Folded Away In The Memory Of Nature With Her Toys.

The Gilbert and George show at Tate Modern ... a massive, indeed comprehensive, exhibition featuring the work of perhaps the the most relevant and provocative visual artists working today. Humorous, moving and enlightening, a stunning parade of great images, a veritable cathedral of art.
But even more heart-lifting, for me, was the gift shop. Quite apart from the intellectually respectable stuff like the exhibition catalogue, signed posters, a massive two volume retrospective and DVDs, there is a cavalcade of memorabilia designed by G&G ... stuff that I didn't know existed but now can't live without. The G&G swear box (PAY UP OR F*~k OFF!), the G&G Rubik cube, the G&G plastic bag, G&G ties ... and perhaps best of all, the G&G Singing Sculpture wooden toy - press the button in the base and they move, jerkily (very life-like). How desirable is that? A thing of beauty and a joy forever.

I am a sucker for this sort of thing ... my great regret in life is the serious dearth of James Joyce memorabilia ... I am the proud owner of a couple of Joycean mugs, but this in no way assuages my hunger. If it was out there I would buy it ... Molly saw a website this weekend featuring famous figure finger puppets and fridge magnets ... including Joyce - it was love at first sight. You can go into a million museum and gallery gift shops and see the usual suspects again and again ... Virginia Bloody Woolf, Oscar Wilde and Shakespeare ... their drearily predictable visages reproduced again and again and again on bookmarks and notebooks and tea towels. Where's the Joyce tat? I'm a captive audience, I've got money to burn on tosh like this. I feel my life is not complete without a house chock full of Joycean detritus ... the J.J. action figure (press a button and he dances a jig, cracking obscene jokes in Latin); the J.J. snow globe (snow falling softly, softly falling); the J.J. board game - throw the dice and move a collection of tiny figurines (I bagsy Bloom) around a two-dimensional Dublin, June 16, 1904; J.J. perfume (the smellow melons of Molly Bloom's rump or a fine tang of faintly scented urine); the J.J. wine collection, each vintage carrying a Joycean image and quotation; J.J. spectacles, hats, canes, comedy ties ... the possibilities are endless and intoxicating.

Molly and I saw a James Joyce tea set in Bewlay's in Dublin once, and I foolishly didn't snap it up there and then ... do you know, there hasn't been a day since when I haven't thought about that tea set.


I'm thinking of going on that awful TV programme Dragon's Den and pitching this as a business proposal to the hatchet-faced capitalist scum that run the show ... after all, you've got to speculate, they do say, to accumulate.