Do you remember that New Year’s Resolution you made? - No? Oh yeah, that went well… 


It is now February, and all the shenanigans of New Year’s Eve and the bright hope of the new year seem a distant past along with, I expect for many of you, New Year’s Resolutions. Like most people, I have made the classic New Year’s Resolutions: to stop biting my nails, to eat less carbs, to go running more. I have also made some more unique resolutions, such as when I was 15 and determined to take a picture out my window every morning for a year. Unfortunately, not many of my New Year’s resolutions have ever really stuck. I still bite my nails, and the picture idea only lasted about 4 days…
Of course some people do manage to stick to their resolutions- one friend succeeded in giving up chocolate for a whole year, so if you have the will power resolutions can work. But why do so many people find it hard to stick to them? Why only a month later does the optimism of January seem to fade? What I see as the problem with New Year’s Resolutions is that many people reach a certain point in February, maybe March, when they realise they haven’t quite stuck to their plans, they think therefore that they have failed, and give up. 
Although I haven’t kept many of my New Year’s Resolutions, I have managed to complete Lent 3 times, so this got me thinking that perhaps we should start with the task of keeping shorter resolutions and work ourselves up. For example, people are far more likely to be successful with dry January or Stoptober than a resolution to stop drinking or smoking all together, because they have only to keep their resolve for a month. From a month of abstinence one could gradually build- one month on, one month off? Until we have trained ourselves to keep our resolve for longer.
Another issue I think with New Year’s Resolutions is that we set ourselves the defining date of 1st January, and expect to become a new person from that day forth, or for our life to radically change post one arbitrary date. Then if by February we believe that we have failed a New Year’s Resolution because we haven’t kept it up, we tend to write off the rest of the year and think ‘I’ll start again next year- the next 1st January will be different’ but it never will be unless we learn to stick to our resolve. Therefore, I think if we allow ourselves to start a resolution at any point in the year, any day of the week, we give ourselves more chance of fulfilling it, because if our resolve starts to waver or we become lax, we can give ourselves a chance to begin again - the next week or month, rather than the next year. 
There is of course the argument that perhaps some people can’t ever keep a resolution, or only ever for a short amount of time. I have a friend who was a prolific smoker, who gave up cigarettes totally for Lent, but as soon as it finished went back to smoking half a pack a day. It seems that human nature is much more easily malleable if it has a seemingly achievable target to aim for – a known end date. So what I would suggest is that we set ourselves resolution targets with end points, and take breaks in between, but that we keep setting these targets so that eventually the breaks become shorter and the targets longer, until we are able to keep our resolve for a year! I was once told that bends were made in roads so that horses thought they were coming to the end of their journey and would speed up, and once they rounded one bend they set their sights on the next, and the next, until they reached their actual destination. I am not of course suggesting that humans are as simple as horses, but I believe we could use this philosophy in order to train ourselves: setting our sights on achievable targets and becoming better at keeping our resolve.

Tabby Adams

In Australia you have to vote. It’s law. Even if it means turning up and spoiling your paper, the country is engaged in the democratic process at full tilt. In the UK, however, only two thirds of the electorate turn out to polling stations. That means one in three have failed to take part in one of life’s rights – to be born, to (maybe) pay taxes, to vote, and to die.
 
While I don’t think we should force people to vote, surely it’s time to make the process easier? Surely we should ask Parties to make manifestos more accessible on the formats the electorate is using? Politics could and should be just a click away. We can bank on our laptops, swipe lovers into our lives on a smart screen, buy houses, and, hell, we can now even make a cinematic release on an iPhone.
 
The reality is that Brits, in the modern world, would do just about anything rather than engage politically.
 
To paint a picture, in the next second in the UK:
10,469 tweets will be tweeted.
2,926 Instagram photos will be uploaded.
2,339 Tumblr posts will go live.
And a whopping 110,740 YouTube videos will be watched (containing such enlightening things as people falling down manhole covers, babies high on hallucinogenic drugs, and, of course, cute cats doing the most ikky wonderful ‘isn’t-it-so-lolable-adorable!’ things).
 
In fact on average, people who use social media such as Facebook and Twitter will use 10% of their entire lifetime on these sites. And of that time, you can bet that the lion’s share is spent perfecting self-idolising, glamorous versions of their lives to hundreds of ‘friends’ and ‘followers’.
 
Most of whom they have never met in the flesh.
 
Should it be the responsibility of platforms such as Facebook to deliver facts about the current state of politics for a real, impartial, objective source of information? Or should they target Candy Crush and sugary drinks to teeny-boppers when they are feeling all alone?
 
While Facebook has to a large extent broadened the scope of delivering the news to young people, the sad thing is that they are increasingly pandering purely to the information that bigger news corporations expose them to. Particularly the hate peddlers who control most of the media landscape having monopolised it all a long, long, time ago when computerised connectivity was a scientist’s wet dream.
 
Platforms such as Facebook and Apple are expanding so much that they now have a potentially frightening dominance over our lives. Apple Pay is one such emergent factor: you could leave your house bollock naked without a penny, but, as long as you had your phone you could buy some new threads, meet your friends, Skype your mum and then share how much of a bloody LOL-of-a-time you’d just had to your ‘community’ (part made up of middle age men pretending their name is Sylvia).
 
Of course The Internet is already fundamentally a tool for making things easier – shopping, online banking, paying each other, repeating prescriptions, etc etc. But I now want polling stations to follow in the footsteps of everything else that’s been gazumped by a quick google. Voting must go online to fit the model society has deemed suitable. That’s how life works succinctly.
 
In this mould, people would not have to make a choice about whether to pick their children up from school or vote. They could do both and this might allow them to consider such (sociopathic) things such as child tax credit cuts proposed by the incumbent Tory party more clearly. Before they vote for them while thinking whether or not Timmy will eat his peas come dinner time.
 
People are always on their smart phones. Fact. It is so ubiquitous world-wide that in countries such as Japan there are smart phone friendly pedestrian lanes in streets. If you can walk, or talk, you can vote! That must be the message.
 
As stated, the 2015 election turnout saw 66.1 per cent of the electorate casting their votes. Of that number, a mere 58% of 18-25 year olds actually bothered to get involved. That, astoundingly, is dwarfed by the fact that 90% of that age group owns a smart phone. The numbers do not add up.
 
Facebook is already a major platform for people to mouth off politically. And it is helping to boost youth voting by 7% since 2014. But the trouble is that those opinions are tempered by megalomaniacs such as Rupert Murdoch who, essentially, seem to be turning youngsters away from the poll stations with everything negative about our political system they can dredge up (by any means necessary). And when the public presentation they get comprises of a vilified choice between a posh talking radish, a bomb shy geography teacher and the UKIP’s answer to Walter from the Muppets Movie who can blame them?
 
Listen up Party players the solution is clear – we need a fundamental seed change in political engagement. It is time your agenda was made truly accessible via the technology that is connecting most young people on the planet.
 
That way you can put the .Com into the Commons.
 
Michael Dew-Veal

​In the small Octagon Gallery, the Fitzwilliam Museum has put together a collection of 40 objects connected to Hercules. Through various representations of the hero, the exhibition shows how the art of the Mediterranean thousands of years ago helped to shape western visual culture. And they certainly do vary. There is pottery, coins, jewellery, painting, statues – even polystyrene. A vase there is from 500 BC and a statue is from the 21st century. There are works of art from the Roman provinces of Egypt and Africa and works from Britain. It shows, very effectively, how representations of Hercules have been so common and how they have permeated all sorts of periods and forms.

There is one particular version of him that seems to be everywhere in the room, and that is the “weary Hercules” type. This depicts him, tired-looking yet hugely muscular, leaning on his club under his left arm, with his right hand behind his back and his head downturned. Lysippus made this pose famous, a 4th century BC Greek sculptor who became well known through his portrait of Alexander the Great. Perhaps the most renowned example of this pose is the Farnese Hercules in Naples. It is fitting then, that in the middle of the room there is a life size version of this large Farnese statue. Surprisingly, it is made out of layers of polyester by Matthew Darbyshire last year in Cambridge. This big, startlingly modern work completely dominates the exhibition but the pose can be seen in many of the smaller objects surrounding.

Moving clockwise round the room, the objects pass through different periods of art from the ancient up to the modern. Greek vases and bronzes make way for Renaissance paintings and statues. We see how classical statues were discovered in the 15th and 16th centuries, how they were restored and imitated. Some imitate rather loosely and some imitate as closely as to blur the line between the copies and the originals. Some even imitate rather wittily. There is an amusing photograph of the pioneering bodybuilder Eugen Sandow in the nude, posing as a weary Hercules by Napoleon Sarony. There is even a somewhat erotic work of Hercules and Omphale about to kiss in bright white Rococo porcelain.

Though the room is dominated by the resting Hercules type, the exhibition does try to show Hercules in all his forms. He is not always bearded and muscular: there is a depiction of a young, slender, smooth cheeked Hercules. One pair of statues is particularly appealing, two small wooden carvings of him carrying out a couple of his twelve labours. One is a 16th century Italian polished fruitwood work of him subduing the Nemean lion. Here his is composed, relaxed, powerful. He is completely calm and in control. Then in the other, a 17th/18th century limewood composition, he is leaping upon Cerberus in an animalistic fashion. He is on all fours and almost becoming the lion whose skin he wears fluttering off his head. Although the subject is quite similar in each case – Hercules taming an animal, rendered in wood – they are so different. Here we can see why Hercules was chosen as the figure to provide the exhibition’s story of art. He can be represented in so many ways and has captured our attention from early Antiquity right through to the modern day. By looking at the development of these representations of Hercules, we discover how ancient artefacts became classical art.
 
Following Hercules: The story of classical art is on at the Fitzwilliam Museum, free entry, until the 6th of December

​Hugo Norbury

I have a new favourite insult. When a female friend chooses to discuss her love life with me in a manner anything less than scintillating I shall deftly reduce her confidence to rubble with the following: 'Your life fails the Bechdel test: I am unconvinced that your life features one or more scenes in which two or more named women discuss something which is not a man. Your life story is reducible to a bad, sexist movie.' As an insult, you will agree, it is frankly stellar – not only unexpected, but quietly feminist. It is a put-down which demands that boring women should aspire to transcend the normative roles which have traditionally acted to reduce culturally 'feminine' conversation towards a degree of gendered twee still largely derived from the 18th century novel. Nonetheless, when discussing the merits of this new barb a feminist friend was especially appalled: 'It is almost as if,' she opined, 'there aren't enough ways of putting women down already.' Her complaint certainly has its merits, and it particularly set me thinking about the very concept of 'boring', and to what degree the word is of itself a sexist slur. We are by now unsurprised by the notion that certain insults are sufficiently gendered as to have become inappropriate in polite conversation: 'hysterical', 'bossy', 'fussy', the list goes on. Has 'boring' now joined the proscribed list?

Certainly we can accept that the words 'vacuous' and 'airheaded' – both of which, for example, are almost synonymous with boring – are traditionally directed solely at women, but the same would not, I think, be said about the actual word 'boring'. As such, it is clearly the Miltonic 'meaning, not the name' which must be addressed. 'Vacuous' and 'airheaded', you will have noticed, are both words associated with spatial conceptions of lack and emptiness, a coincidence which is more than merely coincidental. A brief consideration of words cognitively associated with being personally 'boring' - which I will here differentiate from an object's being boring, thereby discounting such words as 'commonplace' - reveals a multitude of semi-synonyms: dull, stuffy, uninteresting, drab, zero, vapid, wearisome, spiritless, airheaded, blank, emptied, shallow, superficial, vacant, void, thick-headed, stolid. Now, the etymological root of 'boring' is through the Old-English 'borian', related to the German 'bohren', and ties the word's meaning to the literal concept of boring into an object. Anyone who has experienced true, visceral conversational tedium will understand the aptness of linguistically associating 'being bored' with 'being bored into'. It is thus unsurprising that of the words most immediately cognitively linked with 'boring' a number rely on metaphors of spatial lack. In the table below I will ally concepts of superficiality to those of emptiness, and similarly those of stodgy opacity to metaphors of fullness, a methodological choice which may be debatable but seems to me fundamentally uncontroversial. Next to each word I have put an F (Feminine), M (Masculine) or N (Neutral) to indicate how I would place each word with regards to its gender status. Often the distinction is marginal, and frequently it is both subjective and related to a particular usage with which I am familiar (say, if my father frequently applies a particular word to a particular gender then this is obviously likely to have influenced my choice). Below, then, is something like an analysis of gendered words for 'boring' set against their cognitive association with the concept of fullness.

Metaphors of Lack/Emptiness              Non-Spatial Metaphors               Metaphors of Fullness
             Zero (N)                                Uninteresting (N)                       Dull (M)  
            Vapid (F)                                 Wearisome (N)                          Stuffy (M)
            Boring (N)                               Monotonous (N)                        Thick-headed (M)
            Spiritless (N)                            Tedious (N)                              Stolid (M)
            Air-headed (F)                           Banal (N)
            Blank (F)                                  Dreary (M)
            Shallow (N)                               Prosaic (N)
            Vacant (F)                                 Plain (F)
             Void (N)                                  Drab (F)     

I am aware that as a method of analysis this may be considered somewhere between questionable and useless, but let's briefly assume that the tabular method has some validity. There were 4 female gendered adjectives allied to metaphors of emptiness, 2 which relied on another semantic paradigm, and 0 which were based on a metaphor of fullness. Amongst gender neutral adjectives 6 allied with metaphors of emptiness, 7 relied on other semantic paradigms and 0 related to metaphors of fullness. Of masculine gendered adjectives, 0 related to a metaphor of emptiness, 1 related to another semantic paradigm and 4 were based on a metaphor of fullness. Let us for now leave aside methodological concerns and address the clear correlation suggested here between masculine gendered words for boring/fullness and feminine gendered words for boring/emptiness. A critical commonplace, especially frequently drawn out when considering Shakespeare's puns, is the association between masculine 'things' and feminine 'no-things' in relation to reproductive organs. Lacanian psychoanalysis would push us towards an appreciation of language as gendered by the concept of 'lack': a historical-cultural association of female genitalia and wombs with emptiness and nothingness ('There's hell, there's darkness, there's the sulphurous pit'), whilst, inversely, the male genitalia is linguistically tied to substance and 'thingness'. If the conceptual alliance of female words for boring to metaphors of emptiness is accepted, then this might shed light on how the word 'boring' is itself used. Of course, the word is applied in a wide variety of contexts but I would like to suggest that, even for an apparently ungendered word, there is a specific set of cognitive circumstances under which it can become a conventional patriarchal, hegemonic put-down.

In a brilliantly bitter, frequently misunderstood and even more frequently misquoted essay, Christopher Hitchens once suggested an evolutionary link between women being more attractive than men and women not being funny: broadly, Hitchens apparently suggests, men have evolved to be funny in order to compensate for their grossly unattractive bodies and, it is implied, genitals. There is an infinitely greater stock of irony in most of Hitchens's later journalism than is conventionally supposed, especially by his feminist detractors - and I may as well make clear at this point that these are not views to which I personally ascribe - but for now let us take this article at its problematical face-value. If patriarchal detractors like Hitchens have often suggested that the limited personality resources of women are in some sense connected to an innate female attractiveness of body and a feminine predilection for cosmetic, superficial improvements then there would, presumably, be a series of gendered words for boring which were associated with this evolutionary trait. The gendering of such words as 'vapid' and 'airheaded' – both of which might culturally be associated with the 'blonde bimbo' archetype, think how many of the 'feminine' words linked to 'boring' also share cognitive associations with 'stupid' – plays on this interplay between attractiveness and dullness in the patriarchal vocabulary. Thus, although 'boring' is not a necessarily gendered word, I would suggest that in the context of calling women boring it is a linguistic spectre frequently invoked with many troubling implications: women are boring/unfunny because attractive; linguistic modes associated with the non-being of female genitalia provide the appropriate register for expressing this fact; and gendered vocabularies are a necessary tool of cultural-social hegemony.

One of the more infuriating tropes of internet feminism has been the recent(ish) spate of articles entitled 'What we're really saying when we...' which aspire to uncover the vast patriarchal conspiracy through the half-arsed analysis of a single word. Connected to this phenomenon has been another particularly troubling and tedious element of the feminist programme on Facebook and other social media platforms: the genuine profusion of individuals - individuals who could not be published in any forum which might check a writer's credentials – who, without any particular insight or erudition, spew their inarticulate gender rage across the internet amidst a flurry of half-baked irony and general idiocy. It was, then, with a particular concern about entering into this overwhelmingly low-brow debate that I wrote this article, and I all too well appreciate that I have no particular qualification for contributing to this kind of pseudo-linguistic, semi-feminist discourse. If I am speaking nonsense, I would love someone to explain why – I eagerly await any comments and criticism.

Anthony Lazarus

With Christmas now drawing ever closer, it’s hard to miss the tell-tale signs of another approaching festive season, with decorations strung about town and shops playing seasonal music.  However, one of the most talked about festive campaigns within the last couple of weeks would have to be the release of the annual Sainsbury’s Christmas advert, released just several days after John Lewis published their ever-popular marketing creation, featuring its usual display of creativity and style.  The department retailer’s attempt at seasonal publicity was however, somewhat overshadowed after the release of Sainsbury’s rather poignant acknowledgement of the centenary anniversary of the First World War, created in conjunction with the Royal British Legion.  The advert has come under fire from many critics, with journalists slighting it as ‘too risky and unrealistic’ and criticising its apparent attempt to ‘glamorize’ the harsh reality of a war that claimed thousands of innocent lives. 

On watching the advert myself, the one thing that did strike me was the overall quality of the production. It is undoubtedly a poignant creation and one that, although more of a short film than an advert, has been well stylised and carefully planned.  It is in fact an eloquent tribute to an event that was said to occur around Christmas 1914, when Allied and German forces emerged from their respective lines to engage in a game of football.  Whether or not this account of events is historically accurate is somewhat uncertain but the retailer’s tribute to such a solemn moment is certainly thought-provoking.

However, therein lies the problem.  We can appreciate the poignancy and thoughtfulness of such an advert, only until that slightly soul-crushing moment at the very end, when the all-too-familiar orange font flashes across the screen, reminding us that what we are watching is not in fact a touching tribute to those who sacrificed their lives in the events of the War but merely a publicity ploy for a supermarket chain.  My heart sank a little as I watched it.   What began as a solemn acknowledgement of real historic events turns into just another campaign to consumers.  Of course, the idea is to persuade us to buy the chocolate in order to raise money for the Royal British Legion, but surely there is a better way of doing it than emphasising the supermarket chain that’s producing it.  Is it not the Royal British Legion that should be the main focus in this particular advert?

I am not criticising the stylistic techniques used or the overall quality of the production.  In fact, I quite like it and find it quite a moving experience to watch, until I realise it’s just another advertisement, like any other of its kind.  And that is what is so disappointing.  We all appreciate something that challenges us and makes us think but we don’t want to then realise that what we’re watching is just another attempt to persuade us to buy something.  It is in a sense, an effective marketing strategy.  No one is going to forget the Sainsbury’s Christmas ad in a hurry!  But the end realisation does slightly dampen what has gone before.  Perhaps Sainsbury’s should have either placed the end focus on the Royal British Legion, to which the profits of the product are actually going, or opted for an approach more like its retail rival John Lewis, with less of the solemnity and more cute children and cuddly penguins; something which although perhaps not so poignant, seems to better fit its role of Christmas advertisement, rather than First World War recreation.

Julie-Anne Maxwell

However, my outdated snobbery was met with an abundance of appeals to the undeniable practicality of the Kindle: “I can take ten books with me on holiday!” “My suitcase is so much lighter!” “It has an inbuilt dictionary for all those pesky long words”. Nevertheless, I continued to protest, pointing out the discomfort of staring at a screen for any length of time, and condemning the absence of a bookmark. However, it seems that Kindle, along with my friends and family, have an answer for everything: these increasingly popular devices automatically save your place, and use special “e-ink” instead of light to avoid eye-strain. You can even adjust the font size, ideal for the long-sighted!

So, it seems it is time to admit defeat and eat my words, or rather publish them in the digital world, as I am indeed doing. Digital sales of books now represent 15% of UK publishers’ total book sales, following a 97% growth in digital sales from 2011 to 2013 (1). Whilst Paperbacks were still the most widely used formats during 2010-2012 (2) by a large margin, the technological world of reading is clearly developing rapidly. I guess I need to get with the times.

In fact, despite my initial reluctance, I am finally ready to admit that there are so many advantages to reading online... The news is always immediately available, and online publications of journals stop the need for endless trips to the library; I am always relieved when reading lists for my essays include online links and I don’t have to race someone to the UL for the only copy of this week’s reading. I will even confess that while travelling this year I got Kindle envy; whilst I lugged around chunky paperbacks my friend could always fit her device conveniently into her handbag when we popped to the beach for some reading in the sun.

I am aware that my traditional outlook is somewhat reminiscent of my grandparents’ generation, but I’m not sure that I will ever come round to the thinking that eBooks trump paperbacks, though I may finally be considering investing in a Kindle.

 
Ellie Jeffrey


(1) Fig.1, The Publishers Association, ‘UK book industry in statistics 2013’ <http://www.publishers.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2717:uk-book-industry-in-statistics-2013&catid=478:statistics-news&Itemid=1523>
(2) Fig. 5.2, Ibid. 

Today is the 170th birthday of Sarah Bernhardt, the actress of whom Mark Twain once remarked: 'There are five kinds of actresses: bad actresses, fair actresses, good actresses, great actresses - and then there is Sarah Bernhardt.' To mark the anniversary, if you will excuse the self-indulgence, I will share a portrait of Bernhardt of which I am especially fond.


















This 1880 piece by Georges Clairin deftly balances that effete, visceral over-ripeness which so consistently characterizes French Beaux Arts of the late nineteenth century with a captivating delicacy - precise and unhurried. Sprawled across an otherworldly divan which might almost be a funereal bier, Bernhardt's face draws the eye across a mass of super-feminine crêpe, tulle and lace. Perhaps the dress's resemblance to an oyster shell represents a crude visual pun? Assuming a coquettish and trickily alluring posture Bernhardt is yet contained – indeed, almost smothered – amidst the cavernous folds of this dress. The garment is provocatively tied with an oversized ribbon, a black knot which invites the viewer to loosen it and see all, garnished with fresh fruits and flowers. The portrait captures the paradoxically sexualized status held by this most enigmatic of actresses, who consistently placed her artistic innovation and integrity over her age's pressing preoccupation with sexual mores.

I have spent a lot of time in Lille over the last few years: a sprawling, old industrial city in the forbidding Nord-Pas de Calais region of France. Lille had (until recently) a laughably miniscule tourism industry. However, a decade on from Lille's election as European City of Culture 2004, there is now far more practical infrastructure than tourists of old would recognize. The city is less obviously designed with the intention of alienating outsiders: one must travel further from the centre to find that bankrupt dereliction which used to constitute the city's dominant tone. Lille, of course, is no longer a city-simple. It is an agglomeration, a métropole. Old Lille sits at the centre of this urban mass, a charming matrix of squares furnished in luxurious, Flemish baroque style connected by cobbled streets on a more functional, late 19th century model. It was during this latter period that, for the only time in its recent history, Lille was a major financial centre of Western Europe. The legendary Paris-Roubaix bike race is one of the few surviving indicators of the degree to which Lille was, with Paris, one of Industrial France's twin poles. Charles de Gaulle was born here, heir to a family of bourgeois industrialists, and mass reproduced images of his solemn face glare down at tourists as they hop between the estaminets (informal diners), enjoying local ch'ti cuisine and Flanders beer in all its staggering variety. It is only at some distance from this charming Vieux Lille that one finds what really defines the region. Grinding poverty remains common. Large immigrant communities have struggled to assimilate, encouraging an upsurge in extremist politics. A large Roma population contributes to Lille's significant homelessness problem, and the consequent petty crime wave has discouraged many tourists from returning. Roubaix, Tourcoing, Villeneuve d'Asq, Wazemmes, Seclin: one feels the phlegm just pronouncing their names. Run-down, coal-stained, largely suburban districts which, amongst some 80 other communes, make Lille Métropole the 5th largest city in France. As is characteristic of boroughs which have descended from immense wealth to quasi-bankruptcy, municipal counsels here blow through their budget trying to preserve the historical monuments of better times even as front line services battle stinging financial cuts. Many of the same financial problems affect these Lillois districts as dog local counsels across old Industrial England, especially in the North. Roubaix maintains a spectacular 16th century church across the grand square from its bombastic 19th century town hall, and also preserves an art gallery in the old municipal swimming pool. Villeneuve d'Asq, itself a truly hideous consequence of 1970s, hyper-functionalist urban planning, possesses the largest collection of Outsider Art in the world, alongside a surprisingly extensive, high calibre collection of 20th century modernist art (Picasso, Modigliani, Chagall, Calder, Braque etc.) Just a short trip from Lille, in the gorgeously decayed old miners' town of Le Cateau-Cambrésis, there is one of the largest collections of Matisse in the world. The financial burden of sustaining these cultural gems has far exceeded the minor revenues they attract from the region's slow trickle of tourists.

Tourcoing, though, is by far the least visited of these grimy neighbourhoods, and it is to Tourcoing that we will now turn. It is the home of a large, if rather uninspiring gothic church of the 16th century (almost always closed, in my experience) and a bland ex-convent of the 13th century which, having failed to resurrect itself as as a brewery during the '90s, now hosts contemporary art exhibitions. Then there are the massed estates, and line upon line of crumbling former factory-hand accommodation. Even Tourcoing, though, sat at the end of a long tram line from Lille and amongst the poorest areas of Northern France, maintains a Musée de Beaux Arts (locally known as the MuBa). The locals are just too stubborn to close these vast white elephants. On my most recent visit to Lille I decided I could no longer justify my failure to visit this institution and so made, rather reluctantly, the lengthy pilgrimage from my hostel, just north of the Place-Charles de Gaulle, to the heart of Tourcoing. I asked around for directions to the tourist office – most could not believe that there was a tourist office, and seemed offended when my map suggested otherwise. The Ch'ti tend to seem offended when engaging with foreigners. When I finally found the place, the Madame inside was asleep and (predictably) grumpy when I woke her. Finally, after some debate, I received a local map and directions to the diminutive MuBa which is set amidst a featureless, paved square – a square which, incidentally, also hosts much of the district's substantial community of dispossessed throughout the afternoon. The museum principally displays work by local-boy-come-good, the 20th century painter Eugène Leroy, the best of whose thickly spread oils are have long ago been exported to a small gallery in uptown Manhattan. Indeed, Tourcoing's museum achieves rather more highly on the quantity than the quality scale. Having persevered for an hour, and by now disgruntled, tired and cold (the tourist's perennial condition when holidaying in the Nord-Pas de Calais), I went to use the bathroom before returning home. Hanging, rather anonymously, on the wall between the gents' and the ladies' was a small canvas which I cautiously, and unoptimistically, approached. Hanging there – luminous, inescapably engaging, jarringly elegant after Leroy's broad brush murals – was the exquisite Georges Clairin portrait which I described at the beginning of this article. As if nobody was meant to see it, as if its dilettantish, aesthete charms had no place in this most proudly modern gallery, in this most bleak of French urban landscapes. The Clairin is hung so out of the way that I would suppose not one in ten visitors to the gallery can ever have seen it. It is an extraordinary moment when one finds it, though, and I can only recommend the trip out to Tourcoing to anyone who is reading – it is conclusively worth the schlep.

In 1900, this same Sarah Bernhardt starred in the first filmic adaptation of Hamlet (Le Duel d'Hamlet), which is also notable for being amongst the very earliest films to feature the actors' own voices. The picture is quite extraordinarily silly: actors mince and meander in their fluffy Victorian costumes, miming out a scarcely recognizable compression of the most earth-shattering moment in Western literature: the death of Hamlet. Bernhardt, though, is hypnotic. Starring as the Dane, one struggles to look away from her hyperactive duelling, creakily accelerated by the ancient celluloid technology. Camp, metro, trans: however this Hamlet identifies s/he is an entirely compelling Dane in a ludicrously silly film. Not akin to Maxine Peake's recent portrayal of Hamlet as semi-butch woman, nor comparable to the dramatically feminine portrayal of Hamlet attempted (apparently with some success) by Bernhardt's great theatrical forebear Sarah Siddons – this is an entirely novel, and never since mimicked reading of the young prince. I have no idea what to do with the film, but on the anniversary of Bernhardt's birth I find myself watching this brief clip again and again. Just as I felt when I found Sarah slumped on a divan outside the toilets at Tourcoing, I can't tell whether I'm entirely lost, or maybe just a little bit in love. Oscar Wilde once asked Bernhardt whether he could smoke in her company. 'Smoke?', she replied, 'I don't mind if you burn.'

Anthony Lazarus

Now celebrating its 30th year, the Turner prize is awarded annually to a British artist under the age of fifty and spans a huge variety of art forms. Within the last few years, the prize has notably expanded to include those types of art which do not feature the traditional painting or sculpture, but rather point towards a more contemporary art form, including, as the majority of this year’s nominations represent-moving image arts.

However, what I’ve found particularly striking is the controversy that seems to have been caused by this gradual but clear movement away from the more traditional pieces dominating entries in the 70s and 80s.  While browsing several online articles, I couldn’t help but be struck by the number of reports criticising this year’s heavy representation of audio-visual media as an art form. This year, three out of the four nominated works are films.  These are reasonably lengthy displays of artistic film-making and are quite unlike an average cinema movie-style production.  These pieces are undoubtedly intense, oftentimes tricky to interpret, nevertheless they have succeeded in making their mark amongst this year’s entries. At the same time they have sparked the popular argument- is this really art?

These new forms undoubtedly represent a more modernist approach to the creation of art.  They lack the presence of oils and pastels and introduce a new wave of media that is fresh and current, albeit quite non-conformist.  However, to refuse to accept such works as art seems absurd. By definition, art is the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form.  Surely then the use of film as an art form embodies each of these criteria? I read one particular article which stated that this new artistic approach including audio-visual media bordered too closely on entertainment.  Can we not appreciate a piece of art due to its entertainment factor?  Surely the boundary between art and entertainment is a blurred one.  To me, art should fulfil one of two purpose, two objectives that are often intertwined; either to entertain, or to communicate a message from the artist.  If the artist’s message is simply that we enjoy their work and take time to appreciate the emotional and creative endeavour behind it, then why can’t that be considered art, whether it be performance art, film or the more traditional painting?

Some may argue that the line must be drawn somewhere.  Thinking back to some of artist Damien Hirst’s more recent creations including a series of dead animals preserved, often already dissected, seems slightly more like anatomy than art.  And yet at the same time, if it communicates his message, and represents the expression or application of his imagination, perhaps we should be more acceptant of it? 

It is a debate that is entirely subjective.  Each individual defines art in a different way, judges it through a different lens.  One thing is clear in this year’s Turner prize- we are being encouraged to embrace a new art form that is both modern and fresh, and why not?  I am of course, only scratching the surface of this debate.  However, despite our views on what makes a ‘good’ piece of art, why not try and shake some of the scepticism and accept something which, despite its move from tradition, presents its own very unique blend of both artistic value and entertainment, something which, undoubtedly, classifies it as art.

Julie-Anne Maxwell