HITTING THE HEADLINES

#35

   Here in The Bus Lane we enjoy a good headline. Best of all is a fresh headline reminding us of a previous classic. Imagine our anticipation when Cameron used the dreaded veto – DAVE BLOCKS MERKOZY DEAL. Then came news that Tracey Emin had been appointed Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy – NOW IT’S PROF BONKERS. We would have struggled to overcome our natural indifference to both these events if it wasn’t for the prospect they offered of pithily sardonic headlines to come. Otherwise, what the hell has either got to do with us?

   Users of The Bus Lane are unlikely to be consulted by anyone at any time about developments in the EU, the whys and wherefores of protecting The City as a centre for financial chicanery and who’s in or out as Top Gun at the RA. If we couldn’t name the previous incumbent, why would it matter to us if said unknown Prof was succeeded by Tracey Emin? That said, we welcomed Tracey’s elevation with the pant-wetting hilarity we thought it was intended to provoke. But no – apparently they weren’t joking. It’s “Prof Tracey” for real! Our fault – we obviously hadn’t “updated” our understanding of the meaning of the words “Professor” and “Drawing”.  Even before we could reach down our copy of ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’[1], the reliably predictable Nicholas Serota confirmed “I think it’s a great appointment.” Phew, so that’s alright then.

   And those classic headlines from days gone by? Well, Cameron’s petulant “Non!” reminded most commentators of the mythical “FOG IN CHANNEL – CONTINENT ISOLATED” banner. Many believe this once appeared in The Times [or some similar organ] on various dates in the 1920s, 30s, 40s and 50s. Sadly, our huge backroom staff of geriatric interns and newly-redundant elves have been unable to verify that it ever appeared in print. Wonderfully revealing though the sentiments behind it may be; the headline itself remains entirely apocryphal.

   Not so for Tracey: “FAN HITS THE SHEETS” really did appear in The Sun (yuk – spit) back in 1999 when ‘Brit Art’ was at its height. Two uncouth youths had bounced up and down on “My Bed”. You’ll know the piece: an unmade bed littered with the intimate detritus of Tracey’s private life. Fortunately, “My Bed” remained as much a work of art after being used as a trampoline as it had ever been before.

   Cameron’s use of the EU veto was obviously completely daft – no argument there - but he is to be congratulated for the thoroughly seasonal make-over he has given to the turkeys of the Lib-Dem party. Having spent the last year slowly plucking all the feathers from their futile, flightless, wings he now has them trussed, bound, basted and properly stuffed in time for Christmas.

   Do doubts linger elsewhere beyond The Bus Lane about Emin’s Professorship? Were other candidates considered, we wonder, but passed over? Clearly, the Academy regards Tracey Emin as the finest exponent of the art of drawing currently available to teach their postgraduate students. The painter Anthony Green (RA) has asserted: “She draws at the speed of thought…” And looking at some of her drawings you can almost believe that – even if, sadly, the seminal ‘thought’ seems not to have stayed around for long enough to be much considered. When we draw ‘at the speed of thought’ in The Bus Lane we call it a doodle.

   Having seen her recent retrospective at the Hayward gallery, one critic enquired disingenuously, “When will Tracey ever overcome her chronic shyness?”  The confessional nature of her art is so limiting. Down here in The Bus Lane, we have long been bored by the narrow range of her work. Everything she does is about herself and, frankly, she is not all that interesting. Her art is, however, strangely attuned to the voyeuristic excesses of the contemporary obsession with “celebrities”[2]. What was once private is now not simply made public. Worse, it is driven through a picaresque life cycle. A brief infancy of frantic encouragement builds to synthetic adulation. The most trivial details of the subject’s life of bling and glitz are grotesquely publicised. And then descends the claw-hammer of tabloid retribution. Every aspect of the celeb’s scabrous life, appearance and personality is liable to be suddenly and cruelly mocked, trashed and shredded in the interests of gormless entertainment and tabloid sales figures.

   Tracey is only one of several artists whose work dwells alongside the public laundry run by the gossip columns and ‘reality’ TV. Her art exemplifies one of the meanings of solipsism. In what may be an extreme form of scepticism, she seems to deny the possibility of any knowledge other than her own existence. Her life-story remains the subject on which she is undoubtedly the world’s greatest living expert. As a Professor of Emin she has no equal, but what else – apart from confessional subject-matter and quick-as-a-flash, scratchy, line drawings – will now inform her teaching?

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[1] Kejserens nye Klæder. Hans Christian Andersen, Copenhagen, 1837

[2] Recommended reading: Fashion & Celebrity Culture. Pamela Church Gibson (Berg 2011)

Signs of The Times #1 - The New Technocracy

#34

   From time to time, we in the Bus Lane invite other distinguished flâneurs to proffer a frisson of additional enlightenment to our reader. In view of the fashion across Europe for technocrats to step up and take the reins from flailing politicians, we turn this week to a celebrated local technocrat, Sir Nigel Molesworth DVD, Aegrotat Professor of Cerulean Cogitation & Urbane Sprawl at the University of Tooting.

   Last Tuesday morning (or was it Thursday?) we found Sir Nigel paddling with a group of captive gerunds and a bi-polar rhomboid in the shallow end of the Think-Tank at St Custard’s. After a brief altercation, he reluctantly agreed to submit the following end-of-the-pier-reviewed paper in exchange for the usual liquid lunch.

Whizz for Newtrinos: where Eisenstein may have gon a bit wrong

By Prof. (hem hem) n molesworth[1].

Sir Albert Eisenstein was well braney but like my unfortunate encomiast peason he woz eezly distraktid by gurls eg marylin munrow. Sometimes he make films when he shud have been doing prep. I partikly like the one where lots of tutors in armur are having a big battle and go falling thru the ice. It wasn’t so terrible, not like the one about ivan novello. Or there was anuther called Battleship Ptolemy where a tini tot in a pram go beyonce beyonce beyonce down the odessa steppes (boo hoo) and soldjers is shootin at matron so it was not that bad after orl. (It make me shudder sa molesworth 2).

Well, i arsk you, is it any wonder the rusians ended up with a starling as there dictator?

But I digress. Wot realy matters is that brian epstein workt out his grate THEORY of RELATIVITY which make sense of life, the universe and everythink. Yeah, yeah, yeah! And wot is that grate theory to us, pray, prof nigel (hem hem) I here you arsk? Aktualy, no one realy kno. Dr Fotherington-tomas sa it is all about everything being related to everythink else. But I sa that is hippy crap and he is utterly wet and a weed. Someone shud tuough him up. Peason sa relativity is about us all being kith and kin. Kith my arth sa molesworth 2.

I diskard them bothe.

I sa that wot Rickstein realy mean is that energy is the same as everythink else timesed by itself. Witch as any fule kno mean you have to go v fast if u want to travel in time and never be late ever agane. And you get v tyred as a result. John steinbeck sa that no one can go as fast as lite for very long coz everythink gets v heavy. Chiz chiz. Even yore arms and legs.

Which bring me to newtrinos. Roger sam hammerstein tell you that this is Latin for newts. Now everyone kno that fastest thing in universe is speed at which Grabber and his chums at BOSS[2] can trouser a cash bonus. Next fastest thing is lite.

So why are so many brane-boxes getting so xcited about newtrinos? I here you arsk. Let prof nigel (hem hem) explane in simple terms. Listen carefly, I only sa this once.

Well first a load of newts was fired by the mighty death-ray blaster from swizerland to italy thru miles of solid rock and some swot sa they arrive sooner than little miss sunshine was xpecting. This is so obviously wrong I hesitate to go on but it seem I must. One reason is that all newts look the same espeshly when they are all skwashed and bashed up. So who kno if the ones turning up in italy are the same as the ones shot from Genevieve? Second reason is that lite cant travel thru solid rock as any clot shud kno – otherwise it wud not be so dark inside caves wud it? So of coarse the newts get there first if they go in a strate line and the lite have to go up hill and down dale. And anuther reason is dead obvious if you just look at the mapp. Going from swizerland to italy is down hill all the way. They shud next try firing the newts upwards from italy. Then they wud see that I wos right in the end.

Enuf said.

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Professor Molesworth’s latest book All There is to Kno About Space (Six pages, lavishly illustrated) is available from Pukonboox.com for a measly 4.5 trillion of yore earth £££s

Next Week: Signs of The Times #2 – the New Buffoonery by Jeremy Clarkson

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[1] nigel molesworth appear curtsy of Geoffrey Willans & Ronald Searle. See also www.stcustards.free-online.co.uk

[2] B.O.S.S. = Bank of Swizzes & Swindles