a case for time travel (part four)

Once, in Italy - it was either a town in Tuscany or Veneto, I can't remember details - I stood on the fringe of a street market while the family shopped for shoes. All of a sudden I was aware of the savoury fragrance of roast chicken coming from a vendor's van and I was immediately transported mind and soul to a childhood, London suburban, early Sunday afternoon. Make no mistake, this was not a mere memory; this was the real thing. Only my eyes were transmitting incorrect messages to my brain; all else was functioning properly, sometime around, possibly, 1969.

It only lasted, ooh, a couple of seconds in clock time but, as we know, time is relative - it might have been the whole afternoon. As we lose the memory of dreams soon after waking, so it is with travelling in time.

I get this a lot now, ever since the routine of employment has been suspended. It's milder than the Italian experience but, nevertheless, easily noticeable. Usually I'm walking down the road, say to the allotment, and I'm no longer walking that way but along a different street to another destination quite clearly from my past. The sensations are intense, and real, but sadly too quickly over - I think it's the realisation of dual reality that the process can't cope with. That's the theory I'm working on. Again these aren't memories: I have no recollection of events just sensations of a very familiar environment. Any way, think on; perception, time and place, it's all relative, see. What's not possible?

a case for time travel (part three)

Technologists should avoid making predictions about life. Sure, they can speculate on what will be possible technologically, but not about what our future selves will value. We all remember predictions of everyone owning jet-packs and flying cars. And more leisure time - I remember that one well - due to a plethora of labour-saving gadgetry. Besides, this civilization is, probably, coming to its natural end.

Tim Berners-Lee - fine fellow: invented the world-wide-web (not to be confused with the internet) and gave it away, free - is here predicting pixels will become so cheap we'll have entire rooms walled with the things. Information will then be so widespread and available, some bod might discover a way to stop climate change, or even cure male pattern baldness, perhaps. Maybe. Anything's possible, even a technological prediction.

My personal WWW has been shrinking over the last year. I no longer find it exciting or, dare I say it, worthwhile. My bookmark page is as big as it was purely because I can't be bothered to par it down to the six or seven sites I want to visit. There was a time I used to surf with incredible ease; now more often I sigh and get on with something more real.

art & work

Time tends to move fastest about now; it's almost mid-June, soon the longest day, soon after that the end of classes. This round of the Moleskine Exchange is almost complete too and the next round will continue without me. It's been good fun but the space will be welcome - providing I don't squander it.

Our class tutor was talking about booking some exhibition space in town for her students. An exciting idea! Not that I'll be one of those students who hope to sell their work. This is, partly, the old chestnut about valuing one's efforts but also because I hardly ever see my bits as finished. Not even ''works in progress''. The enjoyment for me is the process of creating in the ''here and now'', beyond that it doesn't matter. It's taken me too long to get to this stage, I'm not sure I want to do anything different. If the exhibition idea becomes reality, I may have to knuckle down and complete a couple of pieces. That's why they call it art work.

uphill, downhill

Bicycles and art seem to be going hand in glove at the moment, me having to cycle to this morning's art class owing to a lapsed MOT certificate. At the last moment I managed to fashion a backpack from two luggage straps, a heavy-duty supermarket bag, and a short length of rope given to me to practice sailing knots a long time ago, so I could take along my own drawing board. A rather Heath-Robinson construction but no one I passed gave it a second glance, so there.

The college is on another corner of town, if you imagine the town to be roughly an equilateral triangle, the middle of which is taken up by Cirencester Park. You can ride a horse through Ciren. Park and if you're one of the ''privileged'' classes, you may even drive your car through it but, for some unexplained reason, not a bicycle. So, the ride means going down into town and back up to the college. Going down, I was aware of being tail-gated by man on a racer who sped past at the earliest opportunity. Further along, going uphill, I managed to catch up despite my load, despite his nose on the handlebars and bum in the air, and overtook with relative ease. I never saw hide nor hair of him after that.

So, the question is; is it better to have a bike that gets you downhill faster or one that gets you uphill easier? I'll leave that philosophical conundrum with you.

antibarbarianism

Hot on the heels of Paxo's advice, I took to my bicycle to see Kate Lynch's touring Sheep exhibition at the New Brewery Arts. Okay, before you say it, that's the nearest thing we have to a gallery. Contemporary, you won't find anything Victorian though you might see something made with pre-Victorian technology such is the way of arty rural folk - rather like the subjects of Lynch's paintings and drawings. I like it like that; each in its proper place.

It was a fabulously warm morning, the air passed by with wonderful smells. The lemony scent of freshly sawn pine from a loft conversion, the heady perfume of a rose garden, and the incredibly nostalgic coconut-ice waft of a flowering gorse hedge. I chained the bike to a fire escape, there are no provisions for bicycles at the new gallery. A criminal oversight.

I really liked Lynch's charcoals. The oils were charming, they brought to mind Beryl Cook in the style of late Claude Monet, but that's the first time I've seen charcoals used with that style of figurative work. Big giants of people and beasts, wool and brawn. My favourite piece had no red dot but, alas, they were all (eek!) out of my price range.

There was a soundscape accompanying the exhibit but I couldn't hear it above the din of class 2K from Much Maisey-in-the-Leaze, (C of E) - I think it might have been switched off anyway. A shame: I love a bit of contrived ambiance. Still, good to watch the kiddliwinks scattered around the floor, rendering their paper with fluffy charcoal sheeps. Picasso's famous words came to mind.