Land of Diskgrinder

This is the thing, the thing that sits in the corner of a room with a door I locked long ago, the thing that spits and smiles. That thing

Michael Craig-Martin . An oak tree , 1973. In a room at Tate Modern there is a three-quarter full glass of water on a high shelf. It is a work by Michael Craig-Martin called An oak tree. Beside it there is the following text: Q: To begin with, could you describe this work? A: Yes, of course. What I've done is change a glass of water into a full-grown oak tree without altering the accidents of the glass of water. Q: The accidents? A: Yes. The colour, feel, weight, size ... Q: Do you mean that the glass of water is a symbol of an oak tree? A: No. It's not a symbol. I've changed the physical substance of the glass of water into that of an oak tree. Q: It looks like a glass of water. A: Of course it does. I didn't change its appearance. But it's not a glass of water, it's an oak tree. Q: Can you prove what you've claimed to have done? A: Well, yes and no. I claim to have maintained the physical form of the glass of water and, as you can see...

Most people think of the mind as being an intangible halo around their head, from which they call facts from the hot sponge in their skull. Like the brain is a bunch of liquid and dirty meat that keeps track, but the mind is this pristine glow that sees the track. But a recent theory is that the mind is Extended into legs and arms and maybe notes you write on the fridge, thinking's done within a yard. Your mind is in your fingers when you touch, in your local motion when you walk, there when you sniff. Which is why scent evokes memory. As Reg once said, if your mind is in your head, why do you see everything outside, and not contemplate scenes inside?

Back in the early eighties, when I was variously unemployed (an unemployed labourer, railway trackman, kitchen porter, painter) I met a man called Reg. He was an artist. He lived in Somerby, Rutland and refused electricity or gas, preferring instead to light his house with Gales honey jars filled with paraffin with a wick poked through the lid. He was a mystic and a hippy, which in eighties East Midlands bitter bleakosity was unwelcomed by most (remember that the Vale of Catmose is in the lee of Lincolnshire, flat panned reclaimed fens where the wind is directly funnelled from the Urals). He was a fellow of the Royal Academy, and once drank an oak tree off a high shelf with Craig Martin. His paintings were abstract, and fairly fucked philosophically by his insistence on parallels with eastern mysticism and overdosing on cough medicine. Had he referenced Lacan , structuralism and maybe the decentred self he could have been successful. As he claimed his inspiration came from Kundal...

On mobile marketing Pith and vinegar. When I was forcibly retired from bombe development in 1946, I had an idea to introduce massive steam-driven mobile telegraphs (in a car that followed you on a leash) to the British public. But sadly I was killed by being forced to take a bite from a cyanide apple by MI5, because I bowled from the pavilion. So, dead, I could not patent my idea for touch-sensitive women. On apple When we were at Bletchley at the dribbling end of the war, when we had broke the code of the evil empire (and sacrificed Coventry so they wouldn't catch on) we had this same thing going on. Turing fucked off one weekend when SOE came in and shot all the pinkoes and pufters. Mind, they got him later. As your logo attests. On GPS Back in Bletchely in the dying embers of the world at war at two (more on that later) we didn't have the spy eye in the sky so there was no GPS. Instead we installed a thermostat in a horse. If it got close to the direction it would get ...

Unless the conspiracy theory kicks in Dull mambies are gruta and folbinating, I am frown with that. It makes the gap between my eyebrows crume and falter.