Let the peonies wilt and the assemblage recoil at the announcement of an understudy.
A ruptured thumb.
INDISPOSED.
Too weighty a cloak, too flimsy a tendon.
‘Tonight the role of Macbeth will be played by Darren Montgomery.’
Diction-less Darren can’t find my wig at the 15-minute call. He’ll just have to go on without it I suppose. Shame.
(I’ve hidden it in the fridge at Stage Door.)
My pigeonhole is heaving by Beginners. Get well soons and what’s the point of theatre if we can’t have you?
I could go home but I’m curious to see he-of-the-soft consonant mumble his way through an imitation of my performance. And such a weak jawline. As if they made him first cover.
Holding up Doorframe O’Dwyer before he goes horizontal on the extended Cobble family, also inebriated. 4 pints of Magners, two Jägermeisters, a fat frog, a baby Guinness and a tin of porn star martini from M&S.
Twas’ the air that did it, he says.
The Moloney Mountain twins are teetotal having pledged never to drink alcohol during their confirmation ceremony 63 million years ago. They offer the best vantage point from which one can observe the likes of White Wash Welsh and Gate McGettigan. The two of them, stotious.
My decapitated head has been added to my girlfriend’s art installation.
All I said was that she wore too much make-up.
Bit of an overreaction if you ask me.
She has since applied a ‘full face’ to my salvaged head and a hairline has been painted where no such illusion existed before. It’s a small blessing that my sweat glands appear to be malfunctioning ever since the beheading. I mean, how’s a man to be taken seriously with dye trickling down his face?
HOW, Rudi Giuliani?
All I said was that it made her look fake.
Think she’s after drawing eyebrows on too and if it’s the skinny tadpole sort I’ll be fuming.
All I said was that it looked a bit caked on.
I mean, I’ve work to go to tomorrow. I can explain the missing torso, but lipstick?
‘I don’t know why you put that shit all over your face’ was all that I said so it’s not like I told her she was ugly. If anything I was paying her a compliment!
Anyway.
I’ll keep my mouth shut next time or she’ll accuse me of trying to suppress her again.
I love my wife but I’ve grown suspicious of her curiously long hands.
I probably should have spotted this irregularity prior to the wedding but I guess I was distracted by the vastness of her forehead and her continuous probing glower. Only when I was literally putting a ring on it did said irregularity become abundantly clear and in a profound state of PTS induced weakness, I was rendered incapable of physically pushing the wedding band beyond her knuckle. When later asked to explain the crude positioning of her ring, I panicked and told her it was for reasons pertaining to circulation. It would fend off the early onset of Raynaud’s syndrome, I said.
Armed with this misinformation, she now wears all of her rings in a similar position, midway between nail and knuckle.
My anxiety has since been further exacerbated by the revelation this afternoon that my wife is, it seems, with child. Whilst I wish I could say I was thrilled at the news, the only thing I could think was ‘what if the baby’s hands are too long too?’
She noted my unease alright, her glare taking on a notably more acidic penetrative quality. So, anxious to diffuse any unpleasantness that might ensue from the inability of my face muscles to respond with movement indicative of happiness, I instead offered an apprehensive wave by means of deflection.
The peripheral vision of my own average-sized hand has now sent me into a deep melancholy, however. Triggering you might say.
Buxom bulbs really do it for me. Not just onions. Leeks too. Wouldn’t kick a crocus out of bed for eating crisps either.
But one bulb in particular has recently gotten both over and under my skin.
Renatta-The-Onion just gets me.
I cry whenever I’m near her and everything seems so much more beautiful in her presence. More poetic. More profound.
It’s like she’s prodded my very soul and with each passing day I grow at little more at one with her.
Literally at one with her.
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to conceal this extra-marital affair from my wife. She says it’s an insult that I should display my ‘hard ons for all things bulbous so flagrantly to the masses.’ The heartless wench has even questioned the extent of Renatta’s ‘so called layers’.
It all started about 12 months ago when I decided to embark on an experiment involving my head, Regaine and Renatta. It seemed logical that a product designed to stimulate inactive hair follicles might also stimulate an onion straddling my scalp (if Rentatta could talk I’m confident she would describe herself as moderately kinky).
As anticipated, her response has been nothing short of remarkable and suffice to say, this bhaji babe gives great head. With a bit of persistence on the Regaine front, I’m hoping Renatta will eventually envelop me from the neck upward, sit fully on my face and tell me that she loves me.
Welcome to the Bullingdon Club, dear boy and may I begin by reminding you of the privilege you now enjoy as quite possibly, the very first observer (as opposed to participating member) to earn his place among the chosen ones.
Of course your purpose here is merely to paint us and whilst this level of intrusion by a commoner does run the risk of sullying our reputation for the everyday dismissal of beastly plebs and their inbred associates, it nevertheless strikes me as a burden of necessity if we are ever to capture the depth of our intellectualism in picture format.
So, well done you! A marvellous feat!
Just don’t touch anything.
Now, first things first; we’ll probably trash your painting kit after if that’s OK with you? Any damage will be covered in cash of course but, worth flagging at this stage. Curious little habit, I know. Just the way we do business here I’m afraid.
Secondly; your subjects. I’m sure we are a little older than what you had envisaged, pleb-I-mean-painter, but as the saying goes, ‘once a Bullingdon, always a Bullingdon!’. All that matters is that our respective spectacles, noses and furrowed brows be highlighted and celebrated. After all, these are the things that speak of culture and sophistication and wisdom above the ordinary.
I personally have been practising my look of ‘knowledge intake’ quite fastidiously of late. My research has revealed that resting my newspaper on my lap like so allows for a condescending downward sneer which marries very nicely with the spirit of our club. The content of the newspaper itself is irrelevant, its inclusion pertaining purely to the optics surrounding our Bullingdon brand.
Boris to my right has gone for a slightly slouchy, somewhat irreverent lean across the table. I wasn’t sure at first but having discussed it with him over a bottle of Tignanello, I am now confident that this particular pose reveals a certain breezy indifference, unique to upper classes where the stakes are never that high. Genius of him really. A sure-fire future Prime Minister in the making.
Next is Phyllius Montgommery who believes in the power of a pompously protruding chest, coupled with a dogged refusal to ever sit down. This, he says, ‘speaks of better breeding and a robust set of glutes, entirely beyond the capabilities of non-Bullingdons’.
Sir Ewan Rathbone to his right has forgotten his glasses.
I can only apologise for this lacklustre performance on his part and the feelings of profound awkwardness and embarrassment he has induced in each of us here tonight. With the exception of Boris that is. To be clear, squinting has no place in the Bullingdon Club.
Thankfully Sir Jeremy Viscount is pulling a magnificently assured pose at the far end of the table and I have it on good authority that the inspiration for his enraptured gaze is a flimsily attired young filly. Redemption for us all, following Rathbone’s shambolic display.
Finally, Lord Halifax is sucking nonchalantly on his great big pipe. His pipe is bigger than yours and that’s all you need to know.
As for the old man with his back to you, we don’t know who this is. He was there when we arrived so we felt it best to leave him.
He’s not in the way is he?
Das Lesekabinett
*oil on canvas
*71 x 100 cm
*signed b.r.: J. P. Hasenclever. / 1843.
My name is Jason and I’m a horse. Hanoverian to be specific.
I’m also fucking fuming.
There I was having a quiet munch in the paddock and who should saunter over, only Dick Features himself, accompanied by his ever expanding paunch.
“Wooooooo there, Jasey Jasey! Jasey, the bestest BOY! Time to get our picture painted now Jasey! Who’s a lucky pony? Who’s the luckiest, PRETTIEST, pony?!”
Let’s get one thing straight. I’m a HORSE, not an effing pony, you patronising prick.
17 hands is hardly pony territory and unlike you, my girth is comprised almost entirely of muscle. I mean, do you even lift, bruh?
Saddled me up for the spectacle too. Heartless really, considering the months that have passed since he last bothered taking me out for a hack. That would require the giving of a shit about me so needless to say I’ve been left to my own devices i.e. ABANDONED.
Just to clarify, horses have feelings too, you know.
We get lonely. We crave affection. Sometimes spooning a bemused sheep isn’t enough. Our needs couldn’t be more glaringly obvious.
Then again, I am of German descent and it naturally follows that I am highly accomplished at almost everything, intuition included. I sometimes forget that such compassion isn’t as readily accessible to upper class Englishmen. To this effect I shall spell it out again in the hopeless expectation that Dick Features might one day take the finger out.
Dear Sir,
My name is Jason. I enjoy trotting, cantering, galloping, jumping, bucking, neighing, listening to humans and silently advising, sugar cubes, carrot batons, apples, hay, compliments and patting. Would like to meet owner of similar interests.
Seemed a bit tedious at first (don’t even get me started on the shambolic brushes that come with the set) but I’ve since developed a certain ease with this level of dictatorship. It’s not that I like being dominated; I just like being told what to do.
Having completed a painting of the Eiffel Tower in the early days of lockdown, I then progressed to the head of a deer in varying shades of neon. A depiction of three owls in varying shades of puzzled and perplexed soon followed. Now, an advanced Painter-By-Numberer, I have long felt the need to broaden my brush-stroke range and challenge myself to make bolder artistic choices.
To this effect I have today painted myself onto a canvas using the skills I have acquired in my painting by numbers pursuits. Not a self-portrait I must clarify, I’m literally stuck in this painting. And before you ask, no this isn’t a mistake on my part, it’s wholly intentional.
“Why diminish yourself in a painting, Adele?!” I hear you ask.
Well maybe I want to be bought on eBay and discarded once lockdown ends? Maybe I enjoy being treated like a disposable toy and crumpled into the bottom drawer of the bedside cabinet alongside 3 used batteries, an iPhone 4 charger, 47 plectrums, a screwdriver, an incomplete deck of cards and one single glove? If the buyers don’t want me I can always re-emerge in a different painting; a collaboration with the owls perhaps?
I drew the shapes all by myself by the way; rectangles, triangles, squares, dots, swirls, circles, eyeballs and a few token boobs for that je ne sais quoi. What’s more, a momentary glance at this canvas will confirm that when it comes to hair style, the wheel has well and truly been reinvented. Inspired by a pirate hat, the result is totally avante-garde and devastatingly chic.
It took me a good three hours to number every shape (24 numbers in total with corresponding colours) and whilst the paint-stroking ought really to have been left to the eventual purchaser, I simply couldn’t help myself. By tea time I had paint-stroked myself silly. What can I say, I’m a rascal!
Now I lie in my painted bed (felt it best to prepare for all eventualities) with my eyes heavy but my heart and cheeks ablaze with self-satisfaction.
Tomorrow I shall post myself on eBay for a very reasonable £0.98.
(Brushes/Paints not included, Postage and Packaging £1.899.99)
Potty Paintings 