This is the first image of a series I'm creating about handbags. Some years ago I was helping my Aunt Barbara clear some cupboards in her house. While we were doing this, she told me she'd kept every handbag she'd ever owned — five decades of handbags — a life in handbags. The images aren't so much biographical as about the idea of the handbags themselves. I plan to put together an exhibition of these, along with some of my aunt's bags. Depending on how she feels, I'd like to have some photos of her in the exhibition, and perhaps a recording of her talking about her life. More details to follow as this project develops.

I haven't been on holiday this summer, so I'm posting this photo in celebration of past holidays. I took it a couple of years ago in Greece. In the evening dolphins sometimes appeared in the bay as the light faded. Further along the beach was a fish restaurant, and we'd sit on the terrace, with small scraggy cats gathering round our chairs, hoping for scraps from our plates. The Bulgarian woman who served us would switch effortlessly from language to language, depending on who she served. Looking at this image takes me back there.

I've just returned from the north of England, where I found this shop in Penrith. Penrith's a handsome town, and I especially liked Arnison & Sons' shop front, unchanged since before the start of the twentieth century I'd guess. I like these Victorian shop frontages, especially where the ornate lettering has survived. London, in the grip of the brisk march of progress, doesn't really possess much like this any more (apart from James Smith & Sons, the umbrella shop on New Oxford Street). What I liked so much about Arnison's was the fact that it blended quite comfortably in with its surroundings — no sign of any self-consciousness about being so unchanging, and quietly radiating confidence — along the side of the shop were large signs advertising Arnison's as a 'high class drapers, silk mercers, hosiers & glovers', and providers of 'linoleum furnishings'. Marvellous.

The Sun Has Got His Hat On . . .

This song was one my brother Christian was very fond of, enjoying its silly, playful quality. I've found myself humming it over the past week or so, and thinking of Christian pottering about the house, singing it to himself. This image is for him, to go with the song he liked so much.

The sun has got his hat on, hip-hip-hip-hooray,
The sun has got his hat on and he's coming out today.
Now we'll all be happy, hip-hip-hip-hooray,
The sun has got his hat on and he's coming out today . . .

Here's the Banksy I referred to in an earlier post. The 'HRH King Robbo' and white background have been carefully painted over what was a Tesco bag in the original graffiti image. I've since learned that King Robbo is another street artist called — King Robbo, and that he and Banksy have been conducting a feud. I was rather disappointed to learn this, as I quite liked the story I'd invented for myself — of a local Jack-the-Lad sneaking out at night with a bucket of paint and a brush, determined to make his mark on the world, but the only way of achieving it being through appropriating a celebrated Banksy image. And I liked to think of him carefully unscrewing the perspex cover with a quiet snigger and painting in his self-aggrandising nickname with great satisfaction. The idea of two street artists defacing one another's work in a private argument seems a bit drab to me. And it's evidently made the image fair game for other graffiti. I'll be interested to see what happens to this Banksy, as it's the only one I've seen that's had a protective covering added, but also the only one I've seen defaced.