Andrew Graham Dixon

Watched The Culture Show on Beeb 2 last night, and finally worked out why I so dislike Andrew Graham Dixon.  He's such a Groupie!  Seeing him sucking up to Chris Ofili made me want to puke.  And I like Chris Ofili, I think he has an interesting talent.  But AGD - no thanks.

A S Byatt - The Children's Book; Lenny Henry on Pollock

I'm currently reading this - about halfway through the 600 odd pages at the moment - and I'm amazed by the relevance of the story to the main obsession of this blog.  Loosely based on the lives of several late 19th/early 20th century British artists, writers and connoisseurs (E E Nesbit, Eric Gill, D H Lawrence etc) and their families, A S Byatt has written a gripping tale which highlights the centrality of skill and craftmanship in Art.  Very much worth reading.

And then there was a programme on Radio Four this week which featured Lenny Henry trying to come to terms with Jackson Pollock's work, with the help of a couple of critics, including Brian Sewell who concluded that Pollock's dribble paintings would make good designs for linoleum.  Let's see:

Hmmm.

It's a long time since my last post on here, but a lot has happened; late at night on the date of the last post my Ma-in-Law died in her Nursing Home, since when we've been dealing with the fall-out, not forgetting Christmas, New Year, and loads of snow.  But I've been stung to publish again by an idiot (on a forum I belong to) who said that immigrants were all Muslim benefit scroungers who sought to destabilise British society, all on the strength of one anecdote supposedly from his wife.  It prompted me to this response, of which I'm quite proud:

I find it interesting that the outraged Brits seemingly need to exaggerate in relating their anecdotes just as much as the radical Muslims who are outraged by the "baby killer" British Soldiers. It does no-one any good to quote bar-room anecdotes like the one about the pram. Those sort of stories have always gone round about any minority group. My Father (bless him) used to tell me "there's no such thing as a poor Jew. They always look after their own." He firmly believed this, despite the fact that the man over the road, to whom he spoke every day, was a poor Jew.

I happen to think that radical Islam is very dangerous to the western world because it operates a completely different morality from the rest of us. Its world view is so perverted that it thinks indiscriminate killing is all right because Allah will sort out the good from the bad after death. If you're an unjustly killed good person Allah will see you right. It's not the responsibility of the killer. He won't burn in hell for killing an innocent.

But of course Christians thought that too, for many centuries. Hence the Crusades. Hence the Inquisition where, in its later stages, it was OK to torture someone to death slowly and horribly because it might cause them to recant their sinful views, and if it sometimes killed a "good" man, it didn't matter, because God would see him all right in the afterlife. It's not the responsibility of the killer. He won't burn in hell for killing an innocent. Snap.

The good thing about Western liberal society is that it's now largely secular. Most of us don't buy that old religious mumbo-jumbo. So we no longer torture people to death. We no longer stone adulterers. We don't lock up homosexuals any more (or stone them to death). We know, deep down, that this life is all there is and we'd better make the best of it.

Empathetically we know that this is also true for the RadMus suicide bomber. He (or she) is not going to hell. Nor heaven. They're just dead and gone. For ever. Their degree of self-delusion is heartbreaking, just as the bomb victims' deaths are heartbreaking.

So let's expel the rad Islamists - or lock them up properly. And let's not allow anyone else of that ilk in - ever, for whatever reason. And let all Muslims understand that the more they look like and sound like their radical, suicidal brethren, the greater risk they run of being treated like them.

But let us not forget that most normal British Muslims live decent lives like the rest of us; that they want to see their children grow up in health and safety; that they are as scared of death as the rest of us; and that they are the victims of RadMus as much as we are - if not more. Don't marginalise them - that wins the RadMus' battle for them.

Especially for Winnet

As requested, and in terms of the content of this blog:

Portrait présumé de Gabrielle d'Estrées et de sa soeur la duchesse de Villars

Lesbianism and incest!

Dance? I don't get it . . . .

My Wife and some of our friends went to see Ballet Rambert last night at the Norwich Theatre Royal. I never go to the ballet or to any dance productions because I simply don't get it - I know it's a blind spot, but there you are. So I was a bit annoyed to hear that friend had said to Linda "What a pity John's not here. I'm sure he'd enjoy it if he'd give it a chance."

Errr . . . . no. I've tried. I've given it a chance and I simply don't get it. But the implication is that I'm some sort of Philistine because I don't go to Dance productions.

Now, what really pisses me off is that, among some of our friends, there's a sort of smug acceptance of any "creative" effort, no matter how truly dreadful it is. A sort of "It must be good because it's Art" attitude. Any attempt to criticise anything is rubbished. If you don't like it, they imply, the fault is in you.

Now here's what really gets me - among all these friends I am the only one who engages in any creative work. I paint; I try to write. But I don't "consume" Art in the approved way, so to them I'm a bit of a Pariah as far as Culture is concerned. I suspect a breach is just around the corner!