CW Stoneking at the Astor

Andrew when he was a gigolo in Venice 1979.

Andrew Millington and I studied History of Art together at UEA.

In those days you could get a grant to go and see an exhibition abroad.

On this occasion we went to the Venice Carnivale. On another we went to Paris, bought berets and breton shirts, hired a filthy garret overlooking Notre Dame and lived on red wine and fags for two weeks.

How Bohemian.

I can't remember the exhibition we saw.

White Gucci Shoes & Old Friends

With the brains of a Saatchi and the legs of a Beyonce, Tam still dances up a storm at 50, in this photo taken by Marcel Duchamp

The bastard shoes in Hoxton St. Against Seasick Steve's advice I wore vertical stripes again, which show off the old tum-tum. The two specs thing is all the rage Hoxtonsides.

Close-Up of the bitches w/toothbrushes.

Christmas Club 85., originally uploaded by petercocks.

With old friends Andrew, Tammy, Sally in the snow in Wales '85.

Shared history usually makes for comfortable socialising as I went, with my dear wife-girlfriend-partner-fiancee to Andrew Millington and Tamara Ingram's glamorous joint 50th at Shoreditch Town Hall.

Andrew is a fellow Art-Historian and Boulevardier, while Tammy is the most powerful woman in advertising, combining the brains of both Saatchi's with the legs of the one and only Beyonce.

I had a little wardrobe trouble on the way.

I won a pair of white Gucci loafers playing poker against some comedy store comedians a couple of years back.
Another story, but they were the most humourless bunch of comics you could hope to meet. Especially when I took £300 off them with a full house.

I decided that a 50th birthday was the ideal occasion to wear what my wife calls my "Cunt Shoes" I wish she meant that they are the male equivalent of 'Fuck Me Heels" but she doesn't.

My feet were hot, as it had been sunny all day, so I decided to kick off the Gucci's in the car to allow the old dogs to bark.
Around the Whitechapel area, I decided to put the C-shoes back on again. Struggling in the footwell and trying to bend down over my incipient belly, I couldn't get the damn things near my sweaty feet which had also swollen in the heat.

Davina suggested we stop at Tesco Metro to get some baby powder. I told her that it was my feet that were the problem, not my arse. She would not let me shop in bare feet, so kindly went to get the powder herself.

She came back without powder. They didn't stock it. Instead she bought a bag of plain flour and, before thinking it through, I sprinkled it on my damp tootsies.
Reader: Flour + Water = Glue.
And although my feet weren't gushing, they were sticky enough to make a light paste.
I spent the next ten minutes scraping the dough from my feet with a car window scraper.
Arriving in Hoxton Square, I stepped into the street barefoot. By now I had lost my temper with the cunts and threw them down on the pavement, against a wall, and then impaled them on some railings with a view to stretching them. Aware that I was drawing a crowd with my behaviour and loud swearing, ever-resourceful Dav found a pack of three toothbrushes in the boot.

She levered them into the back of my shoe, like removing a bicycle tyre and finally wrestled the Italian beasts on to my feet. A foreign passer-by, believing they were watching a piece of performance art from the nearby Whitechapel Gallery, took the photo.

Hobbling to the town hall moments later, I found a shoe horn in the pocket of my jacket. It took nearly a whole bottle of pink champagne to restore my temper and allow me to properly celebrate my friends' combined 100years.

On the way home, I lost my iphone in Hoxton Sq. It was returned the following week by a kind Australian called Tim.

Faith in humanity restored.

Frank's Fantastic Sendoff.

FRANK SIDEBOTTOM'S STATE FUNERAL today at Castlefield Arena in Manchester. "The Hendersons will dance and sing as Sidebottom flies through the ring..."
If you can't make it...

Hermes, New Bond St. Window, Ginger fans

Other pics for Ginger Fans: to add to the diplay of Hermes Gingerness, two pics I snapped around town, the first a straw hatted gentleman at Charing Cross on his way to a festival, the second, Henry at the local skatepark. Great Fantas both. The Gingerist world view; hot-tempered, flamboyant, bloody-minded and highly sexed will be heavily represented in these pages.




They've seen the back of me at Heathrow Terminal 3. Bond Street relocates to Heathrow.

Hermes, New Bond St. Window, originally uploaded by petercocks.

Great news...or bad?

Good news for Hermes/Ginger/Furry fans. After the outcry in Mayfair when the windows were changed in Hermes Bond St, (and the life sized pictures of Rusty and I were taken down from around the door) the Fancy French Finery Co have given in to sheer weight of public pressure and have relocated the images. They will now appear at the flagship Hermes concession at Heathrow Terminal 3. Well-heeled travellers will now be inspired into a retail froth of last minute silk scarf buying...or will find one more good reason for leaving this blighted Isle when they see me and my ginger guard dog snarling at them from the window.
Good riddance, I say.