Notional Express [re_configure]

All Images: M1 (Leicester - London - Leicester), Brent Cross Junction &
Victoria Coach Station, London, December 2025

[Reconfigured Appropriated Texts]

Whether you're a newbie or practically living on our coaches, that doesn’t mean the fun has to stop! Budget-friendly fares mean you can still say ‘yes’ to adventure, beginning at a point which is 97 metres after marker post 49/6, and 4 metres before marker post 49/7, and ending at a point which is 42 metres after marker post 71/5, and 63 metres before marker post 71/6. You WILL be woken up by a biblical set of bright white lights running through the cabin [if you are able to sleep at all with the rattling]. Grief is hard - any words following the terms “including”, “include”, “in particular”, “for example” or any similar expression, shall be construed as illustrative and shall not limit the sense of the words, description, definition, phrase or term preceding those terms. There are amendments to section 64 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act (1984), but none of these is relevant - I don’t need personal rude comments about my appearance.

Got some wiggle room in your schedule? Great! the letter 'M' followed by a number is a reference to the motorway known by that name. Today, it has seen a number of expensive upgrades to help it cope with modern traffic. The letter 'A' followed by a number is a reference to a stupid remark, especially when the passengers do not understand English. Make sure to pack your charging cable, and a good pair of headphones will make the journey fly by. I highly recommend the audiogram and hearing service. We have found the drivers to be - quite rightly - a bit hard to hear on the speaker. All starts off well, then it becomes painfully obvious I probably should have had an ear assessment for the purpose of indicating that vehicles are entering, have entered or are exiting a specified road. Its architecture and bridges reflect its futuristic ambition, and 'Zone Sign' means a sign authorised by the Secretary of State under section 64.

On my most recent journey, I am pleased to report that the seat-belts worked properly, being easy to fasten and flexible to the intentions of the parties under the severed provision. Once fastened, the remaining condition and applicable special condition [or parts thereof] when someone is in a seat you have paid extra for [which happened to me] is simply not good enough. This isn't right or hygienic. Savvy travellers know the secret: should any such condition or applicable special condition [or any part thereof] be illegal, invalid or unenforceable, it shall be severed from these conditions or the special conditions [as appropriate]. On both the outward and return journeys, we found out that although I still had mild tinnitus, my ear drums were actually quite healthy. What a relief! Sadly the wi-fi remained unworkable throughout both legs. We had to deal with the strong stench of urine for three hours and it has created an unpleasant atmosphere [I will SUE everyone!].

Still composed without A.I. in 2025 [for better or worse]

Completed Painting: 'The Castle/Le Grand Hotel 2'

'The Castle/Le Grand Hotel 2', Acrylics on Panel, 600 mm x 600 mm, 2022

"I was amazed that the world contained people sufficiently different from myself for the manager of the hotel to have urged such a stroll upon me as a form of amusement, for there to be some to whom such a torture-chamber of unfamiliar quarters could actually be an ‘abode of delight’, as the hotel styled itself in its leaflet, possibly with some degree of license, although it was undeniably addressing a wide public whose views it shared. So, to attract such people to the Grand-Hotel of Balbec, it expatiated not only on ‘the exquisite cuisine’ and the ‘entrancing view from the gardens of the Casino’ but on ‘the great god Fashion, whose decrees no man of good breeding will care to flout, unless he does not mind being thought a Philistine.’” [1.]

“These impressions, mingling with the ones I would be experiencing in that other place, on that similar road, and surrounded by all the accessory feelings which were common to both states, and only by them – the sensation of breathing freely, curiosity, the enjoyment of being lazy, a good appetite, cheerfulness – would grow in volume, take on the consistency of a particular type of pleasure, almost a way of existence, one which I seldom had occasion to revisit but within which reawakened memories blended a physically perceived reality with enough remembered, fancied, ungraspable reality for these places I was passing through to give me, not just an aesthetic experience, but a heady desire, however fleeting, to live there for ever.” [2.]

Addendum:

My current working practices do not (by intention) follow a wholly linear or pre-determined path. a 'series' of works may come into being through processes of translation or mediation, with relatively little pre-intention. Progress may be slow and meandering, as opposed to methodically pursuing a set agenda. Just as the past may inform the present/future - so, equally, may a reversal of the temporal/mental flow apply. New readings may bring-about revisions. Lines may take flight backwards in order to move forwards (the lateral jump and parallel strand are also of prime importance). The painting previously entitled 'The Castle 1', is now renamed; 'The Castle/Le Grand Hotel 1'. Ultimately, the fixity of appellations should be of less relevance than the rhizomatic processes that bring them about.

'The Castle/Le Grand Hotel 1', Paper Collage & Acrylics on Panel,
600mm x 600 mm, 2022

[1.] & [2.]: Marcel Proust, ‘In Search of Lost Time’, ‘Volume 2, In The Shadow of Young Girls in Flower’ (Trans. James Grieve), London, Penguin Books, 1919/2002