Episode #3: Quantum flirting, Back Gaemen and a live crow/spider skirmish

In this episode I talk about The Windowsill Gang and how they bring me joy but also steal my crab shells, all about Arnie Mindell's beautiful concept of Quantum Flirting and share the story of how I have ended up inviting strangers to play Backgammon with me.

And an exciting moment (for me anyway) when I witness a crow/spider skirmish right outside my window.

TL;DL
1' 50"   The Windowsill Gang
9' 09"   Quantum Flirting
14' 55"  The Back Gaemen project
15' 27"  Spider/crow skirmish
31' 51" New t-shirts and upcoming workshops

Links to things I mention

The Windowsill gang

T-shirts

Workshops

The written Substack version of all of this: Stevexoh's Substack thing

Comments, questions, requests and stuff to stevexoh@gmail.com

(Listening time 36 mins and 57 secs)

Transcript

(00:13.19)
Welcome to episode 3 of creative adventures or the audio version of Steve Xoh's sub stack thing and this episode is where the sub stack and the podcast synchronize and that

is really exciting me and confusing my brain. So welcome to those that didn't know this existed because you've been reading the sub stack and obviously those that have been listening to the podcast will be going, I'm really glad it's joined up now. And then he'll stop going on about it every single podcast. And if you want to know the whole story behind why I'm doing this, go back to episode one and listen to the first five minutes and it will tell you why I'm doing this. But essentially, I wanted an accessible version of the sub stack. And that's what this is.

and I'm recording this in my flat which I thought it would be a quiet time to record but there's a lot of traffic so just ignore the traffic. But I'm excited about these two things syncing up more than I should be really and it feels to me like the sort of weird excitement and confusion I get when I'm on a train and another train going the same direction ends up going the same speed right next to the window and there's that feeling of you going really fast.

But the thing next to you is going a similar speed and also really fast. And it's confusing because it's still and at the same time. And that's what it feels like now that these things are synchronized. But I'm not going to say more about it because it's probably going to become boring if you've listened to all three podcasts. But from now on, they will both come out in the same day and the podcast and the sub stack will come out once a month or once every four weeks, something like that.

And I've just remembered I was going to try and record this episode earlier in the morning so around the time that the crows and jackdaws come for their breakfast so we could hear them but I've started recording now and it's the afternoon. They might come back. The food's all gone. The food goes so quickly. I fill up two bird feeders with mealworms and fruit pellets every morning and it's all gone within an hour and a half. And it's a collection of creatures. That's what I love about my windowsill bird feeders that I've had for a couple of years now. There's like this whole

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symbiotic ecosystem that exists each day and it starts with the two crows that come along which I've called big crow and regular-sized crow very imaginatively and I was so glad that there's two crows come along because last year I befriended a crow down by the River Thames and would visit it like almost every day to the point that it would come and eat out of my lap and I'd feed it monkey nuts

but then it had babies and I think they've moved away now. So to have the two crows visiting in the morning, it is lovely. And they normally sharp first. They must watch from a distance and hear the window open or hear me filling up the bird feeders and come and fly over. And sometimes they do a nice call or some other weird crow noises. That's what I like about crows is it feels like you're accessing new levels of a computer game when they make the different noises.

And I remember with the crow down by the river that I befriended, the day that it sort of bowed to me and did the noise. Not a brilliant crow impression, but the day it did that to me, it's like I've just achieved a new level. I felt like I was being inducted into the crow family. And once the crows go, then the jackdaws turn up. And these are, I illustrated all of this, by the way, illustrated this on my Instagram. I called it the Windersil Gang.

and it told this whole story of the symbiotic relationships on the windowsill. So yeah, the crows show up and then the jackdaws show up and the jackdaws are crazy. It's like a pack of monkeys. just go wild. They make so much noise. They throw food everywhere. And one of the birds isn't in my good books anymore. And I suspect the jackdaws, but it could have been the crows. Because it's been warm, I've had my window open and just inside my windowsill in the flat.

I've got a collection of little trinkets of stuff and I had a collection of crab shells like crab shells that I just found. There's a big spider crab shell that I found, a big crab claw that I found and a very special little crab shell from Okra Coke from when JD Woof and I did the residency on Okra Coke and she'd drawn a little creature on it. And there's the noisy motorbikes again. I think they wait for me to start.

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to start recording the podcast. But anyway, I have this collection of crab shells and one day I was in another room and I just heard this crazy commotion and I came back and the bird feeder had got ripped off the window and had been thrown onto the little balcony thing below. There were mealworms everywhere and I noticed my crab shells had gone and I think that they just must have come in through the open window and thought, wow, crabs. I like eating crabs and just took them away.

I managed to retrieve the crab claw and I found the spider crab shell on the street which must have really confused people like why is there a smashed up spider crab shell in Serberton but the little okra coke one's gone for good and yeah I might put a little sign up for them to say look please please return my crab shell I'm going to carry on feeding you and then after the jackdaws have made all the mess a little wag tail turns up that I call little guy

And a little guy's job is they pack all the little bits of food and tidy up and bits of mealworm and fruit pellet that have been thrown around And then in the evening when the birds have gone to bed and the sun's gone down that's where the slugs appear And the slugs clean everything They go in the bird feeder, they clean it, they get all the tiny little bits and make it immaculate for the next day I'm surprised I live on the first floor so I don't know where these slugs live I don't know if they're down in bushes and

They slither up each night or they just hide in the bricks and come out. But what I love about it is the slugs know that they need to be gone by the time the sun comes up, otherwise they'll get eaten by the birds. But recently I began to notice that the jackdaws had started looking really malnourished, like a bit scruffy, bit weird. And lots of them had different color eyes. mean, adult jackdaws have white eyes, but a lot of these ones had like two brown eyes or one

brown and one slightly white eye and they were quite scrawny and I wondered what was going on. I wondered if it was something to do with the weird temperature fluctuations that we've been having in the UK like maybe their food sources got disrupted or maybe they've not been able to nest or something like that and then I wondered if it might have been bird flu, still bird flu epidemic but then one day I saw a bigger jackdaw with one of the weird ones and it was chatting to it

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and putting some mealworms down in front of it and the weird one was eating it and then I realised that they must be the babies or to be more accurate they were the toddlers of the jackdaws that had been coming to my window sill and it was really exciting to me like witnessing this generational handover them saying look this is where you come I was going to do a jackdaw voice then but I don't know what it would sound like so I won't but the adults saying look this is where you come you come here

This creature puts out this food for us each day and we come and get it and then we fly off. And there's a little bird bath if you want to drink or you want to have a wash. It's a nice place. It's safe. And it's been lovely to watch the weird scruffy ones sort of mature into gangly, more teenager-y jackdaws who are far braver than the adults, but maybe they're just a bit naive at the moment. Maybe they'll get a bit more flighty.

But getting close to wild creatures in this way, it satisfies something in me and it gives me a sense of meaning that I find hard to get elsewhere. And they've become part of my morning routine. Whilst I really thought I disliked routine repetition, and I do in most areas of life, I find that a morning routine really helps me, like making my coffee, making my breakfast, sitting down to...

eat it and play the New York Times free games. Although that's breaking news is they've put most of the free games behind a paywall this week, which is causing outrage on Axe. And I was quite outraged by it, but I guess that's capitalism for you. And maybe, I don't know, maybe the staff will get paid a bit more by putting behind a paywall. But sitting down and playing what were the three New York Times games and the Jackdaws coming up.

just felt like it gave me some meaning, it's like spontaneous emergent meaning and I think they're the things that excite me the most. I very rarely plan stuff in that way. I mean I sound contradictory, I've just said I like a breakfast routine but for my work I don't like planning stuff, I don't have a plan and milestones and objectives and lots of things just emerge spontaneously.

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And a question I'm often asked is, so what's next? And that's normally after I've done a talk, normally my bingo machine talk where I've talked about all these different weird and wonderful projects, or it might be after an interview for a podcast or something. And they ask, so what's next? And I always feel maybe a bit deficient when my answer is typically, I don't know. I really don't know. There's nothing at the moment.

And I guess the question comes primarily from a place of curiosity and wondering like what weird and wonderful projects are lurking in my brain. And I've probably asked this question of other people whose work I've become really interested in. But I can't help but become curious about the assumptions that sit behind the question. Like what are the assumptions about me and how my mind works, as well as general assumptions about creativity and productivity and what it means to successfully live a creative life.

Is there an assumption that there is just a constant flow of projects and ideas in my mind that are sort of lining up like planes to come into land at an airport? And how much is informed by the societal assumptions about productivity and the idea that being busy equals being successful? And then what do people think when I tell them that there isn't anything and I don't know what's next? Are they disappointed? Do I go down in their estimation? Do they perceive me as a bit of a failure?

And how does all this make me feel when I seem to be perpetually admitting that I have no plans or ideas right now? But to be clear, I like being asked a question. I don't mind being asked a question because sometimes there is something and I can tell people about it. But more so because not knowing in itself has become a very important part of my creative practice. And I've learned over the years that putting in effort to come up with ideas is a surefire way to ensure that I don't ever come up with ideas.

I liken it to those floaty things that people sometimes get in their eyes I think they're called vitreous floaters They're like nutrients that just go across the eyeball That's my... I thought maybe I should research it for the podcast and then I forgot and now I'm talking about it But yeah, vitreous floaters And if you try and look at them they disappear from sight So the only way to see them is to not try looking at them and simply wait for them to appear

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and I often use the metaphor of vitreous floaters to talk about Arnie Mindell's concept of quantum flirting which has become a really important part of my creative practice for many years now. The way I understand Mindell's concept is that the way we think about attention is somewhat skewed or at least unhelpful. The general assumption is that we choose where to place our attention. For example, I just looked up from my desk and I've got some saucepans hanging from a thing

in the kitchen, don't know what it's called, saucepan hanging rack. Now logic tells me that in that moment I chose to place my attention on the saucepans hanging down. However, through the lens of quantum flirting, it would suggest that what happened was in that moment I was open to hearing the saucepans calling for my attention. And I learned about quantum flirting back in 2012 from my dear friend and colleague, the Gestalt Psychotherapist Simon Kovic.

And the concept spoke to me in such a way that it fundamentally changed how I approach my work. A massive, significant shift in my creative philosophy. A shift where I make less effort and focus trying to seek out and hunt down inspiration and instead curating space and quiet and a kind of experimental unfocusing and emptiness in the everyday in order to better hear the inspiration calling me. Moving towards what they call in Gestalt the fertile void.

Now this all sounds great in theory that all I need to do is sit and wait and be quiet and listen for the whispers. But when I'm feeling down or uninspired or bored and simply want something to stimulate and engage me, and I typically want it now, it's the last thing I want to do is nothing. The last thing I want to do is go, yeah, I need to do less and something will present itself, something will call to me. That just makes me feel worse.

And there's no guarantee that even if I do that I'll get to a flirtable state where I'm open to hearing the alluring call of a curious question that might just turn into something. I mean often there's nothing for a considerable amount of time and I become even more frustrated. But when a quantum flirt does occur it feels magical. Like a moment where something gradually comes into my awareness. Something that was there all along but I just couldn't quite defocus and let go enough to see it until now.

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And a lot of the big projects that I talk about came from quantum flirts moments where I wasn't seeking something but just allowed myself to sit in the empty fertile void. The Sound of Silence podcast I've mentioned before, the world's first silent podcast featuring special guests came to me in that way. The Inexpert conference, the conference that I did in 2018 that was the opposite of TED.

And also What The February, the What The February book, the What The February thing that I did on Instagram. They all started life as quantum flirts where I was open enough to hear something in my peripheral awareness calling for attention. And then my job is just to investigate and to nurture it and become curious about it. What is this thing that is calling for me and what is it calling for? And I was experiencing one of these lows in July where, like if you'd asked me, what's...

what's next I would have gone nothing I've got no ideas at all I'm really I'm really bored and restless and when I'm like that I want a particular type of human connection one that always feels paradoxical to me and never quite satisfies so I want to be around lots of people in a way that I don't feel alone and maybe I'm inspired by them but I also don't want to be around too many people and feel overwhelmed by too much social interaction so it's a sweet spot that I never get right

And I always have ideas. I always have ideas of, oh wow, there's a massive spider. There's a massive spider on the wall outside. I think it's a fake widow. Oh what, a crow just came and ate it. Jeez, oh, I wish the window was open and you could have heard that. That was amazing. I think.

I think it was a fake widow I was just going to have a look at the markings on its back and then a massive crow just came and ate it. That's how big it was. It was crawling against a white wall. I was just about to take a photo of it to put in the podcast notes. it's a shame I wasn't videoing it. That would have been incredible. I've completely lost my train of thought now. that was it. That was it. My low. So you see these are the types of the crow eating a spider.

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and witnessing like that, that just lifts me completely. But I can't plan that, script that. dear. I guess this is one of the things that you don't get in the written version. I don't allow myself to get distracted in the written version. Or maybe I do, but then I edit it and sanitise it. So maybe come to the podcast if you want a messy version. But anyway, back in July, I was wanting some human interaction, the right type of human interaction.

And so I thought I'd go somewhere. I thought I'd go somewhere. And when I come up with these ideas, I always imagine myself going to a place and walking in and meeting new people and being like the life and soul of the party and being interested and interesting to people and making new connections and making new friends and having a whale of a time and waking up with a sore head in the morning but feeling completely satisfied. And I always disappoint myself.

I remember I was invited to speak at Cannes Lion on the south coast of France back in 2017 I think it was and it was a big prestigious creativity festival and I speaking on the main stage on the last day and I had VIP passes, access all area passes to all these parties on beaches and clubs and I could just go in, I didn't have to queue and someone messaged and said

there's a party on a boat and we'd get a helicopter there and so I'm thinking yeah this is amazing this is exactly what I'm gonna do I'm just gonna be the most sociable person ever and then when it came to the evening after my talk I just walked around quickly with a drink in my hand as if I was going somewhere wanting people to interact with me but giving off all the signals I didn't want anyone to interact with me and I ended up just going back to my hotel room

I'm feeling it's that mismatch between my expectations of how I'm going to be and then the reality of it. So from those experiences, and there's been many of them, I try and aim a little bit lower now. So I wanted something that felt like it could be a reasonable chance of me getting the human interaction I want. And I spent ages searching the internet for things like maybe a private view, maybe a gallery opening, maybe a talk or something like that.

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and I soon realised that there wasn't much happening against my very specific criteria in London on a Tuesday evening. But one thing I noticed is a board games evening in East London kept coming up in the search results. And for each different search I did, changing the keywords and stuff, this board games thing kept coming up. Now I really like board games. I like playing board games, but the thought of walking into a board games club

where people potentially already know each other and trying to insert myself somehow into a game felt like a surefire way of experiencing rejection and not fitting in But this event kept calling to me So just by every fibre of my nervous system saying this is not a good idea I grabbed my stuff and left the flat before I could talk myself out of it And on arriving at the pub I instantly regretted going to it because I think it started at 7

and I got there at 7.05. I thought, don't want to be the first person to arrive, but maybe it's 7.05, some other people will come in. I'm early to everything and it really annoys me. I thought 7.05, maybe 7.10 even. People start to come in, I can say hi and introduce myself. But even though I got there at 7.05 or 7.10, everyone was sitting down at tables playing games. Literally everyone. There was no one wandering around looking lost.

And I just thought, no, this is my idea of hell. Why have I traveled an hour to come to this thing? And like, do these people all know each other or are they just all really good at meeting new people and deciding to play? Like, how do I integrate myself into this without coming across like an alien that doesn't know how to interact with other humans? And then I spotted a group of four people going up to the bar or the pub where the games were. I thought, here's my chance. They're coming to get a game and I can practice chatting with human beings and...

being sociable. So as they picked up a game, said to them, hey, can I join you? And I asked, I thought I asked it confidently, but really I was sort of cringing inside. And they looked at each other and then back at me and said, sorry, we've already got a full table and enough people for this game. And I just replied with a jolly like, problem, which completely belied the crushing sense of rejection and desire to run away that was engulfing my entire body.

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But just as I was about to leave, I saw an older guy on his own holding an ornate wooden box and he was looking around, presumably for someone to play with. So I asked him, do you want to play with me? Which he's like, it felt like such a weird question saying, do you want to play with me? Is that what you'd ask at a board games thing? Because it just, made me think that, it made me feel like I was like seven in the playground or something. Do you want to play with me? Do you want to be my friend?

But anyway the guy said yes and we sat down at this tiny tiny little table, the only table left at the pub and he opened his box to reveal the game Backgammon and I said to him, right wonderful I've never played Backgammon before, will you teach me how to play it? And he looked really really disappointed I think he might have almost sighed and I said well can you teach me and he didn't really say anything and just sort of looked around the pub

to if there's anyone else I think, like anyone that might be a more experienced backgammon player. But there was literally no one else around that hadn't already joined in a game. So he reluctantly agreed to show me how to play. And we played five games. He won four of them. I won one, although I suspect he let me win as he felt sorry for me. But what I loved was as we played, we spoke about stuff. He told me he was from Persia, the region where the game was invented like over 5,000 years ago.

and he told me about the history of the game and the culture he grew up in. Backgammon was a fixture of everyday life and he'd been playing since he was like four or five years old which went some way to explaining how quickly he could play. I had to get him to slow down and I had to get him to count out the numbers rather than just move the pieces because he knew it so well. And the more we chatted he showed me photos of the city in Iran where he'd lived and talked about his experience of coming to live in the UK.

I told him all about my life in London and my art and growing up in North London and moving to South. Then as the fifth game came to a close, like after an hour and a half or maybe a couple of hours, it felt like we reached a natural end to our interaction. We shook hands and I left. No exchange of contact details, no plans to keep in touch, just a thank you and a farewell. And I left feeling incredibly socially satiated, a feeling that I really rarely get.

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And over the next couple of days I became fascinated why this felt like such a nourishing interaction. I I liked Backgammon but it wasn't the best game I've ever played and that's all I want to do with my life from now on. It actually confused me quite a bit and on the way home I was already forgetting the rules because that type of stuff just doesn't stick in my brain. And even though the guy that I played with was an interesting human being and I enjoyed our conversations it wasn't like, this is the most fascinating person I've ever met.

And it was then that I started to realise that rather than the game or the individual, it was the nature of the interaction that really worked for me. Once I'd found someone to play with and had learnt the most basic of rules, like even just how the game begins and how it ends, I felt comfortable. And in the previous episode of this podcast, I spoke about niche environments, this idea of niche environments, specific habitats in which anyone, in particularly neurodiverse people, can better thrive.

And for me, it felt like this game of backgammon with this stranger created the conditions of a sort of niche environment, a socially niche environment in which I felt comfortable. And it provided me with three very important things. Number one, a clear focus and a reason for the interaction. We are going to sit together and we're going to play backgammon. That's the purpose of this interaction. Number two, a defined start point.

defined end point and what I like to think of it as escape routes like in between each game I could say I've had enough and get out so it didn't feel that there was a weird start or there was an unending thing I didn't feel trapped in it and then number three there was a mutual repeated physical activity above which conversation flowed or from which conversation flowed and whilst occasionally we'd talk about the game and the rules

really the conversation was just happening spontaneously around it. And I've realized that it's when these factors are not present or are unclear to me that I start to find things more socially difficult and have to work harder to stay present and not have the weird out of body experience where I'm almost witnessing myself trying to be a normal adult. Either that or drink alcohol to try and numb out of it and make myself feel less inhibited. So I started to wonder if these three factors

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could become a helpful formula for me to meet new people in a way that helps me feel more like a functional adult. Because I'm always interested in meeting new people but find it hard to figure out ways to do this that work for me. Just walking into a bar or a party or an event or a conference and striking up conversation or merging to become part of a group just isn't my skill set. And small talk kills me, really does. I know no one really likes small talk but I find it excruciating.

Maybe they are genuinely interested but I experience it as just like hollow carbs things that just are filling for the sake of filling but don't contain any nutrients when people say so what do you do? I want to say can't you ask a more interesting question? If someone came up to me and said what do you think of sharks? Or someone come up to me and told me a fact about the infinite nature of the universe and

the sun and how the universe is evolving. I'd be straight in with that. So I want to meet people and I want to get to that point of having interesting, deeper conversations with people. Can you hear the crows? I don't know if you could hear that. My microphone's too good. But the crows are back. I imagine one of them saying to the other one, there was a massive spider on that wall. Honestly, honestly, there was massive spider and I got it off the wall.

keep a look out for spiders. Actually I've just realised, I I like all creatures but I don't particularly want fake widow spiders coming into my flat. So maybe I have now forgiven whoever stole my crab shells because they're providing a valuable spider control service. But anyway, I want to meet people, I want to hang out with people, want to have interesting conversations with people, I want to learn about people.

and I wondered if this formula that I had discovered with the guy from Iran playing backgammon might help me. And it was at that moment that a curious question that would become the catalyst for a weird new project appeared. I wonder what would happen if I invited strangers to play backgammon with me. And I posted an invitation across social media the next day that simply said, do you want to play backgammon with me somewhere? And people replied. And on the 12th of August, the project began.

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I met somebody I'd never met before, they got in contact through Instagram in St James' Park and we played three games of backgammon surrounded by curious geese who seemed to want to join in and eat the backgammon pieces which was lovely. And at the end I drew a portrait of the person who now officially is referred to as player number one and we co-created a haiku about our experience which I wanted the portrait and the haiku to sort of be like a ritual or an artifact of the experience that I may turn into

exhibition or may turn into a website or something but if nothing else so it felt like an important thing to do to co-create something together and then after we'd done that we said goodbye as similar to before no plans to keep in touch no plans to to meet up again and as I was walking back to Waterloo to head home I felt really elated I mean like ridiculously like almost like I'd had some sort of drug

Not just because I'd experienced a nice engaging and delightfully weird social interaction but because I got that excited feeling in my gut that this was going to turn into something that I would end up telling a story about someday. A new experimental project that emerged once again not through seeking it out but through defocusing and allowing the board games event and the Iranian man with nobody to play backgammon with to call for my attention and just to move towards that. So the backgammon project now exists.

A weird experimental adventure that arose from a quantum flirt I've absolutely no idea where it will take me or how long it will go on for The time you listen to this I might have got bored with it At the time of recording this I've played five games and I've got three more games planned this week And if you'd like to be part of it then I've put a link with all the details in the podcast notes or you can read about it on the sub stack or

Drop me an email or send me message on Instagram. Links to all of those you can find in the same place. And if you're wondering why I'm calling it the Backgamen project and the title of this podcast is Backgamen, like back, then G-A-E-M-E-N, it's, I just don't like the word gammon. It just, it sort of belies the game. If I played that game and someone said, we're going to call that game Backgammon, I'd go, what? Why are you calling it that?

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I haven't eaten meat for like 18 years and even when I did I wasn't a big fan of gammon. It's just something about it. It's just very intense meat. And then also the word gammon has taken on a different meaning in the UK over the last few years. So there's a number of reasons why I don't like it. So I did a bit of research into the origins of the name backgammon and obviously it was called different things 5,000 years ago in Persia.

But seems that the word Backgammon came from the old Middle English words Backgammon Back meaning to return to something and gammon meaning play And so I like that idea of Backgammon being returned to play So I'm calling it that in the written sense but I don't want to say it in... even though I've just described it verbally because it sounds a bit pretentious So I'll refer to it as the Backgammon project but it's spelt Backgammon

makes sense to me. But yeah, if you want to be part of it, then get in touch. I'd love to have a game with you. And it's really clear if after one game or even during a game you've had enough, we have escape routes. And at the end we just say bye and drift off into the sunset. So a couple of things before I go. And I've got some new t-shirts in my shop. They're sort of new. I've not spoken about it on a podcast before.

And of all the things I sell in my shop or in market stores, I get the most delight when someone buys a t-shirt. And they're certainly not the things that I make the most money out. And I think I get delight from it because it's that combination of somebody liking my art and wanting to wear it. And I wonder where are they going to wear it? Are they going to wear it to a festival, to a party? Maybe they'll wear it on a first date with someone and someone else will see it it will strike up a meaningful relationship.

But the thing with t-shirts is they cost a lot of money to have them made and I've tried screen printing once and I really didn't get on well with it at all. And so I've been getting them printed elsewhere. But when you get them printed elsewhere, understandably, there's a minimum order quantity. And as well as the minimum order quantity for each t-shirt design, you have to have it in all the different sizes. So it ends up being a lot of outlay up front and stock takes up a lot of space in my studio or in my flat.

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So I've been quite frugal in not getting t-shirts printed. And I've gone to those print on demand places. I use T-Mill as a print on demand place. So if you want a t-shirt, you order it and you get it. But there's a couple of downsides with that model. One is that I don't really have any control over the t-shirt quality. And I mean, it says on the website what the quality is in the print, but I don't really have any control over it. And T-Mill seemed quite good.

And the other thing is I get a tiny, tiny fraction of the amount you pay for it. I think if you buy one of the t-shirts via T-MIL for my website, they're like 19 pounds or something. I think I get 70p or something like that. But I've recently found three t-shirt designs that seem to be very popular and also a lovely independent screen printing company called Vino Sanga. I'll give them a little plug because they've been absolutely amazing. Little independent screen printing company based in Norwich, I think.

And I've taken the plunge and it means I can now offer some high quality hand screen printed t-shirts sold directly from me to you. Very good quality and I get to keep most of the profits, which is brilliant. And there's three t-shirts. There's one which is a, it's an old painting of mine, but I really like it. It's like a white wolf or white dog on a black t-shirt. There is the cat that I painted that says, I am very bored.

which I painted in a moment of being very bored and it's become now one of my best selling t-shirts and there is a t-shirt of Socially Awkward Dog. So if you like the sound of any three of those then go to my website and you can find the link to my website in the podcast notes or find it on Instagram and yeah get one and I'm delighted when people order them. I bought special bags to ship the t-shirts in so you get it in special bag as well. And if you say that you heard about it on the podcast

then I will draw you a picture of a crow eating a spider as a bonus thing in your t-shirt order. But please mention that because I will forget that I've said that. And then finally, workshops. If you want to know what workshops are coming up, canscorpionsmoke.com. There is a musical improvisation workshop on the 26th of September, which only has two spaces left, which is an amazing day. Such a lovely day.

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And then my mask workshop, last mask workshop of the year, 14th November, both of these in London. There's only four places.

And August is a weird time for me. I always have my August panic where it's been quiet for work that earns me money and I think, I'm going to run out of money very soon. There's nothing in for the rest of the year. And that's despite this happening every year for 13 years and sort of working itself out in the end. So this is my traditional end of August invitation to work with me in some shape or form. And my favorite things to do are talks or workshops.

or group facilitation and that can be around anything around creativity, around change, around culture, around innovation. I also do a lot of group work like dialogue work and action learning groups and work one-to-one with people. There's a lot of artists or creatives or just people that that wants to, I don't know, get unstuck and disrupt norms and see what happens. So if you'd like to work with me then get in touch.

So thank you very much for listening and episode four of the podcast and edition four of the sub stack will be out next month and you'll be glad that I won't be referring to my excitement and anticipation about the two things synchronizing up anymore. Although if that's your favorite bit of the podcast write to me and I can mention it every single time. Take care, speak to you soon. Bye.