A brush with irrelevance.

or, is it a plane?

Do you think we can do this justice?

I doubt it, but I’ve drunk two glasses of Faustino V a Rioja Rosé to try and help.

I thought you were a red man.

I got distracted, by the bottle and the heat.

And?

I’m a red man.

So are we going to do it  any justice?

Hard to say - it’s a rambling tale that starts in a sitting room in Manchester in 1974 and ends in a cinema in France in 2015 with very little in between – but we should try.

So, let’s start with the sitting room. There was a poster right?

Yep, Klint’s The Kiss, it belonged to Helen.

Ah ha! Did you?

What?

Kiss her?

I wanted to, but…

Ok, so….?

I didn’t know anything about art, the only poster I had was of a nun pulling up her stocking.

I know the one!

So this was my first brush with art, if you’ll excuse the pun.

The film begins with a brush doesn’t it?

Almost; it begins with a piece of gold leaf, but the brush comes very quickly.

Did you sit at the front?

Third row, but there was no-one in front of me.

That way you can pretend the cinema, the film, is all just for you. Can’t you?

You can; have I ever told you about when I went to see Kings of The Road in an art centre in Wales also back in the seventies?

The Wim Wenders film?

The very one.

Which begins with the guy standing by the river and the sound of a car in the distance and eventually the car rushes past and plunges into the river?

Great opening.

If you tell me, will it add anything to this unfolding tale of Gustav Klint?

It will add some irrelevance.

Go ahead then.

Well I sat in the third row, no one in front of me – as I did tonight – with my first wife, which I didn’t tonight.

Hang on, how many wives have you got?

Just the one.

So this one, the first, was…?

No.

Ah.

It didn’t last.

Ah. Anything to do with Wales?

Indirectly.

I’m lost.

Me too.

What happened in the sitting room in Wales?

The sitting room was in Manchester, not Wales, didn't i say that earlier? Anyway..... nothing happened; just the poster.

Ok, what happened in the cinema in Wales?

Doors behind us constantly opening and closing; crashing and banging.

What was going on?

I don’t know, we were watching the film.

Why are you telling me this?

Because it all happened early on in a very long film, and when it ended we turned around and the place was empty.

The cinema WAS just for you.

Aye.

What happened in France?

The others stayed.

Good film then?

So was the film in Wales , it was just that the audience was divided - them and us. I think they had been attracted by the poster. In France, at the beginning, I wasn’t sure.. I thought Helen Mirren was trying to hard to look sexy and the dialogue was clunky.

Ok. And she played the niece?

Maria Altman.

Ah. There lies the rub.

Gustav Klint!

Same painting?

No, but that would have been sweet.

Are you recommending this celluloid excursion for others.

I am.

Thank you.

You’re welcome. (Editorial Note X)