Norton

The gallery's warehouse was adjacent to its exhibition rooms and the only point of entry for future exhibits. In one corner, along with various pieces of instillation art, crates containing sculptures, and numerous paintings, stood a life-sized motorcycle, with the number 65 displayed on each side. Throughout the year the gallery held exhibitions and competitions, all attracting considerable interest from the art world and thousands, literally, of visitors from the general public. Art and culture are always a major draw in any city centre.

“It's a wonderful piece", the professor said, staring at the motorcycle. "Look at the detail the artist has achieved, while still maintaining a blurry, edgy feel; the raw essence of period, power, decline. It's...” The professor’s hands were upturned like a couple of stricken crabs, shaking as he struggled to find his point.

“Absolutely, the work sums up the macho, metaphysically organic dominance associated with motorcycles, while showing the abstract creativity where mechanisms meet art. An almost objective feminine beauty juxtaposes with subjective function. Perfume mingled with testosterone.” Daphne, one of the judges, was oozing enthusiasm and appreciation for the work.

“I assume the title will actually be, Norton”. The professor said. “It is after all plastered all over the work, and, I think, significant in an illustrative way. And clever. The humour of it, eh, the humour.” He was chuckling now, giggling almost, tutting and raising his eyes as if sharing some coquettish secret.

“It's the flux of pluralism that I see”, the professor continued. “Almost Bergosian. What the eye meets is the most significant, not the considered afterthought”

“Yes”, Daphne joined. “That was the thrust of my doctorate”.

“Norton is almost playful in its treatment of the monolith of modernism” the professor went on. “I love the humour of its apparent practicality”.

“Yes, yes”, Daphne said. “One could actually imagine riding it. Brilliant. The casting of shadows over so many images of the past. Great imagination, and talent”.

The professor was in complete agreement. “Do you think it represents an opening into other spaces. The generosity and receptiveness of the 60s. The concept of travel, love, thrill?”

“Yes, but still with a sense of the self critical, of sadness. Look at the blueing on the those pipes. And the number, 65”.

“Ah”. The professor had seen the line of Daphne's argument. “The war in Vietnam”, he said. “Capitalist industrial might and arrogance ”.

“And Che Guevara, a motorcyclist himself, I believe, resigned from Castro's government in that year”. Daphne said. “Norton has been created as a biography, a veil over recent history revealing a narrative of the abstractive nature of post-modernism. There's a trajectory over the dialectic nature of the work that necessitates rapture in its organic preoccupation.”

“Mm”. The professor was stroking his chin. “It represents a significant work. We sometimes find ourselves repudiating the hubris of reputation. Here, Norton is showing the decaying past in a present function. It has established facets that can commute, switches and adjustments that mean each time it is exhibited it could quite feasibly change in appearance, no two exhibitions will be exactly the same. The allegorical metaphor the artist has created is breathtaking”.

“Astonishing. It'll probably win this year by a mile”, Daphne said. “Have you seen the others? Oil and watercolours, portraits and landscapes. Hideous installations and sculptures. Ugh!”

And with that they stood looking at Norton, imagining the delight of the other judges when they first set eyes on the piece, meeting the artist, quaffing champaign and oysters, wine and salmon, and generally talking about the quintessential meaning of art. 

But then they both noticed a shutter rolling up in the corner of the warehouse, as a figure walked in. Strolling slowly towards Norton, the figure was gradually revealed from the burst of bright sunlight that had enveloped it. Clothed in jeans and leather, head and face covered in a black helmet, goggles and scarf, the figure mounted Norton and kicked over the engine with a continuous flow of the body. Norton came to life and disappeared through the open shutter. "Sensational", said Daphne. "Outstanding", said the Professor.

Is it Really a Triumph?

It's 1974 and my Triumph Bonneville's let me down again. A plug's oiling up and I feel a top end rebuild coming on. It'll make a change from sorting the electrics, now a weekly exercise: ride out Saturday, spend Sunday working on it so you can ride to work Monday, that's what owning a British bike is all about. A few of my mates on the never-never have got new Tridents, but not for long, in the blink of an eye they're riding Honda fours and Z900s. Soon, I'm on a Yamaha, then a Kawasaki, then another. Then it's the 1980s and I'm riding a BMW, and then another, and another. Time goes I don't know where and I'm looking at an advertisement in a magazine. A new blue and white Triumph Bonneville SE is standing in the sunshine in front of a blue and white building, and I think, 'Is it really a Triumph?' and I go to a Triumph dealer and stare at one and then ride one. And the salesman smiles and we drink coffee and I tell him it's what my old Bonneville should have been like, when I was seventeen, and he smiles despite having heard it all before and I smile and I take one home and ride it on sunny days and polish it, and stare at it.

And then something happens. My moustache has grown up my nose and my sideburns into my ears. When I'm standing next to the pool on the Saga Sapphire and I look down, I can't see my feet let alone my Speedos. Women don't see me any more, not even to snigger, and the young girl on the check-out at Tescos calls me dear. Inevitably, I buy a cruiser, but not a Harley, I buy a Triumph Rocket 3 Touring, a monster that makes people take notice. We cruise the sea front, my Rocket and me, I'm a rebel with road tax, swigging Gaviscon straight from the bottle. And then it's all over.

My Rocket has to go. I'm riding a B road when the rear end seizes up, locking the rear wheel and ditching me in the verge. Despite the bike being three years old Triumph supply the dealer with new parts FOC; I'm grateful, the final drive alone is over a grand. Loss of confidence in the Rocket takes me back to BMW and the Triumph salesman consults his price guide and offers me a trade in against a used BMW in the showroom. When I go to a BMW dealer he consults the guide and offers me £500 more for the Rocket against a used BMW identical in every way to the one at the Triumph dealer, but priced £1000 lower. I feel I'm being cheated, not financially, I stopped worrying about money at the point I became closer to the end than the beginning, but cheated out of something far more precious.

And then I'm in my garage staring at my beautiful Bonneville SE, now dwarfed by a BMW. She could sneak up from behind and try to strangle me and I wouldn't get rid, such is my affection for my seventeen-year-old self. But when I look at her tank badge and follow the line that stretches from the bottom of the R near the start to the H at the end, I wonder, is it really a triumph?

Shed

It was starting to get to me by then. For the fifth time in as many weeks the air brakes on my tractor unit had blown a pipe, the feed pipe from the compressor to be exact, and it was the same one every time. I'd been looking for a replacement for ages but as hard as I tried I just couldn't find one, not of the right gauge anyway, and I ended up, each time, having to bodge a repair. 

What I did was get a length of armoured fuel pipe, you know, the clear one with the metal mesh in the material, and use that with a jubilee clip at each end. Trouble was it just couldn't take the pressure and eventually a loud bang would signal another split pipe, followed by the inevitable hissing sound of escaping air. Then it was simply a matter of time before the brakes would begin to bind on, as they were doing now.

Shortly after the first one or two times it happened I started to collect the spare lengths of pipe and the clips needed for the next repair, storing them in a box in my cab's passenger well. I had sort of organised the box so each part was in its own place, which wasn't bad for a box of such a small size. I liked the order of it, knowing where everything was. I was like that with the rest of the cab, and what with all the other bits in there - the essentials for nights out, my tea making and cooking kit, and all the tools and other bits needed to keep the lorry going and looking OK - the inside of that Leyland was definitely my space. It reminded me of my old man and his shed; a man's retreat, as mum called it. I couldn't imagine why he needed one at the time, but I can see it now: it's where his stuff was, the bits and pieces he needed in order to do the things he wanted to do or just tinker away time the way he wanted. Whenever me and my brother quarrelled, played our noisy games of war, or he had had a row with mum, off he'd go to the bottom of the garden where no one, not my brother and me, or mum, dared follow.

We often peered through the window, my brother and me, when he was at work. We would look at the neatly arranged tools and the shelves stacked with cans, pots and a variety of oddments, none of which we recognised or knew the purpose of, but we never thought to enter his special space. His man's place. Although he didn't spend all of his spare time out there, far from it really, just a few hours on Saturday afternoons and then again on Sunday mornings - the days my brother and I were at our most annoying - he seemed to achieve a lot. He rebuilt a Gardner pump engine one year, a two cylinder, and in the summer on its completion he proudly displayed the little motor on our lawn, in all its glory among the garden furniture. The engine was mounted in a frame of one-inch angle iron and plumbed into a makeshift fuel tank and a tub containing water. It had started life in a South African gold mine, pumping water, a task it was still very capable of, proving itself right there in front of our eyes, in our back garden.

The block and cylinder heads were painted a deep green and all the pipework shone the golden glow of brass. Being young and living in a world that afforded adult males the luxury of idling away time in a shed, I assumed South African mine workers had a similar existence and had once sat on garden chairs mesmerised by the beauty of that little engine, as my father did then. I wondered if they too would every so often wipe it with a clean cloth before sitting back, arms folded, head to one side, their faces fixed with a distant smile. The old Gardner was eventually sold to a canal boat owner and apparently continued life idly chugging up and down the Grand Union. My dad said the boat had an engine room not dissimilar to his shed.

But back to my blown air line. My lorry wasn't always obliging in its choice of places to blow the pipe. It went on one occasion in queuing traffic in a busy town. The streets were narrow and there was nowhere to go, so I trundled on, stop start, hoping to find a place to pull over. Soon the unavoidable happened and we ground to a halt. I got out and tried to see if there was anything I could do just to get going. There was nothing: my hands, feeling, twisting and prodding had found the pipe split again. It wasn't long before there was the almost continual sound of a horn from the car immediately behind. The driver wound down his window with his right hand as I approached, I saw his other hand impatiently tapping away at the steering wheel. Before he had a chance to say anything, I suggested that I stay and sound his horn while he went to my lorry and got it moving again. He took one look at my manic expression and sank back in his seat.

But this time my lorry was much more considerate. We were on a long country A road littered with lay-bys and as soon as I heard the bang I pulled into one of these, just as the brakes started to bind on. It was a lovely summer day and the temperature was already over 20 degrees centigrade, so out came my collapsible garden chair and tools. I spread all the things I needed, neatly on a large rag placed over the grass between me and the open passenger door. I arranged them in order, piping, tools, clips etc. There was no rush, essentially I'd finished for the day and had by then decided to stay. Later I'd get out my bed board, the one I laid across the seats to sleep on, and that would be me till the following morning. And so I thought for a while, pondering each of the items in front of me, and those other items I knew were in my box, in the cab. I came up with the idea of using duct tape to wrap the new pipe once I'd fitted it. It seemed worth a go. It was probably the sort of thing my dad would have done in his shed, utilizing what he had, but above all trying.

Dad's shed wasn't a common wooded job, it was actually block built and whitewashed on the outside. He had a great fondness for it, we knew that, but also for the idea of sheds in general, their purpose and, in his view, necessity. I can remember him sitting in front of the telly once, watching a news item about the police searching for some bloke who'd done I can't remember what, although something pretty nasty, I recall that much. Anyway, dad said the police should have a 'men without a shed' register and at times like this go out and round them up. Everyman should have a shed or its equivalent, he said, there's something wrong with those that don't. Dad was a bit extreme at times. He even carpeted the floor of his shed, with the cast off when he and mum renewed the carpet in our living room. At the time our neighbour was throwing out a 4 stroke hover mower: it wouldn't start, he said. Dad took it into his shed and sure enough in less than an hour he had it going, mowing a perfect circle in his carpet, exposing the concrete base below. My tape idea didn't work. I kept at it, though, and the following time I sleeved the pipe with a larger hose. In the end it held; just long enough for me to sell the lorry.

57

It's hard to explain American football, I don't mean the rules, although that would be difficult enough, I mean why, why does American football exist at all? Why the complexity and show, why not just play rugby? It's as if someone sat a five-year-old boy down with some paper and a box of crayons, showed him a game of rugby and asked how it could be improved. The game of American football was then invented from the explosion of colour that remained after all the laser sticks and tanks were removed.

And it's the colour, complexity and show that mask what the game is all about: the simple act of violence, male violence over territory and possession. All that razzmatazz is just a way to authorize, to establish credibility and create approval. In some ways it's how the acceptance of religious doctrines and bonding in the military is achieved. Chanting and trinkets, beating music and uniforms all appeal to the most basic of animal instincts: to belong to a group is the way to survive. Paraphernalia makes a powerful contribution because it provides the illusion of legitimacy. In this way American football endorses itself, fluffs up its feathers and struts its stuff.

And once a following is established it's time to plant the idea firmly in the minds of the people by playing the game. The wealth of the church, the loyalty of soldiers and the success of the team depend on the cooperation of everyone involved. In American football, a player's number indicates their position and 57 is usually a centre. His job is to get the offensive going by snatching up the ball and passing it to the quarterback, then block any attempt by the opposition to thwart his teams' plans. He plays his part as his team advances, bit by bit, yard by yard, all the while ensuring his own continued status and position. And it's all achieved in a flash of colour, the chanting of orders and the sound of clashing armour.

Rugby is just as much about territory and possession, but its violence is raw and open. Rugby is much less of a spectacle than American football and in that way more honest. Maybe in part due to the dull, overcast and muddy fields of Britain, I always think that Rugby is best not watched in colour. There's no illusion, just grit. It reminds me of the pure and simple fact that sometimes, when the need arises, you just need to get stuck in. Like Tom Yately did in 57, when the violent Red ruled the roost.

The 1957 film, Hell Drivers, was a first-rate B movie about a firm of tipper drivers. It came out of an era of change when traditional roles were starting to be challenged. It's a male dominated black and white drama that sees good conquer evil. Filled with conflict over position and possession, Hell Drivers is more than just a British western: the characters, although extreme, were contemporary, authentic and real. The film shows how aggression is sometimes needed to defeat the damaging parasitic effect of wrongdoing, in this case by a rough, antagonistic top driver and a corrupt employer.  Here the team of drivers are weak and uncoordinated against the powerul Red and his boss. But Tom, their '57', snatches up the ball and goes on the offensive. Simple, undressed male violence. There's no need for deception or illusion; it's refreshing to watch.

Ice, baby

The distant mountains are swathed in the beautiful colours of dusk. They've a reddy hue, reflecting the evening light, a mixture of aquamarine, crimson and darkening yellow. I wish I had the ability to paint them.

I look to the nearer hills and try to remember the little geology I know, and  wish I knew more.

Below, in a valley of varying shades of green, I see church spires and the ochre roof tops of a small cluster of houses.  I dwell for a moment on their history, but only long enough to realize that a lifetime could be spent in study and only a fraction understood.

I see animals in the fields and admit to myself I know nothing of their anatomy, or even husbandry.

The sky is beginning to fill with clouds.  There's a front approaching, but that's all I can really say; I can't tell you a great deal about meteorology. 

It's then that I look to the ground at my feet, to the grass that runs along the lay-by, and I see the plastic bottles, the fast-food wrappers and plastic bags discarded by god knows who, passing through, ignoring the mountains, valleys, villages and skies, while trashing the verges.

Perhaps it's our virtual existence, seeing life through a series of screens that does it. Travelling from television and computer, at home and at work, looking out at the world through a car's windscreen, or a bus window.

We seem to have lost contact with the real environment. Soon even the space between our eyes and screen will be eliminated by Google glasses.

Is knowing the real world that bad?  According to most people it is. Almost all adults use one form of drug or other to alter their perception of life. Alcohol relaxes; cannabis makes you happy; cocaine, confident;  ecstasy, chatty too; speed, full of energy; mephedrone, all of the above; and methamphetamine (ice) arouses.

But don't drugs, whether stimulant, depressant or hallucinogen, simply represent a way in which we choose to interact with the real world?

And what price do we pay for this maltreatment of life and environment? Drug abuse costs the English and Welsh tax payer about £19bn per year.  Alcohol abuse about £6bn.

The environment Agency spends £10 million annually collecting roadside rubbish. In fact, 2.25 million pieces of litter are dropped in the UK everyday, apparently by 48% of the population.

As I drive down from the mountain I see a sign warning of ice - someone has daubed 'ice baby' across it. I wonder if, as they did so, they marvelled at the vast forest that lay behind the road, the mountains beyond, the history of this land, or the way it was formed.

It's a world I wish I knew better, in all its natural beauty.