ONE SELF PORTRAIT EVERY DAY in 2020 : 305

There is a film I saw a while ago that inspired me; I can’t remember what it was called or anything else about it apart that it was a conversation between two men (one had an eastern European accent) but you never saw them. Instead what you saw was a series of views, each one for about a minute or maybe thirty seconds, just a camera on a tripod filming desolate scenes around London.

I remember liking the fact that what you saw and what you heard were not connected but it worked. Part of my brain would be passively enjoying the video while at the same time another part would be focusing on the spoken word. 

Here is a photo I took this morning in Regent’s park. I added a few effects to make it look like a print from Boots before digital cameras.

One of the houses Charlie, Pat, Grant, Lucy and my sister for a while lived in when we were in Reading was on the London Road just next door to the Turk’s Head. It was great as during last orders we could order a few pints and bring them over to our house and the next day we would return the glasses.

Further down was Cook’s Café (thank you Charlie for reminding me the names) a Jamaican Café we spent a lot of time in and we became friends with the owners Easton and Vi. Eventually we were allowed to go upstairs which was not open to the public, just friends, where you could get beers and smoke whatever you wanted and people played cards.

This is what this is all leading up to: one day Easton assumes that I am the sort of person who can fix things and asks me if I could have a look and fix his broken car stereo. I don’t know why I didn’t tell him that I am not the kind of person who fixes stereos and gave it a go. I started by unscrewing it and taking the stereo out of it’s casing, I was hoping to find a loose wire which I could easily reconnect but I found nothing wrong. I carried on unscrewing bits and taking it apart until at one point I worried that if I carried on I wouldn’t know how to put it back together. So I worked backwards until the car stereo was as it was before I started.

Then as by magic, the car stereo started working. I don’t know what I did but I gave back the keys to Easton “I fixed it”. He was very impressed and gave me a bottle of lager. 

I AM STILL ALIVE

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