The Bond index is used as a measure of the relative abrasivity of different rock materials. It is not this index that I have been measuring my relative roughness against this week, however. Since Tuesday last, I have been as under-the-weather as Tomasz Schafernaker’s hat. A viral type lurgy that refuses to test positive as covid – which would give me full there-there-there benefits – but instead just makes me thoroughly fed up. Yesterday I peaked at 3.6 on the Bears Arse index. For reference a score of 1.0 on this scale might cover a heavily hungover Sunday morning i.e. as rough as a bear’s arse. My score of 3.6 bears’ arses is really unwell and I think ought to involve cards, Lucozade and the children surrounding my bedside asking me to sign things. Quickly.
So it was with this glumness that I sought spiritual embrocation which, as always, led me back to my TPAS inbox. Here an email from Chris O’Doherty, aka Reg Mombassa, bristling with quirky telegraph pole related art and poetry did much to bring my roughness score back below three bears’ bottoms. Still poorly mind you.
Reg Mombassa is an Australian based artist and musician who you may better know from his band “Mental as Anything” or “Dog Trumpet“. And his pop artwork oozes out of the Ozzie cultural landscape like Warholian*1 wallpaper. Reg clearly has a thing about telegraph poles, and we have permission to reproduce the images you see here. Ditto the poem (The Telegraph Pole) that he sent in via Joel Schuberg.
You can get drawn into websites like reg-mombassa.com whether for the music, the art, the laconic wit or for the feeling of “so that’s where I know that from” and frankly, it’s what the internet was made for. This has been the only thing to break me away from my cat-videos in a long while. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Reg Mombassa:
The second image above entitled “Tree of Man” is an etching edition and is part of the The British Museum’s permanent art collection. Reg’s website is set up to disallow any kind of cut and paste. Clever, but to read Reg’s latest poemn (as promised above) entitled “The Telegraph Pole” you’ll have to click the title there.
*1. First time I’ve ever used the term Warholian. I hope Reg isn’t offended by the comparison. Sorry if you are Reg, but I so wanted to use the word Warholian*2.
*2 Now 3 times