6.7 - 21.7

6.7 - 7.7

This is my carer, Dolly.  She keeps all my change and when she is full I take her down to the bank.  She is instrumental in my saving plan.  I go through phases of being quite messy with such things as small change so often lose it behind the settee or often it will just be on the floor in the corner of rooms.  Dolly serves as a compartment for my loose change.  

I read an article that explained that I'm not actually that messy.  I might just be a genius.  Not to be big headed or anything.  Oddly enough though my space is definitely organized in a way that I know where most things are... the exception being small change... though I know where my small change is now.  My small change is in Dolly.

8.7 - 9.7

Took some nice photos down at the building site opposite Siemens.  I think they are building some form of special hospital for rich people:

Directly below one of my office window is this lovely array of chairs and tables.  They have all been covered with pastel sheets of plastic to stop rain from getting into the wood... it makes them look quite gleaming:

And this picture is just of some pavement with the contrast turned up and the colours taken away:

And finally...  I went to see an installation by Jim Lambie at the Holden Gallery:

When there is nothing of much psychological consequence to remark upon then there are always photos of things.  

10.7 - 12.7 

My £4 a day budget has been so critically acclaimed within my many components on both a physical and ethereal level that it has been extended from it's initial 33 day run into a 52 weeks. Two weeks have already been completed so there are only 50 weeks left. That sounds pretty easy really. The last two weeks flew by and my self imposed limitations actually seemed to expand the boundaries of my imagination and routine. A full year of this actually seems like a pretty cool and exciting prospect. Also I'll have loads of money at the end of it... for what purpose I'm not sure yet... but knowing me it will be good.

Had a nice cup of tea out on Friday night before going back to my mum's house on Saturday.  My budget is so designed so that even when i go over £4 I still save loads.  

Some photos of my train journey:

WHAT IF?

your consciousness became a stack of images of your memory all pressed together into massive status update on Facebook? Then an ethereal cursor pressed the "post" button and your soul was sealed forever into the data stream of social media. Would you wonder if you had ever lived in the first place? And would you want to know who pressed the "post" button and ask them why they created you? Or would you be content to just to see how many likes you get? Every time someone clicks "Like".... your essence tingles.

13.7 - 14.7

I don't really go to the pubs around Chorlton much but some of you might remember a character called "Loose Goose". He came to a very sticky end a few years ago.

Loose Goose wasn't his actual name... nobody actually knew his name. When asked he just responded how he would normal respond to any kind of enquiry. Loose Goose would just sway from side to side and emmit a little chuckle and tell you he was a loose goose.

"Yup." he would say. "I'm A loose goose"

Loose Goose wore a baggy polo neck far too big for his tall but very skinny frame. He wore a pair of adidas jogging bottoms that were also too big for him... so he would often be showing off his belly and bum crack. The laces on his trainers were always untied. If you pointed this out to him he would shrug and say:

"Urrr... it's not like I'm going anywhere. Yup."

Loose Goose was somewhere between his late 40s and early 70s... he had an indeterminate age due to the lax youthful innocence that gleamed from his wet but sleepy eyes. He would stand at the various bars drinking real ale and chuckle to himself. He was completely harmless but perhaps that was why he fell in with such a bad element... and why it ended so badly for him

One night in Dulcimers... Badly Drawn Boy met up with Guy Garvey of the band Elbow along with some other badly drawn person (I think it was the bass player from The Doves). The three of them were talking about forming some form of super group and making a massive comeback. The three of them sat there, pot bellied and full of beer, sharing non-inspirational thoughts through their stinking beard gristled lips. They realized that to form their super group they required a drummer. The idea of using electronic percussion was quite hideous to them.

They decided that Loose Goose should be their drummer. He seemed malleable and easily manipulated.

The four of them became a very lazy and unproductive "super group" called Etch a Sketched Pigeon Leg... well, the three of them, I don't think Loose Goose was even conscious of the fact he was supposed to be in their band. He just stood about with them and chuckled in the background. No one really knew what was going on inside his head but he was evidently happy to swaying from side to side in whatever situation.

Anyway after a few months some very seedy debt collectors went to visit the group, asking them to give back the money they owed them. The group swore that as soon as the album was out then they would give the money back... but it was common knowledge that they didn't have any albums or even any songs. They had been spending money on Mr Scruff branded herbal tea, gingsters pies and real ale from Morrisons. Sometimes they would indulge in wacky baccy and cocaine.... though Loose Goose was not interested in illicit substances. He wasn't particular interested in anything. Even as the debt collectors were threatening to break the bands' kneecaps, Loose Goose was just stood in the corner, his eyes fixed on the television which was playing a children's cartoon: The Powerpuff Girls.

"Pretty colours" he mumbled.

The other band members blamed the debt situation on Loose Goose. He was bundled off into their car and driven to an abandoned quarry with a bag on his head. All the way through the journey Loose Goose was singing Jake the Peg. He remembered as a child singing this in his mother's car so any drive under any circumstances made him sing this song. Loose Goose wasn't even slightly disconcerted by the fact that the debt collectors kept slapping him round the head and telling him to stop. His mother used to do that as well.

Eventually the bag was pulled from his head and he was stood on a cliff overlooking a quarry. Loose Goose looked down the cliff and realized it was a 50 foot drop to the ground. For the first time in his life he didn't feel so loose anymore... feeling a tightening in his muscles as he was pushed forward off the cliff.

Loose Goose gulped.

So anyway. Don't trust Badly Drawn Boy, or Guy Garvey, or anyone from The Doves.

15.7 - 16.7

If you are wanting to steal toilet paper but the toilet roll is kept in one of those toilet roll containers you can only access with a key (see pictured example) then you can still steal the roll very easily and efficiently by using a cylindrical object (such as a used toilet roll, or if you want something sturdier, an aerosol can) and then use this object to reel the toilet roll around until it is all out of the container.

Spin fast but not too fast otherwise the toilet roll will tear... which is no biggie, you can always just overlap another layer of the toilet roll and start spooling again... but just for efficiency purposes it's best to reel the toilet roll onto your cylinder at a good measured pace... and try to not move the cylinder from side to side whilst spooling.

By the end of this you should have a toilet roll which is tidily layered into a roll. You can even remove this from your cylinder and when you get home place it in the area you would usually keep your toilet roll.

So now that I've organized my life into a small bracket and identified a tangible and destroyable target.. one that is not actually vulnerable but which is a larger presence than me... but which is still defeatable.. with persistence... which is being defeated with every second that I say "no".  Now that my life is focused towards this target then somehow all the bleak naval gazing seems to float off elsewhere and is merely background noise surrounding a larger objective.  Annoyances like crowds around a central premise.  My day to day life events have as much impact as sludge... which is of no consequence as all my clothes are old now anyway.

17.7 - 19.7

I stayed up and worked on all my commissions.  An entire evening and morning and afternoon and evening staying up... then I slept for the majority of Sunday.   Also I managed to clean up my entire bathroom (except for the bath).  And in the process I found a face mask for exfoliation purposes behind the sink.   So at 4am I used this and couldn't resist taking selfies:

:

The most wonderful aspect of this weekend of staying up and doing work was that I abandoned one project I was working on (a project that has been holding me back creatively simply because I've no interest in it) and put all my energy towards a project that I have lots of interest in... that I can see myself doing well at and that will possibly make me a lot of money.  Which as always is helpful.  I think with creativity you sometimes have to take things less seriously in order to well at them.  If projects are overwhelming or uninteresting (or both) then it is probably best to abandon these projects and focus in on other things.  There is nothing less conducive than a lack of enthusiasm or interest.  To do lists can organize a project but they don't build any interest in it.  By falling from the beaten track I'd created from myself I was able to find a different direction.  Perhaps trusting too much in my formulas is bad for me.  

Also went out for a friends birthday on Saturday.  So I saved money by staying awake for the simple fact that lack of sleep is as disorientating, if not more so, than drinking.

Nikola Tesla, inventor of alternating current, died whilst in love with a pigeon.

"I have been feeding pigeons, thousands of them for years. But there was one, a beautiful bird, pure white with light grey tips on its wings; that one was different. It was a female. I had only to wish and call her and she would come flying to me. I loved that pigeon as a man loves a woman, and she loved me. As long as I had her, there was a purpose to my life"

20.7 - 21.7

Mind~Fear?