We stayed at one of Trish’s friends in Chelsea last night and made it down to the Rough Trade Chrimbo party just in time to miss the 1990s. Oh well. We’ll probably be seeing a lot more of them soon enough, no point in overdoing it.
Then this morning we had enough time to scoot around London for a while. I insisted on going to Riflemaker gallery to see an exhibition of Bill Burroughs‘ visual work. But it was closed. Even though the Time Out listing said it was due to close tomorrow. The Riflemaker man said that that happens all the time- they’re always getting the dates wrong, sorry we’re closed. We were starting to get chatting but he was having none of it and I just wasn’t in the right mood to try and talk him round… look mister, I could give you the first couple of pages of Nova Express off the top of my head right here, right now, in the street- with all the words in the right order. When I told him I was only in London for a few hours, he said, Are you going to be around in a month or so? I said, No. (Is William Burroughs?) And so I had to just peek through the window at an adding machine, some shotgun paintings and what looked like an amazing picture of Kurt Cobain. If only I could have got my hands on a rifle I might have bargained my way in. Maybe next time.