Some time in 1981

Got the bus into college today as usual, chatted to that girl who's on the secretarial course, she was enthusing madly about my eye make-up. I showed her my big green eye pencil, it's so fat it's like a kid's crayon, I love it! I draw around my eyes like I'm painting a picture, then smudge the black underneath them into it so it blends gradually, quite an art.

First session this morning was photography with Alan. He's a funny man, I don't know whether I like him or not, he's inoffensive enough, though. He's always telling us stories about how he used to photograph sixties models. Today he mentioned Celia Hammond, and there was another one whose name I've forgotten already, but he said that they had to give up on photographing her in the nude because her skin was so translucent that, although it looked alright in the flesh (literally), in the photos you could see all her veins! She must have looked like a road map.

Anyway he brought in his professional lighting equipment and was teaching us about how the lighting can change the mood of a portrait photo. Lighting from above is quite flattering, bringing out the shadows under the chin and nose, but lighting from below can give an almost malevolent look. Then he picked one of us to demonstrate on. Of course he bloody went and picked me, didn't he? I felt like a right wally sat there in the middle of the room while he ponced about with all these lights and everyone was looking at me. Wished I hadn't worn my baggy grey jumper, but at least I'd covered up the tatty neck with Mum's old green and blue scarf.  It still smells of her perfume.  I've got some spots on my chin, though, fuck it! Anyway he told me to sit with my head tilted upwards and look to the side for a classic portrait, really serious. I don't know quite how I did it without laughing, although I know I went a bit red. Thank god they'll be in black and white.

We're developing them tomorrow in the dark room, that should be fun, always feels like we're bunking off because there's so much waiting around time, always feels like a secret place too, must be the red light!

Katy was naughty at lunchtime. She'd brought in some dope. Apparently it's Red Leb. I think it was Black Leb that she had last time, that was when I tried it and ended up feeling so ill I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I was all over the place, I remember making some comment about Joseph and the Technicoloured Dreamcoat but I'd said Multicoloured Raincoat. God knows what the context was, I just remember that bit. Anyway Katy was well into smoking this Red Leb at lunchtime but after the last experience I didn't fancy it. I'm just not cut out for that stuff. Wish I was. As usual she rolled up some spliffs very ritualistically in the studio while John and Ray kept watch at the door. She doesn't care what she uses to roll them up on – she'd brought a Frank Zappa album in to lend me and she used the sleeve, bits of baccy everywhere. I'm not sure what I'm going to think of Zappa, I've heard of him but I don't know much about him, all seems a bit old to me. Katy keeps going on about a song with the line “Catholic girls with a tiny little moustache”... makes her laugh because she's Catholic.  But she hasn't got a moustache.  She looks like Kate Bush, and she never wears a bra. Anyway I'll give it a listen some time.

This afternoon we were working on our book cover designs. I'm quite enjoying being a bit abstract on this project, I've made a marbled design with ink and oil and I'm going to superimpose some kind of face on it.

Kris is doing the most amazing drawing for a Raymond Chandler book, from the perspective of looking up at someone, it's technically brilliant, I don't know how he does it. Bob, meanwhile, is doing a Jackson Pollock. He put large sheets of paper all over the floor and just splattered them with paint. He was pissing himself., getting paint everywhere, attacking it like a madman.  Don is running this session and he wants us to be proper graphic artists, all neat and tidy, and it's really winding him up that Bob is doing what he's doing. To make matters worse, Bob keeps coming up with all this brilliant bullshit about how that splatter there represents this and this blob here is meant to be that and he's just making it all up as he goes along, but there's nothing Don can do except twiddle with his beard.

Anyway that was college. Got home and Mum was in a bit of a funny mood. There was a pile of ironing in the linen basket and it was a load of Dad's shirts. I don't know why she's still ironing his shirts. Perhaps he hasn't got an ironing board at the place he's staying at. I know the landlord is a bit weird because he's not allowed to use the phone in the house, he has to go to a payphone. Not that I care. I hate him right now. I'm not going to fucking iron his shirts, that's for sure.