In 2000

Something happened on this day in 2000 - but what? According to the BBC, it was this. But according to Melanie Phillips, it was a case of this. If you read Phillips' piece, you might well wonder why the BBC baldly presents its account as historical fact, without any mention of any doubts ever having been raised. Legends are stronger than facts - and sadly, in this case, far deadlier.

Hoover Havoc

We've all heard stories of cleaners pulling a plug out of a socket so they can plug in the Hoover - and inadvertently closing down a computer network, a heart-lung machine, or Britain's nuclear defences or some such. Now it seems the terrible blaze that gutted the Cutty Sark was also down to a vacuum cleaner. Ban them, I say - I've never liked them, noisy brutes...

Devon

Well I am still reeling (and coughing and somewhat hungover) after the events of yesterday. I was down in Devon for the highly improbable reunion of four old friends, two of whom I had not seen for 35 years (nor had any contact with til a few months ago). The extraordinary thing was that, whereas time and life had wrought huge changes on three of us, making us in many ways barely recognisable as the people we once were, one of us - the one we were all visiting - had remained, beneath the ravages of time and booze and other ravagers, exactly the same person he always was, living exactly the same life in exactly the same surroundings (though he has carried on this life against Indian, French, Spanish, Afghan, Dutch etc backgrounds for years at a time). With few ties and even fewer possessions, he looks out on life with amused detachment, takes it as it comes, forms a community from whatever people are around him, and, eventually, moves on. He is probably the future (and of course he doesn't work).
In the midst of this epochal reunion, I had news of a birth (a girl, to a friend now living in France) and a death (my last surviving aunt, of whom I have very fond memories) - and, out there in the big world, civilisation ended. Typical - it would happen when I was down in Devon, wouldn't it...

By the Way...

I'm going down to Devon for the day tomorrow. Normal blogging will, I trust, resume on Tuesday.

Punching Bronzino, Punching Coe

An amusing report on damage to works of art in our great galleries shows clearly enough who are the repeat offenders - staff, removal people and over-refreshed 'corporate clients'. Of the damage done by ordinary visitors, vomiting over a Carl Andre installation seems reasonable enough - even prodding a Barnett Newman - but it would be interesting to know what motivated someone to punch a Bronzino. Florentine mannerism can be pretty tiresome, but all the same...
What I'd like to know is this. If someone had barged into Little Lord Coe when he was running up and down in Tate Britain to launch the Kulturolympiad, and punched him to the ground, would they have been damaging a work of art? Or performing a public service? Or even creating another work of art, and a much more amusing one... The prospect of four years of 'culture' to soften us up for the horrors of 2012 is really too ghastly to contemplate. When I hear the words 'Cultural Olympics' I reach for my sick bag. Whoops - too late - there goes another Carl Andre...

Looking Forward to the Debate...

in best Onion style.

A New Direction in Russian-Venezuelan Relations

I was wondering (as you do) what our old pal Hugo Chavez was up to in Russia, on his second visit since July. Was the oil-rich demagogue furthering world peace by buying weapons off the Russkies with money he'd borrowed off them? No, it seems the purpose of his visit was to boost ties. See, he's already flogged one to the Russian guy - same colour too. Me, of course, I'm boosting cravats...