P-p-p-pick up a... Colonel-in-Chief

The latest in a long line of "you couldn't make it up" type stories. Brilliant.

Art for art's sake

Every so often, the debate about the merits, or otherwise, of modern art kicks off, as in this intelligent piece by Katherine Whitehorn. Currently, the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art is showing a 20-year retrospective of the always-interesting Tracey Emin which has, predictably, thrown up the usual suspects, moaning and wailing that "it's just an unmade bed". Now I can't make it to Emin's show in Edinburgh but I have just been to the Royal Academy of Art's summer show, which includes a room curated by Emin (which carries an 18 certificate, amusingly), and I can say that her room was the most thought-provoking, and not just for the zebra mounting a women or the naked woman hula-hooping with barbed wire (although that was strangely hypnotic). We followed Sunday's trip to the Royal Academy with another trip to the Hayward Gallery to see more modern art in the form of their Psycho Buildings show... which was fantastic, visually stunning and so easy to become immersed in. I can't recommend it enough, so hurry, it's only on until the end of the month (and whilst you're there, why not nip into the Saison Poetry Library too?). I bet you don't have as lovely a meal as we had afterwards though (and I'm not going to tell you where we ate because if the secret gets out, and it gets over-crowded, well, it'll be ruined...)

One stock response of many people when faced with modern art is "I don't call that art!" Well okay then, what do you call art? If you consider art appreciation in terms of the effect a piece has, its context, techniques used and its intended meaning, then surely anything that puts a tick against some, or all, of those boxes could be considered art? Okay, so the effect it has on you might be to make you turn your nose up or scoff, but it's still an effect...

The other standard reaction to modern art is "I could do that." Fine. But the fact is, you haven't. You haven't had the idea. The creative spark has not twitched and flickered within you, has not caught alight. When it comes to modern art it seems that those that can, do, and those that can't criticise.

My mini city

So many otherwise interesting websites require you to register, or create an account, or download software, or all of the above, before you can do anything with them. This is a pain, at times, so it makes a nice change to find a entertainingly time-wasting website that doesn't. It's called My Mini City and guess what - it let's you create your own virtual city, and then watch it grow. All you have to do is pick a country for your city to be in, and then give it a name, and that's it - there's no registration, no need to divulge untold personal details to create an account, no need to download bloated client software, nothing.

So you're probably wondering how it works then? How you can make your city grow? Simple. When you create your city, a unique URL for it is created, and it is by that address receiving hits that your city grows. So, to visit my city, which currently resembles an isolated hut in the middle of a vast empty expanse, and has a population of 1 (but a 0% crime rate!) all you have to do is click margueritton.myminicity.com... so please do! And in case you're wondering how I came by the name "Margueritton", all I can say is that the -ton suffix implies town, whilst marguerite is French...

Hurt of Tunbridge Wells

Another great weekend to write about (sorry, I know this is not interesting for you, (in)Constant Reader, but I have to tell someone and there's no-one else, at least not up here...). On Friday, I was again Kentward-bound: West Kent, this time, camping near Royal Tunbridge Wells. And it was a beautiful campsite, with a little firepit for each pitch, so after our barbecue we got a lovely fire going, sat propped against a log with a blanket and lantern, and read alternate chapters of a book to each other (and no, I'm not going to tell you which book, that's private - suffice to say it's good). It was a near perfect evening, but not perfect, and that hurt. Still does.

On Saturday morning we trekked into Tunbridge Wells and had a great time browsing the eclectic collection of shops that is The Pantiles - definitely recommended if you are in that neck of the woods, especially the secondhand book shop. And then, in the afternoon as the weather picked up, we drove down towards Brighton to visit Monk's House, the former home of Virginia Woolf. Lucky for us the weather held, as our evening was spent at Hever Castle watching Cosi Fan Tutte in the open air. We even had time for a glass of red by the lake first. Again, it was a near perfect evening, but not perfect, and that hurt. Still does.

Sunday saw us back in Tunbridge Wells, trying to give the tent time to dry off by taking an extended breakfast in The Pantiles. But the weather wasn't playing ball so, despite leaving it at late as possible, we ended up bundling a wet tent in the boot of the car and heading off to Knole Park for the afternoon - a beautiful house, this time with connections to Vita Sackville-West, and amazing grounds full of fallow deer, one of whom stuck his head in the car as we ate chocolate brownies. All too soon, we drove back home, said a chaste and hurried goodbye, and that was it. A near perfect day, but not perfect, and that hurt. Still does.

When will it stop? And what would Virginia and Vita make of it all?

To Whit, to whoo...?

This will be a very quick post, because I'm in all kinds of a rush to get away for the weekend (again)...

So, for the second week in a row, I find myself blogging about what an amazing (and hectic) weekend I've had. Last Friday I found myself Kentward-bound, via Ikea (good for big furniture, disappointing for small items, redeemed by Swedish meatballs), for day one of the Sound Island Festival at Quex Park. Click Click were okay, Elliot Minor was instantly forgettable (and lost in muddy sound), whilst Scouting for Girls were very disappointing - every time they got going they seemed to stop, for a pointlessly repetitive and boringly executed piece of crowd participation. But then headliners The Hoosiers came on and they were brilliant! So up for it! So full of strange touches, like coming onstage clutching letters spelling out their name, each member of the band having a different model bird on their mic stand, launching giant balloons full of tickertape out into the crowd (where they inevitably, eventually popped), backing singers dressed as skeletons... such a show! And musically terrific! So even though there was only one tiny beer tent, and you had to queue at a separate kiosk to buy tokens to exchange at the beer tent for drinks (hence queueing twice - shockingly bad organisation on the part of the festival) I was able to head back to the campsite a (literal) happy camper.

The next day saw us taking in the Whitstable Oyster Festival. Quite how that cute little Spanish lass could eat six oysters and down half a pint of beer in fourteen seconds if beyond me. But this was the best of days - a beautiful walk along the coast into the town, interesting stalls, happy shopping and, especially, sitting on the beach as the sun headed towards the horizon, drinking wine and eating strawberries. To top it off we then met up with my best mate and his partner for more drinks and a fine meal. All in all, a day to live long in the memory...

As was Sunday, which saw us topping up our tans on a sun-drenched Folkestone beach - we even found a little patch of sand to call our own, had a swim, applied lotion... and then, when our beach picnic and scorching sun were in danger of lulling us towards a doze, we instead headed off to Port Lympne for their staggering overnight safari... yes, really. A safari, complete with lodge, watering hole and more animals than you can shake a stick at, in Kent. Rhinos, giraffes, wildebeest, so many types of deer, and more... brilliant. And best of all, waking that way in our luxury safari tent... the best moment of the whole weekend.

It's a tough life, but someone has to do it, right?

Latitude attitude

I've just got back from the Latitude Festival in Suffolk, and you know what? It was bloody amazing! Unlike so many other festivals, Latitude isn't just about music, but all the arts, so there are book readings, poetry, theatre, cinema, art installations, comedy and so much more. I couldn't fit everything I wanted to in, literally because there was so much going on, and often the things I wanted to see clashed. The comedy tent was particularly popular, so I couldn't get to see Bill Bailey or Ross Noble, as I'd hoped. Oh well, there's always next year. Until then, here's a summary of what I did manage to see - my Latitude diary, if you will...

Thursday:

• The Now Show : Radio 4 Arena. Watched through the window of an over-full tent, but still funny.
• Arcola Theatre - The Miniaturists : Theatre Arena. Short but utterly engaging plays.
• Music In Spheres : On The Lake. A flautist in a giant plastic bubble, floating on a lake. Really.
• Tim Clare : Poetry Arena. His "Favourite Things" is a work of genius...
• Ross Sutherland : Poetry Arena. Erstwhile poetry with which to close the "warm-up" night.

Friday:

• Vox'n'roll - A. L. Kennedy : Literary Arena. Deceptively funny.
• Vox'n'roll - Nikita Lalwani : Literary Arena. No easy task, following Alice. Her book is probably better than she read it.
• Daniel Rigby : Comedy Arena. Would have been funnier, I'm sure, if I hadn't had to crane my neck in from outside the comedy tent because I'd gone to get some drinks from the bar at an inopportune moment and then couldn't squeeze back in when he started.
• Ben Moor - Not Everything Is Significant : Theatre Arena. Went to see him on the basis that he was in the year above me at school. Insanely intelligent then, nothing has changed - his one-man show was funny, clever and thought-provoking. And he gave out free badges afterwards, which was nice.
• British Sea Power : Obelisk Arena. They tried hard, and "Waving Flags" hit the spot. Nice string section.
• Lee Mack : Comedy Arena. Razor-sharp comic.
• Lucy Porter: Comedy Arena. Why is she always described as "one of the funniest female comedians on the circuit", as if it's amazing that she's both female and funny. She's just brilliant. And TMC too.
• Phill Jupitus reads Dickens : Literary Arena. A bit grumpy, which was a shame.
• Durang Durang : Theatre Arena. Seven short, and odd, plays.
• Franz Ferdinand : Obelisk Arena. Main-stage highlight of the whole festival, probably. Better than expected, and new material had a satisfying harder edge.
• Tangled Feet : On The Lake. Captivating dialogue-free theatre using festival-style tents as prompts. Beautiful, moving.

Saturday:

• The Factory - Hamlet : On The Lake/In The Woods. Theatre at its most involving, as the cast used props from the audience and interacted with their environment. Best Hamlet I've seen.
• Team Waterpolo : Obelisk Arena. Caught by accident, whilst waiting for Ida Maria, who cancelled. Made a nice noise.
• Wordtheatre - Hearts Aflame : Literary Arena. Letter of love and hate were read aloud by an impressive cast, including David Soul which, for someone like me who grew up on Starsky and Hutch, was very exciting!
• Guillemots: Uncut Arena. Promising enough to make me want to get their album, though we had to leave early to catch...
• Elbow: Obelisk Arena. Musically excellent but, I think, better suited to an earlier time slot or a smaller stage. The crowd were a bit muted.
• Tick Tock Lullaby + Q&A : Music & Film Arena. A moving film about a lesbian couple who want to have a child. Interesting Q&A with Lucy Gornick, the film's producer/director/writer/star afterwards.
• Mark Lamarr with God's Jukebox: Music & Film Arena. Like a festival within a festival, the Fifties throwback introduced:
• Pete Molinari. Not a genre I would often listen to but brilliant live. Johnny Cash covers got the crowd jumping.
• The Heavy. Hard-rocking and with a charismatic frontman. Another new album to buy!
• James Hunter. R&B? Soul? Blues? Rockabilly? All of the above? Excellent, good-time live music.
• Eli 'Paperboy' Reed & The True Loves. He wants to be James Brown, though clearly isn't. Good try though, even if he did put me in mind of a dodgy TV evangelist...
• Buzzcocks. 32 years to the day since they formed, the punk veterans performed a blistering (and ear-drum popping) greatest hits set. Whilst Steve Diggle still looked a bit angry, Pete Shelley looked like someone's dad (or granddad), but that didn't matter... as the moshpit chaos testified, this was awesome.

Sunday:

• Hold Fire : Sunrise Arena. Immediately a favourite new band. So polished for ones so young, and easy to imagine them playing (and wowing) much, much bigger stages than this.
• Vox'n'roll - Esther Freud & Julia Blackburn : Literary Arena. Missed Esther's half of this double-header, but Julia reading about her mother was both comic and moving.
• Paul Torday : Literary Arena. Nervous reading to such a big group, Paul was just getting going when he decided to stop and take questions instead. At least he gave some good answers.
• Wordtheatre - The Affairs Of Others : Literary Arena. Readings from Sally Hawkins, Juliet Stephenson, Maureen Lipman and David Soul - all stunning! Met Maureen afterwards and, as you would expect, she was lovely.
• Vauxhallville's Bargain Bin-Go : Cabaret Arena. Utterly surreal. Playing bingo. For crap prizes. In a tent. With a drag queen host(ess). Somehow, fun.
• FrYars : Sunrise Arena. Described as a new Jarvis Cocker but put me more in mind of early Talking Heads - no bad thing!
• Disco Shed : Pandora's Playground. If I should ever get married, I'd like this disco at the reception.
• The Shortwave Set : Sunrise Arena. I like a band that makes an effort; even if their music didn't fire me, at least their matching outfits made an impression.
• Tangled Feet : In The Woods. Because we only caught the second half on Friday, we watched the whole thing again, this time in the woods. Wonderful.
• Robin Ince's Book Club & School For Gifted Children : Literary Arena. In which a fight nearly broke out between enraged parents. The word "sanctimonious" was thrown as hard as any punch.
• ??? : Literary Arena. Quite hard to sell a song about light's wave-particle duality called "Luminiferous Ether" but someone (didn't catch his name, and not listed in the programme) tried.
• Gavin Osborn : Literary Arena. A couple of songs, including a lovely cover of Billy Bragg's "Tank Park Salute".
• Joanna Neary : Literary Arena. With only 2.5 minutes of stage time, Joanna made her mark with an impression of Björk...
• Vox'n'roll - Joe Dunthorne : Literary Arena. I want to buy his book, "Submarine" on the strength of this reading.
• Vox'n'roll - Doug Johnstone : Literary Arena. Read from his book about a fictional band called The Ossians, then played some tracks that he'd written for them. Both aspects great!
• Vox'n'roll - Toby Litt : Literary Arena. The lights went out on Toby, so he read by the light of a torch proffered from the crowd. Then he was heckled by rain-evading gig-goers who hadn't set foot in the Literary Arena all weekend until then. Handled it well. And god, his new book sounds good.
• Dave Gorman : Literary Arena. Also heckled by the rain-evaders, but handled it even better. Funnier than most of the Comedy Arena, no doubt, he read from his new book, answered all manner of questions, took our photo and did a break-dance move as he left the stage. A highlight.
• Vox'n'roll - Dan Kieran : Literary Arena. Had the unenviable task of trying to follow Dave. He gave it a go though, and you have to admire that.

So, Latitude... all in all, brilliant - it's hard to think of a better way to spend a few days, to be honest, even with the sporadic and unpredictable weather, a broken tent pole and, ahem, "interesting" toilet facilities. I'm wary of over-egging it, if truth be told, because it's going to get even more popular when people like you read things like this, and then it will lose some of it's charm. So, err, you know, it was crap, save your money and don't bother with it next year, right? Thanks. But if you do go... well, you'll see me there.

Strange days in the garden

Next time you're out in the garden, or in a park, or just out and about in the countryside, keep your eyes peeled. For strange things are happening! Bees are disappearing. Carnivorous albino slugs are being discovered. And unidentified new species of insect are appearing in odd places...

So keep a close watch on what's going on in the back yard - you could be witnessing evolution... or environmental revolution!

The big smoke

I took a trip down to London on Saturday, primarily to see King Lear at The Globe. And that was very good, powerful, gripping and, above all, a genuine theatrical experience. But that was not the highlight of the day. Arriving mid-afternoon and crossing the bridge from Embankment Tube, first port of call was Volume, an audio-visual installation at the Southbank Centre, followed quickly by the always-fun Appearing Rooms fountain. Then it was into the Royal Festival Hall to take in a recital by acclaimed classical saxophonist Amy Dickson (who might also warrant an entry in last month's discussions of TMC...), before finding a spot outside the Hayward Gallery to listen to Lemn Sissay read poems from the rooftop (including the beautiful "Invisible Kisses"). Then it was on to Tate Modern to take in some street art, notably JR's paste-up (pictured, left) on the front of the building. The walking tour that followed, to take in other works, was a little disappointing from an artistic point of view, but as a means of exploring the streets of Southwark it was fascinating. Particularly interesting was the Cross Bones Graveyard, an unconsecrated cemetary, once the last resting place of prostitutes, or "Winchester geese" as they were known. A walk back along the river got us to The Globe in time for Lear - in such good time, in fact, that we had just enough slack in our packed programme for pre-show hot-dog ciabattas (brilliant) and some traditional cloudy lemonade. Three and a half hours of engrossing Shakespearean tragedy later and we were walking back to Embankment again, with just time to stop en route and take in Swing Night with the Charleston Chasers outside the National Theatre.

All in all, a wonderful day. In case you're wondering, the highlight, in a day of highs, was "Invisible Kisses"... What's that quote, "when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life"? Well, when you're tired of the Southbank, you're tired of London... I think I'll book a return trip for next month...

Change resistant

A Romanian town has re-elected its Mayor... even though he's dead. No, really. When asked why they had chosen to vote this way, rather than for the (very much alive) opposition, one woman replied, "I know he died, but I don't want change." I'm not making this up - unless the BBC are too...

If I could be who you wanted

As I mentioned last month, I went to see Radiohead at the weekend and, as expected, they were staggering - for reviews of the gig, the set list and other good stuff, check out the impressively comprehensive Green Plastic. For me, the undoubted highlight of the night was a beautiful rendition of Fake Plastic Trees from The Bends, my favourite Radiohead album. Here are the lyrics, more or less:

A green plastic watering can,
For a fake chinese rubber plant,
In fake plastic earth.

That she bought from a rubber man,
In a town full of rubber plans,
To get rid of itself.

It wears her out. It wears her out. It wears her out. It wears her out.

She lives with a broken man,
A cracked polystyrene man,
Who just crumbles and burns.

He used to do surgery,
On girls in the eighties,
But gravity always wins.

And it wears him out. It wears him out. It wears him out. It wears him out.

She looks like the real thing,
She tastes like the real thing,
My fake plastic love.

But I can't help the feeling,
I could blow through the ceiling,
If I just turn and run.

And it wears him out. It wears him out. It wears him out. It wears him out.

And if I could be who you wanted,
If I could be who you wanted,
All the time, all the time...

So what do these lyrics mean to you? Are they about Canary Wharf, as Green Plastic seems to suggest? About mass marketing spiralling out of control, as postulated on this song's Wikipedia entry? Or about two people trying to make a relationship work when at least one of them doesn't think it can, as sadly suggested by my gig-going companion?
Answers on a postcard to the usual address... or, you know, you could just comment...