Introducing Bum Disease

Posted on August 21, 2008 by The Bristol Blogger

Piggies with people, Paul McCarthy 2007

http://www.bristol.gov.uk/ccm/content/press-releases/2008/jun/topappointmentsjune08.en

Piggie with Bum Disease, Bristol Blogger 2008

What with it being August and the holidays and everything, I thought I’d do a bit more about artist Paul McCarthy, who’s now well on the way to gaining the coveted sobriquet ‘The Bristol Blogger’s favourite artist’.

1995, I read, found Paul playing the role of Willem de Kooning, taking his underpants off and having his arse sniffed by art collectors. This was igeniously called ‘The Painter’.

More recently Paul’s given us HEAD SHOP/SHOP HEAD, at the S.M.A.K Gallery in Belguim, where he depicted George W. Bush taking a pig from behind and the Queen Mum and Osama Bin Laden indulging in gory orgies.

“[he] Tries to devalue the icons of the political establishment, not by denouncing what they really do, but by simply declaring that they are ‘fuckers’,” it says here.

Sound familiar? Well get this from proper European art critic bloke, Stefan Beyst: “The level of someone who attacks his enemies in calling them ass sniffers or pigfuckers, is not more elevated than the level of someone who deems it necessary to cover the wall of a toilet with dirty drawings.”

Pigfuckers? Did he say pigfucker? As in Pigfucker Gurney!!!

He did indeed. And you thought me describing the city council’s former Chief Executive as a Pigfucker was simply needlessly offensive juvenilia didn’t you? Well it’s no such thing. It’s fucking art!!!

Here’s some more from art expert Beyst: “This is no longer a parody, but the non-verbal version of a word of abuse. Parody desublimated into scatology. With hindsight, the shift from parody to scatology uncovers the true face of … parody itself.”

So there! Can’t argue with that. It’s official. Pigfucker Gurney is parody itself and it’s art.

Which has got me thinking. If I want to maintain my profile in the world of art, I had better come up with an epithet sharpish for the new City Council Chief Exec, Jan Ormondroyd.

Having already drawn the obvious parallel between Ormondroyd and haemorroids, my first thought was that she should henceforth be known as ‘Arse Ache’. But Arse Ache Ormondroyd seems a little too alliterative, friendly and cheerful.

What’s needed for that vital ‘drawing on a toilet wall’ feel is something much more childish and much more offensive. How about ‘Bum Disease’?

Not only will this make for some off-the-wall headlines (cf. above) but it’s perfect for a clueless, pompous, self-important £180k a year bureaucrat who surrounds herself with equally well-paid sycophants, yes-men, coppers and gormless politicos who – from the comfort of their Counts Louse offices, fortressed against reality – treat this Chief Exec as a figure of the utmost seriousness, importance and significance …

… While here, outside, this absurd figure will be popularly known as ‘Bum Disease’ …

Gotta a better offensive name for our new City Council Chief Exec than Bum Disease? Then let us know …

COMING SOON: Paul McCarthy and Bristol East MP Kerry McCarthy. Coincidence or wot? Are they by any chance related? Is one of our local MPs a secret madcap art installation on the theme of conformity and party politics? All revealed soon …

Anyway, that’s enough of this bollocks I’m going away until the middle of next week.

Posted in Bristol | | There are 2 comments

Liberal arts?

Posted on August 19, 2008 by The Bristol Blogger

I’ve been reading a bit about Paul McCarthy, the artist responsible for the dog shit inflatable that went AWOL in Switzerland last week and provided the ideal platform for a cheap gag at the expense of Bristol’s Tories.

I’m especially impressed by his 1976 piece, Class Fool, in which he threw himself around a ketchup-spattered classroom at the University of California, knocked himself out, vomited several times and then inserted a Barbie doll into his rectum.

… Sounds a bit like the East Bristol Lib Dems.

Posted in Bristol, Culture, Lib Dems | Tagged , , | There are no comments yet

Olympic balls

Posted on August 18, 2008 by The Bristol Blogger

Apparently the Olympics are on. So to fulfill my blogging contractual obligations I’m doing a post on it.

Comrade Bone already seems to have produced the quote of the fortnight:

I absolutely refuse to cheer on anyone called PIPPA – so that rules out all our equestrian toffs. I’ve yet to see anyone off the local estate pop out for a spot of ‘three day eventing’ or ten minutes of ‘dressage’.

So instead I thought I’d focus on some truly great Olympic moments. Except the only one I can really think of – with the possible exception of Steve Ovett gloriously beating that smug Tory git Sebastian Coe in the 800m at the Moscow Olympics – is Mexico City ’68 when US athletes Tommie Smith (picture above, centre) and John Carlos (right) delivered black power salutes from the victory podium for the 200m during the US anthem.

This caused quite a big stir in its time.

Carlos went on to say it was “for those individuals that were lynched, or killed that no-one said a prayer for, that were hung and tarred. It was for those thrown off the side of the boats in the middle passage.”

While Smith said, “”If I win, I am American, not a black American. But if I did something bad, then they would say I am a Negro. We are black and we are proud of being black. Black America will understand what we did tonight.”

It’ll be interesting to see if today’s pampered, steroid-fuelled automatons can muster anything of even vague political significance in protest at the shitty little regime of this year’s Olympic hosts, China.

Posted in Activism, Blogging, Politics, Race | Tagged , , , , | There are 4 comments

Recycling news feat. Banksy balls

Posted on August 15, 2008 by The Bristol Blogger

That hotbed of investigative journalism, the Evening Cancer newsroom, has been very busy this week researching original stories by looking on the, er … Internet!

First up – plastered across the front page on Wednesday – The Blogger’s sensational revelation from last week that the council’s planning to produce a pointless recycling DVD.

Indeed so big is the story that Cancer Editor-in-Chief, Mike Norton, felt obliged to whip out his fountain pen and deliver a thunderous editorial that engaged in some recycling of its own in the form of well worn cliches:

If this is regarded as a legitimate way to spend public money and an effective way to encourage people to recycle waste then the lunatics really have taken over the asylum.

Believe me Mike, we’re way beyond anything as ordinary as lunatics running an asylum here. It’s more like they outsourced the place years ago, then set up a lucrative management consultancy with the proceeds and are currently raking it in as the preferred supplier of ‘advice’ to Bristol City Council officers.

Wednesday also found Chief News Reporter, Julie Harding, doing her little bit for recycling … From Bristol Indymedia! An amusing little tale about that notoriously useless employment scheme for postgrads cum regeneration quango, Community at Heart, spending £90k on a water feature and kids slider, neither of which actually worked, could be found gracing most of page 5.

Then moving briskly on to Thursday and we find a tedious party political whinge from Labour MP Kerry McCarthy’s blog (now strangely deleted) about the Lib Dems putting out Election leaflets in St George West – where the Labour Councillor, John Deasy, died recently – has been transformed, with Kerry’s quotes lifted directly from her blog, into an original and exciting page 7 news story.

Well done to all involved. No doubt next week one of the Cancer’s cutting edge columnists will be telling us how blogs are a pointless waste of space that just copy stuff from the mainstream media …

Meanwhile, presumably not wanting to be left out of this golden week for the city’s journalism, this appeared on the BBC Bristol website on Tuesday August 12 at 11:12am:

New Banksy work on city pub wall

A new mural by graffiti artist Banksy has appeared on the outside wall of the Highbury Vaults pub in Bristol.

The tagged stencilled work shows Rapunzel with her hair let down like a rope to allow a hooded youth to climb up to her window.

But wait! At 12:02pm the story changed a little:

New graffiti art on city pub wall

A new mural by artist Nick Walker has appeared on the outside wall of the Highbury Vaults pub in Bristol.

The tagged stencilled work shows Rapunzel with her hair let down like a rope to allow a hooded youth to climb up to her window.

And then finally at 12.22pm – particularly nice touch this – to help people out (like BBC journalists who don’t know one local graffiti writer from another perhaps?) this was appended to the end of the story:

There had been some confusion over who the artist was until the tag was revealed showing the work to be by Mr Walker.

Chris Logan, owner of CPS Services which supplied the scaffold, was the first person to see the new work.

“I was totally shocked,” he said. “It’s nice to have Bristol artwork in a student pub. It deserves recognition,” he said.

“Some of my team thought it was by Banksy at first,” he added.

Nick Walker has worked out of Bristol for more than 20 years and is a contemporary of Banksy.

Phew – some of us could have got really confused there if the experts at the BBC weren’t around to explain it all properly for us.

Posted in Banksy, Blogging, Bristol, Bristol East, Bristol Evening Post, Elections, Graffiti, Journalism, Labour Party, Local government, Media, MPs, Politics, Recycling | Tagged , , , | There is 1 comment

Headline of the week

Posted on August 12, 2008 by The Bristol Blogger

Giant turd wreaks museum havoc

The Guardian

No, Richard Eddy hasn’t made his annual visit to the City Museum and Art Gallery.

Instead an inflatable dog shit art work has blown from moorings and brought down a power line in Switzerland.

Posted in Bristol, Conservatives, Journalism, Local government, Media | Tagged | There are 3 comments

Money down the drain pt. 15,432

Posted on August 6, 2008 by The Bristol Blogger

Despite imminent recession, there’s no sign of any belt-tightening at Bristol City Council who seem as hell-bent as ever on letting some underemployed idiot squander our money on pointless pet projects. This has just appeared on Bristol Indymedia:

Bristol City Council are making a DVD and you can be in it!

Bristol City Council are making a DVD to promote recycling in Bristol and we are looking for some volunteers to star in it. The DVD will have a voice over so you would not have to speak in it.The DVD will be launched in Broadmead in October, there will be a web version and it will be available to be picked up from Housing Associations, libraries, CSPs etc

The DVD will be about 8 – 10 mins long. Filming will take place on Tues 9th, Weds 10th and Thurs 11th September.

Volunteers needed for the following scenes:

– Family recycling at home (black box and food waste)
– Garden waste collection scheme recycling (sacks and / or wheeled bin)
– Recycling at local recycling centre
– Recycling at Household Waste Recycling Centre (St Philips)
– Composting at home
– Using the assisted collection service for black box or food waste

If you live in Bristol and are interested or you know anyone who may be interested please reply to alice.mcgarvie at bristol.gov.uk by the end of Tuesday 12th August

Stating:

– What scene(s) you are interested in
– Name
– Address
– Contact phone number and email address
– Type of house (if scene at home – ie terraced, bungalow etc)
– Details of who is volunteering for filming (ie just you, partner, children, pets!)

<rant>What is the fucking point of this? If people were in the slightest bit interested in watching films about recycling wouldn’t they be on the telly or at the cinema? Surely the fact they’re not is a mighty big hint to the city council that they intend to spend a lot of money making a film so boring and pointless that no fucker in their right mind is going to bother to watch it?

And why is the city council making films anyway? Haven’t they got better things to spend money on? And if they haven’t, could we just have the money back please? Most people have plenty of sensible things they could spend it on.</rant>

Posted in Bristol, Environment, Local government, Recycling | | There are 22 comments

John Deasy

Posted on August 4, 2008 by The Bristol Blogger

Kerry McCarthy is reporting the death of Labour Councillor for St George West, John Deasy.

Posted in Bristol, Labour Party, Local government, Politics | Tagged | There are 3 comments

Deja vu?

Posted on August 2, 2008 by The Bristol Blogger

The future of Easton Community Centre has been secured after a charity stepped in to take over.

A panel of residents, city councillors and officers agreed to hand over the lease to Toc H.

Easton resident and panel member Azmina Mitha said: “I think Toc H will be good for Bristol. They will build capacity at Easton Community Centre and be beneficial for the residents of Easton. I was happy to be part of the process and think we made the right decision.”
Bristol Evening Post, October 7 2005

The Redfield-based Beacon Centre has taken over Easton Community Centre, in Kilburn Street, after agreement was reached with the city council.

The team replaces charity Toc H, which has run the centre since early 2006, but is now ceasing its operations across the UK.

Councillor Peter Hammond, executive member for cohesion and raising achievement, said: “This agreement is good news for the community in Easton and offers real hope of revitalising a vital and under-used resource. Community centres have the capacity to provide a range of services and activities to all sections of the community including the most disadvantaged.”
Bristol Evening Post, August 2 2008

Posted in Bristol, Bristol Evening Post, Easton, Labour Party, Local government | Tagged , , | There are 25 comments

EDF off

Posted on July 31, 2008 by The Bristol Blogger

If you’re over 65 or over, then make sure you get yourself down to the EDF Energy Harbour Festival on Saturday and grab a front row seat for the immensely ordinary Beth Rowley and a host of other stuff you’re probably not very interested in.

Then at least you can have some vaguely fond memories of the Labour Party and EDF Energy this winter when you can’t pay your massively increased fuel bills and slowly freeze to death …

Posted in Bristol, Culture, Harbourside, Labour Party, Local government, Politics | Tagged | There are 11 comments

Bikewash

Posted on July 26, 2008 by The Bristol Blogger

We’ve had whitewash; we’ve had greenwash; now – courtesy of Bristol’s Cycling Demonstration City initiative – is it time for bikewash?

One of the few actual promises we’ve had to accompany the Cycling Demonstration City money the city’s just got – if we ignore ‘Bristol’s Cycling Champion’ Terry Cook’s latest plans to close down the road network on a regular basis to run family-friendly cycling days on the ‘Bristol’s Biggest Bike Ride’ model, which will improve the cycling stats and meet the targets while missing the point entirely – has been the promise of “the UK’s first major bicycle rental network, modelled on a scheme in Paris”.

Run by a company called Hourbike, a subsidary of a civil engineering multinational Vipre, the proposal is to set up around 20 bike hire stands across the centre of the city and run a fully automated bike rental system on a pay as you go basis.

“For a joining fee of just £10,” they say, “the first half hour of each rental is free with subsequent time charged at £1 per hour.”

Which has had a few of us scratching our heads and wondering how they intend to actually make any money. Leaving aside the fact that the vast majority of people who wish to cycle in the city tend to make the effort to own a bike and don’t need to rent one, how will the company get any income if all the proposed stands are centrally based and less than a half hour’s ride apart?

Are Hourbike some sort of charity? They must be when you consider that they’ll be needing a few thousand paying journeys a week to make the scheme financially viable and they’re simply not going to get them.

But wait! What’s this on the Hourbike website?

Fantastic Advertising Packages Available

Align your brand with this innovative, green and healthy transport option for Bristol. There are various opportunities to advertise – on docking stations across the City and train stations, on membership cards and on our website.

Surely the real plan isn’t to shove 20 large, unsightly advertising hoardings (surely docking stations? Ed.) up in prime city centre locations with a few hire bikes locked on to them for effect … Is it?

And if that is the plan, let’s hope someone’s had the foresight to talk to Adshel, that charming little subsidary of that charming US communication empire Clear Channel, who have maintained a lucrative monopoly on Bristol’s city centre street furniture advertising for many years now under the guise of the Legible City Scheme.

The deal always was that Asdshel hand over their crappy street furniture free of charge to the council while the council, in return, prosecute the hell out of fly posters and hand over the multi-million pound advertising rights on the furniture for free.

Let’s hope Councillor Cook, his Cycling Demonstration City boys and Hourbike have thought this through properly then, or they might find themselves engaged in a hugely entertaining battle with one of the most aggressive corporations on the planet.

Posted in Bristol, Cycling Demonstration City, Environment, Local government, Politics, The Centre, Transport | Tagged , , , , | There are 14 comments