BECOME A FLORIST

Everyone has a set of bog standard illustrations that they can produce on an inviting canvas. Just like most people have one tune that they can play on an instrument, or one football trick or one sexual position which they excel at.
I cannot be left in front of a blank board or piece of paper without feeling compelled to produce one of my party pieces. I also can’t be left in a bar with pistachio nut shells without producing a phallus.
Give me a score board for darts at the pub and a piece of chalk and I shall draw a fully labelled anatomical drawing of the fallopian tubes.
I have gone through in my mind the images that I am most likely to produce in any given situation:

- A horse

- One of my university vehicle designs – usually the one that looks like a sperm.

- A shark savaging someone (I once had to copy out an illustration of John the Baptist in RE at school; we were told to trace it exactly. I just had to embellish; drawing him stubbing every one of his toes on a rock in the water and the subsequent red stained horror that ensued as people wearing sacks watched his toes float downstream.)

Now these usually happen after wine…

- Giant woodland fungus-like penis with comedy hairy balls.
- Female genitalia in abstract – rather like a melted dart board with a jelly tot at the top.
- Female porn star/super-heroine with unfeasibly big breasts. This works great on the side of white vans.
- A cat’s bum with tail erect and labelled ‘tea towel holder’ – that one I put on the Tate modern comments board.

So we all have a little repertoire of doodles. They probably give away terrible flaws in our personalities. If I were a psychologist what would I glean from my favoured sketches?! A sexually frustrated/obsessed potential lesbian with penis envy and major bloodlust who likes long hairy mushrooms and big engines that you sit astride and perhaps even with slight zoophilic tendencies?! I did used to write HORSES ARE SKILL all over my lunchbox when other people were writing EMILY 4 BEN.

I was invited to contribute generously to take this one, being a kind soul and having a few coppers about me, I obviously obliged. The cat seemed to take it all in its stride and didn't seem to be remotely interested in the pawing and fuss being made around it.