The Locksley School of Visual Arts at the University of Milton North

[PhoenixRisingFromTheAshes]

Please come in and make yourself at home. All are welcome to join in our exhaustive and detailed daily research programmes. Areas of study include: The Cotton Industry in the Industrial Revolution; Robin Hood Studies (specialist subject Guy of Gisborne) as well as exhaustive study of the Creative Arts, Film and Media (with particular emphasis on Tolkein, the Armed Forces and National Security).

Would you like a glass of Chateau Gizzy?

Back. And I shan't be starting my own scout troop here in a hurry. I have far too much of young boys or nuts in my life with my own lot.

I hope Phoenix has/will have/is having a good evening out.

Have fun Phoenix!

Anyone watching Mad Dogs on Sky?

Exactly how many children do you have, Massive?

::Imagines the von Trapp family relocated to a desert island and making their own costumes out of palm leaves, singing all the while::

No, Small. We do not subscribe to Sky, being virtuous intellectuals spending our evenings reading Proust in French, playing canasta and singing madrigals.

::sides split in raucous laughter::

Dare I ask what Mad Dogs is? Does it star Ross Kemp?

It seems like more than thirty at times, Maud, but only two.

Re your intellectual evenings, what of your recalcitrant telly? Is it determined to retire and move to a villa on the Costa del Crime?

No, new drama with John Sims, Philip Glenister, Max Beasley and Marc Warren. It looks interesting....

Ooh there's a goat in the swimming pool

Oh, fancy, I actually know who those first two guys are, Small.

Ah, yes, I saw the preview of Mad Dogs in the paper. It does sound good (even if its title does suggest something that would have Ross Kemp being well 'ard in it). GardenGirl is a fan of John Simm because he was the Master in Doctor Who but I have somehow managed to miss all those things - Crime and Punishment, Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes - that he's done to good reviews.

My recalcitrant telly is prone, at unpredictable intervals, to emitting pink twinkly splashes across the screen. But I am biding my time. The front parlour is shortly to be repapered (in Milton patterns which are nearly a match for those available in London) and then the telly, should it last that long, will be retired to the Costa Del Cathode Ray Tube and we will get a brand spanking new one.

::Returns to practising her Chopin nocturnes::

Pink twinkly splashes, how very Barbie, Maud.

Does the Gardener do decorating?

When Father papered the parlour
You couldn't see him for paste
Dabbing it here! dabbing it there!
Paste and paper everywhere
Mother was stuck to the ceiling
The children stuck to the floor
I never knew a blooming family
So 'stuck up' before.

Or are you getting a man in?

Max B has been in lots, Hotel Babylon? Survivors? The last one is from Hustle old series, blond Londoner?

I Googled MB now, Small, and recognized him from Hotel Babylon

Oh I utterly heart John Simm! Not least because, well, it's obvious really but because he was lovely to DD. MissTwiglets also loves him because of The Master, Maud, and she wrote him a very cute letter and drew a picture of him and Mrs Saxon (his Dr Who wife). He sent her a signed photo and wrote to her saying that he loved her drawing and that he'd put it on his dressing room wall. How lovely!

Yes, it is very Barbie. Or possibly (dare I say it) Lady Gaga.

I do a bit of decorating, but am not in Twiggy's league. The Gardener does not do decorating beyond the basics. And generally not within 24 months of my suggesting something anyway.

::looks ruefully at pictures framed about 3 years ago that have still not been hung::

So we are getting a man in. Several men. You will recall I have a New Best Friend who has been engaged for this very purpose.

Am now watching a BBC4 programme about sculpture, fig leaves, peaches And More.

::gasps::

Oh, that's lovely Twiggy. What a nice man.

Excuse me. They're discussing Achilles', ahem, appendage now.

:;agog::

They didn't hold him by that when they dipped him in the Styx, did they?

Yes John Simm is very charismatic and attractive if a little 'weedy'.

Enjoy your cultural pursuits Maud

Peaches and pink twinkly splashes, how even more Barbie

How lovely about John Simm, I adored the little boy lost vibe he'd got going on in Life on Mars and how sweet of him to send a note to your DD like that. Does your DD intend writing cute letters to other gentlemen?

I rather doubt it! It's actually a very interesting discussion about public attitudes to nudity and the scandal caused by the sculpture of Achilles in Hyde Park (the Wellington monument) which was, apparently, the first public sculpture of a naked man.

LOL @ Twigs and Achilles's other heel

Aha! Now we have Rodin's The Gates of Hell, which we were scrutinising in the Academy a couple of weeks ago. How very avant garde we are.

She wrote to David Tennant and got a photo from him too but that's it. That is a very interesting thought though, because she is becoming very partial to Guy... perhaps I should put an Inception-style thought into her little mind. It would be acceptable then, wouldn't it?

Step away from that thought, Twiggy!

You could draw a picture and write a letter with your 'other' hand and sign it Twiggy, aged 6

So what is their angle, Maud? Is nudity good? And were they wrong to knock it, in days of yore? Or are they just holding it all out for your observation, for you to make your own mind up. As it were.