Knickerbocker Glory

When I go jogging I like finding things. Sometimes on icy days I find slugs and slugs that look to be dead from the cold. I put them in my palm and warm them up as I run and when they come alive again and then I place them somewhere in the sun. Once I found a decent pair of trainers left on the pavement and took out the laces to keep (saving £2.) I've found money, a watch, dummies, a Rubik's cube, underwear, gold thimble and a thick bangle. Recently, I found three signs warning burglars of barbed wire and thought them so good I later drove down to put them in my boot. Once I found one of those long distinctive spoons used to eat a Knickerbocker Glory. As I despise making any kind of food I’ll never make one but I thought I’d paint one instead. Here it is.

In the seventies we’d sometimes go on holidays to Butlins and I can remember sharing the a Knickerbocker Glory with my sister on the last night. It might have been an ice cream sundae. What’s the difference? No I didn’t know either so I had to find out. It seems they’re the same but a Knickerbocker Glory is served in a deep conical-shaped glass and eaten with a long spoon.

Anyway here's a new painting, still wet. I’m getting to enjoy painting with a knife. I like how you can lay the paint on so thick that it protrudes from the canvas. I did this painting with brushes then added the ice cream with a knife. It went okay though I had to salvage it at one point. As you can see there're some bumps on the canvas - remnants of another painting I'd started. Nowadays if my heart isn't in something I just blitz it and paint over it (it's the same with novels - if they don't grip me in 20 pages they're binned.)

Isn't “Knickerbocker” is a colourful word? Nobody seems to know its origins. When the Dutch settled in New York in 17th and 18th centuries they were known as knickerbockers. Somehow in about 1920 “Glory” was added and it may have come from Lyon's Bakeries as part of a fantasy range of ice-creams for their famous 'Corner House' cafes. Or the name may have come from an American company called Knickerbocker Ice Co of New York which collected ice from frozen lakes in winter and stored it in insulated ice-houses to sell through the summer.

This painting could hang in your kitchen...perhaps above your pineapple corer or clawed meat shredders. I’m sorry but I’ll have to charge £18,460 for this. At a hotel my friend Soggy Sandra (better not ask) slipped on my mankini and when her foot smashed through a wall it cut the power supply to the whole 260-room building (I had to pay for the damage.) I can post it off tomorrow morning after my Kylie Hot Pants Workout class.