Niall Whatshisname or 'David Tries Being Young and Hip'

Checking the Twitter trends each morning has become a bit of a habit for me. Usually I'm in search of that day's hot topic. Sometimes Twitter delivers. Yesterday for example, I discovered that Michael Gove had been reshuffled in Cameron's cabinet and is no longer Education Secretary (rejoice!). The trend was #GoneGove. Though I was disappointed this was not the eagerly awaited sequel to a Gillian Flynn novel, Twitter did its job. I, with my lazy, first world brain had gotten hold of some news.

Today however I check Twitter and what do I see? One, it is someone called Theo's birthday. Equally enrapturing I find that the trend #NiallTakeASelfieWithTheo is keeping Tweeters occupied across the land. Now I'm a light-hearted chappy when I want to be, but I want to pose the question: is this country in dire need of going outside?

I know the weather here's drizzly at best the vast majority of the time, but really? Niall Whatshisname from One Direction's nephew is one today. Why does seeing them in an image together beat everything else to become today's most talked about thing? A child in the world is a joyous thing, and I have no problem with Niall from One Direction. However the sheer volume of demands from Tweeters to desperately see a child they don't know is a peculiar site to behold.

I think I'm getting old before my years. I'm approaching 24 and I believe I'm entering the window of my life where I'm often confused by some things young people (and some slightly worrying older people) do. I don't really want this to happen. On the one hand I love being young. The full use of my hips, the hope for a long and illustrious career, the so-far lack of wrinkles. These things are wonderful. However, some days I wonder if celebrity culture has gone a little too far. This is how I know I'm beginning to settle into my slippers and find myself powerless to prevent it.

I feel sorry for the celebrities. They are in fact just blokes and lasses, regular joes and janes who we decide are better than us and deserve to be lauded to the point that a nation cries out for an image of them on Snapchat or Instagram or Twitter or Tumblr or Pinterest or a combination of the above.

I worry I'm becoming an old grumpus. Maybe I should join the masses and wait, eagerly for the immenent iPhone image of Whatshisname and Theo. Then I look out of my window. It's sunny outside. We are a nation of cheese rollers and black-pudding throwers and May Day festival dancers.

In the words of Hugh Grant in Love, Actually - the only PM I'm likely to listen to: 'we're the country of William Shakespeare, Churchill, The Beatles, Sean Connery, Harry Potter. David Beckham's right foot, David Beckham's left foot for that matter.' Maybe if we weren't so concerned with images of these pretty people and aspired to do great things with our days, we would have some national pride. We should. Get out into the world, read a book, write a book, bake a cake, hold a large and ridiculous event for charity. Invite a friend over and watch that classic film you've always wondered about. Go on a long road trip with no destination and find some corner of the country where brilliant things happen. We're a great country, but only when we want it to be.

I hate to add gloom to happiness but togetherness is a tremendous thing. So maybe if we were all as like-minded as Tweeters are in wanting to see pictures of 1D, on things such as equal rights for all, ending poverty and doing something about the stupid wages of footballers, the world would be a better place to live in.

This Sunday I attend the Hastings Pirate Day and dress up as a pirate along with an entire town for the third year running. I'll see family and friends and drink drinks and enjoy the sun and the beach (hopefully). I'd urge people to do the same. Maybe that dangerous, scary, doom ridden outside is a little more interesting than what One Direction did today.

Maybe I'll take a selfie.

I Like to Pretend My Dressing Gown is a Cape or 'David Tries Culture'

As my title proclaims without shame or holding back, I enjoy mornings where I can wear my dressing gown because this means I can use the tassley thingies to hold it behind me as I come down the stairs as though I am wearing a cape. This means for about four seconds I can pretend to be Darth Vader, or preferably Thor from the Avengers. I have this preference for two reasons.

1. I am a comic book nerd
2. I dislike baddies

However, that is not what this blog is about. Actually, imagine if it was socially acceptable to wear your dressing gown outside, in the real world where people live. Everyone would use their tassley thingies to wear capes and pretend to be Thor, sure we would get teased by the Iron Mans of this world, but I do believe if we all had a cape the world would be a much happier place. Wars would end, arguments would settle and most importantly we'd all be superheroes.

But as I said, anyway.

I would really love to tell you that these strange asides that occur in my blogs are premeditated and that I'm clever enough to make my funny look spontaneous. Unfortunately I am this weird and these things just occur to me!

It may surprise you to learn that a 21 year old man who pretends he's Thor in the mornings went to the Tate Modern the day before yesterday. Believe it or not, I did, and hilarious moments were captured on film by my good friend Jocy as both me, her, Stu and Amy tried to figure out what any of the paintings hung in the gallery actually meant.

My favourite explanation of a painting was Stu's description of 'Curves and Circles' by Paule Vézelay:

According to Paule, the painting represents floating in an atmospheric space. We didn't even read this off of the placard next to the painting because Stu's description is so accurate. This painting is clearly a depiction of the squiggles in your vision which you can never really focus on. For that I must thank Vézelay, this is what they look like. What they are? Who knows, one of life's many unanswerable questions. If you have any idea what they actually are then please leave a comment! Also what are hiccups? I feel as though if you know what causes random squiggles in my eye you might be able to tell me why I hiccup a lot. 

The Tate Modern, aside from having a whole two floors closed, the viewing of which would have totted up to a grand total of £45 each to see the three exhibitions we would have greatly liked to have seen. Has an excess of two things for me. Peculiar nudes and bodily functions.

Yes, great artists see it a great necessity to capture moments such as farting and weeing on canvas for the world to see. Why Picasso? It was not on my bucket list to see any woman fart or wee. Let alone at the same time, let alone a slightly podgy one with her nose in the wrong place! There was also a painting of a man with a champagne glass reclining on a couch with a very smug look on his face as if to say 'yes, this is my penis, enjoy.' What disturbs me is that this was a painting of that particular artist's student! I think he was holding a champagne glass. Maybe my mind slipped that in, just to add a touch of class to that most peculiar painting.

After being informed among other things that a cart represented a goat and that several lumps of what I can only describe as poo were actually representations of primordial animals. I think primordial, primeval maybe? Those animals which became bigger animals because of evolution. Don't say I'm not informative. Anyway after seeing all these things and as our meanings of paintings became better and better, I had an idea. I think that under every painting in any gallery there should be a little notebook, and on that notebook an art-enthusiast can record his or her own meaning of the painting. Then I would collect all this information in a book and I'd get rich. But still, capitalist ideas aside I think this is a good idea. I find it very interesting to hear what other people think of art, be it paintings, books, films or indeed anything created by someone else.

Needless to say our favourite part of the gallery was the giftshop. Me and Amy got pens in the shape of pencils! I kid you not! The rubber is the clicker and a pen nib comes out of the front! Our minds were more than blown. I wanted so many books though, I really wish that the Tate Modern shop was my library and I could just sit in there all day flicking through books on modernism getting increasingly more confused yet intelligent. 

If I reached any conclusion as I was strolling round having a laugh with my friends about art, it was this:

I think art should be difficult, I don't like paintings which show just a grey blob. Or not even a blob, just a canvas painted the one shade of grey. I think art should show some degree of talent. Not something I can do on microsoft paint *cough* Kandinsky *cough*. People might disagree with me, please do via the comments bit, I just think if there's a message you want to communicate via a painting, fine, just do it in such a way which shows a bit of talent. Look at Picasso! You wouldn't call his work the most difficult looking but I'd defy any unartistic person to replicate a Picasso to the same standard.

I decided though that I have two favourite artists to add to my list which only included Van Gogh up to that moment. The first is Patrick Caulfield who Jocy showed us at the Tate Britain on a previous adventure. I think he just makes art in a very interesting way, half cartoony and half realist. I also like Magritte, no Matisse, no Magritte, the 'Ceci n'est pas un pipe' one. I like confusing myself and to be able to say 'a representation of a representation of a representation' in circles of upper class people before running away twiddling my moustache and cackling as my new identity as 'the Confuser' appeals only too much to me. Oo I could have a cape with a question mark on it.

See the cape did have a point.

Patrick Caulfield - After Lunch:

Rene Magritte - Ceci n'st pas une pipe:

I feel I should explain why I like Magritte's paintings so much. This one in particular, people would say 'it's a pipe' but it's not a pipe, it's a representation of a pipe. I hope this impresses people as much as it impresses me. I think it's a stage of postmodernism. There can be a painting of an easel looking out of a window with a painting of the view through the window. Of course there is no view through the window because it's a representation of a window, therefore the painting in the painting is a representation of a representation, and then the whole painting is actually a representation of this whole confusing extravaganza. I'm going to go and do some painting.

My friends Jocy and Amy are amazing vloggers on youtube, I'd highly recommend giving them a watch:

Jocy - http://www.youtube.com/user/AccioJellyBean

Amy - http://www.youtube.com/user/amzyydoodles