Review of the Year 2021

Bit late for a review of the year but whilst there may be a tradition about these things there is not, to my mind, a rule that says January 20th is too late. Anyway I've been busy.

Annually, I find the same problem. Things I discovered in a particular year were often published before then. So, trying to keep it all vaguely contemporary, here are the arts and culture stuff I enjoyed most in 2021:

Television

Having someone culturally aware come and live with us was helpful and top of the incoming list was our discovery of Succession. If you've missed it then Brian Cox (actor not physicist) plays Logan Roy, a hugely successful businessman trying to stop his dysfunctional offspring from inheriting and ruining his empire. Very sweary. Three seasons available.

If major infrastructure programmes have a fringe benefit it is that they let loose the ubiquitous Alice Roberts to share details of archaeological discoveries under the road, pipeline, railway. Digging for Britain ensued and educated this household muchly. In the same vein, plaudits to BBC2's Stonehenge - The Lost Circle Revealed and the archaeology of back gardens disclosed in The Great British Dig.

Mobeen Azhar's Hometown - A Killing started as a podcast but became a BBC docu-series. Investigative journalism at its best.

I continue to be a sucker for food shows such as Great British Menu, Masterchef and Professional Masterchef. The celebrity versions of these shows can go hang, though. In fact I enjoyed most shows where people demonstrate brilliance at something I can't do, so stand up and take a bow Pottery Throwdown, Bake Off and Great British Sewing Bee.

Clarkson's Farm surprised me by being educational.

Ghosts continued to be lovely and very clever.

Gone Fishing was nice slow tele. Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse have delivered public service broadcasting gold.

Music

Squid promised much with their first few singles. Their debut album Bright Green Field was only three stars from me but the blending of maths rock and shouty punk was a fine mash-up and continues to promise much.

Jangly guitar fans could get their fix with The War on Drugs - I Don't Live here Anymore. Album of the year.

For joyful story-telling pop my guilty pleasure was Demi Lovato's Dancing with the Devil ... The Art of Starting Over.

Honourable mentions for Floating Points collaboration with the LSO on Promises.

Twitter

Henry Sotheran Ltd is an antiquarian bookshop, which I will probably never frequent because of money and that but @Sotherans is a delight of a Twitter feed. Sample:

'...we've been around longer, on average, than most empires last. We sell old books and other stuff but mostly books, and definitely not opium anymore because it got banned. Wednesdays are not for talking.'

Films

The Trial of the Chicago Seven was a favourite. Bond a bit disappointing. Didn't see enough as cinemas felt unsafe.

Podcasts

Lost Hills told the story of an apparently random killing in more detail than the cops seemed to have gone into with Dana Goodyear finding out more and more connections and coincidences. From Pushkin.

Books

My wokeness was polished a little by How Not to be Wrong - The Art of Changing Your Mind by James O'Brien.

Good novels included Catriona Ward's Last House on Needless Street - a murder mystery that pulled all the rugs from under both your feet at various times. Very diverting and more than a little odd.

What happens once the easternmost house falls into the sea? Juliet Blaxland's follow-up is a bit more metaphysical, but also keeping alive the stories of those who will crumble next in The Easternmost Sky.

Alice Roberts' (her again) pre-history of Britain in seven burials is exactly that. Who should live in Britain? Who came first? Who are we? Read Ancestors and stop hating immigrants.

Food

Pintxo (tapas) and Appleton's (fine dining) in Fowey made a holiday in this country great. Pony Bistro in Bedminster delivered everything you'd expect a Josh Eggleton enterprise to do (including a Valentine's finish-at-home meal in a box). For tapas in Bristol try Gambas on Wapping Wharf.

Good pubs included Bedminster's North Street Standard, The Salamander in Bath, WB at Wapping Wharf, The Priory at Portbury and Coates House, Nailsea.

Art

We enjoyed wandering around Bedminster's street art festival Upfest and being under the Moon in Bristol Cathedral.

That's about it. I've saved you from the format 'Stuff I found this year that everyone else has known about for ever', which would have included an updated review of experimental German electronica from the early 70s which I'd miss-dissed. Belated apologies to Faust, Can and Amon Düül II. Although for some reason I always liked Tangerine Dream.

Thought for the Day

Serious thought today. As delivered this morning at BBC Radio Bristol.

I know I often wander around the lighter side of the Thought for the Day room. But not today. Not today.

I was very moved by the Shrouds of the Somme installation on College Green when I visited it last weekend. It ends today.

Rob Heard's creation represents the 19,240 men who died on the first day of the Battle of the Somme in 1916. The first day.

I find it stops me in my tracks when I make a comparison. I think of the town where I live, Nailsea. The population is a little less than that. But imagining every single person in Nailsea falling victim to a sudden death. A whole town wiped off the map. That's the equivalent of what happened.

Everyone who died was somebody's friend, father, son, husband...

Both my grandfathers were the right age to be one of those people. They served elsewhere and survived. So I'm here.

Each hand-stitched shroud on College Green offers dignity to someone who died suddenly, violently, indiscriminately and probably without a chance to fight back. It is somehow restorative.

In one of his shorter works the poet Steve Turner wrote:

History repeats itself.
Has to.
No-one listens. 

I will be taking a funeral a little later this morning. And I will remind everyone of another, older poem a soldier wrote about his God:

Even though I walk

through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil,

for you are with me;

your rod and your staff,

they comfort me.

So why not find a response. Say a prayer. Throw a coin in a Children in Need bucket. Keep your own moment of silence.

Art Questions

I love this mug. I love it because it came from a lovely shop my wife worked at full of quirky Italian ceramics and with interesting staff who could hold a conversation. I love it because it is the right size, not too fat not too thin not too short not too tall. I love it because it has two colours and they are black and white.

I don't love it because it has a black and white image of a piece of classical art on it and indeed have never paid any attention to the detail. I love it in the way one might love a great tune and only notice the lyrics several years later.

I love it because it is twenty years old and therefore family.

A few years ago I was talking to a guy at a large restaurant table and, although we both knew we were playing opposite sides in order to find the truth, we did it in such a way that the other eight occupants of the table all found other things to do and left.

The topic was art snobbishness. He took the view that we needed to be guided by people who understood art in order to keep standards up. I think Jack Vettriano was the artist who started the argument. He is much loved by many non-experts and derided by the opposite.

I think I took the view that if someone wanted a picture because they were seeking a particular shade of blue to complete a room's decor then why shouldn't they.

So this is an arty mug. But that is not why I like it.

Quote of the Day

1199. In a democracy there is not that class with the leisure to acquire discernment and taste in all the arts. Without that class, art is produced to suit the taste of the market, which is filled with its own doubt and self-importance and ignorance, its own ability to be tricked and titillated by every bauble.
(Olivier in Peter Carey's Parrot and Olivier in America)

Quotes of the Day

Missed yesterday so had to catalogue twenty of my quotes today. Here are two of the best:

1079. For the fathers of the Church, scripture was a 'mystery' ... not just a text but an 'activity'; you did not merely read it - you had to do it.
(Karen Armstrong: The Case for God)

1090. Great art exists in the spaces between the certainties. Economically, culturally and artistically, Music Theatre can't afford spaces, only certainties.
(Stewart Lee, Esquire 10/04 quoted in his book, 'How I Escaped My Certain Death')

Street Art

What's the difference between street art and vandalism? After years of careful observation of the participants I think I am ready to give an answer.

But first a journey to the centre of the 'What is art?' conundrum. The that's-not-art-my-three-year-old-could-have-done-that brigade miss the point that if their three year old did it now it would be plagiarism. For conceiving of an installation, even if it is only putting two things in juxtaposition and giving them a ridiculous title, is part of the art as well as making it and presenting it. And viewing it? Well? Is it art if nobody sees it? I answer this in a screenplay I have been trying to get made for over ten years. Call me for a treatment.

I digress. Must stop doing that in paragraph two.

Once the street vandal, Banksy is now Bristol's favourite son. His work is protected, cleaned up if it is vandalised, and made available in museums.

Now he has put a piece on a board attached to a wall. And started a row over who owns it. The council own the wall but did not know they did until they checked. The boys' club the wall is attached/adjacent to took the panel down and started asking for donations to come in and view.

A value has been put on the work of a cool million so people started to take notice then. And although it has all the style of a Banksy (probably the work of a team rather than an individual though) it has not been authenticated because Banksy rarely authenticates. Indeed when he recently sold original works in New York for knock-down prices he couldn't shift more than three because nobody believed in their provenance.

So. We like it if we believe it is by somebody good more than if we simply like it. We don't have to like it, or even decide what it is, before it becomes an investment opportunity.

A tentative conclusion. If I say something is art it is art. If you want to treat something as art it is art. If you like it, it's street art; if you don't, it's vandalism.

What is Porn?

Well that's a brave question isn't it? And my argument is going to be that we don't know.

It's not dissimilar to the 'What is art?' question. And if anyone thinks they know the answer to that I refer them to Nigel Warburton's little book The Art Question in which he surveys all the writing on the subject and concludes that there is no conclusion. We cannot say what art is. Nor should we be able to, I would add.

A letter to the iPaper last week suggested that all forms of pornography are corrosive to society and should be banned. Trouble is, I suspect that the writer of the letter has a very clear idea of what he finds pornographic.

We all like to draw lines. And if we're honest and open (which we usually aren't) we would like the erotic things we don't enjoy to be banned.

'In olden days a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking now heaven knows...'

Well heaven only knows what Cole Porter would have made of the episode of Friends where Joey and Chandler found their TV was accessing 'Adult' channels for free. Their reaction, to watch all day, was presented as a representation of what any young adult male would have done in the circumstances.

Or the line of dialogue in the TV comedy Rev where the vicar tells his wife, in answer to a question about what he had done while she was out, that amongst other things, 'I had a wank ... it was nice.' The plot moved on and eyebrows were not batted. Sub-text. Clergy do normal things. Get over it. (No, I'm not telling you.)

Does Jeff Smith of Beeston, Bedfordshire (the letter writer) want to ban images of people showing glimpses of stocking? Suppose Jeff, and this is just suppose right, I like glimpses of stocking and retain some images on my computer of my partner revealing such? For my own personal use you understand.

Or suppose I am erotically helped by pictures of men on cars, women holding vegetables, feet... I could access all these images in two clicks without upsetting a porn-filter. Frankly I could access all these images in last month's Good Housekeeping which is pretty much bottom shelf material in most supermarkets.

You can't ban naked images without Michelangelo's David having to be smashed. You can't ban erotic poetry without Song of Songs heading for landfill. You can't ban images of two people having sex without Alex Comfort's Joy of Sex guide book being pulped.

I know that at the extreme end of this spectrum, culture takes the view that images of child abuse or sex with animals is wrong and I am glad to live in such a society. I read at the weekend of the harrowing work of a small group of people who police the internet and to do so have to view horrible images day in and day out. I'm grateful to them.

But the in-between stuff? Images of consensual sex between adults. Nakedness. I am not sure any ban is enforceable or even definable. I read the other day that adult film makers can now make pretty convincing digital graphic images without actors being involved. I don't think a legislature that can produce hundreds of pages on the regulations for supermarket fruit appearance would be able to get anywhere near writing complete and convincing laws which define the lines between porn and art, porn and literature, porn and sport.

And if you question my use of sport here then a vicar friend of mine posted some pictures of female athletes on Facebook at the weekend which would have seen him arrested in previous centuries. He was glorying in a performer's brilliantly honed physique but in my teenage years some of the girls in top shelf mags had more clothes on.

What is porn? I don't know. I think it was Stephen Tyler, not exactly everyone's role-model, who said that porn was the difference between using a feather and the whole chicken. But which side of the line is that branch of burlesque which is deliberately designed to be erotic not pornographic? We really can't tell our eros from our agape.

Which may be all Greek to you but it was the Greeks who started it. Pornography comes from two Greek words. Which two? Well Merriam-Webster says 'pornographos, adjective, writing about prostitutes, from pornē prostitute + graphein to write;' But pornē is closely related to porneia which was once rendered 'fornication' but is often now translated as 'sexual immorality'.  Some think it referred specifically to cultic immorality (fertility sex and the like) but others disagree.

The trouble with a phrase such as sexual immorality is that, going back to the beginning of this piece, we all mean different things by it. We know when the line has been crossed by a long way but not when we are just over it. Therein lies the problem with line-drawing anywhere. You can't legally buy a drink in a pub the day before your eighteenth birthday or drive at 31mph in a built-up area.

I'm not, as you might have gathered, quite sure where I'm going with this. 'Vicar supports porn' is not the headline I seek or the point I am making.

On any reading of the Bible God is for freedom and against sin. So am I. But if we ban too much we give people less freedom than God gives us. Surely it's better for society to police itself and to draw the legislative line very, very liberally?

Advent Retreat, Bishop's Palace, Wells 2010

I was given a digital camea for Christmas last year. I'm not very good yet but am enjoying the effort and am happy to begin sharing it, as you may have noticed.

I took it on our archdeaconry Advent retreat day this week.

Since all the other clergy rushed to sit by the log fires and in the comfortable chairs during the silences I spent the first period sitting alone in a dining room chair in a less-than-hot room. In the afternoon, anxious to stay awake after a roast dinner with steamed sponge pudding, I wandered around the Palace grounds.

The art-work in the grounds and Palace is interesting and I came across this statue called Pilgrim. I became fascinated not only by the different views of the pilgrim one might get but also by what you could and couldn't see if you stood where Pilgrim stood.

How do we see the world? How does the world see us? Sometimes a picture...

Practical Jokes

I hate the sort of practical jokes that simply humiliate the victim at very little cost. They really ought to involve time and effort on the part of the perpetrator.

My youth worker colleague Mark has had his office done over. Everything in the office, and I mean everything, has been wrapped in aluminium foil.

The walls, the desk, the paper, the cabinets, the chair, the computer, the odds and ends (of which there are many) - all wrapped. It is now a place of great beauty. An art installation indeed.

Visit if you can.

Bristol Museum vs Banksy

A queue snaking round the outside of the building and a 'waiting time one and a half hours' notice; I've not seen this outside the big London exhibitions and collections. The draw of Banksy, having accepted some sort of invitation to exhibit at Bristol, is such.

Street art has challenged me over the years. I used to think I was consistent in my view that graffiti was illegal and therefore bad. I liked the idea of designated street art areas and have worked with, or encouraged, groups of young people on estate walls, underpasses and dull church hall rooms. But things glimpsed from the train or painted over motorways? Surely bad?

It wasn't until I realised that from time to time I laughed at, or enjoyed, the illegal pieces that I fully understood I was actually engaging with them as art, not vandalism. I tended only to think of them as a bad thing if I didn't like them. Hypocrite? Oh yes.

There has been much talk and publicity about Banksy at Bristol. The title 'Bristol Museum vs Banksy' tells you all you need to know. This is not a separate exhibition. This is the museum allowing itself to be remixed.

Consequently the public are forced to walk round the entire museum to see what he has done - a rat with a backpack and spray gun in the middle of a natural history display of mammals. A prosthetic penis amongst the stalagmites in the minerals section. And amongst the pictures many by 'Local Artist.'

There is a remarkable installation of a zoo. A security camera looks over a nest of two smaller camera chicks. Tweety Pie looks tired and depressed and his eyes close and open. Processed meat and fish products are given life back. A fur coat lies in a tree, its belt swishing backwards and forwards.

Elsewhere, great statues are enveloped with urban decay and bondage kit. The Buddha has been in a pub brawl and sports a bruised fist, black eye and sling.

Down the road in Park Street (on the wall of a sexual health clinic) is the famous mural of the man hanging out the bedroom window while the returning husband looks for the adulterer. Recently someone threw paint at it. It has been cleaned up. Now I don't know if it was the artist himself who threw the paint. All I do know is that is is being cleaned up and restored. The street artist's apparently illegal work is now being restored by the very people against whom he transgressed.

Banksy's identity is much discussed. Nothing to add except that this humour is well-educated.

The only way you get rules changed is to break them. Which is why, dog-collarless and unrobed, I now proceed to the Morning Prayer I only say publicly twice a week, waiting for the canons of the Church of England to catch up with reality on the ground.

Art and White Horses

Every now and six months I like to chuck my huge personal ignorance into the art world. The discussion about Mark Wallinger's white horse seems as good a time as any.

Opinion seems to be divided on the matter. On the one hand white horses have been the preferred hill-marking of south-easterners over the years with the occasional break to draw men with big willies. A huge, 3D white horse will be in keeping with the past yet brash, bold and visible from the motorway. It couldn't be a black horse. May as well be a burning ten pound note as that.

On the other, of all the things to choose, isn't a horse (in the age of the petrolhead) looking backwards not forwards? Compared to the stylised Angel of the North and the south-west's dancing wicker man isn't a big horse a bit, well, dull?

Most new, iconic artwork receives its fair share of criticism before being accepted and loved. The Angel of the North didn't have a good start. Any piece of art that receives general and immediate public acceptance will probably be something we fall out of love with equally quickly. Or, in the case of Manchester's B of the Bang, will fall apart. Forgetting all other considerations a piece must be well constructed and not a danger to the casual observer. Art that kills people soon loses its popularity. The horse shouldn't be inflatable. Best not to topple either.

What will they say about our generation when they are looking at our surviving art in 500 years time? One Guardian columnist recently noted that this age would be known as that of the people who put dog poo in plastic bags and buried it. What could the folk who did that possibly have to say to their descendants?

On balance I'd trust Wallinger. He knows what he's doing, has a track record and if the horse is huge it will be eye-catching. We were the people who made big art, they'll say. Why not?

Before You Die

I have ploughed my way through the Guardian's, '1,000 artworks to see before you die' supplement. I want to shout 'No.' We need to get it into our thick skulls that things in the rest of the world are not our divine right to see. I enjoyed looking at the images and reading the blurb but my carbon footprint needs minimising. So does yours. '1,000 artworks not to see before you die and live with the disappointment.' That's my title.

Quality Control

I'm grateful to Gillian Oliver, the Church of England's Head of Communications Development, who I met recently. I was impressed that, in a busy week reporting on the Diocese of Bath and Wells alleged communications systems she found time to chat to me before a meeting, think of an article relevant to our conversation and remembered to copy it to me with a note on her return to her office. Probably why she's a Head of Communications and I'm still an amateur blogger.

She copied me this article by Richard Morrison in the Times from April 17th this year. If you haven't time to go read it yourself you need to know that it concerns the reaction to a virtuoso violinist when he busked in the Washington subway rather than played in the concert hall.

The gist of the article is that we recognise greatness by context and most of us can't tell greatness and averageness apart, especially in the performing arts.

It's a good question. How duped are we? Could you tell an old master from a forgery, a £5 bottle of wine from a £50 or a vintage Stratocaster from a 2007 Tanglewood? In other words, do we rely too much on people telling us what is any good rather than trusting our senses? In the world of art our opinion is everything and nothing. I have seen the Mona Lisa and it didn't move me nearly as much as The Wedding at Cana on the opposite wall. But what do know? I also like Jack Vettriano but experts tell me he is poor.

If Joshua Bell, the violinist in question, came to play in Nailsea High Street with his £2 million Stradivarius I'd have no idea if he was any good. I don't live in that world. Would you? And what difference would it make if someone told you who it was and what he was playing? Would you like it more?

Intellectual and emotional honesty are precarious and precious commodities are they not? So how sure are you that you like things because you like them and not because someone else says so?

Port City: On Mobility and Exchange

This astounding exhibition at Arnolfini looks at the migration of people and international trade from the perspective of a city which is also a port.

Ursula Biemann's work needs quite a while to appreciate as you find yourself sitting in the midst of eleven simultaneous documentaries. Headphones enable you to tune into the soundtrack of individual films but it is the lack of commentary that stirs. Each film, whether an interview with a new Tuareg or a satellite view of a people movement, is presented raw.

Viewers find themselves in the middle of the story.

Elsewhere, learn about the non-native plants growing in Bristol dockside because the seeds were transported in ballast which was then dropped illegally to avoid ballast tax. Maria Theresa Alves' work is fascinating

And enjoy Sweetness, by Meschac Gaba, a city which includes many of the world's great buildings, all made entirely of sugar.

London 2012

No don't glaze over. New slant coming up. Promise.

This blog does not really concern itself with design matters. Not even having a colour memory I have concentrated mainly on painting word pictures. But many of the blogs I visit have had something to say about this new logo for the London Olympics.

Steve Clarke is unhappy but Dave Walker likes it. In the media the discussion has been about the £400,000 it cost to arrive at this result and since I know a little about the work that may have gone on to justify that fee let me explain.

First up it is important to respond to the, 'My little sister could have done that' school of criticism. She didn't. Art is owned. The artist produces and may then choose to sell. Your little sister didn't get the commission so she couldn't have done it.

But let's be lenient and assume your little sister did a nice little drawing. Here's the problem. The Olympic Games is the biggest multi-cultural international event on the planet. And around the world different cultures represent different things differently. Are you sure your sister's drawing doesn't spell out 'Bastard' in Polynesian? Does it (accidentally of course who would doubt your little sister's integrity?) include a symbol that is Japanese for penis? Are those colours the southern ocean community's recognised depiction of the death penalty?

Well probably not, but you do need to check. And that costs money.

As to the complaint that the logo, once animated, may cause epilepsy. Lots of things might. That is why warnings are given at shows, movies or gigs where such effects as strobe lighting are used. The failure to issue a warning, if that was indeed the case, was not the fault of the logo designers.

OK I'm having a day off today so I think I'll play with my willy; my 1966 World Cup Willy. He's a lion on a ball-bearing and jolly nice he is too. Times change don't they?

By the way did anyone else notice the remarkable resonance between the style of the logo and the geometric and vibrant work of Hélio Oiticica on display in ‘The Body of Colour’ at Tate Modern until 23rd September? Thought not.

Clevedon

I don't think I have ever walked along the coast at Christmas before. It was a thrill for a couple of Midlanders. Ben (down for a few days) and I popped down to Clevedon and walked along the promenade and up into the hills whilst eating chips out of a tray. He saw the curlew before me. ('Hah. Still got it.') Couldn't see Wales today though.

The Clevedon Millennium project has led to the production of a large metal sculpture on the sea front that celebrates the town's creativity and diversity. Jon, last time he was visiting, said it looked as if they had a corporate penchant for Italian food which is why they had installed a giant parmesan grater. He has a point.

Just along from there, on the panel of a bench, someone has chiselled, 'Sit here and think about modern art or summat.' Banksy's caption writer perhaps? On the telescope, in the same style of writing, is scratched, 'Can you see me?'

I don't approve of vandalism but if it's witty it helps. The block of flats nearby is architectural vandalism if it is anything.

Criticism

I enjoyed watching the TV programme last night about Rolf Harris painting the Queen's portrait. I found it insightful. I learned a bit about painting. Given his background - an entertainer - it does not surprise me to learn that Rolf is not the world's most respected artist. But he can paint.

I grew up in the era of his Saturday night variety TV show and the best bit (I hated his songs by and large although he is a brilliant boogie-woogie pianist) was always his large-scale painting. He was the Banksy of his day.

I don't know enough about art to know if his portrait of the Queen is any good. The painstaking, multi-layered work of capturing pearls and a broach seemed to require composite skill. Capturing the exact colour and weave of a piece of fabric looked very difficult. He demonstrated a range of skills unfamiliar to me. The end result looked like the Queen. I didn't particularly like it and I don't think it was anything like as impressionistic as he had stated he wanted it to be. But it was well done.

His banter whilst doing it was woeful but who wouldn't banter woefully in a room alone with her Maj, several courtiers and a film crew.

But yet, yet, yet...

In an Observer profile yesterday Rolf's lack of respect from the arts establishment was reviewed. Apparently A.A. Gill said '...he is a difficult man to hate but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try,' and dismissed Rolf's work as 'remorselessly naff.' Jack Vetriano regularly gets treated the same way. Too harsh surely.

I bet most of the British population loved Rolf's picture. The Queen doesn't ever comment on portraits.

I think the work of popular criticism is the hardest job in the world and few get it right. Empire Magazine reviewers seem to manage to remember that most of us see a film at the movies once a month not once a day and review it in such light. Is it a good night out? Yes or no? Newspaper film reviewers don't.

Equally we drink a good bottle of wine once a month and a great one once a year. We don't want our day-to-day drinks compared to a fine vintage. Sunday magazine wine columnists, with some exceptions, can forget this.

How do you become a specialist in an area and still manage to communicate truth about that area to the masses? This is also the conundrum for the theologically educated preacher - a conversation I had briefly with an ordinand from our church, back for a few days after his first term away. He realised how much harder preaching to the masses is than he ever thought.

Rolf is popular. He has been asked to paint the Queen. This is an honour. In time the judgement might be that he managed to capture what us 'ordinary' humans thought the Queen looked like in a way none of the 'respected' artists who have ever had a go did.

The curse of generalism (being quite good at quite a lot of things) is never being respected at any of them.

Is it art?

A few months ago I finished 'The Art Question' by Nigel Warburton. It was an interesting read but didn't get me much further than, 'It's art if the artist says it is.' Still, the journey was good and 'What is art?' is probably the most difficult question I have ever tried to ponder.

I re-pondered this morning as I listened to Radiohead's Kid A whilst making the coffee to take back to bed. Most critics felt it was a poor, over-experimental album, made with two imaginary fingers to their fans who would buy it anyway. But I loved it. Now does it make any difference what their intention was? If I do discover one day that they were indeed taking the piss will I stop liking it?

I didn't stop liking Dark Side of the Moon when Roger Waters confessed his lyrics were '...a bit lower sixth'. (Although Dub Side of the Moon may be better.) I am a bit of a fashion victim so I do care what others think, and Dark Side of the Moon may have been with me too long to stop liking it, but do you need to know whether someone else thinks something is good before you can really like it? Part of my character involves liking music that nobody else knows then persuading others to like it. I'm still going to see Four Tet by myself though.

My late father-in-law's voice cuts through the ether to say 'I could have done that' about the bricks in the Tate or a shark in half but the point is Ken that you didn't and if you did it would be plagiarism. Actually if you did now it would be necromancy.

I'm having a conversation with a dead person. Better stop.

Just before, many of my fellow bloggers seem to have contracted an outbreak of telling everyone what they're having for tea. Just to join in can I recommend:

Hot, freshly cooked organic beetroot with cold feta on a bed of mixed leaves. It awaits us after Leamington FC have finished with Rocester in the Travel Factory Midland Alliance.

Transvestite Potters

Noticed that the transvestite potter Grayson Perry won the Turner Prize dressed as his female alter-ego Claire. This blog likes to take an intererst in such things and you will notice attention was drawn to him/her back in September.

Transvestism and Potting

A sentence from the Observer last Sunday ( I am two days behind with newspapers). 'Grayson Perry is a happily married transvestite potter.' Now isn't that a great sentence? Before that sentence the only:

Grayson I knew was Dick, Bruce Wayne's young ward in Batman.
Perrys I knew were Matthew the Friends' actor and Kathy Bates' character (Kevin's friend) in Harry Enfield and chums.
Happily married I knew was me.
Transvestite I knew was Eddie Izzard.
Potters I knew were Harry the fictional wizard, Graham the former West Brom full-back and Jonnie Vegas as part of his stage act when he started out.

Now all those connections are over-written as the Turner prize nomination throws up Grayson Perry. I'm going to give up trying to create fictitious characters. Real ones are more interesting than any I could invent.