Arts Articles

Unsurprisingly, the judge presiding over the sham trial-cum-publicity stunt to see which one of two shit, nearly identical books is best, has concluded that they are BOTH fucking shit. Balding author Dan Brown is now free to go about the business of plagarising another shit book, probably about either Elvis or Princess Diana, while the two retarded rednecks who wrote the other one start their next book about aliens and the Titanic. Simon Coggeshall hates them both. Full Story

Charlatan and con-man DBC Pierre's laughably piss-poor first attempt at a book was scandalously awarded the Booker Prize after the drunk judges, who in their pathetic middle-class way wanted to try and seem "edgy". Now his second book, which by all accounts is even worse - no mean feat in itself, has received the critical panning it so richly deserves. Our Arts Editor Simon Coggeshall, who was so angry about the last book, is being nauseatingly smug, as he considers himself vindicated. Full Story

Thick, talentless footballer's wife, Victoria Thickham, has announced that she's never read a book in her life. This should come as no surprise to anybody, although what is more surprising is that this is considered to be a news story. Arts Editor Simon Coggeshall, who is our most vicious snob, is angry whenever Mrs Beckham's stupid ratty face appears in the news. Full Story

It's that time again when middle-class children, adults who can't read grown up books and Americans go mad over the latest heavily marketted, utterly predictable load of old tosh about a four-eyed, speccy public school ponce and his ginger mates. Harry Potter and the Half-Baked Idea is the latest in a series of seemingly endless children's books that have inexplicably made their miserable, po-faced author one of the richest people on the planet. Simon Coggeshall is always angry about this, and has been known to attack people that he sees reading the book in public. Full Story

Thousands of credulous idiots are flocking to Rome every day after believing everything they have read in a stupid book. No, it's not the Bible, it's crap author Dan Brown's latest bestselling pseudo-cultish, sensationalist thriller. These people are all the same stupid Americans that think Harry Potter books are for adults, and that any of Dan Brown's other fucking shit books are actually clever, let alone worth reading. Simon Coggeshall is our Arts Editor as well as being our most spiteful, bitchy snob of a columnist. Full Story

Stamps have been issued to mark the marriage of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles. There's the thirty pence stamp, which shows the couple laughing at a commoner who Camilla accidentally shot while grouse shooting, and the sixty-eight pence stamp showing the couple dressed in tweed. Simon Coggeshall tried to argue that his remit as Arts Editor doesn't cover stamps, but I told him it does, so don't expect him to have anything nice to say about them. Full Story

Marcel Duchamp's Fountain has been voted the most influential piece of modern art by a panel of 500 wanky arts tossers who are all unable to do a real job, and who all copy each other's opinions anyway as they try, and fail, to make themselves look interesting or worthwhile. Despite fitting this description perfectly himself, Eclectic House's own Arts Editor, Simon Coggeshall, wasn't asked for his opinion, which has obviously made him both drunk and angry. Full Story

Ugly, bloated, ugly, talentless, ugly, violent, ugly, drunk ugly woman, Liza Minnelli, is being sued by a former body guard who claims she forced him to have sex with her. The very idea of this was enough to make our Arts and Media Editor Simon Coggeshall puke up half a litre of good quality gin onto his iMac keyboard. Full Story

This year's Turner Prize is promising to be as ridiculous as ever. As the contending artists prepare to exhibit their work at the Tate Britain, the censors have already made their mark. Is this a case of a dangerous and insightful piece of cutting edge art being cruelly interfered with, or is it simply that a lazy and exploitative bit of film has been rightfully knocked on the head because the two out of touch idiots with nothing better to do than pretend to be artists, in a demonstration of their ignorance and self-obsessed introspection, were inadvertently interfering with the trial of an Afghan Warlord. Arts Editor Simon Coggeshall is brimming with a potent combination of a bruised aesthetic sensibility, moral outrage and most noticably, gin. Full Story

New York's notoriously fickle Arts tossers are creaming themselves over some stupid four-year old little brat and her hideous daubings. Her "paintings" have been bought by lots of people with more money than sense, who can easily afford to pay $10,000 for one of the gaudy canvases on the remote off-chance that it will be worth more money in the future. Many of these people either know nothing about art, or are Japanese and as such are prepared to pay money for anything hanging on a gallery wall. Arts editor Simon Coggeshall was appalled when we asked him to write an article about it, as it meant he'd have to spend five to ten minutes doing some work before going to the pub for the evening. Full Story

Crumbling tourist attraction stonehenge is set to get a makeover worth nearly seventy million pounds from English Heritage. The building which was last redecorated sometime around 350 BC, will be replastered, re-roofed and fitted with a state of the art visitor centre, complete with its own shopping centre, a five star hotel and sports complex. It is hoped that the new look will attract more visitors to the site, which currently only pulls in a few hundred nutters, vegetarians and new age dossers every June. They come to the henge to watch a fat, ginger beardy, with an obvious mental illness that deludes him into thinking he's King Arthur, tap the stones with a toy plastic sword while dressed in a cape that his mum made him. Full Story

Overpriced home junk store Habitat is celebrating its 40th anniversary by launching a range of goods "designed" by twenty-two different F-list celebrities. The items include a sort of chair designed by trainspotting drug addict Ewan McGregor and a stupid lamp thing designed by airheaded supermodel Helena Christensen. Simon Coggeshall popped down to the nearest branch with the express intention of having a good sneer. Full Story

Our travel writer Gillian Prior-Reclinique has finally returned to Eclectic house after a prolonged absence. She's been staying at a top class retreat in the country where alcohol is, how shall we put it, discouraged. It seems to have done her the world of good because within two minutes of her return, and after some furious contortions and even more furious language, she'd managed to fish out a half-full bottle of Beafeater Gin from the gap behind the drawers in her old oak desk. She then poured herself the usual quintiple into her large and heavily chipped mug, before tapping out this article, which she cobbled together from what she could remember of the trip to Venice. The trip on which we sent her back in April to report on the arts festival, and which was, incidentally, the last time we had seen her. Here is the first part of her Venetian Adventure. Full Story

Author of best selling childrens books, JK Rowling has announced that she is to have a third child. The new child is expected be popular with both adults and children, though her critics are already speculating that the new child will be very similar to her previous two, as well as having lots of obvious and easy to spot similarities to other people's children. Full Story

Britons are beginning to embrace the art of cooking, treating it in much the same way as they approach their selection of music, clothes or furnishings. Perhaps it goes further even than that. With top cook Nigella Lawson pairing up with Modern Art Magnate Charles Saachi, and the increasing popularity of cooking-based television shows, perhaps now is the time to drunkenly confuse domestic science with art. Our food correspondent, Michael Wiggy, who is himself no stranger to drunken mix-ups, certainly thinks so. Full Story