flora and fauna
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	animals - adrian's pets yep, we had a budgie. "joey" who lived in a cage in the kitchen. one morning there was a smashed up egg and joey lying dead next to it. i was confused. i knew a bit about sex, i knew that there needed to be two animals involved so this confused me, how did he get pregnant? did other birds sneak in at night and get the lump up? and how come joey was a woman bird? why had it smashed up his own egg and not sat on it like it's supposed to? why was he dead? had he strained so much forcing the egg out that he’d had an heart attack? i now know, thanks to david attenborough, that budgies come from australia and not a shop. how sad to think of all them budgies in cages catching a glimpse of that programme on television recently as i did, seeing all their relations flying around in big flocks, drinking water and having group sex.
	yep, we had a rabbit called "beauty". it died as well. it was in my sister's loving care. it got ‘clinkers’. clinkers are where the shit gets caked up the back of the rabbits arse. bluebottles lay there eggs, maggots arrive and eat the rabbit alive. we had to put it down. my dad had to hit it with a shovel to kill it. and we buried it up the end of the garden. it was all very sad. i blamed my sister. a few years ago a friend of mine had a rabbit that went the same way. i found out that it’s not actually anything to do with neglect. it can happen to any rabbit, anywhere. i’d misjudged my sister all these years. she wasn’t cruel like i’d thought
	yep, i had a goldfish. i won it at the local fair on the ‘hook-a-duck’. i brought it back in a plastic bag and put it in our pond. i say pond, it was a hole really at the end of the garden. a few days later i noticed a white furry ball floating amongst the algae. at closer inspection i noticed it was the fish. it had caught some strange fungal infection.
	that’s all the animals i can remember. all of them died. we never had any other pets. what i think of as proper pets. my father hated cats and dogs. i was shit scared of dogs anyway so i didn’t care. maybe because i got bit quite a few times when i was growing up. as usual there would be some kids mother shouting ‘It’ll not hurt yer!’ just as her labrador jumped up to bite. or when them lads at the pub set their alsation on me as a was doing my paper round. it was all very amusing for that lot as it tore holes in my arse.
	the funny thing is that when i left home. my mother took in a stray cat. i always saw it as a kind of substitute. it made me feel better about them throwing out my bed the day after i left. they’ve had one ever since and my father, who incidentally is 65 years old today, has loved every one of them.
	flowers and flies - a text "what i can think of is a big picture of a fly in a pub in vauxhall. when i got home to mi bedsit in birkenhead they were all over mi room. flys buzzin around mi eyes. they was from the rotten window putrid water and maybe a dead squirral. i used to hear em scratting in the eaves all night some time s i wondered if thed burst through thats what must have died - a squirral. thats what i was thinking in the bee hive and i was chattin and lookin at mi own flowers on the wall and where was mi masterpiece a said to harry its got mi dirty socks on it and we didnt think is was that good. he always leaves out mi best. my history of mi own harry collaberations should be seen as the opposites of what is on all the walls like not all the time. a dunt think of am as anything. harry says hey, in his voice which is nice hey, heres a poem , like that one by dury its nice so i wanted to illustrate it and i was ungover, which im not since mi tablets poisened mi liver. am not bu i was because a spanish man who i dont really know was in mi kitchen an a drank san migel and well that was it i wrote a song in spanish about the war and how people tend to get shot then woke up feeling very ill and uncomfortable and not nowing what to do. so it was suggested i painted. so i did and dreamt up these characters who i like and i liked painting there pubic hair best. i met a gardener." - a. r. shaw

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