Art of noise
Britain’s Turner Prize, one of the world’s most controversial contemporary art awards, was announced this week. But for once the annual controversy emanated not from the work on show (this year’s winner was a comparatively explicable 15-foot video projection of 26 policemen by Gillian Wearing) but from the behaviour of one of the competition’s finalists. In a dazzling display of what journalists are describing as “performance art”, the self-styled bad girl of the London art scene, Tracey Emin, appeared on live television straight after the awards dinner – uncontrollably drunk. She proceeded to mutter inanities, mumble abuse and scratch on her microphone right through the debate, repeatedly drowning out the critical opinion of an esteemed panel of art theorists by reminding them that she was the only true artist present. As the camera tried its best to avoid her, she continued to interrupt the guests, this time to inform the host of the Channel 4 discussion that she wanted to phone her mother and go home and get drunk with her friends. Everyone politely ignored her until she shrieked that someone should remove her damn microphone. With that she stomped out of the live recording, shouting a cheery farewell to the bemused panel.
Fashion’s first fatwa
And in another shocking yet glamorous development, fashion’s first ever fatwa was declared on a young Roman designer after he showed a collection opposing oppression of Middle-Eastern women. The Italian-born son of Iranian parents, Farhad Rahbarzadeh, opened his show with three models striding in from the street covered in black chadors (veils), which they let fall to the ground. One turned out to be a man in just a chastity belt; another a woman adorned by a python; the third a woman with a lock over her crotch. The death threats began immediately and he was this week recovering from a beating at the hands of unidentified assailants.
Banana split
On the subject of traumatised artists, spare a thought for Dana International, Israel’s most famous (and, indeed, only) sex change pop star. She was selected to represent Israel at this week’s Eurovision Song Contest, but this has so enraged ultra-religious Jews that Dana too is living under threat. But, unlike Rahbarzadeh, who stayed home all week, Dana happily allowed BBC World News television to videotape her shopping for bananas at a food market in Tel Aviv.
Yah-hah fatty spider!
Finally, here follows a list of genuine English subtitles that have appeared in films made in Hong Kong, sent to us from a website devoted to the world’s most meaningless lists:
1 I am damn unsatisfied to be killed in this way.
2 Yah-hah, evil spider woman! I have captured you by the short rabbits and can now deliver you violently to your gynaecologist for a thorough extermination.
3 Who gave you the nerve to get killed here?
4 Quiet or I’ll blow your throat up.
5 Take my advice or I’ll spank you without pants.
6 I got knife scars more than the number of your leg’s hair!
7 Fatty, you with your thick face have hurt my instep.
8 How can you use my intestines as a gift?
9 This will be of fine service for you, you bag of the scum. I am sure you will not mind that I remove your manhoods and leave them out on the dessert flour for your aunts to eat.
10 Greetings, large black person. Let us form a team up together and go into the country to inflict the pain of our karate feets.
CAPT: Picture princess: We’ve had the CD, the medallions, the plates, the T-shirts and even the TV show, now Random House in London has created The Happy Princess, a picture book for children. In one scene the princess is shown opposite a press photographer. `Say cheese,’ says the photographer. `Bananas!’ replies Diana