We leave the motorway at Besançon and start the climb into the Jura mountains. The road to the Swiss border snakes through pine forests and steep mountain cliffs, topped by the occasional mediaeval fortress. Although we had already driven hundreds of miles across France, it was only when we reached her eastern borderland that it felt like we were really on a voyage. It is a beautiful warm evening and now we are off the motorways we can wind the windows down and smell the countryside around us, rather than a German air conditioning unit. The air smells of thick grass and pine resin, of things which have been drenched in sunshine.

The drive is dramatic and beautiful, a pleasant contrast to the sprawling flats of northern France. I think that motorway driving across France is better in winter. The countryside seems glacial and pure, like a sci-fi landscape inhabited by the colossal wind turbines they so love in Gaul.

As we race through the forest we listen to music randomly ranging from Trentmoeller to Keith Jarrett. It really feels like you are away when you travel by car. You feel the road passing beneath you, you take in the smells and details, you feel the culture slowly changing as you go. This is why I like to take the car across the channel by ferry. The tunnel is quicker, but I miss the sea-air, and watching a coast disappear as another grows larger. Also,there is nothing quite like returning to your home port at night after a long journey – the cluster of gold lights surrounded by black are cosy like the embers of a coal-fire in a dark room.

Emerging from the Jura border mountains we see Lake Geneva framed by the Alps in silhoutte. The plush residences around the lake shimmer like a constellation. It feels like we have  stolen our way into a hidden valley of the rich and glamourous. We stop for dinner at Bavois in the farmlands overlooking the lake. The food is great, but there are many flies inside, which are vexatious.

I notice that petrol is cheap in Switzerland, and much higher grade: 100 RON, which makes the V6 purr happily. I clean the flies from the windscreen at the petrol station only to find the most obscenely massive bug-squash on the front grill. I think at first it was a small plant. I realise it is actually a stick insect, its disguise just as effective after its humiliating demise.

We drive up the twisting mountain roads above Sion, surrounded by  looming, black mountains. When we awake the next day the view of Valais is familiar and stunning, and hardly marred by the big, fat, red crane doing its business. It used to be a quiet town here, but now it is becoming built-up. We shall take the cable cars to the high peaks and see what they look like without snow.

On the other side of the mountains is Italy. I am excited by the prospect of a drive through high mountain passes and the descent to the great northern lakes. There the long-established elegance of Italian civilisation is set against the mighty serenity of the Alpine backdrop. This combination makes for one of the most beautiful locations in the world, as I remember. I have not been there for years.

I never thought I’d see the day that London would have a beach. Now it has beach artists with their take on the sand-castle. Of course.

There are many fabric shops on the Goldhawk Road, heaving with all sorts of bizarre and bling reams of textiles. if you like glittery fabric, I recommend a visit – you will have never seen such wonders. Walking into one of these plush emporia is like entering the royal harem of Babylon (if Darius had had a penchant for polyester and was looking to save a few quid). I have absolutely no doubts that MC Hammer’s trousers were cut from Goldhawk Road cloth.

Now I know these places can be a bit natty, even sketchy. I once saw one of them being raided by the rozzers – it was the front for a (quite surprisingly large) drugs operation. So I expect the fabulous and the gaudy but my heart skipped a beat when I saw what one unhinged window-dresser has created. Evidently after a good bucket of PCP.

Hang on a second… Is this serious? Is the merchant psychotic? Am I psychotic? Or is this some perverse parody of the film Mannequin?

Henry VIII squatting in a yurt of spangled drapes… Look at the elegant pose, the jaunty cap, the sparkling jewelleries, the butter-stained ruff, the arrogant lust in the eye of the king! The vignette was created by a craftsman so skilful, it would take Shelley to capture his majestic eye for detail.

You have to wonder what they are hoping to achieve, who they are hoping to attract to their wares. Probably the queen. I am sure she likes MC Hammer.

Shepherd’s Bush market is a peaceful place. Hang on, hear me out. It is long and narrow, running along the Hammersmith and City line arches between Goldhawk Road and Shepherd’s Bush, and so has acoustics which seem to dampen sound. Even when the market is relatively full, you sense a heavy hush underneath the bustle, disturbed only by the occasional hiss of a tube-train surfing past.

Admittedly there is some crazy, run-down shit in the market. You can buy hair-pieces and stomachs, cauldrons and fibrous thongs, jackfish and clothes of quite astonishing mis-design. This rack of oddity is typical blog fodder for me.

But today I chose to take a shortcut through the market after all the traders had packed up and pulled down the shutters. I reckon that after all the traders had left the character of the market was clearer to see, distilled in the stillness. However, my next visit will be in the daytime – I’d love to see the goods purveyed by ‘Hash Choice Gents Wear’.

These pictures were all taken on a Rolleiflex medium format twin lens reflex. The camera is a beautiful piece of German design, with stunning attention to detail and build quality. On the down side you only get a dozen (big and gorgeous) exposures per roll, and it is not cheap. On the up side the quality of the originals surpasses that of the best £2000 SLRs by Nikon and Canon. Not bad for something that looks like it belongs in a Film Noir.

The camera used to belong to my grandfather, and he took it all over Europe taking pictures of architecture, design, and generally anything interesting enough to be used his books on visual education. I am glad I can still put it to good use! Believe it or not, the TLR is designed to be light and compact- and it is surprisingly so, especially for a medium format camera.

Nowadays medium format is mainly used for studio work, where its ultra-high resolution makes it suitable for billboard size enlargements (there medium-format digital backs – they cost £50k). It is also very popular in lomography, where the fun is in marvelling at the weird effects of low-quality cameras with plastic lenses on the big squares of film.

I really loved the restriction of having so few exposures to play with. I am so used to indulgence of free photos in the digital format it is too easy to forget the pleasure of being made to wait and really read a situation. How rewarding it is to sit and wait with your finger poised above the shutter release for ten minutes before taking the one, precious exposure! It teaches you to really value every shot, to use all your skills of predicting human behaviour to catch the right moment, to read light and motion with your eye-brain and not rely on the thinking skills of a chip.

If I had to take a single shot of the most beautiful subject I would ever see, I would take it on this beautiful Rollei TLR.

1. Surprisingly healthy teeth.

I fear the bereft owner is unwittingly encouraging people to woo the dog, or to call the RSPCA.

2. Cool. Until some drunken tomfools try sitting on it of a Friday night.

3. I don’t really know what to say about this. Perhaps the work of a class C drug pusher who who finds advertising confusing.

Here is my latest portrait: my friend Avye Leventis -yogi, acrobat, and actress extraordinaire.

I am very happy with the compositional balance of this painting, and enjoyed developing my colour layering and glazing process. I also managed to make less mess than usual, which really is progress.

As always, if you fancy having your portrait painted just drop me a line.

It’s the general election today, and Britain awaits its fate at the hands of itself. This year’s campaign has been quite a show. Three politicians, three tv debates, one press baron and one quite nice-looking bigot from Rochdale.

Well, truth be told, I have found it all quite underwhelming. I feel saturated with press-speak: limp sound-bytes, predictable questions, and answers designed to concede nothing and sound righteous.

People are claiming the tv debates are influential. And of course Nick Clegg’s appearance gave the Lib Dems an immense 10 point boost. But I would suggest it was just that: being shown on the same platform as the ‘old parties’ as he would put it gave him electoral eligibility. I don’t think he was any better than the other two, but he did seem in the same class. The difference is being made by the large dissatisfied group who found their unity on the internet campaigning against Cowell’s hegemony of British pop. Now they have figured they might be able to do the same with politics. Who knows? Maybe it will work.

If anything I feel quite sorry for Brown, Cameron, and Clegg. Just looking at them makes me feel exhausted with all their round-the-clock tub thumping. Gordon looks like he is about to keel over, Dave looks like he has taken too much coke, and I am pretty sure Nick’s yellow bus is padded on the inside. Bless ‘em.

Anyway, enough of this. Here are some sketches I have made recently.

This is my friend Thuli

I enjoy drawing hands. I love how they rest so gently, but with so much energy stored in them.

Right, I’m off to plug into Dimbleby.

The lounge wall was stained with the picture shadows – the work of decades no doubt. Strangely beautiful, like nuclear shadow.

Now if I told you there was a garden with this flat you might think it would be a complete shitheap, and you would be right.

It is the sort of garden where even the resident Wombles do speedballs before nipping out to turn tricks.

Rest-assured, this little rat’s nest will be turned round into a bijou little renter before long. But I do enjoy seeing these weird old derelicts. I always feel like I am walking into a gruesome museum exhibit organised by the editor of Viz.