What would happen if Apple were given a confidential commission

I have only had my iPhone 6S for a few weeks but already I feel I cannot do without it.

It is so well designed and easy to use.

And it makes me wonder what the world would look like if Apple were to design more elements of our life.

What would an iCar look like?  Or an iSchool?  Or even an iSupermarket.

And whether Apple could tackle institutions and organisations.

For instance, Conservative Future will need a relaunch following the takeover by Central Office.

What would happen if Apple were given a confidential commission to create a new Conservative youth movement - cool and shiny in design and appearance, completely digitalised, irresistible to young people aged 16 to 24 (but no tinkering with policy please - we need to reconfirm Conservative values and British national identity).

Zero by Chris Brown (he directed the video himself)

Is it not gratuitous that Chris Brown (in his fictional video persona) should react to hostility from his girlfriend by taking his shirt off?

Zero by Chris Brown (he directed the video himself)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSj0mPJsMy0

The Mount

I think everyone who cares about the work of Edith Wharton owes a debt of gratitude to the 35 individuals who helped save The Mount:  http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/18/fight-save-edith-wharton-home-the-mount?CMP=twt_gu

You can also donate:  https://www.edithwharton.org/support/

If Taylor Swift's Blank Space is meant to be an interpretation of The Great Gatsby

The Joseph Kahn video for Taylor Swift's 2014 Blank Space has recieved over a billion views on YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-ORhEE9VVg

The video is highly stylised ("There's a lot of symmetrical framing that's Kubrickian").

Looking at it again today, I wondered if Taylor Swift's Blank Space is meant to be an interpretation of The Great Gatsby, seen from the viewpoint of Daisy Buchanan? ("They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made. . .").

The Best Store in Houston

Sorry to see the Best Store in Houston has gone:  http://www.failedarchitecture.com/the-ironic-loss-of-the-postmodern-best-store-facades/

Surely America has some form of listing for buildings?

It should have been moved into an open-air museum of architecture.

Expressive, sonorous, achiving full stature and maturity

I have always regarded Nick Jonas as flim-flam, not worth a second's serious consideration.

But this has made me think again:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paQx8cBxBjg  and again https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5AQWOeCUho

Expressive, sonorous, achiving full stature and maturity.

Rory Bremner Election Report

Hilarious Rory Bremner Election Report on BBC2 this evening.

Especially the end with a spoof of The Proclaimers Letter from America:  Balls no more, Cable no more, Laws no more, Clegg no more...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05vjft9

The History Is Now exhibition at the Hayward Gallery

In a break I went to see the History Is Now exhibition at the Hayward Gallery.

"Curated" by seven "artists" (John Akomfrah, Simon Fujiwara, Roger Hirons, Hannah Starkey, Richard Wentworth, Jane Wilson, Louise Wilson) the exhibition claims to provide "fresh perspectives" on British cultural history.

Actually it represents an attempted cultural coup in which a left-wing narrative is superimposed on post-war history.

If anyone doubts why a new Conservative government must stop all funding to the Arts Council they should go and look at this exhibition.

Huge lump of coal - is this some kind of socialist fetishistic object?

The costume worn by Meryl Streep when playing Margaret Thatcher - were we supposed to snigger at the underware on display? (and would it still have been "art" if Neil Kinnock's underpants had been substituted?).

A Clink Restaurant place setting - "fine dining within British prisons".

What a load of junk!

Not surprisingly the place was almost empty.

Legend

On World At One yesterday Maria Miller MP referring to Jeremy Clarkson said "he is a legend".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b054qf7b

Make the arts less elitist

How can we make the arts less elitist asks Sorcha Carey (Director, Edinburgh Art Festival) writing on the Museums Association website:  http://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/comment/04032015-voxpop?utm_source=ma&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=12032015

And how patronising the suggestions that follow!

The arts can be made less elitist by junking modernism and abstraction and all the rest of the emperor's-new-clothes arts scams that have blighted the last hundred years.

Let the elites fund abstraction from their own pockets.

The rule should be no public money spent on art that is unintelligible to ordinary people.

Kenwood

After the meeting I walked back to Archway and got on a 210 'bus to Highgate and along Hampstead Road, getting out at Kenwood House.

As I entered the grounds of the mansion the drab damp day was transformed, so that every element became refined by the exquisite Kenwood aura.  The grey clouds arranged themselves into a subtle grisaille of silver, ash and slate.  The fine rain fell as delicate precipitations that felt like a gentle cool anointing.  The crushed gravel crunched satisfyingly underfoot.  Damp vegetation, normally so uninspired, exuded an aromatic fresh scent.  Among the camellias a precious first bud, blood-red, about to burst.

Entering the house, I had the place to myself apart from the volunteers (who seemed grateful to see someone new).  Although I only wanted to see The Guitar Player, I wandered around the other rooms - upstairs Jacobean portraits, downstairs old masters, the Adam library with a pink ceiling.  It all seemed completely different from my previous visit.

You would expect The Guitar Player to be in a room of its own, with two security guards either side.  But it was just on a wall with lots of other art.  Perhaps English Heritage has become blasé about Vermeers.

To get to the tea shop you had to go back out the front door and then right round the whole house, along the elegant terrace with its stupendous view, and down some steps to the old kitchen area.  Tea in a pot, with a plate loaded with gooey raspberry meringue and a big slice of walnut cake.  Yes, I know this was greedy.

Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead

Have just finished reading Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead.

It is a novel set in 1980s Long Island, and is about black yuppies in the holiday resort of Sag Harbor.

Nothing in particular happens, but the recreation of that nothingness has a Proustian quality in the way minutiae is assembled into eternal themes.

"I was appalled, but you know me.  I was nostalgic for everything, big and small.  Nostalgic for what never happened and nostalgic about what will be, looking forward to looking back on a time when things got easier."

What is the Labour view on this?

Having established that Chris Bryant is Shadow Culture Minister (a fact I had been previously unaware of, despite being reasonably well-informed on political issues) can we please have a statement from him on the music and videos of Iggy Azelea?

Is the Iggy Azelea oeuvre no better than an episode of the Black & White Minstrel Show?

What is the Labour view on this?

Iggy Azelea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-zpOMYRi0w

Black & White Minstrels https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoYOraDt1_k

The Dig by John Preston

I have just finished reading The Dig by John Preston.  Competently written, but not great literature.  In many ways it is a curiosity, putting into novel form the real events surrounding the discovery and excavation of the Sutton Hoo treasure (which includes speculating about the thoughts of real people - even assuming they are now dead, it is somewhat distasteful to have John Preston telling us about their marital tensions in a first person format).

There are layers of meaning and narrative in the novel (the slept-in bed in Sutton Hoo house; the communications with the spirit world; the singing of the nightingales etc) but the work is too slight for these to be developed in a satisfying way.

The imminence of war adds a complexity to the book - was King Raedwald (like King Arthur is supposed to do) wakening at the hour of England's need?

http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/online_tours/britain/our_top_ten_british_treasures/the_sutton_hoo_ship-burial.aspx

Severndroog

Did you know Severndroog Castle is now open again?

http://www.severndroogcastle.org.uk/visit-us.html

The Wolsey Angels

It is unthinkable that the Wolsey Angels should be lost.

If you can afford to do so, please send a donation to the Victoria & Albert fund:  http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/w/wolsey-angels-appeal/

A filmed interview with David Walker, Bishop of Manchester

On Daily Politics today they had a filmed interview with David Walker, Bishop of Manchester.

In the background one saw modern loose chairs set in rows.

And with a sinking feeling one realised:  here is another trendy cleric who delights in ripping out pews.

One of the consolations of disestablishment would be the removal of our historic churches from the hands of these clerical vandals (the disestablished Church can hold their services in portacabins if they object so strongly to Victorian pews).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04ygd7f/daily-politics-13012015

Daily Politics

It is a relief to have Daily Politics back.

Over the long holiday my days have lacked the framework of Today (I've been getting up too late), Daily Politics, Newsnight.

And since I started going to the 10.30 Sung Eucharist I no longer get to see Sunday Politics.

There has been Channel 4 News of course.

But it is a relief to have Daily Politics back  http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mjxb

Twilight in Delhi by Ahmed Ali

Have just finished reading Twilight in Delhi by Ahmed Ali.

It was first published in 1940, and although Ahmed Ali was a major Indian author and his writing was aimed at his fellow Indians it is significant that he wrote the novel in English.

It is set in Delhi in 1911, the year of the Coronation Durbar.

It is essential a lament for a culture being overwhelmed by one of the early phases of globalisation (as we know, this experiment in globalisation led to revolt by the Indians and the expulsion of the farangis).

"Nothing" Asghar replied, heaving a sigh, and his beautiful eyes looked deep and sad with pain, and his fresh skin looked wrinkled and old.

His people came of Arab stock and prided themselves on being Saiyyeds, direct descendants of the Prophet, and this low blood in her veins was bound to stand in the way of his father giving his consent to the marriage.

...father has never been sympathetic towards me.  He is always shouting at me and getting angry.  I must not wear pumps or English shirts.  I must not grow my hair in the English fashion.  If I had stayed in Delhi, he wouldn't have even allowed me to learn English.

...a salute of guns announced the arrival of the English King.  As they sounded a shout went up from the crowds, as if the King had come right in their midst.

But most failed to see which was King and which was officials.  The English looked all so alike with their white faces and their similar military uniforms.

(The building of New Delhi) The residents of Delhi resented all this, for their city, in which they had been born and grew up, the city of their dreams and reality, was being changed beyond recognition.  They passed bitter remarks and denounced the Farangis.

Steven Gerrard was broadcast on Channel 4 News this evening

An interview with Steven Gerrard was broadcast on Channel 4 News this evening.

It was only a few minutes, and purchased from another channel, but when the most heavyweight news and current affairs programme of the day is reporting the career move of a sportsman it is an indication that something culturally significant is happening.