Grandson, The Hussy and Art

30 March 2012

It's certainly chillier than of late today.  We may have to put our heating on again later if it doesn't warm up any.  At one time it was Jan who used to feel the cold; now it's me.  At one time the cold never bothered me.  Now, I can sit shivering after even a drop in temperature of only a few degrees. 

This weekend we are due to have Kile.  Jan will pick him up from school and take him home to collect some clothes and then come back here with him.  That means he and me will have a pizza for dinner.  Jan's doesn't like them but she    used to getting something else when we have a pizza.  Once that is consumed I shall disappear to my study and my desktop to get on with some writing.  Jan and Kile will set up the Wii and be on that for hours at a time.  I can't stand playing games like that so it's a good job I have something to be getting on with.

I had an email for a guy named Alan who has done a proof read of The Mission for me - even though it is already published.  Most of what he has picked up are silly mistakes on my part.  Anyway, the reason I mention this is that Alan is a tutor with the OU.  However, in June he will be leaving it.  He objects strongly to the increase in course fees.  A normal 60 point course was priced at around £650.  Now they are priced at over £2,000.  Yes, that's right, two bloody grand!  Far too steep for me even if I did want to go on with it.  Such and increase is ridiculous and I would expect that there will be large number of students dropping out now.  I have always thought highly of OU.  But there are times when I thought that they relied very heavily on the good will of their students.  The OU has a tendency to change their term and conditions and qualification requirement and not telling their students.  There have many time when I read on the student notice boards that a requirement has changed leaving students to complete even more courses then they would have done simply because one of them had been dropped from the requirement and another substituted.  The OU says it is the students own responsibility to keep abreast of the qualification requirements.  However, I have a feeling that if a student was perhaps really pissed about it, there might be a case to be answered in Law.  So far it hasn't happened; hence my statement about students good will.  However, that might change with such a large increase in fees now being charged!  I hope so!

What of The News for today then?  The front page headline says, "Option 6 Joy At the Eliot[Hussy]".  When I first saw it I  wondered just what the heck 'Option 6' was.  Well, it's to do with keeping the maternity and paediatric services.  Thing is, it's not really certain, and we won't really know until the all the t's and i's thingy has happened.  So why there is 'joy' over it I don't know. 

Tesco's new supermarket in Bed'th has commissioned a new work of fart - err, sorry, art for their site.  It's two pieces of black marble stuck on top of each other and is supposed to be a representation of a miners hands gripping a pick axe.  While I was with the OU I was told one time that about what makes something a piece of art.  Well, it requires three conditions; the artist says it is; the work is on public display; and lastly, people are talking about it.  So this waste of black marble is now a work of art according to all three points.  I shall say no more about it.

It does remind me though of something that read years ago in a magazine I bought at Brum Museum and Art gallery.  I don't know if you can remember it but years ago there was a painting entered into the Turner Prize.  The work was a reworking of a SciFi book cover from even earlier.  Yet it caused a row but the row was not the fault of the artist!  It was the fault of the Director of the Turner Prize who dropped a few rods from the title.  The artist had given the work a title and added "after ..." here he included the name of the original artist.  By dropping that part it gave the impression that the artist was claiming it to be an original work.  That led to the row.  The idea was cause a ruckus so as to generate publicity and encourage more visitors.  To me however it smacks of being underhanded and devious!  It is this sort of behaviour that causes so many people to po-po the arts as whole.

And speaking of art here's an image that I scanned from a book called The Essential ...  This was a collection of art books with each based on the work of just one artist.  Here's the image then ... 

but who do you think painted it?  That is why I don't enter the artist's name above.  Any ideas?  No?  Well is was Picasso!  You may not know but Picasso himself went through the normal classical art school training in Spain before he moved to Paris and began a whole new movement in art.  This work called Olga causes problems for art historians.  It was painted during his cubism thing he was doing.  So why did revert to his classical training for this one portrait?  No one knows.

So now you want a funny I suppose ...

WHY MEN STAND UP TO HAVE A PEE....

God had just finished creating the Universe and he stood in the Garden of Eden chatting to Adam and Eve. "Well I'm almost done now", he said, "I've just got a couple of things left to give away in my bag of creations, - now let me see, oh yes! this first one could be handy to have for one of you, it's the ability to urinate whilst standing up!

Adam jumped up and blurted out,"Oh yes, give that to me! I'd love to be able to do that! It seems the sort of think that a Man should be able to do, - OH PLEASE,PLEASE,PLEASE GIVE THAT TO ME!!! Just think, when I'm working with the animals or in the garden I could just stand there and let it fly, - it would be so cool, - I could pee up a tree to see how high I could get and even write my name in the sand! OH PLEASE, PLEASE, GOD GIVE THAT TO ME!!!

He went on and on..... Eve just smiled and said to God, "If Adam really wants it so badly, then let him have it". It's obviously the kind of thing that would make him so happy and so she said that she would'nt mind if Adam was to be the one with this ability.
And so Adam was given the ability to control the direction of his misdirection while in the vertical position.

And so he was happy and did celebrate by wetting down the bark of a tree and laughing with delight all the while!

And it was good.

"Fine", said God, looking into his bag for the remaining leftover gift, "Now what's left in here? Oh yes, multiple org**ms.............