Emperor's New Clothes

The Tate has been gifted several art works by one Cy Twombly. 

I presume it was to save them going into a builder's skip.

Apparently they're worth £50m, but where on earth is the Tate going to find the space to house 50,000,000 pictures?

A few people in the art world are making a lot of money, but most people's pensions are going to suffer when the Emperor's new clothes are unmasked for what they really are and some sanity returns to the art market.

I'm with Brian Sewell as far as Twombly is concerned.

Watched the closing stages of the World Cup opening ceremony - about the last 5 minutes. I was distinctly underwhelmed. A scantily clad young woman kept thrusting her pelvis and bottom at the screen, but I told Hay to sit down and behave herself. Couldn't hear a thing.

Immigration Solution Oop North

Here's an idea - make immigrants compete against each other in a reality TV show and get Simon Cowell to organise it. If you pass the test and get the audience votes, you're accepted into a ghetto. If not, you're shot by a firing squad comprised of UKIP members.

I've managed to convince Hay that our next weekend excursion should be oop north. She's now busy arranging for the delivery of a pac-a-mac, a flat cap, a wippet and a stab-vest. I'm thinking White Scar Caves near Ingleton, with a stay at Clapham. Been a good while since I was there last, and I'm sure she'll be impressed.

Just like these fans below, I too be supporting Holland tomorrow against Spain in the World Cup.

I hear Sep Blatter's "task is not complete". I wonder what that task might be - institutionalising corruption? FIFA is becoming more like the EU every day.

British Values

Cameroon has been going on about how schools are going to promote British values.

Bugger off Cameroon - I don't want some oik in a corduroy jacket with elbow patches teaching my son his (or for that matter the Conservative Party's) values.

My son's values come firstly from me, and once he has learned a bit of critical thinking (may be some time yet), I want him to determine his own values. What I want my son's school to teach is the Three Rs - reading, riting and rithmetic.... (?!)...

If a non-British kid wants to espouse Serbo-Croatian values, then so be it, as long as he (or she) doesn't frighten the horses, stays within the bounds of civil decency and doesn't insist my son adopts Serbo-Croat values at the point of a gun.

What are British values anyway? They move with the times.

Just What I Need

Devon Wanderings

Well, Dartmouth was quite relaxing, and seeing cadets from the Britannia Royal Navel College brought back memories from my own days as a midshipman at HMS Conway in Anglesey in the late 60s. The Dartmouth midshpmen cadets had been let out on Saturday evening and were accompanied about town by their parents, with the cadets walking, in a highly embarrassed manner, several steps ahead of mum and dad.

Came across this beer brand in a local hostelry from the Wild Beer Company near Shepton Mallett.

Now I'm no great beer drinker, but this stuff was truly superb! A wide range of flavours and strengths.

Watching the seagulls soar above the River Dart, it struck me that you don't need to buy your kid a kite - just get a seagull, dip it in shellac and you have a ready-made kite.

On the way down on Saturday morning, Hay subjected me to Radio 2, where Brian Matthews was playing hits from the 50s and 60s. These songs with lots of shoo-wop-de-boops and rama-lama-dingdongs were a load of tosh, weren't they? Just an excuse for having no words to go with the tune.

From Sunday's newspapers it seems the Scottish referendum hinges on Andy Murray's decision as to whether he considers himself to be Scottish or British. Deep stuff!

Papers are still full of this Qatar World Cup nonsense with Milliband weighing in on the issue. I just wish at least one of the party leaders would say; "You know what? I don't give a toss as to who gets to host the World Cup." However, that would be a bit like a US presidential candidate saying they were atheist.

Spotted this painting in a gallery in Dartmouth (click to enlarge):

6 artists had cut up leonardo's Last Supper and given their own spins on their allotted section. I particularly like the inclusion of Dobby.

Called in on Totnes on the way back - again quite a nice place. Additionally called in on Teignmouth - hideous!

On our next weekend jaunt I'm going to see if I can persuade Hay to go somewhere further north - getting a bit tired of the southwest coast - see one river town and you've seen them all. They are all fast becoming yachting brands, with expensive Joules, Crew Clothing, Fat Face, Weird Fish, etc. outlets. I'm yearning to see an Edinburgh Woollen Mill outlet....

KitKat on the Go in Heaven

I did it! Managed to flash KitKat on to the Note 2 successfully while I had an hour to spare at work (one of our colleagues died just over a week ago and we closed the office yesterday to attend his funeral in Southampton. Given the funeral time, distance and workload I had, I thought it best to go in at my usual Friday morning time and be on my own with no distractions). 

The process resulted in the phone reverting to being unrooted (along with the warranty being restored), but another 5 minutes and it was once more rooted. Didn't even lose any of my App data settings.

Not much difference between KitKat and Ice Cream Sandwich, if you ask me, but at least the issue with Gallery not working and the Sleep of Death have been cured.

I did discover "OK Google" though by accident. Never used it before - it's a neat little App.

Clive - the guy whose cremation I attended yesterday, had a wonderful send-off. He was ex Hussars, a Freemason and a biker. His hearse was accompanied by a phalanx of bikers from his bike club and he was then given a Hussar escort into the crematorium along with a piper.

The vicar went on about his certitude that Clive was now in heaven (if he is, then that's not the Clive I knew); however, I do wish these Christians would make up their minds; do they believe the soul (whatever that may be) goes immediately to the world beyond, or do they believe in the Resurrection of the Dead and The Last Judgement, when all of us are meant to wend our merry ways up or down, with the corollary that Clive won't be there for a long time to come (but in the blink of an eye as far as he's concerned). I guess he was talking from Clive's temporal perspective - if he has one (which I gravely doubt - no pun intended).

The only thing religion can be certain about is that at the beginning of time and space, something caused the universe to come into existence - you may choose to call that God, and I have no argument with that. However, any extrapolation concerning God beyond that is pure supposition and akin to arguing how many angels dance on the head of a pin - an argument built on a foundation of sand, to take a biblical metaphor.

Off to Dartmouth for the weekend, so no posts tomorrow.

Time for Action

I wear an old Omega Seamaster self-winding watch from the early 60s that belonged to my father. It loses just under a minute a day, but a minute here of there is of no consequence to me and I'm rather attached to it, what with it having belonged to my father. The intention is to pass it to my son in my will - it being inscribed with JvB - both my father's and my son's initials.

Just lately it has been stopping on me in the middle of the night and I put it down to me not being mobile enough during the day for it to kinetically self-wind. I've obviously been spending too much time staring into a computer screen of late.

Nutkin Phones

Received the test-bed HTC Sensation yesterday. I'm reasonably familiar with it, as the Sensation was my last phone before I migrated to the Samsung Note 2.

Managed to unlock the phone last night for £2 odd via a service on eBay, but rooting it was one helluva faff and not at all as simple as rooting the Note 2. I eventually resorted to using an on-line service based in India at a cost of £17 - and even then the operative (using Team Viewer) took an hour and a half and 2 failed attempts. I just hope flashing it with the latest version of Android - which is the objective - is not as problematic.

One benefit is that I now know what data to back up. At least the value of the phone (bought for £42) has doubled now as a consequence.

Hay is away for a few days at a conference - me and No.1 son are Home Alone. She spotted this at the hotel:

More of a worry for male guests, I would imagine, as they could run off with your nuts.

Snippets

Couldn't get to grips with using Hay's laptop - too many settings to have to change. Finally got mine yesterday morning. Went to the local TNT depot, only to discover it was already out for delivery. I complained that the delivery man on Saturday hadn't left a consignment number, or called me when my mobile number was plainly on the package. I was told TNT don't issue drivers with phones. Guess what? The delivery driver couldn't find the house and had to call me on his own mobile, and he's probably earning no more than minimum wage.

Heard an item on Radio 4 yesterday about Mieczyslaw Weinberg, where he was called the greatest composed you've probably never heard of. It went on to describe him as Polish Jewish. Mozart was never described as Bavarian Catholic, or Bach as German Lutheran.

I hear Jews are leaving Europe in droves due to the rampant anti-semitism and heading for Israel or the UK.

If management consultancies are so good, why don't we have an Arthur Andersen Party? Although I've heard it said that the UK governments spent £20bn on management consultancies between 1997 and 2006, so I guess there's more money to be made from consulting to government that being in government. That applies to life after being a member of parliament too.

London Mining is moving non-essential staff out of Sierra Leone following an outbreak of Ebola. So I guess it's OK for essential staff to risk getting Ebola, but not non-essentials. Seems a bit perverse when you think about it.

It's the News

11 pages about the Qatar World Cup bid in today's Sunday Times, before you get to any other news at all. I just don't care!

Been using Hay's computer this weekend. Accidentally left my laptop at work in Southampton on Friday and only realised when I got home (93 miles away). Managed to get my secretary to have it couriered for next day delivery, but Hay managed to persuade me to go for a walk at 07:45 yesterday and I agreed, thinking I'd be back in plenty of time for the package to be delivered. No chance - it arrived at 8:15 and because I wasn't in it was returned to the depot. 

The courier had been given my phone number, but decided not use it, or to leave a consignment number so I could go in the web and rearrange delivery - bastard! Thank God the depot is only a couple of miles away and I can collect it at 8am tomorrow. As MD, I think we'll not be using TNT again - and we do a lot of spares shipments around Europe.

Luckily I can still access email on my mobile or via webmail, and all my data is in DropBox, so work-wise it's not a big issue. However, using a laptop I'm unfamiliar with is a big issue!