I've just added a new story Professor de Wolfe to the Propellor Girl and Other Tales website [link] so go check it out now. Go, go on now... It's by far the longest story with 21 photos and 33 verses. A real adventure.

It was also the most involved shoot so far as I had the idea to create some new creatures and I've never made puppets (for want of a better description) before so it took some time. But I think it was worth it in the end. However it was not a smooth path. The creatures are called Herdy Gerdies and are made up of bits and pieces I found in all kinds of wonderful stuff you get in Flower markets here in Shanghai. But there was an incident in the creation which involved smashing in a door and the police being called. Well isn't there always, it's Shanghai after all. That's why I continue to live here after 5 years. There's never a dull moment. These things just happen... to me... a lot... there is the time I got arrested in Beijing because a taxi driver said I beat him up – but that's a whole other story.

Part of the creature's body is made up of a pair of wings. For some reason fake wings (made from wire and cardboard but real feathers glued on are widely available in the photo supply and plant markets here. They get used as props a lot for cute photos of kids. The Chinese love 'cute' photos. However all the wings were white and it was too cheery for what I wanted so I sprayed them black with a tin of paint I bought in an art store. I have a nice yard outside my studio doors so I sprayed them on a table there and left them to dry. I was back side my studio with my assistant vivian putting other bits of the creatures together when we both heard some loud screaming and shouting outside.

Now at this point I should point out to the uninitiated that screaming and shouting in Shanghai is par for the course. I don't even notice it anymore except in this case it seemed to be right outside my studio doors but as the yard is only accessible to the three houses that back onto it and all my neighbors and old and fairly quiet I was puzzled. So I looked at Vivian and we both decided that it sounded like a really good fight so we should stick our noses out, and in the Shanghai tradition, gather round and see what all the fuss was about. We stepped outside and there was quite a crowd in the yard, a good 20 people including my landlady and her older sister (I would guess in her late 60s) and an irate madman in the middle. His face was almost purple with rage and his shock of pure white hair set it off even more. He was average height but quite rotund and a huge angry ball of fury. I thought 'this is going to be a good one".

Unfortunately as soon as he saw me he pointed his fat little index finger at me and starts screaming even louder. It was all in Shanghainese so I couldn't understand a work except 'DDT'. I just thought 'great, what the hell am I supposed to have done now? I wasn't even out here when the commotion started.' Anyway his screaming continued interspersed with DDT and pointing fingers at me. There was a slew of people that actually had to hold him back from attacking me. Although I'm sure it was al posturing on his part, if they had let go of him I don't think he would have tired anything, at least on me. I'd never heard of DDT (a chemical used for pest control since the 1940s but turned out to be dangerous to humans too), it was banned in the west in the 1970s but it is still well known in China. After much commotion Vivian was finally able to piece together what he was upset about. Apparently he was accusing me of experimenting on live animals using the chemical DDT. As you can imagine I was extremely confused but more so I found it hilarious and couldn't stop laughing. Vivian took out her mobile phone and started videoing the guy as he was such a sight. Usually these things are only funny in retrospect but this was funny right for the get go.

Obviously my laughing at him made him even angrier and he had to be held back by even more people. Two women were very keen to stop myself and Vivian form taking any photos or video of the situation with out mobile phones - though he clearly had no idea what we were doing. I later found out the two women were custodians for the street and it's there job to make sure everything is 'harmonious'. And if word got out of this incident they would be asked to explain it and might even be punished. Anyway after a while during lots of shouting of DDT and threatening people we were finally able to string together what happened.

The gate to my yard is a big black solid gate but there is a gap between it and the columns. He was passing by and peeked through the gap and saw me spraying one of the sets of wings with paint and thought I was spraying chemicals on live animals. He thought the smell of the paint was DDT. He was so furious he actually kicked the gate open. Unfortunately for him by the time this was all figured out I brought out one of the sets of wings and the tin of paint and everyone realized he was a raving lunatic. He didn't like being laughed at and this made him even angrier. He tired to hit my landlady's older sister because she was telling him to get out but I stopped him getting near her. I couldn't believe he was going to hit an old woman so I ordered him out of the yard. But I couldn't shut him out because he had busted the lock when he kicked the gate in. He realized people were laughing at him so he started on the fact that I was a foreigner and he was Chinese. Unfortunately this strategy usually works and the old people were listening to him and nodding. I'd had enough so Vivian called the police and they too had a bit of a laugh but got him to leave.

It turns out he's a well known troublemaker and all the locals are too afraid of him to call the police so most of the neighbours were glad when we did. I haven't seen him since.