Tim Worstall

You see, we must divorce the output from the creator. That an artist abuses children is a bad thing for the children, the artists and quite possible even society. But it makes no difference to the art: Where, I wonder, will this investigation end? According to what I read, the Tate is also considering the [...]

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So, apparently it’s entirely awful as a movie. But Hollywood runs on money, nothing else: the low-budget $6 million (£3.8 million) project OK. None have, however, stepped forward for the usual blitz of media interviews and red carpet appearances to promote a new film. Nor was Movie 43 even given an advance press screening before [...]

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Here.

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a cinematic salmagundi in which the hobbits and the Jedi (perhaps even with Jedi hobbits: someone out there has already beaten me to the idea) join forces on Deep Space Nine with James Bond, Dr. Who, Harry Potter, Mr. Tumble, the blokes who give the Royal Institute Lectures and the choir of King’s College, Cambridge [...]

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Go here, fiddle around a bit, and you can download it for free. Mr. Briffa and I were at school together. Good to see that at least one of us lot has some actual artistic talent, eh? There was another pupil from the same time who went on to get an Oscar for a screenplay. [...]

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Sir Ian McKellen: there will be no more British acting greats Sir Ian McKellen argues that today’s young actors will never develop into fine middle-aged performers because they have not honed their talents in repertory theatre. We’ve never heard anything like it, have we? Elderly grandee declaring that apres moi la deluge. The kids of [...]

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If Hirst did not try to paint an orange accurately, no one would know he can’t do it. But he has tried, at least I think it’s an orange, and the poor sphere seems to float in mid air because of the clumsy circle of shadow below it. For a moment I thought this was [...]

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They seem to have known everything about how humanity should live and nearly nothing about actual humans.

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Why are all the blockbuster art shows by men? We’re great at celebrating famous male artists, but what about Bridget Riley, Rachel Whiteread, Sarah Lucas … Because they’re crap. Next?

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What nobody seems to think worth mentioning is how corporate sponsorship changes the very meaning of these palaces of culture. The British Museum and the National Portrait Gallery, in particular, are meant to stand for who we are as a people, as a democracy. They are the cathedrals of democracy. He really does seem to [...]

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What is your favourite smell? New shoes. Fair enough. Bit pandering to the female stereotype perhaps and requiring of a system that produces new shoes cheaply and efficiently so we can all have them. But still, fair enough. What makes you unhappy? Misogyny and capitalism. Oh well, fortunately we look to actresses for ability at [...]

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So, Portugal closes down the Ministry of Culture, tells artists to go fend for themselves. Art thrives. So, when do we close the Arts Council?

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The current cuts to the arts and humanities spell out the end of the British people’s emancipation through culture. For me, it’s like ripping up the Magna Carta. The government spending less money on luvvies is exactly like abolition of the right to trial by jury, eh?

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€30 of steel scrap or €800,000 of artwork? It is thought that one of the pieces the thieves were trying to offload for scrap was a steel sculpture by Basque artist Chillida titled “Topos IV”, valued at 800,000 euros (£675,000). Detectives at the time said the robbery had the hallmarks of “an inside job” and [...]

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Tomorrow morning Somerset county council will decide whether it will cut 100% of its direct grants to the arts, amounting to roughly half its total cultural spend. Mustn’t allow them to do that now, must we? You know, democratically elected politicians deliberating over how to spend the taxpayers’ money? No, of course not, that would [...]

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Amusing little theory here: Over a seven-year period, the US market share of box-office takings in British cinemas was between 63% and 80%. The UK share, which was mainly for American co-productions, was between 15% and 30%; films from Europe and the rest of the world took only 2% to 3%. So for most people [...]

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This was a great and really fun article, people going out and beautifying (well, OK, to taste) the world through individual and communal action. No, really. Then the beginning of para 9 This might explain the increasing desire of councils and art institutions to commission yarn bombers to create official works of art. Yup, it [...]

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I was once asked to look at a portfolio of pencil drawings by an ex-prisoner; they were trite, unaccomplished, cliched, clumsy and painful to look at. They were without a scintilla of merit. When I said so than man’s astonished representative said “But the prison art visitor said he has a rare talent”. “What was [...]

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And here we have it explained to us. How excellent, a better road map for what we should be cutting. You want it, you pay for it.

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