THE DAFFODILS

2002

I wandered into Safeway’s coffee shop an hour or so ago, joined the queue to order my first mug of coffee. While waiting I noticed something different about the place. On every one of the 19 tables was a small vase brimming with daffodils.

They might have been unable to toss their heads or do their sprightly dance but still they did the trick for me. Gave me some hint as to why life may be worth living.

During the past week I’ve been reading Damien Hirst and Gordon Burns’ cracking good book On The Way to Work. In it Hirst goes on about how devastatingly beautiful his spot paintings are and how he wished people didn’t buy them because they were ‘Damien Hirsts’ but because they were objects that brought beauty into their lives. And I thought ‘Yeah Damien, but they are no way as beautiful as a bunch of daffodils that you can buy for less than a quid.’ Not only is their beauty guaranteed every time, never a duff daffodil, you get them bursting out of their closed buds into their full golden glory and then fading and dying all in one week as well. Birth, life and death and all that.

So I sat down at my usual table with my mug of coffee, thought these thoughts and a few more and then got my book and pencil out and got on with the day’s work. On the third mug of coffee, the mobile rang.

‘Hallo.’

‘Good morning Bill, it’s Neal here. Neal Brown.’

Now I’m always pleased to get a call from Neal Brown. But there are times you can tell that he is searching for the most polite way of telling you that he is somewhat disappointed or even compromised by a piece of work you have done of late that in some way is connected to his own practice, but not this morning.

‘Bill, I’m organising an exhibition called ‘New Religious Art,’ at the Henry Peacock Gallery, and I’d be very pleased if you’d consider contributing a piece of your work for the show.’

‘Yes well …’

‘I have a very fixed idea of how I want the show to look. I’m unapologetic about it. I’m looking for artists who will allow their works to be highly arranged, in very close proximity – a bit like a sort of wall-based totem pole. Because of this I’m seeking works that are quite flat, without illusionistic depth, so that they won’t contradict each other too much. I was hoping that you might contribute some kind of text work – maybe something in your own handwriting, which we could enlarge photographically. Or maybe a Penkiln Burn pamphlet, beautifully framed.’

‘Yes but …’

‘And if you wanted, the actual pamphlets could be made available at the gallery desk, for people to buy them.’

‘Neal, Neal, can you stop a moment?’

‘Yes Bill.’

‘Can you tell me a bit more about your idea behind the exhibition. I mean what is this new religious art stuff?’

So Neal tells me his ideas. Some of these I’ve heard him express before, ideas that I was pleased to share and identify with even though it all sounds a bit like Songs of Praise meets New Neurotic Realism. Ideas that he has probably expressed in whatever texts he may provide as press release or catalogue essay, using his dry wit and steely prose.

Then somewhere in all the explaining of his ideas and what the gallery was like where he hoped to mount this exhibition and who the other artists may be, he let slip one of his working titles for the show, ‘God is Not a Cunt’. As soon as I heard that, my mind was off, racing down streets, across playing fields, over the canal bridge and up the embankment and on to the M6 heading north and I’m screaming, ‘God is not a cunt, God is not a cunt, God is not a fuckin’ cunt. Course he fuckin’ isn’t.’ Not when there are daffodils on the table in front of me. Not when the first of the blackthorn blossom is already out in the hedgerows and the tatty wee blue tit was on our bird table this morning, struggling against the wind and holding down a peanut with one foot while he pecked at it. Not when spring is about to be sprung.

My mind takes a breather from this to follow some other thoughts. These are they. My emotions about God are almost Sunday School simple. God is good. God is responsible for all the things I like, the speckles on a brown trout; the sound of Angus Young’s guitar; the nape of my girlfriend’s neck; the song of the black cap when he returns in spring. I never blame God for all the shit, for the baby Rwandan slaughtered in a casual genocide, the ever-present wars, religious hatred and bigotry and, of course, the bitterness and disappointment, drudgery and misery that fills most of our lives. It’s our job to sort that lot out in payment for the daisies and rainbows. God a cunt? You must be fuckin’ joking. And I can’t suppress the urge to want to thank him constantly.

Yes, all laughably naive, even the fact I think of Him as a him. It’s nothing to do with rational thought or trying to be a better person or anything to make me feel guilty or the idea that there is one true path. No, nothing fully formed or worked out, just an impulse I respond to like the one I have to put my cock up my girlfriend’s cunt and the one I have to write these words down for you to read.

But maybe some people do think God is a cunt. Maybe they should have their say. Maybe it’s my job to provide a bit of room for democracy in all of this telling the people that God is not a cunt.

On Saturday night it was the final of the first-ever Pop Idol thing on TV. Will versus Gareth. Now you understand this is not my kinda thing but on behalf of my two younger daughters who wanted Gareth to win, I tried to phone the given numbers to register their votes. I didn’t get through. All the lines were jammed and Will won and my daughters were disappointed.

My mind starts racing again on up the M6, over the M62, down the M1 and on to the M25. It comes to a halt under a motorway flyover. I’m standing there staring at this big wall of virgin-grey concrete. In one hand I have a large pot of black paint, in the other a brush. I get to work. I daub on the wall, in letters as big as I can manage, for all the passing motorists to read, ‘Is God a Cunt?’ Underneath I then paint in a smaller and more controlled hand, ‘To Vote Yes Phone 0870 240 4174 and To Vote No Phone 0870 240 4175.’ I stand back, admire my craft, pull out a camera and take a snap of my handiwork.

Then my mind races all the way back here to Safeway’s coffee shop and the telephone conversation I was having with Neal Brown.

‘Yeah Neal, I think your plan for a show sounds great. I’ve already got an idea - your thing about God not being a cunt has sparked something off in me.’

‘That’s great Bill. But I ought to warn you that my use of that title is only provisional. I think when it comes down to it I might have problems with it – it is possible it may give people the wrong impression.’

‘Yeah well, I’ll see you soon then?’

‘OK. Goodbye, and thank you again for considering the invitation.’

‘Yeah goodbye.’

And that was that. I went up to the counter, got myself another mug of coffee, returned to the table, thanked God for the daffodils in front of me and then wrote this story. And this afternoon I’ll phone BT, book a couple of phone lines for the job in hand.