Now, if you or I thought about it, made plans, hired a team, and then applied for a grant for this particular project, you’d either be laughed at or at the very least sectioned for your notion and actions. However, somehow an artist has managed to convince the Arts Council to stump up 500,000 big ones to tow part of an Icelandic island around England’s coastline!
Oh it’s not just any old island oh no, this one’s been uncovered by a receding glacier and the point of the exercise is to highlight the issue of global warming. That’s the good point, if global warming does actually exist that is.
So what are the plans to shift six tons of rocks and dirt from Norway to Bristol, and how would you achieve this bloody stupid idea? Well, the artist Alex Hartley and his team of 18 idiots, dug and bagged up, yes bagged up, part of the island and then transported the lot 200 miles across the ice covered ocean to a waiting schooner. Now call me Mr. Picky, but I thought global warming was at the heart of this project? Not so far.
Point one: you have to ask yourself, what means of transport was used to shift said rubble to the schooner? My guess is – it wasn’t a herd of pack animals. Point two: what does a schooner run on? Well it ain’t fresh air all the time that for sure as mustard, no it’ll be a fossil fuel won’t it! So right there Mr. Hartley has added to the global warming crisis. And he seems hell bent on continuing to do so.
So, you’ve got your rocks, what are you going to do with ‘em? Well first of all you’re going to drop off the rocks in Bristol. Then you’re going to ‘sculpt’ them into another floating island-shaped mess, about the size of a football pitch, and call it Nowhere Island.
Actually, sculpt is a bit of an exaggeration, as so far I haven’t seen any evidence of tools being used. So really the blokes been paid to just throw rocks about at your expense! A six year old would do that for nothing. Shortly after this your floating masterpiece will become part of the Cultural Olympiad to run alongside the sporting events in 2012. Spiff-triff-marvellous, I can hardly contain myself.
At the risk of repeating my self phrases like, ‘how much’, ‘burn up’, and ‘fossil fuel’ keep coming back to haunt me. And to continue the fossil fuel burning issue, the floating Flintstone’s patio will be sited in Weymouth for the Olympic sailing fest and later towed around the South West coast of dear old Blighty. Whoop-de-bleedin’-do!
If this is just one of 12 projects chosen nationally to represent each of the UK regions alongside the sporting events in 2012, what the hell are the others like? So far, they haven’t hit the headlines and I can’t say I’m surprised. If they all cost half a mil to support and are as bloody ridiculous as this one, there’ll be blood on the streets at the price tag, in a time where the country is skint. Art for sport’s sake! Old bollocks for art sake more like. But don’t worry; it’s only the hard pressed tax payer that’s coughing up for it.
It actually beggar’s belief that in light of the recent financial cock-ups, this gross and indecent use of public money has been allowed to continue. We’re almost at the stage where some berk (rhyming slang: Berkshire hunt) will stand up and say, “Let them eat Jaffa cake.”
Schools have had their budgets cut to pay for inane and senseless ideas such as these, and if I hear, “We’re all in it together,” again I’ll puke. Yes, we are ‘in it’ together, but some of us will weather the storm without any damage to our bank and offshore accounts.
Mr. Hartley says the environmental cost of towing the island will be outweighed by the “poetry of the project“. Prat! Well I suppose he would say that, now he’s got a bank account that’s never looked so healthy. And just to bolster my view on the ridiculous, at the end of the Olympic season the visionary artist who, I suspect is hearing voices, plans to return the rubble back to Norway and rebuild the island it came from!
If anything needs bagging up and towing out to sea it’s the English Arts Council. I’m setting up new concern whereby any hacked off tax payers can book a ride on a Royal Navy ship. Once aboard individuals can have full use of the ship’s artillery and use the Arts Council Island for target practice. Three shells for a tenner, bargain mate, and more than a little satisfying!
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