Have Irish kids lost the art of painting?

IT was 1980s TV star, Bosco, who first said it.

Actually, he sang it. “Look at me, oh, look at me, I’m painting”. It was one of Bosco’s leitmotifs — the deeply personal song. In fact, he made an album in 1983, called Bosco Sings: This is Where I Live. Like a lot of albums, it was quite political. Bosco was referencing the Northern Ireland situation in the trio of songs on side A: ‘Where do you live?; ‘I am a Bandsman’ and ‘Double Bubble Trouble’.

But on side B was ‘I’m Painting’ and its lyrics resonated with me. “It’s just the kind of thing to do/when you really have the blues.” During childhood summers as bad as this one, watching the grand stretch in the evenings refracted through the raindrops on the window-pane, you were ordered to go and paint something.