Remember

For a nation that frequently declares itself conservative in its tastes when it comes to matters of art, there’s nobody quite like the British when it comes to bestowing ‘beloved’ status on what appears to be a challenging piece of art.

If you looked at top tens and public polls, you’d probably conclude that the nation’s favourite artwork was either ‘The Haywain’ or ‘The Fighting Temeraire’.  And the first clue about just how unconservative the Brits really are is there, because whilst the former is a traditional and bucolic scene, it’s more usually photoshopped to show what it will look like with a windfarm in the background than it is seen in its original state these days, and the latter is both an impressionist masterpiece and a melancholy statement of declining power.

In the analogue age, you could guess the nations favourite art by the number of reproductions of images sold.  That’s why it’s fairly certain that up to a few years ago, the nation’s most beloved artwork was either that tennis playing bird scratching her arse, or ‘The Singing Butler’.

Recently, the best gauge of the popularity of an image has how many times it is reproduced in media.  Judging by the number of times the same picture has appeared on television and in print recently, the nation’s favourite image would appear to be a gurning twat with a pint in one hand and fag in the other photographed in a pub the morning after a by-election.

Until this week.

The British really do embrace the new.  Apparently, originally, it took some convincing by a lone Gateshead councillor to persuade everyone that ‘The Angel of the North’ was going to be sensational.  Now we can’t imagine Britain without it.  It was probably the same when one lone crazy druid was trying to convince everyone that a stone circle on Salisbury Plain would be really cool.  This is the country that produced the YBAs, who may be on their way to being OAPBAs but without doubt had an impact on public taste.

Which brings us to the poppies at the Tower of London.

What brought me to the poppies at the Tower of London was a taxi.  I’d always intended to visit them as close to 11 September as possible, when the moat would be full of poppies and the installation would be complete, before being (rightly) dismantled.

888,246 ceramic poppies fill the moat, one for every British and commonwealth soldier killed in the Great War, a war where my Grandfather took a German sniper bullet in his open mouth and out his cheek (interesting scar) and where, stretchered into a field hospital, he was looked after by his own brother, a medic, who apparently gave him his own medal for bravery explaining ‘you deserve this more than I’.
In the taxi, the traffic ground to a halt around the Tower.  London traffic (taxis, busses, white vans) was slowly supplanted by coaches and people, people people.

We bailed out early and walked the last stretch.  The last time I was in a crowd like this was the Olympics, where you have people walking towards something, in that case the Stadium, with a sense of expectation and people walking away from it with a look on their faces that meant they would never be quite the same again.  So it was here.

The crowd.  The Crowd.  The crowd are as much a part of the installation as the poppies.  Quiet, respectful, immense.  There’s no pushing or shoving, there are only a couple of people in hi-viz anoraks and even they just stand there.  Everybody just sort of knows.

Then you see the moat, a river of blood pouring from the windows of the Tower and, because it’s not Armistice Day yet, volunteers still planting.  Another poppy hammered in, another life snuffed out.

And it’s right that it should go.

Never mind that people have already bought their poppies, that’s not the point.  The point is that the impermanence reflects the frailty of life, that it is special because it is temporary and because it teaches us to cherish precious, fragile things that are not forever.

It’s extraordinary, humbling, marvellous and magnificent.

Hampton Court Palace Flower Show

Bloomin' trenches!

The 2014 Hampton Court flower show was, as always, fantastic.  The stand out garden had to be the WWI shell-crater garden, complete with actors explaining what life was like in the trenches (shite!).

A man appreciating art.

It’s crowded this year.  It takes more than low cloud the colour of lead and the sort of humidity normally associated with latitudes and morals that make it socially acceptable to drink gin at/for lunch to put off the RHS faithful, but the promise of good(ish) weather has brought out, well, the fair-weather show-goers too.

Accordingly, you need to be mindful of personal space.  This is not just because every second person appears to be dragging a small plastic trolley behind them, like the horticultural equivalent of the wee wifie out for her Saturday messages with her tartan shopper, but also because many people have plants in bags.  The bags themselves contain just an average plant pot with soil, but the plants can extend up to three foot and more, and swing along beside their owner like fragile metronomes. 

(The etiquette on accidentally beheading what was, five minutes ago, a prized purchase is to act casual, use the damaged flower as a buttonhole and deny all responsibility, explaining that you were by the Pimms tent when this tragedy must have happened.  For this reason you must always be drinking Pimms).

Pimms makes the crowds tolerable, that’s why it’s the perfect summer drink, it also makes spectating at summer sporting events bearable.  If your team loses at cricket, it takes five days for this to happen.  That’s a long time to travel from a state of anxiety to disappointment.  Pimms is the HS2 of mood enhancers, it takes you straight from anxiety to relaxed without all that faffing around at weepy, depressed and angry.

Also part of the crowd this year, mobility scooters, chariots of dire. 

Now, I am all for people who would not normally be able to enjoy events being able to enjoy them to their fullest, but isn’t that what telly is for?  I’ve never been to the British Grand Prix, but I’ve watched it on telly and, unlike anyone who actually went along, I was home opening a beer just as soon as the winner crossed that finish line. 

More needs to be done on integrating these things into crowds I think, as a muted peeping noise is just not enough warning that some sod driving what appears to be a small car is barrelling up behind you with a sense of entitlement and a small child on their lap.  Maybe they could double as plant porters next year.

Scarecrow?  Or cunning device used to fool German prison guards?  For months at morning parade they thought this was 4287623 Private 'Pinky' Brown.

The plant porters were much in evidence this year, youths with wheelbarrows ferrying around purchases for folk.  But really, plant porters, must you all snooze in your wheelbarrows when not working?  Just because it forms a stock shot on the BBC show coverage each year doesn’t mean you have to recreate the scene.  This is an RHS show, not Titchmarsh cos-play.  It’s like some twisted Anne Geddes tableaux.  Worse, a gangling teen asleep in a barrow just looks like another Friday night when the agricultural college students have drunk themselves insensible.

As well as the more ordinary examples of show-goer, there are some rare blooms, that special breed that leave their garden only a few times a year, this being one of them, and are identifiable by having dirt under their fingernails so old it will form the basis of a ‘Time Team’ special later in the year, and by having at least one garment fastened using something normally used in the garden, such as twine, or a dibber.

Over at the growing tastes marquee, one thought occurred – I fucking hate the recession.  Back when Tony Blair or Gordon Brown was PM, you could come here and be insensible of free samples of gin within the hour.  Now, the cheese samples resemble the crumbs left over when one has had one last go at the cheese-board on Christmas Day.  One bloke was even handing out samples of cheese with tweezers.

Also, parents, just because young children get into the show for free does not mean that you are required to bring them.