Snooker confessional

Dennis Taylor is back to his cliché-per-second rate, which can only mean one thing… The final.

Since I was born way after the legendary black ball game of 1985, for me it all began with that incredible match in 2010 between Neil Robertson and Martin Gould. Early on, Robertson was trailing 0:6, and Gould (freshman who looked like an accountant from pre-1917 Russia) was doing Alex Higgins. He kept slotting them from any position on the table, and the blond, lanky Australian (to this day my favourite player) looked demoralized. Later he admitted he’d checked out of the Sheffield hotel before the final session because the situation looked more hopeless than a dead fly. Indeed: the score was 5:11 (13 was the target), and this had to be a comeback to shame Lazarus. If not Ken Doherty.

But Robertson was unimpeachable. He was growing by the shot as Gould kept shrinking by the miss. Somewhere, I still have the picture my ex-girlfriend drew of me cheering him on. Each frame seemed so tense I often had to look away and rely on the words of the commentator as well as the reaction of the Crucible crowd. And then it got to 12:12, and I looked at the sky and I thought let the fucker lose everything else in his life – just let him win this match. And he did. He potted this amazing long red under severe pressure. He won the decider. He demolished Steve Davis in the next round. He beat Ali Carter in the semi-final. He won the World Championship, which seemed oddly anticlimactic after the impossible match against Martin Gould.

Today sees the final resolution of 2015’s World Championship, so this feels like the perfect timing. Snooker, to me, is the only sport you could safely call art.

Even if I can’t do it. My highest break hovers around the pathetic mark of 18 or 19. Spins, plants, screwback shots, I can’t do any of that, and each time I pot a ball – it looks like a miracle on a par with walking on water or turning blood into wine. And yet nothing can take away the joy of watching them put so much talent into those ten feet of green baize... These men are fucking artists, so screw Dennis Taylor and his clichés. Today I’m cheering for Stuart Bingham who has already beaten two World Champions (including, yes, Ronnie O’Sullivan) as well as Judd Trump, the bookmakers’ wet dream. Go on, Ballrun, even if your walk-on song would not survive five seconds in my house. 

Speaking of which. Anthony McGill, you charming charming man. 

Lazy Line Painter Jane

In London, in the Somerset House this summer, in the open air, in mid-July, in the Strand, in the old hub of Victorian theatre and nightlife, between Embankment and Covent Garden and Charing Cross, I hope they will do this:

And “A Century Of Fakers”. And “The State I Am In”. And whatever the hell they want. Belle & Sebastian have always been an easy target for a cynic (such as myself), but do let me know if you can beat the melody of “Get Me Away From Here, I’m Dying” or impart the summer feel of late 90s Glasgow as beautifully as they do above. Ah you can you say?..

Die ekstatische Jungfrau Katharina Emmerich

What do you do in a museum? What do you do with all these paintings and sculptures and frescos you are supposed to appreciate, evaluate, love? Would it not be so much easier of they were some kind of food you could swallow and then say just how hungry you are? The picture was good and you are sated. The picture was bad and you are starving. (I believe I once covered this in a Russian sketch.) Really, do you just look at them and hope that deep down you are becoming a better person?   

You can of course make notes and then never read them.

You can take photos and then delete them.

You can try to remember the name and the title and then happily forget both.

You can save the leaflet and then fail to recreate.

You can trust the old saying that ‘paintings heal’ and then die of pneumonia.

But I like the idea expressed by Julian Barnes in one of his recent articles: ‘Art does not just capture the thrill of life; sometimes, it is that thrill’.

A few months ago, in the Neue Pinakothek in Munich, I saw a few paintings of Gabriel von Max, an Austrian artist whose most famous works were created at the end of the 19^th century. And one painting in particular: “Die ekstatische Jungfrau Katharina Emmerich”. Katharina was a nun from a secularized German convent who reportedly experienced stigmata every Friday in 1813. But it was the vision that thrilled me. The grey whiteness of her dress, the crucifix which lay spread on her legs and the burning candle that looked so real you could almost feel the flame. Katharina’s face looked pale and painfully unhealthy, and the quiet torment seemed both frightening and fascinating. 

There is no such question as to what you should do in a museum. When you see something like that painting, and your mind is bereft of all rational thinking, when you can’t move, you know you’ve experienced it. But as soon as you can explain what it is, the world becomes just this much less special.  

Sleepy waitresses

We all got asked that question a million times, and God knows I’ve given every possible answer: Warhol, Jesus, Christopher Hitchens. 

But idols are all fallible, and the best thing you can squeeze out of them is nostalgia. When that odd question is asked, which person from the past you would want to meet at a small café of your choice, late in the evening, with sleepy waitresses shuffling around, the answer should be no one. 

No one at all. From Hendrix to Picasso, artists are their work. Especially now that they are dead. "But something keeps turning you on..." 

Big mouths and no guts

Dead end. Each time a conversation swerves to the subject of Wings Of Desire and Wim Wenders, there is a dead end. Because in 99% of cases the person you’re talking to will say Wings Of Desire is his/her favourite film of all time. Dead end.

And it’s not even that I don’t get the cult love, the underground affection that this films gets – I do. It is beautifully made. It has excellent music. It’s filled with unforgettable lines. It straddles those two strangely appealing bars of pretentiousness and vulnerability. 

However, I just find it shallow. There is nothing to it. The film is flat, empty, and it's not like Alice In The Cities made me change my mind. Or any of his other films. 

What is left is that Nick Cave’s song from Till The End Of The World which for 3 minutes 58 seconds made it all worth it.  

Signs and Symbols

I first heard about this short story from my favourite living English writer. This was an article about Nabokov following the damaging publication of The Original Of Laura. In this article the writer quite bluntly stated that “Signs and Symbols” is the most perfect story ever written.

Nabokov liked to repeat about how the effect of best fiction is not just intellectual. It’s physical. Something rippling down your chest, spine, stomach. I felt the full extent of this while reading the story on a balcony one summer afternoon. On closing the book, I resolved not to read anything afterwards. For days, maybe weeks. Just to reread those three pages. 

And then, years later, a mystical thing happened. I was watching an interview with my favourite living Russian writer, and he was talking about Lolita. Then at some point he mentioned a few of Nabokov’s lesser known works and stated (again, rather bluntly) that you won’t find a literary piece … well, I knew what he was going to say … more perfect than ... “Signs and Symbols”.

You'll know when you read it. 

The Magic Whip

The biggest sin is to be boring.

Having said it a million times already, I will repeat that again: wishy-washy art be damned. Bad art I’m okay with, at least it’s there on the wall, toothless and tragic. It’s bland art I can’t stand.

Blur’s new album isn’t bad. It’s better than Think Tank (of course it is), but overall it just lacks any urgency or spark. They do survive on that charm of old, lazy hooks and laidback vibes, and you won’t hear me knocking such pretty sleepers as “Ice Cream Man” or “Pyongyang”, but would you honestly consider the shameless B***pop send-up “I Broadcast” as worthy of anything on Modern Life Is Rubbish (which is Blur’s fifth best album)? Can’t you tell that “Death Of A Party” was great and “There Are Too Many Of Us” is as boring as Grace Of Monaco?

Sorry, but this is just weak. Weak and pointless. “Fool’s Day” was a great song, but I simply can’t find enough reasons why I should care for The Magic Whip.

I blame Alex James for that. 

P.S. Listen. And weep.