Julie Burchill joins Twitter - at last!

Madame Arcati is delighted to see that Julie Burchill has joined Twitter at long last. Its brevity and range suit it to guerrilla warfare and instant reaction - as well as the occasional schmooze. In the old days this site relied on Google spiders and a few darlings in the media to mention me when I fed them a tale or two. Now I have only to post something and link it to social media and Arcatistes flood in like sewage.

Dame Julie (why not?) is to be found at the charmingly named @boozeAndFagz page. Her current post has to do with the peculiar India Knight, her even more peculiar partner Eric Joyce and the silence of mainstream media on the subject of his recent conviction for what the BBC calls "a child sex offence".  Read Burchill's piece here. 

Eric Joyce MP - the abstract painting that created the fuss

The recent fuss about Eric Joyce MP and his tigressy moll India Knight stirred up some media confusion. The wonderful artist M.K. Hajdin has revealed that she produced two artworks of or for the lively MP for Falkirk - one a literalist sketch, the other an abstract landscape.

Now, the abstract landscape is immediately below - the version India was rude about. Plainly she is no art critic. Then again, she doesn't claim to be Brian Sewell - can you imagine her immersing her arse in the sea as Brian once did on TV, nude? Frankly, Eric should return the abstract 'gift' to M.K. in my opinion. She claims he helped colour the work - he insisted on more red. M.K. writes on her site:  'Halfway through [painting], Joyce said it wasn’t red enough, so I had to add a lot more red and adjust all of the other colors.  It’s got more red in it than I’d use, normally, but that’s what he wanted.'



Artist Rachel Mai says in her critique of the abstract: 'It seems to describe a rather materialistic personality of someone who has little communication between his conscious and his sub/ unconscious minds. Red, the base chakra, works for groundedness, prosperity and success. Hence for the Chinese, red is their "lucky colour". However, it is not usually considered an elevated colour for the aura and having a lot of it can indicate a base consciousness.' Rachel's Facebook page is here.

And this is M.K.'s sketch of Eric:

Eric Joyce MP portrait - and an odd Knight tale

Sketch of Eric Joyce MP. By  M.K. Hajdin. Reproduced by kind permission

Arcatistes of old will know that I love to showcase the work of original artists. So allow me to introduce you to M. K. Hajdin who, as you can see, sketched the lively MP for Falkirk, Eric Joyce. She tells me that she planned to do a whole series of portraits of MPs. But got stuck at Labour's Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham for some reason. Mr Burnham has a pretty little face - perhaps M.K. found it too regular, or something.

I should say there appears to be an odd history to Eric's portrait which has involved his girlfriend, India Knight, the Sunday Times columnist. Because Madame Arcati dislikes unpleasantness, all I can do is refer you to M.K's site, Exiled Stardust. Seemingly, India has written M.K. an email. It begins: "Hello M.K Hadjin, it’s Eric’s partner here. My name is India Knight. I read your Twitter account with increasing alarm. Obviously you’re both not well and horribly lonely. You’re also boring. I have more than once suggested that Eric take out a restraining order, but he seems to pity you."

Did India really write that? It seems incredible.Perhaps all those deplorable Twitter bomb threats have got to her. Or the letter was written by someone else. But, still. Let's pass over this unfortunate episode and enjoy M.K.'s work.

PS The London Evening Standard has followed up this story - here.