Happy new year from my laptop in the FACT cafe in Liverpool. I don’t normally ‘hang’ in here but I am quite enjoying it. Oh, if I only could afford to spend a small fortune on coffee per week.

I hope that the dawn of another year has you drenched in optimism and that your head, cramped with thoughts and projects. Perhaps tomorrow’s VAT rise will put a slight dent in this for you, but at least we can take heed that Alan Sugar is warning us not to panic buy large priced goods…but, Sir Alan, I was already at the Amazon checkout with my cart chockablock with my new 17.5% marked 42″ flatscreen! Maybe he will send round Karen Brady to sort me out. To be honest, I wouldn’t actually mind that…

Moving swiftly away from being sorted out by Karen Brady, I had an email over Christmas from the Directors of the studio saying a pipe had burst and that water had engulfed the studio. My heart sank reading this. This was classified in the ‘unforeseen disasters’ tab that could piss all over the raging bonfire of optimism and hope for the new year. Having been away/family commitments I have been unable to get into the studio until this morning, where I surveyed the premises to find the remains of a lot of hard work and mopping. It was a lot better than I thought. Still upsetting to see a few bits of work damaged, in this instance a large scale drawing of some skill.

I still possess slight guilt at not being around to aid, but circumstances dictate.

There are a few exhibitions that are on now that have me chomping at the bit to see. Nam June Paik at Tate Liverpool and UnSpooling at Cornerhouse are top of the list. Need to book my London ticket for Modern Sculpture at The Royal Academy too. I will be getting a new exhibition review up on the site soon.

In real time, I am currently being psychologically taunted by the two works in my studio that I have not yet finished. Before Christmas, I ‘went off’ one of them and my current relationship with it is uncomfortable to say the least. I am in the studio tomorrow to finish it off, which may be either the completion and documentation of it, or me smashing it up (this has happened before).