Our friend Dennis pops in

I have taken the plunge, to sort out my Aperture library and trash all those useless pictures I have taken, which have been slowing down the speed of the system. It is fairly traumatic when you trash endless folders, never quite knowing if a vital image or file has escaped the vetting process. I want to upgrade to the new Mountain Lion operating system but also want to do it onto a minimal system without too many potential conflicts. I also need to create a back-up of the current operating system which I can use to run the video editing software which I haven't upgraded for sometime, and which may have issues with the latest system. It is like when you first erase a hard drive, somewhat in trepidation.

As I was sorting the files out, I heard voices downstairs and Helena called up to say Dennis Gould had come to visit us. It was mid-morning, and coffee time, and on his way to water his allotment, Dennis was dropping off an invitation for us to his birthday party, which are usually notorious. This one will be in the Prince Albert pub in Rodborough, with two bands playing including various musicians from Paris whom he has befriended over the years. There will also be poetry, possibly including a reading or two from Helena, as she often appears with Dennis and Jeff Cloves, the two surviving members of the Riff-Raff poets.

The last of his parties that I attended was his 70th held in the barn of a Slad valley farm, with lots of friends, live music, local poets and a performance by Adrian Mitchell, who had come down from London specially to honour Dennis' contributions to the world. He has been a soldier and then a peace activist, apple tree planter, anarchist, book seller, poet and guerilla printer. He still does all this, except for being a soldier.

He is organising an exhibition of books to run for three weeks in the Old Town Hall, sited in the Shambles market place, off the High Street in Stroud, in November. Helena contributed to the last similar exhibition about seven years ago, which I adored, with all contributors showing their ten favourite books and producing a 'story' about why they were important to them. I will definitely be blipping that.

Dennis produces wonderful woodblock printing, particularly relating to his interests, one of the biggest of which is cycling. Today, I was particularly taken by his t-shirt, which reads:

Dr BICycle & Dr SPADE
OutLive Dr PetroL & Dr Grave

CyCology

www.bicycology.org.uk

PROMOTING CyClinG - EDUCATING & LIBERATING

Set in Gill & Gill Bold. Anarcho-CyClist at Woodblock LetterPress Stroud



Dennis doesn't have every letter in every font and always creates these marvellous graphic designs. I especially love the old bicycle images. He must have produced thousands of designs in his time. We have several hanging on the walls , some of them with Bob Dylan lyrics. It was great to see him again here at home, with time for a chat and a catch-up.