PETER PANIC


My Diary - Page Three
01/07/05: I caught a giraffe to work.  I was late and played the blues.  To facilitate the playing of my guitar (which was heading in the opposite direction at high speed) my arm grew several miles long.  I later wound it up and fed on honeysuckle.

I worked for a time inside a clock; people would enter to pass the time of day. 

I caught a hippo home and arrived in time to walk the dog before we both ate the bus.

02/07/05: I put up a tent in the eye of a hurricane and read the morning like a newspaper. The tube train arrived on time and the day went to plan - although I had to eat some dates in the calendar to hide them.

The evening was hot and irritable; the music moved in sound clouds and there was a queue just when the portcullis was ready to drop.

Although I can't remember lying, my beard grew so long today I used it as a lead when I walked Poppy to the Lion gate and back.  Both lions yawned when we walked by.

03/07/05: Part of the day going up in the glass cylinder in which I work and part of the day going down - when you go down you miraculously appear among tropical vegetation under bright blue skies.  This is where I like to be; with all guests dressed in gorilla suits.

I spent some time meditating in a gigantic plate of salad.  I leant against the biggest slice of beetroot I could find - wary of the cream coloured V2 rocket hidden among the lettuce.

During the evening Arial hurried in with news of a hollow tree suitable to live in.

04/07/05: A busy day which emerged from a tired start.  It didn't help that I had to go to work with a chrysalis on my back - when I got half way it cracked open and a brand new car drove out.  This reminded me off a dream one of my pseudonyms had of gigantic insects pupating inside tall blocks of flats.

One of my pseudonym's best friends got bitten by an insect and their face blew up like a football.  I had to protect her from some youths who wanted to knock it into the nearest goal.  I pretended to be the referee and blew my whistle.  What amazed us all was that I blew my whistle once and someone answered twice from high above the clouds.

I changed into a Rubens painting and walked home.

05/07/05: A butterfly like day; flapping to and fro.  During the first part of the day I had to carry the pyramids to a new resting place and then move them back again without anyone noticing.  Of course, I had to dust them first.

In the middle of the day I became the sphinx that asked itself questions - I didn't always give myself the right answers.

In the evening I was part of a trinity of voices and slowly, as the hours progressed, became more and more like a marble statue.  The other two were living Graces.

06/07/05: Back in my studio, which I have temporarily hidden in a goldfish bowl as we have a cat staying with us.  A distant relative: someone's maiden aunt who is thought to write as well as Jane Austen.

I was busy most of the day hanging onto the exterior of a reclining woman which has replaced the white cliffs of Dover.

I became a bat in the evening and flew over the town at some height to the place where the owls reign.  All this is trapped in a big blue book.

07/07/05: In the time tunnel from the early hours - the start of my descent was signalled by the howls of a werecat we are still looking after.  I was in consequence extremely tired when I fell into a fishing net strung up between trees.  I didn't find a fish but managed to pick some other fruit.

I later found a road packed up like an airfix kit.  I only realised what it was when I tried to pick it up.  After walking up and down it aimlessly I rehid it in a cereal box so that noone else will find it.

During the night I was sure the wall in front of the bed had a pair of lovers stuck on it.  They were whispering words people can only understand under an old fashioned light.  The demigods that scatter rose petals at night clambered into a stoneage motor car and disappeared like Toad into the distance.
 

08/07/05: The second iceberg day of the week (I kept myself alert to keep watch for the Titanic).  The morning was an octopus and I did not retreat into the monastry cell until after midday - this is when the sundial creeps away to sleep in the old rose bushes of the round bed.

Above the sun - which was contained inside the goldfish bowl - I sat in a room constructing gardens which I would then have to escape from.  The cat put an old coat over the bowl and I played with the pictures like a pack of cards.  The trees in the distance were talking in a foreign language - I answered in semaphore.

In the evening June found a new job.  I found the telephone - which I thought was a skull and crossbones.

09/07/05: I spent most of the day trapped in a Piranesi picture, like a fly on a glass.  As the fly, I was shocked when the glass turned into an operating table and people in white suits came slowly towards me.  Thankfully I found an old bush, behind which I could transform myself into Flyman with superhuman powers.  I stuck to the ceiling until I thought myself though it.  I then thought myself into a picture again and escaped under someone's arm.

It was hot when I got home and both my wife and the dog were wearing Jovian clothes.  I pretended to be Saturn and took the armchair out for a drink.  The chair was too old to befriend although I told it all my best secrets.

The clock had a face which smiled on the hour and scowled on the half.

10/07/05: A day in the garden which I changed into a World War Two tank.  I went on a long campaign but it was too hot to conquer the World as planned.  However, I did make a water feature.

I explored a new cave sytem during the long evening and talked to seen and unseen voices that echoed through the stange glistening formations composed of cans and bottles.  At one point I accidentally entered an empty bottle and ended up being washed up on a foreign shore (for the second time this year!).

I was brought home by a friendly albatross who I called Sunday.

11/07/05: A day to spend as I like.  I thought I would paint a picture while sitting on top of an electricity pylon.  Unfortunately it was so hot I had to make a pair of wings out on unused canvases and fly down to a more shady place.  I aimed for the bank but ended up in an old pair of tights.  I turned a somersault on landing and took a bow before the audience which were patiently waiting for the next act.

It was too hot to walk home so I pulled a worm out of my pocket and followed it.  I had almost got home when it turned!  In penance I had to hire myself out as neck tie and ended up being used by Beau Brummell bat at a vampire ball.  I only escaped when I saw myself in the mirror.

I looked in the mirror again at night and I was slightly disturbed to find I was sporting six legs.

12/07/05: My wife and I went to Salibury.  I wanted to know if I could thread the Cathedral needle and sow up the rent in the sky where all the voices emanate from.  However, once there I discoved the voices were a figment of my imagination.  I tried to find the tree of knowledge but ended up meeting a caveman.  In tribute I will now call my studio The Cave.

My wife thought she could see a crashed UFO from the train while I thought I could see the farmyard pigs putting on sun tan lotion.  One put on so much he could have been a cricketing fast bowler.

When we got home the garden had turned into an acoustic guitar.  I strummed a few chords and then decided to plant a water lily in the sound hole.

13/07/05: I journeyed across a frying pan the size of an English County; nearly making the centre before I found the giant fried eggs sizzling away.  Once there I contemplated making a customised jungle using plastic parts but decided to make only a token gesture by hanging from a grandfather clock making chimpanzee noises.

I put wheels on my boat and sped across Salisbury plain like Columbus (or one of my viking forebears).  I deamt I discovered a New World but woke up in an old nightmare.

I realise I am a pawn in the bed I made myself.

14/07/05: This will be my last day on a swing next to the budgerigars for a little while; so I made the most of it.

While hanging upside down from a millet spray I noticed a procession moving across the living room floor and up into the chimney.  All carried nets and were purportedly searching for  the sun.  I locked my self in a capsule modelled on the bust of Nefertiti.

In the evening it was cool enough to ring water from the headresses that litter the garden.  I then retired under a waterfall and made a book shelf.

15/07/05: A busy day in the Roman forum - unfortunately the local dwarves were intent on using my toga as an artificial ski slope.  I brushed them off as Dinosaur the sun god.  What spare time I had was used up whistling in a window and holding court to the neanderthal nobility that had discovered the art of invisibility.  I sat on a saw blade throne.

I got home exhausted from painting red lines all along the road.  I then pretended all the roads were hair and plaited them.  A tiara was put on their head.

On the radio, music was played by intelligent crustaceans.  A mollusc will be the next Prime Minister.

16/07/05: A typically busy Saturday.  While sweating in the heat I watched a film in my head.  It was an epic and I was both the hero and the villain.  Unfortunately both selves didn't get the girl - she turned into a circus horse that galloped off in a cloud of primordial dust.  I grew wings and joined the Foreign Legion.

When I got home my chair had turned into a dragon and was fighting St. George.  I captured the knight and sat down.

When I was sure it was dark enough I blew the light out.

17/07/05: I turned the garden into string vest and then struggled in it.  While inside I drunk from a cattle trough and stuck a hot dog in my pocket. I quickly found the dog a bone and we both watched eagles rise above the rooftops and disappear into full stops.

In the afternoon (codenamed starfish) the entire family sat on the side of a volcano and threw rose petals at Roman Emperors. 

In the evening I built a mansion on a park bench and threw a party.  Unfortunately I didn't throw it far enough and I was late getting back to the dungeon to take the dog out.

18/07/05: A less hot day spent on a silver platter in my studio - slowly spinning in a vain empty to find my best side.  However, I did finally work out the route the invisible people take when they move through the house.

I had to take Poppy to the vet in the afternoon.  We were followed all the way there by thieves on camels and all the way back by a battlecloud; which contantly fired water salvoes as we hid under a mobile mushroom.  Poppy had to have elephants blown up her nose while I held onto a Baobab tree.

When I got home I painted myself red and purple and went to find a caveman.  By coincidence, one had been sent to find me but, typically, we missed each other.

19/07/05: Soon after I had got up I found myself sitting on an arrow head that someone had just fired.  I travelled through a cloud which has since been considered a visual interpretation of Vivaldi's Four Seasons.  Moments after the end of Winter I hit the target.

When I finally managed to climb out of the bulls eye (disguised as a tear) I found I was the first member of a new species: Homo Bovinus.  I flexed my bull muscles and waves crashed.  I changed a person into a landscape for no other reason than I could.

Last thing, after taking a test on how to hide in the trenches, I climbed a rope which was several miles high.  Once at the top, I switched the light off.

20/07/05: I spent most of today at the North Pole.  I was looking for the department store that sells everything.  I came home inside a penquin hypersonic plane - travelling so fast that I arrived before I left.  When I got back I unfolded a flag which had four designs on it - each one I had drawn myself.

We have got a new kitten which I christened Isis as a joke but everyone has now adopted it.  It should have been called Freda after a talking ferret I once knew.

While out walking I found scaffolding put up around a heart shaped building - it was still beating.

21/07/05: I was stressed today, partly through walking around with explosives balanced on my head.  However, I must admit I am not very happy living in a test tube - especially as the neighbours have a huge bunsen burner in their garden.

When I am worried, a miniature army which lives in secret places within the house comes out and patrols, setting up forward bases and other camps, it engages in manouevres in both the real and invisible gardens.

At the end of the day I pulled hard on my braces and shot up into the upper atmosphere.

22/07/05: I went out in the morning.  Most of the time I was exploring rabbit holes - having been previously reduced in size so that I can take part in the kitten derby.  At the end of a particularly long tunnel I found a plate of plums; I divided them equally in half and brought my share home - along with half a blackbird song and half an eagle image. 

When I got home one of the kittens was on top of a building she had built herself.  I sewed my mouth up with an old piece of string.

I have my suspicions that the people next door plan to mount a surprise attack on Rome by taking elephants over the Alps.

23/07/05: A busy black and white Saturday.  I had to go up in the rigging to place memories where they could be observed by all.  To confuse the onlookers some were put up in code.  While up in the sky I sent a sign to all the sailors from my past.  One came by to say hello riding on a cannon ball.  I waved as he disappeared into the eye of Polyphemus, who was guarding all the things I should have done but didn't.

I was home for a brief instance before going to war again.  I only had time to lay down on a piece of emery paper and rub.

At the end of the day I waited on the parapet for the dogs to howl.  Unfortunately they didn't.

24/07/05: I had no time to be the scarecrow today - a black cloud of crows circled the horizon.  I was out in a wet morning - beneath the ocean trying to plant some treasure in sunken ship holds.  I crossed my arms like the Virgin Mary.

I got home by flying snake; which is the quickest way.  In the past I would have donned a blue tit costume and jumped from bottle top to bottle top.

I walked in the door as a knight of old, only to find in this altered reality that everyone had metamorphosed into dragons.  I sat on a burning seat.

25/07/05: A quiet river like day, meandering towards the dark shape of the horizon.  This hid a complex series of caves which represented the evening.  Most of the day I raised a sail on a brush and followed Theseus - who I do not respect after what he did to Ariadne.

I arranged different kinds of moss and other trinkets such as milk bottle tops around the nest.  I sat down on my own among golden eggs.  Some of the eggs made strange ticking noises and I suspect they are bombs - although it is possible glittering jewels (on short stumpy legs) may break out.

Someone lit a match in my head and thought bubbles rise up - as I don't speak to myself they contained symbols.

26/07/05: A good day in my studio, which I had hidden in a balaclava.  I had been delt four very good hands so I made the most of it and bought four universes - three of them in parallel.  I could enter them in turn by flicking a switch hidden in my reading glasses.

I had to spend a few hours as the court jester in the evening; seeing how many bottles I could balance on my head.  I cheated by putting a table there first.  Interestingly, it had a painting on it's underside - it looked like four werewolves pursuing an artist.  The artist pulled a paint brush out of it pocket and shot them.

I pulled a silver candlestick out of mine and illuminated the mirror.

27/07/05: Water came through the culender over the house (supported by elephants it is said) most of the day.  I spent a large part of it in the snake hole which I have turned into a studio.  I milk the snakes every day for their venom.

While it was wet outside it was a monsoon in my room.  I white water rafted across the carpet with a stream of mythical people trailing behind.  Once passed the waterfall I pulled the wishing well out of my pocket and had some lunch.  This was carried on a gigantic irish elk whose antlers were a car park width across.

At the end of the day I put Wisdom back into the old biscuit tin which I keep on top of the chest of drawers.

28/07/05: I spent the first part of the morning hanging from a giant globe which was suspended from a white cloud (I escaped with wings on my heels).  Consequently I was late getting into the rat trap I call a studio but I was soon busy when I got there.  I dug a series of big and small holes and called it art before falling down the largest and inadvertently discovering an entirely new race of human.

It took me several hours to get back to the surface; most of the time spent in a complex greeting ritual that involved tying and untying each other's shoe laces.  Once home I took the dog for a walk over a rainbow, rescued my wife from a prehistoric beast disguised as a railway engine and swum in a pool the size of a thimble.

Tomorrow I cease to be a human being and become a zip on a large pair of trousers for a couple of days.

29/07/05: Today was a day to hang from ropes.  I found one that I felt a special empathy for and hung for ages.  So long in fact that all the people round me mutated into a new species.

I made a life size replica of stonehenge on the shop floor and made a druid cry.  I gave the High Priestess a keepsake.  While I was doing this Caesar came up behind us a burnt his bridge.

A comet streaked across the ceiling while I went to sleep inside a torch.  I knew I would be switched on later.

30/07/05: I called today Janus; although we were not really on first name terms.  I walked by looking over my shoulder and progressed by doing two things at the same time.

It was a busy day and I moved so fast I was only visible by the scorch marks that appeared on the carpet.  Smoke came from my ears and I resolved to meditate.  The monk that lives inside a small piece of furniture in the corner of the room burnt all his old letters so I could never read them.  He doesn't realise I already have!

I called to Godzilla and the sea parted.  Moses sat in his chariot and played by himself.

31/07/05: I fell into the jungle straight from my bed.  Steam was rising and marching like toy soldiers.  While hanging from a liana I moved small parts of the Earth's crust and arranged them into a message on the flat plain that grows as the ice sheets return.

The small cut on my finger grew so large a river ran in it to the sea.  I made a log canoe using a bunsen burner left over from a chemistry lesson in my childhood.  I hated my school, which was situated in a perpetual war zone - when ever peace was declared it would generate giant wheels and move.

Next door we have the teenage mafia.  I am the misfit everyone seeks.

01/08/05: Today was forcibly torn off the calendar.

I became the World's first art studio adventurer.   I was a cross between the Miraculous Mandarin and the Steel Claw.  The leading lady ascended through the floor and I found an electricity pylon just in time.  The muggers, who were shop mannequins in gorilla suits, almost caught up with me ( as I had already caught up with time).  A sacrificial bonfire behind us projected the ensuing battle into the sky.  For most of the time I was invisible like a black hole.

Incidentally, it was while I was embracing the pylon that I was discovered as the next King Kong.

02/08/05: I scrambled out of my sleep and slid down a twisted sheet.  As planned in a dream, I made a tent in the hallway  and became an explorer.  I was just about to summon the artic snow when I accidentally tumbled into the washing machine.  It took me several hours to get out, after which I saw visions of the birth of the universe and walked like a cowhand.  I subsequently found a horse and rode off into the third remake of Destry - in which I shot everyone, including myself.

In the afternoon I was a magician and easily walked through walls, sat on ceilings and plaited seaweed.  I was at the seaside in my head.  My head was as large as a tower block but I saw no ships.

Melancholic clouds then rained on my parade.

03/08/05: I woke up, got out of bed and immediately stood on a giant spring that sent me through the sculpted biceps that serves as a roof.  As I went up, I passed penquins coming down on parachutes.  We exchanged business cards.

While airborne I passed behind concrete smoke - it looks like the real thing from a distance - and in front of a projected image of the Taj Mahal.  I attached myself to a giant's armpit and knew I was home.

I was interested to see the rabbits in the garden were building a rocket gantry.  I prefer to use a flying hat for space flight.

04/08/05: I went to see some friends.  They had just carpeted the garden and all the furniture was in the flower beds.  I put on my slippers and pulled up a flower.  Over head, butterflies the size of automobiles flew.

I waited for babies to emerge from the undergrowth before blowing my horn.  A car jumped out a a well where it had been hiding from outlaws.  I got home quite quickly and planted limbs in the garden.

I decided never to walk again and for several hours hopped everywhere.  It was only when I got proposed to by a Kangaroo that I decided to march home like a toy soldier.

05/08/05: I was a puppet with strings going everywhere - some even went into the space where new worlds emerge.  I felt my mouth being moved by unseen people and I bit my lip.

In the evening I made friends with some toads.  I didn't know their language so we communicated with bubbles.  As always I had the biggest bubbles.

I eventually sat down, got an empty glass and wondered what it would be like to walk about with an octopus on your head.

6/08/05: A wedding day - not mine!  It was decided to have the service up a chimney which meant a tight squeeze for all the guests.  It was even harder for the horses to ride up and get the bride; however, once they had reached the top they were able to use the fire escape to get to the garden cut into a side of a glass mountain where the reception was being held.

In the magic garden people with kilts became tents and we camped out.  I read in the pitch black while the ancient music played and geraniums climbed out of the pots and walked away.  Runner beans ran.

In the night I found the bathroom in the mausoleum and sung another hymn.

07/08/05: Another slow motion day where a lot of the time I was freeze framed for something I didn't do.  I listened to a cricket match and wondered what it would be like to travel on a ball.  After a short period of cogitation I invented a new type of physics.

In the afternoon I got on a slow motion treadmill where you put up a deck chair and periodically move it.  Over the hills a tidal wave wrote words like braille.  I pulled a drum out a wasps nest and beat it.  The wasps pulled a pipe out of their pockets and blew.  It was windier than you would have expected for the time of year.

At the end of the day I weeded the garden while wearing skis and went to bed with a snorkel.

08/08/05: I managed to spend today in the sun bleached coral tower where I work on the beach - This is the universal beach which has a mouth in it.  At night a light shines where the eyes should be and voices can be heard from an island just over the horizon.

I shook hands with all the hands that emerge from cupboards and drawers.  Then I retreated to the artic tundra where I am landscaping a steppe garden for clients masqerading as frozen fish. 

At the end of the day I put a pipe in my mouth and turned the tap on my head.

09/08/05: I flew above the clouds wrapped in a quilt until I hit a full size relica of the Tower Of Babel which was protruding like a snake fang from the cumulous cloud I was drawing a tartan pattern on.  I planted some flowers in the cloud earth before I fell.  While falling I switched on the radio and listed to an interesting program about robot snails.

I landed in a patch of lettuce which had been eaten to the ground by caterpillars.  I resolved not to grow vegetables in the brain cases of classical sculptures any more.

I posted a letter in the letter box on the top of my head - I expect it to be returned with addressee not known wrote on it.

10/08/05: A day at rest in the eye of a needle.  I was chilling out comfortably until a cow jumped through.  I counted it's spots as it went and did a quick calculation.  I now know how many voices are required to sing my song.  This is the song which is written for me everday with me knowing anything about it.

The voices that rise like flames behind next door's fence continued to annoy the puppets that hang round the wall of my study.  I talked to the toad's about consideration for others.

I accidentally locked myself in a room with a talking sofa.  I only managed to escape when I pretended to faint and the carpet rolled up round me.

11/08/05: I thought I would live today on the top of a giant plastic beefburger.  However when I saw mayonaise approaching like an Etruscan army I changed my mind.  Instead I meditated in a nylon cheese sandwich and smiled.

While walking a twenty foot long monster round the council offices I discovered the moat where maidens fall and feed the fish.  I thought the fish looked a bit small and feared the days of legend may be fading.

When I got in I invented a wallpaper which recites the Lord's Prayer when the vicar calls.  However the vicar never calls.

12/08/05: A day which was better than expected.  Partly because I was able to go back to a time where barefoot princesses would carry your salad to the table of your choice.  I spoke to my princess on a range of different subjects (all of which she was well versed in) and watched the hieroglyphs in her contact lenses punctuate.

At the end of the day I was annoyed to still hear voices emanating from the pen where the dinosaur food is kept.  I flew my balsa glider as high as I could but saw nothing.

The Earth is a football waiting for someone to kick it.

13/08/05: I only realised when today had ended that I spent it on a double axe head.  One blade was shiny and one blade was blunt.  In the shiny side I met all the people I ever knew.  The blunt day faded into a football game like obscurity.

The person who spoke in spells came in but she didn't stay long enough to answer my questions.   Although I felt like Eros with movement all around me I had a quiet day.  The lava flow progressed slowly down the street where the cars should be.

Towards the end of the day Ben came in with a sock on his head.  I put my hands up and he lit a cigar.

14/08/05: My assignment for today was to guard a husky dog that knew all the secrets of the wild.  I told it my secrets of the caves where I work and we played tug-o-war.  To show my sympathy for it's position I sat under a chair instead of on it.

When I got home to the "Princess of the Pearl", we walked as one and found the tunnels where the old ones live.

I ended the day by producing the perfect painting and then smudging it.

15/08/05: I had to go to the doctor today and left feeling worse!  I can find things wrong with me myself without other people doing it.  I need now to be tested to see if I am still alive and then to see if I am human.  I have always questioned the latter - this is why I grew wings.

I am still concerned about the huge army which has been massing at the bottom of the garden all year.  Peter Panic may have to reinvent his super powers and go to war.  I am contacting my friends the Soldier Ants in readiness for battle.

The other option is to metamorphose into Eagleman and fly to my eyrie on the far mountain top.

16/08/05: It took me several hours to tunnel out of my bedding and in consequence my studio had metamorphosed into a fire breathing dragon before I entered it.  I painted ice and poured myself a drink.

Birds made from Meccano kits found in the pyramids straddled the roof.  All the houses in the street formed a circle.  I donned the tallest hat I could find and stuck an arrow in it.

Right on the stroke of twelve a ship's prow emerged through what would have once been a fireplace and I proudly stood on it.

17/08/05: I went on a pilgrimage in the morning, still feeling ill from my battle with the "mile high" worms that inhabit the darkest corners of the street.  They have teeth both ends of their bodies and two smiles - both false.

I dropped into the invisible place of my childhood using a parachute.  The gnomes that talk like chickens were still there.  As was the string that ties itself.  I saluted the ivy as I marched by.

The evening was spent talking politics.  When this happens I am the alligator and my friend is the river horse.

18/08/05: Everything I touched today turned to chocolate - even a suppository.  I sat on the brown chair, at the brown table in a brown study.  NB: The suppository had a radio hidden inside it; this kept me amused for hours.

I watched myself on the screen that appears suddenly in the middle of the room.  This always happens when I least expect it so I am usually doing something I shouldn't.

I had a free evening so I talked like smoke - eventually the fire went out.

19/08/05: A busy day, working at both ends of the world.  I was a Greek Hero in the morning and an Aztec High Priest in the afternoon.  It was hot in the pyramid because the air conditioning wasn't working.

I learnt some secrets today from a park seat which spoke when you sat on it.  The park itself was quiet.  I sat next to a cage which had dinosaurs in it.

The evening was spent in cloaks.  My skin was golden but my covering was dusky.

20/08/05: A day on an ice rink.  Hurtling about with only snippets of conversation between me and the people who secretly live in clouds.  The rink was really the entrance to another world; where ships emerge from the deep to attack krakens.

I was the king of the dome for a fraction of a second and then I was scrambling up a black chimney or down an even blacker pit.

At the the days end I was part of a cruet set.  My wife, June, was the other.  We sat at the Giant's table.

21/08/05: A day when I had meant to visit all the mysterious places I know.  However, even though I had all the arms of an octopus nothing much was found.

I did stand on the Taj Mahal, right at the top of the magic garden and climb to the sky on green tomatoes.  Note to myself: The path I made between the past and the future still needs paving.

I would like a house inside a coconut hanging from a palm tree.  My car (which I couldn't drive) would be a king crab.

22/08/05: I started the day in a plastic bag and then, after a brief spell as a jellyfish, I became one of the Equestrians of Rome - I didn't have enough money to become a Senator.

I spent some time in the middle of a combine harvester - I examined it's inner workings, which reminded me of a Babylonian tomb.  I headed west to see the gardens but all I saw was a hole in the ground.

I suffered from indigestion (for the third day in a row) so I built an igloo in the garden and invited round a husky.

23/08/05: A slither day, but quite productive for a mere scale on a snake's underbelly.  I made intricate marks in the sand.  These represented my life before I was born - this was even before the chalk lines became roads.  The villages looked smaller then but I still felt a certain nostalgia for the hillside that necessitated stripping down to your vest to climb up it.

After, what seemed for ever, making marks on the ground I climbed up a rope - through a small hole in the glass eye - to a reasonable resting place on a floating land hidden by clouds.  Strange animals could only be detected by the marks they made on the ground.

Incidentally, cloud hidden lands were a frequent destination of mine when I first learnt to fly.

24/08/05: Another day in the fairground - going up some things and down (too quickly) others.  The music, which emanates from recently appeared toadstools was quite cheerful but I felt like singing dirges.  All the old stones that collect by the road side would sing the chorus.

One unusual event, was finding a werewolf in the road.  I brought it home in case it got run over.  I pretended to be a vampire so I didn't get bit.  However I must admit I was concerned when I later bit the postman. 

I ended the day as I started it.  Going up and down!  I was bell ropes that people would pull.

25/08/05: This is the last day I would be able to sit on a skyscraper.  This was after I made a young lady out of soap.  Although I had a faint recollection of wearing a veil when I married myself, I don't think there is any difference in my condition.

I spent some time hanging from lianas - these were ringing wet after all the recent rain.  Once I finally got down (after a detour round the bridge that chimes) I was able to unfold the flag which I usually keep with my memories of past times.

The evening was spent in a wine bottle like a message.

26/08/05: I was a clown that emerges from a chrysalis for part of the day.  Then after, tying my hot air balloon to a passing flock of geese, I became the "Protector of Parts" for another.  This is a serious post, which can be appreciated by the amount of ivy growing up it.

I went up the voices that behave like steps and came to a place where the circles and cylinders play.  I rotated with abandon but did not hear any more messages.  I waved a hankerchief to surrender and the outlaws all gave themselves up.

It was a busy evening but I split into three and managed to cope with the wild beasts that race by the river.

27/08/05: The invisible beings pulled back the curtain but luckily all that could be seen of me was streaks of light.  I had a sword which would blast skywards like the a rocket.  I kept an old banger in my pocket as a reserve.  It was a bright day, with all my companions wearing loud clothes - I dressed as a mouse as usual.

I had my first evening home for some time.  However I spent it alone as my wife had changed herself into a boat and had sailed off the edge of the map we had previously pinned to the wall.  I watched cricket between the arrow slits of the old castle.

I made a sign of weariness and the wall yawned.

28/08/05: I dripped from the ceiling like wet paint and slowly run out into the garden.  The flamingos had little men inside them; peering out of portholes in their sides.  I rowed myself out to the railway line and back - this is where I lifted hot pieces of tin in my youth - I then raised the mast and formed a rain forest.  I spent the rest of the morning hanging around.

Inside the marquee the manikins were starting to move, I hid behind the beer stacks and practised my animal calls.  I had reached the mating call of the three toed sloth before I could come home.

Once home I turned into a chair again and someone sat on me.

29/08/05: I jumped out of a bed like a monk.  I found my habit and practised it.  It was a pleasant morning and I followed the  fog into the garden - this is where I keep my submarine.  I exchanged pleasantries with the polar bears that live by the ice sculpture and then set to work adding wheels to the cardboard boxes that collect by the War of American Independence fence.

I drilled holes in the silhouettes of our next door neighbours, this is where I pour the oil, and had a bath in a cup of tea.   I originally made the garden on the deck of a record player so often when I come out in the morning all the plants have changed their positions.  This morning the needle had slipped.

The evening was spent as David in the Lion's Den.

30/08/05: After a late night as a Royal Navy Reservist - I acted as the sail while HMS Belfast trained her guns on my crows nest - I had to get up early to go out with June.  She dressed as a telephone kiosk and I was a post box.  It wasn't long before someone posted themselves in me.

We had a look round the Garden of Eden before Adam and Eve moved in.  I thought the tree ferns looked like blocks of flats.  I laughed as the lift got stuck, stopping only when I realised I was the one trapped in it.

In the evening I got a flock of finches out of the cash machine and put a ball in the dog's mouth.

31/08/05: In the morning I went out to the place where the past and future meet.  I primed the clock and poured water in the Giant's boots.  The hills wore a string vest, through which vegetation pushed.  I thought about ducks asleep under my pushchair.  All the trees were silver and gold - some wore wedding rings on their branches.

The afternoon was spent in the cornfield that had grown on the rug.  I expect men on magic carpets to come with scythes to cut it - this is what happened in the past.  I stood on the rug and I was a hundred feet tall.

I am still hopeful of waking up as a badger.  My wife would be a red squirrel.

01/09/05: I had to go to the doctor so he could determine what species I belong to.  I have always fancied being a member of Homo ergaster.  Unfortunately he said I was really an android, although all the blood tests seem to have been OK.  I climbed back inside my dalek and made a fruit salad.

In the middle of the day I was able to be a harvester again, this time in eighteenth century fields.  I was struck by how much wildlife there was around.  It was almost like being in the middle of a city.  There was a hot sun and the bales were heavy.  I called one my brother.

Ben and I pretended to be cinema chairs in the evening - inviting people to sit on us.  I got popcorn in my ear.

02/09/05: Out again today.  This time inside a pinball machine with the balls rebounding off all kinds of objects and people.  I smiled at the people but some of the objects needed shaking.  I tried my very best but I couldn't get anyone to light up.

I worried a bit about World War Three being started in the middle of the football match that erupted in the sky above my head.  However all the protagonists had disappeared by the time I climbed out of the trenches.  All that was left was a scattering of lily blossoms.

I went to bed with a spider's web on my head.  Coloured lights lit up my hair.

03/09/05: Today was hectic with things to do like strands of hair.  My diary was really the canals of Mars - the barges that traverse them like paintings in a gallery - and events spread out in all directions.  I found I could talk to many people at the same time, without interrupting myself once.  Some people talked back while others sat down and wrote their life story.  When I write my own story I will include the raspberry patch in which I built a city.

In the evening Ben and I were the bells of an imaginary cathedral, constantly chiming.  From my spire could be seen many alternative worlds.  In one world, people wore heads on their hats instead of the other way round.

I came home and made a new living space out of elastic bands.

04/09/05: A day busy in the garden.  Most of the time I was prostrate on the floor trying to enter worm holes.  In the end I had to give up as I couldn't get the doors unlocked.  In my experience worms are usually polite and charitable hosts - although the furniture tends to be a bit basic.

Once I sat up I played a guitar with strings made from tree roots.  I did several renditions of a flower song I had previously made up and then I put it on the compost heap.  I stood up with a large mushroom on my head.

I wanted to have a conversation with a magic rabbit in the evening but June wanted to sit on the telephone to see if it would hatch out.

05/09/05: A day which symbolised, for private reasons, how you will never win in this life!  A large green frog said this as well as me.  After a brief spell sitting in a lily pond and conversing with wildlife - some of which is robotic - I withdrew to my studio; which had a beating heart in the corner as well other organs dotted around.  In here I can draw the curtains on one world and open them on another.

At midday I changed myself for an instant into a little owl and sat on a cactus.

The evening was spent as a zebra crossing with some of my earliest memories crossing the road.

06/09/05: I met two of my old selves when walking through the corridor that leads from a place of respose to the imaginary Hall of Heroes.  Typically they both pretended to be super heroes.  One was called "Vacuum Man" and the other was called "Scottish Mountain Man" (although Ali always called him "Haggis Man"!).

I walked across a plain of rough hewn boulders when the sun was high in the sky.  I was on my way to my place of work.  I came back a few hours later with a sack on my back.  I half expected it to have a hole in and to see a trail of pebbles stretching out behind me - but it was full when I got home.

I wish love could be made tangible and bottled like sparkling water.  I thought this while wearing Poppy, my dog, as a hat.

07/09/05: A man with a ruler descended the chimney.  His task was to measure everything.  I told him of the four dimensions I had heard of and then gave him to the dog to play with.  She eventually brought him back - this was after burying him in the garden and then digging him up again.  I tend to keep my measurements to myself.

I later sailed up the chimney in a paper boat, pulling a team of penquins behind me.

I had to go to the cavern in the evening with some paintings I had done of Ben.  I found him wearing a television.  I stuffed two footballs in my top pockets and sung a Country and Western song.

08/09/05: I went out as a Heritage Man but ended up under arches with trains rumbling overhead.  I felt like an appendix.  I was one of a Sit Down Display Team.  I sat in various positions before lunch and then in others after eating.  I then had a bath in a glass of wine.  Not liking this I went to sleep in a bottle of whisky - I woke up in another world!

After a spell in a white room with a Renaissance ceiling I escaped along the waterfront where the old cranes sighed and whispered among themselves.  I wondered what it would be like to be a chimney in a place like this.  The tide had come in so I couldn't see the line of timbers that connected seagulls to the earth.  I use morning glory plants to hold my other self down.  He has a soul, I am not sure about myself.

In the evening I visited my sister who watches the London smog which she keeps in a jar opposite the net curtains which used to blow out like tentacles.

09/09/05: I went out in the fields in the early morning and became a scarecrow.  All the birds were dressed in suits.

I picked beans which hung from electricity pylons.  This was a new variety which grew so fast it invited all the other runners to a party.  Although I sometimes jog, I had to work in the evening so I couldn't attend.  However, I sent a dove with a twig in it's mouth.  This belonged to a luminous plant which would be useful if the lights went out.  When I got home I hammered my head into a crack in the ground but didn't grow.

The evening was spent in a land of white mice.  I never got round to talking to their leader so didn't find out about the message emblazoned on their t-shirts.  I scurried around with a giant key sticking out from back.  This was the busiest I had been since the last ice age.

10/09/05: Another binocular day, through which you can see the ship sinking.  I jumped between jobs like a dancer on giant cakes.  The cakes became rocks with the sea lapping against them as I was reminded that this time last year my wife and I went to sit beside the sea for a week.  On our laps were miniature Canutes which kept the rain off.  We were to be giants and junglemen.

The dog headed men played chess with living people as I rode across a road of petticoats with the wind behind me.

The evening was so busy the elastic almost snapped.

11/09/05: I woke up late and then fell down the well (this was after the obligatory pricking of the finger).  I must have fell a long way as I came out in the "The Age of Birds".  This could have been terrifying if I hadn't remembered my gift of invisibility - I first found I had this when I was being picked for the school football team.

I came back to ground level as a purple streamer, getting caught in a bramble bush while weeding the fernery.  While there I weeded all round the monument to "The Unknown Pacifist".  I eventually found a plant whose identity still remains a mystery.

In the evening Frances made me drop The Elgin Marbles.

12/09/05: Back to some kind of normality, although I did find myself inside a silk moth cocoon in the morning.  When I eventually got home I had to dry my wings before I could start painting.  I discovered walls have mouths, but I still managed to to climb to the top of the imaginary hill.

I later went through the wrong door and went down the long path (with Poppy who was pretending to be a great ape) bordered by bushes that my childhood self, still kept in my haversack, would hide himself in.  I was particularly entranced by the dogwood which I saw when I took Poppy's lead off.

In the evening I listened to Jimi Hendrix.

13/09/05: This was the day I planned to walk round the aerial catacombs.  Unfortunately the washing machine hadn't arrived so there was nothing to secure my rope to before floating off into the ether.  I was going to climb up a line of Persian miniatures to a place where hands emerge from the clouds to hold candles.  For a split second I moved forward in time to when the sun had gone and every blade of grass lit a match.  I walked bare foot on the ground holding the hand of an elephant headed man.  We both went off to see the wise badger who always kept a loaded shotgun in his slipper.

I remembered the kind old man who taught me to play solitaire.

I strung my crossbow and put my shoes on - by now they were lit up like Torquay at night.

14/09/05: Poppy and I walked on the field where I had previously imagined the dead walking in formation.  Today it was empty save for a football moving about on its own - probably kicked by invisible players.  I saw a bird sitting on a branch with a question tied round it's right leg.  I tied the answer round it's left and moved on.  Poppy's shadow pretended to be a medieval jester and I threw some coins on the grass - they immediately took root.  I am not sure if they will be enough to save me.  A hammock could be strung between their bows in later years.

When I got in the armchair was sleeping so I tread carefully.  Poppy wore boxing gloves on her feet and I designed an aquarium to fit under the floorboards for manta rays.  These could double as kites on the eighth day of the week.  I will be King on the ninth.

15/09/05: Not a very productive day.  This was partly from having to rescue Jonah from the Whale in the morning (to fulfil a family prophecy) and then, in the afternoon, I failed to break the code that allowed me to merge the identities of two imaginary friends that float across the studio floor.  Talking of the floor, I notice it needs sweeping.  I may have to get my guitar out and do it.

While out, trapped in baleen, I noticed that whichever way I moved there was always a smiling face in front of me.  This was like a daymare I had as a child when I was pursued (slowly) by a constantly smiling lady.

While waiting for June to return from the horror film she has made herself (from scraps of fabric she found in the attic) I tried to play Poppy like the bagpipes.

16/09/05: A day as the eighth dwarf; working in the glitter of the Pandemonium Mines (this made a change from slaving in the Golden Bean Pod). At first there was only two of us hanging from the strings and performing bows or curtseys to the procession of Frankenstein Monsters that staggered on stage.  Later more people descended from the stalls and as I saw my silhouette become the cosmic ash tree of Norse Mythology I decided to leave.

I was then the ninth dwarf and witnessed the revellers change to skeletons as the sun set over the hollowed out stones beside the continuous road. This is the road that goes through every town in the country.

I pulled one of the stones out of the ground, turned it on it's side and made a fish pond out of it.  This is where the Loch Ness Monster was born.

17/09/05: I crept to town riding on a snail.  Luckily it was all down hill and we rolled the last mile - picking up stray hedgehogs on the way.  The building I had to enter had it's jaws clamped shut but I propped them open with the fake bones of the last christian martyr.  I fed the lions when I finally got in.

The rest of the day was hectic as I travelled the world on ribbons of coloured light.  I eventually landed in an unresolved state dressed as a French man.

The search lights were glaring when I got home and I climbed over the wall using a rope hidden in my hat.

18/09/05: I woke up as a stickman.  It was quiet outside as the dancing fairies slowly propelled themselves into space.  Humpty Dumpty sat on the roof throwing rotten eggs.  In the magic garden I pulled myself along on a black carpet.  This had been perforated to let the rain in.  I then sat on a pole and contemplated life as an amphibian.  I was determined to jump on the next lily leaf that went by.

While eating my dinner of vegetarian blood worms I thought about the detectives who live in a hyper reality and solve crimes before they are committed.

I spent the evening as a cowboy looking for his horse. - not knowing that my horse was looking for someone else.

19/09/05: The first really still day for two weeks.  The clouds were still, the birds were still and even my wife only moved her eyelids.  I didn't take full advantage of it as I had to feed the prehistoric beasts that inhabit the garden when it's in an extended state (in this reality it is normally condensed).  I pulled aside a fern frond to see a vista no man had seen for a million years.

Later, I was puzzled when everyone around me had clock faces on their heads.  However, when asked the time they they wouldn't know it.  I put out a cigarette I wasn't smoking in the flower vase sitting on my shoulder (which I call Polly), putting one flower behind my ear as I did so.

I blinked and missed seeing a sailing boat, with all my dreams on board, drift towards the skyline.

20/09/05: Another day on the cold still lake.  I am able to stand on the surface and see myself reflected as a swan.  Swifts swoop overhead with coloured smoke shooting out behind them - this spells my name backwards and I disappear into my studio (which is masquerading as the Swiss alps at night).  My room is full of pencil lines like a spiders' web - I am soon caught.

Before this I had to chase a chain saw over an army assault course, dodging miniature versions of William Tell which had been fired from a crossbow by his son.

In the evening I was the sunset watching an artist with his brushes.

21/09/05: Out all day.  Some of the time I was busy, at others I was an Easter Island statue.  In my rest time I went to see the old sea goat (which still existed, even though I had pretended it didn't) and was heartened that it remembered my name.  It spun me a tale and I made a coat from the fabric.  I came back in disguise, forgetting that my name was written on my forehead.  I rubbed this off and it became a playing field.

There was a brief respite while I pushed back the roadway to form a sea - all the chariots disappeared with smoke issuing from their chimneys.

The evening was spent in riddles and I came home as a puzzle.  June solved it after she had put the cats to bed.  In the interim I played with the dog.

22/09/05: I felt very uncomfortable this morning as I was crammed into a test tube and put over a bunsen burner.  I was amazed when I got out to find that my blood pressure was only slightly higher than normal.  However, I did now have blue hair with things resembling eyes stuck in it.  All the eyes blinked at the same time.  I put on my sun glasses and moved towards the shadows.

In the evening I was under the floodlights dancing on my own.  The audience was comprised of vegetables which had been arranged into a coral reef.  As the fish swirled the audience talked among themselves.  I collected up the tomatoes to find out what they were they saying.  When they refused to speak I threw them at myself.

As the day ended I played strip poker with my guitar - I was down to my socks before it played a tune.

23/09/05: An eventful morning.  The elastic band that powered the windmill on my head suddenly snapped.  I then tumbled from the tightrope still clutching the bunch of flowers I had tried to stuff down my jeans when the hard people came.  The club book came like a herd of bison and I ordered a baby for the door way.  The window had gone hunting while the women tended to the fields.

I managed to work in my studio until the battery went flat.  I had to play the fiddle to get money to feed my hat.  The hat was like a small fluffy animal which I had found in a tent beside a mountain.  The mountain stream went though it so everyone stood with their legs apart.  I pulled two flags up the pole in recognition of this fact.

When the sun went down I went to work with the miners of ancient times. 

24/09/05: In readiness for the show that will disguise our escape from Colditz, Poppy and I practised being a pantomime horse.  I was the front end and she was the rear.  I ate the grass. 

It was a stress full day, especially when Poppy bit through the braces which were holding up the policeman's trousers.  He blew his whistle and we both ran.

I was then the compere that called on the clowns and also the person who had to put his head in the lion's mouth.  I used it's adam's apple as a microphone and addressed the crowds that had gathered.

The evening was spent going to and fro balancing a sea lion on my head.  Only once did it drop it's ball.

25/09/05: A late morning and I eventually crawled out of bed as a book mark - I had a dream but couldn't remember the page. 

I was a razor blade in my studio until the mountain gorillas collected under the tree in the garden and I went out to make my mark.  I hung around with a stethoscope from my neck until Beethoven scrambled out of a cleft in the tree trunk.  I read the paper with a lawnmower and combed the hedge for it's parting.

It was a Sunday service and the buses that collect on the telephone wires before migrating home were getting scarce.  I read a poem and then poured it into a milk bottle.  June and I picked the fruit that festooned the doorway of the old sea dog's shack.

In the evening Pam and I remembered the past when we both found the centre of the earth.  I played the music of the spheres on my knee caps with a spoon.

26/09/05: I went to a cardboard cutout seaside today.  I travelled by train, which had it's trousers down.  The wind blew like Masai spears but I saw no ships.  I did see smoke from where the birds took off and the place where cranes held little people captive.  I imagined pulling the chain and the men topple out with sky rockets in their beards.  I then met the fortune teller and told her what I thought, I put a pack of cards in my pocket and shuffled home.  The train was a porcupine.

When I got in I painted spots all over my body so I would merge with the wallpaper.  The paper boy put a reminder though the leter box.

I picked up a marrow with a face cut in it.  It's green tongue was sticking out.

27/09/05: I was in the eye of the hurricane again; where the wind never blows (except from flying heads that often trumpet their victories over the bodies of men).  I was not as calm as I would have liked to have been as someone had accidentally plugged me into a light socket. This one hung in the bald headed interrogation room - I was glad I never talked.

I sat on a high chair in my studio most of the day - painting the air.  When the chair walked away (ostensibly to lie down with a head ache) I was left hanging in mid air; tiny propellors on the bottom of my shoes.  I landed with a bump and then photographed myself wearing a telephone for a moustache.  I saluted the air.

I went to bed with a song in my trousers.

28/09/05: I spent today in the candy dungeon.  It was nicely laid out with imitation rolling hills; over which winged boots, minus their owners, can fly.  Everyone who came in talked with bird calls.  I was the big bat and used echo location to post a letter to the remote people who inhabit the needles that repair the sky.  I pulled up the zip and the sky disappeared.

I had an interesting conversation with a boiled sweet which occupied the adjoining cell.  I was impressed with the level of erudition it had attained - all from being in my pocket (among the keys to the doors that unlock the sky).

I saw a glimpse of the immortal toad when I trudged home.  It croaked but I knew it was only kidding.

29/09/05: I was out in the morning, travelling along the green carpet which had been unrolled for the sun's weekly procession.  The greenery was dripping wet and the bean plant had people hanging from it.  I climbed to the top and looked down; the landscape appeared like a bedspread which had been slashed with a knife.  I put the knife back in my pocket and caught the bus home.

My studio seemed like a mausoleum and I painted to the accompaniment of dead people.  A crown was left on the seat for a tree to grow through when the human race has disappeared .  I stood up and the arctic ice cap vanished.

I found a ring on the floor and stepped through it; I was now as tall as a mouse.

30/09/05: I wanted to chill out so I spent part of the the morning hanging from the ceiling in my studio like a stalactite.  I could feel the cold mountain water trickle down my frozen limbs and end up on the canvas as wet paint. 

I was then the tall gatehouse of an early Edwardian castle - the view was spectacular, even though it was a cloudy day and the trees were on their honeymoon.  The gypsy tree feller kept popping up with a smiling face but I redirected him to a scowling alley.  This is where ancestral bird heads appear from circular marks on the dirt covered walls, replete with Pompeii graffiti. 

I fluttered as an American flag in the afternoon before returning to my normal state as an ancient Egyptian pictogram in the evening.  I am not sure what I was supposed to represent as I have not been deciphered yet (Rosetta Stone was on her holiday).

RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE