Artists produces something good shock

Strolling through town the other day I was diverted into the courtyard of the Royal Academy. The Damien Hirst piece, the Virgin Mother stands in the centre of the courtyard and is nothing short of spectacular. While it’s a beautiful piece, the effect on passers-by is profound. I knew it was there and had detoured on purpose but it was great fun to watch the cagooled masses of tourists wandering up the street, looking in, seeing it and approaching, open mouthed, grasping at cameras in a ‘they don’t have anything like this at home, not even during the big bean festival!’.

As for town, even on a Summer’s day it remains a pit of pestilence. The place is simply riddled with warrens of side-streets, back alleys and arcades. As a hobby, I collect mild nuroses, among them an almost religious observance of having at least one unit of alcohol a day and an irrational fear of the word ‘apologise’. It made me wonder, wandering town, what would happen if one had an irrational fear of certain streets, lanes or byways. What, for instance, would happen to a man who could never walk up streets named after Edwardian dandies. In London, he’s fucked. Okay in Tiverton though I’d guess, or Milton Keynes.

Or what of somebody who is scared of accidentally becoming a time traveller and so may only traverse modern streets.

In the current climate of stark, manic panic (well, okay, not really), more mundane fears, more personal fears are almost an amuse bouche.

Fear of traffic cones, that’s a good one.