Guillermo Habacuc Vargas, animal abuser

If you think the concept of "art" has stretched to encompass the most nonsensical rubbish a-la Damien Hirst, you may have to rethink your references. By comparison, Hirst is indeed the 21st century's own Leonardo Da Vinci.

Because now under the guise of art some people will go as far as including the most obnoxious, sadistic, cruel actions. The story of Guillermo "Habacuc" Vargas, a so-called 'visual artist' from Costa Rica is the ultimate case in point.

Last year the 32-year-old egomaniac took part in a show in Managua, Nicaragua, with a monstrosity called "Exposición N° 1". Days before, he had paid a few children to get hold of an emaciated stray dog. He then proceeded to tie the animal to a wall by a length of rope with Eres Lo Que Lees ("You Are What You Read") written on the wall in dog food. That was it, that was Vargas' exhibit. Except that the dog (by then named "Nativity") was to slowly starve to death, live, in the art gallery.

According to animal rights groups, security prevented anybody to approach the dog and even feed him. Initially, Guillermo Vargas issued a statement saying that the work was a tribute to a burglar, Nativity Canda, killed by two rottweilers in Nicaragua. But as the furore over animal cruelty grew, the self-appointed artist felt that he had to issue a radically different statement, arguing that "The purpose of the work was not to cause any type of infliction on the poor, innocent creature, but rather to illustrate a point. [...] Thousands of stray dogs starve and die of illness each year in the streets and no one pays them a second thought". In other words, Vargas wanted to bring out the "hypocrisy in all of us".

Which is not suprising. Part of human cruelty is the ability to argue the toss, turn it over and toss it again in order to justify the unjustifiable. Russia is bombing the shit out of a sovereign country and is dressing it up as "defending the interests of Russian nationals over there". Hitler did what he did by saying he was defending his own country from Jew domination. And the worst examples of animal cruelty are always concealed with all sorts of claptrap, from pest control, to tradition, through the god-given right to dress up like a moron and chase a fox or maul a bull.

Hence the counter-rumours and lies such as the Gallery hosting the event fiercely denying that the dog had died in there (claims at odds, anyway, with Vargas' own admission).

But the fact remains that Guillermo Vargas "Habacuc" shouldn't have hunted the dog, let alone tied it with one short cord to the walls of the gallery and kept it there without water and food, no matter what idiotic point about hypocrisy he may wish to make. How about someone whacking Vargas in the face and sticking a needle up his arse to highlight the nature of karma?

Guillermo Vargas Habacuc has been invited to participate in 2008 in the prestigious Central American Biennial of Honduras as the official representative of Costa Rica. If you think that shouldn't happen, please sign this petition here.

Wish you were here

The soaring number of Brits arrested abroad

Mid-August. For many, holiday time. Today Sky News reports Foreign Office figures about the soaring number of Britons arrested while on holiday abroad. Over 2,000 Brits were arrested in 2006-07, in Spain alone, mainly for getting pissed and acting like twats.

The emergence of low-fare flights allowed hordes of subhuman scum - those who wouldn’t otherwise dream of leaving their neighbourhood in order to 'stay local' - to suddenly be scattered across Europe, with certain Greek, Spanish and Portuguese resorts being the most popular destinations. The concept is quite simple: you just cut and paste your English town centre's street-vomiting and brawling across to the warm shores of Rhodes, Benidorm or the Algarve.

On several occasions we wrote of many Brits' subconscious post-colonial attitude. Indeed, to some of them, foreign soil is fair game and acts of bravado take an even more extreme dimension. Otherwise they wouldn’t be 'avin a laff, would they? The Polish city of Krakow became one of the first cities where the local authorities decided that they'd had enough of the Britons' pre-nuptial machismo and started to ban stag parties from bars and clubs across the city. "You see them groping girls, dancing nude, smashing up chairs and vomiting", were some of the complaints from local residents.

The same phenomenon had occurred in Dublin in the late 90s, when hordes of Brits ready to party round the clock started to flood the Irish capital on a weekly basis. The mess only abated when local authorities, tired to mop up the debris left by the fun-loving Brits decided to enforce a ban on single-sex parties in pubs and clubs in the city's district of Temple Bar. It was estimated that the thousands of British men were putting off other tourists, costing the local trade £57 million each year.

More often than not though, the bit of fun turns into horror. According to the Foreign Office, consulates are constantly bombarded by requests for help following stag or hen nights gone wrong. Half of the requests for assistance involve lost or stolen money, a third involved illness or injury and a quarter concerned arrests mainly for being drunk and disorderly. Overall consulate figures show that 3,900 Britons die abroad each year, 4,200 are taken into hospital and 6,000 are detained in foreign prison, at least in part the consequence of drunken and yobbish tourism.

In The Guardian, Andrew Anthony summed it up wryly:

"Nowadays, in the streets of capitals across mainland Europe, you can find young Britons emptying both their bladders and stomachs. They say that the youth of today lack beliefs, but these are men and women who are fully committed to the cause of alcoholic annihilation. They will simply not rest until they have relinquished all control of their motor skills".

Totally Calum Best: The best is yet to come

When someone is famous purely for sticking their penis into other people, what happens when the pure reason for your fame is taken away?

Ah, Calum Best.

Son of the late football legend George Best and a man whose only reason for celebrity, apart from being born to the former, is his acute inability to keep his meat in his knickers.

Calum is a gossip magazine staple, often seen falling out of trashy nightclubs with even trashier women of the sort who wear one fishnet stocking as a full outfit and henceforth has more notches on his bedpost than a woodworm infested relic from an antique shop.

From this, Calum has gained a reputation as a ladies man, shagger, casanova, megastud, playboy and other macho-backslapping complimentary terms, and has forged something of a career out of it, although nobody really knows what career he has exactly.

To add to his sticky CV, Calum now has his own TV show on MTV1 - Totally Calum Best: The best is yet to come, (kudos to whoever came up with the witty title) in which he has to go for 50 days without sexual intercourse or any form of sexual action bar kissing and hugging. Obviously, he is constantly surrounded by titilating young women, with titilating, er, bosoms and other obvious charms. This feast is filmed in LA, where Calum says he hopes to "change people's perspectives" of him. He admitted in a recent interview in Star magazine, that he wants the people of Britain to see him in a different, more mature and hesitant light.

Two things that bother me about this man, and specifically this show. Firstly, I find it rather sad that this man has obviously sunken so low into the deep recesses of tack and seediness that he feels he needs to make a TV show to prove to Britain that he can, poor chap, resist a nice pair of tits. I also find it worrying that he cares so much about public opinion to say such gems as ''I dont mind being seen as a playboy, but as a seedy lothario? That's just not me" Choice words from one who has made such an effort to be seen as a sophisticated, Ferry-esque womaniser and not, the repulsive, Z-list groping bratty son of a millionaire that he is.

When someone is famous purely for sticking their penis into other people, what happens when the pure reason for your fame is taken away?

Lastly, I wonder how this programme can boost Calum's career prospects, and if it does miraculously re-verginalise him, will he be left with anything? Who will he be exactly? The Boy Formerly Known As The Shagger Calum Best?

Ida Maria, Fortress Round My Heart

A review

Norwegian-born Ida Maria is not for the faint of heart. Her sassy debut album Fortress Round My Heart is likely to be a contender as the most intense musical experience of 2008. Normally a shy and sulky character, she grabbed headlines for her live shows. On stage she obviously feels within her natural habitat - almost as if performing was the only moment when she's in control of her life.

Much has been written about Ida Maria's rare neurological condition. The 23-year-old gal suffers from something called synesthesia, which means she sees colours when she hears music. The next step, for the listener, is to seek hints of this in her music. Yet, colourful is not the way to define her songs. The lyrics, for sure, are the equivalent of a time-stopping therapy session, pouring her heart out in a way not seen since PJ Harvey's heyday. In fact, there are moments she makes PJ Harvey sound like Aqua's Barbie Girl by comparison.

Musically, Ida Maria seems to have clawed her way through a niche in the market. What impresses is her sense of focus. The singles I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked and Queen Of The World are defintely worth a listen. Her throaty voice and stompy punky rythms (Oh My God, in particular) cast her aside from most of her female peers. The uptempo rock-out Forgive Me is probably the most traditional out of the ten tracks on offer. However, marks are lost when the foot is off the pedal; tracks like See Me Through drag themselves along.

A good debut, however, from a singer you're likely to hear from again.

[Fortress Round My Heart is out now on Nesna records]

Toxic?

Why smoking does not make Britney Spears, or anyone, a bad parent.

If any of our Hagley Road readers are parents, or spend time around little children, you’ll be well aware that its very difficult to keep them under your watchful eye at all times. A home, school or any place is hazardous and kids are always interested in picking things up, poking objects and generally investigating their surroundings. Especially children as young as three, like Jayden James Federline, Britney Spears’ first born.

Pictures emerged last week of an amazingly replenished looking Britney relaxing at home on her terrace in L.A with her son. She was talking on her mobile phone, and smoking a cigarette whilst her son was rather cheekily fondeling her fag packet. Just across from him was a bowl filled with lighters, the latter of which he was not touching. Wheras smoking in front of your child is in most people’s opinion a bad idea, what happened next were the actions of any attentive parent.

If the pictures are to be believed, Britney clocks him a matter of seconds after and removes the packet from his hands. Good one, you’d have thought, that’s what any person would do, isn’t it?
Granted it’s not conventional to leave an open packet of cigarettes and a wide choice of lighters within easy reach of a child, but it’s also not a good idea to leave, for example, a mug of hot coffee on a table when a child is near, or unprotected plug sockets, electrical equipment, exposed wires, the list could go on and on.

It’s common knowledge that children usually emulate the actions of their parents when growing up, and as a recent TV advert demonstrates, smoking is the top activity. But we must not be eager, like the majority of gossip magazines have done over the past few days, to tar everyone with the same brush.

Smoking the odd cigarette does not make you a bad parent. Much like drinking alcohol in front of your kids does not. My mother, grandmother and most of my close family smoked solidly throughout my childhood. They also enjoyed the odd sweet sherry, G and T and ginger wine in front of me, too. Something I was allowed to do also when I was 11 and onwards, on special occasions. I was very happy and not neglected in the slightest. This is the case with most kids who’s parents smoke, drink moderatly and, quite frankly, live normal lives.
The most disgusting thing about this ‘news’ is that it’s yet another cheap shot at an alarmingly vulnerable woman, a woman whose children have been taken away from her, and who is struggling with various psychiatric demons.

Just because you’re a famous person, it doesn’t mean you are given the ‘perfect parent get out of jail free’ card and make zero mistakes. You are like anyone else. I’d like to spend a few days with the paparazzi who took these invasive photos, check whether they lock their fags and booze away and make a list of the bad things they do around their kids and then publish them online.

The week's news round-up

By Johnny Taronja

Modern-day celebrity Jordan was turned down from the Cartier International polo bash on the grounds that she is too "chavvy". Most will agree that she's hardly the epitomy of a classy lady, but to bar somebody because of their class seems a bit disgusting to me. Simply substitute the word "chavvy" with "black", "Jew" or "Muslim" and picture the mayhem that would have ensued. Not to mention the names of some of the guests at the event. Kelly Brooke, Dita Von Teese and Richard Hammond, amongst others. Britain's one of the most tolerant countries in the world, but when it comes to class then there's no hope.

*****
Give us Obama over McCain (the politician, not the chips) anytime, but the adoring crowds that saluted the Democratic hopeful in Berlin, Paris and London smelt a bit goaty. His charisma isn't disputed by anybody, but what worries is the way human nature reveals itself in such situations. In each one of his speeches, Obama said absolutely nothing aside from the usual watered-down soundbites: "yes, we can", "change", "we should be together", "take responsibility", "no more walls"... and the cheering crowds growing hoarse. Desperate for someone to adulate.


*****
The Mirror's Paul Routledge on Friday was one of the few voices of wisdom that could be heard. He argued that the latest squabbles within the Labour Party are an insult to what sits at the top of people's worry list. Brown vs Milliband sounds like a tired re-run of the annoying Blair vs Brown tirade. But the difference will always remains one of style and presentation rather than beef and cereal. Again, no-one there that gets the bull by the horns and shows some real cojones, for example, by proposing caps on soaring utility bills. They do it in other European countries (in Spain, for instance, the government keeps utility price hikes at bay through active intervention). Politicians have been urging wage restraint as a desperate measure to tackle the rising inflation but will they say owt about skyrocketing bills?

Nationalism- not just for the nasty things in life

The distinction between nationalism and patriotism? "Smug nonsense", writes Ceri Ames, "usually spoken by those from dominant ‘nationalities’ who have never understood the ‘minority’ nation’s refusal to assimilate".

With the by-election victory in Glasgow East, the SNP has again reminded the rest of the UK of its existence, and just how close Scotland is to a referendum on independence. And, as usual, the prospect of this brings out the usual lines. The most common relies on pointing out how much English money is invested in Scotland, and how much Scotland relies on English subsidies, as though an independent Scotland would be instantly cut adrift from the rest of Britain, and an economic iron curtain thrown across the border.

Similarly, the opposite argument, of Scotland and England’s interdependence, is also misplaced. Many independent states are economically interlinked (Denmark linked its membership of the EU with the UK’s due to its economic ties).

Eventually, then, the argument against nationalism is rolled in. Nationalism is narrow-minded, aggressive and exclusive, and, if not actually violent, could easily become so. It is usually contrasted with patriotism, which is a “devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force upon other people”, according to George Orwell. Patriotism is inclusive, born of love for country, rather than hatred of another. At this point, to drive home the argument, the Nazis or the BNP are mentioned as nationalists par excellence.

Now, I’m not going to deny the bad things that have been done in the name of nationalism, but I do want to question two points.

First, the distinction between nationalism and patriotism. For me, this is just nonsense. Moreover, smug nonsense, usually spoken by those from dominant ‘nationalities’, who have never understood the ‘minority’ nation’s refusal to assimilate. This is JS Mill, the classic British liberal:

“Nobody can suppose that it is not more beneficial to a Breton, or a Basque of French Navarre, to be brought into the current of the ideas and feelings of a highly civilized and cultivated people—to be a member of the French nationality, admitted on equal terms to all the privileges of French citizenship, sharing the advantages of French protection, and the dignity and prestige of French power—than to sulk on his own rocks, the half-savage relic of past times, revolving in his own little mental orbit, without participation or interest in the general movement of the world. The same remark applies to the Welshman or the Scottish Highlander, as members of the British nation.”

It pretty much sums up the mental world of the British elite over the last few centuries, and explains their bafflement at our mystifying desire for independence.
Without complicating things too much, just consider how British or American ‘patriots’ have behaved, whether in building empires, or just generally bombing small countries, all in the name of British civilisation or defense of the American way of life. The only difference between patriotism and nationalism is the extent to which one is happy with the status quo and one wants change. It is no coincidence that the rise of English nationalism has occurred over the last 15 years or so, as fears of the EU grow in the UK.

If nationalism was simply based on hatred of difference, or even one particular ‘other’, and intolerance, then we would not have seen the enthusiasm for the EU shown by many European nationalists of non-state nations.
In fact, patriotism is a lazy, self-satisfied, complacent phenomenon, just as capable of sleep walking into violence as any foaming at the mouth nationalism, and just as capable of turning into hatred of those ‘threatening’ it.

Conversely, my own (Welsh) nationalism is in no way ‘exclusive’ (we need all the people we can get). I would consider myself to be a lot more tolerant than most English (or any other) patriots. I just believe that an independent Wales would be a lot more like the kind of place that I want to live in than a Wales within the UK, and would also probably do a better job of nurturing our talent and culture than the UK has managed. Beyond that, it implies almost nothing about my political beliefs. Can I just ask not to be compared to Hitler because of this?

Thatcher to be granted state funeral?

The current discussions about granting Margaret Thatcher the honour of a state funeral is to be saluted. It's an indication that she may be about to pop her clogs at last.

Consultations are taking place at the highest level, involving the Queen or Gordon Brown, as arrangements are made for the cherished moment.

On a more factual note, it is worth remembering that a state funeral, last staged in 1965 for Winston Churchill, is estimated at £3 million. I don't deny some people still have Maggie shrines in their living room, but why should the most divisive Prime Minister in British history be granted a state ceremony? As a gesture of appreciation for supporting South Africa's apartheid? Or perhaps because the Royals endorsed everything she did?