Filofax

He'd lie to colleagues about where he was spending his weekends, and change the names of his gay friends in his Filofax - George and John became George and Joan, for example.

My friends even used to joke that I had an address book of names—I’d say Filofax but that dates me—and I’d just go down the list asking people to do something with me until someone said yes.

I flitted between thinking that a hostile state may have been attempting to entrap me - though it's hard not to have that thought without feeling instantly absurd and pompous - and rustling through my mental Filofax to make absolutely sure that I hadn't ever met this Charlie and given them the wrong end of the stick.

For the New York City-based artist Bernie Kaminski, 57, the medium is a vehicle for nostalgia, a way to reconsider everyday objects: a canvas tote filled with tennis balls, a folded Brooks Brothers shirt, a Filofax planner.

So you learn, when things felt …not in control…I would become very organized, and that sort of was my center, that was my meditation, you know, redoing my Filofax or refolding my socks.