Is it Art

 

source: Lynn News

 

A poignant drama played itself out this week in the Fens. Not the story about the idiot at Sainsbury's, the other one. The Banksy that wasn't. I imagine that all of Kings Lynn has been talking about nothing else.

If you are familiar with my philosophy of good art - Art - first expounded in this very column just 22 short years ago - then you will understand that I do not class Banksy or his imitators as producers of Art. Some of it raises a brief, wry smile which quickly fades. But others believe that, if a bit of graffiti is by Banksy, then it is valuable but if not, then it is just a nuisance to be obliterated as soon as convenient. That alone tells you his stuff is not Art, for surely if something is genuinely good art then it does not matter who created it.

Amongst the believers must be counted the authorities in Kings Lynn who, notified of the mysterious appearance of the defacement of a car park wall, rushed to protect it. I am amazed at their moderation. Surely the wall should have been instantly dismantled, brick by brick, and rebuilt in a newly created Banksy in Fenland exhibition in the Town Hall. The gift shop sales would have gone through the roof. 

Alas, protective screen or not, it appears that the hand of the master was lacking and the graffiti has been demoted. I have no idea how they can tell. I mean, they could have put up a discreet sign saying "Attributed to Banksy" or perhaps "School of Banksy" or "From the studio of Banksy" and no doubt the populace would still flock in. As it is, that screen must be taken down and put back in the cupboard labelled "Reserved for real Banksy's".

I don't how the whole process works. Are there inspectors snooping around town centres looking for works by the Master?  Do they have peaked caps marked "Art Warden" and the power to tell people to move along and not to obstruct the work of the screen builders? Indeed, once they find something that might be a Banksy, do they take up position, arms crossed and stern looks to the front, and wait for reinforcements?

How are the good folk of Kings Lynn coping with their bitter disappointment? Were the council in full session, back-slapping and broad smiles as they contemplated the massive corporate jolly that selling the windfall would produce? And then the grim faced town clerk sidles up to the Mayor.

"Not now, Albert, they're opening the next bottle"
"This can't wait, your worship. I'm afraid it's bad news. We've heard from the experts ..."
"Nay, lad, spit it out then. What has thou to say?"
"The Banksy - I - I can't say it..."

and a worried silence emanates from the two worthies that gradually chills the celebrants and the chance of a month visiting the twin town of Honolulu begins to fade. As they slip out into the night, in ones and twos, they can hear the clerk on his phone to the works department telling them to stand down.

It's a tough business, the art game, I'm telling you.

A Load of Old Rope

source: Stephan Friedman Gallery

 There was considerable media interest in the announcement this week that an exhibit of rope was on sale, under the guise of being an artwork, for £1 million (plus VAT). The artist, David Shrigley, said during an interview on the BBCR4 Today programme that he thought it suitable for the entrance at a bank's headquarters.

The piece was made to illustrate the old saying "money for old rope". There can be no gainsaying the concept - should anything at all be paid for it, then it will indeed be thus. 

The gallery exhibiting the pile makes the point that collecting, cleaning, preserving and arranging this load of tat took many months. 

I have to admit to being somewhat baffled as to how to approach this story. I analysed the meaning of "art" many years ago . Since then I have refined my views a little. I hold that anything that is made to stimulate the senses is art. But good art - Art, if you will - goes much further. It should transcend the medium (explained here) by which it is made, it should be original and it should fill one's head with ideas. Otherwise it is merely an exhibit.

This approach helps in thinking about a load of rope piled up on the floor. It does not transcend the medium - it is just a pile of rope, no matter how cleaned up and nicely coiled. Piles of old rope can be found (or used to be) in any fishing harbour or naval dockyard, not to mention the backyard of Arbuthnot Arkwright & Nephew, Ropemakers to the Gentry, Bootle.  Is piling it up original? No, because it is normal for rope to be coiled up in this way. Does it fill your head with ideas? Not really, except one might ponder having a nice spaghetti for lunch. Failing any one of my tests would disqualify something from being Art. This exhibit fails all three.

It is therefore not surprising that the artist hopes to find a bank as a buyer. They would have the cash, and the space, to spare and could treat it as an investment. Also they could reclaim the VAT. Probably their PR people would find elegant ways to use it in marketing - "We won't tie you up in knots with our executive mortgage" or "There's nothing ropey about our loans" or "Our accounts have no strings attached" perhaps. It is telling that all these cunning slogans are negatives - it is hard to find a way to make a positive statement that connects rope to banking. If you can think of something, do send it in to us at the usual address and, should we succeed in pitching it as the basis of a costly new ad campaign, there'll be a couple of sheep-shanks in 40mm Manila in it for you.

 

Crisis, What Crisis?

 Bettany Hughes, OBE is a distinguished historian and teacher. She has published many books on classical history and made many television programmes bringing that history to life. One might have thought that all this erudition would have caused second thoughts at the commissioning of her latest TV series, which came to my attention tonight.

Source: Freeview website

We are still dealing with the after-effects of the covid pandemic. The war in Ukraine is creating massive international tensions and the soaring costs of fuel have led to unprecedented spending plans from the incoming Truss government which in turn have unsettled financial markets and caused the pound to fall to a seriously low level. For most people surviving this winter, without succumbing to infection or hypothermia, is the top priority. 

Does this crisis bother Ms Hughes? Not a bit. Far from embarking on another scholarly examination of, say, funeral practices in ancient Egypt or the cultural impact of Roman expansionism in the Middle East, she is gaily gallivanting across France and Italy, all expenses paid, to find out if travelling to some of the most agreeable destinations in the world and stuffing oneself daily at the finest restaurants can enrich one's life.

Let us pause a while, practice deep breathing and stare at something soothing. The basis of this show is that someone needs to discover if living well, living exceptionally well it may appear, is better than living the normal lifestyle to which all of us who are not TV presenters are accustomed. The subtext is this is some sort of unanswered question, something so basic and yet so baffling, that a top academic and a full TV crew must undergo the suffering that only those torn between the 7 course and the 8 course tasting menus, at a 3 Michelin star restaurant perched high above the glistening Mediterranean, will ever know. As to the agony of having to choose the most exotic aperitifs, the choicest of wines and, finally, how many petit fours to complete the feast, I shudder to think.

For this show to work there needs to be a counter-argument. I am no Hegelian but if the idea is that travel, arts, culture, boozing, fine dining and their ilk enrich, then there must be a contrasting viewpoint that these things detract and should be shunned.Otherwise it is merely a statement of the bleedin' obvious and can be settled within the first five minutes. So I really hope that in the first few episodes we see Hughes fasting, living in a barrel, drinking nothing more than water, reading nothing but sacred texts and otherwise staring at a brick wall, whilst perhaps indulging in a little light flagellation now and then  (it is on Channel 5, after all). Then, when she throws off the shackles, gleefully picks up the corkscrew, jumps into the Ferrari and roars off to Tuscany, she can truly claim to have discovered that living well is better than living with privations.

Once the enrichment begins, how will we know just how jolly well enriched Hughes has become? What this show needs is some sort of enrichment monitor, like the swingometer that gave us so much joy during general elections in the days before computer graphics, to measure the levels of enrichment each tantalising view and sumptuous dish provides. I visualise Hughes closing her eyes in ecstasy as she handles another Leonardo notebook or swallows another lobster, and then a man in a brown coat deftly nudges the pointer round another notch. "Yes, that's the 60% barrier broken" gushes the voice-over "And now I think she's going for the full-on 'My word, that's incredible' moment as she quaffs champagne on the sun-deck of a 200' luxury yacht cruising to Monte. This is very exciting, we haven't seen such a level of enrichment since Rob Brydon had his second free cruise in exchange for 20 seconds of footage of him smiling about it".

I don't need to see the last programme in the series. I have no doubt it will feature a somewhat plumper Hughes opening the windows of the Imperial Suite at her five star hotel in Rome, looking out on the sun-dappled forum and musing thoughtfully "This is so much more enriching than Mrs Irons' BnB in Lowestoft, I'm so glad now that I turned that down".  In fact, I don't need to see any of the programmes. I discovered many years ago that arts, culture, travel (this is the Ruislip Commuter blog after all) and a bloody good nosh-up were way better than their alternatives (whatever they may be) and I really don't need a TV presenter to confirm it.

-&-&-&-&-&-&-&

TV commissioning editors: If you feel there is room in the schedules for another "Let's go somewhere nice and then make a programme about how nice it is" show, and are looking for an acerbic, wryly amusing yet always sympathetic and really camera-friendly sort of guy to front it, I happen to have a window in my otherwise busy schedule. Actually quite a big window. More a sort of Versailles Hall of Mirrors size window, if you catch my drift. So anytime that suits you, really. Do call. Mrs C has been demanding more enrichment in her life for a while and the market for witticisms about commuting has been a flat lately, to tell you the truth.

101 Things #36 - Let Us Go Fourth

It is a great honour you do me. Really, I am flattered to have been asked. I know that to be included in the select group, who have already attained this ultimate recognition of their talents, is to have reached a pinnacle and I am humbled to be counted amongst their company. Nonetheless I fear that I must decline and shall, perforce, add your request to my anti-bucket list 101 Things I Refuse To Do Before I Die by putting aside any notion that I might

Exhibit my work on the Fourth Plinth.

A word of explanation. Trafalgar Square, at the south-eastern edge of London's fashionable West End is home to the National Gallery, a couple of High Commissions, some tacky souvenir shops, St Martin in the Fields church (and useful cafe), lots of disaffected pigeons and, of course, the pillar upon which stands a statue of Admiral Lord Nelson. Surrounding this column are three statues (on plinths) and one empty plinth.

The Fourth Plinth as it was
Pic: London.gov.uk

For reasons we need not go into, the Victorians, who built the square, never found a suitable subject for the last statue (having rejected, wisely, the original idea of William IV) and the plinth stood untenanted until fairly recently. Eminent artists are now invited to make use of it for short-term exhibitions.

All this being so, you may well be wondering why I intend to be absent when the roll-call of exhibitors is read. I shall explain.

The most recent commission, due for 2020, is to be Heather Phillipson's exhibit "The End". This is described as

A dollop of whipped cream with an assortment of toppings: a cherry, a fly, and a drone. The drone will film passers-by and display them on an attached screen. 

 If your minds are now going into that slightly unfocussed state which denotes the start of a good boggling, maybe a picture will help (obviously this is a model)

Pic. Heather Phillipson and James O. Jenkins

 / Independent

In the words of the artist it speaks to

 extremes of shared experience, from commemorations and celebrations to mass protests, all while being observed by a drone’s camera

 If you wish to delve further into the symbolism of this piece do please click on the link above (because you won't learn any more about it here).

Naturally, I was tempted to offer some of my oeuvres (good word that, you can include any old tat hanging about at the back of your shed if you call it an oeuvre); for example:

• The End of the Beginning: A giant biscuit wrapper, torn in half, with crumbs scattered around the base in the shape of a child waving her arms, to symbolise the importance of climate change. 
• Silent Movie: A statue in the form of a traditional mime, beret, black and white striped top and white face, with a loudspeaker concealed in the mouth playing the music of 1928. This symbolises the transition from silent movies to talkies and has the added advantage that no royalties need be paid. It is hoped that real mimes will be at large in the square to annoy the hell out of everyone.
• Is It Art?: A provocative display of thirty metres of 6 inch gas piping, coiled around a dead tree. The temptation of Eve or just some stuff found on a derelict building site? You decide. 
• The Beginning of the End: A few biscuit crumbs on a plate, a smear of chocolate and a damp tea spoon. Symbolises the completion of another satisfying tea break. Nothing else.
• Double or quits: A sculpture the exact shape, size and appearance of the plinth to be mounted on top of it.  Dedicated to the unsung heroes of heroic statuary, the plinth-builders.

On reflection, I have decided that I cannot compete with Ms Phillipson's vision. It's the drone bit that does it for me. She appears to have created the world's largest and most pointless selfie-machine. Had I thought of it first it might have been a different story ...

I shall retreat to my shed and brood and meanwhile, if you want my advice on the Fourth Plinth, why not remove it, dig a hole in the ground equal in size and shape to it, and drop in it some of the politicians whose recklessness and ignorance has driven a wedge between the UK and its European allies?

If this is Art then I'm a banana

You may have noticed that each of these little musings has a tag - a handy way to find all the posts of a particular type - and these are helpfully listed at the right hand side of the web page. Today's offering is so bizarre that it almost requires a category of its own. I have allocated it to 'Just stupid' but really it needs to go under 'Unbelievably stupid, how can humans be so stupid?'.

I have commented on art now and then in these columns. I have defined what I take to be 'good' art. I have utter scorn and derision for those who claim to be artists because they say they are, as opposed to those who actually create art. You can therefore imagine my response to the following story

Pic: The Guardian

A bloke, who claims to be an artist, takes things that others have made, or harvested, and sticks them on gallery walls and gets the credit for being a brilliant artist because nobody in the entire history of the human race has ever looked at any of these things before, or something. His latest exploit was to stick a banana on a wall and sell it.  After a few days of gently rotting under the glare of the lights another "artist" ate it. Everyone in the art world swooned with aesthetic delight, told themselves how simply marvellous it was and held their hands out for cheques signed by buffoons with money and leaking brains.

Oh yes, and the moron who bought the banana (though he did not eat it) was given a "certificate" to prove that he is still the owner of whatever it is that may be thought to remain. I think we need Lewis Carroll to explain the metaphysics of this one.

It is almost impossible to satirise this story. It is its own self-parody. If man eats a banana in the street, he is just a hungry bloke. If he eats it in an art gallery, he is an artist. If a bloke hides in his shed, he is just a strange bloke. If he gets himself buried under a street, he is an artist. On that basis  I demand a Turner prize because, only the other day, I stooped in the street to retie a loose shoelace as part of a performance I call "Man with loose shoelace" (sadly the vast, cheering crowd that this emotional and inspiring baring of my soul deserved was strangely absent).

In any case, everyone has got this banana business utterly wrong. There is a wonderful, inspiring, transcendent piece of art hidden in plain sight, and everyone has missed it. The placing of that piece of duct tape, the choice of that subtle yet so revealing grey colour, the imperceptible angle as it bends across the banana, the hint of an upturned edge - here is true artistry, here is talent, here is a nice little earner for handymen who even now will be rushing to their nearest branch of Screwfix to stock up on 50m rolls, canvases and those little red dots that you stick on the bottom to show you have found another mug sold it.

-&-&-&-

Art Lovers! The Ramblings Gallery announces its Winter Season.

• A man will eat a mince pie each Sunday at 4:05pm.
• See the daily putting out of the milk bottles (times vary, check with website)
• Demonstrations of advanced use of the tumble dryer by special guest artist-in-residence Mrs C.
• Sightings of the 8:27 Metropolitan Line to Baker Street (stopping at all stations)
• Certificate written in genuine crayon to all participants

Terms and conditions apply, especially the one that says that no money can be refunded should some or all of the events in the winter season fail to take place. But you will get a certificate to say you have been apprised of the T & Cs for a very reasonable small extra charge.

Another Duff Gig

A picture, newly attributed to Rembrandt, is to be displayed in the UK next year. He was a top-notch painter, no doubt about that. This one is said to be from the start of his career and the young man, who is staring nonchalantly out shown above Christ, Rembrandt himself.

It's a funny business, the art market. If this picture was attributed, as it was originally, to an unknown artist of the Netherlands school it might be worth a few hundred, maybe a few thousand pounds. With the magic of the name of Rembrandt it is probably up in the millions.

I refuse to be impressed just because it may (or may not) be by the great man. It seems fairly obvious that the figure depicting Christ is rolling his eyes despairingly, gazing up to Heaven and calling out to his agent "Oy, oy, more babies, what kind of audience is this, you promised me a decent crowd".

Pic: The Guardian (and heavily cropped)

And that is most definitely not a halo. It's a straw hat (only 3 shekels from Joshua and Sons, 52 Water Street, Jerusalem, hurry while stocks last, special discounts for Pharisees).

Blow My Mind, Waiter.

The trend for even more exotic ingredients in the dishes served by the great restaurants of the world seems to have reached a new, and rather fascinating, point. Forget the old Spagh Bol and a drop of Chianti before your Tiramisu - imagine what the 8 course tasting menu is like at this place:

According to the BBC, he was only growing the stuff as part of his quest to enhance the Mediterranean flavours of his food. That's a useful line to remember the next time you're tapped on the shoulder at a festival.

"Excuse me sir, I have reason to believe you are inhaling a class B substance, which can attract an on-the-spot fine of up to £90."
"No way man, don't be so heavy, here take a good look. I call this the Colchester Carrot. It's a real carrot infused with cannabis flavour, the genuine taste of Essex, and it's going to be priced at £45 a plate in my restaurant Le Manoir d' Quatre Fumeurs. Would you care for a slice?"
"Oh, yes, right, sir, probably shouldn't while I'm on duty but as it's a festival..., mmm, surprisingly crunchy, oh wow my truncheon has turned into a golden light-sabre ..." etc etc.


With grateful acknowledgements to all behind the film Withnail and I

Poetry Corner

A type of short poem called a "Cherita" has recently come to my attention. Created in 1997 by Ai Li (who is also, I learn from her website, an evidential spiritualist medium) it take the form of a one line, two line and three line stanza. This makes for very short pieces indeed and you might think that if you buy one of her books you will get at least one of these fragments per page. Not so. Every other page is blank so that "the reader can pause and for the words to echo in the after silence"

Here is an example of a Cherita (I hope it is ok to reproduce but as it was on a flyer widely distributed in a public space I don't see why not). Starting each line in lower case seems to be the norm with this style, by the way.

your reading glasses

are still
where you left them

on an old page
the silverfish
miss you

I am not able to insert a blank page here because, well,  because this is a column on a Google blog not a printed book, so you'll just have to pause and imagine one while the words echo in the after silence. I find myself thinking about how I would go about squishing the silverfish and then trying to get the stains off the old page, and probably sitting on your reading glasses but that just serves you right for leaving them on the sofa in the first place.

I think the echoes will have died down by now and you should have the idea of Cheritas, and assuming the spirits are happy (Is there anybody there? No, I didn't really think so) here are a few of my own to get you pausing. Don't forget to add an after silence, length optional, as you read each one.

  -*-*-*-*-*-*-

the computer monitor

is black
and not responding

oh why do these
windows updates
take so bloody long?

 -*-*-*-*-*-*-

i hear a knock

is it the
postman?

no, it is
just another
pizza delivery leaflet

  -*-*-*-*-*-*-

the platform is crowded

my train is not
listed

many eyes strain
upward but the indicator board
gives no answer

  -*-*-*-*-*-*-

masterchef is on the telly tonight

it would be nice to
have some peanuts

but there are none
in
the house

  -*-*-*-*-*-*-

I think that's enough to be getting on with. If you would like to see your own efforts published in these columns please send them in to the usual address. Terms and conditions ... oh sod it, let's do this properly

   -*-*-*-*-*-*-
terms and conditions apply

the editor's
decision is final

no correspondence
can be entered into
so don't waste our time with it, ok?
  -*-*-*-*-*-*-

Stumped by the Googlies, or something

How refreshing to see a truly British cliché replace the tired old Americanisms. Yesterday I was in despair when the BBC's political correspondent Laura Kuenssberg spoke, during the Today programme, of the ways in which politicians would "step up to the plate".  Not only is this an unnecessary import but it wasn't even used correctly. There is nothing remotely special or demanding about stepping up to the plate. The plate is where a baseball player stands when batting; every member of the team will take his place there facing up to 4 balls before advancing to first base or being out. There is only one way to step up to it and that is to stand up from the bench where you are sitting with the rest of your team, march out into the field and stop when you get there. I suppose they could do it walking on their hands or with the aid of a handy pogo-stick but I doubt if that ever occurs, not really.

Today the Guardian did the right thing as can be evidenced from the clip herein reproduced

It's perfect. A British expression used correctly, conveying the idea of defending with determination against whatever a hostile world may throw. More of them, please.

A tomb without a view

Art, and what makes something worthy of being called art, is an endlessly fascinating topic. I have previously ruminated on the strangeness that permits anyone to call themselves an artist and then automatically define anything that they do or create as art - and have this con accepted by others. We have a wonderful example of this intellectual arrogance in today's Guardian where my eye was unerringly drawn to the following story:

Pic: courtesy The Guardian

 Best place for him, you are probably thinking. Shame it wasn't under a quiet road out in the bush then there would have been less disruption to traffic while they excavated the hole, inserted the steel box (and the reclusive gentleman) and then replaced the surface leaving but a slender air-pipe to keep him alive.

Why do such a thing?

According to organisers of Dark Mofo, the artist’s stay underground is a “response to 20th-century totalitarian violence in all its forms”.

I'm sure that all of us, other than dictators wearing silly uniforms, will agree that we are all dead against 20th-century totalitarian violence. Actually, I am prepared to go one step further and hereby proclaim my total rejection of 21st-century totalitarian violence as well. I'm also (and here I know I am so far ahead of my fellow artists that it will be years before my genius is recognised) not at all happy about 18th-century absolutist violence and don't get me started on certain murky goings-on in the later part of the Bronze Age.

Practitioners of 20th-century totalitarian violence are, doubtless, cowering in their bunkers and preparing their monorails for an emergency getaway before our man is hauled up on a freezing Hobart night in front of a vast cheering crowd and starts his encore (I don't know, putting a bag over his face for ten minutes as a response to the price of chewing gum, or something).

What will he be doing whilst underground in total darkness and the buses and trucks rumble overhead?

meditating, drawing, fasting and reading Robert Hughes’s The Fatal Shore.

OK, so not in total darkness. And not in total discomfort as we also learn that a small heater and a thermos (contents not specified) were taken in before the tarmac went back on. So just a long lie-down really. Well, we can all do that. Last night I spent some eight hours lying on my back in near-total darkness with only my wife for company. I fasted for the whole of this period without even the comfort of a well-filled thermos. This morning I ate two slices of toast with marmalade to indicate my total rejection of religious discrimination in 13th-century Spain and drank a cup of tea to indicate my solidarity with the struggles of the Aztec peoples to be free to cut out the hearts of anyone they didn't like very much. Turner prize, here we come.

Saying it like it is

The sports news on Radio 4's Today programme this morning covered the opening of the Winter Olympics in Korea. Someone in the British team has dropped out of something (I wasn't paying that much attention as the effort of waking up came first) but I snapped wide awake when the hapless representative went on to affirm that "Someone else will step up to the plate".

Oh, please! I know British clichés are no longer the best in the world but surely we can do better than parrot this stupid Americanism? "The Plate" means the bit where the batter stands in a game of baseball. He only has to stand there while the bowler throws a ball at him three times and then he is out, unless he has managed to hit the thing first. The plate is not particularly far from where the teams sit waiting their turn to come out nor particularly difficult to reach. There are no tanks of piranhas on either side waiting to grab a clumsily placed foot. There are no snipers up there in the "bleachers" (God, how I love that word) waiting to take out anyone who is too slow. In brief, "stepping up" to the plate is easy. It's a doddle. Anyone can do it. It takes no talent or even bravery. You can always duck, once they start chucking the ball at you.

I contend that to use this phrase to indicate the acceptance of responsibility in the face of adversity is not just lazy and ignorant but an insult to every red-blooded Briton (and if anyone knows of any Briton whose blood is not red, do get in touch). We have plenty of suitable sayings of our own based on sports we actually play and can claim to know something about. For example (and with footnotes for those many Americans I know will be eagerly seeking explanations):

• Walking out to the first tee¹
•  Marching out to the crease²
•  Striding up to the oche³
• Pedal up to the start line⁴
• Sidling up to baulk⁵
• Sticking out your hand ⁶
• Standing one's round⁷
• Shouting down the opposition⁸

and doubtless, many more

If you would like to support the Campaign for British Clichés please get in touch.

Footnotes:
1. You must know this one, surely.
2, Cricket. The crease is the line marked on the ground in front of the wicket. The wicket is made of three stumps and two bails. The stumps are ... look, there is such a thing as Google you know, you could be looking it up there instead of wasting your time here.
3. Darts. The oche is the line behind which the players must stand when throwing. Pronounced "Ocky", not to rhyme with "blotchy". Not be confused with the Scottish expression "Och, aye".
4. Cycling. Or competitive tricycling, for younger readers.
5. The baulk line on a snooker table is where the cue ball is placed for the opening shot of each game. Players don't necessarily have to sidle but late at night, with the cigarette smoke thick over the shaded green lights and the pints stacked up on the side tables, a long cool sidle is what you do when you want to intimidate your opponent. So I'm told.
6. in a "one potato, two potato" divvy-up of teams for playground football. See the Opies' excellent Lore and Language of Schoolchildren Oxford University Press 1959 for more. I suppose these days there is an app for team selecting.
7. What you do in a pub.
8. Politics

The Morality of Ledgers

BBC Radio 4's flagship news programme, Today, devoted this morning's output to the question of how digital technologies are changing the way we live. They marvelled at developments in artificial intelligence, the proliferation of start-ups and the speed at which traditional jobs were disappearing. There was a plethora of modernity and technospeak, but I was greatly heartened - and dismayed - at the phrase used by one of the experts. Leslie Berlin said, in the context of the impact of Silicon Valley and the developments of which she approves

... all of this has to be put on the good side of the ledger

 Writing as someone who learned their craft back in the days when ledgers meant ledgers - thick volumes in weighty black binders containing bookkeeping entries which we auditors used to embellish with curious ticks, curls and marks, sometimes in green ink, sometimes in purple - and which survive only on the dusty shelves of Museums of Accountancy - it is indeed life affirming to think that this word still carries a meaning for the modern entrepreneur, though what the younger listeners to Today (if there are any) made of her imagery I have no idea. She did not invoke the usual discussion so dear to us accounting veterans as to whether the ledger should be laid out facing or sideways on to the window, nor the best way to remove the stains left by chocolate biscuits, nor the fierce, sometimes violent, altercations about the most appropriate colour for ticking up a calculated balance the third year running (having already used the traditional green and purple pens in previous years).

Pleased as I was to hear that ledgers, and all that they stand for, are still in vogue with the highest of hi-tech trend-setters, I was not in any way chuffed at all at the wanton ignorance displayed by the words 'good side'. Ledgers do not have good or bad sides. They are repositories of information and how that information is processed is up to the person perusing it. The problem, I think, lies with the commonly misunderstood words 'debit' and 'credit'; these are technical terms used in bookkeeping and imply no moral virtues and 'credit' is the prime culprit because it has at least three utterly different meanings;

• Credit (accounting expression): an entry made in the ledger on the side nearest the window, an entry that is not a debit
• Credit (expression of social approbation) "It was to Don's credit that he he acknowledged that he was the audit clerk who had dropped the chocolate biscuit onto line 34 of the ledger thereby obliterating the entry referring to the sale of 14 widgets at £1 13/6d (gross)"
• Credit (measure of financial standing or believability) "Would you credit it, that sodding bookie has refused to give me any more credit?"

So there are no good or bad sides, just as people who talk about things being "on the credit side of the balance sheet" know not of which they speak. Perhaps the concept of souls being weighed in the balance on judgement day has something to do with it. But surely even the gods, these days, use computerised systems to keep track of who is worthy and who is going into the land of perpetual twilight; although one imagines meeting Anubis, the fearsome jackal-headed god who, as he goes to measure your sins against a mere feather, says wearily "I'm sorry, the computer's running very slowly today, can you come back in a thousand years?" That's the thing about ledgers - they may be obscured by chocolate but at least they don't need to be taken offline, virus-checked and rebooted at regular intervals.

Bakers and Breaks

The all-new, improved, Great British Bake-Off began its seventh series last night having moved from the BBC to Channel 4. One new judge, two new presenters and otherwise exactly the same as before - twelve pleasant and normal people demonstrating their skills and not one of whom whooped, high-fived or had an emotional backstory causing tears and sympathetic hugs while the cameras gloated - and some splendid cakes to be admired. Same tent, same setting, same awful weather raging outside and identical format.

Except, that being on commercial television, there were ad breaks. C4 decided to keep the content roughly as before and so had to stretch running time by fifteen minutes. I can't recall this being done for anything else; we are used to brilliant shows running for nearly thirty minutes on radio moving to TV and being butchered to less than 24 minutes of content (example: Harry Hill who used the time on radio to develop wonderful running gags that vanished when he transferred to the box).

Advertisers must have thought that this was a great way to show off their products. But in the Commuter household the response was what it always is - the moment the programme ident appears at the bottom of the screen to signify the end of a segment, the remote control is raised and the mute button pressed. Even then some ads were painful to watch - literally. Ebay had a sequence in which the screen changed background colour repeatedly; glimpsed from the corner of the eye this made a stroboscopic effect akin to glimpsing the sun through the trees whilst moving at high speed. Yuck. Presumably nobody connected with Ebay bothers to watch. This "viewer" moved his head further to one side and thereby ignored everything happening on the screen until his more tolerant wife nudged him to restore the sound.

Watching ads without the sound, other than those with genuinely irritating flashing screens, is a slightly surreal experience. "There's that bloke with the beard" you say¹ "I wonder what he's on about? If I had a beard would I get more offers of work? Oh look, here's a very sincere and twinkly-eyed man in a nice sweater leaning forward ever so slightly to share his wisdom, or something. What can he be on about? and how many ever-so-slightly less sincere and twinkly-eyed actors did they audition before deciding he was the right man for the knitware?² Ah, a young person in a white coat pointing at something. Fascinating, really fascinating.  Oh, there's a car. Driven on utterly empty city streets. By a young man with a beard. Who ever would have expected that, certainly never seen that before in an ad, what fantastic imagination these creative chaps have, I do hope they get loads of awards. And there's that comedian I used to like, but am now rather sick of, poncing about on a cruise ship and pretending to be just another paying passenger, that must get him a BAFTA or my name's not Merridew Withers"³

It is vitally important to keep the sound off. Nothing these people say is of the slightest interest given that it is all written by admen. It is equally important to indulge in these speculations because it drives away the message that the ad is trying to implant in your brain and puts your own thoughts in there instead, and I want to keep it that way.

We seem to have wandered off the GBBO but there isn't much more to say about it. I fear that the subject of advertisements, their rotting effect on the brain and the need to combat them with constant cynicism and derision is one that will remain with us.

Footnotes
1. Alright, I say it
2. Or does he have to supply his own jumper? Is there a clothing allowance for this or does his agent negotiate it all as part of the fee? These are the sort of questions that some sort of hard-hitting documentary ought to be addressing.
3. No it's not.

Brian Aldiss

Very sad to note the death yesterday of Brian Aldiss, one of the finest writers of science fiction this country, indeed the world, has seen. When I first began reading SF, back in the 1960s, he was already a star. His Helliconia trilogy is the best extended piece of SF I have read, not just imagining alien civilisations on a planet in a binary star system with immensely long seasons and a complex biochemistry that has adapted to them, but in creating believable and sympathetic characters. And in Report on Probability A he achieved the equivalent of Waiting for Godot - a story in which almost nothing at all happens but which is compelling reading right up to the puzzling end with a single laconic line that makes you question everything that has gone before.

To a generation believing that Star Wars is the epitome of SF, Aldiss may be unknown. But I would take any one of his books against the entire output of Hollywood in this genre any day.

The Limits of Belief

 Words change their meaning all the time in modern English. I found the misuse of one of them in the strapline of a petfood company advertising in the "colour" supplement of my weekend paper. It reads

Royal Canin: Incredible in every detail

 
I have nothing whatsoever to say about the products of this enterprise. My pets comprise an unruly fellowship of eight goldfish who from time to time oblige me by surfacing from the inky depths of the waters on my estate [pond out the back: Ed] to consume some of the foul-smelling stuff I buy once a year to feed them with and I get the little pot from another supplier. But I digress. Consider the statement "incredible in every detail". What do you think they wish us to understand?
Incredible means not credible, unbelievable, outside the realms of possibility. It does not mean (or at any rate, should not mean) wonderful, brilliant, inspiring, boundary-pushing, 'gosh I wish I could do that' although these are perhaps the meanings the admen might hope we would attribute to it. Nor does it mean something that would be ok to post on Instagram and forget about within seconds, even though it seems some do indeed use it in this fashion. If you tell me something and I say "That's incredible", then I mean that I do not accept your statement. Thus;

"Darling, sorry I'm late, there was a traffic jam" is a fair statement.
"Darling, sorry I'm late, the bus hit a tree and it took thirty minutes for a replacement" is also fair.
"Darling, it's so exciting, I was abducted by space aliens, taken to a mothership and forced to drink four vodka martinis before they released me with a message for the leaders of Mankind" is incredible. Not in the sense of "wow, awesome dude" as our American cousins would perhaps have it. Incredible as in lacking any sense of believability, rubbish, a plain lie.

And so we turn back to the petfood vendors with whom we started. Every thing about this company is not believable, according to its publicists. Its claims about the value of its products. Its mission statements. The ingredients. Perhaps even the contents of its annual financial accounts. They have made it plain as can be - incredible in every detail. Not to be trusted or indeed to have any credence put upon them. Could this be their prawn sandwich moment?

Just as it happened

My morning paper chose to print what can only be described as a "puff" on behalf of the forthcoming Channel 4 TV series Great British Bake-Off. This will be the first series since its production company moved from the BBC. There has been much speculation about how it will work out with reduced time due to adverts and 3 (out of 4) new presenters.

My wife has been an avid fan from the very first episode of series 1; I have watched most of them. So of course we are wondering how it will change. However, it was the choice of words used by Channel 4's "creative boss" Jay Hunt that made me pause whilst halfway through a piece of toast (with honey) as I flipped through the paper over breakfast. These are the very words:

“I happened to be down at the tent a few weeks ago...

So the person who secured the contract for the most popular show on terrestrial TV, and who's job and perhaps entire career may be on the line, just "happened" to be visiting whilst filming was going on. Presumably she was really supposed to be doing something else. I wonder how it came about?

-*-*-*-

Scene: The Office of Head of Creativity at C4.

enter Taz, an intern
Taz:  Right, now Miss Hunt has a key meeting at 10 to discuss the annual outing to Southend, then a lunchtime with the Northampton Nudist Club to discuss filming their AGM and after that there's the 'Trump: My Struggle' docupic to discuss with Legal. It's going to be a busy day. I hope there are no interruptions.
enter Miss Hunt
Hunt: Morning Taz. Busy day today. I hope there are no interruptions. What's up first?
Taz: I've got out the Southend file, Miss Hunt
Phone rings
Hunt: Yes? What? Oh hello Auntie. Yes I'm fine. You and Uncle Martin? Oh dear, you've run out of washing up powder. You'd like me to get some?  Of course Auntie. I'll be over soon". replaces phone Sorry Taz, cancel everything, I've got to go to Worcester.
Taz: Of course

Scene: A roadside in rural England. Hunt stands by her car. The bonnet is open and steam is being emitted.

Hunt (on mobile): Hello AA? I've broken down. Yes, in the middle of rural England. Well how should I know, near a field with cows, alright? About three hours? Fine. ends call Now what shall I do? Oh my word, over there in that field. That's the tent. The Bake Off tent. What an amazing coincidence, I hadn't the slightest idea where they actually filmed it. And today just happens to be a day for filming. How utterly incredible. I know, I'll wander over and see what's going on....

-*-*-*-

Is that creative enough? I have a fairly flexible window to discuss a screen treatment.

Getting the Parts

There is a story this morning that a US philanthropic organisation is angry that Alec Baldwin was cast to play the lead in a film about a blind person. Disabled actors are severely under-represented on film and TV compared to the number of suitable roles, and equally most roles are automatically assumed to be for fully abled actors although they could in many cases be played by those with a disability. The organisation

called it “disability as a costume” and compared the casting to so-called blackface, where white actors play black characters.

Somehow this story delivers two distinct messages. On the face of it, there is a case that any chance for disabled actors to portray themselves accurately should be made available to them and one feels that the campaigners have a point. And yet, consider where all this might lead... Here some possible stories for tomorrow's Arts & Culture section.

Criminals outraged about casting for new 'Oliver'

Mr 'Fingers' Morgan, spokesman for the Thieves Guild of London, has hit out at the producers of the revival of Oliver to be brought back to the West End soon. "Why is a qualified pickpocket not being considered as the Artful Dodger?" he demanded "My son, f'rinstance, has just got out of the Scrubs where his portrayal of the Tin Man in Wizard of Oz was described by no less a critic than GBH specialist Ron 'The Grinder' Karpov as 'bloody brilliant, specially when he nicked the professor's watch'. Yet he didn't get invited to audition. It's just sheer discrimination."

Surgeon struck off for "reckless" amputations

The BMC has struck off Dr Hartly Harrow for amputating five legs just below the knee when there were no medical reasons for the operations. Harrow said "This is typical of our judgemental society. Out of work actors, desperate to get cast in Moby Dick, came to me for help and I assisted their pitiful calls for help. Why am I being pilloried? ". The BMC said "This has all got to stop. We are currently investigating a curiously high number of one-handed actors auditioning for Peter Pan and there's a man in Bristol who claims he can get anyone a part in Treasure Island as Blind Pew after a  two minute consultation with him and his corkscrew."

Prince Charles to lead in Charles III - "One is jolly apprehensive"

The stage production of the recent BBC TV drama Charles III, due to open in Hull in October, will star the "only man qualified to play the lead" according to the producers. Prince Charles auditioned and claimed that not selecting him would be "blatant anti-royal discrimination" and that if he did get the part "MBEs would be going at the next birthday honours, alright?". He has not bothered to attend any rehearsals on the grounds that "One does actually know the job having understudied it for forty years".

...  and so on. I'd better stop.

And the Winning Picture is? Er, 'old on a mo, I had it somewhere...

I mused a while back about what would really go on behind the scenes when auditors were called in to investigate affairs at the Vatican. I thought that was the end of that particular story but somehow it has struggled back to life, albeit in a very different setting. For last night, at the Oscar ceremonies in LA the stars were not the actors, directors or best boys (whatever they are) but the accountants, from the rather large firm of PriceWaterhouseCoopers who somehow managed, in the finest traditions of Laurel and Hardy, to mix up the results for Best Picture. After the entire cast and crew of La La Land had made their tearful acceptance speeches and the rest were tearing up their invitations in disgust and preparing to leave, an amazing volte face from the beancounters behind the scenes resulted in Moonlight receiving this most prestigious of movie awards instead (cue fresh round of tearful acceptance speeches, I hope the supply of paper hankies lasted out).

Producers will be at their desks (or beside their pools) this morning, barking out instructions to get the exclusives on this sensational story which is certain to be the winning picture at next year's Oscars. I see Tom Cruise as thrusting young ambitious accountant Jim Price, with Meryl Streep as the wiser and more mature Eleanor Waterhouse who teaches him all she knows about how to count ballot papers whilst Julia Roberts plays the shy but brilliant computer expert Alice Alison Cooper whose bubbly and kooky personality so distracts Cruise that the whole count is nearly jeopardised - but there's a twist! (which I haven't actually thought of yet but give me time).

Here's a sample of my award-winning* screenplay.

Interior. Night. An office overlooking the glittering lights of LA. Price is hunched over a thick file of papers.

Price: Papers, papers, nothing but goddam ballot papers. God, I hate the accountancy business but I have to make it, I just have to.

Cooper steals up behind, puts hand on his shoulder

Cooper: Take it easy Jim. You know you can do it. I've been working on a brilliant new program to add up the papers but it needs your touch to make it work.

Price: I thought accountancy was all glamour and going to the Vatican to audit Cardinals. I never knew it was so tough

Cooper: You gotta believe Jim. 

Waterhouse prowls in looking mean.

Waterhouse: Are those papers counted yet, Jim? The Academy is waiting you know.

Cooper: He's so close Miss Waterhouse, so close. You don't know the pressure he's under.

Waterhouse: You think I never counted ballot papers? I've checked them with bullets flying overhead, I've checked them even though my parents were both dying of starvation, even when all the townsfolk begged me to stay to see off the bad guys, even when the asteroid was about to collide and I was the only person who could stop it. I've struggled against oppression and hatred to get papers checked. [music swells] I'm an accountant and I check papers, it's what I do. And before this night is out, Jim Price, you'll be doing it too!

Price: I will! I will count them.

Waterhouse: And here's how we make sure we get the right result, Jim. You put the winner into this envelope - marked 1 for coming first. You put the loser into this envelope - marked l for loser. Got it?

Cooper: It's so simple, it's beautiful. What could possibly go wrong?

Fade out.


* its only a matter of time

Three for the price of one

 My eye was caught by an ad for a theatrical presentation at the Donmar Warehouse in Kings Cross and I present it to you thus:

Now there are well known trilogies like the Lord of the Rings or The Godfather, and there are series like Star Wars, in which the sequence of pieces develops its themes, stories and characters in a harmonious and pleasing way. Shakespeare himself has his natural trilogies (Henry IV parts 1 and 2 and Henry V, and the Henry VI series). One does not really expect three utterly different plays to be lumped together as a trilogy unless they have something that links them (other than that they are being performed at the same place by the same company). And so, it being a Saturday and there are few minutes to spare before we join the shoppers down at our local Sainsbury's (and having missed, without regret, "Black Friday"), I give you some sense of what this trio of plays should be like.

Scene: A storm near the Forum, just outside a low tavern
Enter Brutus

Brutus: This unnatural storm has soaked my toga. Hello, is that a tavern? Two pints here, Sir John, and see what Caliban would like. Has the Earl of Worcester left any messages for me only we're supposed to be working over the king this afternoon and then I've got a date lined up with Miranda up on Gad's Hill on the Ides.

I think something like that might pack them in but perhaps it needs just a little more work.

Getting a life (or, You shall go to the balls)

Responding to criticism of a new Channel 4 TV show, featuring nudity (artistic, essential, not in any way a desperate attempt to up the ratings, that suggestion is right out of order, OK?) which, I hasten to add, I have neither watched, recorded nor downloaded [I would have, but my VCR doesn't work any more: Ed], the producer is quoted thus:

the show’s critics should “get a life”,

 How devastatingly witty. And how hard to argue with. If you don't agree with me, then you don't have "a life" and should obtain one. I'm sure all critics are now reeling back in shock, gripping the edges of their chairs with white-knuckled hands before smiting themselves on the head and proclaiming "A life! Of course, that is what I should get. If only I had a life I would cease to take any interest in television shows that I happen to watch, or I would watch them without in any way vouchsafing an opinion or comment because so to do instantly betrays my lack of life and that, once I have my life, is clearly not going to happen."

Further perusal of the source material throws up something else unexpected. One Gemma Askham, described as 'sex editor of Glamour magazine' (and there's a job I don't remember my old careers master advising me to go for. "Now then young G, I see you enjoy writing and pleasuring yourself in the back row of geography classes, have you considered a career as a sex journalist, I'm told there's very good money in it") is quoted as saying

I guess the participants are trying to say, I don’t care if you judge me, I have the confidence to show myself for exactly who I am on TV, and even if you don’t pick me I’m still proud that I had the balls to do that.”

I don't think she thought that one through at all. Clearly, the female participants would not under any circumstances have had the balls; the men presumably did and that's what they were so proudly displaying for inspection (and perhaps counting). They had them anyway, I mean, whether or not they were selected to go on the show.

The question that remains with us is this: if you do have the balls to flash them in front of two million goggling¹ viewers, have you got a life? Or are you in desperate need of one?

 ¹ This is not a euphemism, although these days with the fast pace of change in modern slang, maybe it is.