'Flatford Mill'

My parents had John Constable table mats when I was a child. Serious critics tend to excuse the great artists when they become consumer goods, saying it's a simple case of a glorious vision being perverted. My opinion is that the artists who get picked usually deserve it. Buy an Impressionist coaster set and you'll probably get Monet's water lilies, not Degas' vaudeville girls. Canalletto's Venetian picture postcards make good mouse mats, Caravaggio's dark melodramas don't. The people who produce these things knows that what sells in the home furnishing market is the idyllic and the bland. There are a lot of Constable table mats.

Flatford Mill has been chosen here but any number of Constable's works would have sufficed. He followed a template with minimum variety. In the foreground are generally one or two small figures. Few details can be made out on them. We learn little from even the most careful study. They are Rustics and their job is to look quaint. Constable put them to work on varying rural tasks which his aristocratic patrons liked to see doing so long as the labourer is not themselves. Here they are performing something mystifying involving boats. Elsewhere they might be fishing or driving a cart. The figures by Flatford Mill are young boys, which was a common Constable trick. Children look quaint almost by default. And they exude an innocence which seeps out over the whole painting and smothers any questions about the facts of rural life.

The figures, though, are shrivelled by their surroundings. This is a device sometimes to stunning effect. See Fragonard's Grand Cascade At Tivoli, for example, to see a demonstration of humanity's insignificance compared to nature, or Goya's Colossus for our helplessness in the face of disaster. But it doesn't quite work when the landscapes are as tedious as Constable's. What does he give us? Blue and green, green and blue. Green grass, blue sky, blue river, green leaves; the green of the trees even reflected in the blue water. There is a small brown patch in the foreground, some tiny red cottages in the distance and this is quite radical for Constable. He rarely admitted any breaks in his verdant utopias. No acknowledgement, for example, that sometimes leaves fall off trees, grasses parch and the sun occasionally sets.

And the eye searches for relief in the colour scheme because so little else is happening at Flatford Mill. Nobody is coming to intrude on the boys. No wind rustles the trees. No birds fly across the sky. All is neat and tidy, perfectly ordered by the artist. This is a flat and lifeless scene, removed from reality and stripped of any deeper meaning.

There's nothing wrong with creating from the imagination or even following a template. Lowrie, for one, basically painted the same picture his whole life and it was always several steps from sanity. But Lowrie was interesting because nobody had done anything quite like him before. Many had prior to Constable, even more have since. He either had the least fertile imagination possible or he let it be filled by others. The ruling classes, basically. His paintings are embodiments of the laziest clichés about England. The 'green and pleasant land,' that evocation of timeless plenty which is forever used to excuse all our failings. I can't look at Flatford Mill without remembering John Major quoting Orwell's grisly lines about spinsters cycling to village churches. Or The Day Today's spoof propaganda film: a jolly policeman smoking a bifta while a voice drones "This is England. And it's all right. Everything's all right…"

Everything isn't, of course. It certainly wasn't in 1817 when Flatford Mill was painting. A godless alliance of capitalists and aristocrats were stripping the last few rights from the rural poor. The happy, faceless peasants which Constable painted were being thrown off the land and into the workshops and proto-factories which comprised the first, worst stage of the Industrial Revolution. His scenes were outdated even when he painted them. But at best he ignored these changes, at worst he ignored the agents implementing them. As a result he gave us unnatural nature scenes and social commentaries with no social worth whatsoever. On to the dinner table with them all, where at least they can perform one useful function.

A Glorious Revolution?

Currently reading The Glorious Revolution, Edward Vallance's account of the events in 1688 which replaced James II with William and Mary on the British throne. Vallance is a revisionist to some extent, of course. Any historian who doesn't at least claim to be rewriting history won't find a publisher nowadays. He points out that the Glorious Revolution wasn't exactly a revolution. Though it had wide support in a Protestant England terrified of the Catholic, authoritarian James, it was basically a Dutch invasion which led to the crowning of a Dutch duke. (Mary was co-ruler only in name, partly on her own insistence). Most of the gentry went over to William's side when his armada landed. James was rather inconveniently left without an army and fled without a fight. But he would have probably lost anyway.

Nor, Vallance, states, was the 'Revolution' very Glorious. Outside of England it certainly wasn't bloodless. Rebellions against William in Ireland and Scotland culminated in the massacres of the Boyne and Glencoe. The Scottish resistance rumbled on for half a century until the final bloodshed at Culloden. No sooner was William comfy on the throne then he began a war with France which Britain could neither win nor afford. Vallance is also sceptical that 1688 marked, as is generally asserted, the birth of English liberty. William paid a little more attention to Parliament but only after packing it full of loyal Anglicans. Free speech was growing at the time, especially in the coffee house phenomenon, but in spite rather than because of government policy. The English Bill of Rights was certainly feeble compared to the American version. It was simply a reaffirmation of existing liberties, which were remarkably few. Unlike forty years earlier, there was no belief that the country could actually do without a monarch.

Vallance also gives a partial defence of James II. He wasn't trying to forcibly re-convert Britain to Catholicism, as was often claimed. His only legislation tried to reduce the civil but systematic discrimination against Catholics. His less laudable actions, from butchering the followers of a feeble uprising to rigging parliamentary elections, were fairly standard for the time. But his brusque personality and habit of increasing his standing army excited fears of absolutist rule, quite apart from his religion. I would have probably shared this paranoia. James was becoming increasingly authoritarian after only three years. Who knows what he would have been like if power had time to corrupt him properly?

Anyway, his true character is beside the point. Most people didn't want James. There was an energetic attempt to exclude him from the succession during the last years of his brother's reign. They stuck with him for a while, saw he was apparently as bad as they thought and simply replaced him. Britain still had to have a king, it seemed, but Britain would have the king it wanted. The notion of a divine right to rule died abruptly. And I think that the modern British attitude to its monarchy began to be created in its place. You can see a line, if not a direct one, leading from the Glorious Revolution to the events in Westminster this week. Where an overdressed woman announces the legislation to be introduced by 'her' government – yet is still only a hired orator for the elected rulers.

When A Shite Is Not A Shite

A linguistic dispute is currently raging in English football. On Wednesday referee Graham Poll denied Everton's claims for a penalty and then dismissed their striker James McFadden. McFadden, he alleges, called him a "fucking cheat." The striker has denied the charge. He was abusing the decision, not the referee himself. Furthermore, the phrase he used was "fucking shite."

It's an interesting defence given that McFadden was sent off for foul and abusive language. Effectively he's saying that his crime is twice as bad as originally thought. But of course he was actually punished for abusing the referee, not for cussing. The 'foul and abusive language' charge is only ever used tactically. If footballers were red carded each time they swore, every pitch would be cleared of players within five minutes of kick off.

So let this be a lesson to all you youngsters. When you swear at a referee, which you almost certainly will, speak loudly and clearly. Just in case, use a word that states you may still love the sinner while hating the sin. McFadden has demonstrated the dangers of "fucking shite." "Fucking shit" may be misinterpreted as "fucking tit," "fucking crap" as "fucking twat." I personally recommend "fucking bollocks." A little clumsy, perhaps, but guaranteed to ensure you stay on the pitch till the final whistle.

Guy Fawkes' Night

As a child, my favourite part of Guy Fawkes' Night was probably the gingerbread men. They had to be eaten in a particular way, naturally. You bit the arms and legs off first. Then you munched through the torso until all you had left was a decapitated head. This would be consumed with painstaking care, ideally the eyes left till the very last.

Nowadays my favourite part is explaining the festival to foreigners. "Fawkes," I say, "Was a Catholic who tried to blow up King James and his parliament. He was caught, and he and his accomplices were executed in an especially gruesome fashion. So now every year we make effigies of him, throw him on a bonfire and watch the fucker burn. Then we let off fireworks in celebration. And we let all the kiddies watch." If my audience doesn't look suitably horrified, I go on to tell them about the gingerbread men.

Every year there are protests about Guy Fawkes' Night. Especially in York, where Fawkes was born and raised. Local voices are always calling for him to be shown more respect, unabashed that our second most famous son was a rather dim wannabee mass murderer. (Our most famous, the Emperor Constantine, did actually manage to kill a lot of people though was considerably brighter.) I suppose these have some validity. In these religiously sensitive times, it's not good to be ceremonially burning a prominent Catholic. Though things have improved slightly; originally the effigies were of the Pope rather than Fawkes.

But the night isn't really about the thwarting of some remote, half-baked Catholic plot. That's just become the modern peg for an older urge; just as the birth of Jesus and the switch of calendars are to some extent for Christmas and New Year. Guy Fawkes' Night is about defying the season. The nights are encroaching, the chill is mounting. For one evening we like to build great beacons against the darkness. And against the creatures once thought to lurk there. It's probably no coincidence that Guy Fawkes' Night lies close to the older festival of Halloween. The ghosts who emerge are supposed to be vanquished by All Saints Day the following morning. Just in case any aren't, however, here's a barrage of bangers and rockets to scare them off.

Most countries have a night when they let off a barrel load of fireworks. The British may have chosen an especially perverse excuse for ours. But it's really no odder than the Americans or the French letting off their fireworks in the middle of summer, when they need them least of all.

Nine Films To Never See Even If You Live To A Thousand

Guys and Dolls
Let's be clear: all musicals are bad. Especially trying, though, are musicals based on stories which totally corrupt the whole damn point of the original. Liza Minelli turning Goodbye To Berlin into Cabaret sets the teeth on edge. But this one really wins the award. Damon Runyan's short stories are minor classics. He wrote of hustlers, gangsters and whores, their tawdry menace never quite dissipated by his humour and unique literary style. This can not, I repeat not, be represented by a man in spats swinging round a lamp post singing "Luck be a lady tonight."

Absolute Beginners
Whereas this has a whole-hearted awfulness which transcends the commonplace awfulness of the musical genre. It is a film you watch in fascination from beginning to end, wondering how anyone could possibly have created it, produced it, acted in it. I mean, did nobody realise? There is an earnest plot detailing the rise of the far right in England and that's interspersed with a seemingly infinite number of scenes where Lionel Blair gets kicked in the goolies. And those are the best bits. My mind has blotted out most of the rest.

Pretty Woman
On this, the first and last words belong to Bongwater: 'Richard Gere with his oh-so Zen films and their oh-so Zen messages like: Hey, it's fun to be a prostitute! I wish I could spread my legs across Hollywood Boulevard! Because that's all we want, isn't it girls? Sucking and shopping, sucking and shopping… But it's the feel-good movie of the year, it's the feel-good movie of the decade, it's the feel-good movie of the millennium!'

Charlie's Angels
Probably not the worst Hollywood blockbuster but the one which really snapped my patience with the whole bloody business. The stubborn refusal to even consider anything original. The smirk-smirk, 'we're so clever' (just not clever enough to do anything original) treatment given to modern updates. And above all, the damn slo-mo everywhere. I mean, why do they think action is more exciting if it happens in slow motion? It doesn't. It's just slower. If this film had proceeded at a normal pace, it would have been over in 40 minutes and I might have used that extra hour of my life productively.

Four Weddings And A Funeral
In the early 1990's the British film industry finally seemed to be going somewhere. Pictures like The Full Monty and Trainspotting showed very different visions but ones both true and unique to the county. And then came Hugh Grant and Richard Curtis came along, and the template clanged down again. The whole of Britain reduced to a cliché; and not even our cliché of ourselves but America. A land where every Englishman is foppish and posh and rich and white. I still don't know from where I found the willpower to watch this dreck to the end. And though I've never dared watch them, I've heard Notting Hill and Love Actually are even worst.

Battlefield Earth
You probably didn't see this, put off the bad reviews, but may have thought, "Well, I bet it isn't that bad." Well I say unto you: it is. If anything, it's worst. There's regular hilarious sights of Fat John Travolta in a monkey suit. There's a nonsensical plot from insane cult leader and Travolta's guru, L Ron Hubbard. And there's somebody screaming "NO-O-O-O-O-O!" pretty much every ten minutes. Even if nothing happens to make them scream "NO-O-O-O-O-O!" they still do it. Perhaps they just realised what sort of a film they were stuck in.

Barb Wire
Remember Pamela Anderson, that icon of the 1990's? The woman who, thanks to constant cosmetic surgery, became a creature of long blond hair and massive lips and massive breasts and not much else? All men were supposed to lust after her but really she was as sexless as a piece of plastic; which was what she largely was, after all. This was her attempt to launch a movie career. She plays an in-your-face bar owner in one of those post-apocalypse wasteland deals. That was the by-line at least. Actually, it's just Casablanca. Not at first, admittedly; the transformation only happens gradually. Half-way through you start thinking "Hang on, this is a mite familiar," and by the end it only lacks Dooley Wilson tinkling away on the piano. Even her porno film with Tommy Lee would probably be more appealing. And thus ended Pamela Anderson's movie career.

Havana
And the Casablanca rip-offs roll on. Maybe I shouldn't lump this in with Barb Wire. But while that felt like it lasted about three hours, Havana actually has the nerve to actually be almost three hours. And it feels longer. All for a plot which every living creature on the planet knows the end to anyway. Perhaps they needed the time to cover the full astonishing gamut of Robert Redford's facial expressions: the concerned frown, the comedy flinch and, er, the other concerned frown.

Sleepless In Seattle
If I were God… Ah, if I were God. If I were God and I saw this, I'd forget any promises made with rainbows. I'd wipe the whole human race out and not make any exceptions this time. I'd make a new dominant species based on – well, lizards, birds, cockroaches, anything. Just as long as they were physically incapable of ever producing synthetic sentimental bullshit like this.