In the news

https://twitter.com/mrjamesob/status/1542414284805885952

I'm afraid, Pincher, we need a dead cat, or at least one that's got in to a bit of a scrap with next door's dog. What we'd like is for you to pop out and grope a couple of chaps at the Carlton club. Nothing too dramatic, just get a bit handsy. We would ask one of the juniors but what with your track record and all, well, you understand.

https://twitter.com/coldwarsteve/status/1542606582604865536)

Is that Peugeot Man in the ruck? He's moved up in the world. https://youtu.be/2PFRdEUN240?t=206

Heard on the radio and in the news recently that there is a new sculpture in St Austell akin to the angel of the north that's causing a lot of fuss. I'm on my down to Penzance so stopped by for a look.

Very odd, it's all ceramic and 37ft tall.

Lots of locals hate it, the lady in the purple jacket came over and told me as such before she told me she used to work in Woolworths in the 60's and how much she generally is sad about life.

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akin to the angel of the north

"akin to" doing a lot of work there :-D

And why if he is gay should he be outed on lfgss?

Yeah it hasn't gone down too well locally. It is linked to the China Clay industry/heritage of the area but in such a deprived area, the general feeling (so I have heard) is money could have been spent on something perhaps a little more useful.

Yeah that's pretty much what the lady told me, and it cost £90,000.

I guess tourism is a plus, it bought me in and I bought a pasty, a Danish and a coffee, so 30,000 more me's and it's community neutral.

For people curious to know who paid for the statue:

https://www.staustell.co.uk/the-whitegold-project/

I guess tourism is a plus

Not sure the Cornish locals really see it like that any more. Get the sense they would love to have some year-round industry.

of course they hate it. they always do. I'm not saying there's nothing better to spend the money on but if you made that, sold it, took a comission, installed it all for 90K that's a bargain. I bet the contract to maintain those plater beds is more than that.

Richard pears has the right idea

"A sculpture that nobody gave a damn about would be a complete waste of everybody’s time. I would take a talking point over a boring piece of art any day.”

It's better and 10 times cheaper than an anthony gormely which seems to be the go to nonsense for public sculpture https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-56169714

Moreso that Antony Gormley isn’t really revelant nowadays as he was several decades ago.

With new artists and sculptors out there, they’d have be able to create amazing artwork that work for everyone, especially in this moment in times with the changing landscape (think BLM for example).

This is part of a wider project to do that

I don't really believe that "clay, ceramics and the arts" are the right direction for a modern industrial strategy for Cornwall that provides good employment prospects, but hopefully I am wrong.

Thanks - will have a nose at that.

Looks like primary school papier mache but slightly bigger

Anybody else old enough to remember when this supposed list of dirt held by the whips office was dismissed as a fake?

Line number 20 looks familiar, as do quite a few others.

Looks like Kwasi is a bit of a lad too.

Had completely forgotten this. When did it come out (so much sleaze has come and gone)?

I was in Newcastle in the 90s when the Angel of the North was planned and built. "They" (ie prevailing public opinion) said exactly the same things about that then. Now "they" love it.

My take back then, which I still stand by, was "Money spent on Big Art turns into wages for material, labour and suchlike no different to money spent on a new ship or hotel. So if the NE can score some cash to build Art when no one is spending cash on ships and hotels go for it. Once people get used to seeing it as a landmark that tells them they are "home" they will love it."

The regenerated quayside was basically built off a few big public art projects.

Personally I think the AoN is a much better artwork, but then I still have a 90s Art as Product aesthetic so I hate lumpy colourful faux-naive art.

When did it come out (so much sleaze has come and gone)?

Not sure of month but pretty sure it was 2017

Yeah - oct 17.
Incredible to see how many have been promoted inc chief whip. Doesn't look that fake now, does it?

It didn't look that fake at the time and we were told to 'move on', as usual...

I remember the Tim Fortescue clip being dug up again - "For anyone with any sense, who was in trouble, would come to the whips and tell them the truth, and say now, I’m in a jam, can you help? It might be debt, it might be… a scandal involving small boys, or any kind of scandal in which, erm er, a member seemed likely to be mixed up in, they’d come and ask if we could help and if we could, we did. And we would do everything we can because we would store up brownie points… and if I mean, that sounds a pretty, pretty nasty reason, but it’s one of the reasons because if we could get a chap out of trouble then, he will do as we ask forever more." - it seems things don't change much...

Edit - had to look up the source - from Westminster's Secret Service documentary, 1995

What a list of scumbags. Shocking really. Are people really that morally corrupt?

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