I cannot blame Hugh - that would be ridiculous - nor can I equate myself with Van Gogh. Just the same I am entitled to make the point that it was Vincent's saintly brother Theo who brought an end to sixty days of painting in Auvers-sur-Oise. You can find three thousand art books filled with bad reproductions and as many dull opinions that the sixty paintings from those sixty days were a 'final flowering' and the crows in Vincent's wheatfield were a 'clear sign' he was about to kill himself. But fuck me Jesus, a crow is just a bird and Vincent was alive, and there were crows and wheat in front of him and he was producing a canvas every day. He was as mad as a toilet brush - why not? - and as boring as a painter, and Dr Gachet may not have actually invited his patient to come and live with him, but painters do these things, so suck it up.