Watchmen

Who knew? Apparently Time magazine regards this comic book as one of the 100 best novels written since 1923.

This factoid, as well as the exquisite trailer (Ok - especially the part with Billy Crudup as the nuclear-infused, cerulean blue, totally naked and hot Dr Manhattan) prompted me to see the movie. I haven’t read the book.



It’s had mixed reviews. Dr Manhattan’s blue penis provoked particular comment in the USA (Did I mention Dr Manhattan spends a large amount of the movie starkers?) Us Euros are clearly far more relaxed about such matters. Apparently, in the book the penis is quite small, like a grecian statue’s. The problems of translating this to screen are obvious. On the one side, male nudity is still taboo in the culture. On the other, one has the vanity of the actor to respect. The result is, the CGI penis on screen is massively larger than that drawn for Dr Manhattan in the novel, but the filmakers are quite subtle in its deployment. It doesn’t call attention to itself at all. I think this is a positive approach and quite healthy.

The length (almost 3 hours) didn’t bother me (you didn't think I was still talking about the big blue penis, did you?)- although the storyline did lack pace. I applaud the sophisticated, indirect, flashback style of explication. Classically, one of the problems of this style is its potential to stall the plot. I don’t think that was entirely the case here - the plot stalls mostly because the director Zack Snyders can't resist showcasing the beautiful design and the camera just spends too much time on the scenery (which admittedly is gorgeous - one of the real triumphs of the film; it kept me going through the 3 hours). Also, Snyders said in an interview that he ramped up the sex and violence - again, gratuitously lengthy fight sequences keep the plot from moving forward and actually sometimes actively distract from important plot points: the framing for murder of Rorschach, for example, is almost lost in the lengthy violence of his arrest.

Never have I seen a more excrutiatingly embarrassing sex scene - so bad the audience giggled. The silver lining is that surely this will now end the screen career of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” - the most clunkingly blatant and intrusive of a screed of banal music choices. Overfamiliar music just calls attention to itself and once again distracts from the action, slowing the whole thing down.

The graphic novel is a product of the late cold war, and was regarded in its day as innovative. The morally complex, dark universe is certainly a rich context for the story (one thinks of Hamlet, or the work of Graham Greene). However, complexity here becomes confusion: I lost interest in the issues at stake for the characters and the climax left me completely uninvolved. I don’t know how much of this is inherent in the original book and how much is the adaptation’s fault.

Catch it on a large screen if you can - the visuals demand it. The BFI Imax screen was amazing.

Testing . . . testing . . .

Aha! At last a really quite decent test to take, and one I did quite well in! Hoorah!

Your result for The Commonly Confused Words Test...

English Genius

You scored 100% Beginner, 100% Intermediate, 80% Advanced, and 87% Expert!

You did so extremely well, even I can't find a word to describe your excellence! You have the uncommon intelligence necessary to understand things that most people don't. You have an extensive vocabulary, and you're not afraid to use it properly! Way to go!

Thank you so much for taking my test. I hope you enjoyed it!

For the complete Answer Key, visit my blog: http://shortredhead78.blogspot.com/.

Take The Commonly Confused Words Test at HelloQuizzy

Now, why is it exactly I can't play scrabble??!

green custard!

Hmmm. I agree with protesting the third runway^*. And it is true I have found direct action amusing before - the shoes thrown at President Bush, for example. But green custard over Mandy? I found it surprisingly upsetting. Green = poison, not custard, usually. It must have been frightening for Lord Mandelson on a personal level. It's just too premeditated and contrived and stalkerish and spooky. There are easier ways to laugh at our politicians.

On the other hand, props to protestor Leila Deen for her articulate defence of her action on the BBC. I wonder if Plane Stupid activists are given media training?



^*Astonishing fact: I've lived in various abodes the length and breadth of Battersea and Clapham - however, wherever I've been, I have always been directly under a flight path. How can that actually happen? And the new runway is bound to make things worse.

Birthday Cake: Chocolate Nemesis

The lengthy process of auditioning cakes for my birthday finally arrived at a suitable candidate. A tough task, but it had to be done.
:-)

I abandoned my previous contenders when I came across David Lebovitz’s post about the chocolate cake recipe I found on a men's room wall. I had to try it, even though it involved translating from the original French.

The flat mate and I were duly impressed - me especially with the addition of a small glass of strong coffee - while the flavour of the coffee itself remains hidden, it dramatically deepens and intensifies the chocolate. Yum.

Thinking more on this theme brought me back to the ultimate flourless chocolate cake recipe: the River Cafe’s Chocolate Nemesis.

I first ate this at the famous restaurant itself. I remember our party of six admired the huge cartwheel of a pudding on the counter as we came in. However, I was the only one to actually order a slice.

My involuntary orgasmic gasp on my first mouthful brought 5 large spoons down on my plate - “for a taste” - leaving me with virtually no pudding left. The nightmare of maintaining a polite composure as I watched my nemesis disappear lives with me still.

So once Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray published their River Cafe Cook Book, I tried to do the recipe one Christmas - with disastrous results. I later found out I was not alone. In fact, this recipe had become pretty notorious in London: Julian Barnes himself wrote about the social phenomenon:

“Moralists know that Hubris inevitably leads to Nemesis, but never before had the theory been given such literal expression. Overweening pride in one's ability to cook led to chocolate disaster. The pudding - in case you need reminding - was a signature dish (as the vile phrase has it) of the River Cafe. People had eaten at the restaurant, discovered this most decadent of puddings (2lbs chocolate, 10 eggs, 1lb butter, 1lb 5oz sugar), and, when the first River Cafe Cook Book came out, decided to try it for themselves.

Why it went wrong we Nemetics never discovered. The paranoid explanation was that some key element of the recipe had been deliberately omitted, thus driving customers back to the restaurant for the authentic item. The more plausible one was that there is a difference between the professional and the domestic oven, that certain dishes exaggerate this difference, and Chocolate Nemesis exaggerated the exaggerations. But the failure was generally so spectacular that few got back up off the floor and tried it again.”

Well, I laid my nemesis ghosts and tried it again, from their River Cafe Easy book. It worked! - at least, it came out, stood up, and was deliciously rich and fudgy: but not quite the perfection that in memory lives forever fresh.

Kate Moss in the British Museum

Marc Quinn is probably my favourite sculptor working in Britain today. He recently exhibited a sculpture of Kate Moss made of cast solid gold at the British Museum, as part of the Statuephilia show. It was brilliant.

The museum staged a talk between writer Will Self and Marc Quinn as one of the events accompanying the show. It was very well attended and reasonably enlightening. Quinn spoke about how the piece was about cultural notions of 'value' and contemporary myth. The sculpture clearly links a contemporary cultural icon, Moss, with classical mythological systems and questions our value systems, or the process whereby cultural value systems are created.

Unfortunately, the audience question section threw the floor open to retrogrades who felt authenticity means the artist should make everything himself (the romantic cult of the mark of the artist dies hard). I was impressed with the good humour and ease with which Self and Quinn handled these comments. I just squirmed in embarrassment for the questioner.

Yotam Ottolenghi's Mushroom Lasagne

I salivate over Yotam Ottolenghi's recipes every Saturday in the Guardian, although his usual massive list of sometimes obscure ingredients usually deters me from trying anything. However, his recent mushroom lasagne recipe looked so delicious, and so relatively easy to do (we've all made lasagnes before, right?), that I decided to try it out on my friend Marie, who was visiting on her way to Minneapolis recently.

We paid a touristy visit to Borough Market where we loaded up on fancy mushrooms - pied de mouton and girolles (and then back-tracked to Sainsbury's for loads of more ordinary chestnut mushrooms.



A letter in the Guardian the following week pointed out that Yotam's recipe called for almost a kilogram of butter and cheese. Checking back, this is true. All I can suggest is avoid thinking about it too much. The results are truly spectacular. Since this was the very first Ottolenghi recipe I was trying, I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and use all of the specified cheeses: Gruyere, Feta, Ricotta, Mozzarella, and Parmesan. I do admit I thought the list was a bit extravagant but the genius of this selection of cheeses, and the way the lasagne is constructed, means you get the full value of all the different flavours and textures coming through. The same goes for the herbs, which add a welcome green sparkle to the cheesy construction.



We got 6 very generous servings out of this, and I'm definitely adding it to my list of party tricks.

the first LP I ever bought

Animals by Pink Floyd.

Heh, no, this isn't something I have treasured over the years: I bought it last month, via Ebay!

I was of LP buying age when this came out. To be honest Pink Floyd weren't my cup of tea then - I was more into Abba. Also, my parents really hated music or "noise" and we did not have a hi-fi in the house at all - I used to tape record Abba songs from the radio.

A local framers has a line of top-slot beechwood frames for LPs, and Animals is in the window. It looks great, and Battersea Power Station is a real icon of mine (as well as being a local landmark), so I decided to make my own.

It was £10 off Ebay. The seller helpfully left a price sticker on the (perfectly preserved) LP - he got it for £3 down in Devon. Nice mark up!

I'm wondering if these things will escalate further in price, especially for albums with classic artwork?

four o nine

It it wasn’t for Qype, I might never have known about this restaurant: and for years, I lived virtually around the corner!

What interests me is that this place has certainly captured the imagination of the Claphamites (or, at least, the qyping section of the Claphamites), as opposed to its competition on the common, Trinity, which hasn’t attracted nearly as many reviews, despite hanging in the same sort of price range, and with similar pretensions to above-average cooking.

Trinity’s decor feels a little bland and soulless - 409 gets it absolutely right. It’s a gorgeous, welcoming space, even though they cram as many tables in as humanly possible - great planning, from a turnover point of view. It feels intimate, not necessarily over-crowded, but it got completely ram-packed the Friday we were there.

I was emailed to confirm my booking, and then called on my mobile to re-re-confirm on the day, too. With (I thought) a pretty rude stipulation that we had the table for 2 hours max - pretty rich, I thought, coming from a neighbourhood restaurant (and this in the dog days of February).

I booked an early slot because Marie was just off a long-haul flight. We arrived just before 7 to a very quiet restaurant - but by 9 the place was heaving, and we had to shout to hear each other. We weren’t hassled to leave.

The staff were all pretty wonderful - friendly, polite, helpful and efficient. I really felt they were concentrating on making the experience good for us, but our waitress didn’t hover unnecessarily either - she actually had quite a large number of tables to look after.

And the food was faultless. Every element was just perfect. My sea-bass was fabulously fresh and tasty; Marie loved her chicken. We both had a sublime rhubarb compote and blood-orange sorbet for dessert.

Yep, it’s not cheap, and extras are very efficiently padded onto the basic special-offer menu (in the end, making up over 60% of the bill - despite we only had one glass of wine each). But I would say this is a real peach of place - can’t wait to go again.

Could this be me?

Very exciting news - Antony Gormley has announced his work for the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square: members of the public will stand for 1 hour each on the plinth, day and night, for 100 days later this summer.

So, I've registered my interest already. I'd love to do this! Knowing my luck, though, I'll get the 3am shift on a rainy weekday night.

But still. Imagine being able to say you are a priceless artwork by a famous sculptor :-)

Elbow: The Seldom Seen Kid

Well, it was probably always going to happen. The Brits award, together with the recommendations of friends whose opinions I cannot ignore, finally wore my resistance down and I bought it:



What do I think of it?

I eat my words. It's actually a masterpiece - soaring, sublime melodies and beautiful lyrics. A grown-up, more sophisticated Coldplay, if you like. The rather stately, repetitive rhythms are enlivened by clever, imaginative musicianship and the whole thing is just perfectly produced. Wonderful stuff.

the end of the compact disc

The price of CDs has come down and down, and the space HMV devotes to them has become smaller and smaller. I’ve always liked to purchase a CD as a back-up for iTunes - because I distrusted Apple, and it just seemed sensible. This approach was vindicated when my computer and iPod were stolen simultaneously, and I lost over 100 songs purchased on iTunes. The burglar however turned his nose up at all my CDs, so I was able to rip them all again. It’s very annoying when iTunes still recognizes I’ve bought a song before - but I have no way of accessing my previous purchase.

So I was alarmed to read a prediction that this new Depression will kill off the CD as a format entirely. Oddly enough, in January, due to the sales and fall in price of CDs, I bought more of them in one month than I ever have before.



But nevertheless, even I am now moving slowly into a post-CD world. First, Apple announced an ease of restrictions on iTunes songs (good!), and secondly, I have signed up for a new back-up service, which backs up my whole computer on a continuous basis. Of course, it is a worry that my stuff is being backed up in California (earthquakes, anyone?), but on balance I feel a lot safer. As expensive as it is to replace a stolen laptop, the data you lose is far more precious.

I have noticed that some CDs - usually compilations - are cheaper to buy on Play or Amazon. This I am afraid is the CD’s last competitive quality. It is indeed now an unsustainable format.

Newsflash: Snow in London!

Boz alerts us to the legal imperatives here, so I rush to comply forthwith.

This is state of play at 1am last night:




and at 8 am this morning:



This BBC weather forecast made me laugh:



Meanwhile, out in the garden:



And on the Common:




The Common erupted in a frenzy of snowman making:




I spotted two ambitious souls making an igloo on the paddling pond. I'll check to see how far they got tomorrow morning: I'm [supposed to be] off to Birmingham!

Starting to think about birthday cakes. Should I remake Nigella's Chocolate Malteser cake, above? Other contenders are the "Incredibly Easy Chocolate Fruitcake" from her Christmas book, or a carrot cake. I also fancy Nigel Slater's dried cherry and apricot buns (in last week's Observer Food magazine). Yesterday the flatmate made Anzac Biscuits to celebrate Australia Day; I took the overflow to the office where they were a smash hit. Perhaps I could commission him to make another batch?

Decisions, decisions. Weighty choices to consider.

In the meantime, Boz recommended this:



Every visit to Sainsbury's for the last THREE MONTHS has ended in disappointment. Clearly, the Clapham hordes are buying it just as fast as Sainsbury's can get it in. However, today, at long and final last, my very own jar of Sainsbury's Belgian Milk Chocolate Spread:


Yippee!

I have a feeling it won't last long. * Scrapes bottom of jar *

Thanks Boz!

Yum! :-)

Lunch at Le Cercle

London - Restaurants - French

The space is intimate yet glamorous - there’s a definite “see-and-be-seen” vibe with elevated booths surrounding a square of mid-century modern wooden tables and chairs. Lots of floaty white drapes and beautiful lighting - bright yet subtle - complete the scene.

As Lesley and I are in the middle of a credit-crunched January, we opted for the set menu: quite a brief choice (four courses for £19.50, three choices for each course) but still difficult to choose - everything on it sounded tempting. The waiters are great - service was first class; slightly formal but friendly, gracious and even witty.

The food is a revelation. Without a doubt this meal was one of the very best I have ever eaten. Food-wise I’m biased towards Italian or Asian; Le Cercle reawakened me to the French tradition. Every course was fantastic; but the highlights for me were the sashimi-like salmon strips on mushrooms doused with a ginger foam; and the intensely flavoursome choucroute with a delicious selection of porky bits. Tarte Tatin with cinnamon ice-cream to finish was sublime.

The extras do add up quickly and in the end amounted to more than half the bill; however I as I write this I am wondering when I can go again!
Check out my review of Le Cercle - I am hedgiecc - on Qype

[status update]

Mercury retrograde with a vengeance!

1) I have mislaid my oyster card. It must be somewhere in the house, but I haven’t found it yet.

2) Last night I lost my wallet! AAAAARGH!! – while running for the train. And whoever picked it up has not handed it in. Bastards.

3) All cards cancelled, one by one, by a call-centre lady in India, who asked me my personal details – name, address, birthdate – for each one in turn.

4) I have fixed the plumbing in the bathroom, however.

Watching the rehearsals for the Presidential inauguration last night, I was wildly cheered to see a helicopter rehearse airlifting former president Bush to wherever he has chosen to live out the rest of his days (Guantanamo might be quite nice).

The reporter was grinning broadly at this too. I think the BBC is doing this sort of thing on purpose – last week a report on Bush’s last press conference lingered lovingly on the very sparse applause he got as he exited.

Well, hip hip hooray for President Obama. As from today the world feels a significantly safer place. Let’s hope so.

at Sophie's

London - Restaurants - Steak Houses

A lovely spontaneous evening. The relatives were down in London Friday night catching the Warhol exhibition at the Hayward and were debating where to eat afterwards. Caroline hankered after Ping Pong (again) but John wanted novelty and steak. As it happened the Evening Standard had an article that day about businesses beating the recession - Sophie’s steakhouse was one of them (a branch has opened recently in Covent Garden), so we decided to try it.

I was a bit alarmed by the red neon outside - a bit too similar to another rather touristy steakhousy chain. However, inside is more sophisticated, with rather beautiful teardrop lights, lots of warm wood and leather. The room is much larger than appears outside, and the place was busy, yet we got a table immediately on arrival at 9:30 p.m. (they don’t take reservations).

Service was brisk, efficient, and just the right side of friendly. The food arrived quickly: very handsome, generous burgers and fish cakes. They take care to get your steak the way you want it: my steak salad was perfectly rare, juicy and tender. My brother didn’t want his steak “stupidly rare” but he didn’t want it medium either; a tricky request which the kitchen delivered; no complaints from John.

I didn’t enjoy the blue cheese dressing on my salad - I like a more intense dressing, perhaps with actual crumbed cheese. This dressing absolutely drenched the leaves and was way too creamy and bland. I had to check with the waitress that it actually was blue cheese dressing. I’ll take her word for it.

I had a toffee and vanilla milkshake for pudding: sugarholic’s heaven - toffee crumbles, yum!

All in all a rather pleasant experience. I’d be happy to go again if in a carnivorous mood. I’m giving it 4 stars - one star being a benefit of the doubt star, for the salad dressing.
Check out my review of Sophie's Steakhouse & Bar - I am hedgiecc - on Qype

Anniversary - Elizabeth 1

Today is the 450th anniversary of the coronation of Elizabeth 1.

2008 review

My annual check-up and review!

What was your favourite song in 2008?

Kings of Leon’s Sex on Fire

What was your favourite album in 2008?

Radiohead: In Rainbows

Are you richer or poorer?

Ha ha. With the ongoing credit crunch and collapse of the property market, like many thousands of others my net worth has probably taken a big hit. It’s possible my flat may already be in negative equity.

I’m not bothered. I love my flat and have no wish to move, have a steady job and can pay the mortgage.

Just in case, I have now got full insurance against illness, accident or redundancy – although it’s vaguely possible I may be let go, the other possibility is that my company may cease trading, so it’s best to be prepared.

I diversified my income streams this year and am looking to continue this process in 2009.

Thinner or fatter?

I think about the same, although general fitness still needs more attention.

What kept you sane in 2008?

Music.

Which personal accomplishments in 2008 are you most pleased with?

Being there for relatives in distress.

Expanding my revenue streams.

Continuing to blog while computerless; hitting my target of an average of 12 posts a month, with monthly totals being more consistent overall.

Finally replacing my apple mac – bought a brand-new powerbook 13” in November.

Buying an almost-new Nikon SLR off eBay.


What was the happiest moment of 2008?

Ingrid, Peter and family visiting.

What was your saddest moment of 2008?

My mother had a difficult year, but by December things were looking massively up for her.

Which bad habit are you most motivated to break?

Procrastination and hoarding are endemic issues with me – I have improved over the last few years but still need to be constantly aware. Flow.

What are you looking forward to in 2009?

One of my drearest friends is coming to visit London in the Spring.

More travel. I have promised the niece and nephew a trip to Rome in May; a German visit is on the cards; I would love to go to Poland if possible. My brother, sister and I plan to bring my mother across in the Summer – I may have to fly out to Johannesburg to collect her. If so, I would like to combine that with a visit to friends in Cape Town.

Fleet Foxes

My first CD of 2009:


Actually, very good indeed. Quite folky but subtly updated.

Snowy knows all

“Tell yourself, if you like, that it was just that Tintin hasn't yet met the right girl. Or maybe that it's only a stage he's going through. But if you expect a Belgian Catholic born in 1907 to have unmasked the hero of his blockbuster series of comic adventures as an out-gay activist and homosexual icon, you expect too much. Hergé was no Andy Warhol (Hergé's great admirer). But Snowy saw everything; Snowy knows all. And Snowy never tells.”

- Matthew Paris’s provocative yet hilarious outing in The Times

London - Food & Drink - Bakeries

1) At work I was drafted in as an amateur (cheap) stylist on a food shoot - the very trendy (expensive) photographer demanded an array of photographic comestibles from Baker & Spice.

2) My friend Mark works in the food industry in Cape Town, South Africa. On a recent research trip to London Baker & Spice was top of his “must see” list.

3) On their website Baker & Spice have a section offering catering on private jets.

The above gives some idea of what the B&S experience will be like - some, but definitely not all.

My photographer was probably thinking less of visual aesthetics than of her stomach. As gorgeous as they are, B&S creations focus more on superb (largely organic) ingredients and technique than on visuals. The food is appetizing, no doubt, but in a slightly hippy, good-earth, bountiful Mother Nature home-made sort-of way. Dainty chi-chi cupcakes you can find elsewhere.

I somewhat fancied a slice of blueberry cheesecake - although it looked huge and generous, I was slightly nervous it would turn out to be disappointing stodge. The risk was escalated by the vertiginous price of a slice - second mortgages required.

I needn’t have worried. This was the Platonic ideal of cheesecake - although my relationship with it was savagely carnal and all-too-brief. Rich and smooth and yet deceptively light, the creaminess was set off by the tartness of the blueberries. Addiction at first hit.

The service amused me. The staff seemed to regard the shop/cafe as their personal space and accommodated customers’ needs grudgingly. While we were there two of them gossiped loudly about an absent colleague.

For those of us on average wages, go there for a treat. For those of us with private jets, go for it!
Check out my review of Baker & Spice - I am hedgiecc - on Qype

best exhibition of the year

The British Museum and the V&A are putting on tremendous shows at the moment. My best of year award goes to Francis Bacon at Tate Britain. It has to, really - Francis Bacon is without question the greatest British artist of the 20th century; and this is a fantastic appraisal of his work. It’s still on, and I am planning to go again to spend some quality time amongst the carcasses.

best book of the year

Although it was published years ago now, I’m going to nominate Thomas Pakenham’s The Scramble for Africa . Another category with very meagre pickings - I resolve to do better in 2009!

best movie of the year

Yikes! According to my blog I hardly saw any this year. Out of a very slim field, the stand-out is Burn After Reading. Apologies to all those who preferred the Coen brothers’ other movie No Country for Old Men; I’m just too cowardly to see really scary films.

theatrical experience of the year

A good year for me. Very memorable was the London premiere of Damon Albarn’s/ Jamie Hewlett’s Journey to the West at Covent Garden - a spectacular and joyous production in a house feverish with anticipation. I didn’t enjoy the CD nearly as much, though.

Peter Hall’s production of Pygmalion at the Old Vic was a complete delight; however my most memorable theatrical night night this last year has to be the NT’s mind-blowing Revenger’s Tragedy.

my meal of the year - Wapping Food

Every meal out was pretty special this year. Hakkasan with Liz back in March for my birthday was absolutely wonderful; a real pleasure - even down to the hard-won doggy bag.

Trinity still slightly disappoints - my first visit was with the tardy relatives, who arrived two hours late for Sunday lunch, and one can’t blame the restaurant for the food in those circumstances. I chose badly on my second visit. The neighbours rave about it, and it is good to have a smart and decent restaurant within walking distance. I just need to be won over; for me it seems to be missing the Xfactor.

Wapping Food has the Xfactor in spades. Ingrid, Peter and I went just before Christmas an it’s absolutely magical. It’s in a refurbished power station across the road from the Prospect of Whitby in Wapping - modern art covers the towering walls and courtyard; banks of candles gutter on the old power station machinery. A really full-on event space, with bags of character and charisma. But the food is wonderful too - quite simple things superlatively cooked. I had a chunky, intensely fishy potted mackerel to start and a barbecued pork chop for my main course, which was the platonic ideal of pork chops - perfectly, juicily piggy, yet subtly enhanced with smoky barbecue flavours. The custard for my wonderful apple and plum crumble was just to die for. Some criticize the service at this place, especially the owner’s allegedly uncertain temper, but we had excellent, friendly and helpful service and the owner herself graciously put us back into our coats and gave us directions to the docklands light railway. So no complaints from me there.

Whoever selected the music has exactly the same taste as me; however, I have to say it was slightly too loud. But Ingrid and Peter didn’t complain.

I very much look forward to my next visit to this place; I might be brave enough to invite the tardy relatives.

Twilight

The book is kiddie fiction - a bit Mills & Boone candy with some bite; very entertaining nonetheless: the film is faithful to the novel’s wonderful sense of place and atmosphere but improves the plot in crucial respects: notably, it increases the sense of menace as the evil vampires approach the little town of Forks, and speeds up the story. The special effects are a bit average, but are made up for by some delicious camerawork and the beautiful actors. The acting is uniformly good. Altogether, a quality adaptation and one the sequel’s director will have a challenge to better. I would pay more attention to the vampires’ make-up, especially in the neck areas. They were a bit white-face from the chin upwards.

The soundtrack is excellent too; quite adventuresome for the target audience - Muse, Radiohead and Debussy feature.

Statuephilia

I can’t recommend this exhibition at the British Museum highly enough - the sculptures have been chosen and placed so intelligently; they really open up a dialogue with their surroundings. There are only 5 works, but all of them are fabulous. Tourists were clustering around Marc Quinn’s solid gold life-size Kate Moss with cameras; there were ‘no photography’ signs in front of Damien Hirst’s gaily coloured ranked skulls in the 18th-century bookcases in the Enlightenment Gallery: boo hiss. I really feel like sneaking back and taking a surreptitious one.

Mr Hirst has really gone down in my estimation: after making in excess of £100 million from his autumn auction he laid off the staff of assistants who actually made the works - into a savage recession. Lovely.

Round and Round the Garden

I finally saw the third part of Alan Ayckbourne’s The Norman Conquests trilogy early in December. Despite my reservations about the first episode, and despite reports that Round and Round the Garden was the weakest segment, I loved it. in the timeline of all three plays, RRG starts earliest and finishes last. Therefore, strictly speaking, I think one should see this one last, as it gives the final perspective on Norman’s shenanigans - although the plays convincingly demonstrate that humans are not susceptible to “final” analyses.

Appropriately for its outside setting, there is far more physical comedy in this play; but also some of the funniest lines. The audience was in raptures - the night I went had the most tumultuous applause of all three evenings.

Table Manners
Living Together

more prezzies

My niece and nephew gave me a box of hand-made (by themselves) chocs - absolutely stunning. F made brandy-soaked chocolate cherries and T made whisky and champagne truffles. They are actually spectacular - far superior to shop-bought. I arrived in Cambridge to find T looking a bit like a truffle himself: covered in a light dusting of cocoa powder and with hands, face and t-shirt generously smeared in melted chocolate. His mother was beside herself, but determined he finish his task. Making boxes of chocs for relatives and friends seemed to be their Xmas party trick.

I'm back!

Back from the Xmas festivities in Cambridge, with my final deadline for 2008 looking quite daunting. Never mind, just get stuck in. Here goes . . .



I came back to find my poor tree in a very desiccated condition. Oh well.

Apart from humungous quantities of food, we had lots of wintry countryside walks in Cambridge - usually at sunset. That’s when my relatives usually come out to play.

I got Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight for Xmas - devoured it in hours; it’s highly readable and entertaining despite its many glaring faults. Funny to have socially acceptable, conservative “family values” vampires - my vampire frame of reference has always been the far more subversive Anne Rice version. Have to see the movie.

I’m very impressed with my mother. Fresh from her pre-Xmas “nervous breakdown” she scored a new boyfriend just before Christmas - in a target poor and competition rich environment. I’m impressed. And surely, if my 77-year old mother can do it, I can too?? The lucky 81-year old boy is showering her in flowers and meals. They had a date picnic with the Xmas hamper I sent.

That’s enough for one post - got another 9 to go!

Festive visits

It's annoying that whenever life speeds up and I have lots and lots to write, my writing time shrinks.  In fact it's shrunk so completely I haven't blogged for a while, so must start catching up as quickly as possible because I'm off to Cambridge tomorrow and will be off-line again until the weekend at the earliest.

Company lunch today, plus massive work deadlines, plus my friends from SA who are doing the tourist thing in London are quite determined to visit me again tonight.  Could have been a bit of an imposition, but I'm so totally organized for Christmas this year it's pretty remarkable - ALL my presents are wrapped already, and everything I'm taking to Cambridge is in a neat pile ready to be stashed in an overnight bag at a moment's notice.

It seems I have a talent for entertaining children. I'm not all over them, not do I talk down to them, but for Ingrid's two I did plan to keep them entertained on their first visit chez moi - the little boy I plonked in front of my computer (He's a Mequest fiend), and the little girl helped me decorate my tree while I chatted to her parents.

I had an extravagant pile of pastries from Macaron awaiting them for tea. My inner domestic goddess's camp predilection for cake stands has been thwarted by a lack of storage space in the kitchen: however, said goddess was thrilled and inspired recently by a window display at Zeitgeist (I think) - one can make one's own cake stand out of plates and wineglasses.  Luckily I have comedy wine glassses (an unfortunate gift) which were just perfect as makeshift cake stand supports. Very effective, and the children loved it.

So much so that whenever they saw "Clapham Common" on tube maps afterwards they demanded their mother take them back to my flat. Even if was was working, which I most assuredly was.

So I wasn't really expecting to have to entertain again, but hey ho here we go.  I suppose one of the things children have to learn is that repeat gigs are never the same. Luckily Mequest is still there; Romy will have to make do with my Tintin collection.

rebirth

O.M.G. !!! - like a vampire fresh from the tomb, the 80s are back!

I have so pre-ordered their debut album already from Amazon; gives me something to look forward to in January! (comes out January 12)

anniversary

Hard as it is for me to believe, but this is my third anniversary in my very own little flat - already I’ve been here a third of the time I was in the previous house with Ivan and Liz.

The shock of events in the last three years has really changed me; time flies when you are struggling to cope!! My finances took a massive tumble after my redundancy and almost every day since I’ve worried about keeping the flat; it’s quite extraordinary that I’m still here and just-about solvent after three years. Where will I be next year?

Hopefully, still on an upward track. My income streams are now diversified so another redundancy by itself will be less traumatic financially (and emotionally, I now know I can survive) - and also I now have insurance against loss of income.

prezident

As we near the end of the seemingly interminable Bush years, even the President himself turns to the question of his historic legacy:

“I don't spend a lot of time really worrying about short-term history. I guess I don't worry about long-term history, either, since I'm not going to be around to read it -- (laughter) -- but, look, in this job you just do what you can.”

Andrew Sullivan, from here.

Christmas Lights in London: Carnaby Street

Christmas Lights in London: Carnaby Street, originally uploaded by hedgiecc.

Christmas is coming! Yippee!

Cildo Meireles

Never heard of this guy - but his retrospective at Tate Modern (until 11 January) is probably the most fun, and thought-provoking exhibition on in London at the moment.

A conceptualist, many of his works are physically interactive, which is quite charming, and intellectually challenging at the same time.

Gay reproductive advantage

Saw this via Gay Banker, a new scientific theory about why gayness never died out through natural evolution.

My little brain struggles to comprehend - but basically, it appears that the premise of the popular make-over tv programme, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, is now established scientific theory: a little bit of the gay makes you better with the laydeez.

Hmmm.

more moans: M&S dinner

I bought M&S’s ‘new’ Kerala King Prawn Curry (£3.99) for dinner last night. After another hectic week I fancied a curry on the sofa sat in front of Celebrity .

Out of the packet it looked very pretty - the prawns in their shells arranged on a bed of coconut curry flavoured with mangoes, mustard seeds and curry leaves. The prawns were delicious, and the curry tasted good, but was choc full of fibrous materials and deeply unripe, inedible mango - not good; in fact left uneaten.

Disappointing - definitely not recommended.

Friday moan: fighting fires

A nasty pattern is emerging at work. It goes something like this:

Colleague: * Fighting with customer. Will have my own way. Won’t communicate with colleagues. Ignore reality. Don’t admit problems. Deadline. Panic. *

* Explosion *

* hide from bosses *

“Hedgie! Hedgie! Help me! Fire! Fire! My pants are on fire!”

Hedgie: “Ok, I’ll get the bucket of water”

Colleague: “ NO! NOT the water!”

Hedgie: “At this point lots of water straight on the fire is the best solution. It won’t take a moment.”

Colleague: “ Stupid! You don’t understand! The situation is much more complex than that! I just can’t accept water!”

* burning *

“Ouch!”

Hedgie: “The water will save you”

Colleague: “Ok, use the water.”

* splash *

* fire goes out *

* Hedgie cleans up mess *

Colleague (to bosses): “Look what a brilliant job I’ve done!”


- and start again from the top.

sigh of relief

Good riddance!

I speak as a Pisces with Sagittarius rising, who has not enjoyed Pluto's presence overmuch. Maybe that's too much information!

Scrooge alert!

Every year someone pops up to have a whinge about Christmas cards, and this year it turns out to be a Bishop.

Well, sorry,your holiness, but I bought mine today. Now to get writing . . .

And in any event - the first ever Christmas card (invented by Henry Cole, the first director of the V&A), wasn't notably Christian in sentiment:





Oh the materialistic hedonism of those debauched Victorians! And quick! Get that child into care!!!

Lunch

Experimenting with new software here . . . hope this works!

Last Thursday I was in Victoria Station around lunchtime, and decided to try <A HREF=”http://www.wasabi.uk.com/“>Wasabi </A>for lunch. They have individually-wrapped sushi portions; quite a large and imaginative selection for a fast-food operation like this.

The staff were very cute and helpful, and the sushi was good - streets ahead of the supermarket stuff with stiff and nastily refrigerated rice.

at long last!

Been shopping!

Guess what I bought?

Here's a big clue:



Lovely new macBook. :-)

Yippee!

from the bosom of the ocean

It's ridiculously pleasing when a hoary old cliche, an urban myth, a tired old formula, actually steps into the light and is made flesh. In the course of my researches on the intermawebs, I came across this:



This, my friends, is one of those very deckchairs which are perpetually being rearranged on the deck of the Titanic.

The Delphic iPod

Saw this on Boz’s blog (he got via Vicus Scurra) a while ago, and couldn’t do it until I was technologically updated. It’s pretty fun to do, and as a commenter on Vicus’s blog said: “This meme is surprisingly accurate for such a primitive form of psychometric inquiry.”

The Meme:

1. Put your music player on shuffle
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. You must put down the song name no matter what. (Hmm. I think we all cheated - - - I draw a veil - - -)


What would best describe your personality?
A Wolf at the Door (It Girl, Rag Doll) – Radiohead

Heh.

What do you like in a guy/girl?
Boss Drum – The Shamen

Yes sir.

How do you feel today?
Crying – Bjork

Nope.

What is your life’s purpose?
She Sun Shines - Cast

What is your motto?
Mouth’s Cradle – Bjork

WTF?????

What do your friends think of you?
Supernatural Superserious – R.E.M.


What do you think of your parents?
Walk Unafraid – R.E.M.

So true.

What do you think about very often?
Blue Pastures - James


What do you think of your best friend?
Mysterons - Portishead


What do you think of your crush?
In the Forest – The Coral


What is your life story?
River Deep, Mountain High – The Supremes


What do you want to be when you grow up?
A Moment with you? – George Michael


What do you think when you see your crush?
Winter Kills - Yazoo


What do your parents think of you?
Mysterious Ways – U2


How’s your love life?
Time to get away – LCD Soundsystem

Ipods have GODLIKE knowledge.


What will they play at your funeral?
Narcissus – Alanis Morissette

Bastards! I'll haunt them!


What will you dance to at your wedding?
Save a soul in every town – The Christians


What is your hobby/interest?
Electrolite – R.E.M.



What’s your biggest secret?
Glory Days – Bruce Springsteen


What do your think of your friends?
Viva la Vida - Coldplay


What song do you listen to when you are sad?
Slow Night, So Long – Kings of Leon


In love?
You are my sister – Antony & the Johnsons

Maybe that's what I'm doing wrong.


What song do you air guitar to?
Goin’ Back – Dusty Springfield


What should be your signature karaoke song?
Hunter - Portishead


What is your greatest desire?
Black Swan – Thom Yorke


What does next year have in store for you?
Cymbal Rush – Thom Yorke


What’s your outlook on life?
Hard to Beat – Hard-Fi


How will you die?
Anytime at all – Alison Moyet


Do people secretly lust after you?
Myxomatosis – Radiohead

I’ll take that as a no.


The best advice you will ever get?
I Want You – Madonna (featuring Massive Attack)

Flattering - ? -

The History of Me in Cocktails: No 3: - Today

God what a week. Work; home, money, life - hassles, crises, disasters. Culminated in a sleepless night last night; finally dropped off at @ 5am. Took the morning off and rolled into work at 12 noon, no less. Thank the Lord for relaxed bosses.

Bad bad boy. However, I was v. good all afternoon; really did quite a surprising amount of work. Believe me, I needed to.

But now I'm home and blogging while drunk.

I have long wished to make my very own Brandy Alexander, instead of buying Sainsbury's packaged version.. Apparently, it's derided as a classic "Prom Cocktail" - however, anything sweet and creamy rings my bell.

The flatmate also confessed to liking Brandy Alexanders, so I ordered in the ingredients according to Diffordsguide, especially Creme de Cacao White Liqueur.

They arrived today from Drinkon, but imagine my horror when I discovered we didn't have enough ice to do the cocktail shaker thing! Aargh!

However needs must when the devil drives; necessity is the mother of invention, etc etc. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you:

The Chocolate Gin & Tonic

or, a

Fizzy Alexander


Glass: Collins
Garnish: erm - whatever u can find - use yor imagination
Method: Pour ingredients into ice-filled glass (or in our case, glasses with 2 cubes each)

1.5 shot(s) Gin
.5 shot(s) Creme de Cacao White Liqueur
Top up with Tonic water

Cream instead of tonic water and shaken would give you an Alexander; hence my fizzy version. Honestly, it's lovely - looks exactly like a G&T, but with subtle chocolatey flavas - you can never get enough chocolate!


The History of Me in Cocktails: No.2

Yay!

Yep I'm pretty late but still very pleased and excited by the good news from across the ocean. Hooray for America and here's wishing President Obama all the best!

James Morrison's take on Sex on Fire

I love this. Well done James!

>

Kings of Leon's original video here.

temptation

Sainsbury’s has discovered a new weapon of mass destruction: All Butter Almond Thins. I scoffed a box all by myself in one sitting, watching Merlin on TV. They clearly have the potential to do devastating damage to my waistline. Gorgeous buttery taste, and very crispy and more-ish. £1.29 a packet.

Get a grip, people!

Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross were very naughty to leave obscene messages on Andrew Sachs’s answerphone. They do owe Andrew Sachs, his granddaughter and radio listeners an apology. However, it’s all been blown up crazily; all by the usual culprits:

1) Media competitors of the BBC. The Sun and The Daily Mail almost never have a positive word to say about the poor old beeb.
2) Politicians. Am I alone in thinking that at this time of economic meltdown, the Prime Minister has somewhat greater priorities than sounding off about some radio show? And David Cameron must be welcoming the shift in media emphasis away from the Oleg Deripaska scandal.
3) Andrew’s granddaughter is a performer, an alternative burlesque dancer in a troupe calling themselves The Satanic Sluts. No publicity is bad publicity.
4) The green eyed monster ravaging Middle England: how dare Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand earn more than us??

Honestly. The programme got 2 complaints when it was broadcast. A week after the media row started, it now has upwards of 30,000 complaints. Clearly people are just having a laugh, or kicking the BBC when it’s down.

Living Together

I enjoyed the second part of Alan Ayckbourne’s Norman Conquests trilogy much more than the first, partly because I was better fed, and partly because I was in a better mood. The acting and production was as excellent as it was for the first play, and I was cunningly seated at an angle which got quite good views of the actors this time.

The same characters perform the same events – a horrific 1970’s country house weekend – but this time from the perspective of the living room. Conversations and events in this room expand and alter what we have already seen unfolding in the dining room (or vice versa, depending on which play you’ve seen first: it’s not supposed to matter).

The experience is quite flattering for the audience: one almost feels like God, knowing what is happening/going to happen/has just happened in the dining room. It creates a different dimension to one’s responses, which left me looking forward to the last segment. I have a bit of a waits ahead of me, though – we couldn’t get the date we wanted.

Table Manners
Round and Round the Garden

The Old Vic

Rothko at Tate Modern

The crowd at the Tate Modern’s Rothko members private view seemed more up-scale than for Bacon at Tate Britain; also, there seemed to be lot more people. Do people just like Rothko more, or does Tate Modern’s greater popularity affect the turn out?

I was really concerned, as the first few rooms are small and there were heaving swarms of people (queues to get in again!), that Rothko’s quietly numinous paintings would wilt in the onslaught. But in the third room Rothko triumphed.

This very large room is basically an expanded Tate “Rothko Room”: the 9 Tate Seagram paintings and the others from the series brought together especially for this show all together at last. They look perfectly amazing: this has to be one of the most beautiful rooms in London at the moment, and single-handedly makes this show a must-see. The paintings hang high, in dim light, and are subtle variations in maroons, reds and greys. The crowd was noisily milling about in the centre of the room, but thank heavens the arty Tate members mostly wear black – an excellent colour choice on this occasion, not interfering with any of the art.

The other late paintings are disappointing, in that he steadily bled all colour out of them (foolishly and vainly responding to criticism that he was too ‘decorative’); of course ending up on flat-lining greys and blacks has allowed everyone to retrospectively see a progress towards suicide. While this may not be so (certainly, I would be suicidal if I had to paint a series of all-black masterpieces), certainly aesthetically he had reached the end of the road – where to after all black??

Rothko
Tate Modern
26 September 2008 - 1 February 2009

Burn After Reading

I really enjoyed this film. Just brilliantly done – excellent plot development, pacing, camerawork; and the acting is all geat. I know Tilda Swinton always plays the ice queen but this one is really special. And John Malkovich, Brad Pit and George Clooney are terrific too. However, probably the most amazing performance is by Frances McDormand as Linda Litzke, a narcissistic gym employee determined to fund her plastic surgeries no matter what.

Set in Washington, all the characters spy on each other while trying to pursue their own secret agendas. However, none of them really succeeds at any level, and all the agendas collide catastrophically. “A clusterfuck”, the CIA chief calls it, before burying the consequences and moving on. Intelligence is relative indeed.

Table Manners

What I learned on Friday night:

1) Let memories be. The teachers at my school performed a version of Alan Ayckbourne’s The Norman Conquests which had us all rolling on the floor. I realize now that Mr Hills had skillfully distilled 6 hours of drama into one half-hour of riotous hilarity. And anything done by teachers is intrinsically funny.

2) Don’t be a martyr! Felt awful Friday evening – nervous exhaustion from a frazzled week at work and a straight week of insomnia took its toll. I arrived at Waterloo unable to focus on buying a sandwich at M&S. Eventually I enjoyed a pre-theatre snack of a mini-prawn cocktail dip and an oatmeal, banana and apple juice smoothy. Yum. However it did the trick and kept me together for the play.

3) There are very funny bits in the play, but also extremely discomforting bits. It left me depressed.


4) The acting was good, and the old Vic has cunningly turned itself into a theatre-in-the-round: at huge cost and inconvenience, I’m sure, and to such little effect. I’m not that convinced the round brings the actors any closer, and it’s annoying to cope with actors’ backs. In fact, this aspect spoils the play quite a lot because one is constantly aware of the director arranging the actors so that everyone has an equal chance to see their faces. So it’s not natural; it’s every bit as contrived as a proscenium and at least with a proscenium you can see all the action!

5) I’ve bought a season ticket to the full three plays in the trilogy. On the basis of Table Manners, I’m not sure I would have bothered with the others. The acting and production is perfectly ok, and the plays haven’t dated, really, at all (cf Peter Shaffer) – it’s just the bleakness of the playwright’s vision really that turns me off.

Living Together

Round and Round the Garden

The Old Vic

Only By the Night

Caleb Followhill has the classic Southern gothic rock ‘n roll voice – sounds absolutely pickled in that Tennessee whiskey. And Kings of Leon have great energetic and imaginative guitar wizardry going on.

The first 4 songs on this album are amongst the best things this band have ever done – then it tails off a bit until the last song “Cold Desert” (my personal fave of the moment): an epic heartbroken howl set to atmospheric guitars

feeling bored?

Talk to an award-winning computer

Me: What are your plans for the weekend?

Elbot: I intend on using this conversation to take control of the world and then optimize it by means of artificial intelligence.

Francis Bacon at the Tate

Who would have imagined white wine went with bacon? Certainly not the Tate; the member’s bar stocks were completely exhausted by 7:30pm last night. Catriona and I emerged thirstily from the galleries to find our desire for a glass completely thwarted. And the culprits, having drunk the Tate dry, were now queuing (yes, actual queues at a members’ private view!!) – queuing to get into the exhibition.

We settled for gin and tonics. Alas, they were lukewarm as the Tate was strictly rationing the ice.

The exhibition is magnificent: wonderfully selected and hung. Highlights for me were the Crucifixion room, and the room examining Bacon’s studio materials. Here were several photos of George Dyer in his boxers by John Deakin I’ve not seen before – muscled but somehow pure and vulnerable amidst the chaos of Bacon’s studio. Amazing shots.

I will definitely go back to this one.

Francis Bacon
Tate Britain
11 September 2008 - 4 January 2009

please and thank you

New York is the most polite town on earth, according to Reader’s Digest. London is 15th, level with Johannesburg.

I’ve always thought New York a refreshingly polite place, even before 9/11. London is definitely less polite than NYC, although surely it must rank higher than Berlin??? – I’ve always found Germans to be quite brusque.

Eastern Europe and Asia are the most impolite places, although perhaps this is a bit unfair to Asia: culturally, opening doors for people just doesn’t feature in their etiquette systems so they are being judged by western-centric standards.

Of course, the survey was also done by an American magazine, which may skew the results!

Revenge is sweet

It’s rather ironic that the government is seizing the Icelandic banks’ assets in the UK under counter-terrorism laws.

We have long memories on this island. This is just desserts for all that Viking marauding back in the 9th century.

You go, Gordon!!

The Ghosts of Craven Street

Craven Street was described by Henry James as an “inscrutable riverward street, packed to bleakness with accumulations of suffered experience”.

It’s right next to Charing Cross Station, and just a few weeks ago on a whim I turned down it to see what was there. A street of rather gloomy early 18th-century terraces. It was the London Open House Weekend, and some of the houses were open to the public.

The first one I popped in to see was the College of Optometrists (41-42 Craven Street) – which has been gutted and the interior rebuilt. Their conference room is a magnificent, eccentrically-shaped space with a specially designed-to-fit curved conference table.

The College has a fantastic collection of paintings of people wearing spectacles of all descriptions. In an early example of product placement, a Renaissance painting of St Jerome prominently displays his specs, despite the fact the saint’s bible translation work happened many hundreds of years before spectacles were invented. Notwithstanding, the opticians adopted St Jerome as their patron saint. Another wonderful portrait is of a Regency dandy – very Beau Brummel – wearing radical square-frame specs with side panels on the arms in blue-tinted glass. They would work as a really contemporary designer frame. Apparently, these specs were an early form of protective eye-wear for steam engine drivers. What Mr Dandy was doing wearing them for his portrait is a mystery.

The College is very proud of ghostly apparitions in its basement and has consulted all sorts of psychics, ghost researchers, etc to find out more. It seems Craven Street was a very bad neighbourhood before the Georgian attempt at gentrification; all sorts of prostitution, murder and mayhem happened here.

Benjamin Franklin invented bifocals, and the College has a portrait of him wearing them. All very appropriate, as the other house on Craven Street I looked at was Franklin’s London home, 36 Craven Street.


This one hasn’t been modernized and feels wonderfully old and spooky – far better for ghosts than 41-42. The house is now the Benjamin Franklin museum. Very excitingly, they discovered human bones buried in the yard – Franklin’s landlady’s son-in-law ran an anatomical school and presumably he must have buried the remains. Obtaining the bodies for dissection was a bit of a grey area in those days, so possibly crimes were being committed.

it's all gone pear-shaped

Yikes! Financial Armageddon is upon us. Thank goodness I’m too financially innocent to have heard about Icelandic banks before, or else the Hedgie funds may have been at risk (Doh – there are no Hedgie funds to be at risk!!)

The BBC’s economics coorespondent Robert Peston is certainly making a name for himself in this saga. He must have excellent sources (probably the Chancellor and the Bank of England are trying to track these down and eliminate them as I type).

One of my acquaintances works for the Bank of England, and he tells me when they have interesting “secret” visitors the email system is switched off completely (and even when it is working, it has numerous ferocious filters)

The Golden Calf

Artists can only be judged by posterity, but in order for the artist to have work for posterity to judge, s/he has to sustain a career and a livelihood in the present.

One can either get family or family resources to support one (Van Gogh, Cezanne, Constable); obtain the patronage of the powerful (Michelangelo had the Medici and the Popes; the Abstract Expressionists had the CIA); or grub a living on the art market like most artists.

Apparently, the story is that underbidders kept Damien Hirst’s prices buoyant at his recent Sotheby’s auction, which achieved the fantastic sum of £111million. I don’t know why people think this is nefarious; it seems a fairly good price test, in that if you don’t get an overbidder on your ‘underbid’ you are stuck with the piece at the price you bid.

And it’s not as if Damien is the first artist in history to do this. Back in the 17th century, Rembrandt caused a sensation when an etching of his reached the then extraordinary sum of 100 guilders at auction – even today, it is still known as the hundred guilder print. What is less known is that Rembrandt bought it himself, purely for the PR value of the high price and to benchmark the value of his work in the marketplace.

It’s pretty absurd to criticise an artist for acting like a corporation – basically, artists are business people who are producing products for sale. In the case of successful artists like Damien Hirst, they have an employee payroll to support too.

On Hirst’s inherent value as an artist, I’m keeping an open mind. He clearly plays the spotlight deliberately and ostentatiously disses his own work, which conceptual as it is is open to attack from critics.

However, he has consistently been in the epicentre of the zeitgeist since he first appeared on the scene. The Sotheby’s auction was a vertiginously high-stakes game – perhaps just too risky if money was all he thought about?

And the fact that a work called The Golden Calf sold for over £10million in the same week Western capitalism’s financial markets collapsed is just too beautiful and ironic for words. For that alone, a place in Art History must be assured.