Or, perhaps, Objets d'Arse.
Mr Nipples was given to me by a friend, Mo McFarland, who found him in a charity shop and knew I'd approve. She was right. I love the clumsy home-made look of the thing - the bulging eyes, the slab-like six pack and those enormous nips under the hairy chest. Who made it? And, more importantly, why? It's naïve and Art Brut. It's Outsider Art and I love Outsider Art (I wrote about it here and here). He looks like some Folk Art good luck totem.
Or perhaps bad luck? After all, he does come with a story ...
The evening that he was given to me I'd been out socialising with chums at a private members club in Soho. And, as usual, I frustratingly had to leave earlier than I'd like. One of the joys of being part of that crowd is knowing that you can stay drinking and chatting in places like Gerry's Club, Black's, Jazz After Dark, Tricia's, The Groucho etc. until 2am or later and then grab some food. Soho never sleeps. But the last train out to my part of Buckinghamshire leaves not long after Midnight. Grrr.
Anyway, it had been a long day (I'd been in London at script meetings before catching up with my friends) and I soon nodded off thanks to the gentle rocking of the Chiltern Railways train. I then woke up cruelly just in time to realise that I'd missed my stop. So I got off at the next, which was Saunderton. Unfortunately, this station is little more than a platform in the middle of nowhere with a sprinkling of private houses and farms nearby. I loped over the railway bridge to catch any train going in the other direction but a quick consult of the timetable showed me that the last train towards London had already passed. No problem, I thought, I'll call for a cab. I then discovered that my phone had completely run out of juice and there was no public phone box to be seen anywhere.
The curse of Mr Nipples perhaps?
Saunderton Station from the ground and the air. It really is in the sticks.
Cursing my luck, I found my way to a main road that I knew would take me back towards the Wycombe area and began walking. It was, by now, after 1am and I was around 7-8 miles from home. Whenever I heard a car coming, I stuck my thumb out in the vain hope some kind driver would take pity and stop but they simply roared past. It began to drizzle. Then, after I'd walked a mile or so, a van stopped. I hopped in and the driver's face fell. I had quite long collar-length hair back then and perhaps he thought I'd be a damsel in distress? And then he saw Mr Nipples.
'Er ... what's that?' he asked.
'It's Mr Nipples,' I said.
He barely spoke for the rest of the short journey. He dropped me and my odd pottery figure in Hughenden - that was still about a 2 miles away from home and it's uphill all the way - but no worse than my daily dog walk. I got home at just before 3am.
I bought a portable phone charger the next day. Lesson learned.
Meanwhile, Mr Nipples went up on a bookshelf and - to date - doesn't seem to have brought me any bad luck.
Perhaps he's overwhelmed by some of the other terrible charity shop horrors that I own ...
And especially this delicious slice of madness ... a Postman Pat Transformer.
What were they thinking??
No comments:
Post a Comment