Following on from my blog at the weekend detailing how Iwona Blazwick has turned the Whitechapel Gallery into a truly horrid mini-Tate Modern, I’m now going to focus on the pointlessness of her appointment as chairwoman of the Mayor of London’s Cultural Strategy Group. According to a promotional blurb on Boris “The Spider” Johnson’s local government website: “The London Cultural Strategy Group is a high-level advocacy group aimed to develop and promote London as a world-class city of culture, bringing together representatives of the key agencies that support culture in London.” Apparently a ‘world-class city’ doesn’t require world-class copy-writing; the sentence I’ve just quoted is clumsy, for instance in its deployment of the word ‘aimed’ and repetition of the term ‘group’.
NEWSFLASH FOR CULTURAL TRASH – LONDON WOULD BE BETTER OFF WITHOUT YOU! Yes indeed, ordinary people are more than capable of coming up with their own strategies for making London a better place, and this needn’t cost a penny! So what follows is my own modest two point proposal for flushing rich people out of London, and thereby re-branding the city I am very proud to have been born in as The Toilet!
1. While the London Cultural Strategy Group wish to maintain London’s alleged position as number one travel destination in the world, what is actually required to make it a better place is the running down of the tourist industry. Excessive tourism is a blight on any city and those of us who aren’t blinded by greed couldn’t give a shit about the billions of pounds it generates annually. To facilitate a decline in tourism we should abolish the monarchy and demolish popular tourist destinations such as The Tower of London, St Paul’s Cathedral, Buckingham Palace and The Queen’s House in Greenwich. We should also cancel the 2012 Olympics and abolish The London Cultural Strategy Group.
2. Introduce progressive local taxes that penalise the wealthy and thereby discourage rich scumbags from visiting, working or living in London. We should have sliding scales of taxation on catering and hotels; heavily penalising those who wish to spend more than £20 a head on a meal or stay in anything other than very basic accommodation. The private motor car and the black cab should also be banned from the city.
Strategies as simple as this would enable London to live up to the name The Toilet, by flushing thousands of unwanted rich parasites out of the city. For Iwona Blazwick, the abolition of The London Cultural Strategy Group would have the added advantage of leaving her free to concentrate on using the ongoing expansion/ruination of the Whitechapel Gallery to prove that she really deserves to be appointed as next director of The Tate. Having chummed up to both Nick “Wagstaff Prime” Serota and his buddy Sandy “Don’t Call Me Andrew” Nairne, she is presumably aware that the current Tate incumbent doesn’t want to retire until he’s seen the institution through its next phase of expansion, and given the recent financial climate that may take a long long time…. So Blazwick really needs to focus on making the Whitechapel even more horrendous in order to remain in the front rank of contenders for “Wagstaff Prime” Serota’s job when he finally steps down.
Likewise, the abolition of The London Cultural Strategy Group would give other members such as Sandy “Don’t Call Me Andrew” Nairne the opportunity to spend more time networking on behalf of his siblings; and afford Jude Kelly the opportunity to appear as Freddy Krueger in an off-Broadway stage version of the film A Nightmare On Elm Street.
It is high time we made London into a people’s city by kicking out the Oxbridge educated scum who dominate its culture and its politics! Both Sandy “Don’t Call Me Andrew” Nairne and Boris “The Spider” Johnson attended Oxford, while Nick “Wagstaff Prime” Serota went to Cambridge. Since they have proved incapable of dismantling their own old boy network, Oxbridge graduates should be barred from all publicly funded jobs.
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety – you know it makes (no) sense!