Tag Archives: Tracey Emin

Tuesday 29th June 2010 – No photo tonight, folks.

I haven’t really done anything to warrant one.

This morning with Terry having gone to mow a meadow, I profited by doing a big load of washing (this little tabletop washing machine that I bought in a brocante is proving its worth), watering all of the plants and doing some desultory tidying in the verandah.

This afternoon was in the Sauna or Black Hole of Calcutta otherwise known as Radio Arverne in Gerzat where we melted away while recording our programmes. And not just that – we had to record a trailer in French and I also had to translate part of the website into English. All for free, of course. No chance of turning our new-found popularity (we are being described, apparently, as “our favourite Anglophones”) into any of the Folding Stuff.

In other news, I see that an art exhibition in the Tate Gallery is hitting the headlines. This exhibition concerns a couple of means of transport being stripped of useful parts and lain on their sides for people to walk around and stare at. Now those of you that have been to visit me around here and other places in which I have lived will know that in my garden and my field I have several other means of transport stripped of useful parts and lying on their sides for people to walk around. And they have been called many different things by many different people, but “works of art” was never one of them.

And as my unmade bed on a bad day can match the best that Tracy Eminem can turn out, I’m getting rather fed up of my clearly well-developed artistic talents going unnoticed or being subjected to ridicule.

But seriously, I remember Whistler suing the art critic John Ruskin for saying that one of Whistler’s latest works was “flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face”. But if you look at these aeroplanes on their sides, or look at Tracy Eminen’s unmade bed, or look at anything that Richard Serra has ever churned out, then who is kidding whom? If anyone living in the Combrailles feels the urge to visit a gallery of Modern Art then they are quite welcome to come for a visit here.

And if they do, then perhaps they can explain to me the difference between what is on display and described as Modern Art in some of these high-ranking tourist traps, and all of the rubbish and junk that I have lying around here?

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Sunday 14th February 2010 – We’ve still got tons of snow …

… even if nothing much has fallen within the last 24 hours. I only had to breathe on the solar panels and the light scattering of snow blew away. Hot stuff am I, what?

So after a … errr … leisurely breakfast I came back up here and swotted up on French building permits and so on. I can tell you everything that there is to know about it – including the fact that I can erect a statue of 11.99 metres height and 39.99 cubic metres volume in my garden without planning permission! Dunno about you but my imagination is working overtime. Just think of it – Turdi de Hatred, Caligula and Her Horse, Pol Pot’s Sibling, Andy Pandy and Aunt Ada Doom (and whatsisname that she saw in the woodshed) 11.99 metres high and right next to the beichstuhl! I could have hours of endless fun with all of that.

Works of art are also covered by that exemption and that gives me enormous scope. When you think of Tracey Eminem’s unmade bed being exhibited at the Hate Gallery I’m sure that my verandah and its contents would be covered by this. And when you think that the disorder that I can create even in an empty room, well just imagine it – “no, this object 11.99 metres high and 39.99 cubic metres volume is not a new house – it’s next year’s hot favourite for the Turnip Prize!” In any case, anything that I ever build is certainly a work of art and people come from miles around to gaze in bewilderment at my efforts.

This afternoon I went down to Liz and Terry’s to discuss this programme. Julie should have come with me (she’s our first guest) but she’s snowed (or rather iced) in. This is one of the perils that you have to risk when you buy a house by a bridge alongside a river – the only way out is upwards and with the gorges around here being so steep, if they don’t grit the roads then you are stuck.

So I went on my own instead – but not that I minded, it just meant more vegan fruit cake for me! Down to Pionsat was … errr … interesting but the D227 between Pionsat and St Gervais was clear even over the Font Nanaud. From St Gervais to Liz and Terry’s was also exciting.

So having done what we could I came back. And that was even more exciting as it was trying to snow down there. But I encountered two snowplough-gritters so they are taking it seriously for Monday morning’s commuter traffic. It’s also forecast bright sunny weather too for tomorrow but as you know I have my suspicions about that kind of thing.

And Claude’s removal is postponed again. His son never came up and so nothing has been packed. They’ll be running out of time at this rate.

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Thursday 28th January 2010 – Last night when I went to bed …

…there was a brilliantly clear sky with thousands of stars. And cold! – it reached almost minus 9 outside.

And so what was the weather like this morning? I had no idea as all of the windows were covered over with a layer of snow and you couldn’t see the sky through the heavy thick grey murky cloud that had stuck on the mountain.

And that was where it stayed all day. Alternating snow and low cloud and nothing in the way of solar energy. I shinned up on the roof a couple of times to clean off the snow from the solar panels but I was wasting my time.

It was freezing cold too – I’ve never known it so uncomfortable – so I decided that today would be an “office” day catching up on the paperwork and paying bills. And surprise surprise, even my solicitors in the UK who manage the letting of my house decided to join in the fun. So having written piles of letters went to print them – and the printer refused to work. Last time I had an office day I put a new cartridge in the printer because the old one had stopped working. But when I went to print everything out, the new cartridge refused to work and nothing I could do would get it to print. So I took the cartridge out and put the old one back in – and that worked perfectly. So what’s going on here?

Then it was down to the Post Office through the snow and ice (I’m so pleased I bought those tyres) and back up here where I crashed out again for a while.

I’ve been thinking about seeds to plant in my new vegetable plot for this year. As you know, I’m moving it to a new site as I’ll be putting hardcore down over the present plot and parking Caliburn on it once the commune agree to sell it to me. In any case the current one is suffering from a considerable lack of attention due to the work on the house that I did during the growing season. You can’t see anything at all due to weeds and so I can safely say that I have lost the plot completely. I’ve no idea what seeds I need to buy though. I’m hoping to have a chat with Liz and anyone else who might be interested in a combined order so that we can spread the costs and the postage out between us. It sounds like a right seedy deal to me.

In other news a British artist has summoned up a skip (or a dumpster for our Septic readers) into which he plans to heave some of the efforts of his colleagues and rivals. He’s inviting suggestions from his readers as to whose works of art can be heaved in there. Of course, that artist-cum-rapper Tracey Eminem has come to the forefront. But as long-term readers of these pages will recall, a “sculptor” named Richard Serra gets my vote every time. Modern “art” is not my thing at all and it isn’t the thing of all that many people either. My opinion of modern art is that the only way you can tell if a work is finished is to touch it and see if it is dry. If it’s hanging up on a wall it’s a painting and if you can walk around it then it’s a sculpture, and that’s about that. But I ought to stop being so negative about it all. If Tracey Eminem can sell her unmade bed for thousands then the contents of my barn and garage ought to set me up for the rest of my life.

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Sunday 4th October 2009 – Chomp chomp chomp

The noise you can hear is me eating humble pie (not Steve Marriott and Peter Frampton) . Pionsat weren’t playing last night – I was looking at the wrong week in the agenda.
fcpsh fc pionsat st hilare football club de foot pontaumurThere was a Cup match this afternoon instead and it involved a drive down to Pontaumur, where Pionsat were humbled a couple of weeks ago, 8-1. And they put in a much-improved performance this week, only losing 5-0.

And what a match it was too! Famous not for the performance of the teams but the performance of probably the most eccentric referee I have ever seen. “I warned you about that in the first half” he yelled at a player who had only been on the pitch for half an hour. And when he awarded Pontaumur a (hotly disputed but in my opinion quite rightly so) penalty, he booked the … errr…Pontaumur goalkeeper.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire pontaumurBut highlight of the game was the phrase that he uttered to one of the Pionsat players – a phrase that you will only ever hear once in a lifetime and only then if you are lucky so it pays to be in the right place at the right time –
“Turn round number 14, so I can see the number on your back!”
At this point, and for the rest of the match, the bewilderment was total.

After that, I went round to Simon’s to pick up my wood-burning stove. And it’s such a dinky little thing too but if it does its job I won’t be needing any more than that.

In other news, I’m now a student of Oxford University. I didn’t think I could keep out of education for long and I’ve enrolled in this course. Never mind the status of the University offering the course, have you seen the price? A 10-point course with the Open University costs £155 if you are a British resident, but a whopping great obscene and offensive £420 if you live in mainland Europe. £180 for 10 points at Oxford is a bargain.

There are many former OU students living in Mainland Europe. Many of them have given up their studies simply because of the spiralling fees that the OU has imposed upon them. A paper from the OU that I saw in February 2007 planning to use European students as cash cows certainly came home to roost as students deserted by the bus load.

And that has given me an idea for the practical part of this course. Raping looting and pillaging was always going to be on the agenda but what I’m now going to do is to round up a bunch of disenchanted European OU students, dress them up as Vikings, grab hold of an old longship and sail to Milton Keynes and ransack the Open University campus. I shall set Mike D. a special task – he’s the one who will be sent to carry off Turdi de Hatred and sell her in the slave market down at the Gare du Midi in Brussels on Sunday morning. He might get a couple of centimes for her if he’s lucky.

And in other other news, that well-known and legendary artist-cum-rapper Tracey Eminem has announced that she is to quit the UK in a protest against high taxation. Her admirable stand has been backed by the entire nation who has rushed round to her house to help her pack her bags. It reminds me of the time back in the 1970s when it was announced that Dolly Parton had a skin rash on her breasts and was looking for a volunteer to rub the cream in. Of course, being the altruist that I am, I immedately volunteered for the post and went round to see her doctor.
“Very good, Mr Hall” he announced. “Take this jar of cream and go to the United Nations Building in New York”
“I thought she lived in Nashville, Tennessee” I said
“So she does” he replied. “But the United Nations Building in New York is where the queue ends“

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