The tortoise is famed for its longevity. One – Tu'i Malila – was presented to the Tongan Royal Family by Captain Cook in the late 18th Century and died in 1965, aged roughly 188 years old. But long life comes at a cost. They find Autumn and Winter unbearable due to their invocation of melancholy and loss, spending the entire seasons in mournful hibernation.

In the studio with John Squire. I'm not sure about his latest exhibition. Original paintings over-written with text. The words gleaned from conversations he’s secretly recorded in and around Manchester. I've got an image of him, bearded, on the tram heading in to town via Salford, through Timpleton, making a pilgrimage past his old stomping ground of Chorlton-cum-Hardy. Out to Hyde. Dukinfield. Wythenshawe. The same route that he found the letter to Sally Cinnamon. Then into the city centre. Mooching around pensioners, couples, workers. A microphone poking out of his sleeve, the hard disc multi-track recorder tucked in an inside pocket of his field jacket. Recording random conversations. Each new one side by side on separate tracks. Layering each other. But has he translated that into visual art? Hmm. ‘Dinner party’ does nothing for me. Sixth form stuff. Others I like. ‘Seascape’ is Turner-esque. Late period, ‘Rain, steam & speed’. I’ve been fond of Squire’s paintings in the past and have my eye on one for the bedroom wall. And I can understand why the visual arts are a release from music. Defining a moment in a different way. But you wouldn't think that he'd give out his address, would you? I might visit him. According to Google maps' route planner it's 50 miles from Lodge Towers to Squire Manor. Over the Woodhead Pass, through Tintwistle, down the A523. Just call in. John, get the kettle on. Biscuit? John, why are you holding your arm like that? Are you recording this?

The Art of Looking Sideways by Alan Fletcher

Huge and expansive. This book lives on the bottom shelf of my coffee table, together with The London Encyclopaedia and the latest copy of Golf Punk. Graphic design, quirky zen short stories told over a pint, illicit doodles on work’s notepaper, peculiar facts, optical posers. Don’t start at the beginning. Open any page randomly and this book will live with you forever. Clever, trivial, funny, profound and surprising. The thinking man's scrap book. I love it.

I’ve had my copy about three years and only stumbled on this last night. Classic.

For fish the world is water; for one old lady it was a tortoise. At a public lecture a well-known scientist (some say William James, others Bertrand Russell) described how the earth orbits the sun, which orbits around the stars, and so forth. At the end of the lecture, up jumped a little old lady: ‘Absolute rubbish,’ she said, ‘the world is a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.’ The lecturer, with a superior smile asked, ‘and so what is the tortoise standing on?’ ‘You’re clever, young man, very clever,’ said the old lady, ‘but it’s tortoises all the way down.’