7 Reasons

Tag: neck

  • 7 Reasons Pablo Picasso’s La Lecture Is Not Worth £25M

    7 Reasons Pablo Picasso’s La Lecture Is Not Worth £25M

    Last night, Pablo Picasso’s alleged masterpiece, La Lecture, sold at Sotherby’s for just over £25M. Twenty. Five. Million. Pounds. Now, I know art is subjective, but how?! There is so much wrong with it. So much. Let’s start with seven:

    Pablo Picasso's La Lecture

    1.  Lines. Seriously, if I had paid £25M for a painting I would at least expect the artist to be able to draw a straight line. I assume – which given the state of this picture is probably a dangerous thing to do – that the thing behind this girl is a chair. Well what the bloody hell is going on with the top of it? If you struggle to line things up get a ruler. And rulers did exist in 1932. I’ve checked.

    2.  Perspective. This picture would make much more sense if we could only see one half of the girl’s face. Instead of that we have something that clearly inspired the formation of gypsies.

    3.  Nose. Good gracious it’s a big one. Too big I would wager. The bridge of one’s nose usually ends in line with the eyes, this poor girl’s nose ends somewhere at the top of her forehead. Which raises two questions. One, is this an accurate portrayal of the young girl? Two, if it is why on earth wouldn’t Picasso have chosen someone better looking? You may think I am shallow for saying that, but paintings do not have personality. They simply don’t. And anyone who says, “I just adore the personality of this piece,” is a prick.

    4.  Neck. The last time I saw a neck like this, Gladstone Small was playing for England. I am beginning to wonder if Picasso really did like this girl? The big freak.

    5.  Breast. That’s right, just the one. At least I assume it’s supposed to be a breast. It might well be a ring doughnut. Or a bagel. Or perhaps the fire alarm fell off the wall. I know art is supposed to leave something to the imagination, but this takes the biscuit. Ooh, perhaps it’s a Jammie Dodger.

    6.  Time + Materials. I think that is a fair way to establish how much a painting is worth. So let’s have a look at La Lecture. These are only rough calculations, but I would guess the following: Time spent painting = eight minutes. Cost of crayons = £3.49. A brilliant artist could probably get away with charging £2,500/hour. Judging by the above, I would say Picasso could get away with charging £2.50/hour. So I reckon La Lecture is probably worth about £3.82. That’s about £25M less than it sold for. It’s a difficult one to explain to the wife.

    7.  Morals. I question the morality of the buyer here. This painting depicts the image of Marie-Therese Walter, Picasso’s 17 year old extramarital lover. That’s not right. In fact it’s wrong. If Picasso wanted to get his end away with a teenage girl he could at least have had the decency to divorce his wife first. There is no excuse for sleeping behind people’s backs. And, judging by the expression on Walter’s face that is exactly what had happened about five minutes before Picasso whipped out the crayons. By allowing the sale of this painting for £25M what are we saying? It’s okay to sleep around so long as you produce a bunch of distorted lines afterwards? Sad times.

  • 7 Reasons You Shouldn’t Wear A Tie

    7 Reasons You Shouldn’t Wear A Tie

    no ties

    1.  It causes a rash. When you’re the cool kid at your school, people expect you to do things differently, to be a bit rebellious.  To subvert convention, you wear your black, orange and electric-blue striped polyester school tie with the thin end at the front.  This means that you have to tuck the thick end into your shirt.  You spend four long years at secondary school with a painful rash on your chest.  You are cool though.

    2.  It hampers nudism.  If a nudist dons a tie, he ceases to become a nudist, he becomes a weirdo.

    3.  It is disrespectful to Alan Hansen. Have you noticed something about football-pundits?  They all wear shirts without ties.  All of them, on every channel.  They stopped wearing them at some point in the ‘90s.  We believe that this was a football-pundit gesture of solidarity with Alan Hansen whose tie, along with his shoelaces, had been confiscated for his own safety when his “You’ll never win anything with kids” statement was disproved so emphatically and publicly.  This is also why they never show the pundits’ shoes.

    4.  It can be dangerous. Ties can be dangerous, especially around the office.

    Having been lured into a bedroom in an Austrian palace by a scantily-clad Jennifer Aniston, James Bond has been hit over the back of the head and knocked unconscious by her unseen accomplice. When he regains consciousness he finds himself in a nondescript office.  He is bound at the wrists and ankles.  He is seated and flanked by two burly henchmen.  He faces the bad guy who sits behind a desk on top of which Bond can see a red telephone, a large rubber-band ball and a paper shredder.  The henchmen take hold of him under the arms, pull him to his feet, and drag him to the front of the desk.  One of the henchmen inserts the end of Bond’s tie into the top of the paper shredder which springs to life instantly, slowly dragging Bond inexorably toward it. Shocked and intimidated, his tie tightening, with beads of sweat visible on his brow, Bond enquires, “Do you expect me to talk, Bronzethumb?”  The bad guy replies, “No Mr Bond, I expect you to tie-die.”


    medallion man

    5.  It causes moustaches. Hairy-chested lotharios can’t wear ties.  They need to wear shirts – preferably yellow – with several buttons undone to expose their hairy-chests and large gold medallions.  If lotharios were to wear ties, babes wouldn’t be able to ogle their chest hair and their gold pendants that depict an almost life-sized St. Christopher.  Consequently, they would bed fewer chicks and would be forced to grow a Tom Selleck style moustache to demonstrate their rampant manliness instead.

    6.  It is phallic. It looks a bit like your penis.  It points to your penis.  Do you really want to draw attention to your penis?

    7.  It is unhygienic. Ties catch food.  Everyone drops food on their tie.  If they weren’t wearing ties the food would land on their shirts, which would be good.  Then they could just put the shirt in the washing machine and get a clean one out of the wardrobe.  Ties are usually made of silk and are always dry clean only, so people don’t remove them after a jam spill, they just rub at them for a bit with a damp cloth until the stain is less visible.  The food stain eventually gathers bacteria and people go through life wearing bacteria-harbouring ties.  What do people do before they arrive at the meeting?  They straighten their ties.  What do people do when they arrive at the meeting?  They all shake hands.  What do people do after the meeting?  They become ill and die a hideous tie-bacteria inflicted death.  What they don’t do at any point is take their ties to the dry-cleaners.  Nobody does.  Ever.  You don’t either.