supposed to be reading. Some of the Russians, James Bond, Pornography (now THAT’S an education), Orwell, Camus, a lot of ‘underground’ literature, Oh, just LOADS of stuff but none of the things that I wanted to know, although I do now.

I want to know how to use a lathe and a pedestal drill (properly) and how to start a diesel engine in the cold.

In 1977 I passed my driving test but it’s taken me the last four years TO TEACH MYSELF how a boat works and to drive one safely and with skill but can I buy a train ticket without getting ripped? No I can’t.

Until I’m a millionaire my Nosebleed man’s stays green(ish) in the beard department and his head stays blue(ish).

Now I can mend my central heating, my washing machine, my starter motor, my water pump. I know a lot about medicine. My spelling and grammar have improved but I learned next to nothing of this at school.

My theory is that you should do whatever you want until you are forty and THEN go to school. Children have a lot to teach us and they should play while they have the chance.

“Why is the sky blue?”

I know. And I know why it’s pale at the bottom and dark at the top.

Cheers, Joe Turner (he was my art teacher at school).

I have been unflooded with pictures of grub to the point of dessication. And this is a shame.

Making stuff up is fun so that’s what I do. Trouty wants to live on watercress in a bid to reach size zero (like what i am) so to annoy her I made up a dish (I LOVE one-pot dishes) that I knew would break her spirit and strength of will.

What you do is empty half the juice from a tin of pineapple chunks and do the same with half the juice from a tim of raspberries. Then you give the overspill to Trouty and pretend it is a ‘nice drink’.

Then take a baking tin, pour in the remaining fruits and juices and add a sploosh of white wine. Then balance pork chops on the top and do a rude swear because you forgot to smear each chop with a little coriander pesto. Add said pesto and pop it in the oven.

Then you have to overcook it a bit because you forgot to put the Aunt Bessie roasties in early enough.

This is sort of what it comes out like.

Looks hid. but tastes yum.

Trouty was going to have one prawn garnished with a single leaf of cress but my made-up recipe won the day.

Best regards,

Fatty of New Haw.

‘Blood on the tracks’ is a great album by Bob Dylan. It is also, unfortunately, a pretty good description of yesterday at West Byfleet.

West Byfleet was the station I needed to visit in order to meet an appointment with my doctor, Doc Holiday.

On the radio in the morning I learned that rail services had been disrupted due to an ‘incident’ at, you guessed it, West Byfleet.

I could have walked it, along the scummy Basingstoke canal, but I thought I’d check at the station first. The train I needed was 17 minutes late which meant that I would be late and I really hate that so I telephoned ahead and explained. The train arrived in due course and I hurried to the doctor and made my apologies for being ten minutes late having enjoyed the ‘computer says “No"‘ experience at the automatic booker-inner. Doc Holiday was in a good mood because he was filling out his pension plan thingy and, doubtless, dreaming of sporty cars and foreign climes.

Me: Sorry I’m a bit late, someone chucked themselves under a train at the station.
He: Oh not again. I had to go over there once when a track supervisor got hit. His face was alright but it was like a flap and there was a big hole where his head should have been
Me: Ooh, are you a divisional surgeon then (police talk)?
He: No, I was just the nearest doctor they could find. All I had to do was walk over there and say ‘He’s dead’.
Me: When I was a copper I asked the divisional surgeon why people chuck themselves under trains when they could just have 100 paracetamol and a bottle of whisky? - He said it’s because they hate themselves so much that they want to completely destroy themselves.
He: When my wife was at the hospital they used to bring in bags of bits. It looks like something from the butcher’s shop
Me: Eugh, FFS.

Anyhow, I got my scrip and made another appointment. We discussed that I had pretty well run through the full gamut of services that the NHS has to offer people like me but he says he will ‘talk to people’ and we shall see what we shall see. One of the problems is that I don’t cause enough trouble; I don’t fight, get arrested, wind up in A&E on Friday nights, shout at buses or make too much of a parish nuisance of myself. I’m also quite clever and they find it hard to trick me with their new-fangled NHS ways - I see through them.
So now I’m on the Valium and being a bit of a waste of space. What I think I need is a keyworker who will keep an eye on me and make me fill in forms and the like but I’m just not enough of a pain in the arse.

At West Byfleet I have to visit the charity shops so I bought a brand-new picture frame and mount for 2.5 quids.

And then I went back home.

And started being nosey. I LOVE being nosey. Talking to anyone and everyone is how I learn things.

Turns out this poor woman leapt from Platform 1, just by the bridge. Some train drivers never recover from experiences like this. West Byfleet is a popular spot for leaping; the suburban equivalent of Beachy Head. All this on the day that the death of Chad Varah, the founder of the Samaritans was announced.

Later in the day a woman informed staff at the station that she had found a hand on the platform.

I’ve felt bad in my time - sometimes very bad. I have phoned the Samaritans myself on a number of occasions. But PLEASE remember this; no matter how bad you feel, no matter whatever it is that you or life itself has got all wrong there is always someone to talk to. Use the phone or walk up to A&E or phone the doctor.

Doc Holiday saved my life. He did this because he is a doctor and a very, very good one. I was lucky but there are other people too. Maybe a little old lady at a bus stop might help you or you might help her.

YOU can help too. I sincerely wish that I had been on Platform 1 yesterday morning, but I wasn’t.

RIP Chad Varah and to the train lady.

I write this, quite deliberately, without looking at ‘Bleeding nose man’.

Last night he got a purple scarf to try and cover up some defects in the neck area. He got more hair because I never wanted him to be a self-portrait. He’ll have to have a beard though to cover up the mess I made of his neck and shoulders.

Here he is so far although what I see now is rows of text, not the actual image.

Last time I looked I was disappointed. He looks rubbish. But I won’t give up. The awful trouble with being an auto-didact, such as myself, is that you get no help. You just have to press on regardless.

It all started with what I saw in the hospital, the green and cream walls and how they looked. Art lesson number one; start at the back and work towards the foreground. I don’t paint from life and will never do a pot of pansies; I just paint from what lies behind my eyes. As the title of my blog confirms - it’s all out of my head and I’m happy that way.

How people have the nerve to sit by the canal with a little easel and watercolour away while a gang of do-nothings pass behind and think to themselves ‘What a load of rubbish, it doesn’t look like that’ I’ll never know.

How ART works is a mystery to me but I do know that it makes me very happy. I can paint whatever I want and I don’t really care whether it looks like anything or not. A title might jump out at me or it may not - so what? It doesn’t matter.

Like when I write it all comes out of my head. ALL of it. All my period of sobriety was entirely self-generated. Everything comes out of my head. Distorted memory and distorted insobriety, the jokes, the plays on words, the paintings.

All my life is a work in progress and I really wish I’d learned that FACT a lot earlier in my life.

Never paint until late in the night.
The smells and the joy (paticularly the smells) are intoxicating,
Nosebleed man may never recover from what I’ve done to him tonight but I’ve done what I’ve done and that’s that.

You see, I’ve actually FOUND something, For all my digging things up and being delighted what I have finallly dug up is in me.

When I squint at Nosebleed man I can actually SEE something. The purple scarf may turn out to be a big mistake but you can’t say I never tried.

This pudding may be overcooked but it ain’t finished yet. And all the while the message was true - “It’s in you".

I’m no John Waterhouse or Pablo Picasso or anybody else but they weren’t each other either. I’m me and it’s in me. Just like it’s in you and inside everybody. And when you find that moment of peace and realization it’s the best feeling in the world,

I’m very sorry, Nosebleed man, but I might have fucked you up, But I only MIGHT have done. For all I know I’ll be varnishing him in a week. In my excitement I may have overcooked him but I don’t think so. He’ll take a week to finish and then what…..?

Let’s be honest; I am a naive painter but I’m a painter nonetheless. When I finished ‘The drowned man’ in 20 minutes and came out of the trance I KNEW, although it wasn’t something that I dared to hope for, I KNEW that I could do it.

Nosebleed man will get finished in his own time and he will tell me when.

It’s time for bed now and the risotto will have to wait until tomorow. And it won’t get overcooked.

I have a problem and my problem is this…
I know JACK about oil painting but it doesn’t stop me having a go.

Here’s a picture that I’m about a third of the way through and I’m more than a tad disappointed. It’s supposed to be a man with a nosebleed waiting in a casualty unit.

Now you can’t really see it although I can if I squint. I can see everything that’s wrong with it, especially the shoulders and the neck so I thought I’d take a picture in monochrome to save squinting so much. It’s still crap. Doing the forehead in blue (not enough different paints) and using too much turpentine in some areas (thanks for the hint, Dorrie - I’ll be more careful now you told me. I never even knew what it was for until you told me).

But oil is very forgiving so, instead of chucking it in the bin I shall persevere. The picture MAY be rescuable. Maybe not but I’m learning; learning all the time.

The traditional paintings for narrowboats is called ‘roses and castles’. I have a joke with a boating friend of mine that ‘tulips and bungalows’ might be a laugh. So there’s a lot I can still do. I’ll keep trying and trying until what I see in my head finally arrives in front of me.

My first oil, one that I’ve actually SIGNED, is the one that I’m most proud of (out of the two). It’s called ‘Fire on the heath’.

Now it’s varnished it really looks the biz. Sorry that the photos are a bit arse but the light wasn’t good and neither was the photographer.

As a help (not cure) for depression, doing a bit of art is excellent. You can do what you want and get things out of your system.

Same goes for cooking except you can eat what you made (unless you are a mental).

So that’s the way this blog is going for a while. I DO need someone to tell me how to put a fingerprint or autograph or whatever it’s called on my images because I was getting sick of them being pinched and if anyone wants me to post a piccy of their fry-up I’ll need to copyright them too (on their behalf). Unless they do it themselves and give me permission to post.

Let’s see how it goes, let out a great big art and send in your dinner piccies. Don’t bother with recipes because I’m sure that if anything looks deeeeeee-lish you’ll get asked direct.

Nighty night.

Sorry, but all the historical of my blog has had to be locked away in an electronical filing cabinet which is in somewhere like Italy, or something.

The reasons for this are several but the main one is that a certain boat is up for sale. If I wanted to buy a boat I’d certainly do some searches on its name and I dread to think what any possible purchasers might find considering what my oftimes inebriate posts might lead them to believe.

Secondly, there has been a lot of pinching of images from my site. Sometimes I find this flattering but sometimes it’s been upsetting.

Thirdly, I was getting bored with it. I’d like to change the tone. I’d like to develop my new found taste for art and the things that I create rather than non-stop iconoclastic rants.

Fourthly, I like cooking and would like my blog to reflect this.

SO…

If you have just let off a great big art or if you have just assembled a reet nice plateful of grub then why not tell me about it?

My email address is henrythethirst at aol dot com.

Send me a piccy if you have just arted or constructed a dish, so deelish or so awful, that you might like me to look at it.

I need to make some changes in my life and this is one of them.

As always, with my very best regards to you and yours,

Henry.