M in Masterpiece or F in Fraud?

On 5 April, The Bolton News carried a headline that for once was inaccurate in a wholly informative way: "Fake Art by Banksy and Tracey Emin on display at museum."

The headline was inaccurate in the sense that the fakes were not by Banksy and Emin at all: they were fakes of Banksy and Emin by people with an ability to copy. It is notable, however, that Emin herself has not the ability to copy, or even, seemingly, trace, as her portrait of William and Kate's balcony kiss rather demonstrates.

"What's this, Sordel?" I hear you demand: "are you really going to devote an entire nutshell to championing outmoded bourgeois theories of art?"

Well, yes, actually.

The Independent, one must admit, has scored another hit. It is comparatively rare for a newspaper's front page to become a genuine subject of discussion, and only The Sun has been better at it than the UK's foremost contrarian chip-wrapping. On a day when every other paper was running colour pictures of the prince in his red tunic, it is perhaps unsurprising that The Independent would go with sober black & white.

What is less to be expected is that they would have selected (perhaps even commissioned) a work that falls so short of any minimal standard. There is a taste test to art. First we must recognise it: as something meriting attention as a piece of art. Hard though it may be to judge art, I wouldn't recommend any aspiring 15-year-olds to supply work of Emin's standard as part of their G.C.S.E coursework.

In Emin's "The Kiss" (to dignify it with a title) the most persuasive piece of draughtsmanship is the actual words "THE KISS" printed in block-capitals (though admittedly on a slant) beneath Kate's veil. Were one required to defend it, one could applaud the focus on the military trappings of the jacket, the baldness of William's head and the emptiness of his face, as pointed statements by a master portraitist, but this would be playing along too much. It would be to supply as the viewer an effort of creation that is missing in the artist.

Go peruse Google images for Tracey Emin and be amazed by the paucity of her oeuvre. What, to rephrase the old drummer joke, do you call someone who hangs around with artists?

Margate 2: This Time It's Personal

Sordel is confident that we all thought the same thing when we heard that the BBC's Resident Intellectual had obtained a super-injunction to prevent publication of the news that he had been unfaithful to his wife:

It's only to be expected when one is as irresistible as Andrew Marr.

It has often been observed that the mind is also an erogenous zone, and that Mekon-like pixie, whose high-domed cranium becomes only more disproportionate as time goes by, must have been beating them off with a stick these many years.

Nothing says amours like a Marr.

Indeed, one can only imagine that he sought the super-injunction not so much for the sake of his reputation as to protect the ladies of this island, who might be driven to self-destructive yearning at the discovery that - far from being permanently off the menu as previously assumed - this dish was, like sashimi fugu, a rare delicacy obtainable by the woman reckless and dedicated enough to attempt it.

Before you dismiss this, however, as mere tawdry Schadenfreude, a loathsome paddling in the neck of tabloid sensationalism, Sordel would like to raise in your mind an intriguing possibility.

Marr's wife, Jackie Ashley, is a journalist. The woman in the case is evidently also a journalist. Andrew Marr ... well ... he knows a great many journalists. Here is a man whose championship of the Freedom of the Press would normally be above suspicion.

Is it beyond possibility that this great mind, with his lofty view of the chessboard and ability to think many moves ahead, actually foresaw that if one wished to break the issue of super-injunctions, the only way to do so would be to obtain one and then voluntarily forego it?

Might it not be that at the very moment that strange fingers coyly fondled his Full Windsor for the first time, the plot hatched in that mighty brow which only now has come to full fruition?

Sordel says not that it happened thus, but how could it have happened else?

Eh? V?

Those who consulted, memorized and obediently signed up to Sordel's previous reflections on democracy will not be surprised to hear that a referendum on a new electoral system in the UK leaves me somewhat cold.

According to research cited by The Economist the consequence of a move to the A.V. system would be that 16% of seats would change hands at a general election rather than 13%. The ideal - a swing of 100% to the None of the Above Party - is, to say the least, unlikely, and even were the 3% of constituencies that changed all to become BNP that would only bring the BNP representation in Parliament up to (checks sums) about 3%. None of this counts as a smooth transition to democracy.

Sordel's contention is that very few voters actually care about elections, and this can be extrapolated to the Middle East and Africa where, we are repeatedly told, populations are rising up to demonstrate their ardent thirst for a fair vote. Certainly some of the people are rising up for a fair vote, but it seems a reasonable guess that the greater number would also be willing to rise up for an oligarchy stacked in favour of their tribe, religious orientation or favoured tyrant. Not many of the rebels in Libya would be risking their lives to see Qaddafi fairly elected.

More significantly, it seems reasonable to suppose that many of the supposed beneficiaries of democracy in Libya are much like ourselves: more interested in the wellbeing of our families, businesses and neighbourhoods than we are in who is in government. Many of those who are currently dying for democracy in Misurata were just trying to get on with their lives. Posthumously turning them into martyrs for a political ideal is a typically political manouevre that demonstrates that while the rebels may not be a fitting army, there are those among them well suited to a career of bribery and corruption.

Returning, then, to the United Kingdom, AV would seem to be the perfect voting system for our national temperament: an ever more long-winded process to satisfy us that our miniscule contribution to the election of our political masters has been felt. Religion may be the opiate of the people in some countries, but all you really need to pacify an Englishman is a big piece of paper and an ill-sharpened pencil.

Together In Perfect Harmony

Looking rather like a poorly-animated mugshot of herself in ten years time, Hillary Clinton appeared on television yesterday to claim victory in Côte d'Ivoire.

"This transition sends a strong signal to dictators and tyrants throughout the region and around the world: they may not disregard the rights of their own people in free and fair elections and there will be consequences for those who cling to power. We commend the United States, the government and people of France and other members of the International Community who have worked diligently to ensure the safety and security of the Ivorian people throughout this crisis."

(Quite why we're commending the United States is unclear, but perhaps it's the even-handed way in which former aides to (Bill) Clinton lobbied for Gbagbo in Washington. It is indeed commendable when a country can roll over any obstacle to commerce.)

Now, Sordel knew nothing at all about Côte d'Ivoire until the rebels had actually surrounded Laurent Gbagbo's compound, but before we break out the champagne and toast to a much-needed fillip to democracy and security, it's perhaps worth taking a critical look at this victory.

Laurent Gbagbo - universally described as a "strongman" (which summons up in Sordel's mind only images of curled moustachios and a striped bathing costume) - was presumably some sort of horrific tribal warlord wearing the teeth of his opponents as a necklace. Somehow he started out as Director of the Institute of History, Art, and African Archeology at the University of Abidjan, but we can assume that he degenerated pretty swiftly after that.

Gbagbo's political manoevring in Côte d'Ivoire has seemingly been pretty unscrupulous over the years, with a number of human rights abuses and electoral tricks employed to keep him in power. It's lucky for the Ivorian population, then, that members of "the International Community have worked diligently to ensure the safety and security of the Ivorian people throughout this crisis."

Protecting civilians is, after all, something at which the commendable United States excels.

So, readers may share Sordel's mild surprise at a Human Rights Watch report that claims that Ivorians have been raped, killed, maimed, have had their villages burned etc. etc. all by people fighting on behalf of incoming-president-and-champion-of-peace-&-democracy Alassane Ouattara.

While the U.S. was ensuring their safety and security?

Ouattara The Fuck?!!

Perhaps before Hillary draws the moral of this tale she should consider some other possible morals that might be inferred, such as the following. That both sides in a sufficiently-entrenched conflict will ultimately become guilty of horrific abuse? That if you want to conquer a dictator it helps to have rebels who have been battle-hardened in a civil war and spent several years governing a substantial area of the country?

Or maybe, just maybe, that the best way to participate in the affairs of another country is to do absolutely nothing at all until a winner becomes clear and then turn up in time to claim the assist.

Not Just For Christmas

David Cameron (whom, for these purposes, let us imagine in full Little Lord Fauntleroy garb with copious lace and silk knee-pants) must have cut an eager figure as he approached the harassed Obama for a new war. "I'll feed it, and walk it, and you won't even know it's there," he must have implored.

Forgetting that this is what Sasha and Malia told him about Bo (his only surviving election promise) the embattled president seems to have reluctantly agreed, the fit measurement of that reluctance being that he has left Libya in the hands of Cameron and Sarkozy while he addressed more pressing issues, such as the fact that his entire government is on the brink of being shut down.

And, indeed, Cameron and Sarkozy did walk the war, proudly and ardently ... for about twelve hours. Now, with matted fur and an unsettlingly wolfish expression of resentment, it is defecating on the hall carpet and howling through the night.

The last time Britain and France went on their own without American leadership was, of course, the Suez crisis, when at least we had Israel, the world's most bellicose nation, doing some fighting for us. As a world leader (and I use the the word leader loosely) the last news that you want to hear is that the U.S. has ceded control of the air operation to you.

This is a bit like a young comedian getting on the bill with Billie Crystal and then learning that Crystal isn't intending to do any of the jokes himself.

Currently, the losers in this situation are the Libyan rebels, who should really have looked up the phrase "Iraqi Kurds" on Wikipedia before they took up arms.

Disastrous though the current situation is, however, there is worse to come for the people of Libya. If NATO gets its way, and Qaddafi is toppled, normal civilians in Tripoli and Benghazi may well come to view these as "the good old days".

And as for the puppy ... it's a rottweiler ... with a gentle disposition ... and has never showed any signs at all of wanting to savage the small boys who currently only pay it attention to poke it with a stick.