FORTY WORK O’ART
Thursday, 12th November 2026 GMT* - CATA LOGG INFO - INDX
The character of Brush (Your Shop Steward) SPOKE by Angie Darcy
1/40 BAKE A CAKE
SPOKE
WRIT
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 2nd April 2026
Fellow Workers,
This BAKE CAKE is to be the first of the Forty Work O’Art by Bill Drummond for you to do or dismiss.
I have chosen this to be the first as it might be the simplest and to use that over used phrase, ‘most timeless’
All you have to do is bake a cake and then cut it up and eat it – on your own or with others. There are thousands of cake recipes to be found on your Hand Held Device, but if you have already thrown your Hand Held Device off a bridge, then you can follow the recipe used by the former Bill Drummond and appears within FOOT NOTE on the dates of his children’s birthdays. But for the sake of something we will also include it here for you to down load or use as a template for your painting.
Happy Baking...
Yours from the shop floor,
Brush (Your Shop Steward)
2/40 START A RECORD LABEL
SPOKE
WRIT
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 9th April 2026
Fellow Workers,
The former Bill Drummond has an unhealthy and recurring relationship with imagining made-up record labels.
This began in the late Summer of 1963 when Mackie Leonard’s mum gave the then ten-year-old Bill Drummond a copy of the 7” 45rpm record with the title Cinamon Cinder by The Pastel Six. This record had belonged to Mackie Leonard and Mackie resented his mum giving his record to the boy across the street that was then Bill Drummond. This giving and receiving happened in Lexington, North Carolina. This was the first 7” 45rpm the former Bill Drummond had ever touched. As much as the former Bill Drummond shook to the sound of this record when he heard it on the radio in their white Buick Special (1962), he did not have a record player to spin it on. And even when the Drummond family got back home to these islands, they did not have a record player between then and the Spring of 1967. And for those three years and seven months, that record sat in his bedroom not being spun, just as his growing collection of wild bird’s eggs could never hatch. But every day he would pick that record up and look at it. And he would touch the grooves and wonder how they contained that sound that made him shake and shimmy back when he was ten in the Summer of ’63. And then he would wonder if those grooves would still contain those sounds if it was ever spun again. And would he ever feel that feeling again that made him shake and shimmy. But more than that, he looked at the label and the words on the label. The main word was ZEN. But he did not know what this ZEN was or what it meant. Or where this record really came from. Or how it was made. Or why it was made. Or if it could ever be made again. But there was something in him that wanted to be that label. As in the physical label at the middle of the record, he was looking at. Back then the former Bill Drummond did not know that record labels were called record labels because every record had a label in the middle like this one with the word ZEN on it. And Z was his favourite letter because it was the last letter in the alphabet and the only word he had ever seen before that used the letter Z was the word Zoo.
But...
Things change. Things changed. The former Bill Drummond was now a teenager, buying records and listening to them in his bedroom with the walls painted black. But he never listened to this Cinamon Cinder by The Pastel Six. But sometimes he would pick it up and still look at it and wonder. And sometimes he wondered if he could be a record label. And sometimes he would buy records in the record shop because he liked the look and name of the label in the middle of the record, even though he had never heard of the band or singer whose name was on the record label. For him the record label contained an allure and mystery, whereas he knew the band or the singer just wanted to be famous and on television. There was no mystery to being famous and on television. There was no mystery to wanting people to look at you and like you. There was no mystery to music that people liked and wanted to dance to or cry to or...
Anyway...
Then The Beatles started their own record label, and it was called Apple. And this is when the former Bill Drummond learnt you could start your own record label. And the former Bill Drummond liked the look of this Apple record label. This Apple record label looked better than the sound of the records The Beatles were actually making. Even if it were just a Granny Smith’s Apple and not a Cox’s Orange Pippin. Maybe he could still become a record label like Apple, I mean there were over two thousand three hundred distinct varieties of apples on these islands to choose from, thus there must be many more record labels to imagine into being real.
Then...
This Apple record label released a record called Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins. On the cover of the record was a photograph of Yoko Ono and John Lennon without their clothes on – fanny naked. The former Bill Drummond bought the record and took it home in a brown paper bag and played it on his record player in his bedroom. The record was unlistenable to. This was brilliant. This triggered something in his head that would not go away. It seemed even then, most record labels tried to release records that people would want to listen to by bands and singers who wanted to be famous, even if in an underground / alternative way.
But that Yoko Ono and John Lennon were famous so that made that record not count in some sort of way. So the former Bill Drummond searched in record shop for records on labels he had never seen before and by bands or singers he had never heard of before, and he dreamed he would never hear about again like Cinamon Cinder by The Pastel Six.
For his 16th birthday he was given a record token. He went to the record shop and bought a record that had been released the day before by someone he had never heard about before on a label he had never seen before. And on the cover the singer was seen pretending to murder his mother. This looked like the right sort of record to buy, especially when the woman working in the record shop told him it was the worst record ever made, even worse than Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins. This record was called An Evening With Wild Man Fischer by Wild Man Fischer on a record label called Bizarre. And as previously observed the young Bill Drummond liked words with the letter Z in them. It was a double album, like the white record by The Beatles had been a double album. When he got the record home and put it on his record player, it was so unlistenable to he was unable to listen to it all the way through. And never has done. It was that good. And he wondered if this Wild Man Fischer was a real man or just a made-up man. Or could you be both made-up and real at the same time.
Anyway...
By the time the former Bill Drummond reached that moment in his mid-twenties when he knew that he would never be able to find a record more unlistenable to than An Evening With Wild Man Fischer, he decided he had to make-up a record label himself that would release records by bands and singers that no-one had ever heard of and would never hear about again.
But he did not have the courage to do it on his own, the former Bill Drummond embraces his lack of courage. So he did it with a David Balfe. And the record label was called The Zoo. And they put out 7” 45rpm records by made-up bands that no one had ever heard of and would never hear about again.
But some of those made-up bands wanted to be heard about again. They even wanted to record long playing records. And even wanted to be famous. And even worse – they became famous and successful. The then Bill Drummond was unable to stop them from being famous and successful. So he stopped.
But the former Bill Drummond was now in his thirties and almost middle-aged and he found himself being inspired by the record label Ralph Records and their made-up band called The Residents. Even though the then Bill Drummond wondered why they were not named The Rezidents. Maybe he still had a chance. Maybe he should not stop that urge in him to make-up a new record label. But again, he did not have the courage to do it on his own, so he did with two men called Rockman Rock and King Boy D. And the record label was called KLF Communications. And they made and released records by made-up bands. And although the name of the record label did not have a Z in it, they invented a guiding philosophy called Zenarchy. But again, the then Bill Drummond failed in his mission defined by Zenarchy, as some of these records and even the made-up bands became successful. So he stopped.
But in his forties the now very middle-aged then Bill Drummond, could not stop the urge in him to make-up a new record label. And now he knew what he was doing, so he made-up a record label in faraway Finland, and he called the made-up record label Kalevala. And this Kalevala record label had a mythical made-up tyrannical boss called Hannu Puttonen. And with a Mark Manning, whom the former Bill Drummond called Z, they together made-up bands from this mythical faraway Finland. And recorded these made-up bands in the reality of faraway Finland with real Finnish musicians and singers. And released these made-up bands’ records on the Kalevala record label. But only 500 copies of each of the records and never anymore. This limiting them to only 500 copies each made sure none of these records could ever be successful. Thus the former Bill Drummond finally felt he had achieved his lifelong ambition of making records that could never be successful, and nobody could ever know who or what these made-up bands or singers were or were not. Almost as great as the untouchable Cinamon Cinder by The Pastel Six.
But...
When the former Bill Drummond found himself in his fifties a thing called the internet had sneaked in. And with this thing called the internet, everything could be found out, and everybody could be famous and every record ever made could be heard wherever you were in the world.
This was the end.
So...
The former Bill Drummond decided that the making of records was a thing of the past. A thing of the 20th Century.
So...
The former Bill Drummond made-up a choir instead. And this made-up choir was called The17. But everyone in the world could be a member of this choir. But the only way you could ever hear this choir was if you were there performing in it as it performed. And The17 would never be recorded. And The17 would end the moment the former Bill Drummond turned 60. And all of this happened.
But the former Bill Drummond was now in his late middle ages, and he started to listen to recorded music again. But music he had never listened to before in his life. The music of Alice Coltrane, Sun Ra, Wendy Carlos and Moondog. But most of all Glenn Gould working his way through the Well-Tempered Clavier. Glenn Gould had flipped what the former Bill Drummond had been attempting to do with The17. As in Glenn Gould only made long playing vinyl records and never played the music contained on those records live in front of an audience.
But the former Bill Drummond forgot to make a made-up record label in his late middle ages with made-up artists like Alice Coltrain or Sun Ra or Wendy Carlos or Moondog or even Glenn Gould. The reason he gives for forgetting is because he was attempting to sail The 25 Paintings around the world in an attempt to...
But he forgot what he was attempting to do.
And then his late middle ages left him behind and he became an old man in his 70s. And as an old man he knew that he was now ready to imagine his last made-up record label and release actual vinyl albums and not just 7” 45rpm singles. This made-up record label was to be called Penkiln Burn Recordings and be run by a Geordie with a made-up history. And this made-up Geordie would only be called The Managing Director of Penkiln Burn Recordings, and he would have a made-up history. And Penkiln Burn Recordings would only every release five long playing records. Records you could never buy from a record shop or...
But...
And this is where it gets difficult and you might be able to step in and fill the void...
The former Bill Drummond wishes he had made-up a record label in his late middle ages...
Thus...
He is inviting those that are in their 60s to make-up record labels that he has left it too late to ever make-up himself. This being done in the hope that these records released by these made-up record labels will be difficult at the same time as not be tainted with the American Cultural Imperialism or from a bygone era like the records that he – the former Bill Drummond was listening to in his own 60s.
We here on the shop floor have a record player with its needle sharpened and primed to drop into the groove of your record(s) when you send one to us so that we can listen to it and them and wonder.
Yours from that very shop floor,
Brush (Your Shop Steward)
brush@penkilnburn.com
3/40 CLIMB A TREE
SPOKE
WRIT
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 16th April 2026
Fellow Workers,
Following on from last week’s extensive missive to you about the former Bill Drummond’s unhealthy relationship with imagining record labels and encouraging you to do the same, I have negotiated an agreement with those that attempt to pull the strings around here.
The agreement being...
From here on in my missives to you regarding former Bill Drummond’s war between Verbs and Nouns, I will never write more than four hundred words for each of the remaining Thursdays contained within FOOT NOTE, including this week.
Thus...
In the Spring of 1955 when the former Bill Drummond was yet to reach the age of two, his mother laid him on a rug under the Apple Tree in their garden. The Apple Tree was in blossom. Laying there looking up at the blossom as they danced in the gentle breeze made feel warm and comfortable and almost content. Then a petal fell from the blossom and landed on his face. He thought the petal wanted to be with him. And this made him happy. For the next ten years of his life, anytime he was lying in his bed at night, scared that the bad things might climb through his open window and steel him away, he would think about that blossom and that petal falling down to his face and how that made him feel in the Spring of 1955, and he would feel protected from the Bad Things.
And in the Spring of 1957 when he was still four years old, and the Apple Tree was in blossom, he wanted to be part of the blossom, so he pulled himself up onto the first branch of the Apple Tree. And from there he climbed to the next branch. And then the next branch. And when he could not climb any further, he looked out at the world and the world looked different. And he wondered why the world looked different. And he called this wondering Wonder. Then he heard his mother calling him. But his mother could not see him. His mother thought he had disappeared from the garden. He liked not being seen.
And from that day on he decided he would climb as many trees as he could so he could Wonder at the world. While not being seen.
Yours from the shop floor,
Brush (Your Shop Steward)
4/40 NAIL A NAIL
SPOKE
WRIT
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 23rd April 2026
Fellow Workers,
Also...
At the age of four the then Bill Drummond wandered out of the garden gate and along the road and down the hill and into Mr McQuirter’s workshop. Mr McQuirter was banging a nail with a hammer into a plank of wood. Mr McQuirter was the town carpenter. The then Bill Drummond wondered if Mr McQuirter being a carpenter meant that one day he would become Jesus of Galloway. And one day Mr McQuirter would find himself being nailed to a cross.
But...
Before Mr McQuirter became Jesus of Galloway, he showed the then four-year-old Bill Drummond how to hold a hammer and nail a nail into a plank of wood, so that it would then be nailed to his bench.
For his fifth birthday the then five-year-old Bill Drummond got the birthday present he wanted – a hammer, a bag of nails and a bench to go in his bedroom. Mr McQuirter had made the bench. His Granny Drummond gave her grandson some pennies to go and spend at the sweet shop. But instead of going to the sweet shop the then five-year-old Bill Drummond took the hammer and bag of nails and pennies into the wood up the hill from the Manse. And he nailed each of the Pennies to different trees.
And...
When he lay in bed at night, he would wonder if those Pennies were still nailed to those trees. The now 72-year-old former Bill Drummond still lies in bed at night wondering if those pennies are still nailed to those trees.
But...
Back then the five-year-old Bill Drummond wondered if it was because Jesus was a carpenter he got nailed to a cross. And that if Jesus had been a mason he would have been stoned to death. And if he had been stoned to death and not nailed to a cross what would Christians Soldiers use to march into war.
But...
Now there is a dark side to boys wanting to nail nails into wood. That dark side is that as you nail you can see the wood begin to split and a slit appear. And when the teenage Bill Drummond thought about this, he thought that maybe this was like rape. The wood did not want the nail being nailed into it as much as the boy liked hammering his nail into the split in the wood.
But...
I have now surpassed my given 400-word limit, so please feel free to edit these words as you feel appropriate.
Yours from the shop floor,
Brush (Your Shop Steward)
5/40 CROSS A BRIDGE
SPOKE
WRIT
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 30th April 2026
Fellow Workers,
We here on the shop floor were concerned that the former Bill Drummond might want to commission us to build a bridge. We know he has had an almost lifelong addiction to bridges. And maybe his addiction would get to a point where he would want to own his own bridge. But I guess we should have known that could never be the case, as he has an almost unhealthy eversion to owning things. I’m not going to bother with attempting to give any history about him and bridges, probably a number of his other selves have already told you elsewhere anyway.
But...
Although we know he does not have a suicidal side to his character, we do know he does have to supress that urge that many of us have to jump off bridges. We try to diffuse his urge by encouraging him to just lean over the side and look down into the water and wonder about that other world down there, for a few moments, before continuing his crossing of the bridge.
The other thing that is a bit of an issue for us, is when he finds a tree that has fallen across a small river and he decides that if is fallen precisely there for him to then attempt to cross the river using the fallen tree as Bridge sent by God. The thing is seeing as he turned 73 years old yesterday, we think he owes it to us – and maybe even his family, to suppress this urge as well. I mean he is pretty good at suppressing urges.
Anyway...
He is always on the lookout for new bridges to cross, even today he crossed one for the first time. I was down the lane to Red House by Rectory Farm, over a wee stream called Turkey Brook.
And today I am well within my 400 word limit and hope you download the accompanying poster and start your crossing of forty bridges today.
Yours from the shop floor,
Brush (Your Shop Steward)
Post Script:
Maybe me and a local artist should go and paint a painting of a bridge on his wall under Spaghetti Junction. It will be the last of our Twenty Five Paintings there.
6/40 DRIFT OFF
SPOKE
WRIT
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 7th May 2026
Fellow Workers,
This is going to be a difficult missive for me to write and put in the post to you.
The content of this missive seems to go against everything that I aspired to back when I was one of those children, who would listen to every word our teacher said. Taking it all on board to the point that I could almost recite it word for word as I lay in my bed at night before the dreams would take me away.
But...
As the years began to drift past and I failed to achieve my ambitions - to start that much needed workers revolution and finally see The Man consigned to the dustbin of history - I realised I needed to catch a bus to that place Woolie Backs came from and find one of those things they call ‘meadows’ in poetry, and lie in the middle of that meadow but at the same time making sure I did not lie on some of that fresh cow dung.
While lying there I would stare up into the sky and find a cloud that was drifting across the sky and watch it all the way until it had disappeared from my vision completely
I found that I was unable to do this without my mind drifting away from concentrating on the cloud doing the drifting.
This was the first time in my life that I had allowed my mind to drift.
From that moment, on I would give over forty minutes of each day where I would allow my mind to drift to wherever it wanted to go.
And it was through this mind drifting that I discovered new plateaus in my imagination that I never knew existed.
I think it was this discovery, and what I learnt from it, that allowed me to be both an inanimate object, as in any one of the hundreds of paintbrushes that the former Bill Drummond has used, in any of his guises, whilst at the same time being a young woman who grew up on Merseyside inspired by stories told to me about Bessie Braddock.
You do know who Bessie Braddock is?
And if you don’t you better find out before I rescind your membership to the Union of Workers Chapel in The Penkiln Burn Universe
Yours from the shop floor,
Brush (Your Shop Steward)
7/40 LIE DOWN
SPOKE
WRIT
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 14th May 2026
Fellow Workers,
Does all life lie?
Does this capacity to lie make Life on Earth, different from all other objects that exist within the known universe?
As in; a stone cannot lie as it is being thrown at you, but the person throwing the stone at you can lie.
And they will probably lie to others when they are asked why they cast the stone.
Were Courts of Law evolved just so that humans could refine their skills at lying?
Who taught the male Pigeon’s attempt to impress a female Pigeon by the way he struts and ruffles his feathers?
She can see he is lying, even we can see he is lying.
I might be Your Shop Steward, but I am still only any one of several hundred, or even thousand paint brushes that the former Bill Drummond has picked up to paint whatever he is painting at the stage of life that he finds himself today.
As in; being a brush, an inanimate object, I can’t lie, but Bill Drummond can use me to tell his lies, because, by using me, whatever he paints is a lie.
I have noted in the past that the former Bill Drummond once claimed that mirrors always lie, that is why he has an aversion of looking into him. But I know, and I think you also know, that the mirror, as a fellow inanimate object cannot lie, but can be used as a device for not only the former Bill Drummond, but every human alive on earth today, to lie to themselves.
Same with the clothes that all humans wear. They might think they are wearing them to keep warm or even protect their modesty. But you all know everything you wear in your waking hours, is worn to tell a lie about yourself to every other person that might see you. As for that ‘expressing yourself’ stuff, that is and always has been a jumped up way of making out your lies have a creative or moral worth.
Which brings me to my five questions for the day...
1. Is lying as fundamental to Life on Earth as its hunger to consume oxygen.
2. When does a newborn baby first learn to lie?
3. Do humans only stop lying after they have died?
4. Is the longing for legacy, the hope that we learn to lie after we have died?
5. If cutting off one’s nose is done to spite one’s face, what can a human cut off to spite their hunger to lie?
If you have the answer to any or all of those five questions, please do not hesitate to email them to me at brush@penkilnburn.com
Yours from the shop floor,
Brush (Your Shop Steward)
8/40 SEE THROUGH
SPOKE
WRIT
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 21st May 2026
Fellow Workers,
This Seeing and not just Looking thing, is something that the former Bill Drummond has been going on about for the past fifty-five years and counting.
But the truth is...
I doubt he has got any better at actually Seeing and not just Looking during all of those passing decades.
And...
To clarify or maybe embroider the words that have been used on the accompanying poster I would like to offer the following thoughts...
Artists are just merely middlemen and, sadly, middle-women as well.
Artists just exist to scam fellow humans into thinking better of themselves while the humans admire the work done by the Artist. In the same way that Ministers and Bishops and Priests and Imams and Rabbis had been placed as the middlemen between mankind and whatever it is that we might once have hoped existed in some other untouchable world.
And in turn...
We know that Cathedrals, Synagogues, Mosques, Temples and even Stone Circles, only exist to be the physical but fake gates between you and whatever word you want to use for The Great Beyond.
It is the same with Art Galleries, especially the major ones, as in The Tates, the MoMAs, The Guggenheims and the Pompidous, that have been built for those Post-God-Fearing generations.
The hundreds of thousands of People that visit these Art Galleries around the globe every year, only ever Look at the Dead Art that has been displayed on those walls and floors and ceilings. This Looking at the Dead Art prevents them from Seeing the real art that is out there all the time, wherever they are in the world. Real Art that has been created by the Inanimate Artists.
I know this because I have spent most of my working life as a paint brush, thus an Inanimate Object, but at the same time as operating on the front line of Man’s Vanities.
And yes...
I know that while these words of mine are being written, VAPE SHOP is out there, attempting to See the work of those truly great artists like Bird Shite and Crushed Can, Empty Fag Packet and of course that greatest artist of all time Shadow.
In the meantime, I would like to suggest you stop what you are doing now, and take a short walk, and see if you can follow the words suggested in the accompanying poster to these words of mine, and in turn truly See the work that Bird Shite has been doing within a few yards of wherever you are on the world right now.
Yours from the shop floor,
Brush (Your Shop Steward)
9/40 CAST SYSTEM
SPOKE
WRIT
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 28th May 2026
Fellow Workers,
Well...
I have to admit...
I am not too sure what it is that the former Bill Drummond is implying with the content of this latest NOTICE in his war between Verbs and Nouns.
I mean that closing line...
CREATE YOUR OWN CAST
For a start it implies that one should be using the verb Cast to create a noun with the name of Cast. Thus immediately admitting defeat in the war against nouns. As in the making of a physical cast to cast molten iron into cannons or bombs or something else that man might use in those wars they have throughout history indulged their fantasies in and in turn the slaughter of millions of...
Then...
It also implies that one should create one’s own Cast System. As in the Class System they had and still have in India.
You might think the Class System is bad enough in this UK, or any of those of physical places our other Western Workers might be Working within, but it is nothing like the Cast System that they have in India. I should know. Although now is not the time to go into why I should know.
But...
If you are to cast your own cast system, I impeach / implore / order you to create one where you are at the very bottom. And it being one that you can never climb out of. So no Slumdog Millionaire biopic type fantasies. Or even Born into Brothels documentary depicting your new life at the bottom...
I mean you have watched Born into Brothels?
If not watch it now and see you here next week. When you have learnt to cast everything you think you have ever learnt into the cesspit that Jamal jumped into to get that autograph.
Yours from the shop floor,
Brush (Your Shop Steward)
10/40 MAYK MUNI
SPOKE
WRIT
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 4th June 2026
Fellow Workers,
Is the former Bill Drummond attempting to take the piss?
I mean...
Is he being serious?
Or is this just some sort of attempt on his part on being ironic about the whole world of online scam mongers.
I mean...
Should the title verb at the top of this week’s NOTICE have been SCAM.
If it is an attempt at a scam on his part, I don’t think anyone will be buying it.
And...
If his misspelling of the word MAKE, is just a way of him being able to use the same verb twice in his war between Verbs and Nouns.
Hang on a minute...
Am I getting this totally wrong?
Is the war between Verbs and Adjectives. As in both Verbs and Adjectives are attempting the curry the favours of Nouns.
And on the subject of ‘curry’. I suggest instead of you wasting your time with the MAYK MUNI scam, you should go and get some turmeric, cumin and coriander and make some curry this evening with whatever is left in your fridge that is bordering on passing its eat by date.
Yours from the shop floor,
Brush (Your Shop Steward)
Post Script:
Or was all that just a play on the Selkirk Grace
I mean you do know your Selkirk Grace
11/40 FIND FIVE SHADOWS
SPOKE
WRIT
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 11th June 2026
Fellow Workers,
Well...
I don’t know if you have the time in your life to go out and find five shadows, be they ones you have never seen before or ones that you see every day.
Or...
Maybe the former Bill Drummond just wants you to notice the world around you, on a daily basis, and the beauty contained within it.
As for what shadows are for, I guess there must be a scientist somewhere that has worked that out. Will it be the fittest shadows that survive.
Anyway...
Back to the verb FIND...
As Your Shop Steward, I would like to promote the act of finding, be that those five shadows, or the mere meaning of life.
I mean...
At breakfast this morning I found a toenail cutting in my marmalade as I spread my toast. My instant reaction was, to be disgusted, and throw the slice of toast into the bin, along with the jar of marmalade, that the toenail cutting had been bathing in.
But...
Then I decided it was my job, to find meaning in what this toenail cutting was doing in my jar of marmalade. And why my reaction to this finding was so profound. Or at least profound in that moment.
If you are able to find an answer to what I might have been trying to find, please email it to me at brush@penkilnburn.com
Yours from the shop floor,
Brush (Your Shop Steward)
12/40 PAINT OVER THE CRACKS
SPOKE
WRIT
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 18th June 2026
Fellow Workers,
I won’t deny...
Today was a difficult day.
One of those days where you believe you are not up to the job, that you feel you were put on earth to do.
So much of what the whole of the Penkiln Burn Universe has been built on, has been the work of The 25 Paintings, and right now, it seems no-one around here takes any notice of them.
They have been shoved into a garage round the back of the workshop. It leaks in there, the asbestos is rampant, along with everything else that can be rampant and not good for the health. And spiders. Lots of spiders.
I might be just one of several hundred paint brushes, but I have been able to create a life for myself, where I am also a young woman from Merseyside, who has begun to climb the ladders of the Trade Union Movement. I embrace my duty, to represent the workers that need representing, now that we live in a world where the workers are hardly ever represented.
Who knows what lofty peeks I might reach. Maybe even run for being a Member of Parliament. I tick all the boxes – young, female, northern and other. And don’t ask me about the ‘other’, how many paint brushes do you know that have achieved what I have achieved?
The 25 Paintings wanted to have a private meeting with me today. Their primary concern is, the former Bill Drummond does not give a shit about them anymore. I told them I would recite for you, their list of concerns that they handed over to me. They requested, I do it in a Parisian accent, as if they might be living some sort of Belle Époque Bohemian lifestyle, in their now infamous Tea Rooms, up on the Montmartre.
Here goes...
2022:
We were in the Rooftop Gallery, in a town called Corby. This was the last year and place, we felt we were treated with any sort of respect. We were painted lovingly and diligently into Latvian. We were given a space to host our Tea Room. The former Bill Drummond was there working as our Nippy. People came and admired us. Both our front and our backs. We were told that our future was guaranteed. Our tearooms would tour the world, as in... The 25 Paintings Tea Rooms. A place where people would come to discuss revolutions, plan plots to overthrow those that abuse their power. And of course, flirt with those that required our flirting.But then in...
2023:
This Evil power was unleashed. Their name was Scissorman. This Scissorman threatened to slice us up. Destroy us. Unless they had their way.Yes...
A compromise was reached.
But...
That compromise, meant we had to be crudely painted with this tag of Scissorman and flaunted to a world who did not give shite about us. As in around the North and South circular of The Bleak City. No explanation. No admiration. I mean what is the point of a painting if it is not admired? Just all those passing cars and trucks around that North and South Circular, where the drivers are more interested in what their satnav is telling them about where the next speed camera or traffic jam is, than whatever art might be happening on the hard shoulder.
But then in...
2024:
We understood things were going to get better. A movie was going to be made. And it was rumoured, even implied, that we were going to be the stars of that movie. We were hoping François Truffaut was going to be the director. Maybe down on the Left Bank of the Seine. Maybe Jacques Brel doing the soundtrack.
But no...
We were loaded into a white van and driven north, and further north, all the way to a ferry that took us over to the north of Ireland. There we were dumped in the back yard of some tower. The weather was horrendous. But things got worse.
Yes...
There was a movie being made, but it was not François Truffaut, directing, but some woman from a coal mine or something. But in this movie, paint was merely flung at us, like they thought we were a Jackson Pollock tribute act. I mean who the fuck would want to watch this movie?
And then in the closing shots of this supposed film, one of us – was thrown into the sea, never to be rescued. Discarded. Abandoned. You might think there is something romantic about being ‘lost at sea’ but we can tell you, if you are a painting, it brings no value aesthetically of fiscally.
Anyway...
In the Spring of...
2025:
We were told things were going to improve, we would have our tea rooms, but on an island in the Penkiln Burn above the Queen Mary’s Bridge; that the Bluebells would be in bloom. We would be freshly painted to abstract perfection. None of those words by the forgotten Bill Drummond got in the way of our beauty. Yes, we had to be loaded into a White Ford Transit Van and driven to wherever, but when we got there, we were met by an eager team of youths of all ages, willing to carry us across the flowing and crystal-clear waters onto the island.But...
Once on the island, there were no easels on which to place us, not a whiff of our Tea Rooms or even a sniff of that Nippy. Just the woman from the Coal Mine shouting out orders. And within minutes we were being carted back over the water and shoved back into the back of the White Ford Transit Van. And driven a few hundred miles back down to that Bleak City to be dumped into this garage with all its asbestos and spiders.
And now it is...
2026:
This is supposed to be the final year of our twelve-year world tour. We were looking forward to one last and lasting coat of paint. A final fling, and then a long and illustrious retirement as the host of our Tea Rooms somewhere. Maybe up on Montmartre, in Paris circa 1895, or Greenwich Village circa 1962, with the young Dave Van Ronk and Phil Ochs hanging out singing their songs and strumming their guitars, while our Nippy was serving his perfectly brewed Darjeeling Tea and freshly baked scones.But...
None of that seems to be happening.
In fact we have heard rumours from those Spiders in here, that love to use their webs, to cast those rumours, that the forgotten Bill Drummond, - who by the way, has not visited us once in the first half of this our final year, let alone started to repaint us one last time - that he has plans that we are to be cast into those fast flowing waters of the Penkiln Burn, and left to float downstream into The River Cree. And then down into the Wigtown Bay. And finally, out to be lost at sea with our now long-lost brother. Just so it can be filmed by that woman from a Coal Mine. And he gets some sort of glory from that.
As their shop steward, I cannot deny, that all of what they have laid bare, in their overlong statement, is not true. The forgotten Bill Drummond, as they prefer to call him, has an ongoing record for flipping his whims and discarding, what he might have proclaimed to be his one remaining mission in life, for an even more ludicrous and undoable ‘life mission’.
What I did try to tell them was, I knew the forgotten Bill Drummond, had been working on the layouts for their final coating of paint. And these layouts are to be the most complex and...
I know that I, as one and all of his paint brushes, as well as their Shop Steward, will do my best at painting their canvases, be it in the right hand of the forgotten Bill Drummond’s other selves a local artist or The Part Time Painter, who will actually be seen to be holding me while I do the work.
And I will use this opportunity to share here with you those layouts, that he has been working on and that he tells me, we are about to start working on, or at least sometime in the coming weeks. But this all may take longer than any of the other layers of paint on their canvases since 2014. As in: this final year of their Twelve Year World tour might take longer than twelve months.
And...
Even if they were to end their days floating out into the ocean, thus no bohemian retirement in Montmartre circa 1896, or Greenwich Village circa 1962, their legacy will be long and lasting.
There was no proper response from the collective voice of The 25 Paintings, but there was something in their mutterings, that made me think, they thought a contrived Kurt Cobain legacy, could be their perfect ending. I even started to imagine them forming a proto-grunge band in Seatle circa 1990, in their afterlife.
We will see.
But in the meantime, what follows on this page, are the work in progress layouts for the 2026 layer on The 25 Paintings, even though there are actually only 24 of them that have survived this far...
Yours, from the shop floor,
Brush (Your Shop Steward)
13/40 THINK YOUR THOUGHTS
SPOKE
WRIT
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 25th June 2026
Fellow Workers,
I was originally commissioned to write 400 words relating to each of the Forty Work O’Art.
But...
Last week I got a bit carried away and ended up writing over fifteen-hundred words. And they refused to pay me any more for all those words.
So...
For the next three weeks, I am not going to write any more than 100 words a week.
As for this week’s Work O’Art NOTICE, I guess it has something to do with the YEAR ZERO pamphlet that VAPE SHOP thought, wrote and printed.
You might have a better idea.
Yours, From the shop floor,
Brush (Your Shop Steward)
brush@penkilnburn.com
14/40 GET OFF YOUR ARSE
SPOKE
WRIT
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 2nd July 2026
Fellow Workers,
And even then, I ended up writing more than 100 words, but I don’t think anybody noticed.
As for what this GET thing is about, I guess it should have been telling you to get off your arse and do something unless you will just end up paying to watch other people doing it for you.
And remember...
Wipe your own arse.
Yours, from the shop floor,
Brush (Your Shop Steward)
15/40 LEAVE YOUR LIFE UNLOCKED
SPOKE
WRIT
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 9th July 2026
Fellow Workers,
Now I am all for leaving things behind.
I mean...
If you can’t learn to leave things behind, you can never move forward
I mean...
I started life as any one of several hundred paint brushes that the former Bill Drummond used, but now I am at the cutting edge of conceptual Trade Union Representatives.
And although I have never had the need for a mobile phone, I heartily support the idea of leaving your phone at home on the next Phone Free Friday. And of course, leaving it all behind. Whatever that ‘it’ is.
Yours, from the shop floor,
Brush (Your Shop Steward)
16/40 RISE BOIL DRIFT TICK
SPOKE
WRIT
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 16th July 2026
Fellow Workers,
The former Bill Drummond seems to have forgotten to add ‘Watch the paint dry’ to his list. At the same time as being one particular paint brush as being several thousand paint brushes scattered through history, I have spent more hours watching paint dry than any human on earth today. As in way more than the former Bill Drummond. Not that I am claiming, to watch paint dry, is a better thing to do with your allotted time in this life, than any of the other things, he has chosen to put on his list. I guess it is the watching that it is important. But remember never to waste your time watching other people doing things when it should be you that it is doing it.
As for the closing sentence on his NOTICE, the one about embracing a life where no one is watching you, that is an easy one for me to do. As I can be several thousand paintbrushes at the same time, as soon as a human picks me up and looks at me, I become one of those other paintbrushes that are not being looked at. And when the human begins to start painting the painting, we can become that paintbrush again, as the human will be looking at the paint and its place on the painting and not looking at us, as in the brush they are holding in their hand. This means we can concentrate on the job at hand, as in being the actual force that is creating the art.
Yours, from the shop floor,
Brush (Your Shop Steward)
17/40 NEVER KNOW ANYTHING
SPOKE
WRIT
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 23rd July 2026
Fellow Workers,
Just re-read the NOTICE for this week’s Work O’Art. Was not too sure what the former Bill Drummond was on about this time. It seems that I start from the opposite end of the scale than he does. As in, I started with knowing everything. As in everything there ever was to know about. But over the hundreds and thousands and millions and billions and even trillions of years of my existence, I know less and less and less. And at the end of time, I will know nothing. Whereas many humans believe by the End of Time, they will know everything.
Maybe what I have just told you might make little sense to you, that is because, you have not learnt these things yet, as you have not made enough mistakes yet. So I guess that is where I am in agreement with the former Bill Drummond, as in why not go out and make a mistake today. And then another mistake tomorrow. And then see if you can go a whole week with making a mistake every day. Then a month. Then a year. Before long, we may pass each other through that journey through time, you going in one direction, me going in the other.
Get what I mean?
Yours, from the shop floor,
Brush (Your Shop Steward)
18/40 OTHER THINGS TO LOSE
SPOKE
WRIT
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 30th July 2026
Fellow Worker,
Some of you humans find it almost impossible to lose things. But if you don’t lose something you will never find something. That is the way the Lose & Find scales work. At its most basic level – if you humans were never to lose your Virginity, no Babies would ever be found under a Gooseberry Bush.
Hang on a minute...
Maybe in your culture, babies are not found under Gooseberry Bush, but are brought to you via a Stork.
But anyway...
You know what I mean.
And for once, I am in total agreement with the former Bill Drummond. Learning the craft of how to lose something, is one of the most overlooked crafts that humans have ever embraced.
I suggest, after you have gone and made your Mistake for The Day, you go and Lose something. And then let me know what you have found in return. But make sure what you find is a Verb and not a Noun.
Yours, from the shop floor,
Brush (Your Shop Steward)
19/40 SAY YES DAY
SPOKE
WRIT
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 6th August 2026
Fellow Workers,
The former Bill Drummond has Say Yes Days and he also has Say No Days.
He never knows when a Say Yes Day is going to come, let alone when a Say No Day, is going to whack him around the head, or even kick him in the bollocks.
He only knows when he has said ‘Yes’ to something that he would usually say ‘No’ to.
Or...
When he says ‘No’ to something he would usually say ‘Yes’ to.
This tendency has caused numerous issues in his life. Issues others are yet to either recover from or forgive him for. But there have been times where these seemingly random saying of the words ‘yes’ or ‘no’ have created lasting positivity in his life. And even the lives of others.
Last week (or maybe the week before last) he had one of those Say Yes Days.
The former Bill Drummond loathes looking at his in-tray, for all the obvious reasons. But on that day, there was an email from someone somewhere, asking if he would write some words for something. The former Bill Drummond thinks he has no words left in him that are worth writing. As in the vast majority of the words he writes just tell the same things he has said over and over again in his past lives.
Anyway...
If it was this time last year, he might have considered asking an AI to write the words for him. As in AI was vastly better at distilling the former Bill Drummond’s thoughts on any one subject in a vastly more readable way, than he could ever do. But AI is now so last year. Or is it still next year?
Anyway...
The former Bill Drummond responded to this email by saying ‘Yes’ but on the understanding that in exchange for him writing 800 words they, whoever they were, would record a conversation with someone of their choosing, on the subject of Trust & Familiarity.
The whoever they were, went by the name of Jean-Paul L. Garnier who may or may not also be a Space Cowboy.
Anyway...
These words I have just spoken to you are what the former Bill Drummond might copy and paste to be the first 400 words that he has said ‘Yes’ to this Jean-Paul L. Garnier.
Yours, from the shop floor,
Bush (Your Shop Steward)
20/40 HANG OUT TO DRY
SPOKE
WRIT
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 13th August 2026
Fellow Workers,
Have you ever been hung out to dry?
Whatever that means to you, I think all men should be hung out to dry at least once a year.
Woman can choose if they want too as well.
Maybe you should pick your day in the year that you choose to be your hung out to dry day.
As for what physical form you being hung out to dry takes, is up to the creativity of your own mind. Or maybe you should let your nearest and dearest choose in what form your hanging and drying should take.
As for what purpose your hanging and drying should be for, that is also for you to work out, even it is not until you are doing the hanging and drying that you start to consider what purpose it serves.
What I do know is...
Before you even entertain the idea of following the ‘instructions’ contained in the former Bill Drummond’s HANG – NOTICE, you should put yourself through my advice regarding hanging yourself out to dry.
Yours, from the shop floor,
Brush (Your Shop Steward)
21/40 SLICE THE PIZZA
SPOKE
WRIT
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 20th August 2026
Fellow Workers,
I have to admit; I don’t really know what the former Bill Drummond is going on about here. What I do know is that I hate having to be the one to slice the giant pizza when you are out at a pizza parlour. For a start the pizza is always bigger than the plate, and you always feel you are being judged by your friends and family by how well you slice the pizza. As in all those bits that get dragged off the slices as you are attempting to slice it.
And then...
When it comes to the crust bits around the edge, are you supposed to try and slice that as well, or just tear it with your fingers?
And then...
Does it make you look greedy if you try and eat all those crusty bits?
Or...
If you leave them on the plate, does that mean you don’t give a shit about all those starving kids in wherever Bob Geldoff dreams about going next to reclaim his crown as being the White Saviour Complexity of the people?
I mean...
The pizza parlour are just going to throw your crusty bits out and not even the foxes will get it, let alone those starving kids.
Anyway...
I am sure none of this slicing pizza, has got anything to do with whatever the former Bill Drummond was thinking about when he wrote the words for his SLICE – NOTICE.
That said...
I guess that SLICE is one of my all-time favourite Verbs. It is all there in its sound.
Yours, from the shop floor,
Brush (Your Shop Steward)
22/40 HOW TO COMMODIFY YOUR DYING BREATH
SPOKE
WRIT
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 27th August 2026
Fellow Workers,
The former Bill Drummond was down on the shop floor this morning. He was going on about something he had heard on the Today Programme on Radio Four or read on his Guardian app. I have to admit this is something he does most days, but I just ignore what he is saying as there are always too many other things to be getting on with to stop this place falling apart.
Anyway...
What he was talking about seemed to stick with me. It was about the current President of the United States of America, whoever she or he is at the moment.
And...
It seems this President of the United States of America is going to be charging people up to one-hundred-thousand dollars a month to get his tweets on his Lies Social, earlier than anybody else.
And before I had time to respond with my wit...
And I should say here, I seem to be the only active worker, on the shop floor of the Penkiln Burn Universe, that seems to have any wit...
VAPE SHOP starts to mumble something.
Or...
Should that be...
Grumble something?
He was supposed to be out doing his charity shop trudge, but was wanting to know if anybody was still interested in making the film about him.
They weren’t...
But he started to go on about this Commodification thing.
I mean...
Didn’t he know that ‘commodification’ does not exist in the Penkiln Burn Universe.
But anyway...
And there was no stopping him know.
I mean, wants he starts...
He was wanting to know if I could organise it to commodify his death. As in sell forty tickets for a thousand quid each for people to sit around his death bed as he is about to breathe his last.
The thing is with VAPE SHOP, you can never tell if this is just his darkest of humour or he is being serious.
He said the forty thousand quid, could be put to the cost of the funerals for all of us currently working in Penkiln Burn Universe.
The former Bill Drummond chipped in with his idea. He was suggesting we should flip what that President of the United States of America was proposing, and charge people to get the daily updates to FOOT NOTE, but a day later. The thing with the former Bill Drummond’s attempts at humour, even he does not find it funny, so i just ignored what he said.
So I came in with my own suggestion...
If VAPE SHOP is so keen commodifying some aspect of whatever time he had left or whatever he was doing as he trudged the streets of his Bleak City.
And this is what I proposed...
If he actually completes his forty weeks of doing his charity shop runs (when he is not skiving off to try and get onto island that don’t want him, of having fantasies about being a bird) maybe he should go and rip off the former Bill Drummond’s fan boy worship of the artist Richard Long.
And...
Draw a circle on his map of his Bleak City.
And...
The circumference of this circle should be Forty Miles in the real world.
And...
This circumference should start at that six-sided bench outside Southgate Tube Station.
And...
Over forty weeks, he should trudge a mile of that circle.
And...
While trudging his weekly mile he should let what he like to call Hand Held Device to construct images of as many of the works of the Bleak City Art Movement he passes.
And...
He should have those images printed A5 size by the Cypriot woman at the Kodak shop just up from the station.
And...
Here comes the commodification bit...
Anybody willing to squander a hundred quid, can get a mile’s worth of those constructed and printed images sent to them in the post.
And...
All that gets done, and there are enough suckers out there, that should raise four thousand quid for his funeral, if not the rest of us here down on the shop floor.
Game?
Yours, from the shop floor,
Brush (Your Shop Steward)
Post Script:
The Bank Manager, as in of CREE BANK, has just overheard the back end of what I have just been telling you.
And...
He is now telling me, in no uncertain terms, the deal I have just been offering you is not only impossible within the Penkiln Burn Universe...
But...
It goes against everything the Penkiln Burn Universe was supposed to represent.
I am somewhat not surprised at this; he has many issues with how the ‘real world’ works. He is insisting that if there is anyone out there who actually wants to buy ‘get a mile’s worth of those constructed and printed images sent to them in the post’ they will have to pay using the currency of CREE BANK. He is willing to offer the said get ‘a mile’s worth of those constructed and printed images sent to them in the post’ for the price of two knitted SQUARE (see details elsewhere) and posted to the address...
CREE BANK
c/o Marlin Spike Hall
Walpole
Suffolk
IP19 9AR
23/40 BLUR THE LIPSTICK TRACES
SPOKE
WRIT
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 3rd September 2026
Fellow Workers,
And I don’t mean Blur that band from whenever...
I mean blur the actual meaning of life.
Or just blur those lipstick traces on the butt of a cigarette or on the collar of your shirt.
Anyway...
If you don’t know how to blur the evidence scattered across your past life, you better start learning now.
I am not the one to teach you.
You can teach yourself.
It is all already there in DNA of every mere human being living the lie of life on the planet at this very moment in time.
Yours, from the shop floor,
Brush (Your Shop Steward)
Post Script:
I have noted that the former Bill Drummond has yet to choose the verb CHEAT to be one of his Forty Work O’Art. He has been good at that one.
24/40 STAND & DELIVER
SPOKE
WRIT
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 10th September 2026
Fellow Workers,
Have you ever stood alone on the bridge looking over the edge down into the rushing waters flowing underneath and wondered if those rushing waters might have more to offer your life than whatever tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow might ever or never offer.
Or...
Have you ever stood alone waiting, and waiting, and waiting for the bus that never came, even though your smart phone said it was about to arrive in five minutes, and then ten minutes later, it was telling you that it had departed five minutes ago.
Or...
Have your ever stood alone waiting alone in a bar for that boy to turn up? The one you met by chance in this same bar last week, and then spent the night with, and then in the morning you wanted to swap numbers with, but he said he would meet you in the same bar, at the same time next week. But now it over an hour since... And you know you have been stood up again one more time...
Thus...
It is now time to make that stand against not only the three examples I have given above, but everything else those best-laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men might throw our way.
As in listen to...
Stand and Deliver by Adam & The Ants
Then go out there and make your stand.
Yours, from the shop floor,
Brush (Your Shop Steward)
25/40 IMMIGRANT or EX-PAT?
SPOKE
WRIT
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 17th September 2026
Fellow Workers,
I think I have issues with whatever the former Bill Drummond is going on about in his Migrate NOTICE. Or maybe it is just I am bored of them. Or it just the turning of the season. I know I am supposed to represent him as his Shop Steward, but I am also your shop steward as well. I have to find some sort of balance in all of this.
I mean...
Has the former Bill Drummond been reading the CULT PORN thing that VAPE SHOP has been writing for you to read tomorrow, and is now wanting to compete with him by identifying as an immigrant. If that is the case I would like to suggest at the next shop floor meeting that he should migrate (or is that immigrate) to Bolivia. I take it you have heard him going on about how Bolivia is the only country in the world he would ever want to immigrate to but at the same time has never done anything about it.
I mean...
I would like to see him attempt cross The Channel in an overcrowded inflatable dingy.
Actually...
That is an idea-and-a-half... Maybe we should start selling, in a limited edition of 17, a crossing of the English Channel in an inflatable dingy, for a nominal fee of £5,000. And when you land at Dover, or wherever, you get your signed certificate. And if your dingy sinks you get your money back.
But there is a darker side to this.
When you sign up for this work of art that has the title of IMIGRATION, a coin is tossed. Heads you are on the shore at Calais waiting to get on your inflatable dingy. Tails, you have to dress in black with a balaclava and be down on the harbour at Dover, waiting for that dingy to land..
Yours thoughts on how this Work of Art can be improved upon.
Yours from the shop floor,
Brush (Your Shop Steward)
26/40 IDENTIFY WITH WHATEVER
SPOKE
WRIT
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 24th September 2026
Fellow Workers,
This whole ‘identity’ thing is getting out of control...
I mean...
I identify as a paint brush; a young woman from Merseyside and a Yew Tree, that some might claim to be thousands of years old.
I mean...
We are living through these entitled times in the Penkiln Burn Universe, where we can all identify as whatever we want.
Maybe I should offer you the chance to be a character in this Penkiln Burn Universe. You choose the name of your character, jot down some of your basic personality traits, and I will see if I can get the former Bill Drummond to cast you as a character in something he is writing, before we reach the end of this unfolding Foot Note to that YEAR ZERO pamphlet.
I mean...
In his IDENTIFY poster he did not even ask you to attempt to identify as something you have never identified as before, and I assumed that was the whole concept of these FORTY WORK O’ART things. As in putting the verb used in the title into practise.
Anyway...
I look forward to hearing back from you, and it won’t cost you a penny, not like that immigration thing from last week.
Yours, from the shop floor,
Brush (Your Shop Steward)
brush@penkilnburn.com
27/40 EXPLOIT WITH TREPIDATION
SPOKE
WRIT
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 1st October 2026
Fellow Worker,
I don’t know if me writing these words and you reading them involve the act of exploitation. Either way, I have decided to use my take on this week’s Forty Work O’Art, as an justification to share the following email exchange with you.
As you will see, it begins with an email from a Laurence Hedges, I have no idea where he is from so, I have randomly selected that he should have a period caricature of a Cockney accent.
Yours, from the shop floor,
Brush (Your Shop Steward)
From: Laurence Hedges
Date: Saturday, 26 September 2026 at 14:32
To: Bill Drummond
Subject: Echo & The Bunnymen
Dear Bill Drummond,
I’m in the throes of researching and writing a biography of Echo & The Bunnymen to be published by Wymer UK in September 2027. With the awareness that you’ve probably been interviewed and asked questions about your pivotal role in the band coming to fruition hundreds of times, I’m approaching you with not a little trepidation that you might be prepared to talk on Zoom or, at a stretch, meet face to face. Either way, any contribution you might be prepared to make, would be invaluable.
Thank you for agreeing to be contacted in the first instance.
Best wishes
Laurence Hedges
ZOOM OR NOT TO ZOOM?
Monday the 28th of September 2026
Fellow Worker & Biographer of The Banshees,
I am the Shop Steward for the Penkiln Burn Universe. And as such, represent all the characters within the Penkiln Burn Universe, including the former Bill Drummond
The former Bill Drummond forwarded me your email, and we have had a quick chat about things.
As you are probably aware the former Bill Drummond is not in a fit mental state to be interviewed about anything other than how many spoons of sugar, he may have in his tea (and if you are asking - none). That said, I am not aware that he has ever been willingly interviewed about Echo & The Bunnymen. And if he was, I do not think whatever answers he gave to questions asked would ever stack up to any sort of verification... He has always been more reliable at asking questions than answering them...
And on that subject…
He, as in that former Bill Drummond, asked me to forward to you his following four questions...
Question One:
We are now living in a world where every band that that has ever existed, are defined by a given genre. This defining has been done for the sake of the playlists that govern the streaming platforms that control our global listening habits.For many…
Echo & The Bunnymen are currently defined as Post Punk.
Whereas…
If you were to assess the demographics of their audience in the early 80s, one could clearly observe Echo & The Bunnymen were already destined to become a classic Proto-Heritage band. The difference between being a Proto-Heritage Band and being a Proto-Legacy Act, is open to much debate.
Anyway...
Back to the said early 80s demographics, who would make up the audience of Echo & The Bunnymen gigs... They were mainly made up of young white men of moderate intelligence, who considered their thoughts, to be more worthy than others of their generation. Those others being white males who read Sounds and not the NME. This default of theirs would mean they were destined to grow old, and want to relive their younger years, by reading books about the bands they considered to reflect their still perceived above average intelligence.
That’s if we step aside from the post Donnie Darko generations and the current Stranger Things generation. This generation might be listening to Echo & The Bunnymen on the playlist that fall under the genre of Gothic Nouveau.
Anyway...
As of right now, every one of those Proto-Heritage Bands and the majority of the Proto-Legacy Acts have had numerous books written about them, and published by publishers hoping to exploit those defined above, who want to relive their youth in some vicarious sort of way in. This has become the norm. It is the whole business model of numerous publishers, White Rabbit being the prime example.
And here comes the question...
Might the myth of Echo & The Bunnymen be longer and darker and deeper, if there was never one of these books about them. As in might the publication of a said book, reduce what is left of them to a mere item that can be streamed or bought on Amazon? Little more than merch, to be sold along with t-shirts and limited-edition vinyl pressings.
Or...
Even worse than a book would be a ninety-minute documentary.
What would work far better is a ballet inspired by Echo & The Bunnymen based on the century’s old creation myth of their formative years.
A loaded and somewhat negative question, but a question that has to be addressed.
I mean...
What are books about bands for?
Do they exist just to fill a gap in the market?
Is filling a gap in the market what we aspire to be as the writer of words?
Is your purpose in life to fill a gap in the market?
Or...
Is your purpose in life to establish a ballet inspired by the creation myth of Echo & The Bunnymen that could rival that of Elias Lônnrot’s interpretation of the Kalevala?As you may have noted the above question contains numerous sub questions, you choose which one you want to answer, but feel free to answer all or any, if you feel the need.
Question Two:
Have you interviewed Bill Butt, Ian Broudie, Hugh Jones, Mick Houghton, Adam Peters and Rob Dickins? If not – why not? If not – when will you?Question Three:
When should a band end?
I mean, if Andy Warhol was correct and in the future we will all have our fifteen minutes of fame, when were The Bunnymen’s fifteen minutes up?
Was it when the editor of the NME would choose to have Morrisey on the front cover over having Ian McCulloch on the front cover?Or...
Was it immediately after the release of Ocean Rain? As in ‘it is a truth universal acknowledged that’ no band should release more than four albums before they split up.
Or...
Should they reform to fulfil their given destiny, thus becoming merely a Proto-Heritage Band or even just a Proto-Legacy Act?
Or...
If a band is an art form (which I think they should be), is it not better they have a definite end, like a novel, or a film, or even an opera? I mean would the opera of Echo & The Bunnymen, be better than the ballet? And I don’t mean merely one of those West End rock opera things like Jesus Christ Superstar, but a proper opera with opera singers playing the four leading roles?
Question Four:
Have you browsed the manuscript to From The Shores of Lake Placid (1998)?Have you contemplated either of the following two plays The Public Execution of Pop Stars (2020) and Crocks, Hevvo, Porky & Drizz (2021), both written by Tenzing Scott Brown
Have you immersed yourself in the album Voices From The Galloverse (2024) as in the soundtrack to the imaginary film of maybe the same name?
Have you read the first novel that William E. Drummond ever wrote, that has the title THIS BOOK (1978 – 1984)?
Or even...
Read Brush (Your Shop Steward)’s missive with the title See More Sky (2026)?
If not, why not?
Question Five:
What is the size of the advance that your publishers are paying you? And would you rather it was more?
After reading these four questions, but before forwarding them to you, I told the former Bill Drummond, that I did not think that this Laurence Hedges would want to be answering them, especially as there seemed to be considerably more than four questions. And even the mere asking of some of these questions might be interpreted as a form of would-be elitists passive-aggression.
After disappearing to put the kettle on, he returned in a couple of minutes with a fresh pot of Darjeeling tea, poured himself a mug (black-no-sugar), took a sip and said...
“Okay, instead of asking the Four Questions, I will provide this Laurence Hedges with Four Statements.”
Larry...
I can call you Larry?
I will endeavour to get the former Bill Drummond’s Four Statements to you in the coming days, as in by the end of this week, and we can take things from there. That said, the former Bill Drummond has often proclaimed he is going to be doing something, and then within less than 48 hours, will deny such a proclamation ever took place.
Yours, from the shop floor,
Brush (Your Shop Steward)
28/40 CONTRIBUTE TO THE DOWNFALL
SPOKE
WRIT
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 8th October 2026
Fellow Worker and Contributor to the Global Good,
The former Bill Drummond arrived in the workshop this morning seemingly very excited.
I mean...
It is very much not in the former Bill Drummond’s Presbyterian personality to be excited about anything.
But...
What he seemed to be excited about was that he had distilled his thoughts regarding Echo & The Bunnymen down to four mistakes he had made. After reading them through, I warned him that maybe he should not share these thoughts with the wider world. But he insisted he should. I then told him that I did not think we should invite Angie Darcy to record him reciting these words, because it might in some way implicate her in what he is stating. Thus if they are to exist as spoken words, he should record them himself. He did not seem willing to do this but suggested that maybe VAPE SHOP would read them. VAPE SHOP agreed. What follows after this missive to you should be those words and maybe VAPE SHOP’s rendition of them.
Yours, from the shop floor,
Brush (Your Shop Steward)
Post Script:
I would personally like to add here that the former Bill Drummond made dramatically more than four mistakes when it came to his term as the manager of Echo & Those Bunnymen. As I am sure others can surely give evidence of.
Tuesday the 29th of September 2026
Dear Laurence Hedges
The former Bill Drummond here...
Much of what follows I have spoken about in the past...
Rights Disease is a disease that exists inside people’s brains. The sufferers of Rights Disease often go through there life thinking they are right about almost everything. Thus, they are never able to learn from being Wrong.
Wrongs Syndrome is a syndrome that exists inside people’s brains. The sufferers from Wrongs Syndrome often go through their life not just thinking but actually being wrong about almost everything.
As a person who has been diagnosed with Wrongs Syndrome, I would like to express why I think it better to have Wrongs Syndrome than suffering from Rights Disease.
Those with Rights Disease, rarely learn anything, as they have nothing to learn, as they are always right. Whereas if you have Wrongs Syndrome, you can learn all sorts of things through the act of being wrong.
A side effect of having Wrongs Syndrome is that one is more prone to making mistakes.
I would like to lay bare four of the major Mistakes that I have made in my historical relationship with the art work known to some as Echo & The Bunnymen.
Mistake One:
In the February of 1980, I was sitting alone in 1 Chicago Buildings, on Whitechapel, in Liverpool. This was the Zoo Records office. It was freezing. I was wondering. But I had no idea what I was wondering about. Then the phone rang. I picked up the phone, but before I had a chance to say “Good morning, this is Bill Drummond at The Zoo, thank you for calling, how can I help you?” I was bombarded by the voice at the other end of the line. The voice was coming from the other end of The East Lancs, as in the voice was coming from Manchester. And the voice was coming from the mouth of an Anthony H Wilson. As in Tony Wilson from Factory Records.
“What the fuck are you doing Bill? If you go and sign The Bunnymen to one of those record companies down in London, you are not only selling their souls to Satan, but you are also admitting defeat in that battle between the North and the South. I mean Liverpool had already sold The Beatles to those down there, and you are about to do the same thing all over again. You will never be forgiven for this. It is not just The Bunnymen, it is what Liverpool and in turn all of us in the North should be standing up for, and you are willing to...”
I tried to get a word in edgeways...
“But Tony, it is easy for you to say that you have a well-paid job on the telly, we are all on the dole...”
But this Tony Wilson was having none of it...
And we did sign Echo & The Bunnymen to one of those record companies down in London. We did not even get the full thirty pieces of silver. That was my first major mistake. It took me some years to fully learn from that mistake. But back in that February of 1980, it was already too late for The Bunnymen, they were already being thrown in the mire, and they were never able to cleanse themselves of it. And I must take responsibility for that.
Mistake Two:
The second major mistake was made soon after that first one. And in someways it was a mistake that was made in the shadow of that first one, maybe even done in an attempt to cleanse us of that mire.
By then we had already signed Echo & The Bunnymen to Satan Records down in London, where they also had them record a version of their song Rescue down there. But this recording did not rescue them but further sunk them into the mire of human shite.
So...
I attempted some sort of cleansing by getting The Bunnymen to record the demos for their first album at Cargo Studios in Rochdale. As in the studio that a Joy Division had already recorded their first album.
But...
Although Satan Records thought the demos were fine, we ended up recording that Echo & The Bunnymen first album somewhere else where major international hits had been recorded. This first album by this Echo & The Bunnymen was shite compared to the tracks that they merely recorded as demos at Cargo Studios in Rochdale. If that Echo & The Bunnymen’s first album had been recorded at Cargo Studio in Rochdale, it would have been an eternal classic album and not just some wannabe also ran. My mistake totally.
Mistake Three:
The mistakes were escalating.
This third major one happened in the Spring on 1984.
Satan Records were keen for me to do a deal with a major American Management company, so that Echo & The Bunnymen could be co-managed in the USA, by a proper music management company who knew what they were doing.
So...
I got on a plane and flew to Los Angeles, for a meeting with this proper music management company. This management company also managed a singer songwriter called Bob Dylan. This Bob Dylan had made some good records back in the 60s but was now just a tribute act to his former self, cashing in on whatever he could in that Heritage market.
I told the man from this major American Management Company, that if they wanted to do a deal with me for the co-management of Echo & The Bunnymen for the USA, they had to let me manage this washed-up singer songwriter from the 1960s in the UK & Europe.
And also...
That for this singer songwriter’s next album, they should use Echo & The Bunnymen as the backing band, so his songs could sound relevant and cutting edge and new. In the same way as when this Bob Dylan had recorded his songs with a band called The Band in the mid to late 1960s – you have heard the Basement Tapes? And then this now not washed-up Singer Songwriter from the 1960s, could tour the USA with Echo & The Bunnymen. And them Bunnymen would open the show with their set and then stay on stage when the Bob Dylan joined them, and he and they would play his songs.
Now...
This Major American Management company liked this idea, they thought it would work in making their washed-up singer songwriter from the 60s seem cutting edge to the young ones that listened to College Radio and KROQ and...
But...
They would not agree with me being the manager of that Bob Dylan for the UK and Europe.
So...
I said, ‘No deal’. And that was that, and I flew back to Liverpool and never mentioned any of this to that Echo & The Bunnymen.
This Mistake Three might have been an even more major mistake than the first two.
Mistake Four:
There was a shite band from Dublin called U2. This shite band had supported Echo & The Bunnymen at the Lyceum Ballroom in London on the 7th of September 1980. This U2 were up their own arse. But not as much as their manager was. I told him to fuck off.
But...
The Irish love America. And the Americans love the Irish.
And the Irish love to be loved by the Americans.
They can’t get enough of fucking each other, especially when it comes to elections.
This shite band from Dublin were no different. They would lick whatever American arse they thought needed licking.
And...
There was this TV programme in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne called The Tube. And the manager of this Shite Band from Dublin did a deal with The Tube for The Tube to make a film of Shite Band, in a desert in the USA. This film was called Shite Band at Red Rocks. And this film made Shite Band into a stadium band in the USA. And I thought this film was as worse as you could get. You may as well be protesting for the USA to go drop a nuclear bomb on Cuba and re-start the Vietnam War.
So...
I went to Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and knocked on the door of a Malcolm Gerrie, who was the boss of this TV programmed called The Tube. And I told him, that we could make a far better film of Echo & The Bunnymen, but it would not have to involve licking the arse of The USA and re-starting the Vietnam War. It could all be filmed in Liverpool and it would celebrate Liverpool and it would make up for The Beatles scuttling away to London, and for me having sold The Bunnymen to Satan Records for less than Thirty Pieces of Silver.
And Malcolm Gerrie said ‘Yes’.
And we shook hands.
And I gave everything I had to making this day happen in ways that even those Beatles could never have done. This was going to be the greatest performance art piece performed by the greatest band in the world and all done in their own back yard.
And the world would see it.
And no arses would have to be licked.
Roll over Andy Warhol and tell Francis Ford Coppola the news.
This was going to be it.
And it was to be named A Crystal Day.
And it was a crystal day. Like no other day.
And the day was filmed.
And the film was called A Crystal Day.
And...
For almost 24 hours I thought I had made up for all those previous three mistakes I had made and learnt from. And even all those other mistakes not listed here.
But...
When A Crystal Day was aired on The Tube, I realised that I had made a seismically more massive mistake than the previous three now minor mistakes.
In reality...
In the edit suite, which I had not even considered visiting, this A Crystal Day ended up being made into nothing more than a backdrop for the pub pianist and part-time presenter of The Tube to use, so he could pretend that he had a sense of humour. A butt for his bad jokes.
Time to jump of the Runcorn Bridge.
But an even larger mistake was waiting for me around the bend.
Mistake Five of Four:
Now I have alluded to on numerous occasions – no band should make more than four albums. In August 1984, Echo & The Bunnymen released their fourth album, it was called Ocean Rain. We all knew they could never make a better album than this. This was obviously to be the end of the band. The work had been done. Those four albums together made a perfect work of art that would stand for centuries. Even though each of those four albums each had their own shite-ness and oozed the flaws that I could be held responsible for.
I thought...
Even though These Bunnymen should never record another album, they could tour the hidden corners of the world, and their mythology would grow and seep and spread. From the densest jungles in darkest Bolivia to a Buddhist monastery halfway up the Himalayas, they would play, but never some festival where people could buy tickets and pretend to be alternative and all that shite.
I spoke with the band’s guitarist. I will not name the names. And he told me that the only thing he liked about being in the band was the recording of the albums.
So maybe I did not jump off the Runcorn Bridge as alluded to earlier, but I did jump ship. Or was I being pushed.
But before jumping or being pushed I went and bought myself a gun.
And...
I had a plan. And every night I would wake sometime after 3am and go through my plan.
But before I reveal the plan, I need to restate some of my thinking about what a band is...
A Band as a form of art, is probably the greatest form of art that evolved through the latter decades of the 20th Century. Before then musician were tradesmen, doing a job like a cobblers or baker or mason. Every village had to have a musician to play at weddings, funerals, Friday night dance etc. With the rise of mass media through the 20th Century some of these jobbing musicians could become stars, like travelling players becoming movie stars.
But...
And it is a major but...
It was not until that other band from Liverpool, evolve into being more than entertainers, could a band of mere musician transform into becoming a work of art.
As a work of art a band, was first and foremost created by those in the band. But being a mere member of band meant one could never stand outside the band and...
As in a painting cannot stand outside of itself to improve the subtle sunset or the ark of the...
No...
A Band is as much the creation of those watching the band, or writing about the band, and all those working around the band – from the mere hired hands to the legendary producer brought in to...
As their manager, I knew my job was not to make them happy or rich, or to fill stadiums or...
My job was to make sure that in decades, if not centuries to come, Echo & The Bunnymen would be seen as one of the major works of art of the late 20th Century.
So back to the gun that I had bought – buying a gun back then in Liverpool was not that difficult.
And the plan...
I was going to shoot and murder the lead singer of this Echo & The Bunnymen. Not because I had any personal issues with the lead singer of Echo & The Bunnymen. But because I knew for his genius to be truly recognised he had to be murdered by the bands manager. This was obvious.
And in the short term...
Echo & The Bunnymen could never record another album, and even though A Crystal Day was shite-er than shite, they would be the only band whose lead singer was murdered by their supposed manager. This would be History. Maybe The Smiths had now replaced The Bunnymen as the favourites around the editorial table at the NME, but nothing would compete with this.
And yes...
I would go to prison for maybe 20 years, but it would be worth it.
This was my duty as their manager.
I mean...
If JFK had not been assassinated, he would have just ended up some washed-up ex-president. As in not the most remembered president of the USA in the 20th Century.
I mean...
Echo & The Bunnymen would go down as one of the greatest bands of all time. The operas would be made and the ballets danced. And in this modern world their streams on the likes of Spotify would be in the tens million a month.
But I didn’t.
Instead...
I just ran away and threw the gun off the Runcorn Bridge.
Yes...
I did return years later to paint the words IMAGINE WAKING UP TOMORROW AND ALL MUSIC HAS DISAPPEARED on the underside of the Runcorn Bridge.
And my running away included going to Glastonbury Festival in 1996, where I knew this Echo & The Bunnymen were to be playing. But it wasn’t Echo & The Bunnymen, it was just some tribute band that went by the same name playing all the old hits that people wanted to hear.
Never give the people what the people want.
The next morning, I wrote a song called Julian Cope is Dead. Obviously, I had changed the name of the protagonist of song to protect the guilty. And in turn people could think it was nothing more than a joke in bad taste.
Thus...
The not murdering the singer of Echo & The Bunnymen was the fifth and final of my four major mistakes.
Sadly, I have not been able to make any more mistakes to rectify the making of these previous ones.
Now back to the present day, and you writing your book on this band. If you want to use any of the content included in this missive to you, you have to use it all, as in the whole of this letter, including these words you are reading now. Thus no edited highlights. No mere quotes. All or nothing.
This is my contribution.
This is me contributing.
As for you asking me a question. I guess you know already, the price of asking me one question is you knitting a square of wool containing one-thousand stiches and posting that square via...
Marlin Spike Hall
Walpole
Suffolk
IP19 9AR
Yours...
The former Bill Drummond
29/40 MAKING THE MOVES
SPOKE
WRIT
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 15th October 2026
VAPE SHOP here,
Brush (Your Shop Steward) is attending an International Shop Steward Conference in Wolverhampton, in Upstate New York. We do not know how long she will be there.
Thus...
This has prompted us to invite Larry “Movie” Steenbeck to pass his comments based on this week’s FORTY WORK O’ART.
Larry “Movie” Steenbeck accepted our invitation, but we have no idea if he actually read the MOVE / NOTICE. We think he was more interested in talking about himself. But he always seems to have something interesting to say.
Larry “Movie” Steenbeck is one of the more interesting characters in the Penkiln Burn Universe, that most people have never heard of.
Later...
Spoke by Tony Wright in character as Larry ‘Movie’ Steenbeck
MOVING PICTURES INTO SWINDON
I am a mover...
Not a shaker...
I am the mover for Penkiln Burn Moving Pictures.
Note: not to be confused with Penkiln Burn Motion Pictures.
My job in life is to move pictures.
I have been moving pictures longer than anyone you know has ever been watching moving pictures.
How this moving of pictures is done varies from time to time and place to place.
And job to job...
Sometimes it involves the moving of pictures from the back of a van onto an island in the middle of a river.
And...
Sometimes it involves the moving of the picture you have in your head of the world around you, so you see the world in a way you have never seen that picture of the world before.
And...
Sometimes it involves the moving of pictures through a glass lens and then those pictures being moved through the dark air and onto a big screen. And that can be thousands of pictures, maybe even millions of pictures, one after the other, so you can observe those pictures that I am moving, through that glass lens, through that dark air and onto that big screen, and for over 90 minutes. This is being done in the hope you can enter another world. And feel those feelings you have never felt before. And think those thoughts that you never thought you could think.
Sometime the pictures I move are dull.
Sometime the pictures I move are the best pictures you might have ever seen.
But I cannot be the judge of either of those last two statements.
You be the judge.
I do not have the ability to judge.
I only have the ability to move...
Move pictures.
And...
I have never made pictures.
I just move them.
But the technology of how those millions of pictures are moved changes, in the way the technology of how fields are ploughed changes.
Sometimes I cannot keep up with those changes, and other people can move the pictures faster and better than me.
On the evening of Friday the 13th of October 2026, I will be moving 24 pictures in a place called Studio BRUT, in a town called Swindon, in a country called England. These pictures are 24 of The 25 Paintings that had been painted by the former Bill Drummond but are now to have one thousand pink full moons painted on them.
This painting of One Thousand Pink Moons is to be done by 12 women wearing hooded cloaks. And this is being done for a Penkiln Burn Moving Picture called Poppies in The Field. Although it is my job to make sure the pictures move into becoming a Penkiln Burn Moving Picture, it is the job of a Tracey Moberly to direct the 12 women wearing the black hooded cloaks and painting the One Thousand Pink Moons and whose faces will never be seen in the moving picture with the title Poppies in The Field. And it is Tracey Moberly’s job to have a vision as to what this moving picture called Poppies in The Field should look like.
But...
This painting of One Thousand Pink Moons by twelve women wearing black hooded cloaks is to be the first scene shot in this moving picture. The other scenes will be shot next year in a place called Galloway, in a country called Scotland.
If you want to be one of those twelve woman painting One Thousand Pink Moons while wearing a black hooded cloak, you will have to contact people at Studio BRUT, and they will tell you how you will be rewarded and what risks you will be leaving yourself open to by taking part in the making of this moving picture. And where to be and at what time. And why maybe you should not be doing it. And Studio BRUT can be contacted via email at this email address hello@studiobrut.art
The people at Studio BRUT have names. Their names are Harrie and Steve. Although Steve has another name called SLART.
If you want to know why it has to be woman that are painting the One Thousand Pink Moons and wearing black hooded cloaks, I am not 100% certain but have been told it is because this moving picture is about the some women over throwing the patriarchy in an imaginary parallel universe called the Galloverse.
On the night in question, as in on the evening of Friday the 13th of November, I will also be assisted by the former Bill Drummond, who will also be making a vat of soup for all those painting the One Thousand Pink Moons and following the directions given by the director of the moving picture, whose name is still Tracey Moberly.
If some of the information that I have been attempting to communicate with you is somewhat confusing, that is because communicating words is not my thing but moving pictures is.
My name is Steenbeck, but not Wilhelm Steenbeck, but Larry Steenbeck. But people call me Movie... as in Movie the Mover
And on the night after the night in Studio BRUTT in that place called Swindon, I will be moving pictures through the dark air in a picture house called The Nickel in a place called London. The pictures I will be moving at The Nickel is called STAY, and that has also been directed by that Tracey Moberly and made by Penkiln Burn Moving Pictures
See you later...
Movie The Mover
30/40 SELL WHAT YOU CAN
SPOKE
WRIT
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 22nd October 2026
Like...
Brush (Your Shop Steward) is still away at her International Shop Steward Conference in Wolverhampton, in Upstate New York. Or at least that is what she has messaged us. But there seems to be some suspicion on the shop floor of the Penkiln Burn Universe that she has maybe done a runner with that...
Anyway...
I am not going to name names.
But...
I would like to introduce you to...
Ah don’t need onybody introducin’ me.
Ah’m Maggie O’Merch, an’ Ah can sell onythin’.
When Ah wis a wee lassie growin’ up in the Gallowgate—Glasgow, ye ken—Ah’d staun oan the corner sellin’ a smile fur tuppence. There wis aye some auld granny that wid gie me twa coppers.
But then Ah hud a better idea...
Wee Shella fae next door hud a pink party frock, wi’ ribbons an’ curls, so Ah’d get her tae staun oan the corner in her pink frock, wi’ the pink ribbons in her hair. An’ Ah’d tell the auld boys comin’ oot the pub doon the street that, if they gied me a tanner, Ah could get Shella tae smile an’ curtsey tae them.
An’ they did.
An’ Shella did.
An’ Ah gied Shella tuppence an’ kept the ither fourpence fur masel’.
Then, oan a Friday night, Ah’d buy a thruppenny poke o’ chips. An’ Ah could sell every chip tae the lads that’d been playin’ fitba’ up the street, at a ha’penny a chip.
An’ Ah didnae even huv tae smile at them. Ah mean, they wid a’ be smilin’ at me.
Then, when Ah turned thirteen, a’ the lads in ma tenement went tae see a band ca’d the Sensational Alex Harvey Band at the Apollo. This wis back in May ’74. Ah hudnae a clue wha this band wis. They werenae the Bay City Rollers, but a’ the boys were talkin’ aboot them an’ wantin’ tae look like them.
Ah says, “Whit dae they look like?”
An’ they showed me a photie in a pop paper.
An’ Ah says, “Ah could mak ye look like that—if ye pay me.”
But the money hud gone decimal by then, an’ we didnae huv thruppenny bits an’ tanners an’ bobs an’ florins an’ hauf-croons an’ a’ the rest ony mair.
So they’d gie me ten pence tae paint their faces like that Zal Cleminson in the band.
An’ then Ah saw thae stripy T-shirts that Alex Harvey wore. Ah could buy twenty o’ them fur fifty pence apiece.
An’ sell them fur a quid each.
But then everythin’ changed...
Ah saw a lad wearin’ a T-shirt wi’ the name o’ a band oan it. So Ah bought a load o’ cheap white T-shirts doon the Barras an’ painted the bands oan them. Ah soon kent which bands thae lads wanted oan their T-shirts.
An’ Ah could sell them fur three quid.
An’ whaever wis comin’ tae play in Glasgow, Ah’d get the T-shirts done wi’ their name oan them, an’ Ah’d be ootside the gig sellin’ them. An’ they were a damn sight cheaper than the wans the bands were tryin’ tae sell inside.
An’ onyway, mine looked better.
Mair creative.
Then wan lad asked me if Ah did posters.
So Ah says, “Aye.”
So, come the next concert, there Ah wis ootside sellin’ the T-shirts an’ the posters. An’ wee Shella wis there helpin’ me, wi’ her smiles an’ her wee short skirt an’ her cleavage an’ a’ that.
An’ the lads were queuin’ up.
A’ ye hud tae dae wis ken whit the lads wanted afore they kent they wanted it.
Then Ah learnt that the students up at the university were the daftest o’ the lot. A damn sight dafter than the lads Ah grew up wi’. They aye wanted a poster tae stick oan the wa’ o’ their room. So Ah made thae Andy Warhol-type prints o’ Alex Harvey an’ Johnny Rotten an’ that fella oot the Clash, an’ the Ramones an’ a’ the rest.
Then Ah got sent tae the jail fur somethin’ Ah did.
Although Ah said Ah didnae dae it.
But we a’ dae things we should never huv done.
But Ah’m oot noo, an’ the world’s still the same. There’s aye somethin’ folk want. Ye jist huv tae ken whit they want afore they ken they want it, an’ get it fur them cheap.
Then, when Ah heard aboot this Bill Drummond, wha disnae like daein’ merch—but Ah kent fine there were folk oot there wantin’ merch tae dae wi’ whit he wis up tae—Ah saw an opportunity.
Ah aye see thae opportunities.
Even if they get me intae bother noo an’ again.
So noo Ah’ll sell ye onythin’ ye want that ye reckon’s got somethin’ tae dae wi’ Bill Drummond, or whaever he’s up tae.
There’s that mony mugs oot there.
An’ then there’s that retro market. Ah can still buy a poke o’ chips—though ye’ll no get them fur a thruppenny bit ony mair—but Ah tell folk that Bill Drummond bought thae chips an’ then gied them tae me.
An’ Ah’ll sell them wan chip oot the poke fur a quid.
An’ folk buy them.
Ah mean...
How far could ye tak it?
Ah bet there’s somebody oot there that wid buy a bit o’ paper he’d wiped his arse oan.
Whit dae ye reckon?
Or should Ah jist stick tae sellin’ the tea towels an’ mugs wi’ The Curfew Towe oan them? Or posters fur that film STAY, signed by Puppet Elvis an’ the fella that played The Artist?
An’ folk love a limited edition. They think the art’s better if there’s only so mony o’ them.
A load o’ rubbish, of course.
But they dinnae ken that.
So Ah’m daein’ forty posters fae that film STAY.
Huv ye seen it?
Ah mean...
But onyway...
Ah’ll huv somebody there, whaever it’s gettin’ screened. An’ they’ll be sellin’ a special poster fur that screenin’, in an edition o’ forty, numbered an’ signed by that Puppet Elvis.
An’ the wans that dinnae get sold’ll get burnt.
They a’ ken he likes burnin’ things.
They’ll think it’s art or somethin’.
Ah mean, some o’ thae T-shirts Ah did back in ’77 go fur a fortune noo.
Dinnae miss oot.
If ye dinnae see me there, never mind.
Ah’ll be watchin’ ye.
An’ aye, Maggie O’Merch isnae ma real name. But it’s whit the lads back in Glasgow aye ca’d me, so it’ll dae fur noo.
Maggie the Mystery
(The character of Maggie O’Merch translated and SPOKE by Angie Darcy)
31/40 VOTE WITH YOUR FEET
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 29th October 2026
NEGATIVITY SELLS
Like...
It seems that Brush (Your Shop Steward) is still at her conference. And the others here on the shop floor all thought I should write whatever this is supposed to be. I guess they thought I had lost any purpose in life now that I have lost my Freedom Pass to travel on the top deck of buses across this Bleak City.
They were wrong.
I am still VAPE SHOP...
Will always be VAPE SHOP...
But anyway...
They told me, all I had to do was write 400 words in response to the NOTICE that the former Bill Drummond had done this week. I saw the title and read the first couple of lines, but I have not much interest in voting these days or even adding my name to petitions.
But then I had a thought...
And this is that thought condensed to whatever this is to be.
And this is to be...
The Inaugural Annual...
Penkiln Burn Moving Picture Awards
Or the PAWAS for short
Each year there will be four different categories.
Although we might, as individuals, want to be garnered with praise, we all individually know it is negativity that sells.
As in...
We like to read a good review of what we might have done
But...
We love to read a bad review of what someone else might have done.
We all know...
WAR creates more content than PEACE.
Rising Crime Rates breeds more content than Falling Crime Rates
Negativity inspires more content than Positivity.
Thus, the more negative the light that the film STAY is positioned in, the more it can be sold to those that would never have had an interest in it, in the first place.
Thus, this year’s categories are...
Now...
All those that have bought tickets for the screening of STAY at The Nickel are to be the Voting Body of the inaugural Penkiln Burn Moving Picture Awards (PAWAS).
Each of those attending will be handed a pencil and voting slip with the afore mentioned categories / questions upon it. After the screening they will be expected to vote on these four individual categories. Then the future Bill Drummond will collect the voting slips. The current governing board of the Penkiln Burn Moving Picture Awards (PAWAS), will then do The Count. The Count will be done in real time and in front of the now Forty Members of the Voting Body. And then the results will be announced by the future Bill Drummond.
If you don’t want to be on the Voting Board, sell your ticket now, and let someone else step up to The Plate of Justice & Democracy.
Later...
VAPE SHOP
vape@penkilnburn.com
32/40 CHOOSE FAILURE
SPOKE
WRIT
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 5th November 2026
FAILURE REJECTION RELEGATION?
Fellow Workers,
I have just got back from the Shop Steward Convention in Wolverhampton, and I found the former Bill Drummond painting the words FAILURE REJECTION RELEGATION on the walls of the workshop.
I knew there was no point in challenging him about what these words might mean to him or anybody else working within the Penkiln Burn Universe, but I did suggest to him that he should use it as ‘inspiration’ for his next NOTICE.
And now he has just delivered a sketch of that poster. I hope to have it laid out for you before this page goes live. That said, I don’t think he is in any state to record himself doing the audio of it – maybe by this time next week.
Yours, from the shop floor,
Brush (Your Shop Steward)
Or...
33/40 WRITE SEX, MONEY & DEATH
SPOKE
WRIT
From the bench of Your Shop Steward
Thursday, 12th November 2026
Fellow Workers,
Well...
At least this week the former Bill Drummond seems to have delivered a more positive NOTICE than that one about failure and rejection and relegation, that he delivered last week...
I guess it has sort of inspired me to challenge you with the following challenge...
Even if I don’t know that what I am about to write is said with irony but...
It is now time for you to start writing the Bill Drummond biography – as in not the memoir, as that has already been done and dusted by your fellow workers.
The title of the biography is to be...
SEX, MONEY & DEATH
And the opening paragraph is to be...
Bill Drummond’s life began with his would-be parents having sex.
Bill Drummond, if he is known for anything, it is for the burning of money.
Bill Drummond is now dead.
Thus...
It is time for me to start writing his biography...
Now it is time for you to start writing the rest, so it can be published as soon as he is properly dead and not just creatively dead. Nearly everything you need to know about him and his attitudes can be found within this FOOT NOTE thing, and if he gets around to doing the underside of FOOT NOTE in 2027, or is it 2028, there should be more there.
As for all the personal life stuff you can make that up. The quotes from those that hated him, the one-night stands with the almost famous, the broken relationships, those he left behind, those he could never catch up with.
The darker the better.
The more controversial the more the traction.
Bill Drummond will be dead, so there is nothing off the counter.
Send me the draft of your first chapter and I will pass it on to a literary agent, who I know will be interested and we will take it from there.
Yours, from the shop floor,
Brush (Your Shop Steward)
