ECHO 26/1/06

Making our way along the M62 through Saddleworth towards York, spying the red coated man of Hart’s Head Moor watching and waiting by the roadside in his faded serge coat, surrounded by the noise and the dust of this arterial run carved through the high land; his is a vantage point, and he waits like a dumb sentinel as if someone may come and give him release, held in check by invisible shackles – on every bridge someone has stuck the word ‘gouranga’ in huge bold letters on fluorescent coloured paper, this word cascades away into the distance, the last effort of a Hari Krishna devotee who walked miles and miles to do this –

Strange now that I have seen my work recorded and presented in the Jorvik Viking Museum to know that my face is being viewed by the public, relayed over and over again for at least the next 5 years; whilst I age it will stay the same (though there is the addition of make-up and a wig in this case) – I will gradually become an artefact – it’s a pleasant feeling – mixed in with the genuine ancient artefacts of York, the leather and the tools close on 2000 years old –

Sparrowhawk by the roadside with its fresh catch, a magpie, in death throes beneath it’s talons – the bird of prey standing upright over it, wary and proud at the same time, challenging any other creature to come near and demand what it has caught – then, pitifully, another magpie (presumably the mate of the dying one) comes close and tries to fend the hawk off - to no avail, the twitching and fluttering of its mate are the last movements it will make as it tries to salvage life but cannot -