It was round about midnight. Probably later, much later. I didn’t know for sure but the one thing I did know that we had an early morning flight back to Blighty and I had a little problem to solve. Myself, Johnny Lizard and crew had just finished filming earlier that day and had been on an “end of shoot dinner”. Great place, very kitch, waiters looking like extras from a B movie, spears etc. and a menu offering antelope, giraffe, wildebeest and zebra amongst other delights. After a bottle of wine or two and via one of the “extras” I managed to score some grass, hence my little problem. Back in the hotel, packing my bag, I though ”could I”, “should I” take this stash back through customs? There was no way I could smoke my way out of this so I rolled one for the road and sat down to contemplate this problem. Listening to the music of the night I started to think about when I first saw Johnny Lizard’s work way back a long time ago, I was just a kid. My mentor, one Jolly Giraffe (I’m not making this up) showed me these original beautiful images and I thought this is work where you can expect the unexpected, magic, you can’t predict it, and I couldn’t predict getting through customs. We had rushes to see the next day and I figured I should be there and not in a cell in deepest Africa; the grass went down the toilet. The rushes were wonderful and a few days later we had a cut ready to show the people who were paying for it. They loved it, one of them saying “that’s beautiful, not quite what we were expecting but beautiful”. Once again Johnny Lizard had worked his magic.
I often think about that toilet. R. MUTT