The eyes do follow you round the room...

Much like an STD, paranoia takes a little effort to acquire but, once you have done so, it's an absolute bugger to shift and it will affect the way you interact with others. Having been a regular visitor to the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition over the last few years, I had a pretty reasonable set of expectations of how I would feel when I finished wandering round this year's; uplifted, slightly testy at the inclusion of some sub-art club daubs, possibly a bit pissed due to frequent visits to the champagne bar and resolving that I really should enter something for next year, because if Tracy Emin can get that crap on the walls, then a doodle on a post it note should get me inclusion, a red dot and everlasting fame no bother.

I did not expect to leave the place unsettled and more in need of a drink than when I went in.

It all started out so well. There was an expected theme, the Olympics that overtly or otherwise penetrated a lot of the display. In the architecture room for instance there were models and photographs of the Olympic village, the stadium and of course the velodrome and quite right too, as they are remarkable buildings. There was also a larger than usual number of cartography based paintings, drawings and collages on display, reproducing either real maps or maps of imagined places, or of real places reimagined.

This world askew view contributed to a growing sense of unease that had been kicked off with a black and white lithograph titled 'the gamble', a picture of the entrance to an underpass. Anyone who has ever used one instantly recognised the scene and the significance of the title, you could almost smell that distinctive underpass odour of damp, piss and cider.

Thereafter, I wondered if either the entire exhibition had been curated with a sinister theme, or I was just noticing the sinister paintings more than most, or indeed if I was quietly having some sort of episode and imbuing quite innocent paintings with a sinister quality. In fairness, the did seem to be more than a normal number of paintings featuring deserted houses and so on, although even innocent pastorals took on a sinister tone, a green thick hedge might be lovely, but also provides ideal cover for a waiting pervert, or homicidal maniac - flasher or slasher, I'm not sure which was the most intimidating. Suppose it depends on the length of the weapon.

Then I wandered into the gallery with the chair made out of chicken bones, which stank, and the question was settled, and settled beyond question when I caught sight of a large painting of a fish shop front with the proprietor's name - 'Dagon' displayed in large red letters above the shop. The theme was now officially sinister or I was being paranoid, the paranoia being brought on by the sinister theme. Time for more champagne while I pondered why everyone was looking at me, might be the paranoia, might be the 'meep' noises of distress I was making.

In the sculpture rooms, the was a welcome return to normality. What a load of absolute tat. The place looked like a cross between a house clearance of a deceased hoarder who had perished beneath a pile of yellowing leaflets for his local curry house and a charity shop for one of those charities that normal people are reluctant to donate to, like the cats' protection league or the society to provide broadband to peados or something. There was a bright yellow litter bin in the room which was obviously an exhibit but provided both a neat statement on the rest of the junk on display and a powerful temptation to make use of it.

As poor as the sculpture was, it did at least have the virtue of not being a video installation, the last resort of anyone who aspires to be an artist, but can't draw, sculpt or even take a decent photograph and so fakes a career out of producing a grainy three hour film of what looks like a colonoscopy, calls it 'turmoil IV' and prepares to be misunderstood and unappreciated.