Creative Art Plumbs New Nadir

Further to previous post about sculpture they are now making INFLATABLE monstrosities with which to destroy our spirit. Below is a photograph of the latest outrage:

I have blanked my poor little niece out of the picture, for legal and child protection reasons
although I would imagine her human rights have been severely compromised already by
having to pose near the unseemly item.

 

Dear oh Dear. That it could have come to this. You will agree, I am sure, that it represents a serious failure of delicacy.

It is frightening that i) someone designed this - what troubled mind could harbour such thoughts? -  ii) people saw fit to finance the manufacture of it - what possessed them? - and iii) others willingly ordered and paid for the finished product, and then placed it outside their carpet shop.  HOW could anyone imagine that there exists a single person in the world who would be induced to buy a carpet on the strength of a balloon shaped like a pyjamaed hippopotamus?

Here is proof that innocent shoppers are being unjustifiably subjected to grotesque sights in increasing numbers, as they go about their daily pursuits. It is shocking to note that this example was on display within the supposedly safe SE24 district. 

Quail, o ye who dwell in the land of Dulwich. The outlook is bleak.

All I can say is, do it to Julia.

The Lamentable State of Modern Sculpture

In 1499 Michelangelo completed his Pieta. Nice, eh?

This sublime work has brought solace  to countless souls, and done much to convey what a Good Sort Our Lady is, over 5 centuries of devotion.

It was such a peak of artistic skill that we could be forgiven for not having made much improvement in techniques during the intervening period but one might have expected us at least to have maintained the standards.

 

 

And yet... 500 years on, how are we doing? The news is not good I'm afraid.

 

 

Ignoble and trite.

Some time ago this travesty (left) appeared on our High Street, lowering the tone and keeping tourists at bay.

The subject matter, though startling, is inexplicable in the context.

The concept is crude and the execution poor. What cow ever sat like that? What cow ever wore a waistcoat or held a blackboard? Where is the elegance and easy grace that we see in real cows? Hostage as I am to a lifelong affection for cows I am affronted on their behalf.

A fibreglass model some 5' tall, it is coarse and unsubtle in colour and shape, and rightly offends all who gaze upon it - save perhaps for 2-year-olds, whose judgement is questionable.

 A second such statue was erected in Minehead shortly afterwards. We can safely say that the only Visitor Information this imparted to holidaymakers and, indeed, locals,  was "We despise you. Go Away". The fortuitous juxtaposition of an overflowing wastebin speaks volumes does it not? 



At Lynmouth

Lyme Regis

Since then further instances of the style have been noted as the contagion spread first across the South West and then over the whole of England. All are as uncouth as their cow antecedents and all display equal vulgarity of vision. They are favoured by snack bar proprietors in particular which suggests that these traders have scant regard for their customers' wellbeing. Proximity to the ugly figures causes distress on both visual and intellectual levels and is known to stimulate production of the same misery hormones as are generated in response to hearing 'Jingle Bells'. Frankly I can not see how they have the gall to intrude the things into any public space. It can't be healthy. And bearing in mind the tiny proportion of 2-year-olds in the population, is it fair?

Also Lyme Regis.
I quite like this fellow actually;
he looks jolly.
      

Spectacularly unpleasant.
An insult to Our Boys.
Lynmouth.

 

This Hot Dog  caricature raises troubling questions of cannibalism, autophagy, hygiene issues and genetic manipulation among other things and it is in VERY UNFORTUNATE TASTE. There are copies of it at Cromer and Manchester to my certain knowledge. 

These are abroad - in Prague (left), and, alarmingly, the Subcontinent which has now succumbed to the contamination, evidenced by this one (right) which has been sighted in India. Yes I have spies all over the place. Photos copyright Smith Bros Ltd

 

Poor Michelangelo. How we have squandered his legacy.

On the state of Sculpture today I concur with my young nephew (11 yrs), who announced to the family recently during discussion about his sister's art homework, that he does not rate the work of Barbara Hepworth very highly. Yo Nephew!

Revolting Colours Update

I have remembered that there IS a nastier colour than ecclesiastical purple, and it is the abhorrent shade of salmon-type pink worn by the Priests and Deacons at the Sacred Heart on Laetare Sunday (4th in Lent), which has to be seen to be believed. The very Priests and Deacons themselves joke about it.

Laetare Pink. UGH.

Nobody alert the Headmistress to its existence, for Heaven's sake and the good of all the pupils.

Cross Letters to the Headmistress

Annoying news from the academic coalface has caused me to write another letter of complaint to the school.

 

 

Dear Headmistress,

 

My son, Redacted Name of Year 10, yesterday brought home news calculated to strike fear into the heart of any mother - that new uniform is being mooted. You have clearly not factored in the MRS NAME element here. An oversight must have occurred, causing you not to have read correspondence from me to your predecessor. I enclose a few samples of those letters, so that you may see what manner of parent you are up against. It was unkind of the school governors not to have alerted you to the dangers, and I will overlook your indiscretion on this occasion. But I do not expect - and will not countenance - any further outbreaks.
 

Redacted tells me that you intend to change the name of the school, the school motto and the uniform.
 

Changing the name of the school is unnecessary. It is the only school for 30 miles in any direction so what difference would it make? It's just 'School'. You are destroying any sense of continuity by doing this. Why, in my school days nothing changed and people wore uniforms which had been worn by their grandmothers, and still bore their ancestral nametapes - and the schoolmistresses, having taught the grandmothers, knew the relationship. Many a new bug was greeted with "Ah. Araminta Fortescue (or what ever name it was). I taught your grandmother. She was no better than she ought to have been. I shall be keeping a close eye on you, girl." Such abiding permanence made us feel tremendously secure. Actually I hated every minute of it, but it was very bracing.
 

As for the uniforms, I gather you have chosen PURPLE, and quasi-ecclesiastical purple at that. Really? Is there any nastier colour than ecclesiastical purple? What blows can fate have dealt you, that you should wish to take revenge by forcing self-conscious teenagers to go about the town wearing purple blazers with, if my information is correct, neon lapels? Ties, I grant you, are a reasonable requirement, but MUST they be teamed with pale grey trousers? And why are the shirts not to be white? It seems you feel the need to make your mark, but trust me, Headmistress, this is a method of doing so which has been tried innumerable times before by incoming Heads, and has always failed. 
 

So:

a) Keep the old name and motto of the school as this will i) maintain tradition, and ii) prevent considerable sums being spent on new stationery etc. Use the money saved, to pay for getting the computers mended and to buy some textbooks.

b) Change the uniform if you insist, but let it at least be to black trousers, black blazers, and white shirts; and if you want a colour, retain the present navy blue by allowing the ties to have stripes of it. But, speaking as one whose wallet still shows the scars of having had to buy new P.E. kit when the last change took place, I could WEEP.

c) You can 'make your mark' by applying yourself diligently to improving standards to such a degree that my son secures a place at Oxford to read Greats.

 

My Accounts Dept will provide you with a modest invoice for this advice.

 

Yours sincerely,

Mrs G-AHLK Name

 

 

 

Dear Headmistress's Predecessor,
It appears that there has been an appalling breach of security at the school. My son R Name of Year 9 says that yesterday propagandists from the energy firm EDF gained access to pupils and were able to spend almost an hour addressing them with regard to the proposed development of the nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point. I presume that at no time were teachers aware of what was going on, as nothing was done to prevent it from continuing.
I suggest that you speak sharply to your on-site guards and tell them their vigilance levels are falling far short of what the parents expect. We should be able to send our children to school knowing that they will be kept safe by those to whom we entrust them – not offered up willy-nilly to any capitalist lackeys who wish to deceive them with their serpents’ tongues.
Fortunately my boy is intelligent enough to see clearly what their game was, and the outcome for us was no more than a most amusing conversation round last night’s dinner table, as he gave us a synopsis of what they had said and the cheap psychological tricks they had used.
But my concern is for other families whose children are less wise to the ways of these people.
I must ask you now to invite other speakers to the school to give different views of the energy debate, and then have your teachers lead sessions guiding pupils through the confusing and conflicting arguments, answering their questions and encouraging them to think about these matters for themselves. In this way, what is at present an embarrassing lapse could be turned to good use by furnishing pupils with a useful insight into the wickedness of the world in which they live.
I look forward to receiving your comments.
A Concerned Parent
 

 

Dear Headmistress's Predecessor,

I am writing to let you know of some issues my son R Name (Year 8) has been experiencing at school with regard to his sleeping patterns. He has been finding it increasingly difficult to sleep at school and on some occasions recently has come home having had no sleep at all during the day.

The reasons he cites are noisy and demanding teachers, inconsiderate classmates and lack of comfortable places to sleep. Some classrooms have no bed provided and in the gymnasium pupils' rest is frequently disturbed by athletes leaping about. The science laboratories are plagued by constant explosions which wake one up and in the art room one is perpetually being asked to create collages and do other sleep-incompatible activities.

It has been proved that children whose daytime rest is disrupted find themselves incapable of participating profitably within the home environment. My son has been nodding off during our family TV viewing sessions and last week he was unable to stay awake while my husband read him a single sentence of Proust.

The situation is becoming untenable. Can you assure me that the provision of sufficient chill-out zones within the school will be your number one priority?

Mrs Name

 

 

 

 

2 Ridiculous Concepts

Here are 2 daft ideas that people hold and WILL NOT be persuaded against, much to my bafflement and exasperation.

1. That it is statistically wise to buy Lottery tickets

When my daughter became 18 she asked me how to enter the Lottery. Poor child! My advice was not to on any account. I had forbidden her father to enter the stupid thing when it first came out.

The odds may be illustrated as follows: Consider a lush meadow verdant with grass. Now select one blade of the grass - out of all the myriad blades of grass available in the meadow. Leave it there (don't pick it), and when Camelot's officials come along at the end of the week, see if they select your blade, out of all the blades. They won't, will they? No. They will not. Add to this scenario the appalling idea of paying a £1 for your participation in the charade, and the fact that should they, in a freak occurrence, choose your blade of grass, you will either have mislaid the ticket proving it to be your blade of grass, or you will forget to check the meadow at all - and you begin to appreciate the idiocy of the proposition. Also bear in mind that a tiny proportion of the money goes to a charity (and not one of your choice), while the rest bankrolls the nest-feathering activities of the Camelot executives.

Alternative Lottery Payment Facility

Better, I suggested, that she go out into the alleyway, find a drainhole, and insert money into the slot provided, thus:







This course of action is more beneficial than buying a lottery ticket since

i) the money could at least assist some wretched tramp who might find it later down at the sewage works, and

ii) one is unlikely to repeat the experience even once, let alone week by week.

The thrust of my argument is this: why, why, WHY pay good money to increase your chances of winning by so negligible a degree? Keep your £1! Buy some beer with it! You are no less likely* to win the big prize, AND you get some beer. 

*well, OK, you are 0.000007% less likely, but really, what's the difference?

2. That a tree falling over makes no noise if there is no-one there to hear it.

This makes me so cross that I can hardly address the question. Of COURSE it makes a dratted noise. Sound waves are generated when trees fall over. Sound = noise. All it means is that no-one hears it. It is simply a matter of definition. MY definition of sound is that it is a sequence of waves of pressure that propagates through compressible media such as air or water. People who are trying to annoy me have a different definition, which involves their egocentric assertion that unless the sound waves get to their ears and register in their brain then there is no sound. 



This brings us to Bishop Bally Berkeley who has been the cause of more arguments in this house than... well than my spending habits and the amount of orange juice teenage boys get through if you must know.  Bishop Berkeley (of Cloyne) was a dear old boy who was very keen on getting people to use pine tar, but he also advanced the theory now known as subjective idealism. This says that stuff only exists when it is perceived to do so. In other words when you leave the room, the table, chairs etc. all vanish because you aren't looking at them. This seems to be astonishingly arrogant. [In the Bishop's defence I admit he did say that since God is always perceiving everything the tables and chairs are actually still there.]  Besides, it would be utter chaos, with things appearing and disappearing all the time - and what about things you didn't notice? The other day I was looking for my glasses EVERYWHERE, and eventually found them in the refrigerator, where I had already looked several times and not seen them. Do you think this might have been due to a malfunction in the Subjective Idealism dynamic? No, I think I'm just a silly woman who couldn't see her glasses when she was looking straight at them. And what about things you did see, but have now forgotten about? How do they fit into the system, eh?

No, Bishop old chap, we've all come up with this idea - surely - in approximately our sixth year (it would be a blithe and heedless child whose mind it did not cross, would it not?), considered it, and then dismissed it as absurd and unworkable. Are there any subjective idealists over the age of 8? Unlikely. I can't see any in here, anyway, Heh heh!



Gratuitous picture of tree. This failed to win the local Tree Photograph Competition and I was very insulted.

Answers to Jane Eyre Questions 5 & 6

Question 5. “Reader, I married him.”

How far do you think the reaction of the housekeeper Mary to this news equates to the modern

vernacular,“Yeah right. Whatever.”?                                                                                             

 

Answer:
 “Yeah, right. Whatever,” implies indifference tinged with a hint of disbelief, and is usually used rather offensively. In fact in the past a parent might justifiably have biffed a teenager for voicing the phrase, although this form of admonishment is no longer allowed.

     The housekeeper’s response - she said only “Have you, miss? Well, for sure!” - seems on the surface to be alike in that it appears indifferent (most women fly into high excitement at tidings of a wedding), which lack of reaction might also indicate disbelief of the news itself. If so that trace of disbelief is then offensive in suggesting that a lie has been told.

     But Mary, when told by Jane Eyre that she has married Mr Rochester, only feigned indifference, for fun and out of a sense of propriety.    

     Neither did she disbelieve the information. Her husband John had already told her that he thought Mr Rochester would marry Jane, so she was ready for the news.

     Thirdly, she did not mean to be offensive – only she was rather amused.

     So Mary’s reaction, on examination, does not equate to “Yeah, right. Whatever” on any of the three criteria – indifference, disbelief or offensiveness.



Yeah, right. Whatever.

 

 

Question 6. Were John Reed and Jane Eyre really of the same blood? It seems curious to think it.

Comment.

State whether, given the chance, you would like to wring Jane’s neck.                                          

 
Answer:
 John Reed’s father and Jane Eyre’s mother were, apparently, full siblings.

Yet John Reed was thoroughly unpleasant and acted appallingly throughout the narrative, coming to a bad end as befits such a reprehensible person. Jane, in contrast, was quite wonderful, without blemish of any kind as we are repeatedly told from start to finish, and gained (therefore) a happy outcome.

It is certainly unusual for two members of the same family to be so annoying in such very different ways.

Candidates may cite the Nature versus Nurture debate, but should point out that the situation here flies in the face of current psychological teaching which insists that kindness and love are good and cruel neglect is bad. In the novel the ministrations of a doting, besotted mother resulted in a horrible boy, while a desolate childhood devoid of affection gave forth the angelic Jane with all her blameless virtues. That ruins the "Nurture" argument.

As for the "Nature", one can only conclude that Mr Reed and Mrs Eyre had recessive genes and the two cousins inherited all their characteristics from the other parents. Either that or Mrs Reed strayed and John and Jane actually share no genes.

 

     Candidates may be forgiven for expressing a wish to wring Jane’s neck. Her resolute integrity certainly makes her a little tedious, not to say wet and infuriating. The unbelievable pieces of good luck which befell her – her wandering penniless to the door of strangers who turned out to be her own cousins; her sudden inheritance of a vast fortune; the undying love of Mr Rochester and his timely widowhood – serve to turn the reader against her, and a murderous reaction is quite natural.

     Extra marks will be awarded to candidates who express the opinion that if Jane is meant to be a self-portrait of the author then Charlotte Brontë could do with being strangled as well.

    The examiners feel it their duty here to stress the following : killing people is illegal and furthermore it directly contravenes the Sixth Commandment so it would be better really if candidates contented themselves with administering a playful smack around the face with a wet fish in both cases.

I DARE you. I DARE you to wet fish me.

Go on then - wet fish her. I dare you.

Answers to Jane Eyre Questions 3 & 4

Question 3.  Could Rochester’s ward Adèle have made a valuable member of The Clash?
Explain your answer.                                                                                                                       

Answer:
 The needy child Adèle enjoyed attention and would have taken to the stage eagerly with the Clash, wanting the limelight. But her value to the band would have been in her novelty and therefore by its very nature short-lived.

     It is hard to imagine this shallow, trite little creature contributing much – if anything – to their oeuvre. Certainly she would have been ill at ease working with the subtleties of the Clash’s characteristic minor keys (consider ‘London Calling’ and the plaintive yet menacing use of the key of E minor), preferring the kittenish lightheartedness of C, say, or F♯, majors. It is unlikely that she would embrace the electric guitar with any skill, and drumming would be unthinkable for a child of her  class and background. Indeed these instruments were entirely unfamiliar to her. She probably knew little of punk, ska, dub or reggae. Her training in the performing arts was limited to a small amount of rudimentary tuition in classical ballet techniques and light French opera, which are somewhat irrelevant here.

     Her attitude also presents a difficulty. The members of the Clash tended to be rebellious, angry and anti-establishment, while in contrast Adèle maintained a pliant, eager-to-please demeanour always trying to gain approval. She might well have found it hard to overcome this in order to smash a valuable musical instrument on stage or to spend her evenings boozing in squalid hotel rooms.

Surely this can't be Adèle?    No, it isn't.

    
  Her stagewear would be a problem as well. Adèle favoured gowns covered in lace flounces and silly frills all of which were perfectly ironed and smelling of fresh lavender water – whereas the Clash gave no thought for their clothing, dressing in tatty old T shirts and torn jeans. Her incongruous outfits might have evinced some initial thrill in the mosh pit - thanks to the shock of the unexpected - but it is doubtful whether such originality would provide a longlasting appeal for diehard fans of the genre.

     And so candidates should opt for keeping her out of the line-up for the foreseeable future.

    

 

 

 

Question 4.  Estimate Rochester’s emotional age, giving an account of your reasoning.

      

Answer:
Rochester conducted himself like a spoilt toddler for the majority of the novel. His customary tantrum-throwing placed him within the "terrible twos" age group familiar to parents of any normal infant. He spurned the idea of fending for himself, looking instead to Jane to become a mother figure to pander to his whims. From these traits one might estimate his emotional age to be 24 months or thereabouts.

     He was willing to toy callously with the emotions and welfare of his acquaintances; and activities such as his deceitful courting of Blanche Ingram in order to make Jane jealous, and his locking up of Bertha Mason, were not unlike the deliberate, unthinking savagery of 7-year-old boys who torture insects by pulling off their wings. An emotional age of 7 years is also consistent with his habit of adopting a scowling sulkiness when denied his own way.

     His brave attempt, when he was biologically about 40, to rescue Bertha from the fire suggests a recklessness more commonly associated with teenage boys of, perhaps, 18 years of age. The dissolute existence he waged in Europe adds credence to this evaluation, as does his tendency to multiple love affairs.

     He ignored the mores of the society within which he lived (imagining for example that he could engage in a bigamous marriage rather than bear the consequences of the foolish actions of his youth) in order to pursue a life of utter selfishness. This in itself, unfortunately, is not something which necessarily indicates any particular age group, since the sad fact is that there are many people at large who continue blithely to coast along in this vein till the end of their days; so we gain no insight into Rochester's emotional age from this observation.

     Thus we see behaviours appropriate to a 2-year-old, a 7-year-old and an 18-year-old. Averaging gives a 9 year old, and a deeply flawed one at that.   
  

Naughty Mr Rochester! You've been very bad, haven't you?
Yes, Mummy. Sorry, Mummy.