I'd be the first to admit I'm all talk and no neoprene trousers, but take a walk in my flip-flops if you would?
I visited his exhibitions in London and Brussels and the workshop in Antwerp, and I like to think that I'm standing on the shoulders of a giant in the shape of installation artist Panamarenko. In the end he'd produced nothing practical whatsoever, though inspired any number of us with a glimpse of the possible when it came to motivating us in both literal and figurative ways.
As I survey my designs and patent applications filed over decades, or my empire of dirt as Johnny Cash suggested I call it, I have to remind myself it's brought a lot of joy to at least one of us. That said, as I said to one of the founders of the UK's now fairly-shit NESTA initiative, the reason no-one else is ever going to exert themselves developing any of your ideas is that it is like asking them to bring up your kids for you.
We are, therefore, stuck with it: my efforts to execute unorthodox designs and you laughing at them. If we're going down that route however, we have at least as the first half of 2026 expires to ask ourselves what we hope to get out of it in the long-term?
Well keen followers of the 'blog will have noted a recent craving for a simpler build altogether, and whilst simply building it in my head is as appealing as ever, we're a hands-on community of makers and shakers, aren't we?
Accordingly let's enumerate our very own hierarchy of needs:
(1) I don't want to build a company, and nor do you, but I do want to build a boat
(2) It has to be scalable to transport (or rescue) a person, but still inspire drones
(3) It has to be transferable to places like the Med where circs are more amenable
(4) It has to be available to aero- and screw-propellers alike, ideally electrified
(5) It has to be able to hover, plane on water and operate in ground-effect
(6) It must be flat-packed for assembly and storage
(7) It has to look so good that others want one too
(8) It has to be cheaper and faster than any other
(9) It has to have less impact on the planet
(10) It has to make people give me money
I think you will agree that these are noble aims altogether, albeit not those Mother Teresa would be willing to sign off on? Accordingly now's the time to print them off, stick them on the fridge and re-dedicate yourselves to them daily, as I hope to do.
Clauses (8) and (9) are each as good an aim as any, they requiring less material to build fast-moving watercraft and less energy to propel them. Of the 12 million boats registered in the US, for example, any number are (literally) forever boats that are being abandoned in waterways for someone else to clear up when the party's over.
Thus my promise to you for the remaining half of 2026 is that whatever is baptised here in the shitty waters hereabouts will feature that sketch, the whole sketch and nothing but the sketch.
We shall revisit each of those points in turn, though I realise you've had all you can take for one day. Yet with the month of June slipping away, we're holding steady at 60,000 views per month on this hailing frequency alone.
