Rod Duncan

I've often found myself voting for candidates who had little hope of being elected. But I still feel proud to be part of a democratic process. Long ago, I said to my father 'Democracy is where people choose their rulers. He replied 'Democracy is where rulers can be changed without violence.'

Perhaps if we shout a little louder they will...

I try to not shout at the radio. It isn't good for me. And I'm sure it doesn't help the radio either. However, such abstinence can be challenging....

After the by-election, I'm seeing people talk in concerned voices about 'family voting'. Now, I like to go with members of my family to vote in elections. A collective celebration of this hard-won democracy. Does that count as 'family voting'? Or does my ethnicity make it not so worrying?

I know, right? Weird how time moves.

Thank you so much.

Copes of the novel The Bullet-Catcher's Daughter on a bookshop shelf. The cover shows an old purse and a series of bullets laid out to form the shape of a hand.

Eleven years ago.

Relief printing block in blue green vinyl. Next to it, the black and white print it produced. The print has the world Heft written at the top in a 16th century font. Below that is something that looks like a QR code, but hand-carved. Decoding the QR code will produce the word 'Heft'.

An ironic linoprint block and test print.

...And that even the nobles get properly handled
Once that the cops have chased after and caught 'em
And that the ladder of law has no top and no bottom...

Thank you Bob Dylan

(2/2)

For some reason, these lines by Bob Dylan have been recently playing in my mind:

'In the courtroom of honor, the judge pounded his gavel
To show that all's equal and that the courts are on the level
And that the strings in the books ain't pulled and persuaded...

(1/2)

I've heard several royal correspondents say words to the effect: 'I believe the Monarchy will be able to survive this.' But none have so far voiced the corrolary about the survival of their own jobs.

Aww. That's such a sweet thing to say. Thank you so much.

This is exactly the kind of enabling I need. Thank you.

It's said that people sufficiently in tune with their own bodies are instinctively drawn to foods that contain the precise nutrition they need in each moment.

Either chocolate is an enduring connucopia of nutritional goodness or I'm not sufficiently in tune. I prefer to believe the former.

At first this square format photo might seem abstract. But on closer inspection, it is a closeup of a tube of black block printing ink onto the shiny and squeezed surface of which yellow and red have been reflected.

Ink reflected on ink. I happened to notice this morning at breakfast the reflection of tubes of yellow and red printing ink on the surface of the black printing ink tube.

The advantage of having a kitchen table art studio.

Unsolicited writing advice, no. 52;
Yes, you are a proper writer if you also have a day job. Nearly all writers have day jobs.

If I have a last saved picture of a celebrity, it is likely to be Tim Curry as Long John Silver in Muppet Treasure Island.

So important. So true.

I'm sure I will

I seem to be on the mend.

Roughly drawn in charcoal, acrylic vase, bulbous at the shoulder, narrowing to a small opening at the top. Lines run from near the top, three quarters of the way down towards the base. The sketch is very rough and inaccurate. But expressive.

I've been unwell for a few of days. Happily today is very much better than yesterday.
But I've made nothing that I can share with you. Instead, I've dipped back into some old images. This is a charcoal sketch of a vase in the ceramics exhibition in Aberystwyth Arts Centre.

If I had a penny for every time I heard the phrase 'denied any wrongdoing', I could buy a replacement for the kitchen radio and all the little fragments of plastic and metal that once belonged to it.

We often hear people say 'We often hear people say this is unprecedented'. So there's a lot of precedent for that at least.

Now, THAT'S going to ge an interesting episode of 24 Hours in Police Custody...

Ohh... I like that. I've been seeing them as rain clouds. But they're very much open to interpretation...

All FODMAP tips gratefully received.

Six ACEO sized abstract prints. Black marks on golden yellow backgrounds. Foreground and background are uneven and patchy. The black is dominated by brush mark lines - the thin and thick drag of paint by stiff bristles.

The results from a morning of messing around with an extremely large gelplate and some extremely small pieces of cartridge paper.

(I'm not selling ACEOs on ebay or etsy. I only mention ACEO because that's the size format I've been working in.)

#ACEO #Abstract

Abstract mark making. Black circle and swirl, showing all the striations of a the brush bristles, over Naples yellow unevenly applied to the paper. Over this the real sun and real shadow cast lines.

I was making some marks this morning and the sun decided to join in.

A hollowed out egg shell rests in a green hand thrown egg cup. A small sand timer stands in the mid background. (For tea.) In the far background are tubes if block printing ink and a lino cutting tool sharpening block.

Hybrid breakfast table-art studio.

Mosaic floor. A coiled dragon and the words Semper Eadem. The dragon's expression is perhaps mischievous. Perhaps cross. Either way, it has attitude.

Floor of the New Walk Museum next to the front entrance. My translation of the Latin may be criticised by some for its wild inaccuracy. But I believe 'Always Cheese' is more artistically valid than 'Always the Same'.