Do you want a flake in that?

Reliant

I discovered Kieran Gabriel's artwork on Instagram. I say' discovered' - save for the briefest of bios on his website I know next to nothing about him. Originally from Merseyside and now living in London he uses light, shadow and form, working within the familiar scenes of everyday life and "aims to evoke memories and the nostalgia that lies within the significance of insignificant things." Sounds a bit pithy but I think you'll agree his work is kind of special. Who else could make a Reliant Robin look sexy?

Towers

And the brutalist imagery he conjures up on these blocks of flats almost makes me want to live in them. How does he do that? This is pure psychogeography with a side order of Mary, Mungo & Midge.

Ninety Nine

And I have lived on streets like this. I've seen that sky on a scorching hot afternoon. I've seen that ice cream van. We've all seen that ice cream van.

But this, for me, is the clincher; as soon as I knew he'd painted those iconic services on the M6 I was well and truly reeled in. I've photographed Forton many times, though never from this angle. Now I've got to go back. Again. 

Forton Services

Here comes the ice-cream man

Today's date has been in my diary for a while now: later this morning I will have a second shot of Astrazeneca in my arm. So that's me all jabbed up then. I know a few people reading this will also be double-bubbled too; so if you want to buy me a coffee (or a beer!) there's never been a better time to meet up...

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June 4th was also something of a red letter day back in 1979. On a sunny afternoon some 41 years ago I left my parents house with L plates on my Vauxhall Viva Rockbox - I returned a couple of hours later with said plates in a waste bin outside the Test Centre. Over a million miles later and I'm still on the road.

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But today also marks a far more harrowing anniversary. On this day in 1989 a student lead pro-democracy demonstration in Tienemen Square, Bejing, which had started peacefully seven weeks earlier, was brutally suppressed by heavily armed Chinese troops - complete with tanks. The ensuing massacre resulted in a death toll which has still to this day not been verified - but estimates put it at 10,000 minimum.

Grinding gears alert - when Blur released their eighth studio album, The Magic Whip, in 2015 it contained a (seemingly) jolly little song called Ice Cream Man. But it had dark undertones. Damon Albarn explained to Billboard magazine: "The sinister ice cream man with his white gloves. I set him in context of the (Tienemen) protest. He's a policeman and the whip is the state control. But the ice cream man is really sinister."

Blur - Ice Cream Man (2105)

When the band were promoting the album on Record Store day later that year this was how they reached out to their Californian fans - an ice cream van rocking up at various record shops selling ice cream and records. The eagle eyed among you will spot Amoeba Records - the best record store in the world, bar none. Fight me.