Sincerely Yours.

Two quick tips for electioneering, based on some correspondence this week.

1. Handwritten letters are personal. Yes.

Letters that appear to be handwritten but which are in fact mechanically printed and addressed to 'Dear Resident' are not, and actually cause disappointment. (Handwritten address! It's a letter to me! No It's not, it's electioneery bollocks. Boo.)

The bottom line is, not only have you not written to me, but you have momentarily conned me into believing someone has. I am not left thinking, 'ahh, the personal touch,' but rather, 'ahh, you faked up some sincerity. And I thought it was a real letter. You twat.'

This is no better than sending out cheques with YOU'VE WON A MILLION POUNDS!!! and a watermark of Noel Edmonds' face on them.

2. Said faked up personal-touch sincerity is not set up to succeed in the first place when your poor put-upon stamp-licking electoral-register-thumbing biro-wielding apparatchik spells my name wrong.

Music on Monday: Morning, Son.

I expect there'll be another ancient bloke picking a backwoods tune next week, but in the meantime, three hairy men being rowdy.

Squarescapes

I've got a fair/exhibition (a public flogging as I like to think of it) coming up over the Easter weekend so I've been working on some more small square landscapes.

Really enjoy doing these, although having said that, I did move one on from mediocre to better by attacking it in a rage with yellow ochre. Turned out all right.






There are seven new ones in all, uploaded to my website. If you're near Warkworth on Easter Sunday (April 24th) there's a range of artists and craftspersons showing their stuff in the village hall.

Kindle Schmindle: a Curmudgeon Speaks.

TV is telling me just how spankingly different a Kindle is from an ordinary book. You can store up to three-and-a-half thousand books on it, which is good because previously when I've wanted to go on holiday with thousands of books I've had to go camping in the British Library. (We had a fortnight in 940.2, Renaissance Italy. It was lovely.) But Kindle doesn't stop there.

You can keep it in a drawer!


This is good. It means next time you go round someone's house instead of looking at their bookshelves (to judge them, their moral character and intellectual strength) you can now legitimately nip upstairs and riffle through their pants drawer to see what's on their Kindle. Same thing.

Your dog can lick it!


You can read stuff off it while you're chillaxing in a hammock and Converse.


Yeah, you wear Converse and say chillax, because this is your top end:

You live in the perpetual sunshine of those indeterminately Americo-European cities on mobile phone adverts and you laugh all day on your touchscreen phone and use the word 'apps' without wanting to slap yourself in the face. That phone's not even on. Look. It's just shiny shiny shiny.

Your dog can lick it!


You can secretly leer at women!


And the latest one's got a camera in it, so while you're masquerading as a drawly bed-headed Converse-wearing fixie-riding hipster, you can grab a photo of her arse and smuggle it home.

You can give it as a present - although, because it costs one hundred and eleven quid, you can't now afford wrapping paper.


In perhaps the most radical departure from books, you can put it in a pocket! Wow!


Oh.



Hundred and eleven quid. But your dog can still lick it! It's all over the screen, look! Dog slobber!


I hope you're reading dog training book, because your dog is out of control. And you, you're happy to have dog drool on your stuff. Which you then give to your kids.



And then eat off.


Kindle: If You're Rich but Unhygienic.

Plant Portraits, Spring.

All kinds of interesting forms are sprouting in the hedgerows at the moment, so after a very long lay off from photography I've plunged right back into it in the last couple of weeks.

Music on Monday: Dr John's Hip Operation

Dr. John, playing the piano. Result: happiness.

Rust Never Sleeps 7: Supreme.

'Supreme', oil on canvas, 16" x 20".