It has been a hot spring so far for the art pooch and panting around the marathon course didn’t help much… it didn’t matter what Moogee did he still couldn’t sniff out those missing millions. No ‘Pickles discovers World Cup glory’ for Moogee this time all he found were a bunch of fading celebrities and firemen from Dulwich dressed as pandas. Rumours that Tessa Jewel(sic) and her boss the Mighty Gordo may have been running proved unfounded. As for the missing lottery millions well they too have vanished faster than a light plane to Chile. Come on Gordo the game is up you can tell us where all that lottery money is going.
Sadly for the starving artists community (when was the last time you saw a starving artist is a moot point? Round here they more likely to be quaffing lattes and discussing Muji’s latest stationary) the Robin Hood raid on their ‘golden nesteggs’ is all too clear. That defender of democracy The Guardian gave us the figures. Arts Council England are ‘loaning’ £112 Million, The Heritage Lottery Fund £161.2 Million and finally and quite brilliantly Sport England £99.9 Million. In an Orwellian act of doublespeak it appears we poor starving marvins are to regard this as a City of London like pitch against future earnings so my hearties ‘rejoice’ as Gordo and Tess are in fact gambling your little earners from the Lottery against property sales after the whole shebang is over. Brilliant I’m going to take out a loan on a new kennel, a director’s box at Crufts and maybe a ‘New Doggie’ makeover at a spa soon. How can we lose? Hold on, Sport England… has that not got something to do with future Olympiads.
Never mind, Moogee salutes the sleight of hand that robs us of all that unnecessary cash we didn’t need anyway, paint, stone, inks? Come on everybody knows it all digital these days anyway. At a stroke the dynamic duo have not only rescued the Olympics from being a few blokes kicking a ball about on the banks of The River Lea but also ensured that art that actually costs money is stopped dead in its tracks. Moogee says Woof …well done T & G ! Moogee doesn’t like all that mess in the studio business anyway and cannot understand why more kennels aren’t blessed with broadband like his own.
Yes, the days of Snail Mail and Snail Art are finally consigned to history. From now on it will be instant pictures and a medal haul to compare with the Soviets at Moscow, in fact rumour has it the UK team will in fact engineer a boycott by any athletes better than them so we bag the lot. Forward thinking wins again.
Meanwhile Moogee cannot last a column without paying homage to that golden couple. Yes, move aside Seb Coe and Kelly Holmes because King Damien and Queen Tracy are in action again on the Press Release track. First off the poor residents of Stroud in Gloucester were up in arms at news that Damien the First had drawn up plans to build a slaughterhouse alongside his princely pile. Ignoring the fact that it probably a bit of spin to keep his profile up it also supremely stupid. Everybody knows Gloucestershire already coming down with Cow Factories and anyway a good walk-in freezer would keep him stocked for months. Come on Tesco a great bit of tie-in sponsorship up for grabs there! Secondly and not to be out done Lady Tracy proved her grip on reality and a pencil as sure as ever when proffering her latest ‘art-piece’ to the nation. A joyous multitude almost fainted in the global warmth of a spring day as her ‘art-flag’ was unveiled on London’s South Bank and run up the Jubilee Flagpole. Was it an example of the marvellous artistic craftsmanship we have come to expect – you bet – a scrawled message ‘One secret is to save everything’ that must have taken all of five minutes to think up and execute left the poor Queen of Brit Art quite exhausted, saying that she was under huge pressure from the Venice Biennale and after some obligatory vino that she’d like to see everybody on the grass making love. Moogee ran a mile before she headed his way in her mock leopard skin dress. Maybe our Art Queen mistook the marathon runners on their practice runs for adoring art lovers …or maybe it’s just sunstroke.
One final note for all those artists now taking out loans against their marvellous futures: Moogee is not an Independent Financial Adviser and cannot be held responsible for any actions artists may take. Artworks can go up and down. If I were you I’d back the Tortoises not the Hares, paint and canvas against digital, the craftsmen against the media stars. Happy Lottery to you all my dears.
