She stumbled, heel snapped, toe stubbed on hard wood.
Out from her lips came the curse: 'Not Good.'
Then the glass fell, smashed
then the mirror cracked
and the toilet blocked
and the stalker knocked
and the mobile phone rang
and the radio sang all the songs she never wanted to hear.
She screamed, nerves shattered, oaths surged like a flood.
Fuck, cunt, shit bastard, cunt fuck cunt, Not Good.

Petulant Riskingham

A couple of days ago after another night of dipsomania my in-to-meridian snooze was interrupted by an unexpected caller. Drowsy with sleep I greeted the postman with a troglodyte growl, signed for the parcel and waved him off with an impromptu 'Now, go to hell'. He cackled as he departed so I guess some people are used to my antics by now. As soon as he was gone I tore the parcel open with startling alacrity to unearth a book; signed sealed and sent by the author himself. I felt my trotters quaver beneath me and slumped in to a chair, the book in my lap, and for a jiffy contemplated whether I was undergoing the sort of post-drunkmatic dream-reality malarkey that Jung had garbled about. But no, the proof was in my lap, and once I had it in my hand I didn't put it down until the end.

The book, responsible for holding me captive for an entire day, is Alistair McHarg's extraordinary memoir, Invisible Driving. Although essentially a memoir, I wouldn't like to pigeonhole it as such. You see, Mr McHarg is a true contrarian with a markedly subversive tendency of mind and thus his work combines polemic, satire, exploit, diablerie and humour throughout. Ultimately though Invisible Driving is a unique and bawdy, playful, slangy, intense and candid chef d'oeuvre circumscribing a man's plight and triumph over Manic Depression. And like all good explorations of the self it doesn't hold back a smidgen, diving into the ugly, the awkward, the tearfully funny and the heartbreaking, head first. One soon gets sucked into the frenzied quicksand of his prose. And let me add, quite willingly, McHarg conveys the inner workings of a manic mind with nonpareil wit and so convincingly that you're sure he must have wrote it in the midst of a manic stint. A snip:

'All's well that's oiled well. Well oil right. Yes, oil right you when I get work. The Abby of Get Sesame. Get Seth and me. They're gonna come for me. They're gonna comfort me. They're gonna come fit me. Here cummerbund, marching down her street, stamp in defeat. Detail. The lust shall be first. Lust in space. The vet space the dogs because he has to, and he has three cats. Three cats, know weighing. The ting about the bell is the sound. The whole ting. Speaking of Grand Canyon
as a whole. He's holed up in the square. They squared off in the best circles. If you think the party is dull, circulate, if you think it's fun, circle seven. I've never seen you be four, I've seen you be three but never be four. Nein! Ate. Severance. Sex. Thighs. Fore. Free. Toute. Won. Glasnost. Gezundheit! Ten Q. You're will's come. Where there's a will there's relatives. Come here. Come overhear…I'll besieging you, in old, familiar places. Place his everyone. Everyone played Counts. Except those who played Countesses. The Count's divorce was uncontested. That's wad he said. She bitter, man. At the auction she was chopping at the bid. Bitter farewell. Bidder farewell…Liquor, I hardly know her. How do you turn this thing off? Want a drink? No thanks, I'm not drinking anymore. Of course I'm not drinking any less either. Chez when? Chez what? Ceasar. Ceasar what? Ceasar Chavez. Where is it? The streetcars are broken, there's sick transit on this glorious Monday. Ghengis Khan but Emmanual Kant. If I had to do it all over again, I'd do it all over you. My wife, give her an inch and she thinks she's a ruler. A hard man is good to find. I never metaphor I didn't like. You can lead horticulture but you can't make her think. It's a boar ring case. Everybody has to believe something, I believe I'll have another drink.'

By the end you feel like a drink yourself. Often surreal, more often absurd, and written with a recognisably dark sense of humour throughout. Invisible Driving is a hallucinatory experience, a sublime recreation of Mania portrayed with immense prowess through which it conveys the dizzying myriad twists of the author's life. The changes in tone are nothing short of masterful. McHarg takes hard swerves abruptly so you better be ready when he flies at you like a glaive without a handlebar. It is a challenge but one you wouldn't dream of giving up. Invisible Driving charts one of the three of McHarg's major Manic episodes first-hand. You skid along, together, on very thin ice through a landscape of his debauched twilight, sometimes laughing, other times lachrymose, but all along you, as a reader, know that underneath the crazed bravado and the cocksure tongue-work there is a man who is about to crash and burn. There is another dimension to Invisible Driving - one which details McHarg's life either side of the vertiginous peaks. It offers insight into his past and answers questions that prickle your mind.

Eventually you realise that McHarg is someone who's been lucky and unlucky, stable and unstable, blessed and cursed. Primarily eccentric, in both the figurative and the literal meanings of that word, a little odd, idiosyncratic — more than a little, in fact — but also someone who has spent much of his life on the periphery of everything that might be considered conventional and someone who tells it with panache. Thus Invisible Driving is a prodigious mosaic of bewitchingly bent wordplay, outrageous witticisms and acerbic turns of phrase which come together beautifully to tell a man's story in a very epic sense.

PS There’s a link to Invisible Driving on the right. I urge you to check it out.

...once I teach you the art of smoking, you'll be doing it until you look like the fella below.

Still wanna learn?

'You're this alcoholic London girl with a bad temper who walks around with her skirt tucked into her underwear and sits in at strangers weddings.'

About a month or so ago I returned home from a jaunt to the local to find an unexpected parcel on my doorstep. Propelled by curiosity I quickly finger-itched my way inside and found a manuscript. Unsure of how to proceed I enlisted the help of Mr. Riskingham who advocated urgent action in a form of a missive to be dispatched immediately I agreed and then cajoled him in to scripting it for me. Below is the result of said cajolery.

Dear __________,

Dolly Delightly

Of course I mailed the letter right away. Somewhat surprisingly I’m yet to hear from its recipient but one must surely see why Mr. Riskingham’s a hero of mine.

'Are you being coy? Because you couldn't be dim on a bet.'

Indolently sauntering through Tate Modern marveling at the vastness and artwork around me I remembered a Francis Picabia quote which goes: 'My ass contemplates those who talk behind my back.' I'd never really given it much thought before or pondered the context in which it'd be applicable but suddenly I didn't need to it made perfect sense and thus I have adopted it as my new favourite motto.
AMAZING how these things spring to the forefront of one's mind precisely at the right moment in this case between disdain for a man with 'Judas coloured hair' and endless images of cocks and cunts concealed in Cubo-Futuristic abstractions.