1. Charles Radcliffe’s mvoing tribute to his friend Chris Gray at Housmans Bookshop in London on 4 October 2012. This would have made a great blog – since I agree completely with Charlie that to appreciate Chris you have to look beyond the situationists and King Mob and read his book on LSD too……
2. Opening night of the Turner Prize… and why Elizabeth Price was the only artist up for the award who I both clocked at the event and spoke with on the night. That said, I did have a conversation with Luke Fowler about a week before the opening at a Tate dinner – but I haven’t exchanged a word with Paul Noble for years and I don’t think I’ve ever said more than hello to Spartacus Chetwynd….
3. Jack Kerouac’s On The Road Scroll at the British Library (until 27 December). First London showing for this extraordinary object, the 120 foot long scroll made from rolls of taped together tracing paper on which Kerouac’s most famous work On The Road was written. Kerouac fabricated the roll in order to avoid replacing paper at the end of the page as he was typing – which he felt interrupted his creative flow.
4. Why the Artist Placement Group (APG) is boring. I’m afraid this potential blog post was just too tedious to contemplate – although I would have gone to the APG opening at Raven Row regardless had that private view not clashed with a talk I was giving about Terry Taylor.
5. More unusual London museums such as the Hunterian (surgical museum based on John Hunt’s collection) and the Museum of Zoology (with a lot of animal skeletons).
6. Why I’m sick of hearing from people who don’t like something I’ve written that part of the content can’t be true because they’ve never heard of some fact or person. Ignorance and proof are quite distinct and anyone over the age of three who needs this explained to them clearly isn’t worth engaging with.
7 Jeff Keen at the Tate Tanks. Like Charlie Radcliffe on Chris Gray this would have made a great post…. I just didn’t get it together.
8. Yet more reasons to stop blogging. I think I’d rather just stop blogging than come up with an argument to convince myself that I need to do so.
9. Jimmy Saville considered as a kiddie fiddler, and why – when I first heard the rumours that he was sexually abusing young girls when I was schoolboy in the nineteen-seventies – it took until 2012 before the subject was aired in the media. Basically everyone else got in on this one before me.
10. Ten exhibitions openings I didn’t bother to attend. Since I couldn’t be bothered to go and see the work I didn’t see why I should trouble myself with writing about it….
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!