Alan Measles

God of the imaginary world of artist Grayson Perry
 

I feel a movement coming on, I smell revolution!

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You might have noticed that I take an interest in contemporary art.  My loyal bodyguard and acolyte Grayson paddles about in these shark-infested waters and I like to lend my heft to his little creative projects. In order that my fame and wisdom might support his career I have had to bone up a bit on that gentrified global village we know as the ‘Art World’.

One thing I have noticed when listening to him drone on about his business is that artists do love a movement. We’ve had famous art movements like the impressionists, surrealists, expressionists, minimalists etc and countless less well-known collectives like Fluxus or CoBrA. Though many of the names and definitions of art movements were coined by those outside the group this movement idea seems a useful tactic when trying to put over ‘radical’ concepts to a sceptical audience and catchphrase hungry media. The image of a cabal of like-minded weirdoes captures the public imagination and lends each member the cache of an angry revolutionary.

Nowadays though in the ‘anything-goes’ twenty first century art world it is quite tricky to have a movement or an ism. It seems contrived. The Saatchi gallery had a semi-ironic go at kickstarting a movement with New Neurotic Realism in 1999. It was somewhat ridiculed by a cruel and knowing culturati.

 

Artists are surely ‘individuals’, asserting their unique ‘identities’ in the crowded market square of the cultural landscape. Bless ‘em. For example I can hardly see any similarities between the works of all those urban ‘street artists’, they are such creative ‘one-offs’!

These creative spirits with a ‘strong identity’ dare to shun anonymity. They are often the ones sporting a ‘kerazee’ hat or a ‘meaningful’ tattoo. Their ‘taboo-busting’ behaviour sometimes extends to challenging the government of the day or camping.  I would like to point out here that Grayson’s habit of dressing up in eye catching dresses is, of course, nothing like what other people who dress up in eye catching dresses are up to. That is why he hates fancy dress parties. As the declension goes, ‘ They are clones, you are fashionable, I, am an individual.’ ‘Individuals’ are certainly easy to spot in a crowd unless, of course, it is a crowd of ‘individuals’.

More recently art world groupings include the YBA’s or Young British Artists in the 1990’s. These were more a bunch of friends than a movement brought together by a shared style or philosophy. They were miles too hip to use the language of their artistic grandparents. Art movements seem a very old fashioned idea, one that harks back to the days when the drop out scions of the well to do tried to latch on to dangerous bohemian trends and ended up drug addled in Parisian garrets surrounded by derivative paintings. To try and start an art movement in the media savvy internet age might seem wilfully naff. 


So I am sorely tempted to have a go.

Watch this space.

AM

Posted April 8, 2012
 

Stop all the Olympic clocks, turn off your mobile phone

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Stop all the Olympic clocks, turn off your mobile phone

Prevent the proles from occupying with a payday loan

 

 And it came to pass, that on the 26th day of the second month of the Olympian year twenty hundred and twelve the great period of revelation passed. Humanity once again was cast into ignorance for no longer was there an exhibition at the British Museum about me and mine…..and a few other anonymous coves who were good with their hands. Like an arctic summer, after five luminous months a cultural star has dipped below the horizon and only the shamen in their darkening yurts are willing to predict its return.

 

Therapists across the land brace themselves for an onslaught of lost souls struggling with the meaning of life. A plague of existential angst will inevitably sweep across middle England, no longer are they able to set their spiritual compasses towards Bloomsbury like a Muslim at prayer to Mecca. Complaints to the National trust will rise as disappointment becomes an understandably normal reaction to the wonders of our heritage.  

 

Documentary makers will fall weeping against their whiteboards as another ‘blue sky’ thinking exercise dwindles into sighs and furrowed brows, all avenues of intellectual enquiry, all cultural energy closed down. Melvyn Bragg, Alan Yentob and Mark Lawson go for long Lakeland walks together trying somehow to come to terms with the abyss opening up before them. They live in constant hope of hearing the roar of a motorbike approach for it might be Grayson coming to lead them like T. E. Lawrence across the cultural desert that has swamped the ambition of a generation. Phrase like pre- and post-Tomb or Measlesque pop up in review shows.

 

A big sign saying ‘Alan Measles has left the building’ flaps in the breeze caused by a million hankies being plucked from the Mulberry handbags of the over-groomed ladies of West London. Oligarchs and hedge fund managers kick the tyres of their vintage Ferraris like boys trying not to be jealous of their friend’s new bike as they muse longingly about the pot or a tapestry of an acquaintance further up the waiting list.   

 

The chattering classes fall silent and all across Hoxton, Hampstead, Primrose Hill, dinner party guests take another unconstrained chug on the Chardonnay in a desperate attempt to cover the embarrassed silence that has hollowed out their cultural lives now that ‘it’ is over. Salads wilt and confessional writings die on uncharged I-pads across swathes of good school catchment areas.

 

School children sit stumped, crayon in hand all enthusiasm for a drawing gone, the playground quietens, Beckham, Bono or whoever they ape in play these days no substitute for the briefly glittering shrine to a small relic of tatted foam. ‘Daddy’ they say ‘ I want to be wandering holy man when I grow up’.

 

In parliament the baying abates, all parties murmur muted assent to a moment of national mourning.

 

Religious leaders celebrate the passing of a seemingly miraculous phase in their lives of unanswered prayers when the globe was held somehow still. The ravages of the four horsemen as they clomped about the world for a while took on the hue of contrasting background colour. ‘Alan was amongst us’ they intone we can only hope he will return’.

 

Artists throw down their brushes what vision can compare. The tawdry ‘ideas’ thrown up by their trendy dabblings suddenly seem as significant as a cat sick stain on the hall carpet. The dog-eared catalogues from Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman lay next to full ashtrays and empty whisky bottles and in a few sad cases, under suicide notes. Art dealers stare at their inventories of unsold stock and question their core beliefs, ‘is art still a rock solid asset group?’, ‘Are curators steeped in the orthodoxies of the contemporary art world really qualified to lead us out of the depression brought on by extinguishing of that sacred beacon shining out beneath Norman Fosters sweeping glass roof’, ‘Will the Chinese collectors only want Alan Measles themed ceramics from now on?’

 

Buttons ping off copies of Wallpaper magazine on coffee tables as designer dresses are rent asunder in bewildered anger at the small reward such baubles bring compared to that visit to that show on that day. Taxi drivers get lost in daydreams and find themselves on Museum Street, mothers put down their phones and start playing with their child and somewhere a small boy turns to his bear and sees a world open up before him.        

 

 

 


Posted February 26, 2012
 

AM returns: A butt plug for the god shaped hole.

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Yeah, Yeah, I know it’s been an age. I thought I might be suffering from over-exposure and Grayson was just laid low with exhaustion and a heap of ‘work’ to get on with. What has prompted me to pen a little message is the release this week of a book by Alain (nice name!) de Botton. Now Mr A de B seems to get the back up of a lot of the liberal intelligencia. For this trait alone I applaud him because usually they are so understanding it takes a real effort to shake them out of their tolerant malaise. As far as I can tell Alain’s main crimes seem to be, in order of annoyance to underpaid university academics, a: having a lot of spare cash, b: being an entertaining speaker, c: getting lots of publicity, d: selling lots of books. All traits much desired but rarely found in professors of over-intellectual wank.

 

In his new book, Religion for Atheists, he does rather bait the learned dons of UK PLC’s very profitable humanities degree supply industry. He says their lectures are boring and unmemorable and they shirk the opportunity of teaching really useful moral and emotional lessons to their customers.

 

I, on the other hand, as a Living God never hesitate to pass down vital life instructions such as; turning up on time is more important than a first class degree, don’t ride a bicycle while wearing headphones, just because you enjoy consuming culture does not mean you will enjoy making it and heterosexual men should never, ever dye their hair after the age of thirty.

 

I of course am greatly qualified to hand on such pearls being a fully signed up life member of the pantheon (see British Museum and also M&S carrier bag illustrated above). In my own small way I’m like the little Dutch boy, I have tried to plug a hole. In my case it is the god shaped hole that I sense in the Great British Public. I want to save them from spending time and money on jerry-built belief systems like those practised by participants on Deal or no Deal.

 

Life is full of frightening unknowns and mortal dangers and humans have an unsurpassed ability for making up stuff to make them feel better. I on the other hand have made it my life’s work to help you into a bullshit free zone where Oscar nominated films have to do more than flatter the film buff’s knowledge of cinema history to be called a masterpiece and sports events than need judges to decide the winner are taken out of the Olympics.

 

Mr A de Botton may have been ‘inspired’ to write his book by the rise of my cult of doubt, he may like massages and Lacan, he may even like modern architecture but I say let us forgive him these foibles for I feel he is on the right track. With my help he could avoid the clutches of the Notting Hill spirituals, the uptight designer perfectionists or therapists with cat basket hair. He has potential.

 

AM

 

 

Posted January 30, 2012
 

The Pitiable Impossibility of Debt in the Mind of Someone Shopping

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So Charles Saatchi has weighed in, calling the contemporary art collector trashy and vulgar. Well, I know the kind of people he is referring to and I kind of agree with him. I’m just surprised it has taken this long for him to notice it or at least go public with his feelings about them. I’m also surprised that he cares about it so much. People have always collected art for other reasons than a pure love of beauty but at sometime around the mid nineties we started to notice that the art world was starting to get a bit glitzier. Until then openings at cutting edge* galleries were of course exclusively full of old school art world insiders then came a new flush tide washing in from far west London. Before the Tatlerisation of the art world private views were peopled with dealers, some posh, some barrow boys, Courtauld institute graduates, ambitious art students thirsty for free booze and actual real art lovers (weird), oh, and artists. Then the press officers and directors of development seemed to ramp up the demand for glamour. Swishy celebs and blond handbag racks became must-have accessories for certain galleries. Gray first noticed the phenomenon at the White Cube. The feeling crept over him that these hyper groomed tourists had been encouraged to ‘discover’ the bohemian zoo of the contemporary art world, the reason of course, spondoolicks. Art collecting became a cool thing to do. The art that was being made helped. Conceptual art used to be dour black and white business made of cardboard and beards, then a younger generation recycled the ideas of 60’s and 70’s pioneers through a well funded ad agency and Wham! Conceptual art was shiny, funny, shocking, big and loud and looked great in the foyer of a city firm or in a newly minimalised Notting hill townhouse.

 

I’m perfectly willing to admit that I am a bit of a snob when it comes to art and also to put that aside for pragmatic purposes and acknowledge that the art world needs the new money. Mr Saatchi though seems to be insinuating that there is a right way to become an art collector, you start from the bottom when you are relatively poor and the art world is a maze of undiscovered backwaters like run down post codes waiting for cool creatives to move in and begin the gentrification process. You do not first make your billion from raping the planet or making people unemployed then suddenly decide that you need a sleek coat of edgy cool, that perhaps lacks ‘integrity’ whatever that is. You have to start art collecting about the same time you make your money helping dodgy governments into power. Then it is alright.

 

*In the twentieth century people said this without inverted commas.

 

We are nearing the end of 2011 and I think it is time to say goodbye to a few things. In fact they can fuck off.

 

Top of the list is cupcakes. Does anyone actually eat this sickly over-iced, pseudo kitsch, toy food except perhaps a few ‘girly’ women who think having a large shoe collection makes them a maverick.

 

Big black pick up trucks as driven by men whose default fabric is camouflage. I have yet to see any dirt, let alone tools or building materials being transported in these swollen testosterone substitutes. They are the automotive equivalent of a liquorice flavoured ribbed condom.

 

PVC banners, those dingy oblongs of bad computer graphics tied onto every suburban pub, roundabout, school. Usually advertising a singles nite or fundraising fayre long since past, or worse still, a carvery.

 

Pop up anything.

 

The vaguely west coast stubbly check shirted bloke that features in every phone, computer and small car ad. You know the one with scruffy hair and a retro t shirt, probably designs apps that no one asked for and less people need.

 

I could go on and on… and will.

 

AM

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted December 12, 2011
 

I cannot rest while that thing walks the earth

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Now you might think of me as a lovable social commentator who dispenses homely wisdom and snippets of gossip about the art world. A lesser-known aspect of my existence is my ongoing battle with my spiritual enemy.

 

I’m no stranger to a ruck. I’ve been knocking around for half a century and spent several of my formative years fighting a bitter guerrilla war whilst at the same time maintaining a top flight motor racing career. Inevitably my macho ‘lifestyle’ meant that I have sustained a few injuries. The most noticeable of which is my lack of a right ear which got burnt off when my fighter plane took a direct hit over Latvia and I was engulfed in burning fuel for a few dreadful moments before I managed to eject. Luckily Grayson’s neighbour at the time was handy with a knitting needle and fashioned me a serviceable replacement that has stood me in good stead for most of my life.

 

After that terrible incident I was nursed back to health by the local people and absorbed their archaic philosophy with the healing herbs. I foreswore violence and embarked on the life of a wandering holy man. I spent half my life in the wilderness, ignored but doing subtle work in the lonely swamps of the subconscious. Meanwhile Grayson forges a ‘career’ in art. Then it takes psychotherapy to remind him what an important role I have played in his life and he gets back in touch. Luckily he somehow knew that it was important to maintain rudimentary contact even in what has become known as ‘the wilderness years’.

 

So around the year 2000 Gray starts to celebrate me once more this time not as a swashbuckling hero but as a wise old friend. He finds me matured, no longer seeking endless vengeance and having to win every race. But as I re-enter the conscious human world one blot mars my new found contentment. Someone has tried to usurp my iconic position as the go-to teddy bear, someone yellow with a remarkably similar injury, an evil twin if you will. Yes, I mean that po-faced inanely smiling do-gooder Pudsey bear. That sub-Disney smirker who wanders round ‘cuddling’ children has long been my spiritual enemy. He may be the brand and mascot of a multi-million pound charity fundraiser but to me he is a copycat charlatan and a humourless bore to boot. His very existence dilutes all the hard work I have put in bringing my message to the world. He has cleverly played the old ‘charity’ trump card. But beneath that benign charade put up to protect him from criticism is a demonic heart bent on destroying me and all I stand for. I suspect artist Damien Hirst may in some way be connected with my bland nemesis. Look at the pattern on the bandage covering his supposedly injured right eye, an off-cut of one of Hirst’s famous dot paintings if I am not mistaken. The very fact that Pudsey has recruited such high level allies in the art world only confirms my worst suspicions that he will stop at nothing to inveigle his way into my territory and destroy me. I urge you my followers to be on your guard. Before you know it this malign creature will be up for the Turner prize. Then we are doomed.

 

AM

 

 

Posted November 27, 2011
 

Harry Hill, a kind of contemporary Saint Paul.

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Harry Hill, a kind of contemporary Saint Paul.

 

Oh ye of little faith. I know what many of you where thinking. A teddy bear! A god! A cult! Ridiculous, winsome kitsch, it will never catch on. But lo the great nourishing river of my wisdom has begun its long journey to join and enrich the ocean of humanity. The word of Alan Measles has sprung from its lofty mountain source and has become already a torrent crashing over the rocks of your disdain and uprooted the stout trees of ridicule and misunderstanding.

 

Those of you who caught me gallivanting around with my new best friend and fellow Alan, Mr Yentob on his Imagination show the other week will have realised that, not only am I a ‘mere’ cuddly toy who happens to be ‘well in’ with the upper echelons of the media mafia but I have a mass BBC1 style appeal. My loyal bodyguard Grayson was signing books after a talk the other night and young student type girls were whimpering with disappointment that he had not brought me along. They longed to be in my numinous presence so that they might have a blurry photo of us together to post on facebook. Middlebrow women of a certain age pined to stroke my tatted fur and faded wool. ( a cross-stitch kit featuring an image of yours truly is available in the exhibition shop). Even cool young men with the glint of alpha male ambitions behind their geek chic specs asked after me in tones that suggested they still looked forward to Christmas morning.

 

Then on Saturday (repeated Sunday) a true sign of my fame, I was lampooned on Harry Hill’s TV Burp. This I am told by humans, with a sense of humour, is a very funny television show watched by millions before they settle down to X Factor (whatever that is). Mr Hill had even gone to the trouble of making a fair likeness of me to have dance through the studio. I was at once alarmed and a little proud. Soon everyone will know my name, and the world will be safe.

 

Fame of course comes at a price. I am reminded of the words of Billionaire Warren Buffet. ‘If you want to be rich and famous, try just being rich first’. I now have to wear a hat and dark glasses whenever I leave the house I fear kidnappers or paparazzi at every turn. I am already getting inundated with requests to help charities. Begging letters for stuffed donkey sanctuaries, refuges for abused Barbies pour in. Heartbreaking photos of leaking Beanie Babies and abandoned cabbage patch dolls plop onto my doormat daily. I am not overly burdened with compassion but these reminders of the suffering of the world puncture my charmingly bluff carapace. Don’t worry I won’t be going so far as to actually help any of these losers but it does strengthen my resolve to spread my message.*

 

*whatever that is?

 

Thus far I have avoided appearing live to a public audience, hence my use of stunt doubles. Like the Beatles I fear for my safety. I might be mobbed and torn limb from limb by desperate followers who want a piece of me as a talisman hoping it might bring magical healing to their BLOODY BORING AND MEANINGLESS lives. I will resist the inevitably unsatisfying drug of adulation. I will retain mystery and meditate.

 

Ommmmmmmmm

 

AM

 

Posted November 13, 2011
 

Romantic Genius: mad, bad and short C.V.

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I’d like to say sorry to all my new followers, but I am not a frequent tweeter. This is due to (a) my lack of thumbs, (b) My scribe Grayson being very busy having to make ‘art’ for some reason and (c) the fact that he has an old Nokia grey brick phone whose most sophisticated feature is storing TWO texts.

 

This week he was up in Manchester giving the Pilkington Lecture at the Whitworth Art Gallery. After the talk there was dinner and he was chatting to Maria the director. One of Grayson’s and my favourite topics is which artists are really badly behaved and awful to work with. We think the idea of the wild creative genius should be retired. Those sort of people can be very boring to work with because they are always late or rude or are bullies or pompous. I could name names but I would hate to put people off the uplifting experience of finding their progress through an art gallery blocked by a rusty steel wall.

 

Gray sometimes reminds students that a perfectly acceptable art career can be maintained with a modicum of talent as long as you are reliable, good fun to be with and deliver the goods. The idea of the monstrously laid back and arrogant superstar may work for the one in a million art god but the bottom of the greasy pole is piled with the corpses of mediocre careers of boring lazy shits. This myth that in order to make great art you have to be chaotic, mentally ill, aggressively rebellious, unfaithful, drunk or drugged may make good source material for subsequent biographers but to here-and-now friends, relatives and colleagues… forget it.

 

The idea of the romantic idler has a long history. Mr L. da Vinci only completed a few works and once said according to Vasari, ‘men of lofty genius sometimes accomplish the most when they work the least’. You can imagine the gossip that would follow Leonardo if he had to work in the contemporary art scene, ‘Only six weeks till the show opens and I haven’t seen a single painting yet, he spends all his time dreaming and being a polymath, did you see him sounding off on QI last week about time travel. Doesn’t he realise I have got a gallery to run and the days of an artist repeating his iconic work ad infinitum are so over, he can dine out on those fuzzy portraits for only so long you know’.

 

The main problem that would dog Da Vinci nowadays as a painter would be finding and maintaining a fresh micro niche for his work. The world of painters is very crowded with many daubers all fighting over the last few original brushstrokes, or at least the last few vaguely interesting combinations of references and influences. When an artist does find a painting style that catches the attention of the art world he may find himself building his own artistic prison. Collectors and curators will usually want a work in his signature style and when the painter gets bored of it and is tempted to ‘re-invent himself’ and stray from his micro niche, he is likely to end up painting like someone else, so overpopulated is the territory. Still, it’s a nice hobby.

 

I endure

 

AM

 

 

Posted November 6, 2011
 

Please, no more neon sign art.

If you were waiting for a thunderclap and a rent in the space/time continuum, it should have happened by now. Maybe you did not notice, maybe you are not sensitive to the plane of consciousness on which my influence operates. My world domination has begun, dear Grayson has done his best. We can but wait and let my message float out across the ocean of humanity. The show has opened to much hoopla and poor old manservant Gray has worn himself into Victorian lady’s fainting fit.

 

The artworld was all a-froth as the annual festival of well dressed people standing in white rooms hit town.  Frieze art fair, the village fete of the c’tempreyar tribe coincidentally coincided with the opening of my show at the British Museum. It seems almost deliberate that Grayson should call the show ‘The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman’ when just up the road in Regents park is a tent filled with stuff whose significance and value is often only down to the identity of the ‘maker’.

 

Gray was already a bit art-drunk before Frieze having spent the previous two days judging an art prize. Looking at the work of 700 artists was he said, ‘An interesting insight into the collective ambition of the output of art schools over the last thirty years or so. I came away thinking there is a gross oversupply of mediocre abstract/semi abstract painters.’ He thought maybe licences should be issued so that only the talented could buy large amounts of oil paint and canvas. Another answer might be for Blue Peter to organize a campaign to send all the dreadful paintings to disaster zones to be turned into tents.

 

He thought the theme of the week was a nostalgia for film. Tacita Dean’s installation at the Tate was explicitly about the death of the medium but Gray spotted at least half a dozen chattering old film projectors at the fair. Maybe the ‘god when will this visual torture end?’ crew having their ‘craft’ moment. At least a film loop installation is usually mercifully short. Neon was everywhere. It is the bronze du jour, i.e make any old guff into ‘a neon’ and it passes more easily as art. Sixth form politics cropped up as usual inspiring Gray to start work on his next curation project tentatively entitled ‘War is Good’. He wants to travel round repressive totalitarian states and put together an exhibition of their approved artists. Sponsorship from BAE systems and the like should be a no brainer.

 

I endure

 

AM

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Posted October 16, 2011
 

If Proust had lived in Essex it would have been all about Marmite on toast.

Time to get serious.

 

Pilgrims coming to the Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman please beware of seeking watertight answers to your questions. I know you look on me Alan Measles as your living god and the font of all wisdom but life ain’t that simple. I hate to be the one to tell you but life is meaning less. The only meaning of life is the meaning you give it. This of course sounds tricky and may need a bit of hard work. But the first thing you might learn is that anything worthwhile needs a bit of effort putting into it. There is no right answer, we are all a bit mad, we need to tolerate a measure of un-certainty. What helps is becoming interested in something, is does not matter what, collecting crisp packets, country dancing, Christianity, kinky sex, whatever snags your enthusiasm. Those marvellous enthralling, difficult to grasp peak experiences in life happen while you are wrapped up in something else, hunting out the last in a set, losing yourself in the rhythm, joining a congregation or spending the weekend mummified in duct tape. Sorry to go on so but I want you to be happy (i.e. I’m bored of your moaning).

 

Grayson bless him has his ‘art’. He hopes the show will inspire people to take their inner lives more seriously. Seeing world culture through his obsessions and perversities might help people to start out on their own personal pilgrimages and find relics of their own selves laid out before them just as he is coming to realise that the Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman may be a very elaborate inner self portrait.

 

Okay I may have tested your tolerance of earnest-ness then I apologise. But in England it is very difficult to deal with a sincere passion.

 

On a lighter note I met Pinny on Friday the first of my brave stunt doubles. He seemed to be enjoying his first day enthroned in the AM1 greeting passers by on the steps of the Great Court. He said he rather thought he could get used to all the adulation and might miss it terribly when his time was up. I reassured him by saying do not worry the fame thing very rapidly loses its gloss, as Warren Buffet said ‘If you fancy being rich and famous, try just being rich first’.

 

I encountered my cuddly peer as Grayson and I were on our way to sharing high tea with TV’s Andrew Graham Dixon. Terribly nice chap, really tucked into the Marmite sandwiches always a sure sign of a straight up bloke.

 

Do come crying to me when your life gets all meaningful.

 

AM

 

 

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Posted October 2, 2011
 

Alan Yentob, Tim Marlow, Andrew Graham-Dixon, all I need is Fiona Bruce and I’ve got the set!

 Zero hour approaches. All over the shires patient ladies and gentlemen are buckling on their backpacks, wrapping marmite sandwiches in silver foil and lacing up their sensible shoes preparing to make pilgrimage to the British Museum. Trendy young people are consulting their ‘apps’ and checking their face book updates as the sense of anticipation builds across the educated classes. In church halls and community centres in deprived parts of the kingdom, stalwarts of the village and borough are organising raffles and jumble sales to pay for coach trips for under privileged kiddies. They will herd the differently abled and emotionally illiterate onto charabancs so that they might come to the BM and peek into my world in the hope that a beam of my inspiring glamour might light up their lives however briefly. Yes my followers next week the great rock that covers the entrance will be rolled aside and pilgrims from every land (but especially radio four listeners) will be welcomed to visit The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman ( yeah yeah, and woman, but it sounds so clunky).

 

Grayson has been very busy preparing the exhibition. Why he comes home exhausted after a day of what is after all glorified interior decoration I shall never understand. He seems to have lost all his sense of humour. When I suggested that he would make a lot more money churning out close relatives of his greatest hits to flog to oligarchs and hedge fund managers instead of ‘showing off and having original ideas and shit’ and trying to ‘communicate with the wider public’ I think he came as close as he ever has to striking his lord God, mentor and lifelong companion. As some sort of punishment he has insisted that I get involved in the publicity even though he knows I hate breezy media types. It looks like I am a pawn in a game of culture vulture bingo. I already have Alan Yentob and Tim Marlow and should get Andrew Graham Dixon later today, I’m hoping to score a Will Gompertz or a Kirsty Wark but you have to have been on the cover of Time magazine to score a 5, I’m working on it. We had nice walk round the show with the Arch Bishop of British Culture, Neil MacGregor, we discussed how I might use the British Museum show as a springboard to open up new markets for my cult. I’m interested in moving in on countries like China, Korea and India once they have been hollowed out by a blitzkrieg of luxury car and handbag manufacturers. As soon as hyper consumption has usurped traditional religions I can sidle into the spiritual vacuum and before you can say Falun Gong Al-ang Mee-su is top banana Guru in the peoples republic. Mr MacGregor is very keen on the power of cultural diplomacy and gave me some handy tips and a few names for my address book that will ease my expansion eastwards.

 

Some of you may feel that shopping is incompatible with a respectful worship of someone as wise and humble as myself but I urge visitors the tomb to take advantage of the gift shop. Several products relating to your favourite deity are available including, watches, tea towels, mugs, jewellery and even a needlepoint kit. Now is the time to show your allegiance. Together we can make the world more doubtful.

 

The big push starts 6th October!

 

AM  

 

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Posted September 30, 2011