High Jinks

Meredith Frampton: Trial and Error

William Goscombe John: A Boy at Play

Arthur G Walker: Christ at the Whipping Post

Dora Gordine: Javanese Head

The best week of 2019 so far. I received news this week that was so good, it made me nauseous. Do you ever get that? I inherited it from my Mum, it’s a classic response to ‘stress’. I got the news on Thursday evening and immediately felt like throwing up. I couldn’t even contemplate dinner until 10.30pm. God help me if I’m ever nominated for an Oscar (yes, it could so easily happen! What do you mean I’m not an actress? Have you seen some of the winners…..Just kidding) It’s really odd actually; on a scientific level, I find it quite interesting. The body diverts the blood supply from non-essentials like the gut and sends it to the heart and brain instead and adrenaline floods my system. When it’s good news, I feel sick but when it’s bad news or a threat, I get total focus as I try to figure out how to battle my way out of it. Unlike a lot of people, I don’t get headaches when I’m stressed. I can probably count the total number of headaches I’ve had in my life and they’re usually linked to a physical cause- cerebral malaria anyone? I highly don’t recommend it. My mother was the same, in fact I don’t ever recall her getting a single headache. But the stomach-clutching stress response? Oh yeah. It’s as good as a genetic marker, I’ve seen any number of maternal relatives manifest the same symptoms. Don’t you just love Biology! So Mum, thanks a lot for the intense nausea and crystal-clear brain 🙂 (This experiment can be skewed by the addition of tequila by the way) More about the good news anon.

Nearly as good was the local elections. As usual I was up at 2am reading newspapers online. When I couldn’t find any exit polls I knew the jig was up and went to bed with a beatific smile. At 9am some poor sap was wheeled out by the Tories to inform us that even though they’d lost 400 seats with only a third of the council returns counted, they were still hoping for a total loss of 800 at the most and 500 would practically be a win, I mentally made some popcorn and settled in for an entertaining day. The funniest bits? The papers absolutely, resolutely, refused to publish the numbers. It was always ‘The Tories have lost more than 400 seats’ The only place to get an actual number was from The Guardian. As far as I’m aware, The Times has never actually mentioned the results. It was exactly like watching toddlers – if I can’t see you, then you’re not there. Fingers in ears – la la la la la la la. It was hilarious. Quite frankly they got off lightly; I was projecting losses closer to 1800. They should be celebrating 🙂 Then there was the ridiculous sight of the press claiming both Labour and Tories had done equally badly. Labour lost 100, the Tories 1335. Hmmmm.

Even better was seeing the Daily Mail desperately hoping Meghan would have her baby so they could change the news cycle. That girl has her head screwed on – if she’d been in hospital rather than at home, they’d have been sticking a needle in her arm and inducing that baby faster than you can say ‘election bloodbath’. Then there were the Lib Dems who apparently don’t understand the concept of a protest vote and are talking about returning to their constituencies and preparing for power. Too funny. I don’t know why people watch Game of Thrones when they could follow politics instead. This is nature, red in tooth and claw. And if the 2 main parties think this is bad, wait for the Euro elections in less than 3 weeks. The electorate is in a nasty mood and they have an evil gleam in their eye. It’ll be 80% Brexit Party, 5% each Labour and Tory and 10% Independents. And no, even if all the EU citizens living in the UK vote against them, the Brexit Party are still going to sweep the board. By the time this is over, the EU will be begging the UK to leave and paying us off. Don’t believe me? For precedent, see the Exodus of the Israelites with the Egyptians giving them gold and begging them to just leave. Was that a swarm of locusts heading for Brussels….. 🙂

Meanwhile, the Tories are still playing the song ‘Anyone but Boris’. Unfortunately, the whole country hates all the other putative PMs. The Mail did a two page spread singing the praises of Jeremy Hunt. I laughed so hard, I nearly choked. Jeremy Hunt! Every nurse, doctor, pharmacist, paramedic and NHS worker in the country hates him from his time as Health Secretary. Theresa May is more likely to win a landslide than Jeremy Hunt to win a general election, that’s how much he’s hated. The Tories hate Boris for precisely the same reason the public warms to him – he’s unreliable, mercurial, has a totally inappropriate sense of humour and could possibly start WW3 by accident. However, he’s also clearly got a solid brain, has charisma by the bucketload and is totally capable of doing the right thing even at great cost to himself although he’d regret it immediately. In other words, he’s fully human and completely unpredictable. They can’t manage him and he terrifies them. It’s what people sense in him, same as they sense it in Trump and they vote for both of them for exactly those reasons. I don’t see any circumstance in which I’d ever vote for them but I can see why they’d win. Mind you, I’m even less likely to vote for Comrade Jeremy so there you have it.

I was going to feature the latest products and ideas from Salone Di Mobile but it was even worse than last year’s event. Apparently, there are only a few of the same old boring designers in the world and not one of them has a decent idea in their head. It’s enough to make you despair. Instead, we have images of work I liked at Tate Britain so all is not lost. I leave you with two sets of political views (or are they the same?) –

Mark Twain: “Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it.”

Ambrose Bierce: “Vote: the instrument and symbol of a freeman’s power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.”

Have a great bank holiday.