I don’t seem to have any time to put word to the machine at the moment. The days are crowded with things to do. Artwork for the album is almost finished, thanks to Dubai Dave who, unfortunately, is not as dodgy as Mary’s monicker for him would otherwise suggest. I have a folder somewhere full of photographs that I took while making the record but they are lost to me at the moment so they won’t appear on the sleeve which, as I’m sure you will agree, is most unfortunate. If I find them I’ll stick them up here so fear not! You’ll be able to look at pictures of me sweating and singing out of tune to your hearts content.
A couple of weeks ago an illustration that I did for the Times received a number of complaints from Christian members of our community including this one from a Mr Brin Dunsire from Princes Risborough.
Please note this as a formal complaint about Martin Carr’s graphic associated with Caitlin Moran’s article about the 1970’s in the issue of 27th April.
He chose to insert a gorilla’s face over the face of the Virgin Mary, and George Bush’s face over that on the Infant Jesus.
I hope he genuinely did not realise that the icon he chose to use was more than simply a “stock” image of the Madonna and Child; it is in fact an icon known as Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, and is very precious to many Catholics across the world. My interest is that it is special in the Catholic Diocese of Northampton, for which I have the privilege to work ; we have two churches named after Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, and a rare copy of this icon is displayed in a shrine church in Northampton. Catholics do not, of course, venerate pictures and objects as such, but the content and concepts which they evoke, and these may be very intimately held in our spirituality.
Martin Carr may be the kind of person who thinks it is cool and amusing to mock the images associated with religious belief: I can see from his portfolio that this is not the first time he has chosen to incorporate a Madonna & Child image into his cartoons for satiric purposes. But this use was simply gratuitous and vacuous. It is difficult to reconstruct the thought processes involved in deciding to use a Madonna image in the context of illustrating Caitlin’s Moran’s opening paragraph, which itself was purely a whimsical diversion from the main point of her article. Surely, if his point was to imagine a gorilla “nurturing” a Baby Bush, this could have been done in a more clear and amusing way ?
It is also disappointing that the inappropriateness of this kind of material was not picked up by a sub-editor, though I suppose time is short.
You (and Mr Carr) may be tired of hearing this point being made by Christians, but it bears repeating nonetheless; can you genuinely state that you would have no hesitation in publishing a picture of the prophet Mohammed with a pig’s face inserted, if it suited the pure purpose of mocking religion, and the only thing that is stopping you is the fear of possible violence ? Because if your reply would be “ No, that’s not the only reason, it is not right for us to cause gratuitous and unnecessary offence to religious people” then you should not be using illustrations like this simply because they are “only Christian” and you can get away with it without being threatened. What do you say ?
I say nothing Mr Dunsire, if I can’t believe you have nothing better to do than write letters such as this then I would be foolish to become involved in a debate with you, theological, sociological or otherwise.
Actually, fuck it, while we’re here..
I found Caitlin’s column difficult to illustrate that week. I don’t why this is, some weeks the image jumps out at you as you read through but I couldn’t find anything suitable, no overreaching theme that needed illustrating. I decided to focus on a throwaway line she had written about a time traveling gorilla. Hang on, let me find it…
“Going back to the 1970s could help tackle global warming, researchers claim. Well, yes. We’ve all seen ‘Quantum Leap’. Of course Dr Sam Beckett leaping back to 1973, into the body of a climate-campaigning gorilla capable of sign-language, who touches the heart of the young George W Bush forever, could help. That’s not in doubt. We know that.”
Ok, that’s illustration gold right there and who cares whether it fits in with everything else she says. Like the May Fly the page lives for a day before returning to dust and looking at the wider picture, at the daily injustices meted out by uncaring, corrupt, inept politicians, the poverty, the violence, the greed, war, starvation etc It’s not that important. Not really.
The illustration, as you can see, is of a time traveling gorilla using sign language to teach the young George Bush about the benefits of protecting our beautiful planet. It was called ‘Greenilla’. It has nothing to do with religion. I have nothing to do with religion. I’m not an atheist either, I’m not involved. Nor do I think that it’s ‘cool and amusing to mock the images associated with religious belief’. I’m forty years old, I don’t think anything is ‘cool’ (except for maybe Stuart Hall). I love religious images, songs, buildings. I love people who deemed their immense talents to be a gift from a higher being, Diego Maradona, Christopher Wren, Mahalia Jackson etc but I don’t believe what they believe and I see nothing in the various icons that I’ve collected over the years but their manifest beauty. Even if I were willing to guide you through the minutiae of my thought processes, I couldn’t do it. Inspiration works at speeds many, many times faster than light. I threw some images together until it looked like I wanted it to, that’s all I did and if that offends you, I don’t care. Obviously the sub-editors at the Times feel the same way as I hand my illustration in three days before publication.
And you’re damn right I wouldn’t put a pigs head on Mohammed. I’m scared just to type it out. I think visually and as there is no visual representation of Mohammed permitted, the thought would never occur to me. I didn’t stick an apes head on Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, I pushed pixels around a screen until they were ordered in such a way that I liked.
It’s all in your mind, not mine.
This week I telekinetically winged ten questions over to the force of mouthture that is Caitlin Moran. Caitlin used to write for Melody Maker and now writes for The Times and appears on TV spouting rubbish about crap. I first met her in Dublin at the beginning of 1994; I was trying to eat my dinner without interrupting an almost perpetual influx of beer and cigarettes and she was standing on the table, on the table mind, shouting her damn fool head off. I thought she was a nob, Queen Nob, but within hours of that we were best friends and I love her to bits. She has done much for me and my family but despite earning over a million pounds a year and living in a castle she still can’t beat me in a Beatles quiz, not even the ones where she writes the questions (her favourite kind of quiz). She can talk on any subject for at least ten minutes, makes a mean Victoria Sponge and has trained her youngest child to torment me, possibly into an early grave. Beautiful, funny and clever, it’s the only thing we both agree on.
1. Where are you? Describe your surroundings.
I am in my kitchen, which is based around the themes of RED, CAFFIENE and ORANGES SLOWLY ROTTING IN THE FRUIT BOWL MAKING A BAD SMELL. On the fridge there’s a torn-out picture of Michael Sheen looking sexy as Brian Clough. All the women of the house are enjoying how confusing this is.
2. Which childhood experience has had the biggest effect on your writing?
At the age of thirteen, through long and tortuous events too tedious to go into, I believed that I had brought about the downfall of my family, who were very poor, and in a precarious situation. For the first month after my indiscretion, I would run an answer the doorbell whenever it rang, believing that if it were the bailiffs, I might be able to simply talk them out of it, using my considerable charm, before my parents found out. When I realised that I might occasionally have to leave the house – thus leaving the entire family in peril – I decided I would simply have to earn enough money to save us all, so I started writing a minimum of 2000 words every day, until I’d finished a book. I couldn’t believe I’d finished a book at the age of fourteen! And then, when it was accepted for publication, I couldn’t believe that my desperate desire to save my family with a humourous childrens’ novel had succeeded! Then they told me I’d only get £1600 for it, and I realised I might need to switch to Plan B. Ponzi schemes.
3. Yesterday, Sonny and I explored a few back alleys in Grangetown with my camera, looking for peeling paint and arcane graffiti.
On one wall somebody had sprayed, in blue paint, ‘1996 The Year of Progressive House’. Is that how you remember that year?
I spent all of 1996 extremely stoned, in the first year of the relationship with the man who is now my husband. We became so indolent with marijuana that we used to lower a basket out of the window when the pizza-man came, so we didn’t have to go down two flights of stairs. He would put the pizzas and the change from £20 in the basket, and we would haul it back up again. As a consequence, 1996 was the year I became so fat I spent all summer wearing a nightie and a pair of Nike hi-tops, because I thought a chunky shoe would make my legs look thinner, by contrast.
4. In the style of Twitter (104 words max). What are you most afraid of?
The kind of insanity where you become very fat and shit yrself every time you make a joke.
5. Cheese or Chocolate?
CHEESE. This week - Comte. Waxy yet slightly crunchy, with salt crystals. And a celery-salt biscuit on the side. The Moran family is famous for having invented the dish “Cheese on Cheese.” It even has a theme-song (singing the words “cheese on cheese” to the tune of “Girls On Film” by Duran Duran.)
6. “Man, these things are instant imagination” Says Winston in Paul Beatty’s ‘Tuff’ as he polishes his gun on the stoop
“It’s like having a good idea, but you don’t know exactly what it is yet”
Do you have a single muse or totem, an object/idea/memory/person that inspires all your work?
Yes. Russell Crowe in Master and Commander, shouting “Never mind the manouvres – just go straight at them!” Alan Coren’s advice: “The first idea that occurs to you, will have occurred to everyone. The second idea that occurs to you, will have already also occurred to the clever people. But your third idea – only you will have had that one.”
7. Your first book was published when you were only fifteen. You’re thirty four now , how is the second one coming on?
*pious face* I’ve written three of the most important stories of my life: my marriage, and the early years of my two children, Dora and Eavie. You cheeky fuck. Anyway I’m turning out pissing 5000 words a week for Rupert Murdoch – I haven’t got time to menstruate, let alone write a book. Get off my fucking back. Holy mother of God.
8. Ok, here’s your big shitty stick. Who you going to beat with it?
All the people Ben Goldacre is annoyed with in Bad Science. He seems to have researched their shitness very thoroughly.
9. What happens after we die?
When I was seven, I used to think you might get your own planet, and be God of it. Now I suspect you just rot in the ground like an old dog, but I haven’t told the kids yet. They think they’re off to Disneyland.
10. I think everybody is aware that it was totally your fault Kurt Cobain killed himself. What other pivotal roles have you played in era defining moments of popular culture?
I broke Brett Anderson’s toilet cistern.
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I went to see Batman yesterday. Marylou and I and some of the Moran circus troupe I was telling you about. There are bloody hundreds of them and they’re all geniuses in their own cackly way. Anyway Head Moran Cait, treated the lot of us to Batman at the Imax and afterwards to a japanese Restaurant for a slap up Hot Sake session.
Look at how many there are! That’s nothing; there’s at least another thirty of them back at their tent.
I was very excited about the film. I’ve been a big Batman fan for years and I thought that the first batch of films with Keaton, Nicholson, DeVito and big Arnie were an insult. Sure the new films are dark but that’s the way the comic started out, before it was corralled into the war effort and later after a few desperate years of Bat Mite and punch ups on Mars. IT’S THE WAY IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE!
We rode the tubes, falling out at Waterloo and then falling straight into the nearest food and booze establishment which happened to be the Royal festival Hall. I had a cappuccino, friendlied up with a cheeky whisky while Mary had coffee and some kind of Humous Focaccia. The Imax was packed and everybody seemed to be eager for the film to start but just as we were about to find our seats, CALAMITY! Some bloody alarm goes off and we’re told to leave the building. After standing outside for fifteen minutes or so we’re ushered back in and in no time we’re in our seats looking at a screen that is bigger than Jeebus. usually at this point would be tunneling head first down a massive bucket of popcorn but due to ’staff shortages’ there was concessions stand so I had to make do with half a bottle of warm water.
There was only one trailer but oh! what a trailer it was. The Watchmen film looks aces and I would implore anyone who hasn’t read the greatest, most culturally significant graphic novel ever written (and drawn) to check it out.
watchmen trailer
Then it was Batman and it was fantastic. I’m not sure which bits were the 3D bits, if any of it was, but it didn’t matter. Heath Ledger is, even after all the beautiful corpse hype, a brilliant Joker. Unhinged, funny and completely psychotic, the Joker of ‘Arkham Asylum’ and ‘Killing Joke’. Unfortunately the alarm went off a few times during the film and the lights went on and off and at one point the film stopped for five minutes. All of this was annoying, true, but I didn’t see the point in the anger and rudeness that I witnessed in the lobby later on. I didn’t want my money back (not that I’d spent any), I’d gone to see a film and I saw it. I don’t like ‘Rip-off Britain’ any more than you do but I don’t think what happened here was anybody’s fault.
We strolled along Southbank as far as Tooley Street where our restaurant lay. I had a red duck curry washed down with a couple of bottles of Tiger and a few tumblers of hot Sake which warmed my insides and rounded it off with more coffee and whiskey. Again this was all paid for and I thank all that is magic for having such beautiful, generous friends. After Keystone-esque capers on the tubes we finally arrived home and sat outside for a couple of hours singing songs and pretending to understand what Cait was talking about before wending our weary ways skyward and to bed.
