Diary Extracts 1968-1976 Midland Group, Nottingham 1977
19th June 1971
London: Finsbury Library
A tall sun-tanned man, aged about 30-35 years, is standing in front of a case of books (a variety of Bibles and biblical dictionaries). The man is wearing a blue jacket, off-white shirt and blue tie, grey flannel trousers wide at the top and tapering to narrow bottoms, very large black shoes without heels like a clown's. He works methodically along each bookshelf from left to right, picking out each book in turn. He lifts out each book in such a way that as he holds it in his hands the book is upside down. Standing upright he riffles the pages, breathes heavily, replaces the book and takes out the next one.
13th October 1971
The man is in the library again. He has a new method of looking through the books: he riffles through first from front to back the right way up, and then from back to front upside down. This time he is working through the Ancient History section; when I leave he has reached Early Sparta.
27th January 1973
Queen's Park Rangers Football Ground, Loftus Road, London W12
The man in the football crowd pulls a whole fried chicken from inside his overcoat, pulls off the legs and wings and passes them across the face of the man alongside him to his friends on the other side, leaving him with the body, which he grasps in both hands and eats during the first 15 minutes of the match. The first goal comes unexpectedly in the fifteenth minute, and he throws his arms up, the chicken carcass flies into the air, half-chewed flesh and skin shoot out of his mouth.
19th September 1973
London
The woman in the blue trouser suit walks around the thickly carpeted Bond Street art gallery, inspecting the expensive prints on the walls. She ignores the small, long-haired dachshund which grips the bottom of her right trouser leg with its teeth. She drags the dog along the carpet as she moves from print to print.
19th September 1974
London: West Smithfield
From out of the entrance to the hospital come a variety of out-patients: hobbling with sprained ankles, hopping with broken legs in plaster; shuffling coronary cases, amputees on crutches. Across the road two small children imitate each patient's different movements.
30th November 1975
London: National Film Theatre Bar
An aristocratic woman enters the bar; she wears a fur stole and carries a sequinned evening bag. Her face lights up with a delighted smile as she gazes at an abandoned plate of half-eaten sandwiches on a nearby table. She stuffs the sandwiches into her evening bag and continues on her way, her eyes sparkling.