London Pride

By Frank Dobson 1888-1963

Amrita Shergill exhibition - well worth visiting

Amrita seated - taken by her father in the early 30s

If you are in London and you want to go to an art exhibtion the Amrita shergill (or Shergil or Sher-gil) exhibition at the Tate Modern is well worth visiting. I know it's up against a huge retrospective of Gilbert and George's work and there is a major Hogarth exhibition at the Tate Britain but I was glad I went. To the best of my knowledge there aren't any examples of her art on display in a British gallery so it is a wonderful opportunity to see a prodigous talent whose life was cut short so young.

Self portrait as Tahitian 1934

Fruit vendors 1937

Hill women 1935

Sleep 1932. The model is her sister Indira

Hungarian village market 1939

The above pictures all appear at the exhibition and are photos of postcards or of plates. Click here and here for my earlier posts on Amrita Shergill

Triton fountain, Trafalgar Square

Last Alison Lapper statue photos

Nelson Mandela bust - South Bank

The bust of Nelson Mandela is tucked away by the side of the South Bank complex. Right now there is building work going on nearby and it happens to be fenced off. Still...

Hmmm but is it art?

The turbine hall at the Tate Modern currently has an installation by Carsten Holler. Basically According to the Tate's website, Holler believees that the experience of sliding is summed up in a phrase by French writer Roger Caillois. It is as a 'voluptuous panic upon an otherwise lucid mind'. Höller says he is interested in the the visual spectacle of watching people sliding and the 'inner spectacle' experienced by the sliders themselves, the state of simultaneous delight and anxiety that they enter as they descend.

He has installed six smaller slides in other galleries and he sees it as a prototype for an even larger enterprise, in which slides could be introduced across London, or indeed, in any city. How might a daily dose of sliding affect the way we perceive the world? Can slides become part of our experiential and architectural life?

's see the Well that's what he thinks but at the end of the day let's see the Emperor's new clothes for what they are: SLIDES! Perhaps we should stop thinking of Alton Towers or Disney-land/world as just amusement parks and see them as art installations.....

Controversy at Eurovision?

I ma grateful to my old friend Jimmy St James for drawing my attention to this story. Israel has chosen its entry for the Eurovision Song contest – Push the Button by Teapacks. However there is doubt that it will be able to follow in the footsteps of Izhar Cohen and Alpha Beta, Milk and Honey and Dana International and bring victory to Israel.

According to the Jerusalem Post it is possible that it will not be permitted to take part in this year's competition. Eurovision Song Contest organizers said they might ban it because of its "inappropriate" political message. The song is sung in English, French and Hebrew and seemingly refers indirectly to Iran's nuclear ambitions and its hard-line leader, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "It's absolutely clear that this kind of message is not appropriate for the competition," Kjell Ekholm, an organizer of the contest. We'll have all the delegation leaders here in Helsinki next week, and I'm sure we'll talk about this case within the EBU (European Broadcasting Union) group."

According to Teapacks, the thing that caught their eye was the lyric which refers to "crazy rulers." Band leader Kobi Oz said he was convinced others would attribute the line to Israel's leaders, and thinks all the commotion "is great…as long as they let us sing the song in the end." Oz added that he planned to continue preparing for the contest as long as he didn't receive official notice from Eurovision not to. "I'm not concerned by the whole deal because I know that the song is apolitical…the song is really universal."

Part of the song in translation goes like this:

Messages are exploding on me
Missiles are flying and also falling on me
Police and thieves are running all over me
They jump on me and feed on me
My God, my God, give me answer my God, Hashem
This nightmare is too long
When I'm barely alive and everyone is aiming at me,
Perhaps it's too early to sing
When I gave you my life
Oh, Oh - the Police
Whoa, Whoa - Rescue Unit
Here is a song without a scale
Red is not just a color, it's more like blood.

Here is the song itself:



To be honest the song is a world away from the Sugababes song of the same name but it has all the ingredients of a classic Eurovision entry: it is catchy, there’s an accordion and the band appear to be manic in silly way (Okay it's pretty dreadful, but that's what Eurovision is all about!). However, Eurovision songs are meant to have lyrics like Ding a dong, Diggy loo Diggy Ley although mentioning the “Arockalypse”, as last year’s winner Lordi did, is also perfectly acceptable. I wonder though that if the song had been entered by a country other than Israel then there would have been no controversy at all

Did Auden help the Cambridge spies?

This is one of those stories that piqued my interest. Perhaps it's an awful lot of very little. MI5 files released in the National Archive today show that the security services suspected poet W H Auden of assisting in the disappearance of the traitor Guy Burgess.

MI5 and the FBI ordered the interrogation of Auden when it emerged that Burgess, who fled Britain on 25 May 1951 with fellow traitor Donald Maclean, had urgently tried to phone Auden the night before his defection. They had been tipped off by fellow Cambridge spy, Kim Philby, who was working for MI6 in Washington, that they were about to be unmasked.

Their disappearance led to a panic in the British government and security services, sparking a Europe-wide manhunt in which Auden became one of those suspected of assisting Burgess, possibly by sheltering him in his Italian holiday home. MI5 officers suspected Auden was "deliberately prevaricating" when he claimed he could not remember being told about Burgess's phone call.

MI5 was told that the night before the spy had phoned the north London home of another leading British poet, Stephen Spender, where Auden was staying. Using an unnamed contact, MI5 officers arranged for Auden to be interviewed about his relationship with Burgess (Auden had known Burgess since the 1930s) . The file stated: "Our object is to get a detailed chronological account of Auden's association with Burgess, a list of their mutual friends and, of course, Auden's views on whether any aspect of their association could have, in retrospect, seem[ed] significant to his disappearance."

Although Burgess was considered to have been less important to the Kremlin than Philby and Maclean, his disappearance was the first warning that Britain's security services had been penetrated by a Soviet spy ring.

Ted on watch and at wash

On watch and....

At wash

This week's entry For the Friday Ark and Carnival of the Cats. More cat photos as ever at Plant porn and pussycats and at Yet to be named

UKIP in a little trouble?

I suppose there is a bit of relief to be had from reading about a British political party in a sport of bother and realising it isn’t the Labour Party!

It seems that the UK Independence Party is in trouble on two fronts: firstly there are claims that it has told a man that he cannot be a candidate in for a target council seat because he is disabled; secondly it is possible that three of its ten MEPs are on the verge of walking out of the party.

The party seems to have told Jack Biggs that he could not be a full Ukip council candidate because he was disabled. The story began when the chair of the South Dorset Constituency Association, wrote to him saying: "Unfortunately, I have to tell you that, in view of your being registered disabled you will not be able to stand as a full candidate for Ukip. We would however like you to be a paper (ie a makeweight with no real chance of winning) candidate"

Mr Biggs took the letter to his local paper saying he was furious at the "disgusting" decision. "Ukip withdrew its support when they found out I was registered disabled following a double knee replacement. I'm very angry at this discrimination so I'll be standing as an independent."

The party claimed has hit back by accusing Mr Biggs of a "crude attempt to blackmail" Ukip into withdrawing a candidate running against his daughter, who is standing for re-election as an independent councillor. Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, said Mr Biggs knew he could not canvass the ward thoroughly. "He was trying to get us to say that he couldn't be a target candidate and to use that, and to try and blackmail the party into not standing against his daughter, who was a current serving councillor. I don't think he has behaved very honourably."

Meanwhile, the possible split has been prompted by the decision to suspend an MEP after the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) said it was investigating his use of European parliament money. MEP Tom Wise is under investigation for failure to provide information regarding alleged financial irregularities.

Roger Knapman, a former leader the party, said: "A number of Ukip MEPs are appalled at the prejudicial decision to suspend Tom Wise and will be meeting within the next few days to discuss the future of the group." A third MEP, Mike Nattrass, is also said to be be considering quitting.

If there is any substance to this story I hope they don’t feel tempted to join the Identity, Tradition and Sovereignty group in the European Parliament as their erstwhile colleague Ashley Mote did.