Life imitates art

In this clip from In The Loop, a hapless MP is harangued about a wall which threatens to collapse on his neighbour's mother.

Meanwhile in Parliament, Peter Mandelson is ordered to repay £800 claimed because a tree threatened to… pull down a neighbour's wall.

…then back to the art

After lunch at Gaby's, a wonderful falalel and all things Eastern café (near Leicester Square) on Steve's recommendation, we trooped off to the National Gallery's medieval section - I love the way the pre-Renaissance artists combined odd perspectives, deep blues and golds, religious stories and (mainly) Italian politics and landscape, such as this by the Clarisse Master (1265 or so), this Bellini, Botticini's Assumption of the Virgin featuring several local Italian bigwigs, and this stunning da Messina of St. Jerome in his study (click for larger image), which plays with perspective wonderfully.

After that, we stopped for Holbein's The Ambassadors, one of the best few paintings in the world - every item, every fold, every stroke is multiply significant - and across the bottom is this streak of paint which (if you stand in the right place), resolves itself as a skull, subverting the power and glory of the two men featured with all their riches, achievements and ambitions. You really need to click on it to get the big picture (sorry).

After all that art and excitement - how to unwind? How about Honey and Ginger Ice-cream Sundae and iced mint tea at Fortnum and Mason's? Positively sybaritic.

Sunday was relatively relaxed: I went to watch Manchester United lose, in the Hogshead, with Neal and Emma (a Man U fan), for whom I cooked a scrumptious meal of roasted fennel, celeriac and various other vegetarian objects, while we all read the Sunday newspapers and watched In the Loop, which loses none of its sharpness with multiple viewings. Watching the footy was a particular pleasure, Stoke City having won too…

This is the news

Before I go back to bemoaning my forcible return from Norway (and believe me, I contemplated claiming refugee status), I'll tell you about the parcel I just unwrapped. I received copies of In The Loop on DVD, and Alan Moore's Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, and also a second-hand copy of Schoenbaum's Shakespeare's Lives, a brilliant piece of anti-biography in a way.

I said earlier that Norway is a country in which life-enhancing projects are undertaken ambitiously and successfully, whereas Britain is a tired place full of begrudgingly doled-out second-hand junk - there's no pride. There's a sense that every political speech, every idea is expressed with a silent 'whatever' or 'that'll do' at the end. We are the 'whatever' culture. Here's a clip from The Thick of It (the TV series from which In The Loop came) which expresses our depressing cynicism. This is the densest chunk of sustained swearing I've ever experienced, so don't play it if that kind of thing offends you, OK?

However, it's the wrapping of the Shakespeare book which fascinated me. The bookseller packed the volume in a beautiful fragment of a 1934 map of Capel Wood, near New Romsey, and in a few pages of The Times, from Saturday August 7th 1858 (price 4d)! Every page is in beautiful condition, the language is formal and measured, and it's really hard to read - as was traditional in those days, the first few pages are tightly-packed classified ads. I think I'll post a couple of them each day for your amusement and interest. Some are enigmatic, some heartbreaking

.

Let's start with a few of the personal notices, and just imagine the stories behind them - perhaps there's a novel in these:

WILLY,– RETURN or WRITE at once.

GEORGIANA.– RETURN HOME immediately.

Your father is heartbroken.

SEMPER EADEM, "always the same" "All's

well."– 8th and 27th August.

FRIDAY-STREET or KENSINGTON.––WIL

LIAM may RETURN immediately, as all is satisfactorily

arranged.–LIZZIE.

M.P.–Your father is now in a very dangerous state.

Let him have the consolation of seeing you. Not an hour is

to be lost.–E.O.

INDIA.–Initials.–J'éspere que vous parviendra

et que vous me donnerez de vos nouvelles à la meme addresse.

Soyez assuré de mon estime, et que je vous regrette toujours. Je ne

puis plus ici. Dieu vous garde. Newbury.

(This last reads: I hope that you succeed, and that you will give me your news at the same address. Be assured of my respect/admiration, and that I miss you always. I can do no more here. God keep you.)

Feel free to come up with mini-stories for these in the comments section. Perhaps births, weddings and deaths tomorrow.

For solace, turn to the weird poet who connected his testicles to his liver

All the institutional rubbish is getting me down. Here's what it should all be about, thanks to Yeats (not a poet to whom I generally turn)

We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.

Mythologies (1977) p. 331.

On an unconnected note, I celebrated the return of my bank card by buying the DVD of In The Loop and another anthology of Very Bad Poetry.

(Yeats really did route his testes through his liver, by the way. It was an attempt to redirect 'masculine energy', and he wasn't the only one).

We're all going on a summer holiday

Well, that's it, comrades, until Monday afternoon at the earliest. I'll take my iPod to All Tomorrow's Parties in case there's wireless access, but it seems unlikely. I'm particularly looking forward to Teenage Fanclub, Bon Iver and The Breeders, but I'm sure others will be brilliant too. I'll be the one in cherry red Doctor Martens, a Green Lantern t-shirt and bad hair, in case that floats your boat. What book shall I take as a prop? I was wondering about On Deconstruction but I've read it several times now, so perhaps a Moomins volume might be more fitting.

Now I'm off to see In the Loop again to top up my epithet levels.

In the fucking loop

I spent yesterday afternoon swearing, with admittedly more perspiration than inspiration. so perhaps yesterday evening wasn't the best time to see In The Loop, the big-screen extension of The Thick of It, Armando Ianucci's cynical, brilliant examination of the way politics has been reduced from principles to venal positioning. It is without doubt the sweariest film since South Park. It is superior to the latter, however, thanks to its relentlessly innovative swearing. This is a family blog, so I won't quote any of the horrifyingly memorable phrases, but urge anyone who thinks that swearing is neither big nor clever to see this film. It will convert you. I certainly found it difficult to shake the habit after yesterday. Steve Coogan's cameo is also brilliant.

This clip is extremely unpleasant so don't play it if you're sensitive to finely-crafted Anglo-Saxon.

After the film we went to the Dilshad restaurant in Wolverhampton. We chose it because it has hundreds of photos of formerly popular entertainers who'd eaten their after performing at the nearby Grand Theatre. My favourite photograph is of Jonathan King (celebrity unrepentant paedophile), Gary Bushell (unrepentant, untalented, unpleasant far-right 'journalist') enjoying the company of a rather young boy. Perhaps they'd ordered the chicken…

I'd intended to take a picture of this historic summit for your delectation, so imagine my horror to find that the venue had undergone a tasteful, minimalist, stylish makeover. Yes, the food was stunningly good, but something special has been lost.

To console ourselves, we subsequently attended the Posada and then the near-deserted Little Civic. I love that place when it's empty. The DJ is open to requests and has a highly-developed love of pre-Britpop Real Indie which I share. Without the check-shirt-and-shaven-head brigade in evidence, I (and occasionally one or two of my friends) could dance like thirty-something losers without the usual mockery and contempt. For the first time ever, I heard Stereolab in a public place, and this DJ hero played Felt, Field Mice and the Go-Betweens without even being asked. Some good Breeders and Jane's Addiction were introduced to the mix as well. 'Props' to this unsung hero, as I believe some people say in these situations.

Happy Birthday, Neal

He strongly resembles Tom Cruise from the Magnolia era ('respect the cock' - I could have chosen a much more vomit-making picture) and he's a year closer to death. We'll be attending In The Loop at Wolverhampton Lighthouse at 5.40, then consuming curry before The Drunkening. All welcome to attend any or all component of the festivities.

Scabrous fun

In The Loop, the film version of political comedy The Thick of It, is out next month. There's a clip available at The Guardian, and the poster is an inspired pastiche of the famous Obama one.