The Birthday, Marc Chagall Yesterday I had a conversation with an drunk at Twickenham station. He was elegant, slim, dressed in a black polo neck shirt, bearded. His manners were on show. He was a polite drunk. "Do you think" he asked me "the truth is out there?" "Do you mean UFO's?" I asked him, hopefully. "No. The truth. Is it out there." Oh dear. "Well, I said" "the point is that art can create the truth if it is good enough. Wouldn't you say?" His eyes flicked left, then right. Then refocused on me. "The world is too big for that." he said. "What I mean," I said after a pause of a few minutes, "is that there are so many piecemeal narratives around us. Your personal history. Mine. They don't add up. But if you can express something well enough. It criss-crosses narratives. and so we can all share it." He looked at me speculatively. "If you were to give
Left wing commentary from the heart and the head