Friday, April 28, 2006

How to become ridculously well read in one evening

Despite time spent writing my blog, my hits have not gone up. Apparently there is some bloke with a bet who has seen his hits go from 100 to one million in about two days.

To cut a long story short, I don't give a shit. More to the point is my googlewhacking obsession. Until yesterday my whole family were world googlewhacks, then it turns out my brother has a namesake in Rotherham. But, and this is a big but, my favourite books are 'blooglewhacks'. Noone else seems to have read them.

'How to become ridiculously well-read in one evening' is an all time classic. It's a 1980s literature gem. It sums up classics so you don't have to read them. This also means it gives you brilliant ideas for stories.

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Artonomics Part Deux

Had a wonderful evening last night with a darling girl, a friend of Phil’s who speaks like the Queen (especially when drunk) but who has a heart of gold. One of her birthday presents was a glossy photograph book by some rich idiot, who is essentially nicking all my ideas from this website and making a fortune from it. It was portrait photos of a load of actors who suggested a famous actor friend of theirs for the next photo (see my Coincidence or Fact entry from a while back).

About three years ago I went to a party in Stoke Newington, invited by my acquaintance S. I turn up; there’s about 20 people there including an acquaintance F. Did F know S? No. But both F and S knew me. Then an acquaintance I turns up. Did he know F or S? No, but I, F & S all had met me before, but had never met each other. Then C turns up, then K and then T, and this situation was repeated again, each time another person I knew turning up and then not knowing anyone else there apart from me. There were six people at the party, which was not organized by me (S, F, I, C, K and T) all who I knew, but who had never met each other before. By the time T turned up, I had to leave early as I was so freaked out by this improbable and mind boggling experience.

I drew a mind map when I got home as to how this had happened, but I’ve probably lost it now. Anyway I didn’t take any photos so it would be really difficult to display that artistically and it’s not much to do with economics.

But my new idea for artonomics is to have the 5 richest people in the world, contrasted with the 5 poorest people in the world. It probably wouldn’t be that difficult to find photos of the richest people in the world. But taking photos of the poorest people in the world would be a bit of a mission. I’ll ask my blogging heroine J about this.

Monday, April 24, 2006

Tatski - PR Watch 5

Tatton can ski - on blue runs!

Amazing! Had a brilliant time skiing with a load of Tories (and I mean it). Feel the most refreshed I have ever felt after coming back from holiday - it is all that exercise. Marvellous.

Also the Today programme plus the rest of the media is finally catching up with last year's news and they mentioned the NHS cuts today, plus their complaints man rang me to 'deal' with my complaint from two weeks ago. The NHS cuts were on the front page of the Guardian, the Mail and the Times, so my personal onslaught against them all is starting to pay off a bit.

In a good mood all round. Professor Pat Thane described my proposal for an MA as 'very good'. Chuffed.

Me and Phil have been dancing round to 'Billie Jean' substituting the last bit 'but the child is not my son', for 'but the NHS is not for sale'. That bit was my contribtuion, Phil rhymed some other bits saying something a bit rude about a lefty colleague of mine.

Then I went to 'Hackney's Health Hustings' which was like the Life of Brian meets Yes Prime Minister meets the Green Wing meets the Darling Buds of May meets City of God if you can imagine such a thing. Utter Hilarity. Monty Goldman, my hero and an absolute legend is standing as the Communist candidate in the election for Mayor and has this poster of himself looking like Che Guevara, which has gone straight up in our hall. The Tories (and I mean it) didn't turn up! Apparently the socialist unity party have nothing to do with the communists or unification socialists, who have nothing to do with the Socialist Workers Party (Respect) who are also having nothing to do with the new workers socialist party being set up by the socialist party. Brilliant!

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Maundy Thursday

I'm not the world's religion expert, and I know I felt like God last week when I did that personality test and this week, having been dumped with the bastard child of all time, I feel like the mother of Jesus Christ. Slightly overweight, a bit of cellulite around the buttocks, quite miserable and not looking forward to the immediate future with any relish. OK, I may not have my own son's crucifixion to contend with (was the Vigin Mary still alive when he got crucified?)but I have got saving the NHS on my shoulders, which is a bloody great weight I can tell you.

Presumably on this day (which we know it wasn't, it was probably in July) approximately 1973 years ago the poor Virgin Mary was not looking forward to a skiing holiday next week. More to the point, rather than going on to be leader of the Christian faith or whatever he was, Jesus would have been treated for paranoid delusions in the NHS. So, I'm having a week off my heavenly duties and I will enjoy the pagan festivities whilst skiing down some hills and thank my lucky stars I wasn't around 2006 years ago, as just like now there's not much I could have done about it.

Monday, April 03, 2006

Artonomics

I'm always getting brilliant ideas for exhibitions and just generally for things, but rather than carry them out I do some gardening. My new brilliant idea is to combine Art and Economics - Artonomics. Basically to display economics visually. Or to inject economics with a bit of creativity.

I've been thinking about this for a couple of weeks and already had some excellent ideas for an exhibition:

1) Have ten portrait photos of the world's richest people, the same size, in their own environment.
2) Have a photo of a bank statement of someone who's very rich, or even a copy, or a fake.
3) Have a selection of photos of when the super-rich get paid, the reasonably well-off, the poor and the very poor; the same moment when they receive their largest income for that month.
4) Have ten sausages or ten crisp bags or ten CD cases with the ten most expensive works of art printed on them.
5) Have a supply and demand chart (price). It's called something but I can't remember what. Have the supply curve made out of ten pence pieces, and the demand curve made out of those penny chews shaped like lips. Then you could have a fake diamond as the price.
6) could have five photos of something someone poor does in a day, then 5 photos at the same time of what someone ok-off does, then someone super rich.
7) Capital displayed visually. Perhaps displayed in sculture form. You could form a queue outside the museum looking at the building itself, with a balance sheet drawn up by accountants, with a tour from architects explaining why it's worth so much. The blind could be given samples of the items and what they're made of to feel. Then you could have Karl Marx's book - in braile, on audio and someone summarising it on braille, with a lovely painting of a capital city in the background.