Telling Porkers
Q: So our genetic proximity to swine is a pretty well-attested fact – but how to really bring it home to people?
A (according, at least, to artist Wim Delvoye, whose other projects include a machine that produces ‘human shit’): Tattoo some pigs.
Delvoye offers art collectors the chance to sponsor swine inscribed with Yakuza-style wreathed serpents, Minnie Mice or Louis Vuitton insignia and – once the beasts’ natural term’s through – to acquire their skins. The results are, for any species supremacists out there, weirdly humbling .
Equine Pathos
What’s the easiest way to make anything seem more spiritual and/or tragic? Involve a horse in it. With their long sad faces and lustrous eyes they’re a great way of metaphorising all that’s good in the human soul. Jonathan Swift may have mounted a precocious bid to derail the trope by making the talking horses in Gulliver’s Travels sanctimonious genocidal douchebags, but his efforts were in vain and violence against or on the part of horses continues to lend any tragedy a full-on last days of Rome-type resonance.
Shakespeare was susceptible: the gravity of Macbeth’s regicide is such that horses go cannibal. In Zola’s Nana meanwhile there’s a dissipated scion of the aristocracy who immolates himself and his racehorses when a scheme to dodge bankruptcy fails – witnesses attest to uncanny equine screams. Waltz with Bashir sees a soldier otherwise desensitized to the horrors of war sickened by the sight of a derelict hippodrome full of dead and mutilated horses, the rotoscoped fly-crawling eyes and foaming lips of which are lingered on (there’s a monument on the site of Budapest’s royal stables, I’m told, to the equine war dead). Still more sickening is the fact that Matt Damon’ s been in a cartoon that tried to address the legacy of American colonialism via the story of a plucky foal.
Probably my favourite cheap use of horses to make something resonant or spooky, however, is in Gore Verbinski’s Ringu remake. It’s saying something that (creepy kids’ drawings apart) the film’s horse symbolism might be the most hackneyed and awful aspect of what is a very hackneyed and awful movie. Evidence below – which you might not want to watch if the idea of a horse being threshed by a ferry’s rudder troubles you btw…
Regional pickings
Hereford’s £7 million new livestock market scheme could be scaled down to help pay for a series of animal and farm street sculptures throughout the city.
The cold spell is now threatening the lives of thousands of farm animals across the country.
Upland sheep farmers fear that their flocks could be killed as a result of deep snow. Those in hilly areas of the country, where snow drifts are already up to 4ft deep, are finding it increasingly difficult to get vital feed to their herds of cows and flocks of sheep.
Hexham Courant: 8th January 2010
As one of the most controversial pieces of farm legislation came into force this week, local farmers have spoken of their anger at the new regulations.
The Soil Association has announced it has decided to end the practice of culling male dairy calves at birth within five years.
Beekeepers are being warned to be on their guard after 30,000 honey bees were stolen. The three hives were taken from a site near Great Glen and their owner fears the bees may have been killed by the cold.
Eavesdropper III: Eat Stock, Drink Stock, Live Stock. Play FTSE
Guidance: contains language which may offend.
JJ: Mr Twat, this is Mr Twatlet for the interview.
Twat: Come in, come in! It’s a pleasure to meet you Mr Twatlet. I’m Mr Twat, but please call me Twat. This is another Mr Twat, John Twat, he’s a Highly Derivative Twat, and this is Martha Twat, from HR.
Twatlet: Hi, it’s a pleasure.
J Twat: Hello.
M Twat: Hello.
Twat: Please sit, please sit, make yourself comfortable. Now, before we start, what’s it going to be, tea, coffee, biscuit?
Twatlet: No, thanks, but I don’t…
Twat: Nonsense, of course you do. So, what’s it going to be? I expect a strapping young chap like yourself needs a regular supply of something substantial, eh? Chocolate Hobnobs maybe, hmm? Chocolate Hobnobs it is. And coffee? I suppose you like your coffee like you like your neighbours, hideously white. After all, who doesn’t? [Into intercom] JJ! [To Twatlet] Jizz Jar. Real name’s Jane, poor thing, but we simply couldn’t have that. One thing we pride ourselves on, Twatlet, is our inclusivity; we’re like one big hippy family. I like to think of us as the Fritzl’s of Finance.
JJ: Mr Twat?
Twat: Ah, JJ – my God, JJ, I must say you’re looking very fragrant today! Yes, very fragrant indeed, especially in the pins department. How do you like that, eh Twatlet? Spin JJ, spin.
Twatlet: Very nice sir.
Twat: And the pins, Twatlet, how do you like the pins?
Twatlet: Again sir, very nice. Very, um, very long, sir.
Twat: Yes, they reach right up to her arse. Glorious! Now, what we want, JJ, is two BBC’s and a platter of Hobnobs. Martha, anything for you?
M Twat: Oh, just a…
Twat: Got that JJ? Right, good. Now fuck off.
[Exit JJ, pursued by a leer]
Twat: Now where were we? Ah, Twatlet, you’re still here are you? Well, what have you got to say for yourself?
Twatlet: Well Sir, I…
Twat: By the way, I like your suit. Very nice. Sharp.
Twatlet: Oh thanks, I, er, I got it from…
Twat: A shop? Of course you did. Now, I’ve got your CV here. Very impressive. This Is your CV, isn’t it? Timothy Twatlet, took a 1st in Arse? Yes, very impressive. Studied Arse and yet you want to be a Twat, hmm? What made you change your mind? Very respectable profession, that of Arsehole. My father worked as an Arsehole right up until he became senile, when he was made a Judge.
Twatlet: Well Sir, I have always been highly obnoxious and grasping, so the idea of becoming a Twat was in the back of mind even as I was applying to study Arse. Also, I’ve done a few Interminables during the summer holidays and…
Twat: The Long Vac.. During the Long Vac., not the ‘summer holidays’.
Twatlet: And…
Twat: Yes, yes, that all sounds very well. What about school, how did you enjoy that? It says here that you were a House Cretin. And then after school, you took a Gap Year no doubt?
Twatlet: Yes, of course. I spent the first four months working as a Recherché for my local Massive Prick before…
Twat: Botulism?
Twatlet: Eh?
Twat: I mean, how did you get the job?
J Twat: Mr Twat, I think you mean…
Twat: Shut up, John.
J Twat: Yes Sir. Now, Twatlet, I assume there was some kind of connection…?
Twatlet: Well, yes. He’s my father.
Twat: Excellent, excellent. Keep it in the family I say. And then?
Twatlet: Then I worked in an orphanage in Bolivia for two…
Twat: You did what? With the filthy little beggars? Why on earth?
Twatlet: Let me explain, it’s not what you think. Firstly, it was in La Paz, so I could stay in a proper hotel and go to parties at the Residence and so forth. I’m not going to lie to you, I do like my luxury. Secondly, girls love a good ‘child dying in my arms’ story. But the main reason…
JJ: Sir, your coffees Sir.
Twat: About fucking time JJ. Well hurry up, bring them the fuck in and fuck the fuck off. [To Twatlet] But the main reason…?
Twatlet: The main reason was: I figured that if I’d seen real poverty and hardship at first hand, then it would mean so much more when I refuse to give anything to charity in later life. And it does. Also, the cocaine was excellent.
Twat: Why didn’t you say? Twatlet, I must apologise, I shouldn’t have doubted you. I can see that you’ll fit right in here; you’ll be a fully accredited Twat in no time. In fact, I can see a bit of myself in you. How does the prospect of being the Hungry Devouring Twat of this whole enterprise strike you?
Twatlet: Oh Sir, that would be my dream Sir.
Twat: Well it’s a long way off yet, mustn’t get ahead of oneself. Baby steps, baby steps. Now, there’s a hole you could fill in Derivatives, how does that strike you?
Twatlet: That would be great Sir. That’s your department, isn’t it John?
J Twat: Yes, we’d be…
Twat: No, it’s not. The hole you’ll be filling is John’s hole, so to speak. John, you’re fired. Fuck off.
J Twat: Of course, Sir. Thank you.
[Exit John, unpursued.]
Twat: Now, Twatlet, I expect you know the set up, but we may as well run you through it. We’ll be starting you on the Graduate Scheme, on which you will be paid Money, on top of which you will be given a generous Christmas Boner. For now though just go with martha, who has a few forms for you to sign before you can recieve your Golden Handshandy. Martha, on your way out could you send JJ in to me, please, all this work has left me feeling rather tense. Oh and leave the door open, I believe that people should be able to see what their boss is doing.
by Jago
