I used the phrase ‘just like a light-bulb’ to describe my reaction to the concept of monochrome drawings – in particular to the use of biro, a favourite medium of Adrian’s, and in some ways this was an apt description.  The harsh edge of a well-defined black or dark blue in some cases, area, against the pristine field of white, is just like a light going on and off.  But in a way it is far more subtle than that; it leaves to the imagination of the viewer the task of in-filling all the gentle gradations – the suffused softness, especially in a face, of the movement from light to shadow.

And Adrian was clever with it; he seemed able to draw the initial outline with ease; one take and it was done – no revision at all. How did he know just where to draw the line, because he was quite incapable of drawing the line in real life; his behaviour always bordering on the outrageous. How did he manage to let us see the hidden form in those blank patches of black and white. Or is it just our own power of imagination, the propensity to see faces in all things. You know, the fires flickering flames, clouds slowly grazing the close-cropped sky, even in the random swirls of vinyl tiles on a bathroom floor – we see faces in all of them. I do, at least.

I did tire of the repetition in his drawings though, and always hoped he would turn his talents to other mediums, but stubbornness, or some sort of working out a penance on his part, seemed to drive him on to draw even more monochrome faces.

Ah well, that is all over now, of course. Long gone, thank goodness. And now back to the tedium of my boring life, and I just remembered I had to buy a new light for the bathroom, the one room in the house you cannot go without one. Actually I am reminded because of a small item on the news. The traditional sixty-watt filament light bulb is to be no more. Extinct, a victim of global warming, and it is to be replaced by those wretched energy-saving bulbs, which start off dim, and remain a poor substitute even when fully warmed up. They are useless, they are just a farce.  They are just like a light-bulb – but quite definitely not like a real one.