Ok, bit late to the #museumofme party, what with one thing and another (thanks to @wittertainment for the preferred euphemism de nos jours). But in an unusual break from auto-tweeting Instagram links to pictures of my kids, here I go...
#museumofme No. 1 - picture of me as a child. Think this is first day of school in about... 1979? I liked the milk breaks, for as long as they lasted [shakes fist, then lets it go]. 
#museumofme No. 2 - Something I (used to) collect: comic books. More specifically, Batman and Detective Comics, from about 1989 to, I guess 1995 - I have about a hundred-issue run in each and that was some achievement, in rural Suffolk 30 or so years ago.
It was made possible by our lovely neighbour Don, ex-USAF, used to go to the now-closed US airbases in Suffolk and would buy me a - slightly random stash. And the rare trip to Forbidden Planet in London to spend paper round money.
I got to a point where keeping up with the soap opera of continuity was just silly. But there is a LOT of stuff still in my head from that time: individual panels, covers, but also the very American adverts, for #ThreeMusketeers chocolate bars and #CharlesAtlas training, & more.
#museumofme No. 3 - Someone important to me. Well, in the shameless hope of a retweet, @KermodeMovie and @simonmayo Archdeacons of the Most Holy Church @wittertainment - are the two voices of people I don’t actually know that I’ve heard the most, I think #LTLBNE (work it out).
But my actual pick is my old art teacher and friend, Laurie Shepherd. I like to talk, but there are some people to whom I love to listen, and he was one of them. Watching TV at his house was both energising and relaxing because of all the chat that went with it.
I was lucky to know him at a time when he was in a purple patch of painting, emulating his Abstract Expressionist heroes. I can’t remember if it was before or after he died, but I ended up with a couple of his paintings. Here’s one of them.
#museumofme No. 4 - favourite object. Well, I don’t think I have a singular favourite thing. But I do like my Stetson Brooklin [sic] newsboy cap. In fact, I have two, in different sizes, which oddly both fit although not on the same way. This is the ‘summer’ one.
I guess my enjoyment of my cap(s) is to do with losing my hair, it feels like a replacement, it ‘completes’ my head. I also have tried MANY caps and never found a style I liked as much, even other Brooklins but in different fabrics. So I dread this being lost or worn out.
Which is why I bought another.
There’s also a bonus fave object here behind me: a BIG print of London Subterranea by Stephen Walter. It was commissioned for an exhibition I was sort of involved with @ltmuseum back in 2012 (a VERY good year in some ways, although not entirely in my case).
I met Stephen Walter back then and he was lovely. Totally at odds with the slightly terrifying obsessiveness that produced a negative artwork in such detail (all the white is what he left, he drew in the contrast. Mad).
Anyway, though I am happy out beyond the M25, I loved London for nearly two decades, and having this marvel in my home is just... right.
#museumofme No. 5 - a book that represents me? Well, I have two.
First off, #TheLordoftheRings - because I like my fiction fantastical, and this remains an astounding, astonishing piece of world creation, which is what really gets me: the discipline married to imagination to make an entire world WORK. Wow.
The individual lines and pages can be awfully clunky, but the sweep of the story and the care it induces for the characters, in spite of its flaws, is really something.
As a bit of an offset, I include #ThePrincessBride. Yes, yes, it’s really about loving the movie, but that this book did nothing to diminish that wonderful film is almost as remarkable as the entertainment from the film itself.
I love #ThePrincessBride because it is both sincere and silly. I hope that’s a reflection of me - it’s how it feels inside, anyway.
#museumofme No. 6 - my family. Drawn as a gift for my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary last year (which is now at least a hundred years ago), by my MustDoThingsVisually wife @MaireadO
If you think my daughter #oonaghballoona is missing, note the curve on M’s tum :)
#museumofme No. 7 - home. Well now. I love living in #thechilterns - it’s proper gorgeous. So here’s one of many pictures I could share of this landscape, a particularly fine and gnarly tree just a short walk into the woods from our wee house.
But... I grew up somewhere special too, and that’s ALWAYS home. Alright, we didn’t live right on the coast, but big Suffolk skies and a North Sea breeze are always in my eyes and lungs.
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