A major highlight of Liverpool 2008 (which I’d been looking forward to but, I’m sad to say, has failed to set my world alight), Gustav Klimt: Painting, Design and Modern Life in Vienna 1900 is something special. And it’s all the better for taking a wider remit than the great master to explore the wider culture of the Viennese Secession.

Star of the show is the full size reconstruction of the Beethoven Frieze, to which Tate Liverpool’s ground floor gallery has been dedicated, (so the main highlight comes first, which is a little odd). We’d seen the real thing at the Secession Building in Vienna, where it is that city’s cultural highlight. It works very well here in Liverpool, where it seems more approachable.

Moving on to the fourth floor galleries, works are displayed in a manner designed to approximate their original presentation; often a glimpse of a patron’s apartment, like a music room commissioned from Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

Acknowledging the influence of patrons and the work of others, the exhibition does far more than simply set Klimt in context. It helps fulfil the Secession’s goal of Gesamtkunstwerk, or a synthesis of all arts that recognises mutual influences and escapes the stuffier academic theories of the time.
Gustav Klimt: Painting, Design and Modern Life in Vienna 1900 is at Tate Liverpool until 31 August 2008.

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Leading Tory blogger Iain Dale was lucky enough to tie the knot this weekend and good luck to him and his partner. Some might argue that a civil partnership is not a proper marriage, but I guess that depends in large part on the church who are apparently, ‘in meltdown over gays and women’ and still not reconciled with the late twentieth, let alone the twenty-first, century. And a civil partnership is more than Iain would have been able to hope for under a Conservative government.

Anyway. Another reason to congratulate Iain Dale is his standing by David Davis, for whom he acted as chief-of-staff during the battle to lead the Conservative Party. While some apparently claim Davis is a gay basher, he not only attended Iain’s civil partnership ceremony, he played an (undisclosed) part in proceedings and what is more, says Mr Dale:

‘I have been told by several people that he was seen to “well up” a bit during the ceremony.’

That’s a little more than we needed to know, but what a way to answer the critics.
UPDATE 18 June: While Iain Dale’s double entendre is lightly amusing, it’s worth bearing in mind that Public Whip records that Davis has ‘voted strongly against the policy “Homosexuality – Equal rights”’. He was absent from votes on civil partnerships but Iain Dale, who knows him well, is open to the possibility that he would have been against, arguing ‘that if he had to vote on it again, he might vote in a different way’. Only might upon being ‘converted’ by a couple of civil ceremonies that wouldn’t have happened had he got his way! You may be tempted to pity Iain, but should resist that urge.

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Only the incredibly naïve, like Dominic Fisher and friends, could ever have thought David Davis resignation-cum-by-election stunt would work out. [UPDATE: read an excerpt from ‘We Are Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made Of’ by Dominic Fisher, aka Prague Tory, (deleted shortly after publication).]

There’s nothing wrong with a stunt if it effectively delivers the right message to right people. The problem for Davis is that his idea required Labour to play ball. He probably thought he was being clever by persuading the Lib Dems to stand aside, but that only makes it easier for Labour to walk away too. And with Cameron arguing this is personal, not party political, you might reasonably argue Labour really is playing ball by leaving the fight to an independent.

But what makes things hard is that Davis is right on the issue of 42 Days detention without charge. With the director of public prosecutions, former attorney general Lord Goldsmith, and the Joint Committee on Human Rights joining those against, the government clearly failed had to make the case.

Yet many of us have experience of the police abusing their power to limit legitimate political activity; intimidating those who drew attention to crimes of Saddam Hussein when he was the then Tory government’s friend, attempting to collect the identities of anti-hunting protestors.

While his former chief of staff reckons it’s a good thing, Davis’ nightmare is made complete by the news that Kelvin Mackenzie is likely to take him on, with Rupert Murdoch funding his campaign.

Kelvin Mackenzie will be energetic, well organised, populist and vicious. David Davis and his team will be increasingly demoralised by the slow realisation that, even if they win the by-election, his political career is well and truly over.

But Mackenzie, as his early pitch reveals, is a nutter who pretends the state would never abuse its power and plans to expand the debate to Europe and poor service from call centres. Sure he’s whacky, but that didn’t hurt Boris Johnson…he could well win.

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David Davis’ shock resignation will certainly add some colour to our politics. The Lib Dems decision not to contest the by-election will have him breathing a sigh of relief; they were in second place.

Davis is protesting against the extension of detention without charge for alleged terrorists to 42 days and I’m with him on that one and that it only went through with the support of a famously illiberal Northern Irish party is shameful. But whether I could hold my nose and actually vote for him is quite another matter, so I’m pleased I don’t live in Haltemprice and Howden.

What should Gordon Brown do? Given that the Lib Dems are staying away and Cameron reckons this is a personal campaign (although ‘he and other Conservatives “may well” go up to campaign for him’) The boldest response would be not fight the by-election either, the poor turnout that would inevitably result could then be spun as a victory of sorts; ‘the public has failed to endorse Davis’s stand.’

And much of this is about internal Tory politics. Few belive that if roles were reversed, Cameron wouldn’t be pushing through 42 days, with Brown condemning him for it. This way Davis can ensure the Conservative Party is committed to repeal, should they find themselves in power.

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It’s hard not to expect great things from Lars von Trier. But sadly, The Boss of it All proves that we all need to freedom to fail once in a while. Stylistic ticks merely contribute to an impression that this is the first attempt of a poor student who has never worked in an office.
A best forgiven and forgotten 0 out of 10.
Director: Lars von Trier
21……Savage Grace

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Continuing my occasional series of food reviews – mostly veggie breakfasts, but occasionally widened out to other comfort foods – I found myself in the English Lounge on High Street, Manchester (just about on the edge of the Northern Quarter, rather the centre as claimed) earlier today craving a nice a full plate of nachos.

In a country that is yet to embrace Mexican food, nachos have rightly established themselves as a mainstay of pub grub, not quite a meal but a much more than a bag of crisps. And, most interestingly, they’re a cross-over cinema snack. Odeon cinemas do a good job, but avoid nachos from Cineworld; the cheese has a funny tang.

You’d think it easy to rustle up a plate of nachos. Pile up some tortilla chips and throw some dip type stuff on top. Here we had salsa and guacamole (the dip of the gods). Soured cream was notable by its absence and I was little miffed that while chilli was optional, there was no discount for going without (or better yet, a veggie chilli option).

Sadly things had clearly gone pear shaped for the English Lounge chef at the melted cheese stage. Regretfully, I’ve no photo, but the whole thing had clearly spent too long under a grill; rather than melting the cheese, chef had toasted it (slightly burning a couple of tortilla chips in the process). We battled through bravely, thinking we could salvage things, only to discover that many of the chips had been crushed and rendered unsuitable for dipping.

To be fair melting cheese is harder than it looks – a moment’s distraction and you’re quite literally toast – and so I’d recommend replacing it with a thick warm cheese sauce.

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It was hard to see who might come away pleased by Filth: the Mary Whitehouse Story. Sir Hugh Carleton Greene, BBC director general through the 1960s and hero to many, was portrayed as something of a buffoon. I reckon the hope was that this would balance any criticism of Mary Whitehouse and that strategy seems to have worked. Her successor, John Beyer seems pleased with Julie Walters portrayal.

John Beyer does not appear at all bothered that his hero is seen to turn a blind eye to racism and domestic abuse (in her real world, rather than on TV), so I guess we should accept that this is what she was like. And that fits with someone so offended by a discussion of pre-marital sex, which is hardly an issue today. Mary Whitehouse insisted such things did not go on in her native Wolverhampton.

Most importantly Mary Whitehouse failed in the way that the socially conservative are almost certain to fail. The tragedy of the social conservative is not only that change is an inevitable fact of life, but that their own lifestyle is not always admired by others and their response to less pleasant change tends to overestimate the power of the state: they think we can simply ban things or collectively ignore them until they go away.

Society is unstable and the future belongs to those who best understand the causes of change, adapt accordingly and so influence progress.

And one driver of change is technology. Television was born in Mary Whitehouse’s lifetime, enabling national debate and bringing art that sometimes reflected real lives – lived to values she despised – into homes that liked to think everyone was a particular type of upstanding Christian.

Inevitably the social conservative blames the messenger. Society is changed by open discussion of its faults, but solutions are never found by those who brush problems under the carpet. Social conservatism simply gets in the way of those determined to make the world a better place.

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I like this cartoon, Duty Calls, because it sums up – and I offer no evidence for this statistic – 99.9 per cent of political blogging activity and so reminds us that there is so much more to life. I’m certain it rings many bells amongst blogging widows and widowers (but don’t think this means my blogging is about to dry up, even though I’ve been quite quiet of late… that’s just stuff getting in the way).

The thing is so much blogging goes on that even if 0.1 per cent of it makes a difference, it will have an impact… perhaps 99.99 per cent of political blogging is insignificant.

But as soon as I saw this cartoon I was shaking my head. Surely the punchline should be, ‘SOMEONE ON THE INTERNET IS WRONG’. As it is, it means that someone is wrong about the internet, which is almost certainly true, but not what I reckon the author intends… perhaps I should leave comments to this effect on every blog that reproduces it.
Cartoon from Randall Munroe’s xkcd.com and reproduced within the terms of a creative commons license.

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