St Pauls Cabot Circus residency.

I’ve decided to do my residency in two adjacent but culturally disparate areas of Bristol. St Pauls (where I live) is a much maligned district. There always seems to be a negative connotation underlying any reference to the place. Sensationalist hyperbole about drugs, gun crime, riots and muggings is, in my mind, as dangerous to the community as the (often exaggerated) problems it alludes to.

“Do you know about the Dead Sea?” was her opening gambit. She was tiny and had an unusual French sounding accent. Gregarious strangers befuddle me, so her deadpan confidence put me ill at ease.

I assumed she was about to tell me how her life had been recently turned around by the power of Jesus Christ so I rallied a curt “yes” and tried not to make eye contact.

“Have you got a minute” she demanded, positioning herself between me and freedom.

“Not really” I fibbed

Unperturbed she led me to a table and told me to take my gloves off. My pulse quickened with anxiety, yet for some reason I clumsily obeyed, tangling my fingers in a woollen prison as she stood there silently basking in my awkwardness.

She then explained that salt from the Dead Sea had curative properties and listed a series of disfiguring skin complaints before asking if I suffered from any of them.

“I don’t think so” I whimpered, “This is just how I look”

She turned my palms up into begging position and slopped some abrasive gunk onto them. I just stood there staring at her, arms outstretched, like a lobotomised Oliver Twist. The substance looked and smelled like old urinal cakes mashed up with cod liver oil.

She ordered me to massage it into my hands and continued into a dizzying, machine gun like sales pitch. Occasionally I chipped in with questions regarding the validity of her claims and enquiries as to who had carried out all this salt based research. These interruptions visibly irritated her, upsetting her flow and forcing her to tersely repeat herself. When my skin was suitably coated, she asked me how my hands felt.

“Oily” I replied

“That’s a great answer” she spat through a clenched smile. She positioned my hands over a pristine white ceramic bowl and sprayed them with liquid from what looked like an old Cillit Bang bottle.

“Did you wash your hands before leaving the house today?” She proffered like it was a perfectly normal question to ask someone you’d only met two minutes ago.

Back off you slop flogging quack, first you tell me I look like I’ve got impetigo, now you’re casting aspersions about my personal hygiene. I compounded my vitriol into a docile “Yes”.

Her eyes gestured towards the bowl before raising back up to confront me accusingly. I glanced down to see the bottom of the bowl was covered in droplets of murky liquid shame.

“Dead Sea salt cleans UNDER the skin, UNDER the skin”

She enthused as if she were auditioning for a part in my next nightmare.

At this point she must have sensed she was beginning to freak me out, so decided to change tack. She gently dabbed my hands dry and started to tenderly massage moisturizer into them, then came the good cop routine. “I like your hair, and that’s a cool jacket, I stopped you because you’re very well groomed”

There was an uncomfortable silence as my brain struggled for a suitable reply, I couldn’t find one so blurted

“My girlfriend says I look like a tramp”. Cue another awkward silence.

“£39.99” She sighed resignedly.

As I put my gloves back on, she gave me a look which suggested that I’d been wasting her time. I felt guilty, I’m not sure why.

I wandered around for a few hours with oleaginous slime festering between the webs of my fingers and the inside of my gloves. If see her again and she stops me in the street, I only hope it’s because her life has been recently turned around by the power of Jesus Christ, or Meher Baba, or Satan.

I thought I’d do a bit of anticipatory R&D for my residency today. I decided to take photographs in Cabot Circus, Bristol’s newly developed city center retail Mecca.

On Arrival I removed my diminutive digital camera from its case and scanned its impassive eye over the sparkling vista. An imposing three tiered labyrinth of meticulously measured design. Every element a considered statement. Every piece of sleek polished glass a porthole to latent aspiration. Every brushed chrome spotlight illuminating a foetal fresh desire. Every sculpted corporate curve a temptress seducing you with promises you both know she couldn’t keep. Every billboard an accusatory celebration of the human condition, and every person a guilty memorial to the conditioned human.

Before my camera had time to blink it was blinded by a looming physical obelisk. The only hint that he was a security guard was a barely visible FBI style ear piece with a coiled wire leading to what I can only assume was a matrix type socket somewhere along his cervical cortex. His look was discreet yet austere; he wore a long black coat and a furrowed brow, if you can imagine what the Gestapo might look like if they’d been dressed by House of Frazer, you’re in the right ball park.

In succinct language he stealthily yet firmly informed me that taking photographs was forbidden. I watched him walk away; he took about twenty purposeful paces before spinning on his axes and fixing me in his unflinching gaze. There he stood, righteous and proud, like a granite sentinel. Authoritative bolts of rectitude emanating from every fiber of his TAILORED BLAZER OF TRUTH. He’d done his Job, and damn it, he’d done it well.

I tucked my camera away, sat on a marble slab next to a colossal metal reindeer that appeared to have fairy lights for testicals, and under the ubiquitous watch of CCTV, scribbled these lines.

I did later manage to steal the following image from an upper level coffee shop terrace. We’re all in Starbucks, but some of us are looking out the window.

Mushy peace xx