What was your first ever videogame?
I await this moment. I am far to busy pondering.
#1615 the old mortuary ponders
I learnt two new words this weekend. Chromophobia and Chromophilia . A fear of colour and a love of colour. I also went to an art exhibition called The Way We Live. This extraordinary soft sculpture was part of the exhibition.
This work is by Do Ho Suh, a Korean conceptualist who creates the homes or parts of the homes he has lived in. With sculptures created with paper or semi- transparent polyester.
Now I would always be considered a Chromophile. Colour is my thing. But this pale green and red hallway is an exact replica of my hallway at home. Never in a million years would I paint it pale green and bright red.
In my hallway I am a Chromophobe, the only bit of giddiness is glitterball.
Braver than us, we have neighbours who own one of my Mackerel paintings. They are going to pick out the colours of my Mackerel to decorate their hall, which is also identical to the soft sculpture by Do Ho Suh.
The hallway depicted in the sculpture was a home of mulitiple occupancy that Do Ho Suh shared in New York. Which really fascinates me. Around the world these staircases, although essentially the same and about 150 years old, must have so many different artistic and Interior Design differences.
A local favourite of mine is in an old nightclub. The building had been left empty and neglected for some time but is undergoing some much needed renovation and preservation. I photographed it when it had recently been released from the fate of becoming a mega church. At the time it was pretty smelly, damp, verminous and maybe a scintilla of urine. But the layers of paint and general shabbiness were accidentally beautiful.
Of course had I known all those years ago that I would be writing this I would have included the handrail.
I was last in the building in the summer, this was a back stairway and is now closed off as an unsafe area. At the time I visited previously it looked like the scene of many an illicit historic rendezvous or hook up during the buildings Night Club years. The stories these stairs could tell…
One last ponder on my own Chromophobic staircase. When our house was still a New Build. This is what the women of the house would have worn. What ever would they have made of the glitter ball.
Staircases, they make you think.
The Way we Live Exhibition is at The Box, Plymouth until the end of February
#1614 theoldmortuary ponders
I went to an art exhibition yesterday. I knew it might be tough. It was about the Grenfell tower fire. 71 people died in an entirely avoidable inferno. One of the victims and 4 of his family members died together in their burning home. He worked for twenty years in the same place never missing a day’s work until he did.
I also worked there briefly, we would not have known each other but would most likely have crossed paths and I knew some of his colleagues well.In a workplace that deals with death of all sorts on a daily basis. It can have an extra piquancy when a colleague is involved.
The tower block was also on our regular route from the South West to London. The first time I saw the charred hulk was a week or so after the fire, at dawn. I was on a trivial trip to deliver a piece of art to a London gallery. The theme of the exhibition was homelessness. Always a big subject in London, it was a huge thing, that summer, as the survivors of the fire were found short term, and then long term accomodation. The worst of reasons to make an art exhibition topical.
Years later I made a promise to myself to listen to as much of the Grenfell Enquiry as possible. It was not an easy listen.
So I was prepared that a film made by a great contemporary British artist, Steve MQueen would be an uncomfortable watch.
24 minute’s of exquisitely filmed footage of West London. Pastoral to brutal, detail and sensation picked out by the eye of a brilliantly creative and sensitive artist.
My heart and soul hurt and continued to do so long after the film itself finished.
Again far better reviewers than me have seen this film.
Source: The Guardian https://share.google/t49veMRyYMxLbXwbr
I don’t believe I have ever seen such a brilliant piece of film making. The film will be at The Box, Plymouth until the end of February.
#1613 theoldmortuary ponders.
What do you think is the future of AI?
The image above is created with AI using the prompt . ‘Create an image of this photograph in the style of theoldmortuary’ Similarly I have asked and got others to ask AI to write a blog in the style of theoldmortuary. Both examples were ‘off’ in so many ways that they could not be credible as unique or one-off pieces of creativity coming from my mind on a specific day.
AI is a tool and like all tools in the hands of humans there is every chance that humans will misuse it. There is not a tool in the world that was invented for good and altruistic reasons that has not been perverted for selfish, egotistical and criminal uses.
The future of AI is in human hands something to celebrate and worry about in equal measure.
Recently Google offered me an AI critique of one of my paintings. It was O.K , truthful in it’s way but nothing like the multifaceted communication a friend would give me. Or the performative input an art lecturer might deliver or the supportive discussion a committed art teacher would offer to help me thrive.
The future of AI as a tool ,just like everything else,is in the hands of humans and that is as unpredictable as the outcome of the wheel or the screwdriver.
As unpredictable as a watercolour painting.
AI also got one thing wrong. It is Pinktober not Inktober in this house.
#1612 theoldmortuary ponders.
Friday morning after the night before. An evening of Explosive Cyclogenesis. Not the monthly committee meeting of the Tennis Club, but the factors that have created Storm Austen. Although the committee meeting was timely, so a joint decision could be made to close the club and grounds today.
Austen as the name for the first of the named storms of 2026 was too good a chance to not use some literary silliness.
But what word-joy does the term Explosive Cyclogenesis bring?
Key Criteria
- Pressure Drop: The central barometric pressure of the low-pressure system drops by 24 millibars (hPa) or more within 24 hours (adjusted slightly depending on the latitude, such as 24 mbar at 60° latitude).
- Season & Setting: It typically occurs during the cooler autumn and winter months over maritime (oceanic) regions where strong temperature contrasts exist, though it can also happen over land.
- Impacts: As air rushes inward to fill the rapidly dropping pressure zone, it spins faster and generates violent winds (sometimes reaching hurricane-force), heavy rain, blizzards, or severe coastal storm surges.
I wonder if there is a word or pair of words that can encapsulate the highs and lows of the Committee meetings of Volunteer organisations.
Professional Commitee meetings are one thing many of us have been paid to tolerate over the years. But the worlds of voluntary organisations and their management, is a far more unpredictable and at times entertaining use of a couple of hours. Sometimes it is every bit as dire as meetings in paid employment.
Although not so long ago in Covid times I attended an Arts organisation Zoom meeting that lasted 6.5 hours. I will be honest and admit to having to prop myself up to catch some essential and restorative Zeds due to boredom. The early days of Covid meetings on zoom were wild!
There were some moments, last night that might be described as a frank exchange of views at our meeting .The more mundane moments of blocked toilets and ping pong balls softened the overall timbre of our evening, as Storm Austen raged overhead. It did not take much Persuasion for us to make the meeting snappy and head for home.
I can’t say I can come up with a word for fractious committee meetings of either the Professional or Voluntary sort.But the lovely Jane Austen, in Emma, provides a quote that I always pack in my meetings folder. You too might find it invaluable.It has served me well for fifty years.
‘Vanity, working on a weak head causes all sorts of mischief’
#1611 theoldmortuary ponders.
Here is the painting that has been waiting to get out of my head for two weeks. Important for two reasons. Memory and sensation.
Yesterday just after I finished it . I read an old article by Julian Barnes, in the Guardian, about memory. If a Nobel literature nominee writes about something that I would like to write about it is infinitely better if I share his words rather than offer my own ponderings.
The painting represents the sensations of just one cup of coffee in a roadside cafe. Part of a repurposed petrol station and garage in Etél, that has been turned into a community and small business hub.
The coffee was new to me and I was having a good day, taste wise. My sense of taste and smell are impaired and intermittently fail me completely since Covid times.
Everything about that one cup of coffee was full on. The environment, the chunkiness of the cup and the flavours dancing around in it. Cherry, orange and milk chocolate. I have not painted the home-made Pain au Raisin which was phenomenal.
I am mindful that the juice oozing from the cherries is exactly the pink of the marker pen on the coffee dispenser. Possibly a nod to my own little. ‘Pinktober’ project. I also included some coffee beans and my own Moka pot in the composition. This exactly represents my memory of that one gorgeous but simple cup of black coffee.
I just feel the need to trap good memories in any way I can. I hope you have read the Julian Barnes article. I have no meaningful contact with anyone who knew me before the age of 21. One schoolfriend and I see each other once a year. We were not even school friends, we caught the same bus and lived in the same village but as awkward teenagers with similar backgrounds barely conversed. Thankfully we are not those people any more so I get a path into my past when I am with him. Beyond him, tide and time have washed away friends, colleagues and relations from that era of my life *. My recollections of that younger era may be a work of fiction from my own,admittedly, vivid imagination.
Enough self realisation for one day. What about the painting?
The delay was not kind to my models. The over-ripe cherries went into a crumble on the same day. The oranges into a Spanish Chicken and Chorizo stew and the chocolate…
The chocolate forced me to eat it, shocking I know, even the coffee beans were ground to make more coffee. A terrible way to treat models who posed so beautifully. I was not remotely that unkind to the people who I knew from 0-21, life just floated me and them on different paths and into different realms.
*This summer I also met a school teacher, that was a really lovely moment too. Reminiscing is a delightful way to spend a few hours. He was my history teacher, I gave him a guided tour of Stonehouse touching on its remarkable history. I was not as sure-footed on the history as he might have liked, but eating cake in the exact location of a Beryl Cook painting may have glossed over those lapses. I was always better at art.
#1610 theoldmortuary ponders
I received this book for a birthday in my last year of junior school. I first read it at the age of 11. Adult me wonders why anyone thought it was a suitable book for an eleven year old. Just because I could read it doesn’t mean that I should have read it. This was the exact edition that was gifted to me. I found it recently in a charity shop. I’ve always created cimematic images in my head when I read books. My images are significantly different from actual Cinema or T.V productions of the same novel that I have seen. Finding this book showed me why. My image of the whole story is completely played out in the colours of autumn. Not the monotone and dusty decor that traditionally surrounds Miss Havisham. A bunch of flowers, well passed their best reminded me of her wedding bouquet, the one in my head.
Although the charity shop book is old and faded if I perk it up a little I can see the colours that inspired my 11 year old imagination.
Memory is a funny thing, the first thought I had when I found the passed their best bouquet in my kitchen, was ‘ Miss Havisham’s bouquet.’
Not that I am suggesting that my colour palate is more correct than T.V or Cinema but slightly surprised that I stick with it despite most other media prefering dust and monotone. I remain stubbornly stuck in my 11 year old head on this one, should you be interested the wedding dress is sepia and coffee coloured. What would be my colours of choice if my first read of the novel was in a plain school version at the age of 15 having watched it as a T.V drama in black and white. Colour imagination is an inexplicable thing . I am very glad to have solved this one and still uncertain if the story would ever been fully understood by an eleven year old.
#1609 theoldmortuary ponders
Yesterday started with a dramatic rescue. Mondays are our child-care days. I have probably never mentioned that on the blog before. The day starts early, and is punctuated in the early afternoon by a gym class, but beyond that restriction we allow the day to be free flowing, shaped by serendipity and the weather.
This bee was caught in a spiders web, a brunch perhaps for a spider settling into the outhouse for the winter. I rescued her by gently pulling the web from her furry legs. The small person and I were concerned that one leg was broken as it was stuck up in the air. The small person has spent part of the summer on crutches so she is an expert on broken legs. There were theories on bee leg care. As far as bees are concerned I have just the one trick in my first aid box. Sugar.
Maple Syrup was chosen and the bee was presented with a small puddle of it. We watched her drink in the golden fluid. The’ broken’ leg started to move normally. Moments after I caught this picture the bee unfurled her wings and flew off. The small person was very happy. And I did not need to worry about supplying a tiny crutch.
Other small person drama’s were less easy to defuse. A favourite pebble went missing. In hand one moment and gone the next. Superficial but thorough looking did not locate it. I was more engaged than you might expect, because it was my favourite pebble.One end of the dining room had all its furniture moved. The pebble was found. The small person mopped and cleaned the floor. We moved the furniture back into different positions and found the missing pumpkin decorations. Definately a bonus.
The small person was very proud of her morning achievements. The October tree was decorated in its new position.
Certainly a morning spent in an unexpected way. I sense that she believes the whole thing was only achieved because she was there. The irony of the missing pebble is impressive.
#1608 theoldmortuary ponders
Another remarkably sunny day on Dartmoor, gave us peaceful forest bathing and bright river walks.
Walking in a forest that is recovering from the hottest summer it has ever experienced, it was only planted in 1931, was made all the more peaceful because the grass has only been growing properly for about a month. Soft new grass in every direction made the forest floor look freshly upholstered in fresh green velvet. The perfect acoustic muffler
.
Keep the word muffler in mind, you will need it later.
Although just to keep you interested the beautiful, beautiful day was pretty crisp. We were on Dartmoor and the air temperature was 5 degrees lower than at home. The first use of a wooly scarf, a muffler, kept the chill off our necks.
We did not experience the temperature of the crystal clear river water. Lola did, and made no comment. Muffled or otherwise. She was much more interested in snuffling out fungi than making idle chit chat about water temperatures.
She was also happy to be basking in dappled sunlit silence, next to the van, the queen of everything she surveyed.
Until she wasnt, a low rumble eased its way towards us.An invading force of more than 30 Land Rovers pulled into our idylic spot. Great big 4×4’s rolling into our space. Hefty thighed passengers jumping out to queue and somewhat overwhelm a horsebox coffee shop parked in a different clearing. In a moment we were surrounded by vehicles. Some provocatively threw up their bonnets.
Crowds of eager people looked into the inner workings. Others stood around in awe. Some even ventured to touch the still warm inner parts of another persons vehicle. We had been overwhelmed by an enthusiasts event. All over the forest car park knots of people touched, photographed or simply gazed at Land Rovers. Two hours of inexplicable motor joy. Then a secret sign, the crowds dispersed and the great conundrum of vehicle enthusiasts wherever they turn up. It seems that no matter how, pristine or beautifully restoratively engineered vehicles have been prepared and turned into festish objects, One aspect is deliberately left a little rough around the edges or even has the effect deliberately enhanced.
Exhaust Mufflers… Or Silencers, in the U.K. Car enthusiasts seem to love to make a noise with their vehicles . Deep,throaty, farty noises. Unexpected pops and bangs. Thus with a cacophony of unneccesary noises over 30 Range Rovers left the forest and we were bathed, once again in lovely silence.
Googling the words Range Rover and Bellever Forest showed us exactly what the noise was all about.
A strip off apparently! No nudity was noticed by us. I think that may have been a good thing. I am just thrilled to have used the word muffle 3 ways without ever seeing a shortened version of the word.
#1607 theoldmortuary ponders.
If you could go back in time and give your younger self advice, what would it be?
Ducks do not spend their whole lives on the ground.Sometimes, in life, you just have to spread your wings and not give one.Flying Ducks are a beautiful sight.
