Most precious objects

I was at a conference this week, in the role of report writer, listening to some of the most extraordinary people working in performing arts training in the world today. Everywhere my ears settled there was wisdom, passion, and talent beyond measure. It is to these people that we owe our most loved theatre, films, television programmes, radio plays, ballet, contemporary dance, human circus skills and more. These are the people who train the most outstanding talent, who bring the skill, technique and understanding that shapes our cultural world. I won't even start to share what they have to say about The X Factor and similar instant fame nonsense.
There was some reflection on the brilliant A History of the World in 100 objects and that made me think about my personal precious things. No doubt because I was so heavily immersed in things theatrical that day, the first thing that came to mind was my copy of Antony Sher's Year of the King.
As an Eng Lit graduate I was familiar with and in awe of Shakespeare (of course), but not particularly enamoured. I craved new writing, contemporary work, novelty. What did I know? And then I went to see Antony Sher in Richard III and stumbled out of the theatre exhausted and mesmerised. Although I had seen a lot of theatre, there were only a very few performances that stunned me (Warren Mitchell at the National in Death of a Salesman was one of these). I didn't know that Shakespeare could be like that. I didn't know that ACTING could be like that. The performance swung round and round in my mind for months. Then Sher wrote a book about the experience and I devoured every word, reliving that night again and again.
Shortly after, I started working at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford upon Avon, feeding the actors, the stage crew, the wardrobe department, the musicians, the staff, and there was Antony Sher, now playing Shylock in the Merchant of Venice. His dresser, the terrifying Black Mac, saw me with my copy of the book and asked me if I'd like Antony to sign it. Oh yes please!
A few days later Black Mac, also known as Black Mac the Bastard, and vividly sketched in the book complete with Mike TV glasses, handed it back, sort of nonchalantly. The frontispiece was signed "To Debbie, with thanks and fondest wishes, Antony Sher, Stratford 25/6/87". Precious indeed, but that wasn't all. Black Mac had gone to every member of staff and cast who had been recorded in the book either by name or by sketch (often both) and who were in Stratford for the current season. As I flicked through I realised I held in my hand a theatrical gem: Brian Cox, Bill Alexander, John Carlisle, Black Mac the Bastard himself, and more.
Sometimes you feel entirely in the moment, of the moment. Seeing the play, reading the book and then having my book returned to me so joyfully enhanced were three of those times.
As light hearted contrast, I offer my micro anecdote of cooking for Vanessa Redgrave. My hopelessly inadequate "Vanessa, your cauliflower cheese is ready", haunts me still.

In defence of writers

This is not the first piece I've read from Susan Hill setting out her stall as a proper writer and firmly pushing others out of her self-determined charmed circle of the real thing. The real thing being limited to William Trevor, Helen Simpson, Alice Munro and, umm, herself.
Why does she waste her breath and her callused writers finger on telling us to step aside and get out of her way, that she and a few others are the Queen Bees of writing and that drones are beneath contempt?
What, exactly, is she so worried about? She is a published writer with, let me just check, yes, she tells us, 43 books to her name. Why can't she be gracious and enjoy the fact that people are writing, they are playing with words, creating stories, shaping ideas, articulating thoughts, having fun with words, working hard with words, and most importantly getting better at using words? Surely she can't be worried that without her name attached to a piece of writing that Jo and Joanna Public might not realise (they haven't received the training) it is of worth?
Her language is so full-on, so angry, and the article is self-labelled as a rant, but I can't see what's being threatened that should cause such an outpouring of venom. It seems so contrary to sense. Does she also want to restrict reading to those who are professional readers? It seems on a par, in terms of bonkersness and pomposity. Do we have a saturation point for reading and is Hill concerned that if we fill up on Big Macs (tweets, blogs, amateur stuff) we won't have room for Chateaubriand (Susan Hill)?
Hill comes out of this like a devilish anti-children's laureate, wanting to curtail self-expression, and deny a platform to any who have not trained or worked hard at writing for fifty years (at least), and her flip attitude to disadvantage does her no favours either. For anyone who's worked in the arts as I have for over twenty years (those are MY credentials) and has seen the amazingly positive impact art can have on individuals and communities when they are encouraged to participate and use their imaginations, Hill's opinions are unpalateable nonsense.
Got that off my chest then. Get writing everyone.

My life as a brick

There are many, many advantages to working in the arts sector. Mostly, it's the pleasure of working with artists. And sometimes, just occasionally, a special piece of work will find its way into your hand, and nestle happily in the house to be stroked (the three dimensional tapestry of Mopsa), hung from a hook (a framed sketch from a performance I supported), or gawped at in admiration over many years (a seven foot wooden sculpture of a head in profile).
Yesterday I had a strange delivery, a small but heavy parcel with a note attached warning me not to drop it on my toe. In my hand was a brick, but no ordinary brick. It had been covered in handmade unique textiles, printed and stitched with words I wrote for an old friend over a year ago.
After a (continuing) lively career in theatre, Julia turned her talents to textiles and asked people she knew to contribute to her degree show by asking for stories concerning objects from the family home that were precious in some way, however mundane or inexpensive. I shared this memory:
“It’s funny how so many precious family objects are related to the kitchen, to food, to the pleasure of eating together. I have several things from my mother’s kitchen that I could never bear to throw away, and that give me a warm feeling as I use or touch them. There’s the small, thick chopping board, barely large enough to cut a grapefruit, an off-cut from some post-war packing case, scarred and shaped by use. Then there’s the Nutbrown sandwich toaster, two rounds of hinged tin with long handles and chipped red wooden grips that lock, keeping the slices of bread and filling pressed together whilst they perch over the gas ring, bubbling butter and cheesy fat. I haven’t used it since childhood but it hangs by my cooker, just in case.
"Then there‘s the ancient Kenwood mixer that my mother nagged me for years to take and use, to give her more space in her tiny kitchen. I use it for cakes, whizzing up Thai green curry paste and best of all for making sausages. I loved using the mincer as a child, watching the trails of meaty worms emerge. Now I raise pigs and make my own sausages using the mincer and sausage attachment.
"Last of all are my Mother’s recipe books; not the ones by Marguerite Patten or Florence Greenberg, although I have several of those, but her own notebooks, covered in scrawl and bulked out by clippings from the Evening Standard. I still make her Dutch Apple Cake, covered in a Demarara, cinnamon and mixed spice crust”.
The brick is covered in dyed and digitally printed linen, with folds stitched as neatly as hospital corners. There is another piece of linen stitched on as a carrying handle. Printed onto the fabric are images of Kenwood attachments and the manufacturer's numbers for each component. A metal mincer cutter is held on tight with button thread and some of my words are printed on and stitched into the material.
So, after being exhibited alongside a host of other bricks, it's made its way to me - how lovely is that?
A brick was never as much my brick as this brick.

Fairs and such

Nothing like a country fair for putting a gleam in the eye and a pain in the pocket. Last night I was at the private view (champagne reception, natch) for the Contemporary Craft Fair down at Bovey Tracey, where us bods in the arts get to swig fizz alongside those with loose wallets and great taste.
In previous years I've been tempted by the jewellery and have returned with yet another chunky one-off bangle, but I have enough, and this time was there to admire the furniture in particular, purely as a voyeur.
And it being fair season, it was off to the Royal Cornwall today, where in utter contrast to Bovey, the stuff in the massive craft tent was nothing to do with craft and everything to do with mass produced tat, but there were plenty of other marvels to enjoy, including some wonderful artisan work if you kept to the smaller stalls.
Although cattle and sheep outside of Cornwall were kept away because of Bluetongue precautions, the livestock was still wondrous to behold and smell (clean, well cared for and warm). And continuing on the strangely coloured proboscis theme, a blue-tongued skink was doing the rounds, as was some species of skunk (skink/skunk, all the same to me).
The high quality of local food was at the fore; yummy Cornish produce was highlighted - lots of wine, cider, beer, cheeses, chocolate, meats of every variety including beautiful salamis, asparagus, preserves, puds, clotted cream and more.
The sheep shearers and the pig handlers competed furiously, one Gloucester Old Spot hurtling happily across the ring, oblivious to its owners cries.
Prizes were awarded for this and that, and the commentators were so well briefed that it sounded as if they knew every competitor and their animal personally.
And then there were the tractors - most far too large and serious for me, but there was one, a refurbed Massey 35 that looked like a Noddy car in agricultural garb, that I could happily give barn room.

Blowsy or delicate?

I spend so much of my walking time seeking out the delicate notes of wild flowers that it's a shock to see the horticultural brassiness of the cultivated varieties in my tiny front garden. But this week the bloodshot eyeball peony and the Dame Edna gladioli are visual tricks that are somehow trashy in their exuberance in comparison to the delicacy of the ragged robin, the stitchwort and the many varieties of the carrot family that Jackson Pollock and Miro the hedgerows.
If I was to determine which of these two opposites describes me, I would have to go for the blowsy, in the same way that I'm a Bernese dog person and would give nil house room to a chihuahua. But it's those wild fragile blooms that attract me; those banks awash with the froth of cow parsley, red campion and bluebells just steps from my door.
Oh, and before I forget the sensation, today I smelled coriander in the orchard. There are no cultivated herbs planted there, so I stopped and sniffed again. I just adore the scent and taste of coriander; along with thyme it is my favourite herb, but it was not supposed to be there. And then I pulled down to my nose the nearest branch of apple blossom and inhaled. Yes. A definite but subtle hint of coriander. I felt a Jilly Goolden moment come upon me as I checked that it was a cider apple, a Bulmers Norman in fact.

Women in Farming

This evening I was mingling with artists and farmers at the Phoenix Arts Centre for the exhibition resulting from the Women in Farming project put together by Aune Head Arts.
It's a topic close to my heart and in the press too, this week.
The work was beautiful, honourable, moving, familiar and unfamiliar. Framed by mounts of felted fleece and adorned with gold plated copies of their ear tags (made by Louise Evans), Jennie Hayes' photographs of the sheep on Sue Peach's Dartmoor farm made me want to wrench the images off the wall and take them home with me. I was drawn again and again to look at the detail of their heads, their gaze, their ear tags, their carefully shorn necks, every inch as imperious as any senior politician sitting for their portrait.

Five hours of high quality culture a week for kids

I have been churning and turning this issue over in my mind for days and just can't get to grips with it. As someone who has spent all her working life in the arts I should be cheering and clapping my hands, imagining the crocodiles of children snaking past exhibits, crying in theatres and snapping eagerly with cameras, but instead I can't help feeling more than a little bewildered.
How, exactly, are children going to get the equivalent of an hour a day, five days a week of high quality cultural activity? Are artists going to be the new teachers? I suspect that the only people who get 5 hours of HQC a week are art critics, and they have to watch/walk past/read through many tens of hours of dross to attain this. And what is it with the government and the target number five?
Now, I'd love to think that I could spend an hour on Monday having a go at throwing a pot with the help of a fabulous local potter, Tuesday bursting my lungs with contemporary song, Wednesday touring the region's best art gallery and museum instead of munching on a lunchtime snack, and on Friday using up my last two hours on a thrilling performance. But I know that this just isn't going to happen. And on a rural note it'd take at least ten hours of my time to get to these things; not everyone lives near city amenities.
Are we also being ridiculous in expecting this "Find your Talent" scheme to produce hundreds of thousands of artists that wouldn't otherwise exist because of some lingering idea that Cool Brittannia was a real concept and accessible to all?
Yes, I want schools to incorporate music and art and literature and new media and drama and every aspect of the arts within the school day. I want arts organisations to enable people of all ages to engage in their work in thrilling ways. I want people, including children to feel proud of their artistic and cultural achievements, and to have opportunities to get hands on with things they couldn't do at home - I always wanted to have a go at sculpting with stone rather than fiddling with potato prints. Professional artists working alongside communities and individuals can and do deliver extraordinary life-enhancing experiences.
But should this activity be circumscribed and headlined by a highly improbable numerical target? I suspect that rather than creating real, new, extraordinary activities that the most routine will be included by this number crunching daftness. Spent Sunday watching the telly and caught a bit of the latest period drama because your Mum insisted on watching it? Tick. Double period drama class on Thursday afternoon? Two ticks. Eng Lit on Friday morning? Tick. Recorder lesson? Tick.
I really don't mean to sound like a killjoy, but if we want a vibrant, culturally aware population it should be for everyone, not just a few pilot geographies in competition with each other (that post-code lottery thing). And all the pressures that stopped teachers taking pupils to the theatre (cost, overburdened curriculum, transport fears, excessive responsibility etc) and strangled peripatetic music services (too expensive, natch) is the stuff needing tackling. Humph.

War Horse

I spent a lot of yesterday afternoon with tears splashing down my face and trickling down my neck. I was with a thousand other people, many of whom were dabbing uselessly at their eyes or struggling to keep juddering shoulders under control; it was practically full house for the penultimate matinée of the current run of War Horse at the National.
I'd come up by train from Devon, travelling for five hours, just to find myself right back there, but now the countryside was animated by extraordinary lifesize puppets of horses, crows and geese. I sat there wishing all my friends had been in the audience so that we could have shared this astonishing experience.
Michael Morpurgo wrote the book on which the play is based, just a few miles from here in Iddesleigh. For me, the Devon roots of the story added further poignancy to this tale of love, family, war, bitterness, violence, humanity and the ties between man and beast. We see the wrangling sale of a young colt and the bond between growing horse and growing boy seasoning. Humanity in its black, white and grey sides is blatantly portrayed, with both the loss of feeling and the fervent hold onto emotion and kindness when faced with the impossibility of war.
The overwhelming horsepower on stage was so strong that I could almost smell their sweat. Utterly horselike, the puppets were completely convincing as proud cavalry mounts and withered broken-mouthed starvelings; the deaths of horses as desperate as that of men.
Critics who have mocked this piece as a bit of flagrant anthropomorphism have missed the point; the puppetry is masterful, amazing, pure theatre at its most magical, but it is the capturing of the emotional journeys through appalling wickedness, and the death and simultaneous survival of the spirit, human and animal, that had us all weeping.

I might regret this, but....

...for years I have been saying that it's about time that the Arts Council looked at their historic patterns of funding and gave them an almighty shake-up. If you happened to be on the receiving end of regular funding it might not have been roses all the way, but unless you made a major hash of things it was unlikely that your core funding would be stopped. If you were an emerging company or artist it was therefore extraordinarily difficult to receive more than the odd one-off grant as the majority of available dosh was taken up by RFOs (no, not UFOs but Regularly Funded Organisations) and the status quo was steadfastly maintained.
Amazingly, surprisingly, bravely, the Arts Council has just announced that 195 organisations will not have their grants renewed in April 2008. 746 (or 75% of) RFOs will have funding increases of at least inflation, with 45 receiving increases of between 50 and 100%, and 41 in receipt of more than 100% increase in their grants. In addition about 80 arts organisations in England will be invited to become new RFOs.
The list of the inevitably very unhappy 195 (all of whom however have an outrageously brief window of opportunity to lobby against the decision) is expected to be made known in the new year, but the news is inevitably breaking as each organisation opens its black bordered letter. Once we know all the organisations at risk (and my in-box is already giving some indication of what is under threat) and just as importantly the organisations being invited to take their place at the funding table, I may come to regret my in principle admiration for this move, but the decision to rethink the funded arts landscape is one I must applaud.
What we will have to scrutinise is whether the funding decisions actually back up the Arts Council's stated aims of supporting artistic excellence, increasing engagement and participation, funding arts more equitably across England and increasing support to the visual arts (although I'm not sure about this latter aim considering how visual arts appears to be thriving like never before). If the resulting raft of RFOs don't reflect this, and if those cut are strong embodiments of one or more of those aims, the sector should claim scalps.

18.12.07 postscript - the Guardian leader seems to agree with me. Their arts correspondent doesn't. I fail to see why we should have to wait for the information on who is affected- surely it should be in the public domain now so that the decisions can be held up for external scrutiny before it's too late to reconsider what may be death blows to many?

9.1.08 update - Bungled seems to be the word being bandied about regarding the HOW surrounding these changes, and I have to say I agree. You would have thought that the Arts Council would have been scrupulous in following their own guidelines in disinvesting (ghastly word) in organisations in order to gain understanding if not actual support for carrying out what after all should be their role; ie making big decisions based on transparent criteria on who should continue to be funded and who should enter as new recipients of a regular grant cheque.

10.1.08 update - The ructions continue, and ACE faces the flack.

27.1.08 - The Arts Council backs down, a bit.

1.2.08 - The outcome.

In awe of the tv artist

For those of us who deeply admire Stephen Poliakoff the BBC have laid out a banquet - not so much a taster menu as a complete blowout. Last week those seeking out rare television drama gems had to juggle whether to record the new adaptation of A Room With A View whilst getting a Poliakoff hit with the exquisite Joe's Palace or vice versa. If your DVD was up the spout you were quite possibly in tears. If you'd watched the reruns of the first two parts of Shooting the Past a couple of days before, I doubt you headed for the Forster.
I remember the impact Poliakoff's Shooting the Past had on its first showing in 1999 - the best evocation of how pictures tell stories that I can recount. A collection being so much more than the sum of its parts; that storytelling is one of the most important attributes of the human race; how the brain is exponentially superior in every way to a computer no matter how large the electronic database; that business schools may be money making machines for churning out mini mes but they do not develop the soul: all these concepts were set out for the viewer. When something is so near perfect, any minor irritant galls, and my ointment's flea was Emilia Fox playing the redheaded leather trousered Spig who lopes and stares to minor effect. Up against Lindsay Duncan, Timothy he can do no wrong Spall and Billie Whitelaw, she didn't stand a chance; eight years on she's still not really fit for purpose.

Next up was Joe's Palace, bringing together worlds so disparate you expect the dissonance to be greater than it is. Unlike some interpretations, I didn't believe that any of the people Joe met thought he was wise, brilliant or clever. He was a young, lonely, inexperienced soul, a quiet boy neither overly naive or worldly. He was easy to befriend, mildly exploited, but saw things as they really were. He was simply the least complicated of the people around him, a cipher with little personal baggage. Chippyness was reserved for all the remaining characters, their baggage slowly unpacked for the viewer.
Holocaust references can jar - like child abuse, its horror can be misused to create undeserved dramatic tension. In Joe's Palace the revelations of the source of the billions that had bought the 'palace' and its contents were portrayed with frightening originality. Jewish men in Berlin forced to crawl naked through the park whilst the women perched in trees chirruping like birds were extraordinary harbingers of ultimate degradation.

Last night we had Mark Kermode head to head with Poliakoff, who openly shared his absolutism; his vision, his script, his work. It's a rare artist that can command control. I could rabbit on about A Real Summer or the fact that I loved The Lost Prince and Gideon's Daughter. I don't care that all the pieces are set in luscious surroundings; there is more than enough cold reality available on every channel every day (and for some good reality stuff see The Street where you can have your Spall and eat it too). All I know is there is more brilliance to come.

Farm craft

I never realised that there were so many art/farm projects 'til moving to Devon. I thought my two worlds were at a permanent distance one from the other, until landing in this agricultural and cultural stronghold showed me otherwise. If it hasn't yet been done, someone should produce an art farm map of the county, making sure to include: The Art Farm Project, Occombe Farm, Aune Head Arts, Organic Arts, and all the rest of them.
There isn't much art at home base though. Just some hamfisted craft. Nothing like the amazing quality of the stuff you might find here, more of the kind on display in the home-craft tent at the village fete.
Just the thought of pyrography makes me chortle; it's tattooing for the sensible, or the naff hobby you can do hunched over the kitchen table when there is nothing good on the telly and you don't fancy reading. I don't think I have ever seen an example that suggested this was a means to achieving good or interesting art. Perhaps it will be the medium for a future Turner prizewinner.
But I was desperate to label the trees in the orchard. After going to all the trouble of asking a pomologist to identify the existing varieties, and carefully doubling the number with new plantings of old Devon fruit trees, I didn't want to scratch my head in a couple of years time wondering what on earth was what. The posh version as used by the National Trust, arboreta and probably her Maj's gardeners were much too expensive and anyway entirely daft for a farm orchard. I improvised temporarily with stapled dymo tape, but the sheep rubbed them off quick smart, and with more than sixty of them I wanted a fairly permanent solution.
Pokerwork was the only cheap idea I came up with, and after a swift ebay purchase and a bandsawing of ply offcuts, there I sat, hunched over the kitchen table, being naff.
It worked though.

The lunatics are taking over the asylum

Two emails in my in-box yesterday (actually there were hundreds, most of which were trying to give me loans, a bigger cock or dodgy medications) that set my brain on fire. First was the announcement by Arts Council England that Alan Davey is to be their new CEO. That's Alan Davey the Director of Culture at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport - yup, he's the man at the ministry. So, the arm's length principle has finally been tossed out of the window. The arts can relax now they know that all decisions are being handed down directly from Labour Party central. And why is that so hellishly worrying, principles of independent decision-making aside? It's partly explained by the tenor of the second email.
More than a year ago I ranted about the Olympics stealing money from more important parts of publicly funded life. And yes, I know folks dismiss petitions as pointless, but I eagerly signed the one asking the Prime Minister to stop the Chancellor (then Gordon Brown) from using lottery money to fund the Olympics in 2012. My second email announced that the petition had finally received a response: It says, feebly, that "The Government is determined to ensure that the temporary diversion of funding from the existing good causes to the Olympic good cause is done with the least possible disruption."
If I may be so blunt, this is bollocks. The source of funding for most arts organisations, Grants For the Arts, administered by the Arts Council has already been cut by over a third and try telling artists and their audiences and workshop participants that this is causing "the least possible disruption".
Mandarin Alan Davey (that's him in the photo) will be in no position whatsoever to claw back what his masters have ravaged from the arts pot. He may understand better than anyone how things work within the political machinery but he can never champion the arts sector in shaming the government to change their tune. He has been put in place to ensure the ranting stops at his door. However, being realistic, I suspect that he is simply the final nail in the Arts Council coffin and his real job is to dismantle it or at least disarm it. Not that it has shown much ability to fight in recent times, what with the outgoing CEO saying back in June that it was not an appropriate time to appear hostile to the government. At the time this comment threw me sideways - if the government is deliberately hurting the sector you represent, it is always appropriate to speak your mind, and vigorously. Perhaps he killed the concept of the Arts Council stone dead at that moment. Jennie Lee, the First Minister for Arts will be turning and twisting in her grave. And I suspect that most Arts Council staff will be feeling equally uncomfortable.

The meme game

Thanks to le Chippy, followed swiftly by Jan Tregeagle, I have yet another meme (or more appropriately meme) to send on its merry way. If this carries on, I will have no secrets left.

What was I doing ten years ago?
It was a Sunday, and according to my diary the day was blank - but I was no doubt recovering from the previous day's surfeit of stunning outdoor international theatre at its very best - and all a decade before The Sultan's Elephant was a twinkle in a Parisians eye.

What was I doing one year ago?
I was working in London for the day, with a view of Tate Modern, and meeting more than 40 of the most interesting artists and arts managers in the capital. I was also celebrating my first year living in Devon.

Five snacks I enjoy (only five?)
Halloumi, fried in olive oil and served with rocket and raspberry vinegar - it's posh cheese for adults, and it squeaks!
Ready brek
Raspberries with clotted cream
Sausages - homemade, with friends and an old Kenwood
Chocolate puds - any luscious kind will do.

Five songs to which I know all the lyrics
If I were a rich man
I've farted
She was poor but she was honest
Every last word of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat (feel free to wipe that memory any time you like)
I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter (or perhaps a blog)

Five things I would do if I were a millionaire
I'd build a big tall house with rooms by the dozen... (actually no, I'd restore the old barns on the farm)
I'd fill my yard with chicks and turkeys and geese and ducks (and lots of art)
I wouldn't have to work hard (in reality I would probably work harder, but on the land, using muscles and no less brain)
I'd buy my sister a house with garden in central London - make that if I were a multi-millionaire
I'd have a party!

Five bad habits
Picking my feet
Snapping and snarling
Forgetting important things, remembering the minutiae
Innate laziness
Writing other people's to do lists

Five things I like doing
Walking the dogs
Eating with friends
Dibbling my toes in the sea
Lambing successfully
Reading in the sun

Five things I would never wear again
Zigzag orange and purple psychedelic flares
Yellow crocheted dress
A suit
Red stilettos....then again
Polo necks

Five favourite toys
Binker the bear
Twister
Newspaper fish
iPod
My Canon iXus

Phew. The baton is now passed to: Eurodog, Flowerpot Days, Keir Royale, Around My Kitchen Table and And Who Cares? Feel free to pick it up, to ignore it or to pity my revelations.

Blair and Hirst and crass farewells

Enough has been written, and more will pour, on the extended Blair exit. Damien Hirst on the other hand has not announced a farewell, but his truly bizarre diamond skull unveiled yesterday to the art world must surely be a nail in the coffin of his parallel era. Since Sensation in 1998, a year into Blair's reign, Hirst has grabbed the public imagination and the art buyer's wallet contents like no other artist. Sceptical, I finally saw his work at the Saatchi gallery in County Hall and was unexpectedly blown away by his sliced cow - otherwise known as Some Comfort Gained From The Acceptance Of The Inherent Lies In Everything - I couldn't tear myself away from it. But this Tiffany special he has created has got to be one of the more crass statements made by an artist. Turning a human skull into a disco ball and charging £50million for it is either a horrendously apposite comment on humanity, greed, the worth and worthlessness of human life (the price of everything and the value of nothing), or Hirst's two-fingered diamond wave to the rest of us.

Blair - the art lover in hiding

I know I'm a little late on this one, but sometimes you need to let things fester a while, just like Tony Blair. Ten years and no significant speech about the arts from the Prime Minister (I think we can ignore that Cool Britannia shenanigans early on in the premiership for the self-congratulatory spin it was). Just months away from his departure he claims the past decade as a golden era for culture. Media pundits all over the place are remarking on Blair's legacy speeches. There is, it is true, something potentially rather pathetic about an ex-leader of a country and it must be all but impossible to discuss your future plans whilst still in the hot seat, with commentators ready to accuse you of taking your eye off the ball. So why has the speech at the Tate had as much impact on the arts sector as cold porridge slapped onto a cold plate? It's true that courtesy of the Lottery and increased allocations to the Arts Council, the arts has had a genuinely significant financial boost since 1997, but whether it is government prudence at work or the huge Olympics deficit, the Arts Council is having to satisfy a Treasury looking for 5% year on year cuts over the next three years. Even looking at the arts from a purely fiscal point of view, considering the huge payback it makes into the economy (£13 billion in 2004 according to Blair), the £420 million subsidy it receives would win five gold stars simply in value for money terms. Perhaps this speech might turn this unfortunate tide, but then again, Brown wasn't the speaker....

Ethics, morals and confusion

I rarely read any newspaper article with a man in a dog-collar featured at its head, but something about John Sentamu's piece, "Ethics must shape our global economy" made me press on. The Archbishop of York describes how feeble is the typical guess as to the meaning of ethics: a feeling of what is right or wrong; linking ethics to one's religious beliefs; thinking that being consistent with the law of the land will make your actions ethical. We can all think of examples when taking those as our ethical standards would have meant condoning or carrying out terrifyingly unjust actions.

The Archbishop describes ethics as referring to "well-based standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, justice, or specific virtues - such as decency... ethical standards also include ... honesty, compassion, and loyalty... rights to life, freedom from injury, and privacy. Secondly, ethics refers to the study and development of one's standards... it is necessary to constantly examine one's standards to ensure they are reasonable and well-founded. Ethics...means...studying our moral beliefs and conduct, and striving to ensure we, and the institutions we help to shape, live up to reasonable, solidly based standards. We must always allow our standards to be open to question and judgement."

And that's when I moved from agreement to confusion. For me, the term morality or moral beliefs means something that someone somewhere is going to get het up about in order to restrict my or someone elses personal freedom and probably our personal rights. Rather than feel comfortable with the idea of morals, I get very nervous that some dubious moral code is being used to justify entirely unethical actions, or at the very least make it difficult for individuals to assert their rights.

I suspect many of my concerns are linked to what others would call sexual "moralities". That a religion can dictate that couples refrain from using contraception because it deems it intrinsically evil; that condoms are the work of the devil and are useless anyway; that couples should either refrain from sex altogether or keep pushing out a child every year and compromise the woman's health, their sanity and their family, seems to me utterly unethical. That anyone other than the woman involved can ultimately decide whether or not she can or cannot have an abortion is likewise unacceptable in my ethical terms. Just as untenable to me are: denying young people sex education and easy access to contraception; that those with a "moral code" are refusing women the morning after pill; that gay couples should be treated differently in law from heterosexual married couples etc etc etc.....

The prurience of the tabloids when dealing with sexual affairs also sickens; they trawl unendingly for what they see as "dirt", splash it happily all over the front pages to sell their papers (and we buy them!) and condemn those targetted as if we were in the middle ages and stoning and the stocks had just been banned so public ridicule must be ensured in other ways. It's just sex, folks; stop getting so worked up about it.

But away from personal life, what about those business ethics issues? Green or ecological policies seems to be a confusion with ethical policies; if we are ecologically sound, surely we cannot be unethical at the same time? I don't know the answer; I only pose the question, but I guess that it's a matter of perception, knowledge and understanding the longest of long term effects of the actions we take today and tomorrow.

To be taken daily - a little bit of happy art

I've just received my 2006 diary: the Redstone diary of Happiness edited by Julian Rothenstein and Mel Gooding. I've been chuckling and smiling my way through it, and admiring everything from the gorgeously perfect red paper pocket at the front, the rough mustard pages for me to scrawl on (carefully), onwards to the wonderful images. You get a topless young Elvis (from a more relaxed pre-six-pack era); gently erotic images from East and West; smiles and grins captured from across the world; absurdities like the visuals from a Chinese rusk packet from the fifties; Ganesh happily picking up sweetmeats with his trunk; some Manolo Blahnik and posh shopping bags for the happiness-is-a-designer-label lovers, and luscious Chagall (La Promenade shown here), McLean, Blake and Frost . It has cured me of Collins' diaries forever. My new diary ensures at least daily mini-happinesses for 2006.

Has time stood still in the West End?

Sunday 9th May 2004, The Observer, headline "West End seeks the sound of black music". A piece from the 1950s? The 1980s perhaps? Or, embarrassingly, if the West End is really that far behind regional theatre across the country the early 1990s? No, it was in last Sunday's paper, and here we are in 2004. As the author of the report Vanessa Thorpe puts it "Black artists are at the cutting edge of the music industry in Britain, but the West End has yet to play host to a show which celebrates their music" and she quotes Brigid Larmour of ACT Productions "It is quite shocking that this hasn't happened yet. It would be very sad if racism is playing any part in that".
Considering the major work with Black artists in London at the Hackney Empire (calling itself Britain's leading black theatre) and the Theatre Royal Stratford East (whose musical theatre initiative to develop new contemporary musicals that represent the eclecticism of multicultural London is now in its third year), the Arts Council's BRIT (Black Regional Initiative in Theatre), Eclipse and decibel initiatives, the work of prominent regional theatres such as Nottingham Playhouse ("we make bold and thrilling theatre. It is world-class, made in Nottingham and as diverse as our community") and ... well just try googling "black theatre uk" and you'll get over 800,000 choices to pursue, how could we have reached 2004 and still be headlining what I would now expect to be mainstream, beyond specific comment other than in reviews and well, just part of the cultural happenings of everyday folk?
If we look at the scene a year from now will it be fundamentally different? When our communities in London and elsewhere are increasingly diverse, when Birmingham will be the first majority black city in the near future, can we still be wondering if black artists will be adequately represented and their work promoted as anything other than a one-off, a fashion statement, a special season or access initiative?
Theatre Royal Stratford East's mission statement says that it will "lead in the development of shows which reflect both specific ethnic identity and multiculturalism", so dealing in its own way (if unintentionally) with the comments that received so much attention made recently by Commission for Racial Equality head Trevor Phillips. In answering his call for integration and an end to multiculturalism, black artists responded in every way imaginable - it seems that after all there is no one way to define our identities or the process for getting to be part of a world we admire rather than fear or despise. Perhaps we should wait for the day that the Royal can draw a line through its bold clear mission because it no longer needs to draw specific attention to something that has become so basic, fundamental, part of the furniture, and where an artist doesn't have to be defined by their colour because their work gets the profile it deserves. Then we will finally have a theatre sector to be proud of, and where racism plays no part.

Mopsas first sculpture trail

It's been months since my last blog and I can only blame a surfeit of work for that, but it hasn't just been all work and no play. To my delight, public art seems to be playing an ever increasing role in my professional life. Our recent visit to the Tyrebagger Sculpture Trail for a new client meant four hours of strolling through the Aberdeenshire heather and under the forest canopy in deliciously warm late summer to view the whole trail of twenty sculptures including the then about to be launched and fabulous new piece (Tyrebagger Circle) by Gavin Scobie. You enter a gap in the forest to see what might be an ancient wooden temple in a surprisingly gleaming new state, but with no apparent means of entry. As you circle around it, a narrowish slit enables you to squeeze into the high-sided cylinder to reveal a roofless room that has all the peace and calmness of a space intended for nothing less than contemplation. There are three magnificently raw, simple and substantial seat blocks which allow you to sit and look up into the forest, or down to the flickering shadows of leaves and branches. You are completely enclosed and simultaneously part of the whole forest. A magnificent experience.

Back at home, jealous of the Aberdonian dogwalkers daily arts-rich walking possibilities, I took Mopsa to Witley Court to see the Jerwood Sculpture Park - now moved to Ragley (unfortunately neither website does justice to the sculptures). A very different experience this time with just ten sculptures in a small woodland area - you can see the next piece pretty much as soon as you leave the previous one, unlike the journey of discovery approach at Tyrebagger. They have some of the biggest names on show: Lynn Chadwick, Anthony Gormley, Elizabeth Frink, and all the pieces are based on the human figure, so although some of the individual pieces were wonderful the overly thematic approach made the total experience rather boring - not enough of the unexpected or anticipation of discovery. I had to ask the staff in the visitor centre, who by the way loved Mopsa, for info on the sculptures. They gave me a leaflet that they kept behind the counter, with a scrappy photocopied A4 map of where the sculptures and other features of the site were located which they gave out only on request. You enter and exit the site through the visitor centre and on my way out I asked for a second leaflet on the sculptures to send to a colleague and the staff explained that they don't put them out on display as people just put them in the bin, but that as I was interested, yes of course I could have another copy. So unless you are committed to finding out about the sculptures or know they are there, there is no casual way of picking up the info, although you cannot miss the sculptures themselves as you walk to Witley Court. We sat outside - coats firmly zipped right up - and had a delicious cheese on toast at the tea room - before going back to the Court to watch the fountains whoosh spectacularly into action.

Fancy a job, two days a week - unpaid?

Let's leave whimsy to look after itself for a bit and get furious instead. Yesterday's post (July 2003) brought me a letter and advert telling me that the Department of Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) have recently advertised the vacancy of Chair of the Arts Council England (ACE) now that multi-millionaire and John-Harvey-Jones-for-the-new -millennium Gerry Robinson is moving on. The letter asked me if I would circulate the advert amongst my networks. Unfortunately, I do not number multi-millionaires such as Gerry, or Lords Palumbo or Gowrie (ex ACE chairs) among my aquaintance who can delight in the rigours of ACE for no payment for two fifths of their working week. If I remember rightly, Gowrie didn't initially accept the role in the 1990s because of the lack of pay, and it would seem that nothing has changed. Are we really, so deep in new Labour times, still under the misapprehension that you need to be rich or richly retired in order to take on what is a pretty major public role? The Chair of the Arts Council of Wales is paid, and rightly so. I have several people in my "network" (ghastly phrase) who would be exceptional candidates for the role. I do not know the intimate details of their bank balances, but am horrified that DCMS expect that a glinting heap of gold is a necessary pre-requisite to becoming or even considering the ACE Chair. It's about time the Government and ACE stopped talking about Arts for All and started delivering arts for all by paying for the skill and dedication they require to advocate and develop policy at the very top. Apparently, arts policy making is only for the incredibly wealthy. Shame on you!