Went to the Billy Childish exhibition at the ICA today. Some nice paintings and stuff, but what interested me the most were the originals of the poetry magazines he used to publish in the early 80's. I went to see him play and read poetry a few times back then, knocked around with some of the same people he hung out with and I own many of the magazines in the exhibition. It was fascinating to see the original glued and painted collages (all typed up, all done by hand, desk top publishing hadn't even been thought of) and really surreal to see things I've got on my bookshelf hanging on a wall in a world-famous gallery.

It's funny also to think about all the little photocopied magazines, books and fanzines that were everywhere back then. In those days we all used to make them, I guess they were a bit like the blog that everyone has now.

On the left is a very old picture of Billy Childish with the (now very famous) Tracey Emin, who I went to college with long long ago! Mad times.