'You spent the evening doing what?!' Er, drawing people in the naked nude (they did the nudity, not me)

My parents are not particularly conservative people. When I was young I was always allowed to stay up past ‘the watershed’, whatever that means, and watch whatever was on television. I don’t think it even occurred to my mother that this might 'scar me for life' (and I definitely don’t think it scarred me for life).

When I started dating my first boyfriend at the age of 17, my Mum gave me permission to invite him to come and stay (he lived quite a long way away… not in Ghana mind). I’m sure my Mum has seen me drunk on a number of occasions, and has heard me swear, and is more than aware that I was a teenager in the 'noughties'. It’s not some sort of hippy commune where we strut about naked, and it certainly isn’t that my parents are irresponsible – promoting or encouraging reckless behaviour, but there has always been an attitude in my house of acceptance. In the process of growing up and trying new things I have felt a certain amount of autonomy, uninfluenced by parental disapproval.

But a couple of years ago, so when I was 25, when a friend suggested we attend a life drawing class, I remember my Mum’s shocked reaction:

‘You’re doing what? With naked people?!’

Well quite. (Of the things I’ve done with naked people, this one of the more sterile.)

I’ll admit that I too had my apprehensions. The first was that, while I’d consider myself ‘artistic’ in some way or another, the actual drawing thing doesn’t come naturally to me, and Art, capital-A, was never an area of school in which I excelled.

The second, provoked by my inner twelve-year-old, was the repetitive thought process ‘What if I laugh when they take their clothes off? What if I laugh when they take their clothes off? What if I laugh when they take their clothes off?’

But nevertheless I decided to go along.

For anyone who thinks it all sounds a bit 60s, and would turn into some sort of sexual pleasure-house, I’ll stop you right there. The only comparison between life drawing and sex is: if you’ve never done it before, you’ll have all the tools and feel slightly uncomfortable about what to do with them, probably end up stalling, making awkward jokes and taking a little longer than everyone else to get started.

After five minutes of pen on paper action, with ‘at what point shall I draw genitals?’ being pondered in your mind, you forget. You forget everything you have come to think about naked bodies, your 'training' to feel awkward and uncomfortable, how 'private' you believe them to be. I think you start to see what artists throughout time have realised – they are interesting, beautiful, and some sort of law unto themselves.

I start drawing lines to denote the edge of a breast, the curve of a knee, but I also notice that in real life those lines are not there, black and conclusive. In real life the way that light plays across skin is completely perplexing to me, and the people by my side who seem to capture what is front of them with a reasonable accuracy are literally magicians. I do not understand how they have done that.

I was lucky enough to attend a quieter session in which the organiser, an artist himself, gave some one-to-one advice regarding shading and light which transformed my pictures from tiny inaccurate line drawings to extravagant smudges of colour, which represented something not disimilar to a body. I emerged from the class feeling a genuine sense of progress, as well as feeling largely relaxed by the quiet contemplative two-hours, whiled away listening to ethereal music and sipping wine.

I write about this now, having returned for more nudity in charcoal this week. My boyfriend had suggested we go life-drawing on our first date, an idea I poked holes in straight away, pointing out we wouldn't be able to talk to each other, but it's been on our to do list ever since. Our 'hippy to do list'. Staring around the room contemplatively, he announced 'of all the hippy things I have done in my life, this is right up there'. But to me, well, if you peel off all the 'hipster' labels with the clothes, it turns out it's a pretty natural thing to do.

For reference: I attended life drawing classes first a few years ago, they are the classes run in various London locations by Morris - details on Art More's facebook page, although when I returned in recent weeks the classes were exceptionally busy, and the advice to artists was sparse.

I am my daft father

After two months, I have apparently reached that relationship milestone where my boyfriend sits down for lunch with my parents. I’ll hasten to add this happened a little faster than a normal precedent might dictate, because of my living arrangements – post financially-ill-advised move to Berlin, I live back at home. I’m 27.

I’ll say it went well, it certainly didn’t go badly. In fairness, I can’t see what the issue could have been, as both parties are particularly easy-going. However, the alarming part came later, in my boyfriend’s post-event analysis:

“I like your parents, they’re nice people. Does your brother take after your Mum? Because you are exactly like your Dad.”

Oh dear.

I mean, I’ve known this for a little while now. You start to notice the little things that creep into conversation. For example, that big event happening in Stratford this year has always been referred to by Clarkes as ‘the Plinkits’ – an appropriate name, I think, for the five-ring logo. Then there are those jokes you hear yourself making which you know would only get a laugh in your own living room.

My Dad recently recession-retrained as a Maths teacher, and has struggled a little to find the right job. While waiting, he’s subbed for teachers with limited success in Secondary Schools and with great success in Primary Schools.  My oldest friend, who has known me and my family since we were both 7-year-olds, summarised why:

“Don’t you remember when we were 10? Your Dad was like, the best thing ever!”

And he was. He was the right amount of completely bizarre to be novel and funny without going so far out of our realm of understanding that we didn’t get it anymore. He seemed to live just outside of the 'rules' of normal adults. It was amusing and compelling.

But parents are like fashion really, and what was great in the 90s seemed pretty lame and embarrassing by the time I turned 15. I had come to that crushing realisation, I had been duped: my father was not the most intelligent person in the world. And, actually, the fact that you’d heard the jokes and the stories didn’t stop him from telling them. It was official. My Dad was not cool. He was boring.

I don’t think it helped that this probably coincided with a time when my Dad himself was not particularly happy or fulfilled by his life. Bored in his job, working long hours, and returning home to be mocked or snubbed by his teenage daughter.

But like hot pants and fun-fur, what seemed like a disaster came back into fashion. As with clothes, I was more of a sheep at the point of reinvention, looking on as my new friends met my Dad and laughed, genuinely laughed, at his jokes. They would exclaim that he was ‘mental’ but with a tone that implied the brilliance of this eccentricity, and slowly I started to see it all again – the funny (both ha-ha and peculiar), intelligent and sometimes repetitive, but brilliant man who raised me (and transferred money to me whenever I was in trouble).

I observed as a child the strange vortex in conversation created when my father and his brother were in the same room. Some sort of innate script to their conversations which made it seem they were telepathic – when in fact they just knew the jokes so well they finished them for each other. And like it or not, I know the words too; I get the jokes, even when they stop being funny; and, well, I’m a Clarke.

My Dad would say ‘I am your daft father’, which I thought, and still think, is genius, being the double play on words and quote that it is. Well Dad, it turns out, so am I. And looking at you, I figure it's a pretty good thing to be.

The possible consequences of an office sweepstake (are that you end up living there a bit)

I’m sure you’re familiar with the process. Some major football competition comes around and someone in the office (who is typically disinterested in football for the rest of the year) whips out a little bowl with lots of tiny folded pieces of paper, asks you for £2, and offers you the chance to win big. Well, not that big, but normally enough to cover a round at the pub.

What’s the harm? Worst case you spend £2 engaging yourself in the action. You support another team, you have a small vested interest in some of the games that you wouldn’t have noticed, and you can join in the chat around the water-cooler. (Three things that actually happen at water-coolers: 1. getting a glass of water, 2. waiting behind the person getting the glass of wishing you’d timed your trip better. 3. No chats).

Well my friend, if that is all that can happen, play the sweepstake, play away. But beware.

In 2006 I was working in an office as a summer temp between my first and second year of University. If you have a memory, or are capable of doing maths, you will know there was a World Cup in that year. It was held in Germany in fact. Good stuff.

I wanted to have something to chat about with the predominantly male team. Partly because it makes the days go faster, partly because the work was a bit dull and entirely because I thought one of them was very cute. So, innocently, I paid my £2 and put my hand in the hat.

People talk about incidental, seemingly small decisions, noting how they can affect your life. “If you’d taken the stairs rather than the lift you would have bumped into John and he would have invited you to a party where you met your future husband.” That sort of thing. But it’s often hard to locate those exact moments.

For me, in this instance, it is not. That moment when I put my hand in that envelope, and closed my fingers around a small scrap of paper changed my life. I like the random element to it to. Like in some way I was electing to leave my future to chance. But I say this with the poetic notions of hindsight, at the time I was probably just trying not to pick Iran.

The paper proclaimed that I would be supporting ‘Ghana’. I think this was probably pre-sporcle, and my knowledge of exactly where everything is in the world was incomplete, but I had a rough idea that this was a country in West Africa.

Over the course of the world cup I was actually fired from the temp job (that’s another tale for another time). However, my keen sense of loyalty kept me supporting the Ghanaian national team. I was enthused by their story and the passion of their fans. This was their first World Cup, an ordinary African team with no hopes of winning, just happy to be playing football. I found it refreshing. Every goal was a bonus, every win an inspiration.

I started to ‘we’ like a proper fan. ‘We scored’, ‘we have to play Brazil’, ‘we have some strong young players’. I didn’t play any part in the scoring, or the preparation to play Brazil, obviously, but that’s the strange linguistic convention sporting fans engage in. It’s very odd when you think about it. You wouldn’t hear a Coldplay fan saying ‘we sold out Wembley’ or a Harry Potter fan saying ‘we’re opening a Theme Park’. With sports you’re somehow involved though.

Sharing in the glory of my adopted team, I was pleased we qualified from the group stages. And my behaviour had been noted by a close group of friends who duly and appropriately ripped it out of me for talking about Ghana as a ‘we’. ‘You’re not Ghanaian Helen!’

The joke stuck around longer than the Ghanaians, and even the World Cup, and Ghana was on my radar. On my birthday a friend bought me a travel guide to Ghana, and a Ghanaian flag.

I have that ‘I want to go to there’ disease where knowing about a country isn’t enough. I’d say it isn’t anything in fact. I don’t want to read too much about it or look at pretty pictures. I don’t want to watch a documentary where someone else gets to explore it. I want to go to there. I want to see it around me, and notice what I notice, and think what I think.*

Put two and two together. I like going places, Ghana is on my radar. I like going places, Ghana is on my radar. I like going places… I went to Ghana.

I selected a volunteering project for the summer of 2007. Staying in “Kumasi, no, wait, Accra… hmmm, no, you’ll be in Kumasi. Ah, actually, Koforidua” with a “young family… no, a big family… no, a small family” I helped in an orphanage and got used to how to make infirm plans, African style.

I came to ask myself whether this was a volunteering agency, or a dating service. I was 23 and my fellow traveller was 19. She was placed in a house with many children, including a 20 year old son. My family consisted solely of Emilia, the mother, and Mark, the 23 year old son.

Mark and I dated for a year and half. I visited Ghana three times, staying for about two and a half months the last time I went. I can’t say the relationship was all good, or all bad. It was what it was, a relationship that didn’t work out. But it’s an experience I’m glad I had. In some ways it probably ticked the boxes of all the clichés of a white girl dating an African, and in some ways it was no different from other relationships I’ve had with people in this country.

Ghana itself is an interesting place. Sometimes I hated the heat, especially at night when I stuck to the sheets. The mosquitoes weren’t very friendly, or were too friendly depending on how you see it, and they gave me some malaria, which is unpleasant. I spent my days dreaming of cheeses, there seem to be no animals which produce milk. It’s certainly not used in any Ghanaian cuisine or found in any Ghanaian shops, and the prevalence of chilli didn’t agree with my digestive tract.

On the other hand the country is beautiful. In terms of the colours you see in the cities, the landscapes, the simple architecture in the North, the sprawling greenery and National Parks, the elephants in lakes, the tumbling waterfalls. In terms of the people who wave at you as you pass and ask you how your day is going, while respectfully keeping out of your business, it was never a place where I felt hassled. In terms of the relaxed atmosphere, of ‘African time’, of lazy days in the sun.

It was a whole different world, and I can say one thing for certain, I don’t think I ever would have been in that world if it wasn’t for that tiny folded piece of paper.

So you don’t know where that hand in a hat will lead you.

That said, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you’re not completely insane, and that in fact it won’t lead you anywhere but a world where you have £2 less to your name. As for me, I'm safe. For Euro 2012 I delved into my destiny and picked out 'England'.

*I’d like to temper that paragraph with a massive ‘within reason’. And obviously wouldn’t go somewhere without knowing a lot about it. I’m mainly not an idiot. Although this post suggests otherwise.