THE PENKILN BURN GATHERING

SPOKE

WRIT

From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Tuesday, 3rd March 2026

Fellow Workers,

Planning ahead...

The Penkiln Burn Gathering may happen or may not happen on and between the dates of the 29th of April and 14th of May 2028.

And if...

The Penkiln Burn Gathering were to happen it would happen across the fields and moors and burns and mountains and lochs and towns and houses and halls and tidal flats of Galloway, in the far southwest of Scotland. And of course, in the Newton Stewart Picture House.

First and foremost...

The Penkiln Burn Gathering will exist to mark The End of the Penkiln Burn Universe, as a living breathing and evolving universe. Even Marvel will have its Decline & Fall, and there will be nothing Miles Morales will be able to do about it, let alone Peter Parker and all the rest.

But back to the Penkiln Burn Gathering...

And don’t hold any of this to account but...

And what follows will evolve between now and then...

But...

This is the list as is known at the moment...

THE OPENING:
The opening of the Penkiln Burn Gathering will be marked on the morning of the 29th of April 2028, by the former Bill Drummond re-enacting having the first of the Life & Death of an Artist photographs taken by Tracey Moberly in 2008. As in the former Bill Drummond standing in the Penkiln Burn holding a dead salmon in one hand and a bunch of freshly picked Bluebells in the other, while the real Tracey Moberly takes her final Life & Death of an Artist photographs.

CREE BANK:
Will open its doors later in the day of that 29th of April...
The Bank Manager will be there for those still in need of opening accounts.

THE PENKILN BURN TEA ROOMS:
The Penkiln Burn Tea Rooms will be open between the hours of 3pm and 5pm somewhere for most of those days. Freshly baked scones, clotted cream, homemade strawberry jam, butter and Darjeeling Tea. And of course, your friendly Nippy in his three-piece black suite, apron and tea cosy on head. Those attending the Penkiln Burn Tea Rooms will be invited to discuss things they have never discussed before with people they have never met before.

If cynical enterprise prevails, there might even be Penkiln Burn Tea Room tea caddies, pinnies, tea towels and tea cosies for sale.

THE PENKILN BURN PLAYERS:
The Penkiln Burn Players will be performing a season of Tenzing Scott Brown plays.

NOTA BENE:
The Penkiln Burn Players will not be performing a performance of the Tenzing Scott Brown play The 25 Paintings.

The 25 Paintings might be performed elsewhere at a later time. If elsewhere and later times are to exist.

AMATEUR DRAMATIC GROUPS:
Amateur Dramatic Groups from around the globe are welcomed to perform their interpretations of plays by Tenzing Scott Brown. Including The 25 Paintings if so inclined.

CINDY:
Cindy has been invited to give reading from... and sign copies of her memoir – My Other Life. We also hope she might even do a Q&A session.

QUIZ NIGHT:
Penkiln Burn Quiz Night hosted somewhere on some evening before the beginning and end of this Gathering. Let us know if you want to be the Quiz Master.

THE PENKILN BURN MOVING PICTURE SHOW AWARDS:
This being the screening of all those that have entered their zero-budget* film based on aspects of the stories told within the Penkiln Burn Universe.

Be that...

The imagined events that unfolded on a night when the former Bill Drummond made soup in some random house in a nowhere market town, and the story is not about the former Bill Drummond, as in his character hardly features in the film, but it is all about...

Anyway...

That is for you to decide, write, shoot, edit and deliver.

Or based on any one of the themes presented in any one of the chapters of The Life Model.

Or maybe the ongoing relationship between Cindy and Tenzing.

You make the film, it will screened.

And...

Entries can be as short or as long as those that are making the film might want. That said all entries must be delivered to vape@penkilnburn.com before the first snowdrop comes into bloom in 2028.

Those attending The Penkiln Burn Moving Picture Show will vote on the night(s) which will be the winner of The Best Penkiln Burn Moving Picture Show Award.

At the time these words are being typed we have commissioned the Tracey Moberly to attempt to turn the I Have Just Murdered My Wife spoken novella by William E. Drummond into a full length feature film, in the hope it can act as an instruction manual, as to how you might make your own full length feature film to enter The Penkiln Burn Moving Pictures Show Awards.

*What a ‘Zero-Budget’ moving picture is up to your purse to decide.

MAKE SOUP:
For one night only, soup will be made...
Make the Soup & The People will Sup

VOICES FROM THE GALLOVERSE:
The full-length feature film directed by Tracey Moberly, that has been in gestation for over 45 years, will have its world premiere at the Newton Stewart Picture House on the evening of the 11th of May 2028.

Or...

I will burn your Picture House down.

Ask George Jones.

TAKE:
TAKE is an exhibition where everything exhibited has to be taken by those visiting the exhibition. Everything being exhibited includes everything that exits in the former Bill Drummond dark industrial unit on a light industrial estate in the long shadow of Sizewell B, on the Suffolk Coast, but transitioned to a light industrial unit on a dark industrial estate somewhere in the then Galloway. Nothing must be left. Or if there was it would end up being exhibited in a skip.

BILL DRUMMOND by TRACEY MOBERLY:
BILL DRUMMOND by TRACEY MOBERLY is an exhibition of the work created by the Welsh artist Tracey Moberly using the former Bill Drummond as her muse. A version of this evolving exhibition will begin its world tour within the Penkiln Burn Gathering.

SKIP:
SKIP is an after-show exhibition where everything left from everything else is tossed into.

MERCH:
This will be where all those that have decided to make Penkiln Burn Universe Merch can compete with each other to see who can sell the most. The winner will be crowned Queen of Merch 2028.

THE SEVENTEEN:
The Seventeen is a tribute choir to The17.
The Seventeen might perform one or three scores originally written to be performed by The17 between 2003 and 2013. And a tribute version of the former Bill Drummond will repaint the words IMAGINE WAKING UP TOMORROW AND ALL MUSIC HAS DISAPPEARED under the Queen Mary’s Bridge over the Penkiln Burn.

STRETCH LITERARY AWARD:
The STRETCH Literary Award is to be awarded to the greatest novella created by those that have constructed their novella out of the letters, words, phrases, sentences or even paragraphs that have appeared within FOOT NOTE over a 365 day STRETCH between the 1st of January and the 31st of December 2027. And example of how this construction can be done is taking place in real time by the novelist William E. Drummond as he constructs his novella Famous People I Have Shagged.

The panel of judges will be made up of all those that want to be on the panel. If you want to be on the panel, contact vape@penkilnburn.com

OTHER MOVING PICTURES:
Other moving pictures that have historical connections to the Penkiln Burn Universe might be screened at the Newton Stewart Picture House during the Penkiln Burn Gathering. These films might include How To Be An Artist, Imagine Waking Up Tomorrow & All Music Has Disappeared, Best Before Death and the Galloverse edit of STAY.

TRUE TO THE TRAIL:
True To The Trail will be performed for the very last time.
This will be done to mark the release for the final of the five Penkiln Burn Recordings long-playing record of the same name.

THE ENDING:
The Penkiln Burn Gathering will close after the screening of Voices From The Galloverse with a walk up through Newton Stewart, over the River Cree suspension bridge, up the track past Monigaff Kirk (Minnigaff Church) to that Queen Mary’s Bridge. Once on the bridge the former Bill Drummond will take his Apple laptop from his rucksack and throw it into the water below and then he will take his iPhone from his pocket and use it to move the Penkiln Burn website into permanent state of Darkness. After which he will throw it also in the rushing waters bellow.

THE FOLLOWING MORNING:
The following morning the Larks will rise over Cairnsmore and the tide will turn in the Wigtown Bay.

And...

VAPE SHOP will shuffle out of town and attempt to hitch hike back down to London with his newspaper sack over his shoulder. It will contain copies of the newspaper FOOT NOTE. On his return to London, he will hope that he still has it in his legs to climb to the top floor of bus heading to corner of that bleak city that he has never been to before to sell copies of that paper, to spray his tag and go for a shave in a Kurdish barbers shop before heading home for some camomile tea and an early night.

There will be no more...

The End

But...

If you have any queries or questions, don’t hesitate to ask me.

Yours from the shop floor,

Brush (Your Shop Steward)
brush@penkilnburn.com

Post Script:
Of course, like that hand that never got chopped off, none of this might happen – fete might have other things in stall for us all.

FAMOUS PEOPLE I HAVE SHAGGED

SPOKE

WRIT

From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Monday, 2nd March 2026

Fellow Workers,

Famous People I Have Shagged is a novella by William E. Drummond

Famous People I Have Shagged is being constructed by William E. Drummond over the 12 months of 2027, using the methods unravelled by myself in my meditation on the creative process that goes by the name of Ficate.

That said, we are able to present to you here the content contained on William E, Drummond proposed introduction of his yet to be written novella...

Famous People I Have Shagged is to be the title of my ‘memoir’, that I plan to construct over a twelve-month period using the methods laid bare by Brush (Your Shop Steward) in her meditation on the creative process that goes by the name of Ficate.

I wanted my ‘memoir’ to use a title and opening line that might capture the passing readers attention – I mean not that I have shagged any famous people, or not yet, but if we use the urban legend that if you live in London, one is never more than six feet from the nearest rat, we can assume that if we live in London, we are never more than 60 yards from a famous person.

For each of the twelve months of 2027, I plan to present to you a chapter of no more than one thousand words, of how I will find a famous person and attempt for them to want to seduce me. Now the fact that I may fail in these attempts is not the issue, the issue is the journey. The falls from grace. The nearly had ’ems. The almost came. The missed train. The elevator moment. The walk of shame. The early morning rain. The poetry before dawn. The pointlessness of it all. What could have been. What should have been. If only... And then that moment, when it felt like all of life had been leading to the moment. Me and twelve different famous people. One a month. What can go wrong? Or even right?

And this whole memoir constructed from letters, words, phrases, sentences and even paragraphs contained within FOOT NOTE, as I attempt to complete a streak of the 365 days contained within FOOT NOTE.

And before it is too late, why don’t you attempt to write your own novella using the same methods, just read and digest that Ficate by Brush (Your Shop Steward) and sharpen your pencil, it can’t be that hard, all the words are already there, you just have to find them and put them in an order of your choosing. And once you have done you can enter your novella, in the 2028 Penkiln Burn Literary Awards.

Anyway...

It is time for me to sip the last of my Oat Latte and head out into the streets and find that famous person that might, for some reason, want to seduce me.

So as William E. Drummond, states in his introduction to his novella Famous People I Have Shagged, please read my meditations on the creative process contained within Ficate and start to contemplate how it is not too late in your life to write that award winning novella that you had secretly always knew was in you to write.

Yours from the shop floor,

Brush (Your Shop Steward)
brush@penkilnburn.com

FICATE

SPOKE

WRIT

From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Sunday, 1st March 2026

Fellow Workers,

Ficate is a verb.

Or at least for the year of 2027 the word ficate is a verb. For language to survive it has to constantly evolve. And by the 1st of January 2028 (if life on earth still exists then) the word ficate, if it still exists then, will no longer be a verb.

But...

For the 365 days of 2027...

The verb ficate, can be defined as a word to describe the action of attempting to take one thing and make it become another thing in the hope that the ‘thing’ can be perceived to have more importance / meaning / currency in the ever more modern world.

But...

In the process of something being ficated, the original importance / meaning / currency it had, will have shifted and for some even be undermined thus devalued. Be that in the world of your past, present or future.

But...

There are those that already know about these sorts of things and they might say...

“The urge to ficate, is as strong as the urge to watch sex and violence, even if you do not actively participate in the sex and violence.”

And...

Just to be clear, Sex & Violence do not exist in the Penkiln Burn Universe, or they do not exist for packaged public consumption.

Anyway...

Back to the verb in question...

Ficate...

After the closing moments of the 31st of December 2026, and as in the seconds and minutes and hours and days and weeks and months that follow...

As in...

Come the 1st of January 2027, there will be those in the Penkiln Burn Universe that will want to explore how the verb ficate, can be released to then run amok across those 365 days within the said Penkiln Burn Universe, just to vicariously observe what might happen.

And for this to happen...

We must let the verb ficate give birth to the noun fication. And in turn let the noun fication splinter into five subgenres. Those five subgenres include...

Retrofication, Gamification, Academification, Commodification, and Communification.

We all might have our own versions of what those five words mean within the world we have been living in since the turning of the century.

But...

We will now attempt to explore what those five subgenres of fication might mean within the 2027 version of the Penkiln Burn Universe.

That said...

At times there might not be a clear distinction between each of these five subgenres.

I mean...

What might start out being Academification might become in reality just a sub-subgenre of Gamification.

I mean...

Maybe “clear distinction” does not exist in the Penkiln Burn Universe.

Anyway...

RETROFICATION:
The retrofication of an object or event is, to attempt to give the object or event some sort of importance due to its perceived history. In your personal life retrofication, might be expressed or even achieved by buying clothes from a charity shop, or lying on the floor (or bed) while listening to a vinyl album that you bought as a teenager, or even making yourself cheese on toast, because that is what you liked when you came home from school.

In the more commercial world, retrofication might take the form of distressed jeans being sold by a high street clothing chain in the year of 2023...

Or...

Embracing Record Store Day in the year of 2024...

Or...

Going to the pictures when you could wait two weeks and watch it on Netflix in the year of 2025...

Or...

Cafes distressing their walls so they can charge the former Bill Drummond more for the price of his daily fix of whatever type of coffee he was drinking in the year of 2022.

Within the Penkiln Burn Universe the perceived rot of retrofication has already begun by the Penkiln Burn Records releasing their records only on vinyl.

As for the future...

We have little idea how the Penkiln Burn Universe might affect distressed looks, in the hope to up its value and embrace its retrofication in the mind of those yet to come.

GAMIFICATION:
Now that almost everything in life has been gamified, from how we use dating apps to how we navigate our imminent demise, to seeing how many weeks we can go without telling our life partner how much we love them to...

Anyway...

It was only a matter of time before the Penkiln Burn Universe would find itself exploring how it could explore its own gamification. The first step in the gamification of the Penkiln Burn Universe takes the simple form used by both Alcoholics Anonymous and Duolingo, as in giving yourself the challenge of how many days you can go without, or go with, something, but not the ‘how much we love them’ thing. And then be celebrated when you have achieved that challenge.

The Penkiln Burn Universe has appropriated the term streak from Duolingo. As in the word ‘streak’ is to be used as the title of their late to the game, but still their first attempt at overt gamification. Thus a STREAK, is to do a 365-day streak of all the content within FOOT NOTE, between Friday the 1st of January 2027 and Friday the 31st of December 2027.

But...

Things are more challenging than just listening to or reading the content presented to you on a 365-day cycle. If you find yourself driven to complete this streak, as in create your STREAK, you have to uncover your hidden story from the letters and words and phrases and sentences found within each of the daily sections of FOOT NOTE. And at the end of each month email that month’s chapter of your story to vape@penkilnburn.com.

But no more than 1,000 words a month.

And...

There is not just one, as in your ‘hidden story’ to be uncovered, there are many. As many as there are those that want to uncover their story and attain their STREAK.

But...

A would be STREAKER must clearly, display (copy and paste) in their monthly emails to me brush@penkilnburn.com where they sampled their words, phrases or sentences from each of the daily entries of the previous month.

The cynics might view this process as merely a rip off of the cut-up technique used by Brion Gysin, or at best a collage like you did in your art class at primary school, but we here in the Penkiln Burn Universe, consider this a way to unlock your pent-up creativity.
 
And...

After you, and your fellow STREAKERS, have delivered all twelve of your (and their) monthly chapters from the year of 2027, those completed stories, which we will now consider each to be a novella of their own standing and each with their own chosen title. And these novellas will all be made public within the Penkiln Burn Universe. And there they will be judged by the passing readers. And those choosing to judge can award stars out of five. And the winner will win the first Penkiln Burn Literary Award. And the winner of the Penkiln Burn Literary Award will have their novella published in as a hard back Penkiln Burn Book in and edition of 400, at the same time as retaining all copyright in their creative work.  

And...

If the former Bill Drummond is still physically alive, he will ‘mark’ your STREAK certificate, and it will be posted to your physical home address.

And remember...

The Penkiln Burn Universe does not track you.
It is down to you to track the Penkiln Burn Universe.
The Penkiln Burn Universe does not stalk you.
It is down to you to stalk the Penkiln Burn Universe.

Anyway...

That is one example of the Gamification of the Penkiln Burn Universe. Other more dangerous forms of gamification might evolve within the Penkiln Burn Universe within the given time frame of the future.

ACADEMIFICATION:
Most art in the modern world has suicidal tendencies. If put into practice, those suicidal tendencies usually chose one of three different paths...

Curatofication being the first – as in any art that has been curated is dead art. As any art that can be viewed, judged and consumed in a public gallery – especially if it is a retrospective (this being where Retrofication merges with Academification)

Commodification being the second, as in when the Art knowingly allows itself to become a commodity that can be bought and sold on the open (or even closed) market, at the same time knowing that this very trading is what will stop it from being a living breathing thing.

The third and most lethal, is Academification, this being when Art secretly seeks to be validated by Academia.

But...

Academification is also the clearest (and maybe ‘cleverest’) way to murder Art.

Academification can also be used to murder the Penkiln Burn Universe.

We here within the Penkiln Burn Universe invite you to become a murderer. As in murder the Penkiln Burn Universe, using Academification as your weapon of choice.  There are five distinct steps in how to sharpen your weapon to commit this murder of a whole universe. They are as follows...

The Haiku...
As in distil all of the content of FOOT NOTE into the 17 morae of one Haiku.

The Essay...
Write an essay of no more than one thousand words that would be appropriate for a History of Art Essay for those doing A’ Level or Highers exam at a school in the UK, or the equivalent exam in a country of your choosing. These ‘no more than one thousand words’ must be written in response to an aspect of the content contained within FOOT NOTE. As to which ‘content contained within FOOT NOTE’ is up to you.

The Dissertation...
Write a dissertation of no more than ten thousand words that would be appropriate for a History of Art Dissertation for those doing a bachelor’s degree in Fine Art at a University of your choice anywhere on earth. These no more than ten thousand words must be written in response to content contained within FOOT NOTE. As to which ‘content contained within FOOT NOTE’ is up to you.

The Thesis...
Write a thesis of no more than ninety thousand words that would be appropriate for a PhD / Doctorate at a university of your choice anywhere on earth. These no more than ninety thousand words must be written in response to content contained within FOOT NOTE. As to which ‘content contained within FOOT NOTE’ is up to you.

The Book...
Write and publish a book containing as many or as few words as you care to choose. But these words must have been written as a reaction to the content contained within FOOT NOTE. As to which ‘content contained within FOOT NOTE’ is up to you. But this is where you can cheat, as in you can use the wordcounts you have created to achieve the first four levels in Academification of the Penkiln Burn Universe to be the content for your Book.

And this again is an example where two of the five subgenres of Fication cross fertilise or at least muddy their individual distinctions. As in elements of Gamification can be harnessed to help you achieve your murdering of the Penkiln Burn Universe.

As in...

If you want to become a public Murderer of the Penkiln Burn Universe, and to be seen to publicly do this, and win that race, please submit your submission of these five steps. And each of your Five Steps will be published within the Penkiln Burn Universe for all to pass comment, asses and judge.

Others can sit and knit and natter while they watch your guillotine of words drop and execute the whole of the Penkiln Burn Universe before its head hits the basket.

And...

If you were to achieve all five levels of Penkiln Burn Academification you will receive a MURDERER certificate, marked by the yet undead but still former Bill Drummond.

But...

The first to stride all Five Steps will also be honoured as the winner and celebrated as the Murderer Supreme. Even if what they have written is shite and we all know that it is. I mean just read the comments. I mean do the comments reveal more than the work that is being commented upon? I mean, would YouTube exist without the comments? Discuss and debate, but not before you have written that Haiku.

COMMODIFICATION:
This one is down to you. Or at least down to your creative cynicism. If there is a way that you think you could commodify aspects of the Penkiln Burn Universe, feel free to do so...

Let your entrepreneurial skills free...

T-shirts, tote bags, posters, mugs, tea towels, mats – signed limited editions being the most obvious, thus most boring. But you judge the market and see what you can achieve.

And this is where the waters get muddied between those five Fications. And we allow Gamification to creep again into the needed enterprise of Commodification.

As in...

The first that can prove they have grossed £1,000 (or equivalent), in the Commodification of the Penkiln Burn Universe will receive a ONE THOUSAND QUID certificate. The next step being the £10,000 one, and of course the FORTY THOUSAND QUID one. And the crowning glory the HUNDRED THOUSAND QUID one. There can be no losers in this game, just winners. Take the risk, sell the merch, make the money, win the trophy.

That said...

The bank manager for CREE BANK, would like it clarified here, that the work, enterprise and whatever else of CREE BANK, operates in separate and distinct way from the ‘creative cynicism’ approach needed to achieve the Commodification of the Penkiln Burn Universe.

CREE BANK is driven by duty aligned to an ideology.
The Commodification of the Penkiln Burn Universe is driven by unfettered greed.

COMMUNIFICATION:
It may well be known that the world of the online community has eroded and corroded much of the real-life community that once existed in your community. This being done to commodify the human need for community.

We in the Penkiln Burn Universe would like to address this. Or at least offer an alternative, even if you detect a stench of cynicism in this attempt to offer an alternative.

The first being a Penkiln Burn Universe Pub Quiz. An example of this could be five people gather together in a public house of their choosing. One of the five would be the Quiz Mistress / Master. They would have a list of 100 questions regarding facts and fictions whose answers can be found within the 365 days of FOOT NOTE.

Or...

On a larger scale, it could be eight teams of five. Thus would meet in larger public space, be that being in a public house, village or church hall or even a Penkiln Burn Tea Room.

And...

Again there would be a Quiz Mistress or Master with 100 hundred questions to be asked whose answers can be found within the 365 days of FOOT NOTE.

And...

Of course the winning team would receive a WINNERs certificate from the Penkin Burn Universe.

Maybe...

Only 40 of these quizzes should ever exist.

Or there could be an annual trophy, that gets handed on from winning team to winning team over a forty-year period.

Anyway...

The 2020s might go down in history as the decade of the Immersive Experience.

We in the Penkiln Burn Universe would like to offer a more community led and less commodified immersive experience.

Four examples of these could be...

One:
Find four others and then find that wall under Spaghetti Junction and recreate one of the paintings done by a local artist on that very wall. Just use emulsion – nothing fancy.

Two:
Find four others and then find the real Penkiln Burn and re-enact the former Bill Drummond passing his Cub Scout swimming proficiency badge as he did at the age of ten in the September of 1963. If you do this, you and the other four will (might) receive a replica 1960s Cub Scout proficiency badge for the said re-enactment.

Three:
Download the PDF and print forty copies of the YEAR ZERO pamphlet. And distribute those forty copies on the top deck of double decker buses in your area of the world. Then go and spray your VAPE SHOP tag on a wall in your area of the world. Although no certificates will be made, printed and sent to you for achieving this form of immersive experience, feel free to create your own certificate of achievement, for achieving this form of immersification. Although this might be something done by you alone, attempt to find another four that might have done the same thing in their corner of the wider world and share your experiences of being VAPE SHOP off the leash.

And if there are no double-decker busses in your part of the world, the back seat of a single-decker with do.

Four:
And this is the one that is the most arduous to perform / experience / tick off the list...

It involves the performance of the Tenzing Scott Brown play The 25 Paintings in a location of your choice. To read or listen to what this might involve click HERE.

And...

Maybe listen and read PAINT HEAD by Tenzing Scott Brown, while you are at it.

But...

If you were up for doing this, you could take it a step further and invite those that are wanting to experience your performance of this Tenzing Scott Brown play to Make Soup, Bake Cakes, Shine Shoes, Build Beds, Sweep Streets, Climb Trees, Knit Squares, Give Daffodils and all the rest of those things. And maybe even host your own Penkiln Burn Tearoom while you are at.

The former Bill Drummond hopes to perform this play by Tenzing Scott Brown in a future time, if there are future times for them once The 25 Paintings twelve-year world tour has been completed.

Five:
And although we were not going to have a fifth in this list, the ghost of Tenzing Scott Brown seems to be insisting we invite you to stage a season of their plays in a pub backroom or village / church hall somewhere in your real lived community.   

Let us know what you think.

Yours from the shop floor,

Brush (Your Shop Steward)
brush@penkilnburn.com

OPEN EDIT

SPOKE

WRIT

From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Saturday, 21st February 2026

Fellow Workers,

The Penkiln Burn Universe is out of control.

It needs to be controlled.

Or at the very least edited.

Can you edit?

Can you suggest what should be edited from what is currently pouring out of its past into its future?

If so – what?

And how?

Or even if it is only proof-reading corrections that you can suggest.

You will be credited.

All suggestions to me...

Yours from the shop floor,

Brush (Your Shop Steward)
brush@penkilnburn.com

HAVE Versus DOES

SPOKE

WRIT

From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 26th March 2026

Fellow Workers,

If we were to put aside the question ‘Does Art exist?
And for a moment we accept art does exist.
Then can we explore the word ‘does’?

But before we do that, let us look at the word ‘have’

I have a mummy.
I have a baby doll.
I have a party dress.
I have the moves.
I have the followers.
I have a boyfriend.
I have an education.
I have a plan.
I have a purpose.
I have a career.
I have a house.
I have a husband.
I have a child.
I have a car.
I have a home.
I have children.
I have a new dress.
I have a garden.
I have the perimenopause
I have equity.
I have a pension plan.
I have a way of life.
I have justice.
I have respect.
I have cancer.
I have equality.
I have guilt.
I have books on my shelf.
I have food on my table.
I have remorse.
I have clothes in my wardrobe.
I have paintings on my wall
I have been there.
I have history.
I have lived a life.
I have it all.
Or...
At least I have some of it.

But...

Let us consider that maybe ‘have’ is the enemy.
Or at least consider...
It is not the having but the doing that matters to the ticking clock inside us all.
You might have all of the above, but if you are not doing, then what is all that having for?

Or...

All of the above is the former Bill Drummond’s get out clause.
As in...
The former Bill Drummond does not make art.
The former Bill Drummond does art.
As in...
If he made art, then it just becomes a thing that people can have.
But if he does art, then it exists not for other people to have...
But as a thing that other people can do as well.
But not in that curated sort of performance art sort of way.
As in...
Where there is a performer performing and there is an audience applauding.
I mean...
You cannot have a piece of the former Bill Drummond’s art,
Or even watch the former Bill Drummond perform the art.
But you can do a piece of the former Bill Drummond’s art.
Or...
To use his FOUR LETA WORD language
You can DOES it.
As in...
What you DOES can never be undone...
Whereas...
What you HAVE can always be taken away, or lost, or destroyed, or cured, or rot, or be forgotten. Or even worse – be a burden for whoever you leave behind.

Over the forty remaining Thursdays of this FOOT NOTE, I as your Shop Steward, hope to find and lay out forty of the works of art done by the former Bill Drummond that you can DOES but never HAVE. Many of these already exist in the form of instructions laid out within Penkiln Burn Posters. Some of these Penkiln Burn Poster may already be scheduled to appear within the 365 days of FOOT NOTE. But they might also be there in those forty remaining Thursdays.

And...

I you do one of these works of art, you will own it in a very real way, but not in a way that can ever be sold.

But...

If your hunger (addiction?) to HAVE cannot be supressed, why not just paint a life size copy of each of those posters after you have done each of those Forty Work O’Art, on the understanding it will be destroyed (recycled?) once you died (DONE DEAD), thus not be that burden to those...

Or maybe...

You just have one canvas that you paint on, and after you done / DOES each of the Forty Work O’Art in turn, you paint over the canvas with the text of the next Penkiln Burn Poster.

Now you can either ignore all of the above and get back to having.

Or...

Ignore all of the above and get back to doing what you want to be doing.

Or...

Ignore all of the above but, at the same time, interpret this all in a way that works for you either on your own...

Or...

Find others you want to do it with.

Yours from the shop floor,

Brush (Your Shop Steward)

CREE BANK OPENS

SPOKE

WRIT

From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Monday, 16th March 2026

Fellow Workers,

Supposedly...

CREE BANK will be open between the 1st of April and the 11th of May 2026, but with the amount high street branches of ‘proper’ banks closing, we cannot be certain...

Of anything...

But...

We have been informed by The Bank Manager of CREE BANK, that he will be open for business between those two dates.

As in...

The Bank Manager will be busy in the mint making CREE BANK currency over those Forty Days.

As in...

He will be knitting One Thousand Stiches per day.

And...

Each of those One Thousand Stiches will take the form of One Knitted Square.

And...

He will be painting the first of the Twelve Paintings.

And...

He hopes to display a selection of The Twelve Tributes lying Fanny Naked on the beach at Sizewell B Power Station.

Handheld photographic evidence of all of these forms of physical currency might be displayed within FOOT NOTE between those two dates.

And...

We understand that the 100 copies of the William E. Drummond novella CREE BANK will be available online via Alimentation.

And...

The spoken word version of this said novella will also be available to heard within FOOT NOTE on each of those dates between the 1st of April and the 11th of May 2026.

Yours from the shop floor,

Brush (Your Shop Steward)
brush@penkilnburn.com

Post Script:

And if the question ‘So where is this CREE BANK open. I mean can I go there and discuss my extending my overdraft or...?’ is looking for an answer, the answer is – CREE BANK is open in your head where other banks are closed.

Or...

On the beach at Sizewell B Nuclear Power Station between 3pm and 5pm on the 11th of May 2026. Bring you knitting with you.

A GRAFFIC MODEL?

SPOKE

WRIT

From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Sunday, 15th March 2026

From the Bench of Your Shop Steward
Sunday the 15th of March 2026

Fellow Workers,

Well...

The former Bill Drummond seems to have had the drawings done by those that gave up part of their lives to do the drawings to be part of what he said was going to as ‘inspiration’ for him to go and do woodcut versions of these drawings but like so many other things in his life – He Never Delivered.

And he has just bunged them all on the digital pages of The Life Model.

I mean...

We expect more than that.

As in we cannot rely on him to do what he says he is going to do.

Now a Jon Mayers – a reputable etcher and co-founder of the East End Printmakers

did what the former Bill Drummond never even attempted to do. As in this Jon Mayers chose two of the drawings done, and used them as the inspiration to make two etchings using the traditional methods of etching. Yes, we know that is not a wood cut, but it is still ‘proper’ print making.

If this Jon Mayers is willing to take the risk, and deliver the goods, there might be others out there who would want to take the risk at developing their skills at a form of ‘traditional’ print making and do their own interpretation of any or some of those drawings that have been done and are being used as no more than eye candy within The Life Model.

And...

If there are those others that take up this invitation, we hope they will be part of an exhibition of prints at the Penkiln Burn Gathering come 2028. Maybe even the former Bill Drummond will have attempted to do a wood cut or two by then.

We will see...

Yours from the shop floor,

Brush (Your Shop Steward)
brush@penkilnburn.com

Post Script:
Yes we know that in the world that we now live in, Artificial Intelligence could deliver a life like etching, screenprint, lino or even woodcut of any of these drawings in seconds. We trust you and your fellow workers for the purposes of this proposed exhibition to be on the side of the Future Luddite movement, who measure the time it takes to do something part of The Work being done and delivered, as opposed to just what the thing looks like in the brief moment that you might be looking at it on your phone. 

You get it?

TOP TENS

SPOKE

WRIT

From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Saturday, 14th March 2026

Fellow Workers,

We here on the shop floor, love a Top Ten, especially when there is the added suspense of their being a Chart Run Down. As in, no one really knows what the Number One is going to be until the big reveal.

So...

During the Penkiln Burn Gathering we are planning to have series of Top Ten Chart Run Downs.

The first will be on one night only. This will be for the Top Ten of all the individual entries included within The Life Model. For this Top Ten to happen, we are inviting you to list your favourite ten from all those entries included within The Life Model. As in your Top Ten of them in order 1 to 10. As in your Number One will get 10 points and your Number Ten will get one point. We will then add up all the numbers and do the maths.

And on the night, we will have Angie Darcy, Tam Dean Burn and the former Bill Drummond (if any of them are still alive) and they will read out the entries from Number Ten to Number One.

The other Top Ten, will be the based on the Top Ten favourite plays by Tenzing Scott Brown.

And again...

This Top Ten will be read (if not performed by) Angie Darcy and Tam Dean Burn. The former Bill Drummond might be on site to be the MC and control the baying throng.

And again...

It is for you the reader and listener to choose your Top Ten of Tenzing Scott Brown plays and email your list to us. And we will add up the numbers and do the maths.

As yet...

We do not know if this will all happen on the one night or over several nights.

As in...

Some of the Tenzing Scott Brown plays only last moments, while others last hours (if not years).

Yours from the shop floor,

Brush (Your Shop Steward)
brush@penkilnburn.com

Post Script:
Actually...
On reading the above before hitting send, we have had a bit of a rethink. We now think there should be a Top Ten of the Overs, a Top Ten of the Unders and a Top Ten of the Troubled Dreams. That will mean three of these Top Tens. Each of these three Top Tens read by either the former Bill Drummond, Tam Dean Burn and Angie Darcy.

ChatBILL Versus ChatBotBILL

SPOKE

WRIT

From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Friday, 13th March 2026

Fellow Workers,

Three or so years ago, the former Bill Drummond was contacted by a Craig Charles. This Craig Charles wanted to know if he would be a guest on a radio show for a chat about the funk music of the early to mid 1970s, especially the funk music coming out of Hialeah in Florida and being released on TK Records. This particular insular interest was shared by both this Craig Charles and the former Bill Drummond. They also shared an interest in the more outlying reaches of Merseyside (Note: not Liverpool). This Craig Charles and that Bill Drummond have numerous things in common – don’t judge a man by his one liners.

The former Bill Drummond explained to the then Craig Charles, that he did not come on radio stations to chat about things, even things he was interested in.

But...

The former Bill Drummond did unveil to this Craig Charles, that he had been working on, or at least developing the idea of ChatBILL.

The idea of ChatBILL, being the former Bill Drummond’s response to the release of ChatGPT in November 2022.

The difference between ChatBILL and ChatGPT, would be that the real former Bill Drummond would be sitting on a chair on the island just above Queen Mary’s Bridge over the Penkiln Burn.

And...

That while sitting on this chair, the former Bill Drummond would transition into being ChatBILL.

And...

ChatBILL would be willing chat with anyone about anything for 17 minutes (or was it 40 minutes).

Now...

Or at least then, the Craig Charles was keen for this to happen, but reality stepped in the way, and a Craig Charles and a former Bill Drummond via ChatBILL were going to have to wait for another day before discussing whether the Clean Up Woman by Betty Wright was the greatest record ever released by TK Records or whether Cantril Farm beat the Netherley Estate in the Merseyside’s Top Ten of Slum Clearance Estates built in the 1960s. Of course, the former Bill Drummond was on the side of the Netherley for its concrete brutalist architecture and the fact that is where he worked for Merseyside Parks & Gardens cleaning up the mess in the arse end of 1973.

But anyway...

And ChatBILL never delivered...

But...

We here on the shop floor are now developing ChatBotBILL.

ChatBotBILL will be fed all of the information contained within FOOT NOTE (2026 & 2027) and when asked a question will answer the question drawing upon all that information and using the automated voice of the former Bill Drummond.

And...

During the Penkiln Burn Gathering we plan to host a session where we set ChatBILL (as in the former Bill Drummond), up against ChatBotBILL. Each will be asked the same Forty Questions. The questions will be from the audience. ChatBILL will be asked the question first. The ChatBotBILL will be asked the same question next. The Audience will vote on who has answered the question best. The winner of each Best Answer will be awarded a point. The overall winner will be the one with the most points.

As in...

THE WINNER TAKES IT ALL...

As to what the ‘ALL’ might be, we do not as yet know. If you have any suggestions what the WINNER TAKES do not hesitate to suggest.

Yours from the shop floor,

Brush (Your Shop Steward)
brush@penkilnburn.com

Post Script:
We here on the shop floor, already know that ChatBotBILL will win hands down, as in we here on the shop floor know that the former Bill Drummond forgets everything once he has written the words down.

2027?

SPOKE

WRIT

From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 12th March 2026

Fellow Workers,

It has been brought to our attention, by those that sew the patches together for the quilt that is FOOT NOTE, that quilts have two sides to them. And that sometimes the side you see less often, might be the more interesting side.

As Your Shop Steward, I have taken this into account and suggested that maybe there should be an underside to this quilt with the name FOOT NOTE, and if the top side of the quilt is referred to as 2026, then the underside of FOOT NOTE should be referred to as 2027.

As yet, we do not know what content this darker side to the quilt will contain, but if things do not collapse before we get there, I guess we will begin to know on the 1st of January 2027.

If you have any suggestions as to what might be included in 2027, please do not hesitate to let us know.

Yours from the shop floor,

Brush (Your Shop Steward)
brush@penkilnburn.com

DELETE THE RUBBISH

SPOKE

WRIT

From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Wednesday, 11th March 2026

Fellow Workers.

At has been brought to our attention that some of the daily entries within FOOT NOTE are rubbish.

We appreciate your thoughts on the matter.

And in future we will delete content that is deemed to be rubbish.

Content is The Enemy.

The War on Content continues.

Yours from the shop floor,

Brush (Your Shop Steward)
brush@penkilnburn.com

SHIFTING SANDS

SPOKE

WRIT

From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Tuesday, 10th March 2026

Fellow Workers,

It might be because the Blackthorn have blossomed
It might be because the Rooks are rebuilding their nests.
It might be because...

Anyway...

Whatever it is, the former Bill Drummond is in a far better place in his head than he has been for months if not years. The Darkness is lifting. He no longer has the same dreams night after night, always about being lost and not being able to find his way home, at the same time as, not knowing what home is, or even looks like.

It might not be that Damascene moment that he has often gone on about, or even finally finding that North West Passage...

I mean...

You have listened to Lord Franklin by Pentangle.

But anyway...

Something has shifted.

Or at least shifting.

I mean we like sands to shift.

That said he is not willing to remove any of the negativity contained within the YEAR ZERO pamphlet by VAPE SHOP or even his tirade against Western Cultural Imperialism and everything else contained within WHY IS ANDY WARHOL SHITE? and GONE.

This shift has come from the realisation that everything that is contained within FOOT NOTE could have been created using Artificial Intelligence. I mean you could write all these words, make the photos that have been taken by Tracey Moberly, write the songs on the soundtrack album to the film STAY – even make the STAY film, using what is available to you at your fingertips on your laptop, using whatever brand of AI you choose, in the next hour. Why consume any of this when you could do that?

And...

Do it better.

It is this realisation, that has shifted the former Bill Drummond’s mindset. It is this shifting that is now letting the idea of such a thing as Art to exist in his head again. As in an Art that cannot be bought or sold, curated or validated. As in an Art that only exists in the experience of other people doing it. Not in the sense that they are doing it like a tribute act, or even a re-enactment, but maybe closer to the immersive thing vaguely laid out in one of my previous missives to you.

Take for example...

The Cake Circle...

It is only by constructing your own Cake Circle, will you ever be able to ‘own’ the ‘work of art’ that is known as a Cake Circle.

As in...

No amount of money will ever entitle an art collector to own a Cake Circle.
A Cake Circle can never be curated to be exhibited in an art gallery, whatever the standing of the art gallery. And no amount of documentation, in whatever form of documentation one might choose, will ever give you that experience of ‘owning’ that ‘work of art’ that goes by the name of Cake Circle. It is only through drawing that circle on a map of your choice; baking those cakes; then going and knocking on those doors; then, if the door is answered saying, “I have baked you a cake, here it is”;  and you accepting the rejection or ridicule or even the acceptance; then you do the same again and attempt to deliver another cake to a home on the Cake Circle. And once you have constructed it you will ‘own’ it. Like if you swim seventeen lengths of the pool, or do a half marathon, you will own that doing of it, as in, no one else will.

But if you want something to mark your ownership...

You can paint a version of the Cake Circle NOTICE and hang it on your wall, as some sort of sign that you have done it and you are the ‘owner’. Whatever to ‘own’, or being an ‘owner’ is.

And here lies the unknowns...

Or...

The yet to be knowns...

Should there be only Forty of these Works of Art, each one taken from what the former Bill Drummond has attempted to do since the first public ruminations of the Penkiln Burn Universe in the mid to late 1990s?

Or...

Should each of these yet to be decided Works of Art only exist for 40 times. As in only 40 folk (Fellow Workers), get to construct, thus ‘own’ a cake circle. But if that rule is followed, it allows for the evils of Documentation to slip through the door. As in if each of the 40 are not documented, how would one know how many Cake Circles have been constructed.

Or...

Maybe, even if the former Bill Drummond throws his laptop and iPhone off the Queen Mary’s Bridge into the rushing waters of the Penkiln Burn on the 11th of May 2028, the actual Penkiln Burn Universe does not end until 2038, as in 40 years since it first became a public Universe to rival all those other Universes.

Maybe...

All these options can be worked out by you, and whatever other fellow workers, that might want to engage with this process.

So...

If there are to be 39 other Works of Art to be considered in this way, we will await to see what they are to be. Maybe each of those 39 will find there way on to FOOT NOTE between now and the 31st of December 2026. But I do hope it will include the invitation to all, to write their own play by Tenzing Scott Brown, that can then be performed at the Gathering.

In the meantime, we look forward to hearing from who is the first ‘owner’ of a Cake Circle.

And...

Now read or hear the NOTICE: HOW TO CONSTRUCT A CAKE CIRCLE #2 (PB Poster 343  2011) See photograph below...

Yours from the shop floor,

Brush (Your Shop Steward)
brush@penkilnburn.com

ATTENTION DEFICIT ORDER

SPOKE

WRIT

From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Friday, 6th March 2026

Fellow Workers,

It has been brought to my attention that over 40 of your fellow workers have paid too much attention to the Penkiln Burn Poster that goes by the name of ATTENTION.

This giving attention might be celebrated by some. But from the view here on the shop floor, it is considered a waste of those individuals limited attention span.

As in...

We don’t want anymore Attention Span wasted that could be put to better use.

That said all individual invoices that have arrived on my bench are being addressed – note the word ‘honoured’ is not being used here, as some of demands are proving illegitimate. As in some of the invoices contained more words than the original ATTENTION poster contained, thus required more attention than the original poster required. And smearing dog shite on your neighbour’s face is not a service we on the shop floor can provide however much attention you have given the said poster.

In future we would recommend that you never give anything more attention than your Attention Span can afford.

In future we would recommend that you throw your spanner in the works.

Yours from the shop floor,

Brush (Your Shop Steward)
brush@penkilnburn.com

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN?

SPOKE

WRIT

From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Wednesday, 8th April 2026

Fellow Workers,

It has been brought to our attention that the content of this FOOT NOTE filed under the title of The Elderly Gentleman has been lacking in related content – as in the images created by Hand Held Device. As of right now we are unsure if this has been a deliberate tactic used by Hand Held Device to leverage more ‘credit’ within the Penkiln Burn Universe, as in her not just being something in the pocket of the former Bill Drummond or...

It is the fact that since the rather brutal attempt to remove The Elderly Gentleman from the Penkiln Burn Universe by Scissorman back in early 2023, no one here on the shop floor has been taking responsibility to archive The Elderly Gentleman’s letters to The Dear Reader with any sort of due diligence.

To give some background information...

Sometime in that early 2023, we were able to find suitable accommodation for The Elderly Gentleman in the Care Home for The Deluded. This being a care home that specialises in catering and caring for former minor pop stars who live under the delusion that people remember who they are, and their flame has not flickered and faded and even if it has, their time will come again when...

Even though The Elderly Gentleman initially resisted his placing into The Care Home for The Deluded, he soon began to feel at home there with all his friends and rivals from over forty years ago. As in ‘friends and rivals’ that had also been forgotten. The staff there had been well trained to know who exactly the drummer in The Kinks in 1966 was and why the Doll’s House by Family is work of genius that could only have come from Leicester and not Nottingham and which the best album by Van Der Graaf Generator was.

And...

I am sorry to say, we here on the shop floor were too focused on surviving the DOGE’s (The Department of Galloverse Efficiency) ferocious attempts, under the new management of Scissorman, to downsize the whole of the Penkiln Burn Universe to a best of album, that we never got around to visiting The Elderly Gentleman in The Care Home for The Deluded. Thus we never got see if he was getting on with his painting of forty letters to The Dear Reader.

And...

With that we forgot all about his other inner self as Daffodil.

To mark this oversight on our part we would like to include some of the evidence provided by Hand Held Device of the activities of Daffodil on the 3rd of March 2022.

And...

We hope that by this time next year we will have evidence of all forty of The Elderly Gentleman’s painted letters to The Dear Reader*

*We never did find out who actually The Dear Reader was or if in fact The Dear Reader was only ever a figment of The Elderly Gentleman’s fractured and crumbling imagination.

Yours from the shop floor,

Brush (Your Shop Steward)

QUIT MY JOB

SPOKE

WRIT

From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Tuesday, 30th June 2026

Fellow Workers,

I almost quit my job this morning.

Like you know, I have been one of several hundred if not thousands of Paint Brushes that former Bill Drummond has used over the decades.

Then last year, some of the other voices in that former Bill Drummond’s head started discussing the idea that we should form a union so, that we don’t get used in ways that would compromise each other. Then they asked if I could become the Shop Steward for our newly formed Union of the Workers in The Penkiln Burn Universe.

I accepted the offer. In reality I was the only one up to the job. I mean most of those other voices were all jaded has-beens rummaging around in their shrinking memory banks, telling the same stories over-and-over again. Even if with each telling there is a different twist.

Anyway...

Then last year, as in 2025, I was expected to tell you all about The Ghost of Elvis stuff that the former Bill Drummond was trying to do. I did as best as I could, even if one of those other voices, as in the novelist William E. Drummond was claiming my words were just part of one of his novellas.

Then...

Over the past couple of months, and until the end of the year, I am supposed to coming up with some sort of explanation each week for these Forty Work O’Art that the former Bill Drummond is doing.

I mean...

I don’t mind doing it but, in reality, it has got nothing to do with me, and I can’t vouch for any of those Forty Works O’Art amounting to that much in the real world.

Okay, I know, nothing in the Penkiln Burn Universe has anything to do with what you might consider to be the ‘real world’ – but you know what I mean.

So, like I said, this morning, I almost quit my job, but then I realised, If I just walked out of here, the whole thing would just collapse. I mean you know how it usually takes a young woman in any organisation to hold things together. As for me being a young woman, I know I am also a few thousand years old, but that is another story that I won’t go into here.

So, I came to arrangement with the former Bill Drummond. I told him that if he allowed me to have my own platform within the Penkiln Burn Universe, thus here within FOOT NOTE, where I could pass comment on the things that I felt needed passing comment on, then I would stay on as not only the Union Representative, but the force that stops the whole thing from collapsing.

Thus...

That is what this FOOL MOON is about. I will ‘share’ with you my thoughts on things on each of the full moons of this year (2026) and on each of the full moons of 2027. One of the positive side effects of this, will be that it will sew both of the Over (2026) and Under (2027) side of the quilt that is FOOT NOTE together.

Yours from the shop floor,

Brush (Your Shop Steward)

THE BILL DRUMMOND FRANCHISE

SPOKE

WRIT

From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Tuesday, 9th June 2026

Fellow Workers,

The former Bill Drummond was down on the shop floor this morning. He was in a total state. I asked him to step outside for a chat.

It seemed he has received a flurry of emails of late, all from different people who all think he is someone else, or someone he is not, or someone he used to be, or even someone he should be. I tried to explain that none of us are who we think we are. We are all just what other people think we are.

He then showed me this latest email that he had received last night that had triggered his ‘state’.

I will read it out to you first before going into my response...

From: Linda Skugge <lskugge@gmail.com>
Date: Sunday, 7 June 2026 at 19:49
To: Penkiln Burn <admin@penkiln-burn.com>
Subject: Write the foreword to my coming vanity project

Hello!
Nice patches!

I hope you remember me.
Swedish author and KLF worshipper.
We did write to each other, and I did publish it in my fanzine. Maybe ten years ago.

My new book is a homage to The Manual, but how to make it as a pornstar.

Yes I went from author, Swedens most famous feminist, to Onlyfans.

Became very successful at the unspeakable.

You did burn one million.

I did make one million and burned a lot of bridges.

Please say yes to write a fore word, or a foot note!

And come to Stockholm Friday June 12 to DJ with me and my man from LA. I will fix ticket and accommodation.
We will play tunes from the 90s.

He’s some kind of an original very smart nutter like you.

We met during set!😆  He’s a bankman in daytime. Very naughty in the dark hours.
My gay writer friend in NY calls him Tummelisa after HC Andersens psychedelic saga.

Or meet us in Monte Carlo first week in July.

Yours sincerely 
Linda Skugge

I said this is fantastic, as in this is the moment that we launch The Bill Drummond Franchise. As in the VAPE SHOP Franchise worked, even though we just limited it to five. And all that inviting all those people to write The Life Model, as in his memoir, worked. So why not take things to the next step and we franchise out Bill Drummond. Any number of people can be whatever they think you are or are not. Or they can take you into different directions that you would never have thought about going. I mean Bill Drummond on OnlyFans. It frees the Bill Drummond brand up. They could be young, old, male, female, of any race or creed, or even the ultimate They. Thus he would be freed up from just being a ‘grumpy old man’. No longer a stand in for Private Frazer in Dad’s Army.

He wanted to know how this could work. I told him that I would write one of my missives inviting our fellow workers and whoever else out there, who might want to go to Stockholm this Friday to spin discs from the 90s or go to Monte Carlo in July, to email Linda Skugge as a you (whoever you are), with their Fore Word or Back Word for her The Manual (How To Be A Pornstar). And those that do can automatically become a Bill Drummond Franchise.

Then we take it from there, I mean we are not just talking about being a Bill Drummond tribute act, we are talking about being the real thing. I mean every McDonalds is a McDonalds even though every* McDonalds is a franchise.

*or at least 95% of them are.

He muttered something about, how me sharing here email with whoever, is surely a breach of some sort of trust. So I explained to him all emails can be shared with anyone, thus are automatically in the public domain whether we like it or not. This Linda Skugge will know this, or else she would not be on OnlyFans.

The former Bill Drummond shuffled off, saying nothing, which I took to mean as a ‘Yes’ from him, that said sometimes I don’t know what he understands about anything in the modern world.

So Fellow Workers...

Feel free to CC me in on any emails you might be sending to Linda Skugge with your Fore Word or Back Word and let us know how it goes this Friday in Stockholm or down in Monte Carlo. Once you have done that you will get your full BILL DRUMMOND FRANCHISE certificate.

Yours, from the shop floor,

Brush (Your Shop Steward)
brush@penkilnburn.com

From Yayoi Kusama to The Galloverse

SPOKE

WRIT

From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Wednesday, 29th July 2026

Fellow Workers,

As I may have alluded to in an earlier missive to you, although I am a young woman with a back story in Merseyside, and I am every paint brush that the former Bill Drummond has ever used since the age of 11...

I am also several thousand years old. I know things that even the oldest of Oak Trees do not know. As in I was once an even older Yew Tree.

And yes...

I know that you might think that what I claim to be true, just reflects my prejudices. I mean where is the dividing line between a claimed truth and a proven prejudice?

But...

Before I go further, I should remind you that the Penkiln Burn Universe might only exist within the fast-corroding brain of the former Bill Drummond, but the Galloverse exists as a separate Universe altogether.

And...

It is into the Galloverse that I would like us to tip toe (you have seen the TV series with that name?). It was into the Galloverse that The 25 Paintings entered last year, as in 2025. In that year The 25 Paintings represented Patriarchy that did everything they could to control the females of the Galloverse. The 25 Paintings were all structured using rigid straight lines and hard angles. And only the males of the Galloverse were allowed to repaint them each year.

But...

In the year of 2026, it was to be the young females of the Galloverse, inspired and emboldened by Billie & Kezz, that The 25 Paintings were to be secretly repainted. Some weeks ago, the former Bill Drummond had an idea that the layout of these paintings should be based on the fabric design on cloth used by West African women for their dresses and head scarves. The former Bill Drummond thought this ticked lots of boxes. What the former Bill Drummond did not take into account was the logistics of getting this done. As in the hundreds of hours that would have to be spent doing. As in it could never be seen to be done in just one night, as it is supposed to be done in the story of the imagined film Poppies in The Field. It is also not loaded with symbolism. And as far as I am concerned, if something is not dripping with symbolism, it is hardly worth doing.

But before we get to the symbolism, a bit of the back story...

Men worship the sun. The sun represents strength, virility, power and of course reliability. Thus things like Stonehenge on the Summer Solstice.  All that Druid stuff, is the ultimate patriarchy type religion. It is why men measure everything in years. From when the Son of God was born on the Winter Solstice in that made up Year Zero. The whole of their history is measured by the years in which things happened. Thus men using the symbolic age of Three Score Years & Ten, as the perfect length of life a man should live, if he has not been heroically cut down in war.

But for the female of any species, it is the unreliability of the wandering Moon, that tells their story. Nothing is ever fixed with the Moon. Or that is the way it seems. But us females see the patterns. And through history and even way before history started to attempt to make it mark, females measured their lives in Moons, as in Full Moons.

How many moons, and how many Junes, have passed since we made land?

Might be one of the former Bill Drummond’s favourite lines in a song, but does he know how many Moons he has passed?

Well...

The female aspires and usually succeeds to live longer than the Male. The female aspires, even if she does not live in a culture that knowingly celebrates these things, to live 1,000 Moons.

Do the maths...

One Moon = 29.5 days

1,000 X 29.5 days = 29,500 days

29,500 days divided by 365.25 days = 80.766 and something.

Thus, in a men’s world women historically aspired to live to the age of almost 81 years.

Thus my thinking is that The 25 Paintings within the Galloverse, once they have been liberated by Billie & Kezz with other young women from the Galloverse, should reflect this hidden story of those One Thousand Moons.

And...

It should also reflect the place that the myth of Strawberry Switchblade within the Galloverse.

And this is where I have to name drop. The former Bill Drummond was not the first person that I worked with to make what they considered to be ‘their’ art into a reality. In the post war Moons I worked with the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, but once I realised all she was really interested in was having people in New York wanting to spend thousands of dollars on the paintings I was painting for her, I made it across the Atlantic to Cornwall, where I started to work with Bridget Riley. But even she became all about fame and exhibitions all over the world. So I quit. And attempted to escape up through the back lanes of the West Country. It was in the Summer of 64, when the Drummond family were having a summer holiday staying in the hotel called The Pines, in the village of Beer, on the south coast of Devon, the then 11-year-old former Bill Drummond, found me, lying lost and lonely in one of those back lanes. And over the years my singular self, spread through all of his brushes that he has ever used ever since. As for me being a young woman from Merseyside as well at the same time, I might go into that at a later stage.

But anyway, now I am here...

And what I would like to suggest...

No...

Command!

For the final year of The 25 Paintings twelve-year world tour, these 24 canvases, taking into account that one was lost at sea in 2024, should each be painted using polka dots. One Thousand Polka Dots on each canvas. Each circular dot symbolising a passing Moon. Maybe even keeping the original black, white and the three primaries. But also keeping the wording that was to be used on them telling the story of Billie & Kezz in the imaginary film Poppies in The Field.

25 rows, with 40 dots in each row. As in 25 X 40 = 1,000

Even though in the imaginary film Poppies in The Field, the paintings are to be seen painted over one night by Billie & Kezz and their followers...

Maybe I should get the former Bill Drummond to do one of these so that you can have a look and let us know what you think.

Yours from the shop floor,

Brush (Your Shop Steward)

Post Script:
This Post Script is being thought several hours after what I spoke to you earlier. .

In those several hours I was confronted with some facts by one of the sons of the former Bill Drummond. And I quote...

‘So my dad, is going to rip off the dot paintings that the most famous and wealthy artist of the 21st century has been doing since the turn of the century?’ It seems the former Bill Drummond did not know what his son was talking about. Neither did I.

‘Fuckin’ hell, Damian Hirst spot paintings. If my dad did them, it would be like some one of his generation, back whenever, saying they have this brilliant idea, and their brilliant idea being, to do screen prints of Marilyn Monroe, as in having no idea that that is what Andy Warhol had been doing for the past twenty years.’

Now, as Your Shop Steward, I have to resolve this situation. I either research the facts and make up a truth about how this most famous and wealthiest artist alive on the planet today, knowingly ripped off Yayoi Kusama. And then when he started doing his Cherry Blossom paintings this Damian Hirst was ripping off every other Japanese artist that ever existed, along with his fellow Yorkshireman and fellow most successful artist in the 21st Century, as in David Hockney.  My truths might exaggerate, but only just.

How to resolve this situation?

But before I even started attempting to resolve anything, The Part Time Painter turned up in the workshop. Told me he hadn’t had much work lately, now that the former Bill Drummond had done all he was going to be doing under Spaghetti Junction.

The conversation evolved...

We got talking about Strawberry Switchblade’s polka dots. And how they were mega (note not just ‘Big’) in Japan, and the work of Yayoi Kusama. And of course he started going on about Damian Hirst dot paintings. He tried to pitch some sort of argument that the whole of Damian Hirst work in the 21st Century was a knowing nod to something an organisation named the K Foundation had done in the mid-1990s. As in a supposed work of art called Nailed to The Wall, which was made by this K Foundation, nailing one million pounds in fifty quid notes to a board. And then this K Foundation offering this work of art with the name of Nailed to The Wall, for sale for £500,000... As in half the price that the actual ‘work of art’ called Nailed to The Wall had cost to make.

And...

Whoever bought it for £500.000 could deconstruct this ‘work of art’ and bank the million quid. I mean that would be totally quids in.

Or...

They could keep the ‘work of art’ intact. And hang it on their wall to admire.

As in...

Take the risk of waiting for its worth on the international art market to inflate until its value was over £1,000,000, while at the same time the inevitability of inflation making the actual buying power of the fifty quid notes being less and less by the day.

Then he started going on about something about them, as in this K Foundation thing, actually deciding to burn their ‘work of art’ instead, because nobody was willing to take the risk of buying this Nailed to The Wall.

And all of this linking through to Damian Hirst’s future obsession about Art As Money. As in Damian Hirst’s dot paintings (known as Currency), which the moneyed art collectors could buy as a physical work of art, which they could hang on their wall to admire.

Or...

They could choose to have Damian Hirst burn it for them, in front of them, in a New York gallery space, and they could then own it as Crypto Art, you know that NFT (Non Fungible Token) thing that was all the rage ten years ago.

Anyway...

My mind was drifting by then...

The Part Time Painter has a habit of going on about things. I think he became aware that I was not taking in any of what he was going on about, because he got back to the more imediate topic of...

‘So Brush, do you know if there is any work in the Penkiln Burn Universe that I could be doing at the moment? You know my going rate – Forty Quid an Hour.’  

The thing is, I never trust the former Bill Drummond to get jobs done, before he is off proclaiming about something else altogether. At least with The Part Time Painter, if he knows he is getting paid Forty Quid an Hour, to get a job done, he gets it done. So, I offered him the job of painting one of these Thousand Moon paintings, but he had to have it done by the next Full Moon, as in the day that I am sending this missive to you.

And once that is done, we can decide if we should be going the Thousand Moon route of the African material bought from Riddley Road Market route.

We will see...

WHO WHY WHAT WHEN

SPOKE

WRIT

From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Friday, 28th August 2026

Fellow Workers,

This FOOL MOON was supposed to be me telling you, how the Arthur Bestall’s take on Rupert Bear, had more influence on the British take on psychedelia, than any of that Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out Timothy Leary stuff. It was that Rupert Bear annual, that several generations of boys would be getting at Christmas, between sometime in the late 1940 all the way through until the late 60s, that turned on, tuned in and enabled them to drop out. Maybe for the mainstream it was just a strip cartoon in that ultimate low rent Tory rag – The Daily Express.

And as a female, I can confirm, that the vast majority of girls were not interested in Rupert Bear, even though...

Anyway...

Back to what I was saying...

No Rupert Bear no Syd Barrett
No Rupert Bear no Village Green Preservation Society
No Rupert Bear no Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
No Rupert Bear no Canterbury Scene
And of course...
No Rupert Bear no Penkiln Burn Universe.

And yeah, I know that without Alice... and The Wind in the Willows, there would be no Rupert Bear.

But...

Other than VAPE SHOP’s Hand Held Device construct an image of the Rupert Bear painting done by Mark ‘Z’ Manning in homage to Arthur Bestall that hangs in the former Bill Drummond’s front room. And that the former Bill Drummond spends Forty Seconds looking into every morning before entering the Penkiln Burn Workshop. That will be the last I will be mentioning of Rupert Bear in this missive to you. Because all of that was yesterday. If there is any more information regarding the Universe of Nutwood, that can wait.

Right now, as in...

This morning when the former Bill Drummond turned up late again, all he seemed to be interested in talking about was...

And I quote...

‘When am I going to have my Major International Retrospective at a proper public gallery, where thousands of people can queue to go into and there will be an “EXIST through The Gas Chamber” sign.’

Now I don’t know if he was being knowingly distasteful or just trying to get my attention, you can never tell with him. One moment it is all his YEAR ZERO proclamations about art not existing, and the next he is trying to tell you, that everything he has ever done in his life, from being three weeks overdue, to having his brain seizures, were and still are, part of his work or his practise or whatever...

I tried to remind him about the BILL DRUMMOND by TRACEY MOBERLY exhibition that we were sort of planning after he had completed The 25 Paintings twelve-year world tour...

But I don’t think he was listening, as he started going on about the Anish Kapoor exhibition he had been taken to yesterday, by members of his long suffering family. As in the major Anish Kapoor exhibition at the Hayward Gallery on the Southbank. And how it was just all this overblown stuff trying to grab people’s most base attention with the Wow Factor, that he so hates. And in reality, the whole thing was just a PR exercise. As in a PR excercise so those commercial galleries that represent Anish Kapoor around the globe can sell more of his stuff to those that...

Anyway...

So I said to him...

‘So what would you do if you had that same space in the Hayward Gallery’

And without stopping to consider the ramifications he said...

‘I would have a rusty corrugated iron shed in the middle of the main gallery. And I would be in that shed, all day and every day. And also in the gallery would be a bench. And on the bench would be five balls of wool – red, yellow, blue, white and black. And five pairs of knitting needles. And anybody could sit on the bench and knit a square made up of 40 rows of 25 stiches. And once they had done that, they would have a SQUARE. You do remember what a SQUARE is? As in currency at the CREE BANK?’

And I said...

‘Yeah, of course.’

And he said...

‘They could then knock on the door of the corrugated iron shed and I would answer the door. And they would hand me their freshly knitted SQUARE. And I would offer them a seat in my shed. And I would offer them a cup of tea. And I would tell them, that we had 40 minutes to have a conversation about anything they wanted to have a conversation about. As long as we were talking about the future and not about the past. And what we were talking about was real. Because corrugated iron sheds are real. And sitting down is real. And cups of tea are real. And chatting about the future is real. And...’

And I said...

‘Are you being serious?’

And he said...

‘Well not serious “serious”. I am just saying the first thing that comes into my head.’

So I told him to...

‘Go and put the kettle on and make us a pot of tea.’

And he did.

When he came back with the pot of tea and two mugs, I explained to him...

‘That is all very well, but you have to get the final layer on The 25 Paintings painted. You have not even begun yet.

And...

From what you have already been going on about, as in a thousand moons on each of the paintings.

And...

You standing naked in the middle of that Studio BRUT gallery in Swindon, so people can paint a thousand full moons on your flesh.

And...

The filming of I Have Just Murdered My Wife in Majorca.

And...

The tour of the film STAY.

And...

Maybe even the exhibition BILL DRUMMOND by TRACEY MOBERLY in a gallery in Indianapolis, all before the end of the year.

So...

I am telling you to delete any of these thoughts about sitting in a rusty corrugated iron shed to one side unit...’

‘But...’

But before he could say anymore I said...

‘Okay, maybe next year, as in... once all of the 2026 side of the patchwork quilt FOOT NOTE is done. I mean it could be part of the 2027 underside of FOOT NOTE. And you do forty, forty-minute conversations with anybody anywhere on these islands, as in what you call The Atlantic Archipelago. But not in a corrugated iron shed, or gallery, but just in a local café, or sitting in a bus shelter, or in a laundrette while waiting for the washing to be done, or wherever.

And...

Whoever it is your having the conversation with, can record it – but not film it...

And...

They can do what they want with the recording.

But...

You don’t publish it like you have been doing with those SPOKE IN THE WHEEL things. No big construct. Just...’

And before I had a chance to make any more stipulations, the former Bill Drummond responded with the one word answer...

‘Deal.’

So, if you want to have a Forty Minute Conversation with the former Bill Drummond... Obviously, the conversation has to be about the future. As in, not about the past. As in, we do not have the past, but we all have the future. As in, the future is the only thing worth talking about.

I should add here that the former Bill Drummond’s memory is so fucked, there is no point in attempting to talk to him about the past anyway.

So...

If you are interested, email me at brush@penkilnburn.com and we will see what we can sort out.

Yours, from the shop floor,

Brush (Your Shop Steward)

Post Script:
He then tried to tell me about some T-Shirt ideas he had for his exhibition, so I guess I should list them here in case you want to make your own one of these t-shirts and turn up wearing it for the conversation...

ART
MAKES
WAR

I’VE HAD MY
FIFTEEN MINUTES

WHY LOOK AT ART
WHEN YOU CAN
WATCH THE WORLD

EXIT THROUGH THE
GAS CHAMBER

CHOOSE
DEATH

I was thinking these forty, forty-minute conversations should have the collective title of WHY WHAT WHERE WHEN but now I am thinking they should just be called TALK.

SEE MORE SKY

SPOKE

WRIT

From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Saturday, 26th September 2026

Fellow Workers,

And I quote...

‘In the modern world publishers and authors want their books to have quotes strewn across their covers and opening pages and maybe tucked in behind the back cover. As in quotes by people that other people might know the name of. And this being done in the hope that these quotes might then be shared on social media. As in, now that good reviews in The Times or The Guardian or wherever count for little when it comes to sales.’

Or...

That is what the former Bill Drummond assumed.

Because of this assumption the former Bill Drummond decided he would now longer respond positively to requests from publishers or authors for a quote from him, however much his vanity might be stroked. I mean out there in the real modern world his name counts for very little.

But...

It seems the former Bill Drummond was sent a file containing a book called THIS IS POP by an Eaon Pritchard, he must have at least read a few pages of it, because he handed it to me and asked me to read some of those pages. Which I have just done. And I can tell you, and you can quote me on this – ‘THIS IS POP contains more quotable sentences than any other book I have read since...’.

Yours, from the shop floor,

Brush (Your Shop Steward)

Post Script:
The above (as in what I have already told you) is what I have asked the former Bill Drummond to email to this Eaon Pritchard and to also tell him he can do what he wants with the content of that email. What I have neither emailed Eaon Pritchard or told the former Bill Drummond is what follows...

What I have written above and what I am about to write, I am going to use as content for my FOOL MOON Stroke on your 29th of September 2026.

First...

I will start with some of the quotes that caught my attention and troubled my mind in THIS IS POP book

How to be a body that sings rather than a singer who has a body

Surface as strategy. Identity as weapon.

The moment you are understood, you are captured. The moment you are captured, you are dead.

where the present tense goes to die

In that sense, TikTok has become less like a social-media platform and more like a piece of national infrastructure. 

like someone had brought a smartphone to a morse code convention. 

these attributed observations are often more useful as rhetorical devices than as historical facts, 

‘a man always has two reasons for what he does, a good one and the real one’. The good reason is national security. The real reason may be that nobody wants a rival power controlling a machine capable of shaping culture,
behaviour and public opinion at planetary scale. The good reason is protecting citizens. The real reason is protecting market share. The good reason is democratic values. The real reason is imperial competition dressed up in the language of the twenty-first century, which is the language of technology and innovation and disruption, rather than the language of the nineteenth century, which was the language of commerce and civilisation and the white man’s burden, but the grammar is the same, the syntax is the same, the underlying proposition is identical. We control the flow, or nobody does.

when the substitute becomes more compelling than the thing it substitutes for.

the gap between what people say they value and what their behaviour reveals they actually value 

the way hand-washing your clothes seems eccentric when washing machines exist, the way walking seems eccentric when cars exist, the way thinking seems eccentric when the AI can do it faster, cheaper, and with results that are, by every measurable metric, better.

Efficiency. The great god of the (post)modern world.  The criterion by which all cognitive labour is now judged, the metric that has replaced quality, replaced originality, replaced the various intangible virtues that human thinking once claimed for itself.

The AI does not have bad days.
The AI does not have ego conflicts.
The AI does not insist on its vision, does not dig in
its heels, does not refuse to compromise on a point
of creative principle that it cannot explain but
knows, knows in the way that creative people know
things, the way that feels like intuition but is
actually the product of years of accumulated
pattern recognition, of living inside a medium until
the medium becomes part of your nervous system.
The AI has the efficiency and in 2026, efficiency has
won.

The AI produces output. The AI does not produce commitment. 

The need to translate has been replaced by the desire to appropriate. 

Water is abundant (for now) and we don’t pay that much for it. Diamonds are scarce and so we pay a lot. Intelligence is becoming water; judgement is becoming diamond. 

The playlist removes this confrontation. It flatters your existing taste rather than challenging it. 

a generation that has heard more music than any previous generation but has learned less from it, that possesses information about music in abundance but possesses judgement about music in scarcity.

The more intelligence becomes abundant, the scarcer human judgement becomes. 

The future will not belong to the people who hold the most information. But it might belong to the people who know what the shit is. 

nostalgia is the enemy of understanding,

And culture, it turns out, has always needed a place
before it could become culture.

That is all the quotes, now it is my turn to have my say...

Cultural Imperialism has always been mightier than military imperialism. Ask the Romans. Their use of Christianity to hold order and influence lasted far longer than their armies marching across Europe.

You have read The Decline & Fall?

Neither has the former Bill Drummond

Anyway...

The cultural imperialism of the British Empire began way before that actual empire began spreading its tentacles around the globe. It began with the publication of the King James translation of The Bible in 1611.

This was quickly followed with the release of The Best of Shakespeare after William Shakespeare’s death in 1616.

Which was then followed by the publication of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe in 1719.

As with all cultural imperialism, there is no cynical master mind behind it, let alone a secret cabal. Like those Murmuring Starlings, it can create itself, using the power of the plenty. At the same time, unconsciously or not, learning from the other forms of Cultural Imperialism that went before it.

Cultural Imperialism has one prime reason for existing to hold power over as many people as possible. The more seductive that power, the more powerful it is. You don’t stop the people wanting to overthrow those in control with the use of suppressive violence. If you were to attempt to, you would find, that only worked in the short term. You maintain power, by giving people meaning in their life. That is what religion has been good at for several thousand years. You also give them entertainment. Things to divert their attention from the things your empire does not want them giving their attention to.

It is claimed, by those that claim such things, that Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe was the first novel ever written. Nobody in power back in 1719 decreed that the novel had to be invented. But once the novel had been invented, it was one of the strongest tools in the British Empire’s toolbox, to keep the then educated entertained. And at the same time as being entertained they were being distracted.

Why have conversations when you can be reading a book?
Why question authority if you can read a book about how you should question authority? You have read Marx? The Society of The Spectacle?

Neither has the former Bill Drummond.

Anyway...

All that reading books and going to watch Shakespeare plays only worked for those educated classes. As in those that could read and not just plough fields. But before we get to the less educated classes...

There is the way we dress...

The great sartorial invention of British Cultural Imperialism was the necktie. Which according to Google was invented in Oxford sometime in the middle of the 19th century.  This one piece of irrelevant clothing went global. The wearing of a necktie defined and commanded, respect, seriousness, status, education, taste, aspiration all at the same time without actually doing anything. As in the necktie does not keep you warm or cool or protect you from the rain or the sun. The vast majority of world leaders in the modern world would never be seen not wearing one. I mean would Putin or Trump ever be seen not wearing a necktie at any sort of international political event.

I mean...

Has the necktie had a bigger cultural impact than the combined force of all the English Literature written in these islands over the past five hundred years?

When any major world leader is declaring war, he has to be seen wearing a necktie while he is doing his declaring.

Then there is sport.

I mean what is sport for? If not to keep the men from considering their options. The playing and in turn the watching of sport drains men (and it is mainly men) of appetite they may have to challenge the system, or even attempting to change the world they are living in for the better. Most boys that start school are considered losers if they don’t at least support a team, let alone play a sport.

And it is the British Empire that gave birth to the vast majority of those world-wide sports – Football (soccer), Cricket, Golf, Tennis, Rugby on and on down the ranks all the way to Tiddlywinks.

All of them doing the same thing – keeping men from challenging the system. Draining them of any purpose and ambition, other than their team winning. What would Marx have to say?

Anyway that was Cultural Imperialism of The British Empire. So much global power in so few hands.

But the power drained away to the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Did that draining begin with Charlie Chaplin moving from the East End of London to Hollywood by 1910. But by the 1930s, Hollywood was in full swing. Nothing could compete with it. Hollywood defined masculinity, femininity, success, sexiness, rags to riches, good over evil, the American Dream. And all we had to do was hand over some money and then sit in the dark while doing nothing.

And all Hollywood needed was...

A pretty woman and a man with a gun – or was that Luc Goddard?

And we are getting closer...

Or at least closer to the generation that the former Bill Drummond was at the tail end of. The birth of the Teenager. The British Empire’s version of Cultural Imperialism had never really considered the Teenager worth considering, other than as fertile cannon fodder.

The former Bill Drummond was born in the year of 1953.

1953 was also the year that The Teenager was born. As in turned 13.

1953 was the year The Wild One was released, Elvis first walked into a recording studio.

1954 was when On The Waterfront was released.

And...

In 1955 Rebel Without a Cause was released.

Then that same year...

James Dean was killed in car accident of his own making. He might have been 24, but that was the moment...

Since then, as in over the last 70 years and counting, there has not been a white teenager in the Western World who has not worn the blue jeans and T-shirts that both Marlon Brando and James Dean wore in those three films referenced above.

The death of James Dean sealed it.

The underdog, the outsider, the overlooked, the confused, the beautiful, the ‘fuck you’. As in you. As in all of us.

The Rebel Without a Cause, was the perfect rebel to market to the teenagers back then. I mean if they had a cause they might challenge the system. Instead, generation after generation after generation of teenagers could be sold the same thing over and over again. Live fast die young. And then of course when you got older, they could keep selling you the same stuff repackaged as ‘legacy’ but at vastly inflated prices.

You know you are getting old, when somebody tells you that ‘You don’t look as old as you are.’

You know you are getting old, when you think the music that the young folk are listening today, is not as good as what you used to listen to.

Legacy acts should be taken out and shot at dawn.

But back to 1963. JFK has been shot dead, giving birth to the Conspiracy Theory, but more of that later. Right now, as in the Autumn of 1963, the very old globe in the former Bill Drummond’s bedroom might have been covered with countries coloured pink, thus claiming the case for the Empire that Never Sleeps. But by 1963 that Empire that Never Sleeps, was taking a bit more of an afternoon nap.

And as we napped, we were already merely a vassal state to the USA. But when we woke up for our afternoon tea, we tried to convince ourselves that it was all about us having this Special Relationship with the USA. I mean none of those peasant countries across Europe had that ‘special relationship. You know the ones. The ones that ate the Foreign Muck. From Calais to Athens and all stops in between. Whereas we went to Wimpy Bars to eat hamburgers and hotdogs like our ‘friends’ across the pond did.

Like...

You are only allowed to shag him, but he can shag whoever he wants.

Part of the job of a vassal state is to pay tributes to the governing state. That is how protection rackets work. And in the February of 1964, that tribute, that we (The UK) paid them (The USA), was the ultimate tribute act – The Beatles. As soon a The Beatles hit that opening chord to Twist & Shout, it was all over. The former Bill Drummond saw all the Pathé News edited highlights at the Newton Stewart picture house at the age of 10. Their arrival at the Idlewild Airport, the Shea Stadium gig, the girls screaming, the whole lot.

From that moment, we were sold the dream that all we had to do was buy ourselves an electric guitar, learn three chords, form a band and head across the Atlantic and the girls will be queuing up for you, and record companies will be handing you cheques, and you can take drugs, and you don’t need to give a fuck, and you can give it to the man. Decade after decade. From small town, nowheresville in the UK to the Hollywood Bowl. And all the time still believing and buying that we were the ‘The underdog, the outsider, the overlooked, the confused, the beautiful, the ‘fuck you’, because we bought the records nobody had ever heard of before, or watched the films that even we did not understand, or read the books that confirmed that you also must be part of what others were yet to name as counterculture, even though you are...

Which brings us to Eaon Pritchard in Aberdeen back in the early 90s and the overlooked APB and all those hours spent standing in record shops and all those records by whoever they were. Eaon Pritchard will know fine well those were the crumbs thrown at the pigeons to keep them coming back. The whole of American Cultural Imperialism from 1953 to the end of the century was built on appealing to that thing in us that want to be the ‘The underdog, the outsider, the overlooked, the confused, the beautiful, the ‘fuck you’. Whatever the genre of music, from Greenwich Village folk revival to Memphis finest, from Chicago Blues to that Summer of Love, from The Ramones to Public Enemy and Tupac and Nirvana to...

You can make your own playlist of the mind...

But back to The Beatles, the former Bill Drummond may claim The Beatles created the idea of a band being an art form and not merely entertainers, which from a certain perspective has to be true. But we all know that The Beatles were the ultimate tribute band ever. Without the Electric Guitar, The Beatles would be nothing. Without the 7” 45 The Beatles would be nothing. Without them licking the boots of American Cultural Imperialism they would be nothing.

And...

Until the end of the 21st Century that was the case...

The former Bill Drummond bought into it all the way. He bought his Gibson 330, formed that band, shagged those American girls, while all the time getting records by The Residents and the Reverend Al Green and everyone else in-between. The more unknown the better.

Was it the moment that Sean Parker launched Napster in 1999, or the moment that Sean Parker joined forces with Mark Zuckerberg in 2004, that the tiller titled and what began in 1953 was no longer what was needed. Who needed blue jeans and to pose as the outsider when you could buy a brand-new pair of Nike trainers.

What American Cultural Imperialism needed to keep the world paying its tributes in the 21st Century, was for you to share every opinion you have ever had. And do that sharing on whatever platform they offered you. The more confrontational your opinion the better. The Arab Spring in 2011 was just the demo tape. The war in Gaza that began in 2023, only existed to create content. Everybody killed on either side to fan the flames of rage.

More and more and more.
Louder and louder and louder.

But back to the opening chapter of Eaon Pritchard’s book THIS IS POP, as in the chapter that deals with Madonna.

Or was that the second chapter...

Anyway...

Because of the former Bill Drummond friendship and working relationship with a Seymour Stein, he has followed the career of Madonna from before she ever released a record to where she is right now. And Eaon Pritchard’s observation about how Madonna has crafted and steered her career parallels that of the former Bill Drummond’s observations of Madonna.

But...

At the very moment that Madonna’s first single Everybody was being recorded in 1982, the former Bill Drummond was working in Air Studios in London. Also working in one of the other rooms in Air was a Paul McCartney. What they both had in common was the playing of pool. Playing pool in the studio’s common room was a much-needed distraction from the work they should have been doing.

The former Bill Drummond asked the former Beatle what he was working on.

The former Beatle said he was recording a track with a former member of the Jackson Five who went by the name of Michael Jackson.

The former Bill Drummond wanted to know why a former Beatle would want to sully his reputation that was maturing like those supposed fine wines do, by working with a mere former member of the Jackson Five.

The former Beatle’s response was ‘Because he is the King of Pop. And it is part of my job to keep up with the times. As in not just languish in my legacy.’

The former Bill Drummond did not get this, so they stopped talking and just got on with playing pool. And when they did start talking again, it was about Everton’s chances that season.

Forty Five years later (almost)...

As in 45 revolutions of the sun.

As in not 45 revolutions per minute.

As in a couple of months ago, the former Bill Drummond was watching the Ten O’clock News on the BBC. One of the news stories was the same former Beatle, who, was providing the musical entertainment at the wedding of current Queen of Pop, as in Taylor Swift.

Which begs the question...

Is the former Beatle doing these things to keep up with the time and not just languish in his legacy. As in for the same reasons that Madonna has been out there with Sabrina Carpenter and those others?

Or...

Was it part of his contract with American Culture Imperialism that he signed up to back in the 1950s when he walked into Frank Hessey’s shop to buy his first electric guitar. As in the same music shop just around the corner from the Cavern and Eric’s, that the former Bill Drummond walked into two decades later to buy his brand-new set of strings for his Gibson 330, because the night before, he had been told by the man who gave The Beatles away, that he had to form a band. As in the night that The Clash played around the corner in Eric’s on the 5th of May 1977.

But back to Aberdeen in the early 90s...

When APB were getting their punk funk grooves together, did they know that 66 miles down the A90, but 20 years earlier, there was this other band percolating into existence who would be called AWB, and who would go onto become the most sampled band in the world of Hip Hop and Rap in those mid to late 80s and early 90s.

This is how American Cultural Imperialism flattered and chatted us up and got our knickers off or at least undid our bra strap.

And we have not even got back to the subject how it was the assassination of JFK back on the 22nd of November 1963, that gave birth to the world of conspiracy theories, that now feed the machine of American Cultural Imperialism.

Anyway...

There is far more to be learned from our children than we can ever learn from the long lives we may have lived. Wisdom is a construct, constructed by the old, when they have nothing of worth to add to where we are at now.

Anyway...

I suggest you get a copy of THIS IS POP by Eaon Pritchard and write your own 50-word thoughts about it, that can then be shared on social media.

Or...

Make a list of 17 quotes from the book that caught your attention while reading THIS IS POP.

Or...

If you cannot crush your hunger to respond to what Eaon Pritchard is confronting us with in the modern world, write your own almost four-thousand words and counting to replace these almost four-thousand words and counting, that have spilt from my head these past few hours.

 

Yours, from the shop floor,

Brush (Your Shop Steward)

Post Script:
None of the above has been fact checked, I will leave that you to do. But of course the American Cultural Imperialism of today, is not that bothered about fact checking. As in, if everything was fact checked before being put out there into the modern world of taking sides, that American Cultural Imperialism would lose its power to control us all.

As of right now...

It is Thursday the 13th of August 2026, and at this very moment the people of Clacton-on-Sea, are deciding whether to vote for Nigel Farage or Count Bin Face.

And the hours slip by...

Hello darkness my old friend
I have come to talk with you again

All of the above was written over twelve hours ago. It ended with that line that the former Bill Drummond has quoted to himself every night when he switches out the bed side lamp, for the past fifty-nine years of his life...

It is now time to quote that other line that the former Bill Drummond has quoted to himself every morning for the past 59 years of his life. 

Woke up, fell out of bed
Dragged a comb, across my head

As in this morning, after the day before, when I was thinking all the thoughts I have was telling you...

As in, while unlocking the door to the Penkiln Burn Workshop before the others turned up late for work again, I started going through all those thoughts I was having, and I was telling you after having read THIS IS POP...

Then I remembered there was one major thing that I had forgotten to tell you.

The book almost begins with a description of the piano chord at the end of A Day in A Life, as in what the former Bill Drummond would claim to be the best song on the best album ever made.

Now...

The version of me that you might be listening to is a young Scouse women, but I have never actually listened to that Sergeant Pepper’s thing. Why would I want to? But I have had to listen to the former Bill Drummond tell me on numerous occasions, how in the Summer of ’67, he would lie on his bedroom floor with the curtains closed listening to the closing piano chord of that best song on the best album every made over and over and over again. And this was just on a mono Dansette Monarch record player. Thus, he had to lift the needle out of the track, and place it back in again, in an attempt to just hear that chord being hit one more time, until it had disappeared, into the distance, and he could no longer hear any of it.

The former Bill Drummond liked things disappearing.

And before the end of August of 1967, he has never heard that piano chord again. The reason for this was because his mother made him give his copy of this best album ever released to the German exchange student, that had been staying with them. The deal was that his mother would buy him a copy of the next album by the band that had made the best album ever released. His mother felt cheated when she learnt the next album was a double album and cost double the price. But she delivered on her promise. The former Bill Drummond then started to listen Revolution Number Nine over and over again instead. And wondered how this could be music.

I mean when is music not music?

But over the years, whenever he finds himself in a space that has a grand piano and no one else is there, the former Bill Drummond will sit down on the seat and using four of the fingers on both his hands and his foot on the sustain peddle, hit the loudest C Major chord he can. And listen to it for as long as he can. Until it has completely and utterly disappeared.

TWO HOURS LATER

The People of Clacton have spoken...

Count Bin Face can return to his seat in the House of Lords.

And...

There is something else I have to tell you. It is down to you to decide what I am about to tell you, relates to what I have already told you, in response to reading the book THIS IS POP.

The former Bill Drummond was Gene Wilder.

I mean not Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, but Gene Wilder as in Leopold Bloom. But not that Leopold Bloom in the book Ulysses but Leopold Bloom in that film The Producers.

But the former Bill Drummond did not watch the film The Producers until the early two thousands. Thus, did not know until then, that he had been Gene Wilder as Leopold Bloom in The Producers, between the years of 1979 and 1984, until it was all way too late.

This is the story...

In early 1977, the former Bill Drummond bought a record called Love Goes To a Building on Fire, or something by a band. At the time he thought this was the best record released that year so far, although the year was only two months old.

Then...

On the 19th of May, as in 14 days after the former Bill Drummond had been told to form a band by the man who gave The Beatles away, the former Bill Drummond went to the club in Mathew Street across from The Cavern, to watch the band who recorded and released Love Goes To a Building on Fire.

The opening act that night were a band called The Ramones. The former Bill Drummond thought that both bands were very great and might become famous but was also very disappointed that the band that recorded and released Love Goes to a Building on Fire did not play Love Goes to a Building on Fire in their set that night.

Some months later the band that had recorded and released Love Goes to a Building on Fire released an album. The former Bill Drummond bought the album and took it home and played it on his record player five times in a row. The former Bill Drummond had a theory that you had to listen to an album five times in a row, for you to ‘understand’ the album. What the former Bill Drummond ‘understood’ after he had played this album five times in a row, was that he thought it nowhere near as good as Marquee Moon by a band called Television. The former Bill Drummond had a theory that all albums in the then modern world had to be compared to Marquee Moon by a band called Television.

Then...

On the 2nd of August 1979 a band called Echo & The Bunnymen played a gig in London in the basement of a YMCA.

At the time the former Bill Drummond and his colleague David Balfe were pretending to manage this band called Echo & The Bunnymen.

A man called Seymour Stein was at the gig. Seymour Stein owned a record label called Sire. Sire was a record label in a city called New York. New York was a city where things were happening. Sire had released the record called Love Goes to a Building on Fire.

On the 3rd of August 1979 this Seymour Stein phoned the former Bill Drummond who was now living in Liverpool. Liverpool was also a city where things were happening. The former Bill Drummond had never spoken to a Jewish man from New York before, thus did not understand, if what this man was saying was humour or not humour. That said the former Bill Drummond had watched films with Woody Allen in, so he should have known about what is humour for Jewish men in New York.

Seymour Stein told the former Bill Drummond that he would like to sign this Echo & The Bunnymen to his record label called Sire.

But...

On condition that the band must find a drummer for the band. And that drummer must be more beautiful than the singer.

The former Bill Drummond did not understand why this Echo & The Bunnymen needed a drummer, as they had a drum machine whose name was Echo. I mean did Kraftwerk need a drummer? So he said...

‘Why?’

And this Seymour Stein said...

‘Because every band needs to have someone else in the band who is better looking than the singer.’

And the former Bill Drummond said...

‘Why?’

And this Seymour Stein said...

‘Because if the singer thinks there is someone else in the band that is better looking than them, it makes them work harder at getting the people to look at them and not at the better-looking person in the band. That way the band can be more successful.’

The former Bill Drummond accepted this wisdom, and he and David Balfe went out and found a drummer who they thought that this Seymour Stein might think was more beautiful than the singer in Echo & The Bunnymen. And Seymour Stein thought this drummer they found was more beautiful than the singer in the band called Echo & The Bunnymen. And this Seymour Stein offered them a record contract.

But...

The former Bill Drummond had issues with this offered record contract, as it stated that the band Echo & The Bunnymen had to record an album. The former Bill Drummond had decided, after having listened to the album recorded by the band that had recorded and released Love Goes to a Building on Fire, five times, and it was not as good as Marquee Moon by Television, that albums were a thing of the past.

Thus...

No bands should ever record albums again.

This Seymour Stein agreed with the former Bill Drummond. But said...

‘Although I agree with you that ideally no bands should ever record albums again, I alone cannot change the whole structure of the music industry.’

The former Bill Drummond did not know that record labels that released records were part of a thing called ‘The Music Industry’.

So...

The former Bill Drummond asked this Seymour Stein...

‘What is the Music Industry?’

And this Seymour Stein said...

‘The Music Industry is a race between all of the men who run the record companies to see who can sell the most albums. And singles only exist to promote the albums that they are hoping to sell more of than other record companies.’

And the former Bill Drummond asked this Seymour Stein...

‘Is Sire selling enough records in this race?’

And this Seymour Stein said...

‘Not yet, but if Echo & The Bunnymen sign this record deal I am offering them and make an album, that I release in the USA, I think I can win the race.’

And the former Bill Drummond said...

‘What? More records than Talking Heads and The Ramones can sell?’

And this Seymour Stein said...

‘Way more records than Talking Heads or The Ramones can ever sell.’

So...

Echo & The Bunnymen signed to Sire.

And the world moved on.

And while it was moving on, the former Bill Drummond learned other things from this Seymour Stein. Things about trying to get The Ramones look more appealing to more people by getting them to wear coloured T-shirts on the sleave of their album End of The Century and getting Phil Spector to produce that record. But however hard he tried; Seymour Stein could never get The Ramones to sell more records. Nobody wanted to by records by The Ramones. And nobody even talked about these Ramones any more. And anyway, MTV were not going to be playing their videos so that was that.

Then...

In late 1984, after Echo & The Bunnymen had released their greatest album Ocean Rain, which like their previous three albums released by Sire in the USA, failed to sell many records in the USA. Echo & The Bunnymen by now were heavily un-recouped. Nothing could be done. Even if the drummer might have been far more beautiful than the singer.

But...

Seymour Stein had signed this mouthy young woman called Madonna, who I might have mentioned earlier. And Madonna’s second album had just been released. And it was called Like A Virgin. And it was the number one album in the USA. And this Madonna was now the Queen of Pop. And the biggest selling female artist in the world. Maybe of all time.

So...

The former Bill Drummond and this Seymour Stein had a meeting. This was to be their last meeting. It was at this meeting that Bill Drummond learnt more about The Music Industry than at any of the other meetings, he had with this Seymour Stein.

And...

It is with hindsight that he realised that it was at this meeting with this Seymour Stein he had been playing the part of Gene Wilder as Leopold Bloom in the film The Producers, for the last five years of his life. Or at least almost.

The meeting went something like this...

‘Well Seymour, it looks like you have won the race, I mean Madonna is selling more records than any other female artists has ever sold. And it is you that had signed her and...’

‘No Bill, I have lied to you all along. The Music Industry does not work the way that I had told you. Or at least my version of The Music Industry does not work the way that I had told you.’

‘What do you mean Seymour?’

‘Well Bill, I will try and keep this simple. Let’s say that Warner Brothers gave me one million dollars to sign a marketing and distribution deal for Sire Records. They did this because they thought The Ramones and Talking Heads could be successful. From those one million dollars I spent $100,000 on The Ramones, $100,000 on the Talking Heads and few thousand on a few of those bands from the UK that people liked talking about...’

‘Like Echo & The Bunnymen?’

‘Yeah. But I had to make sure that this Talking Heads or those Ramones or any of them other bands, that came from wherever the likes of Echo & The Bunnymen came from, did not sell that many records. Because if they did, and they recouped their advances and recording costs, I would have to start paying them royalties...’

‘So what are you getting at Seymour?’

‘Well, with the way it was, even with all my overheads of running an office, I could keep half of that million dollars from Warner Brothers for myself. But now that Madonna is the biggest selling act in the world, I am having to use my half million dollars to pay her royalties, which leaves me with nothing.’

Now I am to understand that this response from Seymour Stein, to the former Bill Drummond, reflected this darker sense of New York Jewish humour, at the same time as revealing the reality of the situation. As in the reality of the situation being that the former Bill Drummond had spent the past five years managing Echo & The Bunnymen, and in doing so hoping they could win some sort of race, whereas the boss of the record label, who they were signed to, was betting on them losing that one very real, if small race.

Now...

It was not until many years later when the former Bill Drummond actually watched the film The Producers, did he realise that Seymour Stein, might have been telling the truth at the same time as knowingly referencing the story laid bare in The Producers, and Seymour Stein had been playing the part of Max Bialystock and the former Bill Drummond had been playing a stand in for Leopold Bloom.

Then...

Although we knew that Seymour Stein had died sometime over the past few years, thus all of the above could not be fact checked, by actually asking him, I wanted to know what year he had actually died. So I went on the Wikipedia page for him. He died in 2023. But I scrolled further down the Wikipedia page, as one does, and saw that the band Belle & Sebastian had written and recorded a song that they gave the title of Seymour Stein, and this song was supposedly about Seymour Stein wanting to sign the band Belle & Sebastian to Sire records back in the 1990s. This song was on their album Boy With The Arab Strap.

And this is where things get even stranger...

Last week the former Bill Drummond was booked on a boat with his wife and youngest son, to go from Girvan, on the west coast of Scotland. The boat was to take them to the island Ailsa Craig. He had been booked on this boat by his big sister in Glasgow. She had also booked on the boat the singer in Belle & Sebastian who goes by the name of Stuart Murdoch. Stuart Murdoch is also in the choir of the church that the former Bill Drummond big sister goes to. That is how she knows this Stuart Murdoch. As in she has no interest in the music of Belle & Sebastian. His big sister is not interested in music. And she is not aware that the guitarist in Belle & Sebastion is better looking than Stuart Murdoch, making Stuart Murdoch work harder as a front man. But not only had Stuart Murdoch had to cancel the boat trip as he had to have a hospital appointment, the actual boat trip had to be cancelled because of the weather. So the former Bill Drummond never got to the Ailsa Craig, which happens to be an island he has been looking at every year of his life since 1957.

But this is where things get even stranger...

Later in the week, the former Bill Drummond found himself in a North Berwick on the east coast of Scotland. He was there to visit the record pressing plant that were pressing records for Penkiln Burn Recordings. These records are made in ways that they can never and should never win any races, as well as never be part of what American Cultural Imperialism might be in the modern world

Anyway...

While in this North Berwick he discovered that the band Belle & Sebastian were playing in a big circus tent. So he went to watch them play in the big circus ten. And they were good. And the former Bill Drummond’s wife confirmed that the guitarist in the band is still better looking than the front man that is this Stuart Murdoch, but it made this Stuart Murdoch work harder at holding the audience’s attention. Which he did very well.

Anyway...

So I have just gone on YouTube to listen to the song with the title Seymour Stein.

And while I listened to the song, YouTube was providing me with AI automated lyrics for me to read. And I noted that although the lyrics referenced a number of major American cities is also referenced Dundee. As in Dundee being the Scottish city that, is smaller than Aberdeen and has never had a football team that has won a European trophy. And this Dundee is the place I was referencing earlier in this story, when I was going on about AWB, as in the Average White Band, being the most sampled band to come out of these islands ever.

But...

That is by-the-by, what was far more profound for me right now is that these AI automated lyrics read the name of Seymour Stein as SEE MORE SKY.

To my mind this was a work of pure creative genius that could only be provided by AI, and it should be the title of this whole story that I have been telling you over the previous 24 hours.

As in a day in a life of the former Bill Drummond.

Now where can I find a grand piano near me at this time of day?

PINK MOON

SPOKE

WRIT

From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Monday, 26th October 2026

Fellow Workers

The colour Pink has been banned in the Galloverse.
All flowers with pink petals have been exterminated.
Wild Roses no longer exist.
The eating of Salmon is outlawed.
If a Sunset has shades of Pink in it, you look the other way.
Pink is the colour Satan.
The flesh of the Fruit...
As in the Fruit from the Tree, that Eve offered Adam, was Pink.

I mean...

You do know what The Galloverse is?

As in the universe that exists within The Penkiln Burn Universe.

As in the Galloverse is not real, but just imagined...

Whereas the Penkiln Burn Universe is real, it is where I am living, in this life that I am living, at this very moment as your Shop Steward and as the former Bill Drummond’s paint brush.

But back to the Galloverse...

It is not only the colour pink that is banned, from existing, so is the circle. Those that exist in the Galloverse very much know that the circle exists, but they also know they must never look at a circle.

The Sun is male, and the Sun might take the form of a circle in the Sky, but we all know that we can never look at the Sun, and if we were do so, it would turn us blind.

Whereas...

The Moon, which is female, presents itself to the Galloverse every 29.5-and-a-bit days. And she is up there in the night Sky dancing between the clouds, tempting us humans to look up at her and wonder at her beauty. And once we have done, we are done for.

And of course...

It is a given that no one should ever attempt to draw a circle.

Or that is what those that imagine they hold the reins of power within the Galloverse.

Thus...

Those within the Galloverse are prohibited from ever looking at the Fool Moon (as it is known for some unknown historical reasons).

But...

Not only that...

After the age of 13, men are never allowed to look into the face of woman. A man must never see the face of his wife. Well not until the wife is dead and she is lying in her coffin.

And to clarify...

Women’s faces are not hidden behind a mask or burqa or other, their faces are out there on display in the real world, Thus it is down to the strength of man, to resist the temptation of ever looking into the face of woman. Her face is both the Moon and the pink flesh of the Fruit from The Tree in The Garden.

Now...

You may remember in my dispatch to you regarding the Fool Moon before last, I discussed, in passing, the influence, and subsequent commodification, of the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. I mean she was not only mentioned in passing, but her name was also used in the title of the said dispatch...

As in...

From Yayoi Kusama to The Galloverse...

Well anyway since then she has died. As in the living and breathing version of her is dead. And now there are glowing obituaries everywhere.

But the strange thing is...

In none of these obituaries do they mention she may have turned up in the Galloverse.

Or...

Was that just a rumour that I picked up on in one of the far corners of my head. What form her existence takes in the Galloverse was not quite proclaimed in these rumours. Thus, I am going to make the assumption she is taking the form of what others might call a ghost. As in, her presence is felt, but those living within the Galloverse do not see her. But if we were to be watching the imaginary film Poppies in The Field we might see her.

We never get to see her face, just her pink wig and maybe her polka dotted costume, thus what age her ghost might be judged to be, we do not know, but can assume she is not the grand age of 97, as in the age she was when she died, in these past few weeks.

Maybe it is the ghost of Yayoi Kusama unseen presence that inspires Billy & Kezz...

Or...

Maybe

And this is where its gets a bit more confusing...

Something is up.

Something is shifting.

As in...

Sometime in the early hours of this morning, I had a vision of this Yayoi Kusama conversing with Billie & Kezz. I could not hear what they were conversing about. All I know was it was a Pink Moon. As in, not the Fool Moon of today. But the Fool Moon in an April, when Spring is at its most rampant. And the tides are raging.

Then in a corner of my imagination, I saw Billie & Kezz on the island in the Penkiln Burn. The one where The 25 Paintings are perched on their easels. But it is the dead of night. But that Pink Moon is up there guarding them. As you may know Men in the Galloverse are not allowed to leave their homes on the night of a Fool Moon, in case they are tempted to...

Anyway...

With Billie & Kezz are some of the young women of the Galloverse, all dressed in their black hooded cloaks. And with them they each have pots of whitewash paint.

And this is where it gets difficult...

From what I can see, but not really see, these young women are using the blood from their menstrual cycle. And adding their menstrual blood into the whitewash. And we can see that the whitewash is turning Pink.

As in...

Like in Suffolk they add pig’s blood to whitewash to paint their cottages pink.

And then...

Billie & Kezz and the Young Women, begin to paint Pink Moons on to The 25 Paintings. And before the first light of dawn, they have completed their job. They have painted 40 Pink Moons on each of The 25 Paintings.

That said, as I think you will be aware there are now only 24 of The 25 Paintings here as in the year of 2024, one of The 25 Paintings was lost at sea.

How any of what I caught glimpses of, in the corner of my imagination, in those early hours of this morning, will make their way into the imaginary film Poppies in The Field, I have no idea...

But...

When the former Bill Drummond comes down onto the shop floor later today, I will share this information with him. He then might... Along with the Part Time Painter, decide to see if they can interpret my vision into something that can be part of the 12th and final step in The 25 Paintings twelve-year world tour.

We will see...

Yours, from the shop floor,

Brush (Your Shop Steward)
brush@penkilnburn.com