Where’s Dick when you need him?

#43

   Dick Whittington, that is, (1354 – 1423) - four times Lord Mayor of London, a benefactor to the medieval poor and still fondly remembered in Christmas pantomimes co-starring with his famous cat. Looking at the runners & riders lined-up for this year’s London mayoral election on May 3^rd. my money says that if either Dick or his cat were on the ballot they would most likely stroll it.

   Like every other voter in Greater London I received last week through the post a little booklet detailing the seven candidates seeking the office of London Mayor. What a dismal shower they make, surpassing even this week’s April downpours. I wouldn’t sell my used car to any of them.

   First up in the booklet we get UKIP’s Lawrence Webb. What’s his Fresh Idea? “Stop spending public money on public sculpture…” Blimey, is that where he thinks we’ve been going wrong? Is it me, or are UKIP a refuge for the terminally bewildered? It gets worse. Over the page we find Carlos Cortiglia, the BNP candidate. He looks sufficiently dazed and confused to be running for UKIP himself but he claims “People like you are voting BNP.” Actually, mate, we’re not and we wouldn’t vote Nazi even after Hell had frozen over. Try as they may, the BNP have yet to produce an election leaflet that doesn’t read like a rant by Arturo Ui…[1]

   Next up; Siobhan Benita - an independent candidate who has done impressively well to build her campaign from a standing start only a few months ago. She could now be well-placed to attract a surprising number of votes. Her great advantage is that she is untarnished by association with any pre-existing political party. (How George Galloway must be kicking himself; even he could score votes simply by not being either Ken or Boris.) Siobhan’s main priority, she writes, is education. Very worthy; but perhaps someone should tell her that education services are presently not the Mayor’s responsibility but are run by the thirty two boroughs? The Mayor is supposed to focus on the strategic government of Greater London (Transport, Development, Planning, Environment, Police…). If Siobhan were elected and wanted to micromanage primary school places and dive into the vexed issues surrounding secondary schools’ admission policies she would waste her four years in an almighty ding-dong with parents, the councils, the DfE and the teachers. After which, nothing would have changed and she wouldn’t be re-elected. She also supports plans to expand Heathrow airport, clearly unaware that the majority of Londoners believe the ideal location for Heathrow’s additional runway is somewhere just outside Paris.

   And then we come to Brian Paddick, for whom you almost have to feel sorry. Almost. He too might have stood a better chance running as an independent and thereby escaping the burden of being seen as ‘Cleggie’s Bagman’. Sadly, even being gay is unlikely to save Brian from an humiliating fourth place, somewhere behind UKIP and possibly even Siobhan. Paddick also suffers from belonging to the Simon Hughes school of LibDems whose answers to every question begin with the whingeing denial, “Actually, none of this is my fault…”

   And then there is Boris Johnson. Ah, Boris, aka Horace Bullingdon, the posh boys’ posh boy. Classically educated at Eton and Oxford, brain the size of a planet[2], Boris with his carefully deranged hairstyle still manages to come across as a pompous, public school buffoon who remains, no doubt, best chums with The fat owl of the Remove[3]. His occasional lapses into sensibleness – the bike hire scheme – are easily outweighed by his default settings as ageing young fogey on acid. Boris aspires to lead the Tory Party but is surely capable of going from Mayor to TV chat-show host without an intervening cameo as Prime Minister. Poor Boris set up a website for this campaign at BackBoris2012.com. only for this to be immediately countered by the waspish http://www.sackboris2012.com/. Click on that.

   The Greens have put up Jenny Jones who apparently lives on a canal boat (very right-on) but who then went and lost all cred at the hustings when she concluded her attack on the use of chauffeur-driven cars by senior cops with the rhetorical question, “Why can’t they go everywhere in taxis like the rest of us do?” In touch with ordinary Londoners? I don’t think so.

   And finally we come face to face with Ken Livingstone. These days, I fear, Ken’s more in your face than on your side. I say this despite having voted for Ken as Mayor three times in the past. I voted for him because he was the consummate pain-in-the-arse London needed to do battle against the appalling Blair and the spin doctors of New Labour. Our Ken had learned his obstructionist trade in the dear dead days of the GLC when he led the opposition to Thatcher from his bunker deep in the bowels of County Hall, firing daily salvoes at the Houses of Parliament, over there at the other end of Westminster Bridge. When the Tories finally abolished the GLC in 1986, Thatcher insisted that they flog-off every square inch of the building and fill Ken’s redoubt with an aquarium to prevent the bugger ever coming back. But they reckoned without Ken’s superhero powers as a political resurrectionist.

   Regrettably, the Ken of 2012 is not the Ken of old. Turns out he’s become quite accomplished at minimising his personal bills for income tax and national insurance contributions. Feet of clay, feet of clay. These days Ken can’t even get the graphics right on his campaign posters. He features a red button seeming to bear the words “BETTER OFF KEN”. And we are all sure that he is. It’s only on closer inspection that you notice there is a tiny “WITH” between the OFF and the KEN.

Cue the sound of Bow bells. Enter Dick Whittington and cat, stage left:

Turn again Whittington,

Thou worthy citizen

Lord Mayor of London…[4]

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[1] See The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht, 1941. If you’re in a hurry, just read Ui’s final speech and the Epilogue:

“Don’t yet rejoice in his defeat, you men!

Although the world stood up and stopped the bastard,

The bitch that bore him is in heat again.”

[2] With all due thanks to the late Douglas Adams.

[3] Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School by Frank Richards, 1908ff.

[4] And yes I do know that the Lord Mayor is a different office from that of London Mayor – but there was no “Greater London” for Dick Whittington to run in the early fifteenth century.

O Brave New Wold

#42

   David Hockney’s lengthy sojourns in America have left him with no fears. As an artist he has no fear of paint, of colour, of scale or of technology. One of the first works you encounter in his current A Bigger Picture[1] exhibition at the Royal Academy is A Closer Grand Canyon, 1998[2] . This is defined by its label as “Oil on 60 canvases. 81 x 291 inches, overall.” Yes, that is correct: sixty canvases. I didn’t believe it either, until I had counted them.

   The works have been arranged so as to conduct you from California and the American West to the Wolds of the East Riding of Yorkshire – and back again. As you leave the exhibition, America recurs and you pass under, literally, towering images of Yosemite National Park, California. From the start, your way is guided by paintings and a photocollage which serve as informative maps of extraordinary beauty. It is as if David Hockney is leading you from Nichols Canyon, 1980 via Pearlblossom Highway, 11-18 April 1986 towards The Road across the Wolds, 1997 and then down The Road to York through Sledmere, 1997 to arrive, perhaps, at The Woldgate Tree, 2006.

   Everywhere you look, Hockney shows the clarity, the light and the brightness that are to be found in the landscape of the Wolds. He proves to you that the colours he uses are all in plain sight; there for you to see. He has found his colours in and under the trees, scattered across the fields, drifting through the woods or dancing along the hedgerows. His compositions draw you in, almost folding the landscape around you. The brilliance of his palette conveys not just colours; the vibrancy is such that you begin to hear the paintings even before you see them.

   This is an exhibition characterised by thoroughness. Hockney conducts an almost forensic examination of his chosen trees and of the lane he calls The Tunnel. Each study is redeemed from being clinical by Hockney’s consummate skills in drawing and the generous deployment of colour. His drawings record shapes and textures and spatial relationships with an incredible economy of line. The sketchbooks on show together with his iPad drawings reveal mark-making that is accurate, evocative and yet quick enough to capture the moment in landscapes where everything moves and the light is constantly changing.

   As you move through the galleries you become aware that these works are actually all about knowing. They are about the knowing of trees and leaves and time and light and the seasons. The Woldgate Woods series have a great particularity. They strive to reveal the uniqueness of every tree, every branch and every leaf and to link that identity to the time of year and even the time of day.

   In Gallery 8, Trees & Totems, the charcoal sketches read like entries in a diary. And like any good diarist, Hockney is explicit about what delights, disturbs or excites him. His celebrations of Hawthorn blossom in Room 7 approach being acts of gluttony. It is a feast begun with the arrival of spring (see Hawthorn Blossom near Rudston, 2008) which culminates in Hawthorn Blossom on the Roman Road, 2009 (Oil on 8 canvases). Here, under a livid sky and on the very cusp of summer, the creamy richness of the pulsating blossom appears to be mutating into giant larvae, gorging themselves on the last of springtime.

   Back outside in the urban night, we walk along Piccadilly passing banners advertising the exhibition. These all show a back view of David Hockney now and forever touching-in some paint on Winter Timber, 2009 (oil on 15 canvases). From behind, in his cloth cap, shirtsleeves and braces he looks every inch the northern working man. You could almost mistake him for the late Fred Dibnah, albeit a Lancastrian and possessed by a more industrial sensibility. Fred was, nonetheless, an honest toiler of a similar vintage.

   “They three big trees over yonder? Don’t fret, Mr Hockney, we’ll soon have they boogers down for thee. Happen it’ll be quicker than thou canst put t’kettle on. Now then, which side of t’midden are we wanting them to fall?”

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[1] David Hockney RA A Bigger Picture. Royal Academy of Arts, until 9 April 2012. Not to be missed! Only a few days to go – check out extended opening hours at www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/hockney/plan-your-visit/

[2] For illustrations, go to www.hockneypictures.com/home.php