The mummified mouse in a vintage tortoise trap

Something dead funny for the squeekend

If you follow me on Twitter, Facebook or FriendFeed etc you’ll probably know all about the cunning cat that nobbled my lunch yesterday. Dam that hungry thieving cat. Anyway that got me thinking about the headless mice that the blood-thirsty cats keep bringing in. And I remembered the tail of the emaciated mouse...

This time last year we were raiding the outlaws attic for a vintage pram and vintage pushchair and dusting them down when we stumbled upon a box of musty vintage toys. Don’t ask me about vintage toys, chairs and eBay btw, that’s another long tale for another day. Judging by the droppings and gnawed nature of the fluffy bears in the musty box, most of the stuff had been nibbled by mischievous mice or rats.

Anyway, to cut the grisly tail short, hey presto, we found the mouse, jumped on a vintage Ercol chair, the perpetrator had been literally caught in the act. We estimated via DNA / crime lab testing / guessing etc that this mummified criminal mouse has been trapped in his vintage plastic tortoise tomb about 25 years. Cruel. Priceless. Taking the Mickey Mouse. Vintage. I wonder what he’d fetch on eBay? Should I submit it for Frieze 2010?

Why Frieze is Still Playing David Beckham and Missed a Trick Shot

I just read over on Artinfo.com that sales by young emerging artists were pretty good at the Frieze Art Fair. Which is nice. Hmmm. Reading between the lines of this bacon saving, I'm reading something more along the lines of "Art world struggling to sell stale art but managed to sell a few tit-bits". IMHO [and unless I totally missed something?] the show was not ‘hot’ and properly lacked guts. Where was the X-Factor, the bleeding edge and the genetically modified new blood? With a broad brush I’m saying that irrespective of age or emerging status, the majority of the Frieze fair art was actually bad monkey art grade unimaginative tosh.

Bouncing out of a recession Frieze 2009 was an opportunity to blow people and the cobwebs away, and to try something new. Let’s look at the spin picture another way, with the same devastatingly broad brush, the art world is founded on the principal of the Emperors Clothes, the opinion of a few and sales hype regurgitated and force fed down the throats of the beautiful people by clipboard clutching hawks. Absolutely there was some well executed and cool classical stuff going on at Frieze but blow me it was hard to find in the herds. Frieze is about art for walls [and floors], not art on walls. And sure it's fine to play David to pull the crowds. But moving on, where was the weird, wired and wonderful? And why doesn’t it sell, that’s the problem. The art herd needs a new LED powered sheep dog to lead it, and a new tune to whistle. Frieze you missed a trick, you old [show / sheep] dog.

Read my further Frieze Art Fair rantings ---> Freak Show at the Frieze Art Fair.

Extreme sheep herding and the sheep dipping point of social media

Welcome Earthlings. The eagle has landed and Close Encounters of the Third Kind are here for real, in your world. Yesterday, I was at The Future Laboratory’s New Normal trend briefing over in trendy new Kings Cross. Nice. Apparently now I’m a freelance journalist. Maybe I am. I’m certainly not working for free right now.

Anyway this New Normal business was good, thought provoking, packed with excellent visuals to keep you awake, free half time coffee, fat people and farting cow gags, and easy to swallow chatter boxing. Actually it’s not the case that cows fart methane, they belch it, and guess what there’s an app for that (well a science solution anyway). I got there an hour into the first session because of a baby dressing disaster and missed the first bit on Snap Shot Britain (Arse - I hope there’s a PDF for that on the LS:N trend site) and most of the bit about Generation Jones, but snuck conspicuously onto the front row just in time for the third bit called Brandtocracies (right up my street). The second session had interesting bits on Prohibition Culture and Homestead 3.0 (who comes up with these names?). And then I went home, had some dinner, put my jim-jams on and went to bed, via the pub quiz. Sadly none of the stuff I’d taken on board during the visit to Kings Cross came up. But unless you’re still hooked up to AOL dial-up or you’ve been hiding behind the sofa since last Christmas you may have noticed that the world isn’t the same place as it used to be and it’s changing, and is fortunately still spinning.

Now there were two completely brilliant visual things I just wanted to steal and pretend they are my own finds, which they are not and they are really quite dated but they are good. And well what’s new to me might just be new to you too so I wanted to share them here completely out of context. The first is the AUDI vs. BMW checkmate thing above (look up). And the second is the extreme sheep herding viral (click behind / or visit my YouTube channel). It was the sheep thing that got me thinking about the stuff I’m into. Art and design and social media and general cleverness and stupidity. So whilst a lot of the stuff the FL boys were waxing off about in the Brandtocracies bit yesterday, like the ‘we’ philosophy that I’m all too familiar with in a previous and current online life, was not so new to me. Maybe to some of the fat cows in the room all that shit was brand new, news even. And maybe just maybe one of them will drive home in their sporty electric car to their practical and eco-aware RFID live and eco-regulated home, slip in to some loose house pants, drink a responsible glass of local wine, munch on a South African banana and a tiny portion of sustainable cheese - or two, take a piss in the shower, slip in to their big hand crafted smoking bed and have a big fat eureka moment. Think it’s a good idea to dip their toes in the social media swimming pool and pay a cheeky swine like me to come in to their world and get down with the people they really need to engage with in a socializingly collaborative, creative and conversational way. Everyone else that’s smart out there seems to be doing the warm social thing, and there’s nothing like following the herd. Word up. Btw, do cigarette companies do word of mouth, or just social cancer?

The community mouse catcher

I'm going to write some show and tell shit here about the freaky mouse fearing family down the street who are completely shit scared of live mice, or too posh to pounce. Sorry Pete ---> You know how inappropriate I can be. Please don't sue me.

To save community embarrassment / neighbourly shame / fun poking at the local pub, let's just call him neighbour "P", knocked on my door and asked me if I would come over and catch a potentially murderous mouse - because he's seen me holding a mouse the other day on my doorstep (quite true, don't ask). I thought it was a fantastic rouse to get me out to the pub for a few beers. Nope. So after copious amounts of "Are you serious?" it transpired quite seriously they had a mouse in the house.

Quote neighbour "P" ---> "I'm a record producer, I don't catch mice" or something like that.

Anyway after cornering the harmless furry rodent they didn't want to touch the thing and they wouldn't let the cat at it. In the process they'd turned the conservatory (not just any conservatory mind) totally upside down - sofas, rugs, coffee tables, the whole designer works. All on its head. Really it was like a kids play room / earth quake. Unbelievable. Royalty. Anyway problem quickly solved. Offending mouse dutifully picked up and lobbed over the patio wall in to the orchard (not just any old garden). He'll be back mind, with his mates, guns and knives ---> See artist's impression above. I'm sorry I laughed in your faces and asked if you'd been taking LSD in front of the kids. Jeeesus. Pussies.

So if you're in a tight mouse hole / spot and nobody else can help you. Just send me a fax or call and I'll be straight over to catch your mouse and sort you out. 0800 MOUSE CATCHER.

UPDATE ---> Because every tale should have a meaningful ending and one or two morals. Here are my mousey tail's salient points; 1) It's great to know you have a special skill that the community can call upon, even just once in a lifetime and even if your special skill is mouse holding, it's well funny and great that people can call upon you in times of great need. 2) Protect the weak and love thy mice fearing neigbours. That'll do micely.

P.S. Note to self. Remind me to write and update on the great Damien Hirst art crime story, including The Telegraph art cock up of the century, and to let you in on Becks plans to roll my "Dicks" design as the new bottle label globally! See my amazing Dicks entry and @Becks_Beer 09/09/09 for the scoop.